The belief that William I divided the English landed property into military fees is erroneous.... According to the extent and the nature of the productive property it could be computed how many shields were to be furnished by each estate, according to the gradually fixed proportion of a £20 ground-rent.[106]
There is no ground for thinking that William directly or systematically introduced any new kind of tenure into the holding of English lands. There is nothing to suggest any such belief, either in the chronicles of his reign, in the Survey, which is his greatest monument, in the genuine or even in the spurious remains of his legislation.... As I have had to point out over and over again, the grantee of William, whether the old owner or a new one, held his land as it had been held in the days of King Edward.[107]
There can be no doubt that the military tenure ... was itself introduced by the same gradual process which we have assumed in the case of the feudal usages in general. We have no light on the point from any original grant made by the Conqueror to a lay follower; but ... we cannot suppose it probable that such gifts were made on any expressed condition, or accepted with a distinct pledge to provide a certain contingent of knights for the king's service.[108]
If my own conclusions be accepted, they will not only prove destructive of this view, but will restore, in its simplicity, a theory which removes all difficulties, and which paves the way to a reconsideration of other kindred problems, and to the study of that aspect of Anglo-Norman institutions in which they represent the feudal spirit developed on feudal lines.
Precious for our purpose as are the _cartae_ of 1166, their evidence, as it stands, is incomplete. It needs to be supplemented by the early Pipe-Rolls of Henry II's reign. By collating these two authorities we obtain information which, singly, neither the one nor the other could afford. All those entries on the rolls which relate to _scutagia_, _auxilia_ or _dona_ require to be extracted and classified before we can form our conclusions. Hitherto, historians have remained content with repeating Swereford's _obiter dicta_, as extracted from the _Liber Rubeus_ by Madox, without checking these statements by the evidence of the rolls themselves.