with family matters such as marriage, annulments, marriage
portions, legitimacy, undue wife-beating, child abuse, orphans,
bigamy, adultery, incest, fornication, personal possessions,
defamation, slander which did not cause material loss (and
therefore had no remedy in the temporal courts), libel, perjury,
usury, mortuaries, sacrilege, blasphemy, heresy, tithe payments,
church fees, certain offences on consecrated ground, and breaches
of promises under oath, e.g. to pay a debt, provide services, or
deliver goods. They decided inheritance and will issues which did
not concern land, but only personal property. This developed from
the practice of a priest usually hearing a dying person's will as
to the disposition of his goods and chattel when he made his last
confession. It provided guardianship of infants during probate of
their personal property. Trial was basically by compurgation, with
oath-helpers swearing to or against the veracity of the alleged
offender's oath. An alleged offender could be required to answer
questions under oath, thus giving evidence against himself. The
ecclesiastical court's penalties were intended to reform and
determined on a case-by-case basis. The canon law of Christendom
was followed, without much change by the English church or nation.
Penalties could include confession and public repentance of the
sin before the parish, making apologies and reparation to persons
affected, public embarrassment such as being dunked in water (e.g.
for women scolds), walking a route barefoot and clad only in one's
underwear, whippings, extra work, fines, and imprisonment in a
"penitentiary" to do penance. The ultimate punishment was
excommunication with social ostracism. Then no one could give the
person drink, food, or shelter and he could speak only to his
spouse and servants. Excommunication included denial of the
sacraments of baptism, penance, mass, and extreme unction [prayers
for spiritual healing] at death; which were necessary for
salvation of the soul; and the sacrament of confirmation of one's
belief in the tenets of Christianity. A person could also be
denied a Christian burial in consecrated ground. However, the
person could still marry and make a will. The king's court could
order a recalcitrant excommunicant imprisoned until he satisfied
the claims of the church. Excommunication was usually imposed for
failure to obey an order or showing contempt of the law or of the
courts. It required a hearing and a written reason. If this
measure failed, it was possible to turn the offender over to the
state for punishment, e.g. for blasphemy or heresy. Blasphemy
[speaking ill of God] was thought to cause God's wrath expressed
in famine, pestilence, and earthquake and was usually punished by
a fine or corporal punishment, e.g. perforation or amputation of
the tongue. It was tacitly understood that the punishment for
heresy was death by burning. There were no heresy cases up to 1400
and few after that. The state usually assured itself the sentence
was just before imposing it. The court of the rural dean was the
ecclesiastical parallel of the hundred court of secular
jurisdiction and usually had the same land boundaries. The
archdeacons, who had been ministers of the bishop in all parts of
his diocese alike, were now each assigned to one district, which
usually had the same boundaries as the county. Henry acknowledged
occasional appellate authority of the pope, but expected his
clergy to elect bishops of his choice.
There was a separate judicial system for the laws of the forest.
There were itinerant justices of the forests and four verderers of
each forest county, who were elected by the votes of the full
county court, twelve knights appointed to keep vert [everything
bearing green leaves] and venison, and foresters of the king and
of the lords who had lands within the limits of the forests. Every
three years, the officers visited the forests in preparation for
the courts of the forest held by the itinerant justices. The
inferior courts were the wood-mote, held every forty days, and the
swein [freeman or freeholder within the forest]-mote, held three
times yearly before the verderers as justices, in which all who
were obliged to attend as suitors of the county court to serve on
juries and inquests were to be present.
- - - Chapter 6 - - -
- The Times: 1154-1215 -
King Henry II and Queen Eleanor, who was twelve years older, were
both intelligent, educated, energetic, well-traveled, and
experienced in affairs of state. Henry was the first Norman king
to be fully literate and he learned Latin. He had many books and
maintained a school. Eleanor often served as regent during Henry's
reign and the reigns of their two sons: Richard I, the Lion-
Hearted, and John. She herself headed armies. Henry II was a
modest, courteous, and patient man with an astonishing memory and
strong personality. He was indifferent to rank and impatient of
pomp to the point of being careless about his appearance. He
usually dressed in riding clothes and was often unkempt. He was
thrifty, but generous to the poor. He was an outstanding
legislator and administrator.
