succession’; and that couples have joined in marriage without the
consent of kinsmen ‘irregularly, against law and justice’ (malo ordine
contra legem et iustitiam).^92 Quite often the verb which accompanies
malo ordineindicates an element of organized fraud or violence in
the disorderly proceedings: the defendant is said to have ‘entered’,
‘invaded’, ‘usurped’, or ‘ploughed’ the complainant’s land malo ordine,
carried off his goods, or even assaulted his person with a drawn sword
(malo ordine... evaginato gladio super eum venit).^93 But the basic sense
of malo ordineseems to be possession against right (drictum= Latin
directumand French droit), not justified by a deed, or without the judg-
ment of a court (vel sine judicio).^94 In order to describe violent occupa-
tion there may be added to the allegation of unjust possession the words
per forcia.^95 According to the Lex Ribuaria, a charge of invasion malo
ordinewas silenced by the presentation of a charter: Non malo ordine,
sed per testamentum hoc teneo.^96 ‘Right order’ meant ‘good title’ to
property, one which gave the holder (amongst other things) freedom to
order (ordinare) what should happen to it thereafter.^97
All the legitimate orders or paths by which landed power was
attained stood within the regali ordineof the king’s authority which
confirmed and protected it.^98 By the ninth century, the ordaining
activity of the king had settled into a ‘legal order’ which the trusted
bishops and counts who were his missiwere appointed to enforce
wherever they ‘found anything unjust’, in Francia, Burgundy, and Italy.^99
32 Frankish and Anglo-Saxon Justice
(^92) Formulae, 152. 5 , 154. 20.
(^93) Brunner, Deutsche Rechtsgeschichte, ii. 512; Formulae, 13. 20 , 21. 10 , 153. 10 , 154. 5 ,
- 10 ; Lex Ribuaria, ed. F. Beyerle and R. Buchner, MGH Legum Sectio 1. iii (ii) (Hanover,
1954), 108. 2 , 122. 1 , 125. 14 ; Leges Alamannorum, ed. J. Merkel, MGH Leges in Folio 3
(1883), 64–5(b), 156. 15 ; Julius Goebel, Felony and Misdemeanor, i (New York and London,
1937), 39–44, 156, has a valuable discussion of the meaning of malo ordine, but does not
connect it specifically with title to land.
(^94) Formulae, 174. 5 , 192. 1 , 259. 20 , 334. 5 ; the function of malo ordineis sometimes fulfilled
by a simple iniuste(e.g. in Diplomata... Merowingica, diplomas of the mayors of the palace,
no. 21: p. 106. 45 ); cf. the 12th-cent. English writ of novel disseisin which alleged that the
disseisin was iniuste et sine iudicio: examples in Royal Writs in England from the Conquest to
Glanvill, ed. R.C. Van Caenegem, Selden Soc. 77 (London, 1959), 453 (no. 80), 455 (no. 85).
(^95) For per forcia, sometimes accompanied by malo ordineand sometimes on its own, see
Diplomata... Merowingica, nos. 70 and 77 (pp. 62. 45 , 69. 1 ); cf. Formulae, 59.20, 60. 10 ,
- 5 , 194. 20 , 256.10.^96 Lex Ribuaria, 116.5.
(^97) Diplomata... Merowingica, no. 12 (p. 14. 35 and 45 ); Karoli III Diplomata, ed. P. Kehr,
MGH Diplomata regum Germaniae ex stirpe Karolinorum 2 (Berlin, 1936–7), 187. 30 (absque
alicuius inquietudine eas tenere et libere ordinare), 224.5(perpetuo ordinent atque integerrime
possideant); Arnolfi Diplomata, ed. P. Kehr, MGH Diplomata regum Germaniae ex stirpe
Karolinorum 3 (Berlin 1955), 186. 20 (conquisitionis titulum vel ordinem), and cf. p. 215.5
(ipso statu et ordine).
(^98) Recueil des Actes de Charles II le Chauve, 3 vols, ed. F. Lot and G. Tessier (Paris,
1944–55), i. 107. 12 (auctoritatem regali ordine more firmatam).
(^99) Karoli III Diplomata, 40. 1 (quicquid ibi iniuste invenissent, legali ordine ad finem
perducerent); I Placiti del ‘Regnum Italiae’, ed. C. Manaresi, 3 vols., Fonti per la Storia d’Italia
(Rome, 1955–60), i. 88. 1 (the hearing of cases per ordinem, in the palace of Spoleto).