“You speak as if you expect an imminent invasion,” commented Robert. “We haven’t seen a Welshman on our lands in over a year. You made your point very clearly last year to their local cantref lord. While some raiders have come over the border as usual, they avoid our lands like we have the plague! Yes, we run patrols. Mounted patrols, both day and night, on an irregular basis but at least one patrol a day as far as the border. Foot patrols within our lands, again at irregular times and again at least daily. Subject to weather, all the full-time men practice their individual skills daily and we have unit training at least once a week, usually twice. The part-time bowmen practice for an hour at day at the butts. The spearmen practice twice a week for half a day.”
The evening meal, a simple pottage and a meat stew with rye bread, was served as Alan explained the current political events. “We have a situation where I expect within the next three months things will explode. Last year we had the rebellion at Exeter, the raids by Harold’s bastard sons with the support of the Irish and the invasion by the Welsh. This year it looks like a full-blown revolt in the north and the involvement of the Danes on the east coast at least with raids and possibly the landing of men to support any rebellion in the north. If the Aetheling and his advisors have any sense they’ll also arrange Eadric Cild and the Welsh to invade Herefordshire, Hereward to cause problems in Lincolnshire and the Irish to raid either the south-west or the west or both. Maybe also the Scots to raid from Cumbria. And if they have sense, this time they’ll do them all at the same time instead of one after the other like they did last year. Morcar and Edgar are almost certain to join the rebellion this summer, which will make the whole of the north in rebellion. If the Aetheling is really smart he’d arrange for Fulk to attack Maine at the same time, so William can’t bring reinforcements from Normandy. One thing I’m reasonably sure of is that before winter the Welsh will be across the border in force. Whether in the north near Chester, here in the south near Hereford, or both, I don’t know.”
The next day Alan spent touring the four villages and meeting with their headmen Siric, Aella, Bearn and Defan. He noted that a number of his soldiers now had women and learned that several of the wives from Essex had made the journey with their children to be with their husbands. Most of the wives were those women who had lost their men in the Welsh invasion the year before and who had been looking for men to support them and their children. Nearly half of the garrison slept in cottages in the village.
The following day Alan observed the warriors at their training. He sent a message to Bernard de Neufmarche, who held nearby lands, that he would like to arrange a mock-attack on one or more of his villages to test the readiness of both of their forces.
That night he rode out with a mounted patrol on a loop along the river valley nearly to the border and then back via Witney, Winferton and Ailey.
The next night he rode with most of the men to stage a mock-attack on Yarsop, easily overwhelming the defenders, before being back at Staunton before dawn. Later that day he watched Bernard’s men stage a pre-arranged attack on Staunton- Alan had not advised Robert or his men of the pending attack. The attacking force was sighted by the watchmen in good time, the alarm given and the men mustered. The villagers drove the livestock into the nearby forest and hid themselves. Alan provided food and drink for the mid-day meal for Bernard’s men, who left well satisfied.
Also was also well-satisfied that matters on his lands on the Welsh border were well in hand, and departed with his men the next day, riding east and arriving at Thorrington on Saturday 25th April, the Feast of St Mark the Evangelist.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Thorrington June 1069
It was late afternoon on Monday 29th June. Alan was sitting in the Hundred Court with Leofstan of Great and Little Holland and Edwold of Alresford at the Old Hall at Thorrington, dealing with a number of cases that had not been able to be heard at the usual Assize day two weeks before. The case currently before the court dealt with the disputed ownership of a cow. As it involved a villager from Thorrington, Leofstan was acting as Chief Judge.
West-Saxon law operated in a quite cumbersome manner, although usually effective. The free male population was divided into frithboghs each of ten men. The law acted by way of monetary compensation in which each man of the frithbogh was required to contribute his share of any compensation or fine if a member of the frithbogh was found guilty of a crime. They were also responsible for the accuracy of any sworn evidence given to the court by one of the frithbogh’s members. The guilty paid their bot, either as a fine or as compensation, depending on the offence. If they did not, for more serious offences they suffered mutilation or hanging and for less serious offences may be banished from the community. A man could literally get away with murder if he could pay his wergild, or that of his victim (whichever was the higher), in bot. For a gebur freeman or freewoman that was 200 shillings. For a thegn it was 1,200. No wergild was payable for slaves, but their owners received compensation equal to their value if they were killed or injured. These were massive amounts of money for men who usually measured their weekly income in pennies. All men were required to be in a tithing, usually of the same members as the frithbogh, which actively policed its members due to their collective responsibility for any breach of the law.
In small tight-knit communities, where few traveled further than the next village and a visit to the nearest town was a major undertaking, the system generally worked well. Everybody knew the litigants and the penalty for perjury was such that in a deeply religious society few would contemplate giving false oath. The prospect of being forever denied being shriven of their sins by a priest and on their death being buried in unconsecrated ground, resulting in eternal damnation to the lower reaches of hell, meant that evidence sworn before the court was usually very reliable regarding facts- although personal bias still needed to be considered.
Unfortunately, in civil cases such as current case the system was largely useless- not least because it failed to make provision for the status of women. A free woman had the same rights as a free man, but was not a member of a frithbogh as that was deemed unnecessary as women were rarely the instigators of the violence that West-Saxon law was designed to curb.
The differing status of Englishmen and the French or Normans also caused problems as each was subject to the different laws and penalties of their respective countries. Although he lived in England, owned land in England and had made that country his home, Alan himself was subject to Norman law. Generally the laws were similar, except for the compensation and frithbogh systems. Indeed, in the absence of a compensation system, the penalties under the Norman law were generally more severe in the rare instances that they were actually applied. A dispute involving men of both countries became full of very complex issues, not least being whether the Hundred Court would have jurisdiction or whether the matter required referral to the Shire Court, where the judges were a representative of the bishop and the sheriff.