Note 10 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

This being so, the solitary explanation suggested for Henry's action falls to the ground, and it becomes clear that the payment in dispute could not have been the danegeld, as the proposed change could not increase the amount it produced already. As a matter of fact, the last occasion on which danegeld eo nomine was levied was in 1162, but to connect that circumstance with the Woodstock dispute of 1163 is an instance of the post hoc propter hoc argument, more especially as the danegeld was not in dispute, still less its abolition. On the contrary, the primate desired to keep things as they were. What, then, was this mysterious payment but the auxilium vicecomitis, or 'sheriffs' aid'? Garnier distinctly states that this is what it was,10 and Grim's words no less unmistakably point to the same conclusion. To institutional students of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the auxilium vicecomitis is familiar enough. It was, writes Dr Stubbs, a 'payment made to the sheriff for his services',11 and was, it may be added, a customary charge, varying in amount,12 paid over locally to the sheriffs. It may fairly be said to have stood to the danegeld in the relation of rates to taxes.