Chapter 14
The last two years of William's life possess a special interest for his biographer. In one sense they represent the epilogue to a great career, but in another they can be regarded as embodying the final crisis of his reign wherein all its chief characteristics were displayed in conjunction. The twenty-four months that elapsed between the autumn of 1085 and William's death in September 1087 saw the revival of a hostile confederation against the Anglo-Norman kingdom in a form reminiscent of earlier decades. They witnessed the continuation of William's previous defence of that kingdom, though this time by exceptional means. And they witnessed, also, the Conqueror's greatest administrative achievement. These months were all spent by him either in war or in active preparation for war, but they also included the taking of the Domesday survey which was the most noteworthy illustration of what his government involved. Nor can these events be dissociated from each other. Throughout his life, war and a struggle for survival had formed the background, and the essential condition, of his constructive acts. They continued to do so until death.
The beginning of this crisis is aptly recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 1085: ‘In this year people said, and declared for a fact, that Cnut, king of Denmark, son of King Sweyn was setting out towards England, and meant to conquer that land with the aid of Robert, count of Flanders.’1 The traditional enemies of the Anglo-Norman kingdom were thus all becoming arrayed against it. St Cnut (Cnut IV), son of Sweyn Estrithson, was reviving the Scandinavian claims on England which had been asserted with such force, and with such long-standing sanctions, not only by his father but also by Harold Hardraada and Magnus. Robert of Flanders, whose sister had married the Danish king, was again in the field as in 1074. In France, King Philip with the memories of Dol and Gerberoi in his mind was actively supporting William's son Robert, who remained in open enmity with his father, while Odo, bishop of Bayeux, although in captivity, could incite the treason of William's English and Norman subjects. Finally, Malcolm stood hostile on the Scottish border, and Fulk le Rechin of Anjou was ready to turn the situation to his advantage. Such was the threat which William now had to meet, and his personal circumstances must have imposed an additional strain upon him. He was ageing, and had recently been bereft of his wife to whom he had been devoted. There were few members of his own family on whom he could rely, and his own health was failing inasmuch as he was becoming increasingly – even notoriously – corpulent. The energy with which he faced the coalition of his enemies in the closing months of his reign is thus not the least notable illustration of his fortitude and determination.
As soon as he was aware of Cnut's threatened invasion, he acted with speed and vigour. He caused certain of the coastal districts of England to be laid waste in order to deny provisions to any invading force. For his own part, leaving to others the defence of Normandy, he crossed the Channel ‘with a larger force of mounted men and foot-soldiers than had ever come into this country’. The statement made by an English writer who may well have been alive in 1066 challenges attention, and itself testifies to the magnitude of William's preparations. It merits, however, some further analysis. There is little doubt that this great force was largely composed of mercenaries, and William's ability to pay them is remarkable, and must surely be related to the great geld which he had levied on England during the previous year. Even so, the maintenance of such a host created difficulties. ‘People wondered how this country could maintain all that army.’ In the event William dispersed them over the estates of his vassals, compelling these to provision them according to the size of their lands. It was a drastic act, yet it may be doubted whether by itself it was sufficient, even though some of the mercenaries were later disbanded. The next two annals of the native chronicle are understandably full of laments about the heavy taxation which was being levied on the land.2
It was in these circumstances that at Christmas 1085 William came to Gloucester to hold his court. There he ‘had much thought and very deep discussion with his council about this country – how it was occupied, and with what sort of people’.3 And the result was the taking of the Domesday survey. So noteworthy was this vast undertaking, and so important was the result, that every detail of the process by which the inquiry was conducted, the motives which inspired it, and the record which was produced have been the object of erudite and controversial comment.4 The general course of events was, however, succinctly described by early writers in words which though familiar deserve quotation.5 The chief of these notices is contained in a famous passage of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle itself:
[The king] sent his men over all England into every shire and had them find out how many hundred hides there were in the shire, or what land and cattle the king himself had in the country, or what dues he ought to have annually from the shire. Also, he had a record made of how much land his archbishops had, and his bishops and his abbots and his earls – and though I relate it at too great length – what or how much everybody had who was occupying land in England, in land and cattle, and how much money it was worth. So very narrowly did he have it investigated that there was no single hide nor a yard of land nor indeed (shame it is to relate it but it seemed no shame to him to do) was one ox or one cow or one pig left out, that was not put down in his record. And all these writings were brought to him afterwards.6
In many particulars this statement is less precise than might be desired, but its general purpose is clear, and it is fortunate that it can be supplemented by another contemporary notice of equal authority. This is contained in a passage written by Robert Losinga, bishop of Hereford from 1079 to 1095, who was almost certainly present himself at the deep speech that was held at Gloucester:
In the twentieth year of his reign, by order of William, King of the English, there was made a survey of the whole of England, that is to say of the lands of the several provinces of England, and of the possessions of each and all of the magnates. This was done in respect of ploughlands and of habitations, and of men both bond and free, both those who dwelt in cottages, and those who had their homes and their share in the fields; and in respect of ploughs and horses and other animals; and in respect of the services and payments due from all men in the whole land. Other investigators followed the first; and men were sent into provinces which they did not know, and where they were themselves unknown, in order that they might be given the opportunity of checking the first survey, and if necessary, of denouncing its authors as guilty to the king. And the land was vexed with much violence arising from the collection of the royal taxes.7
