THORRINGTON JUNE 1067
Edyth proved to be a very pragmatic woman. She’d never expected marriage or anything other than a temporary arrangement with Alan, as after all she was just a simple daughter of a country miller. Despite the short notice she was more than happy to accept the offer of a twenty acre dairy farm at Dovercourt, along with a dozen dairy cows, a house and outbuildings and two slaves, one male and one female. The offer of a small cart and a donkey to take her effects and an escort of two cheorls was accepted. As he had promised Anne, Alan graciously declined her offers of companionship for the two nights until she departed on Monday morning.
The entire Hall was in an uproar over the move to the new quarters, with three wagons trundling back and forth to transport the packed boxes, bags, chests and food stores the several hundred yards from the old house to the new. The new Hall was indeed ready for occupation, with the roof completed. Fresh rushes had been strewn on the paved floor and the fire lit.
The chimney still wasn’t drawing properly and smoke drifted through the Hall like in any other. The system of heating the bath-house and laundry water using the heat from the kitchen fire did work, and a trial run of the furnace for the hypocaust heating system showed it was apparently effective. All that was lacking was glass for the windows, but given the heat of summer that was no hardship.
When Anne arrived at mid-afternoon on the Tuesday the 5th of June she arrived in style. Three wagons drawn by oxen delivered essential goods, a dozen male servants for the house and her two maids Udelle and Esme, with Anne herself riding on her palfrey Misty and with an escort of a dozen warriors. With Synne and Willa, the Thorrington housemaids, this gave her four maids, together with the various cooking, cleaning and other domestic staff.
Despite the lack of vows made on the church steps there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that the new Lady of Thorrington had arrived, although the irregularity of their position would no doubt make it embarrassing the next time that Alan had to pass sentence in the Hundred court for the offence of illegal cohabitation. Anne had also brought her small pack of wolf-hounds and these settled into the Hall after some judicious posturing and position-making with the several dogs that usually were present in the Hall.
Alan of course made a great fuss of her, introducing her to the staff as his lady and instructing his steward Faran and cook Otha to take their instructions from her. As the other thegns would be attending on Friday, Alan had only invited to the meal Brother Godwine, together with his own senior staff of Faran, Osmund, Hugh, Baldwin, Roger and Warren, and also Toland the Torrington headman.
With plenty of warning the cook Otha had excelled herself with the food. Beef soup was followed by stuffed suckling pigs, roast pheasants, pork pies, veal and herb stew, glazed pork chops, roast venison, spinach tart with mustard greens, almond cress, turnips with cheese. Dessert was fresh blackberry pie, strawberry tart, gingerbread and some of the excellent cheeses that Alan favoured. A cask of the fine French wine taken from one of the Danish ships (origin not disclosed) was broached and drunk along with ale, mead and cider.
Anne played the perfect hostess, no doubt used to English dinners turning into drinking sessions, putting up with the bawdy jokes, kisses from beer-moistened moustaches and the groping of the serving wenches- the latter especially by Brother Godwine. She and Alan took the opportunity to quietly sneak out of the Hall and up the stairs into the bedchamber when nobody but Faran was looking, Alan giving Faran the nod to take over as host.
Upstairs in the bedchamber Anne ceremoniously sniffed the newly-washed bed linen, announced that she was satisfied and allowed herself to be undressed before the two of them went to sleep after a simple cuddle.
Next morning Anne left nobody in doubt as to who was in charge of the household. Work was allocated and re-allocated. Synne was chosen as head-maid, much to the chagrin of the others. The Hall was obviously spotless, being brand-new and just occupied, but the store-room needed restacking to Anne’s satisfaction and a myriad of other work undertaken.
On the Thursday the meeting of thegns which Alan had called was held at the Old Hall, which was to become the meeting-hall and court-house for the village in place of the previous intermittent use of the tithe-barn. All the thegns were in attendance by the appointed hour of ten o’clock. Each greeted both Alan and Anne and received from Osmund an inventory of the items taken in the joint battle at Wivenhoe, marked with which items had already been distributed to the warriors, and sat down to study the list over a tankard of ale.
Alan knew that, unlike Norman lords, almost certainly each one could read and understand the figures. English nobles had a very high rate of literacy in their own language and took learning seriously. As a scribe Osmund was granted equal status by the men around the table, who listened closely to his explanation about what had been taken, what had been disposed of and how.
Much of the coin and jewellery had been distributed to the warriors as their bounty after the fight. Apart from the arms and armour, most of what was left were larger items such as bolts of cloth. “You’ll each receive your head-money when the slaves are sold, which should be received in the next week or so. These larger items are saleable, or you may wish to take advantage of the fact that in another two weeks is the next Quarter Day, on the 24th. You can use these to pay some of your taxes in kind. Any questions?” Questions lasted a little over half an hour and were smoothly dealt with by Osmund and his references to the inventory.
“Now as to arms and armour, we have 437 usable sets of armour. Quite a few were melted to slag by my lord Alan and his engineers. There are 163 battle-axes; 210 swords; 136 spears; 480 shields; 582 helmets. These are, of course, all very valuable. The different villages and thegns provided different numbers of warriors. The warriors each received the same bounty of five shillings a head- the dead and injured more, as you know. Apart from the head-money, and how you divide that up will be up to you and you can talk about that later, the arms and armour are the main valuables left to be divided.
“My recommendation is that we divide them up on the basis of the number of warriors each village and thegn provided, except I would suggest that we make special provision for Wivenhoe where they had many untrained cheorls and sokeman take part in the fight. Other than that, the largest number came from Thorrington. You each have a listing of how many men came from where. I suggest that Wivenhoe gets all the spears and one eighth of the rest. The split up of the remainder would be according to this list I’ll now hand out.”
With only a few questions and items to be sorted out, agreement was reached with a speed that surprised Alan, who had known wealthy Norman lords argue for half a day about a couple of swords.
At the conclusion of business Alan thumped his tankard on the table to attract attention. “Hlaford! Last week we were fortunate at Wivenhoe. Yes we won a battle that those of you who are bards can weave into a memorable song. But the simple fact is we were lucky. We had 500 poorly-armed farm-boys who barely knew which end of the spear to hold. The few Danes who reached our line and fought man to man massacred our men.
“We won because they fought dumb and did exactly as we expected. That will not always happen. At some time in the future we will fight against capable leaders who deploy their men innovatively, or know how to either use combined arms or how to fight against them. We won’t always fight defensive actions. Some of you have huscarles, professional full-time soldiers, in your households. They should be professional enough to know that they need to train every day. Your fyrdmen should not come straight from the plough to the battle.
“Before now you could say that you didn’t have arms to give them. That is not now the case. Each fyrdman must receive half a day of training a week in individual weapons skills and formation fighting. If he complains about spending his time doing that, particularly in the busy seasons, remind him of Wivenhoe and the fact that he may not be lucky enough to avoid facing a Danish battle-axe next time, and it’s his life you are trying to save. Appoint your fyrdmen into squads and put a senior man in charge and drill them. Next time I call I expect- no demand- to have 500 trained men on the field. You, along with every freeman in the Hundred, have a duty to be ready to defend your village, your Hundred or your country. At the risk of offending you, the national fyrd performed badly at all the three battles fought last year. The performance last week of the local fyrd was unacceptably bad. The Wivenhoe farm-hands and slaves fighting for their village and homes fought at least as well as the fyrdmen.
“You will ensure that in three months time that does not happen again,” he continued in a thunderous voice, before continuing more moderately. “If any of your sergeants need training to be able to train your men, send them here and we’ll teach them how to lead and train men. Those of your men who do not have swords or battle-axes can use spears and bows- they’re cheap and effective enough if the man knows how to use them properly and fights as part of a team. You should each send huntsmen here for a fortnight for Warren to teach how to use a bow in battle. Warren will begin his classes on Monday week. Each man will make his own shield. They are easy enough to make, taking just a couple of hours even for an unskilled man, and we’ll use the standard ‘kite shaped’ design. I want every fyrdman in every village to have a linden-wood and ox-hide shield in a week. They can hew, cut and glue the linden-wood; you can provide the rawhide. In the unlikely event that a village doesn’t have somebody who can instruct others to make a shield, lessons can be arranged.
“Horsemen. You saw how my meagre twenty horsemen could dominate their part of the battlefield. A few of you were at Hastings. Most have not seen a battle where there are hundreds or thousands of horsemen involved. I need five young men, each in some of the armour you have just received, and five fit young rounceys from each of you for me to train to fight on horseback. The future of warfare is on horseback and I’d suggest that sending some of your own younger sons would be suitable. I’ll be doubling my own force to 40 trained men. That will give us a significant force of 100 men on horseback. Again, have them here on Monday week.
“After we have equipped and trained our men, if the Danes, Norwegians, rebel English- or our Norman neighbours Geoffrey de Mandeville or Richard of Clare or Aubrey de Vere- come calling with sword and fire we will meet and defeat all of them. We will be able to beat anybody who comes with less than a full army at his back. Hlaford, don’t go away today feeling self-satisfied. You have work to do!”
The thegns were all thoughtful after being addressed in this manner. Some were clearly upset at being told that their performance of their positions had been lacking and that improvement was demanded. However, most appeared to accept that change was needed in changing times- largely prompted by Alan’s success in the encounter with the Danes.
After a light lunch and several more tankards of ale, the thegns had their men load the booty into their wagons, while the thegns themselves went to visit the ‘incredible palace’ that Alan had built. Most admiration was reserved for the toilet system. Any warrior respected good latrines.
The meeting developed into a drinking session in the afternoon, when the rest of the wine was finished off and Alan’s innovative plans discussed. By ten that night most of the thegns were snoring on beds in the guest quarters. Each left next morning after they woke, ate the traditional small breakfast washed down with ale to ‘take away the headache’ and rode away.
“That went much better than I expected,” commented Alan to Osmund, Faran and Anne at lunchtime.
“Not really,” said Osmund smugly. “I put up a reasonable argument, one that was fair. I put it in writing to everybody so they can see it is fair and know that you can’t change it later. Everybody received the same offer, without favour. If they argued about it, their fellow thegns would have seen them as penny-pinching slugs who can’t be trusted. Our Hundred system is built on mutual trust. It just wasn’t worth anybody’s time to argue about what was clearly fair. Of course, they didn’t know about the 100 sets of arms and armour we took two days before, the contents of those ships, or the ships we took the day after the main battle. None of that was their business because they weren’t involved in those fights, but if they had known about it that may have caused some arguments- after all you got nearly a quarter of the arms and armour on offer today. However, I did think some of them were going to wet their pants during your little lecture. Now what happens next?”
“Faran and Wybert, Anne’s steward at Wivenhoe, are to get the Quarter Day taxes ready to be paid and the rents in by Midsummer. Osmund, you and I will ride a circuit of the manors and talk to the stewards and the village head-men. Faran, get the second ploughing of the fallow fields and the haymaking completed. Hugh, recruit as many men as full-time soldiers as you can. Talk to the male refugees and see if any want to take service. Increase the number of beds in the barracks until this training cycle ends. Buy some decent chargers or rounceys at Colchester, say ten of the best you can find. Roweson and the stud at Ramsey can’t be expected to cope with these numbers, not after we already stripped them bare a few months ago. Anne and I will be off to visit her family in Ipswich, but we should be back well before Midsummer Day. We can buy some horses while we’re there.”
It was shortly after sunrise at four in the morning on Saturday the 9th June when Alan, Anne and an escort of a dozen mounted men-at-arms rode out for the 28 mile ride to Ipswich. The men were armed, but not wearing their armour, the rolled up chain-mail being carried on two sumpter horses. Two other horses were laden with bundles of cloth which Anne had removed from one of the trading cogs, well wrapped in hessian.
When they had discussed the escort in the privacy of their chamber Alan had thought that half a dozen men would be more than adequate and a dozen was ostentatious. He had quickly changed his mind with Anne’s reply. “It’s not for going there, or for us at all really. Father will no doubt have sold the cargo of the first two longboats, as I instructed him. As the Danes took the best of what was available in the warehouses at Colchester, I doubt very much whether the value would have been less than?100 per boat. For the two boats that is 2,000 shillings or 24,000 silver pennies. You can’t hide that in your pocket. We’ll be a tempting target on the way back.” Alan had to admit that there was little that Anne did that was not well thought out and logical.
Her dress for the journey was an example of this thoughtfulness. She wore a broad-brimmed hat and a long-sleeved blouse, both to keep off the hot sun and preserve her fair complexion. Innovatively, she wore a pair of men’s trews covered, in the main, by a loose skirt that had been slit at the front and back, as she was determined not to ride side-saddle for 28 miles.
They paused at Manningtree after a ride of a little over an hour to rest the horses, stretch their legs and have something to eat before crossing the river on the wooden bridge, paying the pontage fee as they did so. The rutted dirt road wound through field and meadow, but the land was mainly large tracts of forest or unused ‘waste’. They pressed on to Ipswich, arriving — in Anne’s case quite sore- as the priory bells were ringing for Sext at mid-day.
They passed over the wooden Stoke Bridge and approached the South Gate in the city stone wall, the water-mill on their right clanking and grinding. The gates were attended by two guards who looked closely at the armed party as they rode past. Passing St. Peter’s Church, they took the main thoroughfare up Brook Street, passed the small church of St. Stephen and continued until they reached Carr Street, where Anne’s family had a large house and a nearby warehouse at Cornhill. Anne had sent a message several days before with a carter, and so they were expected- although the size of the escort surprised the elderly porter, Rinan. At Anne’s suggestion Alan sent the men to the ‘Fox’s Head’ inn at nearby Tavern Street.
Odin, Anne’s white palfrey Misty and the four sumpter horses were taken by a stable-lad to the stables at the rear of the building. The porter summoned a servant to carry the saddle-bags and cases to the guest rooms. Attracted by the commotion an elegantly dressed good-looking woman of about 35 with red hair appeared at the doorway to the vestibule. Anne threw decorum aside and with a cry of “Mother!” rushed up to embrace and kiss the older woman. After a few moments of mutual hugs and laughs Lora, Anne’s mother, held her daughter at arm’s length to look closely at her.
“You look well, better than last we saw you! But what on earth are you wearing?” Turning to inspect Alan, looking up as he was more than a head taller than she, she took in his rich but travelled-stained clothes of sombre hue and the sword at his waist, she asked, “And who is this gentleman?”
“Mother, may I present Sir Alan of Thorrington. Sir Alan, may I present Lora Agustdottir, my mother. Mother, I assume father is still at the warehouse?” Alan bent to kiss Lora’s soft small hand, murmuring a greeting.
“Yes, and Beltic is still at the Holy Trinity Priory school. I’ll send a messenger to Garrett and Ellette, Mae and Raedwald to let them know you’re here, and get the cook to prepare a suitable welcome home meal. Now will Sir Alan be staying with us?”
“Certainly, mother. You need prepare only one guest room, and please have Rinan send the baggage up and prepare a bath, so we can wash off the dirt of the road,” replied Anne in an off-hand manner. Alan managed to keep a straight face about what had obviously been a piece of mischief on the part of Anne to shock her mother.
Lora frowned and pursed her lips but held her obvious disapproval in check. After all, her daughter was seventeen, a widow and the holder of a substantial estate- and her paramour did not from his appearance look as if he was a person who was ‘gold digging’. With a nod of instruction to Rinan, Lora led the way through the doorway into the main part of the house and indicated a wooden staircase to the right “Your usual room, dear. I’ll let your father know that you’re here and have Rinan tell you when he arrives. We’ll dine an hour after the bell for Vespers.”
Anne first showed Alan the location of the privy, which they used in turn, before they proceeded upstairs. The bed in the room was just large enough for two, and trusting in Rinan’s discretion they ignored the tap on the door that came an hour later until they had finished their personal business. Anne dressed elegantly in a dark-blue dress heavy with embroidery and wore much of her jewellery, and also of course her dress seax knife that proclaimed her status as a freewoman. With the warm weather and anticipating a warm room for the dinner, Alan wore a simple tunic and hose of understated and elegant black silk embroidered with silver, black boots, his gold signet ring and an undecorated bone-handled knife at his belt.
As they entered the Hall Lora looked up from her chair and frowned when she saw the tell-tale flush on Anne’s cheeks, while Orvin, a small and thin man of about 40 with sparse blonde hair and dressed in a tunic of heavy yellow velvet stepped up to Alan and looked up at him closely as they grasped forearms. “Welcome to our home,” he said in a surprisingly deep voice. “I trust that Anne has made you comfortable?”
“Most comfortable, thank you,” replied Alan, unable to keep a slight smirk off his face. Anne gave a big grin and Orvin blushed a little at the double-entendre.
“A glass of Bordeaux?” Orvin asked to cover his confusion. Alan accepted, as did Anne. Alan declined the offer of water in the wine. The wine was poured from a glass decanter into a set of obviously expensive imported coloured glass goblets. Alan and Anne sat next to each other on a padded leather settee, Anne capturing Alan’s hand to hold ostentatiously. Alan sipped at the wine and closed his eyes in delight.
“Liquid gold,” he breathed appreciatively. “That’s why I don’t like to water my wine.”
“And what do you do for a living, young man?” asked Orvin trying to get to the nub of the matter.
“Oh, I’m a simple soldier,” replied Alan blandly. Orvin looked at the expensive clothes and Alan’s relaxed and confident manner, and obviously took the comment with a large pinch of salt.
“Perhaps if we wait until the others arrive before you start dragging answers out of Alan,” suggested Anne. “It’ll save going over things twice or three times. Firstly, though, before the others arrive, did you get my letter and the six boats?”
“Yes, I did. I presume that will be part of what we discuss later,” began Orvin.
“Actually, it won’t. We can discuss that tomorrow in private. You did as I asked?”
“Yes, the cargo of the longboats was sold at the market here in Ipswich a few days ago and the longboats themselves are on the way to Trondheim to be sold to the Norwegians. Very good cargo it was too! We received excellent prices. The four trading cogs are on the way to various Baltic ports. It’s not the type of cargo we’re used to exporting. It’s all high class- French, Italian and Spanish goods, also with many items from the Levant. The first ship should be nearing Haarlem in the next day or so. But why sell the boats, and we could have got good prices for those cargoes here, so why export it?”
