Note 11 — PART II HISTORICAL STUDIES (continued 2)

I venture to think that the clue to the enigma is to be found in quite another quarter. In the chronicle of Jocelin de Brakelond we find a most instructive passage, which refers, it cannot be doubted, to the same episode. The story is told somewhat differently, but the point raised is the same. King Richard, we are told, demanded that knights should be sent him from England, in the proportion of one from every ten due by the church 'baronies'. The servitium debitum of St Edmund's being forty, the abbot was called upon to send four.11 That the principle of joint equipment, which had been adopted under Henry II in 1157,12 and again I think by Longchamp in 1191,13 was resorted to on this occasion is the more probable because a few years later (1205) we find King John similarly demanding 'quod novem milites per totam Angliam invenirent decimum militem, bene paratum equis et armis, ad defensionem regni nostri'. I admit, however, that it is not mentioned in the other versions of our episode, and Jocelin speaks only of the demand upon the church fiefs. But the point is that when the abbot consulted his tenants as to sending the four knights required, they protested that they were liable to pay scutage, but not to serve out of England.14 Now this is a locus classicus on the institution of scutage. Its bearing I shall examine below, after finishing the story. The abbot, we read, finding himself in a strait, crossed the sea in search of the king, who told him that a fine would not avail; he wanted men, not money.15