It would appear, moreover, that for the purposes of this investigation England was divided up into seven or more circuits to each of which a separate panel of these royal commissioners was assigned.8 And the method and scope of their inquiries are succinctly stated in a record known as the ‘Ely Inquiry’ (Inquisitio Eliensis). The Domesday inquest, it is there stated, was:
… the inquiry concerning lands which the king's barons made according to the oath of the sheriff of the shire, and of all the barons and their Frenchmen, and of the whole hundred court – the priest, the reeve and six men from each village. They inquired what the manor was called, and who held it in the time of King Edward; who holds it now; how many hides there are; how many ploughs in demesne; and how many belonging to the men; how many villeins; how many cottars; how many slaves; how many freemen; how many sokemen; how much woodland; how much meadow; how much pasture; how many mills; how many fisheries; how much has been added to, and how much taken away from the estate; what it used to be worth altogether; what it is worth now; and how much each freeman and sokeman had and has. All this to be recorded thrice: to wit, as it was in the time of King Edward; as it was when King William gave the estate; and as it is now. And it was also noted whether more could be taken from the estate than is now being taken.9
The magnitude of the undertaking needs no further emphasis. And in general – with certain modifications – the resulting texts, now collectively known as Domesday Book, reflect fairly faithfully the answers to these questions.
Domesday Book consists of two volumes of somewhat different character now preserved in the Public Record Office in Chancery Lane.10 One of these (vol. II, or the ‘Little Domesday’) relates to Norfolk, Suffolk, and Essex. The other (vol. I, or the ‘Great Domesday’) deals with all the rest of England that was surveyed. There are, however, other texts which were also the product of this inquiry, and chief of these is that known as the Exon Domesday, now preserved in the cathedral library at Exeter, which relates to the five south-western shires.11 These three volumes all possess individual characteristics. In particular both the Little Domesday and the Exon Domesday are more inchoate in form and contain more detailed information than the Great Domesday. On the other hand, all these three volumes clearly derived from the same inquest, and they all conform to the same fundamental plan. They are territorial in arrangement in so far as the information they supply is presented shire by shire; and they are feudal in arrangement in that, within each shire, the information is given under the holdings therein of the king and his tenants-in-chief.
The chief difficulty in ascertaining the manner in which William caused this vast investigation to be made consists in discerning how the mass of information obtained by the Domesday commissioners was digested into the ‘books’ which were eventually compiled. A record known as ‘The Cambridgeshire Inquest’12 indicates that in that shire an inquiry was made in court whereat jurors from the several hundreds gave sworn testimony, and it has been very generally believed that this procedure was adopted throughout England; that the ‘writings’ which were in due course brought to the king were the returns thus elicited; and that only subsequently were they rearranged according to a feudal plan at Winchester.13 It has, however, been recently suggested with authority14that such inquiries before jurors of the hundreds formed only one part of the Domesday inquisition;15 that the original returns from the shires were compiled locally according to a feudal plan; and that it was these feudal returns (breves) of the fiefs within each shire of the king and his tenants-in-chief, which were brought in due course to Winchester. In this way, it is said, the differences as well as the similarities between the three Domesday ‘books’ can best be explained. The Exon Domesday was a first draft of one collection of these feudal breves, which in due course was summarized and digested into the Great Domesday, whereas the Little Domesday was another of these drafts which, for reasons unknown, never received such treatment, and thus remained in its original form.16
Every theory as to the making of Domesday Book has some difficulties to overcome. But whatever may have been the exact process by which Domesday Book was compiled, it remains an astonishing product of the Conqueror's administration, reflecting at once the problems with which he was faced, and the character of his rule. It was imperative that he should know the resources of his kingdom, for his need of money was always pressing, and never more so than in 1085. He sought therefore to ascertain the taxable capacity of his kingdom, and to see whether more could be exacted from it. The elaborate calculations, running throughout the whole survey, of hides and carucates in their fiscal connotation as geld paying units, is by itself evidence of this, as is also the prevalence throughout the south and west of England of assessments in multiples of five hides.17 In Domesday Book there is in fact sure testimony of the manner in which William took over (as has been seen) the taxational system of the Old English state, and used it to his own advantage. It is small wonder, therefore, that this was the aspect of the matter which most impressed – and distressed – contemporary observers. The term description18 which they normally used in referring to the survey itself indicates an assessment to public taxation, and fear of the consequences was everywhere apparent. In fact, the whole inquiry was clearly most unpopular. It provoked violent opposition, and even bloodshed.19
Yet if the need for a more efficient collection of revenue supplied the chief motive prompting King William to this great endeavour, his purpose in the undertaking should not be too rigidly circumscribed. William was lord of a feudal kingdom which was threatened with attack, and its feudal resources had to be deployed to the utmost advantage. The court which had decided on the great inquest was a feudal court, and the arrangement of the survey was, within each shire, according to the great fiefs. And this was what might have been expected. It was important for the king (as ‘Florence of Worcester’20 observed in describing the survey) to ascertain how much land each of his barons possessed, for they were responsible for the provision of the enfeoffed knights who were necessary for the defence of the realm. And if Domesday Book gives little information about feudal organization as such, since for the most part it omits to indicate the amount of knight-service owed to the king by his tenants-in-chief, it none the less supplied William with more detailed feudal information than he had possessed at any time since his coming to England. It gave him for the first time a comprehensive account of how the land of England had been allocated among his greater followers. Domesday Book, in fact, assumed throughout the existence of the newly established feudal order and indicated its territorial basis.
