Friday, 19 October 2012

Edward Grim Woodstock July 1163


Description by Edward Grim of the events that took place at the Council of Woodstock July 1163

Extract from


VS Thomae auct Grim pp 21 22 Commorante rege in praedio suo apud Wodestoke praesente archiepiscopo et primis patriae inter alia movetur quaestio de consuetudine quadam quae in Anglia tenebatur. Dabantur de hida bini solidi ministris regis qui vicecomitum loco comitatus servabant quos voluit rex conscribere fisco et reditibus propriis associare. Cui archiepi scopus in faciem restitit dicens non debere eos exigi pro reditibus nec pro reditu inquit dabimus eos domine rex salvo beneplacito vostro sed si digne nobis servierint vicecomites et servientes vel ministri provinciarum et homines nostros manu tenuerint nequaquam eis deerimus in auxilium. Rex autem aegre ferens archiepiscopi responsionem. Per oculos Dei ait dabuntur pro reditu et in scriptura regis scribeutur nec dignum est ut contradicas cum nemo tuos contra voluntatem tuam gravare velit Praevidens archiepiscopus et praecavens ne per ipsius patientiam consuetudo induceretur unde posteri gravarentur per reverentiam oculorum quos jurasti domine mi rex non dabuntur de tota terra mea et de jure ecclesiae ne unius quidem denarius.

Materials for The Life of Thomas Becket Volume II p.273

The king, whilst in residence on his estate at Woodstock, [in Council July 1163] in the presence of the archbishop and the magnates of the realm, motioned a question concerning a certain custom which [at that time] prevailed in England.[The custom was that] two shillings for each each hide [of land] which was paid over to the officers of the king, who, as sheriffs guarded the counties: this income he considered as a loss of revenue to the exchequer and he, as the king, wanted it to be enrolled [inscribed] as his own income. The archbishop resisted him, to his face, saying it should not be considered as the king's income. "Not from us," he said, "should this be given as revenue, my lord the king, saving your pleasure. but if we have been served by the sheriffs in a worthy manner or [also] by the officials and ministers of the shires we [of the Church] will not withhold contribution to their aid". But the king was greatly troubled with the archbishop's response. "By the eyes of God," he said, "it will be recorded as the king's revenue. Nor is the right to contradict me, when no one would anger your men against your will."  Foreseeing this, the archbishop and his patience, cautioning that the practice would be introduced so that future generations would not be burdened, "by the reverence of the eyes which you have sworn, my lord the king, from the whole my land and by the right of the Church, not a single penny will be given."

Reference


W.D. Handock (23 July 1996). English Historical Documents 1833-1874. II. Routledge. pp. 761–. ISBN 978-0-415-14374-5.

 British Library Reference
  • Title: English historical documents / general editor, David C. Douglas.
  • Contributor: David Charles Douglas 1898-
  • Subjects: Great Britain -- History -- Sources ;
    Dewey: 941
  • Publication Details: London : E. Methuen ; 1979- 
  • Language: English 
  • Edition: 2nd ed.. 
  • Description: Contents: 
  • v. 2. 1042-1189 / edited by David C. Douglas and George W. Greenaway 
  • Identifier: 
  • ISBN 0415143616 (set);
  • ISBN 0413325008 (v. 2 : 1981 printing); 
  • ISBN 019520235X (v. 2 : U.S. : 1981 printing); ISBN 0415143675 (v. 2);
  • Notes: Previous ed.: 1953-1977. -- This ed. reissued in 1996 by Routledge, transferred to digital printing 2003--T.p. verso. 
    Bibliography note: Includes bibliographical references and index. 
  • Physical Description: v. : 24 cm. 
  • Shelfmark(s): Document Supply 80/0362 vol. 1 
    Document Supply 81/19579 vol. 2 
    Document Supply 98/24347 vol. 6 
    General Reference Collection X.0800/1544 
    Open Access  Humanities 1 Reading Room HLR 941 
    Document Supply 99/18987 vol. 7 
    General Reference Collection YC.1996.b.985 
    Document Supply 98/16355 vol. 3 
  • UIN: BLL01013418092 

