Page:The reign of William Rufus and the accession of Henry the First.djvu/144

The Bishop's complaints.

Doings of Counts Alan and Odo. for that year.^[1] The message was sent by a prelate of high rank, that Abbot Guy who had just before been forced by Lanfranc upon the unwilling monks of Saint Augustine's.^[2] The Bishop was to accompany the Abbot to the King's presence. But, instead of going with Guy, Bishop William, fearing the King's wrath and the snares of his enemies, sent another letter, the bearer of which went under the Abbot's protection.^[3] The letter curiously illustrates some of the features of the case. We learn more details of the Sheriff's doings. He had divided certain of the Bishop's lands between two very great personages, Count Alan of the Breton and of the Yorkshire Richmond, and Count Odo, husband of the King's aunt, and seemingly already lord of Holderness.^[4] The Sheriff had not only refused the King's peace to the Bishop; he had formally defied him on the part of the King.^[5] Some of the Bishop's men he had allowed to redeem themselves; but others he had actually sold. Were they the Bishop's slaves, dealt with as forfeited chattels, or did the Sheriff take on himself to degrade freemen into slavery?^[6] The Bishop protests that he is

1. See above, p. 88.
2. See N. C. vol. iv. pp. 409, 825, and below, p. 139.
3. Mon. Ang. i. 245. "Tandem misi sibi rex abbatem sancti Augustini, mandans ei ut, sicut prius mandaverat sibi, ad curiam suam cum abbate veniret. Episcopus autem, inimicorum suorum insidias cum regis ira metuens, sine bono conductu se non posse venire respondet et legatos suos per abbatis conductum cum subscriptis litteris regi misit."
4. Ib. "Homines meos et terras et pecuniam quam vicecomites vestri ubicumque poterant, mihi abstulerunt, scilicet Offedene et Welletune quas diviserunt Odoni et Alano comitibus, cum cæteris terris in Ewerwickschire." See above, p. 31. On Count Alan, see N. C. vol. iv. p. 294, and on Odo, vol. iv. pp. 301, 805.
5. Ib. "Quod breve cum mississem Radulfo Paganello non solum mihi pacem negavit sed et de parte vestra me diffidavit." On diffidatio see Ducange in voce. In N. C. vol. v. p. 270 we have a case of the man defying his lord. Here the lord defies his man. In either case there is the withdrawal of one side of the mutual duty of lord and man.
6. Ib. "Hominum vero quosdam vendidit, quosdam redimi permisit."