Domesday Book was not, however, merely a fiscal record (though that was its primary purpose), nor was it in addition merely a feudal statement, though that, to a lesser degree, it also served to supply. In yet another way did it offer a further illustration of the authority which William assumed in the country he had conquered. Throughout his reign, from the time of his coronation, he had claimed to be regarded as the legitimate successor of Edward the Confessor, and this claim was reflected throughout Domesday Book. No feature of the survey is more noteworthy, or more significant, than its design to record conditions not only as they were in 1066 and 1086, but also as they had been in the time of King Edward. And in this connexion the survey could be regarded as in a sense the result of a judicial inquiry and related to the earlier litigation of the Conqueror's reign.21 In many districts a continuous process of litigation had led up to the Domesday inquest, and the Domesday commissioners, who had themselves often, like Geoffrey of Coutances, conducted the previous trials by the same method of the sworn inquest, were frequently, in 1086, dealing with matters which were still in dispute. William, regarding himself as the Confessor's successor, evidently wished for a complete record of English conditions before his coming, and he also desired to legalize the great changes which the Conquest had caused. Domesday Book thus bears unmistakable traces of being connected with the controversies respecting ownership and possession which had marked the two previous decades. Individual entries often describe, and attempt to reconcile, contesting claims by reference to the past, and the accounts of Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and Huntingdonshire record the clamores or disputes which came up for settlement at the time of the Domesday inquisition.22
The character of Domesday Book and the achievement it embodied can, in truth, only be appraised by reference to William himself. Indeed, perhaps the most remarkable fact about the Domesday inquest is that it was ever undertaken, and ever successfully completed. As Professor Galbraith observes, ‘it is our best evidence of the iron will of the Conqueror, and the measure of the difference between the authority wielded by him and even the greatest of his predecessors’.23 His personality and his purpose are reflected on every page of Domesday Book. A country had been conquered, and since that conquest the king had been compelled to spend most of his time outside England. Very much concerning England, and the Norman settlement therein, must still have remained unknown to him, and the information he required was essential to his government and to the defence of his realm. He desired, therefore, to know everything that men could tell him about his new kingdom, its inhabitants, its wealth, its provincial customs, its traditions, and its tax-paying capacity. As a result, the record, so astonishing in its scope, escapes classification since it subserved so many needs. Consequently, while Domesday Book has some of the characteristics of a geld inquest, of a feudal record, and of a judicial statement, its special nature must never be forgotten. It is a record without parallel. It is not simply a geld book since it is unlike all other geld books. It is not a true feodary for it is unlike all other feodaries. It is not simply the result of a great judicial inquiry for its scope was much wider. It was the unique product of a unique occasion. The events of 1085 gave urgency to the desire of a great king to obtain the fullest possible amount of information about the kingdom he had won, and the result was the most remarkable statistical record ever produced in any medieval kingdom.
Such was the prestige which soon came to attach to Domesday Book that there is some danger that its importance may even be exaggerated. Throughout the Middle Ages, and beyond, men turned to the great survey as to a court of appeal, and in more recent times some scholars have been prone to seek in it for information which it could hardly be expected to supply.24 In truth, of course, Domesday Book was not made to provide later historians with material for their interpretations of the past, but to subserve the administrative purposes of the king who created it. It should be remembered, also, that not the whole of England was covered by the inquiry, for the royal commissioners did not extend their investigations north of the Tees or the Westmorland fells. Nor was Domesday Book itself as infallible as some were tempted to suppose; there are to be found within it both duplications and inaccuracies, and since its compilers were frequently ‘describing an alien society in alien terms’,25 it is not always to be relied upon in respect of the technical classifications it attempts of estates, of status, and of tenure.
