Royal approval of the efforts of communities to settle feuds was given
with caution, since the judicial rights of neighbouring lords were there-
by threatened. Yet to give the greater communes the same sort of
judicial responsibility as their feudal neighbours and make their leaders
jurati pacis—sworn to maintain the king’s peace rather than their own
independence—was an excellent way of bringing the turbulent com-
munes under control. Carolingian scabinisurvived in the older towns,
at Saint-Quentin still presided over by a vicomte, and could be used to
supervise the jurats or magistrates.^71 At Arras the twelve scabiniwho
enforced the sixty-shilling ban along with the king’s justice, and by a
complicated process elected their successors to serve for fourteen
months at a time, seem in fact to have been very much the commune’s
officials. And at Rouen and Falaise a hundred ‘peers’ chose twenty-four
jurats to serve for a year, half as échevins and half as councillors
(consultores): the mayor and échevins were to meet twice a week to deal
with the business of the city of Rouen, or of the castle of Falaise, asking
the advice of the councillors in matters of difficulty. In the pacis insti-
tutioand commune of Tournai, the scabinior échevins appear to have
been eclipsed by the thirty self-perpetuating jurati, two of whom were
the town’s provosts.^72
Some towns acquired a freedom to administer their own justice in the
matters of greatest importance to them to such an extent as to make
them another ‘estate’ of the realm along with the lay and ecclesiastical
lords. Over serfs, the mayor and jurats had the same 60s. jurisdiction as
the average landlord. Towards the end of the thirteenth century, parle-
ment(the new high court of the French king) would even hold that the
townsmen of Senlis had been entitled to try, condemn, and bury alive a
woman who had drugged people in order to steal from them.^73 Freemen
could be tried for crimes (including homicide which did not amount to
58 The Courts of Lords and Townsmen
houses by communes, see i. 269 (no. 224, c. 1), ii. 16 (no. 491, c. 13), 84 (no. 540, cc. 4, 9),
365 (no. 789, c. 11), iii. 22 (no. 977, c. 1), 205 (no.1117, c. 5); for trial by ordeal and
punishment of life or limb, see i. 270–1 (no. 224, cc. 1, 2, 14), 334 (no. 279, c. 13), 565 (no.
473, cc. 1–2).
(^71) Ibid. i. 15 (no. 10), iii. 537 (no. 1386); for the commune as ‘institution of peace’, see i.
269 (burgensibus nostris Tornacensibus pacis institucionem et communiam dedimus), 325
(pacem et communiam donamus burgensibus Sancti Richarii); for the scabiniin the towns, ii.
18 (no. 491, c. 27); Beaumanoir, Coutumes de Beauvaisis, ii. 266 (para. 1517); Niermeyer,
lexicon minus, s.v. juratus.
(^72) Les Olim, i. 537–8 (iii), 541–2 (xv), ii. 78–9 (ii); Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste,
i. 272–3 (no. 224, cc. 27, 29), 490 (no. 408), 565–9 (no. 473, cc. 1, 2, 8, 9, 20, 45), ii. 15 (no.
491, c. 1), 18 (no. 491, cc. 4, 27), 195 (no. 642, c. 2), 258 (no. 694: but ordinary homicide is
tried by the mayor and commune), 275 (no. 706, c. 18), 363 (no. 789, c. 3), 365 (no. 789, c.
14), 444 (no. 858, c. 31), iii. 24–6 (no. 977, cc. 9, 11, 12, 20, but see p. 206, no. 1117, c. 10,
where it is the king’s justice who puts the thief in the pillory), 205 (no. 1117, c. 10), 324 (no.
1112), 343 (no. 1229).
(^73) Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, i. 271 (no. 224, c. 14), 567 (no. 473, c. 23); Les
Olim, i. 537–8 (iii), ii. 78–9 (ii).