Estimate of the complaint.
Position of the Archbishop's knights. them but rather the contrary.[1] This story is commonly told as if Anselm had been the colonel of a regiment whose men were, through his fault, utterly unfit for service. Anselm had indeed, as we have seen, once held somewhat of a warlike command, but it had been of a passive kind; he was certainly not expected to go to the Welsh war himself. In truth the complaint is against knights; doubtless, if the knights were bad, their followers would be worse; but it is of knights that the King speaks. If I rightly understand the relation between the Archbishop and his military tenants, these knights were men who held lands of the archbishopric by the tenure of discharging all the military service to which the whole estates of the archbishopric were bound.[2] It was doubtless the business of their lord to see that the service was paid, that the proper number of knights, each with his proper number of followers, went to the royal standard. But one can hardly think that it was part of the Archbishop's business to look into every military detail, as if he had been their commanding officer. It was not Anselm's business to find their arms and accoutrements; they held their lands by the tenure of finding such things for themselves. The King was dissatisfied with the archiepiscopal contingent, and, from his point of view, most likely not without reason. Anselm's troops might be expected to be among the least serviceable parts of the army. Gentlemen and yeomen of Kent—we may begin to use those familiar names—could have had no great experience of warfare; there were no private wars to keep their hands in practice; they could not be so well fitted for
- ↑ Eadmer, Hist. Nov. 37. "Ecce spei hujus et exspectationis turbatorias literas rex, a Gualis reversus, archiepiscopo destinat, mandans in illis se pro militibus quos in expeditionem suam miserat nullas ei nisi malas gratias habere, eo quod nec convenienter, sicut aiebat, instructi, nec ad bella fuerant pro negotii qualitate idonei."
- ↑ See N. C. vol. v. p. 372.