“Tomorrow,” promised Anne. “How much did you get for the longboats’ cargo?”
“?327. I’ll show you the inventories of all the ships at the warehouse tomorrow. And why only ten percent?” demanded Orvin.
“You wouldn’t want to take advantage of family, would you?” queried Anne. “Now I think I hear Raedwald and Mae arriving.” In fact that couple, along with Garrett and Ellette, arrived within moments of each other and a few minutes later Betlic arrived back from school.
Brief introductions were made. Orvin explained that Raedwald owned his own cloth fulling and weaving business, while his own eldest son Garrett worked in the family trading business. “Sir Alan tells me that he’s a soldier and it appears that Anne has a certain attachment for him,” he said in a leading way.
The dinner arrived and was placed on the large table, with the guests being seated. Anne made sure she was seated next to Alan and was sharing his trencher. They started with a bowl of pheasant soup, spiced with cinnamon, ginger and grains of paradise. This was followed by spiced veal pies, pork pies with saffron, cheese and pine nuts, green peas with almond milk and mint, fried broad beans with onions, chicken, veal and bacon stew with herbs, baked veal, with a variety of pastries and tarts made with fresh berry fruit.
When Mae repeated Orvin’s comment, Anne gave a golden laugh and brushed a stray strand of auburn hair from her eyes. “Yes, he is a soldier, of sorts. He’s the lord of Thorrington Manor, not far from Wivenhoe- and of five other manors. We’ve come to work out with you what date would be convenient for you all to come to the wedding. We think that 30th of June or 7th July would be suitable.” That was news to Alan, but he didn’t demur- after all he had said the wedding should be as soon as possible.
There was immediate pandemonium as everybody began to ask questions at once.
“How long have you known him?”
“Since February the 5th to be precise. I woke up to find myself in his bed, where I stayed for two months.” She related the story of her survival of the attack, medical treatment, her return home and a heavily edited version of the attack on Wivenhoe. “So he’s saved my life twice, and is the most accomplished man I’ve met He not only reads, he even owns books. He has his own small library, in English, Latin and Greek. And his English has improved so much that now you can hardly tell he’s French.”
“Norman,” corrected Alan automatically. He’d quietly mentally drifted off into a world of his own. Hearing his own praises sung at length was not something he found interesting, although it did give him some insight into Anne and her views of him. He wasn’t sure how much was accurate and how much was for public consumption. He’d learned by now that Anne was, after all, a very complex person.
“He’s also the owner of a fleet of trading ships,” continued Anne. Orvin’s eyebrows raised at this.
“With a partner,” interjected Alan.
“Only a sleeping partner so far, and that’s only been for nine days,” said Anne. Lora’s face turned beet-red at that. “But I’m sure I’ll be able to help with that and other business matters. We all learned how to turn two pennies into three in this household. And father, the good news is that you don’t have to pay a dowry this time! I still have the old one and have built on it.”
The ladies gathered at one end of the room chattering about wedding preparations, the short time available until the chosen day. The consensus was for the 7th July, dresses and all sorts of other essential items and were gossiping freely.
The men gathered at the other end of the Hall and did what all men do in these circumstances. They drank. Alan stood with Orvin, Raedwald and Garrett. Orvin downed his glass of wine in a gulp, before filling the glasses of each of them. Alan continued to sip at his refilled glass.
“Four years in a monastery,” said Raedwald. “Why did you leave?”
“I had trouble with some of the vows. I was only an oblate, not a noviate. Chastity was the main problem. They found me with one of the young women training to be a nun. I’d had some youthful problems before then but that was the final straw. Nothing to worry about Orvin! I’m a one-woman-at-a-time man and if that was any woman but Anne I’m sure she would remove my manhood with a blunt knife! Seriously, we’re well-matched. The only problem may be that she might be too self-willed and too intelligent for me, but those are issues we have to work out. I think that after her last marriage she’d put up with pretty well anything, although in the last year or so since Aelfric died she’s certainly spread her wings.”
In a change of topic Garrett asked, “What about Hastings? Will you tell us about it?”
Alan paused and rubbed his chin in thought before replying “No, I won’t. There were 15,000 men hacking each other to pieces in an area not much bigger than a cow paddock. There were over 5,000 dead. Bodies, and pieces of bodies, lying everywhere, individually and in piles. So much blood spilled that the streams ran red. No, it’s not something I want to remember, or which should be glorified.”
“What about the battle at Wivenhoe?” urged Betlic.
Again Alan shook his head. “That’s too fresh in the mind and again too many died, many burned most horribly at my command. No! No battle stories! Despite what the warriors say, there’s no glory in battle- just blood and death and pain. If you want you can ask Anne, she was standing by me as we watched the engines at work, but I very much doubt she wants to remember the event either. Or the aftermath of caring for the dying and wounded.”
“Anne was at the battle?” demanded Orvin.
Alan smiled. “I told her to stay in the Hall. It was her village, so do you think that she would obey instructions?”
“Well, I certainly hope that she’s more happy with you than she was with Aelfric,” said Orvin. “That was the biggest mistake of my life. I was newly entitled to be seen as thegn-worthy, having just completed the required voyages. She was fourteen. Aelfric seemed suitable and held significant lands. It seemed an appropriate match.”
“You can at least be sure that I won’t physically and mentally abuse her in the way that Aelfric did. I’ve never beaten a woman yet. She’ll do well enough and be happy, as will I. She even made me pay off my leman and send her away- even before she arrived in my Hall! You’ve a remarkable daughter, not least after what she has gone through with her spirit unbroken. Now if you’ll excuse me, we’ve been in the saddle since daybreak this morning and I think that it’s time my affianced and myself retired. We’ll see you in the morning. Not too early!”
Rescuing Anne from the chattering women they walked arm in arm up the stairs to the small bed.
Next morning they rose late and, other than the servants, the house was empty. Orvin and Lora had attended the Prime service at St. Stephens Church and had still not returned home, probably visiting the house of a fellow parishioner. Being Sunday the servants expected Orvin to spend the day at home as the warehouse would be closed for the day.
“You know, being in a city with proper churches, we really also should be more observant,” suggested Anne. “It’s one thing to go to church a couple of times a week in a small village when that’s all the services there are, but here most of the churches hold four services a day.”
Alan agreed readily enough, but specified he wanted to attend the Holy Trinity Priory, just north of the city walls, and not necessarily every day as he didn’t expect to sin often enough to need absolution that frequently. He ignored Anne’s muttered comments about fornication being a sin. Dressing appropriately, well but not ostentatiously, and with Anne having her hair covered and wearing a simple dress with a high neckline, they took the short walk along Brook Street to the priory.
The paved streets were littered with refuse and they had to pick their way between piles of excrement, animal and human, and garbage thrown in the street. It had been some time since heavy rains had flushed the waste down the gutter in the centre of the road and into the river.
The town was busy with people bustling along the streets. Women were on their way to the marketplace. The poor, middling and well-to-do all went about their business. Hawkers were crying their wares from stalls and barrows in the streets, seeking to sell items as diverse as haberdashery and meat pies. Every few paces they were accosted by somebody trying to sell something. Taylors’ and dressmakers’ touts stood outside their shops trying to inveigle customers to enter. Beggars cried for alms. Children and street-urchins shouted as they ran and played. One street was nearly blocked by a crowd watching a cock-fight and noisily urging the birds on.
After passing out of the North Gate the priory bells began to ring for Sext, marking mid-day, and they quickly ascended the stairs to the chapel.
The chapel was surprisingly spacious and reasonably well attended with a congregation of about 100 present. Alan mused that they had perhaps been attracted by the benches installed for the use of the congregation, instead of the usual situation where the congregation either stood or knelt for the duration of the service.
The choir of twenty monks were already present and singing a quiet plainchant when Alan and Anne took their places on a partly empty bench near the middle of the church. The prebend was standing to one side of the nave dressed in lavish vestments while the altar-boys lit the many candles on the well-appointed altar, and afterwards lit the incense in the censer. A light cloud of sweet-smelling smoke rose into the air. The service included High Mass in Latin and was simple and moving, Alan feeling both fervour and peace as he received the sacrament, looking up at the large carved gilded wooden figure of Christ Crucified positioned above the altar as he received the Host.
As they walked back into the town Alan nodded to the guards at the gate and received a similar acknowledgement. “We should go to confession while we’re here,” he said. “I find it hard to confess anything to Brother Godwine, who is a hypocrite who probably sins more than I do. If you can find out from your mother when Confession is heard at St. Stephens I can make an appointment. After the last few months I have quite a lot to confess and it’ll take a while. It’s hardly fair to the priest to do it during the normal confessional time.”
A pot full of night-soil thrown from an upper storey window narrowly missed them and as Alan looked up in anger he stepped in a pile of rotting vegetables, afterwards trying to clean his boot on the stone of the street gutter.
On the way back to Carr Street Alan called in at the ‘Fox’s Head’ inn to ensure that his men had found accommodation and were, within reasonable limits, behaving themselves. The ‘Fox’s Head’ was a lower class inn and catered for cheorls and soldiers, with adequate but plain food and with the guests sleeping on the floor of the Commons or in the dormitory upstairs.
Arriving back at Carr Street Alan left his shoes at the door with an instruction to Rinan to arrange for their cleaning. Inside Orvin and Lora were sitting down to a relatively simple meal of soup, beef stew with herbs and fresh fruit, washed down with ale, as Sunday was the cook’s day off. After the meal Lora, as a result of her early start of attending church services, retired upstairs to her bedroom for a nap and Alan learned that she and Orvin no longer shared a bedchamber.
Orvin took them to the room he used as an office. There was a large heavy wooden chest in the corner, a large table covered in pieces of parchment, with quills and an ink-pot and a jug of wine. Four chairs were placed around the table.
“Now, I believe in keeping accounts current,” said Orvin in a businesslike manner. “?327 less ten percent is?294 and eighty pennies. Will you want it in cash? One of the problems of trade in England is the only currency is pennies, and 70,640 pennies are a real nuisance to transport- you’ll need a wagon. I can arrange French gold marks if you prefer, but I get charged a half-percent discount by my money-man. Or I can arrange payment through the Jews.”
“Payment through the Jews? You mean you would borrow the money?” asked Alan in confusion.
“No, no! Most of my wealth is tied up in goods going from one place to another or sitting in warehouses. Cash causes problems because it’s hard to store, earns nothing while it is sitting there and is more easily stolen than say a ton of wool or cloth. I deal with several of the Jews here in Ipswich, and also in London and York, and lend them my spare cash. Where do you think they get the money to lend to gentiles? It’s from people like me. They pay me a modest rate of interest, fifteen percent a year, and charge a higher rate when they lend it out. They bear all the risks of non-payment by the borrower and the difficulty and cost of recovery if necessary. Of course you only do this with relatively small amounts such as your current amount, and usually spread it amongst several moneylenders. One of my moneylenders, Solomon, also has businesses in Colchester and London. He’s as honest as any of them- which means to say very honest. If you want some money in cash and the rest available for you to draw on whenever you need it, I can arrange that with him. That way you would only need to ride up to Colchester to pick up what money you need, or you can access your money here or in London. He also has contacts on the continent, but making money available overseas costs a five percent discount.”
“We probably only need say?50 in cash at Thorrington. If Solomon has say?50 at London,?100 at Colchester and the rest here at Ipswich, that should be adequate,” said Anne thoughtfully. “I can’t see us needing more than 1,000 shillings in cash.”
“Fine,” said Orvin. “I’ll take you to see Solomon tomorrow. He’s working today of course, but I keep the Sabbath, our Sabbath, whenever possible. Otherwise Lora gives me three kinds of hell. I’ll give Anne the names of several other Jews, so you don’t have ‘all your eggs in one basket’ if something goes wrong. Any investment, even putting the cash under the bed, carries some risk.
“Now what is this about the trading ships?” he asked as he poured each a cup of wine. Alan sipped in anticipation and was disappointed. Orvin smiled at his expression and commented, “You can’t have Bordeaux every day or you get spoiled. This is a cheap light red from Anjou.”
Anne replied, “Alan captured the longships after they had raided Colchester and had emptied the best of the items from the warehouses there. There’s no doubt that they, the trading ships and the cargo belongs to him by right of salvage- it was more than one day after they were stolen by the Danes. However, I thought it made sense to avoid potential claims by the former owners by disposing of both the ships and cargoes overseas as quickly as possible, before anybody except a few of Alan’s household knew about it.”
“That was sensible,” commented Orvin. He picked up several pieces of parchment and, not sure who to give them to, put them between Anne and Alan. “This is the inventory. May I congratulate you on your very significant wealth, assuming that the ships make harbour. This will make you one of the wealthiest merchants on the east coast. As instructed, my factors will sell the cargoes and ships, buy new ships and cargoes and choose the best crews they can, both from your existing crews and whoever else is available. There will be a substantial surplus in cash, because the items you are selling are very high-value, so you’ll need to think about what to do about that.”
After a pause he continued, “While there are always risks of pirates and storms, the best part of the shipping business is you never make less than thirty percent on the value of the cargo and there are no tithes and no geld to pay.”
“I’m not really comfortable about all this merchant business all of a sudden. I haven’t even got used to the idea of being a landowner yet! Also, you know that the nobles hate the merchant class. I can see now that it may because individually you merchants are at least as wealthy as the nobles, but have none of the responsibilities!” said Alan hesitantly.
“That’s no problem! Nobody needs to know about your business interests. You can use my business as a ‘front’ if you like. For a twenty percent commission,” replied Orvin.
“Ten,” said Anne firmly. “And I keep separate books, separate warehouses and ships. No intermixing of cargo.”
Orvin sighed at the way that his daughter was taking blatant advantage of him, and then asked, “Where do you intend to base? Ipswich is the main trading centre for the east coast between London and York.”
“Ipswich to start with, or possibly Colchester, although it’s just had its vulnerability pointed out,” replied Anne. “We may need a factor in London or at the capital at Winchester to handle some of the luxury goods.”
“I’m glad you didn’t say York. The Northerners area strange lot and still live by the Danelaw rather than the Laws of Wessex. I can see trouble brewing up there, and beyond.”
“I think I can do something about the vulnerability of our ships in and near Colchester,” said Alan thoughtfully. “Where are the ships usually attacked?”
“Usually near their home port. The people you are dealing with won’t attack your ships near their own lands, or on the way to or from, because they know that nobody would trade with them again. Ships are rarely found by pirates on the high seas. Whoever it is- the Danes, Norwegians, Irish, Flemings or French- come and seize the ships off our ports, where they are concentrated into a small area, or in particular areas such as near the Channel Islands. They leave their own trading ships alone, of course,” replied Orvin.
“The Normans don’t have a fleet. Would the merchants of Ipswich pay for a small fleet to protect the estuary area?” asked Alan.
“Why? That is what the geld is for,” replied Orvin.
“Yes, but you just said that the merchants aren’t paying any geld, other than what is levied on the city,” said Alan sarcastically.
Orvin laughed. “Yes, you’re right. I did say that. How big a fleet do you envisage?”
“I thought four or five ships.”
“I don’t think that would be enough to discourage anything more than individual pirate boats. With those numbers you’d have only one or at most two ships at sea at any time. Any organised expedition is usually five or six ships packed with Danes, and they are very good sailors and fighters. The ships you took from them you seized on land or by surprise. Coming on them on the open sea would be another matter altogether,” said Orvin discouragingly.
“I’ll perhaps have a trial run at Colchester, based at Point Clear just opposite Brightlingsea, and see if my ideas work out. I’m thinking of using a ballista and fire arrows on each of my boats. Can you find me fifty sailors who have guts and fire in them? Particularly say five men who would make good and reliable skippers?”
Orvin shrugged his scrawny shoulders and replied, “I don’t see why not. The going pay rate for a coastal sailor is half a shilling a week and a captain a shilling a week.”
“I’ll pay them twice that and provide each of them with accommodation when on shore,” said Alan.
“And I’ll need an honest warehouse overseer and a scrivener to keep the accounts,” added Anne.
Sunday was family day at the house and Garrett and Mae arrived at mid-afternoon with their three children aged from two to six, two girls and a boy. Betlic came back from playing at a friend’s house nearby. The whole group gathered in the small hall, the children playing in one corner, the women continued their talk about wedding preparations and the men sat by the window facing the street and talked politics. After a couple of cups of wine Garrett switched to ale and Alan followed suit. After a little while Anne came and sat quietly with them.
Today he was feeling less like an exhibit in a freak show and realised his prospective family were entitled to know more about their future in-law. He briefly discussed the problems of being the third son of a relatively impoverished Norman knight with little chance of advancement other than through the church, his joining the abbey at Rouen where the abbot owed his father a favour from the past and was prepared to take him without the usual payment, his studies in languages and medicine while at the abbey, subsequent expulsion and his training as a warrior, including the time at Angelo’s salle d’armes at Paris and eventual landing at Pevensey.
“Anne tells us that you are friends with King William,” commented Orvin quietly.
Alan laughed. “Hardly friends! We are acquainted and I have met him less than a dozen occasions. I saved his life at Hastings and loaned him my horse, which is the same one in your stable, so I suppose Odin is a hero of Normandy. Since then William has asked me my opinion on several issues, which he advice he’s nearly always chosen to ignore. But at least it’s good for him to hear different opinions from those of his barons. He did make me a member of the Curia Regis, his Council, but we’ve only met once since the coronation.”
“But you are a tenant-in-chief and hold directly from him, that’s quite an honour,” said Garrett.
“That’s true. It gives me considerable autonomy in that I have to answer only to one man- and to God. I can do what I feel appropriate unless the king orders me otherwise.”
“As your tenants and the thegns of the Hundred are nearly all English, and unlike most of your country-men you speak our language, you probably have a better understanding of England and the English than nearly anybody,” commented Orvin.
“Other than perhaps those Normans who have been here from the times of Edward the Confessor,” agreed Alan easily, taking another sip of beer.
“Perhaps William doesn’t understand how much some of what he is doing is antagonising the English,” continued Orvin, moving the conversation forward slowly. “The geld, what used to be called the Danegeld, was re-instituted this year for the first time since Edward abolished it in ’51. Even King Harold didn’t reintroduce it last year. And, although English lords and thegns have been permitted to keep their land, they’ve had to pay dearly for the privilege.”
