The Project Gutenberg Etext Our Legal Heritage, by S. A. Reilly
OUR LEGAL HERITAGE
The first thousand years: 600 - 1600
King AEthelbert - Queen Elizabeth
2nd Edition
By
S. A. Reilly, Attorney 175 E. Delaware Place Chicago, Illinois 60611-1724
1999
Preface
This was written to see what laws have been in existence for a long time and therefore have proven their success in maintaining a stable society. It's purpose is also to see the historical context in which our legal doctrines were derived. It looks at the inception of the common law system, the origin of the jury system, the meaning in context of the Magna Carta provisions, the emergence of attorneys, and the formation of probate law from church origins.
This book is a primer. One may read it without prior knowledge in history or law, although it will be more meaningful to lawyers than to non-lawyers. Since it defines terms unique to English legal history, it may serve as a good introduction on which to base further reading in English legal history. The meaning of some terms in King Aethelbert's code in Chapter 1 are unknown or inexact.
The chapters are sequential. The title of each chapter in the Table of Contents includes the time period covered. The title of each chapter denotes an important legal development of that time period.
Each chapter is divided into three sections: The Times, The Law, and Judicial Procedure. The law section is the central section. It describes the law governing the behavior and conduct of the populace. It includes law of that time by which people lived which is the same, similar, or a building block to the law of today. In earlier times this is both statutory law and the common law of the court. The Magna Carta, which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of the Statutes at Large. The law sections of Chapter 7 - 13 mainly quote or paraphrase most of these statutes or the Statutes of the Realm. Excluded are statutes which do not help us understand the development of our law, such as statutes governing Wales after its conquest and statutes on succession rights to the throne.
The first section of each chapter: The Times, sets a background and context in which to better understand the laws. The usual subject matter of history such as battles, famines, periods of corruption, and international relations are omitted as not helping to understand the process of civilization and development of the law in the nation of England.
The last section of each chapter: Judicial Procedure, describes the process of applying the law and trying cases for the relevant time period. It also contains some examples of cases.
For clarity and easy comparison, amounts of money expressed in pounds or marks have been converted to the smaller denominations of shillings and pence. There are twenty shillings in a pound. A mark in silver is two thirds of a pound.
The sources and reference books from which information was obtained are listed in the bibliography instead of being contained in tedious footnotes.
Dedication
A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her
students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier.
This book "Our Legal Heritage" is dedicated to the faculty of
Vassar College, without whom it would never have been written.
Table of Contents
Chapters:
1. Tort law as the first written law: to 600
2. Oaths and perjury: 600-900
3. Marriage law: 900-1066
4. Martial "law": 1066-1100
5. Criminal law and prosecution: 1100-1154
6. Common Law for all freemen: 1154-1215
7. Magna Carta: the first statute: 1215-1272
8. Land law: 1272-1348
9. Legislating the economy: 1348-1399
10. Equity from Chancery Court: 1400-1485
11. Use-trust of land: 1485-1509
12. Wills and testaments of lands and goods: 1509-1558.
13. Consideration and contract Law: 1558-1604
14. Epilogue: from 1604
Appendix: Sovereigns of England
Bibliography
Chapter 1
The Times: before 600
Clans, headed by Kings, lived in huts on top of hills or other high places and fortified by circular or rectangular earth ditches and banks behind which they could gather with their herds for protection. At the entrances were several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The others went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which to kill the enemy from above. Concentric circles of ditches around these fortified camps could reach to 14 acres. The people lived in circular huts with wood posts in a circle supporting a roof. The walls were made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Sometimes there were stalls for cattle. Cooking was in a clay oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Forests abounded with wolves, bears, wild boars, and wild cattle.
People wore animal skins over their bodies for warmth and around their feet for protection when walking. They carried small items by hooking them onto their belts.
Pathways extended through this camp of huts and for many miles beyond. They were used for trade and transport with pack horses.
Men bought or captured women for wives and carried them over the thresholds of their huts. The first month of marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a drink with fermented honey and herbs, for the first month of their marriage. A wife wore a gold wedding band on the ring finger of her left hand to show that she was married. Women wore other jewelry too, which indicated their social rank.
Women usually stayed at home caring for children, preparing meals, and making baskets. They also made wool felt and spun and wove wool into cloth. Flax was grown and woven into linen cloth. The weaving was done on an upright or warp- weighted loom. People draped the cloth around their bodies and fastened it with a metal brooch inlayed with gold, gems, glass, and shell, which were glued on with glue that was obtained from melting animal hooves. They also had amber beads and pendants. They could tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they made. They cut things with flint dug up from pits. On the coast, they made bone harpoons for deep sea fish.
The King, who was tall and strong, led his men in hunting groups to kill deer and other wild animals in the forests and to fish in the streams. Some men brought their hunting dogs on leashes to follow scent trails to the animal. The men attacked the animals with spears and threw stones. They used shields to protect their bodies. They watched the phases of the moon and learned to predict when it would be full and give the most light for night hunting. This began the concept of a month.
If hunting groups from two clans tried to follow the same deer, there might be a fight between the clans or a blood feud. After the battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A priest officiated over a funeral for a dead man. His wife would often also go on the funeral pyre with him. Memorial burial mounds would be erected over the corpses or cremated ashes of their great men. Later, these ashes were first placed in urns before burial in a mound of earth or the corpses were buried with a few personal items.
The priest also officiated over sacrifices of humans, who were usually offenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were usually made in time of war or pestilence, and usually before the winter made food scarce, at Halloween time. Humans were sometimes eaten.
The clan ate deer that had been cooked on a spit over a fire, and fruits and vegetables which had been gathered by the women. They drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There were eggs of different colors in nests and many rabbits to eat. The goddess Easter was celebrated at this time.
After this hunting and gathering era, there was farming and domestication of animals such as horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chicken, and cattle. Of these, the pig was the most important meat supply, being killed and salted for winter use. Next in importance were the cattle. Sheep were kept primarily for their wool. Flocks and herds were taken to pastures. The male cattle, with wood yokes, pulled ploughs in the fields of barley and wheat. The female goat and cow provided milk, butter, and cheese. The chickens provided eggs. The hoe, spade, and grinding stone were used. Cloth was woven for clothes. Pottery was made from clay and used for food preparation and consumption. During the period of "lent" [from the word "lencten", which means spring], it was forbidden to eat any meat or fish. This was the season in which many animals were born and grew a lot. The people also made boats.
Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were built so that the sun's position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of longest sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days there was an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants dried up and leaves fell from the trees. The winter solstice, when the days began to get longer was cause for celebration. In the next season, there was an optimum time to plant seeds so they could spring up from the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter; the twelve days of Yuletide when candles were lit and houses decorated with evergreen; Plough Monday for resumption of work after Yuletide; May Day when greenery was gathered from the woods and people danced around a May pole; Whitsun when Morris dancers leapt through their villages with bells, hobby-horses, and waving scarves; Lammas when the first bread was celebrated; and Harvest Home when the effigy of a goddess was carried with reapers singing and piping behind.
There were settlements on high ground and near rivers. Each settlement had a meadow, for the mowing of hay, and a mill, with wooden huts, covered with branches or thatch, of families clustered nearby. Grain was stored in pits in the earth. Each hut had a garden for fruit and vegetables. A goat or cow might be tied out of reach of the garden. There was a fence or hedge surrounding and protecting the garden area and dwelling. Outside the fence were an acre or two of fields of wheat and barley, and sometimes oats and rye. Wheat and rye were sown in the fall, and oats and barley in the spring. They were all harvested in the summer. These fields were usually enclosed with a hedge to keep animals from eating the crop. Flax was grown and made into linen cloth. Beyond the fields were pastures for cattle and sheep grazing. There was often an area for beehives.
Crops were produced with the open field system. In this system, there were three large fields for the heavy and fertile land. Each field was divided into long and narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's work with the plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. These were rotated yearly. Each free man was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested for himself and his family. After the year, they reverted to common ownership for grazing.
The plough used was heavy and made first of wood and later of iron. It had a mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and threw it into a ridge. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage to the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels, reaping hooks and scythes, and sledge-hammers and anvils. With iron axes, forests were cleared to provide more arable land.
The use of this open field system instead of compact enclosures worked by individuals was necessary in primitive communities which were farming only for their own subsistence. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the plough. Strips of land for agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew.
There were villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle, sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and rabbits were sold there.
Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder blade shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads. People used bone and stone tools, such as stone hammers, and then bronze and iron tools, weapons, breast plates, and horse bits, which were formed from moulds and/or forged by bronze smiths and blacksmiths. Weapons included bows and arrows, flint and copper daggers, stone axes, and shields of wood with bronze mountings. The warriors fought with chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings. The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came into use, there was a demand for its constituent parts: copper and tin, which were traded by rafts on waterways and the sea. Lead was mined. Wrought iroin bars were used as currency.
Corpses were buried far away from any village in wood coffins, except for Kings, who were placed in stone coffins after being wrapped in linen. Possessions were buried with them.
With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by conquest, for instance by invading Angles and Saxons, the population grew. There were different classes of men such as eorls, ceorls [free farmers], and slaves. They dressed differently. Freemen had long hair and beards. Slaves' hair was shorn from their heads so that they were bald. Slaves were chained and often traded. Prisoners taken in battle, e.g. Britons, became slaves. Criminals became slaves of the person wronged or of the King. Sometimes a father pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors, who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a master's hands. Children with a slave parent were slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders, which were made of logs and consisted on one large room or hall. An open hearth was in the middle of the earthen floor, which was strewn with rushes. There was a hole in the roof to let out the smoke. Here the landholder and his men would eat meat, bread, salt, hot spiced ale, and mead while listening to minstrels sing about the heroic deeds of their ancestors. Physical strength and endurance in adversity were admired traits. Slaves often were used as grain-grinders, ploughmen, sowers, haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds, cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. A lord could kill his slave at will.
The people were worshipping pagan gods when St. Augustine came to England in 596 A.D. to Christianize them. King AEthelbert of Kent and his wife, who had been raised Christian on the continent, met him when he arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city. Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later called Canterbury. He also built the first St. Paul's church in what was later called London. Aethelbert and his men who fought with him and ate in his household [gesiths] became Christian.
Augustine knew how to write, but King AEthelbert did not. The King announced his laws at meetings of his people and his eorls would decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a command of the King. He and Augustine decided to write down some of these laws, which now included the King's new law concerning the church.
These laws concern personal injury, murder, theft, burglary, marriage, adultery, and inheritance. The blood feud's private revenge for killing had been replaced by payment of compensation to the dead man's kindred. One paid a man's "wergeld" [worth] to his kindred for causing his wrongful death. The wergeld [wer] of an aetheling was 1500s., of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural serf in Kent], 40-80s., and of a slave nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an eorl would have paid as murderer. The penalty for slander was tearing out of the tongue. If an aetheling were guilty of this offense, his tongue was worth five times that of a coerl, so he had to pay proportionately more to ransom it.
The Law
"THESE ARE THE DOOMS [DECREES] WHICH KING AETHELBERHT ESTABLISHED IN THE DAYS OF AUGUSTINE
1. [Theft of] the property of God and of the church [shall be compensated], twelve-fold; a bishop's property, eleven-fold; a priest's property, nine-fold; a deacon's property, six-fold; a cleric's property, three-fold; church-frith [breach of the peace of the church; right of sanctuary and protection given to those within its precincts], two-fold [that of ordinary breach of the peace]; m….frith [breach of the peace of a meeting place], two-fold.
2. If the King calls his leod to him, and any one there do them evil, [let him compensate with] a two-fold bot [damages for the injury], and 50 shillings to the King.
3. If the King drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe [evil deed], let him make two-fold bot.
4. If a freeman steal from the King, let him repay nine-fold.
5. If a man slay another in the King's tun [enclosed premises], let him make bot with 50 shillings.
6. If any one slay a freeman, 50 shillings to the King, as drihtin-beah.
7. If the King's ambiht-smith [smith or carpenter] or laad-rine [man who walks before the King or guide or escort], slay a man, let him pay a half leod-geld.
8. [Offenses against anyone or anyplace under] the King's mund-byrd [protection], 50 shillings.
9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [necessary to pay the fine].
10. If a man lie with the King's maiden [female servant], let him pay a bot of 50 shillings.
11. If she be a grinding slave, let him pay a bot of 25 shillings. The third [class of servant] 12 shillings.
12. Let the King's fed-esl [woman who serves him food or nurse] be paid for with 20 shillings.
13. If a man slay another in an eorl's tun [premises], let [him] make bot with 12 shillings.
14. If a man lie with an eorl's birele [female cup-bearer], let him make bot with 12 shillings.
15. [Offenses against a person or place under] a ceorl's mund-byrd [protection], 6 shillings.
16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele [female cup-bearer], let him make bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the second [class], 50 scaetts 17. If any one be the first to invade a man's tun [premises], let him make bot with 6 shillings; let him who follows, with 3 shillings; after, each, a shilling. 18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is a quarrel, though no injury results, let him make bot with 6 shillings. 19. If a weg-reaf [highway robbery] be done [with weapons furnished by another], let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 6 shillings. 20. If the man be slain, let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 20 shillings. 21. If a [free] man slay another, let him make bot with a half leod-geld of 100 shillings. 22. If a man slay another, at the open grave let him pay 20 shillings, and pay the whole leod within 40 days. 23. If the slayer departs from the land, let his kindred pay a half leod. 24. If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with 20 shillings. 25. If any one slay a ceorl's hlaf-aeta [bread-eater; domestic or menial servant], let him make bot with 6 shillings. 26. If [anyone] slay a laet of the highest class, let him pay 80 shillings; of the second class, let him pay 60 shillings; of the third class, let him pay 40 shillings. 27. If a freeman commit edor-breach [breaking through the fenced enclosure and forcibly entering a ceorl's dwelling], let him make bot with 6 shillings. 28. If any one take property from a dwelling, let him pay a three-fold bot. 29. If a freeman goes with hostile intent through an edor [the fence enclosing a dwelling], let him make bot with 4 shillings. 30. If [in so doing] a man slay another, let him pay with his own money, and with any sound property whatever. 31. If a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his wer- geld, and obtain another wife with his own money, and bring her to the other [man's dwelling]. 32. If any one thrusts through the riht [true] ham-scyld, let him adequately compensate. 33. If there be feax-fang [taking hold of someone by the hair], let there be 50 sceatts for bot. 34. If there be an exposure of the bone, let bot be made with 3 shillings. 35. If there be an injury to the bone, let bot be made with 4 shillings. 36. If the outer hion [outer membrane covering the brain] be broken, let bot be made with 10 shillings. 37. If it be both [outer and inner membranes covering the brain], let bot be made with 20 shillings. 38. If a shoulder be lamed, let bot be made with 30 shillings. 39. If an ear be struck off, let bot be made with 12 shillings. 40. If the other ear hear not, let bot be made with 25 shillings. 41. If an ear be pierced, let bot be made with 3 shillings. 42. If an ear be mutilated, let bot be made with 6 shillings. 43. If an eye be [struck] out, let bot be made with 50 shillings. 44. If the mouth or an eye be injured, let bot be made with 12 shillings. 45. If the nose be pierced, let bot be made with 9 shillings. 46. If it be one ala, let bot be made with 3 shillings. 47. If both be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings. 48. If the nose be otherwise mutilated, for each [cut, let] bot be made with 6 shillings. 49. If it be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings. 50. Let him who breaks the jaw-bone pay for it with 20 shillings. 51. For each of the four front teeth, 6 shillings; for the tooth which stands next to them 4 shillings; for that which stands next to that, 3 shillings; and then afterwards, for each a shilling. 52. If the speech be injured, 12 shillings. If the collar-bone be broken, let bot be made with 6 shillings. 53. Let him who stabs [another] through an arm, make bot with 6 shillings. If an arm be broken, let him make bot with 6 shillings. 54. If a thumb be struck off, 20 shillings. If a thumb nail be off, let bot be made with 3 shillings. If the shooting [fore] finger be struck off, let bot be made with 8 shillings. If the middle finger be struck off, let bot be made with 4 shillings. If the gold [ring]finger be struck off, let bot be made with 6 shillings. If the little finger be struck off, let bot be made with 11 shillings. 55. For every nail, a shilling. 56. For the smallest disfigurement of the face, 3 shillings; and for the greater, 6 shillings. 57. If any one strike another with his fist on the nose, 3 shillings. 58. If there be a bruise [on the nose], a shilling; if he receive a right hand bruise [from protecting his face with his arm], let him [the striker] pay a shilling. 59. If the bruise [on the arm] be black in a part not covered by the clothes, let bot be made with 30 scaetts. 60. If it be covered by the clothes, let bot for each be made with 20 scaetts. 61. If the belly be wounded, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if it be pierced through, let bot be made with 20 shillings. 62. If any one be gegemed, let bot be made with 30 shillings. 63. If any one be cear-wund, let bot be made with 3 shillings. 64. If any one destroy [another's] organ of generation [penis], let him pay him with 3 leud-gelds: if he pierce it through, let him make bot with 6 shillings; if it be pierced within, let him make bot with 6 shillings. 65. If a thigh be broken, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if the man become halt [lame], then friends must arbitrate. 66. If a rib be broken, let bot be made with 3 shillings. 67. If [the skin of] a thigh be pierced through, for each stab 6 shillings; if [the wound be] above an inch [deep], a shilling; for two inches, 2; above three, 3 shillings. 68. If a sinew be wounded. let bot be made with 3 shillings. 69. If a foot be cut off, let 50 shillings be paid. 70. If a great toe be cut off, let 10 shillings be paid. 71. For each of the other toes, let one half that for the corresponding finger be paid. 72. If the nail of a great toe be cut off, 30 scaetts for bot; for each of the others, make bot with 10 scaetts. 73. If a freewoman loc-bore [with long hair] commit any leswe [evil deed], let her make a bot of 30 shillings. 74. Let maiden-bot [compensation for injury to an unmarried woman] be as that of a freeman. 75. For [breach of] the mund [protection] of a widow of the best class, of an eorl's degree, let the bot be 50 shillings; of the second, 20 shillings; of the third, 12 shillings; of the fourth, 6 shillings. [Mund was a sum paid to the family of the bride for transferring the rightful protection they possessed over her to the family of the husband. If the husband died and his kindred did not accept the terms sanctioned by law, her kindred could repurchase the rightful protection.] 76. If a man carry off a widow not under his own protection by right, let the mund be twofold. 77. If a man buy a maiden with cattle, let the bargain stand, if it be without fraud; but if there be fraud, let him bring her home again, and let his property be restored to him. 78. If she bear a live child, she shall have half the property, if the husband die first. 79. If she wish to go away with her children, she shall have half the property. 80. If the husband wish to keep them [the children], [she shall have the same portion] as one child. 81. If she bear no child, her paternal kindred shall have the fioh [her goods]and the morgen-gyfe [morning gift; a gift make to the bride by her husband on the morning following the consummation of the marriage]. 82. If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay 50 shillings to the owner, and afterwards buy [the object of] his will from the owner. 83. If she be betrothed to another man in money [at a bride price], let him [who carried her off] make bot with 20 shillings. 84. If she become gaengang, 35 shillings; and 15 shillings to the King. 85. If a man lie with an esne's wife, her husband still living, let him make twofold bot. 86. If one esne slay another unoffending, let him pay for him at his full worth. 87. If an esne's eye and foot be struck out or off, let him be paid for at his full worth. 88. If any one bind another man's esne, let him make bot with 6 shillings. 89. Let [compensation for] weg-reaf [highway robbery] of a theow [slave] be 3 shillings. 90. If a theow Judicial Procedure If a man did something wrong, his case would be heard by the King and his freemen. His punishment would be given to him by the community. There were occasional meetings of "hundreds", which were probably a hundred hides of land or a hundred extended families, to settle wide-spread disputes. The Times: 600-900 A community was usually an extended family. It's members lived in villages in which a stone church was the most prominent building. They lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made of wood, mud, and straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the walls to keep the wind out. Smoke from a fire in the middle of the room filtered out of cracks in the roof. Grain was ground at home by rotating by hand one stone disk on another stone disk. Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of water or by horses. Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the community as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver, copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote lead mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced the smaller scaetts. Freemen paid "scot and lot" according to their means. Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the form of money became customary, and then expected. They were called "tithes" and were spent for church repair, the clergy, and poor and needy laborers. The parish of the priest was coextensive with the holding of one landlord and was his chaplain. The priest and other men who helped him, lived in the church building. Some churches had lead roofs and iron hinges, latches, and locks on their doors. The land underneath had been given to the church by former Kings and persons who wanted the church to say prayers to help their souls go from purgatory to heaven and who also selected the first priest. The priest conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and Christmas (Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the pagan Yuletide festivities. Incense took the place of pagan burnt offerings, holy water of haunted wells and streams, and Christian incantations of sorcerer's spells. The church baptized babies and officiated at marriage ceremonies. It also said prayers for the dying, gave them funerals, and buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues, and plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave would assist identification of that person for being taken to heaven. The church heard the last wish or will of the person dying concerning who he wanted to have his property. Every man carried a horn slung on his shoulder as he went about his work so that he could at once send out a warning to his fellow villagers or call them in chasing a thief or other offender. The forests were full of outlaws, so strangers who did not blow a horn to announce themselves were presumed to be fugitive offenders who could be shot on sight. An eorl could call upon the ceorl farmers for about forty days to fight off an invading group. The houses of the wealthy had ornamented silk hangings on the walls. Brightly colored drapery, often purple, and fly-nets surrounded their beds, which were covered with the fur of animals. They slept in bed-clothes on pillows stuffed with straw. Tables plated with silver and gems held silver candlesticks, gold and silver goblets and cups, and lamps of gold, silver, or glass. They used silver mirrors and silver writing pens. There were covered seats, benches, and footstools with the head and feet of animals at their extremities. They ate from a table covered with a cloth. Servants brought in food on spits, from which they ate. Food was boiled, broiled, or baked. The wealthy ate wheat bread and others ate barley bread. Ale made from barley was passed around in a cup. Mead made from honey was also drunk. Men wore long-sleeved wool and linen garments reaching almost to the knee, around which they wore a belt tied in a knot. Men often wore a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand. Leather shoes were fastened with leather thongs around the ankle. Their hair was parted in the middle and combed down each side in waving ringlets. The beard was parted in the middle of the chin, so that it ended in two points. The clergy did not wear beards. Well-to-do women wore brightly colored robes with waist bands, headbands, necklaces, gem bracelets, and rings. Their long hair was in ringlets and they put rouge on their cheeks. They were often doing needlework. Silk was affordable only by the wealthy. Most families kept a pig and pork was the primary meat. There were also sheep, goats, cows, deer, rabbits, and fowl. Fowl was obtained by fowlers who trapped them. The inland waters yielded eels, salmon, and trout. In the fall, meat was salted to preserve it for winter meals. There were orchards growing figs, nuts, grapes, almonds, pears, and apples. Also produced were beans, lentils, onions, eggs, cheese, and butter. Pepper and cinnamon were imported. Fishing from the sea developed in the 1000s A.D., and yielded herrings, sturgeon, porpoise, oysters, crabs, and other fish. Whale skins were used to make ropes. It was usual to wash one's feet in a hot tub after traveling and drying them with a rough wool cloth. Traveling a far distance was unsafe as there were robbers on the roads. Traveling strangers were distrusted. There were superstitions about the content of dreams, the events of the moon, and the flights and voices of birds were often seen as signs or omens of future events. Herbal mixtures were drunk for sickness and maladies. In the peaceful latter part of the 600s, Theodore, who had been a monk in Rome, was appointed Archbishop and visited all the island speaking about the right rule of life and ordaining bishops to oversee the priests. There was a bishop for each of the kingdoms. The bishops came to have the same wergeld as an eorldorman: 1200 s., which was the price of about 500 oxen. A priest had the wergeld as a landholding farmer [thegn], or 300s. The bishops spoke Latin, but the priests of the local parishes spoke English. Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the English church obeyed. He taught sacred and secular literature, the books of holy writ, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, and sacred music. The learned ecclesiastical life flourished in monasteries. Theodore discouraged slavery by denying Christian burial to the kidnapper and forbidding the sale of children over the age of seven. Hilda, a noble's daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one of its monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and charity. Several monks taught there later became bishops. Kings and princes often asked her advice. There were several kingdoms. Kings were selected from the royal family by their worthiness. A King had not only a wergeld to be paid to his family if he were killed, but a "cynebot" that would be paid to his kingdom. A King's household would have a chamberlain, marshall to oversee the horses and military equipment, a steward, and a cupbearer. A queen could possess, manage, and dispose of lands in her name. Great men wore gold-embroidered clothes, gilt buckles and brooches, and drank from drinking horns mounted in silver-gilt or in gold. Their wives had beads, pins, needles, tweezers of bronze, and work-boxes of bronze, some highly ornamented. Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s for which a danegeld tax on land was assessed on everyone every ten to twenty years. It was stored in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great unified the country to defeat them. He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on hill tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control the main road and river routes into Wessex. The burhs were the first towns. They were typically walled enclosures with towers and several wooden thatched huts and a couple of churches inside. Earthen oil lamps were in use. The land area protected by each burh became known as a "shire". The country was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons and was called "Angle-land", which later became "England". Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal, which included eorldormen's hearthband (men each of whom had chosen to swear to fight to the death for their eorldorman, and some of whom were of high rank), shire thegns (local landholding farmers, who were required to bring fighting equipment such as swords, helmets, chainmail, and horses), and ordinary freemen, i.e. ceorls (who carried food, dug fortifications, and sometimes fought). Some great lords organized men under them, whom they provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath to their lord "on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve, and fulfill all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose his will as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60 oars to fight the Viking longships. Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one-half of the men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of common land, and a more manor-oriented and stratified society with the King and important families more powerful and the peasants more curtailed. Many free coerls of the older days became bonded. The village community became a manor. But the lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights of common that exist within the community. In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free farmer, whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were given a wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably a Viking denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks of silver in later times and probably in this time. King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which King Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of God and St. Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my soul, namely a hundred hides The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop AEthelred and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere and Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone alters this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all the saints of God forever to all eternity. Amen." Sons usually succeeded their fathers on the same land as shown by this lifetime lease: "Bishop Denewulf and the community at Winchester lease to Alfred for his lifetime 40 hides of land at Alresford, in accordance with the lease which Bishop Tunbriht had granted to his parents and which had run out, on condition that he renders every year at the autumnal equinox three pounds as rent, and church dues, and the work connected with church dues; and when the need arises, his men shall be ready both for harvesting and hunting; and after his death the property shall pass undisputed to St. Peter's. These are the signatures of the councilors and of the members of the community who gave their consent, namely …" Alfred wrote poems on the worthiness of wisdom and knowledge in preference to material pleasures, pride, and fame, in dealing with life's sorrow and strife. His observations on human nature and his proverbs include: 1. As one sows, so will he mow. 2. Every man's doom [judgment] returns to his door. 3. He who will not learn while young, will repent of it when old. 4. Weal [prosperity] without wisdom is worthless. 5. Though a man had 70 acres sown with red gold, and the gold grew like grass, yet he is not a whit the worthier unless he gain friends for himself. 