fiscal, military, and general administrative matters. The writs for the
conservation of the peace, directing the taking of the oath, the pursuit
of malefactors, and the observance of watch and ward, were proclaimed in
full county court; attachments were made in obedience to them in the
county court. The county offices were: sheriff, coroner, escheator, and
constable or bailiff. There were 28 sheriffs for 38 counties. The
sheriff was usually a substantial landholder and a knight who had been
prominent in the local court. He usually had a castle in which he kept
persons he arrested. He no longer bought his office and collected
certain rents for himself, but was a salaried political appointee of the
King. He employed a deputy or undersheriff, who was an attorney, and
clerks. If there was civil commotion or contempt of royal authority, the
sheriff of the county had power to raise a posse of armed men to restore
order. The coroner watched the interests of the crown and had duties in
sudden deaths, treasure trove, and shipwreck cases. There were about
five coroners per county and they served for a number of years. They
were chosen by the county court. The escheator was appointed annually by
the Treasurer to administer the Crown's rights in feudal land, which
until 1242 had been the responsibility of the sheriff. He was usually
chosen from the local gentry. The constable and bailiff operated at the
hundred and parish [the geographical area of a church's members] level
to detect crime and keep the peace. They assisted sheriffs and Justices
of the Peace, organized watches for criminals and vagrants at the
village level, and raised the hue and cry along the highway and from
village to village in pursuit of offenders who had committed felony or
robbery. The constables also kept the royal castles; they recruited,
fed, and commanded the castle garrison.
County knights served sheriffs, coroners, escheators, and justices on
special royal commissions of gaol-delivery. They sat in judgment in the
county court at its monthly meetings, attended the two great annual
assemblies when the lord, knights and freeholders of the county gathered
to meet the itinerant justices who came escorted by the sheriff and
weapon bearers. They served on the committees which reviewed the
presentments of the hundreds and village, and carried the record of the
county court to Westminster when summoned there by the kings' justices.
They served on the grand assize. As elected representatives of their
fellow knights of the county, they assessed any taxes due from each
hundred. Election might be by nomination by the sheriff from a fixed
list, by choice, or in rotation. They investigated and reported on local
abuses and grievances. The King's justices and council often called on
them to answer questions put to them on oath. In the villages, humbler
freeholders and sokemen were elected to assess the village taxes. Six
villeins answered for the village's offenses before the royal itinerant
justice.
Reading and writing in the English language was taught. The use of
English ceased to be a mark of vulgarity. In 1258 the first governmental
document was issued in English as well as in Latin and French, and later
Latin started falling into disuse. Boys of noblemen were taught reading,
writing, Latin, a musical instrument, athletics, riding, and gentlemanly
conduct. Girls were taught reading, writing, music, dancing, and perhaps
household nursing and first aid, spinning, embroidery, and gardening.
Girls of high social position were also taught riding and hawking.
Grammar schools taught, in Latin, grammar, dialectic (ascertaining word
meaning by looking at its origin, its sound (e.g. soft or harsh), its
power (e.g. robust and strong sound), its inflection, and its order; and
avoiding obscurity and ambiguity in statements), and rhetoric [art of
public speaking, oratory, and debate]. The teacher possessed the only
complete copy of the Latin text, and most of the school work was done
orally. Though books were few and precious, the students read several
Latin works. Girls and boys of high social position usually had private
teachers for grammar school, while boys of lower classes were sponsored
at grammar schools such as those at Oxford. Discipline was maintained by
the birch or rod.
There was no examination for admission as an undergraduate to Oxford,
but a knowledge of Latin with some skill in speaking Latin was a
necessary background. The students came from all backgrounds. Some had
their expenses paid by their parents, while others had the patronage of
a churchman, a religious house, or a wealthy layman. They studied the
"liberal arts", which derived its name from "liber" or free, because
they were for the free men of Rome rather than for the economic purposes
of those who had to work. The works of Greek authors such as Aristotle
were now available; the European monk Thomas Aquinas had edited
Aristotle's works to reconcile them to church doctrine. He opined that
man's intellectual use of reason did not conflict with the religious
belief that revelation came only from God, because reason was given to
man by God. He shared Aristotle's belief that the earth was a sphere,
and that the celestial bodies moved around it in perfect circles. Latin
learning had already been absorbed without detriment to the church.
