Castles and Towns
However useful a castle might be in protecting the overlord's
tenants and property, the sense of security was always a great
temptation to quarrel with other lords. With strong kings, like
William I and Henry I, the danger of disorder was not so great, as
these monarchs knew how to keep their great barons in check. But
in the time of King Stephen, during the long years of civil war,
the barons were divided into two parties, and each castle became a
centre of strife.
The baron in his castle had his men to keep. These he did not pay
in regular wages. He fed, clothed, and armed them after a fashion;
and, to give them something to do, would rake up some old grievance
with a neighbouring baron, make an attack upon his property, and
let his men plunder, burn, and kill to their hearts' content. Then
the other baron would retaliate.
It is easy to see that the conditions of life in England were most
unsettled in the reign of King Stephen. There was no safety in town
or village, and the dwellers on the manors must have suffered most
severely. Their own lord would send and gather in all their store
to victual his castle from time to time: his enemy would send _his_
men to seize what they could. It made very little real difference
to the villeins which side won; _they_ suffered, as they were
heavily oppressed by both parties. Their own lord expected his dues
just the same, war or no war, famine or no famine, whether he or
his enemy had carried off the best part of the corn and cattle or
not; and he would take his pick of the men on his manors to fill
the places of his men-at-arms who had been put out of action.
Many of the barons became little better than monsters of cruelty,
and their castles "nests of devils and dens of thieves". One
of the very worst of these was Geoffrey de Mandeville, who had
large estates in Essex and Hertfordshire. His castle of Anstey,
in Hertfordshire, was a den of fearful wickedness. He and his
men neither feared God nor regarded man; nothing was sacred to
them--they spared neither church nor monastery, town nor village.
Dreadful tales are still told of the cruel deeds done in the deep
dungeons of nearly all these old castles by the "bold bad barons"
of the time of King Stephen.
When Henry II became king he put a stop to these disorders, and
large numbers of the castles were pulled down; but the evils they
had caused lived long after, and were the source of much trouble.
It is said that "Everything comes to those who know how to wait",
and the townsmen, under the rule of a great lord, knew how to wait.
Great as the lord of the town was, whether he was baron, bishop, or
the king himself, he could not do without the town--and the town
knew it. People were sometimes short of ready money in those days
just at the very time when they needed it most urgently.
You will remember that the Crusades began in the reign of King
William I. Now and again the crusading "fever" took hold of
some of these Norman barons, and many wanted to go to fight the
Turk--especially when there was not much fighting going on at home.
But crusading was a costly business, and of course there was a good
deal of rivalry between these crusading knights as to who could
raise the best-furnished troop of men. The baron would be glad to
get together as much money as he could. So the chance came to many
a town to advance money to their lord. He, in return, would grant
to the town the right to collect the tolls and customs payable to
him for a term of years; or perhaps on condition that they allowed
him so much every year out of the tolls collected.
Bishops, too, were often in urgent need of money, for there were
many calls upon them. The monasteries were, at this period,
beginning to do so much expensive building, that often they, too,
were glad to get money by granting to the townsmen privileges for
which they were willing to pay.
[Illustration: _Norman Castle (based on that of Coucy in
the north of France). Coucy (built between 1230-1242) was a
magnificent example of a feudal fortress. The "keep" was round
instead of rectangular._]
Then there were other towns, not depending so closely on a baron
or bishop or monastery, which wanted to gain similar privileges
of levying toll and custom. These would petition the king for the
right to be given to them too, to levy dues, in return for a large
sum of money paid down, or for a yearly payment to the king.
The towns were becoming strong, and they gained considerable rights
during this Norman period. As far back as the time of King Cnut
we find, in some districts, towns banding themselves together
to protect their trade and interests. This was the case with
Leicester, Nottingham, Derby, Stamford, and Lincoln.