Note 4 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

These statements are based on Madox's extracts from the Pipe-Rolls,4 which afford, however, more definite evidence than Dr Stubbs discovered. In the Pipe-Roll of 1175 and its immediate successor we find 'Placita in Curia Regis' held by a single group of judges—William fitz Ralf, Bertram de Verdon, and William Basset (Thomas Basset is a substitute in one case and William fitz Audelin, we have seen, in another)—quite distinct from the 'placita' of the justices in eyre, which were not described as 'in curia regis'. The view, therefore, that I now advance is that these pleas, 'in curia regis', were held by a separate group of judges in the train of the king himself, whose iter began at Reading, June 1175.5 It was there, I believe, that were held the 'placita' for Bucks and Beds, duly recorded in the Pipe-Roll of 1175. That this royal iter was continued through the Exchequer year 1175-6 seems to be well established, and the chronological difficulty of distinguishing between the two years renders the discovery of a fixed point, such as that afforded by the Evesham fine, of special value. Its evidence also establishes the presence of the king in person,6 whose charter of confirmation should be carefully noted on account of its reciting the fine.