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Title: Our Legal Heritage
King AEthelbert - King George III, 1776, 600 A.D. - 1776
Author: S. A. Reilly
Release Date: September 16, 2012 [eBook #40780]
[Note: Earlier editions are available in #36299, 13376, 6603 and 1694]
Language: English
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***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK OUR LEGAL HERITAGE***
Copyright (C) 2004, 2012 by S. A. Reilly
OUR LEGAL HERITAGE
King AEthelbert - King George III, 1776, 600 A.D. - 1776
By
S. A. Reilly, Attorney
175 E. Delaware Place
Chicago, Illinois 60611-7715
[email protected]
Copyright (C) 2004, 2012
Preface
This book was written for people with an interest in English
legal history who don't know where to start reading, as I didn't. Its
purpose is also to look at history through its laws, which do not lend
themselves to interpretation, and thus points of view, as does
conventional history; one cannot argue with the black letter of the
law. Attorneys will be interested in reading about the historical
context in which the legal doctrines they learned in law school
developed. This book includes the complete law codes of King Alfred and
of King Aethelbert, the law code of King Canute, paraphrased, excerpts
from the law code of Henry I, the entire Magna Carta, and the statutes
of England relevant to English life, but excluding such topics as
Scottish affairs and wars with Ireland. It also includes the inception
of the common law system, which was praised because it made law which
was not handed down by an absolutist king; the origin of the jury
system; the meaning of the Magna Carta provisions in their historical
context; and the emergence of attorneys.
This book is a primer. One may read it without prior knowledge
of history or law, although it will be more meaningful to attorneys
than to others. It can serve as an introduction on which to base
further reading in English legal history. It defines terms unique to
English legal history. However, the meaning of some terms in King
Aethelbert's code in Chapter 1 are unknown or inexact.
In the Table of Contents, the title of each chapter denotes an
important legal development in the given time period for that chapter.
Each chapter is divided into three sections: The Times, The Law, and
Judicial Procedure.
The Times section sets a background and context in which to
better understand the law of that period. The usual subject matter of
history such as battles, wars, royal intrigues, periods of corruption,
and international relations are omitted as not helping to understand
the process of civilization and development of the law. Standard
practices are described, but there are often variations with locality.
Also, change did not come abruptly, but with vacillations, e.g. the
change from pagan to Christian belief and the change to allowance of
loans for interest. The scientific revolution was accepted only slowly.
There were often many attempts made for change before it actually
occurred, e.g. gaining Parliamentary power over the king's privileges,
such as taxation.
The Law section describes the law governing the behavior and
conduct of the populace. It includes law of that time which is the
same, similar, or a building block to the law of today. In earlier
times this is both statutory law and the common law of the courts. The
Magna Carta, which is quoted in Chapter 7, is the first statute of
England and is listed first in the "Statutes of the Realm" and the
"Statutes at Large". The law sections of Chapters 7 - 18 mainly quote
or paraphrase almost all of these statutes. Excluded are statutes which
do not help us understand the development of our law, such as statutes
governing Wales after its conquest and statutes on succession rights to
the throne.
The Judicial Procedure section describes the process of
applying the law and trying cases, and jurisdictions. It also contains
some examples of cases.
Money is expressed in pounds, shillings, pence, scaetts, or
marks, which is a Danish denomination. There are twenty shillings in a
pound. A mark in silver is two-thirds of a pound. Shillings are
abbreviated: "s." The pre-Norman English shilling was divided into 4
pence or pennies. In Henry I's time, the shilling was divided into 5
pence. The Norman shilling was introduced by Henry II and was divided
into 12 pennies. This penny was literally one pennyweight of silver, so
a pound sterling thus weighed 240 pennyweights. Pence are abbreviated
"d.", for the Roman denarius. For example, six shillings and two pence
is denoted 6s.2d. A scaett was a coin of silver and copper of lesser
denomination; there were 20 scaetts to one shilling. There were no
coins of the denomination of shilling during pre-Norman times.
Dedication and Acknowledgements
A Vassar College faculty member once dedicated her book to her
students, but for whom it would have been written much earlier. This
book "Our Legal Heritage" is dedicated to the faculty of Vassar
College, without whom it would never have been written. Much
appreciation goes to Professor James Curtin of Loyola Law School for
his review and comments on this book's medieval period: Chapters 4-10,
and especially his comment that "I learned quite a bit about life in
those days from your work." Thanks go to Loyola University Law School
Professor George Anastaplo for introducing me to Professor Curtin. Much
appreciation goes to Professor Lacey Baldwin Smith of Northwestern
University's History Department for his review and comments on this
book's Tudor and Stuart periods: Chapters 11-17, especially his comment
that he learned a lot. Thanks go to Northwestern University Law School
Professor Steven Presser for introducing me to Professor Smith.
Finally, many thanks go to fellow Mensan William Wedgeworth for
proof-reading the entire book.
Table of Contents
Chapters:
1. Tort law as the first written law: to 600
2. Oaths and perjury: 600-900
3. Marriage law: 900-1066
4. Martial "law": 1066-1100
5. Criminal law and prosecution: 1100-1154
6. Common Law for all freemen: 1154-1215
7. Magna Carta: the first statute: 1215-1272
8. Land law: 1272-1348
9. Legislating the economy: 1348-1399
10. Equity from Chancery Court: 1399-1485
11. Use-trust of land: 1485-1509
12. Wills and testaments of lands and goods: 1509-1558
13. Consideration and contract Law: 1558-1601
14. Welfare for the poor: 1601-1625
15. Independence of the courts: 1625-1642
16. Freedom of religion: 1642-1660
17. Habeas Corpus: 1660-1702
18. Service of Process instead of arrest: 1702-1776
Appendix: Sovereigns of England
Bibliography
Chapter 1
The Times: before 600 A.D.
The settlement of England goes back thousands of years. At
first, people hunted and gathered their food. They wore animal skins
over their bodies for warmth and around their feet for protection when
walking. These skins were sewn together with bone needles and threads
made from animal sinews. They carried small items by hooking them onto
their belts. They used bone and stone tools, e.g. for preparing skins.
Their uncombed hair was held by thistlethorns, animal spines, or
straight bone hair pins. They wore conical hats of bound rush and lived
in rush shelters.
Early clans, headed by kings, lived in huts on top of hills or
other high places and fortified by circular or contour earth ditches
and banks behind which they could gather for protection. They were
probably dug with antler picks and wood spades. The people lived in
rectangular huts with four wood posts supporting a roof. The walls were
made of saplings, and a mixture of mud and straw. Cooking was in a clay
oven inside or over an open fire on the outside. Water was carried in
animal skins or leather pouches from springs lower on the hill up to
the settlement. Forests abounded with wolves, bears, deer, wild boars,
and wild cattle. They could more easily be seen from the hill tops.
Pathways extended through this camp of huts and for many miles beyond.
For wives, men married women of their clan or bought or
captured other women, perhaps with the help of a best man. They carried
their unwilling wives over the thresholds of their huts, which were
sometimes in places kept secret from her family. The first month of
marriage was called the honeymoon because the couple was given mead, a
drink with fermented honey and herbs, for the first month of their
marriage. A wife wore a gold wedding band on the ring finger of her
left hand to show that she was married.
Women usually stayed at home caring for children, preparing
meals, and making baskets. They also made wool felt and spun and wove
wool into a coarse cloth. Flax was grown and woven into a coarse linen
cloth. Spinning the strands into one continuous thread was done on a
stick, which the woman could carry about and spin at anytime when her
hands were free. The weaving was done on an upright or warp-weighted
loom. People of means draped the cloth around their bodies and fastened
it with a metal brooch inlayed with gold, gems, and shell, which were
glued on with glue that was obtained from melting animal hooves. People
drank from hollowed- out animal horns, which they could carry from
belts. They could tie things with rawhide strips or rope braids they
made. Kings drank from animal horns decorated with gold or from cups of
amber, shale, or pure gold. Men and women wore pendants and necklaces
of colorful stones, shells, amber beads, bones, and deer teeth. They
skinned and cut animals with hand-axes and knives made of flint dug up
from pits and formed by hitting flakes off. The speared fish with
barbed bone prongs or wrapped bait around a flint, bone, or shell fish
hook. On the coast, they made bone harpoons for deep-sea fish. The
flint ax was used to shape wood and bone and was just strong enough to
fell a tree, although the process was very slow.
The king, who was tall and strong, led his men in hunting
groups to kill deer and other wild animals in the forests and to fish
in the streams. Some men brought their hunting dogs on leashes to
follow scent trails to the animal. The men threw stones and spears with
flint points at the animals. They used wood clubs to beat them, at the
same time using wood shields to protect their bodies. They watched the
phases of the moon and learned to predict when it would be full and
give the most light for night hunting. This began the concept of a
month. Circles of stone like Stonehenge were built with alignments to
paths of the moon.
If hunting groups from two clans tried to follow the same deer,
there might be a fight between the clans or a blood feud. After the
battle, the clan would bring back its dead and wounded. A priest
officiated over a funeral for a dead man. His wife would often also go
on the funeral pyre with him.
The priest also officiated over sacrifices of humans, who were
usually offenders found guilty of transgressions. Sacrifices were
usually made in time of war or pestilence, and usually before the
winter made food scarce.
The clan ate deer that had been cooked on a spit over a fire,
and fruits and vegetables which had been gathered by the women. They
drank water from springs. In the spring, food was plentiful. There were
eggs of different colors in nests and many hare to eat. The goddess
Easter was celebrated at this time.
Later, there was farming and domestication of animals such as
horses, pigs, sheep, goats, chicken, and cattle. Of these, the pig was
the most important meat supply, being killed and salted for winter use.
Next in importance were the cattle. Sheep were kept primarily for their
wool. Flocks and herds were taken to pastures. The male cattle, with
wood yokes, pulled ploughs in the fields of barley and wheat. The
female goat and cow provided milk, butter, and cheese. The chickens
provided eggs. The hoe, spade, and grinding stone were used. Thread was
spun with a hand-held spindle which one hand held while the other hand
alternately formed the thread from a mass and then wound it around the
spindle. A coarse cloth was woven and worn as a tunic which had been
cut from the cloth. Kings wore tunics decorated with sheet gold.
Decorated pottery was made from clay and used to hold liquids and for
food preparation and consumption. During the period of "lent" [from the
word "lencten", which means spring], it was forbidden to eat any meat
or fish. This was the season in which many animals were born and grew
to maturity. Wood carts with four wheels were used to transport produce
and manure. Horses were used for transportation of people or goods.
Wood dug-out boats and paddles were used to fish on rivers or on the
seacoast.
Clans had settlements near rivers. Each settlement had a
meadow, for the mowing of hay, and a simple mill, with round timber
huts, covered with branches or thatch or turf supported by a ring of
posts. Inside was a hearth with smoke going up through a hole in the
roof, and a cauldron for cooking food. There was an upright loom in the
darkness. The floor was swept clean. At the door were spears or bags of
slingstones ready for immediate use. The King lived in the largest hut.
Gullies outside carried off excess water. Each hut had a garden for
fruit and vegetables. A goat or cow might be tied out of reach of the
garden. There was a fence or hedge surrounding and protecting the
garden area and dwelling. Buckets and cauldrons which had originated
from the Mediterranean were used. Querns with the top circular stone
turned by hand over the bottom stone were used for grinding grain.
There were ovens to dry and roast grain. Grain was first eaten as a
porridge or cereal. There were square wood granaries on stilts and wood
racks on which to dry hay. Grain was stored in concealed pits in the
earth which were lined with drystone or basket work or clay and made
airtight by sealing with clay or dung. Old pits were converted into
waste dumps, burials, or latrines. Outside the fence were an acre or
two of fields of wheat and barley, and sometimes oats and rye. Wheat
and rye were sown in the fall, and oats and barley in the spring.
Sowing was by men or two oxen drawing a simple scratch plough. The
crops were all harvested in the summer. In this two-field system, land
was held by peasants in units designed to support a single extended
family. These fields were usually enclosed with a hedge to keep animals
from eating the crop and to define the territory of the settlement from
that of its neighbors. Flax was grown and made into linen cloth. Beyond
the fields were pastures for cattle and sheep grazing. There was often
an area for beehives. This was subsistence level farming.
Pottery was given symmetry when formed with use of a wheel and
heated in increasingly hot kilns. From kilns used for pottery, it was
noticed that lumps of gold or copper ore within would melt and assume
the shape of what they had been resting on. These were the first
metals, and could be beaten into various shapes, such as ornaments.
Then the liquid ore was poured into moulds carved out of stones to make
axes [small pointed tool for piercing holes in leather, wood, or other
soft materials] and daggers, which were reheated and hammered to become
strong. Copper-tipped drills, chisels, punches and awls were also made.
The bodies of deceased were buried far away from any village in
wood coffins, except for kings, who were placed in large stone coffins
after being wrapped in linen. Buried with them were a few personal
items, such as copper daggers, flat copper axes, and awls. The deceased
was buried in a coffin with a stone on top deep in the earth to keep
the spirit of the dead from coming out to haunt the living.
It was learned that tin added to the copper made a stronger
metal: bronze. Stone hammers, and bronze and iron tools, were used to
make cooking pots, weapons, breast plates, and horse bits, which were
formed from moulds and/or forged by bronze smiths and blacksmiths from
iron extracted from iron ore heated in bowl- shaped hearths. Typically
one man operated the bellows to keep the fire hot while another did the
hammering. Bronze was made into sickles for harvesting, razors for
shaving, tweezers, straight hair pins, safety pins for clothes,
armlets, neck-rings, and mirrors. Weapons included bows and arrows,
flint and copper daggers, bronze swords and spears, stone axes, and
shields of wood with bronze mountings. The bows and arrows probably
evolved from spear throwing rods. Kings in body armor fought with
chariots drawn by two horses. The horse harnesses had bronze fittings.
The chariots had wood wheels, later with iron rims. When bronze came
into use, there was a demand for its constituent parts: copper and tin,
which were traded by rafts on waterways and the sea. When iron came
into use, there were wrought iron axes, saws, adzes [ax with curved
blade used to dress wood], files, ploughshares, harrows [set of spikes
to break clods of earth on ploughed land and also to cover seed when
sewn], scythes, billhooks [thick knife with hooked point used to prune
shrubs], and spits for hearths. Lead was mined. There was some
glassmaking of beads. Wrought iron bars were used as currency.
Hillforts now had wooden palisades on top of their banks to
protect the enclosed farmsteads and villages from stock wandering off
or being taken by rustlers, and from attacks by wild animals or other
people. Later a rampart was added from which sentries could patrol.
These were supported by timber and/or stone structures. Timbers were
probably transported by carts or dragged by oxen. At the entrances were
several openings only one of which really allowed entry. The others
went between banks into dead ends and served as traps in which to kill
the enemy from above. Gates were of wood, some hung from hinges on
posts which could be locked. Later guard chambers were added, some with
space for hearths and beds. Sometimes further concentric circles of
banks and ditches, and perhaps a second rampart, were added around
these forts. They could reach to 14 acres. The ramparts are
sufficiently widely spaced to make sling-shotting out from them highly
effective, but to minimize the dangers from sling-shotting from
without. The additional banks and ditches could be used to create
cattle corridors or to protect against spear-thrown firebrands.
However, few forts had springs of water within them, indicating that
attacks on them were probably expected to be short. Attacks usually
began with warriors bristling with weapons and blowing war trumpets
shouting insults to the foe, while their kings dashed about in
chariots. Sometimes champions from each side fought in single combat.
They took the heads of those they killed to hang from their belts or
place on wood spikes at the gates. Prisoners, including women and
children, might become slaves. Kings sometimes lived in separate
palisades where they kept their horses and chariots.
Circles of big stones like Stonehenge were rebuilt so that the
sun's position with respect to the stones would indicate the day of
longest sunlight and the day of shortest sunlight. Between these days
there was an optimum time to harvest the crops before fall, when plants
dried up and leaves fell from the trees. The winter solstice, when the
days began to get longer was cause for celebration. In the next season,
there was an optimum time to plant seeds so they could spring up from
the ground as new growth. So farming gave rise to the concept of a
year. Certain changes of the year were celebrated, such as Easter,
named for the Goddess of the Dawn, which occurred in the east (after
lent); May Day celebrating the revival of life; Lammas around July,
when the wheat crop was ready for harvesting; and on October 31 the
Celtic eve of Samhain, when the spirits of the dead came back to visit
homes and demand food or else cast an evil spell on the refusing homes;
and at which masked and costumed inhabitants representing the souls of
the dead paraded to the outskirts of the settlements to lead the ghosts
away from their homes; and at which animals and humans, who might be
deemed to be possessed by spirits, were sacrificed or killed perhaps as
examples, in huge bonfires [bonefires] as those assembled looked out
for spirits and evil beings.
There was an agricultural revolution from the two-field system
in which one field was fallow to the three-field system, in which there
were three large fields for the heavy and fertile land. Each field was
divided into long and narrow strips. Each strip represented a day's
work with the plough. One field had wheat, or perhaps rye, another had
barley, oats, beans, or peas, and the third was fallow. It had been
observed that legumes such as peas and beans restored the soil. These
were rotated yearly. There was a newly invented plough that was heavy
and made of wood and later had an attached iron blade. The plough had a
mould-board which caught the soil stirred by the plough blade and threw
it into a ridge alongside the furrow dug by the plough blade. This
plough was too heavy for two oxen and was pulled by a team of about
eight to ten oxen. Each ox was owned by a different man as was the
plough, because no one peasant could afford the complete set. Each
freeman was allotted certain strips in each field to bear crops. His
strips were far from each other, which insured some very fertile and
some only fair soil, and some land near his village dwelling and some
far away. These strips he cultivated, sowed with seed, and harvested
for himself and his family. After the harvest, they reverted to common
ownership for grazing by pigs, sheep, and geese. As soon as haymaking
was over, the meadows became common grazing land for horses, cows, and
oxen. Not just any inhabitant, but usually only those who owned a piece
of land in the parish were entitled to graze their animals on the
common land, and each owner had this right of pasture for a definite
number of animals. The faster horse replaced the ox as the primary work
animal. Other farm implements were: coulters, which gave free passage
to the plough by cutting weeds and turf, picks, spades and shovels,
reaping hooks and scythes, and sledge hammers and anvils. Strips of
land for agriculture were added from waste land as the community grew.
Waste lands were moors bristling with brushwood, or gorse, heather and
wanton weeds, reed-coated marshes, quaking peat-bogs, or woods grown
haphazard on sand or rock. With iron axes, forests could be cleared to
provide more arable land.
Some villages had a smith, a wheelwright, and a cooper. There
were villages which had one or two market days in each week. Cattle,
sheep, pigs, poultry, calves, and hare were sold there. London was a
town on the Thames River under the protection of the Celtic river god
Lud: Lud's town. It's huts were probably built over the water, as was
Celtic custom. It was a port for foreign trade. Near the town was
Ludhill. Each Celtic tribe in England made its own coinage. Silver and
bronze were first used, and then gold. The metal was put into a round
form and then placed between two engraved dies, which were hit.
Flint workers mined with deer antler picks and ox shoulder
blade shovels for flint to grind into axes, spearheads, and arrowheads.
Mine shafts were up to thirty feet deep and necessitated the use of
chalk lamps fueled by animal fat with wicks of moss. The flint was
hauled up in baskets.
Common men and women were now buried in tombs within memorial
burial mounds of earth with stone entrances and interior chambers. A
man's weapons and shield were buried with him and a woman's spindle and
weaving baton, and perhaps beads or pottery with her. At times, mounds
of earth would simply be covered over piles of corpses and ashes in
urns. In these mass graves, some corpses had spear holes or sword cuts,
indicating death by violence. The Druid priests, the learned class of
the Celts, taught the Celts to believe in reincarnation of the soul
after death of one body into another body. They also threw prized
possessions into lakes and rivers as sacrifices to water gods. They
placed images of gods and goddesses in shrines, which were sometimes
large enough to be temples. They thought of their gods as supernatural
magicians.
With the ability to grow food and the acquisition of land by
conquest by invading groups, the population grew. There were different
classes of men. The freemen were eorls [noble freemen] or ceorls
[ordinary free farmers]. Slaves were not free. Freemen had long hair
and beards. Slaves' hair was shorn from their heads so that they were
bald. Slaves were chained and often traded. Prisoners taken in battle,
especially native Britons taken by invading groups, became slaves. A
slave who was captured or purchased was a "theow". An "esne" was a
slave who worked for hire. A "weallas" was a Welsh slave. Criminals
became slaves of the person wronged or of the king. Sometimes a father
pressed by need sold his children or his wife into bondage. Debtors,
who increased in number during famine, which occurred regularly, became
slaves by giving up the freeman's sword and spear, picking up a slave's
mattock [pick ax for the soils], and placing their head within a lord's
or lady's hands. They were called wite- theows. The original meaning of
the word lord was "loaf-giver". Children with a slave parent were
slaves. The slaves lived in huts around the homes of big landholders,
which were made of logs and consisted on one large room or hall. An
open hearth was in the middle of the earthen floor of the hall, which
was strewn with rushes. There was a hole in the roof to let out the
smoke. Here the landholder and his men would eat meat, bread, salt, hot
spiced ale, and mead while listening to minstrels sing about the heroic
deeds of their ancestors. Richer men drank wine. There were festivals
which lasted several days, in which warriors feasted, drank, gambled,
boasted, and slept where they fell. Physical strength and endurance in
adversity were admired traits.
Slaves often were used as grain grinders, ploughmen, sowers,
haywards, woodwards, shepherds, goatherds, swineherds, oxherds,
cowherds, dairymaids, and barnmen. Slaves had no legal rights. A lord
could kill his slave at will. A wrong done to a slave was regarded as
done to his owner. If a person killed another man's slave, he had to
compensate him with the slave's purchase price. The slave owner had to
answer for the offenses of his slaves against others, as for the
mischief done by his cattle. Since a slave had no property, he could
not be fined for crimes, but was whipped, mutilated, or killed.
During famine, acorns, beans, peas, and even bark were ground
down to supplement flour when grain stocks grew low. People scoured the
hedgerows for herbs, roots, nettles, and wild grasses, which were
usually left for the pigs. Sometimes people were driven to infanticide
or group suicide by jumping together off a cliff or into the water.
Several large kingdoms came to replace the many small ones. The
people were worshipping pagan gods when St. Augustine came to England
in 596 A.D. to Christianize them. King AEthelbert of Kent and his wife,
who had been raised Christian on the continent, met him when he
arrived. The King gave him land where there were ruins of an old city.
Augustine used stones from the ruins to build a church which was later
called Canterbury. He also built the first St. Paul's church in London.
Aethelbert and his men who fought with him and ate and lived in his
household [gesiths] became Christian. A succession of princesses went
out from Kent to marry other Saxon kings and convert them to
Christianity.
Augustine knew how to write, but King AEthelbert did not. The
King announced his laws at meetings of his people and his eorls would
decide the punishments. There was a fine of 120s. for disregarding a
command of the King. He and Augustine decided to write down some of
these laws, which now included the King's new law concerning the church.
These laws concern personal injury, killing, theft, burglary,
marriage, adultery, and inheritance. The blood feud's private revenge
for killing had been replaced by payment of compensation to the dead
man's kindred. One, or one's blood kindred, paid a man's "wergeld"
[worth] to his blood kindred for causing his wrongful death. The
wergeld [wer] of a king was an unpayable amount of about 7000s., of an
aetheling [a king-worthy man of the extended royal family] was 1500s.,
of an eorl, 300s., of a ceorl, 100s., of a laet [agricultural worker in
Kent, which class was between free and slave], 40-80s., and of a slave
nothing. At this time a shilling could buy a cow in Kent or a sheep
elsewhere. If a ceorl killed an eorl, he paid three times as much as an
eorl would have paid as murderer. Personal injury was compensated by a
"bot". The penalty for slander was tearing out of the tongue. If an
aetheling was guilty of this offense, his tongue was worth five times
that of a coerl, so he had to pay proportionately more to ransom it.
The crimes of murder, treachery to one's own lord, arson [burning a
house], house breaking, and open theft, were punishable by death and
forfeiture of all property.
The Law
"THESE ARE THE DOOMS [DECREES] WHICH KING AETHELBERHT
ESTABLISHED IN THE DAYS OF AUGUSTINE
1. [Theft of] the property of God and of the church [shall be
compensated], twelve fold; a bishop's property, eleven fold; a priest's
property, nine fold; a deacon's property, six fold; a cleric's
property, three fold; church frith [breach of the peace of the church;
right of sanctuary and protection given to those within its precincts],
two fold [that of ordinary breach of the public peace]; maethl-frith
[breach of the peace of a meeting place], two fold.
2. If the King calls his leod [his people] to him, and any one there
do them evil, [let him compensate with] a twofold bot [damages for the
injury], and 50 shillings fine to the King.
3. If the King drink at any one's home, and any one there do any lyswe
[evil deed], let him make twofold bot.
4. If a freeman steal from the King, let him repay nine fold.
5. If a man slay another in the King's tun [enclosed dwelling
premises], let him make bot with 50 shillings.
6. If any one slay a freeman, 50 shillings to the King, as drihtin beah
[payment to a lord in compensation for killing his freeman].
7. If the King's ambiht-smith [smith or carpenter] or laad-rine [man
who walks before the King or guide or escort], slay a man, let him pay
a half wergeld.
8. [Offenses against anyone or any place under] the King's mund byrd
[protection or patronage], 50 shillings fine
9. If a freeman steal from a freeman, let him make threefold bot; and
let the King have the wite [fine] and all the chattels [necessary to
pay the fine]. (Chattels was a variant of "cattle" and was usually a
beast, though it could mean any personal property.)
10. If a man lie with the one of the King's female servants, let him
pay a bot of 50 shillings.
11. If she be a corn-grinding slave, let him pay a bot of 25 shillings.
The third [class of servant] 12 shillings.
12. Let the King's fedesl [tenant or boarder] be paid for with 20
shillings.
13. If a man slay another in an eorl's tun [premises], let [him] make
bot with 12 shillings.
14. If a man lie with an eorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make
bot with 20 shillings.
15. [Offenses against a person or place under] a ceorl's mund byrd
[protection], 6 shillings.
16. If a man lie with a ceorl's birele [female cupbearer], let him make
bot with 6 shillings; with a slave of the second [class], 50 scaetts;
with one of the third, 30 scaetts.
17. If any one be the first to invade a man's tun [premises], let him
make bot with 6 shillings; let him who follows, with 3 shillings;
after, each, a shilling.
18. If a man furnish weapons to another where there is a quarrel,
though no injury results, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
19. If a weg-reaf [highway robbery] be done [with weapons furnished by
another], let him [the man who provided the weapons] make bot with 6
shillings.
20. If the man be slain, let him [the man who provided the weapons]
make bot with 20 shillings.
21. If a [free] man slay another, let him make bot with a half wergeld
of 100 shillings.
22. If a man slay another, at the open grave let him pay 20 shillings,
and pay the whole wergeld within 40 days.
23. If the slayer departs from the land, let his kindred pay a half
leod.
24. If any one bind a freeman, let him make bot with 20 shillings.
25. If any one slay a ceorl's half-aeta [loaf or bread eater; domestic
or menial servant], let him make bot with 6 shillings.
26. If [anyone] slay a laet [semi-slave] of the highest class, let him
pay 80 shillings; of the second class, let him pay 60 shillings; of the
third class, let him pay 40 shillings.
27. If a freeman commit edor-breach [breaking through the fenced
enclosure and forcibly entering a ceorl's dwelling], let him make bot
with 6 shillings.
28. If any one take property from a dwelling, let him pay a three-fold
bot.
29. If a freeman goes with hostile intent through an edor [the fence
enclosing a dwelling], let him make bot with 4 shillings.
30. If [in so doing] a man slay another, let him pay with his own
money, and with any sound property whatever.
31. If a freeman lie with a freeman's wife, let him pay for it with his
wergeld, and obtain another wife with his own money, and bring her to
the other [man's dwelling].
32. If any one thrusts through the riht-ham-scyld [legal means of
protecting one's home; the perimeter of a homestead], let him
adequately compensate.
33. If there be feax-fang [seizing someone by the hair], let there be
50 sceatts for bot.
34. If there be an exposure of the bone, let bot be made with 3
shillings.
35. If there be a cutting of the bone, let bot be made with 4 shillings.
36. If the outer hion [outer membrane covering the brain] be broken,
let bot be made with 10 shillings.
37. If it be both [outer and inner membranes covering the brain], let
bot be made with 20 shillings.
38. If a shoulder be lamed, let bot be made with 30 shillings.
39. If an ear be struck off, let bot be made with 12 shillings.
40. If the other ear hear not, let bot be made with 25 shillings.
41. If an ear be pierced, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
42. If an ear be mutilated, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
43. If an eye be [struck] out, let bot be made with 50 shillings.
44. If the mouth or an eye be injured, let bot be made with 12
shillings.
45. If the nose be pierced, let bot be made with 9 shillings.
46. If it be one ala, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
47. If both be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
48. If the nose be otherwise mutilated, for each [cut, let] bot be made
with 6 shillings.
49. If it be pierced, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
50. Let him who breaks the jaw bone pay for it with 20 shillings.
51. For each of the four front teeth, 6 shillings; for the tooth which
stands next to them 4 shillings; for that which stands next to that, 3
shillings; and then afterwards, for each a shilling.
52. If the speech be injured, 12 shillings. If the collar bone be
broken, let bot be made with 6 shillings.
53. Let him who stabs [another] through an arm, make bot with 6
shillings. If an arm be broken, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
54. If a thumb be struck off, 20 shillings. If a thumb nail be off, let
bot be made with 3 shillings. If the shooting [fore] finger be struck
off, let bot be made with 8 shillings. If the middle finger be struck
off, let bot be made with 4 shillings. If the gold [ring] finger be
struck off, let bot be made with 6 shillings. If the little finger be
struck off, let bot be made with 11 shillings.
55. For every nail, a shilling.
56. For the smallest disfigurement of the face, 3 shillings; and for
the greater, 6 shillings.
57. If any one strike another with his fist on the nose, 3 shillings.
58. If there be a bruise [on the nose], a shilling; if he receive a
right hand bruise [from protecting his face with his arm], let him [the
striker] pay a shilling.
59. If the bruise [on the arm] be black in a part not covered by the
clothes, let bot be made with 30 scaetts.
60. If it be covered under the clothes, let bot for each be made with
20 scaetts.
61. If the belly be wounded, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if it
be pierced through, let bot be made with 20 shillings.
62. If any one needs medical attention, let bot be made with 30
shillings.
63. If any one be cearwund [badly wounded], let bot be made with 3
shillings.
64. If any one destroy [another's] organ of generation [penis], let him
pay him with 3 wergelds: if he pierce it through, let him make bot with
6 shillings; if it be pierced within, let him make bot with 6 shillings.
65. If a thigh be broken, let bot be made with 12 shillings; if the man
become halt [lame], then friends must arbitrate.
66. If a rib be broken, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
67. If [the skin of] a thigh be pierced through, for each stab 6
shillings; if [the wound be] above an inch [deep], a shilling; for two
inches, 2; above three, 3 shillings.
68. If a sinew be wounded, let bot be made with 3 shillings.
69. If a foot be cut off, let 50 shillings be paid.
70. If a great toe be cut off, let 10 shillings be paid.
71. For each of the other toes, let one half that for the corresponding
finger be paid.
72. If the nail of a great toe be cut off, 30 scaetts for bot; for each
of the others, make bot with 10 scaetts.
73. If a freewoman loc-bore [with long hair] commit any leswe [evil
deed], let her make a bot of 30 shillings.
74. Let maiden bot [compensation for injury to an unmarried woman] be
as that of a freeman.
75. For [breach of] the mund [protection] of a widow of the best class,
of an eorl's degree, let the bot be 50 shillings; of the second, 20
shillings; of the third, 12 shillings; of the fourth, 6 shillings.
76. If a man carry off a widow not under his own protection by right,
let the mund be twofold.
77. If a man buy a maiden as wife, let the bargain stand, if it be
without fraud; but if there be fraud, let him bring her home again, and
let his property be restored to him.
78. If she bear a live child, she shall have half the property, if the
husband die first.
79. If she wish to go away with her children, she shall have half the
property.
80. If the husband wish to keep them [the children], [she shall have
the same portion] as one child.
81. If she bear no child, her paternal kindred shall have the fioh [her
money and chattels] and the morgen-gyfe [morning gift: a gift made to
the bride by her husband on the morning following the consummation of
the marriage].
82. If a man carry off a maiden by force, let him pay 50 shillings to
her controller, and afterwards buy the consent of the controller [to
the marriage].
83. If she be betrothed to another man and money has changed hands, let
him [who carried her off] make bot [to the intended bridegroom] with 20
shillings.
84. If restitution [of the girl] is made, bot of 35 shillings; and 15
shillings to the King.
85. If a man lie with an esne's [slave's]wife, her husband still
living, let him make twofold bot.
86. If one esne [slave] slay another unoffending, let him pay for him
at his full worth.
87. If an esne's [slave's] eye and foot be struck out or off, let him
be paid for at his full worth.
88. If any one bind another man's esne [slave], let him make bot with 6
shillings.
89. Let [compensation for] weg-reaf [highway robbery] of a theow
[slave] be 3 shillings.
90. If a theow steal, let him [the owner] make twofold bot [twice the
value of the stolen goods]."
Judicial Procedure
The King and his freemen would hear and decide cases of
wrongful behavior such as breach of the peace. Punishment would be
given to the offender by the community. The bots, wers, and wites were
high and often could not be paid. If a man could not or would not pay,
he could be outlawed, to be killed by anyone with impunity or punished
by hanging; beheading; burning; drowning; stoning; precipitation from a
cliff; loss of ears, nose, upper-lip, hands and feet; castration;
flogging; or sale into slavery.
There were occasional meetings of "hundreds", which were 100
households, to settle widespread disputes. The chief officer was
"hundreder" or "constable". He was responsible for keeping the peace of
the hundred.
The concept of a wrong to a person or his kindred is still
primary and that of offense to the community secondary. Very slowly did
the concept emerge that that members of the community must be content
with legal remedies and must not seek private vengeance and that public
offenses cannot be altered by private agreement.
The Druid priests decided all disputes of the Celts.
Chapter 2
The Times: 600-900
The country was inhabited by Anglo-Saxons. The French called it
"Angleterre", which means the angle or end of the earth. It was called
"Angle land", which later became "England".
A community was usually an extended family. Its members lived a
village in which a stone church was the most prominent building. They
lived in one-room huts with walls and roofs made of wood, mud, and
straw. Hangings covered the cracks in the walls to keep the wind out.
Smoke from a fire in the middle of the room filtered out of cracks in
the roof. Grain was ground at home by rotating by hand one stone disk
on another stone disk. Some villages had a mill powered by the flow of
water or by horses. All freeholders had the duty of watch [at night]
and ward [during the day], of following the hue and cry to chase an
offender, and of taking the oath of peace. These three duties were
constant until 1195.
Farmland surrounded the villages and was farmed by the
community as a whole under the direction of a lord. There was silver,
copper, iron, tin, gold, and various types of stones from remote lead
mines and quarries in the nation. Silver pennies replaced the smaller
scaetts. Freemen paid "scot" and bore "lot" according to their means
for local purposes.
Offa, the strongest of the Saxon kings, minted high-quality
silver pennies. He traded woolen coats for lava grindstones with
Emperor Charlemagne, who used a silver denarius coin. There were 12
denarii to the solidus and 20 soldi to the pound of silver. These
denominations were taken by England as 12 pennies to the shilling and
20 shillings to the pound. The pound sign, an "L" with a hash mark
derived from the word Libra, which meant weighing scales.
Everyone in the village went to church on Sunday and brought
gifts such as grain to the priest. Later, contributions in the form of
money became customary, and then expected. These "tithes" were spent
for church repair, the clergy, and poor and needy laborers. The church
fixed the amount to be one-tenth, but local custom determined the
amount. There was also church-scot: a payment to the clergy in lieu of
the first fruits of the land. There were also offerings, originally
voluntary but afterwards compulsory, for sacraments. The priest was the
chaplain of a landlord and his parish was coextensive with that
landlord's holding and could include one to several villages. The
priest and other men who helped him, lived in the church building. Some
churches had lead roofs and iron hinges, latches, and locks on their
doors. The land underneath had been given to the church by former kings
and persons who wanted the church to say prayers to help their souls go
from purgatory to heaven and who also selected the first priest. The
priest conducted Christianized Easter ceremonies in the spring and
(Christ's mass) ceremonies in winter in place of the pagan Yuletide
festivities. Burning incense took the place of pagan burnt animal
offerings, which were accompanied by incense to disguise the odor of
burning flesh. Holy water replaced haunted wells and streams. Christian
incantations replaced sorcerer's spells. Nuns assisted priests in
celebrating mass and administering the sacraments. They alone
consecrated new nuns. Vestry meetings were community meetings held for
church purposes. The people said their prayers in English, and the
priest conducted the services in English. A person joined his hands in
prayer as if to offer them for binding together in submission.
The church baptized babies and officiated or gave blessings at
marriage ceremonies. It also said prayers for the dying, gave them
funerals, and buried them. There were burial service fees, candle dues,
and plough alms. A piece of stone with the dead person's name marked
his grave. It was thought that putting the name on the grave would
assist identification of that person for being taken to heaven. The
church heard the last wish or will of the person dying concerning who
he wanted to have his property. The church taught that it was not
necessary to bury possessions with the deceased. The church taught boys
and girls.
Every man carried a horn slung on his shoulder as he went about
his work so that he could at once send out a warning to his fellow
villagers or call them in chasing a thief or other offender. The
forests were full of outlaws, so strangers who did not blow a horn to
announce themselves were presumed to be fugitive offenders who could be
shot on sight with impunity. An eorl could call upon the ceorl farmers
for about forty days to fight off an invading group.
There were several kingdoms, whose boundaries kept changing due
to warfare, which was a sin according to the church. They were each
governed by a king and witan of wise men who met at a witanegemot,
which was usually held three times a year, mostly on great church
festivals and at the end of the harvest. The king and witan chose the
witan's members of bishops, eorldormen, and thegns [landholding
farmers]. The king and hereditary claims played a major part in the
selection of the eorldormen, who were the highest military leaders and
often of the royal family. They were also chief magistrates of large
jurisdictional areas of land. The witan included officers of the king's
household and perhaps other of his retinue. There was little
distinction then between his gesith, fighting men, guards, household
companions, dependents, and servants. The king was sometimes
accompanied by his wife and sons at the witanagemot. A king was
selected by the witan according to his worthiness, usually from among
the royal family, and could be deposed by it. The witan and king
decided on laws, taxes, and transfers of land. They made determinations
of war and peace and directed the army and the fleet. The king wore a
crown or royal helmet. He extended certain protections by the king's
peace. He could erect castles and bridges and could provide a special
protection to strangers.
A king had not only a wergeld to be paid to his family if he
were killed, but a "cynebot" of equal amount that would be paid to his
kingdom's people. A king's household had a chamberlain for the royal
bedchamber, a marshall to oversee the horses and military equipment, a
steward as head of household, and a cupbearer. The king had income from
fines for breach of his peace; fines and forfeitures from courts
dealing with criminal and civil cases; salvage from ship wrecks;
treasure trove [assets hidden or buried in times of war]; treasures of
the earth such as gold and silver; mines; saltworks; tolls and other
dues of markets, ports, and the routes by land and by river generally;
heriot from heirs of his special dependents for possession of land
(usually in kind, principally in horses and weapons). He also had
rights of purveyance [hospitality and maintenance when traveling]. The
king had private lands, which he could dispose of by his will. He also
had crown lands, which belonged to his office and could not be
alienated without consent of the witan. Crown lands often included
palaces and their appendant farms, and burhs. It was a queen's duty to
run the royal estate. Also, a queen could possess, manage, and dispose
of lands in her name. Violent queens waged wars. Kingdoms were often
allied by marriage between their royal families. There were also royal
marriages to royalty on the continent.
The houses of the wealthy had ornamented silk hangings on the
walls. Some had fine white ox horn shaved so thin they were transparent
for windows. Brightly colored drapery, often purple, and fly nets
surrounded their beds, which were covered with the fur of animals. They
slept in bed clothes on pillows stuffed with straw. Tables plated with
silver and gems held silver candlesticks, gold and silver goblets and
cups, and lamps of gold, silver, or glass. They used silver mirrors and
silver writing pens. There were covered seats, benches, and footstools
with the head and feet of animals at their extremities. They ate from a
table covered with a cloth. Servants brought in food on spits, from
which they ate. Food was boiled, broiled, or baked. The wealthy ate
wheat bread and others ate barley bread. Ale made from barley was
passed around in a cup. Mead made from honey was also drunk.
Men wore long-sleeved wool and linen garments reaching almost
to the knee, around which they wore a belt tied in a knot. Men often
wore a gold ring on the fourth finger of the right hand. Leather shoes
were fastened with leather thongs around the ankle. Their hair was
parted in the middle and combed down each side in waving ringlets. The
beard was parted in the middle of the chin, so that it ended in two
points. The clergy did not wear beards. Great men wore gold-embroidered
clothes, gilt buckles and brooches, and drank from drinking horns
mounted in silver gilt or in gold. Well- to-do women wore brightly
colored robes with waist bands, headbands, necklaces, gem bracelets,
and rings. Their long hair was in ringlets and they put rouge on their
cheeks. They had beads, pins, needles, tweezers of bronze, and
workboxes of bronze, some highly ornamented. They were often doing
needlework. Silk was affordable only by the wealthy.
Most families kept a pig and pork was the primary meat. There
were also sheep, goats, cows, deer, hare, and fowl. Fowl was obtained
by fowlers who trapped them. The inland waters yielded eels, salmon,
and trout. In the fall, meat was salted to preserve it for winter
meals. There were orchards growing figs, nuts, grapes, almonds, pears,
and apples. Also produced were beans, lentils, onions, eggs, cheese,
and butter. Pepper and cinnamon were imported.
Fishing from the sea yielded herrings, sturgeon, porpoise,
oysters, crabs, and other fish. Sometimes a whale was driven into an
inlet by a group of boats. Whale skins were used to make ropes.
The roads were not much more than trails. They were often so
narrow that two pack horses could hardly pass each other. The pack
horses each carried two bales or two baskets slung over their backs,
which balanced each other. The soft soil was compacted into a deep
ditch which rains, floods, and tides, if near the sea, soon turned into
a river. Traveling a far distance was unsafe as there were robbers on
the roads. Traveling strangers were distrusted. It was usual to wash
one's feet in a hot tub after traveling and to dry them with a rough
wool cloth.
There were superstitions about the content of dreams, the
events of the moon, and the flights and voices of birds were often seen
as signs or omens of future events. Herbal mixtures were drunk for
sickness and maladies. From the witch hazel plant was made a mild
alcoholic astringent, which was probably used to clean cuts and sooth
abrasions.
In the peaceful latter part of the 600s, Theodore, who had been
a monk in Rome, was appointed archbishop and visited all the island
speaking about the right rule of life and ordaining bishops to oversee
the priests. Each kingdom was split up into dioceses each with one
bishop. Thereafter, bishops were selected by the king and his witan,
usually after consulting the clergy and even the people of the diocese.
The bishops came to be the most permanent element of society. They had
their sees in villages or rural monasteries. The bishops came to have
the same wergeld as an eorldorman: 1200s., which was the price of about
500 oxen. A priest had the wergeld as a landholding farmer [thegn], or
300s. The bishops spoke Latin, but the priests of the local parishes
spoke English. Theodore was the first archbishop whom all the English
church obeyed. He taught sacred and secular literature, the books of
holy writ, ecclesiastical poetry, astronomy, arithmetic, and sacred
music. Theodore discouraged slavery by denying Christian burial to the
kidnapper and forbidding the sale of children over the age of seven. A
slave became entitled to two loaves a day and to his holydays. A slave
was allowed to buy his or his children's freedom. In 673, Theodore
started annual national ecclesiastical assemblies, for instance for the
witnessing of important actions. The bishops, some abbots, the king,
and the eorldormen were usually present. From them the people learned
the benefit of common national action. There were two archbishops: one
of Canterbury in the south and one of York in the north. They governed
the bishops and could meet with them to issue canons that would be
equally valid all over the land. A bishop's house contained some
clerks, priests, monks, and nun and was a retreat for the weary
missionary and a school for the young. The bishop had a deacon who
acted as a secretary and companion in travel, and sometimes as an
interpreter. Ink was made from the outer husks of walnuts steeped in
vinegar.
The learned ecclesiastical life flourished in monastic
communities, in which both monks and nuns lived. Hilda, a noble's
daughter, became the first nun in Northumbria and abbess of one of its
monasteries. There she taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and
charity. Several monks taught there later became bishops. Kings and
princes often asked her advice. Many abbesses came to run monastic
communities; they were from royal families. Women, especially from
royal families, fled to monasteries to obtain shelter from unwanted
marriage or to avoid their husbands. Kings and eorldormen retired to
them.
Danish Vikings made several invasions in the 800s, so the witan
imposed a danegeld tax on land that was assessed on everyone every ten
to twenty years for maintaining forces sufficient to clear the British
seas of Danish pirates or to buy off the ravages of the Danish It was
1s. and later 2s. upon every hide of land, where a hide was probably
the amount of land which could support a family or household for a year
or as much land as could be tilled annually by a single plough. It was
stored in a strong box under the King's bed. King Alfred the Great, who
had lived for awhile in Rome, unified the country to defeat the
invaders. He established fortifications called "burhs", usually on hill
tops or other strategic locations on the borders to control the main
road and river routes into his realm. The burhs were seminal towns.
They were typically walled enclosures with towers and an outer ditch
and mound, instead of the hedge or fence enclosure of a tun. Inside
were several wooden thatched huts and a couple of churches, which were
lit by earthen oil lamps. The populace met at burhgemotes. The land
area protected by each burh became known as a "shire", which means a
share of a larger whole. The shire or local landowners were responsible
for repairing the burh fortifications. There were about thirty shires.
Alfred gathered together fighting men who were at his disposal,
which included eorldormen with their hearthbands (retinues of men each
of whom had chosen to swear to fight to the death for their eorldorman,
and some of whom were of high rank), the King's thegns, shire thegns
(local landholding farmers, who were required to bring fighting
equipment such as swords, helmets, chain mail, and horses), and
ordinary freemen, i.e. ceorls (who carried food, dug fortifications,
and sometimes fought). Since the King was compelled to call out the
whole population to arms, the distinction between the king's thegns
from other landholders disappeared. Some great lords organized men
under them, whom they provisioned. These vassals took a personal oath
to their lord "on condition that he keep me as I am willing to deserve,
and fulfill all that was agreed on when I became his man, and chose his
will as mine." Alfred had a small navy of longships with 60 oars to
fight the Viking longships.
Alfred divided his army into two parts so that one half of the
men were fighting while the other half was at home sowing and
harvesting for those fighting. Thus, any small-scale independent
farming was supplanted by the open-field system, cultivation of common
land, more large private estates headed by a lord, and a more
stratified society in which the king and important families more
powerful and the peasants more curtailed. The witan became mere
witnesses. Many free coerls of the older days became bonded. The
village community tended to become a large private estate headed by a
lord. But the lord does not have the power to encroach upon the rights
of common that exist within the community.
In 886, a treaty between Alfred and the Vikings divided the
country along the war front and made the wergeld of every free farmer,
whether English or Viking, 200s. Men of higher rank were given a
wergeld of 4 1/2 marks of pure gold. A mark was probably a Viking
denomination and a mark of gold was equal to nine marks of silver in
later times and probably in this time. The word "earl" replaced the
word "eorldormen" and the word "thegn" replaced the word "aetheling"
after the Danish settlement. The ironed pleats of Viking clothing
indicated a high status of the wearer. The Vikings brought combs and
the practice of regular hair-combing to England.
King Alfred gave land with jurisdictional powers within its
boundaries such as the following: "This is the bequest which King
Alfred make unequivocally to Shaftesbury, to the praise of God and St.
Mary and all the saints of God, for the benefit of my soul, namely a
hundred hides as they stand with their produce and their men, and my
daughter AEthelgifu to the convent along with the inheritance, since
she took the veil on account of bad health; and the jurisdiction to the
convent, which I myself possessed, namely obstruction and attacks on a
man's house and breach of protection. And the estates which I have
granted to the foundation are 40 hides at Donhead and Compton, 20 hides
at Handley and Gussage 10 hides at Tarrant, 15 hides at Iwerve and 15
hides at Fontmell.
The witnesses of this are Edward my son and Archbishop
AEthelred and Bishop Ealhferth and Bishop AEthelhead and Earl Wulfhere
and Earl Eadwulf and Earl Cuthred and Abbot Tunberht and Milred my
thegn and AEthelwulf and Osric and Brihtulf and Cyma. If anyone alters
this, he shall have the curse of God and St. Mary and all the saints of
God forever to all eternity. Amen."
Sons usually succeeded their fathers on the same land as shown
by this lifetime lease: "Bishop Denewulf and the community at
Winchester lease to Alfred for his lifetime 40 hides of land at
Alresford, in accordance with the lease which Bishop Tunbriht had
granted to his parents and which had run out, on condition that he
renders every year at the autumnal equinox three pounds as rent, and
church dues, and the work connected with church dues; and when the need
arises, his men shall be ready both for harvesting and hunting; and
after his death the property shall pass undisputed to St. Peter's.
These are the signatures of the councilors and of the members of the
community who gave their consent, namely ..."
Alfred invented a graduated candle with spaces indicating one
hour of burning, which could be used as a clock. He used a ventilated
cow's horn to put around the top of the candle to prevent its blowing
out, and then devised a wooden lantern with a horn window. He described
the world as like a yolk in the middle of an egg whose shell moves
around it. This agreed with the position of Ptolemy Claudius of
Alexandria, who showed the curvature of the earth from north to south
by observing that the Polar Star was higher in the north and lower in
the south. That it was curved from east to west followed from the
observation that two clocks placed one west and one east would record a
different time for the same eclipse of the moon.
Alfred wrote poems on the worthiness of wisdom and knowledge in
preference to material pleasures, pride, and fame, in dealing with
life's sorrow and strife. His observations on human nature and his
proverbs include:
1. As one sows, so will he mow.
2. Every man's doom [judgment] returns to his door.
3. He who will not learn while young, will repent of it when old.
4. Weal [prosperity] without wisdom is worthless.
5. Though a man had 70 acres sown with red gold, and the gold grew like
grass, yet he is not a whit the worthier unless he gain friends for
himself.
6. Gold is but a stone unless a wise man has it.
7. It's hard to row against the sea flood; so it is against misfortune.
8. He who toils in his youth to win wealth, so that he may enjoy ease
in his old age, has well bestowed his toil.
9. Many a man loses his soul through silver.
10. Wealth may pass away, but wisdom will remain, and no man may perish
who has it for his comrade.
11. Don't choose a wife for her beauty nor for wealth, but study her
disposition.
12. Many an apple is bright without and bitter within.
13. Don't believe the man of many words.
14. With a few words a wise man can compass much.
15. Make friends at market, and at church, with poor and with rich.
16. Though one man wielded all the world, and all the joy that dwells
therein, he could not therewith keep his life.
17. Don't chide with a fool.
18. A fool's bolt is soon shot.
19. If you have a child, teach it men's manners while it is little. If
you let him have his own will, he will cause you much sorrow when he
comes of age.
20. He who spares the rod and lets a young child rule, shall rue it
when the child grows old.
21. Either drinking or not drinking is, with wisdom, good.
22. Relatives often quarrel together.
23. The barkless dog bites ill.
24. Be wise of word and wary of speech, then all shall love you.
25. We may outride, but not outwit, the old man.
26. Be not so mad as to tell your friend all your thoughts.
27. If you and your friend fall out, then your enemy will know what
your friend knew before.
28. Don't choose a deceitful man as a friend, for he will do you harm.
29. The false one will betray you when you least expect it.
30. Don't choose a scornful false friend, for he will steal your goods
and deny the theft.
31. Take to yourself a steadfast man who is wise in word and deed; he
will prove a true friend in need.
To restore education and religion, Alfred disseminated the
Anglo- Saxon Chronicles; the Venerable Bede's Ecclesiastical History of
the English Nation; the "Consolidation of Philosophy" by Roman
philosopher Boethius, which related the use of adversity to develop the
soul, and described the goodness of God and how the highest happiness
comes from spiritual values and the soul, which are eternal, rather
than from material or earthly pursuits, which are temporal; and Pope
Gregory's Pastoral Care, which he had translated into English and was
the fundamental book on the duty of a bishop, which included a duty to
teach laymen; and Orosius' History of the World, which he had
translated into English. Alfred's advice to pastors was to live as they
had been taught from books and to teach this manner of life to others.
To be avoided was pride, the mind's deception of seeking glory in the
name of doing good works, and the corruption of high office. Bede was
England's first scholar, first theologian, and first historian. He
wrote poetry, theological books, homilies, and textbooks on grammar,
rhetoric [public speaking and debating], arithmetic, and astronomy. He
adhered to the doctrine that death entered the world by the sin of
Adam, the first man. He began the practice of dating years from the
birth of Christ and believed that the earth was round. Over the earth
was a fiery spherical firmament. Above this were the waters of the
heavens. Above this were the upper heavens, which contained the angels
and was tempered with ice. He declared that comets portend downfalls of
kingdoms, pestilence, war, winds, or heat. This reflected the church's
view that a comet was a ball of fire flung from the right hand of an
angry God as a warning to mankind, usually for disbelief. Storms were
begun by the devil.
A famous poem, the oral legend of Beowulf, a hero who led his
men into adventures and performed great feats and fought monsters and
dragons, was put into writing with a Christian theme. In it, loyalty to
one's lord is a paramount virtue. Also available in writing was the
story of King Arthur's twelve victorious battles against the pagan
Saxons, authored by Nennius.
There were professional story tellers attached to great men.
Others wandered from court to court, receiving gifts for their story
telling. Men usually told oral legends of their own feats and those of
their ancestors after supper.
Alfred had monasteries rebuilt with learned and moral men
heading them. He built a nunnery which was headed by his daughter as
prioress. He built a strong wall with four gates around London, which
he had taken into his control. He appointed his son-in-law, who was one
of his eorldormen, to be alderman [older man] to govern London and to
be the shire's earl. A later king built a palace in London, although
Winchester was still the royal capital town. When the king traveled, he
and his retinue were fed by the local people at their expense.
After Alfred's death, his daughter Aethelflared ruled the
country for seven years. She had more fortified burhs built and led
soldiers to victories.
Burhs grew into towns and some towns into boroughs by obtaining
a charter from the king. Their citizens were landholding freemen
called."burgesses". A borough typically was a place of refuge with
earth works, and perhaps a garrrison; it had a market place in which
men could buy cattle and other goods and have the sale attested by
official witnesses and toll was taken from them; and it had a meeting
place at which a court was held.
Under the royalty were the nobles. An earl headed each shire as
representative of the King. The term "earl" came to denote an office
instead of a nobleman. He led the array of his shire to do battle if
the shire was attacked. He executed all royal commands. An earl
received grants of land and could claim hospitality and maintenance for
himself, his officers, and his servants. He collected a third of the
revenues derived from tolls and duties levied in the boroughs of his
shire. The office tended to be hereditary. Royal representatives called
"reeves" started to assist them. The reeve took security from every
person for the maintenance of the public peace. He also tracked cattle
thieves, brought suspects to court, gave judgments according to the
doom books, and delivered offenders to punishment.
Under the earls were the thegns. By service to the King, it was
possible for a coerl to rise to become a thegn and to be given land by
the King. Other thegns performed functions of magistrates. A thegn was
later identified as a person with five hides of land, a kitchen, a
church, a bell house, a judicial place at the burhgemote [a right of
magistracy], and an appointment in the King's hall. He was bound to
service in war by virtue of his landholding instead of by his
relationship to the king. Nobility was now a territorial attribute,
rather than one of birth. The wergeld of a thegn was 1200s. when that
of a ceorl or ordinary freeman was 200s. The wergeld of an earl or
bishop was four times that of a thegn: 5800s. The wergeld of a king or
archbishop was six times that of a thegn: 7200s. The higher a man's
wergeld, the higher was his legal status in the scale of punishment,
giving credible evidence, and participation in legal proceedings. The
sokemen were freemen who had inherited their own land, chose their own
lord, and attended and were subject to their lord's court. That is,
their lord has sake [sac] and soke [soc] jurisdiction over them - the
right to hold a court and to receive the profits of jurisdiction. A
ceorl typically had a single hide of land. A smallholder rented land of
about 30 acres from a landlord, which he paid by doing work on the
lord's demesne [land held by the one lowest in the scale of holding who
has a general right of doing with it what he pleases] land, paying
money rent, or paying a food rent such as in eggs or chickens.
Smallholders made up about two fifths of the population. A cottager had
one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living. Among
these were shepherds, ploughmen, swineherds, and blacksmiths. They also
participated in the agricultural work, especially at harvest time.
It was possible for a thegn to become an earl, probably by the
possession of forty hides. He might even acquire enough land to qualify
him for the witan. Women could be present at the witanagemot and
shiregemote [meeting of the people of the shire]. They could sue and be
sued in the courts. They could independently inherit, possess, and
dispose of property. A wife's inheritance was her own and under no
control of her husband.
Marriage required the consent of the lady and her friends. The
man also had to arrange for the foster lean, that is, remuneration for
rearing and support of expected children. He also declared the amount
of money or land he would give the lady for her consent, that is, the
morgengift, and what he would bequeath her in case of his death. It was
given to her on the morning after the wedding night. The family of the
bride was paid a "mund" for transferring the rightful protection they
possessed over her to the family of the husband. If the husband died
and his kindred did not accept the terms sanctioned by law, her kindred
could repurchase the rightful protection. If she remarried within a
year of his death, she had to forfeit the morgengift and his nearest
kin received the lands and possessions she had. The word for man was
"waepnedmenn" or weaponed person. A woman was "wifmenn" or wife person,
with "wif" being derived from the word for weaving.
Great men and monasteries had millers, smiths, carpenters,
architects, agriculturists, fishermen, weavers, embroiders, dyers, and
illuminators.
For entertainment, minstrels sang ballads about heroes or Bible
stories, harpers played, jesters joked, and tumblers threw and caught
balls and knives. There was gambling, dice games, and chasing deer with
hounds.
Fraternal guilds were established for mutual advantage and
protection. A guild imposed fines for any injury of one member by
another member. It assisted in paying any murder fine imposed on a
member. It avenged the murder of a member and abided by the
consequences. It buried its members and purchased masses for his soul.
Mercantile guilds in seaports carried out commercial
speculations not possible by the capital of only one person.
There were some ale houses, probably part of certain dwellings.
It was usual for a dying man to confess his sins to a priest.
For the sake of his soul, the priest often suggested the man give some
of his chattel to the church, the poor, or other pious uses. By the
700s, the words of a dying man giving chattel for the sake of his soul
were expected to be carried out. Later is the "post obit gift" by which
a man gives land to the church, with the king's consent, but enjoys the
land during his lifetime by stating in writing "I give certain land
after my death" in a special "book". The church takes possession of the
land after his death. He may make a conditional such gift, leaving the
land to his wife for her life with a rent paid to the church and the
church taking possession of the land on her death. These two procedures
coalesce into one written will used in the 800s, 900s, and 1000s. This
will also includes distributions to family and kinsmen and perhaps to
creditors. If the will is made by the very great people: kings, queens,
king's sons, bishops, earldormen, and king's thegns, it requires the
king's consent, which may be bought by a large heriot. And a bishop
usually sets his cross to the will, denouncing any who infringe it to
the torments of hell. The dead man's parish church is paid a mortuary
when he is buried.
The Law
The special authority of the king and his peace gradually
superseded the customary jurisdiction of the local courts as to
preservation of the peace and punishment of offenses. All criminal
offenses became breaches of the king's peace and were deemed acts of
personal disobedience and made an offender the king's enemy. This
notion developed from the special sanctity of the king's house and his
special protection of his attendants and servants. An offender made
fines to the king for breach of his peace and fines and forfeitures to
him from court decisions in criminal and civil cases. Offenses
especially dealt with in various parts of the Anglo-Saxon laws were
treason, homicide, wounding, assault, and theft. Treason to one's lord,
especially to the king, was punishable by death. Compassing or
imagining the king's death was treason.
King Alfred collected regulations from various church synods and
commanded that many of them which English forefathers had observed to
be written out - those which appealed to him; and many of those that
did not appeal to him he rejected, with the consent of his Witan or
commanded them to be observed in a different way. "These are the
regulations which the Almighty God himself spoke to Moses and ordered
him to observe and subsequently the only-born son of the Lord, our God,
that is the Savior Christ confirmed ...":
1. Do not love other strange gods before me.
2. Do not speak My name idly, for you will not be guiltless with Me if
you idly speak My name.
3. Remember to hallow the rest-day. Work for yourselves six days, and
on the seventh day rest yourselves. For in six days, God the Father
made the heavens and the earth, the seas and all creatures that are in
them, and rested himself on the seventh day, and therefore God has
sanctified it.
4. Honour your father and your mother that God gave you so that you may
be the longer living on earth.
5. Do not kill.
6. Do not lie in sexual union secretly.
7. Do not steal.
8. Do not speak false evidence.
9. Do not wish for your neighbour's property unrightfully.
10. Do not make yourselves golden or silver gods.
11. If anyone buy a Christian slave, let him serve for six years and on
the seventh let him be free without payment. With such clothes as he
entered into service, let him leave with. If he has a wife of his own
providing, let her leave with him. If the master provided him with a
wife, both she and her children shall belong to the master. If the
slave then says `I do not want to leave my master or my wife or my
child or my property', let his master bring him to the door of the
Temple and perforate his ear with an awl as a sign that he shall ever
afterwards be a slave.
12. Though someone sell his daughter into slavery do not let her be a
slave entirely as are other maid servants. He has not the right to sell
her abroad among foreign people. But if he who bought her does not care
for her, let her be free among a foreign people. But if he i.e. the
purchaser allows his son to cohabit with her, give her the morning gift
and ensure that she has clothing and that she has the value of her
maidenhood, that is the dowry - let him give her that. If he does none
of those things for her, then she shall be free.
13. The person who slays another deliberately shall suffer death. He
that has killed another in self defense or involuntarily or
unintentionally, as God delivered him i.e. the victim into his hands
and providing he i.e. the killer did not set a trap for him - in that
case let him be worthy of his life, and of settling by customary
compensation, if he should seek asylum. If however anyone deliberately
and intentionally kills his neighbour treacherously, pluck him from my
altar so that he should suffer death.
14. He that attacks his father or his mother shall suffer death.
15. He that abducts a freeman and sell him, and it is proved so that he
cannot absolve himself, let him suffer death. He that curses his father
or his mother, let him suffer death.
16. If someone attacks his neighbour with a stone or with his fist, but
he i.e. the victim can still get about with the aid of a staff, let him
i.e. the aggressor provide him with a doctor and do his i.e. the
victim's work for him for as long as he i.e. the victim cannot himself.
17. He that attacks his own non-free servant or his maidservant, and
they are not dead as a result of the attack but live two or three days,
he i.e. the aggressor shall not be so entirely guilty, because it was
his own property he damaged. But if the slave be dead the same day,
then the guilt rests on him i.e. the aggressor.
18. If anyone in the course of a dispute injure a pregnant woman, let
him make compensation for the hurt as judges decide in his case. If she
be dead, let him give life for life.
19. If anyone put out another's eye, let him give his own for it. Tooth
for tooth. Hand for hand. Foot for foot. Burn for burn. Wound for
wound. Bruise for bruise.
20. If anyone strike the eye of his slave or maidservant out and so
makes them one-eyed, let him free them for that. If he strike out a
tooth, let him do the same.
21. If an ox gore a man or woman so that they are dead, it it be stoned
to death and do not let the flesh be eaten. The owner shall not be
liable if the ox was butting two days before that or even three and the
owner did not know of it. But if he knew of it and would not shut it
i.e. the animal in, and then it killed a man or woman, let it be stoned
to death and let the master be killed or made to pay as the Witan
consider proper. If it gore a son or daughter, let the same penalty
apply. But if it gore a slave or serving-woman, let the owner give 30
shillings of silver and let the ox be stoned to death.
22. If anyone dig a well or open up a closed one and does not close it
up again, let him pay for whatever cattle fall in; but let him have the
dead animal for his own use.
23. If an ox wound another man's ox so it is dead, let them sell the
live ox and share the proceeds, and also the flesh of the dead ox. But
if the owner knew the ox was butting and would not restrain it, let him
hand over the other i.e. live ox for it but let him have all the flesh
of the dead ox for his own use.
24. If anyone steal another man's ox and kill or sell it, let him give
two oxen in restitution. And four sheep for one stolen. If he i.e. the
thief does not have anything to give in restitution, let him be sold
himself to raise the money.
25. If a thief break into a man's house by night and is killed there,
he i.e. the house-owner shall not be guilty of manslaughter. But if he
i.e. the house-owner does this after sunrise, he is guilty of
manslaughter, and shall himself perish, unless he acted in
self-defence. If there is found in the possession of the living thief
things he had already stolen, let him make restitution for it two-fold.
26. If anyone damage another man's vineyard or his crops or any part of
his estate, let him pay compensation according to how it is assessed.
27. If a fire is lit in order to burn rubbish, let him who started the
fire pay compensation for any consequent damage.
28. If anyone entrusts any possession to his friend and the friend
appropriates it for himself, let him i.e. the friend clear himself and
prove that he committed no fraud in the matter. If it was livestock,
and he says that raiders took it, or it perished of itself, and if he
has proof, he need not pay up. But if he has no proof, and the original
owner does not believe him, let him make an oath to clear himself.
29. If anyone seduce an uncommitted woman and sleeps with her, let him
pay for her and take her then as his wife. But if the woman's father is
unwilling to let her go, then let the seducer hand over money in
proportion to her dowry.
30. The women who are accustomed to harbour enchanters and wizards and
witches - do not allow them to live.
31. And he that has intercourse with animals shall suffer death.
32. And he that sacrifices to idols, rather than to God alone, let him
suffer death.
33. Do not harass visitors from abroad and foreigners, for you were
formerly strangers on the land of the Egyptians.
34. Do not harm widows and step-children, neither do them any injury.
If you do otherwise, they will call upon Me and I will listen to them,
and then I will slay you with my sword and I will ensure that your
wives shall be widows and your children orphans.
35. If you hand over money as a loan to your comrade who wishes to live
with you, do not coerce him like an underling and do not oppress him
with the interest.
36. If someone has only a single garment to cover and clothe himself
with and he hands it over as a pledge, let it be returned before the
sun sets. If you do not do so then he will call unto Me, and I will
listen to him because I am very clement.
37. Do not reproach you Lord, nor curse the lord of the people.
38. Your tithe i.e. tenth-part of profit and your first-fruits of
moving animals and growing crops, offer to God.
39. All the flesh that wild animals leave, do not eat it but give it to
the dogs.
40. Do not bother to give credence to the word of a false man, and do
not approve his opinions; do not repeat any of his assertions.
41. Do not join in the false judgment and evil aspirations of the many
nor join in their rumours and outcry, against your own conscience, at
the incitement of some ignorant person. Do not support them.
42. If the stray cattle of another man come into your possession,
though it be the property of your enemy, let him know about it.
43. Judge equably, do not lay down one rule for the rich, another for
the poor; do not decide one way for a friend, another for a foe.
44. Always shun falsehood.
45. Never slay a righteous and innocent man.
46. Never accept bribes, for they very often blind the minds of wise
men and pervert their words.
47. Do not behave unkindly to foreigners and visitors from abroad; do
not harass them with unjust acts.
48. Never swear an oath by heathen gods, nor in any circumstances call
upon them.
Alfred also issued a set of laws to cover the whole country
that he derived from laws of various regional kings in England as
follows:
"1. First we insist that there is particular need that each person
shall keep his oath and his pledge carefully. If anyone be compelled to
give either of these wrongly, either to support treachery to his lord
or to provide any unlawful aid, then it is better to forswear than to
fulfil. But if he pledge himself to that which it is right for him to
fulfil and fails, let him submissively hand over his weapons and his
possessions to his friends to keep, and stay forty days in prison in a
property of the king. Let him undergo there whatever the bishop
prescribes as penance, and let his kinsmen feed him if he himself has
no food. If he has no kin or has no food, let the king's officer feed
him. If one has to compel him to this i.e. to surrender, and otherwise
he is unwilling to co-operate - if they have to bind him he shall
forfeit his weapons and his possessions. If he is slain while
resisting, let him lie uncompensated. If he makes an escape before the
time is up, and he is recaptured, let him stay forty days in prison as
he would have previously. But if he gets away, let him be banished and
excommunicated from all the churches of Christ. Further, if someone has
provided surety for him, let him compensate for the breach of surety as
custom require him, and atone for the breach of pledge as his confessor
imposes in his case.
2. If anyone seek out as sanctuary for any offence any of the monastic
houses to which the king's revenue applies, or any other exempt
community that is worthy of respect he shall have a period of three
days of immunity, unless he wants to negotiate before that. If someone
harms him during that period, either by assault or by fettering him,,
or by a penetrating wound, let the aggressor pay compensation for each
of such attacks according to proper practice, both with wergeld and
with a fine, and 120 shillings to that community, as compensation for
breach of sanctuary, and let his own possessions be forfeit.
3. If anyone violate the king's surety, let him pay compensation for
the original charge as customary law direct, and for the violation of
surety with five pounds of the purer pennies. In the case of breach of
an archbishop's surety or protection, let him compensate with three
pounds. For violation of the surety or protection of another bishop or
official [earldorman], let him make compensation with two pounds.
4. If anyone plot against the king's life, either directly or by
harbouring outlaws or indirectly through the agency of his men, let him
be liable with his life and with all that he owns. If he desire to
prove himself loyal, let him do that by paying a king's wergeld.
Similar protection we ordain for all ranks, both common and noble
[earl]: whoever plots against his master's life shall be liable with
his life and with all that he owns - or let him show his loyalty by
paying his master's wergeld.
5. Also we appoint to every church that a bishop has consecrated this
right of sanctuary: that if a party to a feud run or ride to the
church, then no one may drag him forth for seven days. If however
anyone does that, then let him be liable at the rate of breach of a
king's protection and at the rate of breach of church sanctuary - more
if he take more from the site. [And the sanctuary seeker shall be safe]
if he can survive hunger, and unless he himself try to fight his way
out. If the community have greater need of their church, let them keep
him in another building, and let that not have the more doors than the
church itself; Let the church official ensure that no one give the
sanctuary-seeker food during that period. If he himself is willing to
hand over his weapons to his foes, let them keep him for 30 days and
inform his kin about him. Also it shall count as sanctuary if some man
seek out a church about any offence that had not previously been
revealed, and there confess himself in God's name - let the penalty be
half remitted. He that steal on Sunday or at Yule or at Easter or on
Holy Thursday or on the Rogation days - for each of those we intend
that there should be a double-penalty, as during Lent.
6. If anyone steal something in a church, let him pay a plain
compensation and the fine such as they consider appropriate to the
plain compensation, and let them strike the hand off with which he did
it i.e. the deed. If he wishes to redeem his hand, and they consent to
that, let him pay in proportion to his wergeld.
7. If anyone fights in the king's hall or draw his weapon, and he is
seized, let the penalty be at the king's judgement, either death or
life, as he is willing to grant him. If he escapes and is captured
later, let him pay in proportion to his wergeld, and atone for the
offence with wergeld and fine, as he may deserve by his act.
8. If anyone abducts a nun of a nunnery without the king's or the
bishop's leave, let him pay 120 shillings, half to the king, half to
the bishop and the church patron who had charge of the nun. If she
lives longer than he that abducted her, let her not have any of his
estate. If she bears a child, let that not have any more of the estate
than the mother. If anyone slay her child let him pay the king the
maternal kindred's share; to the paternal kin let him pay their share.
9. If anyone slay a woman with child, while the child still be within
her, let him pay full compensation for the woman and half compensation
for the child according to the wergeld of the father's kin. Let the
fine payable to the king always be 60 shillings, until the
corresponding simple compensation rises to 30 shillings. When the
simple compensation rises to that level, then let the fine be 120
shillings. Formerly there was a defined fine for a gold-thief, and a
horse-thief and a bee-thief and many special fines greater than others.
Now all are alike except for an illegal slayer and that is 120
shillings.
10. If a man has intercourse with the wife of a 1200 shilling wergeld
man, let him pay in compensation 120 shillings to the husband. For a
600 shilling wergeld man i.e. husband, let him pay in compensation 100
shillings. For a common man [ceorl] i.e. husband, let him make
compensation of 40 shillings.
11. If someone grabs the breast of a common woman, let him compensate
with five shillings. If he throws her to the ground but does not have
sexual intercourse with her, let him compensate with 60 shillings. If
he has sexual intercourse with her let him compensate with sixty
shillings. If some other man had previously lain with her, then let the
compensation be half that. If someone accuse her of complicity, let her
clear herself with an oath guaranteed by sixty hides of land, or
forfeit half the compensation. If this happens to a nobly born woman,
let the compensation increase in proportion to the wergeld.
12. If someone burns or cuts down another person's trees without
permission, let him pay over 5 shillings for each substantial tree, and
thereafter, no matter how many there are, five pence for each tree, and
thirty shillings as a fine.
13. In the course of their joint work felling trees, if someone is
killed by accident, let the tree involved be given to his kin, and let
them remove it off the property within 30 days; otherwise let him
possess it that owns the forest.
14. If someone is born dumb or deaf, so that he can neither deny or
confess his sins, let the father make compensation for his misdeeds.
15. If someone fights or draws his weapon in the presence of an
archbishop, let him make compensation with 150 shillings. If this
occurs before another bishop or royal official [earldorman] let him
make compensation with 100 shillings.
16. If someone steals a cow or mare and drives off a foal or calf, let
him pay over one shilling as well as paying compensation for the adult
animals according to their value.
17. If anyone entrust a child into the keeping of others, and he i.e.
the offspring die while in that guardianship, let him that did the
fostering prove his innocence of any crime if anyone accuse him of it.
18. If anyone grabs at a nun's clothing or breast with sexual intent,
unless with her consent, let him pay double the rate of compensation we
previously arranged for a lay-person. If she commit adultery and she is
a betrothed woman, if she is a commoner, let 60 shillings be paid in
compensation to the guarantor, and let that be in livestock or cattle,
but let no one give any human as part of it. If she be of 600 shilling
wergeld, let 100 shillings be paid in compensation to the guarantor. If
she be of 1200 shilling wergeld, let compensation of 120 shillings be
paid to the guarantor.
19. If anyone lends his weapon to another so that he may kill with it,
they may combine, if they are willing, in the matter of paying the
wergeld. If they are unwilling to co-operate, let him that proffered
the weapon pay a third part of the wergeld and a third part of the
fine. If he i.e. the loaner of the weapon prefer to clear himself and
assert that he knew of no evil-intent in making the loan, he may do so.
20. If someone entrust cattle to another man's monk, without the
approval of the patron if that monk, and it gets lost, let he that
originally owned it suffer the loss.
21. If a priest slay another man, let all that he i.e. the priest
brought into the monastic community be turned over to the possession of
the victim's representatives, and let the bishop unfrock him; then he
shall be removed from the monastery, unless the civil patron interceded
for him.
22. If someone wishes in the local assembly to declare a claim for debt
to the king's officer, and then wishes to cancel it, let him impute
i.e. transfer it to a truer source if he can. If he cannot, let him
forfeit the single value.
23. If a dog rends or bites someone, for the first misdeed let the
owner hand over 6 shillings, if he is still giving it food. For as
second occurrence, let him give 12 shillings, and for a third 30
shillings. If, upon any of these misdeeds, the dog escapes, nonetheless
the penalty proceeds. If the dog commit more misdeeds and he i.e. the
owner still keeps him, let him pay compensation at the level of a full
wergeld as well as wound-compensation according to what he i.e. the dog
has done.
24. If an ox wounds someone, let him i.e. the owner hand the animal
over or come forward with some solution.
25. If someone forces a commoner's slave-woman to sexual intercourse,
let him compensate the owner with 5 shillings and pay 60 shillings
fine. If a male slave compel a female slave to sexual intercourse, let
him atone with his testicles.
26. If someone force an underage woman into sexual intercourse, let the
compensation be as that of an adult person.
27. If someone without kin on his father's side gets into a fight and
kills someone, if he has maternal relatives, let them pay a third part
of the wergeld; and a third part his guild-brethren; for a third part
unpaid let him flee. If he has no maternal relatives, let the
guild-brethren pay a half; for a half unpaid let him flee.
28. If someone kill a man so circumstanced and if he has no kinfolk,
let them pay half the wergeld to the king, half to his guild-brethren.
29. If anyone in a group kills a 200 shilling wergeld man who is
guiltless, let him that acknowledges the blow pay over wergeld and
fine, and let every man who was of the party hand over 30 shillings in
token of his complicity.
30. If it is a case of a 600 shilling wergeld man, let each of them pay
60 shillings as a token of their complicity, and let him that struck
the fatal blow pay wergeld and fine.
31. If he that is killed is a 1200 shilling wergeld man, let each of
them pay 120 shillings, and let the one who struck the fatal blow pay
wergeld and fine. If a group commit this sort of killing, and later
deny responsibility on oath, let them all be accused, and let them pay
over the wergeld as a group, and together pay one fine such as
corresponds to the wergeld.
32. If someone commits slander and it is proved against him, let him
make atonement with no lighter penalty than having is tongue cut out.
It i.e. the tongue must not be redeemed for any lesser value than would
be reckoned in proportion to the wergeld.
33. If someone reproach another with breach of church-witnessed pledge
and wishes to accuse him of not fulfilling any of those pledges that he
gave him, let the accuser make his preliminary oath in four churches,
and the other i.e. the accused, if he wishes to assert his good faith -
let him do that in twelve churches.
34. Also it is laid down for traders that they should produce before
the king's officer at the local assembly those people that they are
taking inland with them, and let it be established how many of them
there are. And let them take only such men as they can afterward be
accountable for at the local assembly. An if they have need of more men
along with them on their journey, let it always be declared, as often
as is necessary, to the king's officer before the assembly.
35. If someone restrains a free man who is innocent, let him pay
compensation of ten shillings. If he flogs him, compensation of twenty
shillings. If he put him to torture compensation of thirty shillings.
If as a humiliation he shave his head like a homolan, let him pay
compensation of ten shillings. If he shaves him i.e. his head like a
priest's, without binding him let him pay compensation of thirty
shillings. If he shaves off his beard, let him pay compensation of
twenty shillings. If he ties him up and then shaves his head like a
priest's, let him pay compensation of sixty shillings.
36. It is established that if someone has a spear over his shoulder and
someone else impales himself upon it, he i.e. the spear-carrier shall
pay the wergeld without any fine. If he is impaled from in front, let
him i.e. the spear-carrier pay the wergeld. If someone accuses him i.e.
the spear-carrier of deliberately doing it, let him assert his
innocence at a rate corresponding to the fine, and by that finish with
the fine. And this applies if the point is above the rest of the shaft;
if they are both level, point and shaft, let it count as no risk.
37. If someone wants to seek a new lord, transferring from one district
to another district, let him do it with the knowledge of the chief
officer to whom he was originally responsible in his shire. If he does
it without his i.e. the officer's knowledge, let him who harbours him
as his follower pay over 120 shillings as a fine. But let him divide
it, paying the king half in the shire where the man was originally
answerable, and half in that he has moved to. If he i.e. the man who
moves had done anything wrong where he came from, let him who receives
him as his follower pay the compensation and a fine of 120 shillings to
the king.
38. If someone starts a fight in front of the king's officer at an
assembly, let him pay compensation of wergeld and a fine, as it is
customary; and as a priority a fine of 120 shillings to the officer
[earldorman] concerned. If he disturb the assembly by drawing a weapon,
let him pay 120 shillings to the officer by way of fine. If something
of this sort occurs before the king's officer's deputy or a royal
priest, let him pay 30 shillings by way of fine.
39. If someone starts a fight on the floor of a free man's house, let
him pay compensation of six shillings to the freeman. If he draws his
weapon but does not fight, let the compensation be half that. If either
of these offences takes place in the house of a 600 shilling wergeld
man, let the rate rise to triple the compensation due the freeman. In
the case of a 1200 shilling wergeld man, a rate twice that of the
compensation of the 600 shilling wergeld man.
40. For breaking into a royal residence the penalty shall be 120
shillings. Into an archbishop's, ninety shillings. Into another
bishop's or a royal officer's, 60 shillings. Into a 1200 shilling
werwgeld man's, thirty shillings. Into a 600 shilling wergeld man's
fifteen shillings. For breaking into a freeman's property the penalty
shall be five shillings. If something of this kind takes place while
the levy [fyrd] is on duty elsewhere, or during Lent, let it be a
double compensation. If someone sets aside holy custom publicly in Lent
without an exemption, let him pay a compensation of 120 shillings.
41. The man who has charter land [bocland] which his kin left him, is
not allowed, we enact, to part with it outside his kin-group, if there
is written evidence or spoken witness that it was forbidden to be done
by those people who originally acquired it or by those who passed it to
him. Let him i.e. the one who opposes the alienation process declare
any such stipulation in the presence of the king and the bishop, with
his own kin attending.
42. Also we command that the man who knows his enemy is quiescent at
home should not start a fight before he has asked him for justice. If
he has the strength to surround his enemy and besiege him, let him
contain him for 7 days within and not attack him if he i.e. the enemy
is willing to abide within. After seven days if he is willing to
surrender and hand over his weapons, let him i.e. the avenger keep him
unharmed for thirty days and inform his kinsmen and his friends about
him. But if he i.e. the enemy flee to a church, let the matter be
resolved according to the privilege of the church, as we detailed
above. But if he i.e. the avenger does not have the resources to
besiege him i.e. the enemy, let him ride to the royal officer and ask
him for help. If he i.e. the officer is unwilling to assist, let him
ride and ask the king, before he mounts an attack.
Further, if someone happen upon his enemy and did not know beforehand
that he was quiescent at home, if he i.e. the enemy is willing to hand
over his weapons, let him be held for thirty days and inform his
friends about him; if he is not willing to hand over his weapons then
he i.e. the avenger may attack him. If he i.e. the enemy is willing to
surrender and hand over his weapons and yet someone still attacks him,
let the aggressor pay over wergeld and wound compensation, according to
what he has done, and pay a fine, and lose his kin-status.
We also declare someone may fight in support of his lord without blame,
if anyone has attacked the lord; so too the lord may fight in support
of his follower. In the same way, someone may fight on behalf of his
blood relative if someone attack him wrongfully, but not take the side
of a kinsman against his lord - that we do not permit. Someone may
fight blamelessly if he discovers another with his lawful wife behind
closed doors or under the one cover, or with his legitimate daughter,
or with his legitimate sister or with his mother if she was given
lawfully to his father.
43. To all free people let these following days be granted as holidays
but not to slaves and servile workers; twelve days at Christmas and the
day that Christ overcame the Devil, and St. Gregory's commemoration
day, and seven days before Easter and seven after, and one day at the
celebration of St. Peter and St. Paul and the full week in harvest
before St. Mary's Mass, and one day for the celebration of All Hallows.
The four Wednesdays in the Ember weeks shall be granted to all slaves
to sell to anyone that pleases them to anything either that any man
will give them in God's name or what they in any spare time can manage."
44.-77. The compensations for wounds is as follows: head if both bones
of the head be pierced 30s., head if the outer bone only be pierced
15s.; an inch long wound in the area of the hair 1s., an inch long
wound in the front of the hair 2s.; striking off the other ear 30s., if
the hearing be affected so that he cannot hear 60s.; putting out an eye
60s. 6 1/3 d., if the eye stay in the head but he can see nothing with
it 1/3 of the compensation be remitted; striking off a nose 60s.;
striking a front tooth 8s., a back tooth 4s., a canine tooth 15s.;
severing cheeks 15s., breaking a chin bone 12s.; perforating a windpipe
12s.; removing a tongue the same compensatin for any eye; wounding in
the shoulder so that the muscle fluid flows out 30s.; shattering the
arm above the elbow 15s.; shattering both arm bones 30s.; striking off
the thumb 30s., if the nail is struck off 5s.; striking off the
forefinger 15s., for the nail 4s.; striking off the middle finger 12s.,
for the nail 2s.; striking off the ring finger 17s., for the nail 4s.;
striking off the little finger 9s., for the nail 1s.; wounding in the
belly 30s., if the wound go through the body 20s. for each opening;
perforating the thigh or hip 30s., if it be disabled 30s.; piercing the
leg below the knee 12s., if he is disabled below the knee 30s.;
striking off the great toe 20s., the second toe 15s., the middle toe
9s., the fourth toe 6s., the little toe 5s.; wounding in the testicles
so that he cannot bear children 80s.; cutting off the arm below the
elbow with the hand cut off 80s., wounding before the hair-line and
below the sleeve and below the knee twice the value; permanently
damaging the loins 60s., it they are stabbed 15s., if they are pierced
through 30s.; wounding in the shoulder if the victim be alive 80s.;
maiming a hand outwardly, providing it can be treated effectively 20s.,
if half the hand be lost 40s.; breaking a rib without breaking the skin
10s., if the skin be broken and the bone be extruded 15s.; cutting away
an eye hand or foot 66s.6 1/3 d.; cutting off the leg at the knee 80s.;
breaking a shoulder 20s.; hacking into a shoulder so that the bone
extrudes 15s.; severing the tendon of the foot and if it can be treated
so that will be sound again 12s., but if he is lame on account of the
wound and he cannot be cured 30s.; severing the lesser tendon 6s.;
severing the muscles up by the neck and damage them so severely that he
has no control over them and however lives on thus maimed 100s., unless
the Witan appoint him a juster and greater sum.
Judicial Procedure
Cases were held at monthly meetings of the hundred court. The
king or one of his reeves, conducted the trial by compurgation, which
was an appeal to the supernatural.
In compurgation, the one complaining, called the "plaintiff",
and the one defending, called the "defendant", each told their story
and put his hand on the Bible and swore "By God this oath is clean and
true". A slip or a stammer would mean he lost the case. Otherwise,
community members would stand up to swear on behalf of the plaintiff or
the defendant as to their reputation for veracity. The value of a man's
oath was commensurate with his value or wergeld. A man's brothers were
usually his compurgators. The number of compurgators varied according
to the nature of the case and the rank of the persons concerned. If
there were too few "compurgators", usually twelve in number, or recited
poorly, their party lost. If this process was inconclusive, the parties
could bring witnesses to declare such knowledge as they had as
neighbors. These witnesses, male and female, swore to particular points
determined by the court.
If compurgation failed, the defendant was told to go to church
and to take the sacrament only if he was innocent. If he took the
sacrament, he was tried by the process of "ordeal", which was
administered by the church. In the ordeal by cold water, he was given a
drink of holy water and then bound hand and foot and thrown into water.
If he floated, he was guilty beccause the holy water had rejected him.
If he sank, he was innocent. It was not necessary to drown to be deemed
innocent. In the ordeal by hot water, he had to pick up a stone from
inside a boiling cauldron. If his hand was healing in three days, he
was innocent. If it was festering, he was guilty. A similar ordeal was
that of hot iron, in which one had to carry in his hands a hot iron for
a certain distance. In the ordeal of the consecrated morsel, one would
swallow a morsel; if he choked on it, he was guilty. The results of the
ordeal were taken to indicate the will of God.
An archbishop's or bishop's oath was incontrovertible. If they
were accused, they could clear themselves with an oath that they were
guiltless. Lesser ranks could clear themselves with the oaths of at
least three compurgators of their rank or, for more serious offenses,
undergo the ordeal.
