OUR LEGAL HERITAGE

S >> S. A. Reilly, Attorney >> OUR LEGAL HERITAGE

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This Model Parliament of 1295 was composed of the three
communities. The first were the lords. Because of the increase
of lesser barons due to a long national peace and prosperity,
the lords attending were reduced in numbers and peerage became
dependent not on land tenure, but on royal writ of summons. The
second community was the clergy, represented by the bishops of
each diocese. They later declined to attend. The third community
was the commons. It was composed of two burgesses elected by
principal burgesses of each borough and two elected knights
representing each county. The common people now had a voice in
law-making. The first legislation proposed by the commons was
alteration of the forest laws governing the royal pleasure
parks. Such a statute was passed in a bargain for taxes of a
percentage of all moveables, which were mostly foodstuffs and
animals.

Parliament soon was required to meet once or twice yearly.
Lawmaking is now a function of Parliament, of which the King's
council is a part, instead of a function of the King with his
council and judges. However, legislation may be passed without
the consent of the commons. Also, there was no convention that
agreement or even the presence of representatives was required
for legislation. The idea that the present can bind the absent
and that the majority of those present to outvote the minority
was beginning to take hold. The Chief Justices still had, as
members of the council, a real voice in the making of laws. The
King and his justices might, after a statute has been made, put
an authoritative interpretation upon it.

Most petitions to Parliament were private grievances of
individuals, including people of no social rank, such as
prisoners. Other petitions were from communities and groups.

In 1297, Edward I confirmed the Magna Carta and other items.
Judgments contrary to Magna Carta were nullified. The documents
were to be read in cathedral churches as grants of Edward and
all violators were to be excommunicated. He also agreed not to
impose taxes without the consent of Parliament after baronial
pressure had forced him to retreat from trying to increase, for a
war in France, the customs tax on every exported sack of wool to
40s. from the 6s. 8d. per sack it had been since 1275. The
customs tax was finally fixed at 10s. for every sack of wool,
2s. for each tun of wine, and 6d. for every pound's worth of
other goods. A tax system of "tenths and fifteenths" levied on
income from moveables or chattels every year also came into
being. This most affected the goods made and sold in the towns,
so that both town and countryside were taxed about the same.
Never again did a King impose a tax without the consent of
Parliament. Edward also confirmed the Forest Charter, which
called for its earlier boundaries. And he agreed not to impound
any grain or wool or and like against the will of the owners, as
had been done before to collect taxes. Also, the special prises
or requisitions of goods for national emergency were not to be a
precedent. Lastly, he agreed not to impose penalties on two earls
and their supporters for refusing to serve in the war in France.

The export of wool had increased and Parliament initiated customs
duties of 6s.8d. on every sack of wool, woolfells [sheepskin
with wool still on it], or skins exported, which was collected
at each of the thirteen ports, the beginning of the staple
[depot] system. Imports of wine were taxed as tonnage as before.

Sheriffs were elected in their own counties rather than appointed
by the King as of 1297.

Lawyers are now drawn from the knightly class instead of
ecclesiastical people. Law no longer belongs to the church, but
to the knightly class of landed gentlemen. The Inns of Court in
London provide legal education and certify members to the bar.

>From 1299, statutes were recorded in a Statute Roll as they were
enacted.

By the end of the 1200s, the King's wardrobe, where confidential
matters such as military affairs were discussed in his bedroom,
became a department of state with the privy seal. It paid and
provisioned the knights, squires, and sergeants of the King and
was composed mostly of civil servants. It traveled with the
King. The Crown's treasure, plate, tents, hangings, beds,
cooking-utensils, wine, and legal and financial rolls were
carried on pack-horses or in two- wheeled carts drawn by oxen,
donkeys, or dogs. The people in the entourage rode horses or
walked. The other two specialized administrative bodies were the
Exchequer, which received most of the royal revenue and kept
accounts at Westminster in London, and the Chancery, which wrote
royal writs, charters, and letters.

As of 1336, importing foreign cloth or fur, except for use by the
King's family, was prohibited, as was the export of unwoven
wool. Later, this was relaxed and a customs tax of 33% was
imposed on wool exported. Foreign cloth-workers may come to live
in the nation, be granted franchises, and shall be in the King's
protection. No cloth may be exported until it is fulled.