“I agree with you. I advised him not to reintroduce the geld, or at least not at the former rate and particularly not in the same year that many English were being charged to pay the Heriot to redeem their land. In effect most English landholders have had to pay double and this has been beyond the capacity of many who as a result have had to take out loans. If they default on those loans then their land may be assumed by the men who loaned the money. That’s unless the lenders are Jews, of course, in which case they sell it.
“The point I tried to make in private with William is that he wasn’t king until Christmas Day and that there were legal and logical problems with claiming that any Englishman who didn’t support him from the death of the Confessor last January until the Coronation was a traitor and had to pay to redeem his lands. That also includes the Normans who came to England and were given lands in the Confessor’s reign.”
“What did he say to that?” asked Anne.
“Not much. He’s totally convinced of his right to rule coming from Edward the Confessor, not the act of conquering the country- or perhaps I should say his recognition by Pope Alexander and his anointment as God’s chosen at the Coronation. He just told me I was wrong and that he was going to do it. How much the situation may have been different had Harald Hardrada become king instead is a moot point. At least there have been no massacres, nor have the remaining members of the West Saxon royal house been pursued to exile or death, as happened after the victory of Cnut’s Danes fifty years ago. Harold Hardrada of Norway wasn’t known as ‘Hard Ruler’ for nothing- he didn’t just fine his opponents or deprive them of their land. He maimed and massacred them! If he did that to his own people, what would he have done to the English? His own people feared and hated him. The Danes thought he was the Devil incarnate!
“It’s only in recent years that England has thrown off the yoke of Danish kings and Danish earls. There are no unpredictable Vikings going and attacking the next village just because they are bored. Siward remains Archbishop, as does Aethelnoth of Canterbury, and the other Saxon clerics retain their positions. Queen Edith retains her lands, as do the earls Morcar of Northumbria, Edwin of Mercia and Waltheof- and Edgar the Aetheling. William has offered each of them his friendship.
“As to Harold’s need for money last year when he became king, I had a discussion with King Edward’s former steward, Eadnoth. The king’s income without the geld was about?5,000. Harold’s personal income as earl was?4,400. The House of Godwin’s income, excluding Harold’s as king and earl, was?4,700. The one family held nearly all the earldoms. That gave Harold an annual income of over?14,000. How much money do you need for a small fleet and 1,000 or so huscarles? ”
“Since the coronation there has been widespread replacement of English lords with those from Normandy,” interjected Garrett.
Alan pursed his lips in thought and replied, “That’s true. Harold and his brothers Leofwine and Gyrth were killed at Hastings, along with thousands of thegns and huscarles. Probably another 1,000 thegns died at Fulford and Stamford Bridge. In all, probably 200 King’s Thegns and 2,000 ordinary thegns died. Probably also 2,500 cheorls who held their own land and several bishops and abbots- which I find interesting as had I thought only the Norman clergy were martially militant!
“In the south, and here in the east, men now hold their land from Norman lords who have been appointed as tenants-in-chief, or a few from the king himself. There have been hundreds, perhaps over 1,000, Norman knights and men-at-arms appointed to vacant manors formerly held by Englishmen. But relatively few, I won’t say none, Englishmen have so far been unlawfully deprived of their land if they are still alive.
“The land of those who died has been declared forfeit and is being seized and redistributed. The English nobles who I mentioned before and many, many others still hold their lands. It looks like a massive change, but that is only because of the massive holdings of the House of Godwin have been confiscated and reallocated. The changes have nearly all been south of here- but since Essex, Suffolk and Norfolk were held by Gyrth there have been, and will be, many changes in land ownership. But those are mainly at the top rather than the middle and bottom of the landholding chain. I know that it looks different to me as a Norman than it does to you as Englishmen, but just think about how much land was in the hands of Harold, Leofwine and Gyrth and how many thegns died in such a short period.”
“You mentioned the propensity of the Vikings to fight when they become bored,” commented Orvin. “I understand that fairly early in his reign as duke, William had to introduce ‘The Truce of God’ so that the Norman villeins could at least work their fields two days a week!”
“He formalized it,” replied Alan. “The ‘Truce’ did exist before then. Normandy was a much more dangerous place before William and his barons got the lesser men fully under control. Families and nobles were always fighting amongst each other, and even now still retain the right to conduct private wars. It’s not as if armed parties of knights are roaming the land looking for somebody to kill.”
“To return to the main topic at hand, in the current absence of the king many petty nobles are abusing their position, even in Essex and Suffolk,” continued Garrett.
“Absolutely! I agree that here in East Anglia that the way that the behaviour of Earl Ralph the Staller, William the Bishop of London and Engelric the former Royal Priest, all of whom are supposed to be overseeing the process of land redemption payments, is an absolute outrage. That is something I’ll report to the king when he returns from Normandy. There is clear extortion and abuse of the system taking place which the king’s regents fitzOsbern and Odo should be stamping out. That won’t be happening just here, but everywhere, and must be stopped. Odo himself has seized Langton in Lancashire from Ramsey Abbey. Widows are being forced to marry against their will. Many English noble women are taking refuge in nunneries, not because of religious fervour but because of fear of the Normans. The same thing happened in Cnut’s day when hundreds of widows were forced to marry those Danes favoured by the king. And not every Norman or Frenchman is satisfied. Eustace of Boulogne quarrelled with William and returned to Boulogne when he was refused the position of castellan of Dover.”
“And the men of the north will be hard to convince to accept rule from the South, as they always have- even when that rule was English,” warned Orvin. “You know that Copsi was appointed earl of Northumbria north of the Tyne, a Yorkshireman instead of a member of the House of Bamburgh- who have ruled that land for centuries. Copsi even followed Tostig into exile and they say that he fought at Stamford Bridge- with the Norwegians. The Northerners would not accept rule by a man from York. Oswulf, of the House of Bamburgh, had Copsi murdered just a few weeks ago at Newburn by attacking the house in which he was feasting, and when Copsi fled Oswulf burnt down the church in which he had taken sanctuary. Those madmen up there don’t care if the rule is Saxon or Norman, they’ll oppose either. You mark my words, King William will have trouble with them, and soon.”
“He’ll only have trouble with them once,” said Alan ominously. “William has tried to reconcile English and Norman interests to date. If they, or any English, revolt he’ll visit fire and destruction on a scale that has never been seen in this land before, and what goodwill he has tried to bear the English will be gone forever.”
Anne commented, “So you are saying that, like a rape, we English should just like back, let it happen and enjoy it?” she asked with asperity.
“No,” replied Alan. “These days I probably think more like an Englishman than a Norman and have more empathy for the English that I do with the conquerors. Orvin, you commented about the insularity of the men in the Danelaw, the Mercians and the Northumbrians.
“I say that in the past first the Vikings and then Cnut took away the will for rebellion by simple fear. William is trying an approach of largess and reconciliation with the surviving nobility who could lead a revolt. He took most of the English nobles with him when he went back to Normandy in March, effectively as hostages. If that doesn’t work I’m sure he’ll try the fear approach. What the English have done over the years is to absorb the invaders into your society- usually just in time for the next round of invasions. You call yourselves the English, an amalgamation of the peoples who have come to these lands over the past several thousand years. The Welsh and Scots, and many of the Normans, still refer to you as the Saxons, because they do not see or acknowledge the people that you have become.
“I said that had Harold Hardrada successfully invaded, the changes you see now would mainly still have occurred, but with Norwegians instead of Normans. The King’s royal court would still be talking in a foreign tongue. Over the last fifty years the House of Godwin, which collaborated and cooperated with Cnut and were rewarded for that, had turned England virtually into their own demesne. When they fell, great changes had to occur. Who benefits? At the moment mainly the Normans. In the medium-term, probably many English after the Normans have all received what they see as their just reward for services rendered. What may have occurred had Harold Godwinson won at Hastings, or Harold Hardrada at Stamford Bridge, is irrelevant. The English must deal with the lost battle, Harold Godwinson’s death and the death of his two most capable brothers- three if you include Tostig who died fighting alongside the Norwegians against his own brothers- and the fact that England is occupied by invaders. There are three options. The first is to accept it and make the most of a bad situation, as you have done in the past. The Norman invasion is not as bad for your people as was that of the Vikings. That is, as Anne put it, the ‘enjoy the rape’ approach.
“Secondly, you can find an English leader who can raise the whole country, including the north, behind him. That would have to be man who is a great general to beat William, who is himself a great general. That man who would have to fight with an army largely made up of peasants, as so many of the thegns were killed last year, against an army that uses effectively the combined arms of infantry, archers and heavy cavalry. It would be an English army that would have to win and win decisively in its first battle.
“You would need a man of stature from one of the four noble families. Somebody with the capabilities of Harold Godwinson. Who do you have? Edgar the Aetheling? Edwin of Mercia? Morcar of Northumbria? Earl Waltheof? None of them have what it takes to be successful, and with the possible exception of Edgar the Aetheling, the last of the line of Edward the Confessor, who would stand a chance of getting the unconditional support of the other earls? You need a giant like a new Edmund Ironside. Instead you have midgets. A general revolt would see England laid waste with most of its men of military-age dead, with resulting famine and starvation as there would be nobody left to sow or gather the harvests, and the total replacement of all Englishmen in positions of authority.
“The third and last option would be to invite Swein Estrithson, king of Denmark, to be your king, to invade with his full army and for all the English to support him. Based on kinship to the blood-royal, Swein has a good legal claim to the throne. Not as good as the Aetheling, but as good as that of William, whose legal claim before being crowned frankly was not strong.
“Do you want a Dane on the throne of England? How would you in East Anglia feel about having Danish overlords after the way that they have been raiding your shores and killing your people for years? That assumes that Swein is both interested in putting his full might behind an invasion, which would leave his homeland open to attack and invasion by the Norwegians, Swedes, Germans and Flemings. Swein is neither a good king nor a good general. He has enough trouble keeping his own people in order in his own country and would stand no chance of controlling them in England. The excellent administration system built up by Edward’s predecessors would fall apart in months. And Swein, like the remaining English earls, has never fought and won a major battle. William is the best general in Europe. He beat the second-best general at Hastings.
“And don’t forget the religious aspect. Pope Alexander has decreed that William is the true king of England. The pope’s personal banner flown at Hastings was worth at least 1,000 extra men for the encouragement it gave the Norman forces and the discouragement it gave the English. William has been anointed with Holy Oil and crowned king by the Archbishop of York. How many fyrdmen and thegns would hold back from a future revolt due to religious convictions?
“No, I’m sorry to say from the English point of view your best option is to be raped and take the long-term view.”
“So we should just shut up and be thankful for small mercies?” asked Anne with some asperity. “Next you’ll be saying that having Norman lords is better for us English than having our own nobles!”
“Not at all! Obviously it would have been better for both the Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Danes if nobody had invaded last year and you had simply been left in peace. Probably having Norwegians as overlords would have been better for the locals, as they’d be assimilated into your society more quickly and wouldn’t try to make changes. All I’m saying is that what is done, is done. The English either need to live with the result or be unexpectedly successful in a revolt.”
“And any war is bad for business,” commented Orvin sourly, not having enjoyed hearing the long but logical presentation of the argument he had just heard. “It’s a pity that the yoke we are under feels like a noose and so much abuse is happening in the king’s absence.”
“Now that is something that I may be able to do something about, if I am now as wealthy as you say. I’ve met both fitzOsbern and Odo of Bayeux. Both are capable enough and at least fitzOsbern is reasonably honest. FitzOsbern is being kept busy by the fighting in Herefordshire with the Welsh invading and attacking and laying waste to the shire, and the raiding by the Irish being led by Harold’s bastard sons. Odo, who I have already said has his own snout in the trough, has his troubles with disturbances in Kent- not an uprising but a lot of friction, including use of arms, between the English and the Normans. That conflict is mainly the Normans’ fault for overstepping what’s reasonable, particularly Richard fitzScrob.
“Both fitzOsbern and Odo are too powerful to be susceptible to anything I can do or say, but a gentle reminder from me that the king will be returning later in the year may help. I probably can’t do much about Earl Ralph the Staller either, but I can try as he and I probably have equal influence with King William. After all, Ralph is a hang-over from Edward’s regime, being half Breton and half English. I may be able to influence William the Bishop of London, who is a Norman invited over to England by Edward the Confessor, and Engelric.
“The main problem at the moment is the abuses in the Heriot land redemption payments being made by the English. I’ll discuss the problem with the sheriffs of Essex and Suffolk, although they are probably in on the caper as well. What I am going to need are written depositions from Essex and Suffolk listing every abuse of power since the Heriot started until whenever the king returns, which will probably be November. At least, as a result of the Danish raid, the thegns in my own Hundred have the coin to pay both the Heriot and the geld this year. Orvin, do you have the contacts to arrange this documentation in Suffolk and Norfolk?”
“I know the people who can arrange it,” said Orvin with considerable enthusiasm. “I can send the information in dispatches. When will you start?”
“I’ll see the sheriff here in Ipswich before we leave. Can you obtain four or five depositions of malpractice by Friday, and can I borrow a scribe for the sake of appearances? I’ll attend to Essex after the wedding. On consideration, we’d better have Solomon transfer the money I was going to leave here in Ipswich to Colchester, so I can use it to lend to thegns who are being extorted in Essex.”
Garrett queried the reason for the speed of the marriage arrangements, “After all, if you have only been sleeping together for ten days you can hardly have got her pregnant yet!”
Alan demurred, looking at Anne and saying, “I’m sorry, that is something between my lady and myself. If you want to know that, it would be up to her to tell you and I doubt she will.” Anne smiled and shook her head.
Orvin suggested that in the circumstances that it might be best if the earlier wedding date of 30th June was chosen, to remove one of the few areas of vulnerability of Alan and Anne. The marrying of an English heiresses, while not actually forbidden, was strongly discouraged and required the consent of both lords, mainly to discourage the widows from exercising free choice as Anne intended to do. “Now if you gentlemen will give me leave, I must visit the privy after all that beer I’ve been drinking,” said Alan excusing himself for the night.
Next day being a Monday the small church of St Stephen held only the Sext service at noon, with a brief Mass being said. Orvin kept his word and took Alan and Anne to the Jewish Quarter early in the morning to see Solomon.
Alan was very impressed with the usurer, who was the antithesis of everything he had thought he knew of Jews. The man was small, plump and bald, despite being only about thirty years of age. He spoke fluent English, Latin and formal French, as well of course as Hebrew, and claimed some ability in Danish, Norwegian and Flemish. He was polite, well-spoken, literate and urbane, with an excellent grasp of current affairs and politics. He efficiently receipted and sealed the transfer of funds from Orvin’s account to that of Alan. Anne insisted that given her current uncertain legal status the account should not bear her name even as partner. Alan gave written instructions that in the event of his death the account balance was to become owned by Anne, effective immediately.
Then they returned to Carr Street to change for church. Orvin, Lora and Anne took confession as usual before the service. Alan arranged to meet the priest, Father Aella after the service, while Orvin escorted Lora and Anne home.
Father Aella was a tall spare man of about forty years of age. He took Alan through to his study in the rectory. “What can I do for you my son?” he asked the younger man.
“Father, it is nine months since I last confessed,” said Alan in a troubled voice.
“It’s nine months since you took Mass?”
“No, Father, that’s not the same thing. I took Mass unconfessed,” replied Alan.
“Obviously you know that is in itself a sin,” said Father Aella conversationally. “Why?”
“I suppose because taking Mass is a habit, and I have not confessed because of my sins.”
“Well, that’s one sin you have confessed. Shall we deal with the others?”
“I have killed. Killed many men.”
“In the course of war, when they were attacking you?”
“Mainly. Many at Hastings during the battle. There was one I killed on Christmas Day outside where the king was being crowned, to make a point and establish my authority when he defied me. That was done for what I saw as being a good purpose, to have the houses being set on fire extinguished, and he was preventing me from doing that. Three men who were robbers who myself and my party caught in the act of killing, robbing and ravishing. In battle recently were hundreds who did not die by my hand, but on my orders- and died most horribly and painfully. That was defending a village from being pillaged by the Danes. Others I have had judicially put to death because of their crimes. These all weigh on my mind. And I have stolen, stolen from the dead at Hastings- but not the dying, nor did I hasten the death of any of the wounded for the purposes of robbery.”
“You were poor then? I thought so. But by your appearance you are not now poor? You now have your own lands somewhere else, as I have not seen you before? If you don’t mind me saying so, such sins are not unusual for men who have called to be soldiers. Have you raped? No? Killed wantonly or stolen from the poor? No? Fornicated? Yes? Well that’s again not an unusual sin for any man,” continued the priest.
“I kept a mistress for five months, had carnal knowledge of several women while on campaign and I am now cohabiting with the woman I am due to wed in several weeks time. That last is one thing I do not intend to seek absolution for, as I intend to continue with that sin!” continued Alan.
Father Aella smiled slightly, without saying anything on this point as he’d heard the other side of the position in confession a little earlier in the day. “And has anything good come from your actions?”
“From the thefts, yes. I used the money I obtained to buy the weapons I needed to equip my own men, who later fought to save a village and to destroy a raiding party of Danes. By killing the Danes we saved dozens of lives in that village and rescued hundreds of English that they had taken as captives. By killing the robbers I saved two women from death, including the woman I now love. I have become moderately wealthy and can now help others,” said Alan thoughtfully. “The judicial killings I don’t really count as I was in effect acting as Caesar and imposing the penalties that law of the land provides, with little choice.”
“So good has come from bad, and nothing you have said is anything I would say to be evil or to endanger your immortal soul. But obviously they weigh heavily on you, more so than on any other soldier I have met, who I must say seem to be a fairly hardened lot. Why is that and why have you not felt able to be confessed by your parish priest?” asked Father Aella gently.
“I know that the Holy Bible states we must not judge others, but Brother Godwine is a nearly illiterate country priest who keeps his own mistress and probably helped my former steward steal from me. More particularly, he’s lazy and fails to provide properly for the spiritual needs of his congregation. The benefice is within my giving but I haven’t had the chance to seek a more suitable candidate,” said Alan with a frown on his brow. “As to the first part of your question, perhaps I’m not really cut out to be a soldier. I was an oblate at a monastery for several years.”
