MILITARY SERVICE, ANGLO-NORMAN
being defined more precisely and based on territorial
units. Thus the crown was able to assess military ser-
vice due to it. However, the territory covered by a
knight’s fee could vary from region to region. For
example, a knight’s fee in County Dublin could amount
to ten plowlands—while the average size of a knight’s
fee in Meath covered twenty plowlands. In Ireland,
nearly half of the military service owed to the crown
was due from the four great royal tenants in Leinster,
Meath, and Cork. The great Marshal lordship of Lein-
ster was divided into 180 knight’s fees—but only owed
to the crown the service of 100. Similarly, the neigh-
boring liberty of Meath possessed 120 knight’s fees—
but only rendered the service of 50 knights. Only 60
knight’s fees were due from the two grantees of Cork.
All were obliged to serve when a royal service was
proclaimed in Ireland. The king’s tenants by knight
service—both English and Irish—brought with them
their own military sub-tenants to make up the feudal
host. A feudal host was an assembly under arms of the
royal tenants in chief, each with the quota of knights
that his enfeoffment required. Essentially, the arms of
the feudal host were made up of knights, men at arms,
footmen, archers, and the hobelars—forces of lightly
armed and mobile horsemen adapted to the conditions
of Irish warfare. However, the nature and composition
of the feudal host was changing. Even before 1100, it
was clear that the feudal host was gradually becoming
an obsolete form of military organization in England—
but the nature of warfare in Ireland hastened its demise
further. In Ireland, English settlements were often sub-
ject to raids; royal service could mean frequent
absence on campaign—leading to increased settler
vulnerability. Because of the incessant nature of fron-
tier warfare, the royal government was careful not to
deplete a country of its men of fighting age by strictly
enforcing observance of a royal summons. Accord-
ingly, the royal government from early in the thirteenth
century introduced scutage to lighten the burden of
feudal service on smaller military tenants. Scutage first
appeared in England around 1100 and was adopted to
ease the burden of military service upon frontier lords
in Ireland, allowing them to render a money payment
instead of royal service. Scutage is first mentioned in
Ireland in 1222. Then the royal tenants in Munster
(Tipperary and Limerick), Decies (Waterford), Desmond,
and the vale of Dublin were ordered to pay scutage
rather than join the justiciar on campaign. On occasion,
though, the levy of scutage could be unpopular. During
the 1280s, some tenants complained to Edward I that
they preferred military service to scutage.
As time passed, Anglo-Norman military service
evolved further—adapting to suit local conditions in
Ireland. Clearly, English magnates in Ireland were
adopting elements of Gaelic military service. In Ulster,
the de Burgh earls of Ulster famously adopted the buan-
nacht(“bonaght” – wages and provisions of a gallo-
glass) of Ulster. The bonaght involved the quartering of
galloglass throughout the earldom of Ulster, while the
earls levied the tuarastal (“wages”) of these elite sol-
diers upon the peasantry. Increasingly life on the frontier
between the lands of the English and the Irish became
even more hybrid—as demonstrated dramatically dur-
ing the proceedings of the parliament of 1297. It
emerged that English magnates often hired Irish troops,
billeting them upon their English tenants. When the
commons complained bitterly that English settlers were
greatly impoverished by the imposition of these hired
“kerne,” this billeting was outlawed. However, the de
Burgh earls of Ulster were not the only English mag-
nates in Ireland to adopt this Irish practice of billeting
troops upon their tenants. In the fifteenth century the
earls of Ormond, Kildare, and Desmond adopted the
practice. It was reputed that James Fitzgerald (d.1463),
seventh earl of Desmond, first imposed coinnmheadh
(“quartering or billeting” – better known as coyne and
livery) upon the Desmond earldom. The activities of the
Desmonds did not go without rebuke. In 1467, the abbot
of Odorney in Kerry wrote to the pope,complaining
about their exactions. According to the abbot, they were
forcing the local population to maintain the ceithearn
tigh(“kernety” or “household kerne”—a form of mili-
tary police), while they extracted military service from
both horsemen and footmen. If a horseman failed to
answer a summons, he was compelled to pay a fine of
three cows or 15s.—while a kerne was liable for one
cow or 5s. as a penalty for non-attendance.Similarly,
the Butler earls of Ormond imposed coyne and livery
upon their lands. During the early decades of the fif-
teenth century, James Butler (d.1452), fourth earl of
Ormond, imposed forces of kernety and galloglass
throughout his patrimony in Tipperary and Kilkenny—
granting them the right to take a cuid oidhche (angli-
cized as “cuddy”—meaning a night’s portion of food,
drink, and entertainment extracted by an Irish lord from
a subject) from every freeholder’s house. The evolution
of Anglo-Norman military service by the fifteenth cen-
tury is dramatically illustrated in this usage of Desmond
and Ormond kernety.
But the development of these large private armies
by the English magnates of Ireland was crucial to the
survival of their power on the frontiers. The best exam-
ple of this was in the rise of the Fitzgerald earls of
Kildare from 1456 to 1534. In his parliament of 1474,
Thomas Fitzgerald (d.1478), seventh earl of Kildare,
established a permanent fighting force, the ”Fraternity
of St. George” compromising 160 archers and 63
spearmen, whose captains included Kildare’s son.
However, the Kildares’ real military muscle was built
up by their importation of MacDomnaill galloglass