6. Gold is but a stone unless a wise man has it. 7. It's hard to row against the sea-flood; so it is against misfortune. 8. He who toils in his youth to win wealth, so that he may enjoy ease in his old age, has well bestowed his toil. 9. Many a man loses his soul through silver. 10. Wealth may pass away, but wisdom will remain, and no man may perish who has it for his comrade. 11. Don't choose a wife for her beauty nor for wealth, but study her disposition. 12. Many an apple is bright without and bitter within. 13. Don't believe the man of many words. 14. With a few words a wise man can compass much. 15. Make friends at market, and at church, with poor and with rich. 16. Though one man wielded all the world, and all the joy that dwells therein, he could not therewith keep his life. 17. Don't chide with a fool. 18. A fool's bolt is soon shot. 19. If you have a child, teach it men's manners while it is little. If you let him have his own will, he will cause you much sorrow when he comes of age. 20. He who spares the rod and lets a young child rule, shall rue it when the child grows old. 21. Either drinking or not drinking is, with wisdom, good. 22. Be not so mad as to tell your friend all your thoughts. 23. Relatives often quarrel together. 24. The barkless dog bites ill. 25. Be wise of word and wary of speech, then all shall love you. 26. We may outride, but not outwit, the old man. 27. If you and your friend fall out, then your enemy will know what your friend knew before. 28. Don't choose a deceitful man as a friend, for he will do you harm. 29. The false one will betray you when you least expect it. 30. Don't choose a scornful false friend, for he will steal your goods and deny the theft. 31. Take to yourself a steadfast man who is wise in word and deed; he will prove a true friend in need. To restore education and religion, Alfred disseminated the Anglo-Saxon Chronicles, the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, the Providence of Boethius on the goodness of God, and Pope Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he had translated into English and was the fundamental book on the duty of a bishop, and included his duty to teach laymen. Alfred's advice to pastors was to live as they had been taught from books and to teach this manner of life to others. To be avoided was pride, the mind's deception of seeking glory in the name of doing good works, and the corruption of high office. Bede was England's first scholar, first theologian, and first historian. He wrote poetry, theological books, and textbooks on grammar, rhetoric [public speaking and debating], arithmetic, and astronomy. He began the practice of dating years from the birth of Christ. A famous poem, the oral legend of Beowulf, a hero who led his men into adventures and performed great feats and fought monsters and dragons, was put into writing with a Christian theme. In it, loyalty to one's lord is a paramount virtue. Also available in writing was the story of King Arthur's twelve victorious battles against the pagan Saxons, authored by Nennius. There were professional story-tellers attached to great men. Others wandered from court to court, receiving gifts for their story-telling. Men usually told oral legends of their own feats and those of their ancestors after supper. Alfred had monasteries rebuilt with learned and moral men heading them. He built a strong wall with four gates around London, which he had conquered. He appointed one of his eorldormen to be alderman [older man] to govern London and to be the shire's earl. A later King built a palace in London, although Winchester was still the royal capital town. When the King traveled, he and his retinue would be fed by the local people at their expense. Under the royalty were the nobles. An earl headed each shire. He led the array of his shire to do battle if the shire was attacked. He and the local bishop presided over shire meetings and meetings of the people. Reeves were appointed by the King as his representatives in the shires. The reeve took security from every person for the maintenance of the public peace. He also brought suspects to court, gave judgments according to the doom-books, delivered offenders to punishment. By service to the King, it was possible for a coerl to rise to become a thegn and to be given land by the King. The King's thegns who got their position by fighting for the King came to be known as knights. Other thegns performed functions of magistrates. A thegn was later identified as a person with five hides of land, a church, a bell-house, a judicial at the burgh-gate, and an office or station in the King's hall. Some thegns reached nobility status with a wergeld of 1200 s. when a freeman's wergeld was 200s. They also were given a higher legal status in the scale of punishment, giving credible evidence, and participation in legal proceedings. The sokemen were freemen who had inherited their own land, chose their own lord, and attended their lord's court. That is, their lord has soc jurisdiction over them. A smallholder rented land of about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by doing work on the lord's demesne [household] land, paying money rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens. Smallholders made up about two-fifths of the population. A cottager had one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living. Among these were shepherds, ploughmen, swineherds, and blacksmiths. They also participated in the agricultural work, especially at harvest time. It was possible for a thegn to acquire enough land to qualify him for the witan [King's council of wise men, which included archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, chief landholders, and officers of the King's household; and also chose the King's successor on his death]. Women could be present at the witenagemot [meeting of the witan, which met three times annually] and shire-gemot [meeting of the shire]. They could sue and be sued in the courts. They could independently inherit, possess, and dispose of property. A wife's inheritance was her own and under no control of her husband. Marriage required the consent of the lady and her friends. The man also had to arrange for the foster-lean, that is, money for the support of expected children. He also declared the amount of money or land he would give the lady for her consent, that is, the morgengift, and what he would bequeath her in case of his death. If she remarried within a year of his death, she had to forfeit the morgengift. Great men and monasteries had millers, smiths, carpenters, architects, agriculturalists, fishermen, weavers, embroiderers, dyers, and illuminators. For entertainment, minstrels sang ballads about heroes or Bible stories, harpers played, jesters joked, and tumblers threw and caught balls and knives. There was gambling, dice games, and chasing deer with hounds. Fraternal guilds were established for mutual advantage and protection. A guild imposed fines for any injury of one member by another member. It assisted in paying any murder fine imposed on a member. It avenged the murder of a member and abided by the consequences. It buried its members and purchased masses for his soul. Merchantile guilds in sea-ports carried out commercial speculations not possible by the capital of only one person. There were some ale-houses. The Law Alfred issued a set of laws to cover the whole country. The importance of telling the truth and keeping one's word are expressed by this law: "1. At the first we teach that it is most needful that every man warily keep his oath and his wed. If any one be constrained to either of these wrongfully, either to treason against his lord, or to any unlawful aid; then it is juster to belie than to fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that which is lawful to fulfil, and in that belie himself, let him submissively deliver up his weapon and his goods to the keeping of his friends, and be in prison forty days in a King's tun: let him there suffer whatever the bishop may prescribe to him: …". The Ten Commandments were written down as this law: "The Lord spake these words to Moses, and thus said: I am the Lord thy God. I led thee out of the land of the Egyptians, and of their bondage. 1. Love thou not other strange gods above me. 2. Utter thou not my name idly, for thou shalt not be guiltless towards me if thou utter my name idly. 3. Remember that thou hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and on the seventh rest. For in six days, Christ wrought the heavens and the earth, the seas, and all creatures that are in them, and rested on the seventh day: and therefore the Lord hallowed it. 4. Honour thy father and thy mother whom the Lord hath given thee, that thou mayst be the longer living on earth. 5. Slay thou not. 6. Commit thou not adultery. 7. Steal thou not. 8. Say thou not false witness. 9. Covet thou not thy neighbour's goods unjustly. 10. Make thou not to thyself golden or silver gods." If one deceives an unbetrothed woman and sleep with her, he must pay for her and have her afterwards to wife. But if her father not approve, he should pay money according to her dowry. "If a man seize hold of the breast of a ceorlish woman, let him make bot to her with 5 shillings. If he throw her down and do not lie with her, let him make bot with 10 shillings. If he lie with her, let him make bot with 60 shillings. If another man had before lain with her, then let the bot be half that. … If this befall a woman more nobly born, let the bot increase according to the wer." "If any one, with libidinous intent, seize a nun either by her raiment or by her breast without her leave, let the bot be twofold, as we have before ordained concerning a laywoman." "If a man commit a rape upon a ceorl's female slave, he must pay bot to the ceorl of 5 shillings and a wite [fine to the King] of 60 shillings. If a male theow rape a female theow, let him make bot with his testicles." For the first dog bite, the owner pays 6 shillings, for the second, 12 shillings, for the third, 30 shillings. An ox which gores someone to death shall be stoned. If one steals or slays another's ox, he must give two oxen for it. "If any one steals so that his wife and children don't know it, he shall pay 60 shillings as wite. But if he steals with the knowledge of all his household, they shall all go into slavery. A boy of ten years may be privy to a theft." "If one who takes a thief, or holds him for the person who took him, lets the thief go, or conceals the theft, he shall pay for the thief according to his wer. If he is an eorldormen, he shall forfeit his shire, unless the King is willing to be merciful to him." Judicial Procedure Cases were held at monthly meetings of the community [folk-moot]. The King or his representative in the community, called the "reeve", conducted the trial by compurgation. The one complaining, called the "plaintiff", and the one defending, called the "defendant", each told their story and put his hand on the Bible and swore "By God this oath is clean and true". A slip or a stammer would mean he lost the case. Otherwise, community members would stand up to swear on behalf of the plaintiff or the defendant as to their reputation for veracity. If these "compurgators" were too few, usually twelve in number, or recited poorly, their party lost. If this process was inconclusive, the defendant was told to go to church and to take the sacrament only if he were innocent. If he took the sacrament, he was tried by the process of "ordeal". In the ordeal by cold water, he was bound hand and foot and then thrown into water. If he floated, he was guilty. If he sank, he was innocent. It was not necessary to drown to be deemed innocent. In the ordeal by hot water, he had to pick up a stone from inside a boiling cauldron. If his hand was healing in three days, he was innocent. If it was festering, he was guilty. A similar ordeal was that of hot iron, in which one had to carry in his hands a hot iron for a certain distance. Although the results of the ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God, the official conducting the ordeal could adjust its parameters so that a person with a guilty demeanor would be found guilty and a person with an innocent demeanor found innocent. The ordeal seems to favor the physically fit, because a person who was not fat would tend to sink and a person who was in good health would have prompt healing of burns. Presumably a person convicted of murder, i.e. killing by stealth, or robbery [taking from a person's robe, that is, his person or breaking into his home to steal] would be hung and his possessions confiscated. The issue of rights to herd pigs to feed in certain woodland was heard in this lawsuit: "In the year 825 which had passed since the birth of Christ, and in the course of the second Indiction, and during the reign of Beornwulf, King of Mercia, a council meeting was held in the famous place called Clofesho, and there the said King Beornwulf and his bishops and his earls and all the councilors of this nation were assembled. Then there was a very noteworthy suit about wood-pasture at Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. The reeves in charge of the pigherds wished to extend the pasture farther, and take in more of the wood than the ancient rights permitted. Then the bishop and the advisors of the community said that they would not admit liability for more than had been appointed in AEthelbald's day, namely mast for 300 swine, and that the bishop and the community should have two-thirds of the wood and of the mast. They Archbishop Wulfred and all the councilors determined that the bishop and the community might declare on oath that it was so appointed in AEthelbald's time and that they were not trying to obtain more, and the bishop immediately gave security to Earl Eadwulf to furnish the oath before all the councilors, and it was produced in 30 days at the bishop's see at Worcester. At that time Hama was the reeve in charge of the pigherds at Sinton, and he rode until he reached Worcester, and watched and observed the oath, as Earl Eadwulf bade him, but did not challenge it. Here are the names and designations of those who were assembled at the council meeting …" The Times: 900-1066 There were many large landholders such as the King, earls [Danish word for Saxon word "eorldormen">[, and bishops. Earls were noblemen by birth, and often relatives of the King. They were his army commanders and the highest civil officials, each responsible for a shire. A breach of the peace of an eorldorman would occasion a fine. Lower in social status were freemen, then sokemen, and then, in decreasing order, villani, bordarii, cottarii, and servi (slaves). There was a great expansion of arable land. Some land was common land, held by communities. If a family came to pay the dues and fines on it, it became personal to that family and was known as heir land. Kings typically granted land in exchange for services of military duties, repairing of fortresses, and work on bridges. Less common services required by landlords include equipping a guard ship and guarding the coast, guarding the lord, military watch, maintaining the deer fence at the King's residence, alms giving, and church dues. Since this land was granted in return for service, there were limitations on its heritability and often an heir had to pay a heriot to the landlord to obtain the land. A heriot was originally the armor of a man killed, which went to the King. There were several thousand thegns, rich and poor, who held land directly of the King. Free farmers who had sought protection from thegns in time of war now took them as their lords. A free man could chose his lord, following him in war and working his land in peace. In return, the lord would protect him against encroaching neighbors, back him in the courts of law, and feed him in times of famine. Often knights stayed with their lords at their large houses, but later were given land with men on it. The lords were the ruling class and the greatest of them sat in the King's council along with bishops, abbots, and officers of the King's household. The lesser lords were local magnates, who officiated at the shire and hundred courts. A free holder's house was wood, perhaps with a stone foundation, and roofed with thatch or tiles. There was a main room or hall, with bed chambers around it. Beyond was the kitchen, perhaps outside under a lean-to. These buildings were surrounded by a bank or stiff hedge. Simple people lived in huts made from wood and mud, with one door and no windows. They slept around a fire in the middle of the earthen floor. They wore shapeless clothes of goat-hair and unprocessed wool. They ate rough brown bread, vegetable broth, small-ale from barley, bacon, beans, milk, cabbage, onion, and honey for sweetening or mead. In the summer, they ate boiled or raw veal and wild fowl and game snared in the forest. In the fall, they slaughtered and salted their cattle for food during the winter because there was no more pasture for them. However, some cows and breed animals were kept through the winter. Folk land was that land that was left over after allotments had been made to the freemen and which was not common land. Book land was called such because this holding was written down in books. This land was usually land that had been given to the church or monasteries because the church had personnel who could write. So many thegns gave land to the church, usually a hide, that the church had 1/3 of the land. An example of a grant of hides of land is: "[God has endowed King Edred with England], wherefore he enriches and honors men, both ecclesiastic and lay, who can justly deserve it. The truth of this can be acknowledged by the thegn AElfsige Hunlafing through his acquisition of the estate of 5 hides at Alwalton for himself and his heirs, free from every burden except the repair of fortifications, the building of bridges and military service; a prudent landowner church dues, burial fees and tithes. [This land] is to be held for all time and granted along with the things both great and small belonging to it." A Bishop gave land to a faithful attendant for his life and two other lives as follows: "In 904 A.D., I, Bishop Werfrith, with the permission and leave of my honorable community in Worcester, grant to Wulfsige, my reeve, for his loyal efficiency and humble obedience, one hide of land at Aston as Herred held it, that is, surrounded by a dyke, for three lives and then after three lives the estate shall be given back without any controversy to Worcester." The lands of the large landholding lords were administered by freemen. They had wheat, barley, oats, and rye fields, orchards, vineyards, and bee-keeping areas for honey. Hand mills and/or water mills were used for grinding grain. On this land lived not only farm laborers, cattle herders, shepherds, goatherds, and pigherds, but craftsmen such as goldsmiths, hawk-keepers, dog-keepers, horse- keepers, huntsmen, foresters, builders, weaponsmiths, embroiderers, bronze smiths, blacksmiths, water mill wrights, wheelwrights, waggon wrights, iron nail makers, potters, soap-makers, tailors, shoemakers, salters (made salt at the "wyches"), bakers, cooks, and gardeners. Most men did carpentry work. Master carpenters worked with ax, hammer, and saw to make houses, doors, bridges, milk- buckets, wash-tubs, and trunks. Blacksmiths made gates, huge door hinges, locks, latches, bolts, and horseshoes. The lord loaned these people land on which to live for their life, called a "life estate", in return for their services. The loan could continue to their children who took up the craft. Mills were usually powered by water. The land of some lords included fishing villages along the coasts. Other lords had land with iron-mining industries. Some smiths traveled for their work, for instance, stone-wrights building arches and windows in churches, and lead-workers putting lead roofs on churches. Clothing for men and women was made from wool, silk, and linen and was usually brown in color. Men also wore leather clothing, such as neckpieces, breeches, ankle leathers, shoes, and boots; and metal belts under which they carried knives or axes. They could wear leather pouches for carrying items. Water could be carried in leather bags. Leather working preservative techniques improved so that tanning prevented stretching or decaying. For their meals, people had drinking cups and bottles made of leather, and bowls, pans, and pitchers made by the potter's wheel. Water could be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or clay. Some lords had markets on their land, for which they charged a toll [like a sales tax] for participation. There were about fifty markets in the nation. Cattle and slaves were the usual medium of exchange. Shaking hands was symbolic of an agreement for a sale, which was carried out in front of witnesses at the market. People traveled to markets on roads and bridges kept in repair by certain men who did this work as their service to the King. Salt was used throughout the nation to preserve meat over the winter. Inland saltworks had an elaborate and specialized organization. They formed little manufacturing enclaves in the midst of agricultural land, and they were considered to be neither manor nor appurtenant to manors. They belonged jointly to the King and the local earl, who shared, at a proportion of two to one, the proceeds of the tolls upon the sale of salt and methods of carriage on the ancient salt ways according to cartload, horse load, or man load. Horses now had horseshoes. The sales of salt were mostly retail, but some bought to resell. Peddlers carried salt to sell from village to village. At seaports on the coast, goods were loaded onto vessels owned by English merchants to be transported to other English seaports. London was a market town on the north side of the Thames River and the primary port and trading center for foreign merchants. Wheat, meal, skins, hides, wool, beer, lead, cheese, salt, and honey were exported. Wine (mostly for the church), fish, timber, pitch, pepper, spices, copper, gems, gold, silk, dyes, oil, brass, sulphur, glass, and elephant and walrus ivory were imported. There was a royal levy on exports by foreigners merchants. The other side of the river was called Southwark. It contained sleazy docks, prisons, gaming houses, brothels, and inns. Guilds in London were first associations of neighbors for the purposes of mutual assistance. They were fraternities of persons by voluntary compact to assist each other in poverty, including their widows or orphans and the portioning of poor maids, and to protect each other from injury. Their essential features are and continue to be in the future: 1) oath of initiation, 2) entrance fee in money or in kind and a common fund, 3) annual feast and mass, 4) meetings at least three times yearly for guild business, 5), obligation to attend all funerals of members, to bear the body if need be from a distance, and to provide masses for the dead, 6) the duty of friendly help in cases of sickness, imprisonment, house-burning, shipwreck, or robbery, 7) rules for decent behavior at meetings, and 8) provisions for settling disputes without recourse to the law. Both the masses and the feast were attended by the women. Frequently the guilds also had a religious ceremonial to affirm their bonds of fidelity. They readily became connected with the exercise of trades and with the training of apprentices. They promoted and took on public purposes such as the repairing of roads and bridges, the relief of pilgrims, the maintenance of schools and almshouses, and the periodic performance of pageants and miracle-plays. Many of these London guilds were known by the name of their founding member. There were also Frith Guilds and a Knights' Guild. The Frith Guild's main object was to put down theft. Members contributed to a common fund, which paid a compensation for items stolen. Members with horses were to track the thief. Members without horses worked in the place of the absent horseowners until their return. The Knights' Guild was composed of thirteen military persons to whom King Edgar granted certain waste land in the east of London, toward Aldgate, for prescribed services performed. This concession was confirmed by Edward the Confessor in a charter at the suit of certain burgesses of London, the successors of these knights. But there was no trading privilege, and the Prior of Holy Trinity, Aldgate, became the sovereign of the Guild and the Aldermen ex officio of Portsoken Ward. He rendered an account to the Crown of the shares of tallage paid by the men of the Ward and presided over the wardmoots. Every week in London there was a folkmoot. Majority decision was a tradition. Every London merchant who had made three long voyages on his own behalf ranked as a thegn. Later in the towns, there were merchant guilds, which were composed of prosperous traders, who later became landholders. Merchant guilds grew out of charity associations whose members were bound by oath to each other and got together for a guild-feast every month. Many market places were dominated by a merchant guild, which had a monopoly of the local trade. There were also some craft guilds composed of handicraftsmen or artisans. Escaped bonded agricultural workers, poor people, and traders without land migrated to towns to live, but were not citizens. Towns were largely self-sufficient, but salt and iron came from a distance. It was the kings' policy to establish in every shire at least one town with a market place where purchases would be witnessed and a mint where reliable money was coined. Almost every village had a watermill. Edward the Confessor, named such for his piety, was a King of 24 years who was widely respected for his intelligence, resourcefulness, good judgment, and wisdom. His educated Queen Edith, whom he relied on for advice and cheerful courage, was a stabilizing influence on him. They were served by a number of thegns, who had duties in the household, which was composed of the hall, the courtyard, and the bedchamber. They were important men, thegns by rank. They were landholders, often in several areas, and held leading positions in the shires, although they were not sheriffs. They were also priests and clerics, who maintained the religious services and performed tasks for which literacy was necessary. The court was host to many of the greatest magnates and prelates of the land at the time of great ecclesiastical festivals, when the King held more solemn courts and feasted his vassals. These included all the great earls, the majority of bishops, some abbots, and a number of thegns and clerics. Edward had a witan of wise men to advise him, but sometimes the King would speak in the hall after dinner and listen to what comments were made from the mead-benches. As the court moved about the country, many men came to pay their respects and attend to local business. The main governmental activities were: war, collection of revenue, religious education, and administration of justice. For war, the shires had to provide a certain number of men and the ports quotas of ships with crews. The King was the patron of the English church. He gave the church peace and protection. He presided over church councils and appointed bishops. As for the administration of justice, the public courts were almost all under members of Edward's court, bishops, earls, and reeves. Edward's mind was often troubled and disturbed by the threat that law and justice would be overthrown, by the pervasiveness of disputes and discord, by the raging of wicked presumption, by money interfering with right and justice, and by avarice kindling all of these. He saw it as his duty to courageously oppose the wicked by taking good men as models, by enriching the churches of God, by relieving those oppressed by wicked judges, and by judging equitably between the powerful and the humble. A King's grant of land entailed two documents: a charter giving boundaries and conditions and a writ, usually addressed to the shire court, listing the judicial and financial privileges conveyed with the land. These were usually sac and soke [petty jurisdiction over inhabitants of the estate], toll and team The town of Coventry consisted of a monastery manor and a private manor. The monastery was granted by Edward the Confessor full freedom and these jurisdictions: sac and soke, toll and team, hamsocne [the authority to fine a person for breaking into and making entry by force into the dwelling of another], forestall [the authority to fine a person for robbing others on the road], blodwite [the authority to impose a forfeiture for assault involving bloodshed], fihtwite [the authority to fine for fighting], weordwite [the authority to fine for manslaughter, but not for willful murder], and mundbryce [the authority to fine for any breach of the peace, such as trespass on lands]. Marriages were determined by men asking women to marry them. If a woman said yes, he paid a sum to her kin for her "mund" [jurisdiction or protection over her] and gave his oath to them to maintain and support the woman and any children born. As security for this oath, he gave a valuable object or "wed". The couple were then betrothed. Marriage ceremonies were performed by priests in churches. The marriage was written into church records. Friends witnessed the wedding and afterwards ate the great loaf, or first bread made by the bride. This was the forerunner of the wedding cake. They drank special ale, the "bride ale" (from hence the work "bridal"), to the health of the couple. This marriage agreement with an Archbishop's sister provides her with land, money, and horsemen: "Here in this document is stated the agreement which Wulfric and the archbishop made when he obtained the archbishop's sister as his wife, namely he promised her the estates at Orleton and Ribbesford for her lifetime, and promised her that he would obtain the estate at Knightwick for her for three lives from the community at Winchcombe, and gave her the estate at Alton to grant and bestow upon whomsoever she pleased during her lifetime or at her death, as she preferred, and promised her 50 mancuses of gold and 30 men and 30 horses. The witnesses that this agreement was made as stated were Archbishop Wulfstan and Earl Leofwine and Bishop AEthelstan and Abbot AElfweard and the monk Brihtheah and many good men in addition to them, both ecclesiastics and laymen. There are two copies of this agreement, one in the possession of the archbishop at Worcester and the other in the possession of Bishop AEthelstan at Hereford." This marriage agreement provided the wife with money, land, farm animals and farm laborers; it also names sureties, the survivor of whom would receive all this property: "Here is declared in this document the agreement which Godwine made with Brihtric when he wooed his daughter. In the first place he gave her a pound's weight of gold, to induce her to accept his suit, and he granted her the estate at Street with all that belongs to it, and 150 acres at Burmarsh and in addition 30 oxen and 20 cows and 10 horses and 10 slaves. This agreement was made at Kingston before King Cnut, with the cognizance of Archbishop Lyfing and the community at Christchurch, and Abbot AElfmaer and the community at St. Augustine's, and the sheriff AEthelwine and Sired the old and Godwine, Wulfheah's son, and AElfsige cild and Eadmaer of Burham and Godwine, Wulfstan's son, and Carl, the king's cniht. And when the maiden was brought from Brightling AElfgar, Sired's son, and Frerth, the priest of Forlstone, and the priests Leofwine and Wulfsige from Dover, and Edred, Eadhelm's son, and Leofwine, Waerhelm's son, and Cenwold rust and Leofwine, son of Godwine of Horton, and Leofwine the Red and Godwine, Eadgifu's son, and Leofsunu his brother acted as security for all this. And whichever of them lives the longer shall succeed to all the property both in land and everything else which I have given them. Every trustworthy man in Kent and Sussex, whether thegn or commoner, is cognizant of these terms. There are three of these documents; one is at Christchurch, another at St. Augustine's, and Brihtric himself has the third." Nuns and monks lived in nunneries and monasteries on church land and grew their own food. The local bishop usually was also an abbot of a monastery. The priests and nuns wore long robes with loose belts and did not carry weapons. Their life was ordered by the ringing of the bell to start certain activities, such as prayer; meals; meetings; work in the fields, gardens, or workshops; copying and illuminating books; taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and charity; and cared for the sick. Caring for the sick entailed mostly praying to God as it was thought that only God could cure. The large monasteries had libraries, dormitories, guest-houses, kitchens, butteries to store wine, bakehouses, breweries, dairies, granaries, barns, fish-ponds, orchards, vineyards, gardens, workshops, laundries, lavatories with long stone or marble washing-troughs, and towels. Slavery was diminished by the church by excommunication for the sale of a child over seven. The clergy taught that manumission of slaves was good for the soul of the dead, so it became frequent in wills. The clergy were to be celibate and not marry, but in lax times this rule was not followed. The Archbishop of Canterbury began anointing new Kings at the time of coronation to emphasize that the King was ruler by the grace of God. Illness was thought to be caused by demons. People hung charms around their neck for cure and treatments of magic and herbs were given. For instance, the remedy for "mental vacancy and folly" was a drink of "fennel, agrimony, cockle, and marche". Leeches were used for healing wounds, such as those from snake bites. The Law Every free man who did not hold land had to find a lord to answer for him. The act of homage was symbolized by placing his hands within those of his lord. Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the men of his household. Every free man who held land had to be in a local tithing, usually about ten men, in which they served as personal sureties for each other's peaceful behavior [frankpledge]. If one of them were accused of an offense, the others had to produce him in court or pay for the offense, unless they could prove that they had no complicity in it. "And every man shall see that he has a surety, and this surety shall bring and keep him to [the performance of] every lawful duty. 1. And if anyone does wrong and escapes, his surety shall incur what the other should have incurred. 2. If the case be that of a thief and his surety can lay hold of him within 12 months, he shall deliver him up to justice, and what he has paid shall be returned to him." Only a priest could declare a marriage. The groom had to bring friends to his wedding as sureties to guarantee his oath to maintain and support his wife and children. Those who swore to take care of the children were called their "godfathers". "No woman or maiden shall be forced to marry a man she dislikes or given for money." "Violence to a widow or maiden is punishable by payment of one's wergeld." No man shall have more wives than one. No man may marry among his own kin within six degrees of relationship or with the widow of a man as nearly related to him as that, or with a near relative of his first wife's, or his god-mother, or a divorced woman. Incest is punishable by payment of one's wergeld or a fine or forfeiture of all his possessions. Grounds for divorce were mutual consent or adultery or desertion. Adultery was prohibited for men as well as for women. Prostitutes shall be driven out of the land or destroyed in the land, unless they cease from their wickedness and make amends to the utmost of their ability. Neither husband nor wife could sell family property without the consent of the other. If there was a marriage agreement, it determined the wife's "dower", which would be hers upon his death. Otherwise, if a man who held his land in socage [owned it freely and not subject to a larger landholder] died before his wife, she got half this property. If there were minor children, she got all this property. Inheritance of land to adult children was by the custom of the land held. In some places, the custom was for the oldest son to take it and in other places, the custom was for the youngest son to take it. Usually, the sons each took an equal portion by partition, but the eldest son had the right to buy out the others as to the chief messuage [dwelling and supporting land and buildings] as long as he compensated them with property of equal value. If there were no legitimate sons, then each daughter took an equal share when she married. In London, one-third of the personal property of a decedent went to his wife, one-third went to his children in equal shares, and one-third he could bequeath as he wished. "If a man dies intestate [without a will], his lord shall have heriot [horses, weapons, shields, and helmets] of his property according to the deceased's rank and [the rest of] the property shall be divided among his wife, children, and near kinsmen." A man could justifiably kill an adulterer in the act with the man's wife, daughter, sister, or mother. In Kent, a lord could fine any bondswoman of his who had become pregnant without his permission [childwyte]. A man could kill in defense of his own life, the life of his kinsmen, his lord, or a man whose lord he was. The offender was "caught red-handed" if the blood of his victim was still on him. He could also kill a thief in the act of carrying off his property, e.g. the thief hand-habbende Cattle theft could be dealt with only by speedy pursuit. The law required that a person who had involuntarily lost possession of cattle should at once raise the hue and cry. All his neighbors were then under a legal duty to follow the trail of the cow to its taker. Murder is punished by death as follows: "If any man break the King's peace given by hand or seal, so that he slay the man to whom the peace was given, both his life and lands shall be in the King's power if he be taken, and if he cannot be taken he shall be held an outlaw by all, and if anyone shall be able to slay him he shall have his spoils by law." "If anyone by force break or enter any man's court or house to slay or wound or assault a man, he shall pay 100 shillings to the King as fine." "If anyone slay a man within his court or his house, himself and all his substance are at the King's will, save the dower of his wife if he have endowed her." No clergy may gamble or participate in games of chance. Measures and weights of goods for sale shall be correct. Every man shall have a warrantor to his market transactions and no one shall buy and sell except in a market town; but he shall have the witness of the portreeve or of other men of credit, who can be trusted. No marketing, business, or hunting may be done on Sundays. No one may bind a free man, shave his head in derision, or shave off his beard. Shaving was a sign of enslavement, which could be incurred by not paying one's fines for offenses committed. "And if anyone is so rich or belongs to so powerful a kindred, that he cannot be restrained from crime or from protecting and harboring criminals, he shall be led out of his native district with his wife and children, and all his goods, to any part of the kingdom which the King chooses, be he noble or commoner, whoever he may be - with the provision that he shall never return to his native district. And henceforth, let him never be encountered by anyone in that district; otherwise he shall be treated as a thief caught in the act." The Laws for London were: "1. The gates called Aldersgate and Cripplegate were in charge of guards. 