Henry II took the same coronation oath as Edward the Confessor
regarding the church, laws, and justice. Not only did he confirm
the charter of his grandfather Henry I, but he revived and
augmented the laws and institutions of his grandfather and
developed them to a new perfection. Almost all legal and fiscal
institutions appear in their first effective form during his
reign. For instance, he institutionalized the assize for a
specific function in judicial proceedings, whereas before it had
been an ad hoc body used for various purposes. The term "assize"
here means the sitting of a court or council. It came to denote
the decisions, enactments, or instructions made at such.
Henry's government practiced a strict economy and he never
exploited the growing wealth of the nation. He abhorred bloodshed
and the sacrifice of men's lives. So he strove diligently to keep
the peace, when possible by gifts of money, but otherwise with
armed force. Robbers were hanged and any man who raped a woman was
castrated. Foreign merchants with precious goods could journey
safely through the land from fair to fair. These fairs were
usually held in the early fall, after sheep-shearing and
harvesting. Foreign merchants bought wool cloth and hides.
Frankpledge was revived, now applying to the unfree and villeins.
No stranger could stay overnight (except for one night in a
borough), unless sureties were given for his good behavior. A list
of such strangers was to be given to itinerant justices.
Henry had character and the foresight to build up a centralized
system of government that would survive him. He learned about the
counties' and villages' varying laws and customs. Then, using the
model of Roman law, he gave to English institutions that unity and
system which in their casual patch-work development had been
lacking. Henry's government and courts forged permanent direct
links between the king and his subjects which cut through the
feudal structure of lords and vassals.
He developed the methods and structure of government so that there
was a great increase in the scope of administrative activity
without a concurrent increase of personal power of the officials
who discharged it. The government was self-regulating, with
methods of accounting and control which meant that no official,
however exalted, could entirely escape the surveillance of his
colleagues and the King. At the same time, administrative and
judicial procedures were perfected so that much which had
previously required the King's personal attention was reduced to
routine.
The royal household translated the royal will into action. In the
early 1100s, there had been very little machinery of central
government that was not closely associated with the royal
household. There was a Chief Justiciar for legal matters and a
Treasurer. Royal government was largely built upon what had once
been purely domestic offices. Kings had called upon their
chaplains to pen letters for them. By Henry II's reign, the
Chancery was a highly efficient writing office through which the
King's will was expressed in a flow of writs, and the Chancellor
an important and highly rewarded official, but he was still
responsible for organizing the services in the royal chapel.
Similarly, the chamberlains ran the household's financial
departments. They arranged to have money brought in from a
convenient castle treasury, collected money from sheriffs or the
King's debtors, arranged loans with the usurers, and supervised
the spending of it. It was spent for daily domestic needs, the
King's alms-giving, and the mounting of a military campaign. But
they were still responsible for personal attendance upon the king
in his privy chamber, taking care of his valuable furs, jewels,
and documents, and changing his bedlinens. There were four other
departments of the household. The steward presided over the hall
and kitchens and was responsible for supplying the household and
guests with food supplies. The butler had duties in the hall and
cellars and was responsible for the supply of wine and ale. The
marshall arranged lodgings for the King's court as it moved about
from palaces to hunting lodges, arranged the pay of the household
servants, and supervised the work of ushers, watchmen, fire
tenders, messengers and huntsmen. The constable organized the
bodyguard and escorts, arranged for the supply of castles, and
mustered the royal army. The offices of steward, constable,
chamberlain, butler were becoming confined to the household and
hereditary. The Justiciar, Chancellor, and Treasurer are becoming
purely state offices and are simply sold or rented, until public
pressure resulted in a requirement of ability.
Henry's council included all his tenants-in-chief, which included
archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights and
socage tenants of the crown, whether they made payments directly
to him or through a sheriff. The higher ones were served with a
writ addressed to them personally. Knights and below were summoned
by a general writ to the sheriff.
Henry brought order and unity by making the King's Royal Court the
common court of the land. Its purpose was to guard the King's
peace by protecting all people of free status throughout the
nation and correct the disparity in punishments given by local
courts. Heretofore, the scope of the King's peace had varied to
cover as little as the King's presence, his land, and his highway.
