The English Historical Review/Volume 37/The Sheriffs and the Administrative System of Henry I

by William Alfred Morris

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The Sheriffs and the Administrative System of Henry I

THE lay officials employed by William the Conqueror, whether in central government or in ruling the shires, were regularly of baronial status. These were not the only officials, for there was an important group of curial bishops, and a force of trained clerks was utilized in the work of the chancery, if not also in that of the treasury. But the dominant element in early Norman administration in England was baronial. The first apparent impulse in an opposite direction may be due to the feudal disorders of the reign of William Rufus. At any rate it is clear that this king appointed some special agents to carry into effect his novel measures and policies. By 1106, the date of the battle of Tinchebrai, the second generation of the feudal nobility in which the Conqueror placed dependence had in no small measure proved wanting. The barons who loyally supported Henry I in the early and troublous years of his reign seem to have enjoyed his undying favour. They remained a powerful influence in government. In numerous instances, however, their sons did not attain the same position. The new men, who aided the king at the crisis of the reign, and who sometimes acquired the confiscated lands of the rebels, henceforth became more and more prominent. Within twenty years a remarkable circle of these persons held the great offices of state and at the same time served as sheriffs, a combination of functions which had not been infrequent in the days of baronial control. The best illustration, therefore, of the change from the earlier to the later type of administrative staff is afforded by the personnel of the shrievalty in the reign of Henry Beauclerc.

Before Tinchebrai, as indeed in the Conqueror's time, one finds the names of obscure sheriffs;^[1] but well after 1100 the heads of a dozen shires were still either sheriffs of the Domesday period or their sons. William of Cahagnes was in office in the earliest years of the reign,^[2] Roger Bigod apparently until his death in 1107,^[3] Edward of Salisbury possibly until about the same date,^[4] Urse d'Abetot some years longer,^[5] and Aiulf the king's chamberlain until fairly late in the reign.^[6] Devon, formerly in the hands of William, son of Baldwin of Exeter, about 1107 was passing to his brother Richard fitz Baldwin.^[7] Haimo the dapifer and Robert,^[8] sons of Haimo the dapifer of the Conqueror, for fifteen years or more served as sheriffs of Kent. In the place of Robert of Stafford was his son Nicholas,^[9] and in that of Hugh de Port in Hampshire his son Henry.^[10] Ivo de Grantmesnil probably held his father's position in Leicestershire^[11] until in 1102 he suffered forfeiture for his rebellion. Finally, another hereditary shrievalty had towards the end of the late reign fallen to Walter of Gloucester, who was destined to hold it about twenty years longer and to become the king's constable.^[12]

Even before 1106 the king had counteracted the influence of baronial officials of doubtful or more than doubtful loyalty by the employment of new men. At least two sheriffs who owed all to the royal favour were a heritage from the reign of William Rufus, and both continued to rise. Osbert, formerly known as the priest, retained the shrievalty of Lincolnshire, and before 1107 was also entrusted with that of Yorkshire.^[13] His marked material prosperity^[14] and his tenure in both these positions until his death show that he enjoyed the king's especial favour. Hugh of Buckland, an important curial, justice, and sheriff of Berkshire and Bedfordshire before the close of the late reign,^[15] was much esteemed by the king, and before Tinchebrai held in addition to these counties at least four others, including the shrievalty of London and Middlesex.^[16] It is possible that the remaining two of the eight attributed to him a little later are to be counted also at this time, but there is no certainty as to their identity. Richard de Belmeis, who despite his earlier employment in the service of Robert of Belesme^[17] remained loyal to the king in 1102, was made administrator of the Shropshire palatinate after its forfeiture and placed in a position which is described both as that of steward^[18] and of sheriff. His elevation in 1108 to the see of London and his appearance among the king's great officials^[19] are further proofs of his standing at court.