A student at Oxford would become a master after graduating from a seven
year course of study of the seven liberal arts: [grammar, rhetoric (the
source of law), Aristotelian logic (which differentiates the true from
the false), arithmetic, including fractions and ratios, (the foundation
of order), geometry, including methods of finding the length of lines,
the area of surfaces, and the volume of solids, (the science of
measurement), astronomy (the most noble of the sciences because it is
connected with divinity and theology), music and also Aristotle's
philosophy of physics, metaphysics, and ethics; and then lecturing and
leading disputations for two years. He also had to write a thesis on
some chosen subject and defend it against the faculty. A Master's degree
gave one the right to teach. Further study for four years led to a
doctorate in one of the professions: theology and canon or civil law.
There were about 1,500 students in Oxford. They drank, played dice,
quarreled a lot and begged at street corners. There were mob fights
between students from the north and students from the south and between
students and townsmen. But when the mayor of Oxford hanged two students
accused of being involved in the killing of a townswoman, many masters
and students left for Cambridge. In 1214, a charter created the office
of Chancellor of the university at Oxford. He was responsible for law
and order and, through his court, could fine, imprison, and
excommunicate offenders and expel undesirables such as prostitutes from
the town. He had authority over all crimes involving scholars, except
murder and mayhem. The Chancellor summoned and presided over meetings of
the masters and came to be elected by indirect vote by the masters who
had schools, usually no more than a room or hall with a central hearth
which was hired for lectures. Students paid for meals there. Corners of
the room were often partitioned off for private study. At night, some
students slept on the straw on the floor. Six hours of sleep were
considered sufficient. In 1231, the king ordered that every student must
have his name on the roll of a master and the masters had to keep a list
of those attending his lectures.
In 1221 the friars established their chief school at Oxford. They were
bound by oaths of poverty, obedience, and chastity, but were not
confined within the walls of a monastery. They walked barefoot from
place to lace preaching. They begged for their food and lodgings. They
replaced monks, who had become self-indulgent, as the most vital
spiritual force among the people.
The first college was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, former
Chancellor to the King, at Oxford. A college had the living arrangements
of a Hall, with the addition of monastic-type rules. A warden and about
30 scholars lived and ate meals together in the college buildings.
Merton College's founding documents provided that:
[1] "The house shall be called the House of the Scholars of Merton, and
it shall be the residence of the Scholars forever.
[2] There shall be a constant succession of scholars devoted to the
study of letters, who shall be bound to employ themselves in the study
of Arts or Philosophy, the Canons or Theology. Let there also be one
member of the collegiate body, who shall be a grammarian, and must
entirely devote himself to the study of grammar; let him have the care
of the students in grammar, and to him also let the more advanced have
recourse without a blush, when doubts arise in their faculty.
[3] There is to be one person in every chamber, where Scholars are
resident, of more mature age than the others, who is to make his report
of their morals and advancement in learning to the Warden
[4] The Scholars who are appointed to the duty of studying in the House
are to have a common table, and a dress as nearly alike as possible.
[5] The members of the College must all be present together, as far as
their leisure serves, at the canonical hours and celebration of masses
on holy and other days.
[6] The Scholars are to have a reader at meals, and in eating together
they are to observe silence, and to listen to what is read. In their
chambers, they must abstain from noise and interruption of their
fellows; and when they speak they must use the Latin language.
[7] A Scrutiny shall be held in the House by the Warden and the Seniors,
and all the Scholars there present, three times a year; a diligent
inquiry is to be instituted into the life, conduct, morals, and progress
in learning, of each and all; and what requires correction then is to be
corrected, and excesses are to be visited with condign punishment. . ."
