23. Also, the said justices, together with the bailiffs of William of the Church of Saint Mary, Geoffrey Fitz-Peter, William de Chimelli, William Bruere, Hugh Bardolph, and of the sheriff of each place, are to cause the knights mentioned on the roll to be summoned in their respective counties, to appear at a time and place which they shall signify to them, and to make them swear in their presence that they will use all their lawful endeavors to restore the lands and escheats belonging to our lord the king, and to value the same to the advantage of our lord the king, and not through hatred, favor or regard for any person, to omit so to do. And the said knights before named shall, upon their oath, make choice of twelve lawful knights, or free and lawful men, if knights shall not be found for the purpose, in the different parts of each county on the circuit of the said justices itinerant, as shall seem expedient; who shall, in like manner, make oath that they will use all their lawful endeavors to restore, and to value and establish the rights of wardship and escheat in those parts, and will give their counsel and assistance to advantage the king therein, as before mentioned. The said jurors shall also, upon oath, choose from free men as many and such as they shall think necessary for the performance of the aforesaid business of our lord the king as to escheats and wardships, in such manner as may be best done for the advantage of our lord the king. It is also to be known, that the said wardships and escheats shall be made good out of the revenues arising therefrom up to the feast of Michaelmas, as also from the revenues at that time due; and, if they shall not suffice, then the deficiency shall be supplied by a toll of our lord the king: it being understood that those who hold the said wardships and escheats to farm shall, at the feast of Saint Michael, answer for the same, and thenceforward for the improvements as well. And as for those who shall hold the said wardships and escheats to farm, our lord the king shall give them warranty for the same from year to year until the termination thereof; so that, although our lord the king should give any of them to any person, the farmer shall still hold his farm till the end of the year, by paying to him to whom our lord the king shall have so given it, the rent which shall be due to the king for the same until the end of the year. The rights of justice of the escheat, however, which he shall have so given shall remain with our lord the king, unless our lord the king shall have given them by name. The farmer, when he shall have given up his farm, is to have all his stock which he shall have placed upon the farm, and all his property over and above the property of the king there, freely and without diminution. They

shall also have letters patent of our lord the archbishop, containing the tenor of the charter of our lord the king made relative thereto.

Most diligent enquiry shall also be made what is the rental assessed upon each manor in the demesne, and the value of all other assessments in the said manors, and how many carrucates there are, and how much they are each worth, not estimating them at a fixed value of twenty shillings only, but, according as the land is good or bad, whether the value is likely to increase or decrease. Those persons who shall take these farms shall stock their farms, as already said, according to the above named value from the revenues of the escheats and wardships. Enquiry is also to be made with how many oxen and plough horses each carrucate ought to be stocked; and how many and what amount of stock each manor is able to support and the result thereof is then to be openly and distinctly reduced to writing. The price set upon a bull shall be four shillings, and upon a cow the same, upon a plough-horse the same, upon a sheep with fine wool ten pence, upon a sheep with coarse wool six pence, upon a sow twelve pence, and upon a boar twelve pence; and when the farmers give up their farms they shall be answerable in the aforesaid sums, or in animals payable for the same, at the option of the farmers; and when all the aforesaid stock shall be placed thereon and duly valued, they shall all be enrolled openly and distinctly, and the register thereof shall be deposited in the exchequer. From this assize are to be excepted bishoprics and abbeys, and lands of barons who are nearly of age.

Also let enquiry be made, by the oath of the parties aforesaid, as to all wardships and escheats which are not in the hands of our lord the king, and they are to be taken possession of by our lord the king, and dealt with as other lands and escheats.

24. Heads concerning the Jews.

All debts and pledges of Jews are to be enrolled, as also their lands, houses, rents, and possessions. Any Jew who shall make concealment of any one of these things, shall forfeit to our lord the king his body, as also the thing concealed, and all his possessions and all his chattels; and no Jew shall ever be allowed to recover what he has so concealed. Also, let six or seven places be appointed at which they shall make their loans, and let two lawful Christians and two lawful Jews and two lawful scribes be appointed, and in their presence, and in that of the clerks of William of the Church of Saint Mary and of William de Chimelli, let such loans be made, and let a deed describing the loan be made, after the manner of an indenture. One part is to remain

in the hands of the Jew, sealed with his seal to whom the money is paid, while the other part is to remain in the common chest; on which there are to be three locks; whereof the two Christians are to keep one key, the two Jews another, and the clerks of William of the Church of Saint Mary and of Master William de Chimelli, the third; as also three seals, those who have the keys setting thereon their seals. The clerks also of the two Williams aforesaid are to have a register containing copies of all the deeds, and as the deeds are altered so shall the register be altered. For each deed shall be paid three pence; a moiety thereof by the Jew and a moiety by him to whom the money is lent; of which the two scribes are to have two pence, and the keeper of the register the third: and, for the future, no loan shall be made, no payment made to Jews, no alteration of the deeds, except in presence of the persons aforenamed, or the major part of them, if all shall be unable to be present. The said two Christians also are to have a register of receipts for payments made henceforth to Jews, and the two Jews are to have one, and the keeper of the register one. Also, every Jew shall make oath on his roll [of the Law] that he will cause all his debts, pledges, rents, and all his property and possessions to be enrolled, and that, as above stated, he will not conceal anything; and that, if he shall be able to learn that any one has concealed anything, he will secretly disclose the same to the judges sent to them, and that forgers of deeds and clippers of money, when he shall know of such persons, he will give information against, and detect the same, and the like with regard to the deeds so forged.

