Week 9: Law and Order, Records and Record-Keeping; Debt and Credit, The Jews
Tuesday:
Music:
Video:
Robert Bartlett, Inside the Medieval Mind: Power (Part 2 of 6)
(9:46 minutes : Forest Law (0:00-3:20); outlaws (3:20-4:39); castles; aristocratic priorities)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K90WtgQnPU&playnext=1&list=PL1B541A2FC215B9BC
Readings:
Bartlett, England under the Norman and Angevin Kings, pp. 177-193 (Courts and Judgments)
Carlin and Crouch, Lost Letters of Medieval Life, pp. 111-115 (Documents 27-28), pp. 137-144 (Documents 39-41), pp. 149-158 (Documents 44-46)
Maps:
The Angevin “Empire”:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil035.jpg
Henry III’s territories:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/gardiner/gard012.jpg
Medieval England and Wales:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil034.jpg
Wales and the Marches in the Thirteenth Century:
http://www.heritage-history.com/maps/philips/phil036c.jpg
Map of England by Matthew Paris
http://www.bl.uk/onlinegallery/takingliberties/images/319matthewparismapbig.jpg
Topics:
Courts:
Hundred courts (held monthly by sheriff for civil cases, inc. pleas of land, debt, and trespass; also criminal cases during eyres,
and twice-yearly views of frankpledge to check tithings)
County courts (held every 4 weeks by lord’s steward or sheriff’s bailiff for civil cases only, esp. pleas of debt and trespass,
but not pleas of land; outlawries proclaimed)
Borough courts
Seignorial or feudal courts (convened by lord to settle disputes among vassals or between lord and vassal(s))
Manor courts (typically held every 3 weeks by lord’s steward)
Church courts (held by archbishops, bishops, and archdeacons, or their deputy [“official”]; or by panels of 3 judges delegate appointed by the pope)
Royal courts (held by royal justices at the Westminster-based courts of Exchequer or Common Bench [Common Pleas]; at
King’s Bench (est. 1233-4), which followed the king wherever he was; or at the General Eyres held in circuits by panels of itinerant justices)
Oath and compurgation (by aid of oath-helpers or compurgators)
Ordeal by hot iron (usually for free men and women) or by cold water (usually for serfs); ended by Lateran IV in 1215
Trial by battle
Punishments:
Execution (esp. by hanging; sometimes burning or boiling or other)
Mutilation (e.g., blinding, castration, loss of right hand)
Confiscation of lands or goods
Fines
Exile
Imprisonment (there was one royal gaol [jail] per county)
Lawsuits and court procedures
Development of the eyre
Development of possessory assizes, e.g., novel disseisin and mort d’ancestor (“Has X been dispossessed of property of which X had been in peaceful possession?”), and grand assize (“Who has the greater right to the property?”)
Officers:
Sheriff (chief royal officer in each county)
Constable of the hundred; high constable of the county (an office subsequently annexed by sheriff): system created by John in 1205
Bailiffs or serjeants (village or town constables, under direction of hundred constable)
Writ
Approver
Images:
Ordeal by hot iron (Bamberg Cathedral, 1513) and by cold water (chronicle, 1513)
Trial by battle (England, 1249)
Thursday:
Richard the Lionheart, King of England, “Ja nuns hons pris” (Ballad written while imprisoned, 2:40 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DczZ_ZKbr_s&feature=related
Another version of the same (5:54 min.):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9p2OhO-QsqY
Important types of record:
Deeds
Cartularies
Pipe Rolls (Exchequer)
Chancery
Chirograph
Feet of Fines
Charter Rolls
Liberate Rolls (later Close Rolls)
Patent Rolls
Pipe Rolls (bishopric of Winchester, beginning 1208-9)