THE DOMESDAY BOOK 
contains a record of the change of two manors from drengage to free 
service, Hildret of Carlisle, the grantee, being bound to render yearly to 
the king the gab/um animalium, as other free men, French and English, 
who held of him in chief in Cumberland, rendered it for their lands. 
In later rolls of the Pipe, that is, from their commencement in 1158 
onwards for at least a century, noutgeld is the only name by which this 
source of revenue was recorded at the Exchequer. It was the common 
phrase in use for Cumberland and Westmorland. In the other Border 
counties names of cognate signification were employed. In Northum- 
berland cornage was the word, whereas in Durham, when the custodian 
of the temporalities during a vacancy of the See accounted for 
110/, 5s. 5d. de cornagio animalium episcopatus,' he was but employing a 
combination of the terms in use in the neighbouring counties. But we 
have not yet exhausted this storehouse of nomenclature. In 1238, ina 
dispute about the custody of the lands of Odard de Wigton, it was 
stated among the reasons for awarding the custody to the king that 
Odard was a tenant by cornage, which in English is called horngeld (guod 
Angle dicitur horngelde).” One of the earliest references to it is con- 
tained in an unprinted charter of Henry I., when he confirmed to the 
canons of Carlisle the grant, made by Walter the priest to that house, 
of his manors of Linstoc and Karleton, which had been already freed de 
geldo vaccarum and of all other customs.’ In the sheriff’s inquisition in 
the ‘Testa de Nevill,’ this ‘geld of cows’ was reckoned as a cornage rent 
of 37s. 4d., of which the canons were pardoned by the king’s charter. 
Throughout the Pipe Rolls of Henry II. the sheriff invariably noted, 
after his annual return of the noutgeld, that this sum was remitted by the 
king’s writ to the canons of Carlisle. We have here a list of names linked 
together in a series, each of which indisputably refers to the same 
source of revenue. What do all these synonyms suggest? It is clear 
that only one explanation is possible, viz. that noutgeld, horngeld, corn- 
age, geld of animals, geld of cows, gavel or gafol of animals, or cornage 
of animals, was a rent paid in kind, that is, in cattle, and not, as it has 
been suggested,* an assessment reckoned by head or by horn on the 
1 Pipe Rolls, 31 Hen. I. p. 131, ed. J. Hunter. 
2 Bracton’s Note Book, No. 1270, ed. F, W. Maitland. In 50 Henry III. an inquisition was held 
whether the king may grant to Walter de Wigton quittance of hornegeld in his manors of Wigton and 
Blackhall, but the jurors said it would be of damage to the king (Iug. p.m. 50 Hen. III. No. 28). In 
this connection the service of hornegarth, on which Canon Atkinson has many interesting things to say 
(The Whitby Chartulary, i. 129, 130, Surtees Society), is very curious. See also the definition of 
hornebeil or horngeld as quittance of a certain custom exacted by tallage on every horned beast, as 
quoted by Raine from an old Rental (North Durham, App. No. DCX.), and also a quotation from the 
Cartulary of Holy Trinity (Aldgate), London, where horngelde is described as ‘ quieti de quadam 
consuetudine exacta per catalla per totam terram, scilicet, de quacumque bestia cornuta (MS. Hunterian 
Library, V. 2, 6, f. 186). Inthe Annals of Burton, Henry III. is represented as attempting to levy in 
England in 1255 ‘taylagium quod dicitur horngelth’ (Stubbs, Sedct Charters, p. 322, ed. 1870). 
3 This charter of Henry I., which is chiefly of ecclesiastical interest, will appear in full with others 
on the same subject in their proper place. 
4 English Historical Review, v. 627. As the researches of Professor Maitland have laid us under 
many obligations, it is with regret that we are compelled to dissent from his view. The article in 
question has been welcomed by northern antiquaries as a judicial pronouncement on Northumbrian 
tenures. The same view on cornage has been expressed by Seebohm (English Village Community, p. 71). 
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