of strange mistakes of that
nature, and are commonly but little acquainted with the public
revenues. This sum would make five hundred and forty thousand pounds
of our present money. The Norman Chronicle, p. 995, says that Henry
raised only sixty Angevin shillings on each knight's fee in his
foreign dominions: this is only a fourth of the sum which Gervase says
he levied on England; an inequality nowise probable. A nation may, by
degrees, be brought to bear a tax of fifteen shillings in the pound,
but a sudden and precarious tax can never be imposed to that amount,
without a very visible necessity, especially in an age so little
accustomed to taxes. In the succeeding reign the rent of a knight's
fee was computed at four pounds a year. There were sixty thousand
knights' fees in England.

NOTE [Q]

Fitz-Stephens, p. 18. This conduct appears violent and arbitrary, but
was suitable to the strain of administration in those days. His
father Geoffrey, though represented as a mild prince, set him an
example of much greater violence. When Geoffrey was master of
Normandy, the chapter of sees presumed, without his consent, to
proceed to the election of a bishop; upon which be ordered all of
them, with the bishop elect, to be castrated, and made all their
testicles be brought him in a platter. Fitz-Steph. p. 44. In the war
of Toulouse, Henry laid a heavy and an arbitrary tax on all the
churches within his dominions. See Epist. St. Thom. p. 232.

NOTE [R]

I follow here the narrative of Fitz-Stephens, who was secretary to
Becket; though, no doubt, he may be suspected of partiality towards
his patron. Lord Lyttleton chooses to follow the authority of a
manuscript letter, or rather manifesto, of Folliot, Bishop of London,
which is addressed to Becket himself, at the time when the bishop
appealed to the pope from the excommunication pronounced against him
by his primate. My reasons, why I give the preference to
Fitz-Stephens, are, (1.) If the friendship of Fitz-Stephens might
render him partial to Becket, even after the death of that prelate,
the declared enmity of the bishop must, during his lifetime, have
rendered him more partial on the other side. (2.) The bishop was
moved by interest, as well as enmity, to calumniate Becket. He had
himself to defend against the sentence of excommunication, dreadful to
all, especially to a prelate: and no more effectual means than to
throw all the blame on his adversary. (3