SUCCESSION TO FIEFS IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND

SUCCESSION TO FIEFS IN EARLY
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
PROFESSOR HOLT'S ARTICLE ON "POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY
I
Professor Holt maintains that "the inheritance of feudal property
was part of the natural order of things in Norman England",1 but his
arguments in support of this position are at best inconclusive. He
has shown that phrases like "by hereditary right [jure hereditario)"',
"by hereditary succession (per hereditariam successionem)", "in fee to
him and his heirs (in feodo sibi et heredibus suis)"2 and "in fee and
inheritance (in feodo et hereditate)"3 sometimes occur in AngloNorman charters of enfeoffment. But he has not explained precisely
what these phrases meant in this period, or proved that feoffments
made under these terms, like thirteenth-century gifts to a man and his
heirs, gave the feoffee the entire estate and nothing to his heirs.4 In
• J. C. Holt, "Politics and Property in Early Medieval England", Past and
Present,
no. 57 (Nov. 1972), pp. 3-52.
1
"Politics and Property", p. 9. Professor Holt also suggests that a tenant's
status may have determined the strength of his hereditary title (pp. 5-6, 32-7);
but this qualification is a bit unclear, since he alludes sometimes to "social"
status (p. 6, n. 21 and p. 33) and at other times to "tenurial" status (pp. 6, 21
and 33) without indicating how closely "social" and "tenurial" status coincided
in 1Anglo-Norman England.
Ibid., p. 37.
'4 Ibid., p. 39.
See below, pp. 122-5.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
Medieval England"* raises many important questions about the
history of English feudalism during the century following the Norman
Conquest and throws light on all of them; but bis attempt to explain
the Anglo-Norman "tenurial crisis" mainly in political terms is not
entirely convincing. He has not proved that Anglo-Norman fiefs
were heritable, or that Anglo-Norman law provided the holders of
fiefs with adequate security of title. He has also made what may be
a somewhat anachronistic distinction between judgements made in
accordance with "law" and judgements based upon "political"
considerations. His article may therefore underestimate the extent to
which intrinsic features of the law contributed to the Anglo-Norman
tenurial crisis.
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
119
1
"Politics and Property", p. 41 and notes 187 and 188.
• Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorwn 1066-1154, vol. ii, Regesta Henrici
Primi 1100-1135, ed. Charles Johnson and H. A. Cronne (Oxford, 1966),
no. 911 at p. 322.
' "Politics and Property", p. 41 and note 187.
• Regesta, vol. ii, no. 1256 at p. 340.
' An Abstract of the Contents of the Burton Chartulary, ed. G. Wrottesley,
(Collections for a History of Staffordshire, Wm. Salt Arch. S o c , vol. v,
part 1, 1884), pp. 31-8 passim; The Register of the Abbey of St. Benet of Holme,
ed. J. R. West, 2 vols. (Norfolk Rec. S o c , ii-iii, 1932), i, nos. 121, 124, 126,
132-4; Chronicon Abbatiae Rameseiensis, ed. W. Dunn Macray (Rolls Series,
1886), nos. 242, 248, 254-5, 3°6.
10
Burton Chartulary, p. 31. For other grants to a man and his heir in fee
and inheritance or in fee, see p. 33 ("the abbot granted to him, that is to Ralph
himself and his heir in fee [infeudum] . . ."),p. 34 ("The abbot granted to Edda
himself and his heir in fee and inheritance [in feudum et hereditatem] . . .").
See also Chronicon .. . Rameseiensis, no. 248 ("Know that I have granted. . .
