32 THE END OF THE NORMAN January So much for the landed inheritance of Ranulph.^ There remained the valuable services and profits of the knights' fees which he had held outside the county palatine. Of the liabihties of these knights ' from England', as they were called, towards their Cheshire lord, we may learn a little from the great charter of liberties granted about 1216 by this Ranulph to his ' barons ', and, through them, to the knights and free men of his county palatine.^ The Cheshire men were (among many other interesting privileges not material to our subject) , for the great services they performed within the county, excused military duty to the earl beyond Lyme {eaira Limam) ^ save of their own free will and at his expense. The knights from England had to come to do their turn of watch and ward at Chester. WhUe they were there, and provided no attacks threatened the lands of the earl or the castle of Chester, the local knights could stay at home and sleep in peace, ready, however, to turn out when called upon. When the united military forces had ejected any intruders, doubtless usually from Wales, the Cheshire knights might retire home again, leaving the
- foreigners ' to work out their tour of duty. The peculiar
position of the county makes it likely that, for all the knights of the earls, military duty remained an actual feature of their tenure when elsewhere it had come to mean merely the provision of hired fighters or of the sinews of war. The allotment of these outside knights' fees is given on the Close Roll of 12 September 1233. The precise number of knights' fees given to each co-heir has not been worked out in detail. The record refers in some cases merely to ' the fees ' held by certain named persons, and it would require more investigation to secure an accurate statement of the number or a comparison of value. The earl of Chester's share was as follows : Yorkshire, ^ fee of Wm. de CantUupe ; Huntingdonshire, fees of Richard de Bainvill
- 1 have not attempted to trace these shares any further. The comitatua o
Huntingdon ia dealt with later, post, p. 47.
- This, the 'Magna carta' of Cheshire, was printed by Leycester (Onnerod,
i. 53) from ' a little parchment book in quarto ' among the duchy records at Gray's Inn, fo. 107. It was confirmed by Prince Edward on 27 August 1265 (Ormerod, loc. cU., p. 55), and inspected and confirmed with variations 30 March 1300 {Cal. o/ Pat. RoOs), 4 Edw. II {Cal. oj Cheshire Plea Rolls), 14 November 1389 (Cal. of Charter Bolls), and 3 July 1463 (Cal. of Cheshire Recog. Rolls). A text will appear in the Chartvlary of St. Werburgh'a Abbey, now being edited for the Chetham Soc. by Mr. James Tait.
- For this boundary of ancient Cheshire see Liber Luciani (Rec. Soc. for Lane, and
Chesh., voL Ixiv), p. 29. From the pleas of the barons of Halton (Ormerod, i. 705 n.) and Dunham (ibid. L 526) the boundaries of the earldom east and west seem to have been Lyme and Clwyd, beyond which miUtary service could not be claimed as aright. The expression infra divisas Ceslershiriae occurs, see Ormerod, i. 521. Sro also Tait, Medieval Manchester, p. 12.
