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Most of the nation was either wooded or bog at this time.

London was a walled town of one and two story houses made of mud, twigs, and straw, with thatched roofs. There were churches, a goods market, a fish market, quays on the river, and a bridge over the river. Streets probably named by this time include Bread Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood Street, and Ironmonger Lane. Fairs and games were held outside the town walls in a field called “Smithfield”. The freemen were a small percentage of London’s population. There was a butchers’ guild, a pepperers’ guild, a goldsmiths’ guild, the guild of St. Lazarus, which was probably a leper charity, the Pilgrims’ guild, which helped people going on pilgrimages, and four bridge guilds, probably for keeping the wooden London Bridge in repair. Men told the time by sundials, some of which were portable and could be carried in one’s pocket. London could defend itself, and a ringing of the bell of St. Paul’s Church could shut every shop and fill the streets with armed horsemen and soldiers led by a soldier port-reeve.

William did not interfere with land ownership in London, but recognized it’s independence as a borough in this writ: “William the King greets William, Bishop of London, and Gosfrith the portreeve, and all the burgesses of London friendly. Know that I will that you be worthy of all the laws you were worthy of in the time of King Edward. And I will that every child shall be his father’s heir after his father’s day. And I will not suffer any man to do you wrong. God preserve you.”

So London was not subjected to the Norman feudal system. It had neither villeins nor slaves. Whenever Kings asserted authority over it, the citizens reacted until the King “granted” a charter reaffirming the freedoms of the city and its independence.

William was a stern and fierce man and ruled as an autocrat by terror. Whenever the people revolted or resisted his mandates, he seized their lands or destroyed the crops and laid waste the countryside and so that they starved to death. He had a strict system of policing the nation. Instead of the Anglo-Saxon self-government throughout the districts and hundreds of resident authorities in local courts, he aimed at substituting for it the absolute rule of the barons under military rule so favorable to the centralizing power of the Crown. He used secret police and spies and the terrorism this system involved. This especially curbed the minor barons and preserved the public peace.

The English people were disarmed. Curfew bells were rung at 7:00 PM when everyone had to remain in their own dwellings on pain of death and all fires and candles were to be put out, This prevented any nightly gatherings, assassinations, or seditions. Order was brought to the kingdom so that no man dare kill another, no matter how great the injury he had received. William extended the King’s peace on high roads to include the whole nation. Any individual of any rank could travel from end to end of the land unharmed. Before, prudent travelers would travel only in groups of twenty.

William’s reign was a time of tentative expedients and simple solutions. He administered by issuing writs with commands or prohibitions. These were read aloud by the sheriffs in the county courts and other locations. Administration was by the personal servants of his royal household, such as the Chancellor, steward, butler, chamberlain, and constable. The constable was in charge of the knights of the royal household. Under pressure from the ecclesiastical judges, William replaced the death penalty by that of the mutilation of blinding, chopping off hands, and castrating offenders. Castration was the punishment for rape. But these mutilations usually led to a slow death by gangrene.

The Normans used the Anglo-Saxon concepts of jurisdictional powers. Thus when William confirmed “customs” to the abbot of Ely, these were understood to include the following: 1) sake and soke – the right to hold a court of private jurisdiction and enjoy its profits, 2) toll – a payment in towns, markets, and fairs for goods and chattel bought and sold, 3) team – persons might be vouched to warranty in the court, the grant of which made a court capable of hearing suits arising from the transfer of land, 4) infangenthef – right of trying and executing thieves on one’s land, 4) hamsocne, 5) grithbrice – violation of the grantees’ special peace, for instance that of the sheriff, 6) fihtwite – fine for a general breach of the peace, 7) fyrdwite – fine for failure to appear in the fyrd [national militia].

Every shire had at least one burh, or defensible town. Kings had appointed a royal moneyer in each to mint silver coins for local use. On one side was the King’s head in profile and on the other side was the name of the moneyer. When a new coinage was issued, all moneyers had to go to London to get the new dies. William’s head faced frontally on his dies, instead of the usual profile used by former Kings.

William held and presided over his council three times a year, as was the custom, at Easter, Christmas, and Whitsuntide. This was an advisory council and consisted of earls, greater barons, officers of the King’s household, archbishops, and bishops. It’s functions were largely ceremonial. William’s will was the motive force which under lay all its action. The justiciar was the head of all legal matters and represented the King in his absence from the realm. The Treasurer was responsible for the collection and distribution of revenue. The Chancellor headed the Chancery and the chapel.

Sheriffs became powerful figures as the primary agents for enforcing royal edicts. They collected the royal taxes, executed royal justice, and controlled the hundred and shire courts. They also took part in the keeping of castles and often managed the estates of the King. Most royal writs were addressed to the sheriff and shire courts.

Royal income came from customary dues, profits of coinage and of justice, and revenues from the King’s own estates. A threat of a Viking invasion caused William to reinstitute the danegeld tax. To impose this uniformly, he sent commissioners to conduct surveys by sworn verdicts of appointed groups of local men. A detailed survey of land holdings and the productive worth of each was made and compiled as the “Doomsday Book” in 1086. For instance, one estate had “on the home farm five plough teams: there are also 25 villeins and 6 cotters with 14 teams among them. There is a mill worth 2s. a year and one fishery, a church and four acres of meadow, wood for 150 pigs and two stone quarries, each worth 2s. a year, and two nests of hawks in the wood and 10 slaves.” This estate was deemed to be worth 480s. a year.

Laxton “had 2 carucates of land [assessed] to the geld. [There is] land for 6 ploughs. There Walter, a man of [the lord] Geoffrey Alselin’s has 1 plough and 22 villeins and 7 bordars [a bordar had a cottage and a small amount land in return for supplying small provisions to his lord] having 5 ploughs and 5 serfs and 1 female serf and 40 acres of meadow. Wood [land] for pannage [foraging by pigs] 1 league in length and half a league in breadth. In King Edward’s time it was worth 9 pounds; now [it is worth] 6 pounds.”

That manor of the town of Coventry which was individually held was that of the Countess of Coventry, who was the wife of the earl of Mercia. “The Countess held in Coventry. There are 5 hides. The arable land employs 20 ploughs. In the demesne lands there are 3 ploughs and 7 ploughs. In the demesne lands there are 3 ploughs and 7 bondmen. There are 50 villeins and 12 bordars with 20 ploughs. The mill there pay[s] 3 shillings. The woodlands are 2 miles long and the same broad. In King Edward’s time and afterwards, it was worth 22 pounds [440 s.], now only 11 pounds by weight. These lands of the Countess Godiva Nicholas holds to farm of the King.”

The survey shows a few manors and monasteries owned a salt-house or salt-pit in the local saltworks, from which they were entitled to obtain salt.

This survey resulted in the first national tax system of about 6s. per hide of land.

The courts of the King and barons became schools of chivalry wherein seven year old noble boys became as pages or valets, wore a dagger and waited upon the ladies of the household. At age fourteen, they were advanced to squires and admitted into more familiar association with the knights and ladies of the court. They perfected their skills in dancing, riding, fencing, hawking, hunting and jousting. Before knighthood, they played team sports in which one team tried to put the other team to rout. A knight usually selected a wife from the court at which he grew up.

The eldest son began to succeed to the whole of the lands in all military tenures.

Astrologers resided with the families of the barons. People went to fortune tellers’ shops. There was horse racing and steeple races for recreation.

The state of medicine is indicated by this medical advice brought to the nation by William’s son after treatment on the continent:

“If thou would have health and vigor
Shun cares and avoid anger.
Be temperate in eating
And in the use of wine.
After a heavy meal
Rise and take the air
Sleep not with an overloaded stomach And above all thou must
Respond to Nature when she calls.”

Many free sokemen were caught up in the subjugation by baron landlords and were reduced almost to the condition of the unfree villein. The services they performed for their lords were often indistinguishable. This formed a new bottom class as the population’s percentage of slaves declined dramatically. However, the free man still had a place in court proceedings which the unfree villein did not.

William allowed Jewish traders to follow him from Normandy and settle in separate sections of the main towns. They loaned money for the building of castles and cathedrals. Christians were not allowed by the church to engage in this usury. The Jews could not become citizens nor could they have standing in the local courts. Instead, a royal justiciar secured justice for them. The Jews could practice their own religion.

William was succeeded as King by his son William II, who imposed on many of the customs of the nation to get more money for himself.

