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Presidential Address: Feudal Society and the Family in Early Medieval England: II. Notions of Patrimony

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

J. C. Holt
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Extract

Notions are potent but nebulous, often direct and determining in their effect but themselves indeterminate in origin and structure. My title is designed to circumvent two lines of thought which have largely circumscribed the study of inheritance in the eleventh and twelfth centuries hitherto. First, I shall say something here and there about succession, but it will be only a subsidiary part of the argument. Heritable title was not diminished by unsettled rules of succession. On the contrary, in the eleventh century as in the thirteenth, it was emphasised and nourished by the claims and counter-claims of competitors. In such disputes the opposing arguments were couched in a common language; it is the language, therefore, that will be my first concern. Second, for this same reason I shall also pay scant attention to the jurisdictional aspects of inheritance. To be sure, in post-Conquest England inheritance amounted not to a title but to a claim upon a lord; heritable title was realised when the lord admitted it; no concession by a tenant was as secure as it could be made until his lord had confirmed it.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 33 , December 1983 , pp. 193 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1983

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References

1 Curia Regis Rolls, i. 430.

2 Thomas de Burgh bought the wardship for 500m. from Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, who, in turn, had paid £100 for it to the abbot of Bury (The Chronicle of Jocelin of Brakelond, ed. Butler, H. E. (1949), 123)Google Scholar.

3 Ibid., 123–4.

4 Ibid., 123–4, 138–9.

5 Ibid., 138.

6 Curia Regis Rolls, i. 430.

7 The Kalendar of Abbot Samson of Bury St Edmunds and related documents, ed. Davis, R. H. C. (Camden 3rd ser., lxxxiv, 1954), 127–8Google Scholar.

8 Curia Regis Rolls, i. 430; Jocelin of Brakelond, 124.

9 Compare the claim of Robert de Valognes, 1158–9, that he held Northaw wood by hereditary tenure of the abbey of St Albans. In this case, too, the wood had been held by successive generations of the Valognes family, and men equated such tenure with hereditary title despite the contrary evidence of the abbey's charters (Gesta Abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, ed. Riley, H. T. (Rolls ser., 1867–1869), i. 160–2)Google Scholar.

10 Curie Regis Rolls, i. 430.

11 Jocelin of Brakelond, 123.

12 Ibid., 139.

13 For land assigned ad victum monachorum see Galbraith, V. H., ‘An Episcopal Land-Grant of 1085’, Engl. Hist. Rev., xliv (1929), 363–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Jocelin of Brakelond, 138–9.

15 Feudal Documents from the Abbey of Bury St Edmunds, ed. Douglas, D. C. (British Academy Records of Social and Economic History, viii, 1932), 120–1Google Scholar; Liber Rubeus de Scaccario, ed. Hall, H. (Rolls ser., 1896), 393Google Scholar; Jocelin of Brakelond, 123.

16 Feudal Documents, 120–1.

17 Ibid., 118–19.

18 Jocelin of Brakelond, 123.

19 Feet of Fines, Henry II and Richard I (Pipe Roll Soc, xvii), 9–11; Kalendar of Abbot Samson, 71–2.

20 Glanvill, , De Legibus, vii. 1Google Scholar, 3; ed. G. D. G. Hall (1965), 71, 75.

21 Jocelin of Brakelond, 123.

22 Ibid., 8, 10.

23 Ibid., 138–9.

24 Feudal Documents, 111.

25 Douglas, D. C., ‘A Charter of Enfeoffment under William the Conqueror’, E.H.R., xlii (1927), 245–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For further comment see below, 219–20.

26 The Kalendar of Abbot Samson, 17–19. My reading of this evidence is a little different from that suggested by Professor Davis, ibid., 17, n. 2.

27 For further comment see below, 211–13.

28 See especially Institutes, II, xiv, xix.

29 Thorne, S. E., ‘English Feudalism and Estates in land’, Cambridge Law Journal, new ser., vi. (1959), 193–209CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Milsom, S. F. C., The Legal Framework of English Feudalism (Cambridge, 1976), esp. 154–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

30 Space restricts me to the baldest of summaries of the contributions of Professor Milsom and Professor Thorne.

31 See the charter 1035–c. 1040 of John, abbot of Fécamp, —‘Odo… totam hereditatem suam, quam communi voce alodum dicimus, contulit …’ Recueil des Actes des Dues de Normandie (911–1066), (hereafter R.A.D.N.) ed. Fauroux, Marie (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, xxxvi, 1961), no. 93Google Scholar. Compare the less direct analogy drawn by Albert, one-time abbot of Jumièges, in Charles de I'abbaye de Jumièges, ed. Vernier, J.-J. (Société de l'histoire de Normandie, (1916), i. 57Google Scholar.

