page 37
Notes
1. Ralf FitzGilbert founded the Augustinian priory of Markby (Lincs.) and he was also a
benefactor of the Cistercian house of Kirkstead as well as the
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Cistercian nuns of Stixwould priory.
He was an undertenant of the Archbishop of York. See Ian Short,"Gaimar's Epilogue and
Geoffrey of Monmouth's Liber vetustissimus," Speculum 69 (1994), 335-6.
According to Alexander Bell ("Introduction," L'Estoire des Engleis, Anglo-Norman Text
Society, Nos. 14-16 [Oxford, 1901], pp. ix-x), Constance may have been a member of the De
Venuz family of Hampshire. Judith Weiss thinks that the forceful character of Argentille may owe
something to Constance, who was "no passive and powerless cipher but a respected and
influential woman." See Weiss, "The Power and Weakness of Women in Anglo-Norman
Romance," Women and Literature in Britain, 1150-1500, ed. Carol Meale (Cambridge,
1993), p. 19.
2. M. Dominica Legge, Anglo-Norman Literature and Its Background (Oxford,
1963), p. 28.
3. See Bell, "Introduction," L'Estoire des Engleis, p. ix.
4. This work has not survived, but it was most likely a work in French. See Ian Short,
"Gaimar's Epilogue," p. 326.
5. According to Ian Short, the sum would amount to something like $4000.00 today. In
the 1180's Abbot Samson of Bury recalled his student days when all he needed was five or six
marks a year to keep him at university. See "Gaimar's Epilogue," p. 342, n. 85.
6. In his edition of Gaimar's work, Bell argues that Gaimar began the work in Hampshire,
before the marriage of Constance to Ralf FitzGilbert ("Introduction," L'Estoire des
Engleis, p. x).
7. See D. R. Howlett, The English Origins of Old French Literature (Dublin,
1996), pp. 19-20.
8. For example, Osbert of Clare, Prior at Westminster under the abbacy of Gervase of
Blois, helped to defend the independence of Westminster Abbey from the See of London by
forging charters supposedly issued by the chancery of Edward the Confessor and by composing a
Vita Beati Eadwardi which prominently featured a legend according to which Westminster
had first been consecrated by St. Peter himself, in the days when Mellitis was Bishop of London.
See Kathryn Young Wallace, "Introduction," Matthew Paris, La Estoire de Seint Aedward le
Rei, Anglo-Norman Text Society, No. 41 (London, 1983), pp. x-xii. In the same way, the
independence of Bury St. Edmund from the grasp of the Bishop of Lincoln was also defended by
updating the saint's legend, including the production of a collection of miracula
commissioned by Abbot Baldwin which showed the saint's punitive assaults on a variety of
invaders and pretenders, including Bishop Arfast. The church at Ely also attempted to defend its
lands from Norman depredations by promoting the cult of their patron saint, Etheldreda, who
appeared as a vindicator of the property rights of the monks of Ely by punishing with death the
agent of a Norman sheriff who attempted to expropriate their lands and, in the hands of a
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later
historian, as the defender of the monks against Bishop Nigel (1131-69) and his associates. See
Susan Ridyard, "Condigna Veneratio: Post-Conquest Attitudes to the Saints of the
Anglo-Saxons," Anglo-Norman Studies IX, ed. R. Allen Brown (Wolfeboro, N.H., 1987),
pp. 180-206. Likewise the abbot of Battle appealed to Henry II to enforce the supposed
indemnities and exemptions of Battle Abbey against the pretenses of Hilary, Bishop of Chichester,
by presenting forged royal charters in the king's court. See Marjorie Chibnall, Anglo-Norman
England: 1066-1166 (1986; rpt. Cambridge, 1995), p. 203.
9. Henry I's Charter required that the heir of any baron or earl who had held land under
Henry make a payment to the king to relieve his inheritance; it required the king's permission in
the case of marriages of the daughters, sisters, nieces, or other female relatives of any of Henry's
vassals; it gave the king marriage rights over heiresses and widows and made him guardian over
minor children. See Richard of Hexham's chronicle, The Acts of King Stephen and the Battle
of the Standard, 1135 to 1139, trans. Joseph Stephenson in Contemporary Chronicles of
the Middle Ages (Felinfach, Dyfed, 1988), pp. 55-56.
10. For example Henry I intervened in a dispute between Robert Mauduit and Abbot
Faritius to order Robert to do service for the land that he held as his ancestors had before him, or
else the abbot would be free to do as he wished with his lands that were held by Robert. See John
Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship in Anglo-Norman England (Oxford, 1994), p. 38.
Likewise vassals also appealed directly to the king for redress of grievances against their lords, as
did Guy Malfeth for fair treatment in his lord's court, William, son of Alured, for his lord to keep
the agreement he had made with his men, and Robert of Chelsing that his lord might not bestow
his service without his consent. See Judith A. Green, The Government of England under
Henry I (Cambridge, 1986), p. 104.
11. P. R. Hyams has convincingly argued that the concept of a common law did exist,
and
warranty language is one way of studying the concept of tenants' rights. See "Warranty and Good
Lordship in Twelfth Century England," Law and History Review 5 (1987), 437-503. See
also John Hudson, Land, Law, and Lordship.
12. Mutua quidem debet esse dominii et homagii fidelitatis connexio, ita quot
quantum
homo debet domino ex homagio, tantum illi debet dominus ex dominio praeter reverentiam
(Glanville, ix, 4).
13. All quotations from Gaimar's Estoire des Engleis are from Bell's edition, cited
by line number; the translations are my own.
14. See S. F. C. Milsom, Historical Foundations of the Common Law, 2nd ed.
(Toronto, 1981), p. 406.
15. See Alexander Bell, "Buern Bucecarle in Gaimar," Modern Language Review
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27 (1932), 168.
16. See Frederic William Maitland, Domesday Book and Beyond (1897; rpt.
Cambridge, 1987), pp. 69-70 for a classic description of the ideal of mutual protection contained
in the oath of homage and of its advantages for a vassal. See Hudson, Land, Law, and
Lordship for a bibliography of more recent considerations of the ideal that a man should love
whom his lord loves and hate whom he hates.
17. James A. Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society in Medieval Europe
(Chicago, 1987), p. 207.
18. The Leges Henrici state that "anyone who commits theft, is a traitor to his
lord, flees from him in an encounter with the enemy or on the battlefield, or is convicted of having
committed felony, is to forfeit his land." See also Milsom, Historical Foundations of the
Common Law, p. 406, where he speculates that Glanville considered theft to be a felony.
19. Rape in theory was punishable by death, but more often the punishment was a fine.
See Brundage, Law, Sex, and Christian Society, pp. 249 and 250. Likewise Brundage
points out that Gratian considered rape as a form of theft and a violation of the rights of the
woman's family.
20. Judith A. Green, The Government of England Under Henry I (Cambridge,
1986), p. 202.