Yet when all proper deductions are made, the king's achievement which is embodied in Domesday Book remains astonishing, and recent scholars have paid full tribute to it. ‘As an administrative achievement,’ writes Sir Frank Stenton, ‘it has no parallel in medieval history.’26 It is a supreme demonstration of the efficiency of those who served the Conqueror, and of the energy with which at the close of his life he could still enforce the execution of a great design. Nor must it be forgotten that all this was done in the teeth of opposition from a reluctant country. And the final product was commensurate with the strength of will that created it. Domesday Book has been correctly and strikingly described by another authority as ‘marking an epoch in the use of the written word in government’.27 And it is scarcely an exaggeration to add that there had been ‘nothing like it since the days of imperial Rome’.28
After the momentous decisions of his Gloucester court at Christmas 1085, William moved through southern England during the months when the Domesday inquest was being conducted. He heard the Easter Mass of 1086 at Winchester, and at Pentecost he was at Westminster, where he conferred knighthood on his son Henry. And then he
…travelled about so as to come to Salisbury at Lammas, and there his councillors came to him, and all the people occupying land who were of any account over all England whosoever's vassals they might be; and they all submitted to him, and swore oaths of allegiance to him that they would be faithful to him against all other men.29
It was the second of the great administrative acts of these critical months.
The Oath of Salisbury30 is deservedly famous. But there have been some who have sought to invest it with a constitutional significance which it can hardly have possessed. It has even been suggested that there came to Salisbury on this occasion ‘not only every feudal dependent of the king, but every freeman and freeholder whatsoever’.31 It is, however, beyond the bounds of possibility that an assembly of this nature could have been brought together at Salisbury in August 1086, and even the knights who had been enfeoffed by that time over all England were probably too numerous, and in many cases of too little social importance, for the king to have wished for them all to attend a meeting of his court. Undoubtedly, the Salisbury court was one of exceptional size and splendour, but the ‘landowning men of any account’ were probably the more important mesne tenants of the great honours, men of similar social standing as their lords, the ‘peers’ of the honours whose special role in the feudal administration of England has already been noted.32 Such an assembly, though large and imposing, would not have been of inordinate size, and it would precisely have served the king's immediate purpose.
None the less, while William is not to be credited with having on this occasion attempted to substitute some more modern conception of sovereignty for the position he held as king in the feudal state, his acts, on this occasion, were exceptional in their nature, and of high importance. The special position of the king in the feudal order of Anglo-Norman England, and the reasons for it, have already been analysed, and the proceedings at Salisbury in 1086 did something to make the royal authority more effective. The measures taken by the king were certainly unprecedented, and were regarded as such, but they were not ‘anti-feudal’ in their purpose. Rather, they were designed to give additional strength to the feudal organization which in England, from the circumstances of the Conquest, already possessed special features. The Salisbury oath, like the Domesday inquest, of which it was in some sense the counterpart, was the king's response to a challenge. The Anglo-Norman kingdom was facing a crisis, and it was clearly important that its ruler should establish a close relation with all the great men in England with a view to fortifying the military organization on which he relied. Once again the personal dominance of King William was displayed.
The crisis itself might now, however, seem to be passing. Cnut had assembled a large army, and collected a great fleet in the Limfjord to transport it to England. But throughout the period of his preparations he was faced with disaffection among his subjects, and in the ensuing disturbances he was himself captured and in July 1086 he was murdered in the church of Odensee.33 His death meant that the expedition had to be abandoned, and the immediate threat of an invasion of England from Scandinavia was removed. But the situation none the less remained perilous. Robert, the king's son, was in revolt, and Odo, his half-brother, was fostering treason. Robert, count of Flanders, was a declared enemy, and at home Edgar Atheling showed himself so disaffected that the king thought it prudent to allow him to depart for Apulia with no less than two hundred followers. Moreover, the former pattern of the attacks on the Anglo-Norman kingdom was now reproduced. During 1086 William's attention had inevitably been concentrated on England, and this gave King Philip the opportunity to renew operations in France, It is not surprising therefore that, very shortly after the Salisbury court, the Conqueror made preparations to return to Normandy. He is reported to have gone to the Isle of Wight, and to have been vigorous at this time in collecting additional taxes, doubtless to pay for more mercenary troops. About the end of 1086 he crossed over to France, but where he spent the last Christmas of his life is not known.34
William's movements during the early months of 1087 are, in fact, highly obscure. The chroniclers are silent on the matter, and the documentary evidence is difficult to interpret. It was doubtless during the meeting of the Salisbury court that the king issued two writs in favour of Maurice, the newly appointed bishop of London,35 and it was probably at some later date that he gave to the abbey of Westminster two further writs,36 one of which is dated ‘after the survey of the whole of England’. Finally, there is extant a confirmation made about this time in favour of the nunnery of Saint-Amand at Rouen,37 and this, which was given in the presence of a considerable number of notable witnesses, may be presumed to have been issued after the king's return to Normandy. These texts have an exceptional interest as being among the last documentary products of the Conqueror's rule, but they supply little information about his activities during the closing months of his reign.
