=Source.=--Richard, son of Nigel, _Dialogus de Scaccario_, ed. Hughes,
Crump, and Johnson, p. 99.
_Master._--The proper definition of “murder” is the secret killing of
a man whose slayer is unknown.... In the original condition of the
realm after the Conquest, the conquered English who were left used
to lie secretly in wait for the distrusted and hated Norman people,
and everywhere, when opportunity offered, killed them by stealth in
the woods and in remote places; and when, to avenge them, kings and
their ministers had for years with exquisite kinds of torture cruelly
entreated the English, and the latter none the less had not altogether
unlearned the habit, the following plan was devised; the so-called
“hundred,” in which a Norman was found thus killed, when the compasser
of his death was not found and through flight could not be traced, was
condemned to pay a large sum of tested silver to the treasury, some
36_l._, some 44_l._, according to the size of the district and the
frequency of the slaying. They say that this was done in order that the
infliction of a general penalty might ensure safety for travellers, and
that all men might make haste to punish a crime so great, or to bring
to justice the man through whom so enormous a loss fell on the whole
neighbourhood....
_Disciple._--Ought not the secret killing of an Englishman to be
reputed as murder equally with that of a Norman?
_M._--No, not by the original institution, as you have heard; but now,
through the dwelling together of the English and the Normans and by
intermarriage, the races have become so mixed that one can hardly tell
to-day--I speak of freemen--who is of English and who of Norman birth;
except in the case of those bound to the soil who are called villeins,
who are not free to change their condition against the will of their
lords. On that account almost always when any one is found so slain
to-day, it is punished as murder, except in the case of those whose
servile condition, as we have said, is apparent by obvious proofs.
_D._--I wonder that a prince of such unique excellence and a man of so
stern a mould should have shown such mercy towards the English people,
conquered and distrusted by him, that he not only saved harmless the
husbandmen by whom agriculture might be practised, but left even to the
nobles their estates and wide possessions.
_M._--These questions are not relevant to the matter in hand, to which
I am pledged; still I will gladly tell you what I have heard hereon
from the natives themselves. After the conquest of the realm, after
the just overthrow of the rebels, when the king himself and the king’s
barons traversed the new country, a careful enquiry was made touching
those who fought against the king in battle and saved themselves by
flight. To all of these, and to the heirs also of those who had fallen
in battle, all hope of the lands and estates and revenues which they
had before possessed was denied; they thought it much to enjoy the
privilege of continuing to live under their enemies. But as for those
who were summoned to the war and had not yet assembled, or had not
been present through domestic or any necessary occupations, when in
the course of time they had won the favour of their lords by devoted
service, they began to acquire possessions for themselves only, without
hope of passing them on to an heir, at the will of their lords. But as
time passed and they became hateful to their lords and were everywhere
driven from their possessions, with none to restore what had been
taken away, a general complaint of the natives reached the ear of the
king, that if they were thus hated of all and spoiled of their goods,
they would be forced to cross to alien peoples. Counsel was at length
taken hereon, and it was decreed that what their merits might earn
from their lords by a lawful covenant should be granted to them by
inviolable right, but that they should claim nothing for themselves by
right of heredity from the time of the conquest of the race. The wise
discretion of this provision is manifest, the more so as they would
thus be bound in every way in their own interests to strive henceforth
to win the favour of their lords by devoted service. So, therefore, any
member of the conquered people who possesses estates or any such thing,
has acquired them not because they were thought to be due to him by
hereditary right, but because he has gotten them by his merits or by
covenant.