There was a recoinage due to debasement of the old coinage. This
increased the number of coins in circulation. The price of wheat
went from about 7s. in 1270 to about 5s. per quarter in 1280.
Also the price of an ox went from 14s. to 10s. >From 1280 to
1290, there was runaway inflation.

As before, inadequate care and ignorance of nutrition caused many
infant deaths. Accidents and disease were so prevalent that
death was always near and life insecure. Many women died in
childbirth.

In the 1300s, there were extremes of fashion in men's and women's
clothing including tight garments, pendant sleeves down to the
ground, coats so short they didn't reach the hips or so long
they reached the heels, hoods so small they couldn't cover the
head, and shoes with long curved peaks like claws at the toes.
Both men and women wore belts low on the hips. The skirt of a
lady's tunic was fuller and the bodice more closely fitted than
before. Her hair was usually elaborately done up, e.g. with long
curls or curled braids on either side of the face. A jeweled
circlet was often worn around her head. Ladies wore on their
arms or belts, cloth handbags, which usually contained
toiletries, such as combs made of ivory, horn, bone, or wood,
and perhaps a little book of devotions. A man wore a knife and a
bag on his belt. Some women painted their faces and/or colored
their hair. There were hand-held glass mirrors. Some people kept
dogs purely as pets.

Under Edward II, all citizens of London had to be enrolled in the
trade guild of their craft.

The commons became a permanent and distinct body with an elected
spokesman or speaker and its own clerk in Edward III's reign.
Also, sheriffs them dealt directly with the King instead of
through an earl.

To support a war with France, Edward III permanently instituted
the staple system, by which wool exports were taxed through his
officials only at the designated staple port. These officials
included collectors, controllers, searchers, surveyors, clerks,
weighers, and crane-keepers.

Certain large wool merchants were allowed to create a monopoly on
the export of wool. Also under Edward III, Flanders weavers were
encouraged to come to England to teach the English how to weave
and finish fine cloth. A cloth industry grew with all the
manufacturing processes under the supervision of one capitalist
manufacturer, who set up his enterprise in the country to avoid
the regulations of the towns. The best places were hilly areas
where there were many streams and good pasture for flocks of
sheep. He hired shearers to cut the nap as short as possible to
give a smooth surface, then spinsters to card and spin the wool
in their country cottages, then weavers, and then fullers and
dyers to come to fulling mills established near streams for
their waterpower. Fulling became mechanized as heavy wooden
hammers run by water-power replaced feet trampling the cloth
covered with soap or fuller's clay, until it became thick and
smaller. The shaft loom was a technological advance in weaving.
This loom was horizontal and its frames, which controlled the
lifting of the warp threads, could each be raised by a foot
treadle. This left both hands free to throw and catch the
shuttle attached to the woof thread. Also many more weaving
patterns became possible through the use of different thread
configurations on the frames.

The Law

Edward I remodeled the law in response to grievances and to
problems which came up in the courts. The changes improved the
efficiency of justice and served to accommodate it to the
changing circumstances of the social system. These statutes
were:

"No man by force of arms, malice or menacing shall disturb anyone
in making free election [of sheriffs, coroners, conservators of
the peace by freeholders of the shire]."

"No city, borough, town, nor man shall be amerced without
reasonable cause and according to the severity of his trespass.
That is, every freeman saving his freehold, a merchant saving
his merchandise, a villein saving his waynage [implements of
agriculture], and that by his peers."

No distress shall be taken of ploughing-cattle or sheep.

Young salmon shall not be taken from waters in the spring.

No loan shall be made for interest.

If an heir who is a minor is married off without the consent of
the guardian, the value of the marriage will be lost and the
wrongdoer imprisoned. If anyone marries off an heir over 14
years of age without the consent of the guardian, the guardian
shall have double the value of the marriage. Moreover, anyone who
has withdrawn a marriage shall pay the full value thereof to the
guardian for the trespass and make amends to the King. And if a
Lord refuses to marry off a female heir of full age and keep her
unmarried because he covets the land, then he shall not have her
lands more than two years after she reaches full age, at which
time she can recover her inheritance without giving anything for
the wardship or her marriage. However, if she maliciously
refuses to be married by her Lord, he may hold her land and
inheritance until she is the age of a male heir, that is, twenty
one years old and further until he has taken the value of the
marriage.

