Hoodsman: Frisians of the Fens

by Smith, Skye

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  The Hoodsman - Frisians of the Fens by Skye Smith Copyright 2010-13

  Chapter 23 - Treasury business at the Travelers Domus, London in October 1100

  Old Gregos walked without his cane all the way from his room to the garden. He was feeling stronger every day now. The liver gruel was doing its work by replacing the blood he lost from his wound. If only it didn't taste so vile. His bodyguard and companion, Risto, was sitting in the garden with Raynar.

  Raynar had been telling Risto bawdy stories of a race of Amazon women who lived along the North Sea coast somewhere north of London. Risto enjoyed a good piece of tale.

  "Raynar, you are telling me tall tales," Risto complained "Such a life surrounded by women does not exist outside the harems of Morocco."

  "Possibly not anymore at that English village, but there are other Frisian villages along the coasts of the Fen lands from Flanders to Denmark. There is even a town of Frisians in Scotland, called Dumfris."

  "And how many of these beauties did you bed? A dozen? More?"

  "I don't remember. I was young and eager. It was so long ago. I still remember the faces and names of Inka, Edeline, Anske, Roas, Gerke, and Klaes because they were special to me. The rest. I would have to think hard. Perhaps a dozen."

  "And they enjoyed sex. These women encouraged sex because they enjoyed it, not because it was a way of controlling men?"

  "Oh, they well knew how to control men. But they also enjoyed it. I have been with many women from many countries, and of them all, the Frisian women enjoyed the pleasing the most. They are the easiest to take to the point of moaning."

  "They were faking it," Risto claimed. "All women fake it."

  "There was no reason to. No, they truly enjoyed it."

  Gregos put down the scroll he had been carrying and opened it to see what it was. He had rented a second room at the Domus to use as an office until he was again strong enough to work at the palace. For the past week there had been a continuous stream of Treasury Clerks in and out of his office during daylight hours. This scroll was the kind his clerks called pipe rolls, because they were just lists of things and amounts, with summaries and totals.

  Every day now, Gregos was writing instructions for, and training the new Treasury Clerks in how to keep the pipe rolls up to date, and how to use them. The Treasury Clerks worked for the King, but soon they were to be sent out across the kingdom to open small treasury offices in the castles of the King's sheriff's.

  King Henry had declared that the strong room of every sheriff was to be an extension of the Treasury and under the control of one of the clerks that Gregos was training, rather than the sheriff's clerks. They would all use the same method of keeping counts. That was what the pipe rolls were.

  The senior clerks would travel between castles and audit the counts at least twice a year. The sheriffs had been told that so long as a treasury clerk kept the counts, then the portion of the taxes earmarked for local use could remain in the local treasury, and not have to travel back and forth to London.

  Over half of the sheriffs had eagerly accepted the plan, the notable exceptions being those on the borders of Wales and Scotland. Of course the sheriffs all knew the true purpose of the pipe scrolls. They were to slow the pilfering and the 'little bite', the 'mordida', that happened every time any tax money changed hands.

  With some of the sheriffs who had been appointed by the previous king Rufus, the bite had not been so little. The senior treasury clerks had visited many sheriffs over the past months, and a few sheriffs were now in the Tower of London awaiting Henry's pleasure, including Ranulf Flambard, the past Treasurer.

  "I also think you have stretched the truth about these women, my friend," chuckled Gregos, "just to make it more interesting for our Risto."

  "No, Gregos," Raynar said lazily as he poked some more heat from the brazier, "I chose one of many stories about northern villages. They would all make the same points to you, Gregos, but this one also kept Risto from walking the walls and worrying the watch. It is all true, what I have said. I freely admit that I left out some of the bad things. The good story teller must limit the bad, and focus on the good, else people will stop listening."

  "So, other than making me want to wed a Frisian woman," asked Gregos, "what else should I have seen in your words?"

  "Did you see the flaw in the Normans' dead and bed tactic when it was tried in the North? In the South it worked well, too well, because in the south the land and wealth and power was already held by land lords. Most holdings and earnings were based on land ownership, which was registered and measured and could be proven and inherited.