There can be no doubt, however, that his main preoccupation continued to be with defence, and it is not surprising that his attention should have been directed once more to the long-standing threat latent in the French king's control of the Vexin, which William had been forced to accept in 1077.38 In the interval, moreover, there had taken place in this region a change which was favourable to William's prospects. Some time between July 1080 and Christmas 1081 the comté of Meulan situated towards the south of the Vexin had passed by marriage into the hands of Robert of Beaumont, one of the duke's most trusted and powerful supporters, so that he now possessed a strong ally in the debatable region.39 For these reasons, when in the late summer of 1087 the French king's garrison at Mantes crossed over into the Evreçin and began to pillage Normandy, William decided to retaliate in force.40 Before August 15 he launched an expedition designed to regain the Vexin for Normandy, and particularly the towns of Mantes, Chaumont, and Pontoise.41
The campaign which followed was not only the last, but also one of the most brutal of the Conqueror's reign. He crossed the Epte, and with a large force harried the countryside up to Mantes. Then, when the garrison sallied out without due precaution, he fell upon them with a surprise attack. They retreated in confusion into the city hotly pursued by William's troops, and a terrible destruction followed.42 Mantes itself was so completely burnt that even today it is hard to find in the town any traces of eleventh-century buildings.43 Such barbarity was inexcusable, but it raises the question whether William now, as on previous occasions, meant his ruthlessness to be a preparation for more extensive operations. His campaign of 1087 is usually, and perhaps rightly, dismissed as an unimportant episode notable only because of its tragic personal sequel. But Mantes is only some thirty miles from Paris, and William with his great resources of men and money might conceivably have followed up his success with far-reaching consequences to the future of the French monarchy. Such speculations are, however, profitless, for the conclusion was very different. The sack of Mantes was the last military act of the Conqueror, since as he rode through the burning streets of the town, calamity came suddenly upon him. Some say that his horse, taking fright from the burning embers, threw the corpulent king with such force against the high pommel of his saddle that he was lethally ruptured; others affirm that he was suddenly afflicted with some violent intestinal complaint. At all events he was incapacitated. In the greatest pain he returned from the devastated Vexin through the summer heat to Rouen. There he rested. But his illness and discomfort increased daily, and he found the noise of the city intolerable. After some days, he gave orders that he should be carried to the priory of Saint-Gervais on a hill in the western suburbs, and there he went, attended by Gilbert Maminot, bishop of Lisieux, and Gontard, abbot of Jumièges, both of whom were reputedly skilled in medicine. He was obviously dying.44
Two accounts of what transpired during the last days of the Conqueror's life have survived. The one was written by an anonymous monk of Caen shortly after the event.45 The other is from the gifted pen of Ordericus Vitalis who wrote some fifty years later. Ordericus Vitalis was concerned to give a full description of what he rightly considered to be a most noteworthy occasion, and he adopted the device of making the dying king review his life in a long speech which is in itself a notable summary of the Conqueror's career.46 The speech itself is clearly imaginative, but it may safely be held to reproduce the authentic atmosphere of the scene, and the background painted by Ordericus bears all the marks of authenticity, since the writer, who was himself an acute observer, was familiar with Norman traditions and had, besides, many contacts with those who had been closely concerned.47 Indeed, his elaborate descriptions can often in their essentials be confirmed by the more laconic statements of the monk of Caen.
It was a large company which gathered round the dying king at the priory of Saint-Gervais, but the two most prominent members of his family were significantly absent. Robert, his eldest son, was in revolt and keeping company with his father's chief enemy King Philip, whilst Odo, the powerful bishop of Bayeux, was still being held in captivity in Rouen. Lanfranc too was absent, since, loyal to the last, he was looking after the king's interests in England. But the king's other surviving sons were there, and with them was his half-brother Robert, count of Mortain, William Bonne-Ame, archbishop of Rouen, and many others, including Gerard, his chancellor, and the chief officials of his household. The great king was slowly dying in harrowing circumstances, but on his death-bed he was surrounded by an assemblage which was not essentially different from one of the great courts which had supported so many of the major decisions of his reign. It was thus to a concourse of magnates who had shared in his work that he was able to make his final dispositions, for, to the end, though in increasing pain, he preserved the clearness of his mind and his power of speech.48
In his extremity he was not unnaturally anxious to mend his soul, and though the scene may have been overcoloured by later writers for the purposes of edification, there is no reason to question the piety he exhibited, or the penitence he expressed, particularly for the bloodshed that had been the inevitable price of his achievement. He made his confession, and received absolution. Then he commanded a lavish distribution of alms, and made the attendant clerks record with particularity those who were to benefit from his gifts. He made a special distribution to the clergy of Mantes to restore what he had burnt, and he exhorted those present to have a care after his death for the maintenance of justice and the preservation of the faith. Finally, he commanded that those whom he held in prison should be set free, with the single exception of the bishop of Bayeux. Here he found himself faced with the opposition of those who surrounded him, and Robert, count of Mortain, was particularly pressing in demanding his brother's release. The argument was prolonged, and at length the king in sheer weariness gave way, though not without insisting on the fell consequences likely to ensue. Odo was therefore released, and very soon he was to be present at the Conqueror's funeral.49