Aid to make one's son a knight or marry off his daughter of a
whole knight's fee shall be taken 20s., and 400s.[yearly income
from] land held in socage 20s. [5%], and of more, more; and of
less, less; after the rate. And none shall levy such aid to make
his son a knight until his son is 15 years old, nor to marry his
daughter until she is seven year old.

A conveyance of land which is the inheritance of a minor child by
his guardian or lord to another is void.

Dower shall not abate because the widow has received dower of
another man unless part of the first dower received was of the
same tenant and in the same town. But a woman who leaves her
husband for another man is barred from dower.

A tenant for a term of years who has let land from a landlord
shall not let it lie waste, nor shall a landlord attempt to oust
a tenant for a term of years by fictitious recoveries.

When two or more hold wood, turfland, or fishing or other such
thing in common, wherein none knows his several, and one does
waste against the minds of the others, he may be sued.

Lands which are given to a man and his wife upon condition that
if they die without heirs, the land shall revert to the donor or
his heir, may not be alienated to defeat this condition.

If a man takes land in marriage with a wife, and she dies before
him, the land will revert to the donor or his heir, unless they
have a child, in which case the husband will have the land by
the courtesy of the nation for his life before it reverts to the
donor or his heir.

A free tenant may alienate his land freely, but if the alienation
was for an estate in fee simple [to a man and his heirs], the
person acquiring the land would hold of the land's lord and not
of the person alienating the land. (This halted the growth of
subinfeudation and caused services as well as incidents of aids,
relief, escheat, wardship, and marriage to go directly to the
Chief Lord. It also advantaged the Crown as overlord, which then
acquired more direct tenants.)

One may create an estate which will descend in unbroken
succession down the line of inheritance prescribed in the
original gift as long as that line should last, instead of
descending to all heirs. The successive occupants might draw the
rents and cut the wood, but on the death of each, his heir would
take possession of an unencumbered interest, unfettered by any
liability for the debt of his ancestor or by any disposition
made by him during his lifetime e.g. a wife's estate in dower or
a husband's estate in courtesy. If there was no issue, it
reverted to the original donor. ( This curtailed the advantage of
tenants of the greater barons who profited by increased
wardships and reliefs from subinfeudation from subdivision and
better cultivation of their land while still paying the greater
barons fixed sums. This statute [Quia Emptores] that protected
reversionary estates incidentally established a system of
entails. This new manner of holding land: "fee tail", is in
addition to the concepts of land held in fee simple and land
held for life. Interests in remainder or reversion of estates in
land replace the lord's tenurial right to succeed to land by
escheat if his tenant dies without heirs.)

In Kent, all men are free and may give or sell their lands
without permission of their lords, as before the Conquest.
(Since Kent was nearest the continent, money flowed between
England and the continent through Kent. So Kent never developed
a manorial system of land holding, but evolved from a system of
clans and independent villages directly into a commercial
system.

Anyone disseising another whereby he also robs him or uses force
and arms in the disseisin shall be imprisoned and fined. The
plaintiff shall recover seisin and damages.

"All must be ready at the command and summons of sheriffs, and at
the cry of the country, to sue and arrest felons as necessary as
well within franchise as without." Otherwise, he shall be fined.
A Lord defaulting shall lose his franchise to the King. A
Bailiff defaulting shall be imprisoned a year as well as fined,
or be imprisoned two years if he cannot pay the fine. A sheriff,
coroner, or any other bailiff who conceals a felony will be
imprisoned for a year and pay a fine, or be imprisoned for three
years if he cannot pay the fine.

Villeins must report felons, pursue felons, serve in the watch,
and clear growth of concealing underwood from roads. They must
join the military to fight on the borders when called. Desertion
from the army is punishable.

Accessories to a crime shall not be declared outlaw before the
principal is proven guilty. (This made uniform the practice of
the various shires.)

Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single
incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a
felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb
shall be let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were
outlawed or escaped from prison or are notorious thieves or were
imprisoned for felonious house-burning, passing false money,
counterfeiting the King's seal, treason touching the King
himself, or other major offenses or have been excommunicated by
the church may not be released.

Killing in self-defense and by mischance shall be pardoned from
the King's indictment. Killing by a child or a person of unsound
mind shall be pardoned from the King's indictment. (But a
private accuser can still sue.)

