The Development of Military Obligations in Eighth- and Ninth-Century England

Abstract

In studying the development of military obligations in England therefore, it is essential to keep in mind that similar problems were receiving similar solutions in different parts of Europe because of contemporary contacts in times of danger and because the origins of these obligations, difficult though they may be to trace in particular regions, lay in a common Germanic and Roman past. Land, therefore, without being the source of the military obligation, was the expected reward for loyal military service, and this may in part explain why in the eighth century landbooks begin to refer to military obligations. For Northumbria and East Anglia the people have no charters of the eighth and ninth centuries, whilst South Saxon charters of this period include neither immunity clauses nor the reservation of the military burdens. Among the rights which kings had long exacted from men on the estates of their subjects was labor on royal buildings and vills.

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