  By dispossessing and replacing the southern land lords with Norman lords they took over the South, almost completely. They took over the ownership, the earnings, the tenant relationship, and they became the inheritors. So why didn't that work with the Frisians?"

  Gregos tapped the ends of his fingers together and looked thoughtful. It was a riddle, and he was good at solving riddles.

  Raynar waited a few moments, and then gave him a clue. "Klaes was their warlord. Was he their land lord?"

  "Ahhh," Risto spoke before Gregos could, "they were a clan, like the mountain people in the north of Al-Andalus. The clan had ownership, not any one man."

  "Exactly," said Raynar, clapping his hand on his knee. "Clans are still common around the North Sea and the Baltic Sea. Scotland still has clans. So do the Norse, the Danes and the Frisians. Most land is held "in-common'. The clans mutually agree on who has permission to use the land and the water. Not ownership, mind you, but permission to use.

  Permission was based on need and usage, and that changed with necessity, or by force of arms. Klaes was the warlord, but he owned no land himself. He was a lord who could order men, but subject to the council of ealders."

  "So," Gregos finished the thought, "the Normans could not take over by replacing the land lords because there were no land lords"

  "Yes, the closest lord there was to a landlord, was a warlord. The lords of the North included many levels of warlords. Most of the land was in 'trust'. Ownership can be inherited, but trust must be earned. For instance, what Frisian clan would chose a Norman knight as their warlord. It would never happen."

  "As Earl Tostig found out."

  "Very good, Gregos. Yes. Tostig was appointed Earl of Northumbria by his brother King Harold, but he lost, or perhaps did not earn, the trust of the Northumbrian warriors, and they exiled him despite the King."

  "Was this in all the North? Dead and bed did not work anywhere?"

  "It sort of worked in the Saxon and Anglian areas, like in Anglia and in Mercia and in the North West, and along the borders of Mercia, like Derbyshire and parts of Nottinghamshire. Yes, there the widows were at risk.

  But not in the North East and the far North. Not in the Danelaw proper. Not in the Fens or Lincolnshire or Yorkshire. In the Danelaw there were still clans and most land was still 'in common' or 'in-community'. Close to large towns there were more land lords, but fewer and fewer as you got further away. The Fens had near to none."

  "Ahhh" said Gregos and moved closer to the brazier. "The enclosures. The abbeys. The rewarding of warlords."

  "Yes, unfortunately, all of those."

  "You two are leaving me out again," Risto complained. "Explain it, in Greek if you please."

  "The Norman method of ruling depends on land lord tenancy. Their feudalism depends on attaching slaves to the land as serfs, and then having favoured land lords control the land. The Normans needed to create land lords where there were none. They had to convert 'in-common' land controlled by clans, into land that was owned by one man.

  Gregos just listed three ways of doing this, which tells me he has learned it from the documents in the treasury. "

  Gregos spoke. "There are many such documents. The Norman tactic was to pretend that the warlord had the right to trade the clan's land for other land. They would trade the warlord som
e 'owned' land in another shire in exchange for the 'in-common' land. This created a written title. While displaying this title, the Normans would then move the clansmen off the 'in-common' land. Once the clan was no longer using the land, then their title had merit in the courts."

  Raynar butted in, "The clearance of the clansmen from the land was often combined with an enclosure of the land or an enclosure of the access to water." He saw that Risto still did not understand. "An enclosure is a common law way of removing land from 'in common' usage. Rules vary but you usually have to fence or wall some land that is not already in use."

  Risto now understood where this was leading. "And the Romanized church is everywhere and always greedy for land and buildings. Each year it is less about faith and more about property. So the church can also turn in-common land into owned land."

  Gregos reached over and poked through a pile of scrolls on the table. "Ah ha!" he said as he slipped one from the pile, "I have clerks combing the Domesday Book for information. They are making me lists of like entries and their page numbers so that we can find information quickly.

