98 Domesday and Feudal Statistics 



Knight Service in England (p. 108, J. F. Baldwin), 

 which is perhaps the best modern work on the 

 feudal system of this country. 



Certain it is the Abbots of Evesham, Ramsey, 

 and St. Albans, and the Bishop of Durham did 

 all, and sometimes more (the two latter) than the 

 same service for which they responded to escuage 

 but what evidence remains (by no means in- 

 considerable), demonstrates that most of the 

 ecclesiastics and laymen did very much less. At 

 Army of the siege of Calais (when conditions had entirely 

 /rz?! s /jy6. changed), there were perhaps at most* 1,063 

 English Earls, Bannerets, and Knights, with some 

 3,000 esquires (in feudal language c. 2,500 fees), 

 all at wages \vide MS. Harl. 3,968, which is fuller 

 than the Heralds' Coll. copy printed in Creci and 

 Calais'] ; and a professional writer [the Hon. Gen. 



own parts (Pat. Rot. 6 John). The same author (Ro. de 

 Monte, ut sup. Chron. Norm.) gives the interesting reference 

 (vide Duchesne, 995), cited in Feudal England (p. 280) 

 whose author suggests the chronicler is at fault, as the 

 escuage represented but a minority of the fees : the available 

 records do not demonstrate that at this period the Exchequer 

 were seized of any evidences which would enable its Barons to 

 form a competent conception of the number of fees held by 

 the lay Crown tenants ; it would seem probable that many 

 records perished t. Stephen, as when ancient evidences are 

 called for of a general nature, the Crown instructs its officers 

 to produce Domesday Book, and the Barons' Certificates, so 

 that apparently these were all the records to hand. 



* This estimate of course includes all the English men at 

 arms present whether Crown tenants or not : some of them 

 presumably had no landed property whatsoever cf. chescun 

 Esquier nient possessionez des terres, refit, ne chateaux, tfest en 

 service ou ad este armez [z Ric. II.]. 