The period between 1106 and 1110 was marked by the rise of several more sheriffs of the same class and by the displacement of some of the baronial sheriffs in shires which they had long held. Gilbert the knight, whose shrievalty in Surrey begins not later than 1107, in 1110 had also the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon.^[20] Hugh of Leicester, the seneschal of Matilda, daughter of Earl Simon of Senliz, in her widowhood, is represented as sheriff and also as benefactor of the church at Daventry in Northamptonshire.^[21] Hugh almost certainly held the shrievalty of Northamptonshire before the death of Earl Simon in 1109,^[22] and apparently held that of Warwickshire by about 1108.^[23] His surname, moreover, indicates that he was best known as sheriff of a third county, which he is known to have held at some time after 1109 and before 1120.^[24] Indeed he may have been made sheriff of Leicester, through the influence of Robert of Meulan, not long after the disgrace of the Grantmesnils. Other baronial shrievalties had vanished, one in Wiltshire by 1107,^[25] and another in Hampshire by 1110. At the latter date William of Pont de l'Arche, already prominent in the king's curial service, held both counties.^[26] Since Hugh of Buckland is mentioned in the tenth year of the reign as sheriff of his eight shires,^[27] it seems, clear, therefore, that no less than seventeen shires were at that date under the control of six of the king's trusted agents, who were all new men.

This high centralization, obviously the result of unusual stress, was probably soon relaxed somewhat, for in the lifetime of Hugh of Buckland another sheriff is mentioned in Hertfordshire.^[28] Certainly this was the case after his death and that of Osbert, both of which seem to have occurred in 1115.^[29] Fewer counties were now likely to be controlled by one person, and a succession of sheriffs of lesser rank becomes traceable in various localities. In Oxfordshire alone do sheriffs of some rank seem to supersede obscure persons. Here Thomas of St. John and Richard de Monte, who on occasion appear at the great curia, alternately and for at least one year jointly,^[30] held the office for approximately the whole of the decade following 1107. But the number of hereditary shrievalties held by great barons continued to decline despite the well-known succession in Worcestershire, first of the son, then of the son-in-law of Urse d'Abetot.^[31] Well before 1120 Kent had passed from the family of Haimo and was in the hands of William of Eynesford, distinctly a man of the new order.^[32] William Bigod, who succeeded his father as dapifer,^[33] was made sheriff of Suffolk and probably of Norfolk^[34] also in recognition of the services of the elder Bigod. Yet before William went down with the White Ship in 1120 both of these counties had been held by two other sheriffs of good family but of lesser rank.^[35] Nicholas of Stafford, although called by the title of sheriff in 1130,^[36] could not have held the ancestral office for seven years preceding that date.^[37] In all these, as in the two earlier cases, the son of a Domesday sheriff in his lifetime^[38] made way for a member of the new ruling circle. Moreover Aiulf the chamberlain was after a time superseded in Dorset and Somerset. By 1123, at the latest, only three sheriffs of the older type remained. Walter of Gloucester in Gloucestershire, Walter de Beauchamp in Worcestershire, and Richard fitz Baldwin in Devon each held the county ruled by two of his family before him. Richard, like his successor of 1128–30, appears also to have held Cornwall.^[39]

For almost two decades following 1110 the usual difficulties attending the study of the sheriff are very much increased. But despite the paucity of documents and the increasing use at the chancery of a form of writ which mentions sheriffs only by title and not by name, some rather striking data are attainable. If the long tenure and wide authority of Gilbert the knight are without parallel, it is more than a coincidence that William of Pont de l'Arche, who rose to high position through administrative service, governed in the fiscal year 1127–8 the same two shires^[40] which were in his charge seventeen years before. Moreover the Radulf vicecomes, witness of a confirmation made to Abingdon by the count of Meulan in the eighth year of the reign, seems to be Ralph Basset, a vicinus and especial friend of this monastery^[41] and a prominent official at the curia. It is quite possible that he is Ralph the sheriff of Warwickshire, predecessor of Geoffrey de Clinton, who at some time about 1125 witnessed a grant of the latter to Kenilworth, although in one of the charters of the same series the name of the sheriff of this county is Roger.^[42] Hugh of Leicester in 1129, as in earlier years, was in possession of the shires of Northampton and Leicester.^[43] He seems to be the same person as Hugh de Warelville who held these counties until Easter 1130.^[44] He had for a time acted as sheriff of Lincolnshire.^[45] Moreover in the Pipe Roll of 1130 Hugh de Warelville accounted for Sussex.^[46] There is no doubt that Robert fitz Walter, a tenant-in-chief, was sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk for nearly, if not quite, fifteen years before 1129.^[47] Odard of Bamborough, who held of the king a barony in his own county,^[48] occupied the same position in Northumberland for as long a period,^[49] probably retaining office until his death just before 1133. Warin, who may have been an exchequer official,^[50] succeeded Aiulf in Dorset before 1118 and in Somerset by 1123.^[51] During the fiscal year 1128–9 he held Wiltshire as a third county.^[52] William of Eynesford was employed for a long term which was divided between various counties.^[53] Aubrey de Vere, heir of a Domesday landholder and chamberlain, was sheriff of London and Middlesex probably before 1113^[54] and as late as 1120; also of Essex, presumably in the years just preceding 1128.^[55] He and Robert fitz Walter were probably the only sheriffs of this group who could make pretensions to being of good family. Maenfinin Brito, sheriff of the counties of Bedford and Buckingham from 1125 to 1129,^[56] was a rising person who had probably acquired considerable possessions. Even excluding the various sheriffs of London^[57] and of Lincolnshire, the list points to the dominance of the new class of local officials who often serve for long periods. Some rule wider territories than those ever entrusted to the feudatory sheriffs, and some are professional sheriffs.