  This," He waved the paper, "is the list of Abbeys, Monasteries, and Convents that have been started since 1066. There were, let me see," He was lost in counting for a few moments, "there were certainly over two hundred set up during the reign of William the First."

  "Yes, I can believe it," replied Raynar. "and each one claiming away more 'in-common' land. William's abbots and bishops were Norman lords who lived more like princes than clerics. Even when the Normans refused to live in the North, there were always orders of monks who would live there. They insisted they were bringing the word of their desert god to the poor wet heathens."

  Gregos heard the anger building in Raynar's voice and thought it best to change the subject. Raynar could get morose when he delved too deeply into his memories of the terror that had been ordered by William the Conqueror.

  "Henry has told me that William's chancellor, Ranulf Flambard, will never get out of the tower. We have evidence from the Treasury of his thievery, but that is just an excuse to hold him. The true reason is that he has been conspiring with Henry's brother Robert. He will be lucky not to lose his head. Do you think Henry has the balls to execute a bishop?"

  Risto yawned. Raynar sat forward in interest. Gregos took a sweet cake from a dish on the table. "I am training his replacement as Treasurer now. A young priest named Roger le Poer. I suppose once they find him a bishopric he will become chancellor. It amazes me that they always choose clerics assuming that they are educated clerks. My training of Roger is going slowly because first I must teach him how to read."

  "Gregos, I am happy for you. You are doing well in Henry's court." Raynar gave him a strange look. "But why are you changing the subject to the news from the palace?"

  "Because sometimes palace gossip is more enjoyable than your darker stories. For instance, there is a rumour that Henry has chosen a wife, and some say she is English."

  "Hmm, I hope he is sure of the family before he announces it. Bloody royals, they use their women as political toys.” Raynar replied. "Well I wish him luck. I saw this kingdom torn apart once, because the parents of a royal bride changed their minds."

  "And what wedding was that? Or should I say, was that not?" asked Gregos, who was happy that Raynar was changing subjects.

  "Why, the betrothal of Cicelia, the daughter of William the Conqueror, to Earl Edwin of Mercia."

  "They were betrothed?" Gregos cocked his ear to listen.

  "Yes. When the Earls Edwin, Morcar, and Edgar were taken to Normandy with William in '67. Edwin and William quite liked each other's company, and Edwin traveled with William and his wife Mathilde across Normandy and Flanders.

  William had to leave England in a hurry in '67. His wife was Mathilde of Flanders, and William had to get to Flanders because his father-in-law, Baldwin, Count of Flanders, had died. Baldwin had also been Regent of France, because Philip of France was still just a pup. Because of the Count's death there were great opportunities for William that could have changed the map of Christendom.

  While William was pursuing his Flemish interests, Edwin became his favourite English Earl, and got the grand tour of palaces and cathedrals and castles. Meanwhile his brother Morcar and the hapless ex-king Edgar cooled their heels at a hunting lodge outside of Caen.

  The fates having their fun with men again. William could not raise an army in Normandy because the Norman lords were all still in England. If he could have raised even a small army he could have grabbed control of Flanders, and then used their army to grab the French throne. Meanwhile England was left to the mis-rule of his half brother, the odious Bishop Earl Odo."

  "Were Edwin and William of an age?" asked Risto.

  "Oh no, Edwin was a bit younger than Hereward, and Morcar younger still, and Edgar even younger still. Edgar was two years younger than me. But Edwin was handsome and charming, like Hereward, and though he had a big voice for commanding shieldmen, he could also sing sweetly. Most important of all, William's wife Mathilde liked him. Of course it helped that Edwin changed religions with a passion while he was with William and Mathilde."

  "He became a Christian rather than a Woden?" asked Gregos.

  "He was already a Christian. No, I did not mean he changed myths. I meant that he changed from a green man to a stone man."

  "I don't understand," Risto beat Gregos to the phrase.

  "The Greeks, the Romans, and the Normans are all stone men. They turn everything into stone. Hard, cold stone. Stone monuments to the power of the rich, because stone last a millennia. Look around you here in the Temple lands. This stone was laid what, eight hundred years ago, and people still look on it in wonder. Somewhere under the rubble will be a flagstone with the name of the lord who had it built, and perhaps the name of the main builder.

