Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State

were chosen in the tribal assemblies to dispense justice throughout the pagi (cf. the French pays, inhabited by paysans or ‘peas ...

The preoccupation of Roman law with the safeguarding, inheritance and transfer of family property (property in slaves an importa ...

Grants of property and protection The greatest of the formularies, the early seventh-century ‘formulary of Marculf’ is divided i ...

within the lands granted to the community, which it is to possess ‘under all immunity’. The third form is a grant of ‘royal immu ...

was expected to be ready to confirm the rights of those whose title-deeds were stolen or destroyed in war, and his first busines ...

gave rise to the most familiar of personal privileges, and one of great economic importance: the protection and freedom from tol ...

action of the English common law. But no direct influence need be sought: in a similar context of property transactions by chart ...

liberty of churches to enjoy their property ‘in right and lordship... for all time... doing with it what they should freely deci ...

ranged from homicide to a piece of land which someone claimed by right of succession to his father. And the noticiamight record ...

so that there should be an end of all disputing on the matter (et sit... omnis lis et altercatio sopita).^37 The great wealth of ...

mayor of the palace would adjourn the court till the oath could be taken or the ordeal administered, and a case might therefore ...

Charlemagne made grants in ‘the royal court’ (curte, or curta regali), and Asser speaks of King Alfred as brought up in regio cu ...

weight into the scales on the side of composition and settlement’.^54 In a ‘civil war’ that arose at Tours in 585 it was rather, ...

appearance of sheriffdoms, with which judicesand ‘dempsters’ may have been associated.^62 Those who gave judgment in the first c ...

Gregory of Tours, writing at the end of the sixth century, gives a vivid picture of a bad count in the person of Leudast, a runa ...

royal palace.^67 At the end of a hearing in the king’s court, an order (indiculum de iudicio evindicato) would go to the count t ...

authority is the increasing use of fredus, a German word with a Latin ending. From as far back as we can see amongst the Germani ...

neglect of the new peace-regulations he was making. Anyone was liable to it who sold goods other than before witnesses in a lice ...

monthly); the borough, to meet three times a year; and the shire court (expounding both ecclesiastical and secular law under the ...

fine for breaching each of them.^84 The ‘king’s full mundbryce’ was reserved for damaging the king’s ships, and above all for br ...