32 R.A.D.N., no. 71 (1034).

33 Ibid., no. 132 (1054–5).

34 Ibid., nos. 43 (1015–26), 103 (1037–c. 1045).

35 Ibid., nos. 83 (1030–5), 84 (1030–5), 101 (1043), 123 (1051), 201 (1051–66), 202 (1051–66), 233 (1066).

36 Stenton, F. M., The Latin Charters of the Anglo-Saxon Period (Oxford, 1955), 87–8Google Scholar; John, E., Land Tenure in early England (Leicester, 1964), 39–63Google Scholar.

37 R.A.D.N, no. 95 (1037–c. 1040).

38 Ibid., no. 93 (1035–c. 1040).

39 Ibid., no. 230 (1066). Subsequent genealogical accident sometimes upset such arrangements. Some time after 1035 a certain knight Gilbert, ‘lacking an heir’, conceded all his inheritance in Condé and elsewhere to St Peter of Préaux, the grant being agreed by Robert son of Humphrey, i.e. Robert de Beaumont. Gilbert's wife subsequently gave birth to a daughter who married Roger de Croixmarez. That the initial grant was a post obitum gift is revealed by the fact that the charter was only produced long afterwards when Gilbert died as a monk of Préaux 1078-c. 1090. Eventually, after much discussion, Roger de Croixmarez asked Abbot William to pay the relief on (relevaret) Gilbert's ‘honour’ to Roger de Beaumont de quo beneficium erat. This was agreed. Roger de Beaumont then conceded the estate to the abbey on the understanding that the monks were to have only half of Condé during Roger de Croixmarez's life, with the reversion of all he had there at his death except for 30 acres with a house, court and orchard and two knights. These, along with the other properties conceded in the original grant, were to be held by Roger's heir who would pay relief (relevaret) to the abbot and monks for them sicuti mos est terre. The effect was to confirm the original grant, but with sitting tenants, including the donor's heir (Archives de L'Eure, H.711. Cartulaire de S. Pierre de Préaux, f. 100).

40 ‘Tradidi quemdam fundum, mihi ab antecessoribus meis jure hereditario concessum’ (ibid., no. 7).

41 Ibid., nos. 134 (1037–55), 125 (1051).

42 Ibid., no. 9.

43 Ibid., no. 42 (1015–26).

44 Ibid., no. 82 (1030–5).

45 Confirmation of Duke William for Fécamp, 1035–40 (ibid., no. 94).

46 Confirmation of Duke William for Jumièges, 1060–6 (ibid., no. 220).

47 Ibid., no. 120 (c. 1050).

48 Ibid., no. 129 (1046–53).

49 Chartes normandes de I'abbaye de Saint-Florent près Saumur, ed. Marchegay, M. P. (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 3rd ser., x, 1880), 678–81Google Scholar. The passage occurs in a variant reading of a duplicate original. There is another text with a correct dating clause in Bouhier's transcripts, ‘Cartulare comitum pictaviensium et engolisme’, B.N., MS. Lat. 17089, ff.910v–11.

50 The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, ed. Rees, Una (Aberystwyth, 1975), i. 9Google Scholar.

51 The Chartulary or Register of the Abbey of St Werburgh, Chester, ed. Tait, J. (Chetham Soc, lxxix, 1920), 17Google Scholar.

52 Huntington Library, San Marino, BA 42/1526. Henry succeeded in 1096 and died in 1140. The charter probably comes from earlier rather than later in this period. It is of antique script, has no seal and no indication that it ever carried one, and bears the signa of Count Henry and others.

53 Livre noir de St Florent-lès-Saumur, B.N., Nouv. Acq. Lat. 1930, f. 34; Round, J. H., Calendar of Documents preserved in France (1899), no. 1146Google Scholar. Round's date of 1151 –7 seems to depend entirely on the date of the confirmation of John, bishop of Worcester (ibid., no. 1147). The attestation of Robert, prior of Monmouth, indicates 1148X 1155. For Hugh, son of Richard, see Red Book of the Exchequer, i. 325Google Scholar and V. C. H., Warwickshire, iii. 116–17.

54 Cartulary of Battle Abbey, Lincoln's Inn, Hale MS. 87, ff. 52V–3.

55 London University Library, Fuller Collection, 1/28/1. Count John, like Henry, concedes ‘whatever my men in England and Normandy have given or shall give … excepting their capital manor and knight service’.