Educated men (and those of the 1200s through the 1500s), believed that
the earth was the center of the universe and that it was surrounded by a
giant spherical dome on which the stars were placed. The sun and moon
and planets were each on a sphere around the earth that was responsible
for their movements. The origin of the word "planet" meant "wanderer"
because the motion of the planets changed in direction and speed.
Astrology explained how the position of the stars and planets influenced
man and other earthly things. For instance, the position of the stars at
a person's birth determined his character. The angle and therefore
potency of the sun's rays influenced climate, temperament, and changes
of mortal life such as disease and revolutions. Unusual events such as
the proximity of two planets, a comet, an eclipse, a meteor, or a nova
were of great significance. A star often was thought to presage the
birth of a great man or a hero. There was a propitious time to have a
marriage, go on a journey, make war, and take herbal medicine or be bled
by leeches, the latter of which was accompanied by religious ceremony.
Cure was by God, with medical practitioners only relieving suffering.
But there were medical interventions such as pressure and binding were
applied to bleeding. Arrow and sword wounds to the skin or to any
protruding intestine were washed with warm water and sewn up with needle
and silk thread. Ribs were spread apart by a wedge to remove arrow
heads. Fractured bones were splinted or encased in plaster. Dislocations
were remedied. Hernias were trussed. Bladder stones blocking urination
were pushed back into the bladder or removed through an artificial
opening in the bladder. Surgery was performed by butchers, blacksmiths,
and barbers.
Roger Bacon, an Oxford master, began the science of physics. He read
Arab writers on the source of light rays being from the object seen, the
nature of refraction and reflection of light, and the properties of
lenses. He studied the radiation of light and heat. He studied angles of
reflection in plane, spherical, cylindrical, and conical mirrors, in
both their concave and convex aspects. He did experiments in refraction
in different media, e.g. air, water, and glass, and knew that the human
cornea refracted light, and that the human eye lens was doubly convex.
He comprehended the magnifying power of convex lenses and conceptualized
the combination of lenses which would increase the power of vision by
magnification. He realized that rays of light pass so much faster than
those of sound or smell that the time is imperceptible to humans. He
knew that rays of heat and sound penetrate all matter without our
awareness and that opaque bodies offered resistance to passage of light
rays. He knew the power of parabolic concave mirrors to cause parallel
rays to converge after reflection to a focus and knew that a mirror
could be produced that would start a fire at a fixed distance. These
insights made it possible for jewelers and weavers to use lenses to view
their work instead of glass globes full of water, which distorted all
but the center of the image: "spherical aberration". The lens, whose
opposite surfaces were sections of spheres, took the place of the
central parts of the globe over the image.
He knew about magnetic poles attracting, if different and repelling, if
the same, and the relation of magnets' poles to those of the heavens and
earth. He calculated the circumference of the world and the latitude and
longitude of terrestrial positions. He foresaw sailing around the world.
He studied the planetary motions and astronomical tables to forecast
future events. He did calculations on days in a month and days in a year
which later contributed to the legal definition of a leap year. His
explanation of a rainbow as a result of natural laws was contrary to
theological opinion that a rainbow was placed in the heavens to assure
mankind that there was not to be another universal deluge.
Bacon began the science of chemistry when he took the empirical
knowledge as to a few metals and their oxides and some of the principal
alkalis, acids, and salts to the abstract level of metals as compound
bodies the elements of which might be separated and recomposed and
changed among the states of solid, liquid, and gas. When he studied
man's physical nature, health, and disease, he opined that the
usefulness of a talisman was not to bring about a physical change, but
to bring the patient into a frame of mind more conducive to physical
healing. He urged that there be experiments in chemistry to develop
medicinal drugs.
He studied different kinds of plants and the differences between arable
land, forest land, pasture land, and garden land.
Bacon was an extreme proponent of the inductive method of finding
truths, e.g. by categorizing all available facts on a certain subject to
ascertain the natural laws governing it. His contribution to the
development of science was abstracting the method of experiment from the
concrete problem to see its bearing and importance as a universal method
of research. He advocated changing education to include studies of the
natural world using observation, exact measurement, and experiments.
