72 Assizes of Jerusalem
many remedies in royal courts for legal complaints
that formerly had been handled in private or feudal
courts. Henry permitted plaintiffs to purchase and use
these remedies or provisions in his own royal court. In
France assizes were local courts of a royal judge
but never became the chief local civil and criminal
courts as they did in England. They died out com-
pletely after 1500.
The English assizes formed the early foundations of
the common law, and especially of land law, the most
important part of common law. The assizes made avail-
able to the entire population of freemen common legal
remedies from a common legal source, the Crown. The
assizes led to the establishment of the due process of
law and the role of the jury in civil actions, since no
freeman could be deprived of land without judgment of
his peers.
In creating assizes to restore stability in his new
kingdom, Henry II invaded the jurisdiction of baronial
courts and sharply defined the jurisdiction of church
courts. He greatly increased the sphere of action for royal
courts and expanded his authority. The assizes played a
crucial role in the appearance and growth of the English
royal court system. The feudal and freeholder classes,
including barons, accepted his innovations because these
measures made justice more certain and objective.
See alsoCLARENDON, CONSTITUTION OF.
Further reading:Alan Harding, The Law Courts of
Medieval England(London: Allen & Unwin, 1973); Don-
ald W. Sutherland, The Assize of Novel Disseisin(Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1973).
Assizes of Jerusalem They were a series of law
books written in French that state the feudal and
customary law of the LATIN kingdom of JERUSALEM.
They were compiled by various authorities at various
dates from 1197 onward. Their ultimate source were the
feudal customs of Western Europe at the time of the
First CRUSADE.
The treatises fall into two groups: those describing
the practices employed by the feudal high court and
those describing the practices employed in the burgess
or lower courts for those not noble. All were unofficial,
private compilations. It is clear that the authors of these
works were all skilled participants in the courts. Sub-
tleties of making a case were as important as knowledge
of jurisprudence, laws, and customs. After the fall of the
Christian possessions at the end of the 13th century,
these treatises continued to be consulted and applied in
CYPRUS.
Further reading:Joshua Prawer, The Latin Kingdom
of Jerusalem: European Colonialism in the Middle Ages
(London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972); Jonathan
Riley-Smith, The Feudal Nobility and the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, 1174–1277(London: Macmillan, 1973).
Assumption of the Virgin Mary This refers to the
taking or ascent of the Blessed VIRGINMARYinto heaven.
By the end of the 13th century, the legend of the resurrec-
tion of Mary from her apocryphal lives gave way in
iconography to an Assumption. But there was no
Assumption in the BIBLE. The legend was modeled in the
sixth century on the rapture of the prophet Elijah and
the Ascension of Christ, but Mary died before being
transfigured in glory.
Mary’s Assumption was conceived in the West in the
form of bodily resurrection. Representations of Mary’s
death foreshadow what will happen at the end of time to
all the elect. Unlike Christ’s Ascension, Mary’s Assump-
tion was passive, with ANGELScarrying her to the king-
dom of heaven. The Assumption was distinguished from
the Immaculate Conception, which was the doctrine of
her conception without the stain of original sin. In the
later Middle Ages, the Assumption became a popular sub-
ject in painting, especially in Italy, often bracketed
between her death and crowning in heaven.
Further reading:J. K. Elliot, ed., The Apocryphal New
Testament: A Collection of Apocryphal Christian Literature
in an English Translation (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1993); Raymond Winch and Victor Bennett, The Assump-
tion of Our Lady and Catholic Theology(London: S.P.C.K.,
1950).astrolabe The planispheric astrolabe is an astronomi-
cal and astrological instrument, in the form of a flat, eas-
ily transportable disk, to measure and observe the daily
movement of stars. Known in Christian Europe, through
the ARABS, from the 10th century, it was in common use
and enjoyed a great vogue by the 12th. Perfectly justified
by its real pedagogical qualities as it permitted calcula-
tions of the movements of the Sun and the stars, the
astrolabe as a teaching tool experienced a lasting success
until the 17th century. The later marine astrolabe was
used for measuring distances and heights and telling time
from the 13th century. The two instruments are different.
A respectable number of planispheric astrolabes still
exist, among which are Arabic, Persian, Indian, and
Western astrolabes. More than 100 date from the Middle
Ages, most from the 14th or 15th century.
See alsoAL-BIRUNI,ABURAYHANMUHAMMAD; NAVIGA-
TION.
Further reading:Geoffrey Chaucer, A Treatise on the
Astrolabe,ed. Sigmund Eisner (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2002); Nemorarius Jordanus, Jordanus
de Nemore and the Mathematics of Astrolabes: De plana
spera,ed. and trans. Ron B. Thomson (Toronto: Pontifi-
cial Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1978); L. A. Mayer,
Islamic Astrolabists and Their Works(Geneva: A. Kundig,
1956); Roderick Webster and Marjorie Webster, Western
Astrolabes (Chicago: Alder Planetarium & Astronomy
Museum, 1998).