The shire and hundred courts were held for free tenants of a
lord and the judges were the tenants themselves. The feudal courts were
held for unfree tenants and the lord or his steward was the judge.
The earl presided over the shire court. He received one-third
of the profits of justice. The judges were the owners of certain pieces
of land. The shire court was held twice a year. There was little
distinction between secular and spiritual jurisdiction. A bishop sat
on the shire court. The shire court fulfilled all three functions of
government: judicial, legislative, and executive.
The courts had no efficient mode of compelling attendance or
enforcing their orders, except by outlawing the offender, that is,
putting him outside the protection of the law, so that anyone might
kill him with impunity. In grave cases, a special expedition could be
called against an offender.
The individual wronged had his choice of payment in money or engaging
in a blood feud. The sums of money of the system of bot, wer, and wite
were enormous, and often could not be paid. Then a man could be
declared outlaw or sold as a slave. If a person was outlawed, he also
forfeited all his goods to the king.
Cases of general importance concerned mayslaying, wounding, and
cattle-stealing.
A person convicted of murder, i.e. killing by stealth or
robbery [taking from a person's robe, that is, his person or breaking
into his home to steal] could be hung and his possessions confiscated.
A man had a self-help right to arrest a thief hand-habbende [a thief
found with the stolen goods in his hands] and a thief back-berend [a
thief found with the stolen goods on his back or about his person].
Any inanimate or animate object or personal chattel which was
found by a court to be the immediate cause of death was forfeited as
"deodand", for instance, a tree from which a man fell to his death, a
beast which killed a man, a sword of a third party not the slayer that
was used to kill a man. The deodand was to go to the dead man's kin so
they could wreak their vengeance on it, which in turn would cause the
dead man to lie in peace.
This is a lawsuit regarding rights to feed pigs in a certain
woodland: "In the year 825 which had passed since the birth of Christ,
and in the course of the second Indiction, and during the reign of
Beornwulf, King of Mercia, a council meeting was held in the famous
place called Clofesho, and there the said King Beornwulf and his
bishops and his earls and all the councilors of this nation were
assembled. Then there was a very noteworthy suit about wood pasture at
Sinton, towards the west in Scirhylte. The reeves in charge of the
pigherds wished to extend the pasture farther, and take in more of the
wood than the ancient rights permitted. Then the bishop and the
advisors of the community said that they would not admit liability for
more than had been appointed in AEthelbald's day, namely mast for 300
swine, and that the bishop and the community should have two thirds of
the wood and of the mast. The Archbishop Wulfred and all the councilors
determined that the bishop and the community might declare on oath that
it was so appointed in AEthelbald's time and that they were not trying
to obtain more, and the bishop immediately gave security to Earl
Eadwulf to furnish the oath before all the councilors, and it was
produced in 30 days at the bishop's see at Worcester. At that time Hama
was the reeve in charge of the pigherds at Sinton, and he rode until he
reached Worcester, and watched and observed the oath, as Earl Eadwulf
bade him, but did not challenge it. Here are the names and designations
of those who were assembled at the council meeting ..."
Chapter 3
The Times: 900-1066
There were many large landholders such as the King, earls, and
bishops. Earls were noblemen by birth, and often relatives of the King.
They were his army commanders and the highest civil officials, each
responsible for a shire. A breach of the public peace of an earl would
occasion a fine. Lower in social status were freemen: sokemen, and
then, in decreasing order, villani [villeins], bordarii, and cottarii.
The servi were the slaves. Probably all who were not slaves were
freemen.
Kings typically granted land in exchange for services of
military duties, maintaining fortresses, and repairing bridges. Less
common services required by landlords include equipping a guard ship
and guarding the coast, guarding the lord, military watch, maintaining
the deer fence at the King's residence, alms giving, and church dues.
Since this land was granted in return for service, there were
limitations on its heritability and often an heir had to pay a heriot
to the landlord to obtain the land. A heriot was originally the weapons
and armor of a man killed, which went to the King. The heriot of a
thegn who had soken [or jurisdiction over their own lands] came to be
about 80s.; of a kings' thegn about four lances, two coats of mail, two
swords, and 125s.; of an earl about eight horses, four saddled and four
unsaddled, eight lances, four coats of mail, four swords, and 500s.
There were several thousand thegns, rich and poor, who held
land directly of the King. Some thegns had soken and others did not.
Free farmers who had sought protection from thegns in time of war now
took them as their lords. A freeman could chose his lord, following him
in war and working his land in peace. All able-bodied freemen were
liable to military service in the fyrd [national militia], but not in a
lord's private wars. In return, the lord would protect him against
encroaching neighbors, back him in the courts of law, and feed him in
times of famine. But often, lords raided each other's farmers, who fled
into the hills or woods for safety. Often a lord's fighting men stayed
with him at his large house, but later were given land with inhabitants
on it, who became his tenants. The lords were the ruling class and the
greatest of them sat in the King's council along with bishops, abbots,
and officers of the King's household. The lesser lords were local
magnates, who officiated at the shire and hundred courts.
Staghunting, foxhunting, and hawking were reserved for lords
who did not work with their hands. Every free born person had the right
to hunt other game.
There was a great expansion of arable land. Some land had been
specifically allocated to certain individuals. Some was common land,
held by communities. If a family came to pay the dues and fines on
certain common land, it could become personal to that family and was
then known as heirland. Most land came to be privately held from
community-witnessed allotments or inheritance. Bookland was those
holdings written down in books. This land was usually land that had
been given to the church or monasteries because church clerics could
write. So many thegns gave land to the church, usually a hide, that the
church held 1/3 of the land of the realm. Folkland was that land that
was left over after allotments had been made to the freemen and which
was not common land. It was public land and a national asset and could
be converted to heirland or bookland only by action of the king and
witan. It could also be rented by services to the state via charter. A
holder of folkland might express a wish, e.g. by testamentary action,
for a certain disposition of it, such as an estate for life or lives
for a certain individual. But a distinct act by the king and witan was
necessary for this wish to take effect. Small private transactions of
land could be done by "livery of seisin" in the presence of neighbors.
"Seisin" is rightful possession. A man in possession of land is
presumed to have "seisin", unless and until someone else can establish
a better title by legal process. All estates in land could be let,
lent, or leased by its holders, and was then known as "loenland".
Ploughs and wagons could be drawn by four or more oxen or
horses in sets of two behind each other. Oxenshoes and horseshoes
prevented lameness due to cracked hooves. Horse collars especially
fitted for horses, replaced oxen yoke that had been used on horses. The
horse collar did not restrict breathing and enabled horses to use the
same strength of oxen. Also, horses had better endurance and faster
speed.
A free holder's house was wood, perhaps with a stone
foundation, and roofed with thatch or tiles. There was a main room or
hall, with bed chambers around it. Beyond was the kitchen, perhaps
outside under a lean-to. These buildings were surrounded by a bank or
stiff hedge.
Simple people lived in huts made from wood and mud, with one
door and no windows. They slept around a wood-burning fire in the
middle of the earthen floor. They wore shapeless clothes of goat hair
and unprocessed wool from their sheep. They ate rough brown bread,
vegetable and grain broth, ale from barley, bacon, beans, milk,
cabbage, onion, apples, plums, cherries, and honey for sweetening or
mead. Vegetables grown in the country included onions, leeks, celery,
lettuce, radish, carrots, garlic, shallots, parsnip, dill, chervil,
marigold, coriander, and poppy. In the summer, they ate boiled or raw
veal and wild fowl such as ducks, geese, or pigeons, and game snared in
the forest. Poultry was a luxury food, but recognized as therapeutic
for invalids, especially in broth form [chicken soup]. Venison was
highly prized. There were still some wild boar, which were hunted with
long spears, a greyhound dog, and hunting horns. They sometimes mated
with the domestic pigs which roamed the woodlands. In September, the
old and infirm pigs were slaughtered and their sides of bacon smoked in
the rafters for about a month. Their intestines provided skin for
sausages. In the fall, cattle were slaughtered and salted for food
during the winter because there was no more pasture for them. However,
some cows and breed animals were kept through the winter.
For their meals, people used wooden platters, sometimes
earthenware plates, drinking horns, drinking cups from ash or alderwood
turned on a foot-peddled pole lathe, and bottles made of leather. Their
bowls, pans, and pitchers were made by the potter's wheel. Water could
be boiled in pots made of iron, brass, lead, or clay. Water could be
carried in leather bags because leather working preservative techniques
improved so that tanning prevented stretching or decaying. At the back
of each hut was a hole in the ground used as a latrine, which flies
frequented. Moss was used for toilet paper. Parasitical worms in the
stool were ubiquitous.
Most of the simple people lived in villages of about 20 homes
circling a village green or lining a single winding lane. There were
only first names, and these were usually passed down family lines. To
grind their grain, the villagers used hand mills with crank and gear,
or a communal mill, usually built of oak, driven by power transmitted
through a solid oak shaft, banded with iron as reinforcement, to
internal gear wheels of elm. Almost every village had a watermill. It
might be run by water shooting over or flowing under the wheel.
Clothing for men and women was made from coarse wool, silk, and
linen and was usually brown in color. Only the wealthy could afford to
wear linen or silk. Men also wore leather clothing, such as neckpieces,
breeches, ankle leathers, shoes, and boots. Boots were worn when
fighting. They carried knives or axes under metal belts. They could
carry items by tying leather pouches onto their belts with their
drawstrings. They wore leather gloves for warmth and for heavy working
with their hands.
People were as tall, strong and healthy as in the late 1900s,
not having yet endured the later malnourishment and overcrowding that
was its worst in the 1700s and 1800s. Their teeth were very healthy.
Most adults died in their 40s, after becoming arthritic from hard
labor. People in their 50s were deemed venerable. Boys of twelve were
considered old enough to swear an oath of allegiance to the king. Girls
married in their early teens, often to men significantly older.
The lands of the large landholding lords were administered by
freemen. They had wheat, barley, oats, and rye fields, orchards,
vineyards for wine, and beekeeping areas for honey. On this land lived
not only farm laborers, cattle herders, shepherds, goatherds, and
pigherds, but craftsmen such as goldsmiths, hawkkeepers, dogkeepers,
horsekeepers, huntsmen, foresters, builders, weaponsmiths, embroiders,
bronze smiths, blacksmiths, watermill wrights, wheelwrights, wagon
wrights, iron nail makers, potters, soap makers (made from wood ashes
reacting chemically with fats or oils), tailors, shoemakers, salters
(made salt at the "wyches", which later became towns ending with
'-wich'), bakers, cooks, and gardeners. Most men did carpentry work.
Master carpenters worked with ax, hammer, and saw to make houses,
doors, bridges, milk buckets, washtubs, and trunks. Blacksmiths made
gates, huge door hinges, locks, latches, bolts, and horseshoes. The
lord loaned these people land on which to live for their life, called a
"life estate", in return for their services. The loan could continue to
their widows or children who took up the craft. Mills were usually
powered by water. Candles were made from beeswax, which exuded a bright
and steady light and pleasant smell, or from mutton fat, which had an
unpleasant odor. The wheeled plough and iron-bladed plough made the
furrows. One man held the plough and another walked with the oxen,
coaxing them forward with a stick and shouts. Seeds were held in an
apron for seeding. Farm implements included spades, shovels, rakes,
hoes, buckets, barrels, flails, and sieves. Plants were pruned to
direct their growth and to increase their yield. Everyone got together
for feasts at key stages of the farming, such as the harvest. Easter
was the biggest feast. When the lord was in the field, his lady held
their estate. There were common lands of these estates as well as of
communities. Any proposed new settler had to be admitted at the court
of this estate.
The land of some lords included fishing villages along the
coasts. From the sea were caught herrings, salmon, porpoises, sturgeon,
oysters, crabs, mussels, cockles, winkles, plaice, flounder, and
lobsters. Sometimes whales were driven into an inlet by many boats.
River fish included eels, pike, minnows, burbot, trout, and lampreys.
They were caught by brushwood weirs, net, bait, hooks, and baskets.
Oysters were so numerous that they were eaten by the poor. The king's
peace extended over the waterways. If mills, fisheries, weirs, or other
structures were set up to block them, they were to be destroyed and a
penalty paid to the king.
Other lords had land with iron mining industries. Ore was dug
from the ground and combined with wood charcoal in a shaft furnace to
be smelted into liquid form. Wood charcoal was derived from controlled
charring of the wood at high temperatures without using oxygen. This
burned impurities from it and left a purer carbon, which burned better
than wood. The pure iron was extracted from this liquid and formed into
bars. To keep the fire hot, the furnaces were frequently placed at
windswept crossings of valleys or on the tops of hills.
Some lords had markets on their land, for which they charged a
toll for participation. There were about fifty markets in the nation.
Cattle and slaves (from the word "slav") were the usual medium of
exchange. An ox was still worth about 30d. Shaking hands was symbolic
of an agreement for a sale, which had to be carried out in front of
witnesses at the market for any property worth over 20d. The higher the
value of the property, the more witnesses were required. Witnesses were
also required for the exchange of property and to vouch for cattle
having being born on the property of a person claiming them. People
traveled to markets on deep, sunken roads and narrow bridges kept in
repair by certain men who did this work as their service to the King.
The king's peace extended to a couple of high roads, i.e. highways,
running the length of the country and a couple running its width.
Salt was used throughout the nation to preserve meat over the
winter. Inland saltworks had an elaborate and specialized organization.
The chief one used saltpans and furnaces to extract salt from natural
brine springs. They formed little manufacturing enclaves in the midst
of agricultural land, and they were considered to be neither large
private estates headed by a lord nor appurtenant to such. They belonged
jointly to the king and the local earl, who shared, at a proportion of
two to one, the proceeds of the tolls upon the sale of salt and methods
of carriage on the ancient salt ways according to cartload, horse load,
or man load. Sometimes there were investors in a portion of the works
who lived quite at distance away. The sales of salt were mostly retail,
but some bought to resell. Peddlers carried salt to sell from village
to village.
Some smiths traveled for their work, for instance, stonewrights
building arches and windows in churches, and lead workers putting lead
roofs on churches.
An example of a grant of hides of land is: "[God has endowed
King Edred with England], wherefore he enriches and honors men, both
ecclesiastic and lay, who can justly deserve it. The truth of this can
be acknowledged by the thegn AElfsige Hunlafing through his acquisition
of the estate of 5 hides at Alwalton for himself and his heirs, free
from every burden except the repair of fortifications, the building of
bridges and military service; a prudent landowner church dues, burial
fees and tithes. [This land] is to be held for all time and granted
along with the things both great and small belonging to it."
A Bishop gave land to a faithful attendant for his life and two
other lives as follows: "In 904 A.D., I, Bishop Werfrith, with the
permission and leave of my honorable community in Worcester, grant to
Wulfsige, my reeve, for his loyal efficiency and humble obedience, one
hide of land at Aston as Herred held it, that is, surrounded by a dyke,
for three lives and then after three lives the estate shall be given
back without any controversy to Worcester."
At seaports on the coast, goods were loaded onto vessels owned
by English merchants to be transported to other English seaports.
London was a market town on the north side of the Thames River and the
primary port and trading center for foreign merchants. Streets that
probably date from this time include Milk, Bread, and Wood Streets, and
Honey Lane. There were open air markets such as Billingsgate. There
were wooden quays over much of the river front. Houses were made of
wood, with one sunken floor, or a ground floor with a cellar beneath.
Some had central stone hearths and earth latrines. There were crude
pottery cooking pots, beakers and lamps, wool cloth, a little silk,
simple leather shoes, pewter jewelry, looms, and quernstones (for
grinding flour). Wool, skins, hides, wheat, meal, beer, lead, cheese,
salt, and honey were exported. Wine (mostly for the church), fish,
timber, pitch, pepper, garlic, spices, copper, gems, gold, silk, dyes,
oil, brass, sulphur, glass, slaves, and elephant and walrus ivory were
imported. Goods from the continent were sold at open stalls in certain
streets. Furs and slaves were traded. There was a royal levy on exports
by foreigners merchants. Southwark, across the Thames River from
London,was reachable by a bridge. Southwark contained sleazy docks,
prisons, gaming houses, and brothels.
Guilds in London were first associations of neighbors for the
purposes of mutual assistance. They were fraternities of persons by
voluntary compact to assist each other in poverty, including their
widows or orphans and the portioning of poor maids, and to protect each
other from injury. Their essential features are and continue to be in
the future: 1) oath of initiation, 2) entrance fee in money or in kind
and a common fund, 3) annual feast and mass, 4) meetings at least three
times yearly for guild business, 5) obligation to attend all funerals
of members, to bear the body if need be from a distance, and to provide
masses for the dead, 6) the duty of friendly help in cases of sickness,
imprisonment, house burning, shipwreck, or robbery, 7) rules for decent
behavior at meetings, and 8) provisions for settling disputes without
recourse to the law. Both the masses and the feast were attended by the
women. Frequently the guilds also had a religious ceremonial to affirm
their bonds of fidelity. They readily became connected with the
exercise of trades and with the training of apprentices. They promoted
and took on public purposes such as the repairing of roads and bridges,
the relief of pilgrims, the maintenance of schools and almshouses, and
the periodic performance of pageants and miracle plays telling
scriptural history, which could last for several days. The devil often
was prominent in miracle plays.
Many of these London guilds were known by the name of their
founding member. There were also Frith Guilds (peace guilds) and a
Knights' Guild. The Frith Guild's main object was to enforce the King's
laws, especially the prevalent problem of theft. They were especially
established by bishops and reeves. Members met monthly and contributed
about 4d. to a common fund, which paid a compensation for items stolen.
They each paid 1s. towards the pursuit of the thief. The members were
grouped in tens. Members with horses were to track the thief. Members
without horses worked in the place of the absent horse owners until
their return. When caught, the thief was tried and executed.
Overwhelming force was used if his kindred tried to protect him. His
property was used to compensate the victim for his loss and then
divided between the thief's wife, if she was innocent, the King, and
the guild. Owners of slaves paid into a fund to give one half
compensation to those who lost slaves by theft or escape, and
recaptured slaves were to be stoned to death or hanged. The members of
the peace guild also feasted and drank together. When one died, the
others each sang a song or paid for the singing of fifty psalms for his
soul and gave a loaf.
The Knights' Guild was composed of thirteen military persons to
whom King Edgar granted certain waste land in the east of London,
toward Aldgate, and also Portsoken, which ran outside the eastern wall
of the city to the Thames, for prescribed services performed, probably
defense of the vulnerable east side of the city. This concession was
confirmed by King Edward the Confessor in a charter at the suit of
certain citizens of London, the successors of these knights. Edward
granted them sake and soke, the right to hold a court for the offender
and to receive the profits of jurisdiction, over their men.
Edward the Confessor made these rules for London:
1. Be it known that within the space of three miles from all parts
outside of the city a man ought not to hold or hinder another, and also
should not do business with him if he wish to come to the city under
its peace. But when he arrives in the city, then let the market be the
same to the rich man as to the poor.
2. Be it also known that a man who is from the court of the king or the
barons ought not to lodge in the house of any citizen of London for
three nights, either by privilege or by custom, except by consent of
the host. For if he force the host to lodge him in his house and there
be killed by the host, let the host choose six from his relatives and
let him as the seventh swear that he killed him for the said cause. And
thus he will remain quit of the murder of the - - deceased towards the
king and relatives and lords of the deceased.
3. And after he has entered the city, let a foreign merchant be lodged
wherever it please him. But if he bring dyed cloth, let him see to it
that he does not sell his merchandise at retail, but that he sell not
less than a dozen pieces at a time. And if he bring pepper, or cumin,
or ginger, or alum, or brasil wood, or resin, or incense, let him sell
not less than fifteen pounds at a time. But if he bring belts, let him
sell not less than a thousand at a - - time. And if he bring cloths of
silk, or wool or linen, let him see that he cut them not, but sell them
whole. But if he bring wax, let him sell not less than one quartanum.
Also a foreign merchant may not buy dyed cloth, nor make the dye in the
city, nor do any work which belongs by right to the citizens.
4. Also no foreign merchant with his partner may set up any market
within the city for reselling goods in the city, nor may he approach a
citizen for making a bargain, nor may he stop longer in the City.
Every week in London there was a folkmote at St. Paul's
churchyard, where majority decision was a tradition. By 1032, it had
lost much of its power to the husting [household assembly in Danish]
court. The folkmote then had responsibility for order and was the sole
authority for proclaiming outlaws. It met three times a year at St.
Paul's churchyard and there acclaimed its sheriff and its justiciar, or
if the king had chosen his officer, heard who was chosen and listened
to his charge. It also yearly arranged the watch and dealt with risks
of fire. It was divided into wards, each governed by an alderman who
presided over the wardmote, and represented his ward at the folkmote.
Each guild became a ward. The chief alderman was the portreeve. London
paid one-eighth of all the taxes of England.
Later in the towns, merchant guilds grew out of charity
associations whose members were bound by oath to each other and got
together for a guild feast every month. Some traders of these merchant
guilds became so prosperous that they became landholders. Many market
places were dominated by a merchant guild, which had a monopoly of the
local trade. In the great mercantile towns all the land and houses
would be held by merchants and their dependents, all freeholders were
connected with a trade, and everyone who had a claim on public office
or magistry would be a member of the guild. The merchant guild could
admit into their guild country villeins, who became freemen if
unclaimed by their lords for a year and a day. Every merchant who had
made three long voyages on his own behalf and at his own cost ranked as
a thegn. There were also some craft guilds composed of handicraftsmen
or artisans. Escaped bonded agricultural workers, poor people, and
traders without land migrated to towns to live, but were not citizens.
Towns were largely self-sufficient, but salt and iron came from
a distance. The King's established in every shire at least one town
with a market place where purchases would be witnessed, and a mint
where reliable money was coined by a moneyer, who put his name on his
coins. There were eight moneyers in London. Coins were issued to be of
value for only a couple of years. Then one had to exchange them for
newly issued ones at a rate of about 10 old for 8 or 9 new. The
difference constituted a tax. Roughly 10% of the people lived in towns.
Some took surnames such as Tanner, Weaver, or Carpenter. Some had
affectionate or derisive nicknames such as clear-hand, fresh friend,
soft bread, foul beard, money taker, or penny purse. Craftsmen in the
1000s included goldsmiths, embroiderers, illuminators of manuscripts,
and armorers.
Edward the Confessor, named such for his piety, was a king of
24 years who was widely respected for his intelligence,
resourcefulness, good judgment, and wisdom. His educated Queen Edith,
whom he relied on for advice and cheerful courage, was a stabilizing
influence on him. They were served by a number of thegns, who had
duties in the household, which was composed of the hall, the courtyard,
and the bedchamber. They were important men - thegns by rank. They were
landholders, often in several areas, and held leading positions in the
shires. They were also priests and clerics, who maintained the
religious services and performed tasks for which literacy was
necessary. Edward was the first king to have a "Chancellor", who was
the first great officer of state. He kept a royal seal and was the
chief royal chaplain. He did all the secretarial work of the household
and court, drew up and sealed the royal writs, conducted the king's
correspondence, and kept all the royal accounts. The word "chancellor"
signified a screen behind which the secretarial work of the household
was done. He had the special duty of securing and administering the
royal revenue from vacant benefices. The second great office was that
of Treasurer, who headed the Exchequer. The most important royal
officers were the chamberlains, who took care of the royal bedchamber
and adjoining wardrobe used for dressing and storage of valuables, and
the priests. These royal officers had at first been responsible only
for domestic duties, but gradually came to assume public administrative
tasks.
Edward wanted to avoid the pressures and dangers of living in
the rich and powerful City of London. So he rebuilt a monastic church,
an abbey, and a palace at Westminster about two miles upstream. He
started the growth of Westminster as a center of royal and political
power; kings' councils met there. Royal coronations took place at the
abbey. Since Edward traveled a lot, he established a
storehouse-treasury at Winchester to supplement his traveling wardrobe.
At this time, Spanish stallions were imported to improve English
horses. London came to have the largest and best trained army in
England.
The court invited many of the greatest magnates and prelates
[highest ecclesiastical officials, such as bishops] of the land to the
great ecclesiastical festivals, when the king held more solemn courts
and feasted with his vassals for several days. These included all the
great earls, the majority of bishops, some abbots, and a number of
thegns and clerics. Edward had a witan of wise men to advise him, but
sometimes the King would speak in the hall after dinner and listen to
what comments were made from the mead-benches. As the court moved about
the country, many men came to pay their respects and attend to local
business. Edward started the practice of King's touching people to cure
them of scrofula, a disease which affected the glands, especially in
the head and neck. It was done in the context of a religious ceremony.
The main governmental activities were: war, collection of
revenue, religious education, and administration of justice. For war,
the shires had to provide a certain number of men and the ports quotas
of ships with crews. The king was the patron of the English church. He
gave the church peace and protection. He presided over church councils
and appointed bishops. As for the administration of justice, the public
courts were almost all under members of Edward's court, bishops, earls,
and reeves. Edward's mind was often troubled and disturbed by the
threat that law and justice would be overthrown, by the pervasiveness
of disputes and discord, by the raging of wicked presumption, by money
interfering with right and justice, and by avarice kindling all of
these. He saw it as his duty to courageously oppose the wicked by
taking good men as models, by enriching the churches of God, by
relieving those oppressed by wicked judges, and by judging equitably
between the powerful and the humble. He was so greatly revered that a
comet was thought to accompany his death.
The king established the office of the Chancery to draft
documents and keep records. It created the writ, which was a small
piece of parchment [sheep skin] addressed to a royal official or
dependent commanding him to perform some task for the King. By the
1000s A.D., the writ contained a seal: a lump of wax with the impress
of the Great Seal of England which hung from the bottom of the
document. Writing was done with a sharpened goose-wing quill. Ink was
obtained from mixing fluid from the galls made by wasps for their eggs
on oak trees, rainwater or vinegar, gum arabic, and iron salts for
color.
A King's grant of land entailed two documents: a charter giving
boundaries and conditions and a writ, usually addressed to the shire
court, listing the judicial and financial privileges conveyed with the
land. These were usually sac [jurisdiction of a lord to hold court and
to impose fines and amercements] and soke [jurisdiction of a private
court of a noble or institution to execute the laws and administer
justice over inhabitants and tenants of the estate], toll [right to
have a market and to collect a payment on the sale of cattle and other
property on one's own estate] and team [a privilege granted by royal
charter to the lord of a manor for the having, restraining, and judging
of villeins with their children, goods, and chattels], and
infangenetheof [the authority to hang and take the chattels of a thief
caught on his estate].
The town of Coventry consisted of a large monastery estate,
headed by an abbot, and a large private estate headed by a lord. The
monastery was granted by Edward the Confessor full freedom and these
jurisdictions: sac and soke, toll and team, hamsocne [the authority to
fine a person for breaking into and making entry by force into the
dwelling of another], forestall [the authority to fine a person for
robbing others on the road], bloodwite [the authority to impose a
forfeiture for assault involving bloodshed], fightwite [the authority
to fine for fighting], weordwite [the authority to fine for
manslaughter, but not for willful murder], and mundbryce [the authority
to fine for any breach of the peace, such as trespass on lands].
Every man was expected to have a lord to whom he gave fealty.
He swore by a fealty oath such as: "By the Lord, before whom this relic
is holy, I will be to faithful and true, and love all that he loves,
and shun all that he shuns, according to God's law, and according to
the world's principle, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by
work, do ought of what is loathful to him; on condition that he keep me
as I am willing to deserve, and all that fulfill that our agreement
was, when I to him submitted and chose his will." If a man was homeless
or lordless, his brothers were expected to find him such, e.g. in the
folkmote. Otherwise, he was to be treated as a fugitive and could be
slain, and anyone who had harbored him would pay a penalty. Brothers
were also expected to protect their minor kinsmen. When the oath of
fealty was sworn, the man usually did homage to this lord symbolized by
holding his hands together between those of his lord.
Marriages were determined by men asking women to marry them. If
a woman said yes, he paid a sum to her kin for her "mund" [jurisdiction
or protection over her] and gave his oath to them to maintain and
support the woman and any children born. As security for this oath, he
gave a valuable object or "wed". The couple were then betrothed.
Marriage ceremonies were performed by priests in churches. The groom
had to bring friends to his wedding as sureties to guarantee his oath
to maintain and support his wife and children. Those who swore to take
care of the children were called their "godfathers". The marriage was
written into church records. After witnessing the wedding, friends ate
the great loaf, or first bread made by the bride. This was the
forerunner of the wedding cake. They drank special ale, the "bride ale"
(from hence the work "bridal"), to the health of the couple.
Women could own land, houses, and furniture and other property.
They could even make wills that disinherited their sons. This marriage
agreement with an Archbishop's sister provides her with land, money,
and horsemen:
"Here in this document is stated the agreement which Wulfric
and the archbishop made when he obtained the archbishop's sister as his
wife, namely he promised her the estates at Orleton and Ribbesford for
her lifetime, and promised her that he would obtain the estate at
Knightwick for her for three lives from the community at Winchcombe,
and gave her the estate at Alton to grant and bestow upon whomsoever
she pleased during her lifetime or at her death, as she preferred, and
promised her 50 mancuses of gold and 30 men and 30 horses.
The witnesses that this agreement was made as stated were Archbishop
Wulfstan and Earl Leofwine and Bishop AEthelstan and Abbot AElfweard
and the monk Brihtheah and many good men in addition to them, both
ecclesiastics and laymen. There are two copies of this agreement, one
in the possession of the archbishop at Worcester and the other in the
possession of Bishop AEthelstan at Hereford."
This marriage agreement provided the wife with money, land,
farm animals and farm laborers; it also names sureties, the survivor of
whom would receive all this property:
"Here is declared in this document the agreement which Godwine made
with Brihtric when he wooed his daughter. In the first place he gave
her a pound's weight of gold, to induce her to accept his suit, and he
granted her the estate at Street with all that belongs to it, and 150
acres at Burmarsh and in addition 30 oxen and 20 cows and 10 horses and
10 slaves.
This agreement was made at Kingston before King Cnut, with the
cognizance of Archbishop Lyfing and the community at Christchurch, and
Abbot AElfmaer and the community at St. Augustine's, and the sheriff
AEthelwine and Sired the old and Godwine, Wulfheah's son, and AElfsige
cild and Eadmaer of Burham and Godwine, Wulfstan's son, and Carl, the
King's cniht. And when the maiden was brought from Brightling AElfgar,
Sired's son, and Frerth, the priest of Forlstone, and the priests
Leofwine and Wulfsige from Dover, and Edred, Eadhelm's son, and
Leofwine, Waerhelm's son, and Cenwold rust and Leofwine, son of Godwine
of Horton, and Leofwine the Red and Godwine, Eadgifu's son, and
Leofsunu his brother acted as security for all this. And whichever of
them lives the longer shall succeed to all the property both in land
and everything else which I have given them. Every trustworthy man in
Kent and Sussex, whether thegn or commoner, is cognizant of these terms.
There are three of these documents; one is at Christchurch, another at
St. Augustine's, and Brihtric himself has the third."
Nuns and monks lived in segregated nunneries and monasteries on
church land and grew their own food. The local bishop usually was also
an abbot of a monastery. The priests and nuns wore long robes with
loose belts and did not carry weapons. Their life was ordered by the
ringing of the bell to start certain activities, such as prayer; meals;
meetings; work in the fields, gardens, or workshops; and copying and
illuminating books. They chanted to pay homage and to communicate with
God or his saints. They taught justice, piety, chastity, peace, and
charity; and cared for the sick. Caring for the sick entailed mostly
praying to God as it was thought that only God could cure. They bathed
a few times a year. They got their drinking water from upstream of
where they had located their latrines over running water. The large
monasteries had libraries, dormitories, guesthouses, kitchens,
butteries to store wine, bakehouses, breweries, dairies, granaries,
barns, fishponds, orchards, vineyards, gardens, workshops, laundries,
lavatories with long stone or marble washing troughs, and towels.
Slavery was diminished by the church by excommunication for the sale of
a child over seven. The clergy taught that manumission of slaves was
good for the soul of the dead, so it became frequent in wills. The
clergy were to abstain from red meat and wine and were to be celibate.
But there were periods of laxity. Punishment was by the cane or scourge.
The Archbishop of Canterbury began anointing new kings at the
time of coronation to emphasize that the king was ruler by the grace of
God. As God's minister, the king could only do right. From 973, the new
king swore to protect the Christian church, to prevent inequities to
all subjects, and to render good justice, which became a standard oath.
It was believed that there was a celestial hierarchy, with
heavenly hosts in specific places. The heavenly bodies revolved in
circles around the earthly world on crystal spheres of their own, which
were serene, harmonious, and eternal. This contrasted with the change,
death, and decay that occurred in the earthly world. Also in this
world, Aristotle's four elements of earth, air, fire, and water sought
their natural places, e.g. bubbles of air rising through water. The
planets were called wanderers because their motion did not fit the
circular scheme.
God intervened in daily life, especially if worshipped. Jesus
Christ, his mother the Virgin Mary and saints were also worshipped.
Saints such as Bede and Hilda performed miracles, especially ones of
curing. Their spirits could be contacted through their relics, which
rested at the altars of churches. Sin resulted in misfortune. When
someone was said to have the devil in him, people took it quite
literally. Omens fortold events. A real Jack Frost nipped noses and
fingers and made the ground too hard to work. Little people, elves,
trolls, and fairies inhabited the fears and imaginings of people. The
forest was the mysterious home of spirits. People prayed to God to help
them in their troubles and from the work of the devil. Prayer was often
a charm to conjure up friendly spirits rather than an act of
supplication. Sorcerers controlled the forces of nature with the aid of
spirits. Since natural causes of events were unknown, people attributed
events to wills like their own. Illness and disease were thought to be
caused by demons and witches. To cure illness, people hung charms
around their neck and went to good witches for treatments of magic and
herbs. For instance, the remedy for "mental vacancy and folly" was a
drink of "fennel, agrimony, cockle, and marche".Some herbs had
hallucinogenic effects, which were probably useful for pain. Blood-
letting by leeches and cautery were used for most maladies, which were
thought to be caused by imbalance of the four bodily humors: sanguine,
phlegmatic, choleric, and melancholic. These four humors reflected the
four basic elements air, water, fire, and earth. Blood was hot and
moist like air; phlegm was cold and moist like water; choler or yellow
bile was hot and dry like fire; and melancholy or black bile was cold
and dry like earth. Bede had explained that when blood predominates, it
makes people joyful, glad, sociable, laughing, and talking a great
deal. Phlegm renders them slow, sleepy, and forgetful. Red cholic makes
them thin, though eating much, swift, bold, wrathful, and agile. Black
cholic makes them serious of settled disposition, even sad. To relieve
brain pressure and/or maybe to exorcise evil spirits, holes were made
in skulls by a drill with a metal tip that was caused to turn back and
forth by a strap wrapped around a wooden handle. A king's daughter
Edith inspired a cult of holy wells, whose waters were thought to
alleviate eye conditions. Warmth and rest were also used for illness.
Agrimony boiled in milk was thought to relieve impotence in men.
It was known that the liver casted out impurities in the blood.
The stages of fetal growth were known. The soul was not thought to
enter a fetus until after the third month, so presumably abortions
within three months were allowable.
The days of the week were Sun day, Moon day, Tiw's day (Viking
god of war), Woden's day (Viking god of victory, master magician,
calmer of storms, and raiser of the dead), Thor's day (Viking god of
thunder), Frig's day (Viking goddess of fertility and growing things),
and Saturn's day (Roman god). Special days of the year were celebrated:
Christmas, the birthday of Jesus Christ; the twelve days of Yuletide (a
Viking tradition) when candles were lit and houses decorated with
evergreen and there were festivities around the burning of the biggest
log available; Plough Monday for resumption of work after Yuletide;
February 14th with a feast celebrating Saint Valentinus, a Roman bishop
martyr who had married young lovers in secret when marriage was
forbidden to encourage men to fight in war; New Year's Day on March
25th when seed was sown and people banged on drums and blew horns to
banish spirits who destroy crops with disease; Easter, the day of the
resurrection of Jesus Christ; Whitsunday, celebrating the descent of
the Holy Spirit on the apostles of Jesus and named for the white worn
by baptismal candidates; May Day when flowers and greenery was gathered
from the woods to decorate houses and churches, Morris dancers leapt
through their villages with bells, hobby horses, and waving scarves,
and people danced around a May pole holding colorful ribbons tied at
the top so they became entwined around the pole; Lammas on August 1st,
when the first bread baked from the wheat harvest was consecrated;
Harvest Home when the last harvest load was brought home while an
effigy of a goddess was carried with reapers singing and piping behind,
and October 31st, the eve of the Christian designated All Hallow Day,
which then became known as All Hallow Even, or Halloween. People
dressed as demons, hobgoblins, and witches to keep spirits away from
possessing them. Trick or treating began with Christian beggars asking
for "soul cake" biscuits in return for praying for dead relatives.
Ticktacktoe and backgammon were played.
The languages of invaders had produced a hybrid language that
was roughly understood throughout the country. The existence of Europe,
Africa, Asia, and India were known. Jerusalem was thought to be at the
center of the world. There was an annual tax of a penny on every
hearth, Peter's pence, to be collected and sent to the pope in Rome
yearly. Ecclesiastical benefices were to pay church-scot, a payment in
lieu of first fruits of the land, to the pope.
The Law
There were several kings in this period. The king and witan
deliberated on the making of new laws, both secular and spiritual, at
the regularly held witanagemot. There was a standard legal requirement
of holding every man accountable, though expressed in different ways,
such as the following three:
Every freeman who does not hold land must find a lord to answer
for him. Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the
men of his household. [This included female lords.] (King Athelstan)
"And every man shall see that he has a surety, and this surety
shall bring and keep him to [the performance of] every lawful duty.
1. -And if anyone does wrong and escapes, his surety shall incur what
the other should have incurred.
2. -If the case be that of a thief and his surety can lay hold of him
within twelve months, he shall deliver him up to justice, and what he
has paid shall be returned to him." (King Edgar)
Every freeman who holds land, except lords with considerable
landed property, must be in a local tithing, usually ten to twelve men,
in which they serve as personal sureties for each other's peaceful
behavior. If one of the ten landholders in a tithing is accused of an
offense, the others have to produce him in court or pay a fine plus pay
the injured party for the offense, unless they could prove that they
had no complicity in it. If the man is found guilty but can not pay,
his tithing must pay his fine. The chief officer is the "tithing man"
or "capital pledge". There were probably ten tithings in a hundred.
(King Edward the Confessor).
Canute reigned from 1016 to 1035. The following are substantially all
the laws of Canute with an * before ones of special interest.
Proclamations of Canute are:
All my reeves, under pain of forfeiting my friendship and all that they
possess and their own lives, shall govern my people justly everywhere,
and to pronounce just judgments with the cognizance of the bishops of
the dioceses, and to inflict such mitigated penalties as the bishop may
approve and the man himself may be able to bear.
I enjoin upon all the sheriffs and reeves throughout my kingdom that,
as they desire to retain my friendship and their own sercurity, they
employ no unjust force towards any man, either rich or poor, but that
all, both nobles and commoners, rich and poor, shall have their right
of just possession, which shall not be infringed upon in any way,
either for the sake of obtaining the favour of the king or of
gratifying any powerful person or of collecting money for me; and I
have no need that monoey should be collected for me by any unust
exactions.
Ecclesiastical laws of Canute are:
Above all else, love and honour one God, and uphold one Christian
faith, and love King Canute with due fidlity.
*Maintain the security and sanctity of the churches of God, and
frequently attend them for the salvation of our souls and our own
benefit. He who violates the protection given by the church of God
within its walls, or the protection granted by a Christian king in
person shall lose both land and life, unless the king is willing to
pardon him. Homicide within the church's walls shall not be
atoned for by any payment of compensation, and everyone shall pursue
the miscreant, unless it happen that he escapes from there and reaches
so inviolable a sanctuary that the king, because of that, grants him
his life, upon condition that he makes full amends both towards God and
towards men. The first conditon is that he shall give his own wergeld
to Christ and to the king and by that means obtain the legal right to
offer compensation. And if the king allows compensation, amends for the
violation of the protection of the church shall be made by the payment
to the church of the full fine for breach of the king's mund, and the
purification of the church shall be carried out as is fiting, and
compensation both to the kin and to the lord of the slain man shall be
fully psid, and supplication shall earnestly be made to God. If the
protection of the church is broken by offenses such as fighting or
robbery, without the taking of life, amends shall diligently be made in
accordance with the nature of the offense. The penalty for violation of
the protection of a principal church is 5 pounds, for a church of
medium rank is 120s., for a church with a graveyard 60s., and for a
country chapel where there is no graveyard, 30s.
Maintain the security and sanctity of holy things and priests according
to their rank, for they drive away devils, baptize anyone, hallow the
Eucharist, and intercede to Christ for the needs of the people. If an
accusation of evil practices is made against a priest and he knows
himself to be guiltless, he shall say Mass, if he dares, and thus clear
himelf by the Holy Communion in the cases of a simple accusation, and
by the Holy Communion with two supporters of the same ecclesiastical
rank in the case of a triple accusation. If he has no supporters, he
shall go to the ordeal of consecrated bread.
No monk who belongs to a monastery may demand or pay compensation
incurred by vendetta because he leaves the law of his kindred behind
when he accepts monastic rule.
If a priest is concerned in false witness or perjury or is the
accessory and accomplice of thieves, he shall be cast out from the
fellowship of those in holy orders and forfeit every privilege, unless
he make amends both towards God and towards men, as the bishop shall
prescribe, and find surtey for future behavior.
Servants of God shall call upon Christ to intercede for all Christian
people and practice celibacy. Those who turn away from marriage and
observe celibacy shall enjoy the privileges of a thegn.
*No Christian man shall marry among his own kin within six degress of
relationship or with the widow of a man as nearly related to him as
that, or with a near relative of his first wife's. No man shall marry
his god-mother, a nun, or a divorced woman. He shall not commit
adultery. He shall have no more wives that one, with whom he shall
remain as long as she lives.
Ecclesiastical dues shall be paid yearly, namely, plough alms 15 days
after Easter, the tithe [tenth] of young animals at Pentecost, and the
tithe of the fruits of the earth at All Saints. Otherwise the king's
reeve, the bishop's reeve, and the lord's reeve shall take what is due
and assign him the next tenth, and the eight remaining parts shall go
half to the lord and half to the bishop.
Peter's Pence shall be paid by St. Peter's Day or pay the bishop the
penny and 30d. in addition and 120s. to the king.
Church dues shall be paid at Martinmas, or pay the biship eleven fold
and 120s. to the king.
Any thegn with a church with attached graveyard on his land shall give
a third part of his own tithes to his church. If he has a church
without a graveyard, he shall give his priest whatever he desires from
the nine remaining parts.
Light dues shall be paid a halfpenny worth of wax from every hide three
times a year.
Payment for the souls of the dead should be rendered before the grave
is closed.
*All festivals and fasts, such as Lent, shall be observed. The festival
of every Sunday shall be observed from noon on Saturday till dawn on
Monday. No trading, public gatherings, hunting, or secular occupations
shall be done on Sunday. We forbid ordeals and oaths during festivals
and fasts.
To avoid the torment of hell, let us turn away from sin and confess our
misdeeds to out confessors and cease from evil and make amends.
Each of us shall treat others as we desire to be treated.
Every Christian man shall prepare himself for the sacrament at least
three times a year. Every friend shall abide by his oath and pledge.
Every injustice shall be cast out from this land.
Let us be faithful and true to our lord and promote his honour and
carry out his will. And likewise, it is the duty of every lord to treat
his men justly.
Men of every estate shall readily submit to the duty which befits them.
Every Christian man shall learn the Creed and the Pater Noster, the
sacred prayer taught by Christ to his disciples which contains all the
petitions necessary for this life and the life to come. He who does not
learn it may not sponsor another man at baptism or at confirmation.
*Guard against grievous sins and devilish deeds and make amends
according to one's confessor's advice.
Fear God, be in terror of sin, and dread the Day of Judgment.
The bishops shall give example of our duty towards God.
Secular laws of Canute are:
All men, both rich and poor, shall be entitled to the benefit of the
law, and just decisions shall be pronounced on their behalf.
Those in authority to give judgment shall consider very earnestly "And
forgive us our trespasses as we forgive them that trespass against us."
Christian people shall not be condemned to death for trivial offenses.
We forbid the all too prevalent practice of selling Christian people
out of the country, especially into heathen lands. Care shall be taken
that the souls which Christ bought with his own life be not destroyed.
*Any wizards or sorcerers, those who secretly compass death,
prostitutes, thieves, and robbers shall be destroyed unless they cease
and make amends.
We forbid heathen practices, namely the worship of idols, heathen gods,
and the sun or moon, fire or water, springs or stones or any kind of
forest trees, or indulgence in witchcraft or the compassing of death in
any way, either by sacrifice or by divinations or by the practice of
any such delusions.
*Murderers and perjurers, injurers of the clergy, and adulterers shall
submit and make amends or depart with their sins from their native land.
*Hypocrites and liars, robbers and plunderers shall incur the wrath of
God, unless they desist and make amends.
*There shall be one currency free from all adulteration throughout the
land and no one shall refuse it. He who coins false money shall forfeit
the hand with which he made it, and he shall not redeem it in any way,
either with gold or silver. If the reeve is accused of having granted
his permission to the man who coined the false money, he shall clear
himself by the triple oath of exculpation and, if it fails, he shall
have the same sentence as the man who coined the false money.
*Measures and weights shall be diligently corrected and an end put to
all unjust practices.
The repair of fortifications and bridges, and the preparation of ships
and the equipment of military forces shall be diligently undertaken for
the common need, whenever the occasion arises.
*In Wessex and Mercia, the king is entitled to payments for violation
of his mund, attacks on people's houses, assault, and neglecting
military service. In the Danelaw, he is entitled to payments for
fighting, breach of the peace and attacks on people's houses, and
neglect of military service.
*If anyone does the deed of an outlaw, the king alone shall have power
to grant him security. He shall forfeit all his land to the king
without regard to whose vassal he is. Whoever feeds or harbours the
fugitive shall pay 5 pounds to the king, unless he clears himself by a
declaration that he did not know that he was a fugitive.
*He who promotes injustice or pronounces unjust judgments, as a result
of malice or bribery, shall forfeit 120s. to the king, in districts
under English law, unless he declares on oath that he did not know how
to give a more just verdict, and he shall lose forever his rank as a
thegn, unless he redeem it from the king, provided the latter is
willing to allow him to do so. In the Danelaw he shall forfeit his
lahslit.
*He who refuses to observe just laws and judgments shall forfeit, in
districts under English law, a fine to the party entitled thereto -
either 120s. to the king, 60s. to the earl, or 30s. to the hundred, or
to all of them if they were all concerned.
*If a man seeks to accuse another man falsely in such a way as to
injure him in property or in reputation, and if the latter can refute
the accusation brought against him, the first shall forfeit his tongue,
unless he redeems himself with his wergeld.
No one shall appeal to the king, unless he fails to obtain justice
within his hundred. Everyone shall attend the hundred court, under pain
of fine, whenever he is required by law to attend it.
The borough court shall be held at least three times and the shire
court at least twice, under pain of fine. The bishop of the diocese and
the earldorman shall attend and they shall direct the administration of
both ecclesiastical and secular law.
*No one shall make distraint [seizure of personal property out of the
possession of an alleged wrongdoer into the custody of the party
injured, to procure a satisfaction for a wrong committed] of property
either within the shire or outside it, until he has appealed for
justice three times in the hundred court. If on the third occasion he
does not obtain justice, he shall go on the fourth occasion to the
shire court, and the shire court shall appoint a day when he shall
issue his summons for the fourth time. And if this summons fails, he
shall get leave from the one court or the other, to take his own
measures for the recovery of his property.
*Every freeman over age 12 must be in a tithing if he desires to have
the right of exculpation and of being atoned for by the payment of his
wergeld, if he is slain, and to be entitled to the rights of a freeman,
whether he has an establishment of his own or is in the service of
another. Everyone shall be brought within a hundred and under surety,
and his surety shall hold and bring him to the performance of every
legal duty.
*Everyone over age 12 shall take an oath that he will not be a thief or
a thief's accomplice.
Every trustworthy man, who has never earned a bad reputation and who
has never failed either in oath or in ordeal, shall be entitled to
clear himself within the hundred by the simple oath of exculpation. For
an untrustworthy man compurgators for the simple oath shall be selected
within three hundreds, and for the triple oath, throughout the district
under the jurisdiction of the borough court; otherwise he shall go to
the ordeal. When a simple oath of exculpation is involved, the case
shall be begun with a simple oath of accusation; but where a triple
oath of exculpation is involved, it shall be begun with a triple oath
of accusation. A thegn may have a trustworthy man give his oath of
accusation for him.
No man may vouch to warranty unless he has three trustworthy witnesses
to declare whence he acquired the stock which is attached in his
possession. The witnesses shall declare that, in bearing testimony on
his behalf to the effect that he acquired it legally, they are speaking
the truth, in accordance with what they saw with their eyes and heard
with their ears.
*No one shall buy anything over 4d. in value, either livestock or other
property, unless he has four men as trustworthy witnesses, whether the
purchase be made within a town or in the open country. If, however, any
property is attached, and he who is in possession of it has no such
witnesses, no vouching to warranty shall be allowed, but the property
shall be given up to its rightful owner and also the supplementary
payment, and the fine to the party who is entitled thereto. And if he
has witnesses in accordance with what we have declared above, vouching
to warranty shall take place three times. On the fourth occasion he
shall prove his claim to it or give it back to its rightful owner. No
one shall claim ownership where fraud is involved.
*If anyone who is of bad reputation and unworthy of public confidence
fails to attend the court meetings three times, men shall be chosen
from the fourth meeting who shall ride to him, and he may then still
find a surety, if he can. If he cannot, they shall seize him either
alive or dead, and they shall take all that he has. And they shall pay
to the accuser the value of his goods, and the lord shall take half of
what remains and the hundred half. And if anyone, either kinsman or
stranger, refuses to ride against him, he shall pay the king 120s.
*The proved thief and he who has been discovered in treason against his
lord, whatever sanctuary he seeks, shall never be able to save his life.
He who in court tries to protect himself or one of his men by bringing
a countercharge shall have wasted his words, and shall meet the charge
brought by his opponent in such a way as the hundred court shall
determine.
No one shall entertain any man for more than three days, unless he is
committed to this charge by the man whom he has been serving. And no
one shall dismiss one of his men from his service until he is quit of
every accusation which has been brought against him.
*If anyone comes upon a thief and of his own accord lets him escape
without raising the hue and cry, he shall make compensation by the
payment of the thief's wergeld, or clear himself with the full oath,
asserting that he did not know him to be guilty of any crime. And if
anyone hears the hue and cry and neglects it, he shall pay the full
fine for insubordination [120s] to the king, or clear himself by the
full oath.
*Regarding thoroughly untrustworthy men, if anyone has forfeited the
confidence of the hundred, and he has charges brought against him to
such an extent that he is accused by three men at once, no other course
shall be open to him but to go to the triple ordeal. If, however, his
lord asserts that he has failed neither in oath nor in ordeal since the
assembly was held at Winchester, the lord shall choose two trustworthy
men within the hundred - unless he has a reeve who is qualified to
discharge this duty - and they shall swear that he has never failed in
oath or ordeal or been convicted of stealing. If the oath is
forthcoming, the man who is accused there shall choose whichever he
will - either the simple ordeal or an oath equivalent to a pound in
value, supported by compurgators found within the three hundreds, in
the case of an object over 30d. in value. If they dare not give the
oath, the accused shall go to the triple ordeal, which shall be opened
by five compurgators selected by the accuser and he himself shall make
a sixth. If the accused is proved guilty, on the first occasion he
shall pay double value to the accuser and his wergeld to the lord who
is entitled to receive his fine, and he shall appoint trustworthy
sureties, that hence forth he will desist from all wrong-doing. And on
the second occasion, if he is proved guilty, there shall be no
compensation but to have his hands or his feet cut off or both,
according to the nature of the offense. And if has wrought still
greater crime, he shall have his eyes put out and his nose and ears and
upper lip cut off or his scalp removed, whichever of these penalties is
determined by those with whom rests the decision of the case; and thus
punishment shall be inflicted, while, at the same time, the soul is
preserved from injury. If, however, he escapes and avoids the ordeal,
his surety shall pay the value of his goods to the plaintiff and the
wergeld of the accused to the king or to the man who is entitled to
receive his wergeld. And if the lord is accused of advising the man who
had done wrong to escape, he shall choose five trustworthy men, and
shall himself make a sixth, and shall clear himself of the accusation.
If he succeeds in clearing himself, he shall be entitled to the
wergeld. And if he fails, the king shall take the wergeld, and the
thief shall be treated as an outlaw by the whole nation.
Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for the men of his
own household. And if any accusation is brought against one of them, he
shall answer if within the hundred in which he is accused. And if he is
accused and escapes, the lord shall pay the man's wergeld to the king.
And if the lord is accused of advising him to escape, he shall clear
himself with the help of five thegns, himself making a sixth. And if he
fails to clear himself, he shall pay his own wergeld to the king, and
the man shall be an outlaw towards the king.
If a slave is found guilty at the ordeal, he shall be branded on the
first occasion. And on the second occasion, he shall not be able to
make any amends except by his head.
*Concerning untrustworthy men, if there is anyone who is regarded with
suspicion by the general public, the king's reeve shall go and place
him under surety so that he a may be brought to do justice to those who
have made charges against him. If he has no surety, he shall be slain
and buried in unconsecrated ground. And if anyone interposes in his
defense, they shall both incur the same punishment. And he who ignores
this and will not further what we have all determined upon shall pay
120s. to the king.
The various boroughs shall have one common law with regard to
exculpation.
If a friendless man or one come from afar is so utterly destitute of
friends as not to be able to produce a surety, on the first occasion
that he is accused he shall go to prison, and wait there until he goes
to God's ordeal where he shall experience whatever he can. Verily, he
who pronounces a more severe judgment upon whom is friendless or come
from afar than upon one of his own acquaintances injures himself.
*Concerning perjury, if anyone swears a false oath on the relics and is
convicted, he shall lose his hand or half his wergeld which shall be
divided between the lord and the bishop. And henceforth he shall not be
entitled to swear an oath, unless he makes amends to the best of his
ability before God, and finds surety that ever afterwards he will
desist from such perjury.
*Concerning false witness, if anyone has given testimony which is
manifestly false, and is convicted thereof, his testimony henceforth
shall be valueless, and he shall pay to the king or to the lord of the
manor a sum equivalent to his healsfang [payment due only to those very
closely related to a killed man].
Special care must be taken to prevent lawlessness at sacred seasons and
in sacred places. The greater a man is and the higher his rank, the
more stringent shall be the amends which he shall be required to make
to God and to men for lawless behavior. And ecclesiastical amends shall
be diligently exacted in accordance with the directions contained in
the canon law, and secular amends in accordance with secular law.
If anyone slays a priest of the altar, he shall be both excommunicated
and outlawed, unless he make amends to the best of his ability by
pilgrimage, and likewise by the payment of compensation to the kin of
the slain man, or else he shall clear himself by an oath equal in value
to his wergeld. He shall begin to make amends to God and men within 30
days, under pain of forfeiting all that he possesses.
If an attempt is made to deprive a man in orders or a stranger of his
goods or his life, the king shall act as his kinsman and protector
unless he has some other. And such compensation as is fitting shall be
paid to the king, or he shall avenge the deed to the uttermost.
If a minister of the altar commits homicide or any other great crime,
he shall be deprived of his ecclesiastical office and banished, and
shall travel as a pilgrim as far as the Pope appoints for him and
zealously make amends. If he seeks to clear himself, he shall do so by
the triple mode of proof. If he does not begin to make amends both to
God and men within 30 days, he shall be outlawed.
If anyone binds or beats or deeply insults a man in holy orders, he
shall make amends towards him and shall pay the fine due to the bishop
for sacrilege, in accordance with the rank of the injured man, and to
his lord or to the king the full fine for breach of his mund, or he
shall clear himself by the full process of exculpation.
If a man in holy orders commits a capital crime, he shall be arrested,
and his cases shall be reserved for the bishop's decision.
If a condemned man desires confession, he shall never be refused him or
pay the king 120s. or he shall clear himself by selecting five men and
be himself the sixth.
*No condemned man shall be put to death during the Sunday festival,
unless he flees or fights, but he shall be arrested and kept in custody
until the festival is over. If a freeman works during a church
festival, he shall make amends by payment of his healsfang and make
amends to God according to the directions given him. If as slave works,
he shall undergo the lash or pay the fine, according to the nature of
the offense. If a lord compels his slave to work during a church
festival, he shall lose the slave, who shall then obtain the rights of
a freeman and the lord shall pay a fine or clear himself.
If a freeman breaks an ordained fast, he shall pay a fine. If a slave
does so, he shall undergo the lash or pay the fine in accordance with
the nature of the deed.
If anyone openly causes a breach of the fast of Lent by fighting or by
intercourse with women or by robbery or by any great misdeed, he shall
pay double compensation just as he must do during a high festival. If
he denies the charge, he shall clear himself by the triple process of
exculpation.
*If anyone refuses by force the payment of ecclesiastical dues, he
shall pay the full fine or he shall clear himself: he shall select 11
men and himself make a twelfth. If he wounds anyone, he shall make
amends and pay the full fine to the lord and redeem his hands from the
bishop or lose them. If he kills a man, he shall be outlawed and
pursued with hostility. If he so acts as to bring about his own death
by setting himself against the law, no compensation shall be paid for
him.
If anyone injures one of the clergy, he shall make amends according to
the rank of the person injured, either by the payment of his wergeld or
a fine or by the forfeiture of all his property.
*If anyone commits adultery, he shall make amends according to the
nature of the offense. It is wicked adultery for a pious man to commit
fornication with an unmarried woman, and much worse with the wife of
another man or with any woman who has taken religious vows.
*If anyone commits incest, he shall make amends according to the degree
of relationship between them, either by the payment of wergeld or of a
fine, or by the forfeiture of all his possessions.
*If anyone does violence to a widow or maiden, he shall pay his wergeld.
*If a woman commits adultery, her husband shall have all she possesses
and she shall lose her nose and her ears.
If a married man commits adultery with his own slave, he shall lose her
and make amends to God and to men.
*If anyone has a lawful wife and also a concubine, no priest shall
perform for him any of the offices which must be performed for a
Christian man, until he desists and makes amends as the bishop shall
direct.
Foreigners, if they will not regularize their unions, shall be driven
from the land with their possessions, and shall depart in sin.
*Any murderer shall be given up to the kinsmen of the slain man. The
bishop shall pronounce judgment.
*If anyone plots against the king or his own lord, he shall forfeit his
life and all that he possesses, unless he proves himself innocent by
the triple ordeal.
*If anyone violates the protection or a king, archbishop or bishop, he
shall pay 5, 3, or 2 pounds respectively as compensation.
*Anyone who fights at the king's court shall lose his life, unless
pardoned by the king.
*If a man unjustly disarms another, he shall compensate him by the
payment of his healsfang. If he binds him, he shall compensate by the
payment of half his wergeld.
If anyone is guilty of a capital deed of violence while serving in the
army, he shall lose his life or his wergeld.
*If a man makes forcible entry into another man's house, he shall pay 5
pounds to the king. If he is slain in such a case, no compensation
shall be paid for his death.
*Anyone guilty of robbery shall restore the stolen goods and pay the
injured man as much again and forfeit his wergeld to the king.
*According to secular law, assaults upon houses, arson, theft which
cannot be disproved, murder which cannot be denied, and treachery
towards a man's lord are crimes for which no compensation can be paid.
If anyone neglects the repair of fortifications or bridges or military
service, he shall pay 120s. to the king or he shall clear himself with
the support of 11 compurgators out of 14 nominated by the court.
The whole nation shall assist in the repair of churches.
If anyone unlawfully maintains an excommunicated person, he shall
deliver him up in accordance with the law, and pay compensation to him
to whom it belongs, and to the king his wergeld. Anyone keeping and
maintaining as excommunicated man or an outlaw shall risk losing his
life and all his property.
Greater leniency shall be shown in passing judgment and in imposing
penance on the weak than on the strong because they cannot bear an
equally heavy burden. So we distinguish between age and youth, wealth
and poverty, freemen and slaves, the sound and the weak.
*When a man is an involuntary agent in evil-doing or does something
unintentionally, he is more entitled to clemency.
All my reeves shall provide for me from my own property and no man need
give them anything as purveyance. If any of my reeves demands a fine,
he shall forfeit his wergeld to me. The public has been so far too
greatly oppressed by this.
*If a man dies intestate [without a will], whether through negligence
or sudden death, his lord shall take no more than his legal heriot. The
property shall be divided among his wife and children and near kinsmen
according to the share which belongs to him.
Heriots shall be fixed with regard to the rank of the person for whom
they are paid. The heriot of any earl is eight horses, four saddled and
four unsaddled, four helmets, four coats of chainmail, eight spears,
eight shields, four swords, and 200 mancuses of gold. The heriot of a
king's thegn is four horses, two saddled and two unsaddled, two swords,
four spears, four shields, four helmets, four coats of chain mail and
50 mancuses of gold, but among the Danes who possess rights of
jurisdiction 4 pounds. The heriot of an ordinary thegn is a horse and
its trappings and his weapons or his healsfang in Wessex, and in Mercia
2 pounds, and in East Anglia 2 pounds. The heriot of a man who stands
in a more intimate relationship to the king shall be two horses, one
saddled and one unsaddled, one sword, two spears, two shields, and 50
mancuses of gold. The heriot of a man who is inferior in wealth is 2
pounds.
When a householder has dwelt all his time free from claims and charges,
his wife and children shall dwell there unmolested by litigation.
*Every widow who remains a year without a husband shall do what she
herself desires. If within the space of a year, she chooses a husband,
she shall lose her morning gift and all the property she had from her
first husband, and his nearest relatives shall take the land and
property which she had held. And the second husband shall forfeit his
wergeld to the king or the lord to whom it has been granted. And
although she has been married by force, she shall lose her possessions,
unless she leaves the man and returns home. And no widow shall be too
hastily consecrated as a nun. And every widow shall pay heriots within
a year without incurring a fine, if it has not been convenient for her
to pay earlier.
*No woman or maiden shall be forced to marry a man whom she dislikes,
nor shall she be given for money, except the suitor desires of his own
freewill to give something.
If anyone sets his spear at the door to another man's house, he himself
having an errand inside, or if anyone carefully lays any other weapons
where they might remain quietly, and another seizes the weapon and
works mischief with it, he shall pay compensation for it. He who owns
the weapon may clear himself by asserting that the mischief was done
without his desire or authority or advice or cognizance.
*If anyone carries stolen goods home to his cottage and is detected,
the owner shall have what he has tracked. The wife shall be clear of
any charge of complicity unless the goods had been put under her lock
and key or in her storeroom, her chest, or her cupboard. But no wife
can forbid her husband from depositing anything in his cottage.
Until now it has been the custom for grasping persons to treat a child
which lay in the cradle, even though it had never tasted food, as being
guilty as though it were fully intelligent. I forbid this practice.
The man who, through cowardice, deserts his lord or his comrades in an
expedition, either by sea or by land, shall lose all he possesses and
his own life, and the lord shall take back the property and the land
which he had given him. And if he has land held by title-deed it shall
pass into the king's hands.
The heriots of the man who falls before his lord during a campaign,
whether within the country or abroad, shall be remitted, and the heirs
shall succeed to his land and property and make a very just division of
the same.
He who, with the cognisance of the shire, has performed the services
demanded from a landowner on expedition, either by sea or by land,
shall hold his land unmolested by litigation during his life, and at
his death shall have the right of disposing of it or giving it to
whomsoever he pleases.
*Every man is entitled to hunt in the woods and fields on his own
property. But everyone, under pain of incurring the full penalty, shall
avoid hunting on my preserves.
There shall never be any interference with bargains successfully
concluded or with the legal gifts made by a lord.
Every man shall be entitled to protection in going to and from
assemblies, unless he is a notorious thief.
*He who violates the law shall forfeit his wergeld to the king. And he
who violates it again, shall pay his wergeld twice over. And if he is
so presumptuous as to break it a third time, shall lose all he
possesses.
Love God and follow his law and obey our spiritual leaders, for it is
their duty to lead us to the judgment of God according to our works
wrought. Do what is right and good and guard against the hot fire of
hell. God Almighty have mercy upon us all, as His Will may be. Amen.
The Laws for London were:
"1. The gates called Aldersgate and Cripplegate were in charge of
guards.
2. If a small ship came to Billingsgate, one halfpenny was paid as
toll; if a larger ship with sails, one penny was paid.
1) If a hulk or merchantman arrives and lies there, four pence is
paid as toll.
2) From a ship with a cargo of planks, one plank is given as -toll.
3) On three days of the week toll for cloth [is paid] on Sunday and
Tuesday and Thursday.
4) A merchant who came to the bridge with a boat containing fish paid
one halfpenny as toll, and for a larger ship one penny."
5) - 8) Foreigners with wine or blubber fish or other goods and their
tolls. (Foreigners were allowed to buy wool, melted sheep fat [tallow],
and three live pigs for their ships.)
"3. If the town reeve or the village reeve or any other official
accuses anyone of having withheld toll, and the man replies that he has
kept back no toll which it was his legal duty to pay, he shall swear to
this with six others and shall be quit of the charge.
1) If he declares that he has paid toll, he shall produce the -man to
whom he paid it, and shall be quit of the charge.
2) If, however, he cannot produce the man to whom he paid it, he
shall pay the actual toll and as much again and five pounds to the King.
3) If he vouches the taxgatherer to warranty [asserting] that he paid
toll to him, and the latter denies it, he shall clear himself by the
ordeal and by no other means of proof.
4. And we [the king and his counselors] have decreed that a man who,
within the town, makes forcible entry into another man's -house without
permission and commits a breach of the peace of the worst kind and he
who assaults an innocent person on the King's highway, if he is slain,
shall lie in an unhonored grave.
1) If, before demanding justice, he has recourse to violence, but
does not lose his life thereby, he shall pay five pounds for breach of
the King's peace.
2) If he values the goodwill of the town itself, he shall pay us
thirty shillings as compensation, if the King will grant us -this
concession."
5. No base coin or coin defective in quality or weight, foreign or
English, may be used by a foreigner or an Englishman. (In 956, a person
found guilty of illicit coining was punished by loss of a hand.)
Judicial Procedure
There were courts for different geographical communities:
shires, hundreds, and vills. The arrangement of the whole kingdom into
shires was completed by 975 after being united under King Edgar.
A shire was a large area of land, headed by an earl. A shire
reeve or "sheriff" represented the royal interests in the shires and in
the shire courts. This officer came to be selected by the king and earl
of the shire to be a judicial and financial deputy of the earl and to
execute the law. The office of sheriff, which was not hereditary, was
also responsible for the administration of royal lands and royal
accounts. The sheriff summoned the freemen holding land in the shire,
four men selected by each community or township, and all public
officers to meet twice a year at their "shiremotes". Actually only the
great lords - the bishops, earls, and thegns - attended. The shire
court was primarily concerned with issues of the larger landholders.
Here the freemen interpreted the customary law of the locality. The
earl declared the secular law and the bishop declared the spiritual
law. They also declared the sentence of the judges. The earl usually
took a third of the profits, such as fines and forfeits, of the shire
court, and the bishop took a share. In time, the earls each came to
supervise several shires and the sheriff became head of the shire and
assumed the earl's duties there, such as heading the shire fyrd. The
shire court also heard cases which had been refused justice at the
hundredmote and cases of keeping the peace of the shire.
The hundred was a division of the shire, having come to refer
to a geographical area rather than a number of households. The monthly
hundredmote could be attended by any freeman holding land (or a lord's
steward), but was usually attended only by reeve, thegns, parish
priest, and four representatives selected by each agrarian community or
village - usually villeins. Here transfers of land were witnessed.
The sheriff, or a reeve in his place, presided over minor local
criminal and peace and order issues. When the jurisdiction was in the
hands of a sheriff, it was called the sheriff's tourn. All residents
were expected to attend this court. When the jurisdiction was in
private hands, it was called a leet court. Leet jurisdiction derived
from sac and soke jurisdiction. Sac and soc jurisdiction was possession
of legal powers of execution and profits of justice held by a noble or
institution over inhabitants and tenants of the estate, exercised
through a private court.
The sheriff usually held each hundred court, which heard civil cases.
The suitors to these courts were the same as those of the shire courts.
They were the judges who declared the law and ordered the form of
proof, such as compurgatory oath and ordeal. They were customarily
thegns, often twelve in number. They, as well as the king and the earl,
received part of the profits of justice. Summary procedure was followed
when a criminal was caught in the act or seized after a hue and cry.
Every freeman over age twelve had to be in a hundred and had to follow
the hue and cry.
In 997, King Ethelred in a law code ordered the sheriff and
twelve leading magnates of each shire to swear to accuse no innocent
man, nor conceal any guilty one. This was the germ of the later assize,
and later still the jury.
The integrity of the judicial system was protected by certain
penalties: for swearing a false oath, bot as determined by a cleric who
has heard his confession, or, if he has not confessed, denial of burial
in consecrated ground. Also a perjurer lost his oath-worthiness.
Swearing a false oath or perjury was also punishable by loss of one's
hand or half one's wergeld. A lord denying justice, as by upholding an
evildoing thegn of his, had to pay 120s. to the king for his
disobedience. Furthermore, if a lord protected a theow of his who had
stolen, he had to forfeit the theow and pay his wer, for the first
offense, and he was liable for all he property, for subsequent
offenses. There was a bot for anyone harboring a convicted offender. If
anyone failed to attend the gemot thrice after being summoned, he was
to pay the king a fine for his disobedience. If he did not pay this
fine or do right, the chief men of the burh were to ride to him, and
take all his property to put into surety. If he did not know of a
person who would be his surety, he was to be imprisoned. Failing that,
he was to be killed. But if he escaped, anyone who harbored him,
knowing him to be a fugitive, would be liable pay his wer. Anyone who
avenged a thief without wounding anyone, had to pay the king 120s. as
wite for the assault.
"And if anyone is so rich or belongs to so powerful a kindred,
that he cannot be restrained from crime or from protecting and
harboring criminals, he shall be led out of his native district with
his wife and children, and all his goods, to any part of the kingdom
which the King chooses, be he noble or commoner, whoever he may be -
with the provision that he shall never return to his native district.
And henceforth, let him never be encountered by anyone in that
district; otherwise he shall be treated as a thief caught in the act."
Courts controlled by lords of large private estates had various
kinds of jurisdiction recognized by the King: sac and soke [possession
of legal powers of execution and profits of justice held by a noble or
institution over inhabitants and tenants of the estate, exercised
through a private court], toll [right to collect a payment on the sale
of cattle and property] and team [right to hold a court to determine
the honesty of a man accused of illegal possession of cattle],
infangenetheof [the authority to judge and to hang and take the
chattels of a thief caught on the property], and utfangenetheof [the
authority to judge, punish, and take the chattels of a thief dwelling
out of his liberty, and committing theft without the same, if he were
caught within the lord's property]. Some lords were even given
jurisdiction over breach of the royal peace, ambush and treacherous
manslaughter, harboring of outlaws, forced entry into a residence, and
failure to answer a military summons. Often this court's jurisdiction
overlapped that of the hundred court and sometimes a whole hundred had
passed under the jurisdiction of an abbot, bishop, or earl.
A lord and his noble lady, or his steward, presided at this
court. The law was administered here on the same principles as at the
hundred court. Judges of the leet [minor criminal jurisdiction] of the
court of a large private estate were chosen from the constables and
four representatives selected from each community, village, or town.
The vill [similar to village] was the smallest community for
judicial purposes. There were several vills in a hundred.
Before a dispute went to the hundred court, it might be taken
care of by the head tithing man, e.g. cases between vills, between
neighbors, and some compensations and settlements, namely concerning
pastures, meadows, harvests, and contests between neighbors.
In London, the Hustings Court met weekly and decided such
issues as wills and bequests and commerce matters. The folkmote of all
citizens met three times a year. Each ward had a leet court.
The king and his witan decided the complaints and issues of the
nobility and those cases which had not received justice in the hundred
or shire court. The witan had a criminal jurisdiction and could
imprison or outlaw a person. The witan could even compel the king to
return any land he might have unjustly taken. Especially punishable by
the king was "oferhyrnesse": contempt of the king's law. It covered
refusal of justice, neglect of summons to gemot or pursuit of thieves,
disobedience to the king's officers, sounding the king's coin,
accepting another man's dependent without his leave, buying outside
markets, and refusing to pay Peter's pence.
The forests were peculiarly subject to the absolute will of the
king. They were outside the common law. Their unique customs and laws
protected the peace of the animals rather than the king's subjects.
Only special officials on special commissions heard their cases.
The form of oaths for compurgation were specified for theft of
cattle, unsoundness of property bought, and money owed for a sale. The
defendant denied the accusation by sweating that "By the Lord, I am
guiltless, both in deed and counsel, and of the charge of which ...
accuses me." A compurgator swore that "By the Lord, the oath is clean
and unperjured which ... has sworn.". A witness swore that "In the name
of Almighty God, as I here for ... in true witness stand, unbidden and
unbought, so I with my eyes oversaw, and with my ears overheard, that
which I with him say."
If a theow man was guilty at the ordeal, he was not only to
give compensation, but was to be scourged thrice, or a second geld
[compensation] be given; and be the wite of half value for theows.
This lawsuit between a son and his mother over land was heard
at a shire meeting: "Here it is declared in this document that a shire
meeting sat at Aylton in King Cnut's time. There were present Bishop
AEthelstan and Earl Ranig and Edwin, the Earl's son, and Leofwine,
Wulfsige's son, and Thurkil the White; and Tofi the Proud came there on
the King's business, and Bryning the sheriff was present, and
AEthelweard of Frome and Leofwine of Frome and Godric of Stoke and all
the thegns of Herefordshire. Then Edwin, Enneawnes son, came traveling
to the meeting and sued his own mother for a certain piece of land,
namely Wellington and Cradley. Then the bishop asked whose business it
was to answer for his mother, and Thurkil the White replied that it was
his business to do so, if he knew the claim. As he did not know the
claim, three thegns were chosen from the meeting [to ride] to the place
where she was, namely at Fawley, and these were Leofwine of Frome and
AEthelsige the Red and Winsige the seaman, and when they came to her
they asked her what claim she had to the lands for which her son was
suing her. Then she said that she had no land that in any way belonged
to him, and was strongly incensed against her son, and summoned to her
kinswoman, Leofflaed, Thurkil's wife, and in front of them said to her
as follows: 'Here sits Leofflaed, my kinswoman, to whom, after my
death, I grant my land and my gold, my clothing and my raiment and all
that I possess.' And then she said to the thegns: 'Act like thegns, and
duly announce my message to the meeting before all the worthy men, and
tell them to whom I have granted my land and all my property, and not a
thing to my own son, and ask them to be witnesses of this.' And they
did so; they rode to the meeting and informed all the worthy men of the
charge that she had laid upon them. Then Thurkil the White stood up in
the meeting and asked all the thegns to give his wife the lands
unreservedly which her kinswoman had granted her, and they did so. Then
Thurkil rode to St. AEthelbert's minister, with the consent and
cognizance of the whole assembly, and had it recorded in a gospel book."
Chapter 4
The Times: 1066-1100
William came from Normandy, France, to conquer England. He
claimed that the former King, Edward, the Confessor, had promised the
throne to him when they were growing up together in Normandy, if Edward
became King of England and had no children. The Conquerer's men and
horses came in boats powered by oars and sails. The conquest did not
take long because of the superiority of his military expertise to that
of the English. He organized his army into three groups: archers with
bows and arrows, horsemen with swords and stirrups, and footmen with
hand weapons. Each group played a specific role in a strategy planned
in advance. The English army was only composed of footmen with hand
weapons such as spears and shields. They fought in a line holding up
their shields to overlap each other and form a shieldwall. The defeat
of the English was thought to have been presaged by a comet.
At Westminster, he made an oath to defend God's holy churches
and their rulers, to rule the whole people subject to him with
righteousness and royal providence, to enact and hold fast right law,
and to utterly forbid rapine and unrighteous judgments. This was in
keeping with the traditional oath of a new king.
Declaring the English who fought against him to be traitors,
the Conquerer declared their land confiscated. But he allowed those who
were willing to acknowledge him to redeem their land by a payment of
money. As William conquered the land of the realm, he parceled it out
among the barons who fought with him so that each baron was given the
holdings of an Anglo-Saxon predecessor, scattered though they were. The
barons again made oaths of personal loyalty to him [fealty]. They
agreed to hold the land as his vassals with future military services to
him and receipt of his protection. They gave him homage by folding
their hands within his and saying "I become your man for the tenement I
hold of you, and I will bear you faith in life and member [limb] and
earthly honor against all men". They held their land "of their lord",
the King, by knight's service. The king had "enfeoffed" them [given
them a fief: a source of income] with land. The theory that by right
all land was the King's and that land was held by others only at his
gift and in return for specified service was new to English thought.
The original duration of a knight's fee until about 1100 was for his
life; thereafter it was heritable. The word "knight" came to replace
the word "thegn" as a person who received his position and land by
fighting for the King. The exact obligation of knight's service was to
furnish a fully armed horseman to serve at his own expense for forty
days in the year. This service was not limited to defense of the
country, but included fighting abroad. The baron led his own knights
under his banner. The foot soldiers were from the fyrd or were
mercenaries. Every free man was sworn to join in the defense of the
king, his lands and his honor, within England and without.
The Saxon governing class was destroyed. The independent power
of earls, who had been drawn from three great family houses, was
curtailed. Most died or fled the country. Some men were allowed to
redeem their land by money payment if they showed loyalty to the
Conquerer. Well-born women crowded into nunneries to escape Norman
violence. The people were deprived of their most popular leaders, who
were excluded from all positions of trust and profit, especially all
the clergy. The earldoms became fiefs instead of magistracies.
The Conquerer was a stern and fierce man and ruled as an
autocrat by terror. Whenever the people revolted or resisted his
mandates, he seized their lands or destroyed the crops and laid waste
the countryside and so that they starved to death. This example
pacified others. His rule was strong, resolute, wise, and wary. He was
not arbitrary or oppressive. The Conquerer had a strict system of
policing the nation. Instead of the Anglo-Saxon self-government
throughout the districts and hundreds of resident authorities in local
courts, he aimed at substituting for it the absolute rule of the barons
under military rule so favorable to the centralizing power of the
Crown. He used secret police and spies and the terrorism this system
involved. This especially curbed the minor barons and preserved the
public peace.
The English people, who outnumbered the Normans by 300 to 1,
were disarmed. Curfew bells were rung at 7:00 PM when everyone had to
remain in their own dwellings on pain of death and all fires and
candles were to be put out. This prevented any nightly gatherings,
assassinations, or seditions. Order was brought to the kingdom so that
no man dare kill another, no matter how great the injury he had
received. The Conquerer extended the King's peace on the highways, i.e.
roads on high ground, to include the whole nation. Any individual of
any rank could travel from end to end of the land unharmed. Before,
prudent travelers would travel only in groups of twenty.
The barons subjugated the English who were on their newly
acquired land. There began a hierarchy of seisin of land so that there
could be no land without its lord. Also, every lord had a superior lord
with the king as the overlord or supreme landlord. One piece of land
may be held by several tenures. For instance, A, holding by barons'
service of the King, may enfeoff B, a church, to hold of him on the
terms of praying for the souls of his ancestors, and B may enfeoff a
freeman C to hold of the church by giving it a certain percentage of
his crops every year. There were about 200 barons who held land
directly of the King. Other fighting men were the knights, who were
tenants or subtenants of a baron. Knighthood began as a reward for
valor on the field of battle by the king or a noble. The value of a
knight's fee was 400s. [20 pounds] per year. Altogether there were
about 5000 fighting men holding land.
The essence of Norman feudalism was that the land remained
under the lord, whatever the vassal might do. The lord had the duty to
defend the vassals on his land. The vassal owed military service to the
lord and also the service of attending the courts of the hundred and
the county [formerly "shire"], which were courts of the King,
administering old customary law. They were the King's courts on the
principle that a crime anywhere was a breach of the King's peace. The
King's peace that had covered his residence and household had extended
to places where he might travel, such as highways, rivers, bridges,
churches, monasteries, markets, and towns, and then encompassed every
place, replacing the general public peace. Infraction of the King's
peace incurred fines to the King.
This feudal bond based on occupancy of land rather than on
personal ties was uniform throughout the realm. No longer could a man
choose his lord and transfer his land with him to a new lord. He held
his land at the will of his lord, to be terminated anytime the lord
decided to do so. A tenant could not alienate his land without
permission of his lord. In later eras, tenancies would be held for the
life of the tenant, and even later, for his life and those of his heirs.
This uniformity of land organization plus the new requirement
that every freeman take an oath of loyalty directly to the king to
assist him in preserving his lands and honor and defending him against
his enemies, which oath would supersede any oath to any other man, gave
the nation a new unity. The king could call men directly to the fyrd,
summon them to his court, and tax them without intervention of their
lords. And the people learned to look to the king for protection from
abuse by their lords.
English villani, bordarii, cottarii, and servi on the land of
the barons were subjugated into a condition of "villeinage" servitude
and became "tied to the land" so that they could not leave the land
without their lord's permission, except to go on a pilgrimage. The
villeins formed a new bottom class as the population's percentage of
slaves declined dramatically. They held their land of their lord, the
baron. To guard against uprisings of the conquered people, the barons
used villein labor to build about a hundred great stone castles, with
moats and walls with towers around them, at easily defensible positions
such as hilltops all over the nation.
A castle could be built only with permission of the King. A
typical castle had a stone building of about four floors [a keep] on a
small, steep hill. Later it also had an open area surrounded by a stone
curtain-wall with towers at the corners. Around the outside of the wall
were ditches and banks and perhaps a moat. One traveled over these via
a drawbridge let down at the gatehouse of the enclosing wall. On either
side of the gatehouse were chambers for the guards. Arrows could be
shot through slits in the enclosing walls. Inside the enclosed area
might be stables, a granary, barracks for the soldiers, and workshops.
The only winter feed was hay, for which the horses, breeding animals,
milkcow, and workoxen had a priority over other animals. The bulk of
the cattle were usually slaughtered and salted.
The castle building typically was entered by an outer wood
staircase to the guard room on the second floor. The first [ground]
floor had a well and was used as a storehouse and/or dungeons for
prisoners. The second floor had a two-storied great hall, with small
rooms and aisles around it within the thick walls. There was also a
chapel area on the second floor. There were small areas of the third
floor which could be used for sleeping. The floors were wood and were
reached by a spiral stone staircase in one corner of the building.
Sometimes there was a reservoir of water on an upper level with pipes
carrying the water to floors below. Each floor had a fireplace with a
slanted flue going through the wall to the outside. There were latrines
in the corner walls with a pit or shaft down the exterior of the wall,
sometimes to the moat. Furs and wool clothes were hung on the walls
there in the summer to deter the moths. The first floor had only arrow
slits in the walls, but the higher floors had small windows.
Some curtain-wall castles did not have a central building. In
these, the hall was built along the inside of the walls, as were other
continuous buildings. The kitchens and chapels were in the towers.
Lodgings were in buildings along the curtain-walls, or on several
floors of the towers.
The great hall was the main room of the castle. The hall was
used for meals and meetings at which the lord received homages,
recovered fees, and held the view of frankpledge [free pledge in
Latin], in which freemen agreed to be sureties for each other and pay a
claim directed at one of them if that man escaped. At the main table,
the lord and his lady sat on benches with backs or chairs. The table
was covered first with a wool cloth that reached to the floor, and then
by a smaller white linen cloth. Everyone else sat on benches at trestle
tables, which consisted of planks on trestles and could be dismantled,
e.g. at night. Over the main door were the family arms. On the walls
were swords ready for instant use. On the upper parts of the walls
could be fox skins and perhaps a polecat skin, and keepers' and
huntsmen's poles. There were often hawk perches overhead. At the midday
dinner, courses were ceremonially brought in to music, and ritual bows
were made to the lord. The food at the head table was often tasted
first by a servant as a precaution against poison. Hounds, spaniels,
and terriers lay near the hearth and cats, often with litters, nestled
nearby. They might share in dinner, but the lord may keep a short stick
near him to defend morsels he meant for himself. Hunting, dove cotes,
and carp pools provided fresh meat. Fish was compulsory eating on
Fridays, on fast days, and during Lent. Cooking was done outside on an
open fire, roasting on spits and boiling in pots. Some spits were
mechanized with a cogged wheel and a weight at the end of a string.
Other spits were turned by a long handle, or a small boy shielded from
the heat by a wet blanket, or by dogs on a treadmill. Underneath the
spit was a dripping pan to hold the falling juices and fat. Mutton fat
was used for candles. Bread, pies, and pastry dishes were baked in an
oven: a hole in a fireproof stone wall fitted with an iron door, in
which wood was first burnt to heat the oven walls. It could also be
used for drying fruit or melting tallow. Fruits were also preserved in
honey. Salt was stored in a niche in the wall near the hearth and put
on the table in a salt cellar which became more elaborate over the
years. Salt was very valuable and gave rise to the praise of a man as
the salt of the earth. Costly imported spices such as cinnamon, cloves,
nutmeg, ginger, pepper, and a small quantity of sugar were kept in
chests. Pepper was always on the table to disguise the taste of tainted
meat. Spices were tried for medicinal use. Drinks included wine, ale,
cider from apples, perry from pears, and mead. People carried and used
their own knives. There were no forks. Spoons were of silver or wood.
People also ate with their fingers and washed their hands before and
after meals. It was impolite to dig into the salt bowl with a knife not
previously wiped on bread or napkin, which was linen. It was unmannerly
to wipe one's knife or one's greasy fingers on the tablecloth or, to
use the tablecloth to blow one's nose. Feasts were stately occasions
with costly tables and splendid apparel. There were practical jokes,
innocent frolics, and witty verbal debating with repartee. They played
chess, checkers, and various games with cards and dice. Most people
could sing and some could play the lute.
Lighting of the hall at night was by oil lamps or candles on
stands or on wall fixtures. For outside activities, a lantern [a candle
shielded by a metal cage with panels of finely shaved horn: lant horn]
was used. The residence of the lord's family and guests was at a
screened off area at the extreme end of the hall or on a higher floor.
Chests stored garments and jewels. Iron keys and locks were used for
chests and doors. The great bed had a wooden frame and springs made of
interlaced rope or strips of leather. It was covered with a feather
mattress, sheets, quilts, fur covers, and pillows. Drapery around the
bed kept out cold drafts and provided privacy. There was a water bowl
for washing in the morning. A chamber pot was kept under the bed for
nighttime use. Hay was used as toilet paper. The lord's personal
servants slept nearby on benches or trundle beds. Most of the gentlemen
servants slept communally in a "knight's chamber". The floor of the
hall was strewn with straw, on which common folk could sleep at night.
There were stools on which to sit. Cup boards (boards on which to store
cups) and chests stored spices and plate. One-piece iron shears were
available to cut cloth. Handheld spindles were used for weaving; one
hand held the spindle [a small stick weighted at one end] while the
other hand alternately formed the thread and wound it around the
spindle. On the roofs there were rampart walks for sentry patrols and
parapets from which to shoot arrows or throw things at besiegers. Each
tenant of the demesne [household or messuage] of the king where he had
a castle had to perform a certain amount of castle guard duty for its
continuing defense. These knights performing castle-guard duty slept at
their posts. Bathing was done in a wooden tub located in the garden in
the summer and indoors near the fire in winter. The great bed and tub
for bathing were taken on trips with the lord. The entire household was
of men, except for the lord's lady with a few lady companions. The
ladies rode pillion [on a cushion behind the saddle] or in litters
suspended between two horses.