The making and selling of goods diverged e.g. as the cloth merchant
severed from the tailor and the leather merchant severed from the
butcher. These craftsmen formed themselves into guilds, which sought
charters to require all craftsmen to belong to the guild of their craft,
to have legal control of the craft work, and be able to expel any
craftsman for disobedience. These guilds were composed of master
craftsmen, their journeymen, and apprentices. These guilds determined
the wages and working conditions of the craftsmen and petitioned the
borough authorities for ordinances restraining trade, for instance by
controlling the admission of outsiders to the craft, preventing
foreigners from selling in the town except at fairs, limiting purchases
of raw materials to suppliers within the town, forbidding night work,
restricting the number of apprentices to each master craftsmen, and
requiring a minimum number of years for apprenticeships. In return,
these guilds assured quality control. In some boroughs, they did work
for the town, such as maintaining certain defensive towers or walls of
the town near their respective wards. In some boroughs, fines for
infractions of these regulations were split between the guild and the
government.
In some towns, the merchant guilds attempted to directly regulate the
craft guilds. Crafts fought each other. There was a street battle with
much bloodshed between the goldsmiths and the parmenters and between the
tailors and the cordwainers in 1267 in London. There was also a major
fight between the goldsmiths and the tailors in 1268. The Parish Clerks'
Company was chartered in 1233.
The citizens of London had a common seal for the city. London merchants
traveled throughout the nation with goods to sell exempt from tolls.
Most of the London aldermen were woolmongers, vintners, skinners, and
grocers by turns or carried on all these branches of commerce at once.
Jews were allowed to make loans with interest up to 2d. a week for 20s.
lent. There are three inns in London. Inns typically had narrow facades,
large courtyards, lodging and refreshment for the well-off, warehousing
and marketing facilities for merchants, and stabling and repairs for
wagons. Caregiving infirmaries such as "Bethlehem Hospital" were
established in London. One was a lunatic infirmary founded by the
sheriff of London. Only tiles were used for roofing in London, because
wood shingles were fire hazards and fires in London had been frequent.
Some areas near London are disclaimed by the king to be royal forest
land, so all citizens could hunt there and till their land there without
interference by the royal foresters. The Sheriff's court in London lost
its old importance and handled mainly trespass and debt cases, while
important cases went to the Hustings, which was presided over by the
Mayor with the sheriffs and aldermen in attendance. From the early
1200s, the Mayor's Court took on the work which the weekly Husting could
not manage. This consisted mostly of assault and robbery cases. Murder
and manslaughter cases were left to the royal courts.
London aldermen were elected by the citizens of their respective wards
in wardmotes, in which was also arranged the watch, protection against
fire, and probably also assessment of the taxes within the ward. There
was much effort by the commoners to influence the governance of the
city. In 1261 they forced their way into the townmote and by this brute
show of strength, which threatened riot, they made their own candidate
mayor. Subsequent elections were tumultuous.
The Tower of London now had outer walls of fortress buildings
surrounded by a wide and deep moat, over which was one stone causeway
and wooden drawbridge. Within this was an inner curtain wall with twelve
towers and an inner moat. The palace within was a principal residence of
English monarchs, whose retinue was extensive, including the chief
officers of state: Lord High Steward, Lord High Chancellor, Lord High
Treasurer, Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord High Constable, Keeper of the
Seals, and the King's Marshall; lesser officials such as the Chamberlain
of the Candles, Keeper of the Tents, Master Steward of the Larder, Usher
of the Spithouse, Marshall of the Trumpets, Keeper of the Books, Keeper
of the Dishes and of the Cups, and Steward of the Buttery; and numbers
of cat hunters, wolf catchers, clerks and limners, carters, water
carriers, washerwomen and laundresses, chaplains, lawyers, archers,
huntsmen, hornblowers, barbers, minstrels, guards and servitors, and
bakers and confectioners. The fortress also contained a garrison,
armory, chapels, stables, forge, wardrobe for a tailor's workroom and
secure storage of valuable clothes, silver plate, and expensive imports
such as sugar, rice, almonds, dried fruits, cinnamon, saffron, ginger,
galingale, zedoary, pepper, nutmeg, and mace. There was a kitchen with
courtyard for cattle, poultry, and pigs; dairy, pigeon loft, brewery,
beehives, fruit stores, gardens for vegetables and herbs; and sheds for
gardeners. There was also a mint, which minted a gold penny worth 2s. of
silver, a jewel house, and a menagerie (with leopards, lions, a bear,
and an elephant). The fortress also served as a state prison. Most
prisoners there had opposed the royal will; they were usually permitted
to live in quarters in the same style they were used to, including
servants and visits by family and friends. But occasionally prisoners
were confined in irons in dark and damp dungeons.