Any man who ravishes [abducts] any woman without her consent or
by force shall have the criminal penalty of loss of life or
limb. (The criminal penalty used to be just two years in
prison.)

Trespasses [serious and forcible breaches of the peace] in parks
or ponds shall be punished by imprisonment for three years and a
fine as well as paying damages to the wronged person. After his
imprisonment, he shall find a surety or leave the nation.

"Forasmuch as there have been often times found in the country
devisors of tales, where discord, or occasion of discord, has
many times arisen between the King and his people, or great men
of this realm; For the damage that has and may thereof ensue, it
is commanded, that from henceforth none be so hardy to tell or
publish any false news or tales, whereby discord or occasion of
discord or slander may grow between the King and his people, or
the great men of the realm." Anyone doing so shall be imprisoned
until he brings into the court the first author of the tale.

A system of registration and enforcement of commercial agreements
was established by statute. Merchants could obtain a writing of
a debt sealed by the debtor and authenticated by royal seal or
a seal of a mayor of certain towns, and kept by the creditor.
Failure to pay a such a debt was punishable by imprisonment and,
after three months, the selling of borough tenements and
chattels and of shire lands. During the three months, the
merchant held this property in a new tenure of "statute
merchant". (Prior to this, it was difficult for a foreign
merchant to collect a debt because he could not appear in court
which did not recognize him as one of its proper "suitors" or
constituents, so he had to trust a local attorney. Also, the
remedy was inadequate because the history of the law of debt was
based on debt as a substitute for the blood feud, so that
failure to pay meant slavery or death. Also a debtor's land was
protected by feudal custom, which was contrary to the idea of
imposing a new tenant on a lord.)

"In no city, borough, town, market, or fair shall a person of the
realm be distrained for a debt for which he is not the debtor or
pledge."

Anyone making those passing with goods through their jurisdiction
answer to them in excess of their jurisdiction shall be
grievously amerced to the King.

No market town shall take an outrageous toll contrary to the
common custom of the nation.

Since good sterling money has been counterfeited with base and
false metal outside the nation and then brought in, foreigners
found in the nation's ports with this false money shall forfeit
their lives. Anyone bringing foreign money into the nation must
have it examined at his port of entry. Payments of money shall
be made only by coin of the appropriate weight delivered by the
Warden of the Exchange and marked with the King's mark. (A
currency exchange was established at Dover for the exchange of
foreign currency for English sterling.)

The silver in craftwork must be sterling and marked with the
Leopard's Head. The gold in craftwork must meet the standard of
the Touch of Paris.

The assize of bread and ale had been and was enforced locally by
local inspectors. Now, the Crown appointed royal officers for
the gauge of wines and measurement of cloths. Edicts disallowed
middlemen from raising prices against consumers by such
practices as forestalling or engrossing and price regulation was
attempted. For instance, prices were set for poultry and lamb,
in a period of plenty. Maximum prices were set for cattle,
pigs, sheep, poultry, and eggs in 1314, but was hard to enforce.
In London examples of prices set are: best hen 3d.2q., best wild
goose 4d., best rabbit 4d., best kid 10d., best lamb 4d., best
fresh herrings 12 for 1d., best pickled herrings 20 for 1d., best
haddock 2d., best fresh salmon 3s.

Freemen may drive their swine through the King's demesne Forest
to feed in their own woods or elsewhere. No man shall lose his
life or limb for killing deer in the Forest, but instead shall
be grievously fined or imprisoned for a year.

The Forest Charter allowed a man to cut down and take wood from
his own woods in the King's forest to repair his house, fences,
and hedges. He may also enclose his woods in the King's forest
with fences and hedges to grow new trees and keep cattle and
beasts therefrom. After seven years growth of these new trees, he
may cut them down for sale with the King's permission.

