Note 50 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

This last class requires some explanation. When the number of knights' fees created was not sufficient to discharge the baron's 'service', the balance of that service remained charged on the non-infeudated portion of his fief, that is, on the 'demesne', and was technically said to be 'super dominium'. It is all-important that this should be grasped, for it might otherwise be supposed that such a phrase as 'quot milites super dominium' implied the existence of actual knights enfeoffed on the demesne, which, to those who realize the working of the system of knight-service, is an absolute contradiction in terms. This, it will be found, beautifully explains the first article of the Assize of Arms (1181)—that every tenant is to keep in stock harness for as many knights 'quot habuerit feoda militum in dominio suo'.50 That is to say, that if, after deducting the knights actually enfeoffed, there remained due from his fief a balance of knight-service, he must keep in readiness harness sufficient for those knights whom he would have to provide himself to discharge that balance.51