The Lustre of a Single Shilling

 

William fitz Osbern was a close companion of William the Conqueror. He owed his position at the Duke of Normandy's right hand to his skill and loyalty as a soldier. But he was also quick-witted. Fitz Osbern made the jokes, defusing awkward situations among tense fighting men.

The Chronicle of Battel Abbey mentions a couple of occasions where he saved his leader from looking ridiculous. These occurred in the immediate lead up to the Battle of Hastings, when emotions were already at a high pitch.

On the landing of the fleet:

       "The soldiers leaped joyfully upon English ground at intervals along the shore. It happened as the duke left his ship, that he fell upon his face, making his nose somewhat bloody on the beach, and grasping the earth with his outstretched hands. Many of the bystanders feared the consequences of so unlucky a presage and stood whispering together. But the duke's sewer [household steward and food taster], William Fitz-Osbert, a man of great merit and much ready wit, being at hand, boldly rallied the failing courage of the waverers with a word. 'Cease men...to interpret this as a misfortune, for by my troth, it is a token of prosperity; for...he hath embraced England with both his hands, and sealed it to his posterity by his blood, and thus...he is destined...to win it!'"

On the morning of the battle:

       "Having arrived at a hill...situated in the direction of Hastings, while they were helping one another on with their armour, there was brought forth a coat of mail for the duke to put on, and by accident it was handed to him wrong side foremost. Those who stood by and saw this, cursed it as an unfortunate omen, but the duke's sewer again bade them to be of good cheer, and declared that this also was a token of good fortune...that those things which had before kept their balance were about fully to submit themselves to him [or 'as the duke's hauberk turns its back on him, so shall these Englishmen soon turn their back on us and flee!']"

As a military man, fitz Osbern knew a leader must be seen as lucky. As a capable administrator, he also understood that true luck was not so much a matter of chance. It was more about forethought and planning.

A CASTLE IN NORMANDY

In 1060 William of Normandy built a castle at Breteuil to protect his lands from enemies to the north. He placed it in the charge of his trusted cousin fitz Osbern, who was now responsible for the upkeep of the new castle and the provisioning of its garrison of knights and sergeants. To raise revenue, fitz Osbern encouraged the growth of a town. 

As Seigneur de Breteuil, his interest was in stimulating the amount of fines and rents he could extract from the surrounding area. To attract skilled settlers and generate economic activity, he issued a grant of liberties; a charter of rights for the new inhabitants.

Like the castle, this charter no longer exists. However, it can be reconstructed to some degree by reference to similar documents fitz Osbern introduced to England after the Conquest. The common thread in all codes claiming precedence from Breteuil was a guaranteed limit to the lord's privileges. Simply put, the maximum fine he could impose as magistrate was 12 pence. The maximum rent he could charge as landlord was likewise 12 pence. 

The castellan of Breteuil was not interested in runaway serfs. He needed to draw in a type of resident who added commercial value to the region in the long term. So he offered the traditional role of a feudal lord, protection from lawless outsiders, in return for relatively cheap building allotments and market-place. The 'freedom' was to live and work in a secure setting, to buy and sell property to each other, but at a lower annual cost than elsewhere.

AN ENGLISH CASTLE

William fitz-Osbern was amply rewarded for his service to the Conqueror at the Battle of Hastings, becoming Earl of Hereford in 1067. In assuming control of his new lands, the earl found himself in a similar position to Breteuil. He occupied another frontier region. The priority was military security, the building of strongholds to defend it against the Welsh.

From his seat at Hereford, fitz Osbern built quickly erected motte-and-baileys (raised earth and timber towered) across the southwestern borderlands. There was one exception to this pattern of expedience. Chepstow Castle he built in stone.

The original stone keep, the Great Tower, was strategically situated on top of a cliff overlooking the Wye River, guarding a key crossing point from South Wales into England. The Domesday Book preserves the early story of this Norman structure.

