Some statutes applied only to Kent County, which had a unique position between London and the continent. Money flowed between England and the continent through Kent. So Kent never developed a manorial system of land holding, but evolved from a system of clans and independent villages directly into a commercial system.
In Kent, all men are free and may give or sell their lands without permission of their lords, as before the Conquest.
One could sell or give away his land without the consent of one's lord. The services of the land, however, could only be sold to the chief lord. Inheritance of land was to all sons by equal portions, and if there were no sons, then to all daughters in equal portions. The eldest brother has his choice of portion, then the next oldest, etc. The goods of a deceased person were divided into three parts after his funeral expenses and debts were paid. One third went to the surviving spouse. One third went to the deceased's sons and daughters. One third could be disposed by will of the decedent. If there were no children, one half went to the spouse and one half went according to will. If an heir was under 15 years old, his next of kin to whom inheritance could not descend was to be his guardian. A wife who remarried or bore a child lost her dower land. A husband lost his dower if he remarried. If a tenant withheld rent or services, his lord could seek award of court to find distress on his tenement and if he could find none, he could take the tenement for a year and a day in his hands without manuring it. It the tenant paid up in this time, he got the tenement back. If he didn't within a year and a day, however, the lord could manure the land. A felon forfeited his life and his goods, but not his lands or tenements. A wife of a felon had the dower of one half or her husband's lands and tenements.
The common law recognized the tort of false imprisonment if a man arrested as a felon, a person who was not a felon.
Judicial Procedure
The highest court was the king and his council in Parliament. It heard the most important causes, important because they concern the king, or because they concern very great men (e.g. treason), or because they involve grave questions of public law, or because they are unprecedented. It has large, indefinite powers and provides new remedies for new wrongs. The office of great justiciar disappears and the Chancellor becomes the head of the council. The Chancellor heads the Chancery, which is the secretarial department of the Royal Court. A litigant could not proceed without first obtaining a writ from Chancery. The Chancellor could form new writs.
After the council were the royal courts of the King's Bench, Common Pleas, and the Exchequer, which had become separate, each with its own justices and records. The Court of Common Pleas had its own Chief Justice and usually met at Westminster. This disadvantaged the small farmer, who would have to travel to Westminster to present a case. The King's Council maintained a close connection with the Court of the King's Bench, which heard criminal cases and appeals from the Court of Common Pleas. It traveled with the King. There were many trespass cases so heard by it in the reign of Edward I. The King's Council did a great deal of justice, for the more part criminal justice. It was supported by the populace because it dealt promptly and summarily with rebellion or some scandalous acquittal of a notorious criminal by bribed or partial jurors, and thereby prevented anarchy. Its procedure was to send for the accused and compel him to answer upon oath written interrogatories. Affidavits were then sworn upon both sides. With written depositions before them, the Lords of the council, without any jury, acquit or convict. Fines and imprisonments were meted out to rioters, conspirators, bribers, and perjured jurors. No loss of life or limb occurred because there had been no jury.
In criminal cases, witnesses acquainted with particular facts were added to the general assize of twelve lawful men from each hundred and four lawful men from each town to testify to facts unknown by the assize men. The assize was bifurcated into the grand jury of twelve to twenty-four knights and the petty jury or trial jury of twelve free and lawful men, which replaced ordeal, compurgation, and trial by combat as the method of finding the truth. The men of the petty jury as well as those of the grand jury were expected to know or to acquaint themselves with the facts of the cases. The men of the petty jury tended to be the same men who were on the grand jury.
Felony was determined by common law to be one of seven offenses: treason, homicide, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, and grand larceny, the last of which involved over 12d., where 12d. was enough to keep a man from starvation for eight days. High treaason included covered the making of counterfeit money and the clipping if coin. Burglary was an offense committed in times of peace and consisted of breaking into churches, houses, and into the walls and gates of villages and boroughs. These seven offenses could be prosecuted by indictment or private accusation by an individual. They were appealable, that is, the accuser must in general offer trial by battle. The penalties involved loss of life or limb or, if he fled, outlawry. Actually, the death penalty was replacing loss of life or limb. Death by hanging was the usual punishment. A felon's goods were confiscated by the crown and his land was forfeited to the crown for a year and a day and waste, after which it escheated to the felon's lord. The crimes of wounding, mayhem, and false imprisonment were not now felonies. The peace of the king now did not die with the king, but renewed automatically without an interval before the inauguration of a new king.
Notorious felons who would not consent or put themselves on inquests for felonies with which they were charged at royal courts were put in strong and hard imprisonment to persuade them to accept trial by assize. This inducement progressed into being loaded with heavy chains and placed on the ground in the worst part of the prison and being fed a only little water one day and a little bread the next. Sometimes pieces of iron or stones were placed one another onto their prone bodies to persuade them to plead. This then developed into being loaded with as much iron as could be borne, and finally into being pressed to death ["peine forte et dure">[. Many of these men chose to die by this pressing so that their families could inherit their property, which would have been forfeited if they had been convicted of serious crimes.