The rolls of knights' fees were inaccurately kept; no care was taken to correct them before the armies were summoned into the field,[*] it was then too late to think of examining records and charters; and the service was accepted on the footing which the vassal himself was pleased to acknowledge, after all the various subdivisions and conjunctions of property had thrown an obscurity on the nature and extent of his tenure.[**] It is easy to judge of the intricacies which would attend disputes of this kind with individuals; when even the number of military fees belonging to the church, whose property way fixed and unalienable, became the subject of controversy; and we find in particular, that when the bishop of Durham was charged with seventy knights' fees for the aid levied on occasion of the marriage of Henry II.'s daughter to the duke of Saxony, the prelate acknowledged ten, and disowned the other sixty.[***] It is not known in what mariner this difference was terminated; but had the question been concerning an armament to defend the kingdom, the bishop's service would probably have been received without opposition for ten fees; and this rate must also have fixed all his future payments. Pecuniary scutages, therefore, diminished as much as military services;[****] other methods of filling the exchequer, as well as the armies, must be devised: new situations produced new laws and institutions; and the great alterations in the finances and military power of the crown, as well as in private property, were the source of equal innovations in every part of the legislature or civil government.
* We hear only of one king, Henry II., who took this pains; and the record, called Liber Niger Scaccarii, was the result of it.
*** Madox, p. 122. Hist. of the Exch. p. 404.
**** In order to pay the sum of one hundred thousand marks, as King Richard's ransom, twenty shillings were imposed on each knight's fee. Had the fees remained on the original footing, as settled by the Conqueror, this scutage would have amounted to ninety thousand marks, which was nearly the sum required; but we find that other grievous taxes were imposed to complete it; a certain proof that many frauds and abuses had prevailed in the roll of knights fees.