Markets grew up outside castle walls. Any trade on a lord's
land was subject to "passage", a payment on goods passing through,
"stallage", a payment for setting up a stall or booth in a market, and
"pontage", a payment for taking goods across a bridge.
The Norman man was clean shaven on his face and around his ears
and at the nape of the neck. His hair was short. He wore a long-
sleeved under-tunic of linen or wool that reached to his ankles. Over
this the Norman noble wore a tunic without sleeves, open at the sides,
and fastened with a belt. Over one shoulder was his cloak, which was
fastened on the opposite shoulder by being drawn through a ring brooch
and knotted. He wore tight thick cloth stockings to protect him from
the mud and leather shoes. Common men wore durable, but drab, wool
tunics to the knee so as not to impede them in their work. They could
roll up their stockings when working in the fields. A lady wore a
high-necked, long- sleeved linen or wool tunic fitted at the waist and
laced at the side, but full in the skirt, which reached to her toes.
She wore a jeweled belt, passed twice around her waist and knotted in
front. Her hair was often in two long braids, and her head and ears
covered with a white round cloth held in place by a metal circlet like
a small crown. Its ends were wound around her neck. In winter, she wore
over her tunic a cloak edged or lined with fur and fastened at the
front with a cord. Clothes of both men and ladies were brightly colored
by dyes or embroidery. The Norman knight wore an over-tunic of leather
or heavy linen on which were sewn flat rings of iron and a conical iron
helmet with nose cover. He wore a sword at his waist and a metal shield
on his back, or he wore his sword and his accompanying retainers
carried spear and shield.
Norman customs were adopted by the nation. As a whole,
Anglo-Saxon men shaved their beards and whiskers from their faces, but
they kept their custom of long hair flowing from their heads. But a few
kept their whiskers and beards in protest of the Normans. Everyone had
a permanent surname indicating parentage, place of birth, or residence,
such as Field, Pitt, Lane, Bridge, Ford, Stone, Burn, Church, Hill,
Brook, Green. Other names came from occupations such as Shepherd,
Carter, Parker, Fowler, Hunter, Forester, Smith. Still other came from
personal characteristics such as Black, Brown, and White, Short, Round,
and Long. Some took their names from animals such as Wolf, Fox, Lamb,
Bull, Hogg, Sparrow, Crow, and Swan. Others were called after the men
they served, such as King, Bishop, Abbot, Prior, Knight. A man's
surname was passed on to his son.
Those few coerls whose land was not taken by a baron remained
free and held their land "in socage" and became known as sokemen. They
were not fighting men, and did not give homage, but might give fealty,
i.e. fidelity. Many free sokemen were caught up in the subjugation by
baron landlords and were reduced almost to the condition of the unfree
villein. The services they performed for their lords were often
indistinguishable. They might also hold their land by villein tenure,
although free as a person with the legal rights of a freeman. The
freeman still had a place in court proceedings which the unfree villein
did not.
Great stone cathedrals were built in fortified towns for the
Conquerer's Norman bishops, who replaced the English bishops. Bishops
periodically inspected the parishes in their dioceses to maintain
discipline aqnd settle any matters that were beyond the local priest's
competence, for instance the sacrament of confirmation, in which was
conferred upon a Christian soul a special strengthening grace after he
confirmed his belief in the tenets of Christianity. Most of the
existing and new monasteries functioned as training grounds for
scholars, bishops, and statesmen rather than as retreats from the
world's problems to the security of religious observance. The number of
monks grew as the best minds were recruited into the monasteries.
The Conquerer made the church subordinate to him. Bishops were
elected only subject to the King's consent. The bishops had to accept
the status of barons. Homage was exacted from them before they were
consecrated, and fealty and an oath afterward. The Conquerer imposed
knight's service on bishoprics, abbeys, and monasteries, which was
usually commuted to a monetary amount. Bishops had to attend the King's
court. Bishops could not leave the realm without the King's consent. No
royal tenant or royal servant could be excommunicated, nor his lands be
placed under interdict, without the King's consent. Interdict could
demand, for instance, that the church be closed and the dead buried in
unconsecrated ground. No church rules could be made without his
agreement to their terms. No letters from the pope could be received
without the King's permission. The Archbishop of Canterbury was still
recognized as a primary advisor to the king. Over the years, the
selection for this office frequently became a source of contention
among king, pope, and clergy.
Men continued to give land to the church for their souls, such
as this grant which started the town of Sandwich: "William, King of the
English, to Lanfranc the Archbishop and Hugoni de Montfort and Richard
son of Earl Gilbert and Haimo the sheriff and all the thegns of Kent,
French and English, greeting. Know ye that the Bishop of Bayeux my
brother for the love of God and for the salvation of my soul and his
own, has given to St. Trinity all houses with their appurtenances which
he has at Sandwich and that he has given what he has given by my
license." Many private owners of churches gave them to cathedrals or
monastic communities, partly to ensure their long term survival, and
partly because of church pressure.
When the land was all divided out, the barons had about 3/7 of
it and the church about 2/7. Most of the barons had been royal
servants. The king retained about 2/7, including forests for hunting,
for himself and his family and household, on which he built many royal
castles and hundreds of manor [large private estate headed by a lord]
houses throughout the nation. He built the massive White Tower in
London. It was tall with four turrets on top, and commanded a view of
the river and bridge, the city and the surrounding countryside. The
only windows were slits from which arrows could be shot. On the fourth
and top floor was the council chamber and the gallery of the chapel. On
the third floor was the banqueting hall, the sword room, and the
chapel. The king and his household slept in apartments on these upper
floors. Stairs went up to the gateway entrance on the second floor,
which were hidden by a wall. The garrison's barracks were on the first
floor (ground floor). Any prisoners were kept in cells at a level below
the first floor. The other castles were often built at the old
fortification burhs of Alfred. Each had a constable in charge, who was
a baron. Barons and earls had castle-guard duty in the king's castles.
The Conquerer was constantly moving about the land among his and his
barons' castles, where he met with his magnates and conducted public
business, such as deciding disputes about holding of land. Near his own
castles and other of his property, he designated many areas as royal
hunting forests. Anyone who killed a deer in these forests was
mutilated, for instance by blinding. People living within the
boundaries of the designated forestland could no longer go into nearby
woods to get meat or honey, dead wood for firing, or live wood for
building. Swineherds could no longer drive pigs into these woods to eat
acorns they beat down from oak trees. Making clearings and grazing
livestock in the designated forestland were prohibited. Most of the
nation was either wooded or bog at this time.
London was a walled town of one and two story houses made of
mud, twigs, and straw, with thatched roofs. It included a bundle of
communities, townships, parishes, and lordships. There were churches, a
goods market, a fish market, quays on the river, and a bridge over the
river. Streets probably named by this time include Bread Street, Milk
Street, Honey Lane, Wood Street, and Ironmonger Lane. Fairs and games
were held outside the town walls in a field called "Smithfield". The
great citizens had the land qualifications of knights and ranked as
barons on the Conquerer's council. The freemen were a small percentage
of London's population. There was a butchers' guild, a pepperers'
guild, a goldsmiths' guild, the guild of St. Lazarus, which was
probably a leper charity (of which there were many in the 1000s and
1100s), the Pilgrims' guild, which helped people going on pilgrimages,
and four bridge guilds, probably for keeping the wooden London Bridge
in repair. Men told the time by sundials, some of which were portable
and could be carried in one's pocket. London could defend itself, and a
ringing of the bell of St. Paul's Church could shut every shop and fill
the streets with armed horsemen and soldiers led by a soldier
portreeve. Across the Thames from London on its south side was
Southwark, a small trading and fishing settlement.
The Conquerer did not interfere with landholding in London, but
recognized its independence as a borough in this writ: "William the
King greets William, Bishop of London, and Gosfrith the portreeve, and
all the burgesses [citizens] of London friendly. Know that I will that
you be worthy of all the laws you were worthy of in the time of King
Edward. And I will that every child shall be his father's heir after
his father's day. And I will not suffer any man to do you wrong. God
preserve you."
So London was not subjected to the Norman feudal system. It had
neither villeins nor slaves. Whenever Kings asserted authority over it,
the citizens reacted until the king "granted" a charter reaffirming the
freedoms of the city and its independence.
Under pressure from the ecclesiastical judges, the Conquerer
replaced the death penalty by that of the mutilation of blinding,
chopping off hands, and castrating offenders. Castration was the
punishment for rape. But these mutilations usually led to a slow death
by gangrene.
The Normans used the Anglo-Saxon concepts of jurisdictional
powers. Thus when the Conquerer confirmed "customs" to the abbot of
Ely, these were understood to include the following: 1) sac and soke -
the right to hold a court of private jurisdiction and enjoy its
profits, 2) toll - a payment in towns, markets, and fairs for goods and
chattel bought and sold, 3) team - persons might be vouched to warranty
in the court, the grant of which made a court capable of hearing suits
arising from the transfer of land, 4) infangenthef - right of trying
and executing thieves on one's land, 4) hamsocne [jurisdiction over
breach of the right of security and privacy in a man's house, e.g. by
forcible entry], 5) grithbrice - violation of the grantees' special
peace, for instance that of the sheriff, 6) fightwite - fine for a
general breach of the peace, 7) fyrdwite - fine for failure to appear
in the fyrd.
Every shire, now called "county", had at least one burh, or
defensible town. Kings had appointed a royal moneyer in each burh to
mint silver coins such as pennies for local use. On one side was the
King's head in profile and on the other side was the name of the
moneyer. When a new coinage was issued, all moneyers had to go to
London to get the new dies. The Conquerer's head faced frontally on his
dies, instead of the usual profile used by former Kings.
The Conquerer held and presided over his council three times a
year, as was the custom, at Easter, Christmas, and Whitsuntide, which
coincided with the great Christian festivals. This was an advisory
council and consisted of the Conquerer's wife and sons, earls, barons,
knights, officers of the King's household, archbishops, and bishops. It
replaced the witan of wise men. It dealt with fundamental matters of
law, state, war, and church. Earldoms and knighthoods were conferred
and homages to the king were witnessed. Bishops were nominated.
Attendance at the council, like attendance at courts, was regarded as a
burden rather than a privilege. The Conquerer's will was the motive
force which under lay all the council's action. When it was
administering royal justice, it was called the Royal Court.
The Justiciar was the head of all legal matters and he or the
Conquerer's wife represented the King at the Royal Court in his absence
from the realm. The chamberlain was a financial officer of the
household; his work was rather that of auditor or accountant. The
Chancellor headed the Chancery and the chapel. Other household offices
were steward, butler, constable, and marshall. The Treasurer was
responsible for the collection and distribution of revenue and was the
keeper of the royal treasure at the palace at Winchester. He was also
an important member of the household and sat in the Exchequer at
Westminster, where he received the accounts of the sheriffs. The
Exchequer was composed of the Justiciar as head, the chancellor, the
constable, two chamberlains, the marshall and other experienced
councilors. The word "Exchequer" came from the chequered cloth on the
table used to calculate in Roman numerals the amount due and the amount
paid. The word "calculate" derives from the word "calculi", meaning
pebbles. It was a kind of abacus. The Exchequer received yearly from
the sheriffs of the counties taxes, fines, treasure trove, goods from
wrecks, deodands, and movable property of felons, of persons executed,
of fugitives, and of outlaws due to the Crown. The Conqueror presided
yearly over feasts involving several thousand guests at Westminster
Hall, which was 250 feet by 70 feet with a high ceiling, the largest
hall in England.
The Conquerer's reign was a time of tentative expedients and
simple solutions. He administered by issuing writs with commands or
prohibitions. These were read aloud by the sheriffs in the county
courts and other locations. Administration was by the personal servants
of his royal household, such as the chancellor, chamberlain, constable,
marshals, steward, and butler. The language of government changed to
Latin. The chancellor was from the clergy and supervised the writers
and clerks, who were literate, and appended the great seal before
witnesses to documents. He also headed the staff of the royal chapel.
The chamberlain was a financial officer who audited and accounted. The
constable was responsible for supplies for the knights of the royal
household. He also supervised the care of horses, hounds, hawks, and
huntsmen, houndsmen, and foresters. The marshals came from less
important families than the constable and they preserved order in the
king's hall and recorded expenditures of the household officers on
tallies. The steward was a great baron whose duties were chiefly
ceremonial, such as placing the dishes before the king at banquets.
Sheriffs, who had first been head of shires, became powerful
figures as the primary agents for enforcing royal edicts. There was no
longer supervision of them by earls nor influence on them by bishops.
They were customarily prominent barons. They collected the royal taxes,
executed royal justice, and presided over and controlled the hundred
and county courts. They were responsible for remitting a certain sum
annually. If a sheriff received more than necessary, he retained the
difference as his lawful profit of office. If he received less than
necessary, he had to make up the difference from his own pocket. Before
rendering this account, he paid the royal benefactions to religious
houses, provided for the maintenance of stock on crown lands, paid for
the costs of provisions supplied to the court, and paid for traveling
expenses of the king and his visitors. The payments were initially paid
in kind: e.g. grain, cattle, horses, hounds, and hawks. Sheriffs also
took part in the keeping of castles and often managed the estates of
the King. Most royal writs were addressed to the sheriff and county
courts. They also led the county militia in time of war or rebellion.
At times, a sheriff usurped royal rights, used royal estates for his
own purposes, encroached on private land and rights, extorted money,
and collected revenues only for his own pockets. Over the centuries,
there was much competition for the authority to select the sheriff,
e.g. by the king, the county court, the barons, and the Exchequer.
There was also much pressure to limit his term to one year. Over time,
the powers of the sheriffs slowly declined.
Royal income came from customary dues, profits of coinage and
of justice, and revenues from the King's own estates. For war, there
was no change in the custom that a man with five hides of land was
required to furnish one heavy armed horseman for forty days service in
a year. The fyrd was retained. A threat of a Viking invasion caused the
Conquerer to reinstate the danegeld tax at 6s. per hide, which was
three times its old rate. (The price of an ox was still about 30d.) To
impose this tax uniformly, he sent commissioners to conduct surveys by
sworn verdicts of appointed groups of local men. A detailed survey of
land holdings and the productive worth of each was made in 1086. The
English called it the "Doomsday Book" because there was no appeal from
it.
The survey revealed, for instance, that one estate had "on the
home farm five plough teams: there are also 25 villeins and 6 cotters
with 14 teams among them. There is a mill worth 2s. a year and one
fishery, a church and four acres of meadow, wood for 150 pigs and two
stone quarries, each worth 2s. a year, and two nests of hawks in the
wood and 10 slaves." This estate was deemed to be worth 480s. a year.
Laxton "had 2 carucates of land [assessed] to the geld. [There
is] land for 6 ploughs. There Walter, a man of [the lord] Geoffrey
Alselin's has 1 plough and 22 villeins and 7 bordars [a bordar had a
cottage and a small amount land in return for supplying small
provisions to his lord] having 5 ploughs and 5 serfs and 1 female serf
and 40 acres of meadow. Wood [land] for pannage [foraging by pigs] 1
league in length and half a league in breadth. In King Edward's time it
was worth 9 pounds; now [it is worth] 6 pounds."
Ilbert de Laci has now this land, where he has twelve ploughs
in the demesne; and forty-eight villani, and twelve bordars with
fifteen ploughs, and three churches and three priests, and three mills
of ten shillings. Wood pastures two miles long, and one broad. The
whole manor five miles long and two broad. Value in King Edward's time
sixteen pounds, the same now.
That manor of the town of Coventry which was individually held
was that of the Countess of Coventry, who was the wife of the earl of
Mercia. "The Countess held in Coventry. There are 5 hides. The arable
land employs 20 ploughs. In the demesne lands there are 3 ploughs and 7
bondmen. There are 50 villeins and 12 bordars with 20 ploughs. The mill
there pay[s] 3 shillings. The woodlands are 2 miles long and the same
broad. In King Edward's time and afterwards, it was worth 22 pounds
[440 s.], now only 11 pounds by weight. These lands of the Countess
Godiva Nicholas holds to farm of the King."
The survey shows a few manors and monasteries owned a salthouse
or saltpit in the local saltworks, from which they were entitled to
obtain salt.
In total there were about 110,000 villani [former coerls
regarded as customary, irremovable cultivator tenants]; 82,000
bordarii; 7,000 cotarii and cotseti [held land by service of labor or
rent paid in produce], and 25,000 servi [landless laborers]. There are
no more theows. This survey resulted in the first national tax system
of about 6s. per hide of land.
The survey also provided the Conquerer with a summary of
customs of areas. For instance, in Oxfordshire, "Anyone breaking the
King's peace given under his hand and seal to the extent of committing
homicide shall be at the King's mercy in respect of his life and
members. That is if he be captured. And if he cannot be captured, he
shall be considered as an outlaw, and anyone who kills him shall have
all his possessions. The king shall take the possessions of any
stranger who has elected to live in Oxford and who dies in possession
of a house in that town, and without any kinfolk. The king shall be
entitled to the body and the possessions of any man who kills another
within his own court or house excepting always the dower of his wife,
if he has a wife who has received dower.
The courts of the king and barons became schools of chivalry
wherein seven year old noble boys became pages or valets, wore a dagger
and waited upon the ladies of the household. At age fourteen, they were
advanced to squires and admitted into more familiar association with
the knights and ladies of the court. They perfected their skills in
dancing, riding, fencing, hawking, hunting, jousting, and engaged in
team sports in which the goal was to put the other side to rout. They
learned the knightly art of war. Enemy fighters were to be taken and
held for ransom rather than killed. Those engaging in rebellion were to
be pardoned and restored to some or all of their lands and titles.
Lords' sons could be mutually exchanged with an enemy's as security for
peace. After achieving knighthood, a man usually selected a wife from
the court at which he grew up. Parents tried to send their daughters to
a household superior in social status not only to learn manners, but to
make a good marriage. A girl who did not marry was often sent to a
nunnery; a dowry was necessary before her acceptance.
The following incidents of land tenure began (but were not
firmly established until the reign of Henry II). Each tenant, whether
baron or subtenant, was to pay an "aid" in money for ransom if his lord
was captured in war, for the knighthood of his lord's eldest son, and
for the marriage of his lord's eldest daughter. The aid was
theoretically voluntary. Land could be held by an heir only if he could
fight. The eldest son began to succeed to the whole of the lands in all
military tenures. Actually, William and his sons insisted on undivided
succession rather than a strict application of the primogeniture rule
that the eldest son inherit.Younger sons of great houses became
bishops. An heir of a tenant had to pay a heavy "relief" on succession
to his estate. The relief replaced the heriot. If there was a delay in
proving heirship or paying relief, the lord would hold the land and
receive its income in the meantime, often a year. If an heir was still
a minor or female, he or she passed into his lord's wardship, in which
the lord had guardianship of the heir and possession of the estate,
with all its profits. The mother was not made a minor's guardian. No
longer was the estate protected by the minor's kin as his birthright. A
female heir was expected to marry a man acceptable to the lord. The
estate of an heiress and her land was generally sold to the highest
bidder. If there were no heirs, the land escheated [reverted] to the
lord. If a tenant committed felony, his land escheated to his lord. The
word "felony" came from the Latin word meaning "to deceive" and
referred to the feudal crime of betraying or committing treachery
against one's lord.
Astrologers resided with the families of the barons. People
went to fortune tellers' shops. There was horse racing, steeple races,
and chess for recreation. Girls had dolls; boys had toy soldiers,
spinning tops, toy horses, ships, and wooden models.
The state of medicine is indicated by this medical advice
brought to the nation by William's son after treatment on the continent:
"If thou would have health and vigor Shun cares and avoid anger. Be
temperate in eating And in the use of wine. After a heavy meal Rise and
take the air Sleep not with an overloaded stomach And above all thou
must Respond to Nature when she calls."
The Conquerer allowed Jewish traders to follow him from
Normandy and settle in separate sections of the main towns. Then
engaged in long distance trade, money changing, and money lending. They
loaned money for interest for the building of castles and cathedrals.
Christians were not allowed by the church to engage in this usury. The
Jews could not become citizens nor could they have standing in the
local courts. Instead, a royal justiciar secured justice for them. They
could practice their own religion.
William the Conquerer was succeeded as king by his son William
II (Rufus), who transgressed many of the customs of the nation to get
more money for himself. He was killed by an arrow of a fellow hunter
while they and William's younger brother Henry were hunting together in
a crown forest. Henry then became king.
The Law
The notion of the king's peace extended until it was the normal
and general safeguard of the public order.
The Norman conquerors brought no code of written law. William's
laws largely affirmed the laws of the nation as they were in the times
of Edward I. These are substantially all of the laws of William I:
All freemen shall swear an oath of loyalty to William I and shall
uphold his lands and honors and defend them against enemies and aliens.
William will protect them and exact no more than legally owed service.
If a Frenchman summons an Englishman for perjury, murder, theft,
homicide or open robbery, the Englishman shall defend himself by
whichever method he prefers, either the ordeal of iron or trial by
combat. The person defeated shall pay a fine to the king. If an
Englishman summons a Frenchman and declines to prove the charge by
ordeal or by combat, the Frenchman shall clear himself by a
comprehensive oath.
For a charge of outlawry, an Englishman shall clear himself by the
ordeal of iron. When an Englishman brings a charge of outlawry against
a Frenchman, the Frechman will defend himself by combat or by a
comprehensive oath, at the choice of the Englishman.
All the men whom I brought with me [Normans] or who come after me shall
enjoy my protection. If any of them is slain, his lord shall arrest the
slayer within five days, if he can. If not, he shall begin to pay me a
"murdrum" fine of 46 marks of silver from the property of that lord as
long as it lasts. If the property of the lord fails, the whole hundred
in which the murder was committed shall pay in common what remains.
All freemen shall be in a frankpledge, so that the frankpledge may
bring him to justice, if he has committed an offense or the members of
the frankpledge shall pay the claim unless clearing themselves of the
charge of any knowledge of fraud by the runaway. The hundred and county
courts shall be attended as before. Those who are required to appear
shall be summoned once. Ad if they refuse to appear on the second
summons, as ox [worth 30d.] shall be confiscated. And so for the third
summons, another ox. And if they refuse the fourth summons, the
"ceapgeld" [120s.] shall be paid and also the fine for insubordination.
"Everyone who wishes to be admitted to the benefit of the law and to be
qualified to obtain legal rights shall be in frankpledge."
In Mercia, a surety has a month and a day to find an escaped person
accused of larceny or robbery, or else shall swear with eleven
compurgators that he had not known him to be a thief, that he was not
accessory to his flight, and that he cannot find him. Then he shall pay
for the stolen goods and 20s. in lieu of the head of the accused man
and 4d. to the jailor, a farthing for the spade, and 40s. to the king.
Every lord shall be personally responsible as surety for his servant so
that, it an accusation is brought against him, he shall bring him for
trial in the hundred court. And if he escapes while he is under the
accusation, the lord shall pay his wergeld. And if the lord is accused
of being an accessory to his flight, he shall clear himself with 5
compurgators, and if he cannot, he shall pay compensation to the king;
and the man shall be an outlaw.
All freemen shall keep themselves supplied with arms and horses or pay
the full fine of insubordination.
All earls, barons, knights, tenants by serjeanty and all free men shall
be ready to perform their service defending me against enemies and
aliens, by virtue of their fiefs, which are hereditary. Or pay the fine
for insubordination.
The heriot of an earl, which falls to the King, is 8 horses - 4 of them
bridled and saddled - 4 coats of mail, 4 helmets, 4 shields, 4 lances
and 4 swords. Of the other 4 horses, 2 shall be hunters and 2 riding
horses with bridlos and halters. The heriot of a baron is 4 horses - 2
bridled and saddled - 2 coats of mail, 2 helmets, 2 shields, 2 swords
and 2 lances. And of the other 2 horses, 1 shall be a hunter and 1 a
riding horse with bridles and halters. The heriot of a thegn of lower
rank to his liege lord shall be discharged by (delivering up) his
father's horse, as it was in the day of his death, his helmet, his
shield, his coat of mail, and lance and his sword. And if he was
without equipment, having neither horse nor arms, it shall be
discharged by the payment of 100 s. The heriot of a villain: he shall
give to this lord the best animal that he has, either a horse, an ox,
or a cow. And further all villeins shall be in frankpledge. For those
who hold their land by the payment of rent, the legal heriot shall be
the equivalent of a year's rent.
No one shall entertain a man for more than 3 days, unless he is
committed to this charge by the man with whom he was formerly serving.
And no one shall let any of his men leave him after an accusation has
All men shall keep the law of Edward relating to the tenure of estates.
been brought against him.
I prohibit the slaying or hanging of anyone for any offense, but his
eyes shall be put out and he shall suffer castration, so the trunk
remains alive as a sign of his treachery and wickedness. If a person
violates this, he shall pay the insubordination fee.
All cities, boroughs, castles, hundreds and wapentakes shall be guarded
every night on all sides against malefactors and enemies, as our
sheriffs, earldormen, reeves and other officials and servants best
provide.
The protection of the church is inviolable. Whatever crime a man has
committed, if he can make his way to a holy church, he shall have
protection for life and limb. And if anyone lays hands on him there, he
shall pay for anything he has taken and a fine of 100s. for a bishop's
church, abbey or monastery, 20s. for a parish church, and 10s. for a
chapel.
"If a man wishes to prove against his lord that he has an agreement for
his land, he must do so by means of his fellow-tenants whom he summons
as witnesses, for he cannot do so by means of strangers."
If a man slays another he shall pay manbot to the lord of the slain man
in the amount of 10s. for a free man and 20s. for a slave.
The wergeld of a thegn is 20 pounds in Mercia and 25 pounds in
Wessex. The wergeld of a villain is 100s. (20s. would buy a stallion,
10s. a bull and 5s. a boar.) 10s. of the wergeld shall be paid to the
widow and children and the relatives and orphans shall divide what
remains among themselves.
The archbishop shall have as compensation for breach of his protection
40s. in Mercia, a bishop 20s., an earl 20s., a baron 10s.,and a sokeman
40d.
If a man wounds another he shall pay for medical attendance and if he
is wounded on the face, or a part which is visible, for every inch 8d.,
on the head or any hidden place, for every inch 4d., for every piece of
bone drawn out of the wound 4d.
If a man cuts off the hand or foot of another, he shall pay half his
wergeld according to his inherited rank. For the thumb he shall pay
half the value of his hand, for the finger next the thumb, 15s.
according to the English reckoning (i.e. 4d. to the shilling), for the
middle finger 16s., for the ring-finger 17s., for the little finger
5s., for the nail if it is cut away from the flesh, 5 English s., for
the nail of the little finger 4d.
"If a man poisons another, he shall be slain or sent into permanent
exile."
There is a 100s. fine for violation of the king's peace or attack on
people's houses or for premeditated waylaying.
If anyone slays or assaults anyone who is traveling through the country
on any of the following four highways, namely, Watling Street, Ermine
Street, the Fosse Way, the Icknied Way, he violates the king's peace.
(Two of these streets extended the length of the kingdom and two
extended across its width.)
For the guarding of roads, every 10 hides of the hundred shall supply a
man between Michaelmas and Martinmas, or pay compensation for any
livestock taken over the road, unless they have raised the hue and cry
of been subject to force.
A peasant is not to be harassed or ejected except for not performing
his legal services. A peasant leaving the estate where he was born must
be returned to it.
If a father finds his daughter in adultery in his own or in his
son-in-laws house, he may slay the adulterer. The same holds for a son
and his mother during the father's lifetime.
"He who assaults the wife of another man shall forfeit his wergeld to
his lord."
"If anyone assaults a woman he shall suffer castration as a penalty."
"If a woman who is pregnant is sentenced to death or to mutilation, the
sentence shall not be carried out until she is delivered."
If anyone knocks out a man's eye by any kind of accident, he shall pay
70 English shillings as compensation. And if he destroys the sight
without displacing the pupil, he shall pay only half the sum.
"If a man dies intestate [without a will], his children shall divide
the inheritance equally among themselves."
And if anyone comes upon a thief and of his own accord lets him escape,
without raising the hue and cry, he shall make compensation by the
payment of the thief's value or clear himself.
"And if anyone hears the hue and cry and neglects it, he shall pay the
fine for neglecting it to the king, or clear himself."
If a man captures a thief without the hue and cry being given, the
injured man shall pay 10s. as a fine for neglecting to arrest the thief.
If theft is discovered on anyone's land and the thief is discovered,
the lord of the estate and the thief's wife shall have half of his
property and the claimants shall have their goods, if they find them.
And with regard to the other half, if the theft is discovered in a
district over which the lord has rights of jurisdiction, the wife shall
lose her share and it shall pass to the lord.
"Further, we forbid the buying or selling of any livestock except
within towns and before three trustworthy witnesses, likewise that of
any second-hand goods without a surety and warrantor." The penalty is
twice the value of the goods and the fine for insubordination.
No one shall buy anything of 4d. in value, either livestock or other
property, unless he has 4 men as witnesses either from a town or a
village. If anyone claims it and he has no witnesses and no warrantor,
the goods shall be given up to the claimant and the fine shall be paid
to the party who is entitled thereto. And if he has such witnesses,
vouching to warranty shall take place three times; and on the fourth
occasion he shall prove his ownership of it or deliver it up.
If anyone has taken livestock into his care, whether horses or oxen or
cows or sheep or pigs, the man who claims them shall pay 8d. and no
more in return for the care of them, however many there are up to a
hundred head of cattle. As for one pig, 1d, for one sheep, 1d., and so
on up to 8d. And he shall give pledge and find surety, that if another
man comes forward within a year and a day to claim them, he will bring
it for decision to the court of the man who had taken them into his own
care.
Strayed livestock and found property shall be exhibited in three parts
of the neighborhood. Anyone who claims it shall give pledge and surety
and if another claims it within a year and a day, he will bring it for
decision to the court of the man who found it.
The attachment of livestock: If anyone desires to claim it as stolen,
and is willing to give pledge and find surety for prosecuting his
claim, he who has possession of it must name his warrantor if he has
one. If not, he shall name his surety and his witnesses, and produce
them at the appointed day and time, if he has them, and the claimant
shall give a pledge with 5 compurgators, and the other shall give the
livestock into the hands of his warrantor or his surety, whichever of
these he has. And if he has neither but has witnesses that he bought it
in the public market and that he does not know whether his warrantor or
his pledge is dead or alive, he shall swear to this along with his
witnesses with a simple oath. In this way he shall lose his goods, but
escape punishment, if they bear witness that he obtained a surety for
them. And, in Mercia, if he can produce neither warrantor nor witness,
he shall lose the goods and pay in addition compensation to the
claimant and forfeit is wergeld to his lord. And if he can prove that
it is of his own breeding by means of witnesses drawn from three parts
of his neighborhood he shall have won his case.
There shall be no market or fair except in boroughs or castles or other
enclosed or well-guarded places.
Weights and measures shall be stamped and reliable as before.
"Likewise if slaves have remained for a year and a day, without being
claimed, in our cities or in our walled boroughs or in our castles,
from that day they shall become free men."
I forbid anyone to sell a Christian out of the country, especially into
heathen lands, or pay the fine for insubordination to me.
Anyone can set free a slave of his by presenting him to the sheriff in
the county court and giving him the arms of a freeman, namely a lance
and sword.
If I cast your things overboard from a ship in fear of death, then you
cannot bring a charge against me. The things that remained in the ship
shall be divided in common according to the value of the goods
originally belonging to each person.
He who possesses livestock of the value of 30 d. shall pay Peter's
Pence, and then his laborers, herdsmen, and servants shall be exempt.
Otherwise he shall pay a fine of 30d. to the bishop and 40s. to the
king.
If a man accuses another of theft and the latter is a free man and can
produce witnesses to prove that he is entitled to the benefit of the
law, he shall clear himself by the simple oath (of exculpation). And
those who have been (previously) accused shall clear themselves by the
oath with selected compurgators, that is by means of 14 qualified men
nominated (by the court) of whom 11 must act as the accused man's
compurgators to clear him of the charge, if he can find as many to do
so. And if he cannot find them, he shall defend himself against the
charge by the ordeal. And the plaintiff shall swear by means of 7 men
nominated (by the court), of whom 5 must act as his compurgators, that
he does nothing through malice or for any other reason than to obtain
his legal right.
And if anyone is accused of breaking into a church or a treasury, and
has no previous convictions, he shall clear himself with 11
compurgators found among 14 qualified men nominated (by the court). And
if he has been previously accused, he shall clear himself with three
times as many, namely with 35 compurgators found among 42 qualified men
nominated (by the court). And if he cannot find them, he shall go to
the triple ordeal, just as he had (to produce) a triple oath. And if he
has previously paid compensation for theft, he shall go to the water
ordeal.
He who gives a false judgment shall forfeit his wergeld to his lord,
unless he can swear on the holy relics that he did not know how to give
a better decision.
No one shall be condemned to death for a trivial crime, but another
penalty shall be devised according to the nature and magnitude of the
crime.
He who makes an unjust judgment because of rage, malice, or bribery
forfeits 40s. to the king and loses his right of jurisdiction.
A judgment given in a case between those concerned cannot affect
injuriously others who are not present.
He who refuses to observe just law and just judgment shall forfeit a
fine to the party who is entitled thereto, the king 6 pounds, an earl
40s. and to all those who have a court in England.
No one shall appeal to the king until he fails to obtain justice in the
hundred or county courts.
"When a man carries on a suit in any court other than that in which the
king is present in person, and it is maintained against him that he has
said something which he will not acknowledge - if he can prove by means
of a trustworthy man, who has seen and heard all the suit, that he did
not say it, then the validity of his word shall be admitted."
"And if anyone who has charges brought against him in the hundred court
to such an extent that 4 men accuse him, he shall clear himself with 11
compurgators."
"No one shall make distraint of property whether in the county court or
outside it, until he has demanded justice three times in the hundred or
in the county courts." If the man against whom he is bringing his
charge fails to appear the fourth time, he shall get leave to make
distraint for what is his own.
If anyone who is accused and against whom evidence of untrustworthiness
is given fails three times to attend the court proceedings, and if, at
the fourth meeting of the court, the summoners bring forward his three
defections, he shall once more be asked to find a surety and appear
before the court. And if he refuses, he shall be seized, alive or dead,
and all that he has shall be taken, and the value of his goods shall be
paid to the claimant, and the lord of the thief shall take half of what
remains and the hundred half.
One God shall be honored throughtout the kingdom.
By charter, William granted to Londoners all the rights they had in the
time of King Edward and willed that every child should be his father's
heir.
Judicial Procedure
"Ecclesiastical" courts were created for bishops to preside
over cases concerning the cure of souls and criminal cases, in which
the ordeal was used. When the Conqueror did not preside over this
court, an appeal could be made to him.
The hundred and county courts now sat without clergy and
handled only "civil" cases. They were conducted by the King's own
appointed sheriff. Only freemen and not bound villeins had standing in
this court. They continued to transact their business in the English
language.
The local jurisdictions of thegns who had grants of sac and
soke or who exercised judicial functions among their free neighbors
were now called "manors" and their owners conducted a manor court.
The Conqueror's Royal Court ["Curia Regis"] replaced the witan.
It was composed of those to whom William had made grants of land on the
understanding that they should perform certain feudal services to him.
When the Conqueror wished to determine the national laws, he summoned
twelve elected representatives of each county to declare on oath the
ancient lawful customs and law as they existed in the time of the
popular King Edward the Confessor. The recording of this law was begun.
A person could spend months trying to catch up with the Royal Court to
present a case. Sometimes the Conqueror sent the Justiciar or
commissioners to hold his Royal Court in the various districts. The
commissioner appointed groups of local men to give a collective verdict
upon oath for each trial he conducted. The Conqueror allowed, on an ad
hoc basis, certain high-level people such as bishops and abbots and
those who made a large payment, to have land disputes decided by an
inquiry of recognitors. Besides royal issues, the Royal Court heard
appeals from lower court decisions. It used English, Norman, feudal,
Roman, and canon law legal principles to reach a decision, and was
flexible and expeditious. The powers of the shire court were lessened
by the expanding authority of the Royal Court.
Trial by combat could be used in two instances: 1) a dispute
between a Frenchman and an Englishman over seisin of land initiated by
a writ of right, or 2) a criminal appeal of felony brought by an
Englishman or Frenchman against the other. Each combatant first swore
to the truth of his cause and undertook to prove by his body the truth
of his cause by making the other surrender by crying "craven" [craving
forgiveness]. The combatants used weapons like pickaxes and shields.
Presumably the man in the wrong would not fight as well because he was
burdened with a guilty conscience. Although this trial was thought to
reflect God's will, it favored the physically fit and adept person.
After losing the trial by combat, the guilty person would be punished
appropriately.
London had its own traditions. All London citizens met at its
folkmote, which was held three times a year to determine its public
officers, to raise matters of public concern, and to make ordinances.
Its criminal court had the power of outlawry as did the county courts.
Trade, land, and other civil issues were dealt with by the Hustings
Court, which met every Monday in the Guildhall. The city was divided
into wards, each of which was under the charge of an elected alderman
[elder man]. (The election was by a small governing body and the most
wealthy and reputable men and not a popular election.) The aldermen had
special knowledge of the law and a duty to declare it at the Hustings
Court. Each alderman also conducted wardmotes in his ward and decided
criminal and civil issues between its residents. Within the wards were
the guilds of the city.
King William I decided a lawsuit regarding land on the basis of
testimony of the county thus: "William, by God's grace king of the
English, to Bishop Walkelin, {Sheriff} Hugh de Port and his lieges of
Hampshire, greeting. I notify you that I have restored to Archbishop
Thomas of York one hide of land pertaining to the church of Mottisfont,
as Archbishop Ealdred best had it at the time of King Edward, in
meadows and wood and pasture and in common pasturage for as many
animals as the maximum he could have there at the time of King Edward,
as was testified before Bishop [William] of Durham and Bertram de
Verdun and devised by the men of the county. Farewell. Witnesses:
Bishop William of Durham and Bertram de Verdun."
The Royal Court decided this case: "At length both parties were
summoned before the King's court, in which there sat many of the nobles
of the land of whom Geoffrey, bishop of Coutances, was delegated by the
King's authority as judge of the dispute, with Ranulf the Vicomte,
Neel, son of Neel, Robert de Usepont, and many other capable judges who
diligently and fully examined the origin of the dispute, and delivered
judgment that the mill ought to belong to St. Michael and his monks
forever. The most victorious King William approved and confirmed this
decision."
Chapter 5
The Times: 1100-1154
King Henry I, son of William the Conquerer, furthered peace
between the Normans and native English by his marriage to a niece of
King Edward the Confessor called Matilda. She married him on condition
that he grant a charter of rights undoing some practices of the past
reigns of William I and William II. Peace was also furthered by the
fact that Henry I had been born in England and English was his native
tongue. The private wars of lords were now replaced by less serious
mock battles.
Henry was a shrewd judge of character and of the course of
events, cautious before taking action, but decisive in carrying out his
plans. He was faithful and generous to his friends. He showed a strong
practical element of calculation and foresight. Although illiterate, he
was intelligent and a good administrator. He had an efficient
intelligence gathering network and an uncanny knack of detecting hidden
plans before they became conspiratorial action. He made many able men
of inferior social position nobles, thus creating a class of career
judges and administrators in opposition to the extant hereditary
aristocracy. He loved books and built a palace at Oxford to which he
invited scholars for lively discussion. Euclid's "Elements" ", which
deduced from axioms the properties of lines, circles, and spheres, was
introduced into England.
Queen Matilda served as regent of the kingdom in Henry's
absence, as William's queen had for him. Both queens received special
coronation apart from their husbands; they held considerable estates
which they administered through their own officers, and were frequently
composed of escheated honors. Matilda was learned and a literary
patron. She founded an important literary and scholastic center. Her
compassion was great and her charities extensive. In London she founded
several almshouses and a caregiving infirmary for lepers. These were
next to small monastic communities. She also had new roads and bridges
built.
Henry issued charters restoring customs which had been
subordinated to royal impositions by previous Kings, which set a
precedent for later Kings. His coronation charter describes certain
property rights he restored after the oppressive reign of his brother,
William II.
"Henry, King of the English, to Samson the bishop, and Urse of
Abbetot, and to all his barons and faithful vassals, both French and
English, in Worcestershire, greeting.
[1.] Know that by the mercy of God and by the common counsel of the
barons of the whole kingdom of England I have been crowned king of this
realm. And because the kingdom has been oppressed by unjust exactions,
I now, being moved by reverence towards God and by the love I bear you
all, make free the Church of God; so that I will neither sell nor lease
its property; nor on the death of an archbishop or a bishop or an abbot
will I take anything from the demesne of the Church or from its vassals
during the period which elapses before a successor is installed. I
abolish all the evil customs by which the kingdom of England has be
unjustly oppressed. Some of those evil customs are here set forth.
[2.] If any of my barons or of my earls or of any other of my tenants
shall die his heir shall not redeem his land as he was wont to do in
the time of my brother, but he shall henceforth redeem it by means of a
just and lawful relief. Similarly the men of my barons shall redeem
their lands from their lords by means of a just and lawful relief.
[3.] If any of my barons or of my tenants shall wish to give -in
marriage his daughter or his sister or his niece or his cousin, he
shall consult me about the matter; but I will neither seek payment for
my consent, nor will I refuse my permission, unless he wishes to give
her in marriage to one of my enemies. And if, on the death of one of my
barons or of one of my tenants, a daughter should be his heir, I will
dispose of her in marriage and of her lands according to the counsel
given me by my barons. And if the wife of one of my tenants shall
survive her husband and be without children, she shall have her dower
and her marriage portion [that given to her by her parents], and I will
not give her in marriage unless she herself consents.
[4.] If a widow survives with children under age, she shall have her
dower and her marriage portion, so long as she keeps her body chaste;
and I will not give her in marriage except with her consent. And the
guardian of the land, and of the children, shall be either the widow or
another of their relations, as may seem more proper. And I order that
-my barons shall act likewise towards the sons and daughters -and
widows of their men.
[5.] I utterly forbid that the common mintage [a forced levy to prevent
loss to the King from depreciation of the -coinage], which has been
taken from the towns and counties, shall henceforth be levied, since it
was not so levied in the time of King Edward [the Confessor]. If any
moneyer or other person be taken with false money in his possession,
let true justice be visited upon him.
[6.] I forgive all pleas and all debts which were owing to my brother,
except my own proper dues, and except those things which were agreed to
belong to the inheritance of others, or to concern the property which
justly belonged to others. And if anyone had promised anything for his
heritage, I remit it, and I also remit all 'reliefs' which were
promised for direct inheritance.
[7.] If any of my barons or of my men, being ill, shall give away or
bequeath his movable property, I will allow that it shall be bestowed
according to his desires. But if, prevented either by violence or
through sickness, he shall die intestate as far as concerns his movable
property, his widow or his children, or his relatives or one his true
men shall make such division for the sake of his soul, as may seem best
to them.
[8.] If any of my barons or of my men shall incur a forfeit, he shall
not be compelled to pledge his movable property to an unlimited amount,
as was done in the time of my father [William I] and my brother; but he
shall only make payment -according to the extent of his legal
forfeiture, as was done before the time of my father and in the time of
my earlier predecessors. Nevertheless, if he be convicted of breach of
faith or of crime, he shall suffer such penalty as is just.
[9.] I remit all murder fines which were incurred before the day on
which I was crowned King; and such murder fines as shall now be
incurred shall be paid justly according to the law of King Edward [by
sureties].
[10.] By the common counsel of my barons I have retained the forests in
my own hands as my father did before me.
[11.] The knights, who in return for their estates perform military
service equipped with a hauberk [long coat] of mail, shall hold their
demesne lands quit of all gelds [money payments] and all labor
services; I make this concession as my own free gift in order that,
being thus relieved of so great a burden, they may furnish themselves
so well with horses and arms that they may be properly equipped to
discharge my service and to defend my kingdom.
[12.] I establish a firm peace in all my kingdom, and I order that this
peace shall henceforth be kept.
[13.] I restore to you the law of King Edward together with such
emendations to it as my father [William I] made with the counsel of his
barons.
[14.] If since the death of my brother, King William [II], anyone shall
have seized any of my property, or the property of any other man, let
him speedily return the whole of it. If he does this no penalty will be
exacted, but if he retains any part of it he shall, when discovered,
pay a heavy penalty to me.
Witness: Maurice, bishop of London; William, bishop-elect of
Winchester; Gerard, bishop of Herefore; Henry the earl; Simon the earl;
Walter Giffard; Robert of Montfort-sur-Risle; Roger Bigot; Eudo the
steward; Robert, son of Haimo; and Robert Malet.
At London when I was crowned. Farewell."
Henry took these promises seriously, which resulted in peace
and justice. Royal justice became a force to be reckoned with by the
multiplication of justices. Henry had a great respect for legality and
the forms of judicial action. He became known as the "Lion of Justice".
The payment of queen's gold, that is of a mark of gold to the
queen out of every hundred marks of silver paid, in the way of fine or
other feudal incident, to the king, probably dates from Henry I's reign.
A woman could inherit a fief if she married. The primary way
for a man to acquire control of land was to marry an heiress. If a man
were in a lower station than she was, he had to pay for his new social
status as well as have royal permission. A man could also be awarded
land which had escheated to the King. If a noble woman wanted to hold
land in her own right, she had to make a payment to the King. Many
widows bought their freedom from guardianship or remarriage from the
King. Women whose husbands were at war also ran the land of their
husbands.
Barons were lords of large holdings of farmland called
"manors". Many of the lesser barons left their dark castles to live in
semi- fortified stone houses, which usually were of two rooms with rug
hangings for drafts, as well as the sparse furniture that had been
common to the castle. There were shuttered windows to allow in light,
but which also let in the wind and rain when open. The roof was of
thatch or narrow overlapping wood shingles. The stone floor was strewn
with hay and there was a hearth near the center of the floor, with a
louvered smoke hole in the timber roof for escape of smoke. There were
barns for grain and animals. Beyond this area was a garden, orchard,
and sometimes a vineyard. The area was circumscribed by a moat over
which there was a drawbridge to a gatehouse.
The smaller room was the lord and lady's bedroom. It had a
canopied bed, chests for clothing, and wood frames on which clothes
could be hung. Life on the manor revolved around the larger room, or
hall, where the public life of the household was passed. There, meals
were served. The daily diet typically consisted of milk, soup,
porridge, fish, vegetables, and bread. Open hospitality accompanied
this communal living. There was little privacy. Manor household
villeins carried the lord's sheaves of grain to the manor barn, shore
his sheep, malted his grain, and chopped wood for his fire. At night
some slept on the floor of the hall. Others, who were cottars and
bordars, had their own dwellings nearby.
The manor house of lesser lords or knights was still built of
wood, although it often had a stone foundation.
About 35% of the land was arable land, about 25% was common
pasture land (for grazing only) or meadow land (near a stream or river
and used for hay or grazing), and about 15% was woodland. There were
these types of land and wasteland on each manor. The arable land was
allotted to the villeins in strips to equalize the best and worst land
and their distance from the village where the villeins lived. There was
three-way rotation of wheat or rye, oats or barley, and fallow land.
Cows, pigs, sheep, and fowl were kept. The meadow was allocated for hay
for the lord's household and each villein's. The villeins held land of
their lord for various services such as agricultural labor or raising
domestic animals. The villeins worked about half of their time on their
lord's fields [his demesne land], which was about a third of the
farmland. This work was primarily to gather the harvest and to plough
with oxen, using a yoke over their shoulders, and to sow in autumn and
Lent. They threshed grain on barn floors with flails cut from holly or
thorn, and removed the kernels from the shafts by hand. Work lasted
from sunrise to sunset and included women and children. The older
children could herd geese and pigs, and set snares for rabbits. The
young children could gather nuts and berries in season and other wild
edibles, and could pick up little tufts of wool shed by sheep. The old
could stay in the hut and mind the children, keep the fire going and
the black pot boiling, sew, spin, patch clothes, and cobble shoes. The
old often suffered from rheumatism. Many people had bronchitis. Many
children died of croup [inflammation of the respiratory passages]. Life
expectancy was probably below thirty-five.
The villein retained his customary rights, his house and land
and rights of wood and hay, and his right in the common land of his
township. Customary ways were maintained. The villeins of a manor
elected a reeve to communicate their interests to their lord, usually
through a bailiff, who directed the labor. Sometimes there was a
steward in charge of several of a lord's manors, who also held the
manorial court for the lord. The steward held his land of the lord by
petty serjeanty, which was a specific service to the lord. Other
serjeanty services were carrying the lord's shield and arms, finding
attendants and esquires for knights, helping in the lord's hunting
expeditions, looking after his hounds, bringing fuel, doing carpentry,
and forging irons for ploughs. The Woodward preserved the timber. The
Messer supervised the harvesting. The Hayward removed any fences from
the fields after harvest to allow grazing by cattle and sheep. The
Coward, Bullard, and Calvert tended the cows, bulls, and calves; the
Shepherd, the sheep; and the Swineherds the pigs. The Ponder impounded
stray stock. There were varieties of horses: war horses, riding horses,
courier horses, pack horses, and plough horses.
The majority of manors were coextensive with a single village.
The villeins lived in the village in one-room huts enclosed by a wood
fence, hedge, or stone wall. In this yard was a garden of onions,
leeks, mustard, peas, beans, parsley, garlic, herbs, and cabbage and
apple, pear, cherry, quince, and plum trees, and beehives. The hut had
a high-pitched roof thatched with reeds or straw and low eaves reaching
almost to the ground. The walls are built of wood-framing overlaid with
mud or plaster. Narrow slits in the walls serve as windows, which have
shutters and are sometimes covered with coarse cloth. The floor is dirt
and may be covered with straw or rushes for warmth, but usually no
hearth. In the middle is a wood fire burning on a hearthstone, which
was lit by making a spark by striking flint and iron together. The
smoke rose through a hole in the roof. At one end of the hut was the
family living area, where the family ate on a collapsible trestle table
with stools or benches. Their usual food was beans and peas, oatmeal
gruel, butter, cheese, vegetables, honey, rough bread made from a
mixture of wheat, barley, and rye flour, herrings or other salt fish,
and some salted or smoked bacon. Butter had first been used for cooking
and as a medicine to cure constipation. For puny children it could be
salted down for the winter. The bread had been roasted on the stones of
the fire; later there were communal ovens set up in villages. Cooking
was done over the fire by boiling in iron pots hung from an iron
tripod, or sitting on the hot stones of the fire. They ate from wood
bowls using a wood spoon. When they had fresh meat, it could be roasted
on a spit. Liquids were heated in a kettle. With drinking horns, they
drank water, milk, buttermilk, apple cider, mead, ale made from barley
malt, and bean and vegetable broth. They used jars and other
earthenware, e.g. for storage of salt. They slept on straw mattresses
or sacks on the floor or on benches. The villein regarded his bed area
as the safest place in the house, as did people of all ranks, and kept
his treasures there, which included his farm implements, as well as
hens on the beams, roaming pigs, and stalled oxen, cattle, and horses,
which were at the other end of the hut. Fires were put out at night to
guard against fire burning down the huts. The warmth of the animals
then helped make the hut warm. Around the room are a couple of chests
to store salt, meal, flour, a broom made of birch twigs, some woven
baskets, the distaff and spindle for spinning, and a simple loom for
weaving. All clothes were homemade. They were often coarse, greasy wool
and leather made from their own animals. The man wore a tunic of coarse
linen embroidered on the sleeves and breast, around with he wore a
girdle of rope, leather, or folded cloth. Sometimes he also wore
breeches reaching below the knee. The woman wore a loose short-sleeved
gown, under which was a tight fitting garment with long loose sleeves,
and which was short enough to be clear of the mud. If they wore shoes,
they were clumsy and patched. Some wore a hood-like cap. For really bad
weather, a man wore on his head a hood with a very elongated point
which could be wrapped around his neck. Sometimes a short cape over the
shoulders was attached. Linen was too expensive for commoners.
The absence of fresh food during the winter made scurvy
prevalent; in the spring, people eagerly sought "scurvy grass" to eat.
Occasionally there would be an outbreak of a nervous disorder due to
the ergot fungus growing in the rye used for bread. This manifested
itself in apparent madness, frightening hallucinations, incoherent
shouting, hysterical laughing, and constant scratching of itching and
burning sensations.
The villein and his wife and children worked from daybreak to
dusk in the fields, except for Sundays and holydays. He had certain
land to farm for his own family, but had to have his grain milled at
his lord's mill at the lord's price. He had to retrieve his wandering
cattle from his lord's pound at the lord's price. He was expected to
give a certain portion of his own produce, whether grain or livestock,
to his lord. However, if he fell short, he was not put off his land.
The villein, who worked the farm land as his ancestor ceorl had, now
was so bound to the land that he could not leave or marry or sell an ox
without his lord's consent. If the manor was sold, the villein was sold
as a part of the manor. When his daughter or son married or if he sent
his son to school,he had to pay a "merchet" to his lord. He could not
have a son educated without the lord's permission, and this usually
involved a fee to the lord. His best beast at his death, or "heriot",
went to his lord. If he wanted permission to live outside the manor, he
paid "chevage" yearly. Woodpenny was a yearly payment for gathering
dead wood. Sometimes a "tallage" payment was taken at the lord's will.
The villein's oldest son usually took his place on his land and
followed the same customs with respect to the lord. For an heir to take
his dead ancestor's land, the lord demanded payment of a "relief",
which was usually the amount of a year's income but sometimes as much
as the heir was willing to pay to have the land. The usual aids were
also expected to be paid.
A large village also had a smith, a wheelwright, a millwright,
a tiler and thatcher, a shoemaker and tanner, a carpenter wainwright
and carter.
Markets were about twenty miles apart because a farmer from the
outlying area could then carry his produce to the nearest town and walk
back again in the daylight hours of one day. In this local market he
could buy foodstuffs, livestock, household goods, fuels, skins, and
certain varieties of cloth.
The cloth was crafted by local weavers, dyers, and fullers. The
weaver lived in a cottage with few and narrow windows and little
furniture. He worked in the main, and sometimes the only, room. First
the raw wool was washed with water at the front door to remove the
grease. Then its fibers were disentangled and made fine with hand cards
with thistle teeth, usually by the children. Then it was spun by a
spinning wheel into thread, usually by the wife. On a double frame
loom, a set of parallel threads was strung lengthwise. A device worked
by a pedal lifted half of these threads --every other thread--while the
other half remained in place. Between the lifted threads and the
stationary threads a shuttle was thrown by the weaver from one hand to
another. Then the threads which had remained stationary were raised by
a second pedal and the shuttle thrown back. The shuttle carried a spool
so that, as it moved, it left a thread behind it running crosswise or
at right angles to the lengthwise threads and in and out between them.
The lengthwise threads were called the "warp"; the shuttle thread was
the "woof" or the "weft".In making cloth, it was the warp which, as the
loom moved, took the worst beating. With the constant raising and
lowering, these treads would wear and break, whereas the weft on which
there was little strain remained intact. None of the cotton yarn which
the old-fashioned wheels had spun was strong enough for warp. So it was
necessary to use linen thread for the warp.
Since one loom could provide work for about six spinners, the
weaver had his wool spun by other spinners in their cottages. Sometimes
the master weaver had an apprentice or workman working and living with
him, who had free board and lodging and an annual wage. Then a fuller
made the cloth thick and dense by washing, soaping, beating, and
agitating it, with the use of a community watermill which could be used
by anyone for a fixed payment. The cloth dried through the night on a
rack outside the cottage. The weaver then took his cloth, usually only
one piece, to the weekly market to sell. The weavers stood at the
market holding up their cloth. The cloth merchant who bought the cloth
then had it dyed or dressed according to his requirements. Its surface
could be raised with teazleheads and cropped or sheared to make a nap.
Some cloth was sold to tailors to make into clothes. Often a weaver had
a horse for travel, a cow for milk, chickens for eggs, perhaps a few
cattle, and some grazing land. Butchers bought, slaughtered, and cut up
animals to sell as meat. Some was sold to cooks, who sold prepared
foods. The hide was bought by the tanner to make into leather. The
leather was sold to shoemakers and glovemakers. Millers bought
harvested grain to make into flour. Flour was sold to bakers to make
into breads. Wood was bought by carpenters and by coopers, who made
barrels, buckets, tubs, and pails. Tilers, oilmakers and rope makers
also bought raw material to make into finished goods for sale.
Wheelwrights made ploughs, harrows, carts, and later wagons. Smiths and
locksmiths worked over their hot fires.
Games with dice were sometimes played. In winter, youths ice-
skated with bones fastened to their shoes. They propelled themselves by
striking the ice with staves shod with iron. On summer holydays, they
exercised in leaping, shooting with the bow, wrestling, throwing
stones, and darting a thrown spear. The maidens danced with timbrels.
Since at least 1133, children's toys included dolls, drums, hobby
horses, pop guns, trumpets, and kites.
The cold, indoors as well as outdoors, necessitated that people
wear ample and warm garments. Men and women of position dressed in long
full cloaks reaching to their feet, sometimes having short full
sleeves. The cloak generally had a hood and was fastened at the neck
with a brooch. Underneath the cloak was a simple gown with sleeves
tight at the wrist but full at the armhole, as if cut from the same
piece of cloth. A girdle or belt was worn at the waist. When the men
were hunting or working, they wore gown and cloak of knee length. Men
wore stockings to the knee and shoes. The fashion of long hair on men
returned.
The nation grew with the increase of population, the
development of towns, and the growing mechanization of craft
industries. There were watermills for crafts and for supplying and
draining water in all parts of the nation. In flat areas, slow rivers
could be supplemented by creating artificial waterfalls, for which
water was raised to the level of reservoirs. There were also some iron-
smelting furnaces. Coal mining underground began as a family
enterprise. Stone bridges over rivers could accommodate one person
traveling by foot or by horseback and were steep and narrow. The
wheelbarrow came into use to cart materials for building castles and
cathedrals.
Merchants, who had come from the low end of the knightly class
or high end of the villein class, settled around the open market areas,
where main roads joined. They had plots narrow in frontage along the
road and deep. Their shops faced the road, with living space behind or
above their stores. Town buildings were typically part stone and part
timber as a compromise between fire precautions and expense.
Towns, as distinct from villages, had permanent markets. As
towns grew, some became boroughs by paying a fee to obtain a charter
for self-government from the king giving the town judicial and
commercial freedom. They were literate enough to do accounts. So they
did their own valuation of the sum due to the crown so as not to pay
the sheriff any more than that. These various rights were typically
expanded in future times, and the towns received authority to collect
the sum due to the crown rather than the sheriff. This they did by
obtaining a charter renting the town to the burgesses at a fee farm
rent equal to the sum thus deducted from the amount due from the
county. The freemen were "free of the borough", which meant they had
exclusive rights and privileges with respect to it. Selling wholesale
could take place only in a borough. Burgesses were free to marry. They
were not subject to defense except of the borough. They were exempt
from attendance at county and hundred courts. The king assessed a
tallage [ad hoc tax] usually at ten per cent of property or income. In
the boroughs, merchant and manufacturing guilds controlled prices and
assured quality. The head officer of the guild usually controlled the
borough, which excluded rival merchant guilds. A man might belong to
more than one guild, e.g. one for his trade and another for religion.
The frankpledge system prevailed in the boroughs.
Craft guilds grew up in the towns, such as the tanners at
Oxford, which later merged with the shoemakers into a cordwainers'
guild. There were weavers' guilds in several towns, including London,
which were given royal sanction and protection for annual payments
(twelve pounds of silver for London). They paid an annual tribute and
were given a monopoly of weaving cloth within a radius of several
miles. Guild rules covered attendance of the members at church
services, the promotion of pilgrimages, celebration of masses for the
dead, common meals, relief of poor brethren and sisters, the hours of
labor, the process of manufacture, the wages of workmen, and technical
education. King Henry standardized the yard as the length of his own
arm.
Trades and crafts, each of which had to be licensed, grouped
together by specialty in the town. Cloth makers, dyers, tanners, and
fullers were near an accessible supply of running water, upon which
their trade depended. Streets were often named by the trade located
there, such as Butcher Row, Pot Row, Cordwainer Row, Ironmonger Row,
Wheeler Row, and Fish Row. Hirers of labor and sellers of wheat, hay,
livestock, dairy products, apples and wine, meat, poultry, fish and
pies, timber and cloth all had a distinct location. Some young men were
apprenticed to craftsmen to assist them and learn their craft.
London had bought the right to have an elected mayor. The
Norman word "mayor" replaced "portreeve". Henry I granted the
Londoners the right to elect a sheriff and a justiciar from among
themselves. London had at least twenty wards, each governed by its own
alderman. Most of them were named after people. London was ruled by
sixteen families linked by business and marriage ties. These businesses
supplied luxury goods to the rich and included the goldsmiths [sold
cups, dishes, girdles, mirrors, purses knives, and metal wine
containers with handle and spout], vintners [wine merchants], mercers
[sold textiles, haberdashery, combs, mirrors, knives, toys, spices,
ointments, and potions], drapers, and pepperers, which later merged
with the spicers to become the "grocers", skinners, tanners,
shoemakers, woolmen, weavers, fishmongers, armorers, and swordsmiths.
There were bakehouses at which one could leave raw joints of meat to be
cooked and picked up later. These businesses had in common four fears:
royal interference, foreign competition, displacement by new crafts,
and violence by the poor and escaped villeins who found their way to
the city. When a non-freeholder stayed in London he had to find for
frankpledge, three sureties for good behavior. Failure to do so was a
felony and the ward would eject him to avoid the charge of harboring
him with its heavy fine. The arrival of ships with cargoes from
continental ports and their departure with English exports was the
regular waterside life below London Bridge. Many foreign merchants
lived in London. Imports included timber, hemp, fish, and furs. There
was a fraternal organization of citizens who had possessed their own
lands with sac and soke and other customs in the days of King Edward.
There were public bathhouses, but they were disreputable. A lady would
take an occasional bath in a half cask in her home. The church warned
of evils of exposing the flesh, even to bathe.
Middlesex County was London's territory for hunting and
farming. All London craft work was suspended for one month at harvest
time. London received this charter for self-government and freedom from
the financial and judicial organization of the county:
"Henry, by the grace of God, King of England, to the Archbishop of
Canterbury and the bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justiciars, sheriffs
and all his loyal subjects, both French and English, throughout the
whole of England - greeting.
1. -Be it known to you that I have granted Middlesex to my citizens of
London to be held on lease by them and their heirs of me and my heirs
for 300 pounds paid by tale [yearly], upon these terms: that the
citizens themselves [may] appoint a sheriff, such as they desire, from
among themselves, and a justiciar, such as they desire, from among
themselves, to safeguard the pleas of my Crown [criminal cases] and to
conduct such pleas. And there shall be no other justiciar over the men
of London.
2. -And the citizens shall not take part in any [civil] case whatsoever
outside the City walls.
- -1) And they shall be exempt from the payment of scot and danegeld
and the murder fine.
- -2) And none of them shall take part in trial by combat.
- -3) And if any of the citizens has become involved in a plea of the
Crown, he shall clear himself, as a citizen of London, by an oath which
has been decreed in the city.
- -4) And no one shall be billeted [lodged in a person's house by
order of the King] within the walls of the city nor shall hospitality
be forcibly exacted for anyone belonging to my household or to any
other.
- -5) And all the citizens of London and all their effect [goods]
shall be exempt and free, both throughout England and in the seaports,
from toll and fees for transit and market fees and all other dues.
- -6) And the churches and barons and citizens shall have and hold in
peace and security their rights of jurisdiction [in civil and criminal
matters] along with all their dues, in such a way that lessees who
occupy property in districts under private jurisdiction shall pay dues
to no one except the man to whom the jurisdiction belongs, or to the
official whom he has placed there.
- -7) And a citizen of London shall not be amerced [fined by a court
when the penalty for an offense is not designated by statute] to
forfeiture of a sum greater than his wergeld, [hereby assessed as] 100
shillings, in a case involving money.
- -8) And further there shall be no miskenning [false plea causing a
person to be summoned to court] in a husting [weekly court] or in a
folkmote [meeting of the community], or in any other court within the
City.
- -9) And the Hustings [court] shall sit once a week on Monday.
- -10) And I assure to my citizens their lands and the property
mortgaged to them and the debts due to them both within the City and
without.
- -11) And with regard to lands about which they have pled in suit
before me, I shall maintain justice on their behalf, according to the
law of the City.
- -12) And if anyone has exacted toll or tax from citizens of London,
the citizens of London within the city shall [have the right to] seize
[by process of law] from the town or village where the toll or tax was
exacted a sum equivalent to that which the citizen of London gave as
toll and hence sustained as loss.
- -13) And all those who owe debts to citizens shall pay them or shall
clear themselves in London from the charge of being in debt to them.
- -14) But if they have refused to pay or to come to clear themselves,
then the citizens to whom they are in debt shall [have the right to]
seize [by process of law] their goods [including those in the hands of
a third party, and bring them] into the city from the [town, village
or] county in which the debtor lives [as pledges to compel appearance
in court].
- -15) And the citizens shall enjoy as good and full hunting rights as
their ancestors ever did, namely, in the Chilterns, in Middlesex, and
in Surrey.
Witnessed at Westminster."
The above right not to take part in any case outside the city
relieved London citizens from the burden of traveling to wherever the
King's court happened to be, the disadvantage of not knowing local
customs, and the difficulty of speaking in the language of the King's
court rather than in English. The right of redress for tolls exacted
was new because the state of the law was that the property of the
inhabitants was liable to the king or superior lord for the common debt.
Newcastle-on-Tyne was recognized by the king as having certain
customs, so the following was not called a grant:
"These are the laws and customs which the burgesses of Newcastle upon
Tyne had in the time of Henry King of England and ought to have.
[1] -Burgesses can distrain [take property of another until the other
performs his obligation] upon foreigners within, or without their own
market, within or without their own houses, and within or without their
own borough without the leave of the reeve, unless the county court is
being held in the borough, and unless [the foreigners are] on military
service or guarding the castle.
[2] -A burgess cannot distrain upon a burgess without the leave of the
reeve.
[3] -If a burgess have lent anything of his to a foreigner, let the
debtor restore it in the borough if he admits the debt, if he denies
it, let him justify himself in the borough.
[4] -Pleas which arise in the borough shall be held and -concluded
there, except pleas of the Crown.
[5] -If any burgess be appealed [sued] of any plaint, he shall not
plead without the borough, unless for default of [the borough] court.
[6] -Nor ought he to answer without day and term, unless he have fallen
into 'miskenning' [error in pleading], except in matters which pertain
to the Crown.
[7] -If a ship have put in at Tynemouth and wishes to depart, the
burgesses may buy what they will [from it].
[8] -If a plea arise between a burgess and a merchant, it shall be
concluded before the third ebb of the tide.
[9] -Whatever merchandise a ship has brought by sea must be landed,
except salt; and herring ought to be sold in the ship.
[10] If any man have held land in burgage for a year and a day,
lawfully and without claim, he shall not answer a claimant, unless the
claimant have been without the realm of - - -England, or a child not of
age to plead.
[11] If a burgess have a son, he shall be included in his father's
freedom if he be with his father.
[12] If a villein come to dwell in the borough, and dwell there a year
and a day as a burgess, he shall abide altogether, unless notice has
been given by him or by his master that he is dwelling for a term.
[13] If any man appeal [sue] a burgess of any thing, he cannot do
[trial by] battle with the burgess, but the burgess shall defend
himself by his law, unless it be of treason, whereof he is bound to
defend himself by [trial by] battle.
[14] Neither can a burgess do [trial by] battle against a foreigner,
unless he first go out of the borough.
[15] No merchant, unless he be a burgess, may buy [outside] the town
either wool or leather or other merchandise, nor within the borough
except [from] burgesses.
[16] If a burgess incur forfeit, he shall give six ounces [10s.] to the
reeve.
[17] In the borough there is no merchet [payment for marrying off a
daughter] nor heriot nor bloodwite [fine for drawing blood] nor
stengesdint [fine for striking with a stick].
[18] Every burgess may have his own oven and handmill if he will,
saving the right of the King's oven.
[19] If a woman be in forfeit for bread or beer, no one ought to
interfere but the reeve. If she forfeit twice, she shall be chastised
by her forfeit. If three times, let justice be done on her.
[20] No one but a burgess may buy webs [woven fabrics just taken off
the loom] to dye, nor make nor cut them.
[21] A burgess may give and sell his land and go whither he will freely
and quietly unless there be a claim against him."
The nation produced sufficient iron, but a primitive steel
[iron with carbon added] was imported. It was scarce and expensive.
Steel was used for tools, instruments, weapons and armor. Ships could
carry about 300 people. Navigation was by simple charts that included
wind direction for different seasons and the direction of north. The
direction of the ship could be generally determined when the sky was
clear by the position of the sun during the day or the north star
during the night.
Plays about miracles wrought by holy men or saints or the
sufferings and fortitude of martyrs were performed, usually at the
great church festivals. Most nobles could read, though writing was
still a specialized craft. There were books on animals, plants, and
stones. The lives of the saints as told in the book "The Golden Legend"
were popular. The story of the early King Arthur was told in the book
"The History of the Kings of England". The story at this time stressed
Arthur as a hero and went as follows: Arthur became king at age 15. He
had an inborn goodness and generosity as well as courage. He and his
knights won battles against foreign settlers and neighboring clans.
Once, he and his men surrounded a camp of foreigners until they gave up
their gold and silver rather than starve. Arthur married Guenevere and
established a court and retinue. Leaving Britain in the charge of his
nephew Modred, he fought battles on the continent for land to give to
his noblemen who did him service in his household and fought with him.
When Arthur returned to Britain, he made battle with his nephew Modred
who had crowned himself King. Arthur's knight Gawain, the son of his
sister, and the enemy Modred were killed and Arthur was severely
wounded. Arthur told his kinsman Constantine to rule Britain as king in
his place.
The intellectual world included art, secular literature, law,
and medicine. There were about 90 physicians.
The center of government was a collection of tenants-in-chief,
whose feudal duty included attendance when summoned, and certain
selected household servants of the King. The Exchequer became a
separate body. The payments in kind, such as grain or manual services,
from the royal demesnes had been turned into money payments. The great
barons made their payments directly to the Exchequer. The income from
royal estates was received by the Exchequer and then commingled with
the other funds. Each payment was indicated by notches on a stick,
which was then split so that the payer and the receiver each had a half
showing the notches. The Exchequer was the great school for training
statesmen, justices, and bishops. The Chancellor managed the domestic
matters of the Crown's castles and lands. The great offices of state
were sold for thousands of pounds, which caused their holders to be on
their best behavior for fear of losing their money by being discharged
from office. One chancellor paid Henry about 3000 pounds for the
office. Henry brought sheriffs under his strict control, free from
influence by the barons. He maintained order with a strong hand, but
was no more severe than his security demanded.
Forests were still retained by Kings for their hunting of boars
and stags. A master forester maintained them. The boundaries of the
Royal Forests were enlarged. They comprised almost one-third of the
kingdom. Certain inhabitants thereof supplied the royal foresters with
meat and drink and received certain easements and rights of common
therein. The forest law reached the extreme of severity and cruelty
under Henry I. Punishments given included blinding, emasculation, and
execution. Offenders were rarely allowed to substitute a money payment.
When fines were imposed they were heavy.
A substantial number of barons and monasteries were heavily in
debt to the Jews. The interest rate was 43% (2d. per pound per week).
The king taxed the Jews at will.
The Law
Henry restored the death penalty (by hanging) for theft and
robbery, but maintained William I's punishment of mutilation by
blinding and severing of limbs for other offenses, for example, bad
money. He decreed in 1108 that false and bad money should be amended,
so that he who was caught passing bad denarii should not escape by
redeeming himself but should lose his eyes and members. And since
denarii were often picked out, bent, broken, and refused, he decreed
that no denarius or obol, which he said were to be round, or even a
quadrans, if it were whole, should be refused. (Money then reached a
higher level of perfection, which was maintained for the next century.)
Counterfeiting law required that "If any one be caught carrying
false coin, the reeve shall give the bad money to the King however much
there is, and it shall be charged in the render of his farm [payment]
as good, and the body of the offender shall be handed over to the King
for judgment, and the serjeants who took him shall have his clothes."
The forest law stated that: "he that doth hunt a wild beast and
doth make him pant, shall pay 10 shillings: If he be a freeman, then he
shall pay double. If he be a bound man, he shall lose his skin." A
"verderer" was responsible for enforcing this law, which also stated
that: "If anyone does offer force to a Verderer, if he be a freeman, he
shall lose his freedom, and all that he hath. And if he be a villein,
he shall lose his right hand." Further, "If such an offender does
offend so again, he shall lose his life."
A wife's dower is one-third of all her husband's freehold land,
unless his endowment of her at their marriage was less than one- third.
Debts to townsmen were recoverable by this law: "If a burgess
has a gage [a valuable object held as security for carrying out an
agreement] for money lent and holds this for a whole year and a day,
and the debtor will not deny the debt or deliver the gage, and this is
proved, the burgess may sell the gage before good witnesses for as much
as he can, and deduct his money from the sum. If any money is over he
shall return it to the debtor. But if there is not enough to pay him,
he shall take distress again for the amount that is lacking."
Past due rent in a borough was punishable by payment of 10s. as
fine.
Judicial activity encouraged the recording of royal legislation in
writing which both looked to the past and attempted to set down law
current in Henry's own day in the Leges Henrici Primi. This showed an
awareness of the ideal of written law as a statement of judicial
principles as well as of the practice of kingship. In this way,
concepts of Roman law used by the Normans found their way into English
law. The laws of Henry I in the Leges Henrici Primi have as subjects
judicial procedure, proper judging, conduct of people involved in
litigation, litigation procedure, required witnesses, evidence,
credibility, quotes from legal references, oaths, perjury, geographical
divisions of England, court sessions and attendance, order of court
proceedings, adjournments, frankpledge, strangers, types of causes and
their manner of hearing, royal jurisdiction, ecclesiastical pleas of
the king, offenses, compensations, penalties, reliefs, the king's
peace, forest pleas, exculpation, soke, jurisdiction of royal judges,
the king's judges, summons, oathhelpers, transfer of cases, trials of
pleas, unjust judgments, sureties, lords who sue, accusations, court
procedure, pleadings, postponements, record of proceedings, failure to
appear, counsel, summoning the hundred, summoning the county court,
distraints, partners of common property, rights of jurisdiction of a
lord over his man, holdings in farm, disputes between neighbors, trial
by battle, slaves, pleas between a lord's reeve and those who are
subject to him, suits by royal judges, wergelds, murdrum fine, letting
go of a thief, slaying of or by a cleric, confessions, men of ill
repute, ordeals, compensations, bondmen, intent, inheritance, dowries,
homicide by magicians, definition of homicide, killing one's lord,
foreigners, debtors, illegitimacy, foundlings, the king's peace,
homicide in the king's court, royal highways, self-defense, drinking
assemblies, mutual enemies, leading into wrong-doing, lent arms,
marauders, weapons, killing a relative, pledge, negligence, and wounds
to body parts.
A sampling of the laws of Henry I follows:
"These are the jurisdictional rights which the king of England has in
his land solely and over all men, reserved through a proper ordering of
peace and security: breach of the king's peace given by his hand or
writ; Danegeld; the pleas of contempt of his writs or commands; the
death or injury of his servants wherever occurring; breach of fealty
and treason; any contempt or slander of him; fortifications consisting
of three walls; outlawry; theft punishable by death; murdrum;
counterfeiting his coinage; arson; hamsocn [breach of the right of
security and privacy in a man's house by forcible entry into it];
forestel [attacking an enemy unexpectedly or lying in wait for him on
the road and attacking him] passenger on the king's highway]; fyrding
[action regarding the military array or land force of the whole
country]; flymenfyrm [the reception or relief of a fugitive or outlaw];
premeditated assault; robbery; stretbreche [destroying a road by
closing it off or diverting it or digging it up]; unlawful
appropriation of the king's land or money; treasure-trove; wreck of the
sea; things cast up by the sea; rape; abduction; forests; the reliefs
of barons; fighting in the king's dwelling or household; breach of the
peace in the king's troop; failure to perform burgbot [a contribution
to the repair of castles or walls of defense, or of a borough]; or
brigbot [a tribute or contribution to the repair of bridges]; or
firdfare [a summoning forth to a military expedition]; receiving and
maintaining an excommunicated person or an outlaw; violation of the
king's protection; flight in a military or naval battle; false
judgment; failure of justice; violation of the king's law."
"Some pleas cannot be compensated for with money; these are: husbreche
[housebreaking or burglary], arson, manifest theft, palpable murder,
treachery towards one's lord, and violation of the peace of the church
or the protection of the king through the commission of homicide."
"Compensation is effected by the payment of one hundred shillings for
the following: grithbreche [breach of the peace], stretbreche,
forestel, violation of the king's protection, hamsocn, and flymenfyrm."
Hamsocn is an attack on a house and occurs if anyone assaults another
in his own house or the house of someone else with a band of men or
pursues him so that he hits the door or the house with arrows or stones
or produces a perceptible blow from any source. It also is committed if
anyone goes with premeditation to a house where he knows his enemy to
be and attacks him there, whether he does this by day or by night. It
also occurs if anyone pursues a person fleeing into a mill or
sheephold. If in a court of house dissension has arisen and fighting
follows as well, and someone pursues another person fleeing into the
other house, it shall be considered hamsocn if there are two roofs
there.
The following place a man in the king's mercy: breach of his peace
which he gives to anyone by his own hand; contempt of his writs and
anything which slanders injuriously his own person or his commands;
causing the death of his servants in a town or fortress or anywhere
else; breach of fealty and treason; contempt of him; construction of
fortifications without permission; the incurring of outlawry (anyone
who suffers this shall fall into the king's hand, and if he has any
bocland [lands held by deed or other written evidence of title];
manifest theft punishable by death."
If any Englishman is slain without fault on his part, compensation
shall be paid to his relatives according to this wergeld. Wite and
manbot shall be paid to the appropriate lords in accordance with the
amount of the wergeld. Where a wergeld of 200s. is payable, then 30s.
must be paid as manbot, which equals 5 mancuses; where the wergeld is
1200s., that is, for a thegn, the manbot is 120s, which amounts to 20
mancuses.
"For the oath of a thegn equals the oaths of six villeins; if he is
killed he is fully avenged by the slaying of six villeins and if
compensation is paid for him, his wergeld is the wergeld for six
villeins."
Some freemen are 200 men, some 600 men, and others 1200 men. A 200 man
has a wergeld of 200s., which equal 4 pounds. A 1200 man is a person of
noble rank, that is, a thegn, whose wergeld is 1200s., which equal 25
pounds. His healsfang is 120s., which today equals 50s. (40 sheep are
worth 20s., as is one horse.)
Homicide by a magical potion or witchcraft or sorcery practiced with
images or by any kind of enchantment cannot be compensated. If the
bewitched person does not die, but suffers some change of the skin or
demonstrable physical sickness, compensation shall be paid as
prescribed by the ancient provisions of wise men, in accordance with
the circumstances.
"If anyone kills his lord, then if in his guilt he is seized, he shall
in no manner redeem himself but shall be condemned to scalping or
disemboweling or to human punishment which in the end is so harsh that
while enduring the dreadful agonies of his tortures and the miseries of
his vile manner of death he may appear to have yielded up his wretched
life before in fact he has won an end to his sufferings, and so that he
may declare, if it were possible, that he had found more mercy in hell
than had been shown to him on earth."
"If anyone kills his man without his having merited death, he shall
just the same pay compensation for him to his relatives according to
the amount of his wergeld, because the man was his to render service,
not to be killed."
"A person who breaks the king's peace which he confers on anyone with
his own hand shall, if he is seized, suffer the loss of his limbs."
"If anyone has the king's peace given by the sheriff or other official
and a breach of it is committed against him, then this is a case of
grithbreche and compensation of one hundred shillings shall be paid, if
settlement can be effected by payment of compensation."
"On whosoever's land a slaying takes place, the lord who has his rights
of soke and sake shall, if the slayer, when caught on the spot, is
released on providing security or is detained after being charged,
receive the fihtwite."
If anyone is slain in an attack by a band of marauders, the slayer
shall pay the wergeld to the relatives, and manbot to the lord, and all
who were present shall pay hlothbot, that is to say, they shall pay
compensation of 30s. for a 200 man, 60s. for a 600 man, and 120s. for a
1200 man.
In the case of every payment of wergeld for a slaying, two parts are
the responsibility of the paternal kindred, and one third part is the
responsibility of the maternal kin.
If the kindred of a man who slays another abandons him and will not pay
compensation for him, then all the kindred shall be free from the feud
except the wrongdoer alone, if they thereafter provide him with neither
food nor protection.
"If a woman commits homicide, vengeance shall be taken against her or
her descendants or her blood relatives (or she shall pay compensation
for it), not against her husband or his innocent household." Amends
shall nonetheless be made whether these things are done intentionally
or unintentionally. However, the possibility of a friendly settlement
or of clemency is to be treated as the more likely or the more remote
depending on the degree of blame attaching to the person who has been
slain, and according to the circumstances. If a woman is slain,
compensation is to be paid according to her wergeld, which is decided
by her paternal relationship. The manbot shall be determined by the
standing of the lord.
"Any person may aid his lord without incurring a wite if anyone attacks
him, and may obey him in all lawful matters except in the case of
breach of feudal loyalty, theft, murder, and similar offences, the
commission of which has in absolutely no way been permitted, and which
are branded as crimes by the laws." In the same way a lord must in the
appropriate circumstances keep his man with advice as well as support,
and may do so in all ways without penalty.
"Anyone who fights in the king's dwelling shall forfeit his life."
"If anyone commits the offence of blodwite [an amercement for
bloodshed], fihtwite [a fine for making a quarrel to the disturbance of
the peace], legerwite [fine for unlawful cohabitation], or anything of
that nature, and he escapes from the scene without being obliged to
provide security for future appearance in court or without a charge
being laid there, the jurisdiction at law belongs to his own lord."
Infiht or insocna is the offense committed by those who are living in
community in a house; this is compensated for by a payment of the wite
to the head of the household, if he has jurisdiction over accuser and
accused.
If anyone leaps to arms and disturbs the peace of a house, but does not
strike anyone, his liability is half the penalty.
Compensation for wounds are as follows: on the head if both bones have
been pierced 30s.; on the head if only the outer bone has been pierced
15s.; a wound under the hair one inch long 5d., that is, 1s.; a wound
in front of the hair 10d, that is 2s.; injury to the throat 12s.;
injury on the neck causing a curvature or stiffness or a lasting
disability 100s. plus whatever has been paid out for medical
treatment.; external injury to the hand 20s.; if half the hand flies
off 60s.; rib broken but the skin remains whole 10s.; rib broken and
the skin is broken and the bone is drawn out 15s.; loss of any eye or
hand or foot or tongue 66s.6d. and a third part of a penny; loss of
sight but with the eye remaining in the head 22s.2d.; wound on the
shoulder if the person lives 80s.; shoulder wound so that the fluid
from the joints runs out 30s.; shoulder maimed 20s.; an injury within a
shoulder so that a bone is drawn out 15s.; arm broken above the elbow
15s.; both bones in the arm broken 30s.; arm cut off below the elbow
80s.; wound in the belly 30s.; pierced through the belly 20s. for each
opening; a thigh pierced or broken 30s.; shin struck off below the knee
80s.; the shin broken 30s.; shin pierced below the knee 12s.; broken
shinbone 12s.; wound in the genitals so that there is loss of the
capacity to procreate 80s.; loins maimed 60s.; loins pierced through
30s.; loins punctured 15s.; injury to the great sinews of another's
lower leg if they recover through response to medical treatment 12s.;
injury to the sinews which cauces lameness 30s.; injury to the small
sinews 6s.; striking a blow without causing blood to flow 5d. for each
blow up to a total of three blows, no matter how many blows are
actually struck, for a total of 15d.; knocking out first teeth or
incisors 8s.; canines or `cheek' teeth 4s.; molars 15s.; broken cheeks
15s.; a thumb cut off 30s.; a thumbnail cut off 5s.; an index finger
15s; an index fingernail 3s.; a middle or `unchaste' finger 121s; a
middle fingernail 2s.; a ring finger or `medical' finger 17s.; a ring
fingernail 4s.; an `ear' finger 9s.; an `ear' fingernail 1s., that is
5d.; the big toe cut off 20s.; the second toe 15s.; the third toe 9s.;
the fourth toe 6s., the fifth toe 5s.; "If anyone suffers a wound, not
involving the cutting off or maiming or breaking of a limb, on an
uncovered and visible place (for example, in front of the hair or below
the sleeve or beneath the knees), the compensation to be paid shall be
double what would be due in the case of a wound inflicted on the head
under the hair or on the limbs beneath the clothes, that is, on a
concealed place."
"Anyone who commits a theft, who betrays his lord, who deserts him in
a hostile encounter or military engagement, who is defeated in trial by
battle or who commits a breach of the feudal bond shall forfeit his
land."
In the case of stolen property worth more than 30d., the accused shall
choose which of the two he wishes, either the simple ordeal or an oath
of the value of one pound with oath helpers taken from three hundreds.
"If anyone dares to dig up or despoil, in scandalous and criminal
fashion, a body buried in the ground or in a coffin or a rock or a
pyramid or any structure, he shall be regarded as an outlaw."
"If a person condemned to death wishes to confess, it shall never be
refused him."
"If anyone who is a father dies and leaves as son or daughter to
inherit, they shall not maintain an action or submit to a court
judgment before reaching fifteen years of age; but they shall remain
seised, under guardians and trustees in the lawful custody of their
relatives, just as their father was on the day when he was alive and
dead."
"If anyone dies without children, his father or mother shall succeed to
the inheritance, or his brother or sister, if neither father nor mother
is living." If he does not possess these relatives, then his father's
or mother's sister, and thereafter relatives up to the fifth `joint',
whoever are the nearest in relationship, shall succeed by the law of
inheritance. While the male line subsists, and the inheritance descends
from that side, a woman shall not succeed.
"The first born son shall have the father's ancestral fee' the latter
shall give any purchases or subsequent acquisitions of his to whomever
he pleases."
If a person has bocland which his kinsmen have left him, he shall not
dispose of it outside his kindred.
"If a wife survives her husband she shall have in permanent ownership
her dowry and her maritagium which had been settled on her by written
documents or in the presence of witnesses and her morning-gift and a
third part of all their jointly acquired property in addition to her
clothing and her bed."
"If a woman dies without children, her blood relatives shall divide up
her share with her husband."
A man may fight against as person whom he finds with his wedded wife,
after the second or third prohibition, behind closed doors or under the
one covering, or with his daughter whom he begot on his wife, or with
his sister who was legitimately born, or with his mother who was
lawfully wedded to his father.
There is pecuniary compensation if a married woman commits fornication
and she is of the rank of ceorl or belongs to the 600s. class or the
1200s. class, and physical mutilation has been prescribed for those
persisting in the offence.
"Women who commit fornication and destroy their embryos, and those who
are accessories with them, so that they abort the foetus from the womb,
are by an ancient ordinance excommunicated from the church until
death." A milder provision has now been introduced: they shall do
penance for ten years.
"If anyone kills or while sleeping crushes another person's child who
has been entrusted to him for rearing or instruction, he shall pay
compensation for him just as if he had killed an adult person."
The county meetings shall be attended by the bishops, earls, sheriffs,
deputies, hundredmen, aldermen, stewards, reeves, barons, vavassors
[those who hold of a baron], village reeves, and the other lords of
lands who shall with diligence see to it that failure to punish
evildoers or the viciousness of officials or the corruption of judges
shall not destroy those suffering under their accustomed afflictions.