25. Also, the inquisition which was to be made relative to the exactions and seizures made by all bailiffs of the king, as well by the justices as by the sheriffs, constables, and foresters and their servants, since the time of the first coronation of our lord king Richard, and why such seizures were made, and by whom; and relative to all the chattels, gifts, and promises made on the occasion of seizure of the lands of earl John and his supporters; and who received the same, and what, and how much, was deferred by command of Hubert, archbishop of Canterbury, the king's chief justice.

22. The Coronation of John

(May, 1199. Latin text, Stubbs, S. C. 270. Translation, Giles's Roger of Wendover's Flowers of History, ii. 180, slightly altered. 1 Stubbs, 553.)

JOHN of ayth of May; on the day after, which

OHN duke of Normandy came over into England, and landed

was the eve of our Lord's ascension, he went to London to be crowned there. On his arrival therefore, the archbishops, bishops, earls, barons, and all others, whose duty it was to be present at his coronation, assembled together. The archbishop, standing in the midst, addressed them thus, "Hear, all of you, and be it known that no one has an antecedent right to succeed another in the kingdom, unless he shall have been unanimously elected, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, on account of the superior merits of his character, after the example of Saul the first anointed king, whom the Lord set over his people, not as the son of a king, nor as born of royal ancestry. In the same manner, after Saul came David, son of Jesse. Saul was chosen because he was a brave man, and suited for the royal dignity: David, because he was holy and humble. Thus those who excel in vigor are elevated to kingly dignity. But, if any relative of a deceased king excel others in merit, all should the more readily and zealously consent to his election. We have said this to maintain the cause of earl John, who is here present, brother of our illustrious king Richard, lately deceased without heirs of his body, and as the said earl John is prudent, active, and indubitably noble, we have, under God's Holy Spirit, unanimously elected him for his merits and his royal blood." Now the archbishop was a man of bold character and a support to the kingdom by his steadiness and incomparable wisdom, no one, therefore, dared to dispute what he said, as knowing that he had good cause for what he did. Earl John and all who were present acquiesced, and they unanimously elected the earl, crying out, "God save the king." Archbishop Hubert was afterwards asked why he acted in this manner, to which he replied that he had foreseen, and had been informed and assured by revelations that John would one day or other bring the kingdom into great confusion, and that he might not have free hand to do this he determined that he should owe his elevation to election and not to hereditary right. Moreover the archbishop placed the crown on his head, and anointed him king, in the church of the chief of the apostles, at Westminster,

on the 27th of May; Philip, bishop of Durham, made an appeal to prevent this coronation taking place in the absence of Geoffrey archbishop of York, but did not obtain his wish. At this coronation king John bound himself by a triple oath, namely, to love Holy Church and its ordained priests, and to preserve it harmless from the attacks of evil designers, and to do away with bad laws, substituting good ones in their stead, and to see justice rightly administered throughout England. He was afterwards adjured by the same archbishop on behalf of God, and strictly forbidden to presume to accept this honor, unless he purposed in his mind, to fulfil in deed, what he had sworn to; in reply to this the king promised that, by God's assistance, he would in all good faith keep the oath which he had made. On the following day, after he had received the homage and fealty of his subjects, he went to Saint Alban's, the proto-martyr of England, to pray; and so, making but a very short stay in England, he with the advice of the nobles duly settled everything that required his attention.

23. Writ for the Assessment of the Thirteenth (February, 1207. Latin text, Stubbs, S. C. 283. Translation by Editors. I Stubbs, 620.)

THE HE king to all, etc. Be it known that by the common advice and assent of our council at Oxford it was provided, for the defence of our realm and the recovery of our right, and granted that every layman in all England, of whomsoever he may hold, who has rents and chattels in England, should give us in aid from every mark of his annual revenue, twelve pence, and from every mark's worth of every sort of movable chattels which he had on the octave of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin, that is at the time of the council, twelve pence, and thus in proportion more or less. And all the stewards and bailiffs of earls and barons, shall take oath before our justices of the value of the rents and movable chattels of their lords and likewise concerning their own. And every man except the earls and barons shall take oath concerning his own rents and chattels, according as our justices despatched for this purpose shall see to be best suited to our advantage. And if any one shall have been convicted of removing his chattels fraudulently to avoid our profit, or of concealing them in any place, or of putting them in the power of any one else, or of appraising them at less than their value, all his chattels shall be