[Norman Conquest 01] Wolves in Armour (9 page)

“I’m also changing the administration of the shires. The sheriffs will have greater authority and duties. Officials such as those of the king’s household, the Stallers and the like, will be phased out. The new sheriff of Essex will be Robert fitzWymarc, a half-Breton who came to England in Edward’s time, in place of Leofstan the Reeve who was killed at Hastings. He’s raising a royal castle at Colchester, under my charter- at his expense.”

“Can I raise a castle?” asked Alan.

“If the situation warrants it and you can bear the cost of building one yourself,” William replied, waving his hand at the French clerk to include that in the document before him, before he continued his discussion of his Great Design. “The geld tax on land will be reintroduced, at the same rate as King Edward levied it prior to 1015. Two shillings per hide. Aethelbald, how much would Alan have to pay?”

“With ninety-six and a half hides, that is £9 12s a year, payable quarterly in arrears on the Feast of the Annunciation, Christmas, Midsummer Day and Michaelmas,” replied Aethelbald.

Alan was quick enough of wit to pick up the change. “So, unlike in Normandy, we are to provide both military service and taxes, which I understand were previously used to bribe the Danes to stay away, so military service was not needed. That’ll be a heavy impost. Men-at-arms are expensive to maintain. You mentioned that the English will have to pay a Redemption Relief. I presume that doesn’t apply to us Normans who came with you? How much would that be?” asked Alan.

“No it doesn’t apply to those who came with me, or after we landed- but it does include those Normans and any other foreigners who held land during Edward’s time, as well as the English. The general rate will be set by Commissioners I appoint, probably around £5 per manor, payable within a year of my Coronation, That will be by Christmas Day next year. If they don’t pay their lands will be forfeit.”

“Many of those who have to pay the Redemption Relief, as well as the taxes, will struggle to do so, particularly at those rates and in that time. Many will be forced to forfeit their land. Have you thought of a lesser tax rate or lesser Relief rate?” asked Alan.

“No,” replied William simply. “England is mine to do with as I wish and it’s a rich land. If some men forfeit their land for non-payment that simply means more land is available to myself or the Earls to give away as fiefs or to sell. I don’t see any difficulty caused to the English landholders as being a matter for concern to me. It’s their fault for supporting Harold instead of myself after Edward died a year ago. We Normans are all going to have to stand together and keep a wary eye on the English, or they’ll have us all out of the country in a trice. Anything that reduces the English nobility’s ability to raise and pay for an army is a good thing for us,” said William revealingly.

Seeing that the king’s mind was firmly decided and that any further argument would be useless, Alan desisted. William was used to the exercise of autocratic rule and, whilst he would always listen to advice, he would frequently reject it.

“So, do you accept?” asked William abruptly.

Alan blinked in surprise at the question, realizing after a few moments that it related to the offer of land to him. “Of course, the offer, and particularly the honour of the attached rights of tenant-in-chief, jurisdiction and member of your Council, is most generous,” he replied.

“Done!” said William, who gestured to the French scrivener, who completed a few more details on a parchment and poured heated red wax at the bottom, to which William affixed his seal and then opened his hands in a gesture indicating Alan should approach him.

Alan knelt before William. William asked, “Did you do homage to de Mandeville when you joined his forces?”

Alan smiled and replied, “No, he was too busy to see me, then or after.” William nodded and, led by Aethelbald, Alan recited the oath of homage and fealty. A man could swear homage to only one man, but could swear fealty to several for different fiefs, although that had the potential to cause difficulties.

