possessions of bishops, as also of
some twenty six abbots, and two priors, were now erected into baronies,
whence the lords spiritual that had suffrage in the Teuton Parliament as
spiritual lords came to have it in the Neustrian Parliament as barons,
and were made subject, which they had not formerly been, to knights'
service in chief. Barony coming henceforth to signify all honorary
possessions as well of earls as barons, and baronage to denote all
kinds of lords as well spiritual as temporal having right to sit
in Parliament, the baronies in this sense were sometimes more, and
sometimes fewer, but commonly about 200 or 250, containing in them a
matter of 60,000 feuda militum, or knights' fees, whereof some 28,000
were in the clergy.

It is ill-luck that no man can tell what the land of a knight's
fee, reckoned in some writs at L40 a year, and in others at L10, was
certainly worth, for by such a help we might have exactly demonstrated
the balance of this government. But, says Coke, it contained twelve
plough-lands, and that was thought to be the most certain account. But
this again is extremely uncertain; for one plough out of some land that
was fruitful might work more than ten out of some other that was
barren. Nevertheless, seeing it appears by Bracton, that of earldoms and
baronies it was wont to be said that the whole kingdom was composed, as
also that these, consisting of 60,000 knights' fees, furnished 60,000
men for the King's service, being the whole militia of this monarchy,
it cannot be imagined that the vavasories or freeholds in the people
amounted to any considerable proportion. Wherefore the balance and
foundation of this government were in the 60,000 knights' fees, and
these being possessed by the 250 lords, it was a government of the few,
or of the nobility, wherein the people might also assemble, but could
have no more than a mere name. And the clergy, holding a third of the
whole nation, as is plain by the Parliament-roll, it is an absurdity
(seeing the clergy of France came first through their riches to be a
state of that kingdom) to acknowledge the people to have been a state
of this realm, and not to allow it to the clergy, who were so much more
weighty in the balance, which is that of all other whence a state or
order in a government is denominated. Wherefore this monarchy consisted
of the King, and of the three ordines regni, or estates, the lords
spiritual and temporal, and the commons; it con