The royal demesne had shrunk to about 5% of the land. The Common
Law for all the nation was established by example of the King's
Royal Court. Henry erected a basic, rational framework for legal
processes which drew from tradition but lent itself to continuous
expansion and adaptation.
A system of writs originated well-defined actions in the royal
courts. Each court writ had to satisfy specific conditions for
this court to have jurisdiction over an action or event. This
system determined the Royal Court's jurisdiction over the church,
lords, and sheriffs. It limited the jurisdiction of all other
courts and subordinated them to the Royal Court. Inquests into any
misdeeds of sheriffs were held, which could result in their
dismissal.
Henry and Eleanor spoke many languages and liked discussing law,
philosophy, and history. So they gathered wise and learned men
about them, who became known as courtiers, rather than people of
social rank. They lived in the great and strong Tower of London,
which had been extended beyond the original White Tower, as had
other castles, so that the whole castle and grounds were defended
instead of just the main building. The Tower of London was in the
custody of one of the two justiciars. On the west were two
strongly fortified castles surrounded by a high and deeply
entrenched wall, which had seven double gates. Towers were spaced
along the north wall and the Thames River flowed below the south
wall. To the west was the city, where royal friends had residences
with adjoining gardens near the royal palace at Westminster. The
court was a center of culture as well as of government. The game
of backgammon was played. People wore belts with buckles, usually
brass, instead of knotting their belts.
London extended about a mile along the Thames and about half a
mile inland. It had narrow twisting lanes, some with a ditch down
the middle for water runoff. Most of its houses were two stories,
the ground floor having booths and workshops, and the upper floor
living space. Most of the houses were wooden structures. The
richer merchants' and knights' houses were built of stone. Walls
between houses had to be stone to a height of 16 feet and thatched
roofs were banned because there had been many fires. There was
poor compliance, but some roofs were tiled with red-brick tiles.
The population was about 40,000. There were over 126 churches for
public worship, thirteen monasteries (including nunneries), and
St. Paul's Cathedral. All were built of stone. The churches gave a
place of worship for every 300 inhabitants and celebrated feast
days, gave alms and hospitality to strangers, confirmed betrothals
or agreements of marriage, celebrated weddings, conducted
funerals, and buried the dead. The synod of Westminster of 1175
prescribed that all marriages were to be performed by the church.
Church law required a warning prior to suspension or
excommunication. Monastic, cathedral, and parish schools taught
young boys grammar so they could sing and read in church services.
Nuns taught girls. Fish but no meat was eaten on Fridays. There
was dark rye bread and expensive white wheat bread. Vegetables
included onions, leeks, and cabbage. Fruits included apples,
pears, plums, cherries, and strawberries. Water was obtained from
streams running through the town to the Thames and from springs.
Only the rich, palaces, and churches could afford beeswax candles;
others had home-made tallow [cow or sheep fat] candles which
smelled and gave off smoke. Most people washed their bodies. Even
the poor had beds and bed clothes. Few babies survived childhood.
If a man reached 30, he could expect to live until age 50.
Thousands of Londoners died during a hot summer from fevers,
plague and the like.
In London, bells heralded the start and finish of all organized
business. The sellers of merchandise and hirers of labor were
distributed every morning into their several localities according
to their trade. Vendors, craftsmen, and laborers had their
customary places. Some vendors walked the streets announcing their
wares for sale. There were craft guilds of bakers, butchers,
clothworkers, and saddlers, as well as of weavers. Vendors on the
Thames River bank sold cooked fish caught from the river and wine
from ships and wine cellars. Cook shops sold roasted meats covered
with hotly spiced sauces.
London Bridge was built of stone for the first time. It was
supported by a series of stone arches standing on small man-made
islands. It had such a width that a row of wood houses and a
chapel was built on top of it. In the spring it was impassable by
ships because the flow of water under it varied in height on
either side of the bridge by several feet at half tide. The bridge
had the effect of slowing down the flow upstream, which invited
wherries and rowboats and stately barges of the nobility. In
winters in which it froze over, there was ice skating, ice
boating, and fishing through holes in the ice.
