APPENDIX AA."TENSERIE."(See p.215.)
(See p.215.)
Themention of "tenseriæ" in the letter of Lucius is peculiarly welcome, because (in its Norman-French form) it is the very word employed by the Peterborough chronicler.[1192]As I have pointed out in theAcademy,[1193]the same Latin form is found in the agenda of the judicial iter in 1194: "de prisis ettenseriisomnium ballivorum" (R. Hoveden, iii. 267), while the Anglo-Norman "tenserie" is employed by Jordan Fantosme, who, writing of the burgesses of Northampton (1174), tells us that David of Scotland "ne pottenseriede eus aver." He also illustrates the use of the verb when he describes how the Earl of Leicester, landing in East Anglia, "la terre vaittensant.... E adtenséla terre cum il en fut bailli." The Latin form of the verb was "tensare," as is shown by the records of the Lincolnshire eyre in 1202 (Maitland'sSelect Pleas of the Crown, p. 19), where it is used of extorting toll from vessels as they traversed the marshes. A reference to the closing portion of the Lincolnshire survey in Domesday will show the very same offence presented by the jurors of 1086.
To the same number of theAcademy, Mr. Paget Toynbee contributed a letter quoting some examples from Ducange of the use oftenseria, one of them taken from the Council of London in 1151: "Sancimus igitur ut Ecclesiæ et possessiones ecclesiasticæ ab operationibus et exactionibus, quas vulgotenseriassive tallagia vocant, omnino liberæ permaneant, nec super his eas aliqui de cætero inquietare præsumant." The other is taken from the Council of Tours[1194](1163), and is specially valuable because, I think, it explains how the word acquired its meaning. The difficulty is to deduce the sense of "robbery" from a verb which originally meant "to protect" or "to defend," but this difficulty is beautifully explained by our own word "blackmail," which similarly meant money extorted under pretence of protection or defence. The "defensio" of the Tours Council supports this explanation, as does the curious story told by the monks of Abingdon,[1195]that during the Anarchy under Stephen—
"Willelmus Boterel constabularius de Wallingford, pecunia accepta a domno Ingulfo abbate, res ecclesiæ Abbendonensis a suo exercitu se defensurum promisit. Sponsionis ergo suæ immemor, in villam Culeham, quæ huic cænobio adjacet, quicquid invenire potuit, deprædavit. Quo audito, abbas ... admirans quomodo quod tueri deberet, fure nequior diripuisset" etc.
William died excommunicate for this, but his brother Peter made some slight compensation later.[1196]It was not unusual for conscience or the Church to extort more or less restitution for lawless conduct, as, indeed, in the case of Geoffrey de Mandeville and his son. So, too, Earl Ferrers made a grant to Burton Abbey "propter dampna a me et meis Ecclesiæ predictæ illata" (cf. p. 276,n.3), previous to going on pilgrimage to S. Jago de Compostella—an early instance of a pilgrimage thither.[1197]
While on this subject, it may be as well to add that the grant by Robert, Earl of Leicester, to the see of Lincoln in restitution for wrongs,[1198]may very possibly refer to his allegedshare in the arrest of the bishops (1139), and so confirm the statement of Ordericus Vitalis.[1199]
The complaint of the same English Chronicle that the lawless barons "cruelly oppressed the wretched men of the land with castle works" is curiously confirmed by a letter from Pope Eugenius to four of the prelates, July 23, 1147:—
"Religiosorum fratrum Abbendoniæ gravem querelam accepimus quod Willelmus Martel, Hugo de Bolebec, Willelmus de Bellocampo, Johannes Marescallus, et eorum homines, et plures etiam alii parochiani vestri, possessiones eorum violenter invadunt, et bona ipsorum rapiunt et distrahunt etindebitas castellorum operationes ab eis exigunt."[1200]
With characteristic agreement upon this point, William Martel, who served the king, John the marshal, who followed the Empress, and William de Beauchamp, who had joined both, were at one in the evil work.
[1192]"Hi læiden gæildes on the tunes ... and clepeden ittenserie" (ed. Thorpe, i. 382). Mr. Thorpe, the Rolls Series editor, took upon himself to alter the word tocenserie.[1193]No. 1001, p. 37 (July 11, 1891).[1194]"De Cæmeteriis et Ecclesiis, sive quibuslibet possessionibus ecclesiasticis tenserias dari prohibemus, ne pro Ecclesia vel cæmeterii defensione fidei sui Clerici sponsionem interponant." Compare the passage from theChronicle of Ramsey, p. 218n.,ante.[1195]Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 231.[1196]William and Peter Boterel were related to Brian Fitz Count (of Wallingford) through his father. They both attest a charter of his wife, Matilda "de Wallingford," to Oakburn Priory.[1197]Burton Cartulary, p. 50. A pilgrimage to this shrine is alluded to in a charter (of this reign) by the Earl of Chester to his brother the Earl of Lincoln, "in eodem anno quo ipsemet ... redivit de itinere S. Jacobi Apostoli."[1198]"Robertus Comes Leg' Radulfo vicecomiti. Sciatis me pro satisfactione, ac dampnorum per me seu per meas Ecclesiæ Lincoln' Episcopo illatorum restitutione, dedisse ... præfatæ Ecclesiæ Lincolnensi et Alexandro Episcopo," etc. (Remigius' Registerat Lincoln, p. 37).[1199]See his life by me inDictionary of National Biography.[1200]Cartulary of Abingdon, ii. 200, 543.
[1192]"Hi læiden gæildes on the tunes ... and clepeden ittenserie" (ed. Thorpe, i. 382). Mr. Thorpe, the Rolls Series editor, took upon himself to alter the word tocenserie.
[1193]No. 1001, p. 37 (July 11, 1891).
[1194]"De Cæmeteriis et Ecclesiis, sive quibuslibet possessionibus ecclesiasticis tenserias dari prohibemus, ne pro Ecclesia vel cæmeterii defensione fidei sui Clerici sponsionem interponant." Compare the passage from theChronicle of Ramsey, p. 218n.,ante.
[1195]Abingdon Cartulary, ii. 231.
[1196]William and Peter Boterel were related to Brian Fitz Count (of Wallingford) through his father. They both attest a charter of his wife, Matilda "de Wallingford," to Oakburn Priory.
[1197]Burton Cartulary, p. 50. A pilgrimage to this shrine is alluded to in a charter (of this reign) by the Earl of Chester to his brother the Earl of Lincoln, "in eodem anno quo ipsemet ... redivit de itinere S. Jacobi Apostoli."
[1198]"Robertus Comes Leg' Radulfo vicecomiti. Sciatis me pro satisfactione, ac dampnorum per me seu per meas Ecclesiæ Lincoln' Episcopo illatorum restitutione, dedisse ... præfatæ Ecclesiæ Lincolnensi et Alexandro Episcopo," etc. (Remigius' Registerat Lincoln, p. 37).
[1199]See his life by me inDictionary of National Biography.
[1200]Cartulary of Abingdon, ii. 200, 543.