– The Law –

The Norman conquerors brought no written law, but affirmed the laws of the nation. Two they especially enforced were:

Anyone caught in the act of digging up the King’s road, felling a tree across it, or attacking someone so that his blood spilled on it shall pay a fine to the King.

All freemen shall have a surety who would hand him over to justice for his offenses or pay the damages or fines due. Also, the entire hundred was the ultimate surety for murder and would have to pay a “murdrum” fine.

William made these decrees:

No cattle shall be sold except in towns and before three witnesses.

For the sale of ancient chattels, there must be a surety and a warrantor.

No man shall be sold over the sea. (This ended the slave trade at the port of Bristol.)

The death penalty for persons tried by court is abolished.

– Judicial Procedure –

“Ecclesiastical” courts were created for bishops to preside over issues concerning the cure of souls and criminal cases in which the ordeal was used. When William did not preside over this court, an appeal could be made to him.

The hundred and shire courts now sat without a bishop and handled only “civil” cases. They were conducted by the King’s own appointed sheriff. Only freemen and not bound villeins had standing in this court.

William held court or sent the Justiciar or commissioners to hold his Royal Court [Curia Regis] in the various districts. The commissioner appointed groups of local men to give a collective verdict upon oath for each trial he conducted. A person could spend months trying to catch up with the Royal Court to present a case.

William allowed, on an ad hoc basis, certain high-level people such as bishops and abbots and those who made a large payment, to have land disputes decided by an inquiry of recognitors.

A dispute between a Norman and an English man over land or a criminal act could be decided by trial by battle. Each combatant first swore to the truth of his cause and undertook to prove by his body the truth of his cause by making the other surrender by crying “craven” [craving forgiveness]. Although this trial was thought to reflect God’s will, it favored the physically fit and adept person.

London had its own traditions. All London citizens met at its folkmoot, which was held three times a year to determine its public officers, to raise matters of public concern, and to make ordinances. It’s criminal court had the power of outlawry as did the shire courts. Trade, land, and other civil issues were dealt with by the Hustings Court, which met every Monday in the Guildhall. The city was divided into wards, each of which was under the charge of an elected alderman [elder man]. (This was not a popular election.) The aldermen had special knowledge of the law and a duty to declare it at the Hustings Court. Each alderman also conducted wardmoots in his ward and decided criminal and civil issues between its residents. Within the wards were the guilds of the city.

William made the hundred responsible for paying a murder fine for the murder of any of his men, if the murderer was not apprehended by his lord within a few days. The reaction to this was that the murderer mutilated the corpse to make identification of nationality impossible. So William ordered that every murder victim was assumed to be Norman unless proven English. This began a court custom in murder cases of first proving the victim to be English.

The Royal Court decided this case:
“At length both parties were summoned before the King’s court, in which there sat many of the nobles of the land of whom Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, was delegated by the King’s authority as judge of the dispute, with Ranulf the Vicomte, Neel, son of Neel, Robert de Usepont, and many other capable judges who diligently and fully examined the origin of the dispute, and delivered judgment that the mill ought to belong to St. Michael and his monks forever. The most victorious King William approved and confirmed this decision.”

Chapter 5

– The Times: 1100-1154 –

King Henry I, son of William of Normandy, furthered peace between the Normans and native English by his marriage to a niece of King Edward the Confessor called Matilda. She married him on condition that he grant a charter of rights undoing some practices of the past reigns of William I and William II. Peace was also furthered by the fact that Henry I had been born in England and English was his native tongue. Private wars were now replaced by mock battles.

Henry was a shrewd judge of character and of the course of events, cautious before taking action, but decisive in carrying out his plans. He was faithful and generous to his friends. He showed a strong practical element of calculation and foresight. He was intelligent and a good administrator. He had an efficient intelligence gathering network and an uncanny knack of detecting hidden plans before they became conspiratorial action. He made many able men of inferior social position nobles, thus creating a class of career judges and administrators in opposition to the extant hereditary aristocracy. He loved books and built a palace at Oxford to which he invited scholars for lively discussion.

Queen Matilda served as regent in Henry’s absence. She was literate and a literary patron. Her compassion was great and her charities extensive. She founded a hospital and had new roads and bridges built.

Henry issued charters restoring customs which had been subordinated to royal impositions by previous Kings, which set a precedent for later Kings. His coronation charter describes certain property rights he restored after the oppressive reign of his brother.

“Henry, King of the English, to Samson the bishop, and Urse of Abbetot, and to all his barons and faithful vassals, both French and English, in Worcestershire, greeting.

[1.] Know that by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of this realm. And because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions, I now, being moved by reverence towards God and by the love I bear you all, make free the Church of God; so that I will neither sell nor lease its property; nor on the death of an archbishop or a bishop or an abbot will I take anything from the demesne of the Church or from its vassals during the period which elapses before a successor is installed. I abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has been unjustly oppressed. Some of those evil customs are here set forth.

[2.] If any of my barons or of my earls or of any other of my tenants shall die his heir shall not redeem his land as he was wont to do in the time of my brother [William II (Rufus)], but he shall henceforth redeem it by means of a just and lawful ‘relief`. Similarly the men of my barons shall redeem their lands from their lords by means of a just and lawful ‘relief`.

[3.] If any of my barons or of my tenants shall wish to give in marriage his daughter or his sister or his niece or his cousin, he shall consult me about the matter; but I will neither seek payment for my consent, nor will I refuse my permission, unless he wishes to give her in marriage to one of my enemies. And if, on the death of one of my barons or of one of my tenants, a daughter should be his heir, I will dispose of her in marriage and of her lands according to the counsel given me by my barons. And if the wife of one of my tenants shall survive her husband and be without children, she shall have her dower and her marriage portion [that given to her by her father], and I will not give her in marriage unless she herself consents.

[4.] If a widow survives with children under age, she shall have her dower and her marriage portion, so long as she keeps her body chaste; and I will not give her in marriage except with her consent. And the guardian of the land, and of the children, shall be either the widow or another of their relations, as may seem more proper. And I order that my barons shall act likewise towards the sons and daughters and widows of their men.

[5.] I utterly forbid that the common mintage [a forced levy to prevent loss tothe King from depreciation of the coinage], which has been taken from the towns and shires, shall henceforth be levied, since it was not so levied in the time of King Edward [the Confessor, before the Norman conquest]. If any moneyer or other person be taken with false money in his possession, let true justice be
visited upon him.

[6.] I forgive all pleas and all debts which were owing to my brother [William II], except my own proper dues, and except those things which were agreed to belong to the inheritance of others, or to concern the property which justly belonged to others. And if anyone had promised anything for his heritage, I remit it, and I also remit all ‘reliefs` which were promised for direct inheritance.

[7.] If any of my barons or of my men, being ill, shall give away or bequeath his movable property, I will allow that it shall be bestowed according to this desires. But if, prevented either by violence or through sickness, he shall die intestate as far as concerns his movable property, his widow or his children, or his relatives or one his true men shall make such division for the sake of his soul, as may seem best to them.

[8.] If any of my barons or of my men shall incur a forfeit, he shall not be compelled to pledge his movable property to an unlimited amount, as was done in the time of my father [William I] and my brother; but he shall only make payment according to the extent of his legal forfeiture, as was done before the time of my father and in the time of my earlier predecessors. Nevertheless, if he be convicted of breach of faith or of crime, he shall suffer such penalty as is just.

[9.] I remit all murder-fines which were incurred before the day on which I was crowned King; and such murder-fines as shall now be incurred shall be paid justly according to the law of King Edward [by sureties].

[10.] By the common counsel of my barons I have retained the forests in my own hands as my father did before me.

[11.] The knights, who in return for their estates perform military service equipped with a hauberk [long coat] of mail, shall hold their demesne lands quit of all gelds [money payments] and all work; I make this concession as my own free gift in order that, being thus relieved of so great a burden, they may furnish themselves so well with horses and arms that they may be properly equipped to discharge my service and to defend my kingdom.

[12.] I establish a firm peace in all my kingdom,, and I order that this peace shall henceforth be kept.

[13.] I restore to you the law of King Edward together with such emendations to
it as my father [William I] made with the counsel of his barons.

[14.] If since the death of my brother, King William [II], anyone shall have seized any of my property, or the property of any other man, let him speedily return the whole of it. If he does this no penalty will be exacted, but if he retains any part of it he shall, when discovered, pay a heavy penalty to me.