2. If a small ship came to Billingsgate, one half-penny was paid as toll; if a larger ship with sails, one penny was paid. 1) If a hulk or merchantman arrives and lies there, four pence 2) From a ship with a cargo of planks, one plank is given as 3) On three days of the week toll for cloth [is paid] on 4) A merchant who came to the bridge with a boat containing fish paid one half- penny as toll, and for a larger ship one penny." 5 - 8) Foreigners with wine or blubber fish or other goods and their tolls. Foreigners were allowed to buy wool, melted fat [tallow], and three live pigs for their ships. "3. If the town-reeve or the village reeve or any other official accuses anyone of having withheld toll, and the man replies that he has kept back no toll which it was his legal duty to pay, he shall swear to this with six others and shall be quit of the charge. 1) If he declares that he has paid toll, he shall produce the man to whom he paid it, and shall be quit of the charge. 2) If, however, he cannot produce the man to whom he paid it, he shall pay the actual toll and as much again and five pounds to the King. 3) If he vouches the tax-gatherer to warranty [asserting] that he paid toll to him, and the latter denies it, he shall clear himself by the ordeal and by no other means of proof. 4. And we [the King and his counselors] have decreed that a man who, within the town, makes forcible entry into another man's house without permission and commits a breach of the peace of the worst kind … and he who assaults an innocent person on the King's highway, if he is slain, shall lie in an unhonored grave. 1) If, before demanding justice, he has recourse to violence, but does not lose his life thereby, he shall pay five pounds for breach of the King's peace. 2) If he values the good-will of the town itself, he shall pay us thirty shillings as compensation, if the King will grant us this concession." 5. No base coin or coin defective in quality or weight, foreign or English, may be used by a foreigner or an Englishman. Swearing a false oath or perjury is punishable by loss of one's hand or half one's wergeld. Judicial Procedure There were courts for different geographical communities. In London, the Hustings Court met weekly and the folkmoot of all citizens met three times a year. Each ward had a leet court [precursor to police court]. The vill [similar to village] was the smallest community for judicial purposes. There were several vills in a hundred. A King's reeve presided over local criminal and peace and order issues [leet jurisdiction] at monthly meetings of the hundred court. However, summary procedure was followed when a criminal was caught in the act or seized after a hue and cry. Every free man over age 12 had to be in a hundred. The hundred was a division of the shire [county]. Usually, the shire reeve, or "sheriff", held each hundred court in turn. In the hundred court, representatives of the villages settled their disputes and answered for breaches of the peace. A shire [county] was a larger area of land, headed by an earl. All persons residing in the shire met twice a year. They were summoned together by the sheriff, who was appointed by the earl and the King. The sheriff was responsible for the royal administration in the shire. He was responsible for the royal accounts and performed functions like tracking cattle thieves. The shire court was primarily concerned with issues of the larger landholders. Here the freemen interpreted the customary law of the locality. The earl usually took a third of the profits such as fines and forfeits, of the shire court. A bishop sat on both the shire and the hundred court. "No one shall make distraint of property until he has appealed for justice in the hundred court and shire court". This lawsuit between a son and his mother over land was heard at a shire- meeting: "Here it is declared in this document that a shire-meeting sat at Aylton in King Cnut's time. There were present Bishop AEthelstan and Earl Ranig and Edwin, the Earl's son, and Leofwine, Wulfsige's son, and Thurkil the White; and Tofi the Proud came there on the King's business, and Bryning the sheriff was present, and AEthelweard of Frome and Leofwine of Frome and Godric of Stoke and all the thegns of Herefordshire. Then Edwin, Enneawnes son, came traveling to the meeting and sued his own mother for a certain piece of land, namely Wellington and Cradley. Then the bishop asked whose business it was to answer for his mother, and Thurkil the White replied that it was his business to do so, if he knew the claim. As he did not know the claim, three thegns were chosen from the meeting [to ride] to the place where she was, namely at Fawley, and these were Leofwine of Frome and AEthelsige the Red and Winsige the seaman, and when they came to her they asked her what claim she had to the lands for which her son was suing her. Then she said that she had no land that in any way belonged to him, and was strongly incensed against her son, and summoned to her kinswoman, Leofflaed, Thurkil's wife, and in front of them said to her as follows: 'Here sits Leofflaed, my kinswoman, to whom, after my death, I grant my land and my gold, my clothing and my raiment and all that I possess.' And then she said to the thegns: 'Act like thegns, and duly announce my message to the meeting before all the worthy men, and tell them to whom I have granted my land and all my property, and not a thing to my own son, and ask them to be witnesses of this.' And they did so; they rode to the meeting and informed all the worthy men of the charge that she had laid upon them. Then Thurkil the White stood up in the meeting and asked all the thegns to give his wife the lands unreservedly which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. Then Thurkil rode to St. AEthelbert's minister, with the consent and cognizance of the whole assembly, and had it recorded in a gospel book." Courts controlled by lords had various kinds of jurisdiction recognized by the King. "Sac and soc" included the right to deal with land disputes. "Toll and team" included the right to levy tolls on cattle sales and to hold a hearing for men accused of stealing cattle. "Infangenetheof" gave power to do justice to a thief caught red-handed. Sometimes this jurisdiction overlapped that of the hundred court. The King decided the complaints and issues of the nobility. The Times: 1066-1100 William came from Normandy to conquer the nation. He claimed that the former King, Edward, the Confessor, had promised the throne to him when they were growing up together in Normandy if Edward became King of England and had no children. William's men and horses came in boats powered by oars and sails. The conquest did not take long because of the superiority of his military expertise to that of the English. He organized his army into three groups: archers with bows and arrows, horsemen with swords and stirrups, and footmen with hand weapons. Each group played a specific role in a strategy planned in advance. The English army was only composed of footmen with hand weapons and shields and was inexperienced. Declaring the English who fought against him to be traitors, William declared their land confiscated. As William conquered this land, he parceled it out among the barons who fought with him. They again made oaths of personal loyalty to him [fealty]. They agreed to hold the land as his vassals with future military services to him and receipt of his protection. They gave him homage by placing their hands within his and saying "I become your man for the tenement I hold of you, and I will bear you faith in life and member [limb] and earthly honor against all men". They held their land "of their lord", the King, by knight's service. The King had "enfeoffed" them [given them a fief: a source of income] with land. The theory that by right all land was the King's and that land was held by others only at his gift and in return for specified service was new to English thought. The Saxon governing class was destroyed. The independent power of earls, who had been drawn from three great family houses, was curtailed. Most died or fled the country. The people were deprived of their most popular leaders, who were excluded from all positions of trust and profit, especially the clergy of all degrees. William was a stern and fierce man and ruled as an autocrat by terror. Whenever the people revolted or resisted his mandates, he seized their lands or destroyed the crops and laid waste the countryside and so that they starved to death. He had a strict system of policing the nation. Instead of the Anglo-Saxon self- government throughout the districts and hundreds of resident authorities in local courts, he aimed at substituting for it the absolute rule of the barons under military rule so favorable to the centralizing power of the Crown. He used secret police and spies and the terrorism this system involved. This especially curbed the minor barons and preserved the public peace. The English people were disarmed. Curfew bells were rung at 7:00 PM when everyone had to remain in their own dwellings on pain of death and all fires and candles were to be put out, This prevented any nightly gatherings, assassinations, or seditions. Order was brought to the kingdom so that no man dare kill another, no matter how great the injury he had received. William extended the King's peace on high roads to include the whole nation. Any individual of any rank could travel from end to end of the land unharmed. Before, prudent travelers would travel only in groups of twenty. The barons subjugated the English who were on their newly acquired land. There began a hierarchy of seisin [rightful occupation] of land so that there could be no land without its lord. Also, every lord had a superior lord with the King as the overlord or supreme landlord. One piece of land may be held by several tenures. For instance, A, holding by barons's service of the King, may enfeoff B, a church, to hold of him on the terms of praying for the souls of his ancestors, and B may enfeoff a freeman C to hold of the church by giving it a certain percentage of his crops every year. There were about 200 barons who held land directly of the King. Other fighting men were the knights, who were tenants or subtenants of a baron. Knighthood began as a reward for valor on the field of battle by the King or a noble. Altogether there were about 5000 fighting men holding land. The essence of Norman feudalism was that the land remained under the lord, whatever the vassal might do. The lord had the duty to defend the vassals on his land. The vassal owed military service to the lord and also the service of attending the courts of the hundred and the shire, which were courts of the King, administering old customary law. They were the King's courts on the principle that a crime anywhere was a breach of the King's peace. This feudal bond based on occupancy of land rather than on personal ties was uniform throughout the realm. No longer could a man choose his lord and transfer his land with him to a new lord. He held his land at the will of his lord, to be terminated anytime the lord decided to do so. In later eras, tenancies would be held for the life of the tenant, and even later, for his life and those of his heirs. This uniformity of land organization plus the new requirement of every freeman to take an oath of loyalty directly to the King that would supersede any oath to any other man gave the nation a new unity. English villani, bordarii, cottarii, and servi on the land of the barons were subjugated into a condition of "villeinage" servitude and became "tied to the land" so that they could not leave the land without their lord's permission. The villeins formed a new bottom class as the population's percentage of slaves declined dramatically. They held their land of their lord, the baron. To guard against uprisings of the conquered people, the barons used villein labor to build about a hundred great stone castles, with moats and walls with towers around them, at easily defensible positions such as hilltops all over the nation. A castle could be built only with permission of the King. A typical castle had a stone building of about four floors on a small, steep hill. Later it also had an open area surrounded by a stone wall with towers at the corners. Around the wall were ditches and banks and perhaps a moat. One traveled over these via a drawbridge let down at the gatehouse of the enclosing wall. On either side of the gatehouse were chambers for the guards. Arrows could be shot through slits in the enclosing walls. Inside the enclosed area might be stables, a granary, barracks for the soldiers, and workshops. The castle building was entered by an outer wood staircase to the guard room on the second floor. The first floor had a well and was used as a storehouse and/or dungeons for prisoners. The second floor had a two-storied great hall, with small rooms and aisles around it within the thick walls. There was also a chapel area on the second floor. There were small areas of the third floor which could be used for sleeping. The floors were wood and were reached by a spiral stone staircase in one corner of the building. Sometimes there was a reservoir of water on an upper level with pipes carrying the water to floors below. Each floor had a fireplace with a slanted flue going through the wall to the outside. There were toilets in the walls with a pit or shaft down the exterior of the wall. The first floor had only arrow slits in the walls, but the higher floors had small windows. The great hall was the main room of the castle. It was used for meals and meetings at which the lord received homages, recovered fees, and held the view of frankpledge. At the main table, the lord and his lady sat on chairs. Everyone else sat on benches at trestle tables, which could be folded up, e.g. at night. Lighting was by oil lamps or candles on stands or on wall fixtures. The residence of the lord's family and guests was at a screened off area at the extreme end of the hall or on a higher floor. Chests stored garments and jewels. Iron keys and locks were used for chests and doors. The great bed had a wooden frame and springs made of interlaced rope or strips of leather. It was covered with a feather mattress, sheets, quilts, fur covers, and pillows. Drapery around the bed kept out cold drafts and provided privacy. There was a water bowl for washing in the morning. A chamber pot was kept under the bed for nighttime use. Hay was used as toilet paper. The lord's personal servants slept nearby on benches or trundle beds. The floor of the hall was strewn with straw, on which common folk could sleep at night. There were stools on which to sit. Cup boards (boards on which to store cups) and chests stored spices and plate. Cooking was done outside on an open fire, roasting on spits and boiling in post. One-piece iron shears were available to cut cloth. Hand held spindles were used for weaving. On the roof there were rampart walks for sentry patrols and parapets from which to shoot arrows or throw things at besiegers. Each tenant of the demesne of the King where he had a castle had to perform a certain amount of castle-guard duty for its continuing defense. These knights performing castle- guard duty slept at their posts. Bathing was done in a wooden tub located in the garden in the summer and indoors near the fire in winter. The great bed and tub for bathing were taken on trips with the lord. Markets grew up outside castle walls. Any trade on a lord's land was subject to "passage", a payment on goods passing through, "stallage", a payment for setting up a stall or booth in a market, and "pontage", a payment for taking goods across a bridge. The Norman man was clean-shaven and wore his hair short. He wore a long-sleeved under-tunic of linen or wool that reached to his ankles. Over this the Norman noble wore a tunic without sleeves, open at the sides, and fastened with a belt. Over one shoulder was his cloak, which was fastened on the opposite shoulder by being drawn through a ring brooch and knotted. He wore thick cloth stockings and leather shoes. Common men wore tunics to the knee so as not to impede them in their work. They could roll up their stockings when working in the fields. A lady also wore a long-sleeved linen or wool tunic fitted at the waist and laced at the side, but full in the skirt. She wore a jeweled belt, passed twice around her waist and knotted in front. Her hair was often in two long braids, and her head covered with a white round cloth held in place by a metal circlet like a small crown. Over her tunic was a cloak fastened at the front with a cord. The Norman knight wore an over-tunic of leather or heavy linen on which were sewn flat rings or iron and a conical iron helmet with nose cover. He wore a sword at his waist and a metal shield on his back, or he wore his sword and his accompanying retainers carried spear and shield. Norman customs were adopted by the nation. As a whole, Anglo-Saxon men shaved their beards and whiskers from their faces, but they kept their custom of long hair flowing from their heads. But a few kept their whiskers and beards in protest of the Normans. Everyone had a permanent surname indicating parentage, place of birth, or residence, such as Field, Pitt, Lane, Bridge, Ford, Stone, Burn, Church, Hill, Brook, Green. Other names came from occupations such as Shepherd, Carter, Parker, Fowler, Hunter, Forester, Smith. Still other came from personal characteristics such as Black, Brown, and White, Short, Round, and Long. Some took their names from animals such as Wolf, Fox, Lamb, Bull, Hogg, Sparrow, Crow, and Swan. Others were called after the men they served, such as King, Bishop, Abbot, Prior, Knight. A man's surname was passed on to his son. The Normans washed their hands before and after meals and ate with their fingers. Feasts were stately occasions with costly tables and splendid apparel. There were practical jokes, innocent frolics, and witty verbal debating with repartee. Those few coerls whose land was not taken by a baron remained free and held their land "in socage" and became known as sokemen. Great stone cathedrals were built in fortified towns for William's Norman bishops, who replaced the English bishops. Most of the existing and new monasteries functioned as training grounds for scholars, bishops, and statesmen rather than as retreats from the world's problems to the security of religious observance. The number of monks grew as the best minds were recruited into the monasteries. William made the church subordinate to him. Bishops were elected only subject to the King's consent. Homage was exacted from them. William imposed knight's service on bishoprics, abbeys, and monasteries, which was commuted to a monetary amount. Bishops had to attend the King's court. Bishops could not leave the realm without the King's consent. No royal tenant or royal servant could be excommunicated, nor his lands be placed under interdict, without the King's consent. Interdict could demand, for instance, that the church be closed and the dead buried in unconsecrated ground. No church rules could be made without his agreement to their terms. No letters from the Pope could be received without the King's permission. Men continued to give land to the church for their souls, such as this grant which started the town of Sandwich: "William, King of the English, to Lanfranc the Archbishop and Hugoni de Montfort and Richard son of Earl Gilbert and Haimo the sheriff and all the thegns of Kent, French and English, greeting. Know ye that the Bishop of Bayeux my brother for the love of God and for the salvation of my soul and his own, has given to St. Trinity all houses with their appurtances which he has at Sandwich and that he has given what he has given by my license." When the land was all divided out, the barons had about 3/7 of it and the church 2/7. The King retained 2/7, including forests for hunting, for himself and his household, on which he built many royal castles and hundreds of manor houses throughout the nation. He built the White Tower in London. He and his household slept on the upper floors and there was a chapel on the second floor and a dungeon below the first floor for prisoners. The other castles were often built at the old fortification burhs of Alfred. Barons and earls had castle-guard duty in them. William was constantly moving about the land from castle to castle, where he entertained his magnates and conducted public business, such as deciding disputes about holding of land. Near these castles and other of his property, he designated many areas as royal hunting forests. Anyone who killed a deer in these forests was mutilated, for instance by blinding. People living within the boundaries of the designated forestland could no longer go into nearby woods to get meat or honey, dead wood for firing, or live wood for building. Swineherds could no longer drive pigs into these woods to eat acorns they beat down from oak trees. Making clearings and grazing livestock in the designated forestland were prohibited. Most of the nation was either wooded or bog at this time. London was a walled town of one and two story houses made of mud, twigs, and straw, with thatched roofs. There were churches, a goods market, a fish market, quays on the river, and a bridge over the river. Streets probably named by this time include Bread Street, Milk Street, Honey Lane, Wood Street, and Ironmonger Lane. Fairs and games were held outside the town walls in a field called "Smithfield". The freemen were a small percentage of London's population. There was a butchers' guild, a pepperers' guild, a goldsmiths' guild, the guild of St. Lazarus, which was probably a leper charity, the Pilgrims' guild, which helped people going on pilgrimages, and four bridge guilds, probably for keeping the wooden London Bridge in repair. Men told the time by sundials, some of which were portable and could be carried in one's pocket. London could defend itself, and a ringing of the bell of St. Paul's Church could shut every shop and fill the streets with armed horsemen and soldiers led by a soldier port-reeve. William did not interfere with landholding in London, but recognized it's independence as a borough in this writ: "William the King greets William, Bishop of London, and Gosfrith the portreeve, and all the burgesses of London friendly. Know that I will that you be worthy of all the laws you were worthy of in the time of King Edward. And I will that every child shall be his father's heir after his father's day. And I will not suffer any man to do you wrong. God preserve you." So London was not subjected to the Norman feudal system. It had neither villeins nor slaves. Whenever Kings asserted authority over it, the citizens reacted until the King "granted" a charter reaffirming the freedoms of the city and its independence. William's reign was a time of tentative expedients and simple solutions. He administered by issuing writs with commands or prohibitions. These were read aloud by the sheriffs in the county courts and other locations. Administration was by the personal servants of his royal household, such as the Chancellor, steward, butler, chamberlain, and constable. The constable was in charge of the knights of the royal household. Under pressure from the ecclesiastical judges, William replaced the death penalty by that of the mutilation of blinding, chopping off hands, and castrating offenders. Castration was the punishment for rape. But these mutilations usually led to a slow death by gangrene. The Normans used the Anglo-Saxon concepts of jurisdictional powers. Thus when William confirmed "customs" to the abbot of Ely, these were understood to include the following: 1) sac and soke - the right to hold a court of private jurisdiction and enjoy its profits, 2) toll - a payment in towns, markets, and fairs for goods and chattel bought and sold, 3) team - persons might be vouched to warranty in the court, the grant of which made a court capable of hearing suits arising from the transfer of land, 4) infangenthef - right of trying and executing thieves on one's land, 4) hamsocne, 5) grithbrice - violation of the grantees' special peace, for instance that of the sheriff, 6) fihtwite - fine for a general breach of the peace, 7) fyrdwite - fine for failure to appear in the fyrd [national militia]. Every shire had at least one burh, or defensible town. Kings had appointed a royal moneyer in each to mint silver coins for local use. On one side was the King's head in profile and on the other side was the name of the moneyer. When a new coinage was issued, all moneyers had to go to London to get the new dies. William's head faced frontally on his dies, instead of the usual profile used by former Kings. William held and presided over his council three times a year, as was the custom, at Easter, Christmas, and Whitsuntide. This was an advisory council and consisted of earls, greater barons, officers of the King's household, archbishops, and bishops. It's functions were largely ceremonial. William's will was the motive force which under lay all its action. When it was administering royal justice, it was called the Royal Court. The justiciar was the head of all legal matters and represented the King in his absence from the realm. The Treasurer was responsible for the collection and distribution of revenue. The Chancellor headed the Chancery and the chapel. Sheriffs became powerful figures as the primary agents for enforcing royal edicts. They collected the royal taxes, executed royal justice, and presided over and controlled the hundred and shire courts. They also took part in the keeping of castles and often managed the estates of the King. Most royal writs were addressed to the sheriff and shire courts. They also led the shire militia in time of war or rebellion. Royal income came from customary dues, profits of coinage and of justice, and revenues from the King's own estates. For war, a man with five hides of land was required to furnish one heavy-armed horseman for forty days service in a year. A threat of a Viking invasion caused William to reinstitute the danegeld tax. To impose this uniformly, he sent commissioners to conduct surveys by sworn verdicts of appointed groups of local men. A detailed survey of land holdings and the productive worth of each was made in 1086. The English called it the "Doomsday Book" because there was no appeal from it. The survey revealed, for instance, that one estate had "on the home farm five plough teams: there are also 25 villeins and 6 cotters with 14 teams among them. There is a mill worth 2s. a year and one fishery, a church and four acres of meadow, wood for 150 pigs and two stone quarries, each worth 2s. a year, and two nests of hawks in the wood and 10 slaves." This estate was deemed to be worth 480s. a year. Laxton "had 2 carucates of land [assessed] to the geld. [There is] land for 6 ploughs. There Walter, a man of [the lord] Geoffrey Alselin's has 1 plough and 22 villeins and 7 bordars Ilbert de Laci has now this land, where he has twelve ploughs in the demesne; and forty-eight villani, and twelve bordars with fifteen ploughs, and three churches and three priests, and three mills of ten shillings. Wood pastures two miles long, and one broad. The whole manor five miles long and two broad. Value in King Edward's time sixteen pounds, the same now. That manor of the town of Coventry which was individually held was that of the Countess of Coventry, who was the wife of the earl of Mercia. "The Countess held in Coventry. There are 5 hides. The arable land employs 20 ploughs. In the demesne lands there are 3 ploughs and 7 ploughs. In the demesne lands there are 3 ploughs and 7 bondmen. There are 50 villeins and 12 bordars with 20 ploughs. The mill there pay The survey shows a few manors and monasteries owned a salt-house or salt-pit in the local saltworks, from which they were entitled to obtain salt. This survey resulted in the first national tax system of about 6s. per hide of land. The survey also provided William with a summary of customs of areas. For instance, in Oxfordshire, "Anyone breaking the King's peace given under his hand and seal to the extent of committing homicide shall be at the King's mercy in respect of his life and members. That is if he be captured. And if he cannot be captured, he shall be considered as an outlaw, and anyone who kills him shall have all his possessions. The King shall take the possessions of any stranger who has elected to live in Oxford and who dies in possession of a house in that town, and without any kinfolk. The King shall be entitled to the body and the possessions of any man who kills another within his own court or house excepting always the dower of his wife, if he has a wife who has received dower. The courts of the King and barons became schools of chivalry wherein seven year old noble boys became as pages or valets, wore a dagger and waited upon the ladies of the household. At age fourteen, they were advanced to squires and admitted into more familiar association with the knights and ladies of the court. They perfected their skills in dancing, riding, fencing, hawking, hunting and jousting. Before knighthood, they played team sports in which one team tried to put the other team to rout. A knight usually selected a wife from the court at which he grew up. These incidents of land tenure began (but were not firmly established until the reign of Henry II). Each tenant, whether baron or subtenant, had to pay an "aid" in money for ransom if his lord was captured in war, for the knighthood of his lord's eldest son, and for the marriage of his lord's eldest daughter. Land could be held by an heir only if he could fight. The eldest son began to succeed to the whole of the lands in all military tenures. An heir of a tenant had to pay a heavy "relief" on succession to his estate. If there was a delay in proving heirship or paying relief, the lord would hold the land and receive its income in the meantime, often a year. If an heir was still a minor or female, he or she passed into his lord's wardship, in which the lord had guardianship of the heir and possession of the estate, with all its profits. A female heir was expected to marry a man acceptable to the lord. The estate of an heiress and her land was generally sold to the highest bidder. If there were no heirs, the land escheated to the lord. If a tenant committed felony, his land escheated to his lord. Astrologers resided with the families of the barons. People went to fortune tellers' shops. There was horse racing, steeple races, and chess for recreation. Girls had dolls; boys had toy soldiers, spinning tops, toy horses, ships, and wooden models. The state of medicine is indicated by this medical advice brought to the nation by William's son after treatment on the continent: "If thou would have health and vigor Shun cares and avoid anger. Many free sokemen were caught up in the subjugation by baron landlords and were reduced almost to the condition of the unfree villein. The services they performed for their lords were often indistinguishable. They might also hold their land by villein tenure, although free as a person with the legal rights of a free man. The free man still had a place in court proceedings which the unfree villein did not. William allowed Jewish traders to follow him from Normandy and settle in separate sections of the main towns. They loaned money for the building of castles and cathedrals. Christians were not allowed by the church to engage in this usury. The Jews could not become citizens nor could they have standing in the local courts. Instead, a royal justiciar secured justice for them. The Jews could practice their own religion. Only Jews could wear yellow. William was succeeded as King by his son William II, who imposed on many of the customs of the nation to get more money for himself. The Law The Norman conquerors brought no written law, but affirmed the laws of the nation. Two they especially enforced were: Anyone caught in the act of digging up the King's road, felling a tree across it, or attacking someone so that his blood spilled on it shall pay a fine to the King. All freemen shall have a surety who would hand him over to justice for his offenses or pay the damages or fines due. Also, the entire hundred was the ultimate surety for murder and would have to pay a "murdrum" fine. William made these decrees: No cattle shall be sold except in towns and before three witnesses. For the sale of ancient chattels, there must be a surety and a warrantor. No man shall be sold over the sea. (This ended the slave trade at the port of Bristol.) The death penalty for persons tried by court is abolished. Judicial Procedure "Ecclesiastical" courts were created for bishops to preside over issues concerning the cure of souls and criminal cases in which the ordeal was used. When William did not preside over this court, an appeal could be made to him. The hundred and shire courts now sat without a bishop and handled only "civil" cases. They were conducted by the King's own appointed sheriff. Only freemen and not bound villeins had standing in this court. William held court or sent the justiciar or commissioners to hold his Royal Court [Curia Regis] in the various districts. The commissioner appointed groups of local men to give a collective verdict upon oath for each trial he conducted. A person could spend months trying to catch up with the Royal Court to present a case. William allowed, on an ad hoc basis, certain high-level people such as bishops and abbots and those who made a large payment, to have land disputes decided by an inquiry of recognitors. A dispute between a Norman and an English man over land or a criminal act could be decided by trial by battle. Each combatant first swore to the truth of his cause and undertook to prove by his body the truth of his cause by making the other surrender by crying "craven" [craving forgiveness]. The combatants used weapons like pick-axes and shields. Presumably the man in the wrong would not fight as well because he was burdened with a guilty conscience. Although this trial was thought to reflect God's will, it favored the physically fit and adept person. London had its own traditions. All London citizens met at its folkmoot, which was held three times a year to determine its public officers, to raise matters of public concern, and to make ordinances. It's criminal court had the power of outlawry as did the shire courts. Trade, land, and other civil issues were dealt with by the Hustings Court, which met every Monday in the Guildhall. The city was divided into wards, each of which was under the charge of an elected alderman [elder man]. (This