Looms were now mounted with two bars. Women did embroidery. The clothing of most people was made at home, even sandals. The village tanner and bootmaker supplied long pieces of soft leather for more protection than sandals. Tanning mills replaced some hand labor. The professional hunter of wolves, lynx, or otters supplied head coverings. Every village had a smith and possibly a carpenter for construction of ploughs and carts. The smith obtained coal from coal fields for heating the metal he worked. Horse harnesses were home-made from hair and hemp. There were water mills and/or wind mills for grinding grain, for malt, and/or for fulling cloth.
Most men wore a knife because of the prevalence of murder and robbery. It was an every day event for a murderer to flee to sanctuary in a church, which would then be surrounded by his pursuers while the coroner was summoned. Usually, the fugitive would confess and agree to leave the nation and never return.
It had been long customary for the groom to endow his bride in public at the church door. This was to keep her and her children if he died first. If dower was not specified, it was understood to be one-third of all lands and tenements.
The county offices were: sheriff, coroner, escheator, and constable or bailiff. There were 28 sheriffs for 38 counties. No longer did the sheriff buy his office and collect certain rents for himself. The sheriff now was a salaried political appointee of the King and employed a deputy or undersheriff, who was a lawyer, and clerks. If there was civil commotion or contempt of royal authority, the sheriff had power to raise a posse of armed men to restore order [posse comitatus: power of the county]. There were about five coroners in each county and they served for a number of years. They were chosen locally under the sheriff's supervision. The escheator was appointed annually by the Treasurer to administer the Crown's rights in feudal land in the county. The constables and bailiffs operated at the hundred and parish level to detect crime and keep the peace. They assisted sheriffs and Justices of the Peace, organized "watches" for criminals and vagrants at the village level, and raised the "hue and cry" along the highway and from village to village in pursuit of offenders who had committed felony or robbery in their districts.
Shire knights performed a number of duties. They served a sheriffs, escheators, coroners, and justices on special royal commissions of gaol-delivery. They sat in judgment in the shire court at its monthly meetings, attended the two great annual assemblies when the lord, knights and freeholders of the shire gathered to meet the justices on eyre, who came escorted by the sheriff and weapon bearers. They served on the committees which reviewed the presentments of the hundreds and village, and carried the record of the shire court to Westminster when summoned there by the kings' judges. They served on the grand assize. As elected representatives of their fellow knights of the shire, they assessed any taxes due from each hundred. They investigated and reported on local abuses and grievances. The king's judges and council often called on them to answer questions put to them on oath. In the villages, humbler freeholders and sokemen were elected to assess the village taxes. Six villeins answered for the village's offenses at the royal eyre.
Everyone was taught to read and write in English. Even obscure villages gathered children together for this schooling. Boys of noblemen were taught reading, writing, Latin, a musical instrument, athletics, riding, and gentlemanly conduct. Girls were taught reading, writing, music, dancing, and perhaps household nursing and first aid, spinning, embroidery, and gardening. Girls of high social position were also taught riding and hawking. Grammar schools taught, in Latin, grammar, logic [dialectic], and rhetoric [art of public speaking and debate]. The teacher possessed the only complete copy of the Latin text, and most of the school work was done orally. Though books were few and precious, the students read several Latin works. Girls and boys of high social position usually had private teachers for grammar school, while boys of lower classes were sponsored at grammar schools such as those at Oxford. Discipline was maintained by the birch or rod.
There was no examination for admission as an undergraduate to Oxford, but a knowledge of Latin with some skill in speaking Latin was a necessary background. The students came from all backgrounds. Some had their expenses paid by their parents, while others had the patronage of a churchman, a religious house, or a wealthy layman.
A student at Oxford would become a master after graduating from a seven year course of study of the seven liberal arts: [grammar, rhetoric (the source of law), Aristotelian logic (which differentiates the true from the false), arithmetic, including fractions and ratios, (the foundation of order), geometry, including methods of finding the length of lines, the area of surfaces, and thevolume of solids, (the science of measurement), astronomy (the most noble of the sciences because it is connected with divinity and theology), music, and Aristotle's philosophy of physics, metaphysics, and ethics; and then lecturing and leading disputations for two years. He also had to write a thesis on some chosen subject and defend it against the faculty. A Master's degree gave one the right to teach. Further study for four years led to a doctorate in one of the professions: theology and canon or civil law.
There were about 1,500 students in Oxford. They drank, played dice, quarreled a lot and begged at street corners. There were mob fights between students from the north and students from the south and between students and townsmen. But when the mayor of Oxford hanged two students accused of being involved in the killing of a townswoman, many masters and students left for Cambridge. In 1214, a charter created the office of Chancellor of the university at Oxford. He was responsible for law and order and, through his court, could fine, imprison, and excommunicate offenders and expel undesirables such as prostitutes from the town. He had authority over all crimes involving scholars, except murder and mayhem. The Chancellor summoned and presided over meetings of the masters and came to be elected by indirect vote by the masters who had schools, usually no more than a room or hall with a central hearth which was hired for lectures. Students paid for meals there. Corners of the room were often partitioned off for private study. At night, some students slept on the straw on the floor. Six hours of sleep were considered sufficient.
In 1221 the Friars established their chief school at Oxford. They were bound by oaths of poverty, obedience, and chastity, but were not confined within the walls of a monastery. They walked barefoot from place to lace preaching. They begged for their food and lodgings. They replaced monks, who had become self- indulgent, as the most vital spiritual force among the people. In 1231, the King ordered that every student must have his name on the roll of a master and the masters had to keep a list of those attending his lectures.