Every cause shall be determined in the hundred court or county court or
the hallmoot of those who have soke or in the courts of feudal lords or
in the boundary courts of feudal equals or as it pertains to
established places for court proceedings.
"In the case of soke of pleas, some of these profits belong peculiarly
and exclusively to the royal treasury, some are shared by it with
others, some belong to the sheriffs and royal officials in their farm,
and some belong to the lords who have soke and sake."
"The king's judges shall be the barons of the county and those who
hold free lands in the counties, by whom the causes and of individuals
must be dealt with by the presentation in turn of complaint and
defense."
Anyone who violates or subverts the written law shall forfeit his
wergeld on the first occasion; on the second occasion the penalty is
twice the wergeld; and anyone who ventures to do it a third time shall
lose whatever he possesses.
"Each person is to be judged by men who are of equal status and from
the same district as himself."
"No one of high status shall be condemned by the judgment of lesser
men."
"Whoever gives an unjust judgment shall forfeit one hundred and twenty
shillings and shall lose his judicial authority unless he redeems it
from the king."
If there are contrary opinions among the judges in serious pleas, the
decision of the most substantial men and that with which the royal
justice has concurred shall prevail.
"Some persons are slaves by birth, others become slaves subsequently;
of the latter, some are enslaved by purchase, some by way of
satisfaction for an offence, some give themselves in slavery or are
given by another person, and some become slave by falling under any
other classifications, all of which we may wish nevertheless to be
included in that one category of slavery, for which we propound the
description `accident' - so that the position has been expressed in
this way: some are slaves by accident, others by birth."
Church law provided that only consent between a man and woman
was necessary for marriage. There needn't be witnesses, ceremony, nor
consummation. Consent could not be coerced. Penalties in marriage
agreements for not going through with the marriage were deemed invalid.
Villeins and slaves could marry without their lords' or owners'
permission. A couple living together could be deemed married. Persons
related by blood within certain degrees, which changed over time, of
consanguinity were forbidden to marry. This was the only ground for
annulment of a marriage. A legal separation could be given for
adultery, cruelty, or heresy. Annulment, but not separation, could
result in remarriage. Fathers were usually ordered to provide some
sustenance and support for their illegitimate children. The court
punished infanticide and abortion. Counterfeiters of money, arsonists,
and robbers of pilgrims and merchants were to be excommunicated. Church
sanctuary was to be given to fugitives of violent feuds until they
could be given a fair trial.
Judicial Procedure
Courts extant now are the Royal Court, the King's Court of the
Exchequer, county courts, and hundred courts, all of which were under
the control of the King. His appointed justices administered justice in
these courts on regular circuits. Instead of being the presiding
official at the county court, the sheriff now only produced the proper
people and preserved order at the county courts and presided over the
nonroyal pleas and hundred courts. He impaneled recognitors, made
arrests, and enforced the decisions of the royal courts. Also there are
manor courts, borough courts, and ecclesiastical courts. In the manor
courts, the lord's reeve generally presided. The court consisted of the
lord's vassals and declared the customs and law concerning such
offenses as failure to perform services and trespass on manorial woods,
meadow, and pasture.
The King's Royal Court heard issues concerning the Crown and
breaches of the King's peace, which included almost all criminal
matters: murder, robbery, rape, abduction, arson, treason, breach of
fealty, housebreaking, ambush, certain kinds of theft, premeditated
assault, and harboring outlaws or excommunicants. Henry personally
presided over hearings of important legal cases. He punished crime
severely. He hanged homicides, exiled traitors, and frequenly used loss
of hand and foot. In comparison, William had no one hanged, but used
emasculation and exoculation frequently. Offenders were brought to
justice not only by the complaint of an individual or local community
action, but by official prosecutors. A prosecutor was now at trials as
well as a justice. Trial is still mostly by compurgation but trial by
combat was relatively common.
These offenses against the king placed merely personal property
and sometimes land at the king's mercy. Thus the Crown increased the
range of offenses subject to its jurisdiction and arrogated to itself
profits from the penalties imposed. The death penalty could be imposed
for murder and replaced the old wergeld. But a murderer could be given
royal pardon from the death penalty so that he could pay compensation
to the relatives.
The Royal Court also heard these offenses against the king:
fighting in his dwelling, contempt of his writs or commands,
encompassing the death or injury of his servants, contempt or slander
of the King, and violation of his protection or his law. It heard these
offenses against royal authority: complaints of default of justice or
unjust judgment, pleas of shipwrecks, coinage, treasure trove [money
buried when danger approached], forest prerogatives, and control of
castle building.
Slander of the king, the government, or high officials was
punishable as treason, felony, misprision of treason, or contempt,
depending on the rank and office of the person slandered and the degree
of guilt.
Henry began the use of writs to intervene in civil matters such
as inquiry by oath and recognition of rights as to land, the
obligations of tenure, the legitimacy of heirs, and the enforcement of
local justice. Writs were requested by people who wanted to come to the
Royal Court. The Royal Court used its superior coercive power to
enforce the legal decisions of the county, hundred, and private courts.
It also reviewed miscarriages of justice and unlawful procedures in
these courts. There was a vigorous interventionism in the land law
subsequent to appeals to the king in landlord-tenant relations, brought
by a lord or by an undertenant. Assizes [those who sit together] of
local people who knew relevant facts were put together to assist the
court. Henry appointed some locally based justices. Also, he sent
justices from the Royal Court out on eyres [journeys] to hold assizes.
This was done at special sessions of the county courts, hundred courts,
and manor courts. Records of the verdicts of the Royal Court were sent
with these itinerant justices for use as precedent in these courts.
Thus royal authority was brought into the localities and served to
check baronial power over the common people. These itinerant justices
also transacted the local business of the Exchequer in each county.
Henry created the office of Chief Justiciar, which carried out judicial
and administrative functions and could travel anywhere in the country
and make legal decisions in the king's name.
The Royal Court retained cases of gaol delivery [arrested
person who had been held in gaol was delivered to the court] and
amercements [discretionary money payments which took the place of the
old wites]. It also decided cases in which the powers of the popular
courts had been exhausted or had failed to do justice. The Royal Court
also decided land disputes between barons who were too strong to submit
to the county courts.
The King's Court of the Exchequer reviewed the accounts of
sheriffs, including receipts and expenditures on the Crown's behalf as
well as sums due to the Treasury, located still at Winchester. These
sums included rent from royal estates, the Danegeld land tax, the fines
from local courts, and aid from baronial estates. Its records were the
"Pipe Rolls", so named because sheets of parchment were fastened at the
top, each of which dropped into a roll at the bottom and so assumed the
shape of a pipe.
The county and hundred courts assessed the personal property of
individuals and their taxes due to the King. The county court decided
land disputes between people who had different barons as their
respective lords.
The free landholders were expected to attend county, hundred,
and manor courts. They owed "suit" to it. The suitors found the dooms
[laws] by which the presiding officer pronounced the sentence.
The county courts heard cases of theft, brawling, beating, and
wounding, for which the penalties could be exposure in the pillory or
stocks. The pillory held an offender's head and hands in holes in
boards, and the stocks held one's hands and feet. Here the public could
scorn and hit the offender or throw fruit, mud, and dead cats at him.
For sex offenders and informers, stones were usually thrown. Sometimes
a person was stoned to death. Damages in money replaced the old bots.
The county courts met twice yearly. If an accused failed to appear
after four successive county courts, he was declared outlaw at the
fifth and forfeited his civil rights and all his property. He could be
slain by anyone at will.
The hundred court met once a month to hear neighborhood
disputes, for instance concerning pastures, meadows and harvests.
Usually present was a priest, the reeve, four representative men, and
sometimes the lord or his steward in his place. Sometimes the chief
pledges were present to represent all the men in their respective
frankpledges. The bailiff presided over all these sessions except two,
in which the sheriff presided over the full hundred court to take the
view of frankpledge, which was required for those who did not have a
lord to answer for him.
The barons held court on their manors at a "hallmote" for
issues arising between people living on the manor, such as bad
ploughing on the lord's land or letting a cow get loose on the lord's
land, and land disputes. This court also made the decision of whether a
certain person was a villein or freeman. The manor court took over
issues which had once been heard in the vill or hundred court. The
baron charged a fee for hearing a case and received any fines he
imposed, which amounted to significant "profits of justice".
Boroughs held court on trading and marketing issues in their
towns such as measures and weights, as well as issues between people
who lived in the borough. The borough court was presided over by a
reeve who was a burgess as well as a royal official.
Wealthy men could employ professional pleader-attorneys to
advise them and to speak for them in a court.
The ecclesiastical courts, until the time when Henry VIII took
over the church, dealt with family matters such as marriage,
annulments, marriage portions and settlements of money or goods,
legitimacy, undue wifebeating, child abuse, orphans, bigamy, adultery,
incest, fornication, and separations between husband and wife. There
were no divorces. They also dealt during this time with drunkenness,
personal possessions, defamation, slander which did not cause material
loss (and therefore had no remedy in the temporal courts), libel,
perjury, usury, mortuaries [the second best beast or fees at death],
sacrilege, sorcery, witchcraft, blasphemy [speaking ill of God], heresy
[a belief by a baptized person that is knowingly contrary to the
doctrine of the church], tithe payments, oblations for performing the
Eucharist including expenses for the bread and wine, church fees such
as for the clergy and the poor, simony [buying or selling
ecclesiastical preferment or pardons], pensions, certain offenses on
consecrated ground, and breaches of promises under oath, e.g. to pay a
debt, provide services, or deliver goods.
They decided inheritance and will issues which did not concern land,
but only personal property. This developed from the practice of a
priest usually hearing a dying person's will as to the disposition of
his goods and chattel when he made his last confession. So the church
court came to determine the validity of wills, interpret them, regulate
their created testamentary executors, and determine the legatees. It
also came to determine intestate matters. It provided guardianship of
infants during probate of their personal property. Trial was first by
compurgation, with oath-helpers swearing to or against the veracity of
the alleged offender's oath.
The ecclesiastical court's penalties were intended to reform and
determined on a case-by-case basis. The canon law of Christendom was
followed, without much change by the English church or nation. A
penitent who was sincerely contrite was first expected to confess his
sin to a priest, who gave him God's forgiveness. This removed the guilt
of the sin and eternal punishment in hell. But then justice required a
"satisfaction", which could be met in this world or in the next.
Accordingly, the priest or ecclesiastical court then imposed a
"penance", i.e. some act of a religious nature. Penance could include
confession and public repentance of the sin before the parish, making
apologies and reparation to persons affected, public embarrassment such
as being dunked in water (e.g. for women scolds), walking a route
barefoot and clad only in one's underwear, whippings, extra work,
fasting, vigils, prayers for help to live righteously, reading,
meditation, solitary life, a diet of bread and water for a specified
time, fines, gifts to the church, alms to the poor, various kinds of
good deeds, and imprisonment in a "penitentiary". For more serious
sins, there could be a long fast, a diet of bread and water for a
number of years, or a distant pilgrimage, for instance to Rome or
Jerusalem. For those whose penance was incomplete at the time of their
death, there was a temporary state of purgatory wherein some sort of
suffering fulflled the remaining debt. Souls in purgatory could be
aided by the prayers of the faithful on earth. The truly penitent could
hope for the remission of all or part of their purgation by obtaining
an indulgence from a higher authority than the priest.
The ultimate penalty of the church was excommunication, a social
ostracism in which no one could give the person drink, food, or shelter
and he could speak only to his spouse and servants. Excommunication
included denial of the sacraments of baptism, penance, mass [lord's
supper}, and extreme unction [prayers for spiritual healing] at death;
which were necessary for salvation of the soul; and the sacrament of
confirmation. A person could also be denied a Christian burial in
consecrated ground. However, the person could still marry and make a
will. The purpose of excommunication was to restore the person to
spiritual health rather than to punish him. Excommunication was usually
imposed for failure to obey an order or for showing contempt of the law
or of the courts. It required a hearing and a written reason. The
king's court could order a recalcitrant excommunicant imprisoned until
he satisfied the claims of the church. If this measure failed, it was
possible to turn the offender over to the state for punishment, e.g.
for blasphemy or heresy. Blasphemy was thought to cause God's wrath
expressed in famine, pestilence, and earthquake and was usually
punished by a fine or corporal punishment, e.g. perforation or
amputation of the tongue. It was tacitly understood that the punishment
for heresy was death by burning. There were no heresy cases up to 1400
and few after that. The state usually assured itself the sentence was
just before imposing it. The court of the rural dean was the
ecclesiastical parallel of the hundred court of secular jurisdiction
and usually had the same land boundaries. The archdeacons, who had been
ministers of the bishop in all parts of his diocese alike, were now
each assigned to one district, which usually had the same boundaries as
the county. Each bishop headed a diocese. Over the bishops were the two
Archbishops of Canterbury and of York.
The ecclesiastical court had one judge and no jury. Most cases
dealt with offenses against the church, such as working on Sunday, and
sexual mores. The court used teatimony and depositions of witnesses,
oaths of the parties, confessions, physical and written evidence,
presumptions of common knowledge, and inquests of impartial, sworn men
who made unanimous determinations. The accuser had to meet the burden
of proof. The accused could be required to answer questions under oath,
thus giving evidence against himself. It was not necessary to have an
accuser; a judge could open a case based on public rumor. The judge
made a written decision that did not incude his reasoning. He read the
decision aloud in a public session of the court. If an accused
disobeyed a court order to appear or to do penance, he could be
excommunicated.
Common law held that ecclesiastical courts could not give money
damages. But costs were paid by the loser and included expenses of
producing witnesses, writing of documents, and fees of lawyers. An
appeal could be made from the archdeacon to the bishop to the
metropolitan to the Pope. Henry acknowledged occasional appellate
authority of the pope, but expected his clergy to elect bishops of his
choice.
There was a separate judicial system for the laws of the
forest. There were itinerant justices of the forests and four verderers
of each forest county, who were elected by the votes of the full county
court, twelve knights appointed to keep vert [everything bearing green
leaves] and venison, and foresters of the king and of the lords who had
lands within the limits of the forests. Every three years, the officers
visited the forests in preparation for the courts of the forest held by
the itinerant justices. The inferior courts were the woodmote, held
every forty days, and the swein [freeman or freeholder within the
forest] mote, held three times yearly before the verderers as justices,
in which all who were obliged to attend as suitors of the county court
to serve on juries and inquests were to be present.
In this lawsuit, King Henry I decided that since the abbots and
monks of Battle had proved before him that certain lands, belonging to
the manor of Alciston, are no possession of theirs, so they are to be
quit of the services due there: " Henry, king of the English, to Ralph,
bishop of Chichester, and all his ministers of Sussex, greeting. Know
that as the abbot of Battle and the monks deraigned [proved] before me
that they do not have those lands which you said they had, namely,
Ovington, Coding ( in Hove), Batsford (in Warbleton), Daningawurde,
Shuyswell ( in Etchingham), Boarzell ( in Ticehurst), Winenham,
Wertesce, Brembreshoc and Seuredeswelle, which of old belonged to
Alciston and contain seven hides of land of the fifty hides in Alciston
and its appurtenances, I order that they shall be free and quit on this
account and that none shall molest them any further, but concerning
these lands and these hides they shall be completely free and quit as
concerning lands which they do not have and of which they are not
seised. I also order by royal authority that their manor called
Alciston, which my father gave to the church of Battle with other lands
for his soul, shall be so free and quit of shires and hundreds and all
customs of land-service as my father himself held it most freely and
quietly, and namely concerning the work on London Bridge and on the
castle of Pevensey. This I command upon my forfeiture. Witness: William
de Pont de l'Arche. At Westbourne.
In this lawsuit, King Henry I ordered a bishop and sheriff to
put another bishop in possession of certain churches according to the
verdict of twelve men: " Henry, by God's grace, etc. to H(erbert),
bishop of Norwich, and Robert the sheriff, greeting. I order that you
let Richard, bishop of London, have the churches of Blythburgh and
Stowe with all the customs that belong to them as twelve among the
better men of the hundred will be able to swear and as I ordered in my
other writ. And let this not be left undone because of my voyage to
Normandy, and let him hold them in peace and honour with suit, soke,
toll and team and infangthief and with all other customs, as ever any
of my predecessors most honourably and most quietly held them. Witness,
etc."
In this lawsuit, King Henry I grants that an abbot should
continue to have his mint after his moneyer suffered punishment like
all the others in England: "Henry, king of the English, to Everard
bishop of Norwich, Robert fitz Walter and all his barons and lieges,
French and English, of Suffolk, greeting. I grant that, justice having
been done to his moneyer as was done to the other moneyers of England,
the abbot of St. Edmunds shall have in the vill of St. Edmunds his
mint, moneyer and exchange as he used to have it before. Witnesses:
(John), bishop of Lisieux, (Bernard), bishop of St. David's and Robert
de Sigillo, At Rouen."
In this lawsuit, King Henry I held proven the ownership of
certain wood and land: "Henry, king of the English, to the bishop of
Lincoln and the sheriff and the barons and faithful, French and
English, of Bedfordshire, greeting. Know that Abbot Reginald of Ramsey
has deraigned in my court to the advantage of the church of Ramsey the
wood of Crawley and the land pertaining to it against Simon de
Beauchamp, about which they were in dispute, and the aforesaid abbot
gave to Simon 20 marks of silver and two palfreys [riding horses] so
that Simon granted them to him out of goodwill and gave up his claim.
And I will and firmly order that the aforesaid church of Ramsey shall
hold that wood and the aforesaid land belonging to the wood well and in
peace, honourably and by perpetual right. Witnesses: bishop Roger of
Salisbury and bishop Alexander of Lincoln, King David of Scotland,
Geoffrey the chancellor, Earl Robert of Leicester, Adam de Port, Hugh
Bigod, William d'Aubigny the butler, Geoffrey de Clinton, William of
d'Aubigny Brito."
Chapter 6
The Times: 1154-1215
King Henry II and Queen Eleanor, who was twelve years older,
were both intelligent, educated, energetic, well-traveled, and
experienced in affairs of state. Henry was the first Norman king to be
fully literate and he learned Latin. He had many books and maintained a
school. Eleanor often served as regent during Henry's reign and the
reigns of their two sons: Richard I, the Lion- Hearted, and John. She
herself headed armies. Henry II was a modest, courteous, and patient
man with an astonishing memory and strong personality. He was
indifferent to rank and impatient of pomp to the point of being
careless about his appearance. He usually dressed in riding clothes and
was often unkempt. He was thrifty, but generous to the poor. He was an
outstanding legislator and administrator.
Henry II took the same coronation oath as Edward the Confessor
regarding the church, laws, and justice. Not only did he confirm the
charter of his grandfather Henry I, but he revived and augmented the
laws and institutions of his grandfather and developed them to a new
perfection. Almost all legal and fiscal institutions appear in their
first effective form during his reign. For instance, he
institutionalized the assize for a specific function in judicial
proceedings, whereas before it had been an ad hoc body used for various
purposes. The term "assize" here means the sitting of a court or
council. It came to denote the decisions, enactments, or instructions
made at such.
Henry's government practiced a strict economy and he never
exploited the growing wealth of the nation. He abhorred bloodshed and
the sacrifice of men's lives. So he strove diligently to keep the
peace, when possible by gifts of money, but otherwise with armed force.
Robbers were hanged and any man who raped a woman was castrated.
Foreign merchants with precious goods could journey safely through the
land from fair to fair. These fairs were usually held in the early
fall, after harvesting and sheep shearing. Foreign merchants bought
wool cloth and hides. Frankpledge was revived, now applying to the
unfree and villeins. No stranger could stay overnight (except for one
night in a borough), unless sureties were given for his good behavior.
A list of such strangers was to be given to itinerant justices.
Henry had character and the foresight to build up a centralized
system of government that would survive him. He learned about the
counties' and villages' varying laws and customs. Then, using the model
of Roman law, he gave to English institutions that unity and system
which in their casual patchwork development had been lacking. Henry's
government and courts forged permanent direct links between the king
and his subjects which cut through the feudal structure of lords and
vassals.
He developed the methods and structure of government so that
there was a great increase in the scope of administrative activity
without a concurrent increase of personal power of the officials who
discharged it. The government was self-regulating, with methods of
accounting and control which meant that no official, however exalted,
could entirely escape the surveillance of his colleagues and the King.
At the same time, administrative and judicial procedures were perfected
so that much which had previously required the King's personal
attention was reduced to routine.
The royal household translated the royal will into action. In
the early 1100s, there had been very little machinery of central
government that was not closely associated with the royal household.
There was a Chief Justiciar for legal matters and a Treasurer. Royal
government was largely built upon what had once been purely domestic
offices. Kings had called upon their chaplains to pen letters for them.
By Henry II's reign, the Chancery was a highly efficient writing office
through which the King's will was expressed in a flow of writs, and the
Chancellor an important and highly rewarded official, but he was still
responsible for organizing the services in the royal chapel. Similarly,
the chamberlains ran the household's financial departments. They
arranged to have money brought in from a convenient castle treasury,
collected money from sheriffs or the King's debtors, arranged loans
with the usurers, and supervised the spending of it. It was spent for
daily domestic needs, the King's almsgiving, and the mounting of a
military campaign. But they were still responsible for personal
attendance upon the king in his privy chamber, taking care of his
valuable furs, jewels, and documents, and changing his bed linens.
There were four other departments of the household. The steward
presided over the hall and kitchens and was responsible for supplying
the household and guests with food supplies. The butler had duties in
the hall and cellars and was responsible for the supply of wine and
ale. The marshall arranged lodgings for the King's court as it moved
about from palaces to hunting lodges, arranged the pay of the household
servants, and supervised the work of ushers, watchmen, fire tenders,
messengers and huntsmen. The constable organized the bodyguard and
escorts, arranged for the supply of castles, and mustered the royal
army. The offices of steward, constable, chamberlain, butler were
becoming confined to the household and hereditary. The Justiciar,
Chancellor, and Treasurer are becoming purely state offices. They were
simply sold or rented, until public pressure resulted in a requirement
of ability.
Henry's council included all his tenants-in-chief, which
included archbishops, bishops, abbots, priors, earls, barons, knights
and socage tenants of the crown, whether they made payments directly to
him or through a sheriff. The higher ones were served with a writ
addressed to them personally. Knights and below were summoned by a
general writ to the sheriff.
Henry brought order and unity by making the King's Royal Court
the common court of the land. Its purpose was to guard the King's peace
by protecting all people of free status throughout the nation and
correct the disparity in punishments given by local courts. The
doctrine of felony developed, with punishment by death relacing the old
wites. Heretofore, the scope of the King's peace had varied to cover as
little as the King's presence, his land, and his highway. The royal
demesne had shrunk to about 5% of the land. The Common Law for all the
nation was established by example of the King's Royal Court. Henry
erected a basic, rational framework for legal processes which drew from
tradition but lent itself to continuous expansion and adaptation.
A system of writs originated well-defined actions in the royal
courts. Each court writ had to satisfy specific conditions for this
court to have jurisdiction over an action or event. This system
determined the Royal Court's jurisdiction over the church, lords, and
sheriffs. It limited the jurisdiction of all other courts and
subordinated them to the Royal Court. Inquests into any misdeeds of
sheriffs were held, which could result in their dismissal.
Henry and Eleanor spoke many languages and liked discussing
law, philosophy, and history. So they gathered wise and learned men
about them, who became known as courtiers, rather than people of social
rank. They lived in the great and strong Tower of London, which had
been extended beyond the original White Tower, as had other castles, so
that the whole castle and grounds were defended instead of just the
main building. The Tower of London was in the custody of one of the two
justiciars. On the west were two strongly fortified castles surrounded
by a high and deeply entrenched wall, which had seven double gates.
Towers were spaced along the north wall and the Thames River flowed
below the south wall. To the west was the city, where royal friends had
residences with adjoining gardens near the royal palace at Westminster.
The court was a center of culture as well as of government. The game of
backgammon was played. People wore belts with buckles, usually brass,
instead of knotting their belts.
London extended about a mile along the Thames and about half a
mile inland. It had narrow twisting lanes, some with a ditch down the
middle for water runoff. Most of its houses were two stories, the
ground floor having booths and workshops, and the upper floor living
space. Most of the houses were wooden structures. The richer merchants'
and knights' houses were built of stone. Walls between houses had to be
stone to a height of 16 feet and thatched roofs were banned because
there had been many fires. There was poor compliance, but some roofs
were tiled with red brick tiles. The population was about 40,000. There
were over 126 churches for public worship, thirteen monasteries
(including nunneries), and St. Paul's Cathedral. All were built of
stone. The churches gave a place of worship for every 300 inhabitants
and celebrated feast days, gave alms and hospitality to strangers,
confirmed betrothals or agreements of marriage, celebrated weddings,
conducted funerals, and buried the dead. The synod of Westminster of
1175 prescribed that all marriages were to be performed by the church.
A bare exchange of words was sufficient to constitute a marriage.
Church law required a warning prior to suspension or excommunication.
Monastic, cathedral, and parish schools taught young boys grammar so
they could sing and read in church services. Nuns taught girls. Fish
but no meat was eaten on Fridays. There was dark rye bread and
expensive white wheat bread. Vegetables included onions, leeks, and
cabbage. Fruits included apples, pears, plums, cherries, and
strawberries. Water was obtained from streams running through the town
to the Thames and from springs. Only the rich, palaces, and churches
could afford beeswax candles; others had homemade tallow [cow or sheep
fat] candles which smelled and gave off smoke. Most people washed their
bodies. Even the poor had beds and bed clothes. The beds were often
shared. Few babies survived childhood. If a man reached 30, he could
expect to live until age 50. Thousands of Londoners died during a hot
summer from fevers, plague and the like.
In London, bells heralded the start and finish of all organized
business. The sellers of merchandise and hirers of labor were
distributed every morning into their several localities according to
their trade. Vendors, craftsmen, and laborers had their customary
places. Some vendors walked the streets announcing their wares for
sale. There were craft guilds of bakers, butchers, cloth workers, and
saddlers, as well as of weavers. Vendors on the Thames River bank sold
cooked fish caught from the river and wine from ships and wine cellars.
Cook shops sold roasted meats covered with hotly spiced sauces.
London Bridge was built of stone for the first time. It was
supported by a series of stone arches standing on small man-made
islands. It had such a width that a row of wood houses and a chapel was
built on top of it. In the spring it was impassable by ships because
the flow of water under it varied in height on either side of the
bridge by several feet at half tide. The bridge had the effect of
slowing down the flow upstream, which invited wherries and rowboats and
stately barges of the nobility. In winters in which it froze over,
there was ice skating, ice boating, and fishing through holes in the
ice.
Outside each city gate were clusters of ragged buildings, small
monasteries and hostelries, groups of huntsmen's kennels, and fencing
schools. Outside one of the gates, a horse market was held every week.
Horses wore horseshoes made of iron or of a crude steel. From the
southwest gate of the city along the north river bank toward
Westminster, there was a gradually extending line of rich men's
mansions and bishops' palaces. On the southern bank of the Thames River
was growing the disorderly suburb of Southwark, with fishermen's and
boatmens' hovels, and taverns and brothels that were frequented by
drunkards, rakes, and whores. On the north side of the city was a great
forest with fields and wells where students and other young men from
the city took walks in the fresh evening air. In some fields, country
folk sold pigs, cows, oxen and sheep. Mill wheels turned at various
streams. Near London in the country was a glass factory. At sunset, the
gates of London were closed for the night. All taverns had to be
closed, all lights put out, and all fires banked or covered when the
bell of the church of St. Martin le Grand rang at 9:00 p.m. Anyone
found on the streets after this curfew could be arrested. Gangs of
young nobles or gangs of thieves, cutpurses, and looters roamed the
streets after dark and sometimes rioted. Offenders were often beheaded
and their heads placed on spikes on London Bridge.
Men in London had begun weaving cloth, which formerly had been
done by women. Some of the cloth was exported. The weavers guild of
London received a charter by the King in 1155, the first granted to any
London craft: "Know that I have conceded to the Weavers of London to
hold their guild in London with all the liberties and customs which
they had in the time of King Henry [I], my grandfather; and that none
may intermeddle with the craft within the city, nor in Southwark, nor
in other places pertaining to London except through them and except he
be in their guild, otherwise than was accustomed to be done in the time
of King Henry, my grandfather ...So that each year they render thence
to me two marks of gold at the feast of St. Michael. And I forbid that
any shall do injury or contumely to them on this account under penalty
of 10 pounds [200s.]. Witness T[homas], Chancellor, and Warinus, son of
Gerard, Chamberlain, at Winchester." The liberties obtained were: 1)
The weavers may elect bailiffs to supervise the work of the craft, to
punish defaulters, and to collect the ferm [amount owed to the King].
The bailiffs were chosen from year to year and swore before the mayor
of London to do and keep their office well and truly. 2) The bailiffs
may hold court from week to week on pleas of debt, agreements,
covenants [promises for certain performance], and minor trespasses. 3)
If any of the guild members are sued in any other court on any of the
above pleas, the guild may challenge that plea to bring it to the guild
court. 4) If any member is behind in his share of the payment to the
King, the bailiffs may distrain his loom until he has paid this.
The weavers' guild punished members who used bad thread in their
weaving or did defective weaving by showing the default to the mayor,
with opportunity for the workman to make entreaty, and the mayor and
twelve members of the guild then made a verdict of amercement of 1/2
mark and the workman of the cloth was also punished by the guild
bailiffs according to guild custom.The weavers' guild tradition of
brotherliness among members meant that injury to a fellow weaver
incurred a severe penalty. If a weaver stole or eloigned [removed them
to a distance where they were unreachable] any other weaver's goods
falsely and maliciously, then he was dismissed from the guild and his
loom was taken by the guild to fulfill his portion of the annual
payment to the King. The weavers were allowed to buy and to sell in
London freely and quietly. They had all the rights of other freemen of
the city.
Paying an annual payment freed the weavers from liability to
inconsequent royal fines. Failure to make this payment promptly might
have led to loss of the right, hence the rigorous penalty of distraint
upon the looms of individual weavers who fell into arrears.
Thus from the middle of the 1100s, the weavers enjoyed the
monopoly of their craft, rights of supervision which ensured a high
standard of workmanship, power to punish infractions of their
privileges, and full control of their members. In this they stand as
the prototype of English medieval guilds. These rights represented the
standard which all bodies of craftsmen desired to attain. The right of
independent jurisdiction was exceptional.
In Henry II's charter to London, London did not retain its
right to appoint its own sheriff and justice given by Henry I. London's
chief magistrate was the mayor, who was appointed by the King, until
1191. Then the mayor was elected yearly by the aldermen of the city
wards and approved by the king. He was typically a rich prince chosen
by the barons and chief merchants of London. The commoners had no voice
in his selection, but they could still approve or disapprove of the
actions of the city government at ward and folk motes. At certain
periods, a king asserted royal power over the selection of mayor and
governance of the city. There were three ways to become a citizen of
London: being the son of a citizen, apprenticeship in a craft for seven
years, and purchase of citizenship. London and Westminster growth led
to their replacing Winchester as the capital.
St. Barthomew infirmary was established in London for the care
of sick pilgrims traveling to the shrine of Becket in Canterbury. It
had been inspired by a monk who saw a vision of St. Barthomew telling
him to build a church and an infirmary.
Trading was facilitated by the stabilization of the amount of
silver metallic content of the English coinage, which was called
"sterling" [strong] silver. The compass, a magnetic lodestone [leading
stone] needle mounted on a cork and floated in a bowl of water,
assisted the navigation of ships. With it, one could tell the general
direction of a ship when the skies were cloudy as well as clear. And
one could generally track one's route by using the direction and speed
of travel to calculate one's new position. London became a major
trading center for foreign goods from many lands.
About 5% of the knights were literate. Wealthy men sent their
sons to school in monasteries to prepare them for a livelihood in a
profession or in trade or to the town of Oxford, whose individual
scholars had migrated from Paris and had attracted disciples for a long
time. These schools grew up around St. Mary's Church, but had not been
started by the church as there was no cathedral school in Oxford.
Oxford had started as a burh and had a royal residence and many
tradesmen. It was given its basic charter in 1155 by the King. This
confirmed to it all the customs, laws and liberties [rights] as those
enjoyed by London. It became a model charter for other towns.
Bachelors at Oxford studied the arts of grammar, rhetoric, and
logic, and then music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy, until they
mastered their discipline and therefore were authorized to teach it.
Teaching would then provide an income sufficient to support a wife. The
master of arts was analogous to the master craftsman of a guild. From
1190, the civil law was studied, and shortly thereafter, canon law.
Later came the study of medicine. The use of paper supplemented the use
of parchment for writing. Irregular edged paper was made from linen,
cotton, straw, and/or wood beaten to a pulp and then spread out over a
wire mesh to dry.
Theologicians taught that the universe was made for the sake
and service of man, so man was placed at the center of the universe.
Man was made for the sake and service of God.
Every freeman holding land of a lord gave homage and fealty to
him, swearing to bear him faith of the tenement held and to preserve
his earthly honor in all things, saving the faith owed to the king.
Homage was done for lands, for free tenements [including meadows,
pastures, woods, and wastes], for services, and for rents precisely
fixed in money or in kind. Homage could be done to any free person,
male or female, adult or minor, cleric or layman. A man could do
several homages to different lords for different fees, but there had to
be a chief homage to that lord of whom he held his chief tenement.
Homage was not due for dower, from the husband of a woman to whom a
tenement was given as a marriage portion, for a fee given in free alms,
or until the third heir, either for free maritagium [a marriage portion
of land which is given with a daughter in marriage, that is not bound
to service and passes to the daughter's heirs in whatever way had been
stipulated by her family when the grant was made] or for the fee of
younger sisters holding of the eldest. All fiefs to be inherited by the
eldest son had to be intact. Every lord could exact fealty from his
servants.
In this era, the English national race and character was
formed. Only a few barons still had lands in Normandy. Stories of good
King Arthur were popular and set ideals for behavior and justice in an
otherwise barbaric age where force was supreme. His last battle in
which he lay wounded and told a kinsman to rule in his place and uphold
his laws was written in poem ("Layamon's Brut"). Romantic stories were
written and read in English. The custom of "bundling" was started by
ladies with their knights, who would lie together in bed without
undressing and with one in a sack the top of which was tied around his
neck, as part of a romantic courtship. Wealthy men often gave their
daughters dowries in case they were widowed. This might be matched by a
marriage settlement by a prospective husband.
Intermarriage had destroyed any distinction of Normans by look
or speech alone, except for the Anglo-Saxon manor villeins, who worked
the farm land and composed about two-thirds of the population. Villeins
were bound to the land and could, on flight, be brought back to it.
They could not give homage, but could give fealty. A villein had the
equipment to farm, fish, make cheese, keep poultry, brew beer, hedge,
and cut wood. Although the villeins could not buy their freedom or be
freed by their lord, they became less numerous because of the
preference of landholders for tenants motivated to perform work by
potential loss of tenure. Also, the Crown's protection of all its
subjects in criminal matters blurred the distinction between free and
unfree men.
The boroughs were dominated by lords of local manors, who
usually had a house in the borough. Similarly, burgesses usually had
farmland outside the borough. Many boroughs were granted, by the king
or manor lord, the right to have a common seal for the common business
of the town. Some boroughs were given the authority to confer freedom
on the villein by enrolling him in their guild or allowing him to stay
in the borough for a year and a day. The guilds met frequently in their
drinking halls and drew up regulations for the management of their
trade. Each borough was represented by twelve reputable burgesses. Each
vill was represented by a reeve and four reputable men. Certain towns
sponsored great seasonal fairs for special goods, such as cloth. About
5% of the population lived in towns.
In the early 1180s, the horizontal-axle windmill was invented,
probably in eastern England, on the analogy of the horizontal-axle
watermill. It was very useful in flat areas where streams were too slow
for a watermill unless a dam were built. But a dam often flooded
agricultural land. Some watermill wheels were moved by tidal currents.
London guilds of craftsmen such as weavers, fullers, bakers,
loriners (makers of bits, spurs, and metal mountings of bridles and
saddles), cordwainers (makers of leather goods such as shoes),
pepperers, and goldsmiths were licensed by the King, for which they
paid him a yearly fee. There were also five Bridge Guilds (probably
raising money for the future construction of London Bridge in stone)
and St. Lazarus' Guild. The wealthy guilds, which included the
goldsmiths, the pepperers, and three bridge guilds had landholding
members who had been thegns or knights and now became a class of royal
officials: the King's minters, his chamberlain, his takers of wines,
his collectors of taxes. The weavers of Oxford paid 27s. [two marks] to
have a guild. The shoemakers paid 67s. [five marks].
In 1212, master carpenters, masons, and tilers made 3d. per
day, their servers (the journeymen of a later time) made 1 1/2 d., free
stone carvers 2 1/2 d., plasterers and daubers, diggers and sievers
less. All received food in addition or 1 1/2 d. in its stead.
Sandwich was confirmed in its port rights by this charter:
"Henry II to his sheriff and bailiffs of Kent, greeting. I will and
order that the monks of the Holy Trinity of Canterbury shall have fully
all those liberties and customs in Sandwich which they had in the time
of King Henry my grandfather, as it was adjudged in pursuance of his
command by the oath of twelve men of Dover and twelve men of Sandwich,
to wit, that the aforesaid monks ought to have the port and the toll
and all maritime customs in the same port, on either side of the water
from Eadburge gate as far as markesfliete and a ferryboat for passage.
And no man has there any right except they and their ministers.
Wherefore I will and firmly command you and the men of Sandwich that ye
cause the aforesaid monks to have all their customs both in the port
and in the town of Sandwich, and I forbid any from vexing them on this
account.And they shall have my firm peace."
Henry gave this charter to the town of Bristol in 1164: "Know
ye, that I have granted to my burgesses of Bristol, that they shall be
quit both of toll [a reasonable sum of money or portion of the thing
sold, due to the owner of the fair or market on the sale of things
tollable therein. It was claimed by the lord of the fee where the fair
or market was held, by virtue of a grant from the Crown either
ostensible or presumed] and passage [money paid for crossing a river or
for crossing the sea as might be due to the Crown] and all custom
[customary payments] throughout my whole land of England, Normandy, and
Wales, wherever they shall come, they and their goods. Wherefore I will
and strictly command, that they shall have all their liberties and
acquittances and free customs fully and honorable, as my free and
faithful men, and that they shall be quit of toll and passage and of
every other customs: and I forbid any one to disturb them on this
account contrary to this my charter, on forfeiture of ten pounds
[200s.]."
John, when he was an earl and before he became King, granted
these liberties to Bristol about 1188:
1) -No burgess may sue or be sued out of Bristol.
2) -The burgesses are excused from the murdrum fine.
3) -No burgess may wage duel [trial by combat], unless sued for death
of a stranger.
4) -No one may take possession of a lodging house by assignment or by
livery of the Marshall of the Earl of Gloucester against the will of
the burgesses (so that the town would not be responsible for the good
behavior of a stranger lodging in the town without first accepting the
possessor of the lodging house).
5) -No one shall be condemned in a matter of money, unless -according
to the law of the hundred, that is, forfeiture of 40s.
6) -The hundred court shall be held only once a week.
7) -No one in any plea may argue his cause in miskenning.
8) -They may lawfully have their lands and tenures and mortgages and
debts throughout my whole land, [from] whoever owes them [anything].
9) -With regard to debts which have been lent in Bristol, and mortgages
there made, pleas shall be held in the town according to the custom of
the town.
10) If any one in any other place in my land shall take toll of the men
of Bristol, if he does not restore it after he is required to, the
Prepositor of Bristol may take from him a distress at - - Bristol, and
force him to restore it.
11) No stranger tradesman may buy within the town from a man who is a
stranger, leather, grain, or wool, but only from a burgess.
12) No stranger may have a shop, including one for selling wine, unless
in a ship, nor shall sell cloth for cutting except at the fair.
13) No stranger may remain in the town with his goods for the purpose
of selling his goods, but for forty days.
14) No burgess may be confined or distrained any where else within my
land or power for any debt, unless he is a debtor or surety (to avoid a
person owed a debt from distraining another person of the town of the
debtor).
15) They shall be able to marry themselves, their sons, their daughters
and their widows, without the license of their lords. (A lord had the
right of preventing his tenants and their families from marrying
without his consent.)
16) No one of their lords shall have the wardship or the disposal of
their sons or daughters on account of their lands out of the town, but
only the wardship of their tenements which belong to their own fee,
until they become of age.
17) There shall be no recognition [acknowledgment that something done
by another person in one's name had one's authority] in the town.
18) No one shall take tyne [wooden barrel with a certain quantity of
ale, payable by the townsmen to the constable for the use of the
castle] unless for the use of the lord Earl, and that according to the
custom of the town.
19) They may grind their grain wherever they may choose.
20) They may have their reasonable guilds, as well or better than they
had them in the time of Robert and his son William [John's wife's
grandfather and father, who were earls of Gloucester when the town and
castle of Bristol were part of the honor of Gloucester].
21) No burgess may be compelled to bail any man, unless he himself
chooses it, although he may be dwelling on his land.
We have also granted to them all their tenures, messuages
[dwelling house with adjoining land and adjacent buildings], in copses
[thicket from which wood was cut], in buildings on the water or
elsewhere to be held in free burgage [tenant to pay only certain fixed
services or payments to his lord, but not military service (like free
socage)]. We have granted also that any of them may make improvements
as much as he can in erecting buildings anywhere on the bank and
elsewhere, as long as the borough and town are not damaged thereby.
Also, they shall have and possess all waste land and void grounds and
places, to be built on at their pleasure.
Newcastle-on-Tyne's taxes were simplified in 1175 as follows:
"Know ye that I have granted and by this present charter have confirmed
to my burgesses of Newcastle upon Tyne, and to all their things which
they can assure to be their own, acquittance from toll and passage and
pontage and from the Hanse and from all other customs throughout all my
land. And I prohibit all persons from vexing or disturbing them therein
upon forfeiture to me."
We grant to our upright men on Newcastle-on-Tyne and their heirs our
town of Newcastle-on-Tyne with all its appurtenances at fee farm for
100 pounds to be rendered yearly to us and our heirs at our Exchequer
by their own hand at the two terms, to wit, at Easter 50 pounds and at
Michaelmas 50 pounds, saving to us our rents and prizes and assizes in
the port of the same town.
Ranulph, earl of Chester, made grants to his burgesses of
Coventry by this charter: "That the aforesaid burgesses and their heirs
may well and honorably quietly and in free burgage hold of me and my
heirs as ever in the time of my father and others of my ancestors they
have held better more firmly and freer. In the second place I grant to
them all the free and good laws which the burgesses of Lincoln have
better and freer. I prohibit and forbid my constables to draw them into
the castle to plead for any cause, but they may freely have their
portimote [leet court] in which all pleas belonging to me and them may
be justly treated of. Moreover they may choose from themselves one to
act for me whom I approve, who a justice under me and over them may
know the laws and customs, and keep them to my counsel in all things
reasonable, every excuse put away, and may faithfully perform to me my
rights. If any one happen to fall into my amercement he may be
reasonably fined by my bailiff and the faithful burgesses of the court.
Furthermore, whatever merchants they have brought with them for the
improvement of the town, I command that they have peace, and that none
do them injury or unjustly send them into court. But if any foreign
merchant shall have done anything improper in the town that same may be
regulated in the portimote before the aforesaid justice without a suit
at law."
Henry confirmed this charter of the earl's by 1189 as follows:
I have confirmed all the liberties and free customs the earl of Chester
granted to them, namely, that the same burgesses may well and honorably
hold in free burgage, as ever in the time of the father of the
beforesaid earl, or other of his ancestors, they may have better or
more firmly held; and they may have all the laws and customs which the
citizens of Lincoln have better and freer (e.g. their merchant guilds);
all men brought to trade may be subject to the guild customs and assize
of the town; those who lawfully hold land in the town for a year and a
day without question and are able to prove that an accuser has been in
the kingdom within the year without finding fault with them, from
thence may hold the land well and in peace without pleading; those who
have remained in the town a year and a day without question, and have
submitted to the customs of the town and the citizens of the town are
able to show through the laws and customs of the town that the accuser
stood forth in the kingdom, and not a fault is found of them, then they
may remain in peace in the town without question]; and that the
constable of the aforesaid earl shall not bring them into the castle to
plead in any case. But they may freely have their own portmanmote in
which all pleas appertaining to the earl and to them may be justly
treated of. Moreover they may choose one from themselves to act for the
earl, whom I approve, who may be a justice under the earl and over
them, and who to the earl may faithfully perform his rights, and if
anyone happen to fall into the earl's forfeiture he shall be acquit for
12 pence. If by the testimony of his neighbors he cannot pay 12 pence
coins, by their advice it shall be so settled as he is able to pay, and
besides, with other acquittances, that the burgesses shall not provide
anything in corody [allowance in food] or otherwise whether for the
said earl or his men, unless upon condition that their chattels shall
be safe, and so rendered to them. Furthermore, whatever merchants they
have brought with them for the improvement of the town they may have
peace, and none shall do them injury or unjustly send them into suit at
law. But if any foreign merchant has done anything improper in the town
that shall be amended [or tried] in the portmanmote before the
aforesaid justice without a suit. And they who may be newcomers into
the town, from the day on which they began to build in the town for the
space of two years shall be acquit of all charges.
Mercantile privileges were granted to the shoemakers in Oxford
thus: "Know ye that I have granted and confirmed to the corvesars of
Oxford all the liberties and customs which they had in the time of King
Henry my grandfather, and that they have their guild, so that none
carry on their trade in the town of Oxford, except he be of that guild.
I grant also that the cordwainers who afterwards may come into the town
of Oxford shall be of the same guild and shall have the same liberties
and customs which the corvesars have and ought to have. For this grant
and confirmation, however, the corvesars and cordwainers ought to pay
me every year an ounce of gold."
A guild merchant for wool dominated and regulated the wool
trade in many boroughs. In Leicester, only guildsmen were permitted to
buy and sell wool wholesale to whom they pleased or to wash their fells
in borough waters. Certain properties, such as those near running
water, essential to the manufacture of wool were maintained for the use
of guild members. The waterwheel was a technological advance replacing
human labor whereby the cloth was fulled. The waterwheel turned a shaft
which lifted hammers to pound the wet cloth in a trough. Wool packers
and washers could work only for guild members. The guild fixed wages,
for instance to wool wrappers and flock pullers. Strangers who brought
wool to the town for sale could sell only to guild members. A guildsman
could not sell wool retail to strangers nor go into partnership with a
man outside the guild. Each guild member had to swear the guildsman's
oath, pay an entrance fee, and subject himself to the judgment of the
guild in the guild court, which could fine or suspend a man from
practicing his trade for a year. The advantages of guild membership
extended beyond profit in the wool trade. Members were free from the
tolls that strangers paid. They alone were free to sell certain goods
retail. They had the right to share in any bargain made in the presence
of a guildsman, whether the transaction took place in Leicester or in a
distant market. In the general interest, the guild forbade the use of
false weights and measures and the production of shoddy goods. It
maintained a wool beam for weighing wool. It also forbade middlemen
from profiting at the expense of the public. For instance, butchers'
wives were forbidden from buying meat to sell again in the same market
unless they cooked it. The moneys due to the king from the guilds of a
town were collected by the town reeve.
When the king wanted to raise an army, he summoned his major
baron tenants-in-chief, who commanded their own armed dependent
vassals, and he directed the sheriffs to command the minor
tenants-in-chief and supply them with equipment. A baron could assemble
an army in a day, but might use it to resist any perceived
misgovernment by a king. Armed conflict did not interfere much with
daily life because the national wealth was still composed mostly of
flocks and herds and simple buildings. Machinery, furniture, and the
stock of shops were still sparse. Life would be back to normal within a
week.
Henry wanted to check this power of the barons. So he took over
or demolished their adulterine castles and restored the fyrd, which was
a military draft of every freeman to serve in defense of the realm. At
the King's call, barons were to appear in mail suit and helmet with
sword and horse, knights and freeholders with 213s.[16 marks] of rent
or chattels in coat of mail with shield and lance, freeholders of
133s.[10 marks] with lance and hauberk [coat of armor] and iron
headpiece, burgesses and poorer freemen with lance and headpiece and
wambais, and such as millers with pike and leather shirt. The spiritual
and other baronies paid a commutation for personal service, called
"scutage", at the rate of 27s. per knight's fee. Barons and knights
paid according to their knight's fee a scutage ranging from 10s. to
27s. As of 1181, the military obligations of villeins were defined. The
master of a household was responsible for every villein in his
household. Others had to form groups of ten and swear obedience to the
chief of the group. The sheriff was responsible for maintaining lists
of men liable for military service and procuring supplies. This
national militia could be used to maintain the peace. The sheriff could
call upon the military array of the county as a "posse comitatus" to
take a band of thieves into custody or to quell disorder. For foreign
wars, Henry decided to use a mercenary army and a mercenary fleet.
However, the nobility who were on the borders of the realm had
to maintain their private armies for frequent border clashes. The other
nobility now tended towards tournaments with mock foot battles between
two sides. Although subject to knightly rules, serious injury and death
often resulted. For this reason, the church opposed them, but
unsuccessfully.
New taxes replaced the Danegeld tax. Freeholders of land paid
taxes according to their ploughable land ("hidage", by the hide, and
later "carucage", by the smaller Norman carucate). The smaller measure
curtailed estates and increased taxation. It was assessed from 2-5s.
per carcuate [100 acres] and collected for the king by knights with
little or no remuneration, and later by inquest of neighbors. The towns
and demesne lands of the crown paid a tax based on their produce that
was collected by the itinerant justices. Merchants were taxed on their
personal property, which was determined by an inquest of neighbors.
Clergy were also taxed. This new system of taxation increased the royal
income about threefold. There was a standard for reliefs paid of 100s.
[5 pounds] for a knight's fee and 2,000s. [100 pounds] for a barony. At
the end of Henry's reign, his treasure was over 900,000 pounds. Every
hide of land paid the sheriff 2s. annually for his services in the
administration and defense of the county.
Barons and their tenants and subtenants were offered an
alternative of paying shield money ["scutage"] of 26s.8d. per fee in
commutation for and instead of military service for their fiefs. This
enabled Henry to hire soldiers who would be more directly under his own
control and to organize a more efficient army.
Henry II restored the silver coinage to its standard of purity.
The first great inflation in England occurred between 1180 and 1220.
Most goods and services increased threefold over these forty years.
Great households, whether of baron, prelate, monastery, or
college gave their officers and servants allowances of provisions and
clothing called "liveries". The officer of such departments as the
buttery [cellar storing butts of wine], the kitchen, the napery [for
linen cloth], and the chandlery had his fixed allowances for every day
and his livery of clothing at fixed times of the year or intervals of
years.
The administration of a great estate is indicated by the Pipe
Roll of the Bishopric of Winchester, 1208-1209, as follows:
"Downton: William FitzGilbert, and Joselyn the reeve, and Aylward the
cellarer render account of 7 pounds 12s.11d. for arrears of the
previous year. They paid and are quit. And of 3 pounds 2s.2d. for
landgafol. And of 12d. by increment of tax for a park which William of
Witherington held for nothing. And of 2s.6d. by increment of tax for
half a virgate of land which James Oisel held without service. And of
19s. for 19 assize pleas in the new market. And of 10s. by increment of
tax for 10 other assize pleas in the market this year. Sum of the whole
tax 36 pounds 14s.8d. In quittance of one reeve, 5s. In quittance for
repairing the bridge, 5s.; of one forester, 4s.; of two haywards from
Downton and Wick, 4s.; of one hayward from Witherington, 20d.; of
fourteen drivers from Downton, Wick, and Nunton, for the year, 28s.; of
two drivers from Witherington for the year, 4s.4d.; of two drivers for
half the year, 2s.; of one swineherd, of one neaterd, of one cowherd,
for the year, 6s.; of three shepherds from Wick, Barford, and Nunton,
for the year, 6s.; of one shepherd from Witherington, for the year,
20d.; of four customary tenants, for the year, 8s. Sum of the
quittances, 74s.8d. Remainder 33 pounds.
Livery: For livery to John the dean, for Christmas tax, 7 pounds 10s.
by one tally. To the same for Easter tax, 8 pounds by one tally. To the
same for St. John's tax, 8 pounds by one tally. To the same for St.
Michael's tax, 8 pounds 10s. by one tally. To the same for corn [grain]
sold in the field 26 pounds by two tallies. To the same for standing
corn [growing crops of grain], purchases, and cheeses, 20 pounds
16s.10d. To the same for wool, 6 pounds 13s.4d. by one tally. To the
same for tallage 39 pounds by one tally. Sum: 134 pounds 10s.2d.
Expenses: For ironwork of 8 carts for year and one cart for half the
year, 32s.10d. For shoeing of 2 plough horses for the year, 2s.8d. For
wheels for carts, 2s.9d. For 6 carts made over, 12d. before the arrival
of the carpenter. For wages of the smith for the year, 8s.6d. For one
cart bound in iron bought new, 5s.7d. For wheels purchased for one cart
to haul dung, 12d. For leather harness and trappings, iron links,
plates, halters, 14d. For purchase of 2 ropes, 3d. For purchase of 2
sacks, 8d. For purchase of 5 locks for the granary, 11d. For making 2
gates for the sheepfold, 2s. For one gate for the farm yard, 12d. For
an ax and tallow purchased and for repairing the spindles of the mill
for the year, 6s.10d. For one millstone purchased for the mill 24s. For
making one gate near the mill, 12d. For meat prepared in the larder,
3s. For beer bought for cleaning carcasses, 2s.1d. For digging 158
perches of land around the pasture in the marsh, 32s.11d.; for each
perch 2d.1ob. For the dovecote newly made, 22s.11d.1ob. For cutting 100
thick planks for flooring both dispensary and butlery, 6s.3d. For nails
or pegs bought for planking beyond the cellar, 16d. For enclosing the
garden by making 2 gates, 6s.7d.1ob. For digging in the gardens, 8s.5d.
For the winter work of 55 carts, 9s.2d. For the Lent work of 49 carts,
8s.6d. For spreading 6 acres with dung, 6d. For threshing 24 quarters
of wheat at Mardon for seed, 5s. For winnowing the same, 7d. For
winnowing 36 quarters of grain for seed, 3s.9d. For threshing 192
quarters of grain 32s.; for each quarter 2d. For threshing 20 quarters
of mixed corn [grain], 2s.6d. For threshing 42 quarters of barley,
3s.6d. For threshing 53 quarters of oats, 2s.2d.1ob. For hauling gravel
to the bridge and causeway, 4d. For cost of dairy, viz., 3 tines of
salt, cloth, and pots, 6s.10d. For purchase of 17 oxen, 5 pounds 13s.
For hoeing 140 acres, 5s.10d. For wages of two carters, one neatherd,
for the year, 9s. For wages of one carpenter for the year, 6s.8d. For
wages of one dairy woman, 2s.6d. For payment of mowers of the meadow at
Nunton, 6d. For 8 sheep purchased, 8s. For wages of one neatherd from
Nunton, 12d. For carrying 2 casks of wine by Walter Locard, in the time
of Martinmas, 8s.2d. For the carrying of 2 casks of wine from
Southampton to Downton by the seneschal, 3s.6d. at the feast of St.
Lawrence. For digging 22 perches in the farmyard, 6s.5d.; for each
perch 3d.1ob. For allowance of food of Robert of Lurdon, who was sick
for 21 days, with his man, 5s.3d. For allowance of food to Sewal who
was caring for 2 horses of the lord bishop for 3 weeks, 21d. For
allowance of food for Roger Walselin, for the two times he made gifts
to the lord king at Clarendon, 4s.9d. by two tallies. For allowance of
food of Master Robert Basset, for 3 journeys, 9s.3d.1ob. For livery of
William FitzGilbert, 60s.10d. For 30 ells of canvas purchased for
laying over the wool, and 2 cushions prepared for the court, 5s. For 8
sheep purchased, with lambs, 8s. Sum: 2 pounds.23d. Sum of livery and
expenses: 159 pounds 12s.1d. And there is owing: 5 pounds 9s.4d.1ob.
Produce of Granary: The same render account of 221 and a half quarters
and 1 strike from all the produce of grain; and of 24 quarters brought
from Mardon. Sum: 245 and a half quarters and 1 strike. For sowing 351
acres, 127 quarters. For bread for the lord bishop, 18 and a half
quarters delivered to John de Dispensa by three tallies. For the
balance sold, 110 quarters and 1 strike. The same render account of 38
and a half quarters from all the produce of small corn [grain]. For the
balance sold, all. The same render account of 29 quarters and 1 strike
from all the produce of mixed corn [grain]. For seeding 156 acres, 53
quarters and 1 strike. For bread for 3 autumnal works, 9 quarters. For
the balance sold, 27 quarters. The same render account of 178 and a
half quarters from all the produce of barley. For sowing 102 and a half
acres, 49 and a half quarters. For payment for carts, 1 quarter. For
payment for hauling dung, 2 quarters. For allowance of food of two
carters, one carpenter, one neatherd, one dairy woman, for the year, 32
and a half quarters. For feeding hogs in the winter, 2 quarters. For
the balance sold, 91 and a half quarters. It is quit.
The same render account of 311 quarters and 2 bushels from all the
produce of oats. In sowing 221 and a half acres, 110 and a half
quarters. For prebends [revenues paid for a clergyman's salary] of the
lord bishop and lord king, on many occasions, 131 and a half quarters
and 2 bushels, by five tallies. For prebends of Roger Wakelin, 2 and a
half quarters and 3 bushels. For prebends of Master Robert Basset, 3
and a half quarters and 1 bushel. For provender [dry food for
livestock] of 2 horses of the lord bishop and 1 horse of Richard Marsh,
for 5 weeks, 5 and a half quarters and 2 bushels. For provender of 2
horses of the lord bishop who stayed 16 nights at Downton, 4 quarters.
For that sent to Knoyle, 18 quarters. For provender of 1 horse of
Robert of Lurdon for 3 weeks, 1 and a half quarters. For prebends of
two carters 7 quarters and 2 bushels. For the balance sold, 12
quarters. And there remains 14 quarters and 1 strike. The same render
account of 6 and a half quarters from the whole produce of beans. For
planting in the garden half a quarter. For the balance sold, 6
quarters. It is quit.
The same render account of 4 quarters and 1 strike from all the produce
of peas. For sowing 6 acres, 1 and a half quarters. For the balance
sold 2 and a half quarters and 1 strike. It is quit. The same render
account of 4 quarters from all the produce of vetches [pea plants used
for animal fodder]. For feeding pigs in the winter, all. It is quit.
Beasts of Burden: The same render account of 104 oxen remaining from
the previous year. And of 2 yoked from useless animals. And of 1 from
the will of Robert Copp. And of 17 purchased. Sum: 124. Of living ones
sold, 12. Of dead, 21. Sum: 33. And there remain 91 oxen. The same
render account of 2 goats remaining from the previous year. All remain.
The same render account of 19 cows remaining from the previous year.
And of 7 yoked from useless animals, and of 1 found. Sum: 27. By death,
1. By killing, brought for the need of the lord bishop at Cranbourne,
2. Sum: 3. And there remain 24 cows. The same render account of 7
heifers and 2 steers remaining from the previous year. In yoked cows, 7
heifers. In yoked oxen, 2 bulls. Sum: 9.
The same render account of 12 yearlings remaining from the previous
year. By death, 1. There remain 11, of which 5 are female, 6 male.
The same render account of 13 calves born this year from cows, because
the rest were sterile. In tithes, 1. There remain 12. The same render
account of 858 sheep remaining from the previous year. And of 47 sheep
for the payment of herbage, after birth, and before clipping. And of 8
bought before birth. And of 137 young ewes mixed with two-year-olds.
Sum: 1050. In live ones sold at the time of Martinmas, 46. In those
dead before birth, 20. In those dead after birth and before shearing,
12. Sum: 78. And there remain 972 sheep.
The same render account of 584 wethers [castrated rams] remaining from
the previous year. And of 163 wethers mixed with two-year- olds. And of
16 rams from Lindsey, which came by brother Walter before shearing.
Sum: 763. In living ones sold at the time of Martinmas, 27 wethers, 10
rams. Paid to the men of Bishopton before shearing by writ of the
seneschal, 20. By death, before shearing, 14. Sum: 71. And there remain
692 sheep. The same render account of 322 old sheep remaining, with
lambs from the previous year. By death before shearing, 22. And there
remain 300; whence 137 are young ewes, mixed with sheep, and 163 males,
mixed with wethers.
The same render account of 750 lambs born from sheep this year because
20 were sterile, and 30 aborted. In payment of the smith, 2; of
shepherds, 3. In tithes, 73. In those dead before shearing, 105. Sum:
181. And there remain 569 lambs.
The same render account of 1664 large sheepskins whence 16 were from
the rams of Lindsey. In tithes, 164. In payment of three shepherds, 3.
In the balance sold 1497 skins with 16 skins from Lindsey which made 11
pondera.
The same render account of 569 lamb skins. In the balance sold, all,
which made 1 and a half pondera.
The same render account of 138 cheeses from arrears of the previous
year. And of 19 small cheeses. And of 5 larger ones from the arrears of
the previous year. And of 273 cheeses which were begun the 6th of April
and finished on the feast of St. Michael, both days being counted. And
they made cheeses two by two for 96 days, viz. from the 27th April to
the vigil of the feast of St. Peter in Chains, both days being counted.
Sum: 435 cheeses. In tithes 27. In payment of a shepherd, and mowers of
the meadow from Nunton, 2. In duty of a carter, 3. In autumnal work,
10. In expenses of the bishop in the kitchen, 2 by one tally. In the
balance sold, 133 cheeses, which made 10 heads, from arrears of the
previous year. In the balance sold, 177 cheeses, which made 18 heads in
this year. In expenses of the lord king and lord bishop on the feasts
of St. Leonard and St. Martin, 19 small cheeses, and 5 larger ones from
the arrears of the previous year. And there remain 52 small cheeses
which make one head.
The same render account of 124 hogs remaining from the previous year.
And of 29 that were born of sows. Sum: 153 pigs. In tithes, 2. By
death, 9. In those killed for the larder, 83. Sum: 95 pigs. And there
remain 58 pigs. Also 19 suckling pigs. Sum of the whole: 77 pigs.
The same render account of 48 chickens from arrears of the previous
year. And of 258 chickens for cheriset. Sum: 306. In expenses of the
lord bishop on the feast of St. Martin, 36 by one tally. In expenses of
the same on the feast of St. Leonard, 106, by one tally. In expenses of
the lord king and bishop on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
131 chickens, by two tallies. In allowance for food for Roger Wakelin,
8. In allowance of food for Master Robert Basset, 4. By death, 21. Sum:
306 chickens. It is quit.
The same render account of 273 chickens, 27 sticae of eels, 4 suckling
pigs, freed for the expenses of the lord king and bishop. From the
Larder: The same freed for the expenses of the lord bishop meat of 2
cows taken to Cranbourne.
The same render account of 13 sides of bacon, arrears of the previous
year. And of 5 oxen and 1 quarter of old beef from arrears of the
previous year. And of 84 hogs from Downton. And of 71 hogs from Mardon.
And of 10 hogs from Overton. And of 9 hogs from High-Clere. And of 14
hogs from Harwell. And of 7 hogs from Knoyle. Sum: 203 hogs, and meat
of 5 oxen and one quarter. In expenses of the lord bishop at the feast
of St. Martin, 8 sides of bacon. In expenses of the same at the feast
of St. Leonard, 17 sides of bacon, the meat of 5 oxen, and 1 quarter of
an ox. In expenses of the same on the morrow of the feast of the Holy
Cross, delivered to Nicolas the cook, 27 sides of bacon. In expenses of
the lord bishop delivered to the same cook at Knoyle on the Saturday
before the feast of St. Michael, 15 sides of bacon. In expenses of the
same and of the lord king on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul,
50 sides of bacon. In allowance of food to Master Robert Basset on the
feast of All Saints, half a side of bacon. In allowance of food to the
same on Wednesday and Thursday before Pentecost, 1 side of bacon. In
those sent to Knoyle for autumnal work, 6 sides of bacon. In three
autumnal festivals at Downton, 9 and a half sides of bacon. Sum: 134
sides of bacon. And there remain 74 sides of bacon.
The same render account of skins, sausages, and offal of the said hogs.
In expenses of the lord king and lord bishop at the feast of St.
Leonard, all. Nothing remains."
King Richard the Lion-hearted, unlike his father, was
interested in warfare. He spent most of his term on crusade to recover
Jerusalem. For his expenses, he imposed a tax of one-tenth of rents and
income from personal property and goods. He also sold town charters,
heiresses and heirs, widows, sheriffdoms, justiceships, earldoms, and
licenses for tournaments. In 1198, the bishop barons had refused to pay
for a campaign of Richard's war in Normandy arguing that military
service was only due within the kingdom of England. When Richard was
captured, every person in the realm was required to pay a part of his
ransom of 100,000 pounds, which was double the whole revenue of the
crown. Aids, tallages, and carucage were imposed. The heaviest impost
was one-fourth of revenue or of goods from every person.The crusaders'
contact with Arabs brought to England an expansion of trade, Arab
horses, and arabic numerals, which included "zero" and greatly
facilitated arithmetic, which was very difficult with Roman numerals.
The church decreed that those who went on these crusades would be
remitted of their sins.
At the end of this period was the reign of King John, a short
man. After his mother Eleanor's death in 1204, John ruled without her
influence. He had no conscience and his oaths were no good. He trusted
and was trusted by no one. He had a huge appetite for money. He imposed
2,000 pounds [3,000 marks] on London for confirmation of its charter.
He imposed levies on the capital value of all personal property and
goods. It began the occasional subsidies called "tenths and fifteenths"
from all people on incomes from movables: one-tenth from boroughs and
royal demesne land, and one-fifteenth elsewhere. He sold the wardships
of minors and the marriages of heiresses to the highest bidder, no
matter how base. He appointed unprincipled men to be both sheriff and
justice, enabling them to blackmail property holders with vexatious
writs and false accusations. Writs were withheld or sold at exorbitant
prices. Crushing penalties were imposed to increase the profits of
justice. He asserted over fowls of the air the same exclusive right as
over beasts of the forest. The story of Robin Hood portrays John's
attempt to gain the crown prematurely while Richard was on the Crusades
to recover Jerusalem for Christendom. In 1213, strong northern barons
refused a royal demand for service in France or scutage, arguing that
the amount was not within custom or otherwise justified. John had
private and public enemies. No one trusted him and he trusted no one.
His heavy handed and arbitrary rule quickly alienated all sectors of
the population: other barons, bishops, London, and the commons. They
joined the barons to pressure him to sign the Magna Carta, much of
which restated Henry II's work. Since John had extracted many heavy
fines from barons by personally adjudging them blameworthy in disputes
with others, the barons wanted judgment by their peers under the
established law of the courts. In arms, the barons forced John to sign
the Magna Carta correcting his abuses.
The Law
During the 1100s and 1200s, changes took place with regard to
wills which gradually established a definite common law. They were: The
king's court condemns the post obit gift of land because it was rung
from a man in the agony of dying when he had most probably lost his
memory and his reason, and it disappeared in the late 1100s, except
for burgage tenements. The primogeniture scheme for the descent of land
had been well established in the course of the 1100s and the concept of
a definite heir as appointed by God was now established. Heirship now
has nothing to do with chattels. The church takes jurisdiction by 1200
over succession of chattels and succession assumes a testamentary
character with witnesses and with an executor to carry out the dead
man's will and pay his debts. A will only dealt with the dead man's
part of his chattels, the law providing parts for the wife and
children. If there were both wife and children, the wife took one-third
and the children, except for the heir, one-third and the man could will
the remaining third. If there is a wife but no child or a child but no
wife, one half went to the surviving wife or children, except for the
heir, and one-half was governed by the will. If there was no will,
which was rare, the situation was unsettled, but usually the church
distributed the remaining portion for the good of the dead man's soul.
By statute, no one, including the lord of a manor, may take
land from anyone else, for instance, by the customary process of
distress, without a judgment from the Royal Court. This did not apply
to London, where a landlord leasing or renting land could take distress
in his fee.
No one, including the lord of a manor, shall deprive an heir of
the land possessed by his father, i.e. his birthright.
A tenant may marry off a daughter unless his lord shows some
just cause for refusing to consent to the marriage. A tenant had to pay
an "aid" to his lord when the lord's daughter married, when the lord's
son was knighted, or when the lord's person was ransomed.
A man [or woman] may not will away his land, but he may sell it
during his lifetime.
The land of a knight or other tenant of a military fee is
inherited by his eldest son. The socage land of a free sokeman goes by
its ancient custom before the Norman Conquest.
If a man purchased land after his marriage, his wife's dower is
still one-third of the land he had when they married, or less if he had
endowed her with less. But he could then enlarge her dower to one-third
of all of his lands. The same rule applied if the man had no land, but
endowed his wife with chattel or money instead.
Dower law prevented a woman from selling her dower during the
life of her husband. But he could sell it or give it away. On his
death, its possessor had to give the widow the equivalent worth of the
property.
A widower with a child born of the marriage had all his wife's
lands by curtesy of the nation for his lifetime to the exclusion of her
heirs.
The Capital Messuage [Chief Manor] could not be given in dower
or divided, but went in its entirety to its heir.
Heirs were firstly sons, then daughters jointly, then grandsons
per stirpes, then granddaughters per stirpes, then brothers, and then
sisters of the decedent. [By taking "per stirpes" instead of "per
capita", a person's share goes to that person's heirs if that person
predeceases the ancestor-decedent.] Male heirs of land held by military
service or sons of knights who were under the age of twenty-one were
considered to be in custody of their lords. The lord had wardship over
the heir's land, excluding the third that was the widow's dower for her
life. He also had wardship over the heir's body or person and had the
right to arrange the ward's marriage, which he did as early ass when
the ward was age 6. Both wardships were lucrative and could be bought
and sold. The heir's guardian had to maintain the heir in a manner
suitable to his dignity and restore to him when he came of age his
inheritance in good condition discharged from debts. Otherwise the lord
could take the profits of the land. The guardianship was not fiduciary.
The ward lived with his guardian and was taught to fight. When he came
of age, he did homage and fealty for the land. The mother did not have
a right to the guardianship of a son who was an heir. Male heirs of
sokemen who were under the age of fifteen were in the custody of their
nearest kindred. The son of a burgess came of age when he could count
money, measure cloth, and manage his father's concerns.
Female heirs remained in the custody of their lords until they
married. The lord was bound to find a marriage for his ward when she
became fourteen years of age and then deliver her inheritance to her.
She could not marry without her lord's consent, because her husband was
expected to be the lord's ally and to do homage to him. But if a female
heir lost her virginity, her inheritance escheated to her lord. A woman
with property could not do homage because she could not perform
military service, but she generally swore fealty. She could receive
homage from men.
Bastards were not heirs, even if their father married their
mother after birth.
Any adult inheriting land had to pay a "relief" to the lord of
the land. For a knight's fee, this was 100s. For socage land, this was
one year's value. The amount for a barony depended upon the King's
pleasure.
Heirs (but not widows) were bound to pay the debts of their
fathers and ancestors. A man who married a woman who had inherited land
could not sell this land without the consent of its heirs.
When a man dies, his wife shall take one-third and his heirs
shall take one-third of his chattels [movables or personal property].
The other third he may dispose of by will. If he had no heirs and no
will, all his chattels would escheat to his lord. Any distribution of
chattels would take place after all the decedent's debts were paid from
the property.
A will required two witnesses. The testator could name an
executor, but if he did not, the next of kin was the executor. A will
could not be made by a man on his death bed because he may well have
lost his memory and reason. Also, he could not give to a younger son if
in so doing, he would deprive his lawful heir. But he could give a
marriage gift to a daughter regardless of the lawful heir.
Usury was receiving back more than what was lent, such as
interest on a loan of money. When a usurer died, all his movables went
to the King.
A villein may not buy his own freedom (because all that he has
is his lord's), but may be set free by his lord or by someone else who
buys his freedom for him. He shall also be freed if the lord seduced
his wife, drew his blood, or refused to bail him either in a civil or
criminal action in which he was afterwards cleared. But a freed villein
did not have status to plead in court, even if he had been knighted. If
his free status were tried in court, only a freeman who was a witness
to his being set free could avail himself of trial by combat to decide
the issue. However, if the villein remained peacefully in a privileged
town a year and a day and was received into its guild as a citizen,
then he was freed from villeinage in every way.
A freeman who married a villein lost his freedom. If any parent
of a child was a villein, then the child was also a villein.
All shipwrecked persons shall be treated with kindness and none
of their goods or merchandise shall be taken from them.
If one kills another on a vessel, he shall be fastened to the
dead body and thrown with it into the sea.
If one steals from another on a vessel, he shall be shaven,
tarred and feathered, and turned ashore at the first land.
Passage on the Thames River may not be obstructed by damming up
the river on each side leaving a narrow outlet to net fish. All such
weirs shall be removed.
Judicial Procedure
Henry II wanted all freemen to be equally protected by one
system of law and government. So he opened his court, the Royal Court,
to all people of free tenure. A court of five justices professionally
expert in the law (rather than earls and barons), traveled with the
King, and on points of difficulty consulted with him. Justices began to
be more than presiding officers; they, instead of the lay and clerical
tenants-in-chief who attended, rendered the judgments. The chief court
was in Westminster, where the weightiest decisions were made. Other
professional itinerant justices appeared periodically in all counties
of the nation to hear certain criminal and civil cases and to hear
citizens' private civil suits [common pleas]. They came to perform many
other tasks, including promulgating and enforcing new legislation,
seeking out encroachments on royal rights, reviewing the local
communities' and officials' performance of their public duties,
imposing penalties for failure to do them or for corruption, gathering
information about outlaws and nonperformance of homage, and assessing
feudal escheats to the crown, wardships to which the king was entitled,
royal advowsons, feudal aids owed to the King, tallages of the
burgesses, and debts owed to the Jews. The decision-making of itinerant
justices on circuits begins the process which makes the custom of the
Royal Court the common law of the nation. The county courts, where the
traveling justices heard all manner of business in the counties,
adopted the doctrines of the Royal Court, which then acquired an
appellate jurisdiction. The itinerant justices came from the same small
group of royal justices who were on the Royal Court and the Exchequer,
which was headed by the justiciar. Difficult cases were decided by the
king and wise men of his council.
The Royal Court was chiefly concerned with 1) the due
regulation and supervision of the conduct of local government, 2) the
ownership and possession of land held by free tenure ("free tenement"
was decided by justices to be one held for life or one held heritably
[a fee]), and 3) the repression of serious crime, including homicide,
mayhem [injuring a limb so as to make it useless], robbery, arson, and
rape.
Henry was determined to protect lawful seisin of land and
issued assizes giving the Royal Court authority to decide land law
issues which had not been given justice in the county or lord's court.
But he did not ordain that all litigation respecting free tenements,
e.g. right of seisin, should take place in the king's court. Rather he
gave protection to mere possession of land, which could be justified
because possession was intimately associated with the maintenance of
the king's peace. These assizes included issues of novel disseisin
[recent ejectment] of a person's free tenement or of his common of
pasture which belonged to his freehold. By the assize of novel
disseisin, an ejected possessor could have a jury of recognitors decide
whether the ejectment had been just or not. Though the petty assize of
disseisin only provided a swift preliminary action to protect
possession pending the lengthy and involved grand assize on the issue
of which party had the more just claim or ultimate right of seisin, the
latter action was only infrequently invoked. The temptation of a strong
man to seize a neighbor's land to reap its profits for a long time
until the neighbor could prove and enforce his right was deterred. Any
such claim of recent dispossession [novel disseisin] had to be made
within three years of the disseisin.
An example of a writ of novel disseisin is: The king to the
sheriff, greeting. N has complained to me that R unjustly and without a
judgment has disseised him of his free tenement in [Houndsditch] since
my last voyage to Normandy. Therefore I command you that, if N gives
you security for prosecuting his claim, you are to see that the
chattels which were taken from the tenement are restored to it, and
that the tenement and the chattels remain in peace until Sunday after
Easter. And meanwhile you are to see that the tenement is viewed by
twelve free and lawful men of the neighborhood, and their names
endorsed on this writ. And summon them by good summoners to be before
me or my justices on the Sunday after Easter, ready to make the
recognition. And summon R. or his bailiff if he himself cannot be
found, on the security of gage [something given as secuxrity for
performance] and reliable securities to be there then to hear the
recognition. And have there the summoners, and this writ and the names
of the sureties. Witness etc.
Then an assize panel of recognition summoned concurrently with
the defendant and before he had pleaded, viewed the land in question
and answered, from their knowledge, these questions of fact: 1) Was the
plaintiff disseised of the freehold in question, unjustly and without
judgment? 2) Did the defendant commit the disseisin? Testimony of a
warrantor (or an attorney sent by him in his place) or a charter of
warranty served to prove seisin by gift, sale, or exchange. No
pleadings were necessary and the action could proceed and judgment
given even without the presence of the defendant. The justices amerced
the losing party with a monetary penalty. A successful plaintiff might
be awarded damages to compensate for the loss of revenue.
There was also a writ for issues of inheritance of land called
"mort d'ancestor". By the assize of mort d'ancestor, an heir of a
tenant who died and who was refused the land by the lord could have
this refusal determined to be just or unjust. For this issue, the Royal
Court used an similar assize panel of twelve men to decide whether the
ancestor was seised as of fee in his demesne, if the plaintiff was the
nearest heir, and whether the ancestor had died, gone on a crusade but
not returned, or had become a monk. Then it could give possession to
the heir. Since about 1150, heiresses divided the land of their father
if there was no son. The widow, of course, retained her dower rights.
As of 1176, the widow held her dower from the heir instead of from the
husband's lord. If the heir was a minor, the guardian lord would be in
actual control of the land. A national policy was implemented that in
the case of the death of a freeholder, the rights of the family, his
will, and his debts were to be provided for before relief was paid to
his lord.
Eventually royal justices acquired authority to decide the
ultimate question of right to land using the grand assize as an
alternative to the traditional procedures which ended in trial by
combat. Issues of the ultimate right of seisin were brought to the
Royal Court by a contestant in a local court who "put himself [or
herself] upon the King's grand assize". The assize consisted of twelve
knights from the county or neighborhood who were elected by four
knights of the same county or neighborhood (selected by the sheriff or
the suitors) and who were known as truthful men and were likely to
possess knowledge of the facts, either from personal seeing or hearing,
or from statements which their fathers had made to them from their
personal knowledge. The avenue by which a person who felt he had not
had justice in the manor court on his claim for certain freehold land
appealed to the king was by writ of right after the manor court's
decision or by a writ praecipe during the manor court's proceeding. An
example of a writ praecipe is: "The king to the sheriff greeting.
Command [praecipe] N. to render to R. justly and without delay one hide
of land in a certain vill, which the said R. complains that the
aforesaid N. is withholding from him. If he does not do so, summon him
by good summoners to be before me or my justices on the day after the
octaves of Easter, to show why he has not done so. And have the
summoners and this writ. Witness." When the parties appeared in court,
the claimant states his suit such as: "I claim against this N. the fee
of half a knight and two carucates of land in a certain vill as my
right and my inheritance, of which my father (or grandfather) was
seized in his demesne as of fee in the time of King Henry the First,
and from which he took the profits to the value of five shillings at
least, in grain and hay and other profits; and this I am ready to prove
by this freeman of mine, H., and if any evil befalls him them by this
other man or by this third man, who saw and heard it". Then the
defendant chose to deny the claim word for word with proof by combat or
to put himself upon the grand assize of the king. If he chose trial by
combat, the parties or their champions fought. The party losing,
usually by crying craven, had to pay a fine of 60s. If the grand assize
was chosen, the action was removed to the Royal Court. A writ of grand
assize was issued as follows: "The king to the sheriff, greeting.
Summon by good summoners the following twelve, namely, A. B. ..., to be
before me or my justices at a certain place on a certain day, ready to
declare on oath whether N. or R. has the greater right in one hide of
land (or other things claimed) which the aforesaid R. claims against
the aforesaid N., who is tenant, and in respect of which the aforesaid
N., who is tenant, has put himself upon my assize and has sought a
recognition to determine which of them has the greater right in the
things claimed. And meanwhile the twelve shall view the land (or
tenements [including meadows, pastures, woods, wastes, and rights of
common] from which the services are demanded). And summon by good
summoners N., who is tenant, to be there to hear the recognition.
Witness..." The claimant could object to any of the twelve knights for
just cause as determined by the court. Each of the twelve gave an oath
as to whether the plaintiff's or the defendant's position was correct.
This oath was not to speak falsehood nor conceal truth according to
knowledge gained by eyewitness or "by the words of their fathers and by
such words as they are bound to have such confidence in as if they were
their own". If any did not know the truth of the matter, others were
found until twelve agreed [the recognitors] on which party had the
greater right. Perjury was punished by forfeiture of all one's goods
and chattels to the king and at least one year's imprisonment. If the
tenant in court vouched another to warranty, such as the lord to whom
he paid homage, that warrantor would stand in his place in the
proceedings. If the warrantor lost, he would have to give to his vassal
equivalent land in exchange. Burgage tenure was not usually decided by
assize. Also, if the parties were relatives, neither the assize nor the
combat was available to them, but the matter had to be decided by the
law of inheritance.
Itinerant justices could conduct these assizes: petty and
grand. In 1198, the hundred is empowered to act on all the business of
the session, including all recognitions and petty assizes ordered by
the king's writ, where the property in dispute was worth no more than
200s. [ten pounds] a year. The four knights came to be selected by the
suitors of the county court rather than by the sheriff.
This assize procedure extended in time to all other types of
civil actions.
Removable to the Royal Court from the county courts were issues
of a lord's claim to a person as his villein, service or relief due to
a lord, dower rights, a creditor's refusal to restore a gage [something
given as security] to a debtor who offered payment or a deposit, money
due to a lender, a seller, or a person to whom one had an obligation
under a charter, fish or harvest or cattle taken from lands unjustly
occupied, cattle taken from pasture, rights to enjoy a common, to stop
troubling someone's transport, to make restitution of land wrongfully
occupied, to make a lord's bailiff account to him for the profits of
the manor. As of 1187, pleas concerning amounts of money less than 40s.
were not heard by the Royal Court.
The Royal Court also decided disputes regarding baronies,
nuisance or encroachments on royal land or public ways or public
waterways, such as diverting waters from their right course and issues
of nuisance by the making or destroying of a ditch or the destruction
of a pond by a mill to the injury of a person's freehold. Other pleas
of the Crown were: insult to the royal dignity, treason, breaches of
safe-conducts, and injury to the King's servants.
Henry involved the Royal Court in many criminal issues, using
the agencies of the county and hundred courts. To detect crimes, he
required itinerant royal justices to form juries of presentment
{indictment] composed of usually 12 knights or other landholders of
every neighborhood and 4 respectable men of each township and ask them
if any person were suspected of any murder, robbery, theft, etc. (These
later evolved into grand juries). These assizes were an ancient
institution in many parts of the country. What Henry's assize did was
to insist upon the adoption of a standard procedure everywhere
systematically. The procedure was made more regular instead of
depending on crime waves. If indicted, the suspected persons were then
sent directly to the ordeal. Henry abolished trial by compurgation in
the Royal Courts. If determined guilty, the offender forfeited his
chattels to the king and his land reverted to his landlord. The penalty
prescribed by the assize of Clarendon of 1166 was loss of a foot and
abjuring the realm. The assize of Northhampton of 1176 added loss of
the right hand. Often, a man who had a bad reputation had to abjure the
realm even if he had successfully undergone the ordeal. The most
serious criminal matters such as killing the king or sedition or
betraying the nation or the army, fraudulent concealment of treasure
trove [finding a hoard of coins which had been buried when danger
approached], breach of the King's peace, homicide, murder (homicide for
which there were no eyewitnesses), burning (a town, house, men, animals
or other chattel for hatred or revenge), robbery, rape and falsifying
(e.g. false charters or false measures or false money) were punishable
by death or loss of limb. Murders were now punished alike because the
applicability of the murdrum fine couldn't be determined since it was
impossible to prove that the slain man had been English since he would
have been mutilated to hide his nationality.
Women did not serve on juries. Having the jury of presentment precluded
free men from being sent to the ordeal by compurgation oaths of the
villeins. As of 1194, this jury of presentment procedure applied not
only to criminal cases, but also to civil, and fiscal cases.
As before, a person could also be brought to trial by the
accusation of the person wronged by a felony ["appeal"]. If the accused
still denied the charge after the accuser testified and the matter
investigated by inquiries and interrogation and then analyzed, trial by
combat was held, unless the accuser was over the age of sixty or
maimed, in which case the accused went to the ordeal.
The procedure of Henry II's assizes was extended from case to
case as men lost faith in the older types of proof. The ordeal fell
into disuse when the church prohibited blessing of ordeals in its
Lateran Council of 1215.
Henry introduced the petty or trial jury of 12 reputable men to
provide a workable alternative to the ordeal, compurgation, and combat.
These jurors were expected to know or to find out the facts that could
lead to a decision. Gradually, witnesses had to be brought in to tesify
to facts the jurors didn't know.
Housebreaking, harboring outlaws, and interference with the royal
perquisites of shipwreck and the beasts of the sea which were stranded
on the coast [such as whales and sturgeon] were also punishable in the
Royal Court.
Trespass was a serious and forcible breach of the peace onto
land that developed from the criminal law of felony. Trespass becomes a
general term for almost all wrongful acts and defaults against a
person, land, or chattels. It covered only direct damages due to
physical contact. There are two main punishments: 1) amercement of a
sum of money deetermined by at least two peers of the offender and 2)
imprisonment in gaol redeemable by agreement to a fine after a couple
of years in gaol. Another punishment was abjuration of a town or of the
realm. In boroughs, an offending burgess may lose liberties or have to
abjure their trade or craft. Pillory and tumbrel [e.g.ducking stool]
was usual for bakers and alewives who broke the assizes of bread and
beer, which was often.
The Royal Court had grown substantially and was not always
presided over by the King. To avoid court agents from having too much
discretionary power, there was a systematic procedure for bringing
cases to the Royal Court. First, a plaintiff had to apply to the King's
Chancery for a standardized writ into which the cause had to fit. The
plaintiff had to pay a fee and provide a surety that the plea was
brought in good faith. The progress of the suit was controlled at
crucial points by precisely formulated writs to the sheriff,
instructing him for instance, to put the disputed property under royal
protection pending a decision, to impanel an assize and have it view
the property in advance of the justices' arrival, to ascertain a point
of fact material to the plea, or to summon a 'warrantor' to support a
claim by the defendant.
The Royal Court kept a record on its cases on parchment kept
rolled up: its "rolls". The oldest roll of 1194 is almost completely
comprised of land cases.
Anyone could appoint an agent, an "attorney", to appear in
court on his behalf, it being assumed that the principal could not be
present and royal authorization given. A wife could represent her
husband. The principal was then bound by the actions of his agent.
Gradually men appeared who made a business of representing whoever
would employ them. The common law system became committed to the
"adversary system" with the parties struggling judicially against each
other.
The Royal Court took jurisdiction over issues of whether
certain land was civil or ecclesiastical [assize utrum], and therefore
whether the land owed services or payment to the Crown or not. It also
heard issues of disturbance of advowson, a complex of rights to income
from a church and to the selection of a parson for the church [assize
of darrein [last] presentment]. By this assize, the identity of the
patron who last presented an incumbent to a particular church could be
discovered. Many churches had been built by a lord on his manor for his
villeins. The lord had then appointed a parson and provided for his
upkeep out of the income of the church. In later times, the lord's
chosen parson was formally appointed by the bishop. By the 1100s, many
lords had given their advowsons to abbeys. This procedure used twelve
recognitors selected by the sheriff.