Witness: Maurice, bishop of London; William, bishop-elect of Winchester; Gerard, bishop of Herefore; Henry the earl; Simon the earl; Walter Giffard; Robert of Montfort-sur-Risle; Roger Bigot; Eudo the steward; Robert, son of Haimo; and Robert Malet.

At London when I was crowned. Farewell.”

Henry took these promises seriously, which resulted in peace and justice. Royal
justice became a force to be reckoned with by the multiplication of justices. Henry had a great respect for legality and the forms of judicial action. He became known as the “Lion of Justice”.

The center of government was a collection of tenants-in-chief whose feudal duty included attendance when summoned and certain selected household servants of the King. When it met for financial purposes, Henry called it the Exchequer and it became a separate body. It received yearly from the sheriffs of the counties taxes and fines due to the Crown and also the income from royal estates, which were then comingled. Henry brought sheriffs under his strict control, free from influence by the barons.

A woman could inherit a fief if she married. The primary way for a man to acquire land was to marry an heiress. If a man were in a lower station than she was, he had to pay for his new social status as well as have royal permission. A man could also be awarded land which had escheated to the King. If a noble woman wanted to hold land in her own right, she had to make a payment to the King. Many widows bought their freedom from guardianship or remarriage from the King. Women whose husbands were at war also ran the land of their husbands.

Barons were lords of large holdings of farmland called “manors”. Many of the lesser barons left their dark castles to live in semi-fortified stone houses, which usually were of two rooms with rug hangings for drafts, as well as the sparse furniture that had been common to the castle. There were shuttered windows to allow in light, but which also let in the wind and rain when open. The roof was of thatch or narrow overlapping wood shingles. The floor was strew with hay and there was a hearth near the center of the floor, with a louvered smoke hole in the timber roof for escape of smoke. There were barns for grain and animals. Beyond this area was a garden, orchard, and sometimes a vineyard. The area was circumscribed by a moat over which there was a drawbridge to a gatehouse.

The smaller room was the lord and lady’s bedroom. It had a canopied bed, chests for clothing, and wood frames on which clothes could be hung. Life on the manor revolved around the larger room, or hall, where the public life of the household was passed. There, meals were served. The daily diet typically consisted of milk, soup, porridge, fish, vegetables, and bread. Open hospitality accompanied this communal living. There was little privacy. Manor household villeins carried the lord’s sheaves of grain to the manor barn, shore his sheep, malted his grain, and chopped wood for his fire. At night some slept on the floor of the hall and others, cottars and bordars, had there own dwellings nearby.

Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice-skated with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing stones, and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels.

The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people wear ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long full cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full sleeves. The cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck with a brooch. Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves tight at the wrist but full at the arm-hole, as if cut from the same piece of cloth. A girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men were hunting or working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Humble folk also wore knee-length garments, with a band about the waist.

There was woodland, common pasture land, arable land, meadow land, and wasteland on the manor. The arable land was alloted to the villeins in strips to equalize the best and worst land and their distance from the village where the villeins lived. There was three way rotation of wheat or rye, oats or barley, and fallow land. Cows, pigs, sheep, and fowl were kept. The meadow was allocated for hay for the lord’s household and each villein’s. The villeins held land of their lord for various services such as agricultural labor or raising domestic animals. The villeins, who worked the farm land as their ancestor ceorls had, now were so bound to the land that they could not leave or marry or sell an ox without their lord’s consent. If the manor was sold, the villein was sold as a part of the manor. The villeins worked about half of their time on their lord’s fields [his demesne land], which was about a third of the farmland. This work was primarily to gather the harvest and to plough with oxen and to sow in autumn and Lent. Work lasted from sunrise to sunset and included women and children. Life expectancy was probably below thirty-five.

The villeins of a manor elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord, usually through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there was a steward in charge of several of a lord’s manors, who also held the manorial court for the lord. The steward held his land of the lord by serjeanty, which was a specific service to the lord. Other serjeanty services were helping in the lord’s hunting expeditions and looking after his hounds.

The majority of manors were co-extensive with a single village. The villeins lived in the village in one-room huts enclosed by a wood fence, hedge, or stone wall. In this yard was a garden of onions, leeks, mustard, peas, beans, and cabbage and apple, pear, cherry, and plum trees, and bee-hives. The hut had a high-pitched roof thatched with reeds or straw and low eaves reaching almost to the ground. The walls are built of wood overlaid with mud or plaster. Narrow slits in the walls serve as windows. Which have shutters and are sometimes covered with coarse cloth. The floor is dirt and may be covered with straw or rushes for warmth. At one end of the hut was the family living area, where the family ate on a collapsible trestle table with stools or benches and used drinking horns and wooden bowls and spoons, along with jars and other earthenware. Their usual food was beans and peas, and some bacon, butter, cheese, and vegetables, bread made from a mixture of wheat, barley, and rye flour, and occasionally fish. They drank water, milk, buttermilk, apple cider, mead, and ale made from barley malt. Cooking was done over the fire with iron tripod and kettle. Most of the food was boiled. They slept on the floor or on benches. The villein regarded his bed area as the safest place in the house, as did people of all ranks, and kept his treasures there, which included his farm implements. Around the room are a couple of chests to store salt, meal, flour, a broom made of birch trigs, some woven baskets, the distaff and spindle for spinning, and a simple loom for weaving. All clothes were homemade. The man wore a tunic of coarse linen embroidered on the sleeves and breast, around with he wore a girdle of rope, leather, or folded cloth. Sometimes he also wore breeches reaching below the knee. The woman wore a loose short-sleeved gown, under which was a tight fitting garment with long loose sleeves. If they wore shoes, they were clumsy and patched. Some wore a hood-like cap. At the other end of the hut were the horses, cattle, pigs, and poultry. In the middle is a wood fire burning on a hearthstone. The smoke rises through a hole in the roof.

The villein and his wife and children worked from daybreak to dusk in the fields, except for Sundays and holydays. He had certain land to farm for his own family, but had to have his grain milled at his lord’s mill at the lord’s price. He had to retrieve his wandering cattle from his lord’s pound at the lord’s price. He was expected to give a certain portion of his own produce, whether grain or livestock, to his lord. However, if he fell short, he was not put off his land. When his daughter or son married, he had to pay a “merchet” to his lord. He could not have a son educated without the lord’s permission, and this usually involved a fee to the lord. His best beast at his death, or “heriot”, went to his lord. If he wanted permission to live outside the manor, he paid “chevage” yearly. Woodpenny was a yearly payment for gathering dead wood. Sometimes a “tallage” payment was taken at the lord’s will. The villein’s oldest son usually took his place on his land and followed the same customs with respect to the lord. For an heir to take his dead ancestor’s land, the lord demanded payment of a “relief”, which was usually the amount of a year’s income but sometimes as much as the heir was willing to pay to have the land. The usual aids were also expected to be paid.

Markets were about twenty miles apart because a farmer from the outlying area could then carry his produce to the nearest town and walk back again in the daylight hours of one day. In this local market he could buy foodstuffs, livestock, household goods, fuels, skins, and certain varieties of cloth.

The cloth was crafted by local weavers, dyers, and fullers, who made the cloth full and dense. Some cloth was sold to tailors to make into clothes. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up animals to sell as meat. Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared foods. The hide was bought by the tanner to make into leather. The leather was sold to shoemakers and glovemakers. Millers bought harvested grain to make into flour. Flour was sold to bakers to make into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters and by coopers, who made barrels. Tilers, oil-makers and rope-makers also bought raw material to make into finished goods for sale. Smiths, locksmiths, and wheelwrights worked over their hot fires.

The nation grew with the increase of population, the development of towns, and the growing mechanization of craft industries. There were watermills for crafts in all parts of the nation. There were also some iron furnaces.

Stone bridges over rivers could accommodate one person traveling by foot or by horseback and were steep and narrow.

Merchants, who had come from the low end of the knightly class or high end of the villein class, settled around the open market areas, where main roads joined. They had plots narrow in frontage along the road and deep. Their shops faced the road, with living space behind or above their stores. Town buildings were typically part stone and part timber as a compromise between fire precautions and expense.

Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As towns grew, they paid a fee to obtain a charter for self-government from the King giving the town judicial and commercial freedom. These various rights were typically expanded in future times. Such a town was called a “borough” and its citizens or land-owning freemen “burgesses”. They were literate enough to do accounts. Selling wholesale could take place only in a borough. The King assessed a tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent of property or income. Henry standardized the yard as the length of his own arm.

