POLITICAL HISTORY duke." He had considerable legislative authority, under which he modelled the customs of Hereford upon those of his French town of Breteuil,'" and enacted that the French burgesses settled in the city should be purged from all transgressions on payment of a fine of twelve pence, except from three reserved offences.*^ There is also strong reason, as will be shown later,*' for assuming that he received the whole of the revenues of his earldom, and not merely the third pennies of the city and county. As Domesday Survey was taken after the forfeiture of the earldom it is impossible to ascertain the extent of the crown lands or the number of tenants in chief in his time. But on the whole the evidence shows that Herefordshire should be included among the palatine earldoms, and its im- portant frontier position supports this conclusion. Like most of the great Norman lords, Fitzosbern had a large military retinue, whom he attracted to him by liberal pay, and in whose favour he employed his legislative powers in limiting the pecuniary penalties incurred by misconduct to a fine of seven shillings." Fitzosbern's appointment in March, 1067, as joint viceroy during William's absence prevented him at first from paying particular attention to the affairs of the shire, where the great opponent of the Normans was Edric the Wild, nephew of Edric Streona, a powerful thegn, who held lands in Herefordshire and Shropshire. On his refusal to submit, the castlemen of Hereford and Richard Scrupe wasted his lands,** but in return he allied him- self with the Welsh kings, Bleddyn and Rhiwallon, Gruffydd's successors, and in August devastated the country as far as the Lugg, returning with a mighty booty.*' In consequence Earl William hastened to guard the frontier. In his capacity of viceroy charged particularly to secure the north and west he was instructed to erect ' castella ' *' to establish his hold on the country. It is probable that these early structures were ' hillocks of earth, generally round, sometimes oval, and occasionally square, surrounded by a ditch, and crowned by a wooden stockade and a wooden tower.' " Such would naturally be the character of defences erected in the face of imminent danger when there was no leisure for more permanent structures. At what time they were replaced by stone buildings is uncertain, but it must be remembered that the Normans were conversant with the art of building in stone, and it is difficult to believe that wooden edifices would have been capable of enduring the long sieges that marked the reigns of Rufus, Henry I, and Stephen. In Hereford itself Earl William established a castle and garrison,** the castle being the successor of the fortress destroyed by the Welsh in 1055. Three border castles in the county also owe their undoubted origin to him. In the north-west commanding the valley of the Teme and guarding the plains of Herefordshire from attack from that quarter, he built the castle of Wigmore on land called Merestone that had already been devastated.*' In " Cart, de I'Abbaye de la Stc. Trinite du Mont de Rouen, in ColUctims des Cart, de France (1840) iii, 455. " Miss Bateson in Engl. Hist. Rev. (1900), 302-6 ; cf. Richard Johnson, Customs of Heref. (1882).
- ' Domesday (Rec. Com.), i, 179. " See p. 359.
^ Will, of Malmesbury, Gesta Regum (Rolls Ser.), ii, 314. ' " Flor. Wore. Chron. (ed. Thorpe), ii, i ; Jngl.-Sax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 340.
- Flor. Wore. Chron. ii, i-z. ^ Flor. Wore. Chron. ii, i ; jingl.-Zax. Chron. (Rolls Ser.), i, 339.
" See Mrs. Armitage on Early Norman Castles in England in Engl. Hist. Rev. (1904), 209-45 4-17-'; ■; • and Mr. J. H. Round in Archaeologia, Iviii, 3 1 3-40. ^ Flor. Wore. Chron. ii, i. «» Domesday (Rec. Com.), i, 183 /5. 355