The firm entrenchment of the new order in its position is further shown by the fact that officials of this type are occasionally succeeded by near relatives. Gilbert at his death in 1125 made way in all three of his shires, as Mr. Round has shown,^[58] for Fulk his nephew. Anschetill de Bulmer, Osbert's successor, originally reeve of the North Riding^[59] and later the possessor through royal grant of some of the lands of former rebels, retained the shrievalty until his death in 1129,^[60] when it passed to his son, Bertram, the sheriff of 1130. William of Buckland for a time had two of the counties which his father had ruled,^[61] and the services of his family still find recognition in 1130 in the fact that he farms Windsor.^[62] Richard de Heriz,^[63] after an interval of some years, was followed as sheriff of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire by his son Ivo de Heriz,^[64] in office 1127–9. Futhermore Serlo de Burg, who first appears in the royal service as custodian of the property of the archbishop of York,^[65] in later years as justice,^[66] the type of person much employed in administering King Henry's demesne, held these two shires^[67] prior to 1127 and seems to have purchased them, in or just before 1129, for his son Osbert Silvanus.^[68] The king, having assured himself that administrative power shall not be in the hands of the nobles who have defied authority, is content to let it rest with new families which have proved their capacity. The administrative motive is present in these days even when the personal or political seems to prevail.

This holds good even where hereditary or baronial shrievalties remain. Miles of Gloucester, sheriff as well as constable of the realm, after the decease of his father, Walter, from 1128 to 1130^[69] held Staffordshire^[70] along with the old family county. Moreover he and Payn fitz John, another border lord prominent at the curia, and sheriff of Shropshire and Herefordshire,^[71] were royal justices both in this region and in Pembrokeshire.^[72] The story told in the Gesta Stephani^[73] of their oppressive rule from the Severn to the sea shows that they were not lacking in energy.

The occasional letting of a county for a gersoma, the equivalent of the later fine pro comitatu habendo, is a further mark of the new administrative system. Men who held even the highest positions at court were in some instances permitted to purchase them. The gersoma represented the consideration for which a sheriff received his office with its opportunities for emolument. The arrangement was sometimes made for a period of five years, the original recorded instance of this being the shrievalty of Robert de Stanley in Staffordshire,^[74] which apparently covers the interval between 1123 and 1128. The payment made was heavy and varied in individual cases.^[75] The arrangement was discontinued when a sheriff was replaced, and he then paid according to the proportion of the specified time he had been in office.^[76] Fulk, the nephew of Gilbert, left office owing eighty pounds of gersoma,^[77] presumably the amount due for the four years he held his various counties. Whenever applied, this whole procedure was obviously in conflict both with indeterminate office-holding and with hereditary expectancy.

The evidence of curial control over the shrievalty in and just before 1130 is both varied and convincing. Further proofs which may be cited are the increased activity of itinerant justices and the obvious subordination of the sheriffs' fiscal activities to a strong exchequer. Sheriffs were beginning to come and go in comparatively rapid succession^[78] as in the time of Henry II. The last of the hereditary sheriffs in the south-west was superseded.^[79] Some were mulcted at the exchequer for negligence. One whose administrative incapacity is fairly well established by the Pipe Roll of 1130^[80] had lately been dismissed from office. Furthermore it is clear that special curial agents who had long held the position were being shifted from county to county^[81] very much as was done at some later periods of administrative reorganization.