As before, the land of any person who had been outlawed or
convicted of a felony escheated to his lord. His personal property,
goods, and chattels became the King's. If he was executed, his heirs
received nothing because they were of the same blood as the felon,
which was corrupt: "corruption of the blood". The loss of civil rights
and capacities after a sentence of death for felony or treason, which
resulted in forfeiture of property and corruption of the blood, was
called "attainder".
There were two courts of the sheriff: the shire court for civil
and criminal matters and the sheriff's tourn for petty crime only. The
shire and borough courts heard cases of felonies, accusations against
freemen, tort, and debts. The knights made the county courts work as
legal and administrative agencies of the Crown.
The manor court heard cases arising out of the unfree tenures
of the lord's vassals. It also heard distraint, also called "distress",
issues. Distraint was a landlord's method of forcing a tenant to
perform the services of his fief. To distrain by the fief, a lord first
obtained a judgment of his court. Otherwise, he distrained only by
goods and chattels without judgment of his court. A distraint was
merely a security to secure a person's services, if he agreed he owed
them, or his attendance in court, if he did not agree that he owed
them. Law and custom restricted the type of goods and chattels
distrainable, and the time and manner of distraint. For instance,
neither clothes, household utensils, nor a riding horse was
distrainable. The lord could not use the chattels taken while they were
in his custody. If cattle in custody were not accessible to the tenant,
the lord had to feed them at his expense. The lord, if he were not the
King, could not sell the chattel. This court also determined
inheritance and dower issues.
The court of the vill enforced the village ordinances. The
hundred court met twice a month and dealt with the petty crimes of
lowly men in the neighborhood of a few vills.
Franchise courts had jurisdiction given by special royal grant,
such as the Courts of the Chancellors of Oxford and Cambridge
Universities.
The peace of the sheriff still exists for his county. The
King's peace may still be specially given, but it will cease upon the
death of the King. Law required every good and lawful man to be bound
to follow the hue and cry when it was raised against an offender who
was fleeing. The village reeve was expected to lead the chase to the
boundary of the next jurisdiction, which would then take the
responsibility to catch the man.
Before Henry's reign, the church, with the pope's backing, had
become more powerful and asserted more authority. Henry tried to return
to the concept of the king being appointed by God and as the head of
the church as well as of the state, as in Henry I's time, and to
include the church in his reform of the legal system, which would make
the spiritual jurisdiction and temporal jurisdiction conform to a
common justice. Toward this end, he published the Constitutions of
Clarendon. But the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, refused to
agree to them, although as Chancellor he had seen the beneficial
effects on the kingdom of Henry's legal measures. The disagreement came
to a head in Henry's attempt to establish the principle of "one law to
all" by having church clerics punished by the civil courts as before,
instead of having "benefit of clergy" to be tried and punished only in
ecclesiastical courts, even for secular crimes. Clerics composed about
one-sixth the population. The church courts had characteristically
punished with spiritual penalties of a fine or a penance, and at most
defrocking. It could not impose a death penalty, even for murder. When
Archbishop Becket was murdered and became a martyr, "benefit of clergy"
became a standard right, except for offenses in the king's forests.
Appeals could be made to the pope without the king's permission. The
king could take a criminal cleric's chattels, but not his life.
However, though theoretically bishops were elected by the body of
bishops with the approval of the king, as a practical matter, the king
chose the bishops and the abbots. It was a constant matter of dispute,
in which the pope would sometimes involve himself. Selection of
archbishops was also a frequent matter of contention between king and
pope.
The church copied the assize procedure developed by the Royal
Court to detect ecclesiastical offenses though it retained trial by
compurgation. Bishops could request the Chancery to imprison an
offender who had remained excommunicant for forty days, until he made
amends. Chancery complied as a matter of course. This went on for six
centuries.
The delineations of jurisdiction among these courts were
confused and there was much competing and overlapping of jurisdictions.
However, the court could appoint arbitrators or suggest to the parties
to compromise to avoid the harshness of a decisive judgment which might
drive the losing party to violent self-help.
The office of coroner was established about 1194 to supplement
the judicial investigations of crimes with local officers prior to the
arrival of the itinerant justices. Four knights who were residents of
the county and possessed sufficient land were elected by the county
court for life. Sometimes they had county and royal connections
instead. They received no pay. They determined if sudden deaths were
accidental or due to murder and the cause of death of prisoners. They
also held inquests on other crime such as bodily injury, rape, and
prison break. They attached [arrested] the accused and evaluated and
guarded his chattels until after the trial. If the accused was found
guilty, his possessions went to the King. The coroner sat with the
sheriff at every county court and went with him on his turns. This
office and the forbidding of sheriffs to act as justices in their own
counties reduced the power of the sheriffs. The responsibility of
receiving the oath of the peace is changed from the sheriff to knights,
the duty of the sheriffs being only to receive and keep the criminals
taken by these knights until the justices came to try them.
Also, at this time, the constitution of the grand jury of the
county was defined. First, four knights were to be chosen in the county
court. These were to select on oath two knights from each hundred.
These two, also on oath, are to add by co-optation ten more for the
jury of the hundred.
In London, if one of two witnesses for the defense died while
an action was pending, the survivor, after offering his oath, could
proceed to the grave of the dead witness, and there offer oath as to
what the dead man would have sworn if he had been alive. If a foreigner
was bound to make oath for debt or any misdeed, he could make it with
six others, his own oath being the seventh; but if could not find six
supporters, he alone could make the oath and take it in the six nearest
churches.
In London, the method of capital punishment was being confined
to hanging, instead of also being in the form of beheading, burning,
drowning, stoning, or hurling from a cliff. In cases of drowning, the
offender was first sewn up in a sack with a snake, a dog, an ape, and a
cock.
Chief Justiciar Ranulph Glanvill wrote a treatise on the writs
which could be brought in the Royal Court and the way they could be
used. It was a practical manual of procedure and of the law
administered in the Royal Court.
There are personal actions such as "debt" for specific chattel
or specific sum of money. The action for debt splits into two actions.
The "detinue" action is for wrongful detention of personal property
which originally was rightfully acquired as by loan, rent, or left for
safe-keeping and its award is for the specific chattel detained or its
value. The action of "replevin" is available to the tenant to recover
personal property which had been wrongly distrained, usually cattle;
the goods are "repledged" pending action. Also, but rarely used, are
"covenant" to protect termors for leases of land for terms of years,
and "trespass": a semi-criminal action brought by a private party for
an offense punishable by death (or in the 1100s by mutilation) such as
murder, rape, robbery, or mayhem, that is done with force of arms and
against the peace of the king. The use of trespass grew as private
actions for felony were supplanted by public indictment. It occasioned
outlawry in default of appearance. About 1200, outlawry was not used
for crimes falling short of felony. These personal actions were
initiated in common law courts by their respective writs.
These are some of the cases of novel disseisin brought to the
king's court:
Woodbridge v. Bardolf (1194, king's court): Ralf of Woodbridge seeks
before the justices his free tenement in Hebston by the assize of novel
disseisin against Hugh Bardolf. Against which assize Hugh said that he
had that seisin by judgment of his court for the default of the same
Ralf. And the court has recorded the summons and distraints reasonably
made on the same Ralf. And Ralf himself has acknowledged the summons
and distraints and said that he ought not hold anything from him in
that land; rather, it is of another's fee. And because neither he nor
anyone for him has complained to the justices that Hugh unjustly drew
him into a plea concerning a tenement which Ralf himself held of the
fee of another lord, it is considered that Hugh hold in peace. And let
Ralf plead by writ of right if he want and be in mercy for his false
claim.
Turroc v. fitz Walter (1194, king's court): The assize came to
recognize if Clement son of Walter unjustly and without judgment
disseised Matilda of Turroc of her free tenement within the assize.
Clement comes and says that he disseised her by judgment of his court.
The court is present and records that she occupied more of her lord's
land than she had in dower by the sheriff and by order of the lord
king, so that she was summoned and distrained to come in to court, and
she so responded that she remained in mercy of 10s. by judgment, so
that for that amercement and for other complaints she made fine with
her lord for 1/2 mark and put her land in pledge in his court and did
not want to render the 1/2 mark. And therefore by judgment of his court
he seised it. Matilda denies all word for word. And the same Clement
only produces two men from his court; and it is considered that it was
no court. Judgment: let Matilda have her seisin and let Clement be in
mercy for disseisin.
Fitz Hereward v. Prior of Lecton (1195, king's court): The assize came
to recognize if the prior of Lecton unjustly and without judgment
disseised Reginald son of Hereward and Essolda his wife of his free
tenement in Clapston after the first coronation of the lord king. The
prior says that the assize ought not be taken thereof, because he
seised that land by judgment of his court for default of his service
and his rent, whereof he has his court present, which asserts the same
thing. It is considered that the prior replevy [give back] to them
their land and give them a day in his court concerning the arrears of
rents and services. And let him treat them justly by judgment of his
court.
Stanfeld v. Brewes (1199, king's court): The assize comes to recognize
if Simon of Brewes and Luke cleric and Peter of Brewes unjustly and
without a judgment disseised Odo of Stanfeld and Juliana his wife of
her free tenement in Michehey within the assize. Simon says that the
assize ought not be taken thereof, because he took that land into his
hand by judgment of his court -- which he produced and which attests to
this -- for default of his service. And it was testified that Odo holds
that land from the same Simon. Simon was ordered to replevy that land
to Odo as well as the chattels and to treat him rightfully in his court.
fitz William v. Amice et al. (1200, king's court): The assize comes to
recognize if Amice who was the wife of Richard earl of Clare and Hugh
of Ceriton, John of Cornherd, William of Wattevill, Alexander son of
Gilbert, Alexander son of Matthew, Bartholomew son of Alexander, Robert
of Cornherd, and Geoffrey son of Leveric unjustly and without judgment
disseised Richard son of William of Sudbury of his free tenement in
Sudbury after the feast of St Michael next before the coronation of the
lord king. The countess says that, when she was separated by papal
order from the earl of Clare her husband by reason of consanguinity, to
which husband the vill of Sudbury had been given with her as marriage
portion, she came to Sudbury and convoked her court and made the same
Richard to be summoned to come to show by what warrant he held her
land. He willingly entered into the plea and vouched the earl of Clare
her former husband to warrant and at the day given him to have [his
warrantor] he did not have him. And thus by consideration of her court
she seised her land and holds it. Which court she produced and which
attests this. Richard comes and denies that he was ever summoned or
came into her court by summons or vouched to warranty or so lost seisin
by consideration of the court of the countess. And this he offers [to
prove]. It is considered that he defend himself 12-handed that he did
not willingly enter into the plea and vouch to warranty. Let him wage
his law [prove by the 12-handed oath, thus, by compurgation]. Pledges
of the law: Hugh son of Hugh, Wido of Sudbury. Day is given them at the
quindene of St. John.
This is the suit of Richard of Sudbury: [there follow the
names, but only of 10 men] against the countess Amice who was the
countess of Clare, concerning whom he had complained concerning a novel
disseisin of his free tenement in Sudbury. She said that by judgment of
her court for default of warranty which he had vouched did she make the
[dis]seisin and thereof did she produce suit. And he denied against her
and against the suit, and law was adjudged. And he comes with his law
and makes it with the abovesaid suit. Therefore it is considered that
he recover thereof his seisin; let the countess be in mercy for unjust
disseisin and also her men, of whom the same Richard has complained.
And let the same countess return to him the damages done thereof by a
jury of law-worthy men of the vicinity. The names of the men of the
countess are in the writ.
A sample of crown pleas in several hundreds or wapentakes
[Danish name for a hundred] from 1201 to 1203 are:
1. -Denise, who was wife to Anthony, appeals Nicholas Kam of the death
of Anthony, her husband, for that he wickedly slew her husband; and
this she offers to prove against him under award of the court. And
Nicholas defends all of it. It is considered that Denise's appeal is
null, for in it she does not say that she saw the deed. The jurors
being asked, say that they suspect him of it; the whole county likewise
suspects him. Let him purge himself by water [ordeal] under the Assize.
He has waged his law.
2. -William de Ros appeals Ailward Bere, Roger Bald, Robert Merchant,
and Nicholas Parmenter, for that they came to his house and wickedly in
the king's peace took away from him a certain villein of his whom he
kept in chains because he wished to run away, and led him off, and in
robbery carried away his wife's coffer with one mark of silver and
other chattels; and this he offers to prove by his son, Robert de Ros,
who saw it. And Ailward and the others have come and defended the
felony, robbery, and breach of the king's peace, and say that (as the
custom is in Cornwall) Roger of Prideaux, by the sheriff's orders,
caused twelve men to come together and make oath about the said
villein, whether he was the king's villein or William's and it was
found that he was the king's villein, so the said Roger the serjeant
demanded that [William] should surrender him, and he -refused, so
[Roger] sent to the sheriff, who then sent to deliver [the villein],
who, however, had escaped and was not - - to be found, and William
makes this appeal because he wishes to keep the chattels of Thomas [the
villein], to wit, two oxen, one cow, one mare, two pigs, nine sheep,
eleven goats. - - And that this is so the jurors testify. Judgment:
William and Robert in mercy for the false claim. William's amercement,
a half-mark. Robert's amercement, a half-mark. Pledge for the mark,
Warin, Robert's son. Let the king have his chattels from William.
Pledge for the chattels, Richard, Hervey's son.
3. -Serlo of Ennis-Caven appeals Osbert of Dimiliock and Jordan,
Walter's son, for that they in the king's peace wickedly assaulted,
beat and seriously wounded him, so that by reason of the beating three
bones were extracted from his head; and this he offers to prove against
him under the court's award as a man maimed by that mayhem. And it is
testified by the coroners that the wounds when fresh were shown in the
county [court], and that [the bones were broken] as aforesaid. And
Osbert and Jordan come and defend word by word. It is considered that
Osbert do purge himself by ordeal of iron on account of the appeal, for
Serlo betook himself against Osbert in the first instance. And let
Jordan be in custody until it be known how Osbert shall fare. And the
other persons who are appealed as accessories are to be under pledge
until [Osbert's fate] be known.
4. -The jurors say that they suspect William Fisman of the death of
Agnes of Chilleu, for the day before he had threatened her body and
goods. And the four neighboring townships being sworn, suspect him of
it. It is considered that he purge himself by water under the Assize.
5. -William Burnell and Luke of the Well are suspected of the burglary
at the house of Richard Palmer by the jurors of the hundred, and by the
four neighboring townships, which are sworn. Let them purge themselves
by water under the Assize.
6. -Malot Crawe appeals Robert, Godfrey's son, of rape. He comes and
defends. It is testified that he thus raped her and that she was seen
bleeding. By leave of the justices they made concord on the terms of
his espousing her.
7. -Walter Wifin was burgled, and of his chattels taken from his house
in the burglary certain boots were found in the house of Lefchild of
Ranam, and the said Walter pursues - - those boots as his. And Lefchild
said that he bought them in Bodmin market for 2 1/2 pence, but he knows
not from whom. And besides Walter says that eleven ells of linen cloth,
part of the stolen goods, were sold in Lefchild's house, and all the
other proceeds of the burglary, and that Lefchild was the receiver of
the burglars, namely, Robert of Hideford -and Alan the Foresters, whom
he [Walter] had appealed of the -crime. And Lefchild defends. The
jurors on being asked, say that they suspect Lefchild of the said
receipt. So let him purge himself by water under the Assize.
8. -Eadmer of Penwithen appeals Martin, Robert and Thomas of Penwithen,
for that Robert wounded him in the head so that twenty-eight pieces of
bone were extracted, and meanwhile - - Martin and Thomas held him; and
this he offers to deraign against the said Robert as a man thereby
maimed, under the court's award. And Robert comes and defends all of it
word - - by word. It is considered that he purge himself by ordeal of
iron. Let the others be in custody until it be known how Robert shall
fare. Afterwards Eadmer came and withdrew himself, and submitted to an
amercement of one mark.Pledges, Reinfrid, Gill's son, and Philip his
brother. Let the other appellees go quit.
9. -Reginald le Teinus accused of the receipt and fellowship of Robert
the outlaw comes and defends. The jurors say that they suspect him, and
the four neighboring townships say - - that they suspect him of it. So
let him purge himself by water under the Assize. And there must be
inquiry as to Richard Revel, who was sheriff when the said Robert
escaped - - from his custody.
10. Osbert of Reterth appeals Odo Hay, for that he assaulted him as he
was returning from Bodmin market, and in the king's peace and wickedly
struck him on the hand with a stick, and afterwards struck him on the
arm with his sword -so that he is maimed; and this he offers to prove
as a maimed man. And Odo defends it all. And that [Osbert] is maimed is
testified by knights sent to see him. Judgment: let [Odo] purge himself
by ordeal of iron because of this appeal.
11. Wulward of Wadebridge was burgled. And Odo Hay, Lawrence Smith,
Osbert Mediciner, and Benet his son, William Miller, Robert of
Frokemere, and Maud his sister, are suspected of the burglary by the
jurors of the hundred and by the four nearest townships, which are
sworn. Let the males purge themselves by water under the Assize, and
Maud by ordeal of - - iron. Roger Morand fled for that burglary, and he
was living in Bodmin, [which town is] therefore in mercy.
12. Robert, Godfrey's son, appeals Philip, William's son, for that he
came on the land of [Robert's] lord Richard Fortescue, and wickedly and
in the king's peace and in robbery took eight oxen and a mantle, cape,
and sword, and carried them off; and this he offers to prove against
him by his body under award of the court. And Philip comes and defends
all of it word by word. It is considered that the appeal is null, for
the oxen were not Robert's, but - - Richard's. The jurors being asked,
say that [Philip] did no robbery to [Richard]. So Richard Fortescue is
in mercy for a false appeal, and let Philip be quit.
13. Peter Burel appeals Anketil of Wingely, for that he wickedly in the
king's peace assaulted him in the field where he was pasturing his
oxen, and beat him, and gave him - - four wounds in the head, and in
robbery took from him an ax and a sword; and this he offers to prove
against him; but he shows no wound. And Anketil defends. And the county
records - - that [Peter] first appealed Roger of Tregadec of the same
robbery and of the same wounds. Therefore it is considered that the
appeal is null, and let Peter be in mercy for a false appeal. His
amercement, a half-mark; pledge for it, Ralph Giffard.
14. The jurors are in mercy for a silly presentment, for they presented
an appeal which was made in the hundred [court] and which was not
presented in the county [court].
15. Lucy of Morwinstow appeals Robert de Scaccis and Roland -of Kellio
and Peter of Lancarf of robbing her of twenty shillings and eight
pence, and of a cloak, price a half-mark. And it is testified by the
jurors that they did not rob her, and that she is a hireling, and that
a man lay with her in a garden, and the boys hooted her, so that she
left her cloak, and the boys took it and pawned it for two gallons of
wine. It is considered that Robert do give her three pence in respect
of the wine and do go quit. And Roland and Peter neither come nor
essoin [present an excuse for nonappearance] themselves. And their
pledges were Nicholas brother of Alfred of Bodmin and Herbert Reeve of
Bodmin, who are therefore in mercy.
16. Osbert Church accused of the death of Roland, son of Reginald of
Kennel, on the appeal of the said Reginald, was detained in gaol and
defends word by word. And Reginald - - offers proof by the body of a
certain freeman, Arkald, who has his [Reginald's] daughter to wife, who
is to prove in his stead, since he has passed the age of sixty. Osbert
Church defends all of it. The knights of the hundred of Penwith say
that they suspect him of the said death. The - - knights of kerrier
[hundred] say the same. The knights of Penwith [hundred] say the same.
The knights of Pyder [hundred] say the same. Judgment: let him purge
himself by water, and Reginald is in mercy, for he does not allege
sight and hearing, and because he has withdrawn himself, and put
another in his place, who neither saw nor heard and yet - - offered to
prove it, and so let both Reginald and Arkald be in mercy. Osbert is
purged by the water. Osbert's pledges: Henry Little, Henry of Penant,
Ossulf Black, Roger of Trevithow, John of Glin, Ralph of Trelew.
17. Roger of Wick [was] appealed of the death of Brictmer by the appeal
of Hawise, Brictmer's wife, and was captured in flight, as say John of
Winielton and Ralph of Mertherin, but the flight is not testified by
the hundred. Kerier [hundred] says the same. Penwith [hundred] says the
same. So is considered that he purge himself by water. He is purged.
Roger's pledges: Ralph of Trelew, Ogier of Kurnick, Richard, Simon's
son, Alfred Malvoisin, Everwin of Lande, John of Kewerion, Warin of
Tiwardeni, Baldwin Tirel, Roger of - - Trevithow, John of Glin, William
of Dunham, Thomas, Osbert's - - son.
18. Richard, William's son, appealed Luke, Richard's son, and William,
the servant of Alan Clerk, of robbery and of binding him. The appellees
have not come nor essoined themselves. The county together with the
wapentake says that they were appealed, not of the king's peace, but of
the sheriff's peace, so that the suit was and is in the county [court],
and therefore they were not attached to come before the justices.
Therefore the jurors are in mercy for presenting what they ought not to
have presented.
19. William, Hawise's son, appeals Richard, son of Robert of
Somercotes, for that he came in the king's peace to his house at
Somercotes, and broke his house and robbed him of.[an abrasion]
shillings, and a cape and surcoat, and twenty-five fowls, and twenty
shillings worth of corn [grain], and wounded him in the head with the
wound that he shows; and this he offers to prove against him as the
court shall consider etc. And Richard comes and defends the breach of
the king's peace and the housebreaking, wounding and -robbery, but
confesses that he came to a certain house, which William asserts to be
his [William's], as to his -[Richard's] own proper house, which
escheated into his hand on the death of Roger his villein, and there he
took certain chattels which were his villein's and which on his
villein's - - death were his [Richard's] own: to wit, five thraves of
oats, thirteen sheaves of barley, and twenty-five fowls; and he offers
the king twenty shillings for an inquest [to find] whether this be so
or no. And William says that Richard says this unjustly, for the said
Roger never had that house nor dwelt therein, nor were those chattels
Roger's, but he [William] held that house as his own, and the chattels
there seized were his. The jurors being questioned whether Roger did
thus hold the house of Richard in villeinage, say, Yes. Also the
coroners and the whole county testify that [William] never showed any
wound until now; and the wound that he now shows is of recent date.
Therefore it is considered that the appeal is null, and let Richard go
quit, and William be in mercy for his false claim. Pledges for the
amercement, Gilbert, Robert's son, and Richard, Haldeng's son.
20. Astin of Wispington appeals Simon of Edlington, for that he
wickedly and in the king's peace assaulted him in his meadows and put
out his eye, so that he is maimed of that eye; and this he offers to
prove etc. Simon comes and defends all of it word by word. And the
coroners and the county testify that hitherto the appeal has been duly
sued, at first by [Astin's] wife, and then by [Astin himself].
Judgment: let law be made, and let it be in the election of the
appellee whether he or Astin shall carry the iron. He has chosen that
Astin shall carry it. Astin has waged the law. Simon's pledges, William
of Land and his frankpledge and Ralph of Stures. Astin's pledges, Roger
Thorpe, Osgot of Wispington, and William, Joel's brother. Afterwards
came [the appellor and appellee] and both put themselves in mercy.
21. Gilbert of Willingham appeals Gilbert, Geoffrey's son, for that he
in the king's peace and wickedly set fire to his house and burned it,
so that after the setting fire [the appellor] went forth and raised hue
and cry so that his neighbors and the township of Willingham came
thither, and he showed them [the appellee] in flight and therefore they
pursued him with the cry; and this he offers etc. And the appellee
defends all of it word by word etc. And the - - neighbors and the
township of Willingham being questioned, say that they never saw him in
flight, and that [the appellor] never showed him to them. Likewise the
jurors say that in their belief he appeals him out of spite rather than
for just cause. Therefore it is considered that the appeal is null, and
the appellee is in mercy for a half-mark [7s.]. Pledge for the
amercement, Robert Walo.
22. William burel appeals Walter Morcock, for that he in the king's
peace so struck and beat Margery, [William's] wife, that he killed the
child in her womb, and besides this beat her and drew blood. And
William of Manby, the beadle, testifies that he saw the wound while
fresh and the blood in the wapentake [court]. And the serjeant of the
riding and the coroners and the twelve knights testify that they never
saw wound nor blood. And so it is considered that the appeal is null,
for one part of the appeal being quashed, it is quashed altogether, and
William Burel is in mercy. Let him be in custody. And William Manby is
in mercy for false testimony. Pledges for William's amercement, Richard
of Bilsby, Elias of Welton.
23. William Marshall fled for the death of Sigerid, Denis' mother,
whereof Denis appeals him; and he was in the Prior of Sixhills'
frankpledge of Sixhills, which is in mercy, and his chattels were two
cows and one bullock. Afterwards came the Prior of Sixhills and
undertook to have William to right before the justices. And he came,
and then Denis, Sigerid's son, came and appealed him of his mother's
death. And it was testified that [Denis] had an elder brother, and that
nine years are past since [Sigerid] died, and that she lived almost a
year after she was wounded, and that Denis never appealed [William]
before now. Therefore it is - - considered that the appeal is null and
that Denis be in mercy. Pledge for the amercement, his father, Ralph,
son of Denis.
24. Alice, wife of Geoffrey of Carlby, appealed William, Roger's son,
and William his son and Roger his son of the death of William her
brother. And Alice does not prosecute.Therefore let her be in mercy and
let her be arrested. To -judgment against the sheriff who did not
imprison the said persons who were attached, whereas they are appealed
of homicide, and to judgment also as to a writ which he ought to
produce.
25. Hawise, Thurstan's daughter, appeals Walter of Croxby -and William
Miller of the death of her father and of a wound -given to herself. And
she has a husband, Robert Franchenay, - - who will not stir in the
matter. Therefore it is considered that the appeal is null, for a woman
has no appeal against anyone save for the death of her husband or for
rape. And - - let Robert be in mercy on his wife's account, for a
half-mark [7s.], and let the appellees be quit. Pledge for Robert's
amercement, Richard Dean of Mareham, who has lay property. Wapentake of
Aswardhurn.
26. Juliana of Creeton appeals Adam of Merle of battery and robbery.
And Adam does not come, but essoins himself as being in the king's
service beyond seas. And for that it is not allowed to anyone appealed
of the king's peace to leave the land without a warrant before he has
been before justices learned in the law, his pledges are in mercy: to
wit, Segar of Arceles, Alan of Renington, and Robert of Searby. Adam
himself is excused from the plea by the essoin that he has cast.
27. Thomas, Leofwin's son, appeals Alan Harvester, for that he in the
king's peace assaulted him as he went on the highway, and with his
force carried him into Alan's house, and struck him on the arm so that
he broke a small bone of his arm, whereby he is maimed, and robbed him
of his cape and his knife, and held him while Eimma, [Alan's] wife, cut
off one of his testicles and Ralph Pilate the other, and when he was
thus dismembered and ill-treated, the said Alan with his force carried
him back into the road, whereupon as soon as might be he raised the
cry, and the neighbors came to the cry, and saw him thus ill-treated,
and then at once he sent to the king's serjeant, who came and found, so
[Thomas] says, the robbed things in Alan's house and then as soon as
might be [Thomas] went to the wapentake [court] and - - to the county
[court] and showed all this. So inquiry is made of the king's sergeant,
who testifies that he came to Alan's house and there found the knife
and the testicles in a little cup, but found not the cape. Also the
whole county testifies that [Thomas] never before now appealed Alan of
breaking a bone. And so it is considered that the appeal is null, and
that [Thomas] be in mercy, and that the other appellees be quit. Thomas
also appeals Emma, Alan's wife, for that she in the peace aforesaid
after he was placed in her lord's house cut off one of his testicles.
He also appeals Ralph Pilate, for that he cut off the other of his - -
testicles.
28. The twelve jurors presented in their verdict that Austin, Rumfar's
son, appealed Ralph Gille of the death of his brother, so that [Ralph]
fled, and that William, Rumfar's son, appealed Benet Carter of the same
death, and Ranulf, Ralph's son, appealed Hugh of Hyckham of the same
death and Baldwin of Elsham and Ralph Hoth and Colegrim as accessories.
And the coroners by their rolls testify this also. But the county
records otherwise, namely, that the said Ralph Gille, Benet, Hugh,
Baldwin, Ralph [Hoth] and Gocegrim were all appealed by Ranulf, Ralph's
son, and by no one else, so that four of them, to wit, Ralph Gille,
Hugh, Benet and Colegrim, were outlawed at the suit of the said Ranulf,
and that the said persons were not appealed by anyone other than the
said Ranulf. And for that the county could not [be heard to] contradict
the coroners and the said jurors who have said their say upon oath, it
is considered etc. Thereupon the county forestalled the judgment and
before judgment was pronounced made fine with 200 pounds [4,000s.] [to
be collected throughout the county], franchises excepted.
29. Hereward, William's son, appeals Walter, Hugh's son, for that he in
the king's peace assaulted him and wounded him in -the arm with an iron
fork and gave him another wound in the head; and this he offers to
prove by his body as the court shall consider. And Walter defends all
of it by his body. And it is testified by the coroners and by the whole
county that Hereward showed his wounds at the proper time and has made
sufficient suit. Therefore it is considered that there be battle.
Walter's pledges, Peter of Gosberton church, and Richard Hereward's
son. Hereward's pledges, William his father and the Prior of Pinchbeck.
Let them come armed in the quindene of St. Swithin at Leicester.
30. William Gering appeals William Cook of imprisonment, to wit, that
he with his force in the king's peace and wickedly, while [Gering] was
in the service of his lord Guy at the forge, took him and led him to
Freiston to the house of William Longchamp, and there kept him in
prison so that his lord could not get him replevied; and this he offers
to prove as the court shall consider. And William Cook comes and
defends the felony and imprisonment, but confesses that whereas he had
sent his lord's servants to seize the beasts of the said Guy on account
of a certain amercement which [Guy] had incurred in the court of
[Cook's] lord [Longchamp], and which though often summoned he had
refused to pay, [Gering] came and rescued the beasts that had been
seized and wounded a servant of [Cook's] lord, who had been sent to
seize them, whereupon [Cook] arrested [Gering] until -he should find
pledges to stand to right touching both the wounding and the rescue,
and when [Gering's] lord [Guy] came -for him, [Cook] offered to let him
be replevied, but this [Guy] refused, and afterwards he repeated the
offer before the king's serjeant, but even then it was refused, and
then [Cook] let [Gering] go without taking security. And Guy says that
he puts himself upon the wapentake, whether the imprisonment took place
in manner aforesaid, and whether he [Guy] at once showed the matter to
the king's serjeant, or no. And William Cook does the same. And the
wapentake says that the alleged [imprisonment] took place in Lent, and
Guy did not show the matter to the wapentake until a fortnight before
St. Botulph's day. And the county together with the coroners says that
they never heard the suit in their court. Therefore it is considered
that the appeal is null, and Guy is in mercy. And let William and those
who are appealed as accessories go quit.
31. The jurors say that Andrew, sureman's son, appealed Peter,
Leofwin's son, Thomas Squire and William Oildene of robbery. And he
does not prosecute. So he and Stephen Despine and Baldwin Long are in
mercy, and the appellees go without day. Afterwards comes Andrew and
says that [the appellees] imprisoned him by the order of William
Malesoures in the said William's house, so that he sent to the sheriff
that the sheriff might deliver him, whereupon the sheriff sent his
serjeant and others thither, who on coming there found him imprisoned
and delivered him and he produces witnesses, to wit, Nicholas Portehors
and Hugh, Thurkill's son, who testify that they found him imprisoned,
and he vouches the sheriff to warrant this. And the sheriff, on being
questioned, says that in truth he sent thither four lawful men with the
serjeant on a complaint made by Nicholas Portehors on Andrew's behalf.
And those who were sent thither by the sheriff testify that they found
him at liberty and disporting himself in William's house. Therefore it
is considered that the appeal is null [and Andrew is in mercy] for his
false complaint and Nicholas Portehors and Hugh, Thurkill's son, are in
mercy for false testimony. Andrew and Hugh are to be in custody until
they have found pledges [for their amercement].
32. The jurors say that Geoffrey Cardun has levied new customs other
than he ought and other than have been usual, to wit, in taking from
every cart crossing his land at Winwick with eels, one stick of eels,
and from a cart with greenfish, one greenfish, and from a cart with
salmon, half a salmon, and from a cart with herrings, five herrings,
whereas he ought to take no custom for anything save for salt crossing
his land, to wit, for a cartload, one bole of salt, and in that case
the salter ought to have a loaf in return for the salt, and also if the
salter's cart breaks down, the salter's horses ought to have pasture on
Geoffrey's land without challenge while he repairs his cart. And
Geoffrey comes and confesses that he takes the said customs, and ought
to take them, for he and his ancestors have taken them from the
conquest of England, and he puts himself on the grand assize of our
lord the king, and craves that a recognition be made whether he ought
to take those customs or no. And afterwards he offers the king twenty
shillings that this action may be put before Sir Geoffrey FitzPeter
[the Justiciar]. Pledge for the twenty shillings, Richard of Hinton.
33. The jurors say that Hugh, son of Walter Priest, was outlawed for
the death of Roger Rombald at the suit of Robert Rombald, and
afterwards returned under the [protection of the] king's writ, and
afterwards was outlawed for the same death on the appeal of Geoffrey,
Thurstan's son. The county therefore is asked by what warrant they
outlawed the same man twice for the same death, and says that of a
truth in King Richard's time the said Hugh was - - outlawed at the suit
of one Lucy, sister of the said Roger, so that for a long time
afterwards he hid himself; and at length he came into the county
[court] and produced letters of Sir Geoffrey FitzPeter in the form
following: "G. FitzPeter etc. to the sheriff of Northamptonshire,
greeting, Know thou that the king hath pardoned to Hugh, son of the
priest of Grafton, his flight and the outlawry adjudged to him for the
death of a certain slain man, and hath signified to us by his letters
that we be aiding to the said Hugh in reestablishing the peace between
him and the kinsfolk of the slain; wherefore we command thee that thou
be aiding to the said Hugh in making the peace aforesaid, and do us to
wit by thy letters under seal what thou hast done in this matter, since
we are bound to signify the same to the king. In witness etc. by the
king's writ from beyond seas." And the said letters being read in full
county [court] the county told the said Hugh that he must find pledges
that he would be in the king's peace, and he went away to find pledges,
and afterwards did not appear. But the kinsfolk of the slain, having
heard that Hugh had returned after his outlawry, came to the next
county [court] and Robert Rombald produced Geoffrey, Thurstan's son,
who said that if he saw the said Hugh he would sue against him the
death of the said Roger, who was [his kinsman]. And the county showed
him how Hugh had brought the Justiciar's letters pardoning him the
flight and outlawry, and that he was to find pledges to stand to the
king's peace, but had not returned. Whereupon the king's serjeant was
ordered to seek Hugh and bring him to a later county [court]. And at a
later county [court] Geoffrey offered himself against Hugh, and Hugh
did not appear; whereupon the king's serjeant being questioned said
that he had not found him, and the county advised [Geoffrey] to come to
another county [court], because if in the meantime Hugh could be found,
he would be brought to the county [court]. Then at the third county
[court] the said Geoffrey offered himself, and it was testified by the
serjeant that Hugh had not yet been found, wherefore the county said
that as Hugh would not appear to the king's peace, he must bear the
wolf's head as he had done before. To judgment against the coroners and
the twelve jurors.
34. Robert of Herthale, arrested for having in self-defense slain
Roger, Swein's son, who had slain five men in a fit of madness, is
committed to the sheriff that he may be in custody as before, for the
king must be consulted about this matter. The chattels of him who
killed the five men were worth two shillings, for which Richard [the
sheriff must account].
35. Sibil, Engelard's daughter, appeals Ralph of Sandford, for that he
in the king's peace and wickedly and in breach of the peace given to
her in the county [court] by the sheriff, came to the house of her lord
[or husband] and broke her chests and carried off the chattels, and so
treated her that he slew the child that was living in her womb.
Afterwards she came and said that they had made a compromise and she
withdrew herself, for they have agreed that Ralph shall satisfy her for
the loss of the chattels upon the view and by the appraisement of
lawful men; and Ralph has assented to this.
36. William Pipin slew William [or John] Guldeneman and fled. He had no
chattels. Let him be exacted. And Hugh Fuller was taken for this death
and put in gaol because the said John [or William] was slain in his
house. And Hugh gives to the king his chattels which were taken with
him, that he may have an inquest [to find] whether he be guilty thereof
or no. The jurors say that he is not guilty, and so let him go quit
thereof. And William Picot is in mercy for having sold Hugh's chattels
before he was convicted of the death, and for having sold them at an
undervalue, for he sold them, as he says, for three shillings, and the
jurors - - say that they were worth seventeen shillings, for which
William Picot and those who were his fellows ought to account. And
William says that the chattels were sold by the advice of his fellows,
and his fellows deny this.
37. Robert White slew Walter of Hugeford and fled. The jurors say that
he was outlawed for the death, and the county and the coroners say that
he was not outlawed, because no one sued against him. And because the
jurors cannot [be heard to] contradict the county and the coroners,
therefore they are in mercy, and let Robert be exacted. His chattels
were [worth] fifteen shillings, for which R. of Ambresleigh, the
sheriff, must account.
38. Elyas of Lilleshall fled to church for the death of a woman slain
at Lilleshall. He had no chattels. He confessed the death and abjured
the realm. Alice Crithecreche and Eva of Lilleshall and Aldith and
Mabel, Geoffrey and Robert of Lilleshall, and Peter of Hopton were
taken for the death of the said woman slain at Lilleshall. And Alice,
at once after the death, fled to the county of Stafford with some of
the chattels of the slain, so it is said, and was taken in that county
and brought back into Shropshire and there, as the king's serjeant and
many knights and lawful men of the county testify, in their presence
she said, that at night - - she heard a tumult in the house of the
slain; whereupon she came to the door and looked in, and saw through
the middle of the doorway four men in the house, and they came out and
- - caught her, and threatened to kill her unless she would conceal
them; and so they gave her the pelf [booty] that she had. And when she
came before the [itinerant] justices she denied all this. Therefore she
has deserved death, but by way of dispensation [the sentence is
mitigated, so] let her -eyes be torn out. The others are not suspected,
therefore let them be under pledges.
39. William, John's son, appeals Walter, son of Ralph Hose, for that
when [William's] lord Guy of Shawbury and [William] had come from
attending the pleas of our lord the king in the county court of
Shropshire, there came five men in the forest of Haughmond and there in
the king's peace and wickedly assaulted his lord Guy, and so that
[Walter], who was the fourth among those five, wounded Guy and was
accessory with the others in force as aid so that Guy his lord was
killed, and after having wounded his lord he [Walter] came to William
and held him so that he could not aid his lord; and this he offers to
deraign [determine by - - personal combat] against him as the court
shall consider. And Walter comes and defends all of it word by word as
the court etc. It is considered that there be battle [combat] between
them. The battle [combat] is waged. Day is given them, at Oxford on the
morrow of the octave of All Saints, and then let them come armed. And
Ralph [Walter's father] gives the king a half-mark that he may have the
custody of his son, [for which sum] the pledges are John of Knighton
and Reiner of Acton, and he is committed to the custody of Ralph Hose,
Reiner of Acton, John of Knighton, Reginald of Leigh, Adam of
Mcuklestone, William of Bromley, Stephen of Ackleton, Eudo of Mark.
40. Robert, son of Robert of Ferrers, appeals Ranulf of Tattesworth,
for that he came into Robert's garden and wickedly and in the king's
peace assaulted Robert's man Roger, and beat and wounded him so that
his life was despaired of, and robbed him [Roger?] of a cloak, a sword,
a bow and arrows: and the said Roger offers to prove this by his body
as the court shall consider. And Ranulf comes and defends the whole of
it, word by word, and offers the king one mark of silver that he may
have an inquest of lawful knights [to say] whether he be guilty thereof
or no. Also he says that Roger has never until now appealed him of
this, and prays that this be allowed in his favor. [Ranulf's] offering
is accepted. The jurors say that in truth there was some quarrel
between Robert's gardener, Osmund, and some footboys, but Ranulf was
not there, and they do not suspect him of any robbery or any tort done
to Robert or to Osmund. Also the county records that the knights who on
Robert's complaint were sent to view Osmund's wounds found him
unwounded and found no one else complaining, and that Robert in his
plaint spoke of Osmund his gardener and never of Roger, and that Roger
never came to the county [court] to make this appeal. Therefore it is
considered that Ranulf be quit, and Robert and Roger in mercy. Pledge
for Ranulf's mark, Philip of Draycot. Pledges for the amercement, Henry
of Hungerhill, and Richard Meverell. Pledge for Roger, the said Robert.
41. One L. is suspected by the jurors of being present when Reinild of
Hemchurch was slain, and of having aided and counseled her death. And
she defends. Therefore let her purge herself by the ordeal of iron; but
as she is ill, the ordeal is respited until her recovery.
42. Andrew of Burwarton is suspected by the jurors of the death of one
Hervey, for that he concealed himself because of that death. Therefore
let him purge himself by ordeal of water.
43. Godith, formerly wife of Walter Palmer, appeals Richard of Stonall,
for that he in the king's peace wickedly and by night with his force
came to her house and bound her and her husband, and afterwards slew
the said Walter her husband; and this she offers to prove against him
as wife of the slain as the court shall consider. And he defends all of
it. And the jurors and the whole neighborhood suspect him of that
death. And so it is considered that he purge himself by ordeal of iron
for he has elected to bear the iron.
44. The jurors of Oflow hundred say that the bailiffs of Tamworth have
unjustly taken toll from the knights of Staffordshire, to wit, for
their oxen and other beasts. And the men of Lichfield complain that
likewise they have taken toll from them, more especially in
Staffordshire. And the bailiffs deny that they take anything from the
knights in Staffordshire. And for that they cannot [be heard to]
contradict the jurors, the bailiffs are in mercy. As to the men of
Lichfield, [the Tamworth bailiffs] say that they ought to have, and in
King Henry's time had, toll of them, more especially of the merchants,
as well in Staffordshire as in Warwickshire. And the burgesses of
Lichfield offer the king a half-mark for an inquest by the county. And
the county records that in King Henry's time the men of - - Lichfield
did not pay toll in Staffordshire. Therefore the bailiffs are in mercy.
Chapter 7
The Times 1215-1272
Tenures in land were free or not free; the free tenures were
(1) military service, (2) grand serjeanty, (3) free socage, and (4)
frankalmoin. For military service, in general, every man knows his
place, knows how many days he must fight and with what arms. But this
institution is becoming unstable. Sometimes a substantial payment
called scutage is taken instead. As feudalism became less military and
less rough, daughters were permitted to inherit fiefs. It became
customary to divide the property of a deceased man without a son
equally among his daughters. Lords were receiving homage from all the
daughters and thereby acquiring marriage rights over all of them. Also,
if a son predeceased his father but left a child, that child would
succeed to the father's land in the same way that the deceased would
have. The ill, the aged, women, and ecclesiastics could send a
substitute to military service. There are certain reliefs, and wardship
and marriage fees associated with military tenure. Grand serjeanty was
various and included carrying the banner of the king, or his lance,
carrying his sword at his coronation, carrying his letters, summoning
his barons, conveying his treasure from place to place, being his
steward, marshal, chamberlain or constable. Many serjeanties were
connected with warfare, such as light horsemen, infantry, bowmen,
captains of the national militia, leading the infantry of certain
hundreds, military transport, carriage of armour on a horse, munitions
of war such as lances, arrows or knives. A man could hold by serjeanty
of a mesne lord, such as presiding over the lord's court, riding with
the lord or on his errands, feeding his hounds, or supplying bows and
arrows. Tenure in free socage may involve a nominal service to a lord,
such as the gift every year of a rose, a sparrowhawk, a pair of gloves,
a pair of gilt spurs, or a pound of pepper, or of incense or of wax.
Tenure in socage may originate by a gift of land to a daughter or
younger son, or to some dependant for past services, or a purchase with
a gross sum. There were no wardship or marriage or other fees
associated with a tenure in free socage. Tenure in frankalmoin ["free
alms" for the poor to relieve the king of this burden] was land held by
ecclesiastics in right of their churches and of God. This service was
spiritual, often for saying prayers for the deceased donor so that he
could go from purgatory to heaven, and it was an indefinite service. In
general, land could be alienated or subinfeudated without the lord's
consent and thus come to be held in another tenure. Land escheated
[returned] to the lord if there were no heirs, or in case of felony
after the king has possessed and taken the profits of the land for year
and day. In case of treason, a tenant's lands were all forfeited to the
king. The tenure of socage obligated the tenant to fixed agricultural
services, for which a nominal payment called a "quit rent" could be
substituted. Socage did not entail rights of wardship or marriage.
Socage grew at the expense of the other tenures. The unfree tenure was
villein tenure. Villeins were tied to a piece of land and were bound to
perform for their lord indefinite agricultural services and could be
physically recovered in case they left the land. Villeins were subject
to a lord's court and were not protected by the king's court.
The major types of freemen were: nobles, knights,
ecclesiastics, Jews, and women. The nobles were the earls and barons.
They did not have noble blood, but were tenants in chief of certain
land by the king's will. The king consulted them and they obeyed his
summons and gave him counsel. They were entitled to be judged in cases
of treason or felony, by their peers, that is, each other. Lower in
status are the knights. They were active in royal justice, making
thedecisions in the most important cases. Ecclesiatics were bishops;
abbots; and monks, nuns, and friars, who had taken vows of poverty and
obedience; and clergy. The difference between a monk and a friar was a
cloistered life versus an active life. Jews came to England after the
Conquest and were under the special protection of the king. All they
had belonged to the king. A Jew could lend money for interest, which
was disallowed for Christians. Jews were subject to the courts of
justice, but could also settle their disputes by their own Hebrew law,
They were expelled in 1290. Women could hold land, even by military
tenure, own chattels typically beasts and coins], make a will, make a
contract, and could sue and be sued. They could give evidence in court,
but could not be jurors or judges. Women who had husbands had to defer
to them in certain property matters.
Nobles, doctors, and attorneys wore tunics to the ankle and an
over-tunic almost as long, which was lined with fur and had long
sleeves. A hood was attached to it. A man's hair was short and curled,
with bangs on the forehead. The tunic of merchants and middle class men
reached to the calf. The laborer wore a tunic that reached to the knee,
cloth stockings, and shoes of heavy felt, cloth, or perhaps leather.
Ladies wore a full-length tunic with moderate fullness in the skirt,
and a low belt, and tight sleeves. A lady's hair was concealed by a
round hat tied on the top of her head. Over her tunic, she wore a
cloak. Monks and nuns wore long black robes with hoods.
Baron landholders' semi-fortified stone manor houses were
improved and extended. Many had been licensed to be embattled or
crenelated [wall indented at top with shooting spaces]. They were
usually quadrangular around a central courtyard. The central and
largest room was the hall, where people ate and slept. The hall had a
hearth for fire in the center of the room if the hall was one story
high. Sometimes the lord had a room with a sleeping loft above it. If
the hall was more than one story high, it had a fireplace at one end so
that the smoke could go up and out the roof. Other rooms each had a
fireplace. There were small windows around the top story and on the
inside of the courtyard. They were usually covered with oiled paper.
Windows of large houses were of opaque glass supplied by a glassmaking
craft. The glass was thick, uneven, distorted, and greenish in color.
The walls were plastered. The floor was wood with some carpets. Roofs
were timbered with horizontal beams. Many roofs had tiles supplied by
the tile craft, which baked the tiles in kilns or over an open fire.
Because of the hazard of fire, the kitchen was often a separate
building, with a covered way connecting it to the hall. It had one or
two open fires in fireplaces, and ovens. Sometimes there was a separate
room for a dairy.
Furniture included heavy wood armchairs for the lord and lady,
stools, benches, trestle tables, chests, and cupboards. Outside was an
enclosed garden with cabbages, peas, beans, beetroots, onions, garlic,
leeks, lettuce, watercress, hops, herbs, nut trees for oil, some
flowers, and a fish pond and well. Bees were kept for their honey.
The barons now managed and developed their estates to be as
productive as possible, often using the successful management
techniques of church estates. They kept records of their fields,
tenants, and services owed by each tenant, and duties of the manor
officers, such as supervision of the ploughing and harrowing. Annually,
the manor's profit or loss for the year was calculated. Most manors
were self-supporting except that iron for tools and horseshoes and salt
for curing usually had to be obtained elsewhere. Wine, tar, canvas and
millstones were imports from other countries and bought at fairs, as
was fish, furs, spices, and silks. Sheep were kept in such large
numbers that they were susceptible to a new disease "scab". Every great
household was bound to give alms.
Manors averaged about ten miles distance between each other,
the land in between being unused and called "wasteland". Statutes after
a period of civil war proscribing the retaking of land discouraged the
enclosure of waste land.
Husbandry land held in villeinage was inherited according to
the custom of its manor as administered in the lord's manorial court.
(The royal courts had jurisdiction of land held in socage. i.e. free
tenure.) The heir could be the oldest son, the youngest son, a son
chosen by the father to succeed him, or divided among the sons. If
there were no sons, one of the daughters inherited the land or it was
divided among all the daughters. If there were no heirs, the land went
back to the lord. Land could not be sold or alienated so that the heir
did not inherit, without the consent of the lord. Manorial custom also
determined the manner of descent of goods and chattels. A common custom
for a villein was that his best beast go to his lord as heriot and his
second best beast go to the parish priest as mortuary. Then, after
debts and burial expenses had been paid, a number of tools and utensils
needed for husbandry and housekeeping went with the land to its heir.
These were the "heirlooms", `loom" in old English meaning tool. This
usually included, for a holding of more than 5 acres, a coulter, a
plowshare, a yoke, a cart, an axe, a cauldron, a pan, a dish, and a
cask. Finally, the remaining goods and chattels went one-third to the
widow, one-third to his children except for the heir to the land, and
one-third according to the deceased's last will and testament. A son
might take his share before the death of his father in order to go out
into the world and seek his fortune, for instance in the church or
military, upon which event the father had to pay his lord a fine for
his son permanently leaving the manor. Many country boys became bound
apprentices in nearby boroughs or farm laborers. Others married
heiresses of land. By the custom of "curtesy of the nation", he held
this land for his lifetime if he had a child born of the marriage, even
if his wife predeceased him. If a man remained on the family land, he
had no right to marry. Often, there were agreements over land holdings
that were recorded in the manor books. For instance, it was common for
a father or mother to hand his or her holding over to the heir in
exchange for sustenance in old age. An heir usually did not marry until
after receiving his land. Manorial custom determined whether a father's
consent was necessary for a son or daughter to marry, the nature of any
agreement ("trothplight") between the families as to lands and goods
brought to the marriage, the amount of her marriage portion, and the
son's endowment (her "dower") of lands and goods promised to the bride
at the church door that would provide for her support after his death.
If dower was not specified, it was understood to be one-third of all
lands and tenements. At the next hallmote, if manorial custom required
it, the son would pay a fine to his lord for entry onto the land and
for license to marry. From 1246, priests taught that betrothal and
consummation constituted irrevocable marriage.
Some villeins bought out their servitude by paying a substitute
to do his service or paying his lord a firm (from hence, the words farm
and farmer) sum to hire an agricultural laborer in his place. This made
it possible for a farm laborer to till one continuous piece of land
instead of scattered strips.
Looms were now mounted with two bars. Women did embroidery. The
clothing of most people was made at home, even sandals. The village
tanner and bootmaker supplied long pieces of soft leather for more
protection than sandals. Tanning mills replaced some hand labor. The
professional hunter of wolves, lynx, or otters supplied head coverings.
Every village had a smith and possibly a carpenter for construction of
ploughs and carts. The smith obtained coal from coal fields for heating
the metal he worked. Horse harnesses were homemade from hair and hemp.
There were watermills and/or windmills for grinding grain, for malt,
and/or for fulling cloth. The position of the sails of the windmills
was changed by manual labor when the direction of the wind changed.
Most men wore a knife because of the prevalence of murder and
robbery. It was an every day event for a murderer to flee to sanctuary
in a church, which would then be surrounded by his pursuers while the
coroner was summoned. Usually, the fugitive would confess, pay
compensation, and agree to leave the nation permanently.
County courts were the center of decision-making regarding
judicial, fiscal, military, and general administrative matters. The
writs for the conservation of the peace, directing the taking of the
oath, the pursuit of malefactors, and the observance of watch and ward,
were proclaimed in full county court; attachments were made in
obedience to them in the county court. The county offices were:
sheriff, coroner, escheator, and constable or bailiff. There were 28
sheriffs for 38 counties. The sheriff was usually a substantial
landholder and a knight who had been prominent in the local court. He
usually had a castle in which he kept persons he arrested. He no longer
bought his office and collected certain rents for himself, but was a
salaried political appointee of the King. He employed a deputy or
undersheriff, who was an attorney, and clerks. If there was civil
commotion or contempt of royal authority, the sheriff of the county had
power to raise a posse of armed men to restore order. The coroner
watched the interests of the crown and had duties in sudden deaths,
treasure trove, and shipwreck cases. There were about five coroners per
county and they served for a number of years. They were chosen by the
county court. The escheator was appointed annually by the Treasurer to
administer the Crown's rights in feudal land, which until 1242 had been
the responsibility of the sheriff. He was usually chosen from the local
gentry. The constable and bailiff operated at the hundred and parish
[the geographical area of a church's members] level to detect crime and
keep the peace. They assisted sheriffs and Justices of the Peace,
organized watches for criminals and vagrants at the village level, and
raised the hue and cry along the highway and from village to village in
pursuit of offenders who had committed felony or robbery. The
constables also kept the royal castles; they recruited, fed, and
commanded the castle garrison.
County knights served sheriffs, coroners, escheators, and
justices on special royal commissions of gaol-delivery. They sat in
judgment in the county court at its monthly meetings, attended the two
great annual assemblies when the lord, knights and freeholders of the
county gathered to meet the itinerant justices who came escorted by the
sheriff and weapon bearers. They served on the committees which
reviewed the presentments of the hundreds and village, and carried the
record of the county court to Westminster when summoned there by the
kings' justices. They served on the grand assize. As elected
representatives of their fellow knights of the county, they assessed
any taxes due from each hundred. Election might be by nomination by the
sheriff from a fixed list, by choice, or in rotation. They investigated
and reported on local abuses and grievances. The King's justices and
council often called on them to answer questions put to them on oath.
In the villages, humbler freeholders and sokemen were elected to assess
the village taxes. Six villeins answered for the village's offenses
before the royal itinerant justice.
Reading and writing in the English language was taught. The use
of English ceased to be a mark of vulgarity. In 1258 the first
governmental document was issued in English as well as in Latin and
French, and later Latin started falling into disuse. Boys of noblemen
were taught reading, writing, Latin, a musical instrument, athletics,
riding, and gentlemanly conduct. Girls were taught reading, writing,
music, dancing, and perhaps household nursing and first aid, spinning,
embroidery, and gardening. Girls of high social position were also
taught riding and hawking. Grammar schools taught, in Latin, grammar,
dialectic (ascertaining word meaning by looking at its origin, its
sound (e.g. soft or harsh), its power (e.g. robust and strong sound),
its inflection, and its order; and avoiding obscurity and ambiguity in
statements), and rhetoric [art of public speaking, oratory, and
debate]. The teacher possessed the only complete copy of the Latin
text, and most of the school work was done orally. Though books were
few and precious, the students read several Latin works. Girls and boys
of high social position usually had private teachers for grammar
school, while boys of lower classes were sponsored at grammar schools
such as those at Oxford. Discipline was maintained by the birch or rod.
There was no examination for admission as an undergraduate to
Oxford, but a knowledge of Latin with some skill in speaking Latin was
a necessary background. The students came from all backgrounds. Some
had their expenses paid by their parents, while others had the
patronage of a churchman, a religious house, or a wealthy layman. They
studied the "liberal arts", which derived its name from "liber" or
free, because they were for the free men of Rome rather than for the
economic purposes of those who had to work. The works of Greek authors
such as Aristotle were now available; the European monk Thomas Aquinas
had edited Aristotle's works to reconcile them to church doctrine. He
opined that man's intellectual use of reason did not conflict with the
religious belief that revelation came only from God, because reason was
given to man by God. He shared Aristotle's belief that the earth was a
sphere, and that the celestial bodies moved around it in perfect
circles. Latin learning had already been absorbed without detriment to
the church.
A student at Oxford would become a master after graduating from
a seven year course of study of the seven liberal arts: [grammar,
rhetoric (the source of law), Aristotelian logic (which differentiates
the true from the false), arithmetic, including fractions and ratios,
(the foundation of order), geometry, including methods of finding the
length of lines, the area of surfaces, and the volume of solids, (the
science of measurement), astronomy (the most noble of the sciences
because it is connected with divinity and theology), music and also
Aristotle's philosophy of physics, metaphysics, and ethics; and then
lecturing and leading disputations for two years. He also had to write
a thesis on some chosen subject and defend it against the faculty. A
Master's degree gave one the right to teach. Further study for four
years led to a doctorate in one of the professions: theology and canon
or civil law.
There were about 1,500 students in Oxford. They drank, played
dice, quarreled a lot and begged at street corners. There were mob
fights between students from the north and students from the south and
between students and townsmen. But when the mayor of Oxford hanged two
students accused of being involved in the killing of a townswoman, many
masters and students left for Cambridge. In 1214, a charter created the
office of Chancellor of the university at Oxford. He was responsible
for law and order and, through his court, could fine, imprison, and
excommunicate offenders and expel undesirables such as prostitutes from
the town. He had authority over all crimes involving scholars, except
murder and mayhem. The Chancellor summoned and presided over meetings
of the masters and came to be elected by indirect vote by the masters
who had schools, usually no more than a room or hall with a central
hearth which was hired for lectures. Students paid for meals there.
Corners of the room were often partitioned off for private study. At
night, some students slept on the straw on the floor. Six hours of
sleep were considered sufficient. In 1231, the king ordered that every
student must have his name on the roll of a master and the masters had
to keep a list of those attending his lectures.
In 1221 the friars established their chief school at Oxford.
They were bound by oaths of poverty, obedience, and chastity, but were
not confined within the walls of a monastery. They walked barefoot from
place to lace preaching. They begged for their food and lodgings. They
replaced monks, who had become self-indulgent, as the most vital
spiritual force among the people.
The first college was founded in 1264 by Walter de Merton,
former Chancellor to the King, at Oxford. A college had the living
arrangements of a Hall, with the addition of monastic-type rules. A
warden and about 30 scholars lived and ate meals together in the
college buildings. Merton College's founding documents provided that:
[1] "The house shall be called the House of the Scholars of Merton, and
it shall be the residence of the Scholars forever.
[2] There shall be a constant succession of scholars devoted to the
study of letters, who shall be bound to employ themselves in the study
of Arts or Philosophy, the Canons or Theology. Let there also be one
member of the collegiate body, who shall be a grammarian, and must
entirely devote himself to the study of grammar; let him have the care
of the students in grammar, and to him also let the more advanced have
recourse without a blush, when doubts arise in their faculty.
[3] There is to be one person in every chamber, where Scholars are
resident, of more mature age than the others, who is to make his report
of their morals and advancement in learning to the Warden
[4] The Scholars who are appointed to the duty of studying in the House
are to have a common table, and a dress as nearly alike as possible.
[5] The members of the College must all be present together, as far as
their leisure serves, at the canonical hours and celebration of masses
on holy and other days.
[6] The Scholars are to have a reader at meals, and in eating together
they are to observe silence, and to listen to what is read. In their
chambers, they must abstain from noise and interruption of their
fellows; and when they speak they must use the Latin language.
[7] A Scrutiny shall be held in the House by the Warden and the
Seniors, and all the Scholars there present, three times a year; a
diligent inquiry is to be instituted into the life, conduct, morals,
and progress in learning, of each and all; and what requires correction
then is to be corrected, and excesses are to be visited with condign
punishment. . ."
Educated men (and those of the 1200s through the 1500s),
believed that the earth was the center of the universe and that it was
surrounded by a giant spherical dome on which the stars were placed.
The sun and moon and planets were each on a sphere around the earth
that was responsible for their movements. The origin of the word
"planet" meant "wanderer" because the motion of the planets changed in
direction and speed. Astrology explained how the position of the stars
and planets influenced man and other earthly things. For instance, the
position of the stars at a person's birth determined his character. The
angle and therefore potency of the sun's rays influenced climate,
temperament, and changes of mortal life such as disease and
revolutions. Unusual events such as the proximity of two planets, a
comet, an eclipse, a meteor, or a nova were of great significance. A
star often was thought to presage the birth of a great man or a hero.
There was a propitious time to have a marriage, go on a journey, make
war, and take herbal medicine or be bled by leeches, the latter of
which was accompanied by religious ceremony. Cure was by God, with
medical practitioners only relieving suffering. But there were medical
interventions such as pressure and binding were applied to bleeding.
Arrow and sword wounds to the skin or to any protruding intestine were
washed with warm water and sewn up with needle and silk thread. Ribs
were spread apart by a wedge to remove arrow heads. Fractured bones
were splinted or encased in plaster. Dislocations were remedied.
Hernias were trussed. Bladder stones blocking urination were pushed
back into the bladder or removed through an artificial opening in the
bladder. Surgery was performed by butchers, blacksmiths, and barbers.
Roger Bacon, an Oxford master, began the science of physics. He
read Arab writers on the source of light rays being from the object
seen, the nature of refraction and reflection of light, and the
properties of lenses. He studied the radiation of light and heat. He
studied angles of reflection in plane, spherical, cylindrical, and
conical mirrors, in both their concave and convex aspects. He did
experiments in refraction in different media, e.g. air, water, and
glass, and knew that the human cornea refracted light, and that the
human eye lens was doubly convex. He comprehended the magnifying power
of convex lenses and conceptualized the combination of lenses which
would increase the power of vision by magnification. He realized that
rays of light pass so much faster than those of sound or smell that the
time is imperceptible to humans. He knew that rays of heat and sound
penetrate all matter without our awareness and that opaque bodies
offered resistance to passage of light rays. He knew the power of
parabolic concave mirrors to cause parallel rays to converge after
reflection to a focus and knew that a mirror could be produced that
would start a fire at a fixed distance. These insights made it possible
for jewelers and weavers to use lenses to view their work instead of
glass globes full of water, which distorted all but the center of the
image: "spherical aberration". The lens, whose opposite surfaces were
sections of spheres, took the place of the central parts of the globe
over the image.
He knew about magnetic poles attracting, if different and
repelling, if the same, and the relation of magnets' poles to those of
the heavens and earth. He calculated the circumference of the world and
the latitude and longitude of terrestrial positions. He foresaw sailing
around the world. He studied the planetary motions and astronomical
tables to forecast future events. He did calculations on days in a
month and days in a year which later contributed to the legal
definition of a leap year. His explanation of a rainbow as a result of
natural laws was contrary to theological opinion that a rainbow was
placed in the heavens to assure mankind that there was not to be
another universal deluge.
Bacon began the science of chemistry when he took the empirical
knowledge as to a few metals and their oxides and some of the principal
alkalis, acids, and salts to the abstract level of metals as compound
bodies the elements of which might be separated and recomposed and
changed among the states of solid, liquid, and gas. When he studied
man's physical nature, health, and disease, he opined that the
usefulness of a talisman was not to bring about a physical change, but
to bring the patient into a frame of mind more conducive to physical
healing. He urged that there be experiments in chemistry to develop
medicinal drugs.
He studied different kinds of plants and the differences
between arable land, forest land, pasture land, and garden land.
Bacon was an extreme proponent of the inductive method of
finding truths, e.g. by categorizing all available facts on a certain
subject to ascertain the natural laws governing it. His contribution to
the development of science was abstracting the method of experiment
from the concrete problem to see its bearing and importance as a
universal method of research. He advocated changing education to
include studies of the natural world using observation, exact
measurement, and experiments.
The making and selling of goods diverged e.g. as the cloth
merchant severed from the tailor and the leather merchant severed from
the butcher. These craftsmen formed themselves into guilds, which
sought charters to require all craftsmen to belong to the guild of
their craft, to have legal control of the craft work, and be able to
expel any craftsman for disobedience. These guilds were composed of
master craftsmen, their journeymen, and apprentices. These guilds
determined the wages and working conditions of the craftsmen and
petitioned the borough authorities for ordinances restraining trade,
for instance by controlling the admission of outsiders to the craft,
preventing foreigners from selling in the town except at fairs,
limiting purchases of raw materials to suppliers within the town,
forbidding night work, restricting the number of apprentices to each
master craftsmen, and requiring a minimum number of years for
apprenticeships. In return, these guilds assured quality control. In
some boroughs, they did work for the town, such as maintaining certain
defensive towers or walls of the town near their respective wards. In
some boroughs, fines for infractions of these regulations were split
between the guild and the government.
In some towns, the merchant guilds attempted to directly
regulate the craft guilds. Crafts fought each other. There was a street
battle with much bloodshed between the goldsmiths and the parmenters
and between the tailors and the cordwainers in 1267 in London. There
was also a major fight between the goldsmiths and the tailors in 1268.
The Parish Clerks' Company was chartered in 1233.
The citizens of London had a common seal for the city. London
merchants traveled throughout the nation with goods to sell exempt from
tolls. Most of the London aldermen were woolmongers, vintners,
skinners, and grocers by turns or carried on all these branches of
commerce at once. Jews were allowed to make loans with interest up to
2d. a week for 20s. lent. There are three inns in London. Inns
typically had narrow facades, large courtyards, lodging and refreshment
for the well-off, warehousing and marketing facilities for merchants,
and stabling and repairs for wagons. Caregiving infirmaries such as
"Bethlehem Hospital" were established in London. One was a lunatic
infirmary founded by the sheriff of London. Benefactors conveyed plots
of land with houses to the city for the benefit and use of the
Franciscan friars who came to London as missionaries because the
friars' law forbade them from owning anything. The city held the land
in trust for the beneficiaries, the friars. Only tiles were used for
roofing in London, because wood shingles were fire hazards and fires in
London had been frequent. Some areas near London are disclaimed by the
king to be royal forest land, so all citizens could hunt there and till
their land there without interference by the royal foresters. The
Sheriff's court in London lost its old importance and handled mainly
trespass and debt cases, while important cases went to the Hustings,
which was presided over by the Mayor with the sheriffs and aldermen in
attendance. From the early 1200s, the Mayor's Court took on the work
which the weekly Husting could not manage. This consisted mostly of
assault and robbery cases. Murder and manslaughter cases were left to
the royal courts.
London aldermen were elected by the citizens of their
respective wards in wardmotes, in which was also arranged the watch,
protection against fire, and probably also assessment of the taxes
within the ward. There was much effort by the commoners to influence
the governance of the city. In 1261 they forced their way into the
townmote and by this brute show of strength, which threatened riot,
they made their own candidate mayor. Subsequent elections were
tumultuous.
The Tower of London now had outer walls of fortress buildings
surrounded by a wide and deep moat, over which was one stone causeway
and wooden drawbridge. Within this was an inner curtain wall with
twelve towers and an inner moat. The palace within was a principal
residence of English monarchs, whose retinue was extensive, including
the chief officers of state: Lord High Steward, Lord High Chancellor,
Lord High Treasurer, Lord Great Chamberlain, Lord High Constable,
Keeper of the Seals, and the King's Marshall; lesser officials such as
the Chamberlain of the Candles, Keeper of the Tents, Master Steward of
the Larder, Usher of the Spithouse, Marshall of the Trumpets, Keeper of
the Books, Keeper of the Dishes and of the Cups, and Steward of the
Buttery; and numbers of cat hunters, wolf catchers, clerks and limners,
carters, water carriers, washerwomen and laundresses, chaplains,
lawyers, archers, huntsmen, hornblowers, barbers, minstrels, guards and
servitors, and bakers and confectioners. The fortress also contained a
garrison, armory, chapels, stables, forge, wardrobe for a tailor's
workroom and secure storage of valuable clothes, silver plate, and
expensive imports such as sugar, rice, almonds, dried fruits, cinnamon,
saffron, ginger, galingale, zedoary, pepper, nutmeg, and mace. There
was a kitchen with courtyard for cattle, poultry, and pigs; dairy,
pigeon loft, brewery, beehives, fruit stores, gardens for vegetables
and herbs; and sheds for gardeners. There was also a mint, which minted
a gold penny worth 2s. of silver, a jewel house, and a menagerie (with
leopards, lions, a bear, and an elephant). The fortress also served as
a state prison. Most prisoners there had opposed the royal will; they
were usually permitted to live in quarters in the same style they were
used to, including servants and visits by family and friends. But
occasionally prisoners were confined in irons in dark and damp dungeons.
The King's family, immediate circle, and most distinguished
guests dined elegantly in the Great Hall at midday. They would first
wash their hands in hot water poured by servants over bowls. The table
had silver plate, silver spoons, and cups of horn, crystal, maple wood,
or silver laid on a white cloth. Each guest brought his own knife in a
leather sheath attached to a belt or girdle. A procession of servitors
brought the many dishes to which the gentlemen helped the ladies and
the young their seniors by placing the food in scooped-out half-loaves
of bread that were afterwards distributed to the poor. A wine cup was
handed around the table. In the winter after dinner, there would often
be games of chess or dice or songs of minstrels, and sometimes dancing,
juggler or acrobat displays, or storytelling by a minstrel. In the
summer there were outdoor games and tournaments. Hunting with hounds or
hawks was popular with both ladies and gentlemen. The King would go to
bed on a feather mattress with fur coverlet that was surrounded by
linen hangings. His grooms would sleep on trundle beds in the same
room. The queen likewise shared her bedchamber with several of her
ladies sleeping on trundle beds. Breakfast was comprised of a piece of
bread and a cup of wine taken after the daily morning mass in one of
the chapels. Sometimes a round and deep tub was brought into the
bedchamber by servants who poured hot water onto the bather in the tub.
Baths were often taken in the times of Henry III, who believed in
cleanliness and sanitation. Henry III was also noted for his luxurious
tastes. He had a linen table cloth, goblets of mounted cocoa-nut, a
glass cup set in crystal, and silk and velvet mattresses, cushions, and
bolster. He had many rooms painted with gold stars, green and red
lions, and painted flowers. To his sister on her marriage, he gave
goldsmith's work, a chess table, chessmen in an ivory box, silver pans
and cooking vessels, robes of cloth of gold, embroidered robes, robes
of scarlet, blue, and green fine linen, Genoese cloth of gold, two
napkins, and thirteen towels.
In the King's 1235 grant to Oxford, the Mayor and good men were
authorized to take weekly for three years 1/2 d. on every cart entering
the town loaded with goods, if it was from the county, or 1d. if it
came from outside the county; 1/4 d. for every horse load, except for
brushwood; 1/2 d. on every horse, mare, ox, or cow brought to sell; and
1/2 d. for every five sheep, goats, or pigs.
English ships had one mast with a square sail. The hulls were
made of planks overlapping each other. There was a high fore castle
[tower] on the bow, a top castle on the mast, and a high stern castle
from which to shoot arrows down on other ships. There were no rowing
oars, but steering was still by an oar on the starboard side of the
ship. The usual carrying capacity was 30 tuns [big casks of wine each
with about 250 gallons]. On the coasts there were lights and beacons.
Harbors at river mouths were kept from silting up. Ships were loaded
from piers. The construction of London Bridge had just been finished.
Bricks began to be imported for building. About 10% of the population
lived in towns.
Churches had stained glass windows.
Newcastle-on-Tyne received these new rights:
1. -And that they shall justly have their lands and tenures and
mortgages and debts, whoever owes them to them.
2. -Concerning their lands and tenures within the town, right shall be
done to them according to the custom of the city Winton.
3. -And of all their debts which are lent in Newcastle-on-Tyne and of
mortgages there made, pleas shall be held at Newcastle-on-Tyne.
4. -None of them shall plead outside the walls of the City of
Newcastle-on-Tyne on any plea, except pleas of tenures outside the city
and except the minters and my ministers.
5. -That none of them be distrained by any without the said city for
the repayment of any debt to any person for which he is not capital
debtor or surety.
6. -That the burgesses shall be quit of toll and lastage [duty on a
ship's cargo] and pontage [tax for repairing bridges] and have passage
back and forth.
7. -Moreover, for the improvement of the city, I have granted them that
they shall be quit of year's gift and of scotale [pressure to buy ale
at the sheriff's tavern], so that my sheriff of Newcastle-on-Tyne or
any other minister shall not make a scotale.
8. -And whosoever shall seek that city with his merchandise, whether
foreigners or others, of whatever place they may be, they may come
sojourn and depart in my safe peace, on paying - - the due customs and
debts, and any impediment to these rights is prohibited.
9. -We have granted them also a merchant guild.
10. And that none of them [in the merchant guild] shall fight by combat.
The king no longer lives on his own from income from his own
lands, but takes money from the treasury. A tax of a percentage of 1/15
the of personal property was levied in 1225 for a war, in return for
which the king signed the Magna Carta. It was to be paid by all
tenants-in-chief, men of the royal domain, burgesses of the boroughs
and cities, clerical tenants-in-chief, and religious houses. The
percentage tax came to be used frequently and ranged from about 1/40 th
to 1/5 th. In 1294, this tax was bifurcated into one percentage amount
for the rural districts and a higher one for urban districts, because
the burgesses had greater wealth and much of it was hard to uncover
because it was in the possession of customers and debtors. It was
usually 1/10 th for towns and royal domains and 1/15 th in the country.
This amount of money collected by this tax increased with the wealth of
the country.
The king takes custody of lands of lunatics and idiots, as well
as escheats of land falling by descent to aliens. Henry III took 20s.
from his tenants-in-chief for the marriage of his daughter, and two
pounds for the knighting of his son.
By 1250, the king was hiring soldiers at 2s. per day for
knights, and 9d. a day for less heavily armed soldiers, and 6d. a day
for crossbowmen. Some castle-guard was done by watchmen hired at 2d. a
day. Ships were impressed when needed. Sometimes private ships were
authorized to ravage the French coasts and take what spoil they could.
While King Henry III was underage, there was much controversy
as to who should be his ministers of state, such as justiciar,
chancellor, and treasurer. This led to the concept that they should not
be chosen by the king alone. After he came of age, elected men from the
baronage fought to have meetings and his small council in several
conferences called great councils or parliaments (from French "to speak
the mind") to discuss the levying of taxes and the solution of
difficult legal cases, the implementation of the Magna Carta, the
appointment of the king's ministers and sheriffs, and the receipt and
consideration of petitions. The barons paid 1/30 the tax on their
personal property to have three barons of their choice added to the
council. Statutes were enacted. Landholders were given the duty of
electing four of their members in every county to ensure that the
sheriff observed the law and to report his misdemeanors to the
justiciar. They were also given the duty of electing four men from the
county from whom the exchequer was to choose the sheriff of the year.
Earl Montfort and certain barons forced King Henry III to summon a
great council or parliament in 1265 in which the common people were
represented officially by two knights from every county, two burgesses
from every borough, and two representatives from each major port. So
the King's permanent small council became a separate body from
parliament and its members took a specific councilor's oath in 1257 to
give faithful counsel, to keep secrecy, to prevent alienation of
ancient demesne, to procure justice for the rich and poor, to allow
justice to be done on themselves and their friends, to abstain from
gifts and misuse of patronage and influence, and to be faithful to the
queen and to the heir.
The Law
The barons forced successive Kings to sign the Magna Carta
until it became the law of the land. It became the first statute of the
official statute book. Its provisions express the principle that a king
is bound by the law and is not above it. However, there is no redress
if the king breaches the law.
The Magna Carta was issued by John in 1215. A revised version
was issued by Henry III in 1225 with the forest clauses separated out
into a forest charter. The two versions are replicated together, with
the formatting of each indicated in the titles below.
{Magna Carta - 1215}
Magna Carta - 1215 & 1225
MAGNA CARTA - 1225
{John, by the grace of God, King of England, Lord of Ireland, Duke of
Normandy and Aquitaine, and Count of Anjou: To the Archbishops,
Bishops, Abbots, Earls, Barons, Justiciaries, Foresters, Sheriffs,
Reeves, Ministers, and all Bailiffs and others, his faithful subjects,
Greeting. Know ye that in the presence of God, and for the health of
our soul, and the souls of our ancestors and heirs, to the honor of
God, and the exaltation of Holy Church, and amendment of our realm, by
the advice of our reverend Fathers, Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
Primate of all England, and Cardinal of the Holy Roman Church; Henry,
Archbishop of Dublin; William of London, Peter of Winchester, Jocelin
of Bath and Glastonbury, Hugh of Lincoln, Walter of Worcester, William
of Coventry, and Benedict of Rochester, Bishops; Master Pandulph, the
pope's subdeacon and familiar; Brother Aymeric, Master of the Knights
of the Temple in England; and the noble persons, William Marshall, Earl
of Pembroke; William, Earl of Salisbury; William, Earl of Warren;
William, Earl of Arundel; Alan de Galloway, Constable of Scotland;
Warin Fitz-Gerald, Peter Fitz-Herbert, Hubert de Burgh, Seneshal of
Poitou, Hugh de Neville, Matthew Fitz-Herbert, Thomas Basset, Alan
Basset, Philip Daubeny, Robert de Roppelay, John Marshall, John
Fitz-Hugh, and others, our liegemen:}
HENRY BY THE GRACE OF GOD, KING OF ENGLAND, LORD OF IRELAND, DUKE OF
NORMANDY AND GUYAN AND EARL OF ANJOU, TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS,
ABBOTS, PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, SHERIFFS, PROVOSTS, OFFICERS AND TO ALL
BAILIFFS AND OTHER OUR FAITHFUL SUBJECTS WHICH SHALL SEE THIS PRESENT
CHARTER, GREETING.
KNOW YE THAT WE, UNTO THE HONOR OF ALMIGHTY GOD, AND FOR THE SALVATION
OF THE SOULS OF OUR PROGENITORS AND SUCCESSORS KINGS OF ENGLAND, TO THE
ADVANCEMENT OF HOLY CHURCH AND AMENDMENT OF OUR REALM, OF OUR MERE AND
FREE WILL, HAVE GIVEN AND GRANTED TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS, ABBOTS,
PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, AND TO ALL FREE MEN OF THIS OUR REALM, THESE
LIBERTIES FOLLOWING, TO BE KEPT IN OUR KINGDOM OF ENGLAND FOREVER.
[I. A CONFIRMATION OF LIBERTIES]
First, we have granted to God, and by this our present Charter
confirmed, for us and our heirs forever, that the English Church shall
be free and enjoy her whole rights and her liberties inviolable. {And
that we will this so to be observed appears from the fact that we of
our own free will, before the outbreak of the dissensions between us
and our barons, granted, confirmed, and procured to be confirmed by
Pope Innocent III the freedom of elections, which is considered most
important and necessary to the English Church, which Charter we will
both keep ourself and will it to be kept with good faith by our heirs
forever.} We have also granted to all the free men of our realm, for us
and our heirs forever, all the liberties underwritten, to have and to
hold to them and their heirs of us and our heirs.
[II. THE RELIEF OF THE KING'S TENANT OF FULL AGE]
If any of our earls, barons, or others who hold of us in chief by
knight's service dies, and at the time of his death his heir is of full
age and owes to us a relief, he shall have his inheritance on payment
of [no more than] the old relief; to wit, the heir or heirs of an earl,
for an entire earldom, 100 pounds [2,000s.]; the heir or heirs of a
baron of an entire barony, {100 pounds} 100 MARKS; the heir or heirs of
an entire knight's fee, 100s. at the most [about 1/3 of a knight's
annual income]; and he who owes less shall give less, according to the
old custom of fees.
[III. THE WARDSHIP OF AN HEIR WITHIN AGE. THE HEIR A KNIGHT]
BUT IF THE HEIR OF SUCH BE UNDER AGE, HIS LORD SHALL NOT HAVE THE WARD
OF HIM, NOR OF HIS LAND, BEFORE THAT HE HAS TAKEN OF HIM HOMAGE. If,
however, any such heir is under age and in ward, he shall have his
inheritance without relief or fine when he comes of age, THAT IS,
TWENTY-ONE YEARS OF AGE. SO THAT IF SUCH AN HEIR NOT OF AGE IS MADE A
KNIGHT, YET NEVERTHELESS HIS LAND SHALL REMAIN IN THE KEEPING OF HIS
LORD UNTO THE AFORESAID TERM.
[IV. NO WASTE SHALL BE MADE BY A GUARDIAN IN WARD'S LANDS]
The guardian of the land of any heir thus under age shall take
therefrom only reasonable issues, customs, and services, without
destruction or waste of men or goods. And if we commit the custody of
any such land to the sheriff or any other person answerable to us for
the issues of the same land, and he commits destruction or waste, we
will take an amends from him and recompense therefore. And the land
shall be committed to two lawful and discreet men of that fee, who
shall be answerable for the issues of the same land to us or to
whomsoever we shall have assigned them. And if we give or sell the
custody of any such land to any man, and he commits destruction or
waste, he shall lose the custody, which shall be committed to two
lawful and discreet men of that fee, who shall, in like manner, be
answerable to us as has been aforesaid.
[V. GUARDIANS SHALL MAINTAIN THE INHERITANCE OF THEIR WARDS AND OF
BISHOPRICKS, ETC.]
The guardian, so long as he shall have the custody of the land, shall
keep up and maintain the houses, parks, fishponds, pools, mills, and
other things pertaining thereto, out of the issues of the same, and
shall restore to the heir when he comes of age, all his land stocked
with {ploughs and tillage, according as the season may require and the
issues of the land can reasonably bear} PLOUGHS AND ALL OTHER THINGS,
AT THE LEAST AS HE RECEIVED IT. ALL THESE THINGS SHALL BE OBSERVED IN
THE CUSTODIES OF VACANT ARCHBISHOPRICKS, BISHOPRICKS, ABBEYS, PRIORIES,
CHURCHES, AND DIGNITIES, WHICH APPERTAIN TO US; EXCEPT THIS, THAT SUCH
CUSTODY SHALL NOT BE SOLD.
[VI. HEIRS SHALL BE MARRIED WITHOUT DISPARAGEMENT]
Heirs shall be married without loss of station. {And the marriage shall
be made known to the heir's nearest of kin before it is agreed.}
[VII. A WIDOW SHALL HAVE HER MARRIAGE, INHERITANCE, AND QUERENTINE
(period of forty days during which the widow has a privilege of
remaining in the mansion house of which her husband died seized). THE
KING'S WIDOW, ETC.]
A widow, after the death of her husband, shall immediately and without
difficulty have her marriage portion [property given to her by her
father] and inheritance. She shall not give anything for her marriage
portion, dower, or inheritance which she and her husband held on the
day of his death, and she may remain in her husband's house for forty
days after his death, within which time her dower shall be assigned to
her. IF THAT HOUSE IS A CASTLE AND SHE LEAVES THE CASTLE, THEN A
COMPETENT HOUSE SHALL FORTHWITH BE PROVIDED FOR HER, IN WHICH SHE MAY
HONESTLY DWELL UNTIL HER DOWER IS ASSIGNED TO HER AS AFORESAID; AND IN
THE MEANTIME HER REASONABLE ESTOVERS OF THE COMMON [NECESSARIES OR
SUPPLIES SUCH AS WOOD], ETC.
No widow shall be compelled [by penalty of fine] to marry so long as
she has a mind to live without a husband, provided, however, that she
gives security that she will not marry without our assent, if she holds
of us, or that of the lord of whom she holds, if she holds of another.
[VIII. HOW SURETIES SHALL BE CHARGED TO THE KING]
Neither we nor our bailiffs shall seize any land or rent for any debt
as long as the debtor's goods and chattels suffice to pay the debt AND
THE DEBTOR HIMSELF IS READY TO SATISFY THEREFORE. Nor shall the
debtor's sureties be distrained as long as the debtor is able to pay
the debt. If the debtor fails to pay, not having the means to pay, OR
WILL NOT PAY ALTHOUGH ABLE TO PAY, then the sureties shall answer the
debt. And, if they desire, they shall hold the debtor's lands and rents
until they have received satisfaction of that which they had paid for
him, unless the debtor can show that he has discharged his obligation
to them.
{If anyone who has borrowed from the Jews any sum of money, great or
small, dies before the debt has been paid, the heir shall pay no
interest on the debt as long as he remains under age, of whomsoever he
may hold. If the debt falls into our hands, we will take only the
principal sum named in the bond.}
{And if any man dies indebted to the Jews, his wife shall have her
dower and pay nothing of that debt; if the deceased leaves children
under age, they shall have necessaries provided for them in keeping
with the estate of the deceased, and the debt shall be paid out of the
residue, saving the service due to the deceased's feudal lords. So
shall it be done with regard to debts owed persons other than Jews.}
[IX. THE LIBERTIES OF LONDON AND OTHER CITIES AND TOWNS CONFIRMED]
The City of London shall have all her old liberties and free customs,
both by land and water. Moreover, we will and grant that all other
cities, boroughs, towns, and ports shall have all their liberties and
free customs.
{No scutage or aid shall be imposed in our realm unless by common
counsel thereof, except to ransom our person, make our eldest son a
knight, and once to marry our eldest daughter, and for these only a
reasonable aid shall be levied. So shall it be with regard to aids from
the City of London.}
{To obtain the common counsel of the realm concerning the assessment of
aids (other than in the three aforesaid cases) or of scutage, we will
have the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and great barons
individually summoned by our letters; we will also have our sheriffs
and bailiffs summon generally all those who hold lands directly of us,
to meet on a fixed day, but with at least forty days' notice, and at a
fixed place. In all such letters of summons, we will explain the reason
therefor. After summons has thus been made, the business shall proceed
on the day appointed, according to the advice of those who are present,
even though not all the persons summoned have come.}
{We will not in the future grant permission to any man to levy an aid
upon his free men, except to ransom his person, make his eldest son a
knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter, and on each of these
occasions only a reasonable aid shall be levied.}
[X. NONE SHALL DISTRAIN FOR MORE SERVICE THAN IS DUE.]
No man shall be compelled to perform more service for a knight's fee
nor any freehold than is due therefrom.
[XI. COMMON PLEAS SHALL NOT FOLLOW THE KING'S COURT]
People who have Common Pleas shall not follow our Court traveling about
the realm, but shall be heard in some certain place.
[XII. WHERE AND BEFORE WHOM ASSIZES SHALL BE TAKEN. ADJOURNMENT FOR
DIFFICULTY]
{Land assizes of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestor and darrein
presentment shall be heard only in the county where the property is
situated, and in this manner: We or, if we are not in the realm, our
Chief Justiciary, shall send two justiciaries through each county four
times a year [to clear and prevent backlog], and they, together with
four knights elected out of each county by the people thereof, shall
hold the said assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place
where that court meets.}
ASSIZES OF NOVEL DISSEISIN, MORT D'ANCESTOR SHALL BE HEARD ONLY IN THE
COUNTY WHERE THE PROPERTY IS SITUATED, AND IN THIS MANNER: WE, OR IF WE
ARE NOT IN THE REALM, OUR CHIEF JUSTICIARY, SHALL SEND JUSTICIARIES
THROUGH EACH COUNTY ONCE A YEAR, AND THEY TOGETHER WITH KNIGHTS OF THAT
COUNTY SHALL HOLD THE SAID ASSIZES IN THE COUNTY.
{If the said assizes cannot be held on the day appointed, so many of
the knights and freeholders as were present on that day shall remain as
will be sufficient for the administration of justice, according to the
amount of business to be done.}
AND THOSE THINGS THAT AT THE COMING OF OUR FORESAID JUSTICIARIES, BEING
SENT TO TAKE THOSE ASSIZES IN THE COUNTIES, CANNOT BE DETERMINED, SHALL
BE ENDED BY THEM IN SOME OTHER PLACE IN THEIR CIRCUIT; AND THOSE THINGS
WHICH FOR DIFFICULTY OF SOME ARTICLES CANNOT BE DETERMINED BY THEM,
SHALL BE REFERRED TO OUR JUSTICES OF THE BENCH AND THERE SHALL BE ENDED.
