Note 128 — PART I TERRITORIAL STUDIES (continued 3)

Indeed, a little consideration will show that payment in lieu of military service, which was the essential principle of scutage, could be no new thing. The two forms which this payment might assume—payment to a substitute, or payment to the crown—both appear in Domesday as applicable to the fyrd; the former is found in the 'Customs' of Berkshire, the latter in other passages. From the very commencement of knight service, the principle must have prevailed; for the 'baron' who had not enfeoffed knights enough to discharge his servitium debitum, must always have hired substitutes to the amount of the balance. Nor is this a matter of supposition: we know as a fact, from the Abingdon Chronicle and the Ely History, that under William I knights were so hired.128 Here it should be noted, as a suggestive fact, that the 'forty days' of military service, though bearing no direct proportion either to the week or to the month, do so to the marc and to the pound. The former represents 4d, and the latter 6d, for each day of the military service.129 It may fairly be assumed that this normal 'scutage' would be based on the estimated cost of substitutes paid direct. Thus the only change involved would be that the tenant would make his payments not to substitutes, but to the crown instead.