London had at least twenty wards, each governed by its own alderman. Most of them were named after people. London was ruled by sixteen families linked by business and marriage ties. These businesses supplied luxury goods to the rich and included the goldsmiths [sold cups, dishes, girdles, mirrors, purses knives, and metal wine containers with handle and spout], vintners [wine merchants], mercers [sold textiles, haberdashery, combs, mirrors, knives, toys, spices, ointments, and drugs], drapers, and pepperers, which later merged with the spicerers to become the “grocers”. These businesses had in common four fears: royal interference, foreign competition, displacement by new crafts, and violence by the poor and escaped villeins who found their way to the city.

London in Middlesex county received this charter for self-government and freedom from the financial and judicial organization of the shire:

“Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, sheriffs and all his loyal subjects, both French and English, throughout the whole of England – greeting.

1. Be it known to you that I have granted Middlesex to my citizens of London to be held on lease by them and their heirs of me and my heirs for 300 pounds paid by tale [yearly], upon these terms: that the citizens themselves [may] appoint a sheriff, such as they desire, from among themselves, and a justiciar, such as they desire, from among themselves, to safeguard the pleas of my Crown [criminal cases] and to conduct such pleas. And there shall be no other justiciar over the men of London.

2. And the citizens shall not take part in any [civil] case whatsoever outside the City walls.

1) And they shall be exempt from the payment of scot and danegeld and the murder fine.

2) And none of them shall take part in trial by combat.

3) And if any of the citizens has become involved in a plea of the Crown, he shall clear himself, as a citizen of London, by an oath which has been decreed in the city.

4) And no one shall be billeted [lodged in a person’s house by order of the King] within the walls of the city nor shall hospitality be forcibly exacted for anyone belonging to my household or to any other.

5) And all the citizens of London and all their effects [goods] shall be exempt and free, both throughout England and in the seaports, from toll and fees for transit and market fees and all other dues.

6) And the churches and barons and citizens shall have and hold in peace and security their rights of jurisdiction [in civil and criminal matters] along with all their dues, in such a way that lessees who occupy property in districts under private jurisdiction shall pay dues to no one except the man to whom the jurisdiction belongs, or to the official whom he has placed there.

7) And a citizen of London shall not be amerced [fined by a court when the penalty for an offense is not designated by statute] to forfeiture of a sum greater than his wergeld, [hereby assessed as] 100 shillings, in a case involving money.

8) And further there shall be no miskenning [false plea causing a person to be summoned to court] in a husting or in a folkmoot [meeting of the community], or in any other court within the City.

9) And the Hustings [court] shall sit once a week on Monday.

10) And I assure to my citizens their lands and the property mortgaged to them and the debts due to them both within the City and without.

11) And with regard to lands about which they have plead in suit before me, I shall maintain justice on their behalf, according to the law of the City.

12) And if anyone has exacted toll or tax from citizens of London, the citizens of London within the city shall [have the right to] seize [by process of law] from the town or village where the toll or tax was exacted a sum equivalent to that which the citizen of London gave as toll and hence sustained as loss.

13) And all those who owe debts to citizens shall pay them or shall clear themselves in London from the charge of being in debt to them.

14) But if they have refused to pay or to come to clear themselves, then the citizens to whom they are in debt shall [have the right to] seize [by process of law] their goods [including those in the hands of a third party, and bring them] into the city from the [town, village or] county in which the debtor lives [as pledges to compel appearance in court].

15) And the citizens shall enjoy as good and full hunting rights as their ancestors ever did, namely, in the Chilterns, in Middlesex, and in Surrey.

Witnessed at Westminster.”

The above right not to take part in any case outside the city relieved London citizens from the burden of traveling to wherever the King’s court happened to be, the disadvantage of not knowing local customs, and the difficulty of speaking in the language of the King’s court rather than in English. The right of redress for tolls exacted was new because the state of the law was that the property of the inhabitants was liable to the King or superior lord for the common debt.

Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at Oxford, which later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers’ guild. There were weavers’ guilds in several towns given royal sanction. They paid an annual tribute and were given a monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of several miles. Guild rules covered attendance of the members at church services, the promotion of pilgrimages, celebration of masses for the dead, common meals, relief of poor brethren and sisters, the hours of labor, the process of manufacture, the wages of workmen, and technical education.

Newcastle-on-Tyne was recognized by the King as having certain customs, so the following was not called a grant:

“These are the laws and customs which the burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne had in the time of Henry King of England and ought to have.

[1] Burgesses can distrain [take property of another until the other performs his obligation] upon foreigners within, or without their own market, within or without their own houses, and within or without their own borough without the leave of the reeve, unless the county court is being held in the borough, and unless [the foreigners are] on military service or guarding the castle.

[2] A burgess cannot distrain upon a burgess without the leave of the reeve.

[3] If a burgess have lent anything of his to a foreigner, let the debtor restore it in the borough if he admits the debt, if he denies it, let him justify himself in the borough.

[4] Pleas which arise in the borough shall be held and concluded there, except pleas of the Crown.

[5] If any burgess be appealed [sued] of any plaint, he shall not plead without the borough, unless for default of [the borough] court.

[6] Nor ought he to answer without day and term, unless he have fallen into ‘miskenning'[error in pleading], except in matters which pertain to the Crown.

[7] If a ship have put in at Tynemouth and wishes to depart, the burgesses may buy what they will [from it].

[8] If a plea arise between a burgess and a merchant, it shall be concluded before the third ebb of the tide.

[9] Whatever merchandise a ship has brought by sea must be landed, except salt; and herring ought to be sold in the ship.

[10] If any man have held land in burgage for a year and a day, lawfully and without claim, he shall not answer a claimant, unless the claimant have been without the realm of England, or a child not of age to plead.

[11] If a burgess have a son, he shall be included in his father’s freedom if he be with his father.

[12] If a villein come to dwell in the borough, and dwell there a year and a day as a burgess, he shall abide altogether, unless notice has been given by him or by his master that he is dwelling for a term.

[13] If any man appeal [sue] a burgess of any thing, he cannot do battle with the burgess, but the burgess shall defend himself by his law, unless it be of treason, whereof he is bound to defend himself by battle.

[14] Neither can a burgess do battle against a foreigner, unless he first go out of the borough.

[15] No merchant, unless he be a burgess, may buy [outside] the town either wool or leather or other merchandise, nor within the borough except [from] burgesses.

[16] If a burgess incur forfeit, he shall give six ounces [10s.] to the reeve.

[17] In the borough there is no merchet [payment for marrying off a daughter] nor heriot nor blodwite [fine for drawing blood] nor stengesdint [fine for striking with a stick].

[18] Every burgess may have his own oven and hand-mill if he will, saving the right of the King’s oven.

[19] If a woman be in forfeit for bread or beer, no one ought to interfere but the reeve. If she forfeit twice, she shall be chastised by her forfeit. If three times, let justice be done on her.

[20] No one but a burgess may buy webs [woven fabrics just taken off the loom] to dye, nor make nor cut them.

[21] A burgess may give and sell his land and go whither he will freely and quietly unless there be a claim against him.”

In the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing guilds controlled prices and assured quality. The head officer of the guild usually controlled the borough, which excluded rival merchant guilds.

Trades and crafts, each of which had to be licensed, grouped together by speciality in the town. Cloth-makers, dyers, tanners, and fullers were near an accessible supply of running water, upon which their trade depended. Streets were often named by the trade located there, such as Butcher Row, Pot Row, Cordwainer Row, Ironmonger Row, Wheeler Row, and Fish Row. Hirers of labor and sellers of wheat, hay, livestock, dairy products, apples and wine, meat, poultry, fish and pies, timber and cloth all had a distinct location.

The nation produced sufficient iron, but a primitive steel was imported. Steel was used for tools, instruments, weapons and armour.

Plays about miracles wrought by holy men or the sufferings and fortitude of martyrs were performed. Most nobles could read, though writing was still a specialized craft. There were books on animals, plants, and stones. The lives of the saints as told in the book “The Golden Legend” were popular. The story of the early King Arthur was told in the book “The History of the Kings of England”. The story at this time stressed Arthur as a hero and went as follows: Arthur became King at age 15. He had an inborn goodness and generosity as well as courage. He and his knights won battles against foreign settlers and neighboring clans. Once, he and his men surrounded a camp of foreigners until they gave up their gold and silver rather than starve. Arthur married Guenevere and established a court and retinue. Leaving Britain in the charge of his nephew Modred, he fought battles on the continent for land to give to his noblemen who did him service in his household and fought with him. When Arthur returned to Britain, he made battle with his nephew Modred who had crowned himself King. Arthur’s knight Gawain, the son of his sister, and the enemy Modred were killed and Arthur was severely wounded. Arthur told his kinsman Constantine to rule Britain as King in his place.