       "Chepstow (Estrighaiel, Strigoielg) appears in the Gloucestershire folios of the Domesday Survey, where it is recorded the Earl William Fitz Osbern built the castle and in his time [1067-1071] it rendered only 40 shillings from ships going into the woodland. In the time of his son Earl Roger (de Breteuil) [1071-1075], however, the vill itself rendered £16 and Ralph de Limsey had half. Now [1086] the king has £12 from it."

This summary indicates  that after a slow start (construction of the stone keep), the castle and its associated vill (town and manor) were soon making a good income for its custodians. Its prominent site successfully controlled an important transport gateway and its supporting settlement had grown.

It has been observed that "the Great Tower is a very odd building". In a conventional sense it can be described as "an elongated, rectangular, stone structure of the donjon function". It is approximately 36 metres long, 14 metres deep, and 10 metres high, and has limestone walls varying from 1.2 to 2.6 metres thick. So far, very Norman ― typically 'squat, square and stolid'. 

Internally the idea of a spare, strictly functional, stronghold for soldiers seems to continue. Below there was an undercroft built into sloping ground. Above there was two storeys separated by a wooden floor/ceiling and connected by stairs. Each of these two levels "was filled with single spacious chambers". 

Neither the Lower Hall or the Upper Hall have left any  architectural evidence of residential amenities. In its initial state there was no provision for latrines (garderobe), no fireplace for heating or cooking, no subdivisions for private rooms, no connecting passageways for servants. This may not have been unusual for a first floor (garrison), but it is a noticeable absence on the second (commander or lord). 

There is though, in the highest chamber, a clear emphasis on impressively built-in Norman decoration. While the lower hall had only three narrow openings for lighting (making defensive sense) there was a row of seven round-headed windows in the riverside walls of the upper hall. More striking still is the surviving 'blind arcading' along one of the shorter gable-end walls and the land-facing longer wall.

Inset into the short wall are four bays of round-headed arches supported by square-shaped pillars flat against the wall. Opposite the windows there are another five bays of blind arcading, originally ten, with the same sort of square columns, or piers, with plain capitals. (The third layer of masonry visible on the RHS images is from another storey added in a later century).

The three-dimensional effect is carefully designed and without practical use, which is in contrast to the functional austerity noted above. Sufficient painted decoration has survived to allow its reproduction in one of the bays. The shallow cavities' back and side surfaces were apparently coated with white plaster. In the arched top sections there was a band of red paint carrying white trellis-shaped lines. 

The Great Tower was therefore not castle-making on the cheap. Its purpose went beyond a simple, strong refuge for troops on the frontier. But neither was it a lord's residence with some of the basic comforts of the time.

One guess is that the Upper Hall of the Great Tower operated as centre of  regional administration. The top floor was empty but grand. The lord was not there but his agent most definitely was. In a situation of delegated authority it did no harm to remind petitioners and supplicants that the lord's deputy spoke with the lord's voice.

The upper space was an audience hall, a stage where life-changing legal decisions were made. Inhabitants, neighbours, travellers and traders entered this space uncertain, but left it knowing their circumstances had in some way been unalterably changed. Decisions made in this room had the force of Law. They were commands.

Like the flat-buttressed walls on show outside, the inner spaces were meant to create awe, to assert Norman dominance.

THE HEREFORD CHARTER

If there ever was a local charter for the vill of Chepstow, there is no sign of it now. However, the liberties granted to settlers in the borough of Hereford by William fitz Osbern are well-attested in document form. The Domesday Book of 1086 states that Hereford enjoyed the leges et consuetudines quae sunt...in bretuille ― "the laws and customs which prevail in Breteuil".

The record in Domesday is in Latin, but can be read with some help. Excerpts from the text make two major points. The law of Breteuil had a significant exception to its clauses, and its benefits were not available to all residents.