“Hmm… perhaps a warrior-priest, and by that I don’t mean in the manner of Bishop Odo! And given how busy you seem to have been committing what you think of as sins I’m not surprised that you haven’t had time to seek a more suitable priest. I think I know of a man at the priory who may be suitable as a parish priest, but whether he would consent to accept a benefice in a small country village I don’t know. Certainly he’s quite wasted doing menial work at the priory and could better do God’s work out in the community. He’s about thirty, intellectual, compassionate and warm, practical and something of an ascetic. You would be able to discuss matters of faith and theological interpretation with him- he’s much more knowledgeable than I! His name is Brother Wacian and he’s a minor assistant in the infirmary. If we go up to the priory now they’ll probably still be serving food at the refectory when we get there and then I can introduce you.
“What we seem to have is a Crisis of Faith, in that you feel overwhelmed by sin and believe that this means that you are damned to hell for all eternity. We British, including the clergy, are not as strict in our interpretations as the clerics of France. You speak in an educated manner. You say you were an oblate at a monastery?”
“Yes, at Rouen for several years before it was decided that my path lay outside the clergy. I wasn’t sufficiently devout in the observation of my duties and left before taking vows; to be more precise I was expelled.”
Father Aella gave a chuckle. “Rouen is known for the strictness of its interpretation of the scriptures. As a brief history lesson, the church here in Britain was founded by monks from Ireland, where the Faith had flourished during the Dark Times. The Blessed Columba founded the monastery at Iona in the Scottish Isles and preached Christianity to the Picts. Saint Aidan was from Ireland and established the monastery at Lindisfarne, and Saint Wilfred studied at Lindisfarne and brought the Word south to Sussex. Pope Gregory sent Saint Augustine to Canterbury, but the British clergy refused to assist him or to acknowledge his claim of supremacy over them. There was dispute between those clerics who followed the Irish rites and those who followed the Latin rites. The hand of Rome still rests lightly on her church in Britain- much more lightly than Pope Alexander would wish! Most of the bishops in Britain barely acknowledge the supremacy of the papacy.
“The position of many of the church here in Britain on the issue of sexual congress is different to that adopted in France and Italy. As you will be aware many of our clergy, including anointed priests, are married. The Ten Commandments contain no denunciation of sexual activity other than that of adultery, which you haven’t committed. The Blessed Saint Paul in his Epistles to the Corinthians wrote in Greek. He denounces fornication as a sin, and used the Greek word ‘porneia’. That word means ‘illegal sex’ or ‘illicit sex’, and usually refers to incest, bestiality and adultery. By our own mores that would now include homosexuality.
“God created the human body and made sexual congress between man and woman a pleasurable activity; he would not then be so ungenerous as to use that as a trap to damn mankind to everlasting torment in hell. The scriptures instruct man to ‘go forth and multiply’ and to marry. In addition to adultery and illegal sex, casual sex for the purpose of simple bodily pleasure is sinful. Sexual congress between a man and a woman in a committed monogamous relationship for the purpose of begetting children and with the intent that the act makes the couple one both in body and in spirit is blessed, although the formalities of marriage are preferable.
“Taking a mistress to assuage your lust was sinful, as was any other casual carnal relations you may have had. A joining with a woman on a permanent basis is not sinful, even though in the absence of the marriage rites it may be slightly premature. Do you know the Anglo-Saxon civil law regarding unlawful sexual activity?” Alan nodded in reply. “Then you know that the plaint must be brought by the man who claims to ‘own’ the woman and who claims to have suffered loss by her unavailability. The penalty is payment of bot or compensation to that man. Not even a fine.
“Even fornication with a nun brings a penalty of payment of bot to the bishop and diocese who have lost her service when she is driven out for breach of her vows! I would not condemn your priest who has taken a woman as a mistress, if he intends to have that as a permanent relationship and does not do so merely out of lust. When he was ordained he is unlikely to have taken a vow of chastity. Where I see the fault is in him treating this in a surreptitious manner and not giving her the respect that she deserves as his spouse. Brother Godwine may well have wished to marry the woman and formalise her position, but to do that he would require the permission of his bishop. You are from south of here? Then his bishop will be William, Bishop of London, who is a Norman appointed by Edward and who holds to the belief that clergy must be unmarried and celibate. If he sought approval for marriage it would certainly be refused. In those circumstances Brother Godwine may have deemed it better not to ask!
“But as you have sinned we must determine your penance. As I have said I do not view your sinning as great. I would give you as penance the requirement to provide something of spiritual value to your parish. I will leave what that is to you, as you will know its needs better than I. Now, let us away to the priory!”
They walked quickly up Brook Street and when they reached Carr Street Alan asked Father Aella to wait for a moment as he hurried to Orvin’s house to get a rolled parchment from his room before returning quickly to the waiting Father Aella.
They entered the priory refectory just as the monks were starting to clear the meal away, and each obtained a plate of tough roasted meat, gravy and vegetables, fresh rye bread and cheese, which they ate at a bare scrubbed wooden table, before Father Aella took Alan to the infirmary. To some extent it was like a home-coming to Alan, reminding him of his time in Rouen.
They asked the Infirmarer for permission to speak to Brother Wacian and went outside to sit on a bench in the courtyard to talk. It transpired that, while Brother Wacian was happy in his relatively minor position at the infirmary, the prospect of working to serve the spiritual needs of a parish fired him with enthusiasm. He seemed amased at the size of the benefice he would receive and the priest’s share of the village land. In their half-hour conversation Alan questioned him closely and was satisfied that the Englishman would make a suitable rector for the parish. Father Aella and Alan then met with the prior to make the necessary arrangements, before Alan asked Father Aella to take him to the library and introduce him to Brother Eadward the librarian. After performing that duty Father Aella departed.
Alan discussed with Brother Eadward the arrangement he had with Brother Leanian, the librarian at St Botolph’s Priory at Colchester, and showed him the parchment that comprised the inventory of the library at Colchester, which Brother Eadward promised to have copied and returned to him next day. Although the priory held no copies of Hippocrates’ Corpus, it did hold several books on Brother Leanian’s wanted list and Brother Eadward undertook to correspond with Colchester to arrange a suitable exchange.
Part of the priory’s income came from copying books and one of its main stock items was a series of Bibles of varying degrees of workmanship. Alan arranged to purchase an illuminated and well-written English copy of the Bible to take with him at the end of the week in return for a payment of thirty shillings, and which he intended to give to the parish at Thorrington as his penance.
The priory bells were ringing the mid-afternoon service of Nones as Alan, feeling happy with the various outcomes of the day, arrived back at Carr Street.
Wednesday was the day of the monthly Horse Market at Ipswich, held on the Common to the south-west of the city. Alan had to insist to Anne that she join him, as she was still quite annoyed with him at his choosing the new parish priest without involving her in the discussions. She wasn’t concerned about the qualities of Brother Wacian, nor did she disagree with Alan that no priest could be much worse that Brother Godwine, but it was a matter of principal and she was not pleased with her betrothed.
They arrived quite early as the priory bells were ringing for Prime, the official starting time for the market. A small tent had been set up for the official who collected fees from the sellers and a larger marquee where a local brewer was setting up a refreshment stall with tables and chairs. There were only a few hawkers about as the Horse Market tended to be a business event, not one that attracted crowds for amusement.
“Now the first thing you must learn at a horse market is to look down when you are walking,” said Alan, only half in jest as the Common was already receiving fertiliser from the horses. Being an English market there were no destriers for sale, and few enough horses big and swift enough to qualify for the name ‘chargers’. Most were rounceys, the multi-purpose horse, or draught horses.
Alan examined the horses closely, there being perhaps 100 on offer that day, and pointed out to Anne the various traits that made a good riding horse or a pack horse. He paid particular attention in teaching her what made a good war-horse, most of the traits of which were completely at odds with what made a good comfortable riding horse. “Strength and good form with good body shape. Able to carry a man and forty pounds of armour and march all day, and charge repeatedly after that. Spirit and intelligence. It has to be taught to ignore the noise and distraction of battle. Some nastiness of temperament is good too- just look at Odin- but enough tractability that a good rider can control it.”
“Stallion, mare or gelding?” asked Anne, interested despite herself, and knowing that someday she may need to buy warhorses on behalf of the manor.
“Generally it doesn’t matter too much. I’d probably prefer to use stallions or geldings on campaign, as mares tend to cause distraction in the early springtime when they’re on heat. Mares can be just as evil-tempered as stallions,” concluded Alan with a sideward look at Anne, who gave him in return a brief look of part amusement and part annoyance to show that she had understood the insinuation.
In the end they chose eleven horses, Alan insisting with several that Anne make the choice, although he steered her with his body language and a few comments. Each horse was carefully examined from teeth to hooves. Only horses fully adult, at least three years old, were of interest. After inspection each was first led by the vendor while Alan and Anne watched, and then ridden by Alan along the track by the river that had been left vacant for that purpose. All the animals selected were large, strong, quick, intelligent and moved easily- although most were barely large enough to qualify for the name ‘charger’. Six were mares that Alan intended to add to the breeding program at the stud at Ramsey.
Buying eleven horses takes time and it was after Nones by the time they had finished. After paying the earnest-money deposit for each horse they arrived back at Carr Street tired and smelly, for despite Alan’s warning they hadn’t always watched where they were putting their feet. Orvin arrived soon afterwards, while they were still dressing after bathing, and took them out to visit another Jewish usurer named Aaron. Like Solomon Aaron also had business in Colchester and they made financial arrangements with him for when further money became available. Both Orvin and Aaron provided the names of several trustworthy usurers in London and Aaron wrote out a letter of introduction in Hebrew.
Early on Friday Alan sent a messenger to the castle seeking an afternoon appointment to see Roger Bigod, the Shire Sheriff, who Alan knew to be in the city. Orvin’s contacts and scribe had performed as hoped, and when Alan walked into the castle’s Hall accompanied by Orvin’s scribe Cynefrid he carried six rolled-up depositions of complaint.
Roger Bigod was about ten years older than Alan and had been a quite undistinguished knight in Normandy before the invasion. Afterwards William had granted him land in Suffolk and appointed him its sheriff. Both men were of similar status, both tenants-in-chief holding directly from the king but both with relatively modest estates. Alan was a member of the King’s Council and Roger was not, but as sheriff he also had the ear of the king. Of stocky build and with short dark hair he rose and clasped arms with Alan as he entered and offered him a cup of watered wine.
On being introduced to Cynefrid he asked if he needed his own scribe present and Alan suggested that it would be a good idea. Roger roared out to the guard standing on the other side of the closed door of the office “Send for Jocelin!” and chatted amiably until the clerk arrived. “Now what’s this all about?” he demanded. “You’re a fair way out of your own lands here.”
“We are both officers of the king here in East Anglia,” said Alan with slight exaggeration. “You know that King William has decreed that all Englishmen, and that includes those Normans and French living in England at the time of Hastings, have to pay to redeem their land.”
Roger nodded abruptly and said, “And I understand that you spoke against that.”
Alan made an acquiescing motion with his right hand and said, “True, but that’s of no matter. The king made his decree and it is law and we’re all required to uphold that. King William of course left these shores in March, leaving the governance of the land to his relatives William fitzOsbern and Odo of Bayeux. The Relief is, along with the quarterly collection of the geld, currently the most important financial activity in the kingdom. Collection of the geld is in the hands of the sheriffs such as yourself. You all have to account for each penny collected.
“As to the Heriot Relief, here in East Anglia responsibility to administer the charge lies with Earl Ralph the Staller, William the Bishop of London and Engelric the former Royal Priest. As it requires no fixed amount and gives some discretion, the Relief is open to abuse. I have heard many stories of sharp practice and abuse either by those three officers or their servants and I’ve recently started to investigate the accuracy of these stories in Essex. I have been here in Ipswich since Saturday, in that time I have been sought out and presented with six depositions detailing threats, extortionate Relief demands, demands for immediate payment or immediate forfeiture of land. In one case there was a demand that a comely daughter of a wealthy man must marry a particular Norman knight or the father will not be offered Relief of his land. I understand that the marriage is due a week tomorrow and that the maid, who is thirteen, does not consent but is being made to wed against her will.
“These are no doubt just a few of many instances of abuse in East Anglia. King William has ordered the Relief, but these abuses will not be tolerable to him or any moral-minded man such as yourself. It appears that fitzOsbern and Odo are too busy with the problems in their own areas of responsibility to keep a proper eye on the situation and that these three royal officers are either involved in the abuse or are incompetent in their supervision of their minions. The sheriffs are responsible for the maintenance of the law in their shires, so it’s not open for them to say that responsibility lies elsewhere.”
“You have spoken to fitzWymarc about this?” demanded Bigod.
“Not as yet. As you said, I’m out of my jurisdiction here, on personal business. I wished to raise the matter with you privately before it’s raised officially, so you can take such action as you think fit. I suggest that forbidding the marriage referred to in the deposition with the red ribbon would be a good start. Raising the other issues with the officers referred to in the depositions would be sensible and protect your own position. I do, of course, have attested copies of the depositions. You may like to pass the word around the shire that you would be prepared to accept and investigate further depositions.”
“You intend to make an issue of this with the king and the Council? Why? You won’t make yourself any friends amongst the people who count, including the king,” queried Bigod.
“Because it needs to be done and I’m not worried about upsetting those responsible for the Reliefs- or those that they have been involving or bribing. I have no political ambitions.”
Bigod stroked his chin reflectively. He privately conceded the truth of what Alan had said, and indeed had received some benefit himself. However, to do nothing risked losing the important and lucrative position of sheriff. “Jocelin, take the depositions, go through them and give me the details. Alan, I take it you intend to discuss these matters with Bishop William, Earl Ralph and Engelric?” said Bigod.
“Certainly, as soon as I meet with them. I have my own schedule and I don’t intend to run all over three shires chasing them. I’ll probably see them in London in a few months. If you want to advise them of our discussion and my investigations, please feel free. I’ll appoint a food taster and I already have bodyguards! There are six men waiting for me in the guardroom at the moment at escort me to my lodgings. I’m sure that if something happens to me before he returns, King William will not be happy- particularly when he still receives the depositions. I’m sure that all we Officers of the King will all act in the best interests of the king and the kingdom.”
Back at Carr Street Alan advised Orvin and the others the gist of what had been discussed and made arrangements to leave the following morning, with four guards staying at Orvin’s house for the night.
“I’m so proud of you, doing something to help the English thegns,” said Anne softly as they lay in bed that night.
“I just hope that we don’t both come to regret it,” said Alan feeling a little despondent.
Next morning, Saturday 16th June, accompanied by Brother Wacian, they rode out of the city as soon as the gates opened at dawn, Alan and each of the escort was wearing full armour, helmets placed on the saddle pommels, and most of the men were leading either the pack-horses or the newly purchased horses. Brother Wacian had met them at the gate, looked surprised at Anne’s riding attire and gratefully accepting the offer of the use of one of the horses. Alan and Anne rode at the head of the group as usual, but this time with their saddlebags filled with silver. When they were a dozen miles out of Ipswich Alan ordered a halt and allowed his men to remove their heavy armour. While they did so the horses cropped the grass, Odin standing close to Anne’s palfrey Misty and nuzzling her shoulder occasionally.
It was only when they crossed the River Stour and rode into Manningtree and Tendring Hundred that Alan felt safe. The weather had changed around mid-day, becoming cooler and overcast, before light showers set in and caused the riders to pause and rummage through their baggage for their cloaks to keep the rain off. Alan checked the oiled canvas covering on the parchments and books to ensure they were being kept safe and dry. They arrived at Thorrington in the mid-afternoon, to a tumultuous reception by Anne’s hounds and a genuinely warm welcome from the servants.
Alan introduced Brother Wacian to Osmund and Faran. Deciding that there was no use in delaying unpleasant matters he summoned Brother Godwine, advised him of the immediate termination of his benefice as rector of Thorrington Parish, paid him a month’s salary and asked him and his mistress to vacate the rectory within the week.
Brother Godwine was stunned, demanding to know the reason for his dismissal and was clearly disbelieving when Alan replied, “Because you are neither fit nor capable of dealing with the spiritual needs of the community. You’re too busy looking after your own interests and just too damn lazy.” It was telling that, so self-absorbed was Brother Godwine in his sudden fall from grace, that he never asked who was to conduct the Mass due be heard the following day. When Brother Godwine departed from the Hall he was still declaiming loudly that he had performed his duties well, bemoaning his fate and asking what would be his future.
It was two weeks to the day to the wedding day and Anne was determined not to waste a moment of preparation. She sent a message asking for Rheda her cook from Wivenhoe, Wybert her Steward, and most importantly Father Ator who would be the celebrant, to call on her the following morning.
Hugh met with Alan and advised him that he had been able to buy 8 chargers and 10 rounceys at the Colchester livestock market and that he’d recruited 36 peasants who had volunteered to become full-time soldiers, about half of whom could already ride. The 20 most capable were being trained to fight on horseback, including controlling a warhorse with just the use of the knees to allow the free use of both hands. All were being taught how to use a sword and swordsmanship, which were not the same thing as the latter included footwork and offensive and defensive patterns.
Hugh had also found 23 trained but now unemployed huscarles, mainly from Lexden, Winstree and Thurstable Hundreds where thegns who were struggling to meet their Heriot and taxation liabilities had been unable to keep their retainers. Some claimed to have fought at Hastings, others to have left for the battlefield but arrived too late and some that their thegns had never received the call to muster from Earl Gyrth. Hugh was concerned about the seemingly huge amount of money that Alan was incurring to recruit and train soldiers, being aware that most knights with modest manors such as that of Alan were usually not wealthy. Alan set Sunday afternoon aside to interview the huscarles.
Roger reported that training of the 30 fyrd bowmen, 10 each from Wivenhoe, Alresford and Ramsey was progressing well. The men were in the main hunters and knew how to use a bow and only required to be trained to follow instructions to act as a unit and to shoot rapid volleys. Warren had taken over command of Alan’s current force of 20 bowmen, all of whom were local peasants and lived in the village, while Roger was attending to the training of the new recruits.
The next morning Anne spent mainly closeted with Rheda, Otha the Thorrington Cook, Father Ator, her various maids and some of the wives of the local thegns. Alan had announced the betrothal and wedding day at dinner the evening before and the Hall and village were abuzz with the news.