    English Historical Documents. v. 2, 1042-1189. Ed. D. C. Douglas & G. W. Greenaway - Internet Archive https://bit.ly/3NnNnvv
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Wednesday, 3 October 2012

Legal Procedure: Trial by Battle, Trial by Ordeal

'Introduction: Trial by Battle', Final Concords of the County of Lincoln:
1244-1272(1920), pp. XXXVI-XXXVII.
http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53610

 In an action originated by writ of right the tenant could choose trial by battle instead of submitting his cause to the verdict of his neighbours. Battle for judicial purposes was a Norman custom which was imported into England after the Conquest. Like the ordeal by fire or by water, it belonged to the time when men sought miraculous proof for doubtful facts, and thought that by these means God would defend the right.

 The arms of the combatants were a square shield for defence and, for offence, a weapon like a hammer with a head pointed at either end and tipped with horn, which probably represented the war-axe, the old national weapon of the Franks.  A legal writer, circa 1290, says that the combatants are to fight without the slightest armour, their heads uncovered, their hands and feet bare. The demandant's champion lost the battle if he failed to beat his opponent before the stars could be seen in the firmament.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_combat

Herbert Broom; Sir William Blackstone; Edward Alfred Hadley (1869). Commentaries on the laws of England. Volume III. W. Maxwell & Son. pp. 375–8 Footnote (b).

George Neilson; Angelo Piero Sereni (29 December 2009). Trial by Combat. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-1-58477-985-8.

http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Wager

History of Law Blog. 2011. Oaths and Ordeals.
http://www.historyoflaw.co.uk/oaths-ordeals/

 George Lyttelton (1st baron.) (1772). The history of the life of king Henry the second, Trial by Battle. pp. 297–.

 Francis Palgrave (1832). The rise and progress of the English Commonwealth: Anglo-Saxon period. Trial by Battle: John Murray. pp. 219–.

 W. L. Warren (1977). Henry II. Chapter 9: Royal Justice: University of California Press. pp. 317–. ISBN 978-0-520-03494-5.

Related Topic

Trial by Fire/Trial by Ordeal = judicium Dei


George Crabb (1831). A history of English law  Judgment by Ordeal: C. Goodrich. pp. 29–.


The beginning of the abolishment of Trial by Ordeal was not formally begun by the Church until the Lateran Council of 1213.
'Trial by Ordeal: The Key to Proof in Early Common Law' by Hyams in
Morris S. Arnold (1981). On the laws and custoy Ordealms of England: essays in honor of Samuel E. Thorne. pp. 90-126, University of North Carolina Press.

Robert Bartlett (2 June 1988). Trial by fire and water: the medieval judicial ordeal. Clarendon Press. ISBN 978-0-19-822735-9.



Peter T. Leeson
Journal of Law and Economics
Vol. 55, No. 3 (August 2012), pp. 691-714
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Article Stable URL:http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/664010


 Oll.libertyfund.org. 1908. Online Library of Liberty - 31.: JAMES BRADLEY THAYER, THE OLDER MODES OF TRIAL 1 - Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, vol. 2. 
http://oll.libertyfund.org/?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=2082&chapter=158497&layout=html&Itemid=27

Superstition To Science: Nature, Fortune, And The Passing Of The Medieval Ordeal
Charles M. Radding
The American Historical Review
Vol. 84, No. 4 (Oct., 1979), Pp. 945-9690
Published By: Oxford University Press
Article Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1904610


Frederick Pollock; F. w. Maitland. The History of English Law Before the Time of Edward I. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.. pp. 38–. ISBN 978-1-58477-718-2.
Henry Charles Lea (1973). The ordeal. University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 978-0-8122-1061-3

Henry Charles Lea (1974). The duel and the oath. University of Pennsylvania Press.

