OUR LEGAL HERITAGE

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

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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
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.

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."

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