The intellectual world included art, secular literature, law, and medicine. There were about 90 physicians.

Forests were still retained by Kings for their hunting of boars and stags. The bounds of the Forest were enlarged. They comprised almost one-third of the kingdom.

Barons and their tenants and sub-tenants were offered an alternative of paying shield money [“scutage”] of 2 marks per fee in commutation for and instead of military service for their fiefs. This enabled Henry to hire soldiers who would be more directly under his own control and to organize a more efficient army.

A substantial number of barons and monasteries were heavily in debt to the Jews. The King taxed the Jews at will.

During rivalry for the throne after Henry I’s reign, the bishops gained some independence from the Crown and strenthened their ties with the Pope.

– The Law –

Henry restored the death penalty for thievery and robbery, but maintained William I’s punishment of the mutilation of blinding and severing of limbs for other offenses.

The forest law stated that: “he that doth hunt a wild beast and doth make him pant, shall pay 10 shillings: If he be a free man, then he shall pay double. If he be a bound man, he shall lose his skin.” A “verderer” was responsible for enforcing this law, which also stated that: “If anyone does offer force to a Verderer, if he be a freeman, he shall lose his freedom, and all that he hath. And if he be a villein, he shall lose his right hand.” Further, “If such an offender does offend so again, he shall lose his life.”

A wife’s dower is one-third of all her husband’s freehold land, unless his endowment of her at their marriage was less than one-third.

Counterfeiting law required that “If any one be caught carrying false coin, the reeve shall give the bad money to the King however much there is, and it shall be charged in the render of his farm [payment] as good, and the body of the offender shall be handed over to the King for judgment, and the serjeants who took him shall have his clothes.”

Debts to townsmen were recoverable by this law: “If a burgess has a gage [a valuable object held as security for carrying out an agreement] for money lent and holds this for a whole year and a day, and the debtor will not deny the debt or deliver the gage, and this is proved, the burgess may sell the gage before good witnesses for as much as he can, and deduct his money from the sum. If any money is over he shall return it to the debtor. But if there is not enough to pay him, he shall take distress again for the amount that is lacking.”

Past due rent in a borough was punishable by payment of 10s. as fine.”

There are legal maxims which are becoming so well established and known that there will never be a need to write them down as statutes. As delineated by St. Germain in “Doctor and Student” in 1518, they are:

1. If a man steals goods to the value of 12d., or above, it is felony, and he shall die for it. If it is under the value of 12d., then it is but petit larceny, and he shall not die for it, but shall be punished at the discretion of the judges. This not apply to goods taken from the person, which is robbery, a felony punishable by death.

2. If an exigent, in case of felony, is awarded against a man, he has thereby forthwith forfeited his goods to the King.

3. If the son is attainted [convicted of treason or felony with the death penalty and forfeiture of all lands and goods] in the life of the father, and after he purchases his charter of pardon of the King, and after the father dies; in this case the land shall escheat to the lord of the fee, insomuch that though he has a younger brother, yet the land shall not descend to him: for by the attainder of the elder brother the blood is corrupt, and the father-in-law died without heir.

4. A man declared outlaw forfeits his profits from land and his goods to the King.

5. He who is arraigned upon an indictment of felony shall be admitted, in favor of life, to challenge the number of inquirers for three whole inquests peremptorily. With cause, he may challenge as many as he has cause to challenge. Such peremptory challenge shall not be admitted in a private suit because it is a suit of the party.

6. An accessory shall not be put to answer before the principal.

7. If a man commands another to commit a trespass, and he does it, the one who made the command is a trespasser.

8. The land of every man is in the law enclosed from other, though it lies in the open field and a trespasser in it may be brought to court.

9. Every man is bound to make recompense for such hurt as his beasts do in the growing grain or grass of his neighbor, though he didn’t know that they were there.

10. He who has possession of land, though it is by disseisin, has right against all men but against him who has right.

11. The rents, commons of pasture, of turbary [digging turf], reversions, remainders, nor such other things which lie not in manual occupation, may not be given or granted to another without writing.

12. If a villein purchase lands, and the lord enter, he shall enjoy the land as his own. But if the villein alienates before the lord enters, he alienation is good. And the same law is of goods.

13. Escuage (shield service for 40 days) uncertain makes knight’s service. Escuage certain makes socage.

14. He who holds by castle-guard, holds by knight’s service, but he does not hold by escuage. He that holds by 20s. to the guard of a castle holds by socage.

15. A descent takes away an entry.

16. No prescription [assertion of a right or title to the enjoyment of a thing, on the ground of having had the uninterrupted and immemorial enjoyment of it] in lands makes a right.

17. A prescription of rent and profits out of land makes a right.

18. The limitation of a prescription generally taken is from the time that no man’s mind runs to the contrary.

19. Assigns may be made upon lands given in fee, for term of life, or for term of years, though no mention be made of assigns; and the same law is of a rent that is granted; but otherwise it is of a warranty, and of a covenant.

20. He who recovers debt or damages in the King’s court when the person charged is not in custody, may within a year after the judgment take the body of the defendant, and commit him to prison until he has paid the debt and damages.

21. If a release or confirmation is made to him who, at the time of the release made, had nothing in the land, the release or confirmation is void, except in certain cases, such as to vouch.

22. A condition to avoid a freehold cannot be pleaded without a deed; but to avoid a gift of chattel, it may be pleaded without deed.

23. A release or confirmation made by him, that at the time of the release or confirmation made had no right, is void in law, though a right comes to him after; except if it is with warranty, and then it shall bar him to all right that he shall have after the warranty is made.

24. If land and rent that is going out of the same land, comes into one man’s hand of like estate, and like surety of title, the rent is extinct.

25. If land descends to him who has right to the same land before, he shall be remitted to his better title, if he will.

26. If two titles are concurrent together, the oldest title shall be preferred.

27. If a real action be sued against any man who has nothing in the thing demanded, the writ shall abate at the common law.

28. If the demandant or plaintiff, hanging his writ, will enter into the thing demanded, his writ shall abate.

29. By the alienation of the tenant, hanging the writ, or his entry into religion, or if he is made a knight, or she is a woman, and takes a husband hanging the writ, the writ shall not abate.

30. A right or title of action that only depends in action, cannot be given or granted to none other but only to the tenant of the ground, or to him who has the reversion or remainder of the same land.

31. In an action of debt upon an agreement, the defendant may wage his law: but otherwise it is upon a lease of lands for term of years, or at will.

32. The King may disseise no man and no man may disseise the King, nor pull any reversion or remainder out of him.

33. The King’s excellency is so high in the law, that no freehold may be given to the King, nor be derived from him, but by matter of record.

34. If an abbot or prior alienate the lands of his house, and dies, though his successor has right to the lands, yet he may not enter, but he must take legal
action.

35. If an abbot buys a thing that comes to the use of the house, and dies, then his successor shall be charged.

Judicial activity encouraged the recording of royal legislation in writing which both looked to the past and attempted to set down law current in Henry’s own day. The “Liberi Quadripartitus” aimed to include all English law of the time. This showed an awareness of the ideal of written law as a statement of judicial principles as well as of the practice of kingship. In this way, concepts of Roman law used by the Normans found their way into English law.

Church law required that only consent between a man and woman was necessary for marriage. There needn’t be witnesses, ceremony, nor consummation. Consent could not be coerced. Penalties in marriage contracts were deemed invalid. Villeins and slaves could marry without their lords’ or owners’ permission. A couple living together could be deemed married. Relatives descended from the same great great grandfather could not marry, nor could relatives by marriage of the same degree of closeness. A legal separation could be given for adultery, cruelty, or heresy. Fathers were usually ordered to provide some sustenance and support for their illegitimate children. The court punished infanticide and abortion.

– Judicial Procedure –

Courts extant now are the Royal Court, the King’s Court of the Exchequer, shire courts, and hundred courts, which were under the control of the King. His appointed justices administered justice in these courts on regular circuits. Also there are manor courts, borough courts, and ecclesiastical courts.