to this William . . . that land in fee [in feodum] to him and his heir . . . " ) , and
nos. 255 and 306; and Register. . . of St. Benet, no. 126 (". . . to him and his
heir in fee and inheritance [in feudo et hereditate] . .."), no. 133 (".. . in fee
and inheritance [in feudo et hereditate] to him and his heir. . ."). See also
Charters of the Earldom of Hereford, 1095-1201, ed. David Walker (Camden
Misc., xxii, Camden 4th ser., i, 1964), no. 7: "And I have granted to him the
land in which he resides in fee and inheritance (in feudo et hereditate) to him
and his heir and by that service . . . " . It should be noted, however, that the
grant to Roger de Girros and his heir by the monks of St. Benet was to have
been held "by hereditary right in perpetuity (hereditario iure in perpetua)":
Register .. . of St. Benet, no. 131.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
addition, his remarks about the feoffinents made by the AngloNorman kings are not clearly supported by two of the charters that he
cites. Henry I's gift to the butler, William de Albini, did not create
"hereditary tenure de novd", as Professor Holt claims.5 The charter
that records it concludes with the phrase "as King William my
brother gave and granted to him". 8 Professor Holt may also be
mistaken in stating that Henry I's gift to Roger nephew of Hubert
created hereditary tenure at all.' The charter recording this gift
reads: "Know that I have given and granted to Roger nephew of
Hubert the land of 'Chelca'... at farm to him and his heir in fee and
inheritance (infeodo et hereditate) for his service".8
Grants to a man and his heir do not seem to have been uncommon
in the earlier twelfth century. The Burton and Ramsey cartularies
and the Register of St. Benet of Holme all contain a number of them.0
The earliest grant in fee recorded in the Burton cartulary, for example,
is one made to a man and his heir in fee and inheritance: "I G[eoffrey]
abbot and the monks of Burton with me grant to this Orm and his heir
in fee and inheritance (infeudum et hereditatem) 6 bovates in Stretton
. . .". 10 The monks later granted (? the same) six bovates to Orm's
son Ralph and Ralph's heir in fee farm in fee and inheritance:
120
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 65
11
Burton Chartulary, p. 31. For grants to a man and his heir in fee farm
(sometimes with additional phrases), see ibid., p. 31 ( " . . . The abbot granted
hi i f f
[i f f i ]
h i
Willi
h i l f
d hi h i [i
d i ]
g
,
g
3$
y f
Agrarian Conditions (Oxford, 1959), p. 173 and p. 174, n. 1; J. H. Round,
"The Burton Abbey Surveys", Eng. Hist. Rev., xx (1905), p. 279.
18
"Politics and Property", p. 37.
"Ibid., p. 7.
"Ibid., p. 40.
"Ibid, p. 8.
17
Ibid., p. 9.
18
Leges Henrici Primi, ed. and trans. L. J. Downer (Oxford, 1972), cap. 70,
sects. 18, 20, 20b (pp. 224-5), and cap. 88, sects. 13, 13a, 14a (pp. 274-7).
" Sir Frederick Pollock and Frederic William Maitland, The History of
English Law before the Time of Edward I, 2nd edn., 2 vols. (Cambridge, 1923),
reissued with a new introduction and select bibliography by S. F. C. Milsom
(Cambridge, 1968), ii, p. 267.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
" . . . we grant to this Ralph the son that land in Stretton, that is 6
bovates in fee farm (in feufirmum)....
We grant that is to say to
him and his heir in fee and inheritance (infeudum et hereditatem) that
land in Stretton that his father Orm held . . .".1X Reginald Lennard
maintained that grants to a man and his heir may have created "fully
hereditary tenure", particularly if they included phrases like in feodo
et hereditate; but as he noted, Round regarded them as leases for two
lives, even when they included such additional phrases. 12 If Round's
interpretation is correct, then Professor Holt may be mistaken in
suggesting that no charter which includes phrases like in feodo et
hereditate leaves "the issue of inheritance in any doubt" 13 and in contending that "a non-hereditary fief was a contradiction in terms". 14
Professor Holt claims that the feudal aristocracy of Normandy (and
presumably of Norman England as well) had "a securely embedded
concept of what inheritance was", 16 and that "inheritance was the
received legal doctrine of Norman England".16 He has not
explained, however, what this Anglo-Norman concept of inheritance
was, or elucidated the legal reasoning that lies behind the usage of
words like hereditas and heres in Anglo-Norman texts. Although
Henry I's charter of liberties may be consistent with "the whole
structure of inheritance as it is later revealed in the records of the
twelfth century", it does not necessarily assume it, as Professor Holt
claims.17 The author of the Leges Henrici Primi refers to "inheritances (hereditates)" and can thus be said to accept the heritability of
real property as "an established principle"; 18 but as Maitland
pointed out,19 his treatment of the law of inheritance is quite peculiar.