The disposal of the realm was a matter of greater moment. William expressed himself with justifiable bitterness against his son Robert whose disloyalty had dishonoured his father's age, and whom he judged to be unfit to rule unless constantly admonished and controlled. But once again, as in 1080, the Norman magnates sought to heal the breach between father and son, and at last the king, having expressed his forgiveness, consented to honour his former promises, and formally committed the duchy of Normandy to Robert, his first-born son. The case of England was, however, different. The motives here ascribed to the Conqueror at a later date by Ordericus Vitalis are interesting. According to this highly coloured account,50 the king was conscious that he had acquired his royalty not by hereditary right but by judgment of battle, and at the expense of countless lives. He dared not, therefore, leave a kingdom thus won elsewhere than to God. But he hoped that God would grant it to his second surviving son, William, to whom he gave his sceptre, his sword, and his crown.51 Conscious, moreover, of the disturbances which would inevitably follow his death, he addressed to Lanfranc in England a sealed letter confirming his acts, and he ordered William to depart without delay. The young man thereupon promptly left his father's death-bed, and riding in haste had already reached Wissant en route for England when he heard of the Conqueror's death. Finally, the king gave to his son Henry a considerable sum of money, and he too immediately left Saint-Gervais in order to secure it.52
These arrangements which were directly to affect the future deserve some comment. For instance, the gift of money made to Henry has sometimes been regarded as meagre and inadequate, whereas in truth, viewed in relation to eleventh-century values, it was substantial.53 The treatment accorded to Robert and William might likewise be misunderstood. The motives here assigned to the Conqueror by Ordericus contain curious hints, both of what might have been English feeling in the matter, and also of royalty conceived as a God-given dignity. But the king's action could be further explained by reference to contemporary circumstances. As has been seen, the succession of Robert to Normandy had been prepared by a long series of events, and it was not only his incompetence and disloyalty which prevented his succession to England. The Conqueror was here following the established practice of the Norman aristocracy which was that the Norman lands of a family (the lands of inheritance) should pass to the eldest son, whereas the English lands (the lands of conquest) should devolve on the second son. This usage had been very generally adopted,54 and it was a custom which in any event William might have found it hard to ignore. None the less, the result was a set-back to the Conqueror's policy. The separation of Normandy from England had for long been a prime objective of King Philip of France, which William had consistently opposed.55 Now that objective seemed to have been attained, and the dying king must have felt that he had here suffered a last reverse.
Having made his dispositions, William was anointed, and received the sacrament from the archbishop of Rouen,56 and the final scene of his life is described in a famous passage from Ordericus Vitalis, which, though doubtless overcharged with emotion, may none the less be accepted as trustworthy in its main outlines. The king passed the night of 8 September in tranquillity, and awoke at dawn to the sound of the great bell of Rouen Cathedral.
On his asking what it signified, his attendants replied: ‘My lord, the bell is ringing for Prime in the church of Saint Mary.’ Then the king raised his eyes and lifted his hands and said: ‘I commend myself to Mary the holy Mother of God, my heavenly Lady, that by her intercession I may be reconciled to her Son our Lord Jesus Christ.’ And having said this he died.
Immediate confusion followed his passing, and some of the attendants behaved as if they had lost their wits.
Nevertheless, the wealthiest of them mounted their horses and departed in haste to secure their property. Whilst the inferior attendants, observing that their masters had disappeared, laid hands on the arms, the plate, the linen, and the royal furniture, and hastened away, leaving the corpse almost naked on the floor of the cell.57
William the Conqueror – Duke William II of Normandy, and King William I of England – died early in the morning of Thursday, 9 September 1087.58
The blend of the earthy and the sublime in these descriptions of the Conqueror's death were even more blatantly displayed in the circumstances of his burial. It was decided that he should be interred in the monastery of Saint Stephen which he had founded at Caen, but it would appear that there was at first some difficulty in making arrangements for the suitable transportation of the body. None the less it was in due course borne down the Seine and then transported by land to the outskirts of Caen, where it was met by a distinguished company of mourners. But the pomp of the procession was interrupted by an accidental fire which broke out in the town. At last, however, the church was reached, and there a notable company assembled to hear Mass, and to listen to a sermon by Gilbert, bishop of Lisieux. The king's son, Henry, and many lay magnates were present, together with all the Norman bishops and many Norman abbots, including the aged Nicholas of Saint-Ouen, and also Anselm from Le Bec. Thus at his funeral the Conqueror was once again surrounded by a Norman court comparable to those which had so often graced his reign.59
The dignity of the occasion was, however, soon disrupted. One Ascelin, a local worthy, protested that he had been robbed of the ground in which the king was to be buried, and claimed compensation, which he received.60 And then a still more macabre episode took place, for the attendants actually broke the unwieldy body when trying to force it into the stone coffin, and such an intolerable stench filled the church that the priests were forced to hurry the service to a close.61 Nor was even this the last outrage to be inflicted on the Conqueror's body. His son William caused a fine memorial to be erected by Otto the goldsmith, and this with an inscription by Thomas II, archbishop of York, was to survive undisturbed until 1522.62 In that year, however, the tomb was opened on instructions from Rome, and the body having been examined was reverently reinterred.63 But in 1562 a complete devastation took place at the hands of the Calvinists. The tomb was rifled, the monuments destroyed, and the remains, with the exception of one thigh bone, scattered and lost.64 The single remaining relic was, however, preserved, and in 1642 it was reburied under a new monument which about a century later was replaced by a more elaborate structure. But even this was not allowed to endure.65 It was demolished in the revolutionary riots of 1793, and today a simple stone slab with a nineteenth-century inscription records what was the burial place of William the Conqueror.
