A HISTORY OF CUMBERLAND 
the northern counties near to the Scottish border, it is desirable to dis- 
cuss it in some detail, and to collect a few of the facts which have 
come under our notice. 
Before inquiry is made into the principal features of this tenure, a 
word may be said on the older views entertained about it. Littleton 
ventured on an explanation, in which he was followed by the glossary- 
writers of the seventeenth century, and by the historians of Cumberland in 
later years. In the marches of Scotland, he says, some hold of the king by 
cornage, that is to say, to wind a horn, to give notice to the men of the 
country when they hear that the Scots or other enemies are come or will 
enter England.t Camden, while expressing a similar opinion, is inclined 
to trace the custom of the Border counties to the horn-blowing practised 
by the Romans for the defence of the Great Wall.” The glossarists, who 
derive the word from ‘cornu,’ a horn, describe the tenure as a kind of 
grand serjeanty, for the reason expressed by Littleton, that the tenants 
were obliged to wind a horn when any invasion of the Scots was 
perceived.’ The explanation of Hodgson Hinde is worthy of more 
attention when he suggests that ‘cornagium’ is the natural contraction 
for ‘coronagium,’ and means nothing more than a Crown rent,’ whether 
paid in cattle as the staple commodity of Cumberland, or in a money 
equivalent when rent in stock had become obsolete.* 
The payment of this branch of the revenue is mentioned, under 
one name or another, in the earliest authentic documents relating to 
Cumberland, and it is by comparison of its various titles that we learn 
what the thing originally was. In the Pipe Roll of 31 Henry I. the 
rent or assessment, or whatever name we choose to give it, had been 
already received at the Exchequer in a money payment. The geld of 
animals, ge/dum animalium, was returned by Richard the Knight at the 
fixed sum of 85/. 85. 8¢., though it is probable from his debts under 
this head for previous years that the rent was paid over in kind and used 
to stock the king’s manors. In the early years of king John a charter 
of Henry I. was pleaded and entered on the rolls of the king’s court.’ It 
1 Tenures, sec. 156. 2 Britannia, ii. 1049, 1050, ed. Gibson. 
3 Blount, Law Dictionary ; Cowel, Interpreter, s. v. Cornage. 
4 Pipe Rolls of Cumberland, etc. p. xxvii. Society of Antiquaries of Newcastle-upon-Tyne. This 
definition was afterwards amended to ‘cornuagium,’ a tribute in horned beasts (Hodgson’s History of 
Northumberland, pt. i. p. 258). The comparative view of cornage in the northern counties at the latter 
reference (pp. 258-61) deserves respectful consideration. 
5 My friend, Mr. George Neilson, calls my attention to a custom in Annandale and Galloway, on 
the other side of the Border, which possesses some features of resemblance to the payment of noutgeld. 
He says that one special item in the Crown revenues of the fifteenth century was the annual delivery of a 
fed ox or ‘lardenare mart’ from each parish in Annandale for the royal table. These rents were paid 
at Lochmaben, as the feudal capital of the lordship, and passed over ultimately to the keeper of the castle 
as a perquisite of his office (Excheguer Rolls of Scotland, xi. 341). Similar revenues were drawn from 
Galloway, and occur at an earlier date than those of Annandale (ibid. vi. 201 ; viij. 163, 217, 287). 
In early Scots law it is known that payments were calculated by ‘the cow’ as a currency unit (E. W. 
Robertson, Historical Essays, pp. 38-9). 
® Coram Rege Roll, Easter, 2 John, No. 41,m. 9. This roll has been ascribed to 11 John by 
the Record Commission (Abbrev. Placit. pp. 664, 672) and by Bain (Calendar of Documents, 1. 470), 
but later study dates it in the second year. The typographical error in the printed book—zeblum 
animalium—should be avoided. Bain has given the correct reading. 
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