A final and still more potent consideration appears in the personnel of the shrievalty for the fiscal year 1129–30. The king's household and other state officials now serve as sheriffs in larger number than in the two preceding reigns. The few feudal figures of importance who are still sheriffs are so employed. Such are the two hereditary sheriffs Miles the constable and Walter de Beauchamp, who sits in the seat of Urse d'Abetot, and is probably the king's dispenser besides.^[82] The second Robert d'Oilly, another constable, seems to be the Robert who for the past year has been sheriff of Oxfordshire.^[83] Of the three leading chamberlains who are sheriffs, only one, Aubrey de Vere, belongs to the hereditary class. The Norman, Geoffrey de Clinton, who has Warwickshire, has risen by long service at the curia,^[84] and has been treasurer^[85] as well as chamberlain, and also itinerant justice in many counties. William of Pont de l'Arche, lately married to the daughter of William Mauduit, is now paying a large sum for his ministerium curiae,^[86] and a little later will apparently be treasurer.^[87] William d'Aubigny the Breton, a staunch supporter of the king in 1106,^[88] now the husband of a daughter of Roger Bigod^[89] and sheriff of Rutlandshire, has been the king's justice in Lincolnshire.^[90] Bertram de Bulmer as well as Warin appears to have a post at the exchequer, and Osbert Silvanus has apparently sat at the king's pleas.^[91] Excluding from consideration the sheriffs of London, who this year number four, and the unknown sheriff of Somerset, a county apparently lost from the Pipe Roll of 1130, there are only seven sheriffs of English counties^[92] who seem to hold no position at the curia, and of these two are otherwise known to have had the king's special confidence.^[93]

This year shows the highest centralization in local government since the period following Tinchebrai. The situation was now very exceptional, inasmuch as two curials, Aubrey de Vere and Richard Basset, jointly held eleven shires. This famous arrangement is known to have been a sudden creation.^[94] It was formed in the main at Michaelmas 1129, when Robert fitz Walter and Maenfinin each surrendered his two shires, and Fulk the three which had been for some twenty years in his family.^[95] Probably at Easter it was completed by superseding Hugh of Warelville in the shires of Leicester and Northampton which he had recently obtained for a period of five years, and William of Eynesford in Essex and Hertfordshire under exactly the same circumstances.^[96] As Mr. Round has observed,^[97] Aubrey and Richard did not farm these counties according to customary usage, but were in the position of the later custodes. The king was thus free to dispose of all the profits arising within a considerable portion of the realm, and the fact affords the one plausible explanation^[98] of this very remarkable innovation. Moreover, in still other directions this is a year of innovation in exchequer accounting.^[99] It is certain that several of the retiring sheriffs were sadly in arrears and that the two special administrators placed in control of this strong fiscal unit were able to advance a large sum, a superplusagium, over and above their receipts, a part of which went to supply the king's needs in Normandy.^[100] Aubrey de Vere, the king's chamberlain,^[101] had long been a special agent of the administrative curia and had had much experience as a sheriff as well. The same may be said of Richard's father, Ralph Basset. All three held the highest judicial position^[102] and did wide itinerant service. Richard by marriage also^[103] was identified with the same circle at court. The placing of two officials of this type over so wide a region and the dismissal of tried and experienced sheriffs are sufficient indications that the step has administrative rather than political significance, and that the matter lay very close to important interests of the king.

The climax of the administrative revolution was apparently soon passed. How long this group of counties held together is unknown. But Aubrey de Vere before the next Michaelmas agreed to give a hundred marks to be permitted to withdraw from the shrievalties of Essex and Hertfordshire.^[104] Fulk seems again to have been sheriff of Huntingdonshire after 1133,^[105] and Robert fitz Walter, as Mr. Round has shown, was certainly sheriff in East Anglia until a decidedly later period.^[106] The new curial control over sheriffs, which largely repaired the chief defect in the Norman plan of local government in England, of course broke down in Stephen's reign. A few baronial heads of shires who survived from King Henry's time were destined sometimes to aid, more often to plague, his successor. The changes in the personnel of the office during the first third of the twelfth century none the less show convincingly a steady approach towards conditions of the Angevin period, and, as individual cases prove, follow a corresponding trend in the selection of the king's central administrative staff.^[107]