1 AS. Chron., ‘E’, s.a. 1085. Cnut IV became king of Denmark in 1080 in succession to his brother Harold ‘Hein’. He had taken part in the expeditions against England in 1069 and 1075.
2 AS. Chron., ‘E’, s.a. 1085, 1086.
3 Ibid., s.a. 1085.
4 It need hardly be said that no attempt is here made to review these theories in detail. The important recent works to which I have been particularly indebted are (in order of publication): Domesday Rebound (H.M. Stationery Office, 1954); R. Welldon Finn, The Domesday Inquest (1961); and V. H. Galbraith, The Making of Domesday Book(1961). The earlier erudition will best be found in J. R. Round, Feudal England (1895), and in F. W. Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897). These two great books, though savagely handled by Professor Galbraith, still retain much of their value, and of their power to inspire. Reference may also be made to Douglas, in History, vol. XXI(1936), pp. 249–257; in Domesday Monachorum (1944), pp. 16–30; and in E.H.D. vol. II, pp. 847–893. Bibliographies will be found at pp. 802–811 of the last-named work, in A. Ballard, The Domesday Inquest (ed. 1923), and in V. H. Galbraith, op. cit., pp. 231–233.
5 In addition to the passages quoted, see Flor. Worc. (vol. II, pp. 18, 19); Will. Malms., Gesta Regum, p. 317; and the Worcester Annalist printed by Liebermann(Anglo-Normannische Geschichtsquellen, p. 21). Other early references to the Domesday survey are given in E.H.D., vol. II, nos. 198–204.
6 AS. Chron., ‘E’, s.a. 1085.
7 Added by the author as a note to the Chronicle of Marianus Scotus. First printed by W. H. Stevenson, in Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. XXII (1907), p. 74.
8 The late Carl Stephenson (Medieval Institutions (ed. Bruce D. Lyon, 1954), p. 188) reconstructed these circuits as follows:
(1)$Kent, Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire.
(2)$Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devonshire, Cornwall.
(3)$Middlesex, Hertford, Buckingham, Cambridge, Bedford.
(4)$Oxford, Northampton, Leicester, Warwick.
(5)$Gloucester, Worcester, Hereford, Stafford, Shropshire, Cheshire.
(6)$Huntingdon, Derby, Nottingham, Rutland, York, Lincoln.
(7)$Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk.
The names of some of the Domesday commissioners are known. Chief of them would appear to have been Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances. For Worcestershire the commissioners would seem to have been Remigius, bishop of Lincoln, Walter Giffard, Henry of Ferrières, and Adam, son of Hubert of Ryes (cf. Galbraith, op. cit., pp. 8, 36).
9 E.H.D., vol. II, no. 215.
10 Edited by Abraham Farley, and printed in two folio volumes in 1783 by the Record Commission. Translations for various counties are included in the Victoria History of the Counties of England.
11 Printed by the Record Commission as a supplementary volume to their edition of Domesday Book (vol. III, 1816). The shires considered are Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset, Devonshire, Cornwall.
12 E.H.D., vol. II, no. 314; Victoria County History, Cambridgeshire, vol. I, pp. 400–437.
13 This, crudely stated, is the theory developed with a wealth of erudition by Round, op. cit., pp. 3–147.
14 V. H. Galbraith, op. cit. The full scope of this ‘hypothesis’ and its implications can only be appreciated by reference to the detailed evidence on which it is based.
15 Perhaps their chief function was in adjudicating on disputed claims.
16 These ‘books’ might thus perhaps be held to be based on circuits (2) and (7) as indicated above.
17 Round, loc. cit.
18 D.B., vol. II, fol. 450: the colophon to the ‘Little Domesday’.
19 Robert Losinga (see above, p. 349); the Worcester Annalist (Liebermann, op. cit., p. 21) refers to ‘multis cladibus’.
20 s.a. 1086.