“In the name of the Lord, I, Alan de Gauville do acknowledge to William, king of England, the fealty and homage for the manors of Thorrington, Bradfield, Ramsey, Dovercourt, Beaumont, Great Oakley and Great Bromley. I have made to my liege lord William, king of England, acknowledgment and homage as I ought to do. Therefore, let all present and to come know that I, the said Alan de Gauville, acknowledge verily to thee my lord William, by the grace of God king of England, and to thy successors, that I hold and ought to hold as a fief the said manors and I swear upon these four gospels of God that I will always be a faithful vassal to thee and to thy successors in all things in which a vassal is required to be faithful to his lord. I will defend thee, my lord, and all thy successors against all malefactors and invaders, at my request and that of my successors at my own cost. And if I or my sons or their successors do not observe to thee or to thy successors each and all the things declared above, and should come against these things, we wish that all the aforesaid fiefs should by that very fact be handed over to thee and to thy successors. I, therefore, I the aforesaid lord Alan declare that I will be good and faithful lord concerning all those things described above.”

Alan, kneeling before William placed his hands forward in a praying position, and William took his hands between his own, accepting the oath, before buffeting him on the shoulder.

“I acknowledge you as my man and shall care for your interests as I care for my own,” replied William, sealing the bargain.

The scribe Aethelbald held the Charter out to Alan for him to stand and collect. “That will be one gold mark,” said Aethelbald.

“The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away,” replied Alan with a smile.

With a chuckle William waved a hand at Aethelbald and said, “Don’t bother! You can forgo your own fee in this instance!”

There was light snow on the ground as Alan rode into the village of Thorrington in the Hundred of Tendring in northern Essex, with four Norman men-at-arms at his back. They were the swordsmen Hugh and Baldwin, and Roger and Warren the archers. An English gebur with a light donkey cart hired in London, which carried their goods, trailed slightly behind. They had ridden the 64 miles from London to Colchester over two days, resting at Chelmsford. The road had passed through the immensity of the Waltham Forest, in which the villages of Barking, South Weald, Ingatestone and Margaretting were tiny and trivial intrusions by man into the world of nature- insignificant pockets of cleared land in an immense wilderness.

The great expanse of woodland through which the rutted and muddy dirt track that was the main road had wandered had been relatively open, with the upper storey of branches bare for the winter. Massive oak and elm trees, and the white trunks of smaller silver birch, stretched for mile after mile. Because of the dense shade cast by the trees in summer the forest was virtually clear of bushes and undergrowth, with only the trunks of the trees and the occasional fallen giant limiting visibility to 100 paces or so.

Occasionally fallow deer or muntjac had been seen either flitting through the trees or foraging for nuts lying on the ground. Squirrels and hares darted about and game birds occasionally burst into flight as the riders approached. Overhead an occasional hawk had been seen circling looking for prey.

Travellers had been few and far between. Alan’s party had overtaken a few groups on foot or slow-moving wagons drawn by oxen, the oxen occasionally being whipped by their handlers to keep them moving. In the forest most travellers moved in groups of usually of a dozen or more for safety.

It was not until they reached the more open country and arrived at the River Can at Chelmsford, where the road emerged from the great forest, that the hand of man could be seen with any regularity. Even then the land was mainly forest, woodland and waste between Witham and Braxted before the road passed into Lexden Hundred and proceeded through Feering, Stanway and Lexden before it eventually arrived at Colchester.

The traffic on the road had increased after Chelmsford, with travellers being there prepared to journey alone. Roughly dressed peasants and the poorer townsfolk and villagers had walked on foot. Merchants travelled on wagons with their goods. Hawkers walked on their way from village to village either with their goods on their backs, or those selling heavier or more bulky items using a small cart which they either pulled themselves or used a donkey or mule. Only very occasionally had the more wealthy been seen on horseback, and then usually with a handful of retainers with them. After leaving the forest the villages had been five to ten miles apart, with the cultivated land encompassing perhaps one mile on each side of the village.

They had stayed overnight at an inn in Colchester, before the next morning, the third of their journey, leaving the town at daybreak. They crossed the wooden bridge over the River Colne after paying the pontage fee and rode the six miles to Thorrington in a little over an hour, passing through the villages of Wivenhoe and Alresford on the way.