W. A. Morris.

1. These include 'P.', sheriff of York before 1104 (Monasticon, vi, part iii, 1178); Roger, sheriff of Huntingdon (Ramsey Chartul., Rolls Series, i. 238), who may well be the same as Roger, sheriff of Surrey (Farrer, Itinerary of Henry I (1920), no. 86); Helgot, sheriff of Nottingham before 1108 (Blythe Chart., Harl. MS. 3759, fo. 120); Alfred of Essex (Cartul. Monast. S. Iohannis de Colecestre, p. 27; Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 57–60); William of Oxford (ibid. ii. 84, 93), who was a tenant-in-chief (Farrer, no. 302); Foucher, sheriff of Shropshire (ibid. nos. 38, 51); Roger Picot of Northumberland (Monasticon, vi. 144), who stands in place of Robert Picot, sheriff in 1095 (Davis, Regesta, no. 51). Geoffrey, sheriff of Buckingham (Monasticon, i. 165), may belong to this period, but possibly only to the preceding reign. Richard son of Gotse, sheriff of Nottingham (Monasticon, vi, part iii, 1179), and apparently of Derby also (Farrer, no. 38), is a better-known figure.
2. Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 44, 123. The succeeding sheriff of Northamptonshire, Robert de Paville, is mentioned between 1104 and 1106 (ibid. no. 147).
3. A writ of the period 1102–6 (Ramsey Chartul., Rolls Series, i. 249) shows that he was sheriff of Suffolk; the form of address in various writs (Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 78, 79) indicates that in 1105 he also held Norfolk.
4. See ante, xxvi. 490. Active at the curia as early as 1170 (Selby Coucher Book, i. 11–12; Monasticon, iii. 499), and still earlier if we accept Hist. Monast. Selebiensis, p. 9. Cf. p. 164, n. 6, below.
5. Roger, his son and successor, was sheriff of Worcestershire at some time 1110–September 1113 (Farrer, no. 290 A).
6. Domesday sheriff of Dorset, holding Somerset also in the preceding reign (ante, xxxiii. 151, n. 48); sheriff of both counties in this reign before the death of Urse d'Abetot (Monasticon, i. 44, no. 67). Cf. p. 167, n. 2, below.
7. Certainly sheriff in 1107 (Montacute Chartul., Somerset Record Soc., p. 121), hardly in 1100 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 32).
8. Haimo appears as sheriff quite early in the reign (Monasticon, i. 164, no. 14; Farrer, no. 21), also within the period July 1107–July 1108 and in the period 1114–16 (Farrer, nos. 202, 359); Robert at some time within the period 1103–9 (Round, Calendar of Docs. in France, no. 1377).
9. Sheriff in the preceding reign (Davis, no. 456), mentioned as in office in a document possibly as late as 1117 (Monasticon, vi, part ii, 1043, no. 7).
10. Davis, nos. 377, 379; Round, Calendar, no. 154; Farrer, no. 37. Cf. p. 165, below.
11. Bateson, Leicester Records, p. xiii; Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Prevost, iv. 169: 'municeps erat et vicecomes et firmarius regis.'
12. 1 Mentioned as sheriff in this period (Farrer, nos. 277, 290 A; Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 105) and as constable in 1115 (Farrer, no. 361).
13. Selby Coucher Book, i. 27–8.
14. For his grant to Selby Abbey see Selby Coucher Book, i. 6–7; Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, i. 355. He was sometimes a witness to the king's writs.
15. Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 43; Davis, no. 395.
16. Hertfordshire in 1106 or 1107 (Liber Eliensis, p. 298); Essex at Christmas, 1100 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 32; cf. Monasticon, i. 164, no. 15, and vi. 105); Buckinghamshire before 1107 (Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 106–7; cf. 98, 99), certainly by 1104; London and Middlesex before the summer of 1107 (ibid. ii. 56), possibly as early as 1103 (Round, no. 1377), clearly before William of Mortain suffered forfeiture after Tinchebrai (St. Albans Chartulary, Cotton MS., Otho D. iii, fo. 73).
17. Annales Monastici, Rolls Series, ii. 43.
18. Brut y Tywysogion, anno 1106; Ordericus Vitalis, ed. Prevost, iv. 275. According to Eyton, Antiquities of Shropshire, ii. 193, he was the successor of Rayner, the Domesday sheriff. It is probable, then, that Foucher, the sheriff of 1102, was his subordinate, and indeed both sheriffs are named in Monasticon, vi, part ii, 1043. Farrer, Itinerary, no. 437, possibly shows Bishop Richard in control as late as 1121. Owen and Blakeway, Hist. of Shrewsbury, i. 73, n. 2, make Payn fitz John his successor. Fulco is named as sheriff in the period 1120–2 (Farrer, Lancashire Pipe Rolls, p. 272).
