The Trial of Penenden Heath, c. 1076
The Trial of Penenden Heath, Textus Roffensis, folios 168r-170v, by Dr Christopher Monk.
Deplacito apud Pinendanam inter Lanfrancum archiepiscopum et Odonem Baiocensem episcopum.
Translation: The plea at Penenden between Archbishop Lanfranc and Odo Bishop of Bayeux.
Introduction
This document records the famous three-day Trial of Penenden Heath that took place in 1072. It is not a copy of the official record, which no longer exists, but of what scholars believe is an exaggerated account.
The plaintiff of the trial was Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury; the accused was William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux, who was also at the time the powerful Earl of Kent.
Odo is painted as the villain for grabbing land that rightfully belonged to Canterbury Cathedral; lands owned by Rochester Cathedral were also under scrutiny, hence the inclusion of the document in the Rochester cartulary. However, historians point out that Odo inherited many of these encroachments from the previous earl of Kent.
The description becomes somewhat theatrical when we are told that ‘bishop Æthelric of Chichester, a man of great age learned in the law of the land, [...] was brought to the plea in a cart on the king’s orders to expound and demonstrate the ancient customs of the law’ [translated by David Bates]. The outcome of the trial is presented as emphatically in Lanfranc’s favour. History shows that not long after the trial Odo became a disgraced figure in England and was imprisoned by King William and stripped of all his properties.
Commentary
Translation is by David Bates (Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum: The Acta of William I, ed. David Bates, pp. 315-16 (no. 69).
The record of the Trial of Penenden Heath survives in various versions. However, the original, official record of this 1072 legal plea no longer exists. The oldest extant version is the one copied into Textus Roffensis. This dates to around 1090, some eighteen years after the trial took place. Historians have called into question some of the details concerning the rights granted to the archbishop of Canterbury.
The plaintiff of the trial was Lanfranc, Archbishop of Canterbury; the accused was William the Conqueror’s half-brother, Bishop Odo of Bayeux:
A notice that after king William had subdued the English kingdom, his brother, bishop Odo of Bayeux, came to England before archbishop Lanfranc and settled in the county of Kent where he exercised great power. And because in those days there was no one strong enough to be able to resist, he appropriated many lands and customs of the archbishopric of Canterbury to his lordship. Subsequently, Lanfranc, abbot of the church of Caen, came to England on the king’s orders and was raised to primacy of the entire English kingdom. When he had lived in England for some time and found that many of the ancient lands of the church were missing, and had discovered that they had been distributed and alienated by his negligent predecessors, having diligently and thoroughly ascertained the truth, he informed the king as quickly as he could of his case. The king ordered the whole shire to deliberate without delay and all the Frenchmen and especially the Englishmen knowledgeable in the ancient laws and customs to convene in a single gathering. When they had assembled at Penenden, all alike considered the problem. And since there were many disputes over land, and since there were arguments between the archbishop and the bishop of Bayeux about the customary laws, and also about the relationship of the king’s and the archbishop’s customs, they were unable to proceed quickly on the first day, and, for this reason, the whole shire-court was detained for three days.
Odo is clearly painted as the villain, yet historians have established that in some cases the encroachments of land for which he was held accountable had taken place before he became the earl of Kent.
The outcome of the trial is presented as emphatically in favour of Lanfranc:
During the three days, archbishop Lanfranc proved his right to several estates which were then held by men of the bishop [...] He proved his right to these lands and others so completely that, by the day on which the trial ended, no man in the whole of the kingdom of England had any claim to them.
Traditionally, the trial has been perceived as evidence of the continuity between English and Norman law, and of the Norman respect for the Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. This is best illustrated in the Rochester version in its description of the witnesses of the trial. Note how the presence of one particular individual is singled out:
Present at the plea were bishop Geoffrey of Coutances who was there in the king’s place and who presided, archbishop Lanfranc who, as has been said, was the plaintiff and gained everything, the earl of Kent, namely the aforesaid bishop Odo of Bayeux, bishop Ernost of Rochester, bishop Æthelric of Chichester, a man of great age learned in the law of the land, who was brought to the plea in a cart on the king’s orders to expound and demonstrate the ancient customs of the law, Richard of Tonbridge, Hugh de Montfort, William de Arques, Haimo the sheriff, as well as many other barons of the king, the archbishop and the other bishops, and other men of other shires and many Frenchmen and Englishmen of great authority from the county of Kent.
Æthelric’s presence at the trial in 1072 has been called into question. We know that King William actually deposed Æthelric as the bishop of Selsey around two years before the trial; in fact, William had him imprisoned. Though the details of the circumstances surrounding this event are not clear, we are nevertheless forced to consider whether the account of Æthelric’s presence should be taken at face value. ‘It is curious’, observes one historian [Alan Cooper], ‘that the King would have specifically demanded the presence of someone he had disgraced and put in custody.’
It is clear that Æthleric is presented as the embodiment of wisdom and Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. Perhaps, then, rather than drawing upon fact, the author of the account saw the aged Æthelric as a symbolic seal of authority, and hence a rather convenient way of shoring up the rights, in favour of Canterbury, made sometime after the trial.
The presence of another of the witnesses, bishop Ernost of Rochester, is also controversial. This is because the trial can be securely dated to 1072, and yet Ernost was bishop of Rochester only between 1075 and 1076. The real bishop of Rochester at the time of the trial was Siward, who was remembered in later times as a negligent and apathetic bishop, hardly the reliable witness of the trial that Canterbury, or indeed Rochester, another of the beneficiaries, would have wanted.
These are not the only dubious details in the document, which may well incorporate other moments of invention. The special privileges relating to Lanfranc’s Canterbury are not independently corroborated by contemporary sources, such as the Domesday Book, and neither is there precedent for these in earlier Anglo-Saxon laws.
Though it is clear that Lanfranc did win back for Canterbury, and for the church at Rochester, a considerable amount of land, some of the other claims are rather unusual. One especially fascinating exemption relates to the so-called ‘murder fine’, imposed on landowners who failed to capture a murderer on the king’s highway:
In the presence of all, it was shown by many clear reasons that the king of the English could claim only three customs in the lands of the archbishop. [...] The third custom is that if anyone commits murder or an act which results in the shedding of blood on the king’s highway, or does anything which no one is allowed to do, and if he is caught in the act, then he will make amends to the king. If, however, he is not detained, and escapes without giving surety, then the king cannot take anything from him [i.e. from the archbishop, referring to the ‘murder fine’].
Perhaps on reflection, rather than simply being a record of continuity between Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman laws, the account of the Trial of Penenden Heath underscores just how vital it was for the community at Canterbury to secure its lands and privileges, something that is emphasized in the conclusion of the document:
When the king was informed of the many witnesses and reasons which had contributed to the verdict, he was delighted, and joyfully confirmed it with the agreement of all his magnates that it should be preserved and upheld intact. As a result this was written down so that it will be remembered in future, and so that all who succeed to Christ Church, Canterbury, may know the nature and the extent of the rights they hold from God, and what the kings and the magnates of the kingdom may exact from them.