  With the Normans, stone is part of their religion. They don't care whose god is prayed to in their cathedrals, so long as everyone knows that it is their cathedral." He looked at the two Greeks and laughed.

  "I think he mocks us, Gregos, because we are Greek," said Risto with a smile.

  "Well, what he says is true with the Greeks," responded Gregos. "The father of modern Greece was Emperor Constantine, and he did not care which gods the priests chose to worship in the stone temples, so long as they chose only one set of myths and stuck to it. Constantine was tired of the various flavours of religious zealots killing one another. When he chose the Christian god for the temples, he became the Papa of Christianity, even though he himself worshipped the old Greek gods until his deathbed."

  "Yes," broke in Risto, "by rights, the Byzantine empire should now be larger than the old Roman Empire ever was. Instead the breakaway Latin sect has protested against the true church and has split the empire yet again. They have created that false papacy in Rome and have claimed part of the empire, and are cutting up the empire and handing it piecemeal to the Mussulmen. A curse on those Roman protestants and their false Papa."

  "Then you understand the religion of stone," continued Raynar, "Edwin saw how stone was used in Normandy to create the future, and he became a believer. He began to share William's vision for England. William was delighted with the convert and ..."

  "Wait," interrupted Risto. "you have explained the Stone Man but not the Green Man."

  "Ahhh, well , the Green Man is the way of the life spirit," Raynar replied. "Trees and grass and water; the Sun and Moon and Stars; the Seasons; the Wyred sisters of the fates; these are all soft and alive. The Green Man believes in life, not in man-made monuments. The pulse of the living rather than hard, dead stone.

  The kingdoms of the North Sea followed the way of the Green Man. The Britons, the Celts, the Jutes, the Angles, the Saxons, the Danes, the Frisians; they all made their houses from saplings and thatch and clay. Even their forts they built of mounds of earth and trees.

  Their houses were quick to build and could be built by a family, and when they were no longer needed they disappeared
quickly back into the earth. They were warm and dry in the winter, and in the summer the house was just a place to sleep at night, because the folk lived out of doors. The way of the Green Man bends like a sapling in a storm or hides from the wind. The way of the Stone Man stands solid and dares the storm to do its worst."

  "We are Greeks and Andalusians. We are Stone Men. It is better," said Risto. Gregos looked like he was about to speak, but stopped himself.

  "I have been to Greece, my friend," responded Raynar. "The stone buildings are impressive, but all around them there is a desert. The forests have been cut and will not grow back. The sheep overgraze so that wild life has no chance. It is an arid and empty land filled with grand stone monuments built by slaves who are long dead.

  And I have been to Al-Andalus, and it is following the same Stone path towards desolation. Its forests in the east are gone, and the forests in the west are under attack. And now the business of the future is sheep. That is why you came to England, is it not, to corner the market with a new crossbreed of sheep. They will eat up your country and shit it out."

  Risto was speechless and becoming angry. Gregos began a rumble of laughter that pulled at his stitches and there was a sharp pain from his wound. Raynar jumped up and held him in his chair. "Come on, old friend. You have been sitting too long. Lie on the bed and just listen.

  Once he was comfortable on the bed, Gregos motioned Raynar back to his chair. "Enough about stone men. We were discussing weddings."

  Raynar sat and thought back, then continued. "William and Edwin had crafted a solution to William's problems in England. It was quite simple really, as it followed the pattern that had made England so peaceful and prosperous under Knut. William would be King and also the Earl of the wealthy South.

  Edwin would be the Earl of the poorer North including the northern half of the Danelaw. Other smaller Earldoms would be handed out to create a peaceful border land between the two.

  This would mean that William would hold the richest third directly, and Edwin would hold the poorest third directly, and the last third, the land between, would be held by many different lords and be a buffer between the northern Danes and the riches of the South. They sealed the deal by betrothing William's daughter Cecilia to Edwin."