It neither assumes, nor is consistent with, later inheritance law. He
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
121
10
Leges Henrici Primi, cap. 70, sect. 20 (pp. 224-5).
Ibid., cap. 88, sect. 15 (pp. 274-7).
The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England commonly
called Glanvill, ed. and trans. G. D . G. Hall (London and Edinburgh, 1965),
book VII, sea. 1 (p. 71).
«• Ibid., book VII, sect. I (p. 73).
14
For cases of men appointing heirs, see Geoffrey de Mandeville's foundation
charter to Hurley Priory (quoted by Professor Holt in "Politics and Property",
p. 16). See also Chronicon . . . Rameseiensis, no. 245; and Charters of the Honour
of Mowbray 1107-1191, ed. D . E. Greenway (Records of Social and Economic
History, new ser., i, 1972), no. 3.
" "Politics and Property", p. 40.
"Ibid.
" Ibid., pp. 40-2.
" Ibid., p. 8.
»Ibid., p. 5.
21
11
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
states that a man can succeed to his deceased son's "inheritance" 80
and can make an heir, 21 whereas Glanvill later maintains that "only
God, not man, can make an heir", 22 and that land "never normally
ascends". 23 These passages from the Leges (and some charter
evidence as well24) suggest that the Anglo-Norman concept of
inheritance may have differed significantly from that of later periods.
Since Professor Holt wishes to show that Anglo-Norman fiefs were
heritable, he naturally has to explain "why there were no enfeofifments
in inheritance in the first generation after the settlement of
England", 26 but his ingenious answer to this question has little
documentary support. First, after examining "the surviving acts
issued or attested by the dukes of Normandy before 1066", he argues
that Norman scribes of this period never applied formulae of
inheritance expressing intention to newly created lay tenancies;26
in other words, that they never described new enfeoflfments as having
been made "in inheritance". He then argues that early AngloNorman scribes generally followed the same practice.27 In support
of his first argument, however, he does not cite a single eleventhcentury Norman charter of enfeoffment. Nor does he refer to any
passage from an eleventh-century charter in which it would have been
necessary, appropriate or meaningful for formulae of inheritance
expressing intention to have been applied to a lay tenancy, but in
which no such formulae are actually used.
Professor Holt also claims that the use of toponyms by members of
the Norman and Anglo-Norman aristocracy provides "a very rough
and ready minimal measure of the development of inherited
estate" in Normandy and England.28 This claim is based upon his
assumption that Professor Duby and other French historians have
shown that members of lignages must have held their lands heritably.29
122
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 65
II
Professor Holt has shown that Anglo-Norman tenants by military
service, like their Northern French counterparts, often succeeded to
their ancestor's fiefs, that they were generally thought of as having
some sort of right to do so, and that this right was sometimes described
as a "hereditary" one. He has not discovered exactly what sort of
right they had, nor proved that the Anglo-Norman concept of
inheritance closely resembled that of the early thirteenth century.
He also fails to deal with one major objection to his thesis that AngloNorman fiefs were heritable. Maitland maintained that in order to
prove this conclusively one had to show that in this period, as in the
thirteenth century, a feoffment by X to "A and his heirs" gave A
a heritable estate and gave nothing to A's heirs — that is, that the
words "and his heirs" were not words of purchase but words of
limitation.32 Maitland also perceived one major difficulty with such
" G. Duby, "The Diffusion of Cultural Patterns in Feudal Society"5 Past and
Present, no. 39 (April 1968), p. 6.
" G. Duby, "Structures deparenteet noblesse. France du nord. IX e -XII e
siecles", in Miscellanea Medievalia in memoriam Jan Frederik Niermeyer (Groningen, 1967), pp. 164-5 > a n d "Structures familiales aristocratiques en France du XI e
siecle en rapport avec les structures de l'Etat", in T. Manteuffel and
A. Gieysztor (eds.), L'Europe aux IX'-XI'siecles, aux origines desEtats nationaux
(Warsaw, 1968), p. 60.
