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08 - Normans in European History by Charles Homer Haskins · Normans in European History

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  Speaker 1: Section seven of the Normans in European History by Charles
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  Speaker 1: Homer Haskins. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Pamel and Agami. Chapter four The Norman Empire,
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  Speaker 1: Part one, The lecture upon Normandy and England, sought to
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  Speaker 1: place in their Norman perspective the events leading to the
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  Speaker 1: Norman conquest, and to show how that decisive triumph of
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  Speaker 1: Norman's strength and daring was made possible by the development
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  Speaker 1: of an exceptional ducal authority in Normandy and Maine, and
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  Speaker 1: by the personal greatness of William the Conqueror. We now
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  Speaker 1: come to follow still further this process of expansion to
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  Speaker 1: the Scotch border, to Ireland, to the Pyrenees, until the
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  Speaker 1: Empire of the Plantagenet kings became the chief political fact
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  Speaker 1: in Western Europe. The Norman Empire is the outstanding feature
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  Speaker 1: of the twelfth century, as the conquest of England was
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  Speaker 1: of the eleventh. This great imperial state is commonly known
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  Speaker 1: not as the Norman but as the Angevin Empire, because
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  Speaker 1: its rulers Henry the second, Richard and John were descended
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  Speaker 1: in the male line from the counts of Anjou. The
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  Speaker 1: phrase is however, a misnomer, since it leads one to
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  Speaker 1: suppose that the Angevin counts were its creators, which is
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  Speaker 1: in no sense the case. The center of the empire
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  Speaker 1: was Normandy, Its founders were the Norman dukes. The marriage
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  Speaker 1: of the Princess Matilda to Count Geoffrey Plantagenet added anjou
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  Speaker 1: to Normandy rather than Normandy to anjou, and it was
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  Speaker 1: as Duke of Normandy that their son, Henry the Second
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  Speaker 1: began his political career. The extension of his domain southward
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  Speaker 1: by marriage only gave Normandy the central position in his realm,
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  Speaker 1: and it was the loss of Normandy under John which
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  Speaker 1: led to the empire's collapse. Against the application of the
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  Speaker 1: term empire to the dominion of Henry the second, more
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  Speaker 1: kojuned reasons may be urged, it rests, so far as
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  Speaker 1: I know, upon no contemporary authority, and even if the
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  Speaker 1: phrase could be found by some chance in a writer
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  Speaker 1: of the twelfth century, it would carry with it no weight.
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  Speaker 1: Western Europe in the Middle Ages knew but one empire,
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  Speaker 1: the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation. From one
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  Speaker 1: point of view, neither holy nor Roman nor an empire.
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  Speaker 1: As Voltaire long afterwards remarked, yet as revived by Charlemagne
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  Speaker 1: and Otto the Great, representing to the mind of the
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  Speaker 1: Middle Ages the idea of universal monarchy which they had
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  Speaker 1: inherited from ancient Rome. To the men of the twelfth century,
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  Speaker 1: the emperor was Frederic Barbarossa. He could not be Henry
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  Speaker 1: the Second, nor or will the government of the Norman
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  Speaker 1: Angevin ruler square with the modern definition of an empire
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  Speaker 1: as a state formed by the rule of one state
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  Speaker 1: over other states. Footnote W. S. Ferguson Greek imperialism, page one,
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  Speaker 1: end footnote. His various dominions, if we accept Ireland, were
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  Speaker 1: not dependencies of England or Ajou or Normandy. King in England,
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  Speaker 1: Duke in Normandy, Count de Anjou, and Maine Duke again
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  Speaker 1: in Aquitaine. Henry ruled each of his dominions as its
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  Speaker 1: feudal lord, very much as if the German emperor today
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  Speaker 1: combined in himself the titles of King of Prussia and
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  Speaker 1: of Bavaria, Grand Duke of Baden, Duke of Brunswick, Prince
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  Speaker 1: of Waldek, and so on throughout the members of the
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  Speaker 1: German Confederation. Such a government is not an empire in
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  Speaker 1: the sense of the ancient Roman or the modern Britishtish empires,
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  Speaker 1: for it has no dependencies. It is an empire only
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  Speaker 1: in the broader and looser sense of the word, a
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  Speaker 1: great composite state, larger than a mere kingdom, and imperial
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  Speaker 1: in extent, if not in organization. That Henry's realm was
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  Speaker 1: in extent imperial can easily be seen from the map.
