Again, take the case of Peterborough. The Northamptonshire possessions of that house are divided by Domesday (fol. 221) into two sections, of which the latter is headed 'Terra hominum ejusdem ecclesiae', and represents the sub-infeudated portion, just as the preceding section contains the _dominium_ of the fief.[266] Here 'Terra hominum ejusdem' corresponds with the heading 'Terra militum ejus' prefixed to the knights of the Archbishop of Canterbury (fol. 4). The Peterborough _homines_ are frequently spoken of as _milites_ (fol. 221_b_, _passim_), and even where we only find such _formulae_ as 'Anschitillus tenet de abbate' we are able to identify the tenant as Anschetil de St Medard, one of the foreign knights enfeoffed by Abbot Turold.[267]
But it is not only on church fiefs that the Domesday under-tenant proves to be a feudal _miles_. At Swaffham (Cambridgeshire) we read in Domesday (fol. 196) 'tenet Hugo de Walterio [Gifard]'.[268] Yet in the earlier record of a _placitum_ on the rights of Ely, we find this tenant occurring as '_Hugo de bolebec_ miles _Walteri Giffard_', while in 1166 his descendant and namesake is returned as the chief tenant on the Giffard fief. The same _placitum_ supplies other illustrations of the fact.[269] The cases taken from the Percy fief and from the honour of Britanny afford further confirmation, if needed, of the conclusions I draw.[270]
It will startle the reader, doubtless, to learn that there is in existence so curious a document as a list of knights' fees drawn up in Old English. Headed 'these beth thare Knystene londes', etc., and terming a knight's fee a 'knystesmetehom', it has been placed by the Editors of the new _Monasticon_ (ii. 477) among documents of the Anglo-Saxon era, but belongs, I think (from internal evidence), to about the same period as the _cartae_ (1166). The original is extant in a Cartulary now in the British Museum.
It was urged in the earlier part of this paper that Ranulf Flambard had been assigned a quite unwarrantable share in the development of feudalism in England. But so little is actually known of what his measures were that they have hitherto largely remained matter of inference and conjecture. It may be well, therefore, to call attention to a record which shows him actually at work, and which illustrates the character of his exactions by a singularly perfect example.