Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/283

 1922 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 275 Domesday Book, with the well-known passage in the Dialogus referring to the great survey. In another inquisition (no. 446), taken in 1358, the treasurer and barons of the exchequer make a return from ' the book of fees kept at the Exchequer for evidence and not for record in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon ', and from ' the Red Book remaining in the Exchequer, which is of record in the counties of Cambridge and Huntingdon '- 1 A very important point is here established concerning the tenure by serjeanty of Woolbeding in Sussex. Nearly two pages of the preface to the Red Book of the Exchequer (pp. ccclxxxv-vii, 556) are devoted to vague speculations as to ' the serjeantry [sic] of Roger de Wolbedinge " by the service of being the Gunfenarius of Spicheforde " '. Of this service we there read : This entry occurs in a list of Sussex serjeanties, and we find among the Sussex tenants contributing to the Welsh war of 1165 the name of Walter de Sparkeforde. As no reference is given for this statement, I have spent much time and trouble in hunting for the said Walter, but neither in the index nor the text can I find him. Can he be among the offspring of the editor's fertile brain ? I am no less puzzled by the alleged ' Welsh war of 1165 '. It seems, however, to be a deduction from the words ' de exercitu quodam de Walliis ' in the earl of Arundel's carta of 1166. These are definitely rendered by the editor : ' concerning a certain scutage [sic] of Wales ' (p. ccv), and we read of ' the " Scutage of Wales " referred to in the Sussex charter ' on p. ccvi, and of ' the Scutage [sic] in 1165 ' on p. ccviii. No such ' scutage ' is mentioned even by Swereford himself. 2 However, in an inquisition of 1354 (no. 189) we here discover that the manor in question was held by service of coming on foot to meet (contra) the king in time of war at the bridge called Schetebrigg in co. Southampton and carrying from the said bridge, with the king, a standard as far as the bridge called Wolvardesbrigg in Sussex. 3 The index identifies these bridges as Sheet bridge in Petersfield and Woolmers bridge near Midhurst. A road, one may add, still follows the valley of the Rother from Sheet to Midhurst, to which Woolbeding is adjacent. Before taking leave of this scholarly volume one may draw attention to the inquisition on William de Roos, whose great estates require for their description more than eight pages. For, in addition to Hemsley, his ancestral castle, he held that of Belvoir. Light is thrown by the jurors' returns on the cost of upkeep for such castles and, in Lincolnshire, of sea defences, while the revenue of their lords was still affected, in 1352-3, by the ravages of the Black Death, which deprived them not only of rents but of the issues of ' common ovens '. In the index ' Gymyles ' should be combined with ' Gimeges ', for the two names are the same. J. H. ROUND. 1 See p. 75 of the Red Book for the entry cited. 2 The reader is invited to test my statements in the Red Book'' a text. 3 The service will also be found described in Book of Fees, i 71, and the Testa p. 226 b, bis. T2