Outside each city gate were clusters of ragged buildings, small
monasteries and hostelries, groups of huntsmen's kennels, and
fencing schools. Outside one of the gates, a horse market was held
every week. Horses wore horseshoes made of iron or of a crude
steel. From the southwest gate of the city along the north river
bank toward Westminster, there was a gradually extending line of
rich men's mansions and bishops' palaces. On the southern bank of
the Thames River was growing the disorderly suburb of Southwark,
with fishermen's and boatmens' hovels, and taverns and brothels
that were frequented by drunkards, rakes, and whores. On the north
side of the city was a great forest with fields and wells where
students and other young men from the city took walks in the fresh
evening air. In some fields, countryfolk sold pigs, cows, oxen and
sheep. Mill wheels turned at various streams. Near London in the
country was a glass factory. At sunset, the gates of London were
closed for the night. All taverns had to be closed, all lights put
out, and all fires banked or covered when the bell of the church
of St. Martin le Grand rang at 9:00 pm. Anyone found on the
streets after this curfew could be arrested. Gangs of young nobles
or gangs of thieves, cutpurses, and looters roamed the streets
after dark and sometimes rioted. Offenders were often beheaded and
their heads placed on spikes on London Bridge.
Men in London had begun weaving cloth, which formerly had been
done by women. Some of the cloth was exported. The weavers guild
of London received a charter by the King in 1155, the first
granted to any London craft: "Know that I have conceded to the
Weavers of London to hold their guild in London with all the
liberties and customs which they had in the time of King Henry
[I], my grandfather; and that none may intermeddle with the craft
within the city, nor in Southwark, nor in other places pertaining
to London except through them and except he be in their guild,
otherwise than was accustomed to be done in the time of King
Henry, my grandfather ...So that each year they render thence to
me two marks [26s.8d.] of gold at the feast of St. Michael. And I
forbid that any shall do injury or contumely to them on this
account under penalty of 10 pounds [200s.]. Witness T[homas],
Chancellor, and Warinus, son of Gerard, Chamberlain, at
Winchester." The liberties obtained were: 1) The weavers may elect
bailiffs to supervise the work of the craft, to punish defaulters,
and to collect the ferm [amount owed to the King]. The bailiffs
were chosen from year to year and swore before the mayor of London
to do and keep their office well and truly. 2) The bailiffs may
hold court from week to week on pleas of debt, agreements,
covenants [promises for certain performance], and minor
trespasses. 3) If any of the guild members are sued in any other
court on any of the above pleas, the guild may challenge that plea
to bring it to the guild court. 4) If any member is behind in his
share of the payment to the King, the bailiffs may distrain his
loom until he has paid this.
Paying an annual payment freed the weavers from liability to
inconsequent royal fines. Failure to make this payment promptly
might have led to loss of the right, hence the rigorous penalty of
distraint upon the looms of individual weavers who fell into
arrears.
The weavers' guild punished members who used bad thread in their
weaving or did defective weaving by showing the default to the
mayor, with opportunity for the workman to make entreaty, and the
mayor and twelve members of the guild then made a verdict of
amercement of 1/2 mark [6s.8d.] and the workman of the cloth was
also punished by the guild bailiffs according to guild custom.
The weavers' guild tradition of brotherliness among members meant
that injury to a fellow weaver incurred a severe penalty. If a
weaver stole or eloigned [removed them to a distance where they
were unreachable] any other weaver's goods falsely and
maliciously, then he was dismissed from the guild and his loom was
taken by the guild to fulfill his portion of the annual payment to
the King. The weavers were allowed to buy and to sell in London
freely and quietly. They had all the rights of other freemen of
the city.
Thus from the middle of the 1100s, the weavers enjoyed the
monopoly of their craft, rights of supervision which ensured a
high standard of workmanship, power to punish infractions of their
privileges, and full control of their members. In this they stand
as the prototype of English medieval guilds. These rights
represented the standard which all bodies of craftsmen desired to
attain. The right of independent jurisdiction was exceptional.
In Henry II's charter to London, London did not retain its right
to appoint its own sheriff and justice given by Henry I. London's
chief magistrate was the mayor, who was appointed by the King,
until 1191. Then the mayor was elected yearly by the aldermen of
the city wards and approved by the king. He was typically a rich
prince chosen by the barons and chief merchants of London. The
commoners had no voice in his selection, but they could still
approve or disapprove of the actions of the city government at
ward and folk motes. At certain periods, a king asserted royal
power over the selection of mayor and governance of the city.
