1916 THE ABBEY OF ST. RIQUIER 447 quidam nobilis, natione Britto ',M puts his identity with the earl of Norfolk out of doubt, whilst reviving the problem of his birth. It is probable, however, that he is imputing Breton birth to Ralph the Staller on the strength of the lands in Brittany (Gael and Montfort) which his Breton wife brought him, and we need not reject the statement of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XXXI/CXXIII/447/363122 by guest on 30 September 2021 he wae an Englishman born in Norfolk.38 The charter also goes to show that Ralph the Staller was alive in February 1068, and hence to help in fixing the date of his death, which, according to Mr. Round,37 must have occurred before April 1Q70. On "the other hand, the charter raises the question why an Englishman holding lands in Brittany should confer gifts on an abbey of Ponthieu. Stapleton M provides the connecting link by supposing that Ralph the Staller, like Frederick the lord of Palgrave, was a Fleming by birth, but he gives no evidence in support of his conjecture beyond that which has been already considered, and there Beems no reason to accept the suggestion. HELEN M. CAM. The Saladin Tithe ALTHOUGH Sir James Ramsay has made a special study of the financial side of our twelfth-century history, from the Pipe Rolls and all available sources, he has to write : It would have been interesting to know what the proceeds of the Saladin tithe came to ; but no accounts of the yield seem to be forthcoming.1 The other modern historians of the period seem to be equally at a loss, though Mr. Eyton—without, however, citing any authority for the statement—asserted that ' the English tax realized £13,000, of which £6,000 was extorted from Jews '.2 At the great council of 11 February 1187-8 it was decreed that the money should be raised, as Mr. Eyton puts it, ' in the course of a year', or, as the ordinance itself expresses it, it was to be ready for collection on 2 February 1188-9,3 ' infra Purifica- tionem Beatae Virginis,' and paid over on the following day or subsequently. If any allusion, therefore, to its collection is to be found on the Pipe Rolls, we should expect it on that of 1189 (1 Ric. I).* As a matter of fact, it is to be found there, though " Chron. Cent. iv. 23 ; Lot, p. 240. " Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a. 1076. " Victoria County History, Norfolk, ii. 12. Ct. Feudal England, p. 428. 11 Archaeological Journal, iii. 4. > The Angevin Empire (1903), p. 254. Cf. pp. 236, 251-4, 369-72. 1 Court, Household, and Itinerary o] Henry 11, p. 286 n. * Benediotus Abbs.B,Oula Regis Henrici, ii. 31. 4 This roll was published by the Kecord Commission, in 1844, as of ' 1189-90 ' owing to confusion between the regnal and fiscal years. 448 THE SALADIN TITHE July the fact seems to have been overlooked. On p. 178 we read, under Wiltshire : Et pro ducend' CC marc' a Sareab[iria] usque Bristou . Et pro ducend' M.M. et D. lib. a 8are8b[iria] usque Glocestre . Et pro Tonellis et Clavis ad eosdem denarios . Et item in Carragfio] de M.M.M.M.M. marcis a Sar[esbiria] usque Sudhant' et pro Tonellis et aliia necessariis ... Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XXXI/CXXIII/447/363122 by guest on 30 September 2021 Et in liberatione clericor[um] Thesaurarii et Cameiariorum et x Com- putatorum qvi receperunt denarios Decimarum apud Sar[esbiriam] c. solidos. We are here dealing with what were then very considerable sums. The total is as follows : £ 8. d [200 marcs = ] 133 6 8 2,500 0 0 [5,000 marcs =F] 3,333 6 8 5,966 13 4 The ordinance for the tithe defines it as ' decimam redituum et mobilium'. We can hardly say positively how this would work, but as ' movables ' could neither be accurately tithed nor paid in as cash, one presumes that both tithes had to be paid in pennies (denarios Decimarum). I desire to draw special attention to the presence of repre- sentatives of the exchequer at Salisbury for the receipt of the silver pennies. Apart from the ten tellers (computatores), there was a group the description of whom might be rendered either as / the clerks [sic] of the Treasurer and Chamberlains ', or as ' the Treasurer's clerks and the Chamberlains'. Now this is no accidental phrase ; it recurs on pp. 206, 223 of the same roll,6 which proves that it describes a recognized group. On the roll (as yet unpub- lished) of two years earlier (1187) I find it occurring twice,6 and in this case it is definitely applied to the exchequer officers in charge of treasure in transit. The same observation applies to the two instances of its occurrence on the roll of 11847 (30 Hen. II). Now this evidence is definitely opposed to the statement in the Dialogue, which is accepted and repeated by the commen- tators thereon, that the three officers who had charge of the 1 ' Pro locandis vi NavibuB ad opus olerioor[um] Theeaurarii et Camerariorum'; ' In liberatione Clericoifum] Theeaurarii et Camerariorum.' * 'Ad dncendum haruaBium clericorum thesaurarii et camerariorum qui transfre- tavcrunt onm theaauro . .'; 'ad deferendum harnasinm . clericorum thesaurarii et camerariorum qui tranrfretaverunt com thesauro ' (p. 203). 