[XIII. ASSIZES OF DARREIN PRESENTMENT]
ASSIZES OF DARREIN PRESENTMENT SHALL ALWAYS BE TAKEN BEFORE OUR
JUSTICES OF THE BENCH AND THERE SHALL BE DETERMINED.
[XIV. HOW MEN OF ALL SORTS SHALL BE AMERCED AND BY WHOM]
A freeman shall be amerced [made to pay a fine to the King] for a small
offense only according to the degree thereof, and for a serious offense
according to its magnitude, saving his position and livelihood; and in
like manner a merchant, saving his trade and merchandise, and a villein
saving his tillage, if they should fall under our mercy. None of these
amercements shall be imposed except by the oath of honest men of the
neighborhood.
Earls and barons shall be amerced only by their peers, and only in
accordance with the seriousness of the offense.
{No amercement shall be imposed upon a cleric's lay tenement, except in
the manner of the other persons aforesaid, and without regard to the
value of his ecclesiastical benefice.}
NO MAN OF THE CHURCH SHALL BE AMERCED EXCEPT IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE
SERIOUSNESS OF THE OFFENSE AND AFTER HIS LAY TENEMENT, BUT NOT AFTER
THE QUANTITY OF HIS SPIRITUAL BENEFICE.
[XV. MAKING OF BRIDGES AND BANKS]
No town or freeman shall be compelled to build bridges over rivers OR
BANKS except those bound by old custom and law to do so.
[XVI. DEFENDING OF BANKS]
NO BANKS [LAND NEAR A RIVER] SHALL BE DEFENDED [USED BY THE KING ALONE,
E.G. FOR HUNTING], FROM HENCEFORTH, BUT SUCH AS WERE IN DEFENSE IN THE
TIME OF KING HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER, BY THE SAME PLACES AND IN THE
SAME BOUNDS AS IN HIS TIME.
[XVII. HOLDING PLEAS OF THE CROWN]
No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other of our bailiffs shall hold
pleas of our Crown [but only justiciars, to prevent disparity of
punishments and corruption].
{All counties, hundreds, wapentakes, and tithings (except our demesne
manors) shall remain at the old rents, without any increase.}
[XVIII. THE KING'S DEBTOR DYING, THE KING SHALL BE FIRST PAID]
If anyone holding a lay fee of us dies, and our sheriff or our bailiff
show our letters patent [public letter from a sovereign or one in
authority] of summons for a debt due to us from the deceased, it shall
be lawful for such sheriff or bailiff to attach and list the goods and
chattels of the deceased found in the lay fee to the value of that
debt, by the sight and testimony of lawful men [to prevent taking too
much], so that nothing thereof shall be removed therefrom until our
whole debt is paid; then the residue shall be given up to the executors
to carry out the will of the deceased. If there is no debt due from him
to us, all his chattels shall remain the property of the deceased,
saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares.
{If any freeman dies intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by
his nearest kinfolk and friends, under supervision of the Church,
saving to each creditor the debts owed him by the deceased.}
[XIX. PURVEYANCE FOR A CASTLE]
No constable or other of our bailiffs shall take grain or other
chattels of any man without immediate payment, unless the seller
voluntarily consents to postponement of payment. THIS APPLIES IF THE
MAN IS NOT OF THE TOWN WHERE THE CASTLE IS. BUT IF THE MAN IS OF THE
SAME TOWN AS WHERE THE CASTLE IS, THE PRICE SHALL BE PAID TO HIM WITHIN
40 DAYS.
[XX. DOING OF CASTLE-GUARD]
No constable shall compel any knight to give money for keeping of his
castle in lieu of castle-guard when the knight is willing to perform it
in person or, if reasonable cause prevents him from performing it
himself, by some other fit man. Further, if we lead or send him into
military service, he shall be excused from castle-guard for the time he
remains in service by our command.
[XXI. TAKING OF HORSES, CARTS, AND WOOD]
No sheriff or bailiff of ours, or any other man, shall take horses or
carts of any freeman for carriage without the owner's consent. HE SHALL
PAY THE OLD PRICE, THAT IS, FOR CARRIAGE WITH TWO HORSES, 10d. A DAY;
FOR THREE HORSES, 14d. A DAY. NO DEMESNE CART OF ANY SPIRITUAL PERSON
OR KNIGHT OR ANY LORD SHALL BE TAKEN BY OUR BAILIFFS.
Neither we nor our bailiffs will take another man's wood for our
castles or for other of our necessaries without the owner's consent.
[XXII. HOW LONG FELONS' LANDS SHALL BE HELD BY THE KING]
We will hold the lands of persons convicted of felony for only a year
and a day [to remove the chattels and movables], after which they shall
be restored to the lords of the fees.
[XXIII. IN WHAT PLACE WEIRS SHALL BE REMOVED]
All fishweirs [obstructing navigation] shall be entirely removed by the
Thames and Medway rivers, and throughout England, except upon the
seacoast.
[XXIV. IN WHAT CASE A PRAECIPE IN CAPITE IS NOT GRANTABLE]
The [royal] writ called "praecipe in capite" [for tenements held in
chief of the Crown] shall not in the future be granted to anyone
respecting any freehold if thereby a freeman [who has a mesne lord] may
not be tried in his lord's court.
[XXV. THERE SHALL BE BUT ONE MEASURE THROUGHOUT THE REALM]
There shall be one measure of wine throughout our realm, one measure of
ale, and one measure of grain, to wit, the London quarter, and one
breadth of dyed cloth, russets, and haberjets, to wit, two {ells} YARDS
within the selvages. As with measures so shall it also be with weights.
[XXVI. INQUISITION OF LIFE AND LIMB]
Henceforth nothing shall be given or taken for a writ of inquisition
upon life or limb, but it shall be granted freely and not denied.
[XXVII. TENURE OF THE KING IN SOCAGE AND OF ANOTHER BY KNIGHT'S
SERVICE. PETTY SERJEANTY.]
If anyone holds of us by fee farm, socage, or burgage, and also holds
land of another by knight's service, we will not by reason of that fee
farm, socage, or burgage have the wardship of his heir, or the land
which belongs to another man's fee. Nor will we have the custody of
such fee farm, socage, or burgage unless such fee farm owe knight's
service. We will not have the wardship of any man's heir, or the land
which he holds of another by knight's service, by reason of any petty
serjeanty which he holds of us by service of rendering us knives,
arrows, or the like.
[XXVIII. WAGES OF LAW SHALL NOT BE WITHOUT WITNESS]
In the future no [royal] bailiff shall upon his own unsupported
accusation put any man to trial or oath without producing credible
witnesses to the truth of the accusation.
[XXIX. NONE SHALL BE CONDEMNED WITHOUT TRIAL. JUSTICE SHALL NOT BE SOLD
OR DELAYED.]
No freeman shall be taken, imprisoned, disseised OF HIS FREEHOLD OR
LIBERTIES OR FREE CUSTOMS, OR BE outlawed, banished, or in any way
ruined, nor will we prosecute or condemn him, except by the lawful
judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
To no one will we sell [by bribery], to none will we deny or delay,
right or justice.
[XXX. MERCHANT STRANGERS COMING INTO THIS REALM SHALL BE WELL USED]
All merchants shall have safe conduct to go and come out of and into
England, and to stay in and travel through England by land and water,
to buy and sell, without evil tolls, in accordance with old and just
customs, except, in time of war, such merchants as are of a country at
war with us. If any such be found in our realm at the outbreak of war,
they shall be detained, without harm to their bodies or goods, until it
be known to us or our Chief Justiciary how our merchants are being
treated in the country at war with us. And if our merchants are safe
there, then theirs shall be safe with us.
{Henceforth anyone, saving his allegiance due to us, may leave our
realm and return safely and securely by land and water, except for a
short period in time of war, for the common benefit of the realm.}
[XXXI. TENURE OF A BARONY COMING INTO THE KING'S HANDS BY ESCHEAT]
If anyone dies holding of any escheat, such as the honor of
Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, {Lancaster,} or other escheats which
are in our hands and are baronies, his heir shall not give any relief
or do any service to us other than he would owe to the baron, if such
barony had been in the baron's hands. And we will hold the escheat in
the same manner in which the baron held it. NOR SHALL WE HAVE, BY
OCCASION OF ANY BARONY OR ESCHEAT, ANY ESCHEAT OR KEEPING OF ANY OF OUR
MEN, UNLESS HE WHO HELD THE BARONY OR ESCHEAT ELSEWHERE HELD OF US IN
CHIEF.
Persons dwelling outside the forest [in the county] need not in the
future come before our justiciaries of the forest in answer to a
general summons unless they are impleaded or are sureties for any
person or persons attached for breach of forest laws.
[XXXII. LANDS SHALL NOT BE ALIENED TO THE PREJUDICE OF THE LORD'S
SERVICE]
NO FREEMAN FROM HENCEFORTH SHALL GIVE OR SELL ANY MORE OF HIS LAND, BUT
SO THAT OF THE RESIDUE OF THE LANDS THE LORD OF THE FEE MAY HAVE THE
SERVICE DUE TO HIM WHICH BELONGS TO THE FEE.
{We will appoint as justiciaries, constables, sheriffs, or bailiffs
only such men as know the law of the land and will keep it well.}
[XXXIII. PATRONS OF ABBEYS SHALL HAVE THE CUSTODY OF THEM WHEN VACANT]
All barons who had founded abbeys of which they have charters of
English Kings or old tenure, shall have the custody of the same when
vacant, as is their due.
All forests which have been created in our time shall forthwith be
disafforested. {So shall it be done with regard to river banks which
have been enclosed by fences in our time.}
{All evil customs concerning forests and warrens [livestock grounds in
forests], foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, or
riverbanks and their conservators shall be immediately investigated in
each county by twelve sworn knights of such county, who are chosen by
honest men of that county, and shall within forty days after this
inquest be completely and irrevocably abolished, provided always that
the matter has first been brought to our knowledge, or that of our
justiciars, if we are not in England.}
{We will immediately return all hostages and charters delivered to us
by Englishmen as security for the peace or for the performance of loyal
service.}
{We will entirely remove from their offices the kinsmen of Gerald de
Athyes, so that henceforth they shall hold no office in England:
Engelard de Cigogne, Peter, Guy, and Andrew de Chanceaux, Guy de
Cigogne, Geoffrey de Martigny and his brothers, Philip Mark and his
brothers, and Geoffrey his nephew, and all their followers.}
{As soon as peace is restored, we will banish from our realm all
foreign knights, crossbowmen, sergeants, and mercenaries, who have come
with horses and arms, to the hurt of the realm.}
{If anyone has been disseised or deprived by us, without the legal
judgment of his peers, of lands, castles, liberties, or rights, we will
immediately restore the same, and if any disagreement arises on this,
the matter shall be decided by judgment of the twenty- five barons
mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace. With regard to
all those things, however, of which any man was disseised or deprived,
without the legal judgment of his peers, by King Henry [II] our Father
or our Brother King Richard, and which remain in our hands or are held
by others under our warranty, we shall have respite during the term
commonly allowed to the Crusaders, excepting those cases in which a
plea was begun or inquest made on our order before we took the cross;
when, however, we return from our pilgrimage, or if perhaps we do not
undertake it, we will at once do full justice in these matters.}
{Likewise, we shall have the same respite in rendering justice with
respect to the disafforestation or retention of those forests which
Henry [II] our Father or Richard our Brother afforested, and concerning
custodies of lands which are of the fee of another, which we hitherto
have held by reason of the fee which some person has held of us by
knight's service, and to abbeys founded on fees other than our own, in
which the lord of that fee asserts his right. When we return from our
pilgrimage, or if we do not undertake it, we will forthwith do full
justice to the complainants in these matters.}
[XXXIV. IN WHAT ONLY CASE A WOMAN SHALL HAVE AN APPEAL OF DEATH]
No one shall be arrested or imprisoned upon a woman's appeal for the
death of any person other than her husband [since no woman was expected
to personally engage in trial by combat].
[XXXV. AT WHAT TIME SHALL BE KEPT A COUNTY COURT, SHERIFF'S TURN AND A
LEET COURT (COURTS OF CRIMINAL JURISDICTION EXCEPTING FELONIES)]
NO COUNTY COURT FROM HENCEFORTH SHALL BE HELD, BUT FROM MONTH TO MONTH;
AND WHERE GREATER TIME HAS BEEN USED, THERE SHALL BE GREATER. NOR SHALL
ANY SHERIFF, OR HIS BAILIFF, KEEP HIS TURN IN THE HUNDRED BUT TWICE IN
THE YEAR; AND NO WHERE BUT IN DUE PLACE AND ACCUSTOMED TIME, THAT IS,
ONCE AFTER EASTER, AND AGAIN AFTER THE FEAST OF SAINT MICHAEL. AND THE
VIEW OF FRANKPLEDGE [THE RIGHT OF ASSEMBLING THE WHOLE MALE POPULATION
OVER 12 YEARS EXCEPT CLERGY, EARLS, BARONS, KNIGHTS, AND THE INFIRM, AT
THE LEET OR SOKE COURT FOR THE CAPITAL FRANKPLEDGES TO GIVE ACCOUNT OF
THE PEACE KEPT BY INDIVIDUALS IN THEIR RESPECTIVE TITHINGS] SHALL BE
LIKEWISE AT THE FEAST OF SAINT MICHAEL WITHOUT OCCASION, SO THAT EVERY
MAN MAY HAVE HIS LIBERTIES WHICH HE HAD, OR USED TO HAVE, IN THE TIME
OF KING HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER, OR WHICH HE HAS SINCE PURCHASED.
THE VIEW OF FRANKPLEDGE SHALL BE SO DONE, THAT OUR PEACE MAY BE KEPT;
AND THAT THE TYTHING BE WHOLLY KEPT AS IT HAS BEEN ACCUSTOMED; AND THAT
THE SHERIFF SEEK NO OCCASIONS, AND THAT HE BE CONTENT WITH SO MUCH AS
THE SHERIFF WAS WONT TO HAVE FOR HIS VIEW-MAKING IN THE TIME OF KING
HENRY OUR GRANDFATHER.
[XXXVI. NO LAND SHALL BE GIVEN IN MORTMAIN]
IT SHALL NOT BE LAWFUL FROM HENCEFORTH TO ANY TO GIVE HIS LAND TO ANY
RELIGIOUS HOUSE, AND TO TAKE THE SAME LAND AGAIN TO HOLD OF THE SAME
HOUSE [THEREBY EXTINGUISHING THE FEUDAL RIGHTS OF THE TEMPORAL LORD].
NOR SHALL IT BE LAWFUL TO ANY HOUSE OF RELIGION TO TAKE THE LANDS OF
ANY, AND TO LEASE THE SAME TO HIM OF WHOM HE RECEIVED IT. IF ANY FROM
HENCEFORTH GIVE HIS LANDS TO ANY RELIGIOUS HOUSE, AND THEREUPON BE
CONVICTED, THE GIFT SHALL BE UTTERLY VOID, AND THE LAND SHALL ACCRUE TO
THE LORD OF THE FEE.
{All fines unjustly and unlawfully given to us, and all amercements
levied unjustly and against the law of the land, shall be entirely
remitted or the matter decided by judgment of the twenty-five barons
mentioned below in the clause for securing the peace, or the majority
of them, together with the aforesaid Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury,
if he himself can be present, and any others whom he may wish to bring
with him for the purpose; if he cannot be present, the business shall
nevertheless proceed without him. If any one or more of the said
twenty-five barons has an interest in a suit of this kind, he or they
shall step down for this particular judgment, and be replaced by
another or others, elected and sworn by the rest of the said barons,
for this occasion only.}
{If we have disseised or deprived the Welsh of lands, liberties, or
other things, without legal judgment of their peers, in England or
Wales, they shall immediately be restored to them, and if a
disagreement arises thereon, the question shall be determined in the
Marches by judgment of their peers according to the law of England as
to English tenements, the law of Wales as to Welsh tenements, the law
of the Marches as to tenements in the Marches. The same shall the Welsh
do to us and ours.}
{But with regard to all those things of which any Welshman was
disseised or deprived, without legal judgment of his peers, by King
Henry [II] our Father or our Brother King Richard, and which we hold in
our hands or others hold under our warranty, we shall have respite
during the term commonly allowed to the Crusaders, except as to those
matters whereon a suit had arisen or an inquisition had been taken by
our command prior to our taking the cross. Immediately after our return
from our pilgrimage, or if by chance we do not undertake it, we will do
full justice according to the laws of the Welsh and the aforesaid
regions.}
{We will immediately return the son of Llywelyn, all the Welsh
hostages, and the charters which were delivered to us as security for
the peace.}
{With regard to the return of the sisters and hostages of Alexander,
King of the Scots, and of his liberties and rights, we will do the same
as we would with regard to our other barons of England, unless it
appears by the charters which we hold of William his father, late King
of the Scots, that it ought to be otherwise; this shall be determined
by judgment of his peers in our court.}
[XXXVII. SUBSIDY IN RESPECT OF THIS CHARTER, AND THE CHARTER OF THE
FOREST, GRANTED TO THE KING.]
ESCUAGE [SERVICE OF THE SHIELD, A TENURE IN KNIGHTS' SERVICE] FROM
HENCEFORTH SHALL BE TAKEN AS IT WAS WONT TO BE IN THE TIME OF KING
HENRY [II] OUR GRANDFATHER; RESERVING TO ALL ARCHBISHOPS, BISHOPS,
ABBOTS, PRIORS, TEMPLERS, HOSPITALLERS, EARLS, BARONS, AND ALL PERSONS
AS WELL SPIRITUAL AS TEMPORAL; ALL THEIR FREE LIBERTIES AND FREE
CUSTOMS, WHICH THEY HAVE HAD IN TIME PASSED. AND ALL THESE CUSTOMS AND
LIBERTIES AFORESAID, WHICH WE HAVE GRANTED TO BE HELD WITHIN THIS OUR
REALM, AS MUCH AS PERTAINS TO US AND OUR HEIRS, WE SHALL OBSERVE.
{All the customs and liberties aforesaid, which we have granted to be
enjoyed, as far as it pertains to us towards our people throughout our
realm, let all our subjects, whether clerics or laymen, observe, as far
as it pertains toward their dependents.}
AND ALL MEN OF THIS OUR REALM, AS WELL SPIRITUAL AS TEMPORAL (AS MUCH
AS IN THEM IS) SHALL OBSERVE THE SAME AGAINST ALL PERSONS IN LIKE WISE.
AND FOR THIS OUR GIFT AND GRANT OF THESE LIBERTIES, AND OF OTHER
CONSTRAINED IN OUR CHARTER OF LIBERTIES OF OUR FOREST, THE ARCHBISHOPS,
BISHOPS, ABBOTS, PRIORS, EARLS, BARONS, KNIGHTS, FREEHOLDERS, AND OUR
OTHER SUBJECTS, HAVE GIVEN UNTO US THE FIFTEENTH PART OF ALL THEIR
MOVABLES. AND WE HAVE GRANTED UNTO THEM ON THE OTHER PART, THAT NEITHER
WE, NOR OUR HEIRS, SHALL PROCURE OR DO ANY THING WHEREBY THE LIBERTIES
IN THIS CHARTER CONTAINED SHALL BE INFRINGED OR BROKEN. AND IF ANY
THING BE PROCURED BY ANY PERSON CONTRARY TO THE PREMISES, IT SHALL BE
HAD OF NO FORCE NOR EFFECT.
[ENFORCEMENT]
{Whereas we, for the honor of God and the reform of our realm, and in
order the better to allay the discord arisen between us and our barons,
have granted all these things aforesaid. We, willing that they be
forever enjoyed wholly and in lasting strength, do give and grant to
our subjects the following security, to wit, that the barons shall
elect any twenty-five barons of the realm they wish, who shall, with
their utmost power, keep, hold, and cause to be kept the peace and
liberties which we have granted unto them and by this our present
Charter have confirmed, so that if we, our Justiciary, bailiffs, or any
of our ministers offends in any respect against any man, or
transgresses any of these articles of peace or security, and the
offense is brought before four of the said twenty-five barons, those
four barons shall come before us, or our Chief Justiciary if we are out
of the realm, declaring the offense, and shall demand speedy amends for
the same. If we or, in case of our being out of the realm, our Chief
Justiciary fails to afford redress within forty days from the time the
case was brought before us or, in the event of our having been out of
the realm, our Chief Justiciary, the aforesaid four barons shall refer
the matter to the rest of the twenty-five barons, who, together with
the commonalty of the whole country, shall distrain and distress us to
the utmost of their power, to wit, by capture of our castles, lands,
and possessions and by all other possible means, until compensation is
made according to their decision, saving our person and that of our
Queen and children; as soon as redress has been had, they shall return
to their former allegiance. Anyone in the realm may take oath that, for
the accomplishment of all the aforesaid matters, he will obey the
orders of the said twenty-five barons and distress us to the utmost of
his power; and we give public and free leave to everyone wishing to
take oath to do so, and to none will we deny the same. Moreover, all
such of our subjects who do not of their own free will and accord agree
to swear to the said twenty-five barons, to distrain and distress us
together with them, we will compel to do so by our command in the
aforesaid manner. If any one of the twenty-five barons dies or leaves
the country or is in any way hindered from executing the said office,
the rest of the said twenty-five barons shall choose another in his
stead, at their discretion, who shall be sworn in like manner as the
others. In all cases which are referred to the said twenty-five barons
to execute, and in which a difference arises among them, supposing them
all to be present, or in which not all who have been summoned are
willing or able to appear, the verdict of the majority shall be
considered as firm and binding as if the whole number had been of one
mind. The aforesaid twenty-five shall swear to keep faithfully all the
aforesaid articles and, to the best of their power, to cause them to be
kept by others. We will not procure, either by ourself or any other,
anything from any man whereby any of these concessions or liberties may
be revoked or abated. If any such procurement is made, let it be null
and void; it shall never be made use of either by us or by any other.}
[AMNESTY]
{We have also fully forgiven and pardoned all ill-will, wrath, and
malice which has arisen between us and our subjects, both clergy and
laymen, during the disputes, to and with all men. Moreover, we have
fully forgiven and, as far as it pertains to us, wholly pardoned to and
with all, clergy and laymen, all offenses made in consequence of the
said disputes from Easter in the sixteenth year of our reign until the
restoration of peace. Over and above this, we have caused letters
patent to be made for Stephen, Archbishop of Canterbury, Henry,
Archbishop of Dublin, the above-mentioned Bishops, and Master Pandulph,
for the aforesaid security and concessions.}
{Wherefore we will that, and firmly command that, the English Church
shall be free and all men in our realm shall have and hold all the
aforesaid liberties, rights, and concessions, well and peaceably,
freely, quietly, fully, and wholly, to them and their heirs, of us and
our heirs, in all things and places forever, as is aforesaid. It is
moreover sworn, as will on our part as on the part of the barons, that
all these matters aforesaid shall be kept in good faith and without
deceit. Witness the above-named and many others. Given by our hand in
the meadow which is called Runnymede, between Windsor and Staines, on
the fifteenth day of June in the seventeenth year of our reign.}
THESE BEING WITNESSES: LORD S. ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURY, E. BISHOP OF
LONDON, F. BISHOP OF BATHE, G. OF WINCESTER, H. OF LINCOLN, R. OF
SALISBURY, W. OF ROCHESTER, X. OF WORCESTER, F. OF ELY, H. OF HEREFORD,
R. OF CHICHESTER, W. OF EXETER, BISHOPS; THE ABBOT OF ST. EDMONDS, THE
ABBOT OF ST. ALBANS, THE ABBOT OF BELLO, THE ABBOT OF ST. AUGUSTINES IN
CANTERBURY, THE ABBOT OF EVESHAM, THE ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER, THE ABBOT
OF BOURGH ST. PETER, THE ABBOT OF REDING, THE ABBOT OF ABINDON, THE
ABBOT OF MALMBURY, THE ABBOT OF WINCHCOMB, THE ABBOT OF HYDE, THE ABBOT
OF CERTESEY, THE ABBOT OF SHERBURN, THE ABBOT OF CERNE, THE ABBOT OF
ABBOREBIR, THE ABBOT OF MIDDLETON, THE ABBOT OF SELEBY, THE ABBOT OF
CIRENCESTER, H. DE BURGH JUSTICE, H. EARL OF CHESTER AND LINCOLN, W.
EARL OF SALISBURY, W. EARL OF WARREN, G. DE CLARE EARL OF GLOUCESTER
AND HEREFORD, W. DE FERRARS EARL OF DERBY, W. DE MANDEVILLE EARL OF
ESSEX, H. DE BYGOD EARL OF NORFOLK, W. EARL OF ALBEMARLE, H. EARL OF
HEREFORD, F. CONSTABLE OF CHESTER, G. DE TOS, H. FITZWALTER, R. DE
BYPONTE, W. DE BRUER, R. DE MONTEFICHET, P. FITZHERBERT, W. DE AUBENIE,
F. GRESLY, F. DE BREUS, F. DE MONEMUE, F. FITZALLEN, H. DE MORTIMER, W.
DE BEUCHAMP, W. DE ST. JOHN, P. DE MAULI, BRIAN DE LISLE, THOMAS DE
MULTON, R. DE ARGENTEYN, G. DE NEVIL, W. DE MAUDUIT, F. DE BALUN, AND
OTHERS. GIVEN AT WESTMINSTER THE 11TH DAY OF FEBRUARY THE 9TH YEAR OF
OUR REIGN.
WE, RATIFYING AND APPROVING THESE GIFTS AND GRANTS AFORESAID, CONFIRM
AND MAKE STRONG ALL THE SAME FOR US AND OUR HEIRS PERPETUALLY, AND BY
THE TENOUR OF THESE PRESENTS, DO RENEW THE SAME; WILLING AND GRANTING
FOR US AND OUR HEIRS, THAT THIS CHARTER, AND ALL SINGULAR HIS ARTICLES,
FOREVER SHALL BE STEADFASTLY, FIRMLY, AND INVIOLABLY OBSERVED; AND IF
ANY ARTICLE IN THE SAME CHARTER CONTAINED, YET HITHERTO PERADVENTURE
HAS NOT BEEN KEPT, WE WILL, AND BY ROYAL AUTHORITY, COMMAND, FROM
HENCEFORTH FIRMLY THEY BE OBSERVED.
Felonies are serious crimes which can be punished by loss of
life or member. By common law, they now consist of homicide, mayhem,
wounding, false imprisonment, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, and
larceny. A felon's lands go to his lord or to the king and his chattels
are confiscated. If a man accused of felony flies, he can be outlawed.
Treason was a special felony, which was punishable by hanging after
being drawn behind a horse along the rough road to the gibbet. Petty
treason was treason to one's lord and included adultery with the lord's
wife, violation of his daughter, and forgery of his seal. High treason
was to the king and include clipping of the king's coin and making
counterfeit money. A traitor's land was forfeited to the king. Treason
had no benefit of clergy.
Statutes which were enacted after the Magna Carta follow:
Nuisance is recognized by this statute: "Every freeman, without
danger, shall make in his own wood, or in his land, or in his water,
which he has within our Forest, mills, springs, pools, clay pits,
dikes, or arable ground, so that it does not annoy any of his
neighbors."
Anyone taking a widow's dower after her husband's death must
not only return the dower, but pay damages in the amount of the value
of the dower from the time of death of the husband until her recovery
of seisin.
Widows may bequeath the crop of their ground as well of their
dowers as of their other lands and tenements.
Freeholders of tenements on manors shall have sufficient
ingress and egress from their tenements to the common pasture and as
much pasture as suffices for their tenements.
"Grain shall not be taken under the pretense of borrowing or
the promise of after-payment without the permission of the owner."
"A parent or other who forcefully leads away and withholds, or
marries off, an heir who is a minor (under 14), shall yield the value
of the marriage and be imprisoned until he has satisfied the king for
the trespass. If an heir 14 years or older marries without his Lord's
permission to defraud him of the marriage and the Lord offers him
reasonable and convenient marriage, without disparagement, then the
Lord shall hold his land beyond the term of his age, that, of twenty
one years, so long that he may receive double the value of the marriage
as estimated by lawful men, or after as it has been offered before
without fraud or collusion, and after as it may be proved in the King's
Court. Any Lord who marries off a ward of his who is a minor and cannot
consent to marriage, to a villain or other, such as a burgess, whereby
the ward is disparaged, shall lose the wardship and all its profits if
the ward's friends complain of the Lord. The wardship and profit shall
be converted to the use of the heir, for the shame done to him, after
the disposition and provision of his friends." (The "marriage" could be
annulled by the church.)
"If an heir of whatever age will not marry at the request of
his Lord, he shall not be compelled thereunto; but when he comes of
age, he shall pay to his Lord the value of the marriage before
receiving his land, whether or not he himself marries."
"Interest shall not run against any minor, from the time of
death of his ancestor until his lawful age; so nevertheless, that the
payment of the principal debt, with the interest that was before the
death of his ancestor shall not remain."
The value of debts to be repaid to the king or to any man shall
be reasonably determined by the debtor's neighbors and not by
strangers. A debtors' plough cattle or sheep cannot be taken to satisfy
a debt.
The wards and escheats of the king shall be surveyed yearly by
three people assigned by the King. The sheriffs, by their counsel,
shall approve and let to farm such wards and escheats as they think
most profitable for the King. The Sheriffs shall be answerable for the
issues thereof in the Exchequer at designated times. The collectors of
the customs on wool exports shall pay this money at the two designated
times and shall make yearly accounts of all parcels in ports and all
ships.
By statute leap year was standardized throughout the nation,
"the day increasing in the leap year shall be accounted in that year",
"but it shall be taken and reckoned in the same month wherein it grew
and that day and the preceding day shall be counted as one day."
"An English penny [1 d.], called a sterling, round and without
any clipping, shall weigh 32 wheat grains dry in the middle of the ear."
Measurements of distance were standardized to twelve inches to
a foot, three feet to a yard, and so forth up to an acre of land.
Goods which could only be sold by the standard weights and
measures (such as ounces, pounds, gallons, bushels) included sacks of
wool, leather, skins, ropes, glass, iron, lead, canvas, linen cloth,
tallow, spices, confections cheese, herrings, sugar, pepper, cinnamon,
nutmeg, wheat, barley, oats, bread, and ale. The prices required for
bread and ale were based on the market price for the wheat, barley, and
oats from which they were made.
The punishment for repeated violations of required measures,
weights, or prices of bread and ale by a baker or brewer; selling of
spoiled or unwholesome wine, meat, fish by brewers, butchers, or cooks;
or a steward or bailiff receiving a bribe was reduced to placement in a
pillory with a shaven head so that these men would still be fit for
military service and not overcrowd the gaols.
Forest penalties were changed so that "No man shall lose either
life or member [limb] for killing of our deer. But if any man be taken
and convicted for taking our venison, he shall make a grievous fine, if
he has anything. And if he has nothing to lose, he shall be imprisoned
for a year and a day. And after that, if he can find sufficient
sureties, he shall be delivered, and, if not, he shall abjure the realm
of England."
The Forest Charter provided that: Every freeman may allow his
pigs to eat in his own wood in the King's forest. He may also drive his
pigs through the King's forest and tarry one night within the forest
without losing any of his pigs. But people having greyhounds must keep
them out of the forest so they don't maim the deer.
The Forest Charter also allowed magnates traveling through the
King's forest on the King's command to come to him, to kill one or two
deer as long as it was in view of the forester if he was present, or
while having a horn blown, so it did not seem to be theft.
After a period of civil war, the following statutes were
enacted:
"All persons, as well of high as of low estate, shall receive justice
in the King's Court; and none shall take any such revenge or distress
by his own authority, without award of our court, although he is
damaged or injured, whereby he would have amends of his neighbor either
higher or lower." The penalty is a fine according to the trespass.
A fraudulent conveyance to a minor or lease for a term of years made to
defraud a Lord of a wardship shall be void. A Lord who maliciously and
wrongfully alleges this to a court shall pay damages and costs.
If a Lord will not render unto an heir his land when he comes of age or
takes possession away from an heir of age or removes anything from the
land, he shall pay damages. (The king retained the right to take
possession of an heir's land for a year or, in lieu of this, to take
one year's profit from the land in addition to the relief.)
Kinsmen of a minor heir who have custody of his land held in socage
shall make no waste, sale, nor destruction of the inheritance and shall
answer to the heir when he comes of age for the issues of the land,
except for the reasonable costs of these guardians.
No lord may distrain any of his tenants. No one may drive animals taken
by distraint out of the county where they have been taken.
"Farmers during their terms, shall not make waste, sale, nor exile of
house, woods, and men, nor of any thing else belonging to the tenements
which they have to farm".
Church law required that planned marriages be publicly
announced [banns]by the priest so that any impediment could be made
known. If a marriage was clandestine or both parties knew of an
impediment, or it was within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity,
the children would be illegitimate. According to church rules, a man
could bequeath his personal property subject to certain family rights.
These were that if only the wife survived, she received half the
property. Similarly, if children survived, but no wife, they received
half the property. When the wife and children survived, each party
received one third. The church hoped that the remaining fraction would
go to the church as a reward for praying for the deceased's soul. It
taught that dying without a will was sinful. Adults were to confess
their sins at least yearly to their parish priest, which confession
would be confidential.
Ecclesiastical offenses included fornication, adultery, incest, and
bigamy, for which the punishment was usually whipping or a money
payment. Heresy and sorcery were so infrequent that there was no
machinery aptly suited for their suppression.
Henry de Bracton, a royal justice and the last great
ecclesiastical attorney, wrote an unfinished treatise: A Tract on the
Laws and Customs of England, systematizing and organizing the law of
the court rolls with definitions and general concepts and describing
court practice and procedure. It was influenced by his knowledge of
Roman legal concepts, such as res judicata, and by his own opinions,
such as that the law should go from precedent to precedent. He also
argued that the will and intent to injure was the essence of murder, so
that neither an infant nor a madman should be held liable for such and
that degrees of punishment should vary with the level of moral guilt in
a killing. He thought the deodand to be unreasonable.
Bracton defines the requirements of a valid and effective gift,
still applicable in 2000, as: "It must be complete and absolute, free
and uncoerced, extorted neither by fear nor through force. Let money or
service play no part, lest it fall into the category of purchase and
sale, for if money is involved there will then be a sale, and if
service, the remuneration for it. If a gift is to be valid the donor
must be of full age, for if a minor makes a gift it will be ineffective
since (if he so wishes) it shall be returned to him in its entirety
when he reaches full age. Also let the donor hold in his own name and
not another's, otherwise his gift may be revoked. And let him, at the
least, be of sound mind and good memory, though an invalid, ill and on
his death bed, for a gift make under such conditions will be good if
all the other [requirements] of a valid gift are met. For no one,
provided he is of good memory, ought to be kept from the administration
or disposition of his own property when affected by infirmity, since it
is only then that he must make provision for his family, his household
and relations, given stipends and settle his bequests; otherwise such
persons might suffer damage without fault. But since charters are
sometimes fraudulently drawn and gifts falsely taken to be made when
they are not, recourse must therefore be had to the country and the
neighborhood so that the truth may be declared."
In Bracton's view, a villein could buy his own freedom and the
child of a mixed marriage was free unless he was born in the tenement
of his villein parent.
Judicial Procedure
The Royal Court spawned several courts with different
specialties and became more like departments of state than offices of
the King's household. The justices were career civil servants
knowledgeable in the civil and canon law. The Court of the King's Bench
(a marble slab in Westminster upon which the throne was placed)
traveled with the king and primarily heard criminal cases and pleas of
the Crown. Any use of force, however trivial, was interpreted as breach
of the royal peace and could be brought before the King's Bench. Its
records were the coram rege rolls. The Court of Common Pleas primarily
heard civil cases brought by one subject against another. Pursuant to
the Magna Carta, it sat only at one place, the Great Hall in
Westminster. It had concurrent jurisdiction with the King's Bench over
trespass cases. Its records were the de banco rolls. The Court of the
Exchequer with its subsidiary department of the Treasury was in almost
permanent session at Westminster, primarily collecting the Crown's
revenue and enforcing the Crown's rights. A department of the Exchequer
watched over the affairs of the Jews. There was no sharp line demarking
the jurisdictions of these courts. No pleas could be brought against
the king; rather a petition was addressed to him, which he would answer
by an executive writ.
Appeals from these courts could be made to the king and/or his
small council. In 1234, the justiciar as the principal royal executive
officer and chief presiding officer over the Royal Court ended. In
1268, a chief justiciar was appointed to hold pleas before the king.
About the same time the presiding justice of the Court of Common Pleas
also came to be styled chief justice. Henceforth, a justiciar was a
royal officer who dealt only with judicial work. The justiciars were no
longer statesmen or politicians, but rather men learned in the law.
Membership in or attendance at the great council or parliament
no longer rested upon feudal tenure, but upon a writ of summons which
was, to a degree, dependent on the royal will.
Crown pleas included issues of the King's property, fines due
to him, murder (a body found with no witnesses to a killing), homicide
(a killing for which there were witnesses), rape, wounding, mayhem,
consorting, larceny, robbery, burglary, arson, poaching, unjust
imprisonment, selling cloth by nonstandard widths, selling wine by
nonstandard weights. Crown causes were pled by the king's serjeants or
servants at law, who were not clerics. Apprentices at law learned
pleading from them.
Between the proprietary action and the possessory assizes there
is growing use in the king's courts of writs of entry, by which a
tenant may be ordered to give up land, e.g. by a recent flaw in a
tenant's title, for a term which has expired, by a widow for her late
husband's land, or by an heir who has become of full age from his
guardian. For instance: " ...Command Tertius that ... he render to
Claimant, who is of full age, as it is said, ten acres ...which he
claims to be his right and inheritance and into which the said Tertius
has no entry save by Secundus, to whom Primus demised [gaged] them, who
had only the wardship thereof while the aforesaid Claimant was under
age, as he says...". But most litigation about land is still through
the writ of right for proprietary issues and the assizes of novel
disseisin and mort d'ancestor for possessory issues. Actions for debt;
covenant; and account, e.g by a lord to his bailiff and receiver of his
money, were actions in the king's court.
Royal itinerant justices, who were members of the royal courts,
traveled on eyre on regular circuits to the counties every seven years.
They had an administrative function as well as a judicial function.
They gave interrogatories to local assizes of twelve men to determine
what had happened there since the last eyre. Information was aquired on
royal proprietary rights, escheats, wardships, treasury matters, and
official misdoings of royal officers, sheriffs, coroners, and bailiffs,
which could be dealt with in an administrative way. (These
administrative duties ceased in the first half of the 1300s.) All
boroughs had to send twelve burgesses who were to indict any burgesses
suspected of breaking the royal law. Every crime, every invasion of
royal rights, and every neglect of police duties was to be presented
and tried. Suspects were held in gaol until their cases could be heard
and gaol breaks were common. Punishment after trial was prison for
serious crimes, expulsion from the realm for less serious crimes, and
pledges for good behavior for lesser crimes. Fines and amercements both
for individual criminal offenses and local communities' faults brought
revenue into the Exchequer as profits of justice. The king could
increase fines and amercements or pardon a person found guilty. The
visitation of these justices was anticipated with trepidation. In 1237,
the residents of Cornwall hid in the woods rather than face the
itinerant justices. (The court of the justices in eyre lasted until
1971.)
Royal coroners held inquests on all sudden deaths to determine
whether they were accidental or not. If not, royal justices held trial.
They also had duties in treasure trove and shipwreck cases.
Justices of assize, Justices of the Peace, and itinerant
justices operated at the county level. The traditional county courts
had lost much jurisdiction to the royal courts and were now limited to
personal actions in causes involving usually no more than 40s. The
great majority of cases had to do with 1) writ of right for recovery of
land, 2) the possessory assizes for the protection of possession, 3)
debt for recovery of money owed, such as rent 4) detinue for detention
of a chattel, such as beasts and 5) convenant for breach of a contract,
later to be limited to contracts under seal. There were also pleas of
trespass and claims of fugitive villeins and their goods, nuisances,
and encroachments. The action of trespass had broken free of the
criminal law, which had been divided into the two categories of felony
and trespass. But then the field of tort began to separate itself from
that of crime and the more serious trespasses remained criminal while
the less serious attached themselves to the civil sphere.
The sheriff still constitutes and conducts the court, assisted by
elected coroners. The earl of the county had little to do with its
court except to take one-third of its profits of justice.The county
court met every three or four weeks, usually in the sheriff's castle
located in the chief borough of the county, but some met in the open
air. It is attended by suitors, certain freeholders of the county who
are bound to attend it, that is, to do suit to it. They are the judges
of the court.
The hundred court decided cases of theft, viewing of boundaries
of land, claims for tenurial services, claims for homage, relief, and
for wardship; enfeoffments made, battery and brawls not amounting to
felony, wounding and maiming of beasts, collection of debts, trespass,
detinue, and covenant, which now requires a sealed writing; defamation,
and inquiries and presentments arising from the assizes of bread and
ale and measures. The action of debt was used for five main purposes:
1) money lent, 2) the price of goods sold, 3) arrears of rent due upon
a lease for years, 4) money due from a surety, and 5) a debt confessed
by a sealed document. A paid bailiff had responsibility for the hundred
court, which met every three weeks. Freeholders of these hundreds owe
suit to it; these suitors are the judges.
Twice a year the sheriff visited each hundred in the county to
hold a turn, a court for small offenses, such as encroachment of public
land, brewing and baking contrary to government regulations, and use of
dishonest weights and measures. Everyone who held freehold land in the
hundred except the greater magnates had to attend or be fined for
absence. The sheriff annually viewed frankpledge, in which every layman
without land that could be forfeited for felony, including villeins,
were checked for being in a tithing, a group of neighbors responsible
for each other's good conduct. This applied to every boy who had
reached the age of twelve. He had to swear on the Bible "I will be a
lawful man and bear loyalty to our lord the King and his heirs, and I
will be justiciable to my chief tithing man, so help me God and the
saints." Each tithing man paid a penny to the sheriff. The sheriff was
the judge in his turn. Coordinate with the sheriff's turn was a leet
court, which had private jurisdiction over the same small offences. If
a county or a hundred court gave a false judgment, it had to pay a fine.
Manorial courts were those in which a lord had for his tenants.
It was presided over by the lord, or his steward, who decided the
outcomes of cases, with or without the villeins attending it, based on
the customs of the manor. It had a civil jurisdiction, and dealt
typically with land issues and minor offenses, such as, actions when
the amount at stake is less than 40 s., of debt, detinue, trespass and
covenant. 40s. was the equivalent of around 13 oxen or 80 sheep.
Usually, the lord's court had a single manor with a single vill.
The cities and boroughs, having a degree of organization and
independence, had municipal courts whose jurisdiction was determined by
privileges.given by charter from the king or by prescription of ancient
origin. Court was held by the sheriff, and after a time by its mayor,
at the borough's weekly meeting of its burgesses. The burgesses would
take the profits of the court and the tolls and house-rents that had
been paid to the sheriff.
Still in existence is the old self-help law of hamsocne, the
thief hand-habbende, the thief back-berend, the old summary procedure
where the thief is caught in the act, AEthelstan's laws, and Edward the
Confessor's laws. Under the name of "actio furti" [appeal of larceny]
is the old process by which a thief can be pursued and goods
vindicated. As before and for centuries later, deodands were forfeited
to the king to appease God's wrath. These chattel which caused the
death of a person were usually oxen, carts, cart teams, horses, boats,
cauldrons, or millwheels. Then they were forfeited to the community,
which paid the king their worth. Sometimes the justices named the
charitable purpose for which the deodand was to be spent, such as the
price of a boat to go to the repair of a bridge.
Five cases from a county court are:
1) "John Croc was drowned from his horse and cart in the water of
Bickney. Judgment: misadventure. The price of the horse and cart is
4s.6d. deodand."
2) "Willam Ruffus was crushed to death by a certain trunk. The price
of the trunk is 4d., for which the sheriff is to answer. 4d. deodand."
3) "William le Hauck killed Edric le Poter and fled, so he is -to be
exacted and outlawed. He was in the tithing of Reynold Horloc in
Clandon of the abbot of Chertsey (West Clandon), so it is in mercy. His
chattels were 4 s., for which the bailiff of the abbot of Chertsey is
to answer."
4) "Richard de Bregsells, accused of larceny, comes and denies the
whole and puts himself on the country for good or ill. The twelve
jurors and four vills say that he is not guilty, -so he is quit."
5) William le Wimpler and William Vintner sold wine contrary to the
statute, so they are in mercy.
Other cases dealt with issues of entry, e.g. whether land was
conveyed or just rented; issues of whether a man was free, for which
his lineage was examined; issues of to which lord a villein belonged;
issues of nuisance such as making or destroying a bank, ditch, or
hedge; diverting a watercourse or damming it to make a pool;
obstructing a road, and issues of what grazing rights were conveyed in
pasture land, waste, woods, or arable fields between harvest and
sowing. Grazing right disputes usually arose from the ambiguous
language in the grant of land "with appurtenances".
Courts awarded specific relief as well as money damages. If a
landlord broke his covenant to lease land for a term of years, the
court restored possession to the lessee. If a lord did not perform the
services due to his superior lord, the court ordered him to perform the
services. The courts also ordered repair by a lessee.
Debts of country knights and freeholders were heard in the
local courts; debts of merchants and burgesses were heard in the courts
of the fairs and boroughs; debts due under wills and testaments were
heard in the ecclesiastical courts. The ecclesiastical courts deemed
marriage to legitimize bastard children whose parents married, so they
inherited personal property and money of their parents. Proof was by
compurgation. Church law required excommunication to be in writing with
the reasons therefore, and a copy given to the excommunicant. A church
judge was required to employ a notary or two men to write down all acts
of the judge and to give a copy to the parties to protect against
unjust judges. No cleric was allowed to pronounce or execute a sentence
of death or to take part in judicial tests or ordeals. Anyone knowingly
accepting a stolen article was required to restore it to its owner.
Heretics were to be excommunicated.
Trial by combat is still available, although it is extremely
rare for it to take place. In the appeal of felony, when offered
combat, a defendant could choose between combat and recourse to a
verdict of his neighbors.
The manor court imposed penalties on those who did not perform
their services to the manor and the lord wrote down the customs of the
manor for future use in other courts.
By statute, no fines could be taken of any man for fair
pleading in the Circuit of Justiciars, county, hundred, or manor courts.
Various statutes relaxed the requirements for attendance at
court of those who were not involved in a case as long as there were
enough to make the inquests fully. And "every freeman who owes suit to
the county, tything, hundred, and wapentake, or to the Court of his
Lord, may freely make his attorney attend for him." All above the rank
of knight were exempted from attendance on the sheriff's turn, unless
specifically summoned. Prelates and barons were generally excepted from
the county courts by the charters of their estates. Charters of
boroughs often excepted their representatives at the county court when
there were no justices. Some barons and knights paid the sheriff to be
excused. The king often relieved the simple knights by special license.
There was frequently a problem of not having enough knights to hold the
assizes. Henry III excused the attendance at hundred courts of all but
those who were bound to special service, or who were concerned in suits.
Trespass has become a writ of course in the common law. It
still involves violence, but its element of breach of the peace extends
to those breaches which do not amount to felony. It can include assault
and battery, physical force to land, and physical force to chattels,
e.g. assaulting and beating the plaintiff, breaking into his close, or
carrying off his goods. One found guilty is fined and imprisoned. As in
criminal matters, if a defendant does not appear at court, his body can
be seized and imprisoned, and if he cannot be found, he may be
outlawed. Trespass to goods results in damages, rather than the return
of the goods.
Various cases from the manors of the abbey of Bec in 1248-1249
are:
1. Ragenilda of Bec gives 2s. for having married without licence.
Pledge, William of Pinner. The same Ragenilda demands against Roger
Loft and Juliana his wife a certain messuage which belonged to Robert
le Beck, and a jury of -twelve lawful men is granted her in
consideration of the said fine, and if she recovers seisin she will
give in all 5s. And twelve jurors are elected, to wit, John of Hulle,
William Maureward, Robert Hale Walter But, Walter Sigar, William
Brihtwin, Richard Horseman, Richard Leofred, William John's son, Hugh
Cross, Richard Pontfret and Robert Croyser, John Bisuthe and Gilbert
Bisuthe who are sworn. And they say that the said Ragenilda has the
greater right. Therefore let her have seisin.
2. Richard Guest gives 12d. and if he recovers will give 2s. to have a
jury of twelve lawful men as to whether he has the greater right in a
certain headland at Eastcot which Ragenilda widow of William Andrews
holds, or the said Ragenilda. Pledges for the fine, John Brook and
Richard of Pinner. And the said Ragenilda comes and says that she has
no power to bring that land into judgment because she has no right in
it save by reason of the wardship of the son and heir of her husband,
who is under age. And Richard is not able to deny this. Therefore let
him await [the heir's] full age.
3. Walter Hulle gives 13s.4d. for licence to dwell on the land of the
Prior of Harmondsworth so long as he shall live and as a condition
finds pledges, to wit, William Slipper, John Bisuthe, Gilbert Bisuthe,
Hugh Tree, William John's son, John Hulle, who undertake that the said
Walter shall do to the lord all the services and customs which he would
do if he dwelt on the lord's land and that his heriot shall be secured
to the lord in case he dies there [i.e. at Harmondsworth].
4. Geoffrey Sweyn demands the moiety of one virgate of land which John
Crisp and Alina Hele hold, and he gives 2s. to have a jury, and if he
recovers will give 20s. And the said jurors come and say upon their
oath that the said Geoffrey has no right in the said land. Therefore
let the said tenants go thence without day and let the said Geoffrey
pay 2s. Pledges, Hugh Bussel and Godfrey Francis.
5. Juliana Saer's daughter demands as her right the moiety of one
messuage with a croft, which messuage William Snell and Goda his wife,
sister of the said Juliana hold. And they have made accord by leave [of
the court] to the effect that the said William and Goda give to the
said Juliana a barn and the curtilage nearest the Green and two selions
[a ridge of land between two furrows] in the western part of the said
croft [a small enclosed field]. And the said William put himself in
mercy. Fine, 12d.
6. Hugh of Stanbridge complains of Gilbert Vicar's son and William of
Stanbridge that the wife of the said Gilbert who is of [Gilbert's]
mainpast and the said William unjustly etc. beat and unlawfully struck
him and dragged him by his hair out of his own proper house, to his
damage 40s. and to his dishonor 20s., and [of this] he produces suit.
And Gilbert and William come and defend all of it fully. Therefore let
each of them go to his law six-handed. Afterwards they make accord to
this effect that in case the said Hugh shall hereafter in any manner
offend against [Gilbert and William] and thereof shall be convicted he
will give the lord 6s.8d. by way of penalty and will make amends to
[Gilbert and William] according to the judgment of six lawful men, and
the others on their part will do the like by him. And Hugh put himself
in mercy. Fine, 3s. Pledges, John Tailor and Walter Brother.
7. Breakers of the assize [of beer:] William Idle (fined 6d.), maud
carter's widow (6d.), Walter Carter.
8. John Witriche in mercy for carrying off thorns. Fine, 6d.
9. Robert Dochi in mercy (fine, 2d.) for divers trespasses. Pledges,
Gilbert Priest's son, Ralph Winbold and Walter Green.
10. Ailwin Crisp in mercy for his cow caught in the lord's pasture when
ward had been made. Fine, 12d.
11. John Bernard in mercy for his beasts caught by night in the lord's
meadow. Fine, 2s.
12. Richard Love gives 12d. to have a jury of twelve touching a rod of
land which Robert of Brockhole and Juliana his wife hold. This action
is respited to the next court [when the jurors are to come] without
further delay. Afterwards the jurors come and say upon their oath that
the said Richard has the greater right in the said land. Therefore let
him have seisin.
13. William Blackbeard in mercy for not coming with his law as he was
bound to do. Pledges, Geoffrey of Wick and Geoffrey Payn. Fine, 6d.
14. It was presented that Stephen Shepherd by night struck his sister
with a knife and grievously wounded her. Therefore let him be committed
to prison. Afterwards he made -fine with 2s. Pledge, Geoffrey of wick.
15. It was presented that Robert Carter's son by night invaded the
house of Peter Burgess and in felony threw stones at his door so that
the said Peter raised the hue. Therefore let the said Robert be
committed to prison. Afterwards he made fine with 2s.
16. Nicholas Drye, Henry le Notte (fine, 12d.) and Thomas Hogue (fine,
12d.) were convicted for that they by night invaded the house of Sir
Thomas the Chaplain and forcibly expelled thence a man and woman who
had been taken in there as guests. Therefore they are in mercy. Pledges
of the said Thomas, Richard of Lortemere and Jordan of Paris. Pledges
of the said Henry, Richard Pen...and Richard Butry.
17. Adam Moses gives half a sextary of wine to have an inquest as to
whether Henry Ayulf accused him of the crime of larceny and used
opprobrious and contumelious words of him. Afterwards they made accord
and Henry finds security for an amercement. Fine, 12d.
18. Isabella Sywards in mercy for having sold to Richard Bodenham land
that she could not warrant him.
19. All the ploughmen of great Ogbourne are convicted by the oath of
twelve men....because by reason of their default [the land] of the lord
was ill ploughed whereby the lord is damaged to the amount of 9s....
And Walter Reaper is in mercy for concealing [i.e. not giving
information as to] the said bad ploughing. Afterwards he made fine with
the lord with 1 mark.
20. From Ralph Joce 6s.8d. for his son, because he [the son] unlawfully
carried off grain from the lord's court. Pledge,Geoffrey Joce.
21. From Henry Pink 12d. for a trespass by waylaying.
22. From Eve Corner 6d. for a trespass of her pigs.
23. From Ralph Scales 6d. for timber carried off.
24. From William Cooper 12d. for ploughing his own land with the lord's
plough without licence.
25. From Hugh Newman 12d. for trespass in the wood.
26. From Richard Penant 12d. for the same.
27. From Helen widow of Little Ogbourne 6d. for the same.
28. From Nicholas Siward 6d. for a false complaint against William
Pafey.
29. From William Pafey 12d. for fighting with the said Nicholas.
30. From the widow of Ralph Shepherd 6d. for a trespass in Pencombe.
31. Richard Blund gives a half-mark and if he recovers will -give two
marks and a half to have a jury of the whole court, to inquire whether
he has the greater right in a virgate of land which Hugh Frith holds in
wardship with Cristiana daughter of Simon White, or the said Cristiana.
Pledges for the fine, Richard Dene, William Hulle, John of Senholt,
Hugh Smith, and William Ketelburn. And the whole court say upon their
oath that the said Richard has greater right in the said land than
anyone else. Therefore let him recover his seisin.
32 -....Miller gives 2d. [the Latin translates as 4s.] for a trespass
against the assize of beer and because the lord's grain has been ill
kept at the mill. Pledges, John Orped and Joce Serjeant.
33. Noah gives 2s. in the same way for an inquest as to one acre.
Afterwards they submit themselves to arbitrators, who adjudge that the
said Robert shall pay 3s. to the said Roger and 6s. to the said Gilbert
and 7s. to the said Noah, and that he will do so [Robert] finds pledges.
34. Ralph Bar in mercy for having beaten one of the lord's men.
Pledges, Herbert Rede and Ralph Brunild.
35. For the common fine of the township, a half-mark.
36. John Boneffiant found pledges, to wit, William Smith and William of
Bledlow, that he will not eloign himself from the lord's land and that
he will be prompt to obey the lord's summons.
Chapter 8
The Times: 1272-1348
King Edward I was respected by the people for his good
government, practical wisdom, and genuine concern for justice for
everyone. He loved his people and wanted them to love him. He came to
the throne with twenty years experience governing lesser lands on the
continent which were given to him by his father Henry III. He spoke
Latin, English, and French. He gained a reputation as a lawgiver and as
a peacemaker in disputes on the continent. His reputation was so high
and agreement on him as the next king so strong that England was
peaceful in the almost two years that it took him to arrive there from
continental business. He was truthful, law-abiding, and kept his word.
He had close and solid family relationships, especially with his father
and with his wife Eleanor, to whom he was faithful. He was loyal to his
close circle of good friends. He valued honor and adhered reasonably
well to the terms of the treaties he made. He was generous in carrying
out the royal custom of subsidizing the feeding of paupers. He visited
the sick. He was frugal and dressed in plain, ordinary clothes rather
than extravagant or ostentatious ones. He disliked ceremony and display.
At his accession, there was a firm foundation of a national law
administered by a centralized judicial system, a centralized executive,
and an organized system of local government in close touch with both
the judicial and the executive system. To gain knowledge of his nation,
he sent royal commissioners into every county to ask about any
encroachments on the King's rights and about misdeeds by any of the
King's officials: sheriffs, bailiffs, or coroners. The results were
compiled as the "Hundred Rolls". They were the basis of reforms which
improved justice at the local as well as the national level. They also
rationalized the array of jurisdictions that had grown up with feudal
government. Statutes were passed by a parliament of two houses, that of
peers (lords) and that of an elected [rather than appointed] commons,
and the final form of the constitution was fixed.
A wife was expected to obey her husband. A husband was deemed
the guardian of his wife. If he starved or mistreated her, he was
subject to punishment by the church court, even excommunication if
necessary. The king's court punished a husband who killed or maimed his
wife. The common law as to husband and wife took a final shape with six
basic principles:
1. A husband, but not the wife, could alienate his wife's land during
the marriage, but not to take effect after his death, e.g. by will.
2. A widow was entitled for her life a dower of one-third of any land
by her husband.
3. The husband can take possession of the wife's chattels and can
alienate them during his life without her permission. He can sue for
all debts due her without her permission. If he survives her, he is
entitled to be administrator of her estate. She can make no will
without his permission.
4. The husband can give away all his chattels, except for her necessary
clothes and her jewelry and paraphernalia.
5. The husband is liable for debts incurred or wrongs committed by his
wife even before their marriage.
6. A wife cannot contract on her own behalf, but may purchase on credit
certain necessaries and household goods.
The church elaborated on these principles with a doctrine for
women-covert, i.e. women under the protection or coverture of a
husband, and not living separately such as when a man went to sea or to
war. She had a right to the necessities of life. Her jewelry, but not
her apparel, could go to his creditors if his assets didn't cover his
debts. The husband also had the right to the rents and profits from his
wife's real estate, but not the real estate itself, unless by the birth
of a child he became tenant for life by courtesy. Only the father, but
not the mother had authority over their children. A father had a right
to his child's services, and could sue a third party for abducting,
enticing away, or injuring the child, just as he could for his
servants. A husband was answerable for a wife's torts and trespasses,
except for battery. For this reason, he was allowed to chastise her,
restrain her liberty for gross misbehavior, and punish her by beating
for some misdemeanors. If she was a merchant when she married, she
could still sell her goods in the open market. There could be no
divorce, but only separation. If separated, she had a right to alimony
from him to maintain herself.
There were many conveyances of land to husband and wife and
their heirs. This created a tenancy by the entirety. This land could
not be alienated by only one spouse without the other. On the death of
one spouse, the surviving spouse became the sole tenant of the whole.
Wardships of children and widows were sought because they were
very profitable. A guardian could get one tenth of the income of the
property during the wardship and a substantial marriage amount when the
ward married. Parents often made contracts to marry for their young
children. This avoided a forced marriage by a ward should the parents
die.
Most earldoms and many baronages came into the royal house by
escheat or marriage. The royal house employed many people. The barons
developed a class consciousness of aristocracy and became leaders of
society. Many men, no matter of whom they held land, sought knighthood.
The king granted knighthood by placing his sword on the head of
able-bodied and moral candidates who swore an oath of loyalty to the
king and to defend "all ladies, gentlewomen, widows and orphans" and to
"shun no adventure of your person in any war wherein you should happen
to be". A code of knightly chivalry became recognized, such as telling
the truth and setting wrongs right. About half of the knights were
literate. In 1278, the king issued a writ ordering all freeholders who
held land of the value of at least 400s. to receive knighthood at the
King's hands.
At the royal house and other great houses gentlemanly jousting
competitions, with well-refined and specific rules, took the place of
violent tournaments with general rules. Edward forbade tournaments at
which there was danger of a "melee". At these knights competed for the
affection of ladies by jousting with each other while the ladies
watched. Courtly romances were common. If a man convinced a lady to
marry him, the marriage ceremony took place in church, with feasting
and dancing afterwards. Romantic stories were at the height of their
popularity. A usual theme was the lonely quest of a knight engaged in
adventures which would impress his lady.
Riddles include: 1. I will make you a cross, and a thing will
not touch you, and you will not be able to leave the house without
breaking that cross. Answer: Stand before a post in your house, with
your arms extended. 2. What you do not know, and I do not know, and no
one can know after I have told you. Answer: I will take a straw from
the floor of the room, measure its inches, tell you the length, and
break the straw. 3. A pear tree bears all the fruit a pear tree can
bear and did not bear pears. Answer: It bore only one pear.
The dress of the higher classes was very changeable and subject
to fashion as well as function. Ladies no longer braided their hair in
long tails, but rolled it up in a net under a veil, often topped with
an elaborate and fanciful headdress. They wore non- functional long
trains on their tunics and dainty shoes. Men wore a long gown,
sometimes clasped around the waist. Overtunics were often lined or
trimmed with native fur such as squirrel. People often wore solid red,
blue, or green clothes. Only monks and friars wore brown. The
introduction of buttons and buttonholes to replace pins and laces made
clothing warmer, and it could be made tighter. After Edward I
established the standard inch as three continuous dried barleycorns,
shoes came in standard sizes and with a right one different from a left
one. The spinning wheel came into existence to replace the handheld
spindle. Now one hand could be used to form the thread while the other
hand turned a large upright wheel that caused the thread to wind around
the spindle, which did not have to be held by hand. This resulted in an
uninterrupted spinning motion which was not interrupted by alternately
forming the thread and winding it on the spindle.
In the 1300s, there were extremes of fashion in men's and
women's clothing including tight garments, pendant sleeves down to the
ground, coats so short they didn't reach the hips or so long they
reached the heels, hoods so small they couldn't cover the head, and
shoes with long curved peaks like claws at the toes. Both men and women
wore belts low on the hips. The skirt of a lady's tunic was fuller and
the bodice more closely fitted than before. Her hair was usually
elaborately done up, e.g. with long curls or curled braids on either
side of the face. A jeweled circlet was often worn around her head.
Ladies wore on their arms or belts, cloth handbags, which usually
contained toiletries, such as combs made of ivory, horn, bone, or wood,
and perhaps a little book of devotions. A man wore a knife and a bag on
his belt. Some women painted their faces and/or colored their hair.
There were hand- held glass mirrors. Some people kept dogs purely as
pets.
There was a great development of heraldic splendor with for
instance, crests, coat-armor, badges, pennons [long, triangular flag],
and helmets. They descended through families. Not only was it a mark of
service to wear the badge of a lord, but lords wore each other's badges
by way of compliment.
Lords surrounded themselves with people of the next lower rank,
usually from nearby families, and had large households. For instance,
the king had a circle of noblemen and ladies about him. A peer or great
prelate had a household of about 100-200 people, among which were his
inner circle, companions, administrators, secretaries, bodyguards and
armed escort, chaplain, singing priests and choirboys, and servants.
All officers of the household were gentlemen. The secretary was usually
a clerk, who was literate because he had taken minor clerical orders.
Since the feudal obligation of the tenants was disappearing, a lord
sometimes hired retainers to supplement his escort of fighting men.
They proudly wore his livery of cloth or hat, which was in the nature
of a uniform or badge of service. A nobleman and his lady had a circle
of knights and gentlemen and their ladies. A knight had a circle of
gentlemen and their ladies.
The great barons lived in houses built within the walls of
their castles. Lesser barons lived in semi-fortified manors, many of
which had been licensed to be embattled or crenelated. Their halls were
two stories high, and usually built on the first rather than on the
second floor. Windows came down almost to the floor. The hall had a
raised floor at one end where the lord and lady and a few others sat at
a high table. The hearth was in the middle of the room or on a wall.
Sometimes a cat was used to open and shut the louvers of the smoke
outlet in the roof. The lord's bedroom was next to the hall on the
second floor and could have windows into the hall and a spiral
staircase connecting the two rooms. There was a chapel, in which the
lord attended mass every morning. The many knights usually lived in
unfortified houses with two rooms.
In the great houses, there were more wall hangings, and
ornaments for the tables. The tables were lit with candles or torches
made of wax. Plates were gold and silver. The lord, his lady, and their
family and guests sat at the head table, which was raised on a dais. On
this high table was a large and elaborate salt cellar. One's place in
relationship to the salt cellar indicated one's status: above or below
the salt. Also, those of higher status at the table ate a superior
bread. The almoner [alms giver] said grace. Gentlemen poured the lord's
drink [cupbearer], served his meat [carver], and supervised the serving
of the food [sewer]. A yeoman ewery washed the hands of the lord and
his guests and supplied the napkins, ewers [pitchers], and basins. A
yeoman cellarer or butler served the wine and beer. The yeoman of the
pantry served the bread, salt, and cutlery. The steward presided over
the table of household officers of gentle birth. The marshall of the
hall, clerk of the kitchen, or other yeomen officers supervised other
tables. Salt and spices were available at all tables. Most people ate
with their fingers, although there were knives and some spoons.
Drinking vessels were usually metal, horn, or wood. A marshall and
ushers kept order. Minstrels played musical instruments or recited
histories of noble deeds or amusing anecdotes. Reading aloud was a
favorite pastime. The almoner collected the leftovers to distribute to
the poor.
In lesser houses people ate off trenchers [a four day old slab
of coarse bread or a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a
bowl], or plates of wood or pewter [made from tin, copper, and lead].
They often shared plates and drinking vessels at the table.
Queen Eleanor, a cultivated, intelligent, and educated lady
from the continent, fostered culture and rewarded individual literary
efforts, such as translations from Latin, with grants of her own money.
She patronized Oxford and Cambridge Universities and left bequests to
poor scholars there. She herself had read Aristotle and commentaries
thereon, and she especially patronized literature which would give
cross-cultural perspectives on subjects. She was kind and thoughtful
towards those about her and was also sympathetic to the afflicted and
generous to the poor. She shared Edward's career to a remarkable
extent, even accompanying him on a crusade. She had an intimate
knowledge of the people in Edward's official circle and relied on the
advice of two of them in managing her lands. She mediated disputes
between earls and other nobility, as well as softened her husband's
temper towards people. Edward granted her many wardships and marriages
and she arranged marriages with political advantages. She dealt with
envoys coming to the court. Her intellectual vitality and organized
mentality allowed her to deal with arising situations well. Edward held
her in great esteem. She introduced to England the merino sheep, which,
when bred with the English sheep, gave them a better quality of wool.
She and Edward often played games of chess and backgammon.
Farm efficiency was increased by the use of windmills in the
fields to pump water and by allowing villeins their freedom and hiring
them as laborers only when needed. Customary service was virtually
extinct. A man could earn 5d. for reaping, binding, and shocking into a
pile, an acre of wheat. A strong man with a wife to do the binding
could do this in a long harvest day. Harvests were usually plentiful,
with the exception of two periods of famine over the country due to
weather conditions. Then the price of wheat went way up and drove up
the prices of all other goods correspondingly. The story of outlaw
Robin Hood, who made a living by robbing, was passed around. This Robin
Hood did not give to the poor. But generally, there was enough grain to
store so that the population was no longer periodically devastated by
famine. The population grew and all arable land in the nation came
under the plough. The acre was standardized. About 1300, the price of
an ox was 9s., a heifer or cow 7s., a hide 2s.6d., a cart horse 2 or 3
pounds. Farm women went to nearby towns to sell eggs and dairy
products, usually to town women.
Although manors needed the ploughmen, the carters and drivers,
the herdsmen, and the dairymaid on a full-time basis, other tenants
spent increasing time in crafts and became village carpenters, smiths,
weavers or millers' assistants. Trade and the towns grew. Smiths used
coal in their furnaces.
Money rents often replaced service due to a lord, such as fish
silver, malt silver, or barley silver. The lord's rights are being
limited to the rights declared on the extents [records showing service
due from each tenant] and the rolls of the manor. Sometimes land is
granted to strangers because none of the kindred of the deceased will
take it. Often a manor court limited a fee in land to certain issue
instead of being inheritable by all heirs. Surveyors' poles marked
boundaries declared by court in boundary disputes. This resulted in
survey maps showing villages and cow pastures.
The revival of trade and the appearance of a money economy was
undermining the long-established relationship between the lord of the
manor and his villeins. As a result, money payments were supplementing
or replacing payments in service and produce as in Martham, where
Thomas Knight held twelve acres in villeinage, paid 16d. for it and
14d. in special aids. "He shall do sixteen working days in August and
for every day he shall have one repast - viz. Bread and fish. He shall
hoe ten days without the lord's food - price of a day 1/2 d. He shall
cart to Norwich six cartings or shall give 9d., and he shall have for
every carting one leaf and one lagena - or gallon - of ale. Also for
ditching 1d. He shall make malt 3 1/2 seams of barley or shall give 6d.
Also he shall flail for twelve days or give 12d. He shall plough if he
has his own plough, and for every ploughing he shall have three loaves
and nine herrings ... For carting manure he shall give 2."
Another example is this manor's holdings, when 3d. would buy
food for a day: "Extent of the manor of Bernehorne, made on Wednesday
following the feast of St. Gregory the Pope, in the thirty-fifth year
of the reign of King Edward, in the presence of Brother Thomas, keeper
of Marley, John de la More, and Adam de Thruhlegh, clerks, on the oath
of William de Gocecoumbe, Walter le Parker, Richard le Knyst, Richard
the son of the latter, Andrew of Estone, Stephen Morsprich, Thomas
Brembel, William of Swynham, John Pollard, Roger le Glide, John Syward,
and John de Lillingewist, who say that there are all the following
holdings:... John Pollard holds a half acre in Aldithewisse and owes
18d. at the four terms, and owes for it relief and heriot. John
Suthinton holds a house and 40 acres of land and owes 3s.6d. at Easter
and Michaelmas. William of Swynham holds one acre of meadow in the
thicket of Swynham and owes 1d. at the feast of Michaelmas. Ralph of
Leybourne holds a cottage and one acre of land in Pinden and owes 3s.
at Easter and Michaelmas, and attendance at the court in the manor
every three weeks, also relief and heriot. Richard Knyst of Swynham
holds two acres and a half of land and owes yearly 4s. William of
Knelle holds two acres of land in Aldithewisse and owes yearly 4s.
Roger le Glede holds a cottage and three roods of land and owes 2s.6d.
Easter and Michaelmas. Alexander Hamound holds a little piece of land
near Aldewisse and owes one goose of the value of 2d. The sum of the
whole rent of the free tenants, with the value of the goose, is 18s.9d.
They say, moreover, that John of Cayworth holds a house and 30 acres of
land, and owes yearly 2s. at Easter and Michaelmas; and he owes a cock
and two hens at Christmas of the value of 4d. And he ought to harrow
for two days at the Lenten sowing with one man and his own horse and
his own harrow, the value of the work being 4d.; and he is to receive
from the lord on each day three meals, of the value of 5d., and then
the lord will be at a loss of 1d. Thus his harrowing is of no value to
the service of the lord. And he ought to carry the manure of the lord
for two days with one cart, with his own two oxen, the value of the
work being 8d.; and he is to receive from the lord each day three meals
at the value as above. And thus the service is worth 3d. clear. And he
shall find one man for two days, for mowing the meadow of the lord, who
can mow, by estimation, one acre and a half, the value of the mowing of
an acre being 6d.: the sum is therefore 9d. And he is to receive each
day three meals of the value given above. And thus that mowing is worth
4d. clear. And he ought to gather and carry that same hay which he has
cut, the price of the work being 3d. And he shall have from the lord
two meals for one man, of the value of 1 1/2 d. Thus the work will be
worth 1 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry the hay of the lord for one
day with a cart and three animals of his own, the price of the work
being 6d. And he shall have from the lord three meals of the value of 2
1/2 d. And thus the work is worth 3 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry
in autumn beans or oats for two days with a cart and three animals of
his own, the value of the work being 12d. And he shall receive from the
lord each day three meals of the value given above. And thus the work
is worth 7d. clear. And he ought to carry wood from the woods of the
lord as far as the manor, for two days in summer, with a cart and three
animals of his own, the value of the work being 9d. And he shall
receive from the lord each day three meals of the price given above.
And thus the work is worth 4d. clear. And he ought to find one man for
two days to cut heath, the value of the work being 4d., and he shall
have three meals each day of the value given above: and thus the lord
will lose, if he receives the service, 3d. Thus that mowing is worth
nothing to the service of the lord. And he ought to carry the heath
which he has cut, the value of the work being 5d. And he shall receive
from the lord three meals at the price of 2 1/2 d. And thus the work
will be worth 2 1/2 d. clear. And he ought to carry to Battle, twice in
the summer season, each time half a load of grain, the value of the
service being 4d. And he shall receive in the manor each time one meal
of the value of 2d. And thus the work is worth 2d. clear. The totals of
the rents, with the value of the hens, is 2s.4d. The total of the value
of the works is 2s.3 1/2 d., being owed from the said John yearly.
William of Cayworth holds a house and 30 acres of land and owes at
Easter and Michaelmas 2s. rent. And he shall do all customs just as the
aforesaid John of Cayworth. William atte Grene holds a house and 30
acres of land and owes in all things the same as the said John. Alan
atte Felde holds a house and 16 acres of land (for which the sergeant
pays to the court of Bixley 2s.), and he owes at Easter and Michaelmas
4s., attendance at the manor court, relief, and heriot. John
Lyllingwyst holds a house and four acres of land and owes at the two
terms 2s., attendance at the manor court, relief, and heriot. The same
John holds one acre of land in the fields of Hoo and owes at the two
periods 2s., attendance, relief, and heriot. Reginald atte Denne holds
a house and 18 acres of land and owes at the said periods 18d.,
attendance, relief, and heriot. Robert of Northehou holds three acres
of land at Saltcote and owes at the said periods attendance, relief,
and heriot. Total of the rents of the villeins, with the value of the
hens, 20s. Total of all the works of these villeins, 6s.10 1/2 d. And
it is to be noted that none of the above-mentioned villeins can give
their daughters in marriage, nor cause their sons to be tonsured, nor
can they cut down timber growing on the lands they hold, without
licence of the bailiff or sergeant of the lord, and then for building
purposes and not otherwise. And after the death of any one of the
aforesaid villeins, the lord shall have as a heriot his best animal, if
he had any; if, however, he have no living beast, the lord shall have
no heriot, as they say. The sons or daughters of the aforesaid villeins
shall give, for entrance into the holding after the death of their
predecessors, as much as they give of rent per year. Sylvester, the
priest, holds one acre of meadow adjacent to his house and owes yearly
3s. Total of the rent of tenants for life, 3s. Petronilla atte Holme
holds a cottage and a piece of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas -
; also, attendance, relief, and heriot. Walter Herying holds a cottage
and a piece of land and owes at Easter and Michaelmas 18d., attendance,
relief, and heriot. Isabella Mariner holds a cottage and owes at the
feast of St. Michael 12d., attendance, relief, and heriot. Jordan atte
Melle holds a cottage and 1 1/2 acres of land and owes at Easter and
Michaelmas 2s., attendance, relief, and heriot. William of Batelesmere
holds one acre of land with a cottage and owes at the feast of St.
Michael 3d., and one cock and one hen at Christmas of the value of 3d.,
attendance, relief, and heriot. John le Man holds half an acre of land
with a cottage and owes at the feast of St. Michael 2s., attendance,
relief, and heriot. Hohn Werthe holds one rood of land with a cottage
and owes at the said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot.
Geoffrey Caumbreis holds half an acre and a cottage and owes at the
said term 18d., attendance, relief, and heriot. William Hassok holds
one rood of land and a cottage and owes at the said term 18d.,
attendance, relief, and heriot. The same man holds 3 1/2 acres of land
and owes yearly at the feast of St. Michael 3s. for all. Roger Doget
holds half an acre of land and a cottage, which were those of R. the
miller, and owes at the feast of St. Michael 18d., attendance, relief,
and heriot. Thomas le Brod holds one acre and a cottage and owes at the
said term 3s., attendance, relief, and heriot. Agnes of Cayworth holds
half an acre and a cottage and owes at the said term 18d., attendance,
relief, and heriot. Total of the rents of the said cottagers, with the
value of the hens, 34s.6d. And it is to be noted that all the said
cottagers shall do as regards giving their daughters in marriage,
having their sons tonsured, cutting down timber, paying heriot, and
giving fines for entrance, just as John of Cayworth and the rest of the
villeins above mentioned." The above fines and penalties, with heriots
and reliefs, are worth 5s. yearly.
Often one village was divided up among two or more manors, so
different manorial customs made living conditions different among the
villagers. Villages usually had carpenters, smiths, saddlers,
thatchers, carters, fullers, dyers, soapmakers, tanners, needlers, and
brassworkers. Each villein had his own garden in which to grow fruit
and vegetables next to his house, a pig (which fattened more quickly
than other animals), strips in the common field, and sometimes an
assart [a few acres of his own to cultivate as he pleased on originally
rough uncultivated waste land beyond the common fields and the enclosed
common pastures and meadows]. Most villeins did not venture beyond
their village except for about ten miles to a local shrine or great
fair a couple times a year. At the fair might be fish, honey, spices,
salt, garlic, oil, furs, silks, canvas, soap, pans, pots, grindstones,
coal, nails, tar, iron, shovels, brushes, pails, horses, and
packsaddles. Early apothecaries might sell potions there. Men and women
looking for other employment might attend to indicate their
availability.
Under Edward I, villages were required to mount watches to
protect life and property and were called upon to provide one man for
the army and to pay his wages.
People told time by counting the number of rings of the church
bell, which rang on the hour. Every Sunday, the villagers went to
church, which was typically the most elaborate and centrally located
building in the village. The parishioners elected churchwardens, who
might be women. This religion brought comfort and hope of going to
heaven, rather than hell, after judgment by God at death if sin was
avoided or forgiven. On festival days, Bible stories, legends, and
lives of saints were read or performed as miracle dramas. They learned
to avoid the devil, who was influential in lonely places like forests
and high mountains. At death, the corpse was washed, shrouded, and put
into a rectangular coffin with a cross on its lid. Priests sang prayers
amid burning incense for the deliverance of the soul to God while
interring the coffin into the ground. Men who did not make a will
risked the danger of an intestate and unconfessed death. The personal
property of a man dying intestate now went to the church as a trust for
the dead man's imperiled soul instead of to the man's lord.
Unqualified persons entered holy orders thereby obtaining
"benefit of clergy", and then returned to secular employments retaining
this protection.
A villein could be forever set free from servitude by his lord
as in this example:
"To all the faithful of Christ to whom the present writing shall come,
Richard, by the divine permission, abbot of Peterborough and of the
Convent of the same place, eternal greeting in the Lord: Let all know
that we have manumitted and liberated from all yoke of servitude
William, the son of Richard of Wythington, whom previously we have held
as our born bondman, with his whole progeny and all his chattels, so
that neither we nor our successors shall be able to require or exact
any right or claim in the said William, his progeny, or his chattels.
But the same William, with his whole progeny and all his chattels,
shall remain free and quit and without disturbance, exaction, or any
claim on the part of us or our successors by reason of any servitude
forever.
We will, moreover, and concede that he and his heirs shall hold the
messuages, land, rents, and meadows in Wythington which his ancestors
held from us and our predecessors, by giving and performing the fine
which is called merchet for giving his daughter in marriage, and
tallage from year to year according to our will, - that he shall have
and hold these for the future from us and our successors freely,
quietly, peacefully, and hereditarily, by paying to us and our
successors yearly 40s. sterling, at the four terms of the year, namely:
at St. John the Baptist's day 10s., at Michaelmas 10s., at Christmas
10s., and at Easter 10s., for all service, exaction, custom, and
secular demand; saving to us, nevertheless, attendance at our court of
Castre every three weeks, wardship, and relief, and outside service of
our lord the King, when they shall happen. And if it shall happen that
the said William or his heirs shall die at any time without an heir,
the said messuage, land rents, and meadows with their appurtenances
shall return fully and completely to us and our successors. Nor will it
be allowed to the said William or his heirs to give, sell, alienate,
mortgage, or encumber in any way, the said messuage, land, rents, and
meadows, or any part of them, by which the said messuage, land, rents,
and meadows should not return to us and our successors in the form
declared above. And if this should occur later, their deed shall be
declared null, and what is thus alienated shall come to us and our
successors...
Given at Borough, for the love of Lord Robert of good memory, once
abbot, our predecessor and maternal uncle of the said William, and at
the instance of the good man, Brother Hugh of Mutton, relative of the
said abbot Robert, A.D. 1278, on the eve of Pentecost."
Villeins who were released from the manorial organization by
commutation of their service for a money payment took the name of their
craft as part of their name, such as, for the manufacture of textiles,
Weaver, Draper, Comber, Fuller, Napper, Cissor, Tailor, Textor; for
metalwork, Faber, Ironmonger; for leatherwork, Tanner; for woodwork,
building and carpentry, Carpenter, Cooper, Mason, Pictor; for food
production, Baker, Pistor. Iron, tin, lead, salt, and even coal were
providing increasing numbers of people with a livelihood.
Many new boroughs were founded as grants of market rights by
the king grew in number. These grants implied the advantage of the
King's protection. In fact, one flooded town was replaced with a new
town planned with square blocks. It was the charter which distinguished
the borough community from the other communities existing in the
country. It invested each borough with a distinct character. The
privileges which the charter conferred were different in different
places. It might give trading privileges: freedom from toll, a guild
merchant, a right to hold a fair. It might give jurisdictional
privileges: a right to hold court with greater or less franchises. It
might give governmental privileges: freedom from the burden of
attending the hundred and county courts, the return of writs, which
meant the right to exclude the royal officials, the right to take the
profits of the borough, paying for them a fixed sum to the Crown or
other lord of the borough, the right to elect their own officials
rather than them being appointed by the king or a lord, and the right
to provide for the government of the borough. It might give tenurial
privileges: the power to make a will of lands, or freedom from the
right of a lord to control his tenants' marriages. It might give
procedural privileges: trial by combat is excluded, and trial by
compurgation is secured and regulated. These medieval borough charters
are very varied, and represent all stages of development and all grades
of franchise. Boroughs bought increasing rights and freedoms from their
lord, who was usually the King.
In the larger towns, where cathedrals and public building were
built, there arose a system for teaching these technical skills and
elaborate handicraft, wood, metal, stained glass, and stone work. A boy
from the town would be bound over in apprenticeship to a particular
craftsman, who supplied him with board and clothing. The craftsman
might also employ men for just a day. These journeymen were not part of
the craftsman's household as was the apprentice. After a few years of
an apprenticeship, one became a journeyman and perfected his knowledge
of his craft and its standards by seeing different methods and results
in various towns. He was admitted as a master of his trade to a guild
upon presenting an article of his work worthy of that guild's standard
of workmanship: his "masterpiece". Women, usually wives of brethren
only, could be admitted. The tailors' guild and the skinners' guild are
extant now.
When guilds performed morality plays based on Bible stories at
town festivals, there was usually a tie between the Bible story and the
guild's craft. For instance, the story of the loaves and fishes would
be performed by the Bakers' or Fishmongers' Guild. The theme of the
morality play was the fight of the Seven Cardinal Virtues against the
Seven Deadly Sins for the human soul, a life- long battle. The number
seven was thought to have sacred power; there were seven sacraments,
seven churches in the Biblical Apocalypse, seven liberal arts and seven
devilish arts. The seven sacraments were: baptism, confirmation, Lord's
Supper, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction.
A borough was run by a mayor elected usually for life. By being
members of a guild, merchant-traders and craftsmen acquired the legal
status of burgesses and had the freedom of the borough. Each guild
occupied a certain ward of the town headed by an alderman. The town
aldermen, who were unpaid, made up the town council, which advised the
mayor. The Mayor of London received 40 pounds for hospitality, but in
small towns, 20s. sufficed. Often there were town police, bailiffs,
beadles [messengers], a town crier, and a town clerk. London offices
included recorder, prosecutor, common sergeant, and attorneys. In the
center of town were the fine stone houses, a guildhall with a belfry
tower, and the marketplace - a square or broad street, where the town
crier made public announcements with bell or horn. Here too was the
ducking stool for scandalmongers and the stocks which held offenders by
their legs and perhaps their hands to be scorned and pelted by
bystanders with, for instance, rotten fruit and filth. No longer were
towns dominated by the local landholders.
In London there were 4 royal princes, 6 great earls, 17 barons,
26 knights, and 11 female representatives of the peerage (counted in
1319). There was a wall with four towers surrounding the White Tower,
and this castle was known as the Tower of London. Another wall and a
moat were built around it and it has reached its final form. Hovels,
shops, and waste patches alternated with high walls and imposing
gateways protecting mansions. The mansions had orchards, gardens,
stables, brewhouses, bakeries, guardrooms, and chapels. London streets
were paved with cobbles and sand. Each citizen was to keep the street
in front of his tenement in good repair. Later, each alderman appointed
four reputable men to repair and clean the streets for wages. The
repair of Bishopsgate was the responsibility of the Bishop because he
received one stick from every cart of firewood passing through it.
Rules as to tiled roofs were enforced. A 1297 ordinance required all
taverns to close at curfew, an hour that fluctuated. Prostitutes were
expelled from the city because the street with their bawdy houses had
become very noisy. Women huckster-retailers, nurses, servants, and
loose women were limited to wearing hoods furred with lambskin or
rabbitskin and forbidden to wear hoods furred with vair or miniver
[grey or white squirrel] in the guise of good ladies. An infirmary for
the blind was founded by a mercer, who became its first prior.
The London mayoral elections were hotly fought over until in
1285, when the aldermen began to act with the aid of an elected council
in each of the twenty-four wards, which decentralized the government of
the city. Each ward chose certain of its inhabitants to be councilors
to the aldermen. This council was to be consulted by him and its advice
to be followed. In 1291, the aldermen for the first time included a
fishmonger. The Fishmongers were the only guild at this time, besides
the Weavers, which had acquired independent jurisdiction by the
transfer of control of their weekly hallmote from a public official to
themselves. Craftsmen began to take other public offices too. By the
reign of Edward II, all the citizens were obliged to be enrolled among
the trade guilds. A great quarrel between the weaver's guild and the
magistracy began the control of the city by the craft guilds or city
companies. Admission to freedom of the city [citizenship] was
controlled by the citizens, who decided that no man of English birth,
and especially no English merchant, who followed any specific mistery
[French word for a calling or trade] or craft, was to be admitted to
the freedom of the city except on the security of six reputable men of
that mistery or craft. No longer could one simply purchase citizenship.
Apprentices had to finish their terms before such admission, and often
could not afford the citizenship fee imposed on them. Only freemen
could sell wares in the city, a custom of at least two hundred years.
As economic activity in London became more complex and on a
larger scale in the 1200s, some craftsmen were brought under the
control of other crafts or merchants. The bakers fell under the control
of the wholesale grain dealers; the weavers became pieceworkers for
rich cloth merchants; the blademakers and shearers were employed by
cutlers; coppersmiths were controlled by girdlers; fullers were
controlled by entrepreneurial dyers; and the painters, joiners, and
lorimers were controlled by the saddlers. Guilds moved their meeting
places from churches, which were now too small, to guild halls. The
controlling officers of the large guilds met at the Guildhall, which
became the seat of mayoral authority. London streets in existence by
this time include Cordwainer, Silver, Cannon (Candlewick), and Roper.
