Medieval Law and the Foundations of the State

mean just groupings of villages which were the subjects of land-grants or paid customary dues to landlords.^37 The charters of e ...

potestas.^43 As a seignorial official, he survived to later centuries as the ‘voyer’, associated by a false etymology with the p ...

bassa).^47 An interpolation in a royal charter of 1177 x 1182 has the King of England likewise granting land to the monastery of ...

thieving. The gallows rather than the court were thus the symbol of the ordinary landlord’s justice.^51 Seignorial justice stemm ...

Justice in the towns A treaty in 1190 between Richard I, king of England and count of Anjou, and Philip Augustus, king of France ...

Borough enfranchisement was spurred on by the formation of sworn communes of townsmen, like that at Laon suppressed by King Loui ...

swearing of an oath of solidarity by the townsmen as a whole, to the receipt of a royal charter which gave the magistrates the s ...

Royal approval of the efforts of communities to settle feuds was given with caution, since the judicial rights of neighbouring l ...

premeditated murder), using compurgation or other forms of the ordeal than the duel (though these did require the assistance of ...

In civil disputes—though the separation of ‘civil’ from ‘criminal’ meant little when the main object was always to preserve the ...

Competitors for jurisdiction and power It is from France, at any rate, that we have the best evidence for the transformation of ...

his hands until there had been an inquiry as to the jurisdiction and the injuries, and that it be kept decent for the enjoyment ...

trying to appropriate the lands of the abbey of Saint-Médard at Soissons, claiming to be entertained anywhere within them, to co ...

distraint for a debt to himself, and fraudulently as well as forcibly prevent the castellan’s servant from exercising the office ...

tenants-in-chief of the Crown, which was no more than the tenants-in- chief themselves did for their tenants in their ‘honour-co ...

Huntingdonshire to Ramsey Abbey ‘for the soul of King Henry and for the salvation of myself and my wife and my children and for ...

century drew to a close left conditions which the annointed kings of France and England could exploit for the rebuilding of thei ...

that it could be approved by ‘the most pious and glorious King Henry’ and witnessed by the archbishop of Rouen, the bishops of L ...

chapter four The Spread of the Organized Peace The peace of God Ensuring the peaceful state of the church and realm was an ancie ...

The traditional role of the bishops as protectors of the poor and weak required courage and political skill in a world where the ...