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  Speaker 1: It extended from Scotland to the frontier of Spain, as
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  Speaker 1: the empire of his contemporary, Frederic the First extended from
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  Speaker 1: the Baltic and the North Sea to central Italy. And
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  Speaker 1: if the kingdoms of Germany, Italy and Burgundy, which made
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  Speaker 1: up Frederick's empire, covered in the aggregate more territory, the
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  Speaker 1: actual authority of the ruler, whether in army, justice or finance,
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  Speaker 1: was decidedly less than in the Anglo Norman state. Henry
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  Speaker 1: had a stronger army, a larger revenue, a more centralized government. Moreover,
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  Speaker 1: the Norman Empire was less artificial than it seems to
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  Speaker 1: us at first sight, accustomed as we are to the
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  Speaker 1: associations of the modern map, There was, especially with medieval
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  Speaker 1: methods of communication, nothing anomalous in a state which straddled
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  Speaker 1: the English Channel. Normandy was nearer England than was Ireland.
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  Speaker 1: It was quite as easy to go from London to
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  Speaker 1: Rule as from London to York. The geographical bonds were
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  Speaker 1: also strong between Henry's continental dominions. For the roads of
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  Speaker 1: the twelfth century did not radiate from Paris, but followed
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  Speaker 1: mainly the old Roman lines, and from Ruon there was
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  Speaker 1: direct and easy communication with leu Mont, Tour, Poitiers and Bordeaux.
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  Speaker 1: In the matter of race two, we must beware of
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  Speaker 1: being misled by our modern ideas. The English nation was,
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  Speaker 1: at most most only the vaguest sort of a conception.
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  Speaker 1: The French nation did not exist till the fifteenth century,
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  Speaker 1: and personal loyalty to the lord of many different lands
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  Speaker 1: was a natural expression of the conditions of the age.
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  Speaker 1: It is contrary to our prejudices that a single state
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  Speaker 1: should be formed out of the hard headed Norman, the
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  Speaker 1: Celtic fishermen of the Breton coast, the pescheurtis Lande of
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  Speaker 1: a later day, the Angevin Turngeau Poisit de Vains, the
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  Speaker 1: Troubadour of Aquitaine, and the Gascon of the far South,
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  Speaker 1: with his alien blood and non Aryan language. Already a
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  Speaker 1: well marked type who swaggering gasconades foreshadow the d'Artagnan of
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  Speaker 1: the Three Musketeers and the cade de gascoigne of Sirono
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  Speaker 1: de Bergirac. But it was little harder to rule these
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  Speaker 1: diverse lands from London or rural than from Paris. It was,
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  Speaker 1: for the time being as easy to make them part
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  Speaker 1: of a Norman empire as of a French kingdom. Over
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  Speaker 1: the various languages and dialects ran the Latin of law
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  Speaker 1: and government, and the French of the court and of affairs.
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  Speaker 1: While in political matters these countries were, as we shall see,
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  Speaker 1: quite capable of united action. Let us call to mind
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  Speaker 1: how the Empire of Henry the Second was formed. At
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  Speaker 1: the death of the conqueror in ten eighty seven, the
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  Speaker 1: lands which he had brought together and ruled with such
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  Speaker 1: good peace were divided between the two eldest sons, Robert
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  Speaker 1: receiving Normandy and William the Red England. Save for William's
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  Speaker 1: regency over Normandy during his brother's absence on the Crusade,
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  Speaker 1: the two countries remained separate during his reign, and were
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  Speaker 1: united once more only in eleven o six, when William's
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  Speaker 1: successor his younger brother Henry the First. After defeating and
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  Speaker 1: deposing Robert at Tachbrey ruled as Duke of Normandy and
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  Speaker 1: King of England. This was the inheritance which, after the
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  Speaker 1: death of Prince William in the White Ship, Henry sought
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  Speaker 1: to hand down to his daughter Matilda, but which passed
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  Speaker 1: for the most part to his nephew, Stephen of Blois. Stephen, however,
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  Speaker 1: never gained a firm hold in England and soon lost
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  Speaker 1: Normandy to Matilda's husband, Count Geoffrey of Anjou, by whom
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  Speaker 1: it was conquered and ruled in the name of his
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  Speaker 1: son Henry. Later Henry the Second, crowned Duke of Normandy
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  Speaker 1: in eleven fifty. Henry succeeded his father as Count of
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  Speaker 1: Anjou in the following year, and at Stephen's death in
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  Speaker 1: eleven fifty four, became King of England. Meanwhile, in eleven
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  Speaker 1: fifty two, he had contracted a marriage of the greatest
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  Speaker 1: political importance with Eleanor, Duchess of Aquitaine, whose union with
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  Speaker 1: the French King Louis the seventh had just been annulled
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  Speaker 1: by the pope An alliance which made him Master of Poitaut,
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  Speaker 1: Aquitaine and Gascony, and therewith of two thirds of France.
