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.ger threatened from Denmark, in the plans of King Canuteto invade England with a vast host and deliver the countryfrom the foreigner.William brought over from Normandya great army of mercenaries to meet this danger, and laidwaste the  country along the eastern coast that the enemymight find no supplies on landing; but this Danish threatamounted to even less than the earlier ones, for the fleetnever so much as appeared off the coast.All these eventsare but the minor incidents which might occur in any reignthe Conquest had long been finished, and England hadaccepted in good faith her new dynasty.Much more of the last ten years of William s life was spentin Normandy than in England.Revolts of unruly barons,attacks on border towns or castles, disputes with the kingof France, were constantly occupying him with vexatiousVOL.66 LATER YEARSCHAP.details, though with nothing of serious import.MostIIIof all was the conduct of his son Robert.With theeldest son of William opens in English history a long line ofthe sons and brothers of kings, in a few cases of kings them-selves, who are gifted with popular qualities, who makefriends easily, but who are weak in character, who cannotcontrol men or refuse passionate and selfish, hardlystrong enough to be violently wicked as others of the lineare, but causes of constant evil to themselves and their friends,and sometimes to the state.And with him opens also thelong series of quarrels in the royal family, of which theFrench kings were quick to take advantage, and from whichthey were in the end to gain so much.The ground of Rob-ert s rebellion was the common one of dissatisfaction withhis position and his father s refusal to part with any of hispower in his favour.Robert was not able to excite any realinsurrection in Normandy, but with the aid of his friendsand of the French king he maintained a border war forsome time, and defended castles with success against theking.He is said even, in one encounter, to have woundedand been on the point of slaying his father.For some timehe wandered in exile in the Rhine valley, supported by giftssent him by his mother, in spite of the prohibition of herhusband.Once he was reconciled with his father, only tobegin his rebellion again.When the end came, William lefthim Normandy, but people thought at least that he did itunwillingly, foreseeing the evil which his character was likelyto bring on any land over which he ruled.The year 1086 is remarkable for the formation of one ofthe  most unique monuments of William s genius as a ruler,and one of the most instructive sources of information whichwe have of the condition of England during his reign.Atthe Christmas meeting of the court, in it was decided,apparently after much debate and probably with specialreference to the general land-tax, called Danegeld, toform by means of inquiries, officially made in each locality,a complete register of the occupied lands of the kingdom, oftheir holders, and of their values.The book in which the re-sults of this survey of England were recorded was carefullypreserved in the royal treasury? and soon came to be regarded1086 THE DOMESDAY BOOK67as evidence in disputed questions which its entrieswould concern.Not very long after the record was made itcame to be popularly known as the Book, and ahundred years later the writer on the English financial sys-tem of the twelfth century, the author of the Dialogue con-cerning the Exchequer, explained the name as meaningthat the sentences derived.from it were final, and withoutappeal, like those of the last great day.An especially interesting feature of this survey is themethod which was employed to make it.Two institutionswhich were brought into England by the Conquest, theking s and the inquest, the forerunners of the circuitjudge and of the jury, were set in motion for this work; andthe organization of the survey is a very interesting fore-shadowing of the organization which a century later William sgreat-grandson was to give to our judicial system in fea-tures which still characterize it, not merely in England butthroughout great continents of which William never dreamed.Royal commissioners, or were sent into each county.No doubt the same body of commissioners went through-out a circuit of counties.In each the county court wassummoned to meet the commissioners, just as later it wassummoned to meet the king s justice on his circuit.Thewhole county was present to be appealed to on questionsof particular importance or difficulty if it seemed necessary,but the business of the survey as a rule was not done by thecounty court.Each hundred was present by its sworn jury,exactly as in the later itinerant justice court, and it was thisjury which answered on oath the questions submitted to itby the exactly again as in the later practice.Their knowledge might be reinforced, or their report modi-fied, by evidence of the men of the or other smaller sub-division of the county, who probably attended as in the oldercounty courts, and occasionally by the testimony of the wholeshire but in general the information on which the surveywas made up was derived from the reports of the hundredjuries.The questions which were submitted to these juriesshow both the object of the survey and its thorough charac-ter.They were required to tell the name of each manorde i.Hughes,68 LATER YEARS 1086CHAP.and the name of its holder in the time of King Edward andthe inquiry the number of hides it containedthe number of ploughs employed in the cultivation of thelord s domain land, and the number so used on the landsheld by the lord s men, -a rough way of determining theamount of land under cultivation [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]