Historical Notes of Clause 15: Breach of Faith - King's Justice or Ecclesiastical Court?

Cap. XV. Placita de debitis quae fide interposita debentur, vel absque interpositione fidei, sint in justitia regis.

Clause 15. Pleas concerning debts, which are owed on the basis of an oath or in connection with which no oath has been taken, are in the king's justice.

or

Let those pleas of debts, which are due with or without the interposition of a trust, be in the king's jurisdiction.

As early as the reign of king Stephen the Church had attempted to turn the ecclesiastical courts into ones dealing with matters of equity. For example, the Church claimed that suits involving pro laesione fidei [for injury to faith] belonged to its courts, as the matter concerned the harm and damages done by breach of faith or promise, and the Church considered these to be spiritual offences against the conscience. Thus the Church regarded that any case concerning the non-payment of debt or any breach of contract to be its business. Clause 15 of the Constitutions of Clarendon was instituted to put a stop to this practice, by stating pleas of debt belonged to the king's justice, thereby seeking to abolish the Church's right to hear such suits. The pope condemned this clause.

The Bible is peppered with the language of debt. Sin, forgiveness, reckoning, redemption - all of these words actually derive from the language of religion.  Debt is sin: Forgive us our debt.

Debt was very common amongst the lower classes. Cash, that is silver pennies, or physical money was largely used only for paying taxes to the king. Commonly if one wanted to "buy" a cow on credit one generally borrowed it from the creditor; one obtained the cow on loan for a pledge: in essence one had leased the cow. If the debt fell foul for any reason, a plea of debt was raised by the lender with the court. The claimant if the case were proved would be entitled to the promised pledge. Usury was strictly again Canon Law for Christians.

One problem this procedure was likely to generate was physical proof that a contract had been made, such as a tally-stick.

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by John W. Baldwin

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Published by: Duke University Press

http://www.jstor.org/stable/286242

...

In twelfth century Normandy as throughout
Western Europe many contracts involving landed property and moveables
contained a pledge of faith (fides) in support of the obligations
of the contract. By this means contracting parties pledged their
Christianity to fulfill the terms of the agreement. Parallel to this pledge,
they might also swear an oath (sacramentum, juramentum) to guarantee
the contract. Since both the pledge of faith and the oath were
religious acts, contracts containing them were considered by the churchmen
to come under ecclesiastical jurisdiction.
...
In the Constitutions of Clarendon King Henry II decreed that pleas of debts,
whether involving the pledge of faith or not, belonged to the king.
His meaning is not entirely clear, but Archbishop Thomas Becket's
party understood him to deprive the ecclesiastical courts of all competence
over breach of faith and perjury. Pope Alexander III condemned
this proposition, and after Becket's murder Henry retracted his innovation.