Wilkins, p. 228 Ellis, in the introduction to 'Doomsday,' i. 16,
quotes Blackstone, but adds a reference to Wilkins without
verifying Blackstone's quotation from his collection of laws,
substituting for that work the Concilia, in which the law does not
occur. Many modern writers have followed him in referring the
enactment of the article to the Council of Salisbury. It is well to
give here the text of both passages; that in the laws runs thus:
'Statuimus etiam ut omnis liber homo foedere et sacremento
affirmet, quod intra et extra Angliam Willelmo regi fideles esse
volunt, terras et honorem illius omni fidelitate eum eo servare et
ante eum contra inimicos defendere' (Select Charters, p. 80). the
homage done at Salisbury is described by Florence thus: 'Nec multo
post mandavit ut Archiepiscopi episcopi, abbates, comitas et
barones et vicecomitas cum suis militibus die Kalendarum Augustarem
sibi occurent Saresberiae quo cum venissent milites eorem sibi
fidelitatem contra omnes homines jurare coegit.' The 'Chronicle' is
a little more full: 'Thaee him comon to his witan and ealle tha
Landsittende men the ahtes waeron ofer eall Engleland waeron thaes
mannes men the hi waeron and ealle hi bugon to him and waeron his
men, and him hold athas sworon thaet he woldon ongean ealle other
men him holde beon.'"

Mr. Stubbs had, in degree, adopted the view at which I had arrived,
that the law or charter of William I. was an injunction to enforce
the oath of allegiance, previously ordered by the laws of Edward
the Confessor, to be taken by all FREEMEN, and that it did not
relate to vassals, or alter the existing feudalism.

As the subject possesses considerable interest for the general
reader as well as the learned historian, I think it well to place