jurisdiction. The occupation of an estate was ‘in bad order’, ‘against
right’ and ‘unjust’ if it was unauthorized by a previous judgment.^120 The
continued making or confirming by kings of grants of property to be
held in ‘undisturbed’ or ‘quiet and secure’ order, quiete ab omni
seculari accione, the pleading of such grants in the courts,^121 and the
surrendering of property by parties to English land-transactions ‘quit’ of
any claim, all testified to the debt of European land law to the legal
procedures developed by the Franks. The declaration by justices in
medieval England that those found not guilty of injuries might go inde
quietishows that criminal law owed a similar debt.^122
Concepts of order widened from the sphere of land-tenure to the
regulation of a hierarchy of courts: the royal palace, hearings before
missi dominici, and the mallus presided over by the count, or his
missus, or a centenarius(cf. the English hundredman).^123 The courts of
churchmen were also enjoined by the king to work for the Christian
commonwealth as a whole. To conduct their courts and hold inquisi-
tions, ecclesiastical lords were to have lay ‘advocates’ who knew the law
and loved justice; and in the public courts bishops were ‘to stand with
counts and counts with bishops, so that each might better fulfill his
ministry’.^124 In the remedying of serious personal injuries the feud
remained dominant, but even the feud was circumscribed in its opera-
tion by Carolingian order. There were already Merovingian indicula
ordering compensation for assault and robbery, and procedures for
clearing oneself of a charge of homicide and the necessity of paying
Legal order 37(^120) For examples, see Formulae, p. 174. 5 ; I Placiti del ‘Regnum Italiae’, i. 150. 10 ; Pollock
and Maitland, History of English Law before the Time of Edward I, ii. 52 (for the equation
of the sine judicioof Henry II’s assize of novel disseisin with the canonists’ absque ordine
iudiciario), 91, 187.
(^121) Diplomata... Merowingica, 29. 14 (‘... ut absque ullius impugnatione forestariorum
vel cuiuslibet personae liceat ipsam familiam Dei quieto ordine residere’); Capitularia, i. 15. 31
(‘inconcusso iure’ = ‘ordine inconcusso’); Actes de Charles II Le Chauve, i. 6. 11 (‘... quiete
tenere ac defendere legaliter in omnibus mundanis actionibus ac querelis’); Recueil des Chartes
de L’Abbaye de Cluny, 6 vols. ed. A. Bruel, Collections des documents inédits sur l’histoire de
France (Paris, 1876–94), i. 56, 75, 80 (‘... quiete et securo ordine possidere valeat absque
ullius contradictione’), 128, 380, 382, 384; The Acts of Malcolm IV King of Scots 1153–1165,
ed. G. W. S. Barrow, Regesta Regum Scottorum 1 (Edinburgh UP, 1960), 207 (‘... quietas ab
omni seculari exactione’), 209 (‘... quiete ab omni seculari accione’); Recueil des Actes de
Charles III le Simple Roi de France (893–923), ed. F. Lot and P. Lauer, 2 vols., Chartes et
Diplomes relatifs a l’histoire de France (Paris, 1949), 28.9.
(^122) Niermeyer, lexicon minus, and Revised Medieval Latin Word-List, prepared by
R. E. Latham (British Academy: London, 1965), s.v. quietus.
(^123) Royal orders in the Formulae Imperialesare regularly addressed episcopis, abbatibus,
comitibus, gastaldiis, vicariis, centenariis, clusariis seu etiam missis nostris discurrentibus: e.g.
Formulae, 230. 14 , 302. 14 , 309. 2 , 232–3 etc.; Ganshof, The Carolingians and the Frankish
Monarchy, 91, 114, 147–8, 150, 151, 257.
(^124) Capitularia, i. 93 (13), 158.33; Arnolfi Diplomata, 115. 4 (‘... ut advocatus predicti
episcopi illos ad manum nostram inquireret’); Ganshof, The Carolingians and the Frankish
Monarchy, 64, 114; J. M. Wallace-Hadrill, The Frankish Church(Oxford UP, 1983), 261.