On riding through each village and town since leaving London they had felt the hostile eyes of the local population on them. The few workers out and about in the fields near Thorrington stopped their winter work of gathering wood or repairing fences and stared at the strangers as they rode past, although Alan presumed that in such an isolated area they would have done so with any passers-by.

It was Tuesday the 16th of January and a bitterly cold day. The frozen ground crunched at each step taken, and the breath of man and beast hung in the still air before them. The men sat slumped on their saddles, wrapped tightly in their thick
woollen
cloaks.

Despite the feeling of hostility all around them, Alan had insisted that they ride without armour. He was determined that if he was going to live in this land he was not going to live in fear of an arrow in the back. However, all five had kept their swords handy and loose in their scabbards.

Alan noted that the village of Thorrington was arranged around the usual village green, with a tavern and a small wooden church with the tithe-barn alongside. There were probably thirty cottages facing the dirt track that ran around the village green, nearly all with a small vegetable garden at the rear and many with a pig-pen or chicken coop, and often both. There was a large barn and a granary. Snow sat heavily on thatched roofs and here and there it had been blown by the wind into drifts several feet deep on the ground. Smoke rose from the stone chimney of the smithy and the regular banging of metal on metal could be heard. A stream, the beginnings of Alresford Creek, ran through the village, with a little wooden bridge over it. Just downstream of the village was the mill, its water wheel turning lazily. At the far side of the village was the manor house fortified in the usual Saxon style with a wooden palisade surrounding the Hall and its outbuildings at a distance of about twenty paces.

Beyond the village, about half a mile away near the tidal headwaters of Barfleet Creek, was the salt-house that serviced the salt pans on the flat tidal land next to Alresford Creek, Barfleet Creek and, further away, the Colne estuary near the mouth of Alresford Creek.

All the buildings in the village were of cob or half-wood construction with thatched roofs. The Hall was quite large, about forty paces long and twenty wide. Its walls were neatly lime-washed and pierced by four windows on each side, the shutters closed to keep out the winter cold. Smoke rose lazily from a small hole centrally located in the roof, and also escaped in a tendrils from the thatched roof. A stable-hand could be seen at work mucking out the stables and forking new straw into each stall. The kitchen was a separate building located about ten paces from the Hall, to minimise the risk of fire and also to keep the bustle, noise and smell of the cooking away from the nobles in the Hall.

They dismounted just inside the palisade without being challenged and having seen no guard. Alan called for the stable hand to come and take the five horses, instructing him in slow but understandable English to rub them down, water and feed them. He clapped his gloved hands together to restore circulation in the bitter cold- he had been hardly able to feel the leather straps of the reins during the ride. The noise of their arrival had attracted a small crowd and when he turned to face them Alan called out in Anglo-Saxon English, “Who’s the senior here?”

A small man with long brown hair and about thirty years of age, looking a little like a weasel and dressed traditionally in a
woollen
tunic with breeches and cross-leggings advanced to the front of the crowd and said, “That would be me, Sir. My name is Kendrick. What can I do for you?”

“You are aware that the former owner of this estate, Estan, died at Hastings with no heir. The king has given this estate to me and I’ve come to claim it,” said Alan. “These are my men Hugh, Baldwin, Roger and Warren. They speak little English, so some patience will be required on both sides until they learn. Now let’s get inside out of this damn cold!”

On walking inside Alan saw that most of the building was comprised of the usual single Hall, but that somewhat unusually one end of the building had been divided off into two rooms. The light in the Hall was dim, mainly cast by a roaring central fire and a few smoking rush torches set into brackets on the posts that ran in two rows down the Hall, supporting the roof. The smoke from the fire and rushes cast a haze in the air and caught at the throat. The Hall was sparsely furnished with a few benches and tables, mainly drawn near the central fireplace; a thick layer of reasonably fresh rushes were underfoot. A quick look through the door into each of the rooms showed one to be a bedchamber with a large bed and the other a solar or private sitting room.