was not a popular election.) The aldermen had special knowledge of the law and a duty to declare it at the Hustings Court. Each alderman also conducted wardmoots in his ward and decided criminal and civil issues between its residents. Within the wards were the guilds of the city. William made the hundred responsible for paying a murder fine for the murder of any of his men, if the murderer was not apprehended by his lord within a few days. The reaction to this was that the murderer mutilated the corpse to make identification of nationality impossible. So William ordered that every murder victim was assumed to be Norman unless proven English. This began a court custom in murder cases of first proving the victim to be English. The Royal Court decided this case: "At length both parties were summoned before the King's court, in which there sat many of the nobles of the land of whom Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, was delegated by the King's authority as judge of the dispute, with Ranulf the Vicomte, Neel, son of Neel, Robert de Usepont, and many other capable judges who diligently and fully examined the origin of the dispute, and delivered judgment that the mill ought to belong to St. Michael and his monks forever. The most victorious King William approved and confirmed this decision." The Times: 1100-1154 King Henry I, son of William of Normandy, furthered peace between the Normans and native English by his marriage to a niece of King Edward the Confessor called Matilda. She married him on condition that he grant a charter of rights undoing some practices of the past reigns of William I and William II. Peace was also furthered by the fact that Henry I had been born in England and English was his native tongue. Private wars were now replaced by mock battles. Henry was a shrewd judge of character and of the course of events, cautious before taking action, but decisive in carrying out his plans. He was faithful and generous to his friends. He showed a strong practical element of calculation and foresight. He was intelligent and a good administrator. He had an efficient intelligence gathering network and an uncanny knack of detecting hidden plans before they became conspiratorial action. He made many able men of inferior social position nobles, thus creating a class of career judges and administrators in opposition to the extant hereditary aristocracy. He loved books and built a palace at Oxford to which he invited scholars for lively discussion. Queen Matilda served as regent in Henry's absence. She was literate and a literary patron. Her compassion was great and her charities extensive. She founded a care-giving hospital and had new roads and bridges built. Henry issued charters restoring customs which had been subordinated to royal impositions by previous Kings, which set a precedent for later Kings. His coronation charter describes certain property rights he restored after the oppressive reign of his brother. "Henry, King of the English, to Samson the bishop, and Urse of Abbetot, and to all his barons and faithful vassals, both French and English, in Worcestershire, greeting. [1.] Know that by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of this realm. And because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions, I now, being moved by reverence towards God and by the love I bear you all, make free the Church of God; so that I will neither sell nor lease its property; nor on the death of an archbishop or a bishop or an abbot will I take anything from the demesne of the Church or from its vassals during the period which elapses before a successor is installed. I abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has been unjustly oppressed. Some of those evil customs are here set forth. [2.] If any of my barons or of my earls or of any other of my tenants shall die his heir shall not redeem his land as he was wont to do in the time of my brother [William II (Rufus)], but he shall henceforth redeem it by means of a just and lawful 'relief`. Similarly the men of my barons shall redeem their lands from their lords by means of a just and lawful 'relief`. [3.] If any of my barons or of my tenants shall wish to give in marriage his daughter or his sister or his niece or his cousin, he shall consult me about the matter; but I will neither seek payment for my consent, nor will I refuse my permission, unless he wishes to give her in marriage to one of my enemies. And if, on the death of one of my barons or of one of my tenants, a daughter should be his heir, I will dispose of her in marriage and of her lands according to the counsel given me by my barons. And if the wife of one of my tenants shall survive her husband and be without children, she shall have her dower and her marriage portion [that given to her by her father], and I will not give her in marriage unless she herself consents. [4.] If a widow survives with children under age, she shall have her dower and her marriage portion, so long as she keeps her body chaste; and I will not give her in marriage except with her consent. And the guardian of the land, and of the children, shall be either the widow or another of their relations, as may seem more proper. And I order that my barons shall act likewise towards the sons and daughters and widows of their men. [5.] I utterly forbid that the common mintage [6.] I forgive all pleas and all debts which were owing to my brother [William II], except my own proper dues, and except those things which were agreed to belong to the inheritance of others, or to concern the property which justly belonged to others. And if anyone had promised anything for his heritage, I remit it, and I also remit all 'reliefs` which were promised for direct inheritance. [7.] If any of my barons or of my men, being ill, shall give away or bequeath his movable property, I will allow that it shall be bestowed according to this desires. But if, prevented either by violence or through sickness, he shall die intestate as far as concerns his movable property, his widow or his children, or his relatives or one his true men shall make such division for the sake of his soul, as may seem best to them. [8.] If any of my barons or of my men shall incur a forfeit, he shall not be compelled to pledge his movable property to an unlimited amount, as was done in the time of my father [William I] and my brother; but he shall only make payment according to the extent of his legal forfeiture, as was done before the time of my father and in the time of my earlier predecessors. Nevertheless, if he be convicted of breach of faith or of crime, he shall suffer such penalty as is just. [9.] I remit all murder-fines which were incurred before the day on which I was crowned King; and such murder-fines as shall now be incurred shall be paid justly according to the law of King Edward [by sureties]. [10.] By the common counsel of my barons I have retained the forests in my own hands as my father did before me. [11.] The knights, who in return for their estates perform military service equipped with a hauberk [long coat] of mail, shall hold their demesne lands quit of all gelds [money payments] and all work; I make this concession as my own free gift in order that, being thus relieved of so great a burden, they may furnish themselves so well with horses and arms that they may be properly equipped to discharge my service and to defend my kingdom. [12.] I establish a firm peace in all my kingdom, and I order that this peace shall henceforth be kept. [13.] I restore to you the law of King Edward together with such emendations to it as my father [William I] made with the counsel of his barons. [14.] If since the death of my brother, King William [II], anyone shall have seized any of my property, or the property of any other man, let him speedily return the whole of it. If he does this no penalty will be exacted, but if he retains any part of it he shall, when discovered, pay a heavy penalty to me. Witness: Maurice, bishop of London; William, bishop-elect of At London when I was crowned. Farewell." Henry took these promises seriously, which resulted in peace and justice. Royal justice became a force to be reckoned with by the multiplication of justices. Henry had a great respect for legality and the forms of judicial action. He became known as the "Lion of Justice". The center of government was a collection of tenants-in-chief whose feudal duty included attendance when summoned and certain selected household servants of the King. When it met for financial purposes, Henry called it the Exchequer and it became a separate body. It received yearly from the sheriffs of the counties taxes, fines, treasure trove, goods from wrecks, deodands, and movable property of felons, of persons executed, of fugitives, and of outlaws due to the Crown. The payments in kind, such as grain or manual services, from the royal demesnes had been turned into money payments. This income from royal estates was also received by the Exchequer and then commingled with the other funds. Each payment was indicated by notches on a stick, which was then split so that the payer and the receiver each had a half showing the notches. The Chancellor managed the domestic matters of the Crown's castles and lands. Henry brought sheriffs under his strict control, free from influence by the barons. A woman could inherit a fief if she married. The primary way for a man to acquire land was to marry an heiress. If a man were in a lower station than she was, he had to pay for his new social status as well as have royal permission. A man could also be awarded land which had escheated to the King. If a noble woman wanted to hold land in her own right, she had to make a payment to the King. Many widows bought their freedom from guardianship or remarriage from the King. Women whose husbands were at war also ran the land of their husbands. Barons were lords of large holdings of farmland called "manors". Many of the lesser barons left their dark castles to live in semi-fortified stone houses, which usually were of two rooms with rug hangings for drafts, as well as the sparse furniture that had been common to the castle. There were shuttered windows to allow in light, but which also let in the wind and rain when open. The roof was of thatch or narrow overlapping wood shingles. The floor was strewn with hay and there was a hearth near the center of the floor, with a louvered smoke hole in the timber roof for escape of smoke. There were barns for grain and animals. Beyond this area was a garden, orchard, and sometimes a vineyard. The area was circumscribed by a moat over which there was a drawbridge to a gatehouse. The smaller room was the lord and lady's bedroom. It had a canopied bed, chests for clothing, and wood frames on which clothes could be hung. Life on the manor revolved around the larger room, or hall, where the public life of the household was passed. There, meals were served. The daily diet typically consisted of milk, soup, porridge, fish, vegetables, and bread. Open hospitality accompanied this communal living. There was little privacy. Manor household villeins carried the lord's sheaves of grain to the manor barn, shore his sheep, malted his grain, and chopped wood for his fire. At night some slept on the floor of the hall and others, cottars and bordars, had there own dwellings nearby. Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice-skated with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing stones, and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels. Since at least 1133, children's toys included dolls, drums, hobby horses, pop guns, trumpets, and kites. The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people wear ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long full cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full sleeves. The cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck with a brooch. Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves tight at the wrist but full at the arm-hole, as if cut from the same piece of cloth. A girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men were hunting or working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Humble folk also wore knee-length garments, with a band about the waist. There was woodland, common pasture land, arable land, meadow land, and wasteland on the manor. The arable land was allotted to the villeins in strips to equalize the best and worst land and their distance from the village where the villeins lived. There was three-way rotation of wheat or rye, oats or barley, and fallow land. Cows, pigs, sheep, and fowl were kept. The meadow was allocated for hay for the lord's household and each villein's. The villeins held land of their lord for various services such as agricultural labor or raising domestic animals. The villeins, who worked the farm land as their ancestor ceorls had, now were so bound to the land that they could not leave or marry or sell an ox without their lord's consent. If the manor was sold, the villein was sold as a part of the manor. The villeins worked about half of their time on their lord's fields [his demesne land], which was about a third of the farmland. This work was primarily to gather the harvest and to plough with oxen, using a yoke over their shoulders, and to sow in autumn and Lent. They threshed grain on barn floors with flails cut from holly or thorn, and removed the kernels from the shafts by hand. Work lasted from sunrise to sunset and included women and children. Life expectancy was probably below thirty-five. The villeins of a manor elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord, usually through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there was a steward in charge of several of a lord's manors, who also held the manorial court for the lord. The steward held his land of the lord by serjeanty, which was a specific service to the lord. Other serjeanty services were helping in the lord's hunting expeditions and looking after his hounds. The Woodward preserved the timber. The Messer supervised the harvesting. The Hayward removed any fences from the fields after harvest to allow grazing by cattle and sheep. The Coward, Bullard, and Calvert tended the cows, bulls, and calves; the Shepherd, the sheep; and the Swineherds the pigs. The Ponder impounded stray stock. The majority of manors were co-extensive with a single village. The villeins lived in the village in one-room huts enclosed by a wood fence, hedge, or stone wall. In this yard was a garden of onions, leeks, mustard, peas, beans, parsley, garlic, herbs, and cabbage and apple, pear, cherry, quince, and plum trees, and bee-hives. The hut had a high-pitched roof thatched with reeds or straw and low eaves reaching almost to the ground. The walls are built of wood-framing overlaid with mud or plaster. Narrow slits in the walls serve as windows, which have shutters and are sometimes covered with coarse cloth. The floor is dirt and may be covered with straw or rushes for warmth, but usually no hearth. At one end of the hut was the family living area, where the family ate on a collapsible trestle table with stools or benches and used drinking horns and wooden bowls and spoons, along with jars and other earthenware. Their usual food was beans and peas, and some bacon, butter, cheese, and vegetables, rough bread made from a mixture of wheat, barley, and rye flour, honey, and herrings or other salt fish. They drank water, milk, buttermilk, apple cider, mead, ale made from barley malt, and bean and vegetable broth. Cooking was done over a fire with iron tripod, pots, and kettle. Most of the food was boiled. They slept on straw mattresses or sacks on the floor or on benches. The villein regarded his bed area as the safest place in the house, as did people of all ranks, and kept his treasures there, which included his farm implements, as well as hens on the beams, roaming pigs, and perhaps stalled oxen. Around the room are a couple of chests to store salt, meal, flour, a broom made of birch trigs, some woven baskets, the distaff and spindle for spinning, and a simple loom for weaving. All clothes were homemade. They were often coarse, greasy wool and leather made from their own animals. The man wore a tunic of coarse linen embroidered on the sleeves and breast, around with he wore a girdle of rope, leather, or folded cloth. Sometimes he also wore breeches reaching below the knee. The woman wore a loose short-sleeved gown, under which was a tight fitting garment with long loose sleeves. If they wore shoes, they were clumsy and patched. Some wore a hood-like cap. At the other end of the hut were the horses, cattle, pigs, and poultry. In the middle is a wood fire burning on a hearthstone. The smoke rises through a hole in the roof. The villein and his wife and children worked from daybreak to dusk in the fields, except for Sundays and holydays. He had certain land to farm for his own family, but had to have his grain milled at his lord's mill at the lord's price. He had to retrieve his wandering cattle from his lord's pound at the lord's price. He was expected to give a certain portion of his own produce, whether grain or livestock, to his lord. However, if he fell short, he was not put off his land. When his daughter or son married, he had to pay a "merchet" to his lord. He could not have a son educated without the lord's permission, and this usually involved a fee to the lord. His best beast at his death, or "heriot", went to his lord. If he wanted permission to live outside the manor, he paid "chevage" yearly. Woodpenny was a yearly payment for gathering dead wood. Sometimes a "tallage" payment was taken at the lord's will. The villein's oldest son usually took his place on his land and followed the same customs with respect to the lord. For an heir to take his dead ancestor's land, the lord demanded payment of a "relief", which was usually the amount of a year's income but sometimes as much as the heir was willing to pay to have the land. The usual aids were also expected to be paid. A large village also had a smith, a wheelwright, a millwright, a tiler and thatcher, a shoemaker and tanner, a carpenter wainwright and carter. Markets were about twenty miles apart because a farmer from the outlying area could then carry his produce to the nearest town and walk back again in the daylight hours of one day. In this local market he could buy foodstuffs, livestock, household goods, fuels, skins, and certain varieties of cloth. The cloth was crafted by local weavers, dyers, and fullers, who made the cloth full and dense by washing, soaping, beating, and agitating it. Then its surface could be raised with teazle-heads and cropped or sheared to make a nap. Some cloth was sold to tailors to make into clothes. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up animals to sell as meat. Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared foods. The hide was bought by the tanner to make into leather. The leather was sold to shoemakers and glovemakers. Millers bought harvested grain to make into flour. Flour was sold to bakers to make into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters and by coopers, who made barrels, buckets, tubs, and pails. Tilers, oil-makers and rope-makers also bought raw material to make into finished goods for sale. Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and later waggons. Smiths and locksmiths worked over their hot fires. The nation grew with the increase of population, the development Stone bridges over rivers could accommodate one person traveling by foot or by horseback and were steep and narrow. Merchants, who had come from the low end of the knightly class or high end of the villein class, settled around the open market areas, where main roads joined. They had plots narrow in frontage along the road and deep. Their shops faced the road, with living space behind or above their stores. Town buildings were typically part stone and part timber as a compromise between fire precautions and expense. Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As towns grew, they paid a fee to obtain a charter for self-government from the King giving the town judicial and commercial freedom. These various rights were typically expanded in future times. Such a town was called a "borough" and its citizens or landholding freemen "burgesses". They were literate enough to do accounts. Selling wholesale could take place only in a borough. The King assessed a tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent of property or income. Henry standardized the yard as the length of his own arm. London had at least twenty wards, each governed by its own alderman. Most of them were named after people. London was ruled by sixteen families linked by business and marriage ties. These businesses supplied luxury goods to the rich and included the goldsmiths [sold cups, dishes, girdles, mirrors, purses knives, and metal wine containers with handle and spout], vintners [wine merchants], mercers [sold textiles, haberdashery, combs, mirrors, knives, toys, spices, ointments, and drugs], drapers, and pepperers, which later merged with the spicerers to become the "grocers". These businesses had in common four fears: royal interference, foreign competition, displacement by new crafts, and violence by the poor and escaped villeins who found their way to the city. London in Middlesex county received this charter for self-government and freedom from the financial and judicial organization of the shire: "Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, to the Archbishop of Canterbury and the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, sheriffs and all his loyal subjects, both French and English, throughout the whole of England - greeting. 1. Be it known to you that I have granted Middlesex to my citizens of London to be held on lease by them and their heirs of me and my heirs for 300 pounds paid by tale [yearly], upon these terms: that the citizens themselves [may] appoint a sheriff, such as they desire, from among themselves, and a justiciar, such as they desire, from among themselves, to safeguard the pleas of my Crown [criminal cases] and to conduct such pleas. And there shall be no other justiciar over the men of London. 2. And the citizens shall not take part in any [civil] case whatsoever outside the City walls. 1) And they shall be exempt from the payment of scot and danegeld and the murder fine. 2) And none of them shall take part in trial by combat. 3) And if any of the citizens has become involved in a plea of the Crown, he shall clear himself, as a citizen of London, by an oath which has been decreed in the city. 4) And no one shall be billeted [lodged in a person's house by order of the King] within the walls of the city nor shall hospitality be forcibly exacted for anyone belonging to my household or to any other. 5) And all the citizens of London and all their effects [goods] shall be exempt and free, both throughout England and in the seaports, from toll and fees for transit and market fees and all other dues. 6) And the churches and barons and citizens shall have and hold in peace and security their rights of jurisdiction [in civil and criminal matters] along with all their dues, in such a way that lessees who occupy property in districts under private jurisdiction shall pay dues to no one except the man to whom the jurisdiction belongs, or to the official whom he has placed there. 7) And a citizen of London shall not be amerced [fined by a court when the penalty for an offense is not designated by statute] to forfeiture of a sum greater than his wergeld, [hereby assessed as] 100 shillings, in a case involving money. 8) And further there shall be no miskenning [false plea causing a person to be summoned to court] in a husting or in a folkmoot [meeting of the community], or in any other court within the City. 9) And the Hustings [court] shall sit once a week on Monday. 10) And I assure to my citizens their lands and the property mortgaged to them and the debts due to them both within the City and without. 11) And with regard to lands about which they have plead in suit before me, I shall maintain justice on their behalf, according to the law of the City. 12) And if anyone has exacted toll or tax from citizens of London, the citizens of London within the city shall [have the right to] seize [by process of law] from the town or village where the toll or tax was exacted a sum equivalent to that which the citizen of London gave as toll and hence sustained as loss. 13) And all those who owe debts to citizens shall pay them or shall clear themselves in London from the charge of being in debt to them. 14) But if they have refused to pay or to come to clear themselves, then the citizens to whom they are in debt shall [have the right to] seize [by process of law] their goods [including those in the hands of a third party, and bring them] into the city from the [town, village or] county in which the debtor lives [as pledges to compel appearance in court]. 15) And the citizens shall enjoy as good and full hunting rights as their ancestors ever did, namely, in the Chilterns, in Middlesex, and in Surrey. Witnessed at Westminster." The above right not to take part in any case outside the city relieved London citizens from the burden of traveling to wherever the King's court happened to be, the disadvantage of not knowing local customs, and the difficulty of speaking in the language of the King's court rather than in English. The right of redress for tolls exacted was new because the state of the law was that the property of the inhabitants was liable to the King or superior lord for the common debt. Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at Oxford, which later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers' guild. There were weavers' guilds in several towns given royal sanction. They paid an annual tribute and were given a monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of several miles. Guild rules covered attendance of the members at church services, the promotion of pilgrimages, celebration of masses for the dead, common meals, relief of poor brethren and sisters, the hours of labor, the process of manufacture, the wages of workmen, and technical education. Newcastle-on-Tyne was recognized by the King as having certain customs, so the following was not called a grant: "These are the laws and customs which the burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne had in the time of Henry King of England and ought to have. [1] Burgesses can distrain [take property of another until the other performs his obligation] upon foreigners within, or without their own market, within or without their own houses, and within or without their own borough without the leave of the reeve, unless the county court is being held in the borough, and unless [the foreigners are] on military service or guarding the castle. [2] A burgess cannot distrain upon a burgess without the leave of the reeve. [3] If a burgess have lent anything of his to a foreigner, let the debtor restore it in the borough if he admits the debt, if he denies it, let him justify himself in the borough. [4] Pleas which arise in the borough shall be held and concluded there, except pleas of the Crown. [5] If any burgess be appealed [sued] of any plaint, he shall not plead without the borough, unless for default of [the borough] court. [6] Nor ought he to answer without day and term, unless he have fallen into 'miskenning'[error in pleading], except in matters which pertain to the Crown. [7] If a ship have put in at Tynemouth and wishes to depart, the burgesses may buy what they will [from it]. [8] If a plea arise between a burgess and a merchant, it shall be concluded before the third ebb of the tide. [9] Whatever merchandise a ship has brought by sea must be landed, except salt; and herring ought to be sold in the ship. [10] If any man have held land in burgage for a year and a day, lawfully and without claim, he shall not answer a claimant, unless the claimant have been without the realm of England, or a child not of age to plead. [11] If a burgess have a son, he shall be included in his father's freedom if he be with his father. [12] If a villein come to dwell in the borough, and dwell there a year and a day as a burgess, he shall abide altogether, unless notice has been given by him or by his master that he is dwelling for a term. [13] If any man appeal [sue] a burgess of any thing, he cannot do battle with the burgess, but the burgess shall defend himself by his law, unless it be of treason, whereof he is bound to defend himself by battle. [14] Neither can a burgess do battle against a foreigner, unless he first go out of the borough. [15] No merchant, unless he be a burgess, may buy [outside] the town either wool or leather or other merchandise, nor within the borough except [from] burgesses. [16] If a burgess incur forfeit, he shall give six ounces [10s.] to the reeve. [17] In the borough there is no merchet [payment for marrying off a daughter] nor heriot nor bloodwite [fine for drawing blood] nor stengesdint [fine for striking with a stick]. [18] Every burgess may have his own oven and hand-mill if he will, saving the right of the King's oven. [19] If a woman be in forfeit for bread or beer, no one ought to interfere but the reeve. If she forfeit twice, she shall be chastised by her forfeit. If three times, let justice be done on her. [20] No one but a burgess may buy webs [woven fabrics just taken off the loom] to dye, nor make nor cut them. [21] A burgess may give and sell his land and go whither he will freely and quietly unless there be a claim against him." In the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing guilds controlled prices and assured quality. The head officer of the guild usually controlled the borough, which excluded rival merchant guilds. A man might belong to more than one guild, e.g. one for his trade and another for religion. Trades and crafts, each of which had to be licensed, grouped together by specialty in the town. Cloth-makers, dyers, tanners, and fullers were near an accessible supply of running water, upon which their trade depended. Streets were often named by the trade located there, such as Butcher Row, Pot Row, Cordwainer Row, Ironmonger Row, Wheeler Row, and Fish Row. Hirers of labor and sellers of wheat, hay, livestock, dairy products, apples and wine, meat, poultry, fish and pies, timber and cloth all had a distinct location. Some young men were apprenticed to craftsmen to assist them and learn their craft. The nation produced sufficient iron, but a primitive steel [iron with carbon added] was imported. Steel was used for tools, instruments, weapons and armor. Ships could carry about 300 people. Plays about miracles wrought by holy men or the sufferings and fortitude of martyrs were performed. Most nobles could read, though writing was still a specialized craft. There were books on animals, plants, and stones. The lives of the saints as told in the book "The Golden Legend" were popular. The story of the early King Arthur was told in the book "The History of the Kings of England". The story at this time stressed Arthur as a hero and went as follows: Arthur became King at age 15. He had an inborn goodness and generosity as well as courage. He and his knights won battles against foreign settlers and neighboring clans. Once, he and his men surrounded a camp of foreigners until they gave up their gold and silver rather than starve. Arthur married Guenevere and established a court and retinue. Leaving Britain in the charge of his nephew Modred, he fought battles on the continent for land to give to his noblemen who did him service in his household and fought with him. When Arthur returned to Britain, he made battle with his nephew Modred who had crowned himself King. Arthur's knight Gawain, the son of his sister, and the enemy Modred were killed and Arthur was severely wounded. Arthur told his kinsman Constantine to rule Britain as King in his place. The intellectual world included art, secular literature, law, and medicine. There were about 90 physicians. Forests were still retained by Kings for their hunting of boars and stags. The bounds of the Forest were enlarged. They comprised almost one-third of the kingdom. Barons and their tenants and sub-tenants were offered an alternative of paying shield money ["scutage">[ of 26s.8d. per fee in commutation for and instead of military service for their fiefs. This enabled Henry to hire soldiers who would be more directly under his own control and to organize a more efficient army. A substantial number of barons and monasteries were heavily in debt to the Jews. The King taxed the Jews at will. During rivalry for the throne after Henry I's reign, the bishops gained some independence from the Crown and strengthened their ties with the Pope. The Law Henry restored the death penalty for thievery and robbery, but maintained William I's punishment of the mutilation of blinding and severing of limbs for other offenses. The forest law stated that: "he that doth hunt a wild beast and doth make him pant, shall pay 10 shillings: If he be a free man, then he shall pay double. If he be a bound man, he shall lose his skin." A "verderer" was responsible for enforcing this law, which also stated that: "If anyone does offer force to a Verderer, if he be a freeman, he shall lose his freedom, and all that he hath. And if he be a villein, he shall lose his right hand." Further, "If such an offender does offend so again, he shall lose his life." A wife's dower is one-third of all her husband's freehold land, unless his endowment of her at their marriage was less than one-third. Counterfeiting law required that "If any one be caught carrying false coin, the reeve shall give the bad money to the King however much there is, and it shall be charged in the render of his farm [payment] as good, and the body of the offender shall be handed over to the King for judgment, and the serjeants who took him shall have his clothes." Debts to townsmen were recoverable by this law: "If a burgess has a gage Past due rent in a borough was punishable by payment of 10s. as fine." There are legal maxims which are becoming so well established and known that there will never be a need to write them down as statutes. As delineated by St. Germain in "Doctor and Student" in 1518, they are: 1. If a man steals goods to the value of 12d., or above, it is felony, and he shall die for it. If it is under the value of 12d., then it is but petit larceny, and he shall not die for it, but shall be punished at the discretion of the judges. This not apply to goods taken from the person, which is robbery, a felony punishable by death. 2. If an exigent, in case of felony, is awarded against a man, he has thereby forthwith forfeited his goods to the King. 3. If the son is attainted [convicted of treason or felony with the death penalty and forfeiture of all lands and goods] in the life of the father, and after he purchases his charter of pardon of the King, and after the father dies; in this case the land shall escheat to the lord of the fee, insomuch that though he has a younger brother, yet the land shall not descend to him: for by the attainder of the elder brother the blood is corrupt, and the father-in-law died without heir. 4. A man declared outlaw forfeits his profits from land and his goods to the King. 5. He who is arraigned upon an indictment of felony shall be admitted, in favor of life, to challenge the number of inquirers for three whole inquests peremptorily. With cause, he may challenge as many as he has cause to challenge. Such peremptory challenge shall not be admitted in a private suit because it is a suit of the party. 6. An accessory shall not be put to answer before the principal. 7. If a man commands another to commit a trespass, and he does it, the one who made the command is a trespasser. 8. The land of every man is in the law enclosed from other, though it lies in the open field and a trespasser in it may be brought to court. 9. Every man is bound to make recompense for such hurt as his beasts do in the growing grain or grass of his neighbor, though he didn't know that they were there. 10. He who has possession of land, though it is by disseisin, has right against all men but against him who has right. 11. The rents, commons of pasture, of turbary [digging turf], reversions, remainders, nor such other things which lie not in manual occupation, may not be given or granted to another without writing. 12. If a villein purchase lands, and the lord enter, he shall enjoy the land as his own. But if the villein alienates before the lord enters, he alienation is good. And the same law is of goods. 13. Escuage [shield service for 40 days] uncertain makes knight's service. Escuage certain makes socage. 14. He who holds by castle-guard, holds by knight's service, but he does not hold by escuage. He that holds by 20s. to the guard of a castle holds by socage. 15. A descent takes away an entry. 16. No prescription [assertion of a right or title to the enjoyment of a thing, on the ground of having had the uninterrupted and immemorial enjoyment of it] in lands makes a right. 17. A prescription of rent and profits out of land makes a right. 