78. Last

Chronicle

A.D. 1135. This year, at Lammas, King Henry went over entry in the the sea; and on the second day, as he lay asleep in the ship, AngloSaxon the day was darkened universally, and the sun became as if it were a moon three nights old, with the stars shining around it at midday. Men greatly marveled, and great fear fell on them, and they said that some great event should follow thereafter; and so it was, for the same year the king died in Normandy on the day after the feast of St. Andrew. Soon did this land fall into trouble, for every man greatly began to rob his neighbor as he might. Then King Henry's sons and his friends took his body, and brought it to England, and buried it at Reading. He was a good man, and great was the awe of him. No man durst illtreat another in his time; he made peace for men and deer. Whoso bare his burden of gold and silver, no man durst say to him aught but good. In the meantime his of Stephen nephew, Stephen de Blois, had arrived in England, and he came to London, and the inhabitants received him, and sent for the archbishop, William Corbeil, who consecrated him king on Midwinter Day. In this king's time was all discord, and evildoing, and robbery; for the powerful men who had kept aloof soon rose up against him; the first was Baldwin de Redvers, and he held Exeter against the king, and Stephen besieged him, and afterwards Baldwin made terms with him. Then the others took their castles and held them against the king; and David, king of Scotland, betook him to Wessington, but notwithstanding his array messengers passed between them, and they came together and made an agreement, though it availed little.

Coronation

Stephen

arrests the great officers of state of Henry I

A.D. 1137. This year King Stephen went over sea to Normandy, and he was received there because it was expected that he would be altogether like his uncle, and because he had gotten possession of his treasure, but this he distributed and scattered foolishly. King Henry had gathered together much gold and silver, yet did he no good for his soul's sake with the same. When King Stephen came to England he held an assembly at Oxford; and there he seized Roger, bishop of Salisbury, and Alexander, bishop of Lincoln, and Roger the chancellor, his nephew, and he kept them all in prison till they gave up their castles. When the traitors perceived that

he was a mild man, and a soft, and a good, and that he did not enforce justice, they did all wonder. They had done homage to him, and sworn oaths, but they no faith kept; all became forsworn, and broke their allegiance, for every rich man built his castles, and defended them against him, and they filled the land full of castles. They greatly oppressed the wretched people by making them work at these castles, and when the castles were finished they filled them with devils and evil men. Then they took those whom they suspected to have any goods, by night and by day, seizing both men and women, and they put them in prison for their gold and silver, and tortured them with pains unspeakable, for never were any martyrs tormented as these were. They hung some up by their feet and smoked The oppression of the them with foul smoke, some by their thumbs or by the head; people by and they hung burning things at their feet. They put a knotted the barons string about their heads, and twisted it till it went into the brain. They put them into dungeons wherein were adders and snakes, and toads, and thus wore them out. Some they put into a crucet house, that is, into a chest that was short and narrow and not deep; and they put sharp stones in it, and crushed the man therein so that they broke all his limbs. There were hateful and grim things called "sachenteges" in many of the castles, which two or three men had enough to do to carry. The sachentege was made thus: it was fastened to a beam, having a sharp iron to go around a man's throat and neck, so that he might no ways sit, nor lie, nor sleep, but that he must bear all the iron. Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot and I may not tell of all the wounds and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse. They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they called "tenserie," and when the miserable inhabitants had no more to give, then plundered they, and burnt all the towns, so that then well mightest thou walk a whole day's journey nor ever shouldest thou find a man seated in a town, or its lands tilled.

Then was corn dear, and flesh, and cheese, and butter, for there was none in the land; wretched men starved with

Anarchy confusion of the country

79. Seizure

of Ramsey

abbey by a disorderly nobleman

hunger; some lived on alms who had been erewhile rich; some
fled the country
never was there more misery, and never
acted heathens worse than these. At length they spared
neither church nor churchyard, but they took all that was val-
uable therein, and then burned the church and all together.
Neither did they spare the lands of bishops, nor of abbots, nor
of priests; but they robbed the monks and the clergy, and
every man plundered his neighbor as much as he could. If
two or three men came riding to a town, all the township fled
before them, and thought that they were robbers. The bishops
and clergy were ever cursing them, but this to them was noth-
ing, for they were all accursed and forsworn, and reprobate.
The earth bare no corn; you might as well have tilled the sea,
for the land was all ruined by such deeds, and it was said
openly that Christ and his saints slept. These things, and
more than we can say, did we suffer during nineteen years
because of our sins.

