The Bishop comes back.
Debate on the word fief. Treasurer, had not yet risen to their full importance; still it is odd to find them, as they would seem to be, thrust in, after the manner of an et cetera, after, it may be, Osgeat the reeve and Croc the huntsman.[1] But anyhow, in this purely official assembly, we may surely see the Theningmannagemót gradually changing into the Curia Regis.[2] The Court, however constituted, debated in the Bishop's absence on the point of the law which he had raised. On his return, his own Metropolitan, Thomas of York, announced to him the decision of the Assembly. Till he acknowledged the jurisdiction of the Court, the King was not bound to restore anything that had been taken from him. We seem to hear the voice of Flambard, when, in announcing this decision, Thomas makes use of the word fief, which had not hitherto been heard in the discussion.[3] Bishop William catches in vain at the novelty; Archbishop Thomas declines all verbal discussion; whether it is called bishopric or fief, nothing is to be restored till the jurisdiction of the court is acknowledged.[4] Thus baffled, Bishop William has only to fall back on his old protests, his old demand for the counsel of his brother bishops. Lanfranc meets him as a lawyer; the bishops
- ↑ We have met with Osgeat the Reeve in Domesday. See N. C. vol. v. p. 812. Croc the hunter, like others of his craft, appears in 49, 74 b. See Ellis, i. 403. This odd mixture of great and small officials is not unusual. In the "Constitutio Domus Regis" in Hearne's Liber Niger, i. 341, the descent from the Chancellor to the bakers and cooks—the huntsmen come at the end—is more sudden than one would have looked for, though certain chaplains and seneschals break the fall.
- ↑ See N. C. vol. v. pp. 423, 878.
- ↑ Mon. Angl. u. s. "Dominus noster archiepiscopus et regis curia vobis judicat quod rectitudinem regi facere debetis antequam de vestro feodo revestiat."
- ↑ Ib. "Nullus mihi hodie vel ego alicui de feodo feci verbum," says Bishop William. To which Archbishop Thomas answers, "Vobis judicat curia ista, quia de nulla re debet vos rex resaissire antequam sibi rectitudinem faciatis."