18. The limitation of a prescription generally taken is from the time that no man's mind runs to the contrary. 19. Assigns may be made upon lands given in fee, for term of life, or for term of years, though no mention be made of assigns; and the same law is of a rent that is granted; but otherwise it is of a warranty, and of a covenant. 20. He who recovers debt or damages in the King's court when the person charged is not in custody, may within a year after the judgment take the body of the defendant, and commit him to prison until he has paid the debt and damages. 21. If a release or confirmation is made to him who, at the time of the release made, had nothing in the land, the release or confirmation is void, except in certain cases, such as to vouch. 22. A condition to avoid a freehold cannot be pleaded without a deed; but to avoid a gift of chattel, it may be pleaded without deed. 23. A release or confirmation made by him, that at the time of the release or confirmation made had no right, is void in law, though a right comes to him after; except if it is with warranty, and then it shall bar him to all right that he shall have after the warranty is made. 24. If land and rent that is going out of the same land, comes into one man's hand of like estate, and like surety of title, the rent is extinct. 25. If land descends to him who has right to the same land before, he shall be remitted to his better title, if he will. 26. If two titles are concurrent together, the oldest title shall be preferred. 27. If a real action be sued against any man who has nothing in the thing demanded, the writ shall abate at the common law. 28. If the demandant or plaintiff, hanging his writ, will enter into the thing demanded, his writ shall abate. 29. By the alienation of the tenant, hanging the writ, or his entry into religion, or if he is made a knight, or she is a woman, and takes a husband hanging the writ, the writ shall not abate. 30. A right or title of action that only depends in action, cannot be given or granted to none other but only to the tenant of the ground, or to him who has the reversion or remainder of the same land. 31. In an action of debt upon an agreement, the defendant may wage his law: but otherwise it is upon a lease of lands for term of years, or at will. 32. The King may disseise no man and no man may disseise the King, nor pull any reversion or remainder out of him. 33. The King's excellency is so high in the law, that no freehold may be given to the King, nor be derived from him, but by matter of record. 34. If an abbot or prior, an abbot's chief assistant, alienate the lands of his house, and dies, though his successor has right to the lands, yet he may not enter, but he must take legal action. 35. If an abbot buys a thing that comes to the use of the house, and dies, then his successor shall be charged. 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 required 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 contracts were deemed invalid. Villeins and slaves could marry without their lords' or owners' permission. A couple living together could be deemed married. Relatives descended from the same great great grandfather could not marry, nor could relatives by marriage of the same degree of closeness. A legal separation could be given for adultery, cruelty, or heresy. Fathers were usually ordered to provide some sustenance and support for their illegitimate children. The court punished infanticide and abortion. Judicial Procedure Courts extant now are the Royal Court, the King's Court of the Exchequer, shire courts, and hundred courts, which were under the control of the King. His appointed justices administered justice in these courts on regular circuits. Also there are manor courts, borough courts, and ecclesiastical courts. 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 judge. Trial is still by compurgation. 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. 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. Henry began the use of writs to intervene in civil matters. These writs allowed people to come to the Royal Court on certain issues. He had some locally based justices, called justiciars. Also, he sent justices out on eyres [journeys],with wide responsibilities, to hear and decide all manner of Crown pleas. This brought royal authority into the localities and served to check baronial power over the common people. He created the office of chief justiciar, which carried out judicial and administrative functions. The Royal Court also decided land disputes between barons. There was a vigorous interventionism in the land law subsequent to appeals to the King in landlord- tenant relations, brought by a lord or by an undertenant. Assizes [those who sit together] of local people who knew relevant facts were put together to assist the court. Records of the verdicts of the Royal Court were sent with traveling justices for use as precedent in shire and hundred courts. The King's Court of the Exchequer reviewed the accounts of sheriffs, including receipts and expenditures on the Crown's behalf as well as sums due to the Treasury, located still at Winchester. These sums included rent from royal estates, the Danegeld land tax, the fines from local courts, and aid from baronial estates. It was called the "Exchequer" because it used a chequered cloth on the table to facilitate calculation in Roman numerals of the amount due and the amount paid. It's records were the "Pipe Rolls", so named because sheets of parchment were fastened at the top, each of which dropped into a roll at the bottom and so assumed the shape of a pipe. The shire and hundred courts assessed the personal property of individuals and their taxes due to the King. The shire court decided land disputes between people who had different barons as their respective lords. The Crown used its superior coercive power to enforce the legal decisions of other courts. The shire courts heard cases of theft, brawling, beating, and wounding, for which the penalties could be exposure in the pillory or stocks where the public could scorn and hit the offender. It met twice yearly. If an accused failed to appear after four successive shire courts, he was declared outlaw at the fifth and forfeited his civil rights and all his property. He could be slain by anyone at will. The hundred court heard neighborhood disputes, for instance concerning pastures, meadows and harvests. It policed the duty of frankpledge, which was required for those who did not have a lord to answer for him. It met once a month. The free landholders were expected to attend shire, hundred, and baronage courts. They owed "suit" to it. The suitors found the dooms [laws] by which the presiding officer pronounced the sentence. The barons held court on their manors for issues arising between people living on the manor, such as bad ploughing on the lord's land or letting a cow get loose on the lord's land, and land disputes. They also made the decision of whether or not a person was a villein or free. The manor court took over issues which had once been heard in the vill or hundred court. The baron charged a fee for hearing a case and received any fines he imposed, which amounted to significant "profits of justice". Boroughs held court on trading and marketing issues in their towns such as measures and weights, as well as issues between people who lived in the borough. The borough court was presided over by a reeve who was a burgess as well as a royal official. Wealthy men could employ professional pleaders to advise them and to speak for them in a court. The ecclesiastical courts dealt with family matters such as marriage, annulments, marriage portions, legitimacy, wife-beating, child abuse, orphans, bigamy, adultery, incest, fornication, personal possessions, slander, usury, mortuaries, sanctuary, 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. It 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 by compurgation. 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. They 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 the only people he could speak to were his spouse and servants. Excommunication included denial of the sacraments of baptism, penance, eucharist, and extreme unction at death; which were necessary for salvation of the soul; and the sacrament of confirmation. However, the person could still marry and make a will. Excommunication was usually imposed for failure to obey an order or showing contempt of the law or of the courts. It required a due process 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. 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 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. Eleanor often served as regent during Henry's reign and the reigns of their two sons: Richard, the Lion-Hearted, and John. 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. Henry revived and augmented the laws and institutions of his grandfather, Henry I, 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. 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. 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. Frankpledge was revived. 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 judges. Henry had character and the foresight to build up a centralized system of government that would survive him. He learned about the shires' 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. The royal household translated the royal will into action. In the early 1100s, there had been very little machinery of central government that was not closely associated with the royal household. Royal government was largely built upon what had once been purely domestic offices. Kings had called upon their chaplains to pen letters for them. By Henry II's reign, the Chancery was a highly efficient writing office through which the King's will was expressed in a flow of writs, and the Chancellor an important and highly rewarded official, but he was still responsible for organizing the services in the royal chapel. Similarly, the chamberlains ran the household's financial departments. They arranged to have money brought in from a convenient castle-treasury, collected money from sheriffs or the King's debtors, arranged loans with the usurers, and supervised the spending of it. It was spent for daily domestic needs, the King's almsgiving, and the mounting of a military campaign. But they were still responsible for personal attendance upon the King in his privy chamber, taking care of his valuable furs, jewels, and documents, and changing his bedlinens. There were four other departments of the household. The steward presided over the hall and kitchens and was responsible for supplying the household and guests with food supplies. The butler had duties in the hall and cellars and was responsible for the supply of wine and ale. The marshall arranged lodgings for the King's court as it moved about from palaces to hunting lodges, arranged the pay of the household servants, and supervised the work of ushers, watchmen, fire-tenders, messengers and huntsmen. The constable organized the bodyguard and escorts, arranged for the supply of castles, and mustered the royal army. Henry brought order and unity by making the King's Royal Court the common court of the land. Its purpose was to guard the King's peace by protecting all people of free status throughout the nation and correct the disparity in punishments given by local courts. Heretofore, the scope of the King's peace had varied to as little as the King's presence, his land, and his highway. The royal demesne had shrunk to about 5% of the land. The Common Law for all the nation was established by example of the King's Royal Court. A system of writs originated well-defined actions in the royal courts. This system determined the Royal Court's jurisdiction as against the church, lords, and sheriffs. It limited the jurisdiction of all other courts and subordinated them to the Royal Court. Inquests into any misdeeds of sheriffs were held, which could result in their dismissal. Before Henry's reign, the church had become more powerful and asserted more authority. Henry tried to return to the concept of the King being appointed by God and as he head of the church as well as of the state, as in Henry I's time. Toward this end, he published the Constitutions of Clarendon. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, refused to agree to them. The disageement came to a head in Henry's attempt to establish the principle of "one law to all" by having church clerics punished by the civil courts as before, instead of having "benefit of clergy" to be tried only in ecclesiastical courts, even for secular crimes. Clerics composed about one-sixth the population. The church courts had characteristically punished with a fine or a penance, and at most defrocking, and never imposed a death penalty, even for murder. When Archbishop Becket was murdered and became a martyr, "benefit of clergy" became a standard right. Appeals could be made to the Pope without the King's permission. The King could take a criminal cleric's chattels, but not his life. However, though theoretically the bishops were elective, as a practical matter, the King appointed the bishops and the abbots. Henry and Eleanor spoke many languages and liked discussing law, philosophy, and history. So they gathered wise and learned man about them, who became known as courtiers, rather than people of social rank. They lived in the great and strong Tower of London, which had been extended as had other castles, so that the whole castle and grounds were defended instead of just the main building. On the west were two strongly fortified castles surrounded by a high and deeply entrenched wall, which had seven double gates. Towers were spaced along the north wall and the Thames River flowed below the south wall. To the west was the city, where royal friends had residences with adjoining gardens near the royal palace at Westminster. The court was a center of culture as well as of government. The game of backgammon was played. People wore belts with buckles, usually brass, instead of knotting their belts. London extended about a mile along the river and about half a mile inland. Most of its houses were two stories, the ground floor having booths and workshops, and the upper floor living space. Most of the houses were wooden structures. The richer merchants' and knights' houses were built of stone. Walls between houses had to be stone and thatched roofs were banned because there had been many fires. So roofs were tiled with red-brick tiles. There were over a hundred churches in the city, which celebrated feast days, gave alms and hospitality to strangers, confirmed betrothals, contracted marriages, celebrated weddings, conducted funerals, and buried the dead. Fish and no meat was eaten on Fridays and during lent. There was dark rye bread and expensive white wheat bread. Vegetables included onions, leeks, and cabbage. Fruits included apples, pears, plums, cherries, and strawberries. Water was obtained from streams running through the town to the river and from springs. There were craft guilds of bakers, butchers, clothworkers, and saddlers, as well as of weavers. Vendors, craftsmen, and laborers had their customary places, which they took up every morning. Some vendors walked the streets announcing their wares for sale. In London, bells heralded the start and finish of all organized business. At sunset, the gates of the town were closed for the night. Only the rich could afford wax candles; others had home-made tallow or fat lights which smelled and gave off smoke. Most people washed their bodies. Few babies survived childhood. If a man reached 30, he could expect to live until age 50. The sellers of merchandise and hirers of labor were distributed every morning into their several localities according to their trade. Outside one of the gates, a horse market was held every week. They wore horseshoes made of iron or of a crude steel. In other fields, countryfolk sold pigs, cows, oxen and sheep. London Bridge was built of stone for the first time. It was supported by a series of stone arches standing on small man-made islands. It had such a width that a row of wood houses and a chapel was built on top of it. In the spring it was impassable by ships because the flow of water under it varied in height on either side of the bridge by several feet at half tide. Men began weaving cloth, which formerly had been done by women. The weavers guild of London received a charter by the King in 1155, the first granted to any London craft: "Know that I have conceded to the Weavers of London to hold their guild in London with all the liberties and customs which they had in the time of King Henry [I], my grandfather; and that none may intermeddle with the craft within the city, nor in Southwark, nor in other places pertaining to London except through them and except he be in their guild, otherwise than was accustomed to be done in the time of King Henry, my grandfather …So that each year they render thence to me two marks [26s.8d.] of gold at the feast of St. Michael. And I forbid that any shall do injury or contumely to them on this account under penalty of 10 pounds [200s.]. Witness T[homas], Chancellor, and Warinus, son of Gerard, Chamberlain, at Winchester." The liberties obtained were: 1) The weavers may elect bailiffs to supervise the work of the craft, to punish defaulters, and to collect the ferm [amount owed to the King]. The bailiffs were chosen from year to year and swore before the mayor of London to do and keep their office well and truly. 2) The bailiffs may hold court from week to week on pleas of debt, agreements, covenants, and minor trespasses. 3) If any of the guild members are sued in any other court on any of the above pleas, the guild may challenge that plea to bring it to the guild court. 4) If any member is behind in his share of the payment to the King, the bailiffs may distrain his loom until he has paid this. Paying an annual payment freed the weavers from liability to inconsequent royal fines. Failure to make this payment promptly might have led to loss of the right, hence the rigorous penalty of distraint upon the looms of individual weavers who fell into arrears. The weavers' guild punished members who used bad thread in their weaving or did defective weaving by showing the default to the mayor, with opportunity for the workman to make entreaty, and the mayor and twelve members of the guild then made a verdict of amercement of 1/2 mark [6s. 8d.] and the workman of the cloth was also punished by the guild bailiffs according to guild custom. The weavers' guild tradition of brotherliness among members meant that injury to a fellow weaver incurred a severe penalty. If a weaver stole or eloigned [removed them to a distance where they were unreachable] any other weaver's goods falsely and maliciously, then he was dismissed from the guild and his loom was taken by the guild to fulfill his portion of the annual payment to the King. The weavers were allowed to buy and to sell in London freely and quietly. They had all the rights of other freemen of the city. Thus from the middle of the 1100s A.D., the weavers enjoyed the monopoly of their craft, rights of supervision which ensured a high standard of workmanship, power to punish infractions of their privileges, and full control of their members. In this they stand as the prototype of English medieval guilds. These rights represented the standard which all bodies of craftsmen desired to attain. The right of independent jurisdiction was exceptional. On the north side of the city was a great forest with fields and wells where students and other young men from the city took walks in the fresh evening air. Vendors on the river bank sold cooked fish caught from the river and wine from ships and wine cellars. London's chief magistrate was the port-reeve, who was appointed by the King, until 1191. Then the port-reeve was replaced by a mayor, who was elected yearly by the city wards. Each ward was headed by an alderman and there were city sheriffs and councilors. The mayors were typically rich merchant princes. There were three ways to become a citizen of London: being the son of a citizen, apprenticeship in a craft for seven years, and purchase of citizenship. London growth led to its replacing Winchester as the capital. Over its history, it generally chose or elected its own mayor every year. (This was not a popular election.) But there were many periods when royal authority was asserted over it. St. Barthomew hospital was established in London for the care of sick pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury. Trading was facilitated by the stabilization of the amount of silver metallic content of the English coinage, which was called "sterling" [strong] silver. The compass assisted the navigation of ships and London became a major trading center for foreign goods from many lands. About 5% of the knights were literate. Wealthy men sent their sons to school in monasteries to prepare them for a livelihood in a profession or in trade or to the town of Oxford, whose individual teachers had attracted disciples for a long time. These schools grew up around St. Mary's Church, but had not been started by the church as there was no cathedral school in Oxford. Oxford had started as a burh and had a royal residence and many tradesmen. It was given its basic charter in 1155 by the King. This confirmed to it all the customs, laws and liberties [rights] as those enjoyed by London. If became a model charter for other towns. Bachelors at Oxford studied the arts of grammar, rhetoric, and logic, and then music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, until they mastered their discipline and therefore were authorized to teach it. Teaching would then provide an income sufficient to support a wife. The master of arts was analogous to the master craftsman of a guild. From 1190, the civil law was studied, and shortly thereafter, canon law. Later came the study of medicine. The use of paper supplemented the use of parchment for writing. Irregular edged paper was made from linen, cotton, straw, and/or wood beaten to a pulp and then spread out over a wire mesh to dry. In this era, the English national race and character was formed. Stories of good King Arthur were popular and set ideals for behavior and justice in an otherwise barbaric age where force was supreme. His last battle in which he lay wounded and told a kinsman to rule in his place and uphold his laws was written in poem ("Layamon's Brut"). Romantic stories were written and read in English. The only people distinguishable as Anglo-Saxon by their look and speech were manor villeins who worked the farm land, who composed over half the population. Intermarriage had destroyed any distinction of Normans by look or speech alone. Although the villeins could not buy their freedom or be freed by their lord, they became less numerous because of the preference of landholders for tenants motivated to perform work by potential loss of tenure. Also, the Crown's protection of all its subjects in criminal matters blurred the distinction between free and unfree men. The boroughs were dominated by lords of local manors, who usually had a house in the borough. Similarly, burgesses usually had farmland outside the borough. Many boroughs were granted the right to have a common seal for the common business of the town. Each borough was represented by twelve reputable burgesses. Each vill was represented by a reeve and four reputable men. Certain towns sponsored great seasonal fairs for special goods, such as cloth. Less than 5% of the population lived in towns. Some windmills were used. London guilds of craftsmen such as weavers, fullers, bakers, loriners (makers of bit, spurs, and metal mountings of bridles and saddles), cordwainers (makers of leather goods such as shoes), pepperers, and goldsmiths were licensed by the King, for which they paid him a yearly fee. There were also five Bridge Guilds (probably raising money for the future construction of London Bridge in stone) and St. Lazarus' Guild. The wealthy guilds, which included the goldsmiths, the pepperers, and three bridge guilds had landholding members who had been thegnes or knights and now became a class of royal officials: the King's minters, his chamberlain, his takers of wines, his collectors of taxes. Sandwich was confirmed in its port rights by this charter: "Henry II to his sheriff and bailiffs of Kent, greeting. I will and order that the monks of the Holy Trinity of Canterbury shall have fully all those liberties and customs in Sandwich which they had in the time of King Henry my grandfather, as it was adjudged in pursuance of his command by the oath of twelve men of Dover and twelve men of Sandwich, to wit, that the aforesaid monks ought to have the port and the toll and all maritime customs in the same port, on either side of the water from Eadburge-gate as far as markesfliete and a ferry-boat for passage. And no man has there any right except they and their ministers. Wherefore I will and firmly command you and the men of Sandwich that ye cause the aforesaid monks to have all their customs both in the port and in the town of Sandwich, and I forbid any from vexing them on this account." "And they shall have my firm peace." Henry gave this charter to the town of Bristol in 1164: "Know ye, that I have granted to my burgesses of Bristol, that they shall be quit both of toll John, when he was an earl and before he became King, granted these liberties to Bristol about 1188: 1) No burgess may sue or be sued out of Bristol. 2) The burgesses are excused from the murder fine (imposed by the King or lord from the hundred or town where the murder was committed when the murderer had not been apprehended). 3) No burgess may wage duel, unless sued for death of a stranger. 4) No one may take possession of a lodging house by assignment or by livery of the Marshall of the Earl of Gloucester against the will of the burgesses (so that the town would not be responsible for the good behavior of a stranger lodging in the town without first accepting the possessor of the lodging house). 5) No one shall be condemned in a matter of money, unless according to the law of the hundred, that is, forfeiture of 40s. 6) The hundred court shall be held only once a week. 7) No one in any plea may argue his cause in miskenning. 8) They may lawfully have their lands and tenures and mortgages and debts throughout my whole land, [from] whoever owes them [anything]. 9) With regard to debts which have been lent in Bristol, and mortgages theremade, pleas shall be held in the town according to the custom of the town. 10) If any one in any other place in my land shall take toll of the men of Bristol, if he does not restore it after he is required to, the Prepositor of Bristol may take from him a distress at Bristol, and force him to restore it. 11) No stranger-tradesman may buy within the town from a man who is a stranger, leather, grain, or wool, but only from a burgess. 12) No stranger may have a shop, including one for selling wine, unless in a ship, nor shall sell cloth for cutting except at the fair. 13) No stranger may remain in the town with his goods for the purpose of selling his goods, but for forty days. 14) No burgess may be confined or distrained any where else within my land or power for any debt, unless he is a debtor or surety (to avoid a person owed a debt from distraining another person of the town of the debtor). 15) They shall be able to marry themselves, their sons, their daughters and their widows, without the license of their lords. (Lords had the right of preventing their tenants and mesne lords and their families from marrying without his consent.) 16) No one of their lords shall have the wardship or the disposal of their sons or daughters on account of their lands out of the town, but only the wardship of their tenements which belong to their own fee, until they become of age. 17) There shall be no recognition [acknowledgement that something done by another person in one's name had one's authority] in the town. 18) No one shall take tyne [wooden barrel with a certain quantity of ale, payable by the townsmen to the constable for the use of the castle] unless for the use of the lord Earl, and that according to the custom of the town. 19) They may grind their grain wherever they may choose. 20) They may have their reasonable guilds, as well or better than they had themin the time of Robert and his son William [John's wife's grandfather and father, who were earls of Gloucester when the town and castle of Bristol were part of the honor of Gloucester]. 21) No burgess may be compelled to bail any man, unless he himself chooses it, although he may be dwelling on his land. We have also granted to them all their tenures, messuages, in copses, in buildings on the water or elsewhere to be held in free burgage [tenant to pay only certain fixed services or payments to his lord, but not military service (like free socage)]. We have granted also that any of them may make improvements as much as he can in erecting buildings anywhere on the bank and elsewhere, as long as the borough and town are not damaged thereby. Also, they shall have and possess all waste land and void grounds and places, to be built on at their pleasure. Newcastle-on-Tyne's taxes were simplified in 1175 as follows: "Know ye that I have granted and by this present charter have confirmed to my burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne, and to all their things which they can assure to be their own, acquittance from toll and passage and pontage and from the Hanse and from all other customs throughout all my land. And I prohibit all persons from vexing or disturbing them therein upon forfeiture to me." We grant to our upright men on Newcastle-on-Tyne and their heirs our town of Newcastle-on-Tyne with all its appurtances at fee farm for 100 pounds to be rendered yearly to us and our heirs at our Exchequer by their own hand at the two terms, to wit, at Easter 50 pounds and at Michaelmas 50 pounds, saving to us our rents and prizes and assizes in the port of the same town. Ranulph, earl of Chester, made grants to his burgesses of Coventry by this charter: "That the aforesaid burgesses and their heirs may well and honorably quietly and in free burgage hold of me and my heirs as ever in the time of my father and others of my ancestors they have held better more firmly and freer. In the second place I grant to them all the free and good laws which the burgesses of Lincoln have better and freer. I prohibit and forbid my constables to draw them into the castle to plead for any cause, but they may freely have their portimote [leet court] in which all pleas belonging to me and them may be justly treated of. Moreover they may choose from themselves one to act for me whom I approve, who a justice under me and over them may know the laws and customs, and keep them to my counsel in all things reasonable, every excuse put away, and may faithfully perform to me my rights. If any one happen to fall into my amercement he may be reasonably fined by my bailiff and the faithful burgesses of the court. Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the improvement of the town, I command that they have peace, and that none do them injury or unjustly send them into court. But if any foreign merchant shall have done anything improper in the town that same may be regulated in the portimote before the aforesaid justice without a suit at law." Henry confirmed this charter of the earl's by 1189 as follows: I have confirmed all the liberties and free customs the earl of Chester granted to them, namely, that the same burgesses may well and honorably hold in free burgage, as ever in the time of the father of the beforesaid earl, or other of his ancestors, they may have better or more firmly held; and they may have all the laws and customs which the citizens of Lincoln have better and freer [e.g. their merchant guilds; all men brought to trade may be subject to the guild customs and assize of the town; those who lawfully hold land in the town for a year and a day without question and are able to prove that an accuser has been in the kingdom within the year without finding fault with them, from thence may hold the land well and in peace without pleading; those who have remained in the town a year and a day without question, and have submitted to the customs of the town and the citizens of the town are able to show through the laws and customs of the town that the accuser stood forth in the kingdom, and not a fault is found of them, then they may remain in peace in the town without question]; and that the constable of the aforesaid earl shall not bring them into the castle to plead in any case. But they may freely have their own portmanmote in which all pleas appertaining to the earl and to them may be justly treated of. Moreover they may choose one from themselves to act for the earl, whom I approve, who may be a justice under the earl and over them, and who to the earl may faithfully perform his rights, and if anyone happen to fall into the earl's forfeiture he shall be acquit for 12 pence. If by the testimony of his neighbors he cannot pay 12 pence coins, by their advice it shall be so settled as he is able to pay, and besides, with other acquittances, that the burgesses shall not provide anything in corrody [allowance in food] or otherwise whether for the said earl or his men, unless upon condition that their chattels shall be safe, and so rendered to them. Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the improvement of the town they may have peace, and none shall do them injury or unjustly send them into suit at law. But if any foreign merchant has done anything improper in the town that shall be amended [or tried] in the portmanmote before the aforesaid justice without a suit. And they who may be newcomers into the town, from the day on which they began to build in the town for the space of two years shall be acquit of all charges. Mercantile privileges were granted to the shoemakers in Oxford thus: "Know ye that I have granted and confirmed to the corvesars of Oxford all the liberties and customs which they had in the time of King Henry my grandfather, and that they have their guild, so that none carry on their trade in the town of Oxford, except he be of that guild. I grant also that the cordwainers who afterwards may come into the town of Oxford shall be of the same guild and shall have the same liberties and customs which the corvesars have and ought to have. For this grant and confirmation, however, the corvesars and cordwainers ought to pay me every year an ounce of gold." A guild merchant for wool dominated and regulated the wool trade in many boroughs. In Leicester, only guildsmen were permitted to buy and sell wool wholesale to whom they pleased or to wash their fells in borough waters. Certain properties, such as those near running water, essential to the manufacture of wool were maintained for the use of guild members. The waterwheel was a technological advance replacing human labor whereby the cloth was made more compact and thick, "fulled". The waterwheel turned a shaft which lifted hammers to pound the wet cloth in a trough. Wool packers and washers could work only for guild members. The guild fixed wages, for instance to wool wrappers and flock pullers. Strangers who brought wool to the town for sale could sell only to guild members. A guildsman could not sell wool retail to strangers nor go into partnership with a man outside the guild. Each guild member had to swear the guildsman's oath, pay an entrance fee, and subject himself to the judgment of the guild in the guild court, which could fine or suspend a man from practicing his trade for a year. The advantages of guild membership extended beyond profit in the wool trade. Members were free from the tolls that strangers paid. They alone were free to sell certain goods retail. They had the right to share in any bargain made in the presence of a guildsman, whether the transaction took place in Leicester or in a distant market. In the general interest, the guild forbade the use of false weights and measures and the production of shoddy goods. It maintained a wool-beam for weighing wool. It also forbade middlemen from profiting at the expense of the public. For instance, butchers' wives were forbidden from buying meat to sell again in the same market unless they cooked it. The moneys due to the King from the guilds of a town were collected by the town reeve. A baron could assemble an army in a day to resist any perceived misgovernment by a King. Armed conflict did not interfere much with daily life because the national wealth was still composed mostly of flocks and herds and simple buildings. Machinery, furniture, and the stock of shops were still sparse. Life would be back to normal within a week. Henry wanted to check this power of the barons. So he restored the older obligation of every freeman to serve in defense of the realm, which was a military draft. At the King's call, barons were to appear in mail suit with sword and horse, knights in coat of mail with shield and lance, freeholders with lance and hauberk [coat of armor], burgesses and poorer freemen with lance and helmet, and such as millers with pike and leather shirt. The master of a household was responsible for every villein in his household. Others had to form groups of ten and swear obedience to the chief of the group. This was implemented in a war with France. However, the nobility who were on the borders of the realm had to maintain their private armies for frequent border clashes. The other nobility now tended towards tournaments with mock battles between two sides. A new land tax replaced the Danegeld tax. Freeholders of land paid taxes according to their plowable land ("hidage", by the hide, and later "carucage", by the acre). It was assessed and collected for the King by knights with little or no remuneration. The villein class, which in theory included the boroughs, paid a tax based on their produce ("tallage"). Merchants were taxed on their personal property, which was determined by an inquest of neighbors. Clergy were also taxed. This new system of taxation increased the royal income about threefold. At the end of this period was the reign of King John, a short man. After his mother Eleanor's death, John ruled without her influence. He had a huge appetite for money. He imposed levies on the capital value of all personal and moveable goods. (This idea was taken from the tenth of rents and income from moveable goods which had been imposed for King Richard II's crusade to recover Jerusalem. It began the occasional subsidies called "tenths and fifteenths" from all people on incomes from moveables.) He sold the wardships of minors and the marriages of heiresses to the highest bidder, no matter how base. He appointed unprincipled men to be both sheriff and justice, enabling them to blackmail property holders with vexatious writs and false accusations. Writs were withheld or sold at exorbitant prices. Crushing penalties were imposed to increase the profits of justice. The story of Robin Hood portrays John's attempt to gain the crown prematurely while Richard was on the Crusades to recover Jerusalem for Christendom. In 1213, strong northern barons refused a royal demand for scutage, arguing that the amount was not within custom or otherwise justified. John's heavy-handed and arbitrary rule quickly alienated all sectors of the population. They joined the barons to pressure him to sign the Magna Carta correcting his abuses. For instance, since John had extracted many heavy fines from barons by personally adjudging them blameworthy in disputes with others, the barons wanted judgment by their peers under the established law of the courts. In arms, the barons confronted John demanding that he sign the Magna Carta correcting his abuses, which he did. The Law The peace of the sheriff still exists for his shire. The King's peace may still be specially given, but it will cease upon the death of the King. Law required every good and lawful man to be bound to follow the hue and cry when it was raised against an offender who was fleeing. The village reeve was expected to lead the chase to the boundary of the next jurisdiction, which would then take the responsibility to catch the man. No one, including the lord of a manor, may take land from anyone else, for instance, by the customary process of distress, without a judgment from the Royal Court. This did not apply to London, where a landlord leasing or renting land could take distress in his fee. No one, including the lord of a manor, shall deprive an heir of the land possessed by his father, i.e. his birthright. A tenant may marry off a daughter unless his lord shows some just cause for refusing to consent to the marriage. A tenant had to pay an "aid" to his lord when the lord's daughter married, when the lord's son was knighted, or when the lord's person was ransomed. A man [or woman] may not will away his land, but he may sell it during his lifetime. The land of a knight or other tenant of a military fee is inherited by his eldest son. The socage land of a free sokeman goes by its ancient custom before the Norman Conquest. If a man purchased land after his marriage, his wife's dower is still one-third of the land he had when they married, or less if he had endowed her with less. But he could then enlarge her dower to one-third of all of his lands. The same rule applied if the man had no land, but endowed his wife with chattel or money instead. Dower law prevented a woman from selling her dower during the life of her husband. But he could sell it or give it away. On his death, its possessor had to give the widow the equivalent worth of the property. A widower had all his wife's lands by curtesy of the nation for his lifetime to the exclusion of her heirs. The Capital Messuage [Chief Manor] could not be given in dower or divided, but went in its entirety to its heir. Heirs were firstly sons, then daughters, then grandsons per stirpes, then granddaughters per stirpes, then brothers, and then sisters of the decedent. Male heirs of land held by military service or sons of knights who were under the age of twenty-one were considered to be in custody of their lords. The lord had wardship over the heir's land, excluding the third that was the widow's dower for her life. He had to maintain the heir in a manner suitable to his dignity and restore to him when he came of age his inheritance in good condition discharged from debts. Male heirs of sokemen who were under the age of fifteen were in the custody of their nearest kindred. The son of a burgess came of age when he could count money, measure cloth, and manage his father's concerns. Female heirs remained in the custody of their lords until they married. The lord was bound to find a marriage for his ward when she became fourteen years of age and then deliver her inheritance to her. She could not marry without her lord's consent, because her husband was expected to be the lord's ally and to do homage to him. But if a female heir lost her virginity, her inheritance escheated to her lord. Bastards were not heirs, even if their father married their mother after their birth. Any adult inheriting land had to pay a "relief" to the lord of the land. For a knight's fee, this was 100s. For socage land, this was one year's value. The amount for a barony depended upon the King's pleasure. Heirs (but not widows) were bound to pay the debts of their fathers and ancestors. A man who married a woman who had inherited land could not sell this land without the consent of its heirs. When a man dies, his wife shall take one-third and his heirs shall take one- third of his chattels [moveables]. The other third he may dispose of by will. If he had no heirs and no will [intestate], all his chattels would escheat to his lord. Any distribution of chattels would take place after all the decedent's debts were paid from the property. A will required two witnesses. The testator could name an executor, but if he did not, the next of kin was the executor. A will could not be made by a man on his death bed because he may well have lost his memory and reason. Also, he could not give to a younger son if in so doing, he would deprive his lawful heir. But he could give a marriage gift to a daughter regardless of the lawful heir. Usury was receiving back more than what was lent, such as interest on a loan of money. When a usurer died, all his moveables went to the King. A villein may not buy his own freedom (because all that he has is his lord's), but may be set free by his lord or by someone else who buys his freedom for him. He shall also be freed if the lord seduced his wife, drew his blood, or refused to bail him either in a civil or criminal action in which he was afterwards cleared. But a freed villein did not have status to plead in court, even if he had been knighted. If his free status were tried in court, only a freeman who was a witness to his being set free could avail himself of the duel to decide the issue. However, if the villein remained peacefully in a privileged town a year and a day and was received into its guild as a citizen, then he was freed from villeinage in every way. A freeman who married a villein lost his freedom. If any parent of a child was a villein, then the child was also a villein. All shipwrecked persons shall be treated with kindness and none of their goods or merchandise shall be taken from them. If one kills another on a vessel, he shall be fastened to the dead body and thrown with it into the sea. If one steals from another on a vessel, he shall be shaven, tarred and feathered, and turned ashore at the first land. Passage on the Thames River may not be obstructed by damming up the river on each side leaving a narrow outlet to net fish. All such wears shall be removed. Judicial Procedure Henry II wanted all freemen to be equally protected by one system of law and government. So he opened his court, the Royal Court, to all people of free tenure. A court of five justices professionally expert in the law sat in permanence, traveled with the King, and on points of difficulty consulted with him. Other professional justices, on eyre [journey], appeared periodically in all shires of the nation. They came to perform many tasks besides adjudging civil and criminal pleas, including promulgating and enforcing new legislation, seeking out encroachments on royal rights, reviewing the local communities' and officials' performance of their public duties, imposing penalties for failure to do them or for corruption, gathering information about outlaws and non- performance of homage, and assessing feudal escheats to the Crown, wardships to which the King was entitled, royal advowsons, feudal aids owed to the King, tallages of the burgesses, and debts owed to the Jews. assessing feudal escheats to the Crown, wardships to which the King was entitled, royal advowsons, feudal aids owed to the King, tallages of the burgesses, and debts owed to the Jews; The decision-making of justices in eyre begins the process which makes the custom of the Royal Court the common law of the nation. The shire courts, where the travelling justices heard all manner of business in the shires, adopted the doctrines of the Royal Court, which then acquired an appellate jurisdiction. The three royal courts and justices in eyre all drew from the same small group of royal justices. Henry erected a basic, rational framework for legal processes which drew from tradition but lent itself to continuous expansion and adaptation. The Royal Court was chiefly concerned with 1) the due regulation and supervision of the conduct of local government, 2) the ownership and possession of land held by free tenure, 3) the repression of serious crime, and 4) the relations between the lay and the ecclesiastical courts. The doctrine of tenure applied universally to the land law formed the basis for judicial procedure in determining land rights. Those who held lands "in fee" from the King in turn subinfeudated their land to men of lesser rank. The concept of tenure covered the earl, the knight (knight's service), the church (frank-almoin [free alms]), the tenant who performed labor services, and the tenant who paid a rent (socage). Other tenures were: serjeanty [providing an implement of war or performing a nonmilitary office] and burgage. All hold the land of some lord and ultimately of the King. Henry was determined to protect lawful seisin of land and issued assizes [legal promulgations] giving the Royal Court authority to decide land law issues which had not been given justice in the shire or lord's court. These included issues of disseisin [ejectment] of a person's free tenement or of his common of pasture which belonged to his freehold. The writ praecipe directed the sheriff to order the overlord of any land seized to restore it immediately or answer for his failure in the royal court. Though this petty assize of disseisin only provided a swift preliminary action to protect possession pending the lengthy and involved action [grand assize] on the issue of which party had the more just claim or ultimate right of seisin, the latter action was only infrequently invoked. The temptation of a strong man to seize a neighbor's land to reap its profits for a long time until the neighbor could prove and enforce his right was deterred. Any such claim of recent dispossession [novel disseisin] had to be made within three years of the disseisin. An assize [now a judicial body] of recognition viewed the land in question and answered these questions of fact: 1) Was the plaintiff disseised of the freeholdin question, unjustly and without judgment? 2) Did the defendant commit the disseisin? Testimony of a warrantor (or an attorney sent by him in his place) or a charter of warranty served to prove seisin by gift, sale, or exchange. No pleadings were necessary and the action could proceed and judgment given even without the presence of the defendant. The justices amerced the losing party with a monetary penalty. A successful plaintiff might be awarded damages to compensate for the loss of revenue. Eventually royal justices acquired authority to decide the ultimate question of right to land using the grand assize and the alternative of an assize instead of the traditional procedures which ended in trial by battle. There was also a writ for issues of inheritance of land. By law the tenure of a person who died seised of a tenure in a lord's demesne which was hereditary [seisin of fee] returned to the lord, who had to give it to the heir of the decedent. If the lord refused and kept it for himself or gave it to someone else, the heir could sue in the Royal Court, which would decide whether the ancestor was seised as of fee in his demesne, if the plaintiff was the nearest heir, and whether the ancestor had died, gone on a crusade but not returned, or had become a monk. Issues of seisin were brought to the Royal Court by a contestant in a local court who "put himself [or herself] upon the King's grand assize". Then his action would be removed to the Royal Court. The assize would consist of twelve knights from the district who were elected by four knights and who were known as truthful men and who were likely to possess knowledge of the facts. The tenant could object to any of the twelve knights for just cause as determined by the court. Each of the twelve gave an oath as to whether the plaintiff's or the defendant's position was correct. If any did not know the truth of the matter, others were found until twelve agreed [the recognitors] in favor of one side. Perjury was punished by forfeiture of all one's goods and chattels to the King and at least one year's imprisonment. Alternately, the tenant-defendant could still chose trial by duel. A duel was fought between the parties or their champions. The losing party of a duel had to pay a fine of 60s. However, if the parties were relatives, neither the assize nor the duel was available to them, but the matter had to be decided by the law of inheritance. Nor was burgage tenure usually decided by assize. This assize procedure extended in time to all other types of civil actions. Also removable to the Royal Court from the shire courts were issues of a lord's claim to a person as his villein (duel not available), service or relief due to a lord, dower rights, a creditor's refusal to restore a gage [something given as security] to a debtor who offered payment or a deposit, money due to a lender, a seller, or a person to whom one had an obligation under a charter, fish or harvest or cattle taken from lands unjustly occupied, cattle taken from pasture, rights to enjoy a common, to stop troubling someone's transport, to make restitution of land wrongfully occupied, to make a lord's bailiff account to him for the profits of the manor. A person who felt he had not had justice in the manor court could appeal to the King for a writ of right after the manor court's decision or for a writ praecipe during the manor court's proceeding. The Royal Court also decided disputes regarding baronies, nuisance or encroachments on royal land or public ways or public waterways, such as diverting waters from their right course and issues of nuisance by the making or destroying of a ditch or the destruction of a pond by a mill to the injury of a person's freehold. Other pleas of the Crown were: insult to the royal dignity, treason, breaches of safe-conducts, and injury to the King's servants. Henry involved the Royal Court in many criminal issues, formerly decided in the shire and hundred courts. To detect crimes, he required royal officers to routinely ask selected representatives: knights or other landholders, of every neighborhood if any person were suspected of any murder, robbery, etc. A traveling royal justice or a sheriff would then hold an inquest, in which the representatives answered by oath what people were reputed to have done certain crimes. They made such inquiries through assizes of presentment, usually composed of twelve men from each hundred and four men for each township. (These later evolved into grand juries). These assizes were an ancient institution in many parts of the country. They consisted of representatives of the hundreds, usually knights, and villages who testified under oath to all crimes committed in their neighborhood, and indicted those they suspected as responsible and those harboring them. What the assize did was to insist upon the adoption of a standard procedure everywhere systematically. The procedure was made more regular instead of depending on crime waves. If indicted, the suspected persons were then sent to the ordeal. There was no trial by compurgation, which was abolished by Henry. If determined guilty, he forfeited his chattels to the King and his land reverted to his landlord. If he passed the ordeal but was ill-famed in the community, he could be banished from the community. Later the ordeal was abolished. As before, a person could also be brought to trial by the accusation of the person wronged. If the accused still denied the charge after the accuser testified and the matter investigated by inquiries and interrogation and then analyzed, a duel was held, unless the accuser was over the age of sixty or maimed, in which case the accused went to the ordeal. Criminal matters such as killing the King or sedition or betraying the nation or the army, fraudulent concealment of treasure trove [finding a hoard of coins which had been buried when danger approached], breach of the King's peace, homicide, murder (homicide for which there were no eye-witnesses), burning (a town, house, men, animals or other chattel for hatred or revenge), robbery, rape and falsifying (e.g. false charters or false measures or false money) were punishable by death or loss of limb. House-breaking, harboring outlaws, the royal perquisites of shipwreck and the beasts of the sea which were stranded on the coast were also punishable in the Royal Court. The Royal Court had grown substantially and was not always presided over by the King. To avoid court agents from having too much discretionary power, there was a systematic procedure for bringing cases to the Royal Court. First, a plaintiff had to apply to the King's Chancery for a standardized writ into which the cause had to fit. The plaintiff had to pay a fee and provide a surety that the plea was brought in good faith. The progress of the suit was controlled at crucial points by precisely formulated writs to the sheriff, instructing him for instance, to put the disputed property under royal protection pending a decision, to impanel an assize and have it view the property in advance of the justices' arrival, to ascertain a point of fact material to the plea, or to summon a 'warrantor' to support a claim by the defendant. The Royal Court kept a record on its cases on parchment kept rolled up: its "rolls". The oldest roll of 1194 is almost completely comprised of land cases. Anyone could appoint an agent, an "attorney", to appear in court on his behalf, it being assumed that the principal could not be present. The principal was then bound by the actions of his agent. The common law system became committed to the "adversary system" with the parties struggling judicially against each other. The Royal Court took jurisdiction over issues of whether certain land was civil or ecclesiastical [assize utrum], and therefore whether the land owed services or payment to the Crown or not. It also heard issues of disturbance of advowson, a complex of rights to income from a church and to the selection of a parson for the church [assize of darrein [last] presentment]. Many churches had been built by a lord on his manor for his villeins. The lord had then appointed a parson and provided for his upkeep out of the income of the church. In later times, the lord's chosen parson was formally appointed by the bishop. By the 1100s, many lords had given their advowsons to abbeys. As before, the land of any person who had been outlawed or convicted of a felony escheated to his lord. His moveable goods and chattels became the King's. The manor court heard cases which arose out of the unfree tenures of the lord's peasantry. The honorial court, part of the manor court, heard distraint, also called "distress", issues. Distraint was a landlord's method of forcing a tenant to perform the services of his fief. To distrain by the fief, a lord first obtained a judgment of his court. Otherwise, he distrained only by goods and chattels without judgment of his court. A distraint was merely a security to secure a person's services, if he agreed he owed them, or his attendance in court, if he did not agree that he owed them. Law and custom restricted the type of goods and chattels distrainable, and the time and manner of distraint. For instance, neither clothes, household utensils, nor a riding horse was distrainable. The lord could not use the chattels taken while they were in his custody. If cattle in custody were not accessible to the tenant, the lord had to feed them at his expense. The lord, if he were not the King, could not sell the chattel. The action of replevin was available to the tenant to recover property which had been wrongly distressed. This court also determined inheritance and dower issues. The court of the vill enforced the village ordinances. The hundred court dealt with the petty crimes of lowly men in the neighborhood of a few vills. The shire and borough courts heard cases of felonies, accusations against freemen, tort, and debts. The knights make the shire courts work as legal and administrative agencies of the Crown. Admiralty issues (since no assize could be summoned on the high seas), and tenement issues of land held in frankalmoin ["free alms" for the poor to relieve the King of this burden], where the tenant was a cleric were heard in the ecclesiastical courts. The church copied the assize procedure developed by the Royal Court to detect ecclesiastical offenses. Trial was still by compurgation. Bishops could request the Chancery to imprison an offender who had remained excommunicant for forty days, until he made amends. Chancery complied as a matter of course. This went on for six centuries. The delineations of jurisdiction among these courts was confused and there was much competing and overlapping of jurisdictions. However, the court could appoint arbitrators or suggest to the parties to compromise to avoid the harshness of a decisive judgment which might drive the losing party to violent self-help. The office of coroner was established in the last years of Richard's reign to determine if sudden deaths were accidental or due to murder. Chief Justice Ranulph Glanville wrote a treatise on the writs which could be brought in the Royal Court and the way they could be used. It was a practical manual of procedure and of the law administered in the Royal Court. The Times 1215-1272 Baron landholders' semi-fortified stone manor houses were improved and extended. They were usually quadrangular around a central courtyard. The central and largest room was the hall, where people ate and slept. If the hall was on the first floor, the fire might be at a hearth in the middle of the floor. Sometimes the lord had his own parlor, with a sleeping loft above it. Having a second floor necessitated a fireplace in the wall so the smoke could go up two floors to the roof. Other rooms each had a fireplace. Often the hall was on the second floor and took up two stories. There was a fireplace on one wall of the bottom story. There were small windows around the top story. Windows of large houses were of opaque glass supplied by a glass-making craft. The glass was thick, uneven, and greenish in color. The walls were plastered. The floor was wood with some carpets. Roofs were timbered with horizontal beams. Many roofs had tiles supplied by the tile craft, which baked the tiles in kilns or over an open fire. Because of the hazard of fire, the kitchen was often a separate building, with a covered way connecting it to the hall. It had one or two open fires in fireplaces, and ovens. Sometimes there was a separate room for a dairy. Furniture included heavy wood armchairs for the lord and lady, stools, benches, trestle tables, chests, and cupboards. Outside was an enclosed garden with cabbages, peas, beans, beetroots, onions, garlic, leeks, lettuce, watercress, hops, herbs, nut trees for oil, some flowers, and a fish pond and well. Bees were kept for their honey. Nobles, doctors, and lawyers wore tunics to the ankle and an over-tunic almost as long, which was lined with fur and had long sleeves. A hood was attached to it. A man's hair was short and curled, with bangs on the forehead. The tunic of merchants and middle class men reached to the calf. The laborer wore a tunic that reached to the knee, cloth stockings, and shoes of heavy felt, cloth, or perhaps leather. Ladies wore a full length tunic with moderate fullness in the skirt, and a low belt, and tight sleeves. Her hair was concealed by a round hat tied on the top of her head. Over her tunic, she wore a cloak. Monks and nuns wore long black robes with hoods. The barons now managed and developed their estates to be as productive as possible, often using the successful management techniques of church estates. They kept records of their fields, tenants, services owed by each tenant, and duties of the manor officers, such as supervision of the ploughing and harrowing. Annually, the manor's profit or loss for the year was calculated. Most manors were self-supporting except that iron for tools and horseshoes and salt for curing usually had to be obtained elsewhere. Wine, tar, canvas and millstones were imports from other countries and bought at fairs, as was fish, furs, spices, and silks. Sheep were kept in such large numbers that they were susceptible to a new disease "scab". Manors averaged about ten miles distance between each other, the land in between being unused and called "wasteland". Statutes after a civil war proscribing the retaking of land discouraged the enclosure of waste land. Some villeins bought out their servitude by paying a substitute to do his service or paying his lord a firm (from hence, the words farm and farmer) sum to hire an agricultural laborer in his place. This made it possible for a farm laborer to till one continuous piece of land instead of scattered strips. 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. The first college was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton, former Chancellor to the King, at Oxford. A college had the living arrangements of a Hall, with the addition of monastic-type rules. A warden and about 30 scholars lived and ate meals together in the college buildings. Merton College's founding documents provided that: "The house shall be called the House of the Scholars of Merton, and it shall be the residence of the Scholars forever. . . There shall be a constant succession of scholars devoted to the study of letters, who shall be bound to employ themselves in the study of Arts or Philosophy, the Canons or Theology. Let there also be one member of the collegiate body, who shall be a grammarian, and must entirely devote himself to the study of grammar; let him have the care of the students in grammar, and to him also let the more advanced have recourse without a blush, when doubts arise in their faculty. . . There is to be one person in every chamber, where Scholars are resident, of more mature age than the others, who is to make his report of their morals and advancement in learning to the Warden. . . The Scholars who are appointed to the duty of studying in the House are to have a common table, and a dress as nearly alike as possible. . . The members of the College must all be present together, as far as their leisure serves, at the canonical hours and celebration of masses on holy and other days. . . The Scholars are to have a reader at meals, and in eating together they are to observe silence, and to listen to what is read. In their chambers, they must abstain from noise and interruption of their fellows; and when they speak they must use the Latin language. . . A Scrutiny shall be held in the House by the Warden and the Seniors, and all the Scholars there present, three times a year; a diligent enquiry is to be instituted into the life, conduct, morals, and progress in learning, of each and all; and what requires correction then is to be corrected, and excesses are to be visited with condign punishment. . ." Issues frequently argued concerned the newly discovered philosophies of Aristotle vis a vis the accepted Christian philosophy. Aristotle emphasized the intellectual use of reason as a road to understanding whereas the church had always taught that understanding came from revelation by God. Roger Bacon, an Oxford master, applied mathematical knowledge to natural phenomena such as metal work, mineral work, the making of weapons, agriculture, and the remedies and charms of wizards and magicians. He studied angles of reflection in plane, spherical, cylindrical, and conical mirrors, in both their concave and convex aspects. He did experiments in refraction in different media, e.g. air, water, and glass, and knew that the human cornea refracted light and that the human eye lens was doubly convex. (However it was another 400 years before the discovery of the image on the retina.) He comprehended the magnifying power of convex lenses and conceptualized the combination of lenses which would increase the power of vision by magnification. Soon afterwards, eyeglasses were available to correct farsightedness. Bacon studied gravity and the propagation of force, specifically illustrated by the radiation of light and heat. He realized that rays of light pass so much faster than those of sound or smell that the time is imperceptible to humans. He knew that rays of heat and sound penetrate all matter without our awareness and that opaque bodies offered resistance to passage of light rays. This was the beginning of the science of physics. He took the empirical knowledge as to a few metals and their oxides and some of the principal alkalis, acids, and salts to the abstract level of metals as compound bodies the elements of which might be separated and recomposed and the general concept of generation of liquids, gases, and solids, which was the beginning of the science of chemistry. He made experiments that led the way to saltpeter being made to explode, which led the way to the formulation of gunpowder. He believed that the principle of explosive energy would one day carry ships across the seas without sails and propel carriages down the streets, and flying machines. He knew the power of parabolic concave mirrors to cause parallel rays to converge after reflection to a focus and was familiar with work done to produce a mirror that would induce combustion at a fixed distance. He studied man's physical nature, health, and disease, the beginning of the science of biology and medicine. He opined that the use of a talisman was not to bring about a change, but to bring the patient into a frame of mind more conducive to physical healing. Bacon studied different kinds of plants and the differences between arable land, forest land, pasture land, and garden land. Like other educated men of his day (and those of the 1200s through the 1500s), he believed that the earth was the center of the universe and in astrology, that is, that the position of the stars and planets influenced man and other earthly things. For instance, the position of the stars at a person's birth determined his character. The angle and therefore potency of the sun's rays influenced climate, temperament, and changes of mortal life such as disease and revolutions. There was a propitious time to have a marriage, go on a journey, make war, and take herbal medicine or be bled by leeches, the latter of which was accompanied by religious ceremony. Cure was by God, with medical practitioners only relieving suffering. Pressure and binding were applied to bleeding. Arrow and sword wounds to the skin or to any protruding intestine were washed with warm water and sewn up with needle and silk thread. Ribs were spread apart by a wedge to remove arrow heads. Fractured bones were splinted or encased in plaster. Dislocations were remedied. Hernias were trussed. Bladder stones blocking urination were pushed back into the bladder or removed through an artificial opening in the bladder. Bacon studied the planetary motions and astronomical tables to forecast future events. He did calculations on days in a month and days in a year which later contributed to the legal definition of a leap year. He knew about magnetic poles attracting if different and repelling if the same and the relation of magnets' poles to those of the heavens and earth. He calculated the circumference of the world and the latitude and longitude of terrestrial positions, which was the beginning of the study of geography. He foresaw sailing around the world and pointed the way to the Copernican astronomy, which was founded on the concept of the earth and planets revolving around the sun. His contribution to the development of science was abstracting the method of experiment from the concrete problem to see its bearing and importance as a universal method of research. He advocated changing education to include studies of the natural world using observation, exact measurement, and experiments. The making and selling of goods diverged e.g. as the cloth merchant severed from the tailor and the leather merchant severed from the butcher. These craftsmen formed themselves into guilds. They sought charters to require all craftsmen to belong to the guild of their craft, to have legal control of the craft work, and be able to expel any craftsman for disobedience. These guilds determined the wages and working conditions of the craftsmen and petitioned the borough authorities for ordinances restraining trade, for instance by controlling the admission of outsiders to the craft, preventing foreigners from selling in the town except at fairs, limiting purchases of raw materials to suppliers within the town, forbidding night work, restricting the number of apprentices to each master craftsmen, and requiring a minimum number of years for apprenticeships. In return, these guilds assured quality control. In some boroughs, they did work for the town, such as maintaining certain defensive towers or walls of the town near their respective wards. In some boroughs, fines for infractions of these regulations were split between the guild and the government. This jurisdiction was sought from the towns governments, which were controlled by the merchant guilds, with great difficulty. In London, this power was broken in 1261 by the craftsmen forcing their way into the town-mote. By this brute show of strength, they set aside the opinion of the magnates and selected their own candidate to be mayor. The citizens of London had a common seal for the city. London merchants traveled throughout the nation with goods to sell exempt from tolls. Most of the London aldermen were woolmongers, vintners, skinners, and grocers by turns or carried on all these branches of commerce at once. There are three inns in London. Care- giving hospitals such as "Bethleham Hospital" were established in London. Only tiles were used for roofing in London, because wood shingles were fire hazards and fires in London had been frequent. Some areas near London are disclaimed by the King to be royal forest land, so all citizens could hunt there and till their land there without interference by the royal foresters. A gold penny was minted, which was worth 2s. of silver. Jews were allowed to make loans with interest up to 2d. a week for 20s. lent. English ships had one mast with a square sail. The hulls were made of planks overlapping each other. There was a high forecastle on the bow, a top castle on the mast, and a high stern castle from which to shoot arrows down on other ships. There were no rowing oars, but steering was still by an oar on the starboard side of the ship. The usual carrying capacity was 30 tuns [big casks of wine each with about 250 gallons]. On the coasts there were lights and beacons. Harbors at river mouths were kept from silting up. Ships were loaded from piers. The construction of London Bridge had just been finished. Coal was mined. Bricks began to be imported for building. Churches had stained glass windows. Newcastle-on-Tyne received these new rights: 1. And that they shall justly have their lands and tenures and mortgages and debts, whoever owes them to them. 2. Concerning their lands and tenures within the town, right shall be done to them according to the custom of the city Winton. 