Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/337

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1921 THE DATING OF THE EARLY PIPE ROLLS 329 given by herself on p. 52, but is an error which has upset her otherwise correct reckoning. 1 In 1848 Foss, whose work on The Judges of England is a credit to his patient industry, cited Hunter's edition of the roll of 1 Ric. I (1189) throughout, but always gave its date as ' 1189-1190 '. From the Pipe Rolls of Richard's reign I turn to the priceless roll of the reign of Henry I. The solitary character of this record made it by far the most difficult of these documents to date ; for there was none immediately before or immediately after it. It is now, of course, well known to belong to the year 1130. It was compiled, therefore, at Michaelmas, in the thirty-first regnal year of Henry I (5 August 1130-4 August 1131). Since the date of this Pipe Roll was determined by Mr. Hunter, 2 that date has not been questioned ; but there has been occasional confusion, due to the close (but accidental) resemblance between the dates * 1130 ' and ' 31 Henry I '. In an appendix to his William Rufus' (1882) Freeman definitely dated the roll as of 1 1131 ' (ii. 674), and even in so recent and so authoritative a work as the England under the Normans and Angevins (1905) of Mr. H. W. C. Davis we read : It is unfortunate that we have only one of the great rolls on which the receipts of Henry's exchequer were entered, and that a roll so late in date as the year 1131 (p. 140). All those who have cited the roll since its date was deter- mined by Hunter in 1833 have had, of course, the advantage of working with his argument before them. Stapleton, for instance, whose volumes appeared in 1840 and 1844, 3 was careful to give its full citation. 4 Nevertheless, on the same page he gives the date, both in text and foot-note, as ' 1131 '. This, date he also gives in at least two other places (i. cv ; n. cxxxvi). On the other hand, we find the date of the roll as ' 1130-1 ' (n. cliv), and 'the Roll of the Exchequer 31 Hen. I, 1130 ' (n. clxxxii). How is it possible to account for all this error and confusion ? 1 Her conclusion was (on p. 52) that ' the decree of the council of Nottingham [31 March 1194] was carried into effect with regard to all John's English and Irish lands ; and for the next eighteen months he was, save for his lordship of Ireland, once more . . . " John Lackland " '. Next year, she writes (p. 54), ' Richard . . . restored to him a portion of his forfeited possessions, . . . the Honours of Gloucester and Eye ', and ' this arrangement seems to have taken effect from Michaelmas 1195 '. All this is in harmony. Her failure to find ' mention of the honour of Eye or of that of Gloucester in Pipe Roll 7 Ric. I (1196)' is accounted for if she means the roll of 7 Ric. I, which was that of 1195. 2 In his edition of it, for the Record Commission, in 1833. 3 Mr. Poole, in his Exchequer in the Twelfth Century, p. 18, speaks of ' the masterly observations on the Great Rolls of the Exchequer of Normandy, which Thomas Stapleton prefixed to his edition of the Rot. Scacc. Norm, in 1840 '. It is of some importance to note that the second volume's date was 1844. 4 'Rot. Pip. 31 Hen. I, 1833, 8vo ' (n. xxvi n.).