       Rex [the King] vero habatat in suo dominio tres forisfactorus [great offences], hoc est pacum suam infractum [breach of the king's peace], et heinfaram [civil unrest or 'hamfare'] et forestellum [foresteal or ambush].

The great exception to the law of Breteuil is those crimes of such gravity that the king's over-riding writ still holds. These offences concern breaking 'the king's peace' in his realm by violence and destruction, or riot and robbery. 

The (later) charter of Rhuddlan makes the distinction clearer. This Welsh town was granted the same leges et consuetudines quae sut in Hereford et in Bretuill [the same laws and customs that applied in Hereford and Breteuil]. In Rhuddlan's case, the king's jurisdiction is stated as preter homicidium [murder] et furtum [theft, fraud] et heinfar precognitam [plotted rebellion]. It punishes gross misdeeds, things that threaten the stability of the king's rule or cause social disquiet and unrest.

The second point made in the Hereford charter involves restriction of the parties to it.

        Modo habet rex civitatem Hereford in dominio et anglici burgenses [English inhabitants] ibi manentes habent suas priores consuetudines [previous customs]. Francigene vero burgenses [French settlers] habent quietas xii denarios [12 pennies or one shilling] omnes forisfactorus [all offences] suas preter tres supradictes.

In other words, English natives remain subject to the fines and rents that applied previously but French arrivals have the privilege of those annual payments to the lord being capped at 12 pence, or one silver shilling.

The selective application of the law of Breteuil was a means of colonising England with Norman nationals. It was characteristic of the Welsh Marches in particular, where King William installed powerful barons to police the borderlands. The privileges of Breteuil were thought "useful to draw men to the poorest, most disturbed and least civilised portions of the realm".

       

Historian KD Lilley summarises the process of colonisation in his article (2000), 'Non urbe, non vici, non castris cohabitant' [from Gerald of Wales ca. 1190, as in barbarians 'do not live in towns, villages or castles'].

       "When fitzOsbern was made Earl of Hereford he received this well-established city as his seat. He quickly used the laws and customs of his town of Breteuil in Normandy to establish a new borough adjacent to the English borough. At the seat of his marcher earldom of Shrewsbury, Roger de Montgomery followed suit, much to the discontent of English burgesses, for the Breteuil customs were more favourable than the terms of English borough law. Both Roger and William thus sought to establish new 'colonies' of French burgesses in these English towns.

       ...in the cases of Hereford and Shrewsbury, the law of Breteuil applied not to all inhabitants...but to those newcomers that contemporaries identified as 'French'. At Hereford this social division on 'ethnic' lines was evidently spatially defined in the town itself by the creation of a distinct and separate area just outside the walls of the English borough. This newly established area comprised a large market-place and spacious plots...providing ample land for burgesses to build upon."

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REFERENCES:

Chepstow:

<Cadw.gov.wales/CastellCasgwent>

<worldhist.org/Chepstow-Striguil>

<medievalheritage.eu/AncientandMedievalArchitecture/Chepstow.Castle>

<crsbi.ac.uk/...item?i=13941> The Corpus of Romanesque Sculpture in Britain and Ireland, Chepstow Castle, Chepstow, Monmouth

Breteuil:

The Chronicle of Battel Abbey, trans. MA Lower, 1851

NJG Pounds, 2005, The Medieval City, The Laws of Breteuil, pp 174-5

MA Bateson, 1900, 'Notes and Documents: The Laws of Breteuil', English Historical Review

                     1900, 'The Laws of Breteuil, Part II, The English Evidence', EHR

                     1900, '                                 , Part III, Draft of the Laws', EHR

                     1901, '                                 , Part IV, Burghal Colonisation', EHR

A Ballard, 1915, 'Notes and Documents: The Law of Breteuil', English Historical Review

KD Lilley, 2000, 'Non urbe, non vico, non castris: territorial control and the colonization and urbanization of Wales and England under Anglo-Norman lordship', Journal of Historical Geography, 26.4, 517-531