*• See A. W. B. Simpson, An Introduction to the History of the Land Law
(Oxford, 1961), p. 49.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
In his article on cultural diffusion, however. Professor Duby is not
very precise about what system of property law accompanies family
structure organized "on the basis of lineage". He only alludes to
"everything connected with" this type of family structure, "such as
matrimonial customs, primogeniture, patronymic surnames, and
heraldic signs".30 In two of his other articles which Professor Holt
cites, Professor Duby argues that changes in aristocratic family
structure, genealogical consciousness, and degree of political
autonomy took place when counts, castellans or mere knights began
to transmit to their sons their fiefs, which were henceforth held
hereditarily.31 Despite his references to the heritability of feudal
property, however, Professor Duby is not at all concerned with the
way in which fiefs passed from one member of a lignage to another,
or with the nature or origin of the French heir's right to his ancestor's
fief. His work only shows that by about 1050 the heir of a count,
castellan or knight generally succeeded to his ancestor's fief and had
some sort of right to do so.
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
123
the words "and his heirs" did not give the heir any rights, did not decree
that the heir must have the land. They merely showed that the donee had
"an estate" that would endure at least so long as any heir of his was living.
If on his death his heir got the land, he got it by inheritance and not as a
person appointed to take it by the form of the gift.34
Maitland, of course, ultimately took the position that fiefs were
heritable from the time of the Conquest,36 but in the passage quoted
above he laid part of the foundation for Professor S. E. Thome's later
claim that "the military fief was not heritable until about the year 1200
and [previously] its tenant held merely an estate for life".36
Professor Holt devotes several pages of his article to the problem of
the alienability of the fief, but he only discusses rules governing a
tenant's alienations to his younger sons and the gradual disappearance
of the distinction between his "inheritance" on the one hand, and his
"acquisitions", "purchases" or "conquests" on the other.37 Two of
his remarks about this aspect of the problem of alienability seem
questionable. First, it is hard to see how the passage that he cites
from the Leges Henrici Primi can be regarded as an "official" statement
of a distinction between inherited and acquired property.88 This
treatise had no "official" status; it contains only one truly "official"
document (Henry I's charter of liberties); and it is the work of a man
83
O n these restraints, see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, ii,
p p . 13-14 and 3 0 8 - 1 3 . See also S. E . T h o r n e , "English Feudalism a n d Estates
in L a n d " , Cambridge Law JL, n e w ser., vi (1959), p p . 193-209. O n family
restraints o n alienation in northern France, see L o u i s Falletti, Le
retrait
lignager en droit
coutumier francais
(Paris, 1923), esp. chapter i; and
J. de Laplanche, La riserve coutumiire dans I'anden droit franfais
(Paris,
1925).
84
Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., ii, p p . 13-14.
35
Ibid., p . 314. F o r a discussion o f Maitland's v i e w s o n the p r o b l e m o f the
heritability o f the fief, see T h o r n e , "English F e u d a l i s m " , p p . 193-5.
3e
Ibid., p . 195. Professor M i l s o m ' s writings o n twelfth-century property law
t e n d t o support Professor T h o m e ' s position. See S. F . C. M i l s o m , Historical
Foundations of the Common Law ( L o n d o n , 1969), p p . 88-93 ond 1 0 3 - 1 9 , and his
"Introduction" to Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., i, p p . xxvi-xlix.
" "Politics and Property", p p . 12-21 and 4 1 - 4 .
38
Ibid., p . 1 2 : italics m i n e .
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
an interpretation of Anglo-Norman charters of enfeoflment. In this
period, A was apparently unable to alienate part of his fee in perpetuity
without the consent of his heirs; 33 and the existence of this restraint at
least suggested that X's feoflFment to A and his heirs gave something
to A's heirs. This in turn implied that on A's death, his heir B
succeeded to A's fief by the form of X's gift and did not inherit from
A. Maitland claimed that only by the early thirteenth century, when
restraints on the tenant's power of alienation had disappeared, did it
become "plain" that
124
PAST
AND
PRESENT
NUMBER 65
" See Downer's "Introduction" to the Leges Henrici Primi, pp. 2-5 and 37-44.
40
"Politics and Property", p. 14.
41
Falletti, Retrait lignager, p. 22.
41
Thorne, "English Feudalism", p. 198.
" "Politics and Property", p. 3.
44
Thome, "English Feudalism", p. 197.
46
On gifts free of service, see ibid., pp. 204-6.