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  Speaker 1: Apart from certain adjustments in central France. The only addition
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  Speaker 1: to these territories made during Henry's reign was the conquest
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  Speaker 1: of Eastern Ireland in the years following eleven sixty nine.
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  Speaker 1: Into these Irish campaigns and their consequences for the whole
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  Speaker 1: later history of the island, we cannot attempt to go.
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  Speaker 1: Let me only point out that the leading spirits were
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  Speaker 1: Norman except so far as they were Irish exiles, and
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  Speaker 1: that the names which now make their appearance in Irish
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  Speaker 1: annals are Norman dames, the Lacis and the Clares, the FitzGeralds,
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  Speaker 1: and the du Courcie as Irish. Before long as the
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  Speaker 1: Irish themselves substantially, then the Empire of Henry the Second
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  Speaker 1: remained in extent as he found it at his accession
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  Speaker 1: to the English throne at the age of twenty one.
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  Speaker 1: It was not created by him, but inherited or annexed
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  Speaker 1: by marriage. Accordingly, it is not as a conqueror that
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  Speaker 1: he can lay claim to greatness. But although Henry attempted
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  Speaker 1: little in the way of acquiring new territory. He did
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  Speaker 1: much to consolidate his possessions and to extend his European
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  Speaker 1: power and influence. His daughters were married to the greatest
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  Speaker 1: princes of their time, Henry the Lion, Duke of Saxony
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  Speaker 1: and Bavaria, King Alphonso the Eighth of Castile, King William
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  Speaker 1: the Second of Sicily. He made an alliance with the
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  Speaker 1: ruler of Provence and planned a marriage with the House
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  Speaker 1: of Savois that would have given him control of the
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  Speaker 1: passes into Italy. He took his part in the struggle
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  Speaker 1: of Pope and anti Pope of Pope and Emperor. He
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  Speaker 1: corresponded with the Emperor of Constantinople, refused the crown of
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  Speaker 1: the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and died on the eve of
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  Speaker 1: his departure on a crusade. No one could lay claim
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  Speaker 1: to greater influence upon the international affairs of his time.
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  Speaker 1: Occupying this international position, Henry must not be viewed as
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  Speaker 1: he generally is, merely as an English king. He was
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  Speaker 1: born and educated on the continent, began to reign on
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  Speaker 1: the continent, and spent a large part of his life
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  Speaker 1: in his continental dominions. He ruled more territory outside of
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  Speaker 1: England than in it, and his continental lands had at
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  Speaker 1: least as large place as England in his policy. It
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  Speaker 1: is perhaps too much to say in modern phrase that
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  Speaker 1: he thought imperially, but he certainly did not think nationally.
