Keen to impress them, their scribe reached for his quill long before it was required.
Ralph turned to the new and untried commissioner.
‘Are you ready for the first assault, Maurice?’ he said.
‘More than ready, Ralph. The case is crystal clear.’
‘We have not heard the disputants yet.’
‘I am surprised that we need to. My mind already inclines one way.
This will be a very brief session, I think.’
‘Then you are wrong, my lord,’ said Gervase pleasantly. ‘The arguments are more finely balanced than they may appear at first. I’ll wager that we reach no resolution today.’
‘Then the sooner we start, the better,’ decided Ralph.
He gave a signal and one of the guards left the hall. When the man returned, he was accompanied by two witnesses of strikingly different appearance and character. Azelina, wife of Roger d’Ivry, was a tall, gracious Norman lady with a mature beauty which arrested every eye. She wore a blue gown over a white linen chemise. Coiled at the back, her hair was covered by a wimple. Her girdle was a long silken rope, wound around her narrow waist, with its tasselled ends hanging almost down to the hem of her gown. She moved with exquisite grace.
Brother Timothy, by contrast, hobbled into the room as if his diminutive feet were tied together. The black cowl was tailored for a much larger monk and it made an already small man look absurdly tiny. Long sleeves hid his hands, his hem scraped the wooden floor and the thick folds obscured much of his chin and cheeks. When the commissioners took a closer look at him, they realised that the cowl might not, after all, be such a grave sartorial mistake, because Timothy had an ugliness that bordered on the grotesque.
A huge, bulbous nose sat right in the middle of a pasty countenance that was apparently assembled from discarded features of a dozen other misshapen faces. Nothing seemed to fit. Any garment which hid even part of his grisly visage was performing a valuable service.
Beside a woman of such elegance and comeliness, Brother Timothy looked plainly ridiculous.
Ralph rose to his feet to welcome Azelina and to invite her to take a seat. While she lowered herself on to a cushion, Ralph suppressed the urge to stare in disbelief at Timothy and indicated that he, too, should be seated.
‘I am surprised to see you here in person, my lady,’ said Ralph, settling back into his own chair. ‘I thought perhaps you would send your steward to speak in your stead.’
‘I am well able to defend myself, my lord,’ she said.
‘We do not doubt it,’ observed Maurice with gallantry.
‘With my property under threat, I would not dream of sending a deputy to fight on my behalf. This is far too important a matter to be relegated to anyone else.’
Her voice was soft and compelling, a musical instrument in itself.
Ralph had to force himself to look across at the monk.
‘You, Brother Timothy, speak for the abbey of Westminster.’
‘That is so, my lord,’ said the other meekly.
‘Then we have a case of Church versus State on our hands.’
After introducing himself and his colleagues, Ralph called upon Gervase to read out the relevant passage from the returns which had been sent to Winchester by the earlier team of commissioners who visited the county. Gervase first recited the information in its original Latin and gained an approving nod from Brother Timothy. Azelina was motionless.
‘“Land of Roger d’Ivry’s Wife,”’ translated Gervase. ‘“Roger d’Ivry’s wife holds 5 hides in Islip from the King. Three of these hides never paid tax. Land for 15 ploughs. Now in lordship 3 ploughs; 2 slaves.
10 villagers with 5 smallholders have 3 ploughs. A mill at 20 shillings; meadow, 30 acres; pasture, 3 furlongs long and 2 wide; woodland, 1
league long and 1? leagues wide. The value was?7 before 1066; when acquired?8; now?10. Godwin and Alwin held it freely.”’ He glanced up at Azelina who was now listening carefully. ‘“Roger d’Ivry’s wife also holds 3 hides and? a virgate of land in Oddington. She holds these two lands in commendation from the King.”’
As soon as Gervase finished, Ralph turned to Azelina.
‘Have you anything to add, my lady?’ he asked.
‘The document enforces my right to that property,’ she said reasonably. ‘If anyone challenges that right, the burden of proof lies on them.’
‘Not so, my lady,’ argued Brother Timothy. ‘Our claim predates yours and renders it invalid. That is why Abbot Gilbert has sent me here to present our case. There are aspects of this dispute which did not come to light during the visit of the first commissioners. What has just been read out to us was set down in error.’
‘No error, I do assure you,’ countered Azelina.
‘An honest one but no less troublesome for all that.’
‘The land was given to me, Brother Timothy.’
‘The returns make that clear,’ added Maurice helpfully.
‘With respect, my lord,’ said the little monk, ‘they do not. They merely perpetuate a grave mistake.’ He turned to Ralph. ‘Do I have your permission to proceed at length?’
‘State the case for the abbey,’ encouraged Ralph.
‘Then I will.’
Brother Timothy cleared his throat and took control.
‘Islip is probably only a name on a document to you, my lords,’ he began, ‘and I feel that you should know something of its nature before you decide who rightly holds the land. It is a charming village. Islip straddles a hill that is undercut by the River Ray near its junction with the River Cherwell. The soldiers among you would appreciate its strategic value at once because, in floodtime, Islip Bridge is on the only dry route between north and south. In 1065, when the Northumbrians rebelled against Earl Tosti, they drove south across the bridge and caused hideous damage to Islip itself.’
‘God’s tits!’ muttered Maurice, rolling his eyes upward. ‘Is there much more of this homily?’
‘But it has another special claim on our attention,’ continued Timothy, well into his stride. ‘Islip was the birthplace of King Edward of blessed memory and he was baptised in the font of the parish church there. As a gesture of kindness for which we are eternally grateful, the King gave the holding to his beloved foundation of St Peter’s, Westminster, or, as it is now known, Westminster Abbey.
There, in essence, is our claim. Islip came to us by royal decree and it is still legally and morally ours. Ten main reasons can be advanced in support of our claim.’
Brother Timothy was a remarkable advocate. His mild manner gave way to a driving confidence and his unsightly features took on an animation that made them almost human. So cogent was his argument, so startling his control of language and so effortless the flow of his rhetoric that nobody else had an opportunity to speak for over an hour. Even the hitherto unsympathetic Maurice was forced to revalue the monk. In choosing Brother Timothy as his spokesman, Abbot Gilbert of Westminster had sent his most powerful weapon.
Azelina was neither cowed nor distracted by the skilful performance of her rival. She spoke with great feeling about her love for Islip and about the honour she felt when it was granted to her by King William. Her arguments tended to be emotional as well as legal but they were no less effective for that. Maurice found himself nodding in agreement with her as she contradicted the abbey’s claim. Along with Ralph and Gervase, he put a number of questions to Azelina and found her resolute in her answers.
They were well into the afternoon before the two rivals finally paused to catch their breath. Maurice was impatient.
‘The debate is over,’ he said gratefully. ‘All we have to do now is to reach our verdict.’
‘There is no chance of that yet,’ Ralph pointed out.
‘Is there not?’