Each borough has its own civil and criminal ordinances and police
jurisdiction. Borough courts tended to deal with more laws than
other local courts because of the borough's denser populations,
which were composed of merchants, manufacturers, and traders, as
well as those engaged in agriculture. Only borough courts have
jurisdiction over fairs. In some boroughs the villein who
resides for a year and a day becomes free. There are special
ordinances relating to apprentices. There are sometimes
ordinances against enticing away servants bound by agreement to
serve another. The wife who is a trader is regarded in many
places as a femme sole. There may be special ordinances as to the
liability of masters for the acts of their apprentices and
agents, or as to brokers, debt, or earnest money binding a
bargain. The criminal and police jurisdiction in the borough was
organized upon the same model as in the country at large, and was
controlled by the King's courts upon similar principles, though
there are some survivals of old rules, such as mention of the
bot and the wer. The crimes committed are similar to those of
the country, such as violence, breaches of the assize of bread
and beer, stirring up suits before the ecclesiastical courts,
digging up or obstructing the highway, not being enrolled in a
tithing, encroachments upon or obstructions of rights of common.
The most striking difference with the country at large are the
ordinances on the repair or demolition of buildings,
encroachments on another's building, fires, and nuisances.
Specimens of other characteristic urban disputes are: selling bad
food, using bad materials, unskillful or careless workmanship,
fraudulent weights and measures, fraud in buying and selling,
forestalling or regrating, acting in a way likely to endanger
the liberties of the borough, usury, trading without being a
citizen, assisting other unlicensed persons to trade, unlawfully
forming a guild, complaints against various guilds in which trade
might be organized. Since the ordinances were always liable to
be called in question before the King's courts, they tended to
become uniform and in harmony with the principles of the common
law. Also, trading between boroughs kept them knowledgeable
about each other's customs and conditions for trade, which then
tended to standardize. Boroughs often had seals to prove communal
consent and tended to act as a corporate body.

Borough ordinances often include arson such as this one: "And if
a street be set on fire by any one, his body shall be attached
and cast into the midst of the fire." Robbery by the miller was
specially treated by an ordinance that "And if the miller be
attainted of robbery of the grain or of the flour to the amount
of 4d., he shall be hanged from the beam in his mill."

In London, an ordinance prescribed for bakers for the first
offense of making false bread a forfeiture of that bread. For
the second offense was prescribed imprisonment, and for the
third offense placement in the pillory. A London ordinance for
millers who caused bread to be false prescribed for them to be
carried in a tumbrel cart through certain streets, exposed to the
derision of the people.

By statute, no one may make a gift or alienation of land to the
church. An attempt to do so will cause the land to escheat to
the lord, or in his default, to the King. Religious houses may
not alienate land given to them by the King or other patrons
because such gifts were for the sake of someone's soul. An
attempt to do so will cause the land to revert to the donor or
his heir. If the church did not say the prayers or do the other
actions for which land was given to it, the land will revert to
the donor or his heir. The church shall send no money out of the
nation.

"Concerning wrecks of the sea, where a man, a dog, or a cat
escape alive out of the ship, that such ship nor barge nor
anything within them shall be deemed wreck, but the goods shall
be saved and kept by view of the Sheriff, Coroner, or the King's
Bailiff". If anyone proves the goods were his within a year and a
day, they shall be restored to him without delay. Otherwise, they
shall be kept by the King. "And where wreck belongs to one other
than the King, he shall have it in like manner". If he does
otherwise, he shall be imprisoned and pay damages and fine.

Some statutes applied only to Kent County, which had a unique
position between London and the continent. One could sell or
give away his land without the consent of one's lord. The
services of the land, however, could only be sold to the chief
lord. Inheritance of land was to all sons by equal portions, and
if there were no sons, then to all daughters in equal portions.
The eldest brother has his choice of portion, then the next
oldest, etc. The goods of a deceased person were divided into
three parts after his funeral expenses and debts were paid. One
third went to the surviving spouse. One third went to the
deceased's sons and daughters. One third could be disposed by
will of the decedent. If there were no children, one half went
to the spouse and one half went according to will. If an heir
was under 15 years old, his next of kin to whom inheritance
could not descend was to be his guardian. A wife who remarried or
bore a child lost her dower land. A husband lost his dower if he
remarried. If a tenant withheld rent or services, his lord could
seek award of court to find distress on his tenement and if he
could find none, he could take the tenement for a year and a day
in his hands without manuring it. It the tenant paid up in this
time, he got the tenement back. If he didn't within a year and a
day, however, the lord could manure the land. A felon forfeited
his life and his goods, but not his lands or tenements. A wife
of a felon had the dower of one half or her husband's lands and
tenements.

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