The King’s Royal Court heard issues concerning the Crown and breaches of the King’s peace, which included almost all criminal matters. The most serious offenses: murder, robbery, rape, abduction, arson, treason, and breach of fealty, were now called felonies. Other offenses were: housebreaking, ambush, certain kinds of theft, premeditated assault, and harboring outlaws or excommunicants. Henry personally presided over hearings of important legal cases. He punished crime severely. Offenders were brought to justice not only by the complaint of an individual or local community action, but by official prosecutors. A prosecutor was now at trials as well as a judge. Trial is still by compurgation.

These offenses against the King placed merely personal property and sometimes land at the King’s mercy. Thus the Crown increased the range of offenses subject to its jurisdiction and arrogated to itself profits from the penalties imposed.

The Royal Court also heard these offenses against the King: fighting in his dwelling, contempt of his writs or commands, encompassing the death or injury of his servants, contempt or slander of the King, and violation of his protection or his law. It heard these offenses against royal authority: complaints of default of justice or unjust judgment, pleas of wrecks of ships, coinage, treasure-trove [money buried when danger approached], forest prerogatives, and control of castellation.

Henry began the use of writs to intervene in civil matters. These writs allowed people to come to the Royal Court on certain issues. He had some locally based justices, called justiciars. Also, he sent justices out on eyres [journeys],with wide responsibilities, to hear and decide all manner of Crown pleas. This brought royal authority into the localities and served to check baronial power over the common people. He created the office of chief justiciar, which carried out judicial and administrative functions.

The Royal Court also decided land disputes between barons. There was a vigorous interventionism in the land law subsequent to appeals to the King in landlord-tenant relations, brought by a lord or by an undertenant. Assizes [those who sit together] of local people who knew relevant facts were put together to assist the court.

Records of the verdicts of the Royal Court were sent with traveling justices for use as precedent in shire and hundred courts.

The King’s Court of the Exchequer reviewed the accounts of sheriffs, including receipts and expenditures on the Crown’s behalf as well as sums due to the Treasury, located still at Winchester. These sums included rent from royal estates, the Danegeld land tax, the fines from local courts, and aid from barional estates. It was called the “Exchequer” because it used a chequered cloth on the table to facilitate calculation in Roman numerals of the amount due and the amount paid. It’s records were the “Pipe Rolls”, so named because sheets of parchment were fastened at the top, each of which dropped into a roll at the bottom and so assumed the shape of a pipe.

The shire and hundred courts assessed the personal property of individuals and their taxes due to the King. The shire court decided land disputes between people who had different barons as their respective lords.

The Crown used its superior coercive power to enforce the legal decisions of other courts.

The shire courts heard cases of theft, brawling, beating, and wounding, for which the penalties could be exposure in the pillory or stocks where the public could scorn and hit the offender. It met twice yearly. If an accused failed to appear after four successive shire courts, he was declared outlaw at the fifth and forfeited his civil rights and all his property. He could be slain by anyone at will.

The hundred court heard neighborhood disputes, for instance concerning pastures, meadows and harvests. It policed the duty of frankpledge, which was required for those who did not have a lord to answer for him. It met once a month.

The free landholders were expected to attend shire, hundred, and baronage courts. They owed “suit” to it. The suitors found the dooms [laws] by which the presiding officer pronounced the sentence.

The barons held court on their manors for issues arising between people living on the manor, such as bad ploughing on the lord’s land or letting a cow get loose on the lord’s land, and land disputes. They also made the decision of whether or not a person was a villein or free. The manor court took over issues which had once been heard in the vill or hundred court. The baron charged a fee for hearing a case and received any fines he imposed, which amounted to significant “profits of justice”.

Boroughs held court on trading and marketing issues in their towns such as measures and weights, as well as issues between people who lived in the borough. The borough court was presided over by a reeve who was a burgess as well as a royal official.

Wealthy men could employ professional pleaders to advise them and to speak for them in a court.

The ecclesiastical courts dealt with family matters such as marriage, annulments, marriage portions, legitimacy, wife-beating, child abuse, bigamy, adultery, incest, fornication, personal possessions, slander, usury, mortuaries, sanctuary, sacrilege, blasphemy, heresy, tithe payments, church fees, and breaches of promises under oath, e.g. to pay a debt, provide services, or deliver goods. It 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 by compurgation. An alleged offender could be required to answer questions under oath, thus giving evidence against himself. The court’s penalties were intended to reform and determined on a case-by-case basis. They 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 the only people he could speak to were his spouse and servants. Excommunication included denial of the sacraments of baptism, penance, eucharist, and extreme unction at death; which were necessary for salvation of the soul; and the sacrament of confirmation. However, the person could still marry and make a will. Excommunication was usually imposed for failure to obey an order or showing contempt of the law or of the courts. It required a due process 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. 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.

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. Eleanor often served as regent during Henry’s reign and the reigns of their two sons: Richard, the Lion-Hearted, and John, a short man. After Eleanor’s death, John’s heavy-handed and arbitrary rule quickly alienated all sectors of the population, who joined to pressure him to sign the Magna Carta. Since John had extracted many heavy fines from barons by personally adjudging them blameworthy in disputes with others, the barons insisted on judgment by their peers under the established law of the courts. The story of Robin Hood portrays John’s attempt to gain the crown prematurely while Richard was on the Crusades to recover Jerusalem for Christendom.

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.

Henry revived and augmented the laws and institutions of his grandfather, Henry I, 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.

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. Merchants with precious goods could journey safely through the land from fair to fair. Frankpledge was revived. 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 judges.

Henry had character and the foresight to build up a centralized system of government that would survive him. He learned about the shires’ 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 12th century, there had been very little machinery of central government that was not closely associated with the royal household. 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 almsgiving, 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 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.

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. Heretofore, the scope of the King’s peace had varied to 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.

A system of writs originated well-defined actions in the royal courts. This system determined the Royal Court’s jurisdiction as against 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.

Before Henry’s reign, the church had become more powerful and asserted more authority. Henry tried to return to the concept of the King being appointed by God and as he head of the church as well as of the state, as in Henry I’s time. Toward this end, he published the Constitutions of Clarendon. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, refused to agree to them. The disageement came to a head in Henry’s attempt to establish the principle of “one law to all” by having church clerics punished by the civil courts as before, instead of having “benefit of clergy” to be tried only in ecclesiastical courts, even for secular crimes. Clerics composed about one-sixth the population. The church courts had characteristically punished with a fine or a penance, and at most defrocking, and never imposed a death penalty, even for murder. When Archbishop Becket was murdered and became a martyr, “benefit of clergy” became a standard right. Appeals could be made to the Pope without the King’s permission. The King could take a criminal cleric’s chattels, but not his life. However, though theoretically the bishops were elective, as a practical matter, the King appointed the bishops and the abbots.

Henry and Eleanor spoke many languages and liked discussing law, philosophy, and history. So they gathered wise and learned man about them, who became known as courtiers, rather than people of social rank. They lived in the great and strong Tower of London. 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 river and about half a mile inland. Most of its houses were two stories, the ground floor having booths and workshops, and the upper floor living space. Walls between houses had to be stone and thatched roofs were banned because there had been many fires. There were over a hundred churches in the city, which celebrated feast days, gave alms and hospitality to strangers, confirmed betrothals, contracted marriages, celebrated weddings, conducted funerals, and buried the dead. Fish and no meat was eaten on Fridays and during lent. 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 river and from springs. There were craft guilds of bakers, butchers, clothworkers, and saddlers, as well as of weavers. Vendors, craftsmen, and laborers had their customary places, which they took up every morning.

Some vendors walked the streets announcing their wares for sale.

In London, bells heralded the start and finish of all organized business. At sunset, the gates of the town were closed for the night. Only the rich could afford wax candles; others had home-made tallow or fat lights which smelled and gave off smoke. Most people washed their bodies. Few babies survived childhood. If a man reached 30, he could expect to live until age 50. The sellers of merchandise and hirers of labor were distributed every morning into their several localities according to their trade. Outside one of the gates, a horse market was held every week. They wore horseshoes made of iron or of a crude steel. In other fields, countryfolk sold pigs, cows, oxen and sheep. London Bridge was built of stone with such a width that a row of wood houses and a chapel was built on top of it.

