Past due rent in a borough was punishable by payment of 10s. as fine.
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 provided 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 agreements for not going through with the marriage were deemed invalid. Villeins and slaves could marry without their lords' or owners' permission. A couple living together could be deemed married. Persons related by blood within certain degrees, which changed over time, of consanguinity were forbidden to marry. This was the only ground for annulment of a marriage. A legal separation could be given for adultery, cruelty, or heresy. Annulment, but not separation, could result in remarriage. Fathers were usually ordered to provide some sustenance and support for their illegitimate children. The court punished infanticide and abortion. Counterfeiters of money, arsonists, and robbers of pilgrims and merchants were to be excommunicated. Church sanctuary was to be given to fugitives of violent feuds until they could be given a fair trial.
- Judicial Procedure -
Courts extant now are the Royal Court, the King's Court of the Exchequer, county courts, and hundred courts, which were under the control of the King. His appointed justices administered justice in these courts on regular circuits. The sheriff now only produced the proper people and preserved order at the county courts and presided over the nonroyal pleas and hundred courts. He empaneled recognitors, made arrests, and enforced the decisions of the royal courts. Also there are manor courts, borough courts, and ecclesiastical courts. In the manor courts, the lord's reeve generally presided. The court consisted of the lord's vassals and declared the customs and law concerning such offenses as failure to perform services and trespass on manorial woods, meadow, and pasture.
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 justice. Trial is still by compurgation. Trial by combat was relatively common.
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. A murderer could be given royal pardon from the death penalty so that he could pay compensation to the relatives.
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 shipwrecks, coinage, treasure-trove [money buried when danger approached], forest prerogatives, and control of castle building.