Geoffrey de Mandeville, earl of Essex, may be taken to represent the lawless nobles of the time of Stephen. The latter part of his career and the fate of Ramsey abbey are described in the following extract from the contemporary history of William de Newburgh.

Deprived of means of defense, but nevertheless allowed his freedom, Geoffrey de Mandeville, always active, great in mind, endowed with craft scarcely credible, wise beyond measure in doing evil, collected a band of outlaws and attacked the monastery of Ramsey; nor did he fear, after he had driven forth the monks, to make their celebrated and holy place a den of thieves, and to turn the sanctuary of God into an abode for the devil. From here he terrorized the neighboring shires by frequent sallies and raids. Gaining confidence through the success of his undertaking, he advanced farther, descending on Stephen, the king, and terrifying him by his bold attacks. While he was thus reveling, God seemed to be asleep, and not to be watching over human affairs, or, rather, over his ecclesiastical matters; and pious workers said, "Awake! why sleepest Thou,

O Lord?" But after, as the apostle says, the Lord had endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," then the Lord," as the prophet said, "awaked as one out of sleep, and smote his enemies in the hinder parts," although the former deeds of these seemed fortunate. Finally, a little before the destruction of this wicked robber, the walls of the church which he had seized, as well as the adjoining cloister, sweat true blood; by which, as was afterwards apparent, was shown the wickedness of the crime and the judgment already threatening this wickedness. But when those wicked. men, entirely devoid of any sense of uprightness, were not frightened by this horrible sign, that worthless man attacked the hostile camp, and, while closely surrounded by his own men, was struck on the head by an arrow from a common soldier. After several days this most insolent man died of this little wound, although at first he made a jest of it,―carrying with him to the lower regions the bond of ecclesiastical anathema, from which he should never be freed.

VII. FEUDALISM

Two codes of laws or statements of legal customs, drawn up by unknown writers in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, known as the Laws of William the Conqueror and the Laws of Henry I, occasionally give statements of feudal custom in definite terms, as in the two extracts that follow.

feudal lord

The relief of an earl, which comes to the king, is eight 80. Reliefs to horses, of which four shall have saddles and bridles, and along be paid to a with them four breastplates, four helmets, four lances, four shields, and four swords; and the other four horses are to be riding horses or hunting horses, with bridles and coverings.

The relief of a baron is four horses, of which two are to have saddles and bridles, and with them two breastplates, two shields, two helmets, two lances, and two swords; and of the other two horses one shall be a riding horse, the other a hunter, with bridles and coverings.

81. Duties

vassals

The relief of a vassal, which comes to his liege lord, is the horse of his father, such as he had it on the day of his death, and a breastplate, helmet, shield, lance, and sword. If perchance he did not have these, he shall be able to acquit himself of it by paying a hundred shillings.

The relief of a villain is his best beast; whether it is an ox or a horse, it shall be his lord's.

He who holds the land for a yearly payment, his relief shall be as much as the payment of one year.

The following rules are of a more general character.

It is allowable to any one, without punishment, to support of lords and his lord, if any one assails him, and to obey him in all legitimate ways, except in theft, murder, and in all such things as are not conceded to any one to do, and are reckoned infamous by the laws.

The lord ought to do likewise equally with counsel and with aid; and he may come to his man's assistance in his vicissitudes in all ways, without forfeiture.

To every lord it is allowed to summon his man that he may be at right to him in his court; and even if he is resident at the most distant manor of that honor from which he holds, he shall go to the plea if his lord summons him. If his lord holds different fiefs, the man of one honor is not compelled by law to go to another plea, unless the cause belongs to the other to which his lord has summoned him.

If a man holds from several lords and honors, however much he holds from others, he owes most and will be subject for justice to him of whom he is the liegeman.

Every vassal owes to his lord fidelity concerning his life and members and earthly honor, and keeping of his counsel in what is honorable and useful, saving the faith of God and of the prince of the land. Theft, however, and treason and murder and whatever things are against the Lord and the Catholic faith, are to be required of or performed by no one; but faith shall be held to all lords, saving the faith of the earlier, and the more to the one of which he is the liege. And let permission be given him, if any of his men seek another lord for himself.