father, King Philip, by the common assent and will of the barons of
France.^72
When the status of a group of persons has to be settled, the language
of the statute seems to gain in royal letters at the expense of the
language of the grant. At Pont-de-l’Arche in 1219 Philip declared con-
cerning married persons (statuit de viro et muliere matrimonio con-
junctis) that the relatives of a wife who died childless before her
husband should have no right to the property he had acquired.^73 The
notification of procedures for controlling the Jews’ money-lending
activities which Philip sent out in 1206 was called a stabilimentum, and
it was renewed with the assent of leading barons in 1219 and again by
Louis VIII.^74
Legal order was established most obviously by inquests and judg-
ments which demarcated between king, clergy, lay barons, and com-
munes the rights to exercise justice in specific localities. The king’s right
to punish offences in the forests was determined ‘by lawful inquest’.^75
The rights of voirieof Simon de Valcontart were decided by a ‘jury’ of
fifteen milites(actually including a presbiter), and found to be limited to
the receipt of a third of the fines from justice exercised by the king or
his bailli.^76 Thirteen ‘knights’ (one an abbot, another a draper) allotted
rights between the lords of the castles of Évreux and Gaillon; concern-
ing justice they decided that all cases leading to trial by battle or penal-
ties of life or limb belonged to Évreux.^77 Rights of justice at the castle of
Vernon were determined by a jury of nine knights, four priests, and
twenty-four burgesses, who said that the lord of Vernon was accus-
tomed to hold judicial duels and trials of ‘resident’ thieves—to hear all
pleas, indeed, except pleas of the sword and recognitions [by jury],
which were the duke of Normandy’s prerogative; free tenants of the
lord of Vernon were likewise entitled to hear the pleas of their men, but
excluding the cases settled by duel, from which they kept only the fines
that were imposed.^78 Granting a commune to Roye in 1196, Philip set
down when ‘our justice’ should be exercised by mayor and scabiniand
when by royal judges, but inquests were necessary years later to confirm
that the king had exercised judicial rights there on specific occasions.^79
124 Judicial Systems of France and England
(^72) F. Gasparri, ‘Trois actes royaux originaux des xiieet xiiiesiècles’, Bibliothèque de l’École
des Chartes, 138 (1980), 90–3.
(^73) Ordonnances des Roys de France de la Troisième Race, i. 38.
(^74) Ibid.i. 44; Baldwin, Government of Philip Augustus, 231.
(^75) Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, ii, no. 540, iii. 1261, 1628; Les Registres de
Philippe Auguste, 78–80, 95–8, 105–9, 119–22, 133–4, 138–40, 147–51, 165 etc.
(^76) Les Registres de Philippe Auguste, 139–40 (no. 84).
(^77) Ibid.95–6 (no. 47).
(^78) Ibid.133–4 (no. 81).
(^79) Recueil des Actes de Philippe Auguste, ii, no. 540; Les Registres de Philippe Auguste,
147–9 (nos. 89–90).