56 Fuller Collection, 1/28/3. Alice's grant is not derived directly from the earlier concessions. She confirmed past grants and sales without reference to those which might be made in the future, and her enumeration of the grants belongs to the more usual pattern of seignorial confirmations rather than to the general licences conceded by Counts Henry and John. Her confirmation included 8½m. charged on a half knight's fee in Whatlington ‘by distraint on the same half fee if necessary’. All the grants were confirmed ‘cum omnibus pertinencis necnon et warda castri cum omnibus que de predictis terris sive redditibus ad me vel ad heredes meos pertinent’. Even so the series indicates that seignorial control was stricter and more specific in the thirteenth century than it had been earlier.

57 R.A.D.N., no. 34(1025).

58 Ibid., no. 7 (996–1006).

59 ‘Quod a patribus et proavis solidum et quietum hactenus possedisse videor’ (ibid., no. 124).

60 Ibid., no. 94.

61 Ibid., no. 93.

62 Ibid., no. 21. Compare ibid., no. 19 (1006–17) m which a certain Drogo released the land of his brother and vineyards which he had acquired in Bailleul to St Ouen after his and his wife's death, conceding the land to the monks sine tdlo herede so that they were to succeed him in eternity without any claim of heirs. He also gave two mills which he had constructed at the gate of Le Goulet with his two sons and heirs who were to pay an annual rent for them. After their death no-one was to be heir or successor on their part to make claim against the monks.

63 Ibid., no. 112.

64 Ibid., no. 230.

65 Ibid., no. 51 (1023–6).

66 Ibid., nos. 55, 95 (1025–6, 1037–c. 1040).

67 Ibid., no. 173 (1035–66).

68 Ibid., no. 167 (1035–66).

69 Ibid., nos. 147 (1060), 230 (1066). Such claims could lie hidden behind a grant of an inheritance. Sometime between 1044 and 1078, probably before 1066, the knight Ansketil son of Turulph made a post obitum gift, with the consent of his wife and sons, to the abbey of St Peter of Preaux of whatever came to him by right from paternal inheritance in Tourville and Campin. At his death the inheritance was divided among his surviving brothers. The abbey's portion amounted to three tenant-holdings (hospites) and two of the brothers, Gilbert and Geoffrey, persuaded Abbot Ansfrid to grant them to them in beneficio, with Geoffrey rendering the service. It was noted that this was done without the advice and agreement of the monks (Archives de l'Eure, H. 711, ff. cviii, cxii).

70 R.A.D.N, no. 218.

71 Ibid., no. 158.

72 Ibid., no. 51.

73 Ibid., nos. 34, 36, 53.

74 For purchases by La Trinité du Mont, ibid., nos. 130 (1053), 143 (1059), by St Wandrille, ibid., no. 154 (1047–63) and by Boscherville, ibid., no. 197 (1050–66). See ibid., no. 83, for a purchase by Goscelin viscount of Rouen from Helto son of Gilbert, 1030–5.

75 Ibid., no. 153.

76 Ibid., no. 43.

77 Ibid., no. 142.

78 Archives departementales, Seine-Maritime, 14H, 255.

79 B.N., MS. Lat, 10086, f. xlv–xlvb; Sauvage, R. N., L'abbaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, 4th ser., iv, 1911), 145–6Google Scholar. For another charter, 1020 30, recording the hereditary title of the lord, bishop, Hugh of Bayeux, , in benefaction of a tenant see Charles de l'abbaye de Jumièges, i. 21–2Google Scholar.

80 R. Carabie, La proprtélè foncière dans LE Irès ancien droit normand (xie-xiiie sièicles), I. La proprété domnaniale (Caen, 1943), 230–43Google Scholar; Musset, L. ‘Réflexionssura alodium etsa signification dans les textes normands’, Revue historique de droit français el étranger, 4th ser., xlvii (1969), 606Google Scholar.

81 R.A.D.N., no. 53 (1025–6).

82 ‘Memorati fideles ex rebus hereditariis suis et ex nostra cessione … deputaverant’ (ibid., no. 61, 1030).

83 Ibid., no. 109; Lot, F., Études critiques sur I'abbaye de St Wandrille (Paris, 1913)Google Scholar, no. 26.

84 R.A.D.M, no. 126.

85 Ibid., no. 229.

86 Ibid., no. 122,

87 Ibid., no. 64 (1032).

88 Ibid., no. 73.

89 ‘Persortem hereditariam’ (ibid., no. 146).

90 Ibid., no. 148.

91 See the charter of Duke Robert (1027–35) which reviews the descent of the Duchy on the death of Richard II—‘Eo denique celestia, ut credimus, scandente regna, principatum ejusdem nominis Richardus filius illius obtinuit. Sed cita morte preventus, jure hereditario fratri suo Rodberto eundem reliquit’ (ibid., no. 74).

