A.D. 11/7. EARLDOM OF MARCH SOLD TO KING HENRY. 4G7 Robert, earl of Leicester, and many other earls and barons of his realm, that no one should for the debt of the superior lord presume to take the property of the vassal, unless the vassal should owe to him the same debt, or be security for the same ; but that the rents which the vassals are bound to pay to their superior lords, are to be paid to the creditors of their lords, and not to the lords themselves. The rest, however, of the property of the vassals was to remain their own and in peace, and it should be lawful for no one to seize them for the debts of their superior lords. This statute and custom the king enacted, and ordered to be observed in all his vills and everywhere throughout his realm ; namely, in Normandy, Aquitaine, Anjou, Maine, Touraine, and Brittany, as being universal and established. And in order that the said statute might be strictly observed and held as ratified, he ordered it to be committed to writing and confirmed by the authority of his own seal. In the same year, on the fifth day before the ealends of October, being the third day of the week, Geoffrey, nephew of Roger, archbishop of York, prior of Beverley, and chancellor to the king of England, the son, master Robert le Grand, and many others, in number three hundred men and women, passing over in one and the same ship from England to Normandy, perished at sea near Saint Valéry, on the coast of Ponthieu. Shortly after, our lord, the king of England, the father, entering Berry with a large army, captured Chateau Raoul ; and when he was marching thence toward Castres, the lord of that town came and met him on the road, and detivered up to him the daughter of Raoul de Dol, whom the king gave to Baldwin de Rivers, together with the honor of Chateau Raoul. After this, our lord, the king of England, the father, proceeded to Grammont, and Audebert, earl of March, came to meet him there, and in presence of the archbishop of Bourdeaux, John, bishop of Poitiers, and many other persons, both clergy and laity, sold to the before-named king of England the whole earldom of March for fifteen thousand pounds Anjouin, twenty mules, and twenty paRreys, and by his charter confirmed the same. π π 2