of castle-guard[1] Mr. Rye observes that I have 'kindly corresponded' with him on it, and, indeed, I have more than once spent much time on trying to explain it to him; but as he restricts what he terms his 'own independent researches' to 'Castle Guard service in Norfolk'—which, after all, is not England—he is, of course, 'not yet convinced' (p. 5).[2] Of the nature of these researches I need only say that he has discovered on the Pipe Rolls that 'in 1158 the Knights of the Bishops [sic] of Norwich and of the Abbot of St. Edmund [sic] were actually paid for their castle-guard services'.[3] This is so astounding a statement that we turn to his own extracts from the Pipe Rolls on p. 13, where we read:
1157 [sic]. Allowed for payments to the king's knights who held the castle of Norwich—£51. 12. 0. (Pipe Roll, 4 Hen. II, 126.) Similarly £161 8s. was allowed to the king's knights who held the castle of Framingham [sic].
The (printed) Pipe Roll (1158) shows (p. 126) that the latter sum should be £16 18s.—a very different figure. As for 'the bishops of Norwich and the abbot of St. Edmund', neither they nor their knights are here so much as mentioned; the alleged payment to them, 'in 1158', is but sheer invention on the part of Mr. Rye.[4]
Whether he is dealing with ancient or with modern names, Mr. Rye's utter carelessness is almost beyond belief. When Louis, son of King Philip Augustus, joined the English barons in 1216, Mr. Rye speaks of him as 'King Lewis';[5] in his chronological list of the 'Governors', &c., of Norwich Castle, he states[6] that in '1362—Sir John Howard had a grant of the Constabulary and keeping of the Castle on 3 February, 1 Edward IV', but, on the opposite page, that in '1464—Sir John Howard was constituted Constable'.[7] Mr. Freeman's critic is too negligent of a well-known historian of our own time to cite accurately even her name: in three successive paragraphs we read of 'Mr. F. Norgate', of 'F. Norgate', and of 'Miss
- ↑ This is dealt with in chapter ii (pp. 5–7) of his treatise.
- ↑ His theory is that because, in Norfolk, 'much the greater part of the lands which owed this service were the lands belonging to churches such as the Bishop of Norwich, the Abbot of Bury', &c., these services 'in early days were a substitution for the active military services expected from lay barons' (p. 5). This view is, obviously, due to mental confusion between non-combatant ecclesiastics and their militant knights. Mr. Rye, however, actually imputes this view to myself, citing my paper on 'The Oxford Debate on Foreign Service' (Feudal England, pp. 528–38), which is not even concerned with the service of 'castle guard'!
- ↑ p. 6.
- ↑ On the Pipe Roll of 1130 (31 Hen. I) Hamo de St. Clair accounts for the farm of Colchester, which was then £40 (Madox, Exchequer, 1711, p. 226, whence Morant duly quotes it in his History of Colchester). Mr. Bye makes it '£190 3s.' (p. 49 b)!
- ↑ pp. 20, 21, 25.
- ↑ p. 22.
- ↑ Mr. Rye is responsible for the italic type.