Oaths and Ordeals - History of Law Blog

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Assize Utrum

Extract from
'Introduction: Original writs', Final Concords of the County of Lincoln: 1244-1272(1920), pp. XXXI-XXXVI. URL: http://www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=53609 

The writ iuris utrum.

In the twelfth century the church had established the principle that disputes about land which had been given in frank almoign, that is land held by services of a purely religious nature, should be decided in the courts christian, that is the ecclesiastical courts. Sometimes, however, a preliminary question would arise, 'Is this land alms, or is it lay fee ?' The writ iuris utrum directed the sheriff to summon twelve free and lawful men to recognize (recognoscere) or decide whether (utrum) it was alms or lay fee. The assize utrum at first settled nothing about the greater right of either party; but later it became an action by which a parson could recover his right to land, and thus it came to be known as 'the parson's writ of right.'

 Extract from
 R. C. Caenegem (24 November 1988). The Birth of the English Common Law. Cambridge University Press. pp. 48–. ISBN 978-0-521-35682-4. 
The third in these series, the assize utrum, is less important. It really started as a preliminary suit to decide 'whether' (utrum) a certain fee was lay or ecclesiatical; according to the answer, teh case belonged to the lay or the Church courts (a touchy and often difficult point in the twelfth century(. But more was involved than the legal nature of a tenure and the competence of a court, for the spiritual services due for an ecclestical tenure (frankalmoin, franca elemosina) was very different from the more material ones that weighed on a knight's fee. Since those services were often the very cause of the dispute, the decision on the nature of the tenement decided the real issue. Consequently, in the course of time, utrum became an action in its own right aksed and paid for by private parties, protecting the interests of parsons, i.e. the free alms of their churches 


 Equity Also the Forms of Action at Common Law: Two Courses of Lectures. CUP Archive. pp. 326–. GGKEY:QYSKB6K50AZ.

John W. Baldwin (19 June 1991). The Government of Philip Augustus: Foundations of French Royal Power in the Middle Ages. University of California Press. pp. 319–. ISBN 978-0-520-07391-3.

 Carl Stephenson; Frederick George Marcham (1937). Sources of English constitutional history: a selection of documents from A.D. 600 to the present. Harper & brothers. pp. 83–.

 Arnold-Baker (27 March 2001). Companion to British History. Taylor & Francis. pp. 63–. ISBN 978-0-415-18583-7. 

 Ranulf de Glanville (1812). A Translation of Glanville. W. Reed. pp. 328–.
Samuel E. Thorne (1 July 1984). "5. The Assize Utrum and the Canon Law in England". Essays in English Legal History. Continuum. pp. 51–. ISBN 978-0-8264-4305-2.

 Charles Homer Haskins . Norman Institutions. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. pp. 173–. ISBN 978-1-58477-710-6.

 
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Flight from Northampton (Herbert of Boseham)

Flight Herbert of Boseham

















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Tuesday, 2 October 2012

Henry I's Charter of Liberties

Charter of Liberties or Henry I's Coronation Charter

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charter_of_Liberties
http://www.britannia.com/history/docs/charter.html



George Lyttelton (1777). The History of the Life of King Henry the Second: Carta Libertatum Angliae Regis Henrici II: J. Dodsley. pp. 512–.

Laws of King Cnut and other Anglo-Saxon kings
Manuscript G - British Library MS Cotton Nero A.I
http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/manuscripts/g/?tp=d

Coronation charter of Henry I, 1100
Lambeth Palace Library
Shelfmark: MS 1212
http://www.bl.uk/collection-items/coronation-charter-of-henry-i#sthash.I8F7yYf7.dpuf
Cartulary of the See of Canterbury
ff. 97v-98r/pp. 187-188


In this Charter in Clause 1 he promises
...
Know that by the mercy of God and the common counsel of the barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of this said kingdom; and because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions, I, through fear of God and the love which I have toward you all, in the first place make the holy church of God free, so that I will neither sell nor let out to farm, nor on the death of archbishop or bishop or abbot will I take anything from the church’s demesne or from its men until the successor shall enter it. 