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  Speaker 1: And when his latest biographer speaks of Henry's continental campaigns
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  Speaker 1: as foreign affairs footnote Saltzman Henry the Second, where the
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  Speaker 1: continental aspects of Henry's reign are dismissed in a brief
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  Speaker 1: chapter on foreign affairs, the heading would be more appropriate
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  Speaker 1: to the account of Henry's campaigns in Ireland, and footnote
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  Speaker 1: he is thinking insularly for Normandy anjou Gascony even were
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  Speaker 1: no more foreign than England itself. Henry is not a
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  Speaker 1: national figure, either English or French. He is international, if
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  Speaker 1: not cosmopolitan. Only from the point of view of later
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  Speaker 1: times can we associate him peculiarly with English history, when,
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  Speaker 1: after the collapse of the Norman Empire under his sons,
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  Speaker 1: the permanent influence of his work continued to be felt
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  Speaker 1: most fully in England, both as a man and as
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  Speaker 1: a ruler. The figure of Henry the Second has come
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  Speaker 1: down to us distorted by the loves and hates of
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  Speaker 1: an age of the most violent and bitter controversy. Brilliant,
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  Speaker 1: though scarcely heroic to his friends. To his enemies, he
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  Speaker 1: was a veritable demon of tyranny and crime, whose lurid
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  Speaker 1: end pointed many a moral respecting the sins of princes
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  Speaker 1: and the vengeance of the most high. Eminently a strong man,
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  Speaker 1: he was not regarded as in any sense superhuman, but
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  Speaker 1: rather as an intensely human figure, tempted in all points
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  Speaker 1: like as other men, and yielding where they yielded. Heavy,
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  Speaker 1: bull necked, sensual, with a square jaw, freckled face, reddish hair,
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  Speaker 1: and fiery eyes that bled raised in sudden paroxysms of anger,
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  Speaker 1: he must, in Bishop Stubb's phrase, have looked generally like
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  Speaker 1: a rough, passionate, uneasy man. Footnote Benedict of Peterborough, Volume two,
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  Speaker 1: page thirty three and footnote. The dominant impression is one
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  Speaker 1: of exhaustless energy, accompanied by a physical restlessness, which kept
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  Speaker 1: him whispering and scribbling during mass hunting and hawking from
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  Speaker 1: morning to night, and riding constantly from place to place
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  Speaker 1: throughout his vast dominions with a rapidity that always took
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  Speaker 1: his enemies by surprise. On one occasion, he covered one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and seventy miles in two days, well educated for
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  Speaker 1: a prince of his time, and able to hold his
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  Speaker 1: own and ready converse with the clerks of his court.
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  Speaker 1: His tastes were neither speculative nor romantic, but were early
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  Speaker 1: turned toward practical life. He was primarily an able, plausible, astute, cautious,
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  Speaker 1: unprincipled man of business. Footnote Benedict of Peterborough, Volume two,
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  Speaker 1: page thirty one, end footnote. Fond of work and delighting
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  Speaker 1: in detail, with a distinct gift for organization and mastery
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  Speaker 1: of diplomacy. Wise in the selection of his subordinates, skillful
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  Speaker 1: in evasion, but quick and sure in action, Strong, clear headed,
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  Speaker 1: and tenacious. Henry represents the type of the man of
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  Speaker 1: large affairs, and in another age might have amassed a
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  Speaker 1: large private fortune as a successful business man. In the
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  Speaker 1: twelfth century, the chief opportunity for talent of this sort
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  Speaker 1: was in public life, where the king's household was also
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  Speaker 1: the government of the state. The strengthening of royal authority
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  Speaker 1: was the surest means of attaining national unity and security,
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  Speaker 1: and the interest of the king coincided with the interest
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  Speaker 1: of the state to the present day, with its cry
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  Speaker 1: for business men in public office. This seems natural enough,
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  Speaker 1: but we must remember that feudalism meant exactly the opposite
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  Speaker 1: of business efficiency, and that the problem of creating an
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  Speaker 1: effective government in the midst of a feudal society turned
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  Speaker 1: largely on the maintenance of a business like administration of justice, finance,
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  Speaker 1: and the army. By his success in these fields, Henry
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  Speaker 1: went a long way toward creating a modern state, and did,
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  Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, establish the most highly organized
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  Speaker 1: and effective government of its time in Western Europe. Our
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  Speaker 1: conceptions of the nature of Henry the Second's public work
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  Speaker 1: have been in certain respects modified as the result of
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  Speaker 1: modern research. It has become clear, in the first place,
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  Speaker 1: that he was an administrator rather than a legislator, and
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  Speaker 1: that such of his legislation as has reached us belongs
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  Speaker 1: in the category of instructions to his officers, rather than
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  Speaker 1: in general enactments. These measures lack the permanence of statutes.
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  Speaker 1: They are supplemented, modified withdrawn, in accordance with the will
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  Speaker 1: of a sovereign whose restless temper showed itself in a
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  Speaker 1: constant series of legal and administrative experiments. Many of his
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  Speaker 1: changes seem to have been affected through or all command,
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  Speaker 1: rather than written instructions. In the second place, Henry's originality
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  Speaker 1: has been somewhat diminished by a more careful study of
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  Speaker 1: the work of his predecessors, notably of Henry the First,
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  Speaker 1: in whose reign it is now possible to trace at
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  Speaker 1: work some of the elements that were once supposed to
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  Speaker 1: have been the innovations of his grandson. As a whole, however,
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  Speaker 1: the work of Henry the Second stands the test of
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  Speaker 1: analysis and gives him an eminent place in the number
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  Speaker 1: of medieval statesmen. Precocious in many ways, as was the
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  Speaker 1: political organization of Henry's dominions, it was conditioned by the
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  Speaker 1: circumstances of its time, and we must be careful to
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  Speaker 1: conceive it in terms of the twelfth century, and not
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  Speaker 1: of the fifteenth or the twentieth. The Norman sovereign had
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  Speaker 1: at his disposal none of the legal or bureaucratic traditions
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  Speaker 1: which were still maintained at Constantinople, and were not without
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  Speaker 1: their influence upon the Norman Kingdom of Sicily. Nor was
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  Speaker 1: the time ripe for the creation out of hand of
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  Speaker 1: a strong central government for his various territories. Such as
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  Speaker 1: became possible in the Burgundian state of the fifteenth century
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  Speaker 1: and in the Austrian state which was modeled upon it.