7 ' In liberatione olericorum thesaurarii et camerariorum qui transfretaverunt cum thesauro ' ; 'in liberatione clericorum thesaurarii et camerariorum et in cuEtamento ducendi thesaurum a Londonia ' (pp. 87, 138). 1916 THE 8ALADIN TITHE 449 treasure in transit were (1) the treasurer's clerk and (2) the two deputy chamberlains, who were essentially not clerks, but knights ; ' hii tres simul omnes vel vicissim cum thesauro mittun- tur cum oportuerit.' 8 As there seems to have been throughout but one treasurer's clerk,9 it would appear that the right rendering of the phrase on the roll must be ' the clerks of the treasurer and Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XXXI/CXXIII/447/363122 by guest on 30 September 2021 chamberlains'. It is noteworthy that, by exception, on the roll of 1183 (29 Hen. II), the phrase used (p. 148) is ' clerico [sic] Thesaurarii et ij hominibus Camerarii' (?), while on that of 1182 (p. 139) it is 'in liberatione clerici [ate] thesaurarii et camerario- rum', which is what one may term orthodox, as in accordance with the Dialogue. It is obviously impossible to be certain that the Wiltshire entries quoted above prove Salisbury to have been the centre to which all the proceeds of the tithe were sent. On the one hand —though it was situated most conveniently for the dispatch of treasure to Southampton or to Bristol, as also for its receipt by road from other parts of England—we do not know of it as a financial centre. On the other, one would rather have expected that, if there were other centres, some trace of them would be found in similar entries on the roll. But there was so muoh lack of system as to payments and receipts at the time, that the expenses connected with the receipt, checking, and dispatch of the tithe might, in such a oase, have been defrayed from other sources. As to the Jews, the roll of 1189 is silent as to any forced contribution from them towards the recovery of the Holy City. It is only incidentally that we learn from the roll of 1187 that the king in that year took a quarter of their chattels in connexion with the tallage that he was then levying. Another point of considerable interest is raised by these Wiltshire entries. The roll, as yet unpublished, of the following year (1190) shows us vast sums being spent on the dispatch of the crusading expedition. But these were mainly derived from treasure already stored in England10 and were disbursed in this country. With the Saladin tithe it was quite different ; the money was all withdrawn from currency in this country, and was then sent, in locked barrels, to ports, clearly, it seems to me, for export in bulk, I do not know if any one has studied the position of the currency, which must have caused frequent difficulty when, in the absence of banking facilities and of any system of international finance, the only way of remitting money abroad • Dialogue (Oxford, 1902), pp. 21-2, 62-3, 167, 169 (' tret, i.e. the two chamberlains and the treasurer's clerk'); Poole, The Exchequer in the Twelfth Century (Oxford, 1912), pp. 73-5. • Poole, op. cit., pp. 73—4. John de Waltham was treasurer's clerk, I find, in 1190. '• e.g. Henry de Oornhill drew £2,250 from the central treasury and £2,500 from. the treasure in the Tower for this purpose. VOL. XXXI.—NO. OXXm. G g 450 THE SAL A DIN TITHE July was to export the silver pennies themselves. When these were withdrawn from currency, inconvenience must have been caused, as, for instance, by the constant drain of English money across the Channel for the wars of Henry II and Richard I. There was also the cost of its carriage and of its armed escort.11 There must, therefore, have been keenly felt the need for such facilities as Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ehr/article/XXXI/CXXIII/447/363122 by guest on 30 September 2021 the Templars were able, by their international organization, to afford, for the transmission of money otherwise than in coin, very 12 shortly after this.