Alan, Faran and Osmund spent the morning going over the books, with Osmund reporting which thegns and peasants- cheorls, sokeman, cottars and other freemen- were behind in their payments of money, goods or labour, with Faran making mental notes as to which he needed to visit to discuss their obligations. The next Quarter Day, Mid-Summer’s Day, was one week away and Osmund was concerned that Alan should be in a position to pay his own taxes and tithes when they fell due that day, being one quarter of the annual rental for this and the other manors Alan held in the Hundred, and the money due for Wivenhoe.
A little before noon they changed into their good clothes and led the throng of servants and soldiers from the Hall towards the small wooden church at the edge of the village. Most wore cloaks to protect them from the thin drizzle still falling and the cold wind. There were many of the green cloaks that Alan had chosen as uniform for his mounted men-at-arms. All the village had heard one of several variations of Godwine’s removal and were agog at the news and that Alan had taken the stance that he had. Many had sympathy for Godwine, although virtually everybody admitted his shortcomings in the performance of his pastoral duties.
The small church was already full to overflowing as every member of Thorrington and the surrounding villages appeared to have come to see and form an opinion of the new priest. As those from the Hall joined the congregation outside the church, those inside began to file out, calling out that the service would be heard on the village green around which the houses and other buildings had been built. Moments later some men set up a trestle table which one of the elderly women of the village draped with a white cloth and placed the polished brass cross and the chalice, pyx and ciborium in place.
Shortly afterwards Brother Wacian appeared in a spotless white surplice and red stole, accompanied by one of the local boys dressed in a white cassock, who had apparently been pressed into the position of altar-boy.
As Brother Wacian stood before the altar the congregation crowded closer to see the tall and sparely-built priest. His knowledgeable and serious demeanour and clean clothing, both so different from that of Brother Godwine, gave the congregation an immediate positive reaction to him.
“Welcome, friends!” he said in a calm but well-projected voice that easily reached those at the back of the crowd. “Given the numbers attending today’s service, and not believing in turning any away from worship, I have decided that we will celebrate Mass under God’s good sky- although He seems to want to test our faith a little this morning! That matters not and let us now commence. Given the wet grass that you’re standing on, you are to remain standing and not kneel, other than when receiving the Host.”
He named a well-known English hymn to commence the service and began to sing in a strong and deep voice with the congregation joining in immediately. Because of the rain he had not brought out the Book of Services nor the Bible for the readings, which he handled himself rather than on this occasion asking any of the congregation to assist.
By his faultless performance he clearly needed no written reference materials and knew both the service and the two Bible passages word-perfect. His homily was on Change and Duty. By this time he was soaked through, with his hair plastered to his head and water dripping from his chin, as indeed were most of the congregation, but Brother Wacian injected a sense of warmth and freshness into the service that all the congregation knew so well.
As he dispensed the Host he invited all forward, even the meanest cottar or slave, and he distributed to each person with an intenseness and passion that made each feel that the service had been put on for their own benefit. Before he gave the parting benediction he gave a brief address on how pleased he was to have joined the parish, that his door was always open to all and they should seek his assistance if troubled. He also announced that confessions would be held from Prime, with two Sunday Services at Terce and Sext, to hopefully avoid future overcrowding.
There would also be a midweek service on Wednesdays at sunset, and Brother Wacian stressed that those attending the Wednesday Mass “Should not hesitate to attend in working clothes as Mass is an occasion for private devotion, prayer and reconciliation with God, not a social occasion. I recognise that many work dawn to dark and will do so particularly during the busy seasons of sowing and harvest.”
Those who were ill and unable to attend Church were urged to contact him to arrange confessions and Mass in their own homes. He also advised that he had some medical skills that, such as they were, he was prepared to make available to all. With the exception of the final Blessing, the whole service, taking nearly an hour, was conducted in English and in the rain. The congregation dispersed and headed in their various directions.
Alan asked Osmund to slip into the village tavern for an hour or so to listen to the local judgment on the new priest, although he was certain that after today’s performance and the cleric’s obvious devotion and love of his calling that the conclusion would be favourable.
After towelling themselves dry and changing their clothes Anne and Alan proceeded to the Hall where ample but simple viands washed down with ale were available, as after all the kitchen staff had also needed to attend Mass.
After the mid-day meal Alan began to interview the huscarles, with Hugh and (at Alan’s request) Anne sitting in on the first interview. This was of a man called Brand, a massive man who towered well over Alan’s six foot height, about thirty-five years of age with long blond hair tied back in a ponytail, a flowing moustache and clean-shaved chin. He was clearly an intelligent man and had a self-confident, almost arrogant, manner. Hugh had described him to Alan as a potential leader of the huscarles. The interviews were being conducted at the high table in the Hall, with the other huscarles awaiting their turn sitting at tables at the far end of the Hall, a few sipping from pint pitchers of ale.
“So, Brand, where are you from?” began Alan.
“Tollesbury in Thurstable Hundred, held by Guthmund, an average sized holding of nearly five hides, pasture and a salthouse. Guthmund had in service myself and Ranulf,’’ here Brand nodded his head towards a table of waiting men. “The holding is assessed at thirty shillings.” Here Alan inclined his head in acknowledgement of Brand’s point. Ten shillings was the normal geld for the average village of five or so hides. “He’s just had to pay?5 to Bishop William of London for his Heriot and next week has to pay his Quarter Day taxes, so he told us that he could no longer afford to retain us, what with the re-introduction of the geld. I’d been there ten years. Before then I was a cheorl at Goldhanger, which was nearby, but I decided the rustic life didn’t suit me.”
“What experience do you have in battle?” asked Alan.
“A number of small skirmishes with neighbours or footpads over the years. Siward used us mainly as his personal guards when he was travelling. Then at Hastings, that was my first real battle.”
“It was for most of us,” replied Alan. “When did you arrive?”
“The night before. I was on the right flank. Not in the first rank, the shield-wall, of course. The Royal Huscarles occupied that position. I was in the second rank. The unarmoured fyrdmen with their swords and pitchforks were behind us, eight deep. Where were you?”
“In the centre, with Geoffrey de Mandeville’s cavalry,” replied Alan. “It was us who broke up the counter-attack when the Bretons broke. Tell me, why did the English right flank attack at such at early time, surely you could see that you were flanked?” asked Alan.
Brand shrugged. “We’d been standing receiving a hail of arrows and crossbow bolts for nearly an hour and then battling the Breton infantry. They were good fighters who knew their trade well. Those behind the front rank were impatient to get at them and when the Bretons broke and disorganized their cavalry behind them, Earl Leofwine ordered a general attack on that flank to try to route them completely. Unfortunately, it appears that King Harold disagreed and provided no support with an attack on the centre. Your cavalry smashed us from our left flank. Ranulf and I were amongst the survivors who got back to the shield-wall. As you know, many didn’t.”
“When did you leave the battlefield?” asked Hugh.
“It was after dark. King Harold had fallen. The shield-wall had shrunk, reducing its length. The Royal Huscarles still insisted on forming the front rank and wouldn’t allow the thegns or other huscarles to maintain the line or to relieve them. They seemed to think they were invincible and wanted to do it all.” He paused for a moment and then continued, “Your archers were more effective later in the day, but mainly in shooting down the unarmoured fyrdmen in the rear ranks. When your cavalry managed to take part of the ridge on our extreme right and began to roll up the shield-wall Ranulf and I decided that it was time to leave. Harold, Leofwine and Gyrth were all dead by then and nobody was in charge. The Normans had about reached the middle of the ridge when we called it a day and ran like hares. King Harold had kept no men as reinforcements and had put everybody in the line.”
“Neither did King William,” commented Alan. “Apart from the Royal Huscarles in the front rank, how was the army organised?”
“Poorly. Men arrived the night before and chose their own position on the line, the men from different Hundreds and Shires were all mixed together. There was little effective control during the battle, but I suppose if you have 7,000 men all jammed together and all on foot, with the men all mixed together and not knowing each other, it would have been nearly impossible other than to say ‘Stand’, ‘Attack’ or ‘Retreat’.”
“What did you learn from the battle?” asked Alan.
Brand smiled wryly. “Firstly, never attack with enemy cavalry on an unsupported flank.” He paused in reflection for several minutes before continuing, “Proper organisation of your men. Keeping a reserve of men against the contingencies of battle. Don’t over-crowd the battlefield. The value of archers and cavalry, particularly when the horsemen have room to manoeuvre. The problems in using part-time and poorly trained and badly equipped infantry in a battle. What did you learn?”
“The value of discipline and training, and bowmen. The difficulty in breaking a shield-wall held by spearmen when you have no room for manoeuvre. The skill and bravery of English warriors. And to fear the man who uses the two-handed Danish battle-axe,” replied Alan.
“That’s my weapon,” said Brand proudly.
“You have your own armour and arms?” asked Hugh. Brand nodded.
Alan looked at first Hugh and then Anne. Both gave a nod, confirming Alan’s own opinion. But Alan was not yet finished.
“How do you feel entering the household of a Frenchman? You will know our custom. You swear fealty to me personally and you’re expected to carry out all orders I give. Can you do that for a Norman lord? Could you fight in a Norman army against an army of English or Danes?”
Brand paused to collect his thoughts into the correct words. “I’ve been asking myself that same question ever since I heard that a Norman man-at-arms was going through Lexden, Winstree and Thurstable Hundreds seeking men. I’ve not been impressed with most of the Frenchmen I’ve met who’ve come to Essex in the past few months. When I found that both he and his lord had taken the trouble to learn English, something few of the Frenchmen have bothered to do, I was interested. When I learned that the lord was the same man who used fyrdmen and farm-boys to destroy a small Danish army at Wivenhoe I became sufficiently interested to make the journey here. Any man who can do that must be very pr?ttig. Now I find a man who is sympathetic to the English, doesn’t bear enmity against those he fought at Hastings, is building a small army of trained Englishmen, a man who is a leader of men and who is to marry a most intelligent and beautiful English lady. I think I can honestly say I would follow you to the gate of hell and help you kick in the gate. Your enemies are my enemies.”
“Well said!” replied Alan. “Sit with us here on this side of the table as we interview the others. My lady, you are most welcome to stay, but I know that you are busy managing two households and several manors with but a week to the Mid-Summer Quarter-Day. If you are satisfied, we three can handle the rest of the interviews this afternoon.” Recognising that she was indeed busy and needed to spend time with Faran, Wybert and the stewards of the other manors who had all been called to Thorrington, Anne left them to their work.
The interview of the remaining huscarles proceeded quickly. Brand knew many personally or by reputation. In the end nineteen were accepted and four rejected. Two because Alan simply felt them to be untrustworthy characters and two because Brand didn’t accept their stories of their involvement, or the lack of involvement for those who claimed not to have received the summons or arrived late, at Hastings.
It was nearly dark when they’d finished and the evening meal was served with Anne again joining them. Brand had been selected as leader of the band of huscarles and a man named Leofwin from Freshwell in Uttlesford Hundred as his lieutenant. Each would command ten men in battle.
“I want another seven men recruited,” said Alan. “Two groups of ten for battle, and six to act as bodyguards for Lady Anne. Your men are currently sleeping in the old Hall? Tomorrow the archers will be vacating their barracks as their training cycle is complete, and you can take over the upper floor of that building. The other floor holds my twenty trained horsemen and the further twenty I’ve just started training, some for the households of the local thegns. There are another forty peasants, mainly refugees from the Danish raid who have chosen not to return home and some local cottars, who we are just starting training as men-at-arms. Your men will not make fun of the trainees or deride their efforts and will assist in their training. We’re also training some of the sergeants of the local fyrd for the local thegns, so that they can teach the fyrdmen to fight properly. Your own men’s training will start tomorrow afternoon, after Hugh and Baldwin have spent the morning training the horsemen.”
“Our training?” demanded Brand.
“Yes, your training. The Normans won at Hastings because the English fought as 7,000 individuals. We fought as 250 groups each of 25 men, each man supporting and protecting the man on each side and each squad supporting and protecting the next. Remember that I said the difference in that battle was training and discipline. I’m not interested in your individual prowess with a weapon, but how you fight together as a group- and that requires training. I’m occupied tomorrow in a meeting, so I can’t give you instruction on sword-fighting. Hugh will drill you on proper use of spears. He’ll also make sure that you can all ride.”
“Spears?” asked Brand in apparent confusion. “And we all know how to use a sword. Each of us has practiced nearly every day. And why do we need to ride?”
Hugh replied, “Yes, spears. That’s how infantry defeat cavalry in the open- that and archery. As for sword-play, let me just say that Alan is a sword-master and I’m sure you’ll all learn something from him in the next few weeks that will help keep you alive on the battlefield. Regarding riding, our force is to move quickly on horseback if needed and to be able to strike with unexpected speed. Your men will all be provided with a hackney when needed.”
Alan continued to the two huscarles, “You two are to keep your men under control. With all the men in garrison or training here there is a shortage of women. The women of the village are of good repute and nearly all are married or betrothed. Your men may form relationships with the maidens, but there is to be no force or coercion- and no payment. Leave the married women alone, even if they may be willing. I don’t want a village of whores- your men can go to Colchester for that sort of thing. How many of your men are married?” A quick check revealed a little over half, most of them with children. “We’ll get a dozen cottages built and those men can live there with their families, rather than in the barracks.”
Just then was a small commotion near the door and the Welshman Owain strode in with his four guards and a stranger, who was as short and dark as he, but more wiry. Alan strode forward, grasped Owain by the arm and shouted for food and drink for the newcomers. Owain introduced the newcomer as Alwin, a Welsh bowman like himself from his own village of Ebbw Vale. Sipping a mug of ale he briefly told the story of their trip, journeying to Bristol to take ship to Cardiff and thereby avoiding the fighting that was still taking place in Herefordshire. He had brought back thirty bows and the other twenty had been promised for delivery within a month, with arrangements made with a ship’s captain and a carter for delivery.
“Excellent!” enthused Alan. “See the fletchers tomorrow here and at Ramsey, Great Oakley and Wivenhoe, explain to each how to make the arrows. We want 500 practice arrows within a week, and then 6,000 war-shots delivered within two months, starting in two weeks. That will give each archer 120 arrows, or about ten minutes worth of shooting. What price would you suggest? Would a half-penny each with me to supply the arrow-heads be reasonable? After that I’d want another 6,000 at say 1,000 a month. Alwin can start teaching our archers here in Thorrington and Wivenhoe and you can move between Ramsey and Great Oakley teaching their archer squads.”
“It’ll take time to train them up,” warned Owain. “The longbow has a draw strength four times that of a hunting bow and we’ll need to put in place a training regime under which the archers practice for two hours a day at slowly increasing ranges. It’ll be at least six months before they can exceed a distance of 200 paces.”
“Everything that is useful takes time and training,” agreed Alan. “Do it as quickly as you can, but do it properly.”
Alan had invited 27 of the main landholders in Tendring Hundred, mostly but not all thegns, to meet at Terce on Monday 18th June at what was now called The Old Hall at Thorrington. The usual Hundred court had been delayed until Monday the 25th to allow the thegns time to collect their taxes and rents.
Notable amongst those not invited to the meeting were the stewards of the large estates of William Bishop of London at Clacton and St Osyth, Earl Ralph at Little Bentley, Engelric with the land held by him at Birch Hall from St Paul’s Cathedral at London, the huge and rich estate of St Paul’s at The Naze, St Edmond’s land at Wrabness, the king’s steward of Brightlingsea, and Robert fitzWymarc at Elmstead. With those absent, Alan was by far the largest landholder present and he sat with Anne sat at his side. He had invited his new huscarles to attend to hear the discussions and they stood, without arms or armour, around the walls of the Hall, mainly with arms folded against their chests.
“Hlaford! Gentlemen! Thank you for attending at such short notice. Notice was deliberately short as there are some that I wished not to know of this meeting. Now, why should a roomful of Englishmen listen to what a Norman has to say? One reason is because I believe that the three men responsible for the Heriot in East Anglia are abusing their position and powers. The other is that I believe we need to work together for the protection of the Hundred against attacks such as that of the Danes on Lexden and Winstree Hundreds last month. In addition to those who are here, there are many freemen and sokemen who own small plots of land, and of course the other major landholders of the Hundred. I’m aware from visiting Suffolk that the Heriot Officers there are abusing their positions. I’m sure that, as they are the same men, if they do so there, they’ll do so here.”
One of the Englishmen stood up. “I am Edward from St Osyth. I hold 3 hides of land, woodland and meadow, for which I have to pay a Heriot of?12, 1? times its value for tax assessment. On Sunday I pay 6 shillings geld. Why should we believe that you, a Frenchman is concerned for the thegns of the Hundred? Just a few months ago you invaded our lands. Five thegns in this Hundred fell against in battle against you. You hold the lands of Wulfric and Aelfric Kemp- amongst the best and most valuable holdings in the Hundred- and you will pay no Heriot redemption money on your five manors. We know after last month that you can lead warriors to victory, but why this sudden interest in our welfare? I noticed your new castle as I rode in. We English don’t like castles. Why should we think you are different to the other Normans?”
“To answer your last question first, perhaps it’s that I’m prepared to listen and consider the position and needs of other people without getting greedy. As a group, and individually, we Normans tend to be arrogant and believe we’re better than anybody else. The Normans strutting around England are no different than those doing the same in Normandy, Italy or Sicily. Normans don’t just despise and patronise the English. We do the same to the French, the Bretons, Flemings and Italians- in fact nearly everybody except the Vikings and the Germans- including anybody in Normandy who isn’t a knight.
“As to your first point, I would say my concern is not just for the Hundred, but of the shire and the kingdom,” replied Alan. “You’ll be aware that I have retained Englishmen in my service rather than engaging Normans or Frenchmen. I believe that it is inevitable that changes will take place at the top of the social hierarchy. Your nobility was comprised of four families and dominated by the family of Godwin. With their fall, and the coming of a foreign king- and I don’t believe it would have made any real difference had it been a Norman or a Norwegian, or even a Danish king- many changes will take place.
“I do not agree with the Heriot charge and spoke against it with the king. Nor do I believe that the geld, which I do have to pay, should be levied at the rate that it is being levied. But the king has made those decisions and they are law. I also have to provide men in military service for forty days a year, which the thegns of this shire are not required to do.