19. As one of the judges who sat at the treasury at Winchester (Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 116). He had been reeve of Chichester in 1107 (Farrer, Itinerary no. 106).
20. Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 252, 267; Round, Commune of London, pp. 121–3. Sheriff of Surrey before the death of Roger Bigod (Robinson, Gilbert Crispin, pp. 141–2; Westminster Chartul., Cotton MS., Faustina A. iii, fo. 67).
21. Monasticon, v. 178–9; cf. Farrer, Itinerary, no. 311.
22. Monasticon, vi, part iii, 1273, no. 33; cf. Farrer, Itinerary, no. 219.
23. He seems to be the 'H. sheriff of Warwick' of Monasticon, vi, part ii, 1043, no. 4. His son Ivo in 1130 held land of the earl of Warwick (Pipe Roll, 1130, p. 108) in Warwickshire.
24. After the death of Earl Simon and while Geoffrey Ridel was living: Chartul. of St. Andrews, Northampton, Cotton MS., Vespasian E. xvii. fo. 17 d.
25. Walter Hosate by this date (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 173) holds the old shrievalty of Edward of Salisbury.
26. Ante, xxxv. 392, no. 25. He was employed upon the king's special business in Hampshire by 1106, possibly by 1103 (ibid. p. 391, nos. 21, 23).
27. Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 117.
28. Rannulf, Matthew Paris, vi. 36; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 361.
29. Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, ii. 305–6; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 361; Robinson, Gilbert Crispin, p. 138.
30. Thomas was sheriff first. As to his possessions in England and Normandy, see Pipe Roll, p. 3, and Round, Calendar, no. 724. The joint shrievalty was in the eleventh year of the reign (Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 119). Richard was sheriff for several years after this (ibid. pp. 89, 120), then apparently Thomas again (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 316).
31. See Dict. of Nat. Biog., s.n. 'Urse d'Abetot'. Walter de Beauchamp, the successor of Urse's banished son Roger, was placed in possession of the lands of the latter possibly as early as 1114 (Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 28024, fo. 149; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 335), clearly by 1116 (ibid. no. 319).
32. Sheriff of London at some time during the reign (Chron. Ramsey Abbey, Rolls Series, p. 249); mentioned as sheriff of Kent in a writ possibly as early as 1114 (Elmham Hist. Monast. Sti. Augustini, Rolls Series, pp. 365–6), and according to Farrer's chronology (Itinerary, nos. 385, 386, 554) sheriff both in 1118 and 1127.
33. Monasticon, v. 148.
34. Ramsey Chartul., Rolls Series, i. 245, 249.
35. Ralph de Beaufeu preceded Robert fitz Walter (Ramsey Chron., p. 267), whose shrievalty may date as early as 1114 (Chartul. of St. Benet's Holme, Cotton MS., Galba E. ii, fo. 31).
36. Pipe Roll, p. 82.
37. Below, p. 168.
38. Haimo the dapifer was only recently deceased in 1130 (Pipe Roll, pp. 64, 66) and his brother Robert was still living (pp. 95, 97). Walter of Salisbury, son of Edward, is mentioned at that date, and Henry de Port was a royal justice holding pleas at Dover (Pipe Roll, p. 65).
39. 'H. rex Angliae Willelmo episcopo Exoniae et Ricardo filio Bald' vicecomiti et omnibus fidelibus suis de Devescira et Cornwall': Inspeximus of 22 Edward I in Cotton MS. xvii. 7, part ii (before 1118). Mr. Round has shown that just prior to 1130 Richard acted as an itinerant justice (ante. xiv. 420–2).
40. In 1130 (Pipe Roll, p. 36) he still appears as sheriff of Hampshire, accounting for the old farm and for the auxilium civitatis of the third year before (p. 40; cf. Farrer, Itinerary, no. 551). The princely sums still due to the king in Wiltshire identify him as William the predecessor (Pipe Roll, p. 16) of Warin in that shrievalty (Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 350, 418), and link the earlier and later periods of his tenure there.
41. Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 103; cf. pp. 105, 170, 188. He was in King Henry's service before 1103 (ibid.).
42. Monasticon, vi. 221; Collections for a Hist. of Staffordshire (William Salt Arch. Soc.), ii. 195.
43. Pipe Roll, p. 81.
44. Ibid., p. 85.
