90 THE CERNE CARTULARY. 



scutage and one knight on our foreign service, Witnesses, &c., 

 given at Windsor on the 3rd day of June in the 54th year of our 

 reign. 



On the great roll of the Exchequer of the 54th year of King 

 Henry is an entry that " the abbot of Cerne owes ^142 6s. 8d. for 

 several scutages of fees which he does not admit but he ought 

 not to be summoned therefor ; nor moreover, in future scutages to 

 be burdened concerning the same fees according to the writ of 

 the king in which it is certified that the king, by the fine 

 which the same abbot and convent have made with the king, 

 has released to them the service of eight knights which was 

 demanded in the former scutages from the same abbot 

 concerning the same fees : for the reason that it is not shown 

 on the rolls of the Exchequer that the king or his predecessors 

 Kings of England, since the granting of the charter of Henry 

 the king's grandfather made to the aforesaid abbot and convent, 

 had seisin of the same fees but only of the services of two 

 knights for scutage and one knight on foreign service. 

 Folio la. Be it remembered that in the zznd year of the reign of King 

 Edward about the time of the feast of S. Peter in Chains there 

 came to the lord Walter of Gloucester then sheriff of Dorset a 

 great process of distress upon the Abbot of Cerne for a certain 

 service of one knight which the aforesaid abbot owed in the 

 army of the king himself in Wales in the loth year of the same 

 reign which service however the King had pardoned to the 

 aforesaid abbot at the instance of his consort Queen Eleanor 

 and directed his writ to this effect to the aforesaid sheriff- of 

 Dorset. But because the said pardon was not directed in the 

 usual form to the Barons of the Exchequer and there was not 

 found on the rolls of the Exchequer any mention of it, they 

 ordered the said distress, that the sheriff should distrain the 

 abbot by his lands and chattels so that he should not lay hands 

 on them and should answer for the rents and profits and should 

 have the body of the same abbot before the Barons of the 

 Exchequer to answer for the aforesaid concealment practised to 

 the disinheritance of the King. Afterwards at the feast of Saint 