“What I do object to is that officers of the king- who as I have said before are at least by legal definition Englishmen, Ralph being half Breton and half-English and Bishop William a Norman appointed to his position by Edward the Confessor- are taking advantage of the Heriot for their own advantage. I intend to report those abuses to the king and I’m sure he will act on them, as he’s completely intolerant of corruption. Is there anyone here who is suffering abuse in the application of the Heriot? Not disagreement with its implementation or difficulty with its payment, but who is suffering actual extortion?”
One man put up his hand and said. “I am Alstan of Dickley, with one hide and 37 acres of land. My geld is?1 a year, and so should be my Heriot, if pay it I must. I have no sons, and two daughters. My eldest daughter Hilda is fifteen and fair. The clerk who visited me bearing authority from Bishop William has stated that if she does not marry a Norman of the Bishop’s choosing before All Saints Day on 1st of November my Heriot will be?5. I would have to forfeit and I do not doubt that my land would then be taken by the Bishop.”
Another stood. “Aelfric, a freeman from Old Hall and Lawford. Both myself and the other freemen of the village of Lawford are being charged a Heriot of three times our annual geld assessment. We cannot pay our proper Heriot, let alone that being sought, also by Bishop William.”
Several others made complaint of excessive Relief amounts. Alan asked each to meet with Osmund for him to take their depositions, with attested copies, to be sworn before and witnessed by the local priests Father Ator and Brother Wacian.
“In two weeks I intend to meet with Sheriff Robert fitzWymarc and put to him the depositions I have received by that date for him to investigate and prosecute. I swear I will also raise each with the King’s Chancellor within the month and with the king when he returns. Please pass the word around the whole shire, to those you know in each Hundred, that I need as many depositions as possible when I meet fitzWymarc and that if they want their grievances addressed this is the only chance they will have.
“I don’t care if the complainant is a thegn, a cheorl, sokeman or freeman. I don’t care if it’s for five hides or one acre. All are equal before the law and all are entitled to its protection when abuse and extortion takes place. Next week Osmund will travel to Thaxted, Halsted, Chippingong, Chelmsford, Bilrekay, Maldon and Braintree. We’ll be in Colchester for two days before I see fitzWymarc to take depositions from those in Lexden Hundred. Tell your countrymen to be brave and come forward with their grievances.”
“Won’t this make you unpopular with the Normans?” came a voice out of the crowd.
“Probably. Certainly with those who are in charge of the Heriots,” replied Alan.
“We will take you at your word,” said Leofstan of Great and Little Oakley, one of the larger landholders present. “We’ll dispatch riders all over the shire this day. Now what else do you want?”
“A unified approach to equipping and training the fyrd in the Hundred, with a thegn as my lieutenant in each of the districts within the Hundred, responsible for arranging the training of the fyrdmen,” replied Alan.
“Isn’t that the sheriff’s job?” asked Edwold, one of the three thegns from Alresford.
“So was fighting off the Danes,” interjected Anne, joining in the conversation for the first time. “But we had to do it ourselves. We also have a number of holdings with widows, some of those killed at Hastings and some whose husbands have simply died naturally- although there have been few enough of those this past year! Some estates have heirs not yet of age and who are subject to the appointment of a guardian by Earl Ralph. As Alan has said, Earl Ralph is an ‘Englishman’, but one much taken with improving his own position. How many heirs will survive to inherit? And in what condition will their holding be if that happens? They’ll be stripped bare. And the widows will receive the same threats I received to enter an arranged marriage. You can follow Alan’s lead or not. It’s your choice, but he and I will go our own way irrespective of what you do or say.
“Further,” she continued “For those in the shire who genuinely cannot pay the Heriot, Alan and myself will lend money for up to two years, as usual as a charge against your land, with no interest charged. For those, particularly smallholders and freemen, who wish to sell their land because they cannot meet the Heriot but wish to remain on their land as cheorls in laen, we would discuss their needs individually. As I said, what you choose to do is up to you, but please do not make what we seek to do more difficult by reporting what we have discussed to Earl Ralph, Bishop William or Engelric, or their men. Now we’ll serve the mid-day meal and you are free to use the Hall for your discussions before you leave,” concluded Anne.
“The church, the abbeys, monasteries and cathedrals, are lending money to the thegns and cheorls also, at no interest,” interjected Alfric.
Alan nodded his agreement and replied, “That is true. But the church rarely provides something for nothing. I think that such loans are a way of the church seeking to profit from the situation by lending money, and then when repayment is not made to then take possession of the manors involved. That way the church will acquire land at bargain prices!”
“What if we choose not to pay the Heriot and choose to fight?” asked Edwold.
Alan quickly interjected. “Please do not make that mistake! The Normans are here to stay. What is happening should realistically be looked at as the inevitable outcome of an invasion. The conquerors take over and run the country to their benefit. Whether that is also to the benefit of the current owners is questionable. England has been invaded successfully time after time over the last thousand years. The last was Cnut in 1016, but before him were many others from the Romans to the Saxons themselves, then the Vikings and the Danes several times.
“There has never once been a successful revolt in England. At first the tribes and now the earls have been too self-interested to successfully join together behind one man and raise the whole country. Can you see the Northmen accepting somebody from the South? What Englishman has the authority to raise the whole country? The Aetheling? Perhaps.
“Does Edgar Aetheling or any of the English earls have the capability to defeat King William? William is a brilliant general who commands an army of combined forces that some of you faced at Hastings in the most advantageous situation you could have hoped for, and he crushed the army of probably the best general England has ever had. Edwin or Morcar? They couldn’t even defeat a Norwegian army comprised solely of infantry at Fulford Gate!
“If there is a revolt, the whole land will need to rise as one behind one leader. Even Alfred the Great couldn’t get that degree of co-operation between the Englishmen. Scattered and isolated opposition will be crushed without mercy. William will bring total devastation to those areas that oppose him. I suggest you accept the successful Norman invasion as a fact, live with it and look to the long term. Now I will leave you to your discussions. If anybody wishes to speak with me further privately, as Edward said you know where my ‘castle’ is,” Alan and Anne rose, and with Alan holding her hand in a formal manner, proceeded out of the Hall, followed by his nineteen huscarles.
Several of the thegns including Aelfric, Leofstan and Leofson of Mose saw Alan and Anne privately later at the Hall, the latter two to discuss mutual co-operation with the fyrd.
Next morning at seven Alan stood with Hugh on the practice field outside the fort. Facing them were Brand and the other 18 huscarles, all in full mail harness. Most held kite-shaped shields, but a few preferred circular shields. Alan and Hugh had kite-shaped shields similar to the others, but painted a simple dark green, hanging from their left shoulders. Alan instructed in an easy but well-projected voice that carried to everybody in the group without shouting. “Right! Select a practice sword from the pile over there and pair up. When I give each pair the order to start, I want that pair to engage one on one.”
“Why do that? We can all use a sword,” said Brand with some distain. “Anyway, my favourite weapon is that one there,” he continued, pointing at a practice battle-axe.
“Firstly, you do it because I told you to. Secondly, I need to see what I need to work on with each of you. Now do it!” ordered Alan brusquely. The men lined up and each selected one of the blunt swords, swinging the sword to get accustomed to the balance.
One by one each of the pairs took turns to engage, with Alan and Hugh watching closely and making occasional comments to each other. Several times Alan stopped a bout to correct a technique he found particularly deficient, usually the angle at which the sword was held. Finally, Alan picked up a sword and said to Brand, who as the odd man out, had so far not participated.
“Let’s see how you go,” said Alan as he stood apparently unready three paces away from Brand. Brand towered six inches above the tall Alan and had a significantly longer reach. Brand suddenly launched himself forward with a series of vicious sword swings, which Alan countered nonchalantly with either shield or sword, slowly giving ground before Brand’s furious attack and observing the techniques and style of the other man.
Suddenly he moved to the attack with an advance followed by a ballestra lunge, a feint followed by a lunge-proper that struck Brand hard on the right of the chest. “Use that shield properly!” snarled Alan as he took a step back with a leg cross-over and pass backwards into the en garde position again.
With his face dark with anger Brand came forward more carefully this time. Alan performed a beat on Brand’s sword, a simple preparatory motion of hitting the middle of Brand’s sword to provoke a swing to which Alan responded with a circular parry, using parry counter-six followed by a stop-cut, hitting Brand on the side of the helmet with the flat of the practice-sword. He recovered in time to parry the attack that Brand pressed, despite being ‘dead’ from the head-wound, and gave a riposte which hit him again in the chest. Alan stepped back. “Dead three times in two minutes, I suggest that you do need to work on your technique, after all! Again!”
This time as Brand swung his sword Alan stepped inside the swing and used his shield to bash hard against that of his opponent. Brand used his own shield to deflect the following overhead blow from Alan, who in turn used the momentum from the defected blow to spin. He then made a lightning-fast change of grip on the practice-sword to hold the middle of the blade in his gloved hand and struck upwards with the pommel which was pointing towards Brand’s head. Although Alan pulled the strength from the blow, Brand’s head was still rocked back. As the huscarle staggered Alan, still holding the sword by its blade, used the cross-piece of the handle to catch the top of Brand’s shield and drag it down, leaving the Saxon open to a stab to the throat delivered by the blade still held in a short-grip, which Alan stopped inches from Brand’s neck.
Brand was panting heavily and both he and his men were stunned at the speed and versatility of Alan’s swordsmanship.
“Now Hugh and I will show you how it’s done properly. The hard way, without shields.”
Alan and Hugh both discarded their shields and moved to en garde, and proceeded to put on a demonstration of swordplay and footwork for five minutes that left the English astonished. The footwork each used made the contest resemble a complex dance- although dancing rarely involved stunning kicks and the throwing of dirt in the face of the partner, as the two Normans ignored all rules of chivalry. The swords flashed as they swept back and forth, both men using both the blade and the pommel to strike at their opponent. Alan finally managed a low sweep of his reversed sword, using the cross-guard to pull one of Hugh’s feet from under him, delivered a strong kick to the ribs and placed the blade at Hugh’s throat.
Breathing slightly heavily, Alan turned to the Englishmen. “As you can see, it’s not all ‘crash and bash’. If you have technique, timing and footwork you are more likely to stay alive in a swordfight, be it on the battlefield or elsewhere.”
Just then ten of Alan’s personal horsemen called ‘The Wolves’ filed out of the gate on foot.
“That’s all very well, but I’d take you with an axe!” said Brand, smarting at his loss.
“You think so? There’s a practice two-handed axe there. Pick it up!” ordered Alan. Brand tossed down his wooden sword, picked up the huge axe with its five foot haft and ten-inch, although blunt, blade. He slipped his shield around so that it hung out of the way on his back and raised the axe in the traditional left-handed stance, ready to attack the side of the opponent not protected by a shield- although with a hit from such an axe, particularly from a man as big and strong as Brand, a shield was of virtually no protection.
Alan raised his sword in the air and an instant later an arrow a yard long, but with a blunt and padded tip, crashed into Brand’s chest, knocking the wind out of him and driving him to his knees. Some 200 paces away, near the trees, Owain lowered his bow. “Lesson number one for axe-fights,” said Alan to Brand and the other huscarles as Brand struggled to suck air into his lungs and stand upright. “If you’re fighting an enemy that has archers or cross-bowmen you are likely to be dead before you get your first swing in, because you can’t use a shield when you have two hands on the haft.”
He gave Brand a couple of minutes to recover from being hit by the practice arrow. “Now if that doesn’t happen, let’s see what the swordsman can do.” This time as Brand jumped forward with the axe raised Alan took two quick steps inside the swing of the axe, hit Brand hard under the chin with the top edge of his shield and slammed the pommel of his reversed sword into Brand’s stomach. “Of course in a battle you would have run him through the guts! And again!” he said as Brand struggled back to his feet using the axe to help him up.
This time as Brand rushed forward, Alan stepped back, keeping just out of range of the swipes of the axe blade that, even if Brand turned the handle so that the flat of the blade hit Alan, would probably break several ribs- which Alan didn’t want a few days before his wedding day. After three massive swings, when Brand started an upwards swing from near his right ankle, Alan turned the shield partly sideways, dipped at the knees and used the side of the shield, now at the bottom, to catch the haft of the axe before it had hardly started its movement and when it still had no momentum. At the same time he performed a simple lunge from a crouched position, right foot sliding forwards, torso bent slightly forward to put some weight into the blade, which at the last moment Alan diverted to graze off the side of Brand’s chain mail armour.
“Dead another three times with the axe! Brand, you’re an above-average swordsman and axe-man, but I need to teach you to think with your head and not with your right arm.” Alan paused and removed his helmet, wiping the sweat away with a band of cloth attached to his wrist.
“Now for the final demonstration about why we need to practice to fight as a group. Ten of you new men take up a position over there- not you Brand, you’ve done enough for one day, let some of the others suffer a little. Five months ago these ten Wolves of mine had never handled a sword. Since then we’ve only been able to train for about two months, and only a small part of that has been on foot. We’ve mainly been spending the time teaching them to fight on horseback. Now begin.”
The ten new huscarles moved forward towards the evenly spaced line of their opponents. As usual for the English, they fought as ten individuals, each arriving at the line at a different time and concentrating on just one opponent. Alan’s Wolves moved as a team, an efficient killing machine, providing mutual support. Several ‘killed’ the opponent of the man next to him, and all displayed discipline, footwork and technique.
After about three minutes six of the huscarles and one Wolf were ‘dead’ and Alan called it off. “With a nine to four advantage it would have taken only another minute to have finished the fight. That is why we fight in groups of ten. And that’s why I don’t have room in my formations for axe-men, unless they use the one-handed short axe. Double-handed axe-men by definition fight alone, even if they are in an army of 7,000.
“Discipline and teamwork won at Hastings, and at Wivenhoe, and will win virtually every time. I hope that you have all learned some valuable lessons today. I will see you here at seven tomorrow morning. One more thing- get those shields painted dark green today, so they’ll be dry tomorrow. Hugh will provide a pot of paint and green uniform cloaks.” Alan and Hugh walked off back through the fort gates, following the ten Wolves who had just helped with the demonstration. Nineteen very thoughtful huscarles followed them a few moments later.
The Quarter Day of Mid-Summer’s Day, the Nativity of St John the Baptist, passed without undue incident. Mid-Summers Day this year fell on Sunday, so the usual holiday was superfluous. The peasants at Thorrington and Alan’s other manors, and those of Anne at Wivenhoe, enjoyed feasting at the expense of their lord. The villagers had begun their traditional ceremony, celebrating the pagan feast of the summer solstice the evening before with roaring bonfires to ward off evil spirits, feasting and merry-making.
Unattached maidens, wearing crowns of woven summer flowers, had sought to find husbands, often using very direct tactics. On Midsummer’s Day itself, after Mass celebrating the Nativity of St. John the Baptist, Alan and Anne first rode to Wivenhoe to mingle and talk with the villagers as the pigs and oxen roasted on the cooking-spits, and then returned to Thorrington in the middle of the afternoon to do the same.
By the afternoon most of the villagers were suffering some degree of incapacity, with those still capable of movement enjoying the viands and refreshments provided by their lord, dancing and singing. For many it was one of the few times of the year that they had the chance to eat red meat.
On St. John’s Eve Alan and Anne had only briefly visited the festivities on the Green at Thorrington. On Midsummer Day, as this day they were the hosts, they circulated and talked with the villagers, which included many who had journeyed from their nearby manor of Great Bentley and others who had followed them from Wivenhoe. Those who lived in the New Hall today ate and danced with those who did not, Alan and Anne sitting at a long table and chatting with Toland the village head-cheorl, Erian his assistant and the other members of the village folkmoot.
Early the following day the line of wagons, escorted by Hugh and twenty mounted Wolves, departed to deliver the taxes to the sheriff at Colchester, partly in goods and partly in cash.
This was also the monthly Hundred Court Day and Brother Wacian had volunteered to act as a second scribe. The court was now held in the Old Hall and this allowed two sittings to take place at once, a much more efficient affair.
Leofstan as the thegn second senior to Alan heard the General List of callovers and minor matters at one end of the Hall, with Ketel of Frating and Alric of Michaelstow, with Brother Wacian acting as their scribe. Alan, sitting with Ednoth of Little Oakley and Leofson of Moze, both men of substantial estates, heard the trials at the other end of the Hall, with Osmund acting as scribe.
Most of the thegns sat at benches at one end of the Hall or the other, listening to cases that involved their geburs or which interested them. Most of the crowd listened to the trials at Alan’s end of the Hall. The case of Rowena the witch had been listed for trial a day early and all the claimants, witnesses and frithbogh oath-swearers had been notified, and Alan was determined to get that matter out of the way.
But first was the more urgent case of a charge of rape by a young man named Benwick from Elmstead, land held by Robert fitzWymarc. The woman was a maiden of sixteen years of age named Udela. Udela testified on oath that she was a freewoman and had been working in the barn of Oeric, the cheorl who employed her, when she had been approached early in the morning of Wednesday 6th June by Benwick, a man from the village known to her. After a few minutes of conversation he had thrown her onto a pile of hay, opened her bodice, lifted her dress and had his way with her. She claimed to have cried out and tried to push him away.
As usual in such matters there were no witnesses. Being a woman she was not a member of a frithbogh, but called as oath-swearers her father Ethelbert who gave oath that she was a good and virtuous maid, not given to dalliance with the boys of the village. She also called the village wise-woman Aethelu, who swore that she had inspected the girl who had been brought to her by Ethelbert and her mother immediately after the incident and on examination had found that the girl’s maidenhead had been breached a short time before and that semen was present.
Benwick gave oath that he had indeed had sexual relations with the woman, but claimed that it was consensual. The nine other members of his frithbogh gave oath that, although young at eighteen, he was a good and trustworthy man, not given to acts of violence even when drunk; they swore that although he was unmarried and had no girl with whom he was ‘walking out’, he always treated women with respect. His employer was called and gave oath that he was a good and reliable lad, although he could not explain why he was Oeric’s barn at that time on that day.
Leofson suggest that they break for lunch and consider their verdict. Alan called for food and drink to be brought from the tavern and asked Osmund to summarise the evidence.
