152Chapter 8
daughters but no son. Eleanor soon married Henry II of
England, her junior by ten years.
Henry was a man of boundless energy and ambi-
tion. He was responsible, among other things, for the
establishment of itinerant courts (the “justices in eyre”)
that offered sworn inquests and juries as an alternative
to the duels and ordeals of the baronial courts and
whose decisions became the basis of English common
law. He also strengthened the Exchequer, or treasury,
so called because calculations were made by moving
counters on a checkered tabletop. Though Henry made
mistakes—the worst being the murder of St. Thomas à
Becket, archbishop of Canterbury, who was killed by
his henchmen in a dispute over the independence of
ecclesiastical courts—he left the country far stronger
than he had found it.
Unfortunately, his marriage to Eleanor of Aquitaine
left Henry in possession of half of France. To Louis VII
it was a personal affront as well as a threat to his sover-
eignty. For the next three hundred years the primary
goal of French policy was to secure either the obedi-
ence or the expulsion of the English (see map 8.2). It
was not at first an ethnic issue, for the English court
was culturally and linguistically French. But the situa-
tion raised questions that went to the heart of feudal re-
lationships: Could a sovereign prince be the vassal of
another? What happened to ties of dependence when
the vassal was richer and more powerful than his lord?
The issue had been brought up in a somewhat different
form by the powerful counts of Flanders and would be
revived in later years by the growth of Burgundy. The
dispute between France and England remained theDOCUMENT 8.5
The Domesday Book:
Description of a Manor
This description of the manor of Hecham, Essex, in 1086 il-
lustrates the care with which William the Conqueror’s admin-
istrators catalogued the wealth of England. It also provides a
sense of what a medium-sized manor was like and of the dra-
matic changes brought by the conquest. A hideis a measure
of land that varied between eighty and one hundred modern
acres. A bordarwas the lowest rank of villein, who per-
formed menial service in return for a cottage.Peter de Valence holds in domain Hecham, which
Haldane a freeman held in the time of King Ed-
ward, as a manor, and as 5 hides. There have always
been 2 ploughs in the demesne, 4 ploughs of the
men. At that time there were 8 villeins, now 10;
then there were 2 bordars, now 3; at both times 4
servi,woods for 300 swine, 18 acres of meadow.
Then there were 2 fish ponds and a half, now there
are none. At that time there was 1 ox, now there
are 15 cattle and 1 small horse and 18 swine and 2
hives of bees. At that time it was worth 69s., now
4£10s. When he received this manor he found only
1 ox and 1 acre planted. Of those 5 hides spoken of
above, one was held in the time of King Edward by
2 freemen, and it was added to the manor in the
time of King William. It was worth in the time of
King Edward 10s., now 22s., and William holds
this from Peter de Valence.
“Domesday Book,” II, 78b. In Translations and Reprints from
the Original Sources of European History,vol. 3, no. 5,
pp. 3–4. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1896.Illustration 8.5
Funeral Effigy of Eleanor of Aquitaine.Eleanor, who had
been both queen of France and queen of England, was a major
political figure of the twelfth century as well as a great patron of
troubadours and chivalric literature. This carving is from her
tomb at the abbey of Fontrevault in France.