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.” These liberties were: 1) The weavers may elect bailiffs to supervise the work of the craft, to punish defaulters, and to collect the ferm. The bailiffs were chosen from year to year and swore before the Mayors 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, 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 12th century, 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.

London growth led to its replacing Winchester as the capital. Over its history,
it generally chose or elected its own mayor every year. (This was not a popular election.) But there were many periods when royal authority was asserted over it.

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. Vendors on the river bank sold cooked fish caught from the river and wine from ships and wine cellars.

London’s chief magistrate was the port-reeve, who was appointed by the King, until 1191. Then the port-reeve was replaced by a mayor, who was elected yearly by the city wards. Each ward was headed by an alderman and there were city sheriffs and councilors. The mayors were typically rich merchant princes. 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.

St. Barthomew hospital was established in London for sick pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury.

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 assisted the navigation of ships and 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 teachers 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. If 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.

In this era, the English national race and character was formed. 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 only people distinguishable as Anglo-Saxon by their look and speech were manor villeins who worked the farm land, who composed over half the population. Intermarriage had destroyed any distinction of Normans by look or speech alone. Although the villeins could not buy their freedom or be freed by their lord, they became less numerous because of the preference of landowners 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.

The boroughs were dominated by lords of local manors, who usually had a house in the borough. Similarly, burgesses usually had farmland outside the borough. Many boroughs were granted the right to have a common seal for the common business of the town. Each borough was represented by twelve reputable burgesses. Each vill was represented by a reeve and four reputable men. Certain towns sponsored great seasonal fairs for special goods, such as cloth. Less than 5% of the population lived in towns.

London guilds of craftsmen such as weavers, fullers, bakers, loriners (makers of bit, spurs, and metal mountings of bridles and saddles), cordwainers (makers of leather goods such as shoes), pepperers, and goldsmiths were licensed by the King, for which they paid him a yearly fee. There were also five Bridge Guilds (probably raising money for the future construction of London Bridge in stone) and St. Lazarus’ Guild. The wealthy guilds, which included the goldsmiths, the pepperers, and three bridge guilds had landholding members who had been thegnes or knights and now became a class of royal officials: the King’s minters, his chamberlain, his takers of wines, his collectors of taxes.

Sandwich was confirmed in its port rights by this charter: “Henry II to his sheriff and bailiffs of Kent, greeting. I will and order that the monks of the Holy Trinity of Canterbury shall have fully all those liberties and customs in Sandwich which they had in the time of King Henry my grandfather, as it was adjudged in pursuance of his command by the oath of twelve men of Dover and twelve men of Sandwich, to wit, that the aforesaid monks ought to have the port and the toll and all maritime customs in the same port, on either side of the water from Eadburge-gate as far as markesfliete and a ferry-boat for passage. And no man has there any right except they and their ministers. Wherefore I will and firmly command you and the men of Sandwich that ye cause the aforesaid monks to have all their customs both in the port and in the town of Sandwich, and I forbid any from vexing them on this account.” “And they shall have my firm peace.”

Henry gave this charter to the town of Bristol in 1164: “Know ye, that I have granted to my burgesses of Bristol, that they shall be quit both of toll [a reasonable sum of money or portion of the thing sold, due to the owner of the fair or market on the sale of things tollable therein. It was claimed by the lord of the fee where the fair or market was held, by virtue of a grant from the Crown either ostensible or presumed] and passage [money paid for crossing a river or for crossing the sea as might be due to the Crown] and all custom [customary payments] throughout my whole land of England, Normandy, and Wales, wherever they shall come, they and their goods. Wherefore I will and strictly command, that they shall have all their liberties and acquittances and free customs fully and honorable, as my free and faithful men, and that they shall be quit of toll and passage and of every other customs: and I forbid any one to disturb them on this account contrary to this my charter, on forfeiture of ten pounds [200s.].”

John, when he was an earl and before he became King, granted these liberties to Bristol about 1188:

1) No burgess may sue or be sued out of Bristol.

2) The burgesses are excused from the murder fine (imposed by the King or lord from the hundred or town where the murder was committed when the murderer had not been apprehended).

3) No burgess may wage duel, unless sued for death of a stranger.

4) No one may take possession of a lodging house by assignment or by livery of the Marshall of the Earl of Gloucester against the will of the burgesses (so that the town would not be responsible for the good behavior of a stranger lodging in the town without first accepting the possessor of the lodging house).

5) No one shall be condemned in a matter of money, unless according to the law of the hundred, that is, forfeiture of 40s.

6) The hundred court shall be held only once a week.

7) No one in any plea may argue his cause in miskenning.

8) They may lawfully have their lands and tenures and mortgages and debts throughout my whole land, [from] whoever owes them [anything].

9) With regard to debts which have been lent in Bristol, and mortgages theremade, pleas shall be held in the town according to the custom of the town.

10) If any one in any other place in my land shall take toll of the men of Bristol, if he does not restore it after he is required to, the Prepositor of Bristol may take from him a distress at Bristol, and force him to restore it.

11) No stranger-tradesman may buy within the town from a man who is a stranger, leather, grain, or wool, but only from a burgess.

12) No stranger may have a shop, including one for selling wine, unless in a ship, nor shall sell cloth for cutting except at the fair.

13) No stranger may remain in the town with his goods for the purpose of selling his goods, but for forty days.

14) No burgess may be confined or distrained any where else within my land or power for any debt, unless he is a debtor or surety (to avoid a person owed a debt from distraining another person of the town of the debtor).

15) They shall be able to marry themselves, their sons, their daughters and their widows, without the license of their lords. (Lords had the right of preventing their tenants and mesne lords and their families from marrying without his consent.)

16) No one of their lords shall have the wardship or the disposal of their sons or daughters on account of their lands out of the town, but only the wardship of their tenements which belong to their own fee, until they become of age.

17) There shall be no recognition [acknowledgement that something done by another person in one’s name had one’s authority] in the town.

18) No one shall take tyne [wooden barrel with a certain quantity of ale, payable by the townsmen to the constable for the use of the castle] unless for the use of the lord Earl, and that according to the custom of the town.

19) They may grind their grain wherever they may choose.

20) They may have their reasonable guilds, as well or better than they had themin the time of Robert and his son William [John’s wife’s grandfather and father, who were earls of Gloucester when the town and castle of Bristol were part of the honor of Gloucester].

21) No burgess may be compelled to bail any man, unless he himself chooses it, although he may be dwelling on his land.

We have also granted to them all their tenures, messuages, in copses, in buildings on the water or elsewhere to be held in free burgage [tenant to pay only certain fixed services or payments to his lord, but not military service (like free socage)]. We have granted also that any of them may make improvements as much as he can in erecting buildings anywhere on the bank and elsewhere, as long as the borough and town are not damaged thereby. Also, they shall have and possess all waste land and void grounds and places, to be built on at their pleasure.

Newcastle-on-Tyne’s taxes were simplified in 1175 as follows:

“Know ye that I have granted and by this present charter have confirmed to my burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne, and to all their things which they can assure to be their own, acquittance from toll and passage and pontage and from the Hanse and from all other customs throughout all my land. And I prohibit all persons from vexing or disturbing them therein upon forfeiture to me.”

We grant to our upright men on Newcastle-on-Tyne and their heirs our town of Newcastle-on-Tyne with all its appurtances at fee farm for 100 pounds to be rendered yearly to us and our heirs at our Exchequer by their own hand at the two terms, to wit, at Easter 50 pounds and at Michaelmas 50 pounds, saving to us our rents and prizes and assizes in the port of the same town.

Ranulph, earl of Chester, made grants to his burgesses of Coventry by this charter: “That the aforesaid burgesses and their heirs may well and honorably quietly and in free burgage hold of me and my heirs as ever in the time of my father and others of my ancestors they have held better more firmly and freer. In the second place I grant to them all the free and good laws which the burgesses of Lincoln have better and freer. I prohibit and forbid my constables to draw them into the castle to plead for any cause, but they may freely have their portimote [leet court] in which all pleas belonging to me and them may be justly treated of. Moreover they may choose from themselves one to act for me whom I approve, who a justice under me and over them may know the laws and customs, and keep them to my counsel in all things reasonable, every excuse put away, and may faithfully perform to me my rights. If any one happen to fall into my amercement he may be reasonably fined by my bailiff and the faithful burgesses of the court. Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the improvement of the town, I command that they have peace, and that none do them injury or unjustly send them into court. But if any foreign merchant shall have done anything improper in the town that same may be regulated in the portimote before the aforesaid justice without a suit at law.”