“A young woman of good repute, who knows the man Benwick but has not previously spent any time talking to him and certainly has not been seeing him regularly. She made a prompt and correct complaint to her father, which he investigated as well as he could. There is no reason to think that she would suddenly be overcome by lust and either propose sex to Benwick, or, while at her work-place, agree to it. Benwick again appears of good repute, although his frithbogh oath-swearers have a vested interest in him being found not guilty as otherwise they would have to help pay his fine. He admits having sex with the girl, but claims she consented. He has not been able to give a good reason why he was in Oeric’s barn when he is employed by a farmer two fields away. Both the man and the girl have a wergild of 200 shillings.”
“And the penalties?” asked Leofson.
Osmund went to consult the law books he had left with Brother Wacian. When he returned he said “Six shillings for lying with a cheorl’s maid. For rape, castration and bot for the cheorl’s maid of 100 shillings.
“I say I can’t be satisfied whether he raped her or not,” said Ednoth. “Let him make bot of six shillings, paid to the girl.” The others agreed, the parties were recalled and judgment was given by Alan.
Next was the case of Rowena the witch. The complainants, now only two in number and both women, gave oath that Rowena had cursed their farms, causing illness to their animals, their cows’ milk to curdle and their children to become sick, although now recovered. They called several men to give oath as to their trustworthiness.
Alric, one of the thegns of Alresford, spoke for Rowena as Alan had requested. He pointed out her extreme age, that he had spoken with her a number of times about the case but had been unable to get any sense or anything other than vague mumbles from her. He also said that since the accusation had been made he had arranged for the woman to live with a reputable widow in his own village. The widow, named Mildreth, gave oath that Rowena seemed lacking of wits and spent her time either sitting by the fire or on a chair outside, constantly mumbling to herself. She suffered a speech impediment and one side of her body appeared not to work properly. In the months that she had lived with Mildreth awaiting the trial Rowena had shown no signs of undertaking witchcraft and there had been no untoward events either to her own animals or those of her village.
The three thegns retired long enough to the Solar to quaff a pint of ale each, and returned a unanimous verdict of not guilty. On returning to the Hall Alan announced the verdict and said, “I told you months ago that I viewed the case as a waste of time, as even if you had proven the woman a witch the only penalty at law would be to order her to desist and leave the Hundred. The poor woman has simply lost her wits and this action has been brought out of malice. I order you each to pay bot of five shillings, to be paid to Mildreth and be used by her to care for the woman Rowena. Case closed.”
Shortly afterwards Osmund departed by horse in his journey around Essex, accompanied by four mounted Wolves for protection.
Orvin and his family, including Uncle Lidmann, arrived at Thorrington late on Wednesday afternoon having taken a leisurely two days to travel from Ipswich, the men riding and the women and children travelling in a light horse-drawn cart. Orvin had borrowed six men-at-arms from friends who were thegns near Ipswich.
Anne instructed Otha the cook to prepare a suitable welcoming meal, rather than the usual more simple evening meal. The guests were given a conducted tour of first the village, seeing the water-mill at work and the salt house where the salt from the nearby salt-pans, which Alan had increased in size that spring, was cleaned and ground, and then the fort and Hall where they marvelled at the unusual amenities and the numerous servants and soldiers.
At the evening meal they sat at both sides of the head table, an unusual seating arrangement for the times, so Alan and Anne could converse more easily with their guests, and in particular Orvin and Lidmann who were sitting opposite them.
Otha tended to be more set in her presentation of food than most cooks, with the food being served as a number of removes, starting this night with saffron soup made of egg yolks, verjuice, veal stock, saffron and cinnamon seasoned with nutmeg and grains of paradise, eaten with fresh bread. Over the soup Orvin announced, “The ship from Haarlem has arrived back at Ipswich, an almost new large Dutch-built trading cog with a load of dyes, lace and other goods. The ship’s name is ‘Zeelandt’. I’ve sold the cargo at Ipswich. The sale in Haarlem of those luxury goods taken from the Danes also resulted in a substantial surplus of gold and silver being shipped back. After allowing for the purchase of a return cargo of cloth and wool there is?827 10/ and 4d. Where do you want the ship to go and to collect what cargo?” Alan blinked in amasement at such a huge sum of money.
Anne interjected, “I thought St Nazaire at the mouth of the Loire, collecting ingots of tin in Devon on the way, and returning with a cargo of fine wine- with most discharged at London or Winchester. Perhaps with one sixth of the load at Colchester, one sixth at Ipswich, and then back again on a regular basis.”
Both Orvin and Lidmann nodded agreement. Lidmann said, “We don’t have any factors in Devon or St Nazaire, but I can ask around and get the names of some trustworthy men we can use. That would be a good high-value route to use, but longer and with some greater risk than our usual shorter voyages across the North Sea. The Bay of Biscay is notorious for its bad weather and there are some pirates around Finistere and the Channel Islands.”
“I’ve got an idea for that,” said Alan. “I thought maybe a dozen soldiers on each ship, each armed with a cross-bow or bow and sword or seax would discourage the pirates- particularly if we use fire-arrows. I have a good formula for Wildfire that would give the pirates something to think about other than boarding our ships.”
Lidmann looked at Orvin. “That should work. We can see how it goes.”
“What do you want to do with the surplus funds?” asked Orvin.
“We’ll need some to buy tin on the voyage down, after that we can barter wine for tin. Other than that, I’ll put it with a couple of Jews in London. You and Aaron have given us two names to follow up, Malachi and Gideon,” replied Anne, acting as business manager.
“Yes, they both have a good reputation and are men of substance. Your letter of introduction from Aaron should open the required doors there,” replied Orvin.
“Now for the other news, I have a further fifteen depositions alleging corruption in Suffolk- mainly by Engelric, but also three about Earl Ralph and one against Bishop William. Earl Ralph seems to have kept his activities mainly to Norfolk. I’ve taken the liberty of forwarding them to Roger Bigod, along with a letter on which Cynefrid forged your signature. How are things progressing in that regard down here?”
“Osmund is off collecting depositions from around the shire at the moment. We’ll see what the outcome is over the next few days,” said Alan. “Just as a matter of interest, you must tell me at some stage what was contained in the letter I didn’t send!”
Anne slept at Wivenhoe on Friday night, the same night that Osmund returned with 26 depositions he had collected in his quick journey around the shire. Each was written in both English and Latin with two copies, and each of which was sworn and signed by the deponent and two distinguished witnesses. Alan had other things on his mind that evening, although he had adopted a blase attitude to the whole marriage process and allowed Anne free rein with the arrangements.
Alan had a reasonably restful night of sleep- the only nights he could recall not being able to sleep was the nights before the battles at Hastings and Wivenhoe- and the wedding had been arranged for the morning so that the participants and guests wouldn’t have to sit around all day waiting. The appointed time was in the late morning, an hour before Sext. The appointed place was the steps of the church at Wivenhoe. Alan had asked Edward, the young thegn who lived at Alresford and who had a second manor at St Osyth, to stand as his ‘best man’ and witness. To pass time Alan spent several hours looking at the depositions that Osmund had collected, although with little information sinking into his consciousness.
At about Terce Alan called for the youth Leof and instructed his party to be ready to depart. As he started to put on his best tunic and hose, a simple russet affair made of fine linen, Leof interrupted him saying, “Excuse me, my lord. Lady Anne insisted that you wear this.” and handed Alan a package which when opened revealed a tunic in silk of a yellow so deep in colour as almost to be golden, embroidered in black, and a pair of black silken hose.
“Well, I certainly can’t wear those while I’m riding,” commented Alan as he re-donned the tunic he had initially been wearing. “I’ll have to change at Wivenhoe.”
Although Alan had arranged a feast for the people of Thorrington for later in the day, and the smoke and smell of cooking meat and baking bread was drifting across the village, many of the villagers had decided to make the short journey to Wivenhoe and had departed on foot an hour or so earlier.
Alan’s quite large party was swollen by the addition of the three thegns who lived at Alresford as they proceeded through that village. Meeting other invited guests along the way, the company was very substantial when it arrived at Wivenhoe at mid-morning. Alan was gratified to see that the villagers had taken considerable trouble to decorate their houses and the area around the village green with colourful cloths, bunches of flowers and wreathes of ivy.
All of the Hundred thegns had been invited, including those who held church lands at Wrabness, The Naze, St Osyth and Clacton- except the minions of Robert fitzWymarc and Earl Ralph. A number of thegns from Lexden Hundred attended, although their numbers had been depleted by the recent Danish raid.
The village green was thronged with those men and women of local importance and the villagers of Wivenhoe, Thorrington, Alresford, Elmstead, Frating and Great Bentley, all wearing their best clothes. Clouds of pleasant-smelling smoke rose from the cooking pits where numbers of pigs and sheep and oxen were being roasted whole on spits. Tables had been set up to receive the food, and in three places around the Green barrels of ale stood behind serving tables ready to be served when the festivities commenced. From the crowd and festival atmosphere it was almost as if a fair were being held.
After chatting for some time with the invited guests, now joined by his future in-laws Raedwald, Lidmann, Garrett and Betlic, Alan changed his clothing in Father Ator’s house and emerged to whistles and calls of appreciation at the finery he had donned. He was a man who didn’t like standing around waiting and doing nothing, but he was now encountering the dual problems of his situation. Firstly, there was no accurate method of keeping track of time. In large towns or cities time was dictated by the ringing of the bells of the local monastery every three hours. In a village the time was whatever most of the residents agreed. The second was that the tendency of the bridal party to be late is long established. Fortunately it was a warm day, with a few high clouds in the sky to prevent it becoming hot. As required by law the ceremony was taking place outside in the open, on the steps of the wooden church.
Eventually there was a stir in the crowd, starting near the Hall, and the crowd began to coalesce as the bridal party moved towards the church. Anne’s young nieces and nephews ran ahead of the bridal party casting showers of flower petals on the path.
Anne, arm in arm with Orvin, walked in a stately manner towards the groom’s party, now standing on the steps of the church with Father Ator. Her dress, full length and not quite brushing the ground, matched Alan’s tunic, golden silk embroidered in black. It was tight at the bodice and waist before flowing wide at the hips and cut low at the front, but not immodestly so, and had sleeves that hung loose from below the elbow.
The bridesmaids, her sister Mae and sister-in-law Ellette, both wore tight-fitting dresses of burgundy-coloured silk. Fortunately they both had the figures to carry-off the desired effect. All three wore their hair loose and long, unusual as covered hair was the norm for women except at weddings. Anne wore a wreath of woven ivy, herbs, and flowers with gold-coloured ribbons attached and hanging loosely over the back of her head, and carried a large bouquet of flowers- the gloriosa lily, with the appearance of crushed red velvet, ivy, red rose, amaryllis, birch twigs and holly branches, parrot tulips and wheat- the last a sign of fertility.
Behind them came a train comprising the mother-of-the-bride, a group of well-dressed thegn’s wives and Anne’s maids, all four presented with new clothes for this occasion. As the bridal party appeared and moved closer, the invited guests and villagers had moved to the church steps, leaving a central pathway for the bridal party.
As they arrived, Alan winked at Orvin, who was still arm in arm with his daughter and who had hardly noticed until now. Of much the same height as Anne he was wearing a tunic of burgundy-coloured silk and black silk tights. With a smile Orvin gave Anne’s hand to Alan and took a step backwards. Anne placed a necklace made of beads of white jasper around Alan’s neck, signifying Gentleness. Alan noticed that she wore two necklaces, one of red jasper indicating Love and the other of green jasper indicating Virtue and Faith.
They turned to face Father Ator and the service began. Alan found he wasn’t able to pay much attention to the preliminary part of the service and the homily delivered by the priest. Father Ator asked if any present knew a reason why the couple should not be married and then asked Anne and Alan so that they may confess any reason prohibiting their marriage. After receiving no response from the congregation and a negative response from Anne and Alan, he proceeded.
“Alan, wilt thou have this woman to be thy wedded wife? Wilt thou love her and honour her, keep her and guard her, in health and in sickness, as a husband should a wife, and forsaking all others on account of her, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”
Alan replied, “I will”.
“Anne, wilt thou have this man to be thy wedded husband? Wilt thou love him, obey him and honour him, keep him and guard him, in health and in sickness, as a wife should a husband, and forsaking all others on account of him, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”
“I will,” replied Anne.
“Who gives this woman to this man?” asked Father Ator.
“I do,” replied Orvin.
Father Ator nodded and said, “Let the bride and groom now exchange vows.”
“I, Alan, take thee, Anne to be my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, till death do us part, if the holy church will ordain it. And thereto I plight thee my troth,” said Alan.
“I, Anne, take thee, Alan to be my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness, and in health, till death do us part, if the holy church will ordain it. And thereto I plight thee my troth.”
The wedding rings were presented to the priest who then blessed them, and the rings were exchanged. Alan and Anne then entered the church and approached the altar where Father Ator gave a prayer and a blessing, ending the ceremony.
When Alan and Anne walked back out through the church door there was a universal cheer and they were showered with grains of wheat. Arm in arm they walked to the centre of the village green and Alan, now lord of Wivenhoe, pronounced that the celebrations were to commence. There was another cheer and the invited guests began to drift towards the Hall where food and entertainment had been arranged for the more noble of the guests. First Alan and Anne spent about half an hour circulating amongst the crowd of cheorls, sokemen, cottars and slaves, greeting those they knew, which were nearly all from their own villages, chatting and making jokes, before they entered the Hall.
At first glance the Hall appeared in pandemonium. There were perhaps 100 people milling around in the small area between the tables that had been set up and occupied most of the Hall. After a moment or two Alan realised that in fact servants were circulating with trays bearing mugs of ale and cups of mead and wine. Others carried trays of ‘finger food’ as the hour was now well past when most ate their mid-day meal.
Walking to the high table Alan signalled for a blast on a horn to call attention, and in a loud voice asked the guests to find a seat as the celebratory meal was about to begin. With their innate knowledge of their position in the local hierarchy the guests found positions at the tables that suited their social circumstances.
After toasts to the happy couple the food began to arrive. The First Remove was zanzarella soup; chicken broth with eggs and cheese thickened with breadcrumbs and spiced with pepper; veal and egg pies spiced with ginger, pepper and mace; flampoyntes; pork pies with cottage cheese, anise and pine nuts; spinach and egg tarte with parsley and cheese with mustard greens and cress with milk of almonds. The Second Remove was seafood, with shrimps sauteed in garlic; scallops in white wine; baked cod; pan-fried flounder with garlic sauce with almonds and melted cheese sauce, with perre and makke as the vegetables. The Third Remove was meats, some from the roasting pits outside. Other offerings were stuffed suckling pig; roasted swan with bacon; chicken almond fricatellae; roast beef; stewed mutton with herbs; veal in bokenade with spices, all with fried broad beans with onions, roasted parsnip, boiled salad and peas royale with almond milk, mint, parsley and sugar. Being summer, the desserts were a variety of seasonal fruit in pies- blueberry, blackberry and strawberry- hulwa made with honey, custard tarts and six varieties of cheese ranging from plain to very piquant.
With the consumption of alcohol the gathering grew ever more noisy, only quieting when the jugglers and singers hired by Anne performed, and particularly when Owain and Alwin sang a series of duets in Welsh. Anne and Mae sang a set of English love songs, accompanied by Owain on the lute and Alwin on the pan pipes.
Halfway through the proceedings came the time that Alan had been dreading- the dances. Having practiced over the past several days Anne knew that Alan danced with all the elegance of an ox. Fortunately the dances were quite simple and there were no complicated steps to memorise. They danced a simple duet, before being joined by some of the other guests in a carole, a circular dance.
The space in the Hall had allowed only a limited area to be provided for entertainment so only a few could take the floor at any time. This was followed by a number of other community dances such as a chain-dance, a brandsle and a pavane. At ‘Hole in the Wall’ Alan found the footwork too difficult and handed Anne to Edward and retired to the high table to sit with Orvin, who was sipping wine. Most of the male guests were like Alan, men with better footwork with a sword than on the dance floor, and the number of dancers participating fell to those dances involving two to four couples at a time. The six musicians played lutes, flutes, a psaltery and a small hand-drum.
At about the time of Vespers in the late evening, between dances and music, Alan rose and called for silence, stilling the dull roar of the crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen! Friends all! I thank you for coming to share our nuptials this day. The event has been made all the more solemn by your attendance and more enjoyable by your participation in the festivities this afternoon. Please stay and enjoy the fellowship and hospitality as long as you wish, but the bride and groom must now depart so we can be at our destination of Thorrington before nightfall. We both thank you again for your attendance this day, and look forward to our future meetings. May God bless you all!”
The response was a cheer and a number of ribald comments, although not as many as usual, given that all present knew that Alan and Anne had already been living together for some weeks. Alan and Anne proceeded to the bedchamber where they changed into riding clothes. Accompanied by ten sober Wolves in full armour, a slightly tipsy Osmund, Leof and two giggling maids they rode off with the lowering sun at their backs.
They arrived at Thorrington a little before dark and visited the festivities still continuing at the village green, greeting each person by name, before they proceeded to the Hall. After greeting all in the Hall they proceeded to the bedchamber and their first privacy of the day.
Next morning they luxuriated by lying abed and basking in the afterglow of several mutually satisfactory couplings. Eventually, driven by a full bladder, Alan suggested that they rise and he would present the Morning Gifts before Anne’s family arrived from Wivenhoe. After they dressed, in much more mundane clothes than they had worn the previous day, Alan led to the way across the Hall grounds to the armoury. Once inside the large building, and her eyes had accustomed themselves to the gloom, Anne saw fifty sets each of a chain-mail byrnie, helmet, sword and spear lying on a shield. “Not perhaps the most romantic of gifts, but practical,” said Alan.
“I’ll put them to good use at Wivenhoe. The fyrdmen will be properly equipped for the first time and I know it’s your intention to teach them how to use them,” said Anne solemnly, remembering the time barely six weeks ago when the men of her village were fighting for their very lives and those of their kin. This gift may not be romantic, but was both practical and necessary.