45. Ante, xxiii. 725, no. 2; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 464; Collections for a Hist. of Staffordshire, ii. 203. In 1130 Hugh paid a sum which he still owed (Pipe Roll, p. 81) pro separatione comitatus Lincolniae.
46. The sheriff of this county at a time prior to December 1125 was William fitz Ang': Reg. de Bello (Exch. Misc. Books, Augmentation Office, no. 56, fo. 65 a).
47. Sheriff in the period 1114–16 (Chron. Ramsey Abbey, p. 267); in office until Michaelmas 1129 (Pipe Roll, p. 90); mentioned at many intermediate points.
48. Round, Ancient Charters, Pipe Roll Soc. Publications, x. 33.
49. Sheriff in 1115 or 1116 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 346) and also appearing in the Pipe Roll of 1130.
50. See ibid. pp. 16, 23 for the record of his being pardoned his danegeld.
51. Brit. Mus. Additional Charter 24979, part iv; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 487.
52. Pipe Roll, p. 12. He also accounted for the new farm of Wiltshire in 1129–30, but it is uncertain if he now held Somerset.
53. London (Chron. Ramsey Abbey, p. 249), Kent (above, p. 165, n. 3), and 1128–30, Essex (Pipe Roll, p. 52). But there was a William de Eynesford senex (ibid. p. 65).
54. Monasticon, vi. 155; Fairer, Itinerary, no. 470.
55. Brit. Mus. Add. MS. 14847, fo. 39; Add. Charter 28313; Farrer, Itinerary, no. 575.
56. Mr. Round shows (ante, vi. 438) that in 1166 H. fitz Maenfilin, presumably his son, 'held fifteen knights' fees. His predecessor in both counties was Richard of Winchester (Pipe Roll, p. 100).
57. For the list see Round, Commune of London, pp. 121–3; Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 267–8. See also supra. For the sheriffs of Lincolnshire, see ante, xxx. 280–1.
58. Commune of London, pp. 121–2.
59. Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, ii, introd., p. vi.
60. Ante, xxx. 285.
61. Berkshire in 1119 (Chron. Monast. de Abingdon, ii. 160), and apparently both just before and after that year; also Hertfordshire, on account of which shire in 1130 he still owed £29 pro defectu covering a period of a half-year (Pipe Roll, p. 127).
62. Ibid. p. 126.
63. Richard son of Gotse, whom he succeeded before March 1114 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 290), seems to have held both counties.
64. Superseded by 1130 (Pipe Roll, pp. 6, 7). See Farrer, Itinerary, no. 610.
65. Pipe Roll, p. 31. Presumably in the period 1114–19.
66. Ibid. p. 35. Osbert his nephew sat with him.
67. Ibid. p. 31. Cf. Monasticon, vi, partiii, 1180.
68. He owes in 1130 'xx Marcas argenti pro ministerio Osberti filii sui' (Pipe Roll, p. 31). Osbert also held a knight's fee of the king (ibid. p. 9). He owed only a half-year's new ferm at Michaelmas 1130 (ibid. p. 7).
69. Farrer (Itinerary, no. 578) dates between 1127 and 1129 the writ confirming him in his father's lands. The Pipe Roll of 1130 indicates that he had been sheriff two years.
70. Ibid. Apparently for two years preceding Michaelmas, 1130.
71. Farrer, Itinerary, nos. 547, 690; Gesta Stephani (Rolls Series), p. 16; Owen and Blakeway, History of Shrewsbury, i. 73, n. 2.
72. Pipe Roll, pp. 74, 78, 136; Miles also in Hants (p. 38).
73. p. 16.
74. Pipe Roll, p. 73.
75. For Oxfordshire in 1130, 400 marks, term unspecified (ibid. p. 2); for London, 120 marks for the year (ibid. p. 144).
76. William de Eynesford for holding the counties of Essex and Herts a year gave 20 marks, a fifth of the sum which had been specified for a quinquennial period (ibid. pp. 52–3); Hugh de Warelville 20 marks for holding Leicestershire and Northamptonshire a half-year of the five for which he was to pay 200 marks (ibid, p. 85).
77. Ibid. p. 44.
78. Apart from Lincolnshire and London and Middlesex, the shrievalty of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire now exemplifies this tendency. In Berkshire Anselm vicomte of Rouen in office 1127–9 succeeded Baldwin fitz Clare (Pipe Boll, pp. 122, 124). In Kent Ansfrid, probably the former dapifer of the archbishop of Canterbury (Rochester Chart., Dom. Ax., p. 102), could have held office but one or two years preceding Ruallo, sheriff 1120–3.
79. Richard fitz Baldwin served apparently in 1126 or 1127 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 532). For 1128–30 Geoffrey de Furnell held both Devon and Cornwall.