And I take away all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England was unjustly oppressed; which evil customs I here set down in part:
...

Augustin Thierry. History of the Conquest of England by the Normans: Its Causes, and Its Consequences, in England, Scotland, Ireland, and on the Continent. Cambridge University Press. pp. 344–. ISBN 978-1-108-03023-6.

George Lord Lyttelton (1767). The History of the Life of King Henry the Second, and of the Age in which He Lived ... a History of the Revolutions of England from the Death of Edward the Confessor to the Birth of Henry the Second. 2. Ed. Sandby. pp. 292–.

Ranulf Flambard - Wikipedia
Under William Rufus, he held the king's seal, and also was his financial administrator for the kingdom. He devised novel methods of raising revenue for the crown and was given custody of a number of vacant ecclesiastical offices, administering at one point sixteen vacant bishoprics or abbacies, which he set about "farming" for their revenue. 

 Escheat - Wikipedia
Regalian right - Wikipedia

 The regalia [lands, palaces etc.] of abbacies and bishopics technically belonged to the crown.Bishops and abbots were given these by the king just before they were consecrated in and to their new offices as bishops or abbots, and after they had sworn allegiance to the king and done homage for these lands and property. After the abbot or bishop died or had gone into exile, because they had no heirs or legal occupants, the regalia reverted [escheated] to the king, for his own personal use. The longer therefore a king could keep a bishopric or abbacy vacant the better it was for his income.

Among the ways that could be used when "farming" a vacant see were creating new knights' fees on the estate, chopping down its woodlands and orchards and selling the lumber, expelling monks from lands occupied by them and renting them, renting the lands from vacated churches to other churchmen, royal officials, and the like, all this and more, as well as the regular revenue that such lands and property would generate.

 King Henry I's coronation charter Clause I effectively promised that he would not abuse his privileges or rights concerning vacant sees or ruthlessly exploit them. He did, however, collect the revenues from vacant sees, but not as excessively as his brother William Rufus had done under his administrator, Ranulf Flambard who treated ecclesiastical fiefs as if they were equivalent to temporal ones, subject to all kinds of exactions and reliefs.

 Constitutions of Clarendon: Concordat of London 1107 and Clause 12 of the Constitutions



Feudal England : historical studies on the XIth and XIIth centuries by J.H. Round, John Horace, pp. 308-

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Magnum Concilium

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_Concilium

In the Kingdom of England, the Magnum Concilium, or Great Council, was an assembly convened at certain times of the year when church leaders and wealthy landowners were invited to discuss the affairs of the country with the king. It was established in the reign of the Normans. In ancient times the king would call the Great Council and the King's Court (Curia Regis), semi-professional advisors who would stay behind until the work was done.

 http://archive.org/stream/constitutionalh27stubgoog#page/n381/mode/1up

 These courts were held on the great Church festivals, Christmas, Easter, and Whitsun: generally at the great cities of southern England, London, Winchester, and Gloucester '. The king appeared wearing his crown ; a special peace was maintained, necessarily no doubt in consequence of the multitude of armed retainers who attended the barons'; and magnificent hospitality was accorded to all comers. And at these times all tbe men of England were with him, archbishops, bishops and abbots, earls, thegns and knights.' A similar usage was observed by his sons, although neither he nor they regularly followed the rotation thus described'; they called together their baron whenever and wherever they pleased ; and many of their courts were held at their forest palaces in Wiltshire and Berkshire. Under Henry I the number of places of council was largely increased, and the enlarged accommodation afforded by the growing monasteries! was utilised. Councils were held at Windsor, Rockingham, Woodstock, among the forest palaces ; at Oxford, Northampton, and other midland towns'. 