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  Speaker 1: Henry was in the midst of a feudal society and
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  Speaker 1: had to make the best of it. He had to
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  Speaker 1: reckon with the particularistic traditions of his several dominions, as
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  Speaker 1: well as with the feudal opposition to strong government, and
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  Speaker 1: Western Europe was still a long way from the economic
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  Speaker 1: conditions which lie at the basis of modern bureaucracies. When
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  Speaker 1: we speak of the Anglo Norman or the ang of
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  Speaker 1: an empire, we must accordingly dismiss from our minds at
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  Speaker 1: the outset any notion of a government with a capital,
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  Speaker 1: a central treasury and judicature and a common assembly. A
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  Speaker 1: fixed central treasury existed only in the most advanced of
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  Speaker 1: the individual states, and it was many years before the
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  Speaker 1: courts established themselves permanently at Westminster and rule. Government was
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  Speaker 1: still something personal, centering in the person of the sovereign,
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  Speaker 1: and the ministers of the state were still his household servants.
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  Speaker 1: The king had no fixed residence, and as he moved
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  Speaker 1: from place to place, his household and its officers moved
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  Speaker 1: with him. Indeed, kings were just beginning to learn that
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  Speaker 1: it was safer to leave their treasure in some strong
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  Speaker 1: castle than to carry it about in their wanderings. It
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  Speaker 1: was not until eleven ninety four that the capture of
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  Speaker 1: his baggage train by Richard the Lionhearted taught the French
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  Speaker 1: king Philip Augustus to leave his money and his title
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  Speaker 1: deeds at Paris when he went on a military expedition.
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  Speaker 1: We must not be surprised to find that the principal
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  Speaker 1: common element in Henry's empire was Henry himself, supplemented by
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  Speaker 1: his most immediate household officers, and that many of these officers,
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  Speaker 1: such as the seneschals and the judiciars, were limited in
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  Speaker 1: their functions to England or Normandy or Anjou, and usually
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  Speaker 1: remained in their particular country to look after affairs in
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  Speaker 1: the king's absence. There was, however, one notable exception. The
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  Speaker 1: chancellor or royal secretary regularly in ecclesiastic so that there
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  Speaker 1: was no chance of his turning the office into a
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  Speaker 1: hereditary fief. The nature of the chancellor's duties attached him
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  Speaker 1: continuously to the person of the sovereign, and made him
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  Speaker 1: the natural companion of the royal journeys. He was far, however,
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  Speaker 1: from being a mere private secretary or amanuensis, but stood
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  Speaker 1: at the head of a regular secretarial bureau, which had
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  Speaker 1: its clerks and chaplains, and its well organized system of
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  Speaker 1: looking after the king's business. The study of the history
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  Speaker 1: of institutions goes to show that, on the whole, there
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: is no better test of the strength or weakness of
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  Speaker 1: a medieval government than its chancery. If it had no chancery,
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  Speaker 1: as was the case under the early Norman dukes, or
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  Speaker 1: if its methods, as seen in its formal acts, were
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  Speaker 1: irregular and on businesslike, as under Robert Curtouse, there was
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  Speaker 1: sure to be a lack of organization and continuity in
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  Speaker 1: its general conduct of affairs. If, on the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: the chancery was well organized, its rules and practices regularly observed,
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  Speaker 1: its documents clear and sharp, and to the point, this
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  Speaker 1: meant normally that inefficient government stood behind it. Now, judged
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  Speaker 1: by the most exacting standards, the chancery of Henry the
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  Speaker 1: Second had reached a high degree of perfection. It has
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  Speaker 1: quite recently been the subject of an elaborate study by
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  Speaker 1: the most eminent medievalist of our time, the late Leopold Delille,
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  Speaker 1: who cannot restrain his admiration for its regularity, its accuracy
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  Speaker 1: and finish, and the extraordinary range and rapidity of its work.