80. Restold, sheriff of Oxfordshire (Pipe Roll, p. 2).
81. William of Pont de l'Arche from Wiltshire (above, p. 166) to Berkshire, which he holds with Hampshire, 1129–30; William de Eynesford from Kent to Essex (above, p. 167, n. 4); Aubrey de Vere still earlier from London to Essex (above, p. 167); Hugh of Warelville in 1130 holds Sussex after giving up various other counties.
82. This office after his decease in 1133 was held along with his lands by his son William (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 705; cf. no. 497).
83. The sheriff of 1130 owes 26 gold marks 'de debito patris sui pro pecunia Widonis de Oilly' (Pipe Roll, pp. 1–2). Robert d'Oilly is represented (Dict, of Nat. Biog., s.n. 'Robert d'Oilgi') as 'civitatis Oxnefordiae sub rege preceptor', and he and his wife Edith, in legend at least, as resident in the castle here (Monasticon, vi. 251) when they founded the abbey of Osney. He was the founder of the church of St. George within the castle of Oxford (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 603). I believe that he first links this shrievalty with the custodianship of the castle which had still earlier been in his family.
84. For his appearance at the curia about 1110 see Ramsey Chartul. i. 241–2; ii. 83. Mr. Round (The Ancestor, xi. 156-7) traces his origin to the neighbourhood of St. Lô, where he had a castle.
85. Monasticon, vi. 220, 221.
86. Pipe Roll, p. 37.
87. So accepted by the editors of the Oxford edition of the Dialogue (pp. 20–1), and apparently by Mr. Round (ante, xiv. 423).
88. Dict. of Nat. Biog., s.n. 'Albini, William de'.
89. Red Book of the Exchequer, i. 397; Farrer, Early Yorkshire Charters, i. 461. As to his shrievalty, see Pipe Roll, pp. 133, 134.
90. Ibid. p. 115.
91. Ibid. p. 35.
92. Odard in Northumberland; Hugh fitz Baldric, Northamptonshire; Geoffrey de Furnell, Cornwall and Devon; Ruallo de Valognes, Kent; Hildret, Carlisle; Reiner of Bath, Lincolnshire; and a Vernon in Westmorland.
93. Odard and Reiner, the latter classed by Ordericus along with Ralph Basset and Hugh of Buckland among the persons raised by the king from the dust.
94. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 298.
95. Pipe Roll, 1130, pp. 44, 90, 100.
96. Ibid. pp. 53, 85. Maenfinin had held his shires for four years of what was probably a longer term (Pipe Roll, p. 100). Fulk had probably served but part of a five-year term.
97. Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 297–8.
98. The accusation of treason brought against Geoffrey de Clinton at the Easter court, 1130 (Henry of Huntingdon, Rolls Series, p. 252), came rather too late to give the explanation. Moreover, there is no intimation that Geoffrey's associates, either sheriffs or treasury officials, were involved. At the following Michaelmas he was still sheriff. William of Pont de l'Arche was in custody of land which he had held in Oxfordshire and Richard Basset of his land in Leicestershire (Pipe Roll, pp. 6, 81).
99. The blanched farms of the previous year in the eleven counties give way to farms paid by weight as one might expect. But the same change occurs also in the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Kent, Warwickshire, and Lincolnshire, and for half of the year in those of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire.
100. Six hundred out of a thousand marks (Pipe Roll, p. 63).
101. He was probably not great chamberlain until 1133 (Farrer, Itinerary, no. 698). Concerning him and his family, see Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, pp. 388–96.
102. Aubrey is designated 'iustitiarius totius Angliae' (Round, Geoffrey de Mandeville, p. 80), a title also given the two Bassets by Henry of Huntingdon (Rolls Series, p. 318; cf. Abingdon Chron. ii. 170).
103. With the daughter of Geoffrey Ridel (Sloane MS., xxxi. 4 (47)), another justiciary of all England.
104. Pipe Roll, p. 53.
105. Ramsey Chartul., Rolls Series, i. 152; cf. iii. 176.
106. Ante, xxxv. 483–6.
107. Through the kindness of Dr. Curtis H. Walker, the writer, after this article was written, was enabled to read in proof the article 'Sheriffs in the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I' (ante, xxxvii. 67). Dr. Walker's chronology of the shrievalties was in several instances more exact than that of the writer, and acknowledgement of the debt is gratefully made.