 Thrice a year,' says the Chronicle, 'King William wore his crown every year that he was in England ; at Easter he wore it at Winchester, at Pentecost at Westminster, and at Christmas at Gloucester.
The crown was placed on the king's head by the archbisbop, on these occasions in his own chamber, before he walked in procession.

References

The Edinburgh Review Or Critical Journal. A. and C. Black. 1816. pp. 338–.

The representative history of Great Britain and Ireland: being a history of the House of Commons, and of the counties, cities, and boroughs of the United Kingdom .. Volume I : Oldfield, T. H. B. - Internet Archive

The representative history of Great Britain and Ireland: being a history of the House of Commons, and of the counties, cities, and boroughs of the United Kingdom Volume II.. : Oldfield, T. H. B. - Internet Archive

The representative history of Great Britain and Ireland: being a history of the House of Commons, and of the counties, cities, and boroughs of the United Kingdom Volume III .. : Oldfield, T. H. B. - Internet Archive

 J. R. Maddicott (2010). The Origins of the English Parliament, 924-1327. OUP Oxford. ISBN 978-0-19-161501-6.


http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=9o1HAQAAIAAJ

 http://maldencapell.wordpress.com/2010/04/28/the-magnum-concilium-the-germ-of-parliament/

Sir William Blackstone; James Stewart; William Blackstone Collection (Library of Congress) (1839). The rights of persons, according to the text of Blackstone: incorporating the alterations down to the present time. Edmund Spettigue. pp. 150–.

 Thomas Erskine May (1863). A treatise upon the law, privileges, proceedings and usage of Parliament. pp. 7–.

 Sir William Betham (1834). The Origin and History of the Constitution of England: And of the Early Parliaments of Ireland. W. Curry, Jun

English Constitution

 
Gneist on the English Constitution
G. W. Prothero
The English Historical Review
Vol. 3, No. 9 (Jan., 1888), pp. 1-33



Hannis Taylor (1898). The Origin and Growth of the English Constitution:. Рипол Классик. pp. 1–. ISBN 978-5-87823-810-6.

Edward Augustus Freeman (1872). The Growth of the English Constitution from the Earliest Times. Macmillan and Company.

 


Mead Hall or Great Hall

The Mead Hall was the Great Hall [Aula Magna] of a Viking king, a large room enclosed by a roof and walls. In Anglo-Saxon England one-room buildings were often erected. These had a single hearth in the middle of the floor used for cooking and heating. These large halls were designed to house the lord and his retainers. Generally the whole community used to eat and sleep in the hall.

The purpose of a mead hall or meeting hall was for the king to be able richly to entertain his followers with lavish feasting and drink. His followers would, in their turn, then be expected at the  gatherings to praise, honour and declare their allegiance to their lord the king, for him to be able to guarantee their loyalty in battle. The Norman and Plantagenet kings of England very definitely followed this tradition building many great halls. Their great halls served as chambers where the king's great councils could meet, where the king could hold court and conduct the business of the kingdom. The great hall in Plantagenet times was a symbol of the king's power, and was often later decorated to reflect this. In this way Great Halls were multi-purpose: they could be banqueting halls, audience chambers and throne rooms for meeting ambassadors, great council rooms.

Among king Henry II's various hunting lodges, both Clarendon and Woodstock had Great Halls, as did his castles, Northampton in particular, and Dover Castle later on.

References




Alison Weir (2011). The Captive Queen and Eleanor of Aquitaine. Random House. pp. 844–. ISBN 978-1-4464-5773-3.

Christopher Harper-Bill; Nicholas Vincent (2007). Henry II: New Interpretations. Boydell Press. pp. 325–. ISBN 978-1-84383-340-6.

England Under the Angevin Kings. Ardent Media. pp. 196–.





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