The illustrious Ranulph de Glanville, who of all in that age was the most skilled in the Laws of the Realm, and the ancient Customs thereof, then holding the helm of Justice.
The present work contains those Laws and Customs only, according to which Pleas are determined in the King’s Court, the Exchequer, and before the Justices, wheresoever they may be.
INTRODUCTION.
BY JOSEPH HENRY BEALE, JR., A.M., LL.B., PROFESSOR
OF LAW IN HARVARD UNIVERSITY.
I. RANULPH DE GLANVILLE.
Ranulph de Glanville was born in the Suffolk Stratford, about 1130 A.D. He is believed to have been the son of Sir Hervey de Glanville, Chamberlain to King Stephen, and the grandson of that Ranulph de Glanville who came over with the Conqueror. The family was an important one, owning much land in the counties of Suffolk and Norfolk. Glanville’s public life began in 1164, when he was appointed sheriff of Yorkshire; an office which he continued to hold for six years. In 1171 he was appointed Governor of Richmond Castle, and in 1174, sheriff of Lancashire. The Scots having invaded England in that year, he led the forces of Lancashire and Richmond against them, and (joining the sheriff of Yorkshire and his forces) surprised and routed the Scots at Alnwick, and took King William the Lion prisoner. For this victory Glanville deserved, as he certainly received, the credit; and from that time no man stood higher than he in the favor of King Henry II. He was sheriff of Westmoreland from 1175 to 1179; sheriff of Yorkshire a second time, from 1177 to his death; judge of the King’s Court in 1176, and Chief Justiciar in 1180. He was also employed in many distinguished public services. In 1177 he was sent as ambassador to Flanders. In 1182 he led an army against the Welsh. In 1184, with Archbishop Baldwin, he was sent as ambassador to Rice ap Griffin, Prince of South Wales. In his next Welsh expedition, a few years later (again with Baldwin), he preached a crusade. In 1186 he was ambassador to the King of France, and was active in negotiating the peace of Gisors. In 1189, while Henry was struggling with his rebellious sons and with Philip of France in Normandy, he was sent to Canterbury to treat with the Chapter; was soon again in Normandy with Henry; and finally returned to England to raise an army for his master’s service, a work in which he was engaged at the time of Henry’s death.
These great offices were due to his personal merit and to the great services he rendered to his country; but they appear to have been the result, also, of the personal friendship and affection of the King. He was one of the witnesses to Henry’s will, and a trustee of the King’s bequest of 5,000 marks of silver to certain religious and charitable institutions, and of 300 marks of gold for marrying poor free women of England. He was named by Henry as custodian of Queen Eleanor, and as treasurer of his private fortune. A pretty picture of the King’s feeling toward him occurs in the account of the arrival of Glanville’s messenger in London, after the battle of Alnwick. The messenger arrived at midnight and insisted on seeing the King. Being admitted to the royal chamber he boldly approached the King’s bed and roused him from sleep. He, springing up, cried, “Who is it?” “I am the messenger of Ranulph of Glanville, your faithful subject, and I come from him to your highness as a bearer of good tidings.” “Is our Ranulph well?” cried the King, moved less by the promised good tidings than by his love for the sender of them. “My lord is well,” was the answer, “and he holds your enemy, the King of the Scots, a prisoner at Richmond.”
Upon the death of Henry, Glanville’s position was a difficult one. Henry, conservative, though a reformer, had established the government of his kingdom on a foundation of law and justice, and had created an effective and pure administrative machine. The new King appeared to have no sympathy with his father’s principles of government. He was rash, radical and careless of regular details of administration, and Glanville, in the words of a contemporary, “In his old age saw the King doing many things in a newfangled way, without wisdom or forethought.” He was present at the coronation of Richard, and was sent by him to quell a riot against the Jews which disgraced the ceremony. About his next acts we have different accounts. He had taken the cross in 1186. Whether he asked and received his dismissal from Richard in order to join the army, then about to start for the Holy Land, or whether, as another account has it, he was removed and imprisoned by Richard and obliged to purchase his freedom by a fine of 15,000 pounds of silver, we cannot certainly tell. At any rate, he set out for Palestine together with Baldwin, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his nephew Hubert, then bishop of Salisbury; the three were placed in command of the English forces by Richard (who was obliged to delay his own departure), and Glanville in 1190 died before Acre, by disease, the result of the unhealthy climate. He left one son and three daughters, whom he had already enriched from his great fortune. He founded the priory of Butley, the Abbey of Leiston, and a hospital at Somerton.
Glanville impressed his contemporaries as a man strong both in body and in mind. A man of integrity and prudence, “most faithful in fortune or misfortune,” “Wise, grave and eloquent,” “The King’s eye;” “A name above every name, who spoke among the princes and was adored by the people.” He was a man wise, just and charitable, whose fellowship was sought and opinions valued by wits and by scholars. One scandal only attacked him. He is charged with falsely condemning to death for rape Sir Gilbert de Plumpton, in order that his widow might be married to Glanville’s friend and steward, Rainer; Sir Gilbert’s punishment was commuted by the King to imprisonment for life. The tale is quite inconsistent with all we know of Glanville’s character and with his position in the King’s affection, and may safely be disbelieved.