3. And of all their debts which are lent in Newcastle-on-Tyne and of mortgages there made, pleas shall be held at Newcastle-on-Tyne. 4. None of them shall plead outside the walls of the City of Newcastle-on-Tyne on any plea, except pleas of tenures outside the city and except the minters and my ministers. 5. That none of them be distrained by any without the said city for the repayment of any debt to any person for which he is not capital debtor or surety. 6. That the burgesses shall be quit of toll and lastage [duty on a ship's cargo] and pontage [tax for repairing bridges] and have passage back and forth. 7. Moreover, for the improvement of the city, I have granted them that they shall be quit of year's gift and of scotale [pressure to buy ale at the sheriff's tavern], so that my sheriff of Newcastle-on-Tyne or any other minister shall not make a scotale. 8. And whosoever shall seek that city with his merchandise, whether foreigners or others, of whatever place they may be, they may come sojourn and depart in my safe peace, on paying the due customs and debts, and any impediment to these rights is prohibited. 9. We have granted them also a merchant guild. 10. And that none of them [in the merchant guild] shall fight a duel. The King no longer lives on his own from income from his own lands, but takes money from the treasury. Elected men from the baronage met with the King and his council in several conferences called Parliaments to discuss the levying of taxes and the solution of difficult legal cases, and to receive petitions. Statutes were enacted. Landholders were given the duty of electing four of their members in every shire to ensure that the sheriff observed the law and to report his misdemeanors to the justiciar. They were also given the duty of electing four men from the shire from whom the exchequer was to choose the sheriff of the year. Earl Montfort and certain barons forced King Henry III to summon a Parliament in 1265 in which the common people were represented officially by four knights from every shire [county] and two burgesses from every borough. This seems to be the time that the legend of Robin Hood robbing the rich to give to the poor arose. The Law The barons forced successive Kings to sign the Magna Carta until it became the law of the land. It became the first statute of the official statute book. It's provisions express the principle that a King is bound by the law and is not above it. However, there is no redress if the King breaches the law. The Magna Carta was issued by John in 1215. A revised version was issued by Henry III in 1225 with the forest clauses separated out into a forest charter. The two versions are replicated together, with the formatting of each indicated in the titles below. {Magna Carta - 1215} {John, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou: To the Archbishops, Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries, Foresters, Sheriffs, Reeves, Ministers, and all Bailiffs and others, his faithful subjects, Greeting. Know ye that in the presence of God, and for the health of our soul, and the souls of our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of God, and the exaltation of Holy Church, and amendment of our realm, by the advice of our reverend Fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Primate of all England, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; Henry, Archbishop of Dublin; William of London, Peter of Winchester, Jocelin of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William of Coventry, and Benedict of Rochester, Bishops; Master Pandulph, the Pope's subdeacon and familiar; Brother Aymeric, Master of the Knights of the Temple in England; and the noble persons, William Marshall, Earl of Pembroke; William, Earl of Salisbury; William, Earl of Warren; William, Earl of Arundel; Alan de Galloway, Constable of Scotland; Warin Fitz-Gerald, Peter Fitz-Herbert, Hubert de Burgh, Seneshal of Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz-Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppelay, John Marshall, John Fitz-Hugh, and others, our liegemen:} First, we have granted to God, and by this our present Charter confirmed, for us and our heirs forever, that the English Church shall be free and enjoy her whole rights and her liberties inviolable. {And that we will this so to be observed appears from the fact that we of our own free will, before the outbreak of the dissensions between us and our barons, granted, confirmed, and procured to be confirmed by Pope Innocent III the freedom of elections, which is considered most important and necessary to the English Church, which Charter we will both keep ourself and will it to be kept with good faith by our heirs forever.} We have also granted to all the free men of our realm, for us and our heirs forever, all the liberties underwritten, to have and to hold to them and their heirs of us and our heirs. If any of our earls, barons, or others who hold of us in chief by knight's service dies, and at the time of his death his heir is of full age and owes to us a relief, he shall have his inheritance on payment of [no more than] the old relief; to wit, the heir or heirs of an earl, for an entire earldom, 100 pounds [2,000s.]; the heir or heirs of a baron of an entire barony, {100 pounds} 100 MARKS [67 POUNDS OR 1340s.]; the heir or heirs of an entire knight's fee, 100s. at the most [about 1/3 of a knight's annual income]; and he who owes less shall give less, according to the old custom of fees. BUT IF THE HEIR OF SUCH BE UNDER AGE, HIS LORD SHALL NOT HAVE THE WARD OF HIM, NOR OF HIS LAND, BEFORE THAT HE HAS TAKEN OF HIM HOMAGE. If, however, any such heir is under age and in ward, he shall have his inheritance without relief or fine when he comes of age, THAT IS, TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE. SO THAT IF SUCH AN HEIR NOT OF AGE IS MADE A KNIGHT, YET NEVERTHELESS HIS LAND SHALL REMAIN IN THE KEEPING OF HIS LORD UNTO THE AFORESAID TERM. The guardian of the land of any heir thus under age shall take therefrom only reasonable issues, customs, and services, without destruction or waste of men or goods. And if we commit the custody of any such land to the sheriff or any other person answerable to us for the issues of the same land, and he commits destruction or waste, we will take an amends from him and recompense therefore. And the land shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall be answerable for the issues of the same land to us or to whomsoever we shall have assigned them. And if we give or sell the custody of any such land to any man, and he commits destruction or waste, he shall lose the custody, which shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall, in like manner, be answerable to us as has been aforesaid. The guardian, so long as he shall have the custody of the land, shall keep up and maintain the houses, parks, fishponds, pools, mills, and other things pertaining thereto, out of the issues of the same, and shall restore to the heir when he comes of age, all his land stocked with {ploughs and tillage, according as the season may require and the issues of the land can reasonable bear} PLOUGHS AND ALL OTHER THINGS, AT THE LEAST AS HE RECEIVED IT. ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE OBSERVED IN THE CUSTODIES OF VACANT ARCHBISHOPRICKS, BISHOPRICKS, ABBEYS, PRIORIES, CHURCHES, AND DIGNITIES, WHICH APPERTAIN TO US; EXCEPT THIS, THAT SUCH CUSTODY SHALL NOT BE SOLD. Heirs shall be married without loss of station. {And the marriage shall be made known to the heir's nearest of kin before it is contracted.} A widow, after the death of her husband, shall immediately and without difficulty have her marriage portion [property given to her by her father] and inheritance. She shall not give anything for her marriage portion, dower, or inheritance which she and her husband held on the day of his death, and she may remain in her husband's house for forty days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to her. IF THAT HOUSE IS A CASTLE AND SHE LEAVES THE CASTLE, THEN A COMPETENT HOUSE SHALL FORTHWITH BE PROVIDED FOR HER, IN WHICH SHE MAY HONESTLY DWELL UNTIL HER DOWER IS ASSIGNED TO HER AS AFORESAID; AND IN THE MEANTIME HER REASONABLE ESTOVERS [NECESSARIES OR SUPPLIES] OF THE COMMON, ETC. No widow shall be compelled [by penalty of fine] to marry so long as she has a mind to live without a husband, provided, however, that she gives security that she will not marry without our assent, if she holds of us, or that of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another. Neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any land or rent for any debt as long as the debtor's goods and chattels suffice to pay the debt AND THE DEBTOR HIMSELF IS READY TO SATISFY THEREFORE. Nor shall the debtor's sureties be distrained as long as the debtor is able to pay the debt. If the debtor fails to pay, not having the means to pay, OR WILL NOT PAY ALTHOUGH ABLE TO PAY, then the sureties shall answer the debt. And, if they desire, they shall hold the debtor's lands and rents until they have received satisfaction of that which they had paid for him, unless the debtor can show that he has discharged his obligation to them. {If anyone who has borrowed from the Jews any sum of money, great or small, dies before the debt has been paid, the heir shall pay no interest on the debt as long as he remains under age, of whomsoever he may hold. If the debt falls into our hands, we will take only the principal sum named in the bond.} {And if any man dies indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her dower and pay nothing of that debt; if the deceased leaves children under age, they shall have necessaries provided for them in keeping with the estate of the deceased, and the debt shall be paid out of the residue, saving the service due to the deceased's feudal lords. So shall it be done with regard to debts owed persons other than Jews.} The City of London shall have all her old liberties and free customs, both by land and water. Moreover, we will and grant that all other cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and free customs. {No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm unless by common counsel thereof, except to ransom our person, make our eldest son a knight, and once to marry our eldest daughter, and for these only a reasonable aid shall be levied. So shall it be with regard to aids from the City of London.} {To obtain the common counsel of the realm concerning the assessment of aids (other than in the three aforesaid cases) or of scutage, we will have the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and great barons individually summoned by our letters; we will also have our sheriffs and bailiffs summon generally all those who hold lands directly of us, to meet on a fixed day, but with at least forty days' notice, and at a fixed place. In all such letters of summons, we will explain the reason therefor. After summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the advice of those who are present, even though not all the persons summoned have come.} {We will not in the future grant permission to any man to levy an aid upon his free men, except to ransom his person, make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter, and on each of these occasions only a reasonable aid shall be levied.} No man shall be compelled to perform more service for a knight's fee nor any freehold than is due therefrom. People who have Common Pleas shall not follow our Court traveling about the realm, but shall be heard in some certain place. {Land assizes of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor and darrein presentment shall be heard only in the county where the property is situated, and in this manner: We or, if we are not in the realm, our Chief Justiciary, shall send two justiciaries through each county four times a year [to clear and prevent backlog], and they, together with four knights elected out of each county by the people thereof, shall hold the said assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place where that court meets.} {If the said assizes cannot be held on the day appointed, so many of the knights and freeholders as were present on that day shall remain as will be sufficient for the administration of justice, according to the amount of business to be done.} A free man shall be amerced [made to pay a fine to the King] for a small offence only according to the degree thereof, and for a serious offence according to its magnitude, saving his position and livelihood; and in like manner a merchant, saving his trade and merchandise, and a villein saving his tillage, if they should fall under our mercy. None of these amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of honest men of the neighborhood. Earls and barons shall be amerced only by their peers, and only in accordance with the seriousness of the offense. {No amercement shall be imposed upon a cleric's lay tenement, except in the manner of the other persons aforesaid, and without regard to the value of his ecclesiastical benefice.} No town or freeman shall be compelled to build bridges over rivers OR BANKS except those bound by old custom and law to do so. No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other of our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our Crown [but only justiciars, to prevent disparity of punishments and corruption]. {All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and tithings (except our demesne manors) shall remain at the old rents, without any increase.} If anyone holding a lay fee of us dies, and our sheriff or our bailiff show our letters patent [public letter] of summons for a debt due to us from the deceased, it shall be lawful for such sheriff or bailiff to attach and list the goods and chattels of the deceased found in the lay fee to the value of that debt, by the sight and testimony of lawful men [to prevent taking too much], so that nothing thereof shall be removed therefrom until our whole debt is paid; then the residue shall be given up to the executors to carry out the will of the deceased. If there is no debt due from him to us, all his chattels shall remain the property of the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares. {If any free man dies intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by his nearest kinfolk and friends, under supervision of the Church, saving to each creditor the debts owed him by the deceased.} No constable or other of our bailiffs shall take grain or other chattels of any man without immediate payment, unless the seller voluntarily consents to postponement of payment. THIS APPLIES IF THE MAN IS NOT OF THE TOWN WHERE THE CASTLE IS. BUT IF THE MAN IS OF THE SAME TOWN AS WHERE THE CASTLE IS, THE PRICE SHALL BE PAID TO HIM WITHIN 40 DAYS. No constable shall compel any knight to give money for keeping of his castle in lieu of castle-guard when the knight is willing to perform it in person or, if reasonable cause prevents him from performing it himself, by some other fit man. Further, if we lead or send him into military service, he shall be excused from castle-guard for the time he remains in service by our command. No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other man, shall take horses or carts of any free man for carriage without the owner's consent. HE SHALL PAY THE OLD PRICE, THAT IS, FOR CARRIAGE WITH TWO HORSES, 10d. A DAY; FOR THREE HORSES, 14d. A DAY. NO DEMESNE CART OF ANY SPIRITUAL PERSON OR KNIGHT OR ANY LORD SHALL BE TAKEN BY OUR BAILIFFS. Neither we nor our bailiffs will take another man's wood for our castles or for other of our necessaries without the owner's consent. We will hold the lands of persons convicted of felony for only a year and a day [to remove the chattels and moveables], after which they shall be restored to the lords of the fees. All fishweirs [obstructing navigation] shall be entirely removed by the Thames and Medway rivers, and throughout England, except upon the seacoast. The [royal] writ called "praecipe in capite" shall not in the future be granted to anyone respecting any freehold if thereby a free man may not be tried in his lord's court. There shall be one measure of wine throughout our realm, one measure of ale, and one measure of grain, to wit, the London quarter, and one breadth of dyed cloth, russets, and haberjets, to wit, two {ells} YARDS within the selvages. As with measures so shall it also be with weights. Henceforth nothing shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition upon life or limb, but it shall be granted freely and not denied. If anyone holds of us by fee farm, socage, or burgage, and also holds land of another by knight's service, we will not by reason of that fee farm, socage, or burgage have the wardship of his heir, or the land which belongs to another man's fee. Nor will we have the custody of such fee farm, socage, or burgage unless such fee farm owe knight's service. We will not have the wardship of any man's heir, or the land which he holds of another by knight's service, by reason of any petty serjeanty which he holds of us by service of rendering us knives, arrows, or the like. In the future no [royal] bailiff shall upon his own unsupported accusation put any man to trial or oath without producing credible witnesses to the truth of the accusation. No free man shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised OF HIS FREEHOLD OR LIBERTIES OR FREE CUSTOMS, OR BE outlawed, banished, or in any way ruined, nor will we prosecute or condemn him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land. To no one will we sell [by bribery], to none will we deny or delay, right or justice. All merchants shall have safe conduct to go and come out of and into England, and to stay in and travel through England by land and water, to buy and sell, without evil tolls, in accordance with old and just customs, except, in time of war, such merchants as are of a country at war with us. If any such be found in our realm at the outbreak of war, they shall be detained, without harm to their bodies or goods, until it be known to us or our Chief Justiciary how our merchants are being treated in the country at war with us. And if our merchants are safe there, then theirs shall be safe with us. {Henceforth anyone, saving his allegiance due to us, may leave our realm and return safely and securely by land and water, except for a short period in time of war, for the common benefit of the realm.} If anyone dies holding of any escheat, such as the honor of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, {Lancaster,} or other escheats which are in our hands and are baronies, his heir shall not give any relief or do any service to us other than he would owe to the baron, if such barony had been in the baron's hands. And we will hold the escheat in the same manner in which the baron held it. NOR SHALL WE HAVE, BY OCCASION OF ANY BARONY OR ESCHEAT, ANY ESCHEAT OR KEEPING OF ANY OF OUR MEN, UNLESS HE WHO HELD THE BARONY OR ESCHEAT ELSEWHERE HELD OF US IN CHIEF. Persons dwelling outside the forest need not in the future come before our justiciaries of the forest in answer to a general summons unless they are impleaded or are sureties for any person or persons attached for breach of forest laws. {We will appoint as justiciaries, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs only such men as know the law of the land and will keep it well.} All barons who had founded abbeys of which they have charters of English Kings or old tenure, shall have the custody of the same when vacant, as is their due. All forests which have been created in our time shall forthwith be disafforested. {So shall it be done with regard to river banks which have been enclosed by fences in our time.} {All evil customs concerning forests and warrens [livestock grounds in forests], foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, or riverbanks and their conservators shall be immediately investigated in each county by twelve sworn knights of such county, who are chosen by honest men of that county, and shall within forty days after this inquest be completely and irrevocably abolished, provided always that the matter has first been brought to our knowledge, or that of our justiciars, if we are not in England.} {We will immediately return all hostages and charters delivered to us by Englishmen as security for the peace or for the performance of loyal service.} {We will entirely remove from their offices the kinsmen of Gerald de Athyes, so that henceforth they shall hold no office in England: Engelard de Cigogne, Peter, Guy, and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de Cigogne, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Mark and his brothers, and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers.} {As soon as peace is restored, we will banish from our realm all foreign knights, crossbowmen, sergeants, and mercenaries, who have come with horses and arms, to the hurt of the realm.} {If anyone has been disseised or deprived by us, without the legal judgment of his peers, of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, we will immediately restore the same, and if any disagreement arises on this, the matter shall be decided by judgment of the twenty-five barons mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace. With regard to all those things, however, of which any man was disseised or deprived, without the legal judgment of his peers, by King Henry [II] our Father or our Brother King Richard, and which remain in our hands or are held by others under our warranty, we shall have respite during the term commonly allowed to the Crusaders, excepting those cases in which a plea was begun or inquest made on our order before we took the cross; when, however, we return from our pilgrimage, or if perhaps we do not undertake it, we will at once do full justice in these matters.} {Likewise, we shall have the same respite in rendering justice with respect to the disafforestation or retention of those forests which Henry [II] our Father or Richard our Brother afforested, and concerning custodies of lands which are of the fee of another, which we hitherto have held by reason of the fee which some person has held of us by knight's service, and to abbeys founded on fees other than our own, in which the lord of that fee asserts his right. When we return from our pilgrimage, or if we do not undertake it, we will forthwith do full justice to the complainants in these matters.} No one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon a woman's appeal for the death of any person other than her husband [since no woman was expected to personally engage in trial by battle]. {All fines unjustly and unlawfully given to us, and all amercements levied unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely remitted or the matter decided by judgment of the twenty-five barons mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace, or the majority of them, together with the aforesaid Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, if he himself can be present, and any others whom he may wish to bring with him for the purpose; if he cannot be present, the business shall nevertheless proceed without him. If any one or more of the said twenty-five barons has an interest in a suit of this kind, he or they shall step down for this particular judgment, and be replaced by another or others, elected and sworn by the rest of the said barons, for this occasion only.} {If we have disseised or deprived the Welsh of lands, liberties, or other things, without legal judgment of their peers, in England or Wales, they shall immediately be restored to them, and if a disagreement arises thereon, the question shall be determined in the Marches by judgment of their peers according to the law of England as to English tenements, the law of Wales as to Welsh tenements, the law of the Marches as to tenements in the Marches. The same shall the Welsh do to us and ours.} {But with regard to all those things of which any Welshman was disseised or deprived, without legal judgment of his peers, by King Henry [II] our Father or our Brother King Richard, and which we hold in our hands or others hold under our warranty, we shall have respite during the term commonly allowed to the Crusaders, except as to those matters whereon a suit had arisen or an inquisition had been taken by our command prior to our taking the cross. Immediately after our return from our pilgrimage, or if by chance we do not undertake it, we will do full justice according to the laws of the Welsh and the aforesaid regions.} {We will immediately return the son of Llywelyn, all the Welsh hostages, and the charters which were delivered to us as security for the peace.} {With regard to the return of the sisters and hostages of Alexander, King of the Scots, and of his liberties and rights, we will do the same as we would with regard to our other barons of England, unless it appears by the charters which we hold of William his father, late King of the Scots, that it ought to be otherwise; this shall be determined by judgment of his peers in our court.} {All the customs and liberties aforesaid, which we have granted to be enjoyed, as far as it pertains to us towards our people throughout our realm, let all our subjects, whether clerics or laymen, observe, as far as it pertains toward their dependents.} {Whereas we, for the honor of God and the reform of our realm, and in order the better to allay the discord arisen between us and our barons, have granted all these things aforesaid. We, willing that they be forever enjoyed wholly and in lasting strength, do give and grant to our subjects the following security, to wit, that the barons shall elect any twenty-five barons of the realm they wish, who shall, with their utmost power, keep, hold, and cause to be kept the peace and liberties which we have granted unto them and by this our present Charter have confirmed, so that if we, our Justiciary, bailiffs, or any of our ministers offends in any respect against any man, or transgresses any of these articles of peace or security, and the offense is brought before four of the said twenty- five barons, those four barons shall come before us, or our Chief Justiciary if we are out of the realm, declaring the offense, and shall demand speedy amends for the same. If we or, in case of our being out of the realm, our Chief Justiciary fails to afford redress within forty days from the time the case was brought before us or, in the event of our having been out of the realm, our Chief Justiciary, the aforesaid four barons shall refer the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who, together with the commonalty of the whole country, shall distrain and distress us to the utmost of their power, to wit, by capture of our castles, lands, and possessions and by all other possible means, until compensation is made according to their decision, saving our person and that of our Queen and children; as soon as redress has been had, they shall return to their former allegiance. Anyone in the realm may take oath that, for the accomplishment of all the aforesaid matters, he will obey the orders of the said twenty-five barons and distress us to the utmost of his power; and we give public and free leave to everyone wishing to take oath to do so, and to none will we deny the same. Moreover, all such of our subjects who do not of their own free will and accord agree to swear to the said twenty-five barons, to distrain and distress us together with them, we will compel to do so by our command in the aforesaid manner. If any one of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves the country or is in any way hindered from executing the said office, the rest of the said twenty-five barons shall choose another in his stead, at their discretion, who shall be sworn in like manner as the others. In all cases which are referred to the said twenty-five barons to execute, and in which a difference arises among them, supposing them all to be present, or in which not all who have been summoned are willing or able to appear, the verdict of the majority shall be considered as firm and binding as if the whole number had been of one mind. The aforesaid twenty-five shall swear to keep faithfully all the aforesaid articles and, to the best of their power, to cause them to be kept by others. We will not procure, either by ourself or any other, anything from any man whereby any of these concessions or liberties may be revoked or abated. If any such procurement is made, let it be null and void; it shall never be made use of either by us or by any other.} {We have also fully forgiven and pardoned all ill-will, wrath, and malice which has arisen between us and our subjects, both clergy and laymen, during the disputes, to and with all men. Moreover, we have fully forgiven and, as far as it pertains to us, wholly pardoned to and with all, clergy and laymen, all offences made in consequence of the said disputes from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign until the restoration of peace. Over and above this, we have caused letters patent to be made for Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry, Archbishop of Dublin, the above-mentioned Bishops, and Master Pandulph, for the aforesaid security and concessions.} {Wherefore we will that, and firmly command that, the English Church shall be free and all men in our realm shall have and hold all the aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably, freely, quietly, fully, and wholly, to them and their heirs, of us and our heirs, in all things and places forever, as is aforesaid. It is moreover sworn, as will on our part as on the part of the barons, that all these matters aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without deceit. Witness the above-named and many others. Given by our hand in the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign.} Statutes which were enacted after the Magna Carta follow: Nuisance is recognized by this statute: "Every freeman, without danger, shall make in his own wood, or in his land, or in his water, which he has within our Forest, mills, springs, pools, clay pits, dikes, or arable ground, so that it does not annoy any of his neighbors." Anyone taking a widow's dower after her husband's death must not only return the dower, but pay damages in the amount of the value of the dower from the time of death of the husband until her recovery of seisin. Widows may bequeath the crop of their ground as well of their dowers as of their other lands and tenements. Freeholders of tenements on manors shall have sufficient ingress and egress from their tenements to the common pasture and as much pasture as suffices for their tenements. "Grain shall not be taken under the pretense of borrowing or the promise of after-payment without the permission of the owner." "A parent or other who forcefully leads away and withholds, or marries off, an heir who is a minor (under 14), shall yield the value of the marriage and be imprisoned until he has satisfied the King for the trespass. If an heir 14 years or older marries without his Lord's permission to defraud him of the marriage and the Lord offers him reasonable and convenient marriage, without disparagement, then the Lord shall hold his land beyond the term of his age, that, of twenty one years, so long that he may receive double the value of the marriage as estimated by lawful men, or after as it has been offered before without fraud or collusion, and after as it may be proved in the King's Court. Any Lord who marries off a ward of his who is a minor and cannot consent to marriage, to a villain or other, such as a burgess, whereby the ward is disparaged, shall lose the wardship and all its profits if the ward's friends complain of the Lord. The wardship and profit shall be converted to the use of the heir, for the shame done to him, after the disposition and provision of his friends." (The marriage could be annulled by the church.) "If an heir of whatever age will not marry at the request of his Lord, he shall not be compelled thereunto; but when he comes of age, he shall pay to his Lord the value of the marriage before receiving his land, whether or not he himself marries." "Interest shall not run against any minor, from the time of death of his ancestor until his lawful age; so nevertheless, that the payment of the principal debt, with the interest that was before the death of his ancestor shall not remain." The value of debts to be repaid to the King or to any man shall be reasonably determined by the debtor's neighbors and not by strangers. A debtors' plough cattle or sheep cannot be taken to satisfy a debt. The wards and escheats of the King shall be surveyed yearly by three people assigned by the King. The Sheriffs, by their counsel, shall approve and let to farm such wards and escheats as they think most profitable for the King. The Sheriffs shall be answerable for the issues thereof in the Exchequer at designated times. The collectors of the customs on wool exports shall pay this money at the two designated times and shall make yearly accounts of all parcels in ports and all ships. By statute leap year was standardized throughout the nation, "the day increasing in the leap year shall be accounted in that year", "but it shall be taken and reckoned in the same month wherein it grew and that day and the preceding day shall be counted as one day." "An English penny, called a sterling, round and without any clipping, shall weigh 32 wheat grains dry in the middle of the ear." Measurements of distance were standardized to twelve inches to a foot, three feet to a yard, and so forth up to an acre of land. Goods which could only be sold by the standard weights and measures (such as ounces, pounds, gallons, bushels) included sacks of wool, leather, skins, ropes, glass, iron, lead, canvas, linen cloth, tallow, spices, confections cheese, herrings, sugar, pepper, cinnamon, nutmeg, wheat, barley, oats, bread, and ale. The prices required for bread and ale were based on the market price for the wheat, barley, and oats from which they were made. The punishment for repeated violations of required measures, weights, or prices of bread and ale by a baker or brewer; selling of spoiled or unwholesome wine, meat, fish by brewers, butchers, or cooks; or a steward or bailiff receiving a bribe was reduced to placement in a pillory with a shaven head so that these men would still be fit for military service and not overcrowd the jails. Forest penalties were changed so that "No man shall lose either life or member [limb] for killing of our deer. But if any man be taken and convicted for taking our venison, he shall make a grievous fine, if he has anything. And if he has nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned for a year and a day. And after that, if he can find sufficient sureties, he shall be delivered, and, if not, he shall abjure the realm of England." The Forest Charter provided that: Every freeman may allow his pigs to eat in his own wood in the King's forest. He may also drive his pigs there through the King's forest and tarry one night within the forest without losing any of his pigs. But people having greyhounds must keep them out of the forest so they don't maim the deer. The Forest Charter also allowed magnates traveling through the King's forest on the King's command to come to him, to kill one or two deer as long as it was in view of the forester if he was present, or while having a horn blown, so it did not seem to be theft. After a period of civil war, the following statutes were enacted: "All persons, as well of high as of low estate, shall receive justice in the King's Court; and none shall take any such revenge or distress by his own authority, without award of our court, although he is damaged or injured, whereby he would have amends of his neighbor either higher or lower." The penalty is a fine according to the trespass. A fraudulent conveyance to a minor or lease for a term of years made to defraud a Lord of a wardship shall be void. A Lord who maliciously and wrongfully alleges this to a court shall pay damages and costs. If a Lord will not render unto an heir his land when he comes of age or takes possession away from an heir of age or removes anything from the land, he shall pay damages. Kinsmen of a minor heir who have custody of his land held in socage shall make no waste, sale, nor destruction of the inheritance and shall answer to the heir when he comes of age for the issues of the land, except for the reasonable costs of these guardians. No lord may distrain any of his tenants. No one may drive animals taken by distraint out of the shire where they have been taken. "Farmers during their terms, shall not make waste, sale, nor exile of house, woods, and men, nor of any thing else belonging to the tenements which they have to farm". Henry de Bracton, a royal judge and the last great ecclesiastical lawyer, wrote an unfinished treatise: A Tract on the Laws and Customs of England, systematizing and organizing the law of the court rolls with definitions and general concepts and describing court practice and procedure. It was influenced by his knowledge of Roman legal concepts, such as res judicata, and by his own opinions, such as that the law should go from precedent to precedent. He also argued that the will and intent to injure was the essence of murder, so that neither an infant nor a madman should be held liable for such and that degrees of punishment should vary with the level of moral guilt in a killing. He thought the deodand to be unreasonable. Bracton defines the requirements of a valid and effective gift as: "It must be complete and absolute, free and uncoerced, extorted neither by fear nor through force. Let money or service play no part, lest it fall into the category of purchase and sale, for if money is involved there will them be a sale, and if service, the remuneration for it. If a gift is to be valid the donor must be of full age, for if a minor makes a gift it will be ineffective since (if he so wishes) it shall be returned to him in its entirety when he reaches full age. Also let the donor hold in his own name and not another's, otherwise his gift may be revoked. And let him, at the least, be of sound mind and good memory, though an invalid, ill and on his death bed, for a gift make under such conditions will be good if all the other [requirements] of a valid gift are met. For no one, provided he is of good memory, ought to be kept from the administration or disposition of his own property when affected by infirmity, since it is only then that he must make provision for his family, his household and relations, given stipends and settle his bequests; otherwise such persons might suffer damage without fault. But since charters are sometimes fraudulently drawn and gifts falsely taken to be made when they are not, recourse must therefore be had to the country and the neighborhood so that the truth may be declared." In Bracton's view, a villein could buy his own freedom and the child of a mixed marriage was free unless he was born in the tenement of his villein parent. Judicial Procedure The Royal Court split up into several courts with different specialties and became more like departments of state than offices of the King's household. The judges were career civil servants knowledgeable in the civil and canon law. The Court of Common Pleas heard civil cases brought by one subject against another. Pursuant to the Magna Carta, it sat only at one place, Westminster Hall in London. Its records were the de banco rolls. The Court of the Exchequer with its subsidiary department of the Treasury was in almost permanent session at Westminster, collecting the Crown's revenue and enforcing the Crown's rights. The Court of the King's Bench (a marble slab in Westminster upon which the throne was placed) traveled with the King and heard criminal cases and pleas of the Crown. Its records were the coram rege rolls. The title of the Chief Justiciar of England changed to the Chief Justice of England. Appeals from these courts could be made to the King and his council. Crown pleas included issues of the King's property, fines due to him, murder (a body found with no witnesses to a killing), homicide (a killing for which there were witnesses), rape, wounding, mayhem, consorting, larceny, robbery, burglary, arson, poaching, unjust imprisonment, selling cloth by non-standard widths, selling wine by non-standard weights. Royal judges called justices in eyre traveled to the shires every seven years. There, they gave interrogatories to local assizes of twelve men to determine what had happened there since the last eyre. Every crime, every invasion of royal rights, and every neglect of police duties was to be presented and tried. The assize ultimately evolved into the jury of verdict, which replaced ordeal, compurgation, and battle as the method of finding the truth. Suspects were failed until their cases could be heard and jail breaks were common. Royal coroners held inquests on all sudden deaths to determine whether they were accidental or not. If not, royal justices held trial. They also had duties in treasure troves and shipwreck cases. The hundred court decided cases of theft, viewing of boundaries of land, claims for tenurial services, claims for homage, relief, and for wardship; enfeoffments made, battery and brawls not amounting to felony, wounding and maiming of beasts, collection of debts, trespass, detinue and covenant, defamation, and enquiries and presentments arising from the assizes of bread and ale and measures. Still in existence is the old self-help law of hamsocne, the thief hand- habbende, the thief back-berend, the old summary procedure where the thief is caught in the act, AEthelstan's laws, Edward the Confessor's laws, and Kent's childwyte [fine for begetting a bastard on a lord's female bond slave]. Under the name of "actio furti" [appeal of larceny] is the old process by which a thief can be pursued and goods vindicated. As before and for centuries later, the deodand [any personal chattel which was the immediate cause of death] was forfeited "to God". These chattel were usually carts, cart teams, horses, boats, and mill-wheels. Five cases with short summaries are: CASE: "John Croc was drowned from his horse and cart in the water of Bickney. Judgment: misadventur. The price of the horse and cart is 4s.6d. 4s.6d. deodand." CASE: "Willam Ruffus was crushed to death by a certain trunk. The price of the trunk is 4d., for which the sheriff is to answer. 