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  Speaker 1: The documents issued in the name of Henry the Second
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  Speaker 1: during his long reign of thirty five years, says Delille
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  Speaker 1: footnote Ricuy desac de Henri Dusiem introduction, page one. Compare
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  Speaker 1: page one fifty one and footnote both for his English
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  Speaker 1: and his Continental possessions are all drawn up on the
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: same plan, in identical formulae, and expressed with irreproachable precision,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: in a simple, clear and correct style, which is also
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: remarkably uniform, save for a small number of pieces which
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: show the hand of others than the royal officers. If
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: the judgment of this master required support, I should be
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: glad to confirm it from the personal examination of some
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: hundreds of Henry's charters and writs. Such uniformity, it should
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: be observed, is evidence not only of the extent and
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: technical attainments of the chancery, but of substantially similar administrative
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: conditions throughout the various dominions to which these documents are addressed. Officers, functions,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: legal and administrative procedure are everywhere very much alike. Moreover,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: a study of these charters reveals another fact of fundamental importance.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: Even more significant than uniformity of procedure in a chancery
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: is the type of document issued. For Since the strength
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: of government lies not in legislation but in administration, a
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: sure index of a state's efficiency will be found in
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: the extent and character of its administrative correspondence. This test
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: places the Norman Empire far in advance of any of
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: its contemporaries. Every payment from the treasury, every allowance of
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: an account, every summons to the army, every executive command
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: or prohibition was made by formal royal writ pair breaway reggies.
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: As we read page after page, indi the account rolls
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: of the many thousands of such writs issued in Henry's reign.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Exceedingly few have come down to us. But no one
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: can read these ters direct train down to the bone
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: and muscle without realizing the keen minds and the clear
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: cut administrative methods which they represent. Take for example, footnote Delio,
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: page one sixty six from MATTX Exchequer Volume one, page
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: three ninety and footnote Henricus dei gratia rex Anglorum at
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: dukes no manorum at aquitanorum at comes and de gallorum
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: rex theestsarario at Wilhelmo malduit Etuarino Figlio Giraldi Carmeii suis
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: salutem liberate de the sauro mao uikisimo guinto Marcus fratribus
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: cartusia de Ely's quinquagesimo mar GUIs quas do as aniatim
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: percota meeon teste Wilhelmo de sancte maria ecclesia up at westmoster.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: The purpose of these writs might, of course vary sees
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: A of this land do right to b for that tenement,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: secure c in his possession, Bring your knights to such
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: a place at such a time, summon twelve men to
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: decide D's rite. But each has its appropriate form, which
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: is always crisp and exact. All speak the language of
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: a strong businesslike administration, which expected, as a matter of course,
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: prompt and implicit obedience throughout its broad dominions. If such
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a system be given enough time, it will inevitably exert
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: a strong and persistent influence in favor of centralization and uniformity,
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: and it would be interesting to know just what was
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: accomplished in these directions during the first half of the
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Norman Empire's existence. The parting advice which Henry had received
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: from his father, Jeoffrey was to avoid the transfer of
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: customs and institutions from one part of his realm to another,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: and the wisdom of the warning was obvious under feudal conditions,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: if not in all imperial governments. But there is a
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: difference between the field of local custom and the institutions
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: of administration. And while even in matters of feudal law,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: there is some evidence of a generalization of certain reforms
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: in the rules of succession, in the conduct of government,
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: it was impossible to keep the different parts of the
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: empire in water tight compartments, so long as there was
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: a common administration and frequent interchange of officials between different regions.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: We must remember that Henry was a constant experimenter, and
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: that if the thing worked well in one place, it
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: was likely to be tried in another. Thus, the assizes
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: of Arms and the Ordinance for the crusading tithe were
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: first promulgated for his continental dominions, while the Great English
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: Inquest of knights fees in eleven sixty six, preceded by
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: six years the parallel Norman measure. The Great Struggle with
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Beckett over the church courts seems to have had a
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Norman prolog. The chronological order in any given case might
• 28:29
  Speaker 1: well be a matter of chance, but in administrative matters
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the influence is likely to have traveled from the older
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and better organized to the newer and more loosely knit dominions,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: from England, Normandy and Anjou on the one hand, to Plotau,
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: Aquitaine and Gascony on the other. End of section seven,