The King's family, immediate circle, and most distinguished guests
dined elegantly in the Great Hall at midday. They would first wash their
hands in hot water poured by servants over bowls. The table had silver
plate, silver spoons, and cups of horn, crystal, maple wood, or silver
laid on a white cloth. Each guest brought his own knife in a leather
sheath attached to a belt or girdle. A procession of servitors brought
the many dishes to which the gentlemen helped the ladies and the young
their seniors by placing the food in scooped-out half-loaves of bread
that were afterwards distributed to the poor. A wine cup was handed
around the table. In the winter after dinner, there would often be games
of chess or dice or songs of minstrels, and sometimes dancing, juggler
or acrobat displays, or storytelling by a minstrel. In the summer there
were outdoor games and tournaments. Hunting with hounds or hawks was
popular with both ladies and gentlemen. The King would go to bed on a
feather mattress with fur coverlet that was surrounded by linen
hangings. His grooms would sleep on trundle beds in the same room. The
queen likewise shared her bedchamber with several of her ladies sleeping
on trundle beds. Breakfast was comprised of a piece of bread and a cup
of wine taken after the daily morning mass in one of the chapels.
Sometimes a round and deep tub was brought into the bedchamber by
servants who poured hot water onto the bather in the tub. Baths were
often taken in the times of Henry III, who believed in cleanliness and
sanitation. Henry III was also noted for his luxurious tastes. He had a
linen table cloth, goblets of mounted cocoa-nut, a glass cup set in
crystal, and silk and velvet mattresses, cushions, and bolster. He had
many rooms painted with gold stars, green and red lions, and painted
flowers. To his sister on her marriage, he gave goldsmith's work, a
chess table, chessmen in an ivory box, silver pans and cooking vessels,
robes of cloth of gold, embroidered robes, robes of scarlet, blue, and
green fine linen, Genoese cloth of gold, two napkins, and thirteen
towels.
In the King's 1235 grant to Oxford, the Mayor and good men were
authorized to take weekly for three years 1/2 d. on every cart entering
the town loaded with goods, if it was from the county, or 1d. if it came
from outside the county; 1/4 d. for every horse load, except for
brushwood; 1/2 d. on every horse, mare, ox, or cow brought to sell; and
1/2 d. for every five sheep, goats, or pigs.
English ships had one mast with a square sail. The hulls were made of
planks overlapping each other. There was a high fore castle [tower] on
the bow, a top castle on the mast, and a high stern castle from which to
shoot arrows down on other ships. There were no rowing oars, but
steering was still by an oar on the starboard side of the ship. The
usual carrying capacity was 30 tuns [big casks of wine each with about
250 gallons]. On the coasts there were lights and beacons. Harbors at
river mouths were kept from silting up. Ships were loaded from piers.
The construction of London Bridge had just been finished. Bricks began
to be imported for building. About 10% of the population lived in towns.
Churches had stained glass windows.
Newcastle-on-Tyne received these new rights:
1. And that they shall justly have their lands and tenures and
mortgages and debts, whoever owes them to them.
2. Concerning their lands and tenures within the town, right shall be
done to them according to the custom of the city Winton.