There were three ways to become a citizen of London: being the son
of a citizen, apprenticeship in a craft for seven years, and
purchase of citizenship. London and Westminster growth led to
their replacing Winchester as the capital.
St. Barthomew infirmary was established in London for the care of
sick pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury. It
had been inspired by a monk who saw a vision of St. Barthomew
telling him to build a church and an infirmary.
Trading was facilitated by the stabilization of the amount of
silver metallic content of the English coinage, which was called
"sterling" [strong] silver. The compass, a magnetic lodestone
[leading stone] needle mounted on a cork and floated in a bowl of
water, assisted the navigation of ships. With it, one could tell
the general direction of a ship when the skies were cloudy as well
as clear. And one could generally track one's route by using the
direction and speed of travel to calculate one's new position.
London became a major trading center for foreign goods from many
lands.
About 5% of the knights were literate. Wealthy men sent their sons
to school in monasteries to prepare them for a livelihood in a
profession or in trade or to the town of Oxford, whose individual
scholars had migrated from Paris and had attracted disciples for a
long time. These schools grew up around St. Mary's Church, but had
not been started by the church as there was no cathedral school in
Oxford. Oxford had started as a burh and had a royal residence and
many tradesmen. It was given its basic charter in 1155 by the
King. This confirmed to it all the customs, laws and liberties
[rights] as those enjoyed by London. It became a model charter for
other towns.
Bachelors at Oxford studied the arts of grammar, rhetoric, and
logic, and then music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, until
they mastered their discipline and therefore were authorized to
teach it. Teaching would then provide an income sufficient to
support a wife. The master of arts was analogous to the master
craftsman of a guild. From 1190, the civil law was studied, and
shortly thereafter, canon law. Later came the study of medicine.
The use of paper supplemented the use of parchment for writing.
Irregular edged paper was made from linen, cotton, straw, and/or
wood beaten to a pulp and then spread out over a wire mesh to dry.
Theologicians taught that the universe was made for the sake and
service of man, so man was placed at the center of the universe.
Man was made for the sake and service of God.
Every freeman holding land of a lord gave homage and fealty to
him, swearing to bear him faith of the tenement held and to
preserve his earthly honor in all things, saving the faith owed to
the king. Homage was done for lands, for free tenements, for
services, and for rents precisely fixed in money or in kind.
Homage could be done to any free person, male or female, adult or
minor, cleric or layman. A man could do several homages to
different lords for different fees, but there had to be a chief
homage to that lord of whom he held his chief tenement. Homage was
not due for dower, from the husband of a woman to whom a tenement
was given as a marriage portion, for a fee given in free alms, or
until the third heir, either for free mariatagium [a marriage
portion which is given with a daughter in marriage, that is not
bound to service] or for the fee of younger sisters holding of the
eldest. All fiefs to be inherited by the eldest son had to be
intact. Every lord could exact fealty from his servants.
In this era, the English national race and character was formed.
Only a few barons still had lands in Normandy. Stories of good
King Arthur were popular and set ideals for behavior and justice
in an otherwise barbaric age where force was supreme. His last
battle in which he lay wounded and told a kinsman to rule in his
place and uphold his laws was written in poem ("Layamon's Brut").
Romantic stories were written and read in English. The custom of
"bundling" was started by ladies with their knights, who would lie
together in bed without undressing and with one in a sack the top
of which was tied around his neck, as part of a romantic
courtship. Wealthy men often gave their daughters dowries in case
they were widowed. This might be matched by a marriage settlement
by a prospective husband.
Intermarriage had destroyed any distinction of Normans by look or
speech alone, except for the Anglo-Saxon manor villeins, who
worked the farm land and composed about two-thirds of the
population. Villeins were bound to the land and could, on flight,
be brought back to it. They could not give homage, but could give
fealty. A villein had the equipment to farm, fish, make cheese,
keep poultry, brew beer, hedge, and cut wood. Although the
villeins could not buy their freedom or be freed by their lord,
they became less numerous because of the preference of landholders
for tenants motivated to perform work by potential loss of tenure.
Also, the Crown's protection of all its subjects in criminal
matters blurred the distinction between free and unfree men.