granted that a definite area of land was necessary to
constitute a knight's fee; for although at a later period and in local
computations we may find four or five hides adopted as a basis of
calculation, where the extent of the particular knight's fee is given
exactly, it affords no ground for such a conclusion. In the _Liber
Niger_ we find knights' fees of two hides and a half, of two hides, of
four, five, and six hides. Geoffrey Ridel states that his father held
one hundred and eighty-four _carucates_ and a _virgate_, for which the
service of fifteen knights was due, but that no knights' fees had been
carved out of it, the obligation lying equally on every carucate. The
archbishop of York had far more knights than his tenure required. It is
impossible to avoid the conclusion that the extent of a knight's fee was
determined by rent or valuation rather than acreage, and that the common
quantity was really expressed in the twenty _librates_, the twenty
pounds' worth of annual value which until the reign of Edward I was the
qualification for knighthood.

It is most probable that no regular account of the knights' fees was
ever taken until they became liable to taxation, either in the form of
_auxilium militum_ under Henry I, or in that of scutage under his
grandson. The facts, however, which are here adduced, preclude the
possibility of referring this portion of the feudal innovations to the
direct legislation of the Conqueror. It may be regarded as a secondary
question whether the knighthood here referred to was completed by the
investiture with knightly arms and the honorable accolade. The
ceremonial of knighthood was practised by the Normans, whereas the
evidence that the English had retained the primitive practice of
investing the youthful warrior is insufficient; yet it would be rash to
infer that so early as this, if indeed it ever was the case, every
possessor of a knight's fee received formal initiation before he assumed
his spurs. But every such analogy would make the process of transition
easier and prevent the necessity of any general legislative act of
change.

It has been maintained that a formal and definitive act, forming the
initial point of the feudalization of England, is to be found in a
clause of the laws, as they are called, of the Conqueror; which directs
that every freeman shall affirm, by covenant and oath, that "he will be
faithful to King William within England and without, will join him in
pr