92 Ibid., no. 128. The ambiguity in my translation is present in the Latin, although Mile Fauroux's punctuation attaches the perpetual right to Robert, not, as is more likely, to the monks of St Wandrille.

93 Stenton, , Latin Charters, 59–60Google Scholar.

94 R.A.D.N., nos. 46, 46 bis.

95 Lot, , St Wandrille, no. 24Google Scholar.

96 Vitalis, Orderic, Ecclesiastical History, ed. Chibnall, M., ii. 10 (Grandmesnil)Google Scholar; ii. 98 (Hauteville); iii. 89 (Guiscard); iv. 184 (Éivreux).

97 For evidence of an under-tenancy by a junior line of the Cockfields, see Jocelin of Brakelond, 139Google Scholar and The Kalendar of Abbot Samson, 4.

98 Fossier, Robert, La Terre et les Hommes en Picardie (Paris, 1968), 262–73Google Scholar.

99 Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, iii. 84.

100 Ibid., ii. 40.

101 Ibid., ii. 28, iv. 156; Chibnall, M., ‘Les droits d'héritage selon Orderic Vital’, Revue historique de droit français et étranger, 4th ser., xlviii (1970), 347Google Scholar.

102 Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, ii. 362–5.

103 Musset, L., ‘Actes inédits du xie siècle. V. Autour des origines de St Étienne de Fontenay’ Bulletin de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, lvi. (1961–1962), 26–9Google Scholar.

104 R.A.D.N., no. 7.

105 Ibid., nos. 19 (1006–17), 21 (1015–17), 46 (1017–26), 94 (1035–c. 1040).

106 Ibid., nos. 24 (1017–23), 118 (c. 1049–1051), 119 (c. 1040–50), 147 (1060), 197 (c. 1050–66).

107 Ibid., no. 122. Cf. Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, ii. 16–18, 32–40; Orderic Vitalis, ed. Le Prévost, v. 173–80. Compare the foundation of the priory of Maule (Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, iii. 172–4, 182–90).

108 R.A.D.N., no. 202.

109 B.N., MS. Lat. 10086, f. lxxxxiiib–lxxxxiiii, Sauvage, R., L'Abbaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn, 143Google Scholar.

110 In the Norman sources I have found nothing comparable to the precise contrast between inheritance and acquisition drawn in the agreement between Tescelinus, priest ofVerri, and the monks of St. Florent-lès-Saumur 1055–70 (Holt, J. C., ‘Politics and Property in early medieval England’, Past & Present, 57 (1972), 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar, n. 54). William fitz Osbern's endowment of Lyre included the tithes of all the lands and mills which he had acquired in the Bessin and ‘the tithe of all things which he might acquire during the rest of his days’, but the bulk of his grant was made from his inherited lands in Lyre, Breteuil and elsewhere (R.A.D.M., no. 120). Ordericus Vitalis emphasised that the benefactions of Roger of Montgomery to Troarn, Seez and other houses were made from his acquisitions not from his paternal inheritance and he returned to this theme in discussing the foundation of Shrewsbury (ed. Chibnall, iii. 142, 144). Cf., however, below, 214.

111 Select Documents of the English Lands of the Abbey of Bec, ed. Chibnall, M. (Camden 3rd Ser., lxxiii, 1951), 21–2Google Scholar.

112 Sauvage, R. N., L'Abbaye de Saint-Martin de Troarn, 347Google Scholar, 352; R.A.D.N., no. 144.

113 The Cartulary of Shrewsbury Abbey, nos. 2–5.

114 R.A.D.N., no. 200.

115 The Cartulary of Blyth Priory, ed. Timson, R. T. (Thoroton Soc, Record ser., xxvii, 1973)Google Scholar, no. 325.

116 See Chibnall in Orderic Vitalis, ii. xxxvi-xxxvii; ‘Les droits d'héritage selon Orderic Vital’.

117 Orderic Vitalis, ed. Chibnall, ii. 80, 358; iii. 200; iv. 216.

118 Ibid., iii. 116; vi. 42, 176. See also Orderic's statement that Duke Richard II conveyed to Giroie in hereditary tenure the lands which had been held by Heugon, father of his betrothed, even though she died before marriage (ibid., ii. 22).

119 Ibid., ii. 116.

120 Ibid., ii. 282; iv. 158, 302; vi. 33. See especially the vision of the knight William of Glos who had taken up a poor man's mill in return for a loan and disinherited the lawful heir by leaving it to his own heirs (ibid., iv. 244).

