A History of England, Period I. Mediæval Monarchy - J. Franck Bright

To carry out this strict police some apparatus was necessary, which at the same time should serve the purpose of diminishing the power of the great nobles, and that of beginning at all events, by its centralizing influence, to re-form the conquered people and their conquerors into one nation. The rudiments of such an apparatus Henry found already existing in the arrangements which the Conqueror had made. The system of frankpledge, increased and adapted to the more general feudal form of society, supplied him with an efficient system of police. There was no man in the kingdom but some one was answerable for him. If he was a vassal, his lord. If he was a freeman, the knot of freemen of which he was a member. As courts to carry out this system, there were the old Hundred and Shire gemots. These Henry strengthened and, it would seem from one existing order, restored when in any way decayed to their original purity. To these courts criminal cases belonged, and civil suits between vassals of different lords. Questions between vassals of the same lord seem to have fallen within the jurisdiction of the lord. But these inferior courts, although they were excellent for police purposes, and as a check upon the powers of the baronial courts, would have done little towards the formation of nationality had they not been brought into connection with a superior court of which the king was chief. This central court consisted of the King in his ordinary council, which, since the Conquest, was known as the Curia Regis. Over it was the justiciary, who was the King’s representative, his regent during his absence, the head of his administration, both judicial and financial, at all times. Under him was a selection of barons, the chief officers of the royal household, and those best qualified for judicial purposes. The clerks of this court were placed under a head, who was the chancellor. The judges themselves sat for financial purposes in the exchequer chamber, and were spoken of as the barons of the exchequer. For general business they were called justices, and their head the chief-justice. The organization of this court dates from the reign of Henry I. The office of chief justiciary had been founded by William the Conqueror, but the regular formation of the Exchequer Court was the work of Roger, Bishop of Salisbury, in the hands of whose family the direction of the machinery remained for nearly a century.[8] It was afterwards, as we shall see, brought to its completion by Henry II., but all its essential parts are to be found in the reign of his grandfather. It was as officers of finance that the justices first began to traverse the country. The sheriffs could not always be trusted in their own localities, and change of property and other causes gave rise to difficult questions, requiring to be settled by the immediate intervention of the King’s officers. From financial questions their authority naturally passed to questions of justice, and their connection with the local courts was further strengthened when Henry united several sheriffdoms under one of his justices. Following a natural tendency, the men employed for these offices were not the great barons, but new men, who rose by their talents, and were naturally upholders of the royal power and of order in opposition to the anarchical baronial party.

To sum up; after the year 1108, when the local courts were re-established, both the Hundred and county courts were the same in constitution and in arrangement as before the Conquest. But they were connected with the central government; because matters in which the King was interested were set aside for the consideration of the Curia Regis, or travelling justiciary sent out from that body; and because the Norman lawyers had introduced the practice of issuing writs from the King’s court, whereby the King, in virtue of what is called his “equitable power,” that is, his power of securing justice where the law did not give it, prescribed the method of action in certain difficult cases. The Hundred court was sometimes a lower court for the arrangement of small debts; the Bailiff of the Hundred then presided. Sometimes it was the great court held only twice a year; the sheriff then presided, the court exercised criminal jurisdiction, and was known as the “Court Leet.” It also saw to the filling up of the divisions of ten men required by the system of Frankpledge; this was called “the view of frankpledge.” The court was then known as “the Sheriff’s Tourn.” Below these local courts were the feudal manor courts, the old motes of the township, now become the courts of the lord. But we must not suppose that the authority of the sheriff and the local courts (now virtually royal courts) was universal. Certain great lords enjoyed franchises, that is, exercised jurisdiction over several manors. If the lord had “sac and soc,” his court had the authority of the Court Leet. If he had “the view of frankpledge,” the suitors at his court were free from attendance at the Sheriff’s Tourn. His court was then in all points like the Hundred court, but independent of the sheriff. This double system Henry had apparently to submit to, watching the baronial power as well as he could, by means of the local courts and travelling justices.

The National Assembly.

It is to be carefully remembered that though the Curia Regis, representing the King’s council, attested charters, and revised and registered laws, it had no legislative authority. Both the imposition of taxes and the making of laws still rested with the King and his great council, the representative of the Witan, which had become a feudal court, and consisted chiefly of the King’s vassals. Their “counsel and consent” was a necessary condition of all legislation.

[STEPHEN.]
1135–1154.

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[STEPHEN.]1135–1154.

[STEPHEN.]
1135–1154.