41
Ibid., pp. 200-4.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
whose official status and legal training are unknown.39 Second,
Professor Holt may be wrong in claiming that this distinction between
a tenant's "inheritance" (which had to pass to his eldest son) and his
"acquisitions" (which he could give to whomsoever he wished) was
"certainly current in northern and western France at the time of the
conquest of England".40 Louis Falletti maintained that the principle
that acquisitions were freely alienable was known but not wellestablished in eleventh-century northern France. 41
More importantly. Professor Holt's discussion of alienability is open
to criticism because it is incomplete. Since he says nothing directly
about restraints on a tenant's power to alienate to people other than
his sons, or about the disappearance of these restraints in the later
twelfth century, he is unable to rebut Professor Thome's contention
that Anglo-Norman law recognized succession by hereditary right,
but not inheritance.42 As Professor Holt points out, 43 Professor
Thome's article on "English Feudalism and Estates in Land" is not
concerned with the practice of inheritance, but the distinction that
he makes between succession and inheritance may have some
practical ramifications. If an heir (2?) succeeds to the fief of his
ancestor (A) and does not inherit it, then he takes it from A's lord (X)
free of any gifts that A had made.44 If B is then legally bound to
renew any feoffments made by A, the distinction between succession
and inheritance may not be of major practical significance — at least
with respect to feudal tenures.45 But it seems quite possible that in
the Anglo-Norman period B was not always automatically bound to
recognize A's feoffments (not to mention A's gifts in free alms) and
that as a result the position of A's feoffees was not very secure in
certain cases.
First, suppose that A alienates most of his fief to P in perpetuity
without S's consent and takes P's homage. After A's death, can B
claim all or part of the land now held by P? By the early thirteenth
century, he can make no such claim, or if he does he will fail; and in
the later twelfth century, the homage that A had taken from P will bar
B from entering on P. 4 6 It is not clear, however, that this so-called
"homage-bar" existed in the Anglo-Norman period. Nor is it clear
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
125
Ill
Professor Holt proposes three ways of reconciling the "apparent
contradiction" between the fact that "the inheritance of feudal
property was part of the natural order of things in Norman England"
"See Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, ii, p. 311.
" See ibid., pp. 310 and 312-13. In his discussion of the laudatio parentum
in northern France, Falletti states that by giving his consent to a relative's gift,
a man barred only himself: Retrait lignager, pp. 25 and 41.
" Professor Milsom adopts a similar view. He maintains that a feoffment to
a man "and his heirs" gave "a legal right of some son to the heirs, and this was
not the same as giving 'ownership' to the tenant. The difference comes over
an alienation; and it was only indirectly that the tenant for the time being at
length acquired a power to alienate without regard to the claims of his heirs".
Historical Foundations of the Common Law, p. 92.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
that the homage-bar was always absolute — that is, that the homage
that A had taken from P would bar B from reclaiming a gift to which
he had not consented, which was unreasonable, and which could be
thought of as disinheriting him. It seems possible, therefore, that in
the early twelfth century B might complain that he had not consented
to A's gift to P and that the gift was unreasonable and/or disinherited
him, and he might have been able to reclaim at least part of P's land.
Secondly, suppose that A alienates most of his fief to P in
perpetuity with B's consent and takes P's homage. Then, in the
Anglo-Norman period and in later times, B can claim nothing from
P after A's death. If he is not barred from doing so by the homage
that A took from P, he will almost certainly be barred by his own
consent. But suppose that B predeceases A and that A is succeeded
either by his second son (B1) or by B's son (C). Can either B1 or C
claim anything from P? In the early thirteenth century, neither
can47 but in the earlier twelfth century, B's consent may not bar B1
or C from making a claim against P.48
In these cases, early thirteenth-century law probably gave tenants
like P greater security than Anglo-Norman law and thus may have
given them greater legal protection in periods of tenurial instability.
This greater security can be seen as stemming, at least in part, from
the fact that the thirteenth-century heir's rights differed from those
of his Anglo-Norman counterpart. Whereas the former clearly had
a right to inherit from his ancestor, the latter may have had a right to
succeed to his ancestor's fief under the form of the gift to his ancestor.