121 See especially the protest of Ascelin son of Arthur that the body of the Conqueror should not be ‘covered with his soil or laid in his inheritance’ (iv. 106). The story was also known to William of Malmsbury (Gesta Regum, ed. Stubbs, W. (Rolls ser., 1889), 337)Google Scholar. It reveals that a sense of injustice might lie hidden behind transactions which are recorded simply as sales. For the record evidence see Les Actes de Guillaume le Conquérant el de la Reine Mathildepour les Abbayes Caennaises, ed. Musset, L. (Mémoires de la Société des Antiquaires de Normandie, xxxvii, 1967), no. 14 and pp. 45–6Google Scholar.

122 Orderic Vitalis, v. 156; vi. 196, 220, 372.

123 Orderic, however, gave the language his own special nuances which are not shared by the documentary evidence. He had a very strong sense, not infrequently expressed, of ‘natural’ or ‘genuine’ heirs, by which he meant heirs of the blood or rightful heirs (ii. 96, 130, 190; iv. 76; ii. 304). He also used palnmomum, which occurs only very rarely in records, quite frequently as a loose literary synonym for a paternal inheritance. Sometimes he deployed the word in a more pointed way to emphasise a claim in inheritance (ii. 122) or to contrast inheritance with acquisition (iii. 262; vi. 328–30, 402). But he could also use it very loosely and inconsequentially. See his comment that the refounder of Crowland Abbey, Thurketel, possessed 60 manors ‘de patrimonio parentum suorum’ (ii. 342). In a different vein compare Robert Curthose's promise to his followers of ‘plurima quoque patrimoniis eorum augmenta’ (ibid., iii. 102).

121 Durham Episcopal Charters 1071–1152, ed. Offler, H. S. (Surtees Soc, clxxix, 1968), no. 11Google Scholar.

125 Ibid., no. 12.

126 Grant by William Peverel of Dover, 1121–2, to his steward, Thurstan, ‘tenendas in feodo et hereditate’ (Stenton, F. M., First Century of English Feudalism, Oxford, 1961, 274Google Scholar; cf. Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, ii., ed. Johnson, C. and Cronne, H. A., Oxford, 1956Google Scholar, no. 1295). Grant by Osbert of Arden c. 1130 to Gerard and Nicholas, sons of Thomas ‘in feudo et hereditate’ (Stenton, , First Century, p. 280)Google Scholar. For a variant formula of land to be held ‘jure hereditario’ see the grant by William, earl of Lincoln, c. 1145 to Peter, of Goxhill, (Documents illustrative of the social and economic history of the Danelaw, ed. Stenton, F. M., British Academy, 1920, no. 490)Google Scholar. See also a grant by Peter son of William c. 1125 to William son of Reinfrey and his heirs ‘in feodo et hereditate’, which illustrates the intimate connection between inheritance and lordship, with William son of Reinfrey and his heirs to hold in perpetuity ‘quia ipse inde meus homo est’ (Sir Christopher Hatton's Book of Seals, ed. Loyd, L. C. and Stenton, D. M. (Oxford, 1950), no. 528)Google Scholar.

127 Such is the implication of charters embodying the ‘reddidisse’ formula. For examples see Stenton, , First Century, 272Google Scholar.

128 Charters of the Honour ofMowbray 1107–1191, ed. Greenaway, D. E. (British Academy, Records of Social and Economic History, new ser., I, 1972), no. 3, p. 10Google Scholar, discussed above, 5th ser., xxxii (1982), 211–12.

129 Saltman, A., Theobald Archbishop of Canterbury (1956), 271–2Google Scholar.

130 Marchegay, M. P., Charles normandes … de St. Florent, 680Google Scholar.

131 I do not intend to preclude here the possibility that in particular cases the king might adjudicate between the competing claims of heiresses or allocate and define the rights of seniority between co-heiresses.

132 Milsom, S. F. C., ‘Inheritance by women in the twelfth and early thirteenth centuries’, On the Laws and Customs of England, ed. Arnold, M. S., Green, T. A., Scully, S. A., White, S. D. (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1981), 60–89Google Scholar, esp. 62–5.

133 Douglas, D. C., ‘A Charter of Enfeoffment under William the Conqueror’, E.H.R., xlii (1929), 245CrossRefGoogle Scholar; cf. Feudal Documents of Bury St. Edmunds, 15; Hollister, C. W., The Military Organisation of Norman England (Oxford, 1965), 50–2Google Scholar; Brown, R. A., Origins of English Feudalism (1973), 90, 138Google Scholar.

134 Stenton, , First Century, 154, 170Google Scholar.

135 ‘A Charter of Enfeoffment’, 246.

136 Brown, R. A., Origins, 138Google Scholar.