4d. deodand." CASE: "William le Hauck killed Edric le Poter and fled, so he is to be exacted and outlawed. He was in the tithing of Reynold Horloc in Clandon of the abbot of Chertsey (West Clandon), so it is in mercy. His chattels were 4 s., for which the bailiff of the abbot of Chertsey is to answer." CASE: "Richard de Bregsells, accused of larceny, comes and denies the whole and puts himself on the country for good or ill. The twelve jurors and four vills say that he is not guilty, so he is quit." CASE: William le Wimpler and William Vintner sold wine contrary to the statute, so they are in mercy. Other cases dealt with issues of entry, i.e. whether land was conveyed or just rented; issues of whether a man was free, for which his lineage was examined; issues of to which lord a villein belonged; issues of nuisance such as making or destroying a bank, ditch, or hedge; diverting a watercourse or damming it to make a pool; obstructing a road, and issues of what grazing rights were conveyed in pasture land, waste, woods, or arable fields between harvest and sowing. Grazing right disputes usually arose from the ambiguous language in the grant of land "with appurtances". Courts awarded specific relief as well as money damages. If a landlord broke his covenant to lease land for a term of years, the court restored possession to the lessee. If a lord did not perform the services due to his superior lord, the court ordered him to perform the services. The courts also ordered repair by a lessee. Debts of country knights and freeholders were heard in the local courts; debts of merchants and burgesses were heard in the courts of the fairs and boroughs; debts due under wills and testaments were heard in the ecclesiastical courts. The ecclesiastical courts deemed marriage to legitimize bastard children whose parents married, so they inherited chattels and money of their parents. Proof was by compurgation, the ordeal having been abolished by the Church. Trial by battle is still available, although it is extremely rare for the duel to actually take place. The manor court imposed penalties on those who did not perform their services to the manor and the lord wrote down the customs of the manor for future use in other courts. By statute, no fines could be taken of any man for fair pleading in the Circuit of Justiciars, shire, hundred, or manor courts. Various statutes relaxed the requirements for attendance at court of those who were not involved in a case as long as there were enough to make the inquests fully. And "every freeman who owes suit to the county, tything, hundred, and wapentake, or to the Court of his Lord, may freely make his attorney attend for him." In Chancery, the court of the Chancellor, if there is a case with no remedy specified in the law, that is similar to a situation for which there is a writ, then a new writ may be made for that case. (By this will later be expanded the action of trespass, which even later has offshoots of misdemeanor and the tort of trespass.) The Times: 1272-1348 King Edward I was respected by the people for his good government, practical wisdom, and genuine concern for justice for everyone. He loved his people and wanted them to love him. He came to the throne with twenty years experience governing lesser lands on the continent which were given to him by his father Henry III. He gained a reputation as a lawgiver and as a peacemaker in disputes on the continent. He had close and solid family relationships, especially with his father and with his wife Eleanor, to whom he was faithful. He was loyal to his close circle of good friends. He valued honor and adhered reasonably well to the terms of the treaties he made. He was generous in carrying out the royal custom of subsidizing the feeding of paupers. He visited the sick. He dressed in plain, ordinary clothes rather than extravagant or ostentatious ones. He disliked ceremony and display. At his accession, there was a firm foundation of a national law administered by a centralized judicial system, a centralized executive, and an organized system of local government in close touch with both the judicial and the executive system. To gain knowledge of his nation, he sent royal commissioners into every shire to ask about any encroachments on the King's rights and about misdeeds by any of the King's officials: sheriffs, bailiffs, or coroners. The results were compiled as the "Hundred Rolls". They were the basis of reforms which improved justice at the local as well as the national level. They also rationalized the array of jurisdictions that had grown up with feudal government. Statutes were passed by a Parliament of two houses, that of lords and that of an elected [rather than appointed] commons, and the final form of the constitution was fixed. Wardships of children and widows were sought because they were very profitable. A guardian could get one tenth of the income of the property during the wardship and a substantial marriage amount when the ward married. Most earldoms and many baronages came into the royal house by escheat or marriage. The royal house employed many people. The barons developed a class consciousness of aristocracy and became leaders of society. Many men, no matter of whom they held land, sought knighthood. The King granted knighthood by placing his sword on the head of able-bodied and moral candidates who swore an oath of loyalty to the King and to defend "all ladies, gentlewomen, widows and orphans" and to "shun no adventure of your person in any war wherein you should happen to be". A code of knightly chivalry became recognized, such as telling the truth and setting wrongs right. About half of the knights were literate. In 1278, the King issued a writ ordering all free-holders who held land of the value of 400s. to receive knighthood at the King's hands. At the royal house and other great houses gentlemanly jousting competitions, with well-refined and specific rules, took the place of violent tournaments with general rules. At these knights competed for the affection of ladies by jousting with each other while the ladies watched. Courtly romances were common. If a man convinced a lady to marry him, the marriage ceremony took place in church, with feasting and dancing afterwards. Romantic stories were at the height of their popularity. A usual theme was the lonely quest of a knight engaged in adventures which would impress his lady. The dress of the higher classes was very changeable and subject to fashion as well as function. Ladies no longer braided their hair in long tails, but rolled it up in a net under a veil, often topped with an elaborate and fanciful headdress. They wore non-functional long trains on their tunics and dainty shoes. Men wore a long gown, sometimes clasped around the waist. Overtunics were often lined or trimmed with native fur such as squirrel. People often wore solid red, blue, or green clothes. Only monks and friars wore brown. The introduction of buttons and buttonholes to replace pins and laces made clothing warmer. The spinning wheel came into existence to replace the hand-held spindle. The great barons lived in houses built within the walls of their castles. In semi-fortified manors, halls were two stories high, and usually built on the first rather than on the second floor. Windows came down almost to the floor. The hall had a raised floor at one end where the lord and lady and a few others sat at a high table. The hearth was in the middle of the room or on a wall. The lord's bedroom was next to the hall on the second floor and could have windows into the hall and a spiral staircase connecting the two rooms. Most barons and knights lived in unfortified or semi-fortified houses with two rooms. In great houses, there were more wall hangings, and ornaments for the tables. The tables were lit with candles or torches made of wax. Plates were gold and silver. On the head table was a large and elaborate salt cellar. Salt and spices were available at all tables. There were minstrels who played musical instruments or recited histories of noble deeds or amusing anecdotes. Reading aloud was a favorite pastime. Most people ate with their fingers, although there were knives and some spoons. Drinking vessels were usually metal, horn, or wood. In lesser houses people ate off slices of bread or plates of wood or pewter [made from tin, copper, and lead]. They often shared plates and drinking vessels at the table. Wardships of children and widows were sought because they were very profitable. A guardian could get one tenth of the income of the property during the wardship and a substantial marriage amount when the ward married. Queen Eleanor, a cultivated, intelligent, and educated lady from the continent, fostered culture and rewarded individual literary efforts, such as translations from Latin, with grants of her own money. She patronized Oxford and Cambridge Universities and left bequests to poor scholars there. She herself had read Aristotle and commentaries thereon, and she especially patronized literature which would give cross-cultural perspectives on subjects. She was kind and thoughtful towards those about her and was also sympathetic to the afflicted and generous to the poor. She shared Edward's career to a remarkable extent, even accompanying him on a crusade. She had an intimate knowledge of the people in Edward's official circle and relied on the advice of two of them in managing her lands. She mediated disputes between earls and other nobility, as well as softened her husband's temper towards people. Edward granted her many wardships and marriages and she arranged marriages with political advantages. She dealt with envoys coming to the court. Her intellectual vitality and organized mentality allowed her to deal with arising situations well. Edward held her in great esteem. She introduced to England the merino sheep, which, when bred with the English sheep, gave them a better quality of wool. She and Edward often played games of chess and backgammon. Farm efficiency was increased by the use of windmills in the fields to pump water and by allowing villeins their freedom and hiring them as laborers only when needed. Customary service was virtually extinct. A man could earn 5d. for reaping, binding, and shocking into a pile, an acre of wheat. A strong man with a wife to do the binding could do this in a long harvest day. There was enough grain to store so that the population was no longer periodically decimated by famine. The population grew and all arable land in the nation was under the plough. The acre was standardized. Harvests were usually plentiful, with the exception of two periods of famine over the country due to weather conditions. Then the price of wheat went up and drove up the prices of all other goods correspondingly. Although manors needed the ploughmen, the carters and drivers, the herdsmen, and the dairymaid on a full-time basis, other tenants spent increasing time in crafts and became village carpenters, smiths, weavers or millers' assistants. Trade and the towns grew. Smiths used coal in their furnaces. Money rents often replaced service due to a lord, such as fish silver, malt silver, or barley silver. The lord's rights are being limited to the rights declared on the extents [records showing service due from each tenant] and the rolls of the manor. Sometimes land is granted to strangers because none of the kindred of the deceased will take it. Often a manor court limited a fee in land to certain issue instead of being inheritable by all heirs. Surveyors' poles marked boundaries declared by court in boundary disputes. This resulted in survey maps showing villages and cow pastures. The revival of trade and the appearance of a money economy was undermining the long-established relationship between the lord of the manor and his villeins. As a result, money payments were supplementing or replacing payments in service and produce as in Martham, where Thomas Knight held twelve acres in villeinage, paid 16d. for it and 14d. in special aids. "He shall do sixteen working days in August and for every day he shall have one repast - viz. Bread and fish. He shall hoe ten days without the lord's food - price of a day 1/2d. He shall cart to Norwich six cartings or shall give 9d., and he shall have for every carting one leaf and one lagena - or gallon - of ale. Also for ditching 1d. He shall make malt 3 1/2 seams of barley or shall give 6d. Also he shall flail for twelve days or give 12d. He shall plough if he has his own plough, and for every plouging he shall have three loaves and nine herrings … For carting manure he shall give 2." Another example is this manor's holdings, when 3d. would buy food for a day: "Extent of the manor of Bernehorne, made on Wednesday following the feast of St. Gregory the pope, in the thirty-fifth year of the reign of Ding Edward, in the presence of Brother Thomas, keeper of Marley, John de la More, and Adam de Thruhlegh, clerks, on the oath of William de Gocecoumbe, Walter le Parker, Richard le Knyst, Richard the son of the latter, Andrew of Estone, Stephen Morsprich, Thomas Brembel, William of Swynham, John Pollard, Roger le Glide, John Syward, and John de Lillingewist, who say that there are all the following holdings:… John Pollard holds a half acre in Aldithewisse and owes 18d. at the four terms,and owes for it relief and heriot. John Suthinton holds a house and 40 acres of land and owes 3s. 6d. at Easter and Michaelmas. William of Swynham holds one acre of meadow in the thicket of Swynham and owes 1d. at the feast of Michaelmas. Ralph of Leybourne holds a cottage and one acre of land in Pinden and owes 3s. at Easter and Michaelmas, and attendance at the court in the manor every three weeks, also relief and heriot. Richard Knyst of Swynham holds two acres and a half of land and owes yearly 4s. William of Knelle holds two acres of land in Aldithewisse and owes yearly 4s. Roger le Glede holds a cottage and three roods of land and owes 2s. 6d. Easter and Michaelmas. Alexander Hamound holds a little piece of land near Aldewisse and owes one goose of the value of 2d. The sum of the whole rent of the free tenants, with the value of the goose, is 18s. 9d. They say, moreover, that John of Cayworth holds a house and 30 acres of land, and owes yearly 2s. at Easter and Michaelmas; and he owes a cock and two hens at Christmas of the value of 4d. And he ought to harrow for two days at the Lenten sowing with one man and his own horse and his own harrow, the value of the work being 4d.; and he is to receive from the lord on each day three meals, of the value of 5d., and then the lord will be at a loss of 1d. Thus his harrowing is of no value to the service of the lord. And he ought to carry the manure of the lord for two days with one cart, with his own two oxen, the value of the work being 8d.; and he is to receive from the lord each day three meals at the value as above. And thus the service is worth 3d. clear. And he shall find one man for two days, for mowing the meadow of the lord, who can mow, by estimation, one acre and a half, the value of the mowing of an acre being 6d.: the sum is therefore 9d. And he is to receive each day three meals of the value given above. And thus that mowing is worth 4d. clear. And he ought to gather and carry that same hay which he has cut, the price of the work being 3d. And he shall have from the lord two meals for one man, of the value of 1 1/2 d. Thus the work will be worth 1 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry the hay of the lord for one day with a cart and three animals of his own, the price of the work being 6d. And he shall have from the lord three meals of the value of 2 1/2 d. And thus the work is worth 3 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry in autumn beans or oats for two days with a cart and three animals of his own, the value of the work being 12d. And he shall receive from the lord each day three meals of the value given above. And thus the work is worth 7d. clear. And he ought to carry wood from the woods of the lord as far as the manor, for two days in summer, with a cart and three animals of his own, the value of the work being 9d. And he shall receive from the lord each day three meals of the price given above. And thus the work is worth 4d. clear. And he ought to find one man for two days to cut heath, the value of the work being 4d., and he shall have three meals each day of the value given above: and thus the lord will lose, if he receives the service, 3d. Thus that mowing is worth nothing to the service of the lord. And he ought to carry the heath which he has cut, the value of the work being 5d. And he shall receive from the lord three meals at the price of 2 1/2 d. And thus the work will be worth 2 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry to Battle, twice in the summer season, each time half a load of grain, the value of the service being 4d. And he shall receive in the manor each time one meal of the value of 2d. And thus the work is worth 2d. clear. The totals of the rents, with the value of the hens, is 2s. 4d. The total of the value of the works is 2s. 3 1/2 d., being owed from the said John yearly. William of Cayworth holds a house and 30 acres of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas 2s. rent. And he shall do all customs just as the aforesaid John of Cayworth. William atte Grene holds a house and 30 acres of land and owes in all things the same as the said John. Alan atte Felde holds a house and 16 acres of land (for which the sergeant pays to the court of Bixley 2s.), and he owes at Easter and Michaelmas 4s., attendance at the manor court, relief, and heriot. John Lyllingwyst holds a house and four acres of land and owes at the two terms 2s., attendance at the manor court, relief, and heriot. The same John holds one acre of land in the fields of Hoo and owes at the two periods 2s., attendance, relief, and heriot. Reginald atte Denne holds a house and 18 acres of land and owes at the said periods 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Robert of Northehou holds three acres of land at Saltcote and owes at the said periods attendance, relief, and heriot. Total of the rents of the villeins, with the value of the hens, 20s. Total of all the works of these villeins, 6s.10 1/2 d. And it is to be noted that none of the above-mentioned villeins can give their daughters in marriage, nor cause their sons to be tonsured, nor can they cut down timber growing on the lands they hold, without license of the bailiff or sergeant of the lord, and then for building purposes and not otherwise. And after the death of any one of the aforesaid villeins, the lord shall have as a heriot his best animal, if he had any; if, however, he have no living beast, the lord shall have no heriot, as they say. The sons or daughters of the aforesaid villeins shall give, for entrance into the holding after the death of their predecessors, as much as they give of rent per year. Sylvester, the priest, holds one acre of meadow adjacent to his house and owes yearly 3s. Total of the rent of tenants for life, 3s. Petronilla atte Holme holds a cottage and a piece of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas - ; also, attendance, relief, and heriot. Walter Herying holds a cottage and a piece of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Isabella Mariner holds a cottage and owes at the feast of St. Michael 12d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Jordan atte Melle holds a cottage and 1 1/2 acres of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas 2s., attendance, relief, and heriot. William of Batelesmere holds one acre of land with a cottage and owes at the feast of St. Michael 3d., and one cock and one hen at Christmas of the value of 3d., attendance, relief, and heriot. John le Man holds half an acre of land with a cottage and owes at the feast of St. Michael 2s., attendance, relief, and heriot. Hohn Werthe holds one rood of land with a cottage and owes at the said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Geoffrey Caumbreis holds half an acre and a cottage and owes at the said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. William Hassok holds one rood of land and a cottage and owes at the said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. The same man holds 3 1/2 acres of land and owes yearly at the feast of St. Michael 3s. for all. Roger Doget holds half an acre of land and a cottage, which were those of R. the miller, and owes at the feast of St. Michael 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Thomas le Brod holds one acre and a cottage and owes at the said term 3s., attendance, relief, and heriot. Agnes of Cayworth holds half an acre and a cottage and owes at the said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Total of the rents of the said cottagers, with the value of the hens, 34s.6d. And it is to be noted that all the said cottagers shall do as regards giving their daughters in marriage, having their sons tonsured, cutting down timber, paying heriot, and giving fines for entrance, just as John of Cayworth and the rest of the villeins above mentioned. " The above fines and penalties, with heriots and reliefs, are worth 5s. yearly.Chapter 2
Chapter 3
is paid as toll.
toll.
Sunday and Tuesday and Thursday.Chapter 4
3 shillings. The woodlands are 2 miles long and the same broad. In King Edward's time and afterwards, it was worth 22 pounds [440 s.], now only 11 pounds by weight. These lands of the Countess Godiva Nicholas holds to farm of the King."
Be temperate in eating And in the use of wine. After a heavy meal
Rise and take the air Sleep not with an overloaded stomach And
above all thou must Respond to Nature when she calls."Chapter 5
Winchester; Gerard, bishop of Herefore; Henry the earl; Simon the
earl; Walter Giffard; Robert of Montfort-sur-Risle; Roger Bigot;
Eudo the steward; Robert, son of Haimo; and Robert Malet.
of towns, and the growing mechanization of craft industries.
There were watermills for crafts in all parts of the nation.
There were also some iron furnaces.Chapter 6
Some of the cloth was exported.Chapter 7
Magna Carta - 1215 & 1225
MAGNA CARTA - 1225HENRY BY THE GRACE OF GOD, KING OF ENGLAND, LORD OF IRELAND, DUKE OF NORMANDY AND GUYAN AND EARL OF ANJOU, TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, ABBOTS, PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, SHERIFFS, PROVOSTS, OFFICERS AND TO ALL BAILIFFS AND OTHER OUR FAITHFUL SUBJECTS WHICH SHALL SEE THIS PRESENT CHARTER, GREETING.
KNOW YE THAT WE, UNTO THE HONOR OF ALMIGHTY GOD, AND FOR THE SALVATION OF THE SOULS OF OUR PROGENITORS AND SUCCESSORS KINGS OF ENGLAND, TO THE ADVANCEMENT OF HOLY CHURCH AND AMENDMENT OF OUR REALM, OF OUR MEER AND FREE WILL, HAVE GIVEN AND GRANTED TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, ABBOTS, PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, AND TO ALL FREE MEN OF THIS OUR REALM, THESE LIBERTIES FOLLOWING, TO BE KEPT IN OUR KINGDOM OF ENGLAND FOREVER.
[I. A CONFIRMATION OF LIBERTIES]
[II. THE RELIEF OF THE KING'S TENANT OF FULL AGE]
[III. THE WARDSHIP OF AN HEIR WITHIN AGE. THE HEIR A KNIGHT]
[IV. NO WASTE SHALL BE MADE BY A GUARDIAN IN WARD'S LANDS]
[V. GUARDIANS SHALL MAINTAIN THE INHERITANCE OF THEIR WARDS AND OF BISHOPRICKS, ETC.]
[VI. HEIRS SHALL BE MARRIED WITHOUT DISPARAGEMENT]
[VII. A WIDOW SHALL HAVE HER MARRIAGE, INHERITANCE, AND QUERENTINE. THE KING'S WIDOW, ETC.]
[VIII. HOW SURETIES SHALL BE CHARGED TO THE KING]
[IX. THE LIBERTIES OF LONDON AND OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS CONFIRMED]
[X. NONE SHALL DISTRAIN FOR MORE SERVICE THAN IS DUE.]
[XI. COMMON PLEAS SHALL NOT FOLLOW THE KING'S COURT]
[XII. WHERE AND BEFORE WHOM ASSIZES SHALL BE TAKEN. ADJOURNMENT FOR DIFFICULTY]
ASSIZES OF NOVEL DISSEISIN, MORT D'ANCESTOR SHALL BE HEARD ONLY IN THE COUNTY WHERE THE PROPERTY IS SITUATED, AND IN THIS MANNER: WE, OR IF WE ARE NOT IN THE REALM, OUR CHIEF JUSTICIARY, SHALL SEND JUSTICIARIES THROUGH EACH COUNTY ONCE A YEAR, AND THEY TOGETHER WITH KNIGHTS OF THAT COUNTY SHALL HOLD THE SAID ASSIZES IN THE COUNTY.
AND THOSE THINGS THAT AT THE COMING OF OUR FORESAID JUSTICIARIES, BEING SENT TO TAKE THOSE ASSIZES IN THE COUNTIES, CANNOT BE DETERMINED, SHALL BE ENDED BY THEM IN SOME OTHER PLACE IN THEIR CIRCUIT; AND THOSE THINGS WHICH FOR DIFFICULTY OF SOME ARTICLES CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THEM, SHALL BE REFERRED TO OUR JUSTICES OF THE BENCH AND THERE SHALL BE ENDED.
[XIII. ASSIZES OF DARREIN PRESENTMENT]
ASSIZES OF DARREIN PRESENTMENT SHALL ALWAYS BE TAKEN BEFORE OUR JUSTICES OF THE BENCH AND THERE SHALL BE DETERMINED.
[XIV. HOW MEN OF ALL SORTS SHALL BE AMERCED AND BY WHOM]
NO MAN OF THE CHURCH SHALL BE AMERCED EXCEPT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE SERIOUSNESS OF THE OFFENCE AND AFTER HIS LAY TENEMENT, BUT NOT AFTER THE QUANTITY OF HIS SPIRITUAL BENEFICE.
[XV. MAKING OF BRIDGES AND BANKS]
[XVI. DEFENDING OF BANKS]
NO BANKS [LAND NEAR A RIVER] SHALL BE DEFENDED [USED BY THE KING ALONE, E.G. FOR HUNTING], FROM HENCEFORTH, BUT SUCH AS WERE IN DEFENCE IN THE TIME OF KING HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER, BY THE SAME PLACES AND IN THE SAME BOUNDS AS IN HIS TIME.
[XVII. HOLDING PLEAS OF THE CROWN]
[XVIII. THE KING'S DEBTOR DYING, THE KING SHALL BE FIRST PAID]
[XIX. PURVEYANCE FOR A CASTLE]
[XX. DOING OF CASTLE-GUARD]
[XXI. TAKING OF HORSES, CARTS, AND WOOD]
[XXII. HOW LONG FELONS' LANDS SHALL BE HELD BY THE KING]
[XXIII. IN WHAT PLACE WEIRS SHALL BE REMOVED]
[XXIV. IN WHAT CASE A PRAECIPE IN CAPITE IS NOT GRANTABLE]
[XXV. THERE SHALL BE BUT ONE MEASURE THROUGHOUT THE REALM]
[XXVI. INQUISITION OF LIFE AND LIMB]
[XXVII. TENURE OF THE KING IN SOCAGE AND OF ANOTHER BY KNIGHT'S SERVICE. PETIT SERJEANTY.]
[XXVIII. WAGES OF LAW SHALL NOT BE WITHOUT WITNESS]
[XXIX. NONE SHALL BE CONDEMNED WITHOUT TRIAL. JUSTICE SHALL NOT BE SOLD OR DELAYED.]
[XXX. MERCHANT STRANGERS COMING INTO THIS REALM SHALL BE WELL USED]
[XXXI. TENURE OF A BARONY COMING INTO THE KING'S HANDS BY ESCHEAT]
[XXXII. LANDS SHALL NOT BE ALIENED TO THE PREJUDICE OF THE LORD'S SERVICE]
NO FREEMAN FROM HENCEFORTH SHALL GIVE OR SELL ANY MORE OF HIS LAND, BUT SO THAT OF THE RESIDUE OF THE LANDS THE LORD OF THE FEE MAY HAVE THE SERVICE DUE TO HIM WHICH BELONGS TO THE FEE.
[XXXIII. PATRONS OF ABBEYS SHALL HAVE THE CUSTODY OF THEM WHEN VACANT]
[XXXIV. IN WHAT ONLY CASE A WOMAN SHALL HAVE AN APPEAL OF DEATH]
[XXXV. AT WHAT TIME SHALL BE KEPT A COUNTY COURT, SHERIFF'S TURN AND A LEET (COURT OF CRIMINAL JURISDICTION EXCEPTING FELONIES)]
NO COUNTY COURT FROM HENCEFORTH SHALL BE HELD, BUT FROM MONTH TO MONTH; AND WHERE GREATER TIME HAS BEEN USED, THERE SHALL BE GREATER. NOR SHALL ANY SHERIFF, OR HIS BAILIFF, KEEP HIS TURN IN THE HUNDRED BUT TWICE IN THE YEAR; AND NO WHERE BUT IN DUE PLACE AND ACCUSTOMED TIME, THAT IS, ONCE AFTER EASTER, AND AGAIN AFTER THE FEAST OF SAINT MICHAEL. AND THE VIEW OF FRANKPLEDGE [THE RIGHT OF ASSEMBLING THE WHOLE MALE POPULATION OVER 12 YEARS EXCEPT CLERGY, EARLS, BARONS, KNIGHTS, AND THE INFIRM, AT THE LEET OR SOKE COURT FOR THE CAPITAL FRANKPLEDGES TO GIVE ACCOUNT OF THE PEACE KEPT BY INDIVIDUALS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE TITHINGS] SHALL BE LIKEWISE AT THE FEAST OF SAINT MICHAEL WITHOUT OCCASION, SO THAT EVERY MAN MAY HAVE HIS LIBERTIES WHICH HE HAD, OR USED TO HAVE, IN THE TIME OF KING HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER, OR WHICH HE HAS SINCE PURCHASED. THE VIEW OF FRANKPLEDGE SHALL BE SO DONE, THAT OUR PEACE MAY BE KEPT; AND THAT THE TYTHING BE WHOLLY KEPT AS IT HAS BEEN ACCUSTOMED; AND THAT THE SHERIFF SEEK NO OCCASIONS, AND THAT HE BE CONTENT WITH SO MUCH AS THE SHERIFF WAS WONT TO HAVE FOR HIS VIEW-MAKING IN THE TIME OF KING HENRY OUR GRANDFATHER.
[XXXVI. NO LAND SHALL BE GIVEN IN MORTMAIN]
IT SHALL NOT BE LAWFUL FROM HENCEFORTH TO ANY TO GIVE HIS LAND TO ANY RELIGIOUS HOUSE, AND TO TAKE THE SAME LAND AGAIN TO HOLD OF THE SAME HOUSE [THEREBY EXTINGUISHING THE FEUDAL RIGHTS OF THE TEMPORAL LORD]. NOR SHALL IT BE LAWFUL TO ANY HOUSE OF RELIGION TO TAKE THE LANDS OF ANY, AND TO LEASE THE SAME TO HIM OF WHOM HE RECEIVED IT. IF ANY FROM HENCEFORTH GIVE HIS LANDS TO ANY RELIGIOUS HOUSE, AND THEREUPON BE CONVICTED, THE GIFT SHALL BE UTTERLY VOID, AND THE LAND SHALL ACCRUE TO THE LORD OF THE FEE.
[XXXVII. SUBSIDY IN RESPECT OF THIS CHARTER, AND THE CHARTER OF THE FOREST, GRANTED TO THE KING.]
ESCUAGE [SHIELD MILITARY SERVICE] FROM HENCEFORTH SHALL BE TAKEN AS IT WAS WONT TO BE IN THE TIME OF KING HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER; RESERVING TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, ABBOTS, PRIORS, TEMPLERS, HOSPITALLERS, EARLS, BARONS, AND ALL PERSONS AS WELL SPIRITUAL AS TEMPORAL; ALL THEIR FREE LIBERTIES AND FREE CUSTOMS, WHICH THEY HAVE HAD IN TIME PASSED. AND ALL THESE CUSTOMS AND LIBERTIES AFORESAID, WHICH WE HAVE GRANTED TO BE HELD WITHIN THIS OUR REALM, AS MUCH AS PERTAINS TO US AND OUR HEIRS, WE SHALL OBSERVE.
AND ALL MEN OF THIS OUR REALM, AS WELL SPIRITUAL AS TEMPORAL (AS MUCH AS IN THEM IS) SHALL OBSERVE THE SAME AGAINST ALL PERSONS IN LIKE WISE. AND FOR THIS OUR GIFT AND GRANT OF THESE LIBERTIES, AND OF OTHER CONSTRAINED IN OUR CHARTER OF LIBERTIES OF OUR FOREST, THE ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, ABBOTS, PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, KNIGHTS, FREEHOLDERS, AND OUR OTHER SUBJECTS, HAVE GIVEN UNTO US THE FIFTEENTH PART OF ALL THEIR MOVEABLES. AND WE HAVE GRANTED UNTO THEM ON THE OTHER PART, THAT NEITHER WE, NOR OUR HEIRS, SHALL PROCURE OR DO ANY THING WHEREBY THE LIBERTIES IN THIS CHARTER CONTAINED SHALL BE INFRINGED OR BROKEN. AND IF ANY THING BE PROCURED BY ANY PERSON CONTRARY TO THE PREMISES, IT SHALL BE HAD OF NO FORCE NOR EFFECT.
THESE BEING WITNESSES: LORD S. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, E. BISHOP OF LONDON, F. BISHOP OF BATHE, G. OF WINCESTER, H. OF LINCOLN, R. OF SALISBURY, W. OF ROCHESTER, X. OF WORCESTER, F. OF ELY, H. OF HEREFORD, R. OF CHICHESTER, W. OF EXETER, BISHOPS; THE ABBOT OF ST. EDMONDS, THE ABBOT OF ST. ALBANS, THE ABBOT OF BELLO, THE ABBOT OF ST. AUGUSTINES IN CANTERBURY, THE ABBOT OF EVESHAM, THE ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, THE ABBOT OF BOURGH ST. PETER, THE ABBOT OF REDING, THE ABBOT OF ABINDON, THE ABBOT OF MALMBURY, THE ABBOT OF WINCHCOMB, THE ABBOT OF HYDE, THE ABBOT OF CERTESEY, THE ABBOT OF SHERBURN, THE ABBOT OF CERNE, THE ABBOT OF ABBOREBIR, THE ABBOT OF MIDDLETON, THE ABBOT OF SELEBY, THE ABBOT OF CIRENCESTER, H. DE BURGH JUSTICE, H. EARL OF CHESTER AND LINCOLN, W. EARL OF SALISBURY, W. EARL OF WARREN, G. DE CLARE EARL OF GLOUCESTER AND HEREFORD, W. DE FERRARS EARL OF DERBY, W. DE MANDEVILLE EARL OF ESSEX, H. DE BYGOD EARL OF NORFOLK, W. EARL OF ALBEMARLE, H. EARL OF HEREFORD, F. CONSTABLE OF CHESTER, G. DE TOS, H. FITZWALTER, R. DE BYPONTE, W. DE BRUER, R. DE MONTEFICHET, P. FITXHERBERT, W. DE AUBENIE, F. GRESLY, F. DE BREUS, F. DE MONEMUE, F. FITZALLEN, H. DE MORTIMER, W. DE BEUCHAMP, W. DE ST. JOHN, P. DE MAULI, BRIAN DE LISLE, THOMAS DE MULTON, R. DE ARGENTEYN, G. DE NEVIL, W. DE MAUDUIT, F. DE BALUN, AND OTHERS. GIVEN AT WESTMINSTER THE 11TH DAY OF FEBRUARY THE 9TH YEAR OF OUR REIGN.
WE, RATIFYING AND APPROVING THESE GIFTS AND GRANTS AFORESAID, CONFIRM AND MAKE STRONG ALL THE SAME FOR US AND OUR HEIRS PERPETUALLY, AND BY THE TENOUR OF THESE PRESENTS, DO RENEW THE SAME; WILLING AND GRANTING FOR US AND OUR HEIRS, THAT THIS CHARTER, AND ALL SINGULAR HIS ARTICLES, FOREVER SHALL BE STEDFASTLY, FIRMLY, AND INVIOLABLY OBSERVED; AND IF ANY ARTICLE IN THE SAME CHARTER CONTAINED, YET HITHERTO PERADVENTURE HAS NOT BEEN KEPT, WE WILL, AND BY ROYAL AUTHORITY, COMMAND, FROM HENCEFORTH FIRMLY THEY BE OBSERVED.
Chapter 8