POLITICAL HISTORY 



Lawrence in the twelfth century records the supplies of food and armour m 

 stored there, whilst the Pipe Rolls at the beginning of the thirteenth century 

 indicate the existence of a siege train. 115 The same rolls also show that pon- 

 toons, picks, shovels, hatchets, &c., were sent to Ireland and Wales from this 

 county, and doubtless stores of the same nature would be kept at Durham. 

 Further, there are payments to the keeper of the armour in the castle. 118 



The castle appears to have been garrisoned on feudal principles, no mer- 

 cenaries being employed. The inferior tenants in certain townships in the 

 eastern and southern portions of the county (being those less exposed to in- 

 vasion) were under obligation to furnish men called Castlemen who kept 

 watch and ward at a definite period of the year. These men would form the 

 rank and file of the garrison. 117 The superior part of the garrison was supplied 

 by the barons of the bishopric, who in turn were each for a period responsible 

 for the defence of a section of the wall. 118 It would appear that these services 

 were never commuted for a money payment, for in 1557 the Venetian Am- 

 bassador in dealing with the border garrisons refers to the city of Durham as a 

 place of 



very great renown among the English. Though in the city no soldiers are commonly 

 kept and paid yet being very popular it has always been reputed one of the chief bulwarks 

 against the inroads of the Scots. 11 * 



In 1284 began the episcopate of Anthony Bek 'of that state and 

 greatness as never any Bishop was, Woolsey excepted.' m The period was 

 a stirring one owing to the outbreak of the Scottish war, which was to last 

 so long and cause so much misery in Durham. 



Although the bishop of Durham was after Edward I the most notice- 

 able figure of this time, the great events which rendered the period so 

 memorable took place beyond the River Tyne, and do not, therefore, 

 concern us here. Durham, except on the occasion when the Scots crossed 

 the Tyne and burnt Ryton in 1297, did not directly suffer from the 

 war, but the demands for men, money, and carriage brought about in the 

 Palatinate a constitutional crisis, which is the main feature of Bek's 

 episcopate. 



It was under Bek that the jura regalia of the bishops of Durham 

 reached their fullest development ; a development so great that it became 

 necessary for the crown to limit the powers of a subject so capable of 

 wielding them. During the first years of his episcopate, Bek, a favourite 

 of the king, carried all before him. After the beginning of the fourteenth 

 century, however, he exasperated his subjects by his exactions and arrogant 



114 Laurence, Dia/ogi (Surtees Soc.), lines 403-8. "' Bo/Jon Book (Surtees Soc.), App. xvii, xxii. 



" HatfieltTt Survey (Surtees Soc.), 271. "' Boldon Book (Surtees Soc.),/Wm. 



118 An inquisition post mortem in 1348 states that Jordan de Dalden holds certain houses in the Bailey ot 

 the castle of the bishop, ' in capite videlicet in Baronia sicut cctira de ballio.' Randall MSS, i, 45. A deed 

 about 1 200 by which Reginald Basset conveyed a house in the Bailey contains the following reservation : 'Cum 

 autem contigerit me vel heredes meos stagium facere ad custodiam castelli Dunelm., praefati monachi Dunelm, 

 michi et heredibus meis unam cameram competentem et stabulum ad quatuor equos tantum in eadcm terra pro- 

 videbunt, in quibus propriissumptibui stagium perficcre possimus.' FeoJarium (Surtees Soc.), 196. An Inq. p. m. 

 in Langley's pontificate further indicates that the holders of houses in the Bailey were responsible for the defence 

 of certain sections of the wall. Surtees, Hut. Durham, iv (2), 37. Simeon's continuator's account of the Cumin 

 incident shows that the barons of the bishopric were a somewhat numerous body, and it seems probable that at 

 the beginning of the twelfth century all who held of the bishop by knight service were known as ' Barons of the 

 Bishopric.' It is possible to identify many of the knights whom the bishop in 1 1 66 in his return to the 

 king mentions as being of the old fcoffmcnt, not only as barons but also as owners of houses in the Bailey. 



" Calendar of Venetian State Pafert. m Coke, Inititutet, iv, 216. 



IS' 