Lanes included Ironmonger, Soper, Spurrier, Lad (ladles), Distaff,
Needles, Mede, Limeburner, and Hosier. Fighting among groups was common
in London. There was a street fight on a large scale in 1327 between
the saddlers and a coalition of joiners, painters, and lorimers (makers
of metal work of saddles). Much blood was shed in the street battle
between the skinners and the fishmongers in 1340. There was a city
ordinance that no one except royal attendants, baronial valets, and
city officials were to go about armed. Disputes among neighbors that
were brought to court included the use and upkeep of party walls,
blocked and overflowing gutters, cesspits too close to a neighbor's
property, noisy tenants, loss of light, and dangerous or overhanging
structures.
In 1275, a goldsmith was chief assay-master of the King's mint
and keeper of the exchange at London. The king gave the Goldsmiths'
Company the right of assay [determination of the quantity of gold or
silver in an object] and required that no vessels of gold or silver
should leave the maker's hands until they had been tested by the
wardens and stamped appropriately. In 1279, goldsmith William
Farrington bought the soke of the ward containing the goldsmiths'
shops. It remained in his family for 80 years. A patent of 1327
empowered the guild to elect a properly qualified governing body to
superintend its affairs, and reform subjects of just complaint. It also
prescribed, as a safeguard against a prevailing fraud and abuse, that
all members of the trade should have their standing in Cheapside or in
the King's exchange, and that no gold or silver should be manufactured
for export, except that which had been bought at the exchange or of the
trade openly.
Some prices in London were: large wooden bedstead 18s., a small
bedstead 2s., a large chest for household items 2s., feather beds
2-3s., a table 1s., a chair 4-6d., cloth gown lined with fur 13- 20s.,
plain coats and overcoats 2-8s., caps 2-8d., a pair of pen- cases with
inkhorn 4d., a skin of parchment 1d., 24 sheets of paper 6d, a carcass
of beef 15s., a pig 4s., a swan 5s., and a pheasant 4s. There was a
problem with malefactors committing offenses in London and avoiding its
jurisdiction by escaping to Southwark across the Thames. So Southwark
was given a royal charter which put it under the jurisdiction of London
for peace and order matters and allowed London to appoint its tax
collector. London forbade games being played because they had replaced
practice in archery, which was necessary for defense.
A royal inquiry into the state of the currency indicated much
falsification and coin-clipping by the Jews and others. About 280 Jews
and many Englishmen were found guilty and hanged. The rest of the Jews,
about 16,000, were expelled in 1290. This was popular with the public
because of the abuses of usury. There had been outbreaks of violence
directed at the Jews since about 1140. The king used Italian bankers
instead because he thought them more equitable in their dealings. The
lepers were driven out of London in 1276. Exports and imports were no
longer a tiny margin in an economy just above the subsistence level.
Exports were primarily raw wool and cloth, but also grain, butter,
eggs, herring, hides, leather goods such as bottles and boots,
embroideries, metalware, horseshoes, daggers, tin, coal, and lead.
Imported were wine, silk, timber, furs, rubies, emeralds, fruits,
raisins, currents, pepper, ginger, cloves, rice, cordovan leather,
pitch, hemp, spars, fine iron, short rods of steel, bow-staves of yew,
tar, oil, salt, cotton (for candlewicks), and alum (makes dyes hold).
Ships which transported them had one or two masts upon which sails
could be furled, the recently invented rudder, and a carrying capacity
of up to 200 tuns [about one ton]. Many duties of sheriffs and coroners
were transferred to county landholders by commissions. In coastal
counties, there were such commissions for supervising coastal defense
and maintaining the beacons. Each maritime county maintained a coast
guard, which was under the command of a knight. Ports had
well-maintained harbors, quays, and streets. By 1306 there was an
office of admiral of the fleet of the ships of the southern ports.
Women could inherit land in certain circumstances. Some tenants
holding land in chief of the king were women.
Regulation of trade became national instead of local. Trade was
relatively free; almost the only internal transportation tolls were
petty portages and viages levied to recoup the expense of a bridge or
road which had been built by private enterprise. Responsibility for the
coinage was transferred from the individual moneyers working in
different boroughs to a central official who was to become Master of
the Mint. The round half penny and farthing [1/4 penny] were created so
that the penny needn't be cut into halves and quarters anymore.
Edward I called meetings of representatives from all social and
geographic sectors of the nation at one Parliament to determine taxes
due to the Crown that would replace feudal aids. He declared that "what
touches all, should be approved by all". He wanted taxes from the
burgesses in the towns and the clergy's ecclesiastical property as well
as from landholders. He argued to the clergy that if barons had to both
fight and pay, they who could do no fighting must at least pay. When
the clergy refused to pay, he put them outside the royal protection and
threatened outlawry and confiscation of their lands. Then they agreed
to pay and to renounce all papal orders contrary to the King's
authority.
Edward I wanted to bring all his subjects undder hisimmediate
aujthority by the process of bringing all together to the same assembly
under his common presidency. So his Model Parliament of 1295 was
composed of the three communities. The first were the lords, which
included seven earls and forty-one barons. Because of the increase of
lesser barons due to a long national peace and prosperity, the lords
attending were reduced in numbers and peerage became dependent not on
land tenure, but on royal writ of summons. The great barons were chosen
by the king and received a special summons in their own names to the
council or Parliament. Others were called by a general summons. The
second community was the clergy, represented by the two archbishops,
bishops from each of eighteen dioceses, and sixty-seven abbots. The
third community was the commons. It was composed of two knights elected
by the suitors who were then present at the county court, two burgesses
elected by principal burgesses of each borough, and two representatives
from each city. The country knights had a natural affinity with the
towns in part because their younger sons sought their occupation, wife,
and estate there. Also, great lords recruited younger brothers of
yeoman families for servants and fighting men, who ultimately settled
down as tradesmen in the towns. The country people and the town people
also had a community of interest by both being encompassed by the
county courts. The peasants were not represented in the county courts
nor in Parliament. One had to have land to be entitled to vote in
Parliament because the landowner had a stake in the country, a material
security for his good behavior.
Parliaments without knights and burgesses still met with the
king. But it was understood that no extraordinary tax could be levied
without the knights and burgesses present. Ordinary taxes could be
arranged with individuals, estates, or communities. The lower clergy
ceased to attend Parliament and instead considered taxes to pay to the
king during their national church convocations, which were held at the
same time as Parliament. For collection purposes, their diocesan synod
was analogous to the county court. The higher clergy remained in
Parliament because they were feudal vassals of the king.
Edward's council was the highest tribunal. It comprised the
Chancellor, Treasurer and other great officers of state, the justices
of the three courts, the master or chief clerks of the Chancery, and
certain selected prelates and barons. The council assisted the king in
considering petitions. Most petitions to the King were private
grievances of individuals, including people of no social rank, such as
prisoners. Other petitions were from communities and groups, such as
religious houses, the two universities, boroughs, and counties. These
groups sometimes formed alliances in a common cause. Women sometimes
petitioned. From 1293, the petitions were placed in four stacks for
examination by the King and council, by the Chancery, by the Exchequer,
or by the justices. Many hours were spent hearing and answering
petitions. From 1305, the petitions were presented to the king in full
Parliament.
The king still exercised a power of legislation without a full
Parliament. He might in his council issue proclamations. The Chief
Justices still had, as members of the king's council, a real voice in
the making of laws. The king and his justices might, after a statute
has been made, put an authoritative interpretation upon it. Royal
proclamations had the same force as statutes while the king lived;
sometimes there were demands that certain proclamations be made
perpetual by being embodied in statutes, e.g. fixing wages. There was
no convention that agreement or even the presence of representatives
was required for legislation. The idea that the present can bind the
absent and that the majority of those present may outvote the minority
was beginning to take hold. Edward I's councilors and justices took an
oath to give, expedite, and execute faithful counsel; to maintain,
recover, increase, and prevent the diminution of, royal rights; to do
justice, honestly and unsparingly; to join in no engagements which may
present the councilor from fulfilling his promise; and to take no gifts
in the administration of justice, save meat and drink for the day.
These were in addition to other matters sworn to by the councilors.
Parliament soon was required to meet at least once a year at
the Great Hall at Westminster located beside the royal palace. London
paid its representatives 10s. per day for their attendance at
Parliament. From the time of Edward II, the counties paid their knight-
representatives 4s. daily, and the boroughs paid their burgess-
representatives 2s. daily. When it convened, the Chancellor sat on the
left and the Archbishop of Canterbury on the right of the king. Just
below and in front of the king his council sits on wool sacks brought
in for their comfort from wool stored nearby. It answers questions.
Behind them on the wool sacks sit the justices, who may be called upon
to give legal advice, e.g. in framing statutes. Then come the spiritual
and lay barons, then the knights, and lastly the elected burgesses and
citizens. Lawmaking became a function of Parliament, of which the
King's council is a part, instead of a function of the king with his
council and justices. The common people now had a voice in lawmaking,
though legislation could be passed without their consent. The first
legislation proposed by the commons was alteration of the forest laws
governing the royal pleasure parks. Such a statute was passed in a
bargain for taxes of a percentage of all movables, which were mostly
foodstuffs and animals. The king offered to give up the royal right to
tax merchandise for a new tax: customs on exports. The barons and
knights of the county agreed to pay an 11th, the burgesses, a 7th, and
the clergy a 10th on their other movables. In time, several boroughs
sought to be included in the county representation so they could pay
the lower rate. This new system of taxation began the decline of the
imposition of feudal aids, knights' fees, scutages, carucage, and
tallage, which had been negotiated by the Exchequer with the reeves of
each town, the sheriff and county courts of each county, and the
bishops of each diocese.
The staple [depot or mart, from the French "estaple"] system
began when the export of wool had increased and Parliament initiated
customs duties of 6s.8d. on every sack of wool, woolfells [sheepskin
with wool still on it], or skins exported in 1275. These goods had to
be assessed and collected at certain designated ports. Certain large
wool merchants, the merchants of the staple, were allowed to have a
monopoly on the purchase and export of wool. Imports of wine were taxed
as tunnage as before, that is there was a royal right to take from each
wine ship one cask for every ten at the price of 20s. per cask.
In 1297, Edward I confirmed the Magna Carta and other items.
Judgments contrary to Magna Carta were nullified. The documents were to
be read in cathedral churches as grants of Edward and all violators
were to be excommunicated. He also agreed not to impose taxes without
the consent of Parliament after baronial pressure had forced him to
retreat from trying to increase, for a war in France, the customs tax
on every exported sack of wool to 40s. from the 6s. 8d. per sack it had
been since 1275. The customs tax was finally fixed at 10s. for every
sack of wool, 2s. for each tun [casket] of wine, and 6d. for every
pound's worth of other goods. The "tenths and fifteenths" tax levied on
income from movables or chattels became regular every year. Edward also
confirmed the Forest Charter, which called for its earlier boundaries.
And he agreed not to impound any grain or wool or and like against the
will of the owners, as had been done before to collect taxes. Also, the
special prises or requisitions of goods for national emergency were not
to be a precedent. Lastly, he agreed not to impose penalties on two
earls and their supporters for refusing to serve in the war in France
when the king did not go.
The Magna Carta is the first statute. From 1299, statutes were
recorded in a Statute Roll as they were enacted.
By the end of the 1200s, the King's wardrobe, where
confidential matters such as military affairs were discussed in his
bedroom, became a department of state with the King's privy seal. The
keeper of the privy seal was established as a new office by Edward I in
1318. The wardrobe paid and provisioned the knights, squires, and
sergeants of the king and was composed mostly of civil servants. It
traveled with the King. The Crown's treasure, plate, tents, hangings,
beds, cooking utensils, wine, and legal and financial rolls were
carried on pack horses or in two-wheeled carts drawn by oxen, donkeys,
or dogs. The people in the entourage rode horses or walked. The other
two specialized administrative bodies were the Exchequer, which
received most of the royal revenue and kept accounts at Westminster,
and the Chancery, which wrote royal writs, charters, and letters, and
kept records.
The chief functions of administration in the 1300s were
performed by the council, chancery, wardrobe, chamber [room off
wardrobe for dressing and for storage], and exchequer. Many of the
chancellors had come from the wardrobe and chamber. In time, the
chancellor ceased to be a part of the king's personal retinue and to
follow the court. The chancery became primarily a department of central
administration rather than a secretariat and record-keeping part of the
royal household. The king used a privy seal to issue directives to the
chancery. Edward III made some merchants earls and appointed them to be
his ministers. He did not summon anyone to his council who did not have
the confidence of the magnates [barons, earls, bishops, and abbots].
There was a recoinage due to debasement of the old coinage.
This increased the number of coins in circulation. The price of wheat
went from about 7s. in 1270 to about 5s. per quarter in 1280. Also the
price of an ox went from 14s. to 10s. Then there were broad movements
of prices, within which there were wide fluctuations, largely due to
the state of the harvest. From 1280 to 1290, there was runaway
inflation. In some places, both grain and livestock prices almost
doubled between 1305 and 1310. Wheat prices peaked at 15s.5d. a quarter
in the famine year of 1316. In 1338, prices dropped and remained low
for twenty years. The poor were hurt by high prices and the lords of
the manors were hurt by low prices.
As before, inadequate care and ignorance of nutrition caused
many infant deaths. Accidents and disease were so prevalent that death
was always near and life insecure. Many women died in childbirth.
Edward I always sought the agreement of Parliament before
assembling an army or taking actions of war, and Parliamentary consent
came to be expected for such. He completed the conquest and annexation
of Wales in 1284. The feudal army was summoned for the last time in the
100 year war with France, which began in 1337. In it the English
longbow was used to pierce French knights' armor. There had been much
competition between the strength of arrows to pierce and the heaviness
of armor to resist. Guns and cannon with gunpowder were introduced in
1338. A system to raise an army by contract was developed. Contracts
were made with nobles, knights, or esquires who undertook to enlist an
agreed number of armored men-at-arms and archers, who were paid wages.
The King provided transport for each contractor and his retinue,
baggage, and horses. The title of "knight" now resumed its military
character as well as being a social rank.
After Edward I died in 1307, there was a period of general
lawlessness and contests for power between earls and barons and the
irresponsible King Edward II, who was not a warrior king. He eventually
was assassinated. Also in 1307, Parliament required the king to obtain
its consent for any exchange or alteration of the currency.
By 1319, the guilds of London had become so powerful that they
extracted a charter from the king that to be a citizen of London one
had to be a member of a guild.
By 1326, scholars, the nobility, and the clergy had reading
eyeglasses, which had been invented in Italy, probably by the glass
blowers. Italy was famous for its glasswork. The first eyeglasses were
fabricated by pouring molten glass into curved molds. The actual shape
was difficult to control because thermal expansion and contraction
resulted in bubbles and other optical imperfections.
As of 1336, importing foreign cloth or fur, except for use by
the King's family, was prohibited, as was the export of unwoven wool.
Later, this was relaxed and a customs tax of 33% was imposed on wool
exported.
Foreign cloth workers were allowed by statute to come to live
in the nation, be granted franchises, and be in the King's protection.
But no cloth was to be exported until it was fulled. During the reign
of Edward III, Flanders weavers were encouraged to come to England to
teach the English how to weave and finish fine cloth. A cloth industry
grew with all the manufacturing processes under the supervision of one
capitalist manufacturer, who set up his enterprise in the country to
avoid the regulations of the towns. The best places were hilly areas
where there were many streams and good pasture for flocks of sheep. He
hired shearers to cut the nap as short as possible to give a smooth
surface, then spinsters to card and spin the wool in their country
cottages, then weavers, and then fullers and dyers to come to fulling
mills established near streams for their waterpower. Fulling became
mechanized as heavy wooden hammers run by water- power replaced feet
trampling the cloth covered with soap or fuller's clay. The shaft loom
was a technological advance in weaving. This loom was horizontal and
its frames, which controlled the lifting of the warp threads, could
each be raised by a foot treadle. This left both hands free to throw
and catch the shuttle attached to the weft thread from side to side
through the warp. Also many more weaving patterns became possible
through the use of different thread configurations on the frames.
In 1341, the commons forced King Edward III and council to
approve their petition when Parliament was still in session so that
they would draft the legislation in true accordance with the petition.
This had not been done when drafting had been done after Parliament
ended, when the phrase "saving the prerogatives of the king" was often
added. Also the lords and commons consulted each other and joined in
petitions. But they usually stated their conclusions to the king
separately. It was considered a burden rather than a privilege to
attend Parliament and elections for such were not often contested. They
were conducted according to local custom until 1600.
In 1348, the Commons voted a tax of 1/15 th on movables for
three years with the proviso that it be spent only on the war against
Scotland. This began the practice of appropriation of funds. In 1381,
began the practice of appointing treasurers of the subsidies to account
to Parliament for both receipts and disbursements.
Alien merchants were under the king's special protection. In
return for paying extra import and export duties, Edward III gave alien
merchants full rights of trade, travel, and residence in England free
of all local tolls and restrictions, and guaranteed a fair hearing of
their commercial and criminal cases in special pie powder (after French
"pie poudrous" or dusty feet) courts at fairs.
The Law
Edward I remodeled the law in response to grievances and to
problems which came up in the courts. The changes improved the
efficiency of justice and served to accommodate it to the changing
circumstances of the social system.
"No man by force of arms, malice or menacing shall disturb
anyone in making free election [of sheriffs, coroners, conservators of
the peace by freeholders of the county]."
"No city, borough, town, nor man shall be amerced without
reasonable cause and according to the severity of his trespass. That
is, every freeman saving his freehold, a merchant saving his
merchandise, a villein saving his wainage [implements of agriculture],
and that by his peers."
No distress shall be taken of ploughing-cattle or sheep.
No loan shall be made for interest.
If an heir who is a minor is married off without the consent of
the guardian, the value of the marriage will be lost and the wrongdoer
imprisoned. If anyone marries off an heir over 14 years of age without
the consent of the guardian, the guardian shall have double the value
of the marriage. Moreover, anyone who has withdrawn a marriage shall
pay the full value thereof to the guardian for the trespass and make
amends to the King. And if a lord refuses to marry off a female heir of
full age and keep her unmarried because he covets the land, then he
shall not have her lands more than two years after she reaches full
age, at which time she can recover her inheritance without giving
anything for the wardship or her marriage. However, if she maliciously
refuses to be married by her lord, he may hold her land and inheritance
until she is the age of a male heir, that is, 21 years old and further
until he has taken the value of the marriage.
Aid to make one's son a knight or marry off his daughter of a
whole knight's fee shall be taken 20s., and 400s. [yearly income from]
land held in socage 20s. [5%], and of more, more; and of less, less;
after the rate. And none shall levy such aid to make his son a knight
until his son is 15 years old, nor to marry his daughter until she is
seven year old.
The common law of inheritance for land has assumed its final
form with six rules. 1) A living descendant excludes his or her own
descendants. 2) A dead descendant is represented by his or her own
descendants. 3) Males exclude females of equal degree. 4) Among males
of equal degree, only the eldest inherits. 6) The rule that a dead
descendant is represented by his or her descendants overrides the
preference for the male sex. If there were no descendants, the land
escheated to its lord.
By statute, a conveyance of land which is the inheritance of a
minor child by his guardian or lord to another is void.
Dower shall not abate because the widow has received dower of
another man unless part of the first dower received was of the same
tenant and in the same town. But a woman who leaves her husband for
another man is barred from dower.
A tenant for a term of years who has let land from a landlord
shall not let it lie waste, nor shall a landlord attempt to oust a
tenant for a term of years by fictitious recoveries.
When two or more hold wood, turfland, or fishing or other such
thing in common, wherein none knows his several, and one does waste
against the minds of the others, he may be sued.
Lands which are given to a man and his wife upon condition that
if they die without heirs, the land shall revert to the donor or his
heir, may not be alienated to defeat this condition.
If a man takes land in marriage with a wife, and she dies
before him, the land will revert to the donor or his heir, unless the
couple has a child, in which case the husband will have the land by the
courtesy of the nation for his life before it reverts to the donor or
his heir.
Young salmon shall not be taken from waters in the spring.
A free tenant may alienate his land freely, but if the
alienation was for an estate in fee simple [to a man and his heirs,
with a full right of alienation by the man otherwise than on his
death], the person acquiring the land would hold of the land's lord and
not of the person alienating the land. (This halted the growth of
subinfeudation and caused services as well as incidents of aids,
relief, escheat, wardship, and marriage to go directly to the Chief
Lord. It also advantaged the Crown as overlord, which then acquired
more direct tenants.)
One may create an estate which will descend in unbroken
succession down the line of inheritance prescribed in the original gift
as long as that line should last, instead of descending to all heirs.
This was called a "fee simple conditional" holding of land. The
successive occupants might draw the rents and cut the wood, but on the
death of each, his heir would take possession of an unencumbered
interest, unfettered by any liability for the debt of his ancestor or
by any disposition made by him during his lifetime e.g. a wife's estate
in dower or a husband's estate in courtesy. If there was no issue, it
reverted to the original donor. This curtailed the advantage of tenants
of the greater barons who profited by increased wardships and reliefs
from subinfeudation from subdivision and better cultivation of their
land while still paying the greater barons fixed sums. This statute
that protected reversionary estates incidentally established a system
of entails. This new manner of holding land: "fee tail", is in addition
to the concepts of land held in fee simple and land held for life. The
donor could give directions that an estate of inheritance go to a man
or woman and certain classes of particular heirs rather than reverting
to himself. A fee tail was often given to a man and the issue of his
body. No donee or nor his heirs could alienate the land held in fee
tail.Interests in remainder or reversion of estates in land replaced
the lord's tenurial right to succeed to land by escheat if his tenant
dies without heirs.
Anyone disseising another whereby he also robs him or uses
force and arms in the disseisin shall be imprisoned and fined. The
plaintiff shall recover seisin and damages.
"All must be ready at the command and summons of sheriffs, and
at the cry of the country, to sue and arrest felons as necessary as
well within franchise as without." Otherwise, he shall be fined. A Lord
defaulting shall lose his franchise to the King. A Bailiff defaulting
shall be imprisoned a year as well as fined, or be imprisoned two years
if he cannot pay the fine. A sheriff, coroner, or any other bailiff who
conceals a felony will be imprisoned for a year and pay a fine, or be
imprisoned for three years if he cannot pay the fine.
Villeins must report felons, pursue felons, serve in the watch,
and clear growth of concealing underwood from roads. They must join the
military to fight on the borders when called. Desertion from the army
is punishable.
Accessories to a crime shall not be declared outlaw before the
principal is proven guilty. (This made uniform the practice of the
various counties.)
Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single
incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a
felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb shall be
let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were outlawed or escaped
from prison or are notorious thieves or were imprisoned for felonious
house burning, passing false money, counterfeiting the King's seal,
treason touching the king himself, or other major offenses or have been
excommunicated by the church may not be released.
Killing in self-defense and by mischance shall be pardoned from
the King's indictment. Killing by a child or a person of unsound mind
shall be pardoned from the King's indictment. (But a private accuser
can still sue.)
Any man who ravishes [abducts] any woman without her consent or
by force shall have the criminal penalty of loss of life or limb. (The
criminal penalty used to be just two years in prison.)
Trespasses in parks or ponds shall be punished by imprisonment
for three years and a fine as well as paying damages to the wronged
person. After his imprisonment, he shall find a surety or leave the
nation.
"Forasmuch as there have been often times found in the country
devisors of tales, where discord, or occasion of discord, has many
times arisen between the King and his people, or great men of this
realm; For the damage that has and may thereof ensue, it is commanded,
that from henceforth none be so hardy to tell or publish any false news
or tales, whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may grow
between the King and his people, or the great men of the realm." Anyone
doing so shall be imprisoned until he brings into the court the first
author of the tale.
A system of registration and enforcement of commercial
agreements was established by statute. Merchants could obtain a writing
of a debt sealed by the debtor and authenticated by royal seal or a
seal of a mayor of certain towns, and kept by the creditor. Failure to
pay a such a debt was punishable by imprisonment and, after three
months, the selling of borough tenements and chattels and of county
lands. During the three months, the merchant held this property in a
new tenure of "statute merchant". (Prior to this, it was difficult for
a foreign merchant to collect a debt because he could not appear in
court which did not recognize him as one of its proper "suitors" or
constituents, so he had to trust a local attorney. Also, the remedy was
inadequate because the history of the law of debt was based on debt as
a substitute for the blood feud, so that failure to pay meant slavery
or death. Also a debtor's land was protected by feudal custom, which
was contrary to the idea of imposing a new tenant on a lord.)
"In no city, borough, town, market, or fair shall a person of
the realm be distrained for a debt for which he is not the debtor or
pledge."
Anyone making those passing with goods through their
jurisdiction answer to them in excess of their jurisdiction shall be
grievously amerced to the King.
No market town shall take an outrageous toll contrary to the
common custom of the nation.
Since good sterling money has been counterfeited with base and
false metal outside the nation and then brought in, foreigners found in
the nation's ports with this false money shall forfeit their lives.
Anyone bringing money into the nation must have it examined at his port
of entry. Payments of money shall be made only by coin of the
appropriate weight delivered by the Warden of the Exchange and marked
with the King's mark. (A currency exchange was established at Dover for
the exchange of foreign currency for English sterling.)
The silver in craftwork must be sterling and marked with the
Leopard's Head. The gold in craftwork must meet the standard of the
Touch of Paris.
The assize of bread and ale had been and was enforced locally
by local inspectors. Now, the Crown appointed royal officers for the
gauge of wines and measurement of cloths. Edicts disallowed middlemen
from raising prices against consumers by such practices as forestalling
[intercepting goods before they reached the market and then reselling
them] or engrossing [buying a large supply of a commodity to drive up
the price] and price regulation was attempted. For instance, prices
were set for poultry and lamb, in a period of plenty. Maximum prices
were set for cattle, pigs, sheep, poultry, and eggs in 1314, but these
prices were hard to enforce. In London examples of prices set are: best
hen 3d.2q., best wild goose 4d., best hare 4d., best kid 10d., best
lamb 4d., best fresh herrings 12 for 1d., best pickled herrings 20 for
1d., best haddock 2d., best fresh salmon 3s.
Freemen may drive their swine through the King's demesne Forest
to feed in their own woods or elsewhere. No man shall lose his life or
limb for killing deer in the Forest, but instead shall be grievously
fined or imprisoned for a year.
The Forest Charter allowed a man to cut down and take wood from
his own woods in the King's forest to repair his house, fences, and
hedges. He may also enclose his woods in the King's forest with fences
and hedges to grow new trees and keep cattle and beasts therefrom.
After seven years growth of these new trees, he may cut them down for
sale with the King's permission.
Each borough has its own civil and criminal ordinances and
police jurisdiction. Borough courts tended to deal with more laws than
other local courts because of the borough's denser populations, which
were composed of merchants, manufacturers, and traders, as well as
those engaged in agriculture. Only borough courts have jurisdiction
over fairs. In some boroughs the villein who resides for a year and a
day becomes free, a right first given by Henry II in his charter for
Nottingham. There are special ordinances relating to apprentices. There
are sometimes ordinances against enticing away servants bound by
agreement to serve another. The wife who is a trader is regarded in
many places as a feme sole [single woman rather than a woman covert,
who was under the protection of a husband]. There may be special
ordinances as to the liability of masters for the acts of their
apprentices and agents, or as to brokers, debt, or earnest money
binding a bargain. The criminal and police jurisdiction in the borough
was organized upon the same model as in the country at large, and was
controlled by the King's courts upon similar principles, though there
are some survivals of old rules, such as mention of the bot and the
wer. The crimes committed are similar to those of the country, such as
violence, breaches of the assize of bread and beer, stirring up suits
before the ecclesiastical courts, digging up or obstructing the
highway, not being enrolled in a tithing, encroachments upon or
obstructions of rights of common. The most striking difference with the
country at large are the ordinances on the repair or demolition of
buildings, encroachments on another's building, fires, and nuisances.
Specimens of other characteristic urban disputes are: selling bad food,
using bad materials, unskillful or careless workmanship, fraudulent
weights and measures, fraud in buying and selling, forestalling or
regrating [buying in one market to resell in another market], acting in
a way likely to endanger the liberties of the borough, usury, trading
without being a citizen, assisting other unlicensed persons to trade,
unlawfully forming a guild, complaints against various guilds in which
trade might be organized. Since the ordinances were always liable to be
called in question before the King's courts, they tended to become
uniform and in harmony with the principles of the common law. Also,
trading between boroughs kept them knowledgeable about each other's
customs and conditions for trade, which then tended to standardize.
Boroughs often had seals to prove communal consent and tended to act as
a corporate body.
Borough ordinances often include arson such as this one: "And
if a street be set on fire by any one, his body shall be attached and
cast into the midst of the fire." Robbery by the miller was specially
treated by an ordinance that "And if the miller be attainted [found
guilty] of robbery of the grain or of the flour to the amount of 4d.,
he shall be hanged from the beam in his mill."
In London, an ordinance prescribed for bakers for the first
offense of making false bread a forfeiture of that bread. For the
second offense was prescribed imprisonment, and for the third offense
placement in the pillory. A London ordinance for millers who caused
bread to be false prescribed for them to be carried in a tumbrel cart
through certain streets, exposed to the derision of the people.
By statute, no one may make a gift or alienation of land to the
church. An attempt to do so will cause the land to escheat to the lord,
or in his default, to the King. Religious houses may not alienate land
given to them by the king or other patrons because such gifts were for
the sake of someone's soul. An attempt to do so will cause the land to
revert to the donor or his heir. If the church did not say the prayers
or do the other actions for which land was given to it, the land will
revert to the donor or his heir. Land may not be alienated to religious
bodies in such a way that it would cease to render its due service to
the King. (The church never died, never married, and never had
children.) The church shall send no money out of the nation. (This
statute of mortmain was neutralized by collusive lawsuits in which the
intended grantor would sue the intended grantee claiming superior title
and then would default, surrendering the land to the intended grantee
by court judgment.)
"Concerning wrecks of the sea, where a man, a dog, or a cat
escape alive out of the ship, that such ship nor barge nor anything
within them shall be deemed wreck, but the goods shall be saved and
kept by view of the Sheriff, Coroner, or the King's Bailiff". If anyone
proves the goods were his within a year and a day, they shall be
restored to him without delay. Otherwise, they shall be kept by the
King. "And where wreck belongs to one other than the King, he shall
have it in like manner". If he does otherwise, he shall be imprisoned
and pay damages and fine.
Some statutes applied only to Kent County, which had a unique
position between London and the continent. Money flowed between England
and the continent through Kent. So Kent never developed a manorial
system of land holding, but evolved from a system of clans and
independent villages directly into a commercial system.
In Kent, all men are free and may give or sell their lands without
permission of their lords, as before the Conquest.
One could sell or give away his land without the consent of
one's lord. The services of the land, however, could only be sold to
the chief lord. Inheritance of land was to all sons by equal portions,
and if there were no sons, then to all daughters in equal portions. The
eldest brother has his choice of portion, then the next oldest, etc.
The goods of a deceased person were divided into three parts after his
funeral expenses and debts were paid. One third went to the surviving
spouse. One third went to the deceased's sons and daughters. One third
could be disposed by will of the decedent. If there were no children,
one half went to the spouse and one half went according to will. If an
heir was under 15 years old, his next of kin to whom inheritance could
not descend was to be his guardian. A wife who remarried or bore a
child lost her dower land. A husband lost his dower if he remarried. If
a tenant withheld rent or services, his lord could seek award of court
to find distress on his tenement and if he could find none, he could
take the tenement for a year and a day in his hands without manuring
it. It the tenant paid up in this time, he got the tenement back. If he
didn't within a year and a day, however, the lord could manure the
land. A felon forfeited his life and his goods, but not his lands or
tenements. A wife of a felon had the dower of one half or her husband's
lands and tenements.
The common law recognized the tort of false imprisonment if a
man arrested as a felon, a person who was not a felon.
Judicial Procedure
The highest court was the king and his council in Parliament.
It heard the most important causes, important because they concern the
king, or because they concern very great men (e.g. treason), or because
they involve grave questions of public law, or because they are
unprecedented. It has large, indefinite powers and provides new
remedies for new wrongs. The office of great justiciar disappears and
the Chancellor becomes the head of the council. The Chancellor heads
the Chancery, which is the secretarial department of the Royal Court. A
litigant could not proceed without first obtaining a writ from
Chancery. The Chancellor could form new writs.
After the council were the royal courts of the King's Bench, Common
Pleas, and the Exchequer, which had become separate, each with its own
justices and records. The Court of Common Pleas had its own Chief
Justice and usually met at Westminster. This disadvantaged the small
farmer, who would have to travel to Westminster to present a case. The
King's Council maintained a close connection with the Court of the
King's Bench, which heard criminal cases and appeals from the Court of
Common Pleas. It traveled with the King. There were many trespass cases
so heard by it in the reign of Edward I. The King's Council did a great
deal of justice, for the more part criminal justice. It was supported
by the populace because it dealt promptly and summarily with rebellion
or some scandalous acquittal of a notorious criminal by bribed or
partial jurors, and thereby prevented anarchy. Its procedure was to
send for the accused and compel him to answer upon oath written
interrogatories. Affidavits were then sworn upon both sides. With
written depositions before them, the Lords of the council, without any
jury, acquit or convict. Fines and imprisonments were meted out to
rioters, conspirators, bribers, and perjured jurors. No loss of life or
limb occurred because there had been no jury.
In criminal cases, witnesses acquainted with particular facts
were added to the general assize of twelve lawful men from each hundred
and four lawful men from each town to testify to facts unknown by the
assize men. The assize was bifurcated into the grand jury of twelve to
twenty-four knights and the petty jury or trial jury of twelve free and
lawful men, which replaced ordeal, compurgation, and trial by combat as
the method of finding the truth. The men of the petty jury as well as
those of the grand jury were expected to know or to acquaint themselves
with the facts of the cases. The men of the petty jury tended to be the
same men who were on the grand jury.
Felony was determined by common law to be one of seven
offenses: treason, homicide, arson, rape, robbery, burglary, and grand
larceny, the last of which involved over 12d., where 12d. was enough to
keep a man from starvation for eight days. High treaason included
covered the making of counterfeit money and the clipping if coin.
Burglary was an offense committed in times of peace and consisted of
breaking into churches, houses, and into the walls and gates of
villages and boroughs. These seven offenses could be prosecuted by
indictment or private accusation by an individual. They were
appealable, that is, the accuser must in general offer trial by battle.
The penalties involved loss of life or limb or, if he fled, outlawry.
Actually, the death penalty was replacing loss of life or limb. Death
by hanging was the usual punishment. A felon's goods were confiscated
by the crown and his land was forfeited to the crown for a year and a
day and waste, after which it escheated to the felon's lord. The crimes
of wounding, mayhem, and false imprisonment were not now felonies. The
peace of the king now did not die with the king, but renewed
automatically without an interval before the inauguration of a new king.
Notorious felons who would not consent or put themselves on
inquests for felonies with which they were charged at royal courts were
put in strong and hard imprisonment to persuade them to accept trial by
assize. This inducement progressed into being loaded with heavy chains
and placed on the ground in the worst part of the prison and being fed
a only little water one day and a little bread the next. Sometimes
pieces of iron or stones were placed one another onto their prone
bodies to persuade them to plead. This then developed into being loaded
with as much iron as could be borne, and finally into being pressed to
death ["peine forte et dure"]. Many of these men chose to die by this
pressing so that their families could inherit their property, which
would have been forfeited if they had been convicted of serious crimes.
The most common cases in the Court of Common Pleas were
detinue, "debt" [for money due from a sale, for money loaned, for rent
upon a lease for years, from a surety, promised in a sealed document,
or due to arbitrators to whom a dispute had been submitted] and
"account" [e.g. against bailiffs of manors, a guardian in socage, and
partners]. It also heard estovers [right to use during a lease] of
wood, profit by gathering nuts, acorns, and other fruits in wood,
corody [allowance of food], yearly delivery of grain, toll, tunnage,
passage, keeping of parks, woods, forests, chases, warrens, gates, and
other bailiwicks, and offices in fee.
The itinerant justices gradually ceased to perform
administrative duties on their journeys because landed society had
objected to their intrusiveness. Edward I substituted regular
visitations of Justices of Assize for the irregular journeys of the
itinerant justices. Each one of four circuits had two Justices of
Assize. From about 1299, these Justices of Assize heard cases of gaol
delivery. Their jurisdiction expanded to include serious criminal cases
and breach of the king's peace. One woman was indicted to every 9 men.
16% of the women who were indicted were convicted compared to 30% of
the men.
Breaches of the forest charter laws were determined by justices
of the King's forest, parks, and chases, along with men of assize.
Coroners' inquest procedures were delineated by statute and
included describing in detail in the coroner's rolls every wound of a
dead body, how many may be culpable, and people claiming to have found
treasure who might be suspects.
The precedent for punishment for treason was established by the
conviction of a knight, David ab Gruffydd, who had turned traitor to
the Welsh enemy, after fighting with Edward and being rewarded with
land, during the conquest of Wales. He had plotted to kill the King. He
was found guilty of treason by Parliament and condemned to be dragged
at the heels of horses for being a traitor to his knightly vows, hanged
by the neck for his murders, cut down before consciousness left him to
have his entrails cut out for committing his crimes during the holy
week of Easter, and his head cut off and his body divided into four
parts for plotting against the King's life. The head was placed on the
Tower of London and his body sections were placed in public view at
various other locations in England. This came to be known as "hanging,
drawing, and quartering". Prior to this the penalty had usually been
imprisonment followed by ransom. The penalty for a woman of treason,
e.g. killing her husband, who was her lord, was burning at the stake.
Trial by combat is now limited to certain claims of enfeoffment
of large land holding and is barred for land held in socage, burgage,
or by marriage. (Trial by combat eventually fell into disuse, but was
not abolished until 1819.) Assize is the usual manner of trial, but
compurgation remains in the borough court long after it becomes
obsolete in the royal courts. It came to be that defendants no longer
request assizes but are automatically put to them.
Numerous statutes protect the integrity of the courts and
King's offices by double and treble damages and imprisonment for
offenses such as bribery, false informers, conspiracy to falsely move
or maintain pleas, champerty [covenant between a litigant and another
for the other to have a part or profit in the award in return for
maintaining the suit], conflict of interest by court officers taking
part in a quarrel pending in court or working any fraud whereby common
right may be delayed or disturbed. There had been many abuses, the most
common of which was extortion by sheriffs, who gaoled people without
cause to make them pay to be released. The 1275 prohibition of
maintenance of a quarrel of a party in court by a nonparty was extended
in 1327 to all persons, including the king's councilors and ministers,
and great men, e.g. by sending letters. In 1346, this prohibition
specifically included prelates, earls, barons taking in hand quarrels
other than their own, or maintaining them for gift, promise, amity,
favor, doubt, or fear, in disturbance of law and hindrance of right.
The reason given was that there had been persons disinherited, delayed
or disturbed in their rights, and not guilty persons convicted or
otherwise oppressed. All great men were required to put out of their
service all maintainers who had been retained, and void their fees and
robes, without giving them aid, favor, or comfort. This law was not
obeyed.
The king reserved to himself and his council in its judicial
capacity the correction of all breaches of the law which the lower
courts had failed to remedy, whether from weakness, partiality,
corruption, or jury timidity, and especially when the powerful barons
defied the courts. The Chancery also sought to address causes which
were impeded in their regular course, which often involved assaults,
batteries, and forcible dispossessions.
Disputes within the royal household were administered by the
King's steward. He received and determined complaints about acts or
breaches of the peace within twelve miles around the King's person or
"verge". He was assisted by the marshall in the "court of the hall" and
by the clerk of the market when imposing fines for trading regulation
violations in the "court of the market".
Ecclesiastical courts were successful in their competition with
the secular courts for jurisdiction over testamentary matters
[concerning wills] and intestate succession [no will] to chattels.
There were local courts of the vill, borough, manor, hundred,
county, sheriff, escheator, and royal bailiff, with overlapping
jurisdictions. The county court in its full session, that is, as it
attended the itinerant justices on their visitation, contained the
archbishops, bishops, priors, earls, barons, knights, and freeholders,
and from each township four men and the reeve, and from each borough
twelve burgesses. It was still the folkmote, the general assembly of
the people. In 1293, suitors who could not spend 40s. a year within
their county were not required to attend their county court.
The most common plea in the hundred court was trespass. It also
heard issues concerning services arising out of land, detention of
chattels, small debts, wounding or maiming of animals, and personal
assaults and brawls not amounting to felony. It met every three weeks.
The sheriff held his turn twice a year and viewed frankpledge once a
year.
In Chancery, the court of the Chancellor, if there is a case
with no remedy specified in the law, that is similar to a situation for
which there is a writ, then a new writ may be made for that case. This
was called "trespass on the case". This covered indirect as well as
direct contact with a person, land, or chattels. An example is that
trespasss would not apply to a boat whose rope attaching it to land was
cut because the trespass did not have contact with the boat. Only the
rope would be the result of the trespass. Trespass on the case would
include the boat. The two chancery justices were the Lord Chancellor
and the Master of the Rolls.
When Edward I came to the throne, over half of the
approximately 600 hundred courts had gone under the jurisdiction of a
private lord owing to royal charter, prescriptive right, and
usurpation. The sheriff's powers in these hundreds varied. In some, the
sheriff had no right of entry. So Edward I created the writ of Quo
Warranto [by what right], by which all landholders exercising manor or
franchise jurisdictions must bring their ancestors' charters before a
traveling justice for the Common Pleas for examination and
interpretation as to whether they had a charter or were going beyond
their charters and infringing upon the jurisdiction of the Royal Court.
As a result, many manor courts were confined to manorial matters and
could no longer view frankpledge or hear criminal cases, which were
reserved for the royal courts. In the manor courts which retained
criminal jurisdiction, there was a reassertion of the obligation to
have present a royal coroner, whose duty it was to see that royal
rights were not infringed and that the goods of felons were given to
the Crown and not kept by the lords. Some who could not produce a
charter lost it; but later, uninterrupted use of a jursdiction since
1189 sufficed to retain that jurisdiction.
In the manor courts, actions of debt, detinue, and covenant
were frequent. Sometimes there are questions of a breach of warranty of
title in agreements of sale of land. Accusations of defamation were
frequent; this offense could not be taken to the King's court, but it
had been recognized as an offense in the Anglo-Saxon laws. In some
cases, the damages caused are specifically stated. For instance,
defamation of a lord's grain would cause other purchasers to forbear
buying it. There are frequent cases of ordinary thefts, trespasses, and
assaults. The courts did rough but substantial justice without
distinction between concepts such as tort and contract. In fact, the
action of covenant was the only form of agreement enforceable at common
law. It required a writing under seal and awarded damages. Manor court
law was not technical, but elastic, and remedies could include
injunctions, salary attachment, and performance of acts. The steward
holding the manor court was often a lawyer.
Some pleas in the manors of the abbey of Bec were:
1. -Hugh le Pee in mercy (fine, 12d.) for concealing a sheep for half a
year. Pledges, Simon of Newmere, John of Senholt
2. -William Ketelburn in mercy (fine, 13s.4d.) for divers trespasses.
Pledge, Henry Ketelburn.
3. -Hugh Derwin for pasture, 6d. Richard Hulle for divers trespasses,
12d. Henry Stanhard for pasture, 6d.
4. -William Derwin for a trespass, 6d.; pledge, William Sperling.
5. -Hugh Hall gives the lord 12d. that he may have the judgment of the
court as to a tenement and two acres of land, which he demands as of
right, so he says. And it being asserted that the said land is not
free[hold] let the court say its say. And the court says that the
tenement and one of the two acres are of servile condition and that the
other acre is of free condition. The case is reserved for the lord's
presence. Pledge, John Brian.
6. -John Palmer is put in seisin of his father's tenement and -gives
the lord 53s.4d. as entry money.
7. -William Ketelburn gives the lord 6s.8d. that he may be removed from
the office of reeve. Pledge, Robert Serjeant.
8. -William Frith for subtraction of work, 6d. John Reginald -for the
same, 6d. John of Senholt, 12d. William Ketelburn, 12d.
9. -For the common fine to be paid on S. Andrew's day, 100s.
10. It is presented by the chief pledges that Godfrey Serjeant has made
default; also that John le Pee has unlawfully thrown up a bank;
therefore let it be set to rights.
11. Robert Smith is put in seisin of his father's tenement and gives
the lord four pounds for entry money. Pledge, Robert Serjeant.
12. William Ketelburn for a trespass, 13s.4d.
13. William Fleming gives four pounds for leave to contract [marriage]
with widow Susan. Pledge, Richard Serjeant.
14. John Mabely gives the lord 3s. to have the judgment of twelve men
as to certain land whereof Noah deforces him; pledges, Richard Smith,
Ralph Bernard. The said jurors say - - that Noah the Fat has right;
therefore etc.
15. Agnes Stampelove gives the lord 2s. for leave to come and go in the
vill but to dwell outside the lord's land. Pledge, Richard Smith.
16. Godfrey Tailor the younger for a trespass, 2s.
17. Whereas Godfrey Tailor the younger has demanded against Noah a
farthing land, now the action is compromised in manner following:
Godfrey for himself and his heirs remises to the said Noah and his
heirs all right and claim which he has or can have in the said farthing
land by reason of the gift made by his grandfather John Tailor.
18. Agnes Mabely is put in seisin of a farthing land which her mother
held, and gives the lord 33s.4d. for entry money. Pledges, Noah,
William Askil.
19. The full court declares that in case any woman shall have
altogether quitted the lord's domain and shall marry a freeman, she may
return and recover whatever right and claim she has in any land; but if
she shall be joined to a serf, then she cannot do this during the
serf's lifetime, but after his death she may. t
20. William Alice's son is put in seisin of a bakehouse in the King's
Street, and shall keep up the house at his own cost and gives 12d. for
entry money, and 10s. annual rent payable at three terms, viz. 3s.4d.
at Martinmas, 3s.4d. at Lady Day, 3s.4d. at Christmas. Pledges, Adam
Clerk, John Deboneir.
20. John son of Alma demands a cottage which Henry Fleming holds and
gives the lord 12d. for the oath and recognition of 12 men; pledge,
Richard Jordan. The jurors say that Henry Fleming has the better right.
21. Baldwin Cobbler's son finds [as pledges] Walter Cobbler, Roger of
Broadwater, Robert Linene, William Frances, that notwithstanding his
stay in London he will always make suit with his tithing and will at no
time claim any liberty contrary to the lord's will and will come to the
lord whenever the lord wills.
22. Simon Patrick gives the lord 12d. to have the judgment of the court
as to a cottage of which the widow of Geoffrey Dogers deforces him;
pledge, Simon of Strode. The said -jurors say that the said Simon has
the better right. And the said Simon remises and quitclaims all his
right to his sister Maud and her husband John Horin, [who] gives the
lord 10s. for entry money; pledges, Simon Patrick, John Talk.
23. Hugh Wiking for not making suit at the lord's mill, 12d.
24. It was presented that William Derwin and John Derwin (fine, 12d.)
committed a trespass against Agnes Dene, and the cry was raised,
therefore etc.
25. Hugh Churchyard contracted [marriage] without the lord's leave;
[fine] 12d.
26. Let Juliana Forester be distrained for her default, also William
Moor.
27. John Kulbel in mercy (fine, 12d.) for not producing Gregory Miller,
and he is commanded to produce him at the next court.
28. Hugh Andrew's son gives the lord 4s. for leave to marry; pledge,
Robert Serjeant.
29. Juliana Forester gives the lord 12d. in order that for the future
no occasion may be taken against her for neglect of suit of court.
30. John Franklain is put in seisin of his father's tenement and gives
the lord 20s. for entry; pledge, Robert Serjeant.
31. Henry Cross gives the lord 4s. for license to marry; pledge, Robert
Serjeant.
32. Isabella Warin gives the lord 4s. for leave to give her daughter
Mary in marriage; pledge, John Serjeant.
33. It is presented by the whole township that Ralph le War has
disseised the lord of a moiety of a hedge, whereas it had often been
adjudged by award of the court that the said hedge belongs as to one
moiety to the lord and as to the other to Ralph, and the said Ralph
claims and takes to his use the whole to the lord's damage etc. Also
they say that the said Ralph holds Overcolkescroft, which land by right
is the lord's.
34. It is presented by unanimous verdict of the whole court that if
anyone marries a woman who has right in any land according to the
custom of the manor and is seised thereof by the will of the lord, and
the said woman surrenders her right and her seisin into the hands of
the lord and her husband receives that right and seisin from the hands
of the lord, in such case the heirs of the woman are for ever barred
from the said land and the said right remains to the husband and his
heirs. Therefore let William Wood, whose case falls under this rule,
hold his land in manner aforesaid. And for the making of this inquest
the said William gives the lord 6s.8d.
35. The tenements of Lucy Mill are to be seized into the lord's hands
because of the adultery which she has committed and the bailiff is to
answer for them.
- -The chief pledges present that Cristina daughter of Richard
Maleville has married at London without the lord's licence; therefore
let the said Richard be distrained. He has made fine with 12d. Also
that Alice Berde has done the same; therefore let her be distrained.
Also that Robert Fountain -has committed a trespass against William
Gery; therefore the said Robert is in mercy; pledge, Humfrey; fine, 6d.
Also that Richard Maleville has drawn blood from Stephen Gust;
therefore he is in mercy; fine, 2s.
36. Geoffrey Coterel in mercy for a battery; fine, 12d.; pledge, Adam
Serjeant. Geoffrey Coterel for trespass in the hay; fine, 6d.; pledge,
Alan Reaper. Hugh of Senholt in mercy for trespass in the green wood;
fine, 6d.
37. Hugh Wiking in mercy for delay in doing his works; fine, 6d. Hugh
Churchyard for trespass in [cutting] thorns; fine, 6d. Thomas Gold in
mercy for trespass in the wood; fine, 3d.; pledge, Robert Grinder.
38. William Dun in mercy for subtraction of his works due in autumn;
fine, 2s. Avice Isaac for the same, 6d.; Hugh Wiking -for the same,
6d.; Agnes Rede in mercy for her daughter's trespass in the corn
[grain], 6d.
39. Walter Ash in mercy for not making suit to the lord's mill; fine,
6d. Hugh Pinel in mercy for diverting a watercourse to the nuisance of
the neighbors; fine, 6d.; pledge, Robert Fresel.
40. John Dun in mercy for carrying off corn [grain] in the autumn;
pledge, Adam White. Alan Reaper gives the lord 12d. on account of a
sheep which was lost while in his custody.
41. Adam White in mercy for bad mowing; fine, 6d. Hugh Harding in mercy
for the same; fine, 6d.
42. The chief pledges present that Henry Blackstone (fine, 6d.), Hugh
Churchyard (fine, 18d.), Walter Ash (fine, 6d.), Henry of Locksbarow
(fine, 12d.), Avice Isaac (fine, 6d.), Richard Matthew (fine, 6d.),
Hugh Wiking (fine,--), Ralph Dene (fine, 6d.), John Palmer (fine,
12d.), John Coterel (fine, 6d.), John Moor (fine, 6d.), John Cubbel
(fine, 12d.), Hugh Andrew (fine, 6d.), Philip Chapman (fine, 6d.), John
Fellow (fine, 12d.), Robert Bailiff (fine, 6d.), Alice Squire (fine,
12d.), John Grately (fine,--), Richard Hull (fine, 6d.), Osbert Reaper
(fine, 6d.), and Robert Cross (fine, 6d.), have broken the assize of
beer. Also that Henry of Senholt, Henry Brown, Hugh Hayward, Richard
Moor, Juliana Woodward, Alice Harding, Peronel Street, Eleanor Mead
make default. Also that Walter Ash (fine,--), John Wiking (fine,--),
John Smart (fine,--), and Henry Coterel have married themselves without
the lord's licence; therefore let them be distrained to do the will of
the lord.
43. Alan Reaper for the trespass of his foal; fine, 6d.
44. Philip Chapman in mercy for refusing his gage to the lord's
bailiff; fine, 3d.
45. William Ash in mercy for trespass in the growing crop; fine, 6d.
46. John Iremonger in mercy for contempt; fine, 6d.
47. The chief pledges present that William of Ripley (fine, 6d.),
Walter Smith (no goods), Maud of Pasmere (fine, 6d.), have received
[strangers] contrary to the assize; therefore - - they are in mercy.
48. Maud widow of Reginald of Challow has sufficiently proved that a
certain sheep valued at 8d. is hers, and binds herself to restore it or
its price in case it shall be demanded from her within year and day;
pledges, John Iremonger and John Robertd; and she gives the lord 3d.
for [his] custody [of it].
The Court of Hustings in London is empowered to award landlords
their tenements for which rent or services are in arrears if the
landlord could not distrain enough tenant possessions to cover the
arrearages.
Wills are proven in the Court of Husting, the oldest court in
London, which went back to the times of Edward the Confessor. One such
proven will is:
"Tour (John de La) - To Robert his eldest son his capital
messuage and wharf in the parish of Berchingechurch near the land
called 'Berewardesland`. To Agnes his wife his house called
'Wyvelattestone', together with rents, reversions, etc. in the parish
of S. Dunstan towards the Tower, for life; remainder to Stephen his
son. To Peter and Edmund his sons lands and rents in the parish of All
Hallows de Berhyngechurch; remainders over in default of heirs. To
Agnes, wife of John le Keu, fishmonger, a house situate in the same
parish of Berhyng, at a peppercorn [nominal] rent."
The Court of the Mayor of London heard diverse cases, including
disputes over goods, faulty or substandard goods, adulteration, selling
food unfit for human consumption, enhancing the price of goods, using
unlawful weighing beams, debts, theft, distraints, forgery, tavern
brawling, bullying, and gambling. Insulting or assaulting a city
dignitary was a very serious crime; an attack on the mayor was once
capitally punished. Sacrilege, rape, and burglary were punished by
death. Apart from the death penalty, the punishment meted out the most
was public exposure in the pillory, with some mark of ignominy slung
round the neck. If the crime was selling bad food, it was burnt under
the offender's nose. If it was sour wine, the offender was drenched in
it. Standing in the pillory for even one hour was very humiliating, and
by the end of the day, it was known throughout the city. The offender's
reputation was ruined. Some men died in the pillory of shame and
distress. A variation of the pillory was being dragged through the
streets on a hurdle. Prostitutes were carted through the streets in
coarse rough cloth hoods, with penitential crosses in their hands.
Scolds were exposed in a "thewe" for women. In more serious cases,
imprisonment for up to a year was added to the pillory. Mutilation was
rare, but there are cases of men losing their right hands for rescuing
prisoners. The death penalty was usually by hanging. The following four
London cases pertain to customs, bad grain, surgery, and
apprenticeship, respectively.
This is a lawsuit: "John le Paumer was summoned to answer Richer de
Refham, Sheriff, in a plea that, whereas the defendant and his Society
of Bermen [carriers] in the City were sworn not to carry any wine, by
land or water, for the use of citizens or others, without the Sheriff's
mark, nor lead nor cause it to be led, whereby the Sheriff might be
defrauded of his customs, nevertheless he caused four casks of wine
belonging to Ralph le Mazun of Westminster to be carried from the City
of Westminster without the Sheriff's mark, thus defrauding the latter
of his customs in contempt of the king etc. The defendant acknowledged
the trespass. Judgment that he remain in the custody of the Sheriff
till he satisfy the King and the Court for offense."
This is a lawsuit: "Walter atte Belhaus, William atte Belhous, Robert
le Barber dwelling at Ewelleshalle, John de Lewes, Gilbert le Gras,
John his son, Roger le Mortimer, William Ballard atte Hole, Peter de
Sheperton, John Brun and the wife of Thomas the pelterer, Stephen de
Haddeham, William de Goryngg, Margery de Frydaiestrate, Mariot, who
dwells in the house of William de Harwe, and William de Hendone were
attached to answer for forestalling all kinds of grain and exposing it,
together with putrid grain, on the pavement, for sale by the bushel,
through their men and women servants; and for buying their own grain
from their own servants in deception of the people. The defendants
denied that they were guilty and put themselves on their country. A
jury of Richard de Hockeleye and others brought in a verdict of guilty,
and the defendants were committed to prison till the next Parliament."
This is a lawsuit: "Peter the Surgeon acknowledged himself bound to
Ralph de Mortimer, by Richard atte Hill his attorney, in the sum of
20s., payable at certain terms, the said Ralph undertaking to give
Peter a letter of acquittance [release from a debt]. This Recognizance
arose out of a covenant between them with regard to the effecting of a
cure. Both were amerced for coming to an agreement out of Court. A
precept was issued to summon all the surgeons of the City for Friday,
that an inquiry might be made as to whether the above Peter was fitted
to enjoy the profession of a surgeon."
This is a lawsuit: "Thomas de Kydemenstre, shoemaker, was summoned to
answer William de Beverlee, because he did not clothe, feed and
instruct his apprentice Thomas, William's son, but drove him away. The
defendant said that the apprentice lent his master's goods to others
and promised to restore them or their value, but went away against his
wish; and he demanded a jury. Subsequently, a jury of William de Upton
and others said the apprentice lent two pairs of shoes belonging to his
master and was told to restore them, but, frightened by the beating
which he received, ran away; further that the master did not feed and
clothe his apprentice as he ought, being unable to do so, to the
apprentice's damage 40d., but that he was now in a position to look
after his apprentice. Thereupon Thomas de Kydemenstre said he was
willing to have the apprentice back and provide for him, and the father
agreed. Judgment that the master take back the apprentice and feed and
instruct him, or that he repay to the father, the money paid to the
latter, and that he pay the father the 40d. and be in mercy."
A professional class of temporal attorneys whose business it is
to appear on behalf of litigants is prominent in the nation. The idea
of representation has spread outwards from a king who has so many
affairs that he can not conduct them in person. Men often appear to
defend themselves in the king's court by attorney. But attorneys do not
conduct prospective litigation for a client. Attorneys are now drawn
from the knightly class of landed gentlemen, instead of ecclesiastical
orders. Since it was forbidden for ecclesiastics to act as advocates in
the secular courts, those who left the clergy to become advocates
adopted a close-fitting cap to hide their tonsures, which came to be
called a "coif". The great litigation of the nation is conducted by a
small group of men, as is indicated by the earliest Year Books of case
decisions compiled by attorneys and students attending the court. These
attorneys sit in court and will sometimes intervene as amicus curiae
[friends of the court]. Parliament refers difficult points of law to
them as well as to the justices. These reports became so authoritative
that they could be cited in the courts as precedent. Groups of
attorneys from the countryside who are appearing in London courts
during term-time and living in temporary lodgings start to form
guild-like fellowships and buy property where they dine and reside
together, called the Inns of Court. They begin to think of themselves
as belonging to a profession, with a feeling of responsibility for
training the novices who sat in court to learn court procedures and
attorney techniques. They invited these students to supper at the Inns
of Court for the purpose of arguing about the day's cases. The Inns of
Court evolved a scheme of legal education, which was oral and used
disputations. Thus they became educational institutions as well as
clubs for practicing attorneys. The call to the bar of an Inn was in
effect a degree. To be an attorney one had to be educated and certified
at the Inns of Court. They practice law full time. Some are employed by
the King. Justices come to be recruited from among those who had passed
their lives practicing law in court, instead of from the ecclesiastical
orders. All attorneys were brought under the control of the justices.
There are two types of attorney: one attorney appears in the
place of his principal, who does not appear. The appointment of this
attorney is an unusual and a solemn thing, only to be allowed on
special grounds and with the proper formalities. For instance, a poor
person may not be able to afford to travel to attend the royal court in
person. The other one is the pleader-attorney, who accompanies his
client to court and advocates his position with his knowledge of the
law and his persuasiveness. The king came to retain a number of
attorneys, called his serjeants at law, to plead his causes for him.
Edward directed his justices to provide for every county attorneys from
among the best, the most lawful, and the most teachable, so the king
and people would be well served. Thereby were attorneys brought under
the control of the justices.
In 1280, the city of London made regulations for the admission
of both types of attorneys to practice before the civic courts, and for
their due control. In 1292 the king directed the justices to provide a
certain number of attorneys and apprentices to follow the court, who
should have the exclusive right of practicing before it. This begins
the process which will make the attorney for legal business an "officer
of the court" which has appointed him.
Chapter 9
The Times: 1348-1399
Waves of the black death, named for the black spots on the
body, swept over the nation. The black blotches were caused by
extensive internal bleeding. The plague was carried in the blood of
black rats and transmitted to humans by the bite of the rat flea, but
this cause was then unknown. The first wave of this plague, in 1348,
lasted for three years and desolated the nation by about one half the
population in the towns and one third in the country. People tried to
avoid the plague by flight. The agony and death of so many good people
caused some to question their belief in God. Also, it was hard to
understand why priests who fled were less likely to die than priests
who stayed with the dying to give them the last rites. Legal and
judicial, as well as other public business weere interrupted by
theplague and ceased for two years. Thus begins a long period of
disorganization, unrest, and social instability. Customary ways were so
upset that authority and tradition were no longer automatically
accepted. Fields lay waste and sheep and cattle wandered over the
countryside. Local courts could seldom be held. Some monasteries in
need of cash sold annuities to be paid in the form of food, drink,
clothing, and lodging during the annuitant's life, and sometimes that
of his widow also. Guilds and rich men made contributions to the poor
and ships with provisions were sent to various parts of the country for
the relief of starving people. In London, many tradesmen and artisans
formed parish fraternities which united people of all social levels and
women on almost equal terms with men, in communal devotion and mutual
support, such as help in resolving disputes, moral guidance, money when
needed, and burial and masses.
Farm workers were so rare that they were able to demand wages
at double or triple the pre-plague rate. The pre-plague had been 4-6d.
daily for masons, carpenters, plasterers, and tilers and 3d. for their
laborers. These laborers could buy 12 cheap loaves, 3 gallons of ale,
and a gallon of cheap wine or half a pair of shoes. Prices did not go
up nearly as much as wages. Villeins relinquished their tenements, and
deserted their manors, to get better wages elsewhere. They became
nomadic, roaming from place to place, seeking day work for good wages
where they could get it, and resorting to thievery on the highways or
beggary where they could not. The Robin Hood legends were popular among
them. In them, Robin Hood is pure outlaw and does not contribute money
to the poor. Nor does he court Maid Marion.
Villeins spread political songs among each other, such as: "To
seek silver to the King, I my seed sold; wherefore my land lieth fallow
and learneth to sleep. Since they fetched my fair cattle in my fold;
when I think of my old wealth, well nigh I weep. Thus breedeth many
beggars bold; and there wakeneth in the world dismay and woe, for as
good is death anon as so for to toil."
Groups of armed men took lands, manors, goods, and women by
force. The villeins agreed to assist each other in resisting by force
their lords' efforts to return them to servitude. A statute of laborers
passed in 1351 for wages to be set at the pre-plague rates was
ineffectual. Justices became afraid to administer the law. Villeins,
free peasants, and craftsmen joined together and learned to use the
tactics of association and strikes against their employers.
The office of Justice of the Peace was created for every county
to deal with rioting and vagrants. This office required no education
and was filled by volunteers. Cooperation by officials of other
counties was mandated to deal with fugitives from its justice.
The Black Death visited again in 1361 and in 1369. The Black
Death reduced the population from about 5 million to about 2 1/2
million. It was to rise to about 4 million by 1600.
When there were attempts to enforce the legal servitude of the
villeins, they spread rhymes of their condition and need to revolt. A
secret league, called the "Great Society" linked the centers of
intrigue. A high poll tax, graduated from 20s. to 12d., that was to be
raised for a war with France, touched off a spontaneous riot all over
the nation in 1381. This tax included people not taxed before, such as
laborers, the village smith, and the village tiler. Each area had its
own specific grievances. There was no common political motive, except
maladministration in general.
In this Peasants' Revolt, mobs overran the counties around
London. The upper classes fled to the woods. Written records of the
servitude of villeins were burned in their halls, which were also
looted. Title deeds of landlords were burned. Rate rolls of general
taxation were destroyed. Prisoners were released from gaols. Men
connected with tax collection, law enforcement, attorneys, and alien
merchants were beheaded. The Chief Justice was murdered while fleeing.
The archbishop, who was a notoriously exploitive landlord, the
chancellor, and the treasurer were murdered. Severed heads were posted
on London Bridge. A mob took control of the king's empty bedchamber in
the Tower. The villeins demanded that service to a lord be by agreement
instead of by servitude, a commutation of villein service for rents of
a maximum of 4d. per acre yearly, abolition of a lord's right for their
work on demand (e.g. just before a hail storm so only his crops were
saved), and the right to hunt and fish. The sokemen protested having to
use the lord's mill and having to attend his court.
The revolt was suppressed and its leaders punished. The king
issued proclamations forbidding unauthorized gatherings and ordering
tenants of land to perform their customary services. The poll tax was
dropped. For the future, the duty to deal with rioting and vagrants was
given to royal justices, sheriffs, mayors, bailiffs, and constables as
well as the Justices of the Peace. There was a high Justice of the
Peace in each hundred and a petty constable in each parish. Justices of
the Peace could swear in neighbors as unpaid special constables when
disorder broke out.
The sheriff was responsible for seeing that men of the lower
classes were organized into groups of ten for police and surety
purposes, and for holding of hundred and county courts, arresting
suspects, guarding prisoners awaiting trial, carrying out the penalties
adjudged by the courts, and collecting Crown revenue through his
bailiffs. Royal writs were addressed to the sheriff. Because many
sheriffs had taken fines and ransoms for their own use, a term limit of
one year was imposed. Sheriffs, hundreders, and bailiffs had to have
lands in the same counties or bailiwicks [so they could be held
answerable to the King].
Efforts were made to keep laborers at the plough and cart
rather than learn a craft or entering and being educated by the church.
The new colleges at the universities ceased to accept villeins as
students.
Due to the shortage of labor, landlords' returns had decreased
from about 20% to about 5%. But some found new methods of using land
that were more profitable than the customary services of villeins who
had holdings of land or the paid labor of practically free men who paid
a money rent for land holdings. One method was to turn the land to
sheep breeding. Others leased their demesne land, which transferred the
burden of getting laborers from the landlord to the lessee-tenant. The
payment was called a "farm" and the tenant a "farmer". First, there
were stock-and-land leases, in which both the land and everything
required to cultivate it were let together. After 50 years, when the
farmers had acquired assets, there were pure land leases. Landlords
preferred to lease their land at will instead of for a term of years to
prevent the tenant from depleting the soil with a few richer crops
during the last years of his tenancy. The commutation of labor services
into a money payment developed into a general commutation of virtually
all services. Lords in need of money gladly sold manumissions to their
villeins.
The lord and lady of some manors now ate with their family and
entertained guests in a private parlor [from French word 'to speak"] or
great chamber, where they could converse and which had its own
fireplace. The great chamber was usually at the fireplace end of the
great hall, where there was a high table. The great hall had been too
noisy for conversation and now was little used. There were also
separate chambers or bed-sitting rooms for guests or members the family
or household, in which one slept, received visitors, played games, and
occasionally ate.
Some farmers achieved enough wealth to employ others as
laborers on their farms. The laborers lived with their employer in his
barn, sleeping on hay in the loft, or in mud huts outside the barn. The
farmer's family lived at one end of the barn around an open fire. Their
possessions typically were: livestock, a chest, a trestle table,
benches, stools, an iron or bronze cauldron and pots, brooms, wooden
platters, wooden bowls, spoons, knives, wooden or leather jugs, a salt
box, straw mattresses, wool blankets, linen towels, iron tools, and
rush candles [used the pith of a rush reed for the wick]. Those who
could not afford rush candles could get a dim light by using a little
grease in a shallow container, with a few twisted strands of linen
thread afloat in it. The peasants ate dark bread and beans and drank
water from springs. Milk and cheese were a luxury for them. Those who
could not afford bread instead ate oat cakes made of pounded beans and
bran, cheese, and cabbage. They also had leeks, onions, and peas as
vegetables. Some farmers could afford to have a wooden four-posted
bedstead, hens, geese, pigs, a couple of cows, a couple of sheep, or
two-plough oxen. July was the month when the divide between rich and
poor became most apparent. The rich could survive on the contents of
their barns, but the poor tried to survive by grinding up the coarsest
of wheat bran and shriveled peas and beans to make some sort of bread.
Grain and bread prices soared during July. Farming still occupied the
vast majority of the population. Town inhabitants and university
students went into the fields to help with the harvest in the summer.
Parliament was suspended during the harvest.
Town people had more wealth than country people. Most
townspeople slept in nightgowns and nightcaps in beds with mattresses,
blankets, linen sheets, and pillows. Beds were made every morning.
Bathing was by sponging hot water from a basin over the body, sometimes
with herbs in it, rinsing with a splash of warm water, and drying off
with a towel. Tubs used only for baths came into use. There were
drapery rugs hung around beds, handheld mirrors of glass, and salt
cellars. The first meal of the day was a light breakfast, which broke
the fast that had lasted the night. Meals were often prepared according
to recipes from cook books which involved several preparation
procedures using flour, eggs, sugar, cheese, and grated bread, rather
than just simple seasoning. Menus were put together with foods that
tasted well together and served on plates in several courses.
Children's sweets included gingerbread and peppermint drops. Sheffield
cutlery was world famous. Table manners included not making sounds when
eating, not playing with one's spoon or knife, not placing one's elbows
on the table, keeping one's mouth clean with a napkin, and not being
boisterous. There were courtesies such as saying "Good Morning" when
meeting someone and not pointing one's finger at another person. King
Richard II invented the handkerchief for sneezing and blowing one's
nose. There were books on etiquette. Cats were the object of
superstition, but there was an Ancient and Honorable Order of the Men
Who Stroke Cats.
New burgesses were recruited locally, usually from within a 20
mile radius of town. Most of the freemen of the larger boroughs, like
Canterbury and London, came from smaller boroughs. An incoming burgess
was required to buy his right to trade either by way of a seven year
apprenticeship or by payment of an entry fee. To qualify, he needed
both a skill and social respectability.
Towns started acquiring from the king the right to vacant sites
and other waste places, which previously was the lord's right. The
perpetuality of towns was recognized by statutes of 1391, which
compared town-held property to church-held property. The right of
London to pass ordinances was confirmed by charter. Some towns had a
town clerk, who was chief of full-time salaried officers. There was a
guildhall to maintain, a weigh-house, prison, and other public
buildings, municipal water supplies, wharves, cranes, quays,
wash-houses, and public lavatories.
After the experience of the black death, some sanitary measures
were taken. The notorious offenders in matters of public hygiene in the
towns, such as the butchers, the fishmongers, and the leather tanners
were assigned specific localities where their trades would do least
harm. The smiths and potters were excluded from the more densely
populated areas because they were fire risks. In the town of Salisbury,
there was Butcher Row, Ox Row, Fish Row, Ironmongers' Row,
Wheelwrights' Row, Smiths' Row, Pot Row, Silver Street, Cheese Market,
and Wool Market.
For water, most communities depended on rivers that ran near by
or on public wells that were dug to reach the water underground. Some
towns had water public water supply systems. Fresh water was brought
into the town from a spring or pond above the town by wood or lead
pipes or open conduits. Sometimes tree trunks were hollowed out and
tapered at the ends to fit into the funnel-shaped end of another. But
they leaked a lot. In London, a conduit piped water underground to a
lead tank, from which it was delivered to the public by means of pipes
and brass taps in the stone framework. This was London's chief water
supply. Water carriers carried water in wooden devices on their backs
to houses.
The paving and proper drainage of the streets became a town
concern. Building contracts began specifying the provision of adequate
cesspits for the privies at town houses, whether the latrines were
built into the house or as an outhouse. Also, in the better houses,
there grew a practice of carting human and animal fecal matter at night
to dung heaps outside the city walls. There was one public latrine in
each ward and about twelve dung carts for the whole city. Country manor
houses had latrines on the ground floor and/or the basement level.
In London, the Goldsmiths, Merchant Taylors [Tailors],
Skinners, and Girdlers bought royal charters, which recognized their
power of self-government as a company and their power to enforce their
standards, perhaps throughout the country. The Goldsmiths, the Mercers,
and the Saddlers became in 1394 the first guilds to receive charters of
incorporation, which gave them perpetual existence. As such they could
hold land in "mortmain" [dead hand], thus depriving the king of rights
that came to him on the death of a tenant-in-chief. They were
authorized to bestow livery on their members and were called Livery
Companies. The liverymen [freemen] of the trading companies elected
London's representatives to Parliament.
In all towns, the organization of craft associations spread
rapidly downwards through the trades. These associations sought
self-government. Craft guilds were gaining much power relative to the
old merchant guilds in governing the towns. The greater crafts such as
the fishmongers, skinners, and the corders (made rope, canvas, and
pitch) organized and ultimately were recognized by town authorities as
self-governing craft guilds. The building trade guilds such as the
tilers, carpenters, masons, and joiners, became important. Masons were
still itinerant, going to sites of churches, public buildings, or
commanded by the king to work on castles. The guild was not necessarily
associated with a specific product. For instance, a saddle and bridle
were the result of work of four crafts: joiner (woodworker), painter,
saddler (leather), and lorimer (metal trappings).
In London in 1392 craft guilds included: baker, fishmonger (cut
up and sold fish), fruitier, brewer, butcher, bird dealer, cook,
apothecary (sold potions he had ground up), cutler (made knives and
spoons), barber, tailor, shoemaker, glover (made gloves), skinner (sold
furs), girdler (made girdles of cloth to wear around one's waist),
pouchmaker, armorer, sheathmaker, weaver, fuller, painter, carpenter,
joiner (woodworker who finished interior woodwork such as doors and
made furniture), tiler, mason (cut stone for buildings), smith (made
metal tools for stonemasons and builders), tallow chandler (made
candles and sometimes soap from the fat and grease the housewife
supplied), wax chandler (made candles), stirrup maker, spurrier (made
spurs), and hosteler (innkeeper). However, the merchant guilds of the
goldsmiths, vintners (sold wine), mercers (sold cloth), grocers, and
drapers (finished and sold English cloth) were still strong. It was a
long custom in London that freemen in one company could practice the
trade of another company. There were paint mills and saw mills
replacing human labor. There were apothecary shops and women surgeons.
Women who earned their own living by spinning were called "spinsters".
Some prices in London were: a hen pastry 5d., a capon pastry
8d., a roast pheasant 13d., a roast heron 18d., roast goose 7d., a hen
4d., a capon 6d., three roast thrushes 2d., ten larks 3d., ten finches
1d, and ten cooked eggs 1d.
Many of the guilds bought sites on which they built a chapel,
which was later used as a secular meeting place. The guild officers
commonly included an alderman, stewards, a dean, and a clerk, who were
elected. The guild officers sat as a guild court to determine
discipline for offenses such as false weights or measures or false
workmanship or work and decided trade disputes. The brethren in guild
fraternity were classified as masters, journeymen, or apprentices. They
were expected to contribute to the support of the sick and impoverished
in their fellowship. Their code required social action such as
ostracizing a man of the craft who was living in adultery until he
mended his ways.
The rules of the Company of Glovers were:
1. -None but a freeman of the city shall make or sell gloves.
2. -No glover may be admitted to the freedom of the city unless with
the assent of the wardens of the trade.
3. -No one shall entice away the servant of another.
4. -If a servant in the trade makes away with his master's chattels to
the value of 12d., the wardens shall make good the loss; and if the
servant refuses to be judged by the - - wardens, he shall be taken
before the mayor and aldermen.
5. -No one may sell his goods by candlelight.
6. -Any false work found shall be taken before the mayor and aldermen
by the wardens.
7. -All things touching the trade within the city between those who are
not freemen shall be forfeited.
8. -Journeymen shall be paid their present rate of wages.
9. -Persons who entice away journeymen glovers to make gloves in their
own houses shall be brought before the mayor and aldermen.
10. Any one of the trade who refuses to obey these regulations shall be
brought before the mayor and aldermen.
Cordwainers [workers in soft cordovan leather from Spain,
especially shoes] of good repute petitioned the city of London in 1375
for ordinances on their trade as follows:
"To the mayor and aldermen of the city of London pray the good folks of
the trade of cordwainers of the same city, that it may please you to
grant unto them the articles that follow, for the profit of the common
people; that so, what is good and right may be done unto all manner of
folks, for saving the honor of the city and lawfully governing the said
trade.
In the first place - that if any one of the trade shall sell to any
person shoes of bazen [sheepskin tanned in oak or larch-bark] as being
cordwain, or of calf-leather for ox-leather, in deceit of the common
people, and to the scandal of the trade, he shall pay to the Chamber of
the Guildhall, the first time that he shall be convicted thereof, forty
pence; the second time, 7s. half a mark; and the third time the same,
and further, at the discretion of the mayor and aldermen.
Also - that no one of the trade shall keep house within the franchise
if he be not free [invested with the rights or privileges] of the city
and one knowing his trade, and that no one shall be admitted to the
freedom without the presence of the wardens of the trade bearing
witness to his standing, on the pain aforesaid.
Also - if any one of the trade shall be found offending touching the
trade, or rebellious against the wardens thereof, such person shall not
make complaint to any one of another trade, by reason of the discord or
dissension that may have arisen between them; but he shall be ruled by
the good folks of his own trade. And if he shall differ from them as
acting against right, then let the offense be adjudged upon before the
mayor and aldermen; and if he be found rebellious against the
ordinance, let him pay to the Chamber the sum above mentioned.
Also - that no one of the trade shall entice or purloin the servant of
another from the service of his master by paying him more than is
ordained by the trade, on the pain aforesaid.
Also - that no one shall carry out of his house any wares connected
with his trade for sale in market or elsewhere except only at a certain
place situated between Soperesland and the Conduit; and that at a
certain time of the day, that is to say, between prime [the first hour
of the day] and noon. And that no shoes shall exceed the measure of
seven inches, so that the wares may be surveyed by the good folks of
the trade, because of the deceit upon the common people that might
ensue and the scandal of the trade, on the pain aforesaid.
Also - that no one shall expose his wares openly for sale in market on
Sundays at any place, but only within his own dwelling to serve the
common people, on the pain aforesaid.
Also - that if any one sells old shoes, he shall not mix new shoes
among the old in deceit of the common people and to the scandal of the
trade, on the pain aforesaid."
Smithfield was a field outside the city gates at which horses
were sold and raced. In 1372, the horse dealers and drovers petitioned
for a tax on animals sold there to pay for cleaning the field. The city
ordinance reads as follows: "On Wednesday next after the Feast of St.
Margaret the Virgin came reputable men, the horse dealers and drovers,
and delivered unto the mayor and aldermen a certain petition in these
words: 'To the mayor, recorder, and aldermen show the dealers of
Smithfield, that is to say, the coursers and drovers, that for the
amendment of the said field they have granted and assented among them
that for the term of three years next ensuing after the date of this
petition for every horse sold in the said field there shall be paid one
penny, for every ox and cow one halfpenny, for every eight sheep one
penny, and for every swine one penny by the seller and the same by the
purchaser who buys the same for resale.` Afterwards, on the eleventh
day of August in the same year, Adam Fernham, keeper of the gaol at
Newgate, Hugh, Averelle, bailiff of Smithfield, and William Godhewe,
weaver, were chosen and sworn faithfully to collect and receive the
said pennies in form aforesaid and to clean the field of Smithfield
from time to time during such term of three years when necessary."
Many London houses were being made from stone and timber and
even brick and timber, instead of just timber and mud. However,
chimneys were still a luxury of the rich. They were made of stone,
tile, or plaster. There were windows of glass and a guild of glaziers
was chartered by the King. A typical merchant's house had a cellar; a
ground floor with a shop and storage space; a first floor with a parlor
to receive guests, a spacious hall for dining, and perhaps a kitchen;
and at the top, a large family bedroom and a servant's room. Stairwells
between floors had narrow and winding steps. Many single-roomed houses
added a second-floor room for sleeping, which was approached by a
wooden or stone staircase from the outside. Their goods were displayed
on a booth outside the door of the house or hung in the windows. They
were stored at night in the cellar. Over the booths swung huge signs,
which had to be nine feet above street level to allow a man on
horseback to ride underneath. There were no sidewalks. Street repair
work for wages was supervised by a stone master. The streets sloped
down from the middle so that the filth of the streets would run down
the sides of the road. There were many wood chips in the streets due to
cutting up of firewood before taking it indoors. People often threw the
rubbish from their houses onto the street although they were supposed
to cart it outside the city walls and to clean the frontage of their
houses once a week. Dustmen scavenged through the rubbish on the
streets. Pigs and geese were no longer allowed to run at large in the
streets, but had to be fed at home. There were other city rules on
building, public order, the use of fountains, precautions against fire,
trading rights in various districts, closing time of taverns, and when
refuse could be thrown into the streets, e.g. nighttime.
Aldermen were constantly making rounds to test measures and
weights, wine cups, the height of tavern signs, and the mesh of the
fishing nets, which had to be at least two inches wide. They saw that
the taverns were shut when curfew was rung and arrested anyone on the
street after curfew who had a weapon, for no one with a sword was
allowed on the streets unless he was some great lord or other
substantial person of good reputation. Wards provided citizens to guard
the gates in their respective neighborhood and keep its key.
The city was so dense that nuisance was a common action brought
in court, for instance, vegetable vendors near a church obstructing
passageway on the street or plumbers melting their solder with a lower
than usual shaft of the furnace so smoke was inhaled by people nearby.
Crime in London was rare. Murder, burglary, highway
robbery, and gross theft were punishable by hanging. Forgery and fraud,
were punishable by the placement in the pillory or stocks or by
imprisonment. Perjury was punished by confession from a high stool for
the first offense, and the pillory for the second. Slander and telling
lies were punished by the pillory and wearing a whetstone around one's
neck. There was an ordinance passed against prostitutes in 1351. London
as well as other port towns had not only prostitutes, but syphilis.
Prominent Londoners sought to elevate their social position by
having their family marry into rural landholding families of position.
For poor boys with talent, the main routes for advancement were the
church, the law, and positions in great households.
Many master freemasons, who carved freestone or finely grained
sandstone and limestone artistically with mallet and chisel, left the
country for better wages after their wages were fixed by statute. The
curvilinear gothic style of architecture was replaced by the
perpendicular style, which was simpler and cheaper to build. Church
steeples now had clocks on them with dials and hands to supplement the
church bell ringing on the hour. Alabaster was often used for
sepulchral monuments instead of metal or stone. With it, closer
portraiture could be achieved.
In the 1300s and 1400s the London population suffered from
tuberculosis, typhus, influenza, leprosy, dysentery, smallpox,
diphtheria, measles, heart disease, fevers, coughs, cramps, catarrhs
and cataracts, scabs, boils, tumors, and "burning agues". There were
also many deaths by fires, burning by candles near straw beds when
drunk, falling downstairs when drunk, and drowning in the river or
wells. Children were often crushed by carts, trampled by horses, or
mauled by pigs.
Towns recognized surgery as a livelihood subject to admission
and oath to serve the social good. Master surgeons were admitted to
practice in 1369 in London in full husting before the mayor and the
aldermen and swore to:
[1] faithfully serve the people in undertaking their cures,
[2] take reasonably from them,
[3] faithfully follow their calling,
[4] present to the said mayor and aldermen the defaults of others
undertaking, so often as should be necessary,
[5] to be ready, at all times when they should be warned, to attend the
maimed or wounded and others,
[6] to give truthful information to the officers of the city as to such
maimed, wounded, or others whether they be in peril of death or not, and
[7] to faithfully do all other things touching their calling.
Some young girls of good families were boarded at nunneries to
be taught there. Some upper class widows retired there. Only women were
allowed to be present at a birth, at which they spread the knowledge of
midwifery. As usual, many women died giving birth. Various ways to
prevent pregnancy were tried. It was believed that a baby grew from a
seed of the father planted in the woman's body.
Infant mortality was especially high in boroughs and burgess
family lines usually died out. A three-generation family span was
exceptional in the towns, despite family wealth.
After the plague, gentlemen no longer had their children learn
to speak Norman. The grammar schools taught in English instead of
Norman as of 1362. Bishops began to preach in English. English became
the official language of Parliament, in 1363, and in the courts,
replacing Norman and Latin.
The requirements of elementary and higher studies were adjusted
in 1393 and began the public school system. William of Wykeham's
school, St. Mary College of Winchester in Oxford was the prototype. The
curriculum was civil law, canon law, medicine, with astronomical
instruments that students made, theology, and the arts. The arts
textbooks were still grammar, logic, Donatus, and Aristotle. Many
laymen were literate, for instance country gentry, merchants, and
craftsmen. Laymen instead of clerics were now appointed to the great
offices of state.
A will in 1389 in which a wealthy citizen arranges for one son
to become an attorney and the other a merchant:
"Will of William de Tonge, citizen of London: One hundred marks each to
my two sons. And I will that my said two sons shall live upon the
profits of the money bequeathed to them above until the age of twenty
years. And if my said two sons be well learned in grammar and adorned
with good manners, which shall be known at the end of twenty years, and
the elder son wish to practice common law, and if it is known that he
would spend his time well in that faculty, I will that over and above
the profit of the said one hundred marks he shall have yearly from my
rents for the term of seven years five marks. And if he should waste
his time aforesaid, or if he should marry foolishly and unsuitably, I
will that he receive nothing more of the said five marks.
And if younger son wishes to attend the University of Oxford or to
establish himself well in the mystery of a merchant after the age of
twenty years, and [if] there be knowledge of his praiseworthy progress
in his faculty or his carefulness in trading ... I will that he shall
receive five marks yearly in the manner described above for his
maintenance, over and above the profit of the said one hundred marks to
him bequeathed, for the space of seven years; and if he behave himself
otherwise, I will that thereupon he be excluded from the said five
marks. And in case the said bequest of 200 marks to him and his brother
shall be annulled so that he shall have nothing therefrom ... then the
said 200 marks shall be spent upon all the yearly chaplains who can be
had to celebrate divine service in the church of All Hallows for my
soul."
Most great lords were literate. Many stories described good
men, who set an example to be followed, and bad men, whose habits were
to be avoided. Stories were written about pilgrimage vacations of
ordinary people to religious sites in England. Will Langland's poem
"The Vision of William Concerning Piers Plowman" portrays a pilgrimage
of common people to the shrine of Truth led by a virtuous laborer.
Mystics wrote practical advice with transcendental teaching, for
instance "Scale of Perfection" attributed to Walter Hilton and "Cloud
of Unknowing". Richard Rolle wrote about spiritual matters, probably
the "Prick of Conscience". Richard de Bury wrote "Philobiblon" about
book lovers. Jean Froissart wrote the "Chronicles" on knights. Courtly
ideals were expressed in "Sir Gawaine and the Grene Knyght", wherein
the adventures of the hero, an Arthur knight, are allegorical in the
struggle against the world, the flesh, and the devil (1370). "Pearl"
eulogized all that is pure and innocent on the event of the death of a
two year old child. Marco Polo's book of discoveries on his journey to
China was known.
Geoffrey Chaucer was a squire and diplomat of the king. His
"Tales of the Canterbury Pilgrims" portrayed characters of every social
class, including the knight with his squire, abbot, prioress, nun,
priest, monk, friar, poor parson of the country, summoner (who enforced
the jurisdiction and levied the dues of the church courts), pardoner
(sold pardons from the pope), scholar, attorney, doctor, merchant,
sailor, franklin, yeoman, haberdasher, tapestry- maker, ploughman,
cook, weaver, dyer, upholsterer, miller, reeve, carpenter. There were
Chaucer stories about a beautiful and virtuous wife disliked by her
mother-in-law, the difficulty of marriage between people of different
religions, the hatred of a poor person by his brother and his neighbor,
rich merchants who visited other kingdoms, the importance of a man
himself following the rules he sets for other people's behavior, the
spite of a man for a woman who rejected him, the relative lack of
enthusiasm of a wife for sex as compared to her husband, a mother
giving up her own comfort for that of her child, the revenge killing of
a murderer by the dead man's friends, the joy of seeing a loved one
after years of separation, that life is more sad than happy, that lost
money can be retrieved, but time lost is lost forever.
