Page:The Complete Peerage Ed 2 Vol 4.djvu/704

 682 APPENDIX H BARONS AND BARONY FROM THE TIME OF STEPHEN We carried our brief sketch of the origin of baronies up to the time of Stephen in the earlier portion of this paper, and so far had only dealt with barony by tenure. We now approach a period when tenure becomes qualified by writ. From 1135 to 1215 is a long step, and we can only conjecture what happened in the interval. We may, however, deduce from Magna Carta that the tenants-in-chief of the Crown had at some time prior to 12 15 wrested from the Sovereign certain rights to a voice in taxation which they were able to exercise by reason of their receiving notice of the Councils at which financial measures were to be promulgated, that such notice had been conveyed by the issue of regular summonses to such assemblies, and that the King, in order to carry out his projects without opposition, had only sent writs to those who were his creatures. For in Magna Carta there is a clause declaring that the earls and greater barons (as also the archbishops, bishops and abbots) are to be summoned by individual writs, and the other tenants-in-chief by a general writ to the sheriffs and bailiffs: Et ad habendum commune consilium regni, de auxilio assidendo aliter quam in tribus casibus predictis, vel de scutagio assidendo, summoneri laciemus archiepiscopos, episcopos, abbates, comites, et majores barones, sigillatim (^) per litteras nostras; et pre- terea faciemus summoneri in generali, per vicecomites et ballivos nostros, omnes ilios qui de nobis tenent in capite.C") In this clause we have possibly the first official recognition of the distinction between the greater barons (those who held by barony) and the other tenants-in-chief; and of the separate writ of summons which is made to play so great a part in constitutional history. From this time, although the value of the writ in the estimation of its recipients fluctuates with the circumstances of bad or better government, the individual summons to the magnates becomes in the King's hands a useful weapon wherewith to control and modify the power that lies in tenure by barony. To anticipate somewhat, evidence of this is afforded in the time of Edward I by a comparison of the large number of writs issued for assembling the host and the smaller number issued for calling a meeting of Parliament. The system upon which baronial tenure depended was already faiHng when the Great Charter was signed, for we are told by the learned authors of A History of English Law that knight's service, which reached its fullest development soon after Stephen's reign, was breaking down as a military organization: Speaking roughly, we may say that there is one century (1066-1166) in which the military tenures are really military, though as yet there is little law about them, (*) The writer reads singulatim here, following Stubbs and other authorities, though in tlie original the word appears to be sigillatim. i^) Magna Carta, edited by William Sharp McKechnie, 1905, p. 291.