“I’d suggest that we also build a bailey next to the Wivenhoe village as a place of refuge in case next time we are not lucky enough to get adequate warning. I don’t think it needs a motte as raiders aren’t going to sit down for days for an extended siege. Something akin to a small burgh, which is more of less what I’ve built here. Colchester is always going to draw Dane and Norwegians like bees to a honey-pot on a regular basis, and the village is on their route both to and from the city. The village also needs a small garrison and a suitable commander,” commented Alan as they walked back to the Hall.
“It is now yours to do as you will, my lord,” said Anne with a slight note of both irony and regret in her voice.
“I don’t think so,” replied Alan brightly. “I’ve plenty of other manors to take my time and attention and Wivenhoe will always be yours. You just have to pay the Heriot out of your own share of money!” the last with a big smile to show that the comment was meant in jest.
Inside the Hall he led the way to his office. Once there he pulled out several packages sewn into covers of hessian and covered with oiled linen. He first placed two large packages of similar dimensions on his desk, each about eighteen inches wide by two feet high and five inches thick. He handed Anne a small sharp knife which she used to cut away the covering of the first package, revealing a large book bound in a simple red leather cover, with a plain gold cross and the Roman number “II” on the cover. Alan gave a snort of amusement and commented, “A choice of two and I had to give you the wrong one first!”
Anne stroked the leather cover gently and then carefully opened the book. It was the New Testament part of the Bible that Alan had bought at Ipswich, written in English. She carefully turned the pages, examining the beautiful illumination work. “It’s beautiful! I suppose the other is the Old Testament?”
Alan nodded and said, “I thought that the church at Thorrington needs a Bible and that you could endow it either with this one, or my own plain copy, depending on which you wish to keep.”
Anne signed and replied, “That will be a hard decision to make. This is so beautiful, but your Bible was created with your own hands. That’s something about which I’ll need to think. Now that you have raised the topic, I probably should provide Father Ator and the Wivenhoe church with a Bible as well, but nothing as magnificent as this.”
Anne cut open the second package and sighed again with appreciation of the quality of the work and materials. Alan placed another smaller parcel on the table, which again Anne cut open with careful eagerness. This time the book had a green leather cover and was much smaller. Its name was written in gold lettering on the front cover and spine. “The Dream of the Rood,” said Anne. “By Cynewulf- one of the earliest English religious poems. A brand-new copy!” Alan put the next parcel on the table, a very large one. “Andreas, the story of Saint Andrew and his journey to rescue St. Matthew. Also new,” she breathed after she had cut it open.
Alan placed another two parcels on the table. “Used copies from the library of Ely Abbey. I was able to arrange an exchange of copies of two volumes of Hippocrates’ Corpus between them and Colchester- On Unfruitful Women and On the Sight, and these were my payment- as well as Brother Leanian providing me with copies of the Corpus when they are copied. These are the two volumes of Ovid’s Ars Amatoria that you don’t have, so that gives you the full set.”
“We’ll soon have a library to rival that of Colchester Priory!” said Anne as she reached up to give Alan a long lingering kiss. There was the sound of horses arriving outside, shouting and a general commotion. “It sounds like my family is arriving. Come quickly upstairs into the Solar, where I have my presents hidden.” A quick dash up the stairs to avoid the guests, and Anne was presenting presents to Alan, which was not part of the usual ‘Morning Gift’ ritual.
“These are rather more prosaic than your gifts,” said Anne as she handed over six large parcels. Five contained elegant tunics and hose, three in black with silver or gold embroidery. One was in silk and two in fine linen, one in burgundy-coloured silk (which Alan noticed was the same material used in the bride’s wedding dresses) and one in hunter-green velvet. The other parcel contained three pairs of boots, in black, red and green leather.
“I wondered where my boots went that day in Ipswich” said Alan with a smile. “How did you get the tunics and hose the correct size without me having a fitting? That gold tunic fitted perfectly.”
“I stole one of your old tunics that fitted well and gave it to the tailor. Just like the boots to the cobbler, although since you only had one pair I couldn’t let him pull the boots apart to get a proper design. I know you like to dress inconspicuously in black, but you’re an important man, a member of the Curia Regis and the King’s Inner Council and will need to dress accordingly.” Anne put her hand into a pocket and said “And I also have this.” When Alan opened the small box he found a signet ring, gold with red jasper carved with a design of a crossed sword and arrow with fire in the background. “Beautiful, and an appropriate design,” he commented as he slipped the ring onto his finger. Anne checked the size, which fortunately fitted well. They hugged and kissed quickly before proceeding downstairs to meet their guests.
The bawdy banter was somewhat less than usual as both the guests and members of the household were aware that Alan and Anne had been sleeping together for some weeks, but most of the age-old jokes were made over the mid-day meal. Alan and Anne asked Orvin how the festive dinner had progressed after they had left the previous evening. Alan had a quiet word with Osmund about the feelings of the villagers. The response was that the residents of both Thorrington and Wivenhoe seemed to bear genuine goodwill to Anne as their lady and to Alan as their lord, and also in Wivenhoe’s case as its saviour. Alan might well be a foreigner but was well accepted and loved.
Next day Alan took Anne’s family, women included, hunting along the coastline, the women riding side-saddle and Anne wearing conventional clothing. On emerging from the Hall Alan presented Anne with another Morning Gift- a female merlin, a medium-sized falcon. “Her name is Cyrtenes, or ‘Beauty’. Benoic’s been training her for several months since she was taken from the nest.” He first handed his wife with a gauntlet of thick leather, and then placed the merlin on her wrist. She was a beautiful creature about a foot long, with pale off-white feathers highlighted by darker brown markings, dark grey wings and a barred tail. “The merlin is a falcon, not a hawk- a long-wing, so we can’t use her much in the woods. She needs open space to work. She’s a pigeon-hawk. My peregrine falcon, Caf, is also a female, and will take duck and grouse. She’s much larger and heavier to carry. Caf has been trained by Benoic to also take hares, which they don’t usually do. It’s interesting that with birds of prey the females are larger and more aggressive than the males! Don’t expect her to show any affection to you. Hawks and falcons don’t- they just tolerate us because they’ve been trained that we’re a source of food and shelter. You never know when you cast them off if they’re going to return, and often we have to use a lure to bring them back, relying on their greed. One day that probably won’t be enough and she’ll likely fly away.
It was a warm and pleasant day and Alan enjoyed being outdoors and the exercise. Alan taught Anne the basics of how to use a falcon- how to untie the hood, with one hand, when to release her and how to call her back. To allow Anne to use her new gift more fully they were hunting the coastline along the mudflats and swamps of the estuary, rather than woodland, as both birds were long-wings and would struggle to take prey in a forest and would be more likely to suffer injury. Cyrtenes had taken two pigeons and Caf had taken a duck and a hare by the time they paused for a picnic lunch near Brightlingsea. Raedwald and Garrett had been provided with hunting bows, but they hadn’t shown any skill on the few times that the party had got close enough to loose a few arrows at their intended prey of ducks.
Clearly the guests, especially the women, were not entertained by the day’s activities and Orvin asked, “You do this often? We don’t seem to be catching enough food to provide dinner.”
“Hawking isn’t really about catching dinner, it’s more an excuse to get out and have some exercise in the open. Most hawks are too small to catch anything worthwhile. When we go hunting in the forest for deer and boar we usually get at least enough to feed the high table for a few days, but I didn’t think slinking quietly through the forest was something Lora, Mae and Ellette would enjoy. It’s also more dangerous, with boar, bear and wolves- and also the risk of being hit by somebody else’s’ arrow! I can arrange to take the men out in the forest the day after tomorrow, if you like. Most of the nobility, Norman and English, hunt regularly.
“Personally, I enjoy a day out in the sun and a little exercise but don’t really enjoy ‘the thrill of the hunt’. I’m concentrating too much on not putting an arrow into one of my hunting party! Boar hunting is… exciting, if that’s the correct word. It’s enough to make you crap in your pants. The boar suddenly appears about ten paces away, charges straight at you intending to kill you with its tusks and you have to stick a spear straight in its chest and kill it quickly, before it kills you.” Orvin, Garrett and Raedwald looked unimpressed at the idea of boar hunting, clearly preferring not to have to fight with their food. Young Betlic was one of the few guests who looked like he was enjoying the outing.
“What else do you do out here?” asked Raedwald.
Alan laughed. “It’s not like we’re in a city like Ipswich were they have dancing bears, dog-fights and cock-fights,” he said. “We are poor rustic people. Watching a horse cover a mare is enough entertainment for most villagers for a week. Anne and myself are kept busy with the duties our position brings. Efficiently running six manors, each of which is like a small business. Listening to complaints brought by over 1,000 people, attending the Hundred court. In my case training the fyrdmen and my own troopers each morning.”
“I’ve heard that you are one on the best swordsmen in Europe,” interjected Betlic.
Alan smiled. “I can handle a blade well and that’s what I try to teach my men,” he replied modestly.
Bored by the lack of any but rustic pursuits Anne’s family departed to return home early on the morning of Tuesday 3rd July. Although Alan liked them well-enough, he felt a sense of relief when they left, almost a feeling that now nobody was looking over his shoulder and he could scratch an itch without wondering if anybody would be offended. Lora in particular showed all the signs of being a typical mother-in-law, with few words of praise and many of complaint.
Alan chose the following day to ‘beard the lion in his den’ and rode out in the early morning to see Robert fitzWymarc at Colchester Castle, taking Osmund, Leof and half a dozen Wolves in full armour. Calling in at ‘the Three Hounds’ for some sustenance after the ride, Alan was surprised to hear from the taverner that a youth had left a message with him, which was to meet with ‘Brun the one-eyed’ at the ‘Hog’s Head Tavern’, a rough inn down near the docks. Alan made a mental note to attend to that in the afternoon.
It was a short walk up the hill to the castle, where Alan’s guards were left at the guard-house by the gate. After a short wait the three were shown into the cluttered small room that was, for want of a better description, fitzWymarc’s office.
FitzWymarc sat with his boots up on the table, wearing a stained and threadbare tunic and hose and eating an apple with his mouth open. Alan could see one of the boots needed repair. Sitting on a bench behind fitzWymarc were his deputy Roger and a fat priest who appeared to act as fitzWymarc’s scribe, but who was not introduced. Alan had taken particular trouble with the appearance of his party and both Osmund and Leof wore new clothes of dark green, while Alan wore one of the more simple black embroidered tunics that Anne had given him, in linen and not silk so as not to appear overly ostentatious, and his new signet ring. FitzWymarc waved them to sit at a bench opposite him at the table.
“Good morning, Sir Robert! I trust that we find you well,” said Alan by way of conversation as it appeared fitzWymarc wasn’t going to say anything. “This is my clerk Osmund and we have matters of importance that we wish to discuss with you as sheriff.”
FitzWymarc grunted, threw the chewed apple-core into the corner of the room and abruptly said, “I hear that congratulations are in order, to you and Lady Anne. What Earl Ralph will have to say about your breach of the ban on marrying landed widows I can only imagine!”
Alan was guarding his temper well. A man of even disposition and rarely given to bad humour, he was well aware that on those few occasions when he lost his temper the results tended to be spectacular. To abuse fitzWymarc, the sheriff and the most powerful man in the shire, would achieve nothing. Clearly from fitzWymarc’s attitude the meeting was not to be friendly and relations were not on a good footing.
“What is the attitude of the earl of East Anglia to my marriage is a matter of total unconcern to me. I hold no land from him nor any of his minions, including yourself, nor does Lady Anne. We needed no man’s permission to marry, and as such we sought none. I’m sure that Earl Ralph has more important matters on his mind than my marital status- although I’m sure that if it is of importance to him, he’ll raise the topic when we next sit together on the Kings Council.” The last being a polite dig at the sheriff to remind him of the status of the man with whom he was talking.
“Talking of Lady Anne, she’s not yet paid her Relief,” said fitzWymarc abruptly. Alan noted that no claim of forfeiture was being made.
“She’s not yet been notified of her assessment, so of course she can’t have paid. I would also say that she was most offended at the message and offer that your clerk, the scrawny one with the bad teeth, brought several months ago. As her husband I also of course take offence at that message. What is the assessment for Wivenhoe?”
FitzWymarc looked Alan straight in the eyes and lied to him that the message as understood by Lady Anne was not as he had meant and that no threat or coercion had been intended. Alan raised an eyebrow at Osmund and commented in a loud aside intended to be overheard, “Strange that I didn’t mention the contents of the message or offer, but Sir Robert seems to be intimately familiar with them.”
FitzWymarc turned beet red at the plain but unspoken message that he was lying. “The Relief figure is?8, set by Bishop William,” he snapped.
“For a property with a rated value of 40 shillings? Five Hides of land and five ploughs, that’s a nice even quadrupling of the value. May I ask what value was put on your nearby holding of Elmstead, where you have eight Hides of land, 22 ploughs, a mill, a salt-house and beehives?” asked Alan frostily.
“No you may not! That’s between the landholder and the official handling the transaction,” replied fitzWymarc abruptly.
“Still I’m sure that is something the king will look at when he returns, along with the Relief values of the other properties you hold in Lexden Hundred and around the shire- you being defined as an Englishman for the purpose of the Relief, holding those lands before William was crowned king and having to pay the impost. I recall you coming to Hastings and warning William not to fight as Harold’s army was so large- and then you seemed to disappear again, not being seen on either side during the battle,” said Alan in an even tone of voice. He borrowed the quill and ink on the table to fill in gaps in a message on a piece of parchment which he handed to Leof. “Take two of our men from the guard-house, visit Aaron the moneylender and come back here with the money,” he instructed.
“Borrowing money from the Jews?” sneered fitzWymarc.
“My financial affairs are none of your business. The Relief money Bishop William demands will be here within the hour. I would suggest that few of those of whom Relief has been demanded would have paid so swiftly. Please make sure that your clerk provides my clerk with a receipt.
“Now, talking about Reliefs, I’m aware that there have been many abuses of power by Earl Ralph, Bishop William and Engelric, both directly by them and by their minions. Many of these are crimes which the sheriff is required to investigate. I speak not of simple cases of overcharging, such as I have just experienced, but of threats and extortion and forced marriages. I’m recently back from Ipswich were I made a full report to Roger Bigod, the sheriff of Suffolk, and I believe he’s undertaking a full investigation. I have here 29 depositions of complaint, written in both English and Latin and sworn by the deponents in the presence of upstanding and honourable members of the local community- usually the local priest and the village head-man.
“Of the 29, 14 relate to matters which are a crime under both English and Norman law. Two relate to you personally. Two to Earl Ralph or his servants. Three to Engelric personally and the rest to the servants of yourself, the earl, the bishop and Engelric. I am sure that other depositions will be received. It’s your responsibility as sheriff to investigate these crimes to the fullest extent of the law, irrespective of who has been accused. I expect that you will place an immediate halt on the forced marriages that are proposed. The depositions each include a statement by the brides-to-be that they do not consent to the proposed match. A duplicate copy of each deposition will be placed by me into the hands of Chancellor Regenbald as soon as I can travel to London.” FitzWymarc looked as if he was about to become apoplectic, gasping with anger and bright red of face.
Just then Leof arrived back with a large and heavy sack full of coins, which Osmund insisted be counted out on the table- all 1,920 silver pennies, weighing nearly six pounds in weight. A receipt was demanded and received. This took some time as the coins were counted into piles. Osmund then handed the bag of written depositions directly into fitzWymarc’s hand.
The clearly furious sheriff made a gesture to stay Alan as he started to rise from his seat. “You made a comment a few minutes ago regarding my not being present with my men at Hastings. As you know I came to England years ago and received land from King Edward. You will also know that I am kin to King William. William does not reward either those who are disloyal or those who shirk their duty. After William was crowned I received the office of sheriff of Essex in place of the man who fell at Hastings. Consider those facts well.”
Alan thought briefly and then nodded. FitzWymarc had ridden into William’s camp shortly before the battle at Hastings and met with the man who was then duke and would become king, before again riding off. He now appreciated in hindsight that he had made a mistake and made an enemy of a man who was both capable and in royal favour. Any complaint against fitzWymarc was likely to be ignored. In the future he would have to try to mend bridges and avoid further confrontation.
“Well, that has ‘put the cat amongst the pigeons’,” commented Osmund wryly as they walked down the hill towards ‘The Hog’s Head’ Tavern after leaving the castle.
The Tavern was easy to find. It had no sign, but instead a dried and wizened pig’s head stared with empty eyes onto the street. ‘Brun the one-eyed’ was similarly obvious enough to find. He was the barman and had a verbal message from Linn, the young bandit who fitzWymarc had released several weeks earlier. Linn confirmed Pearce’s story of organised banditry across much of Essex and advised that he had joined a band operating in the forest and hills near Braintree and Coggeshall at the junctions of Lexden Hundred, Hinckford Hundred and Witham Hundred. Further contact could be made via a patron of ‘The Prancing Pony’ Tavern at Coggeshall called ‘Old Aelfhare’. Linn also reported that Peace had bolted north for Suffolk and points beyond as soon as he had been released. Alan handed over a penny for the information.
The pigeons came home to roost a few days later when Alan received a written message from Earl Ralph abruptly and rudely ordering him to attend immediately at Norfolk. Alan had Osmund pen a polite response ‘I must decline the kind offer of Earl Ralph to meet with me at Norfolk as that is not on my intended itinerary at this time and is of course some considerable distance. My own duties prevent me from accepting, but I am sure that we will meet in the near future either when you travel through the southern part of your earldom, or alternatively in London, where we will no doubt both shortly need to attend as members of the King’s Council’.
The following day another messenger rode in, this time with a much more polite letter from William Bishop of London asking to see Alan ‘on matters of mutual concern at your earliest convenience when you are next in London’.
It was now Wednesday 18th July, and with the warm and dry summer the village moot had decided to commence the harvest several weeks earlier than normal. Men, women and the older children walked the fields cutting the wheat, oats, rye and barley with scythes and tying it into sheaves that were then arranged in stooks at the end of the fields. The sheaves were next taken away for threshing, with the stalks then being placed in barns, made into haystacks or cut as chaff, and the grain stored in sacks in the communal granary. The cattle were allowed to graze the cut stubble. Certain that only sudden and cataclysmic heavy rain, of which there was no sign, could prevent a successful harvest, Alan was satisfied that it was time for a journey to London. If nothing else he needed to order the glass for the windows in the Hall before autumn came.