Wealthy men could employ professional pleader-attorneys to advise them and to speak for them in a court.
The ecclesiastical courts dealt, until the time of Henry VIII, with family matters such as marriage, annulments, marriage portions, legitimacy, undue wife-beating, child abuse, orphans, bigamy, adultery, incest, fornication, personal possessions, defamation, slander which did not cause material loss (and therefore had no remedy in the temporal courts), libel, perjury, usury, mortuaries, sacrilege, blasphemy, heresy, tithe payments, church fees, certain offences on consecrated ground, and breaches of promises under oath, e.g. to pay a debt, provide services, or deliver goods. They 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 basically by compurgation, with oath-helpers swearing to or against the veracity of the alleged offender's oath. An alleged offender could be required to answer questions under oath, thus giving evidence against himself. The ecclesiastical court's penalties were intended to reform and determined on a case-by-case basis. The canon law of Christendom was followed, without much change by the English church or nation. Penalties 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 he could speak only to his spouse and servants. Excommunication included denial of the sacraments of baptism, penance, mass, and extreme unction [prayers for spiritual healing] at death; which were necessary for salvation of the soul; and the sacrament of confirmation of one's belief in the tenets of Christianity. A person could also be denied a Christian burial in consecrated ground. However, the person could still marry and make a will. The king's court could order a recalcitrant excommunicant imprisoned until he satisfied the claims of the church. Excommunication was usually imposed for failure to obey an order or showing contempt of the law or of the courts. It required a 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. There were no heresy cases up to 1400 and few after that. 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. The archdeacons, who had been ministers of the bishop in all parts of his diocese alike, were now each assigned to one district, which usually had the same boundaries as the county. Henry acknowledged occasional appellate authority of the pope, but expected his clergy to elect bishops of his choice.
There was a separate judicial system for the laws of the forest. There were itinerant justices of the forests and four verderers of each forest county, who were elected by the votes of the full county court, twelve knights appointed to keep vert [everything bearing green leaves] and venison, and foresters of the king and of the lords who had lands within the limits of the forests. Every three years, the officers visited the forests in preparation for the courts of the forest held by the itinerant justices. The inferior courts were the wood-mote, held every forty days, and the swein [freeman or freeholder within the forest]-mote, held three times yearly before the verderers as justices, in which all who were obliged to attend as suitors of the county court to serve on juries and inquests were to be present.
- - - 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 and he learned Latin. He had many books and maintained a school. Eleanor often served as regent during Henry's reign and the reigns of their two sons: Richard I, the Lion- Hearted, and John. She herself headed armies. 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. He was an outstanding legislator and administrator.
Henry II took the same coronation oath as Edward the Confessor regarding the church, laws, and justice. Not only did he confirm the charter of his grandfather Henry I, but he revived and augmented the laws and institutions of his grandfather 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. The term "assize" here means the sitting of a court or council. It came to denote the decisions, enactments, or instructions made at such.
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. Robbers were hanged and any man who raped a woman was castrated. Foreign merchants with precious goods could journey safely through the land from fair to fair. These fairs were usually held in the early fall, after sheep-shearing and harvesting. Foreign merchants bought wool cloth and hides. Frankpledge was revived, now applying to the unfree and villeins. 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 justices.
Henry had character and the foresight to build up a centralized system of government that would survive him. He learned about the counties' 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.