Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State

Legal order English developments may help us to understand what had happened earlier in the Frankish empire. The perambulations ...

succession’; and that couples have joined in marriage without the consent of kinsmen ‘irregularly, against law and justice’ (mal ...

Many cases were brought before Italian courts by allegations that defen- dants had entered others’ lands or detained their serfs ...

concluded (definita) by their inquisition. To have your claim that property had been stolen ‘by evil cunning’ investigated by a ...

The sworn inquest could also be applied to the injuries which would come to be seen as ‘crimes’ against public authority. The mi ...

(scavini, tam romani quam salici).^115 But scabini, advocati, testes, and judicesmultiplied everywhere, their roles ill-distingu ...

jurisdiction. The occupation of an estate was ‘in bad order’, ‘against right’ and ‘unjust’ if it was unauthorized by a previous ...

compensation. Charlemagne and Louis the Pious tried to compel the peaceful settlement of feuds and to keep apart kinsmen who wou ...

state of that church and the stabilitasof its lords [seniorum]’, and for the bishop’s (? spiritual) profit.^130 Expressions of t ...

lands had been allotted to him) granted immunities to be possessed quieto ordineand in return for prayers for the safety of his ...

kings. In July 917, Charles III renewed the privileges, twice destroyed with the monastery itself, of the church founded by his ...

for the administration of justice and the preservation of peace within their territory. At any rate Hincmar used a language of ‘ ...

chapter three The Courts of Lords and Townsmen In theirlegal procedures, the Carolingians bequeathed a model of an ordered statu ...

take from the whole Christian people pledges of faith in himself as God’s agent on earth.^4 Ambitious kings would always seek li ...

In the course of the tenth century, the Danes in England are described as ‘bowing down’ to the king of Wessex and accepting him ...

Rouergue left in his will a castle which was held from him as a fief (a feo). In Catalonia a fevumor fevum comitaleor ‘public la ...

immunity from the attentions of duke, count, and judge, because of the perils from the northern barbarians and from internal str ...

Hungarians. Sometimes it was an old Frankish palace that was fortified. With the decay of Carolingian power in the West, these s ...

King Robert the Pious in the early eleventh century the Carolingian pagushad broken up, at least south of the Seine, into a coll ...

eleventh century the positive exercise of criminal justice emerged clearly amongst the consuetudines, the customary rights of lo ...