whom he counselled, Matthew had told him ‘not to come back again, if
he loved him’. But others said that gifts the baillihad refused had
simply gone to his wife or his clerks, and that he had threatened to
throw one witness into ‘the thieves’ pit’ (fossa latronum) if he gave
evidence against him. The provost of Crépi-en-Valois described how he
was with the bailliof Vermandois and other baillisand knights in
the king’s garden at Paris, when Matthew saw that the rest had finer
drinking-cups than he, and sent the witness out to buy him one that
should be the most beautiful of all.^13
The commissioners seemed most concerned by the statement of the
provost of Senlis that, whereas the assizes had been accustomed to meet
every six weeks and the date of the next session would be announced at
the end of a meeting, Matthew of Beaune had let nine or even ten weeks
pass between sessions and notified the date for the assizes a mere eight
or ten days beforehand. Asked what inconvenience this caused, the
witness said that his bailiwick of Senlis was twenty leagues long and
seven wide and there was too little time to inform a mass of litigants
whose names and business he did not know, so that some lost their suits
by default and others could not get their evidence and counsel into
court. Asked how the bailliexpedited pleas at assizes, the provost said
that he sometimes held back the business of the poor and weak at the
instance of the noble and rich; and that he allowed counter-pleas and
the giving of pledges (for the later appearance of a defendant) in cases
such as novel disseisin, violent or forceful injury, and suits supported by
sealed deeds, in which they were not usually admitted, so that cases
were endlessly delayed. The provost of Senlis also cited an occasion on
which Matthew had failed to catch the people who were found to have
burnt the haystack of a monastery in the king’s custody and chased the
monks with cries of ad mortem, ad mortem! In this, and other cases
where he had left the injury (delictum) unpunished, the king had lost his
fines.^14
King Henry III visited Louis IX on his way home to England from his
Gascon lands and saw the sights of Paris in the same month of
December 1254 that the great ordinance was issued to reform ‘the state
of the kingdom’ of France.^15 But earlier in 1254 and without need of a
French example the English government had added to the questions
which the justices asked about the conduct of sheriffs and their officers
on their periodic eyres around the counties of England.^16 Even before
152 New High Courts and Reform of the Regime
(^13) ‘Preuves’, no. 152, parts 20, 23, 44, 59, 61, 72, 81, 134, 141, 198, 223–5.
(^14) Ibid. no. 152, parts 55, 87, 240.
(^15) Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, ed. H. R. Luard, 7 vols. (London: Rolls Series, 1872–
83), v. 477–83.
(^16) The articles of inquiry before the justices in eyre at Lichfield in 1254 are given in the
annals of the monastery of Burton: Annales Monastici, i, ed. H. R. Luard (London: Rolls