Henry confirmed this charter of the earl’s by 1189 as follows: I have confirmed all the liberties and free customs the earl of Chester granted to them, namely, that the same burgesses may well and honorably hold in free burgage, as ever in the time of the father of the beforesaid earl, or other of his ancestors, they may have better or more firmly held; and they may have all the laws and customs which the citizens of Lincoln have better and freer [e.g. their merchant guilds; all men brought to trade may be subject to the guild customs and assize of the town; those who lawfully hold land in the town for a year and a day without question and are able to prove that an accuser has been in the kingdom within the year without finding fault with them, from thence may hold the land well and in peace without pleading; those who have remained in the town a year and a day without question, and have submitted to the customs of the town and the citizens of the town are able to show through the laws and customs of the town that the accuser stood forth in the kingdom, and not a fault is found of them, then they may remain in peace in the town without question]; and that the constable of the aforesaid earl shall not bring them into the castle to plead in any case. But they may freely have their own portmanmote in which all pleas appertaining to the earl and to them may be justly treated of. Moreover they may choose one from themselves to act for the earl, whom I approve, who may be a justice under the earl and over them, and who to the earl may faithfully perform his rights, and if anyone happen to fall into the earl’s forfeiture he shall be acquit for 12 pence. If by the testimony of his neighbors he cannot pay 12 pence coins, by their advice it shall be so settled as he is able to pay, and besides, with other acquittances, that the burgesses shall not provide anything in corrody [allowance in food] or otherwise whether for the said earl or his men, unless upon condition that their chattels shall be safe, and so rendered to them.

Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the improvement of the town they may have peace, and none shall do them injury or unjustly send them into suit at law. But if any foreign merchant has done anything improper in the town that shall be amended [or tried] in the portmanmote before the aforesaid justice without a suit. And they who may be newcomers into the town, from the day on which they began to build in the town for the space of two years shall be acquit of all charges.

Mercantile privileges were granted to the shoemakers in Oxford thus:
“Know ye that I have granted and confirmed to the corvesars of Oxford all the liberties and customs which they had in the time of King Henry my grandfather, and that they have their guild, so that none carry on their trade in the town of Oxford, except he be of that guild. I grant also that the cordwainers who afterwards may come into the town of Oxford shall be of the same guild and shall have the same liberties and customs which the corvesars have and ought to have. For this grant and confirmation, however, the corvesars and cordwainers ought to pay me every year an ounce of gold.”

A guild merchant for wool dominated and regulated the wool trade in many boroughs. In Leicester, only guildsmen were permitted to buy and sell wool wholesale to whom they pleased or to wash their fells in borough waters. Certain properties, such as those near running water, essential to the manufacture of wool were maintained for the use of guild members. The waterwheel was a technological advance replacing human labor whereby the cloth was made more compact and thick, “fulled”. The waterwheel turned a shaft which lifted hammers to pound the wet cloth in a trough. Wool packers and washers could work only for guild members. The guild fixed wages, for instance to wool wrappers and flock pullers. Strangers who brought wool to the town for sale could sell only to guild members. A guildsman could not sell wool retail to strangers nor go into partnership with a man outside the guild. Each guild member had to swear the guildsman’s oath, pay an entrance fee, and subject himself to the judgment of the guild in the guild court, which could fine or suspend a man from practicing his trade for a year. The advantages of guild membership extended beyond profit in the wool trade. Members were free from the tolls that strangers paid. They alone were free to sell certain goods retail. They had the right to share in any bargain made in the presence of a guildsman, whetheer the transaction took placein Leicester or in a distant market. In the general interest, the guild forbade the use of false weights and measures and the production of shoddy goods. It maintained a wool-beam for weighing wool. It also forbade middlemen from profiting at the expense of the public. For instance, butchers’ wives were forbidden from buying meat to sell again in the same market unless they cooked it.

A baron could assemble an army in a day to resist any perceived misgovernment by a King. Armed conflict did not interfere much with daily life because the national wealth was still composed mostly of flocks and herds and simple buildings. Machinery, furniture, and the stock of shops were still sparse. Life would be back to normal within a week.

Henry wanted to check this power of the barons. So he restored the older obligation of every freeman to serve in defense of the realm, which was a military draft. At the King’s call, barons were to appear in mail suit with sword and horse, knights in coat of mail with shield and lance, freeholders with lance and hauberk {coat of armor], burgesses and poorer freemen with lance and helmet, and such as millers with pike and leather shirt. The master of a household was responsible for every villein in his household. Others had to form groups of ten and swear obedience to the chief of the group. This was implemented in a war with France.

However, the nobility who were on the borders of the realm had to maintain their private armies for frequent border clashes. The other nobility now tended towards tournaments with mock battles between two sides.

A new land tax replaced the Danegeld tax. Freeholders of land paid taxes according to their plowable land (“hidage”, by the hide, and later “carucage”, by the acre). It was assessed and collected for the King by knights with little or no remuneration. The villein class, which in theory included the boroughs, paid a tax based on their produce (“tallage”). Merchants were taxed on their personal property, which was determined by an inquest of neighbors. Clergy were also taxed. This new system of taxation increased the royal income about threefold.

– The Law –

The peace of the sheriff still exists for his shire. The King’s peace may still be specially given, but it will cease upon the death of the King.

Law required every good and lawful man to be bound to follow the hue and cry when it was raised against an offender who was fleeing. The village reeve was expected to lead the chase to the boundary of the next jurisdiction, which would then take the responsibility to catch the man.

No one, including the lord of a manor, may take land from anyone else, for instance, by the customary process of distress, without a judgment from the Royal Court. This did not apply to London, where a landlord leasing or renting land could take distress in his fee.

No one, including the lord of a manor, shall deprive an heir of the land possessed by his father, i.e. his birthright.

A tenant may marry off a daughter unless his lord shows some just cause for refusing to consent to the marriage. A tenant had to pay an “aid” to his lord when the lord’s daughter married, when the lord’s son was knighted, or when the lord’s person was ransomed.

A man [or woman] may not will away his land, but he may sell it during his lifetime.

The land of a knight or other tenant of a military fee is inherited by his eldest son. The socage land of a free sokeman goes by its ancient custom before the Norman Conquest.

If a man purchased land after his marriage, his wife’s dower is still one-third of the land he had when they married, or less if he had endowed her with less. But he could then enlarge her dower to one-third of all of his lands. The same rule applied if the man had no land, but endowed his wife with chattel or money instead.

Dower law prevented a woman from selling her dower during the life of her husband. But he could sell it or give it away. On his death, its possessor had to give the widow the equivalent worth of the property.

A widower had all his wife’s lands by curtesy of the nation for his lifetime to the exclusion of her heirs.

The Capital Messuage [Chief Manor] could not be given in dower or divided, but went in its entirety to its heir.

Heirs were firstly sons, then daughters, then grandsons per stirpes, then granddaughters per stirpes, then brothers, and then sisters of the decedent. Male heirs of land held by military service or sons of knights who were under the age of twenty-one were considered to be in custody of their lords. The lord had wardship over the heir’s land, excluding the third that was the widow’s dower for her life. He had to maintain the heir in a manner suitable to his dignity and restore to him when he came of age his inheritance in good condition discharged from debts. Male heirs of sokemen who were under the age of fifteen were in the custody of their nearest kindred. The son of a burgess came of age when he could count money, measure cloth, and manage his father’s concerns.

Female heirs remained in the custody of their lords until they married. The lord was bound to find a marriage for his ward when she became fourteen years of age and then deliver her inheritance to her. She could not marry without her lord’s consent, because her husband was expected to be the lord’s ally and to do homage to him. But if a female heir lost her virginity, her inheritance escheated to
her lord.

Bastards were not heirs, even if their father married their mother after their birth.

Any adult inheriting land had to pay a “relief” to the lord of the land. For a knight’s fee, this was 100s. For socage land, this was one year’s value. The amount for a barony depended upon the King’s pleasure.

Heirs (but not widows) were bound to pay the debts of their fathers and ancestors. A man who married a woman who had inherited land could not sell this land without the consent of its heirs.

When a man dies, his wife shall take one-third and his heirs shall take one-third of his chattels [moveables]. The other third he may dispose of by will. If he had no heirs and no will [intestate], all his chattels would escheat to his lord. Any distribution of chattels would take place after all the decedent’s debts were paid from the property.