21 Douglas, Essays – James Tait, pp. 47–57.
22 e.g. D.B., vol. I, fols. 207, 208, 375–378.
23 Op. cit., p. 215.
24 Cf. Douglas, in History, vol. XXI (1936), p. 255.
25 Stenton, in Eng. Hist. Rev., vol. XXXVII, p. 250.
26 Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, p. 610.
27 Galbraith, Studies in the Public Records, p. 90.
28 It is interesting to note that a Winchester annalist (Annales Monastici, vol. II, p. 34) alludes to the survey thus: ‘Edictum a rege exiit ut tota Anglia describeretur.’ This is clearly an echo of the Gospel for the First Mass of Christmas: ‘Exiit edictum a Caesare Augusto ut describeratur universus orbis.’
29 AS. Chron., ‘E’, s.a. 1085 (equals 1086).
30 The most important recent discussions are in Stenton, English Feudalism, pp. 111–113 and H. A. Cronne, in History, vol. XIX (1934), pp. 248–252.
31 Stubbs, Constitutional History, vol. I, p. 299.
32 Above, pp. 275, 280, 281.
33 Stenton, William the Conqueror, p. 364.
34 AS. Chron., ‘E’, loc. cit.
35 Gibbs, Early Charters of St Paul's, nos. 5, 12. Maurice became bishop of London in or about April 1086, and the mention in both documents of Osmund, bishop of Salisbury, perhaps suggests the occasion when these writs were issued.
36 These are given in facsimile as plates XXIV and XXV in Bishop and Chaplais, English Royal Writs to A.D. 1100. The editors show conclusively that both these writs were issued by the Conqueror. They place them in 1087. This is probably correct, but it may be remarked that both these writs are English in origin, and that one of them is in the hand of a known scribe in the English chancery. Does this suggest that the king was himself in England when they were given? If so, it might be necessary either to place them at the end of 1086, or, alternatively, to postulate a visit by the king to England in the spring of 1087. In the absence of any evidence to the contrary it is usually, and doubtless correctly, assumed that William crossed the Channel (to Normandy) for the last time about the end of 1086.
37 Le Cacheux, Histoire de Saint Amand, p. 252, no. 13.
38 Above, p. 234, 235.
39 Complete Peerage, vol. VII, p. 524; J. Depoin, Cart. de S. Martin de Pontoise, pp. 308–316.
40 Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 222.
41 AS. Chron., ‘E’, s.a. 1085 (equals 1086). Ord. Vit. (vol. III, p. 225) says that the expedition started in the last week of July.
42 Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 225.
43 Freeman, Normon Conquest, vol. IV, pp. 701–703.
44 Will. Malms., Gesta Regum pp. 336, 337; AS. Chron., loc. cit.; Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 226, 227.
45 Printed by J. Marx in his edition of Will. Jum. A translation is given in E.H.D., vol. II, no. 6.
46 Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 228–243.
47 Ordericus had, for instance, close connexions with the diocese of Lisieux, and Gilbert, who was bishop of Lisieux from 1077 to 1101, was in close attendance on the Conqueror during his last days.
48 Monk of Caen; Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 228.
49 Monk of Caen; Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 228, 245, 248, 251.
50 Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 242, 243.
51 Monk of Caen.
52 Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 244.
53 The sum given was £5,000. Perhaps this might be multiplied by seventy or eighty to give a modern valuation, but the reckoning is in no way precise.
54 Examples could be multiplied. The instances of fitz Osbern, Montgomery, Harcourt, and Montfort-sur-Risle come to mind.
55 Above, chap. 9.
56 Monk of Caen.
57 Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 248, 249.
58 The Monk of Caen gives 10 September, but 9 September is given by the AS. Chron. and by Ord. Vit. 9 September is certainly correct. The anniversary was celebrated at Jumièges on 9 September as is indicated by the necrology of that abbey (Rec. Hist. Franc., vol. XXIII, p. 421).
59 Monk of Caen; Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 251. All these came to the obsequies of this ‘renowned baron’ (famosi baronis). The phrase is strictly reminiscent of the ‘Song of Roland’.
60 Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 252, 253; Will. Malms., Gesta Regum, pp. 337, 338.
61 Ord. Vit., vol. III, pp. 254, 255. The repulsive story is only given by Ord. Vit., but it can hardly have been invented.
62 Monk of Caen; Ord. Vit., vol. III, p. 356. For Otto the Goldsmith and his possessions in England, see Douglas, Feudal Documents, no. 20, and D.B., vol. II, fols. 97b, 286b. Henry I of England also contributed to the monument (Will. Malms., Gesta Regum, p. 337).
63 C. Hippeau, L'abbaye de Saint-Étienne de Caen (1855), pp. 169, 170.
64 Ibid., p. 181.
65 Ibid., p. 354. Where is the thigh-bone now? Freeman (op. cit., vol. IV, p. 273) states that it was destroyed in 1793. But opinion in Caen today is that it is still in the grave.