In the early thirteenth century, therefore, a donee may have been
better protected against the claims of his donor's heirs than he was in
the Anglo-Norman period.49
126
PAST AND PRESENT
NUMBER 65
0
1
"Politics and Property", p. 9.
Ibid., p. 44.
'Ibid.
Ibid., p. 37.
4
Ibid., p. 20; cf. pp. 21 and 22.
5
Glanvill, book VII, sect. 1 (pp. 72-3).
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
and the fact that "even the greatest in the land might suffer dispossession, and his family disinheritance".60
1. "No law governing title and inheritance" existed in this period.
2. Such law existed but kings (and possibly other lords) "flouted
it".
3. Such law existed, but kings (and possibly other lords)
encountered and created "difficulties . . . in applying it". 61
Professor Holt argues for the third position,62 and claims that "the
separation of England and Normandy in 1087"53 led to the
"intrusion" of political considerations into legal decisions.64 He has
ignored, however, two other ways of accounting for his "apparent
contradiction": first, Anglo-Norman law may not have given adequate
security to tenants like P in the cases discussed above, or in other
cases like them; and secondly, Anglo-Norman courts may have taken
legal notice of facts whose consideration he regards as political
intrusions.
Confronted by the "important legal problem" posed in book vn of
Glanvill, for example, the members of an Anglo-Norman court might
not have decided the case as "those learned in the law of the realm" of
Henry IPs court apparently did (or tried to) — by debating the
proper application of the "general rule . . . that no man can be both
heir and lord of the same tenement". 65 Instead, they might have
taken notice of the personal qualities of the disputants, their feudal
ties with other lords (such as the duke of Normandy), and their
relative abilities and willingness to pay a substantial relief— all issues
which Glanvill's discussion ignores and of which the possessory and
proprietary actions would have taken no notice. A decision by an
Anglo-Norman court based upon such considerations need not be
regarded as an illegal or extra-legal one which resulted from the
"intrusion" of political or personal considerations into a legal judgement. Rather, it may reflect the fact that Anglo-Norman law
generally recognized the legal rights of the heirs of a deceased tenant
by military service, as later law did, but that unlike later law, it
sometimes recognized the right of the deceased tenant's lord to decide,
in consultation with his barons, which of these rights, if any, to
recognize and upon what terms.
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY MEDIEVAL ENGLAND
127
POLITICS AND PROPERTY IN EARLY
MEDIEVAL ENGLAND:
A REJOINDER
I
USED
THE
WORD
"CRISIS"
QUITE
PRECISELY
AS
A
SHORTHAND
description of a situation many of the features of which have been
well known to historians from Ordericus Vitalis on to J. H. Round,
his successors and critics. To summarize: succession to estates in
the Anglo-Norman realm involved a distinction between inheritance
and acquisition, the application of which depended on the number of
male children and the policy of particular families; this distinction
was applied to the royal/ducal house in 1087, so that political loyalty
was at odds with the way in which tenancies-in-chief had descended,
and influenced, sometimes determined, the way in which such estates
were to descend; necessarily the conflict affected the law of property
and had a prolonged aftermath. That, very baldly, was the crisis.
It began in 1087 after some preliminary symptoms. It ended
in 1106 with recurrent complications and minor outbreaks thereafter.
It recurred under Stephen because of a genealogical accident consequent upon a shipwreck.
I am at a loss to understand how Dr. King can claim that what I say
about the Anarchy is central to my argument. I happened to
illustrate some of the disputes of the first half of the twelfth century by
examples chosen from the time of Stephen.1 My intention was to
indicate the variety and complexity of family claims. I also stated
that they played an important part in the politics of the Anarchy,
which is correct. That some of them were resolved by agreement
1
"Politics and Property in Early Medieval England", Past and Present, no. 57
(Nov. 1972), p. 22, n. 99.
Downloaded from http://past.oxfordjournals.org/ at Cambridge University on December 6, 2014
IV
If Anglo-Norman law gave military tenants less security of property
in some cases than later English law and sometimes took legal notice
of what would later seem to be extra-legal issues, then Professor Holt's
conclusions about the causes of the Anglo-Norman tenurial crisis may
require some slight modification, so as to allow for the possibility that
inherent features of Anglo-Norman law may have heightened, if they
did not create, that tenurial crisis.
Harvard University
Stephen D. White