Other stories in the Canterbury Tales were about two men who
did not remain friends after they fell in love with the same woman,
about a child who preferred to learn from an older child than from his
schoolteacher, about a wife who convinced her husband not to avenge her
beating for the sake of peace, about a man who woke up from bad dreams
full of fear, about a man wanting to marry a beautiful woman but later
realizing a plain wife would not be pursued by other men, about a man
who drank so much wine that he lost his mental and physical powers,
about a woman who married for money instead of love, about a man who
said something in frustration which he didn't mean, about a person
brought up in poverty who endured adversity better than one brought up
in wealth, about a wife who was loving and wise, about a good marriage
being more valuable than money, about a virgin who committed suicide
rather than be raped, about a wife persuaded to adultery by a man who
said he would otherwise kill himself, about three men who found a pile
of gold and murdered each other to take it all, about an angry man who
wanted to kill, about a malicious man who had joy in seeing other men
in trouble and misfortune, about a man whose face turned red in shame,
about a wife expecting to have half of what her husband owned.
Political songs and poems were written about the evil times of
King Edward II, the military triumphs of King Edward III, and the
complaints of the poor against their oppressors, such as "Song of the
Husbandman". John Gower wrote moralizing poems on the villein's revolt,
the sins of the clergy and attorneys, and the bad rule of King Richard
II, who in 1377 succeeded Edward III. Robin Hood ballads were popular.
The minstrel, who was a honorable person, replaced the troubadour of
older times.
There were many colleges at Oxford and Cambridge due to the
prohibition of gifts to the church. Laymen instead of ecclesiastics
were appointed as Chancellor. The Masters at Oxford got rid of
ecclesiastical supervision by a bishop and archdeacon by 1368. One
could be admitted as a student at age thirteen. The rate of maintenance
for a student was 10d. weekly.
A Bachelor of Arts degree was granted after four years of study
and an oral exam. Required reading in 1340 for the Bachelor's Degree
was the new logic of Aristotle ("Prior and Posterior Analytics" e.g. on
syllogistic logic and deduction, the "Topics", or the "Sophistical
Refutations", e.g. logical fallacies such as from 'All A are B' to 'All
B are A'), and a selection from these Aristotle works on physics: "Of
Heaven and Earth", "On the Soul", "Of meteors", "Of Birth and Decay",
or "Of Feeling and What is Felt" with "Of Memory and Recollection" and
"Of Sleep and Waking", or "Of the Movement of Animals" with "Of Minor
Points in Natural History".
A Master of Arts degree could be awarded after three more years
of study and teaching. A Doctorate degrees in theology required ten
more years of study. A Doctorate in civil or canon law required eight
more years. A man with a degree in canon law who wanted to practice in
a certain bishop's court had to first satisfy this bishop of his
competence.
Another source of legal learning was in London, where the
guilds gave rise to the Inns of Court. They used the Register of Writs,
the case law of the Year Books, and disputation to teach their students.
For a doctorate in medicine from Oxford or Cambridge, five more
years plus two years of practice were required. Surgery was not taught
because it was considered manual labor, and there was some feeling that
it was a sacrilege and dishonorable. Urinalysis and pulse beat were
used for diagnosis. Epilepsy and apoplexy were understood as spasms
inside the head. It was known what substances served as laxatives and
diuretics. Teeth were extracted, eye cataracts were removed with a
silver needle, and skin from the arm was grafted onto a mutilated face.
Englishmen who had collected books on philosophy, medicine,
astronomy, and history and literature books from the continent gave
their collections to the universities, which started their libraries.
Paper supplemented parchment, so there were more books.
England was still an agricultural rather than a manufacturing
country. Imported were cloth, silks, linen, velvets, furs, glass,
wines, candles, millstones, amber, iron, and mercury. Exported were
wool, leather, lead, tin, and alabaster for sculpturing. Merchant
adventurers came to manufacture cloth good enough for export and began
to buy up raw wool in such quantity that its export declined. They took
their cloth abroad to sell, personally or by agents.
An Oxford theologian and preacher, John Wyclif, voiced the
popular resentment of the materialism of the church, benefit of clergy,
immorality of priests, and the selling of indulgences and pardons.
Encouraged by the king, he argued against the supremacy of the papal
law over the King's courts and against payments to the papacy. He
opined that the church had no power to excommunicate. The friars had
become mere beggars and the church was still wealthy. He proposed that
all goods should be held in common by the righteous and that the church
should hold no property but be entirely spiritual. He believed that
people should rely on their individual consciences. He thought that the
Bible should be available to people who could read English so that the
people could have a direct access to God without priests or the pope.
Towards this end, he translated it from Latin into English in 1384. His
preachers spread his views throughout the country. The church then
possessed about one-third of the land of the nation.
Parliament met about twice a year and lasted from two weeks to
several months. There was a well-defined group of about fifty barons
and a few spiritual peers who were always summoned to Parliament and
who composed a House of Lords. "Peer" now meant a member of the House
of Lords. All peers had the right to approach the king with advice. The
baron peers reasoned that the custom of regular attendance was a right
that should be inherited by the eldest son, or by a female heir, if
there were no male heirs. However, the theory of nobility by blood as
conveying political privilege had no legal recognition. No female could
attend Parliament; the husband of a baroness attended Parliament in her
stead. Edward III and Richard II created new peers with various titles
of dignity, such as duke and marquess, which were above barons and
earls. The dukes and marquesses were identified with a territorial
designation such as an English county or county town. Whenever a
Parliament was assembled the commons were present. The commons was
composed of representatives from 100 boroughs and 37 counties. Each new
Parliament required an election of representatives. The members of the
commons were generally the most prominent and powerful economic and
political figures of the county and were repeatedly reelected. The
electors were usually influenced by the sheriff or a powerful lord who
suggested suitable men. The wealthy merchants typically represented the
boroughs and paid much of the taxes. Under Edward III, the commons took
a leading part in the granting of taxes and the presentation of
petitions and became a permanent and distinct body, the House of
Commons, with a spokesman or "speaker", chosen by the Crown, and a
clerk. The speaker came to be an intermediary between the Commons and
the king and between the Commons and the Lords. A clerk of Parliament
registered its acts and sat with the Lords. A clerk of the Crown
superintended the issue of writs and the receipt of the returns and
attested the signature of the king on statutes. It became a regular
practice for the Chancellor to open Parliament with an opportunity to
present petitions after his opening speech. The king then referred them
to certain peers and justices, who decided to which court, or
Parliament, they should be sent. During the 1300s, the number of barons
going to Parliament gradually decreased.
At the 1376 Parliament, ("the Good Parliament") the Commons,
which formerly had only consented to taxes, took political action by
complaining that the King's councilors had grown rich by war
profiteering at the cost of impoverishing the nation and the people
were too poor to endure any more taxation for the war and held a
hearing on financial malfeasance and dishonesty of two ministers. The
chamberlain had extorted enormous sums, had intercepted fines meant for
the king's treasury, and had sold a castle to the enemy. The steward
had bought debts of the king's. The House of Lords, the High Court of
Parliament, found the charges proved and dismissed them permanently
from office. This established the constitutional means for impeachment
and prosecution by the Commons and removal by the House of Lords of
ministers. By this process, there could be no royal intimidation, as
there could be in the ordinary courts. The Commons demanded that its
members be elected by county citizens rather than appointed by the
sheriff.
The roles of Parliament and the King's council are starting to
differentiate into legislative and executive, respectively. The
legislative function is lawmaking, and the executive is
regulation-making that refines and effectuates the laws of Parliament.
But the legislative, executive, and judicial authorities have not as
yet become so completely separated that they cannot on occasion work
together.
Sheriffs dealt directly with the king instead of through an
earl.
From 1150 to 1400, resistance was an ordinary remedy for
political disagreements. If a popular leader raised his standard in a
popular cause, an irregular army could be assembled in a day. (There
was no regular army, since England was protected by the sea from
invasion.) So misgovernment by a king would be quickly restrained.
Society recovered quickly from conflict and civil war because the
national wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds and in the simple
buildings inhabited by the people. In a week after armed resistance,
the agricultural worker was driving his team. There was little
furniture, stock of shops, manufactured goods, or machinery that could
be destroyed.
To support a war with France, the staple was reinstated by
statute of 1353 after an experiment without it in which profits of a
staple went to staples outside the nation. Wool exports were inspected
for quality and taxed through his officials only at the designated
staple ports. These officials included collectors, controllers,
searchers [inspectors], surveyors, clerks, weighers, and crane-keepers.
Wool, woolfells, leather, and lead sold for export had to go through
the staple town. The penalty was forfeiture of lands, tenements, goods,
and chattel. The mayor and constables of the staple were elected
annually by the native and foreign merchants of the place. The mayor
gave validity to contracts for a set fee, by seal of his office. He and
the constables had jurisdiction over all persons and things touching
the staple, which was regulated by the Law Merchant in all matters of
contract, covenant, debt, and felonies against foreign merchants. A hue
and cry was required to be raised and followed for anyone taking a cart
of merchandise or slaying a merchant, denizen [resident alien] or
alien, or the town would answer for the robbery and damage done. In
1363, Calais, a continental town held by the English, became the staple
town for lead, tin, cloth, and wool and was placed under a group of
London capitalists: the Merchants of the Staple. All exports of these
had to pass through Calais, where customs tax was collected. The staple
statute remained basically unchanged for the next 200 years.
Guns and cannon were common by 1372. In the 1300s and 1400s,
the king relied on mercenaries hired directly or by contract with his
great nobles for foreign wars. The King reimbursed the contractors with
the profits of war, such as the ransoms paid by the families of rich
prisoners. The fighting men supplemented their pay by plunder.
Featherbeds and blooded horses were favorite spoils of war brought back
to England from the continent. As new techniques with footmen came into
being, the footmen became the core of the army and the knightly
abilities of the feudal tenants-in-chief became less valuable.
Many lords got men to fight with them by livery and maintenance
employment agreements such as this one of 1374: "Bordeaux, February 15.
This indenture, made between our lord King John [of Gaunt, of Castile,
etc.] of the one part and Symkyn Molyneux, esquire, of the other part,
witnesses that the said Symkyn is retained and will remain with our
said lord for peace and for war for the term of his life, as follows:
that is to say, the said Symkyn shall be bound to serve our said lord
as well in time of peace as of war in whatsoever parts it shall please
our said lord, well and fitly arrayed. And he shall be boarded as well
in time of peace as of war. And he shall take for his fees by the year,
as well in time of peace as of war, ten marks sterling from the issues
of the Duchy of Lancaster by the hands of the receiver there who now is
or shall be in time to come, at the terms of Easter and Michaelmas by
even portions yearly for the whole of his life. And, moreover, our lord
has granted to him by the year in time of war five marks sterling by
the hands of the treasurer of war for the time being. And his year of
war shall begin the day when he shall move from his inn towards our
said lord by letters which shall be sent to him thereof, and
thenceforward he shall take wages coming and returning by reasonable
daily [payments] and he shall have fitting freightage for him, his men,
horses, and other harness within reason, and in respect of his war
horses taken and lost in the service of our said lord, and also in
respect to prisoners and other profits of war taken or gained by him or
any of his men, the said our lord will do to him as to other squires of
his rank."
Forecastles and stern castles on ships were lower and broader.
Underneath them were cabins. The English ship was still single masted
with a single square sail. A fleet was formed with over 200 ships
selected by the English admirals acting for the king at the ports. Men
were seized and pressed into service and criminals were pardoned from
crimes to become sailors in the fleet, which was led by the King's
ship. They used the superior longbow against the French sailor's
crossbow. In 1372, the Tower of London had four mounted fortress cannon
and the port of Dover had six.
The war's disruption of shipping caused trade to decline. But
the better policing of the narrow seas made piracy almost disappear.
English merchants may carry their merchandise in foreign ships
if there are no English ships available.
Anyone may ship or carry grain out of the nation, except to
enemies, after paying duties. But the council may restrain this passage
when necessary for the good of the nation. Any merchant, privy or
stranger, who was robbed of goods on the sea or lost his ship by
tempest or other misfortune on the sea banks, his goods coming to shore
could not be declared Wreck, but were to be delivered to the merchant
after he proves ownership in court by his marks on the goods or by good
and lawful merchants.
All stakes and obstacles set up in rivers impeding the passage
of boats shall be removed.
Waterpower was replacing foot power in driving the mills where
cloth was cleaned and fulled.
A boundary dispute between two barons resulted in the first
true survey map. Nine cow pastures were divided by a boundary marked by
a shield on a pole which the commission of true and sworn men had set
up.
King Richard II, an irresponsible sovereign, asserted an
absolute supremacy of the king over Parliament and declared certain
statutes which he claimed to have been forced on him to be revoked. He
interfered with county elections of knights to Parliament by directing
sheriffs to return certain named persons. He wanted to dispense
altogether with Parliament and instead have a committee of
representatives. He claimed that the goods of his subjects were his own
and illegally taxed the counties. There were many disputes as to who
should be his ministers. High treason was extended to include making a
riot and rumor, compassing or purposing to depose the King, revoking
one's homage or liege to the King, or attempting to repeal a statute.
When Henry Bolingbroke reported to Parliament that another lord had
cast doubt on the king's trustworthiness, a duel between them was
arranged. But Richard, probably fearing the gain of power of the lord
who won, instead exiled the two lords. He took possession of the
Lancaster estates to which Bolingbroke was heir and forbade this
inheritance. This made all propertied men anxious and they united
behind Bolingbroke in taking up arms against Richard. Richard was not a
warrior king and offered to resign the crown. The "Merciless
Parliament" of 1388 swept out Richard's friends. Parliament deposed and
imprisoned Richard. It revoked the extensions to the definition of high
treason. It elected Bolingbroke, who claimed to be a descendant of
Henry III, to be King Henry IV. This action established clearly that
royal decrees were subordinate to parliamentary statutes, that
Parliament was the ultimate legal arbiter of the realm, and that the
consent of Parliament was necessary in determining kingship. The House
of Commons became very powerful. It was responsible for the major part
of legislation. It's members began to assert the privilege of free
speech. That is, they wanted to discuss other matters than what was on
the king's agenda and they opposed punishment for what they said unless
it was treasonable. Henry IV agreed to their request not to consider
reports of proceedings unless they came to him through official
channels.
The Law
High treason was defined by statute in 1352 as levying war
against the King, aiding the King's enemies, compassing or imagining
the death of the King, Queen, or their eldest son and heir, or
violating the Queen or the eldest unmarried daughter or the wife of the
King's eldest son and heir; making or knowingly using counterfeits of
the King's great or privy seal or coinage; or slaying the Chancellor,
Treasurer, or any justice in the exercise of their duty. The penalty
was forfeit of life and lands.
Petty treason was defined by statute and included a servant
slaying his master, a wife her husband, or a man his lord, to whom was
owed faith and obedience.
No one shall tell false news or lies about prelates, dukes,
earls, barons, and other nobles and great men or the Chancellor,
Treasurer, a Justice, Clerk of the Privy Seal, Steward of the King's
house whereby debates and discords might arise between these lords or
between the lords and the commons. Cases shall be tried by the King's
Council, which included the Chancellor, Treasurer, and chief justices.
Preachers drawing crowds by ingenious sermons and inciting them
to riot shall be arrested by sheriffs and tried by the ecclesiastical
court.
Any stranger passing at night of whom any have suspicion shall
be arrested and taken to the Sheriff.
No man shall ride with a spear, upon pain of forfeiting it.
No servant of agriculture or laborer shall carry any sword or
dagger, or else forfeit it, except in time of war in defense of the
nation. He may carry bow and arrow [for practice] on Sundays and holy
days, when he should not play games such as tennis, football, or dice.
No one may enter another's land and tenements by strong hand
nor with a mob, upon pain of imprisonment and ransom at the King's will.
Charters, releases, obligations, quitclaim deeds and other
deeds burnt or destroyed in uprisings shall be reissued without fee,
after trial by the king and his council. Manumissions, obligations,
releases and other bonds and feoffments in land made by force, coercion
or duress during mob uprisings are void.
Men who rape and women consenting after a rape shall lose their
inheritance and dower and joint feoffments. The husbands, or father or
next of kin of such women may sue the rapist by inquisition, but not by
trial by combat. The penalty is loss of life and member.
The Statute of Laborers of 1351 required all workers, from
tailors to ploughmen, to work only at pre-plague wage rates and forced
the vagrant peasant to work for anyone who claimed him or her. It also
encouraged longer terms of employment as in the past rather than for a
day at a time. Statutory price controls on food limited profits to
reasonable ones according to the distance of the supply. Later, wages
were determined in each county by Justices of the Peace according to
the dearth of victuals while allowing a victualer a reasonable profit
and a penalty was specified as paying the value of the excess wages
given or received for the first offense, double this for the second
offense, and treble this or forty days imprisonment for the third
offense.
A fugitive laborer will be outlawed, and when found, shall be
burnt in the forehead with the letter "F" for falsity.
Children who labored at the plough and cart or other
agriculture shall continue in that labor and may not go into a craft.
A statute of 1363 designed to stop hoarding various types of
merchandise until a type became scarce so to sell it at high prices,
required merchants to deal in only one type of merchandise. It also
required craftsmen to work in only one craft as before (except women
who traditionally did several types of handiwork). This was repealed a
year later.
Where scarcity has made the price of poultry high, it shall be
lowered to 8d. for a young capon, 7d. for an old capon or a goose, 9d.
for a hen, and 10d. for a pullet.
The fares for passage on boats on fresh waters and from Dover
to the continent shall remain at their old rate.
Any merchant selling at a fair after it has ended will forfeit
to the king twice the value of that sold.
Anyone finding and proving cloth contrary to the assize of
cloth shall have one-third of it for his labor.
No shoemaker nor cordwainer shall tan their leather and no
tanner shall make shoes, in order that tanning not be false or poorly
done.
All denizen [foreigner permitted to reside in the realm with
certain rights and privileges] and alien merchants may buy and sell
goods and merchandise, in gross, in any part of the country, despite
town charters or franchises, to anyone except an enemy of the King.
They may also sell small wares: victuals, fur, silk, coverchiefs [an
item of woman's apparel], silver wire, and gold wire in retail, but not
cloth or wine. They must sell their goods within three months of
arrival. Any alien bringing goods to the nation to sell must buy goods
of the nation to the value of at least one-half that of his merchandise
sold. These merchants must engage in no collusion to lower the price of
merchandise bought, take merchandise bought to the staple, and promise
to hold no staple beyond the sea for the same merchandise. An amendment
disallowed denizens from taking wools, leather, woolfells, or lead for
export, but only strangers.
Towns failing to bring disturbers of this right to justice
shall forfeit their franchise to the king and pay double damages to the
merchant. The disturber shall be imprisoned for a year.
Cloth may not be tacked nor folded for sale to merchants unless
they are opened to the buyers for inspection, for instance for
concealed inferior wool. Workers, weavers, and fullers shall put their
seals to every cloth. Anyone may bring his own wools, woolfells,
leather, and lead to the staple to sell without being compelled to sell
them in the country. Special streets or warehouses were appointed with
warehouse rent fixed by the mayor and constables with four of the
principal inhabitants. Customs duties were regulated and machinery
provided for their collection. No one may forestall or regrate, that
is, buy at one price and sell at a higher price in the same locale.
Forestallers were those who bought raw material on its way to market.
Regrators were those who tried to create a "corner" in the article in
the market itself.
Imported cloth shall be inspected by the King's officials for
non- standard measurements or defects [despite town franchises].
No one shall leave the nation except at designated ports, on
pain of one year's imprisonment.
Social distinctions by attire were mandated by statute of 1363.
A servant, his wife, son, or daughter, shall only wear cloth worth no
more than 27s. and shall not have more than one dish of meat or fish a
day. Carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, cowherds,
shepherds, and all other people owning less than 40s. of goods and
chattels shall only wear blanket and russet worth no more than 12d. and
girdles of linen according to their estate. Craftsmen and free peasants
shall only wear cloth worth no more than 40s. Esquires and gentlemen
below the rank of knight with no land nor rent over 2,000s. a year
shall only wear cloth worth no more than 60s., no gold, silver, stone,
fur, or the color purple. Esquires with land up to 2,667s. per year may
wear 67s. cloth, cloth of silk and silver, miniver [grey squirrel] fur
and stones, except stones on the head. Merchants, citizens, burgesses,
artificers, and people of handicraft having goods and chattels worth
10,000s. shall wear cloth the same value as that worn by esquires and
gentlemen with land or rent within 2,000s. per year. The same merchants
and burgesses with goods and chattels worth 13,333s. and esquires and
gentlemen with land or rent within 400s. per year may not wear gold
cloth, miniver fur, ermine [white] fur, or embroidered stones. A knight
with land or rents within 2,667s. yearly are limited to cloth of 80s.,
but his wife may wear a stone on her head. Knights and ladies with land
or rents within 8,000s. to 20,000s. yearly may not wear fur of ermine
or of letuse, but may wear gold, and such ladies may wear pearls as
well as stones on their heads. The penalty is forfeiture of such
apparel. This statute is necessary because of "outrageous and excessive
apparel of diverse persons against their estate and degree, to the
great destruction and impoverishment of all the land".
If anyone finds a hawk [used to hunt birds, ducks, and
pheasant] that a lord has lost, he must take it to the sheriff for
keeping for the lord to claim. If there is no claim after four months,
the finder may have it only if he is a gentleman. If one steals a hawk
from a lord or conceals from him the fact that it has been found, he
shall pay the price of the hawk and be imprisoned for two years.
No laborer or any other man who does not have lands and
tenements of the value of 40s. per year shall keep a greyhound or other
hound or dog to hunt, nor shall they use nets or cords or other devices
to take deer, hare, rabbits, nor other gentlemen's game, upon pain of
one year imprisonment. (The rabbit had been introduced by the Normans.)
This 1390 law was primarily intended to stop the meetings of laborers
and artificers.
No man shall eat more than two courses of meat or fish in his
house or elsewhere, except at festivals, when three are allowed
[because great men ate costly meats to excess and the lesser people
were thereby impoverished].
No one may export silver, whether bullion or coinage, or wine
except foreign merchants may carry back the portion of their money not
used to buy English commodities. The penalty for bringing false or
counterfeit money into the nation is loss of life and member. An
assigned searcher [inspector] for coinage of the nation on the sea
passing out of the nation or bad money in the nation shall have one
third of it. No foreign money may be used in the nation.
Each goldsmith shall have an identifying mark, which shall be
placed on his vessel or work only after inspection by the King's
surveyor.
No one shall give anything to a beggar who is capable of
working.
Vagrants begging in London were banned by this 1359 ordinance:
"Forasmuch as many men and women, and others, of divers counties, who
might work, to the help of the common people, have betaken themselves
from out of their own country to the city of London and do go about
begging there so as to have their own ease and repose, not wishing to
labor or work for their sustenance, to the great damage of the common
people; and also do waste divers alms which would otherwise be given to
many poor folks, such as lepers, blind, halt, and persons oppressed
with old age and divers other maladies, to the destruction of the
support of the same - we do command on behalf of our lord the King,
whom may God preserve and bless, that all those who go about begging in
the said city and who are able to labor and work for the profit of the
common people shall quit the said city between now and Monday next
ensuing. And if any such shall be found begging after the day
aforesaid, the same shall be taken and put in the stocks on Cornhill
for half a day the first time, and the second time he shall remain in
the stocks one whole day, and the third time he shall be taken and
shall remain in prison for forty days and shall then forswear the said
city forever. And every constable and the beadle of every ward of the
said city shall be empowered to arrest such manner of folks and to put
them in the stocks in manner aforesaid."
The hundred year cry to "let the king live on his own" found
fruition in a 1352 statute requiring consent of the Parliament before
any commission of array for militia could be taken and a 1362 statute
requiring purchases of goods and means of conveyance for the king and
his household to be made only by agreement with the seller and with
payment to him before the king traveled on, instead of at the low
prices determined unilaterally by the king's purveyor.
Every man who has wood within the forest may take houseboot
[right to take wood for repair of one's house] and heyboot [right to
take material for the maintenance of hedges and fences, and the making
of farming utensils] in his wood without being arrested so long as it
take such within the view of the foresters.
No fecal matter, dung, garbage, or entrails of animals killed
shall be put into ditches or rivers or other waters, so that maladies
and diseases will not be caused by corrupted and infected air. The
penalty is 400s. to the king after trial by the Chancellor.
Gifts or alienation of land to guilds, fraternities, or towns
are forbidden. Instead, it escheats to its lord, or in his default, to
the King.
No man will be charged to go out of his county to do military
service except in case of an enemy invasion of the nation. Men who
chose to go into the king's service outside the nation shall be paid
wages by the king until their return.
Admiralty law came into being when ancient naval manners and
customs were written down as the "Black Book of the Admiralty". This
included the organization of the fleet under the Admiral, sea-maneuver
rules such as not laying anchor until the Admiral's ship had,
engagement rules, and the distribution of captured goods: one-fourth to
the vessel owner, one-fourth to the king if the seamen were paid by the
king's wages, and the rest divided among the crew and Admiral. Stealing
a boat or an anchor holding a boat was punishable by hanging. Stealing
an oar or an anchor was punishable by forty days imprisonment for the
first offense, six months imprisonment for the second, and hanging for
the third. Desertion was punishable by loss of double the amount of
wages earned and imprisonment for one year. Cases were tried by jury in
the Admiral's court.
Wines, vinegar, oil and honey imported shall be gauged by the
King's appointees.
Judicial Procedure
The office of Justice of the Peace was developed and filled by
knights, esquires and gentlemen who were closely associated with the
magnates. There was no salary nor any requirement of knowledge of the
law. They were to pursue, restrain, arrest, imprison, try, and duly
punish felons, trespassers, and rioters according to the law. They were
expected to arrest vagrants who would not work and imprison them until
sureties for good behavior was found for them. They also were empowered
to inspect weights and measures.
The writ of trespass developed into three kinds according to the type
of injury: to person, land, or chattels. Trespass included forcible
offenses of assault and battery, false imprisonment, breaking of a
fence enclosing private property, and taking away goods and chattels.
The action of trespass was replacing private suits for murder and for
personal injury.
Pardons may be given only for slaying another in one's own
defense or by misfortune [accident], and not for slaying by lying in
wait, assault, or malice aforethought.
Justices of Assize, sheriffs, and Justices of the Peace and
mayors shall have power to inquire of all vagabonds and compel them to
find surety of their good bearing or be imprisoned.
A reversioner shall be received in court to defend his right
when a tenant for a term of life, tenant in dower, or by curtesy of the
nation, or in [Fee] Tail after Possibility of Issue extinct are sued in
court for the land, so as to prevent collusion by the demandants.
A person in debt may not avoid his creditors by giving his
tenements or chattels to his friends in collusion to have the profits
at his will.
Where there was a garnishment given touching a plea of land, a
writ of deceit is also maintainable.
Actions of debt will be heard only in the county where the
contract was made. The action of debt includes enforcement of contracts
executed or under seal, e.g. rent due on a lease, hire of an archer,
contract of sale or repair of an item. Thus there is a growing
connection between the actions of debt and contract.
Executors have an action for trespass to their testators' goods
and chattels in like manner as did the testator when alive.
If a man dies intestate, his goods shall be administered by his
next and most lawful friends appointed. Such administrators shall have
the same powers and duties as executors and be accountable as are
executors to the ecclesiastical court.
Children born to English parents in parts beyond the sea may
inherit from their ancestors in the same manner as those born in the
nation.
A person grieved by a false oath in a town court proceeding may
appeal to the King's Bench or Common Pleas, regardless of any town
franchise.
It was exceptional for the King to sit on the Court of the
King's Bench, which worked independently of the King and became
confined to the established common law.
The Court of Common Pleas had three types of jurisdiction: 1)
common law jurisdiction between person and person, including actions
regarding land, which was exclusive, 2) personal actions of debt,
detinue, account and covenant, and 3) mixed actions, both personal and
regarding land, e.g. ejectment. It had shared jurisdiction with the
Court of the King's Bench in maintenance, conspiracy, other breaches of
statute, trespass, trespass on the case, and their derivatives. Most of
its business had to do with recovery of debt, from 40s. to thousands of
pounds. The King's Bench and Common Pleas courts vied with each other
for cases in order to get more profits of justice.
Grand juries were summoned by the sheriff to decide whether, on
the evidence of the prosecution, there was a case to go to trial. The
petty or trial jury heard all parties to a lawsuit and determined the
facts. In 1351 a statute required that no member of a grand jury could
sit on a petty jury if so challenged by the accused.
Decisions of the common law courts are appealable to the House
of Lords. The king's council members who are not peers, in particular
the justices and the Masters of the Chancery, are summoned by the House
of Lords only as mere assistants. Parliament may change the common law
by statute. The right of a peer to be tried for capital crimes by a
court composed of his peers was established. There was a widespread
belief that all the peers are by right the king's councilors.
No attorney may practice law and also be a Justice of Assize.
No justice may take any gift except from the king nor give counsel to
any litigant before him.
In 1390, there was a statute against maintainers, instigators,
barretors, procurers, and embracers of quarrels and inquests because of
great and outrageous oppressions of parties in court. Because this
encouraged maintenance by the retinue of lords with fees, robes, and
other liveries, such maintainers were to be put out of their lords'
service, and could not be retained by another lord. No one was to give
livery to anyone else, except household members and those retained for
life for peace or for war. Justices of the Peace were authorized to
inquire about yeomen, or other of lower estate than squire, bearing
livery of any lord.
Whereas it is contained in the Magna Carta that none shall be
imprisoned nor put out of his freehold, nor of his franchises nor free
custom, unless it be by the law of the land; it is established that
from henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to
the king unless by indictment of good and lawful people of the same
neighborhood where such deeds be done, in due manner, or by process
made by writ original at the common law; nor that none be out of his
franchise, nor of his freeholds, unless he be duly brought into answer
and before judges of the same by the course of law.
The Chancery came to have a separate and independent equitable
jurisdiction. It heard petitions of misconduct of government officials
or of powerful oppressors, fraud, accident, abuse of trust, wardship of
infants, dower, and rent charges. Because the common law and its
procedures had become technical and rigid, the Chancery was given
equity jurisdiction by statute in 1285. King Edward III proclaimed that
petitions for remedies that the common law didn't cover be addressed to
the Chancellor, who was not bound by established law, but could do
equity. In Chancery, if there is a case that is similar to a case for
which there is a writ, but is not in technical conformity with the
requirements of the common law for a remedy, then a new writ may be
made for that case by the Chancellor. These were "actions on the case".
Also, Parliament may create new remedies. There were so many cases that
were similar to a case with no remedy specified in the common law, that
litigants were flowing into the Chancery. The Chancellor gave swift and
equitable relief, which was summary. The Chancery Court had no jury.
With the backing of the council, the Chancellor made decisions
implementing the policy of the Statute of Laborers. Most of these
concerned occupational competency, for instance negligent activity of
carriers, builders, shepherds, doctors, cloth workers, smiths,
innkeepers, and gaolers. For instance, the common law action of detinue
could force return of cloth bailed for fulling or sheep bailed for
pasturing, but could not address damages due to faulty work. The
Chancellor addressed issues of loss of wool, dead lambs, and damaged
sheep, as well as dead sheep. He imposed a legal duty on innkeepers to
prevent injury or damage to a patron or his goods from third parties. A
dog bite or other damage by a dog known by its owner to be vicious was
made a more serious offense than general damage by any dog. A person
starting a fire was given a duty to prevent the fire from damaging
property of others. The King will fine instead of seize the land of his
tenants who sell or alienate their land, such fine to be determined by
the Chancellor by due process. The Chancery is now a court side by side
with the common law courts of Common Pleas, King's Bench, and Exchequer.
Only barons who were peers of the House of Lords were entitled
to trial in the House of Lords. In practice, however, this pertained
only to major crimes.
Treason was tried by the lords in Parliament, by bill of
"attainder". It was often used for political purposes. Most attainders
were reversed as a term of peace made between competing factions.
Attorneys presided over manorial courts and made decisions with or
without the villeins in attendance based on the custom of the manor.
The King's coroner and a murderer who had taken sanctuary in a
church often agreed to the penalty of confession and perpetual
banishment from the nation as follows: "Memorandum that on July 6,
[1347], Henry de Roseye abjured the realm of England before John
Bernard, the King's coroner, at the church of Tendale in the County of
Kent in form following: 'Hear this, O lord the coroner, that I, Henry
de Roseye, have stolen an ox and a cow of the widow of John Welsshe of
Retherfeld; and I have stolen eighteen beasts from divers men in the
said county. And I acknowledge that I have feloniously killed Roger le
Swan in the town of Strete in the hundred of Strete in the rape [a
division of a county] of Lewes and that I am a felon of the lord King
of England. And because I have committed many ill deeds and thefts in
his land, I abjure the land of the Lord Edward King of England, and [I
acknowledge] that I ought to hasten to the port of Hastings, which thou
hast given me, and that I ought not to depart from the way, and if I do
so I am willing to be taken as a thief and felon of the lord King, and
that at Hastings I will diligently seek passage, and that I will not
wait there save for the flood and one ebb if I can have passage; and if
I cannot have passage within that period, I will go up to the knees
into the sea every day, endeavoring to cross; and unless I can do so
within forty days, I will return at once to the church, as a thief and
a felon of the lord King, so help me God."
Property damage by a tenant of a London building was assessed
in a 1374 case: "John Parker, butcher, was summoned to answer Clement
Spray in a plea of trespass, wherein the latter complained that the
said John, who had hired a tavern at the corner of St. Martin- le-Grand
from him for fifteen months, had committed waste and damage therein,
although by the custom of the city no tenant for a term of years was
entitled to destroy any portion of the buildings or fixtures let to
him. He alleged that the defendant had taken down the door post of the
tavern and also of the shop, the boarded door of a partition of the
tavern, a seat in the tavern, a plastered partition wall, the stone
flooring in the chamber, the hearth of the kitchen, and the mantelpiece
above it, a partition in the kitchen, two doors and other partitions,
of a total value of 21s. four pounds, 1s. 8d., and to his damage, 400s.
[20 pounds]. The defendant denied the trespass and put himself on the
country. Afterwards a jury [panel]... found the defendant guilty of the
aforesaid trespass to the plaintiff's damage, 40d. Judgment was given
for that amount and a fine of 1s. to the King, which the defendant paid
immediately in court."
The innkeeper's duty to safeguard the person and property of
his lodgers was applied in this case:
"John Trentedeus of Southwark was summoned to answer William Latymer
touching a plea why, whereas according to the law and custom of the
realm of England, innkeepers who keep a common inn are bound to keep
safely by day and by night without reduction or loss men who are
passing through the parts where such inns are and lodging their goods
within those inns, so that, by default of the innkeepers or their
servants, no damage should in any way happen to such their guests ...
On Monday after the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary in the
fourth year of the now King by default of the said John, certain
malefactors took and carried away two small portable chests with 533s.
and also with charters and writings, to wit two writings obligatory, in
the one of which is contained that a certain Robert Bour is bound to
the said William in 2,000s. and in the other that a certain John Pusele
is bound to the same William in 800s. 40 pounds ... and with other
muniments [writings defending claims or rights] of the same William, to
wit his return of all the writs of the lord King for the counties of
Somerset and Dorset, whereof the same William was then sheriff, for the
morrow of the Purification of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in the year
aforesaid, as well before the same lord the King in his Chancery and in
his Bench as before the justices of the King's Common Bench and his
barons of his Exchequer, returnable at Westminster on the said morrow,
and likewise the rolls of the court of Cranestock for all the courts
held there from the first year of the reign of the said lord the King
until the said Monday, contained in the same chests being lodged within
the inn of the same John at Southwark
And the said John ... says that on the said Monday about the second
hour after noon the said William entered his inn to be lodged there,
and at once when he entered, the same John assigned to the said William
a certain chamber being in that inn, fitting for his rank, with a door
and a lock affixed to the same door with sufficient nails, so that he
should lie there and put and keep his things there, and delivered to
the said William the key to the door of the said chamber, which chamber
the said William accepted...
William says that ... when the said John had delivered to him the said
chamber and key as above, the same William, being occupied about divers
businesses to be done in the city of London, went out from the said inn
into the city to expedite the said businesses and handed over the key
of the door to a certain servant of the said William to take care of in
meantime, ordering the servant to remain in the inn meanwhile and to
take care of his horses there; and afterwards, when night was falling,
the same William being in the city and the key still in the keeping of
the said servant, the wife of the said John called unto her into her
hall the said servant who had the key, giving him food and drink with a
merry countenance and asking him divers questions and occupying him
thus for a long time, until the staple of the lock of the door
aforesaid was thrust on one side out of its right place and the door of
the chamber was thereby opened and his goods, being in the inn of the
said John, were taken and carried off by the said malefactors ... The
said John says ...[that his wife did not call the servant into the
hall, but that] when the said servant came into the said hall and asked
his wife for bread and ale and other necessaries to be brought to the
said chamber of his master, his wife immediately and without delay
delivered to the same servant the things for which he asked ...
protesting that no goods of the same William in the said inn were
carried away by the said John his servant or any strange malefactors
other than the persons of the household of the said William."
On the Coram Rege Roll of 1395 is a case on the issue of
whether a court crier can be seized by officers of a staple:
"Edmund Hikelyng, 'crier', sues William Baddele and wife Maud, John
Olney, and William Knyghtbrugge for assault and imprisonment at
Westminster, attacking him with a stick and imprisoning him for one
hour on Wednesday before St. Martin, 19 Richard II.
Baddele says Mark Faire of Winchester was prosecuting a bill of debt
for 18s. against Edmund and John More before William Brampton, mayor of
the staple of Westminster, and Thomas Alby and William Askham,
constables of the said staple, and on that day the Mayor and the
constables issued a writ of capias against Edmund and John to answer
Mark and be before the Mayor and the constables at the next court. This
writ was delivered to Baddele as sergeant of the staple, and by virtue
of it he took and imprisoned Edmund in the staple. Maud and the others
say they aided Baddele by virtue of the said writ.
Edmund does not acknowledge Baddele to be sergeant of the staple or
Mark a merchant of the staple or that he was taken in the staple. He is
minister of the King's Court of his Bench and is crier under Thomas
Thorne, the chief crier, his master. Every servant of the court is
under special protection while doing his duty or on his way to do it.
On the day in question, he was at Westminster carrying his master's
staff of office before Hugh Huls, one of the King's justices, and
William took him in the presence of the said justice and imprisoned him.
The case is adjourned for consideration from Hilary to Easter."
A law of equity began to be developed from decisions by the
Chancellor in his court of conscience from around 1370. One such case
was that of Godwyne v. Profyt sometime after 1393. This petition was
made to the Chancellor: To the most reverend Father in God, and most
gracious Lord, the bishop of Exeter, Chancellor of England. Thomas
Godwyne and Joan his wife, late wife of Peter at More of Southwerk,
most humbly beseech that, whereas at Michaelmas in the 17th year of our
most excellent lord King Richard who now is, the said Peter at More in
his lifetime enfeoffed Thomas Profyt parson of St. George's church
Southwerk, Richard Saundre, and John Denewey, in a tenement with the
appurtenances situated in Southwerk and 24 acres of land 6 acres of
meadow in the said parish of St. George and in the parish of our Lady
of Newington, on the conditions following, to wit, that the said three
feoffees should, immediately after the death of the said Peter, enfeoff
the said Joan in all the said lands and tenements with all their
appurtenances for the life of the said Joan, with remainder after her
decease to one Nicholas at More, brother of the said Peter, to hold to
him and the heirs of his body begotten, and for default of issue, then
to be sold by four worthy people of the said parish, and the money to
be received for the same to be given to Holy Church for his soul;
whereupon the said Peter died. And after his death two of the said
feoffees, Richard and John, by the procurement of one John Solas,
released all their estate in the said lands and tenements to the said
Thomas Profyt, on the said conditions, out of the great trust that they
had in the said Thomas Profyt, who was their confessor, that he would
perform the will of the said Peter [at More] in the form aforesaid; and
this well and lawfully to do the said Thomas Profyt swore on his Verbum
Dei and to perform the said conditions on all points. And since the
release was so made, the said Thomas Profyt, through the scheming and
false covin of the said John Solas, has sold all the lands and
tenements aforesaid to the same John Solas for ever. And the said John
Solas is bound to the said Thomas Profyt in 100 pounds by a bond to
make defense of the said lands and tenements by the bribery and
maintenance against every one; and so by their false interpretation and
conspiracy the said Joan, Nicholas, and Holy Church are like to be
disinherited and put out of their estate and right, as is abovesaid,
for ever, tortiously, against the said conditions, and contrary to the
will of the said Peter [at More]. May it please your most righteous
Lordship to command the said Thomas Profyt, Richard Saundre, and John
Denewy to come before you, and to examine them to tell the truth of all
the said matter, so that the said Joan, who has not the wherewithal to
live, may have her right in the said lands and tenements, as by the
examination before you, most gracious Lord, shall be found and proved;
for God and in way of holy charity.
Chapter 10
The Times: 1399-1485
This period, which begins with the reign of the usurper King,
Henry IV, is dominated by war: the last half of the 100 year war with
France, which, with the help of Joan of Arc, took all English land on
the continent except the port of Calais, and the War of the Roses over
the throne in England. The ongoing border fights with Wales and
Scotland were fought by England's feudal army. But for fighting in
France, the king paid barons and earls to raise their own fighting
forces. When they returned to England, they fought to put their
candidate on its throne, which had been unsteady since its usurpation
by Henry IV. All the great houses kept bands of armed retainers. These
retainers were given land or pay or both as well as liveries [uniforms
or badges] bearing the family crest. In the system of "livery and
maintenance", if the retainer was harassed by the law or by enemies,
the lord protected him. The liveries became the badges of the factions
engaged in the War of the Roses. The white rose was worn by the
supporters of the house of York, and the red rose by supporters of the
house of Lancaster. Great lords fought each other for property and made
forcible entries usurping private property. Nobles employed men who had
returned from fighting in war to use their fighting skill in local
defense.Henry IV was the last true warrior king.
In both wars, the musket was used as well as the longbow. To
use it, powder was put into the barrel, then a ball rammed down the
barrel with a rod, and then the powder lit by a hot rod held with one
hand while the other hand was used to aim the musket. Cannon were used
to besiege castles and destroy their walls, so many castles were
allowed to deteriorate. The existence of cannon also limited the
usefulness of town walls for defense. But townspeople did not take part
in the fighting.
Since the power of the throne changed from one faction to
another, political and personal vindictiveness gave rise to many bills
of attainder that resulted in lords being beheaded and losing their
lands to the King. However, these were done by the form of law; there
were no secret executions in England. Families engaged in blood feuds.
Roving bands ravaged the country, plundering the people, holding the
forests, and robbing collectors of Crown revenue. Some men made a
living by fighting for others in quarrels. Individual life and property
were insecure. Whole districts were in a permanent alarm of riot and
robbery. The roads were not safe. There was fighting between lords and
gangs of ruffians holding the roads, breaking into and seizing manor
houses, and openly committing murders.
Peace was never well-kept nor was law ever well-executed,
though fighting was suspended by agreement during the harvest. Local
administration was paralyzed by party faction or lodged in some great
lord or some clique of courtiers. The elections of members to
Parliament were interfered with and Parliament was rarely held. Barons
and earls fought their disputes in the field rather than in the royal
courts. Litigation was expensive, so men relied increasingly on the
protection of the great men of their neighborhood and less on the
King's courts for the safety of their lives and land. Local men
involved in court functions usually owed allegiance to a lord which
compromised the exercise of justice. Men serving in an assize often
lied to please their lord instead of telling the truth. Lords
maintained, supported, or promoted litigation with money or aid
supplied to one party to the detriment of justice. It was not unusual
for lords to attend court with a great force of retainers behind them.
Many Justices of the Peace wore liveries of magnates and accepted money
from them. Royal justices were flouted or bribed. The King's writ was
denied or perverted. For 6-8s., a lord could have the king instruct his
sheriff to impanel a jury which would find in his favor. A statute
against riots, forcible entries, and, excepting the King, magnates'
liveries of uniform, food, and badges to their retainers, except in war
outside the nation, was passed, but was difficult to enforce because
the offenders were lords, who dominated the Parliament and the council.
With men so often gone to fight, their wives managed the
household alone. The typical wife had maidens of equal class to whom
she taught household management, spinning, weaving, carding wool with
iron wool-combs, heckling flax, embroidery, and making garments. There
were foot-treadles for spinning wheels. She taught the children. Each
day she scheduled the activities of the household including music,
conversation, dancing, chess, reading, playing ball, and gathering
flowers. She organized picnics, rode horseback and went hunting,
hawking to get birds, and hare-ferreting. She was nurse to all around
her. If her husband died, she usually continued to manage the household
because most men named their wife as executor of their will with full
power to act as she thought best. The wives of barons shared their
right of immunity from arrest by the processes of common law and to be
tried by their peers.
For ladies, close-fitting jackets came to be worn over close-
fitting long gowns with low, square-cut necklines and flowing sleeves,
under which was worn a girdle or corset of stout linen reinforced by
stiff leather or even iron. Her skirt was provocatively slit from knee
to ankle. All her hair was confined by a hair net. Headdresses were
very elaborate and heavy, trailing streamers of linen. Some were in the
shape of hearts, butterflies, crescents, double horns, steeples, or
long cones. Men also wore hats rather than hoods. They wore huge hats
of velvet, fur, or leather. Their hair was cut into a cap-like shape on
their heads, and later was shoulder-length. They wore doublets with
thick padding over the shoulders or short tunics over the trucks of
their bodies and tightened at the waist to emphasize the shoulders.
Their collars were high. Their sleeves were long concoctions of velvet,
damask, and satin, sometimes worn wrapped around their arms in layers.
Their legs and hips were covered with hosen, often in different colors.
Codpieces worn between the legs emphasized the sensuality of the age as
did ladies' tight and low- cut gowns. Men's shoes were pointed with
upward pikes at the toes that impeded walking. At another time, their
shoes were broad with blunt toes. Both men and women wore much jewelry
and ornamentation. But, despite the fancy dress, the overall mood was a
macabre preoccupation with mortality, despair, and a lack of confidence
in the future. Cannon and mercenaries had reduced the military
significance of knighthood, so its chivalric code deteriorated into
surface politeness, ostentation, and extravagance.
Master and servants ceased to eat together in the same hall,
except for great occasions, on feast days, and for plays. The lord, and
his lady, family, and guests took their meals in a great chamber,
usually up beneath the roof next to the upper floor of the great hall.
The chimney-pieces and windows were often richly decorated with paneled
stonework, tracery and carving. There was often a bay or oriel window
with still expensive glass. Tapestries, damask, and tablecloths covered
the tables. The standard number of meals was three: breakfast, dinner,
and supper. There was much formality and ceremonial ritual, more
elaborate than before, during dinners at manorial households, including
processions bringing and serving courses, and bowing, kneeling, and
curtseying. There were many courses of a variety of meats, fish, stews,
and soups, with a variety of spices and elaborately cooked. Barons,
knights, and their ladies sat to the right of the lord above the salt
and were served by the lord's sewer [served the food] and carver and
gentlemen waiters; their social inferiors such as "gentlemen of
worship" sat below the salt and were served by another sewer and
yeomen. The lord's cupbearer looked after the lord alone. A knights'
table was waited on by yeomen. The gentlemen officers, gentlemen
servants and yeomen officers were waited on by their own servants. The
amount of food dished out to each person varied according to his rank.
The almoner said grace and distributed the leftovers to the poor
gathered at the gate. The superior people's hands were washed by their
inferiors. Lastly, the trestle tables were removed while sweet wine and
spices were consumed standing. Then the musicians were called into the
hall and dancing began. The lord usually slept in a great bed in this
room.
The diet of an ordinary family such as that of a small
shopholder or yeoman farmer included beef, mutton, pork, a variety of
fish, both fresh and salted, venison, nuts, peas, oatmeal, honey,
grapes, apples, pears, and fresh vegetables. Cattle and sheep were
driven from Wales to English markets. This droving lasted for five
centuries.
Many types of people besides the nobility and knights now had
property and thus were considered gentry: female lines of the nobility,
merchants and their sons, attorneys, auditors, squires, and
peasant-yeomen. The burgess grew rich as the knight dropped lower. The
great merchants lived in mansions which could occupy whole blocks. In
towns these mansions were entered through a gate through a row of shops
on the street.Typically, there would be an oak-paneled great hall, with
adjoining kitchen, pantry, and buttery on one end and a great parlor to
receive guests, bedrooms, wardrobes, servants' rooms, and a chapel on
the other end or on a second floor. A lesser dwelling would have these
rooms on three floors over a shop on the first floor. An average
Londoner would have a shop, a storeroom, a hall, a kitchen, and a
buttery on the first floor, and three bedrooms on the second floor.
Artisans and shopkeepers of more modest means lived in rows of
dwellings, each with a shop and small storage room on the first floor,
and a combination parlor-bedroom on the second floor. The humblest
residents crowded their shop and family into one 6 by 10 foot room for
rent of a few shillings a year. All except the last would also have a
small garden. The best gardens had a fruit tree, herbs, flowers, a
well, and a latrine area. There were common and public privies for
those without their own. Kitchen slops and casual refuse continued to
be thrown into the street. Floors of stone or planks were strewn with
rushes. There was some tile flooring. Most dwellings had glass windows.
Candles were used for lighting at night. Torches and oil-burning
lanterns were portable lights. Furnishings were still sparse. Men sat
on benches or joint stools and women sat on cushions on the floor. Hall
and parlor had a table and benches and perhaps one chair. Bedrooms had
beds that were surrounded by heavy draperies to keep out cold drafts.
The beds had pillows, blankets, and sheets. Clothes were stored in a
chest, sometimes with sweet-smelling herbs such as lavender, rosemary,
and southernwood. Better homes had wall hanging and cupboards
displaying plate. Laundresses washed clothes in the streams, rivers,
and public conduits. Country peasants still lived in wood, straw, and
mud huts with earth floors and a smoky hearth in the center or a
kitchen area under the eaves of the hut.
In 1442, bricks began to be manufactured in the nation and so
there was more use of bricks in buildings. Chimneys were introduced
into manor houses where stone had been too expensive. This was
necessary if a second floor was added, so the smoke would not damage
the floor above it and would eventually go out of the house.
Nobles and their retinue moved from manor to manor, as they had
for centuries, to keep watch upon their lands and to consume the
produce thereof; it was easier to bring the household to the estate
than to transport the yield of the estate to the household. Also, at
regular intervals sewage had to be removed from the cellar pits. Often
a footman walked or ran on foot next to his master or mistress when
they rode out on horseback or in a carriage. He was there primarily for
prestige.
Jousting tournaments were held for entertainment purposes only
and were followed by banquets of several courses of food served on
dishes of gold, silver, pewter, or wood on a linen cloth covering the
table. Hands were washed before and after the meal. People washed their
faces every morning after getting up. Teeth were cleaned with powders.
Fragrant leaves were chewed for bad breath. Garlic was used for
indigestion and other ailments. Feet were rubbed with salt and vinegar
to remove calluses. Good manners included not slumping against a post,
fidgeting, sticking one's finger into one's nose, putting one's hands
into one's hose to scratch the privy parts, spitting over the table or
too far, licking one's plate, picking one's teeth, breathing stinking
breath into the face of the lord, blowing on one's food, stuffing
masses of bread into one's mouth, scratching one's head, loosening
one's girdle to belch, and probing one's teeth with a knife.
Fishing and hunting were reserved for the nobility rather than
just the King.
As many lords became less wealthy because of the cost of war,
some peasants, villein and free, became prosperous, especially those
who also worked at a craft, e.g. butchers, bakers, smiths, shoemakers,
tailors, carpenters, and cloth workers.
An agricultural slump caused poorer soils to fall back into
waste. The better soils were leased by peasants, who, with their
families, were in a better position to farm it than a great lord, who
found it hard to hire laborers at a reasonable cost. Further, peasants'
sheep, hens, pigs, ducks, goats, cattle, bees, and crop made them
almost self-sufficient in foodstuffs. They lived in a huddle of
cottages, pastured their animals on common land, and used common
meadows for haymaking. They subsisted mainly on boiled bacon, an
occasional chicken, worts and beans grown in the cottage garden, and
cereals. They wore fine wool cloth in all their apparel. Brimless hats
were replacing hoods. They had an abundance of bed coverings in their
houses. And they had more free time. Village entertainment included
traveling jesters, acrobats, musicians, and bear-baiters. Playing games
and gambling were popular pastimes.
Most villeins were now being called "customary tenants" or
"copy- holders" of land because they held their acres by a copy of the
court-roll of the manor, which listed the number of teams, the fines,
the reliefs, and the services due to the lord for each landholder. The
Chancery court interpreted many of these documents to include rights of
inheritance. The common law courts followed the lead of the Chancery
and held that marriage land could be inherited as was land at common
law. Evictions by lords decreased.
The difference between villein and freeman lessened but
landlords usually still had profits of villein bondage, such as heriot,
merchet, and chevage.
Social mobility was most possible in the towns, where
distinctions were usually only of wealth. So a poor apprentice could
aspire to become a master, a member of the livery of his company, a
member of the council, an alderman, a mayor, and then an esquire for
life. The distance between baron and a country knight and between a
yeoman and knight was wider. Manor custom was strong. But a yeoman
could give his sons a chance to become gentlemen by entering them in a
trade in a town, sending them to university, or to war. Every freeman
was to some extent a soldier, and to some extent a lawyer, serving in
the county or borough courts. A burgess, with his workshop or
warehouse, was trained in warlike exercises, and he could keep his own
accounts, and make his own will and other legal documents, with the aid
of a scrivener or a chaplain, who could supply an outline of form. But
law was growing as a profession. Old-established London families began
to choose the law as a profession for their sons, in preference to an
apprenticeship in trade. Many borough burgesses in Parliament were
attorneys.
A class of laborers was arising who depended entirely on the
wages of industry for their subsistence. The cloth workers in rural
areas were isolated and weak and often at the mercy of middlemen for
employment and the amount of their wages. When rural laborers went to
towns to seek employment in the new industries, they would work at
first for any rate. This deepened the cleavage of the classes in the
towns. The artificers in the town and the cottagers and laborers in the
country lived from hand to mouth, on the edge of survival, but better
off than the old, the diseased, the widows, and the orphans. However,
the 1400s were the most prosperous time for laborers considering their
wages and the prices of food. Meat and poultry were plentiful and grain
prices low.
In London, shopkeepers appealed to passersby to buy their
goods, sometimes even seizing people by the sleeve. The drapers had
several roomy shops containing shelves piled with cloths of all colors
and grades, tapestries, pillows, blankets, bed draperies, and "bankers
and dorsers" to soften hard wooden benches. A rear storeroom held more
cloth for import or export. Many shops of skinners were on Fur Row.
There were shops of leather sellers, hosiers, gold and silver cups, and
silks. At the Stocks Market were fishmongers, butchers, and poulterers.
London grocers imported spices, canvas, ropery, potions, unguents,
soap, confections, garlic, cabbages, onions, apples, oranges, almonds,
figs, dates, raisins, dyestuffs, woad, madder (plant for medicine and
dye), scarlet grains, saffron, iron, and a primitive steel. They were
retailers as well as wholesalers and had shops selling honey, licorice,
salt, vinegar, rice, sugar loaves, syrups, spices, garden seeds, dyes,
alum, soap, brimstone, paper, varnish, canvas, rope, musk, incense,
treacle of Genoa, and mercury. The Grocers did some money lending,
usually at 12% interest. The guilds did not restrict themselves to
dealing in the goods for which they had a right of inspection, and so
many dealt in wine that it was a medium of exchange. There was no sharp
distinction between retail and wholesale trading.
London grocers sold herbs for medicinal as well as eating
purposes. Breadcarts sold penny wheat loaves. Foreigners set up stalls
on certain days of the week to sell meat, canvas, linen, cloth,
ironmongery, and lead. There were great houses, churches, monasteries,
inns, guildhalls, warehouses, and the King's Beam for weighing wool to
be exported. In 1410, the Guildhall of London was built through
contributions, proceeds of fines, and lastly, to finish it, special
fees imposed on apprenticeships, deeds, wills, and letters-patent. The
Mercers and Goldsmiths were in the prosperous part of town. The
Goldsmiths' shops sold gold and silver plate, jewels, rings, water
pitchers, drinking goblets, basins to hold water for the hands, and
covered saltcellars. The grain market was on Cornhill. Halfway up the
street, there was a supply of water which had been brought up in pipes.
On the top of the hill was a cage where riotous folk had been
incarcerated by the night watch and the stocks and pillory, where
fraudulent schemers were exposed to ridicule. No work was to be done on
Sundays, but some did work surreptitiously. The barbers kept their
shops open in defiance of the church. Outside the London city walls
were tenements, the Smithfield cattle market, Westminster Hall, green
fields of crops, and some marsh land.
On the Thames River to London were large ships with cargoes;
small boats rowed by tough boatmen offering passage for a penny; small
private barges of great men with carved wood, gay banners, and oarsmen
with velvet gowns; the banks covered with masts and tackle; the
nineteen arch London Bridge supporting a street of shops and houses and
a drawbridge in the middle; quays; warehouses, and great cranes lifting
bales from ship to wharf. Merchant guilds which imported or exported
each had their own wharves and warehouses. Downstream, pirates hung on
gallows at the low-water mark to remain until three tides had
overflowed their bodies. A climate change of about 1 1/2 degree Celcius
lower caused the Thames to regularly freeze over in winter.
The large scale of London trade promoted the specialization of
the manufacturer versus the merchant versus the shipper. Merchants had
enough wealth to make loans to the government or for new commercial
enterprises. Local reputation on general, depended upon a combination
of wealth, trustworthiness of character, and public spirit; it rose and
fell with business success. Some London merchants were knighted by the
King. Many bought country estates thereby turning themselves into
gentry.
The king granted London all common soils, improvements, wastes,
streets, and ways in London and in the adjacent waters of the Thames
River and all the profits and rents to be derived therefrom. Later the
king granted London the liberty to purchase lands and tenements worth
up to 2,667s. yearly. With this power, London had obtained all the
essential features of a corporation: a seal, the right to make by-laws,
the power to purchase lands and hold them "to them and their
successors" (not simply their heirs, which is an individual and
hereditary succession only), the power to sue and be sued in its own
name, and the perpetual succession implied in the power of filling up
vacancies by election. Since these powers were not granted by charters,
London is a corporation by prescription. In 1446, the liverymen
obtained the right with the council to elect the mayor, the sheriff,
and certain other corporate officers.
Many boroughs sought and obtained formal incorporation with the
same essential features as London. This tied up the loose language of
their early charters of liberties. Often, a borough would have its own
resident Justice of the Peace. Each incorporation involved a review by
a Justice of the Peace to make sure the charter of incorporation rule
didn't conflict with the law of the nation. A borough typically had a
mayor accompanied by his personal sword- bearer and serjeants-at-mace
bearing the borough regalia, bailiffs, a sheriff, and chamberlains or a
steward for financial assistance. At many boroughs, aldermen, assisted
by their constables, kept the peace in their separate wards. There
might be coroners, a recorder, and a town clerk, with a host of lesser
officials including beadles [a messenger of a court], aletasters,
sealers, searchers [inspectors], weighers and keepers of the market,
ferrymen and porters, clock-keepers and criers [cries out public
announcements through the streets], paviors [maintained the roads],
scavengers and other street cleaners, gatekeepers and watchmen of
several ranks and kinds. A wealthy borough would have a chaplain and
two or three minstrels. The mayor replaced the bailiffs as the chief
magistracy.
In all towns, the wealthiest and most influential guilds were
the merchant traders of mercers, drapers, grocers, and goldsmiths. From
their ranks came most of the mayors, and many began to intermarry with
the country knights and gentry. Next came the shopholders of skinners,
tailors, ironmongers, and corvisors [shoemakers]. Thirdly came the
humbler artisans, the sellers of victuals, small shopkeepers,
apprentices, and journeymen on the rise. Lastly came unskilled
laborers, who lived in crowded tenements and hired themselves out. The
first three groups were the free men who voted, paid scot and bore lot,
and belonged to guilds. Scot was a ratable proportion in the payments
levied from the town for local or national purposes. Merchant guilds in
some towns merged their existence into the town corporation, and their
guild halls became the common halls of the town, and their property
became town property.
In London, the Cutlers' Company was chartered in 1415, the
Haberdashers' Company in 1417, the Grocers' Company in 1428, the
Drapers' and Cordwainers' companies in 1429, the Vintners' and Brewers'
companies in 1437, the Leathersellers' Company in 1444, the Girdlers'
Company in 1448, the Armourers' and Brassiers' companies in 1453, the
Barbers' Company in 1461, the Tallow Chandlers' Company in 1462, the
Ironmongers' Company in 1464, the Dyers' Company in 1471, the
Musicians' Company in 1472, the Carpenters' Company in 1477, the Cooks'
Company in 1481, and the Waxchandlers' Company in 1483. The
Fishmongers, which had been chartered in 1399, were incorporated in
1433, the Cordwainers in 1439, and the Pewterers in 1468.
There were craft guilds in the towns, at least 65 in London. In
fact, every London trade of twenty men had its own guild. The guild
secured good work for its members and the members maintained the
reputation of the work standards of the guild. Bad work was punished
and night work prohibited as leading to bad work. The guild exercised
moral control over its members and provided sickness and death benefits
for them. There was much overlapping in the two forms of association:
the craft guild and the religious fraternity. Apprentices were taken in
to assure an adequate supply of competent workers for the future. The
standard indenture of an apprentice bound him to live in his master's
house; serve him diligently; obey reasonable commands; keep his
master's secrets; protect him from injury; abstain from dice, cards and
haunting of taverns; not marry; commit no fornication, and not absent
himself without permission. In return the master undertook to provide
the boy or girl with bed, board, and lodging and to instruct him or her
in the trade, craft, or mystery. When these apprentices had enough
training they were made journeymen with a higher rate of pay.
Journeymen traveled to see the work of their craft in other towns.
Those journeymen rising to master had the highest pay rate.
Occupations free of guild restrictions included horse dealers,
marbelers, bookbinders, jewelers, organ makers, feathermongers, pie
makers, basket makers, mirrorers, quilters, and parchment makers.
Non-citizens of London could not be prevented from selling leather,
metalwares, hay, meat, fruit, vegetables, butter, cheese, poultry, and
fish from their boats, though they had to sell in the morning and sell
all their goods before the market closed.
In the towns, many married women had independent businesses and
wives also played an active part in the businesses of their husbands.
Wives of well-to-do London merchants embroidered, sewed jewelry onto
clothes, and made silk garments. Widows often continued in their
husband's businesses, such as managing a large import-export trade,
tailoring, brewing, and metal shop. Socially lower women often ran
their own breweries, bakeries, and taverns. It was possible for wives
to be free burgesses in their own right in some towns.
Some ladies were patrons of writers. Some women were active in
prison reform in matters of reviews to insure that no man was in gaol
without due cause, overcharges for bed and board, brutality, and
regulation of prisoners being placed in irons. Many men and women left
money in their wills for food and clothing for prisoners, especially
debtors. Wills often left one-third of the wealth to the church, the
poor, prisoners, infirmaries, young girls' education; road, wall, and
bridge repair; water supply, markets and almshouses. Some infirmaries
were for the insane, who were generally thought to be possessed by the
devil or demons. Their treatment was usually by scourging the demons
out of their body by flogging. If this didn't work, torture could be
used to drive the demons from the body.
The guilds were being replaced by associations for the
investment of capital. In associations, journeymen were losing their
chance of rising to be a master. Competition among associations was
starting to supplant custom as the mainspring of trade.
The cloth exporters, who were mostly mercers, were unregulated
and banded together for mutual support and protection under the name of
Merchant Adventurers of London. The Merchant Adventurers was chartered
in 1407. It was the first and a prototype of regulated companies. That
is the company regulated the trade. Each merchant could ship on his own
a certain number of cloths each year, the number depending on the
length of his membership in the company. He could sell them himself or
by his factor at the place where the company had privileges of market.
Strict rules governed the conduct of each member. He was to make sales
only at certain hours on specified days. All disagreements were to be
settled by the company's governor, or his deputy in residence, and
those officials dealt with such disputes as arose between members of
the company and continental officials and buyers. A share in the
ownership of one of their vessels was a common form of investment by
prosperous merchants. By 1450, the merchant adventurers were dealing in
linen cloths, buckrams [a stiffened, coarse cloth], fustians [coarse
cloth made of cotton threads going in one direction and linen threads
the other], satins, jewels, fine woolen and linen wares, threads,
potions, wood, oil, wine, salt, copper, and iron. They began to replace
trade by alien traders. The history of the "Merchant Adventurers" was
associated with the growth of the mercantile system for more than 300
years. It eventually replaced the staples system.
Paved roads in towns were usually gravel and sometimes cobble.
They were frequently muddy because of rain and spillage of water being
carried. Iron-shod wheels and overloaded carts made them very uneven.
London was the first town with paviors. They cleaned and repaired the
streets, filling up potholes with wood chips and compacting them with
hand rams. The paviors were organized as a city company in 1479. About
1482, towns besides London began appointing salaried road paviors to
repair roads and collect their expenses from the householders because
the policy of placing the burden on individual householders didn't work
well. London streets were lighted at night by public lanterns, under
the direction of the mayor. The residents were to light these candle
lanterns in winter from dusk to the 9 p.m. curfew. There were
fire-engines composed of a circular cistern with a pump and six feet of
inflexible hose on wheels pulled by two men on one end and pushed by
two men on the other end. In 1480 the city walls were rebuilt with a
weekly tax of 5d. per head.
In schools, there was a renaissance of learning from original
sources of knowledge written in Greek and rebirth of the Greek pursuit
of the truth and scientific spirit of inquiry. There was a striking
increase in the number of schools founded by wealthy merchants or town
guilds. Every cathedral, monastery, and college had a grammar school.
Merchants tended to send their sons to private boarding schools,
instead of having them tutored at home as did the nobility. Well-to-do
parents still sent sons to live in the house of some noble to serve
them as pages in return for being educated with the noble's son by the
household priest. They often wore their master's coat of arms and
became their squires as part of their knightly education. Sometimes
girls were sent to live in another house to receive education from a
tutor there under the supervision of the lady of the house. Every man,
free or villein, could send his sons and daughters to school. In every
village, there were some who could read and write.
In 1428, Lincoln's Inn required barristers normally resident in
London and the county of Middlesex to remain in residence and pay
commons during the periods between sessions of court and during
vacations, so that the formal education of students would be
continuous. In 1442, a similar requirement was extended to all members.
The book "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" was written about an
incident in the court of King Arthur and Queen Guenevere in which a
green knight challenges Arthur's knights to live up to their reputation
for valor and awesome deeds. The knight Gawain answers the challenge,
but is shown that he could be false and cowardly when death seemed to
be imminent. Thereafter, he wears a green girdle around his waist to
remind him not to be proud.
Other literature read included "London Lickpenny", a satire on
London and its expensive services and products, "Fall of Princes" by
John Lydgate, social history by Thomas Hoccleve, "The Cuckoo and the
Nightengale", and "The Flower and Leaf" on morality as secular common
sense. King James I of Scotland wrote a book about how he fell in love.
Chaucer, Cicero, Ovid, and Aesops's Fables were widely read. Malory's
new version of the Arthurian stories was popular. Margery Kempe wrote
the first true autobiography. She was a woman who had a normal married
life with children, but one day had visions and voices which led her to
leave her husband to take up a life of wandering and praying in holy
possession. There were religious folk ballads such as "The Cherry Tree
Carol", about the command of Jesus from Mary's womb for a cherry tree
to bend down so that Mary could have some cherries from it. The common
people developed ballads, e.g. about their love of the forest, their
wish to hunt, and their hatred of the forest laws.
About 30% of Londoners could read English. Books were bought in
London in such quantities by 1403 that the craft organizations of
text-letter writers, illuminators, bookbinders, and book sellers was
sanctioned by ordinance. "Unto the honorable lords, and wise, the mayor
and aldermen of the city of London, pray very humbly all the good
folks, freemen of the said city, of the trades of writers of
text-letter, limners [illuminator of books], and other folks of London
who are wont to bind and to sell books, that it may please your great
sagenesses to grant unto them that they may elect yearly two reputable
men, the one a limner, the other a text- writer, to be wardens of the
said trades, and that the names of the wardens so elected may be
presented each year before the mayor for the time being, and they be
there sworn well and diligently to oversee that good rule and
governance is had and exercised by all folks of the same trades in all
works unto the said trades pertaining, to the praise and good fame of
the loyal good men of the said trades and to the shame and blame of the
bad and disloyal men of the same. And that the same wardens may call
together all the men of the said trades honorably and peacefully when
need shall be, as well for the good rule and governance of the said
city as of the trades aforesaid. And that the same wardens, in
performing their due office, may present from time to time all the
defaults of the said bad and disloyal men to the chamberlain at the
Guildhall for the time being, to the end that the same may there,
according to the wise and prudent discretion of the governors of the
said city, be corrected, punished, and duly redressed. And that all who
are rebellious against the said wardens as to the survey and good rule
of the same trades may be punished according to the general ordinance
made as to rebellious persons in trades of the said city [fines and
imprisonment]. And that it may please you to command that this
petition, by your sagenesses granted, may be entered of record for time
to come, for the love of God and as a work of charity."
Gutenberg's printing press, which used movable type of small
blocks with letters on them, was brought to London in 1476 by a mercer:
William Caxton. It supplemented the text-writer and monastic copyist.
It was a wood and iron frame with a mounted platform on which were
placed small metal frames into which words with small letters of lead
had been set up. Each line of text had to be carried from the type case
to the press. Beside the press were pots filled with ink and inking
balls. When enough lines of type to make a page had been assembled on
the press, the balls would be dipped in ink and drawn over the type.
Then a sheet of paper would be placed on the form and a lever pulled to
press the paper against the type. Linen usually replaced the more
expensive parchment for the book pages.
The printing press made books more accessible to all literate
people. Caxton printed major English texts and some translations from
French and Latin. He commended different books to various kinds of
readers, for instance, for gentlemen who understand gentleness and
science, or for ladies and gentlewomen, or to all good folk. There were
many cook books in use. There were convex eyeglasses for reading and
concave ones for distance to correct near-sightedness. The first public
library in London was established from a bequest in a will in 1423.
Many carols were sung at the Christian festival of Christmas.
Ballads were sung on many features of social life of this age of
disorder, hatred of sheriffs, but faith in the King. The legend of
Robin Hood was popular, as were town miracle plays on leading incidents
of the Bible and morality plays. Vintners portrayed the miracle of Cana
where water was turned into wine and Goldsmiths ornately dressed the
three Kings coming from the east. In York, the building of Noah's Ark
was performed by the Shipwrights and the Flood performed by the Fishery
and Mariners. Short pantomimes and disguising, forerunners of costume
parties, were good recreation. Games of cards became popular as soon as
cards were introduced. The king, queen, and jack were dressed in
contemporary clothes. Men bowled, kicked footballs, and played tennis.
In London, Christmas was celebrated with masques and mummings. There
was a great tree in the main market place and evergreen decorations in
churches, houses, and streets. There were also games, dances, street
bonfires in front of building doors, and general relaxation of social
controls. Sometimes there was drunken licentiousness and revelry, with
peasants gathering together to make demands of lords for the best of
his goods. May Day was celebrated with crowns and garlands of spring
flowers. The village May Day pageant was often presided over by Robin
Hood and Maid Marion.
People turned to mysticism to escape from the everyday violent
world. They read works of mystics, such as "Scale of Perfection" and
"Cloud of Unknowing", the latter describing how one may better know
God. They believed in magic and sorcery, but had no religious
enthusiasm because the church was engendering more disrespect. Monks
and nuns had long ago resigned spiritual leadership to the friars; now
the friars too lost much of their good reputation. The monks became
used to life with many servants such as cooks, butlers, bakers,
brewers, barbers, laundresses, tailors, carpenters, and farm hands. The
austerity of their diet had vanished. The schedule of divine services
was no longer followed by many and the fostering of learning was
abandoned. Into monasteries drifted the lazy and miserable. Nunneries
had become aristocratic boarding houses. The practice of taking
sanctuary was abused; criminals and debtors sought it and were allowed
to overstay the 40-day restriction and to leave at night to commit
robberies. There were numerous chaplains, who were ordained because
they received pay from private persons for saying masses for the dead;
They had much leisure time for mischief because they had to forego wife
and family. Church courts became corrupt, but jealously guarded their
jurisdiction from temporal court encroachment. Peter's Pence was no
longer paid by the people, so the burden of papal exaction fell wholly
on the clergy. But the church was rich and powerful, paying almost a
third of the whole taxation of the nation and forming a majority in the
House of Lords. Many families had kinsmen in the clergy. Even the
lowest cleric or clerk could read and write in Latin.
People relied on saint's days as reference points in the year,
because they did not know dates of the year. But townspeople knew the
hour and minute of each day, because clocks driven by a descending
weight on a cord were in all towns and in the halls of the well-to-do.
This increased the sense of punctuality and lifted standards of
efficiency. These weight-driven clocks replaced water clocks, which had
a problem of water freezing, and sandclocks, which could measure only
small time intervals.
A linguistic unity and national pride was developing. London
English became the norm and predominated over rural dialects. Important
news was announced and spread by word of mouth in market squares and
sometimes in churches. As usual, traders provided one of the best
sources of news; they maintained an informal network of speedy
messengers and accurate reports because political changes so affected
their ventures. News also came from peddlers, who visited villages and
farms to sell items that could not be bought in the local village.
These often included scissors, eyeglasses, colored handkerchiefs,
calendars, fancy leather goods, watches, and clocks. Peddling was
fairly profitable because of the lack of competition. But peddlers were
often viewed as tramps and suspected of engaging in robbery as well as
peddling.
A royal post service was established by relays of mounted
messengers. The first route was between London and the Scottish border,
where there were frequent battles for land between the Scotch and
English.
The inland roads from town to town were still rough and without
signs. A horseman could make up to 40 miles a day. Common carriers took
passengers and parcels from various towns to London on scheduled
journeys. Now the common yeoman could order goods from the London
market, communicate readily with friends in London, and receive news of
the world frequently. Trade with London was so great and the common
carrier so efficient in transporting goods that the medieval fair began
to decline. First the Grocers and then the Mercers refused to allow
their members to sell goods at fairs. There was much highway robbery.
Most goods were still transported by boats along the coasts, with
trading at the ports.
Embroidery was exported. Imported were timber, pitch, tar,
potash [for cloth dying], furs, silk, satin, gold cloth, damask cloth,
furred gowns, gems, fruit, spices, and sugar. Imports were restricted
by national policy for the purpose of protecting native industries.
English single-masted ships began to be replaced by two or
three masted ships with high pointed bows to resist waves and sails
enabling the ship to sail closer to the wind. 200 tuns was the usual
carrying capacity. The increase in trade made piracy, even by
merchants, profitable and frequent until merchant vessels began sailing
in groups for their mutual protection. The astrolabe, which took
altitude of sun and stars, was used for navigation.
Consuls were appointed to assist English traders abroad.
Henry IV appointed the first admiral of the entire nation and
resolved to create a national fleet of warships instead of using
merchant ships. In 1417, the war navy had 27 ships. In 1421, Portsmouth
was fortified as a naval base. Henry V issued the orders that formed
the basic law of English admiralty and appointed surgeons to the navy
and army.
For defense of the nation, especially the safeguard of the
seas, Parliament allotted the king for life, 3s. for every tun of wine
imported and an additional 3s. for every tun of sweet wine imported.
From about 1413, tunnage on wine [tax per tun] and poundage [tax per
pound] on merchandise were duties on goods of merchants which were
regularly granted by Parliament to the king for life for upkeep of the
Navy. Before this time, such duties had been sporadic and temporary.
The most common ailments were eye problems, aching teeth,
festering ears, joint swelling and sudden paralysis of the bowels.
Epidemics broke out occasionally in the towns in the summers. The
plague swept London in 1467 and the nation in 1407, 1445, and 1471.
Leprosy disappeared.
Infirmaries were supported by a tax of the king levied on
nearby counties. The walls, ditches, gutters, sewers, and bridges on
waterways and the coast were kept in repair by laborers hired by
commissions appointed by the Chancellor. Those who benefited from these
waterways were taxed for the repairs in proportion to their use thereof.
Alabaster was sculptured into tombs surmounted with a recumbent
effigy of the deceased, and effigies of mourners on the sides. Few
townsmen choose to face death alone and planned memorial masses to be
sung to lift their souls beyond Purgatory. Chantries were built by
wealthy men for this purpose.
Chemical experimentation was still thought to be akin to sorcery, so
was forbidden by King Henry IV in 1404.
Gold was minted into coins: noble, half noble, and farthing.
King Henry IV lost power to the Commons and the Lords because
he needed revenue from taxes and as a usurper King, he did not carry
the natural authority of a King. The Commons acquired the right to
elect its own speaker. The lords who helped the usurpation felt they
should share the natural power of the kingship. The council became the
instrument of the Lords. Also, the Commons gained power compared to the
nobility because many nobles had died in war. The consent of the
Commons to legislation became so usual that the justices declared that
it was necessary. The Commons began to see itself as representative of
the entire commons of the realm instead of just their own counties. Its
members had the freedom to consider and debate every matter of public
interest, foreign or domestic, except for church matters. The Commons,
the poorest of the three estates, established an exclusive right to
originate all money grants to the king in 1407. The Speaker of the
Commons announced its money grant to the king only on the last day of
the parliamentary session, after the answers to its petitions had been
declared, and after the Lords had agreed to the money grant. It tied
its grants by rule rather than just practice to certain appropriations.
For instance, tunnage and poundage were appropriated for naval
defenses. Wool customs went to the maintenance of Calais, a port on the
continent, and defense of the nation. It also put the petitions in
statutory form, called "bills", to be enacted after consideration and
amendment by all without alteration. Each house had a right to
deliberate in privacy. In the Commons, members spoke in the order in
which they stood up bareheaded. Any member of Parliament or either
house or the king could initiate a bill. Both houses had the power to
amend or reject a bill. There were conferences between select
committees of both houses to settle their differences. The Commons
required the appointment of auditors to audit the King's accounts to
ensure past grants had been spent according to their purpose. It forced
the King's council appointees to be approved by Parliament and to be
paid salaries. About 1430, kings' councilors were required to take an
oath not to accept gifts of land, not to maintain private suits, not to
reveal secrets, and not to neglect the king's business. A quorum was
fixed and rules made for removal from the council. For the next fifty
years, the council was responsible both to the king and to Parliament.
This was the first encroachment on the King's right to summon,
prorogue, or dismiss a Parliament at his pleasure, determine an agenda
of Parliament, veto or amend its bills, exercise his discretion as to
which lords he summoned to Parliament, and create new peers by letters
patent [official public letters]. Parliament was affected by the
factionalism of the times. The speaker of the commons was often an
officer of some great lord. In 1426, the retainers of the barons in
Parliament were forbidden to bear arms, so they appeared with clubs on
their shoulders. When the clubs were forbidden, they came with stones
concealed in their clothing.
Kings created dukes and marquesses to be peers. A duke was
given creation money or allowance of 40 pounds a year. A marquess was
given 35 pounds. These new positions could not descend to an heiress,
unlike a barony or earldom. An earl was given 20 pounds, which probably
took the place of his one-third from the county. King Henry VI gave the
title of viscount to several people; it had an allowance of 13.3 pounds
and was above baron. It allowed them to be peers. There were about 55
peers. Henry VI also began the offices of Keeper of the Great Seal,
Keeper of the Privy Seal, Chamberlain, Steward of the Household, to be
great offices of state besides chancellor and Treasurer. They were
members of his Council along with the Archbishops of Canterbury and
York and about 15 other members. In King Edward IV's reign, the king's
retinue had about 16 knights, 160 squires, 240 yeomen, clerks, grooms,
and stablemen. The suitable annual expense of the household of the king
was 13,000 pounds for his retinue of about 516 people, a duke 4,000
pounds for about 230 people, a marquess 3,000 pounds for about 224
people, an earl 2,000 pounds for about 130 people, a viscount 1,000
pounds for about 84 people, a baron 500 pounds for about 26 people, a
banneret [a knight made in the field, who had a banner] 200 pounds for
about 24 people, a knight bachelor 100 pounds for about 16 people, and
a squire 50 pounds for about 16 people. Of a squire's 50 pounds, about
25 pounds were spent in food, repairs and furniture 5, on horses, hay,
and carriage 4, on clothes, alms and oblations 4, wages 9, livery of
dress 3, and the rest on hounds and the charges of harvest and hay
time. Many servants of the household of the country gentleman were poor
relations. They might by education and accomplishment rise into the
service of a baron who could take him to court, where he could make his
fortune.
Barons' households also included steward, chaplains, treasurer,
accountants, chamberlain, carvers, servers, cupbearers, pages, and even
chancellor. They were given wages and clothing allowances and had meals
in the hall at tables according to their degree.
The authority of the King's privy seal had become a great
office of state which transmitted the King's wishes to the Chancery and
Exchequer, rather than the King's personal instrument for sealing
documents. Now the king used a signet kept by his secretary as his
personal seal. Edward IV made the household office of secretary, who
had custody the king's signet seal, a public office. The secretary was
generally a member of the council. Edward IV invented the benevolence,
a gift wrung from wealthy subjects.
King Edward IV introduced an elaborate spy system, the use of
the rack to torture people to give information, and other interferences
with justice, all of which the Tudor sovereigns later used. Torture was
used to discover facts, especially about coconspirators, rather than to
elicit a confession, as on the continent. It was only used on prisoners
held in the Tower of London involved in state trials and could only be
authorized by the king's closest councilors in virtue of the royal
prerogative. The rack stretched the supine body by the wrists and legs
with increasing agony at the joints until the limbs were dislocated.
Some victims were permanently crippled by it; others died on it. Most
told what they knew, often at the very sight of the rack. Torture was
forbidden in the common law, which favored an accusatorial system, in
which the accuser had to prove guilt, rather than an inquisitional
system, in which the accused had to prove innocence. Edward IV applied
martial law to ordinary cases of high treason by extending the
jurisdiction of the politically- appointed High Constable of England to
these cases, thus depriving the accused of trial by jury. He executed
many for treason and never restored their forfeited land to their
families, as had been the usual practice.
King Richard III prohibited the seizure of goods before
conviction of felony. He also liberated the unfree villeins on royal
estates.
It was declared under Parliamentary authority that there was a
preference for the Crown to pass to a King's eldest son, and to his
male issue after him. Formerly, a man could ascend to the throne
through his female ancestry as well.
The Law
The forcible entry statute is expanded to include peaceful
entry with forcible holding after the justices arrived and to forcible
holding with departure before the justices arrived. Penalties are
triple damages, fine, and ransom to the King. A forceful possession
lasting three years is exempt.
By common law, a tenant could not take away buildings or
fixtures he built on land because it would be wasteful. This applied to
agricultural fixtures, but not to other trade fixtures. Also at common
law, if a person had enjoyed light next to his property for at least 20
years, no one could build up the adjacent land so that the light would
be blocked.
Women of age fourteen or over shall have livery of their lands
and tenements by inheritance without question or difficulty.
Purposely cutting out another's tongue or putting out another's
eyes is a felony, the penalty for which is loss of all property].
No one may keep swans unless he has lands and tenements of the
estate of freehold to a yearly value of 67s., because swans of the
King, lords, knights, and esquires have been stolen by yeomen and
husbandmen.
The wage ceiling for servants is: bailiff of agriculture
23s.4d. per year, and clothing up to 5s., with meat and drink; chief
peasant, a carter, chief shepherd 20s. and clothing up to 4s., with
meat and drink; common servant of agriculture 15s., and clothing up to
3s.4d.; woman servant 10s., and clothing up to 4s., with meat and
drink; infant under fourteen years 6s., and clothing up to 3s., with
meat and drink. Such as deserve less or where there is a custom of
less, that lesser amount shall be given.
For laborers at harvest time: mower 4d. with meat and drink or
6d. without; reaper or carter: 3d. with or 5d. without; woman laborer
and other laborers: 2d with and 4d. without.
The ceiling wage rate for craftsmen per day is: free mason or
master carpenter 4d. with meat and drink or 5d. without; master tiler
or slater, rough mason, and mesne [intermediary] carpenter and other
artificiers in building 3d. with meat and drink or 4d. without; every
other laborer 2d. with meat and drink or 3d. without. In winter the
respective wages were less: mason category: 3d. with or 4d. without;
master tiler category: 2d. with or 4d. without; others: 1d. with or 3d.
without meat and drink.
Any servant of agriculture who is serving a term with a master
and covenants to serve another man at the end of this term and that
other man shall notify the master by the middle of his term so he can
get a replacement worker. Otherwise, the servant shall continue to
serve the first master.
No man or woman may put their son or daughter to serve as an
apprentice in a craft within any borough, but may send the child to
school, unless he or she has land or rent to the value of 20s. per
year.This was because of scarcity of laborers and other servants of
agriculture.
No laborer may be hired by the week.
Masons may no longer congregate yearly, because it has led to
violation of the statute of laborers.
No games may be played by laborers because they lead to
[gambling and] murders and robberies.
Apparel worn must be appropriate to one's status to preserve
the industry of agriculture. The following list of classes shows the
lowest class, which could wear certain apparel:
1. -Lords - gold cloth, gold corses, sable fur, purple silk
2. -Knights - velvet, branched satin, ermine fur
3. -Esquires and gentlemen with possessions to the value of 800s. per
year, daughters of a person who has possessions to the value of 2,000s.
a year damask, silk, kerchiefs up to 5s. in value.
4. -Esquires and gentlemen with possessions to the yearly value of
800s. 40 pounds - fur of martron or letuse, gold or silver girdles,
silk corse not made in the nation, kerchief up to 3s.4d in value
5. -Men with possessions of the yearly value of 40s. excluding the
above three classes - fustian, bustian, scarlet cloth in grain
6. -Men with possessions under the yearly value of 40s. excluding the
first three classes - black or white lamb fur, stuffing of wool,
cotton, or cadas.
7. -Yeomen - cloth up to the value of 2s., hose up to the value of
14s., a girdle with silver, kerchief up to 12d.
8. -Servants of agriculture, laborer, servant, country craftsman - none
of the above clothes
Gowns and jackets must cover the entire trunk of the body,
including the private parts. Shoes may not have pikes over two inches.
Every town shall have at its cost a common balance with weights
according to the standard of the Exchequer. All citizens may weigh
goods for free. All cloth to be sold shall be sealed according to this
measure.
There is a standard bushel of grain throughout the nation.
There are standard measures for plain tile, roof tile, and
gutter tile throughout the nation.
No gold or silver may be taken out of the nation.
The price of silver is fixed at 30s. for a pound, to increase
the value of silver coinage, which has become scarce due to its higher
value when in plate or masse.
A designee of the king will inspect and seal cloth with lead to
prevent deceit. Cloth may not be tacked together before inspection. No
cloth may be sold until sealed.
Heads of arrows shall be hardened at the points with steel and
marked with the mark of the arrowsmith who made it, so they are not
faulty.
Shoemakers and cordwainers may tan their leather, but all
leather must be inspected and marked by a town official before it is
sold.
To prevent deceitful tanning, cordwainers shall not tan
leather. Tanners who make a notorious default in leather which is found
by a cordwainer shall make a forfeiture.
Defective embroidery for sale shall be forfeited.
No fishing net may be fastened or tacked to posts, boats, or
anchors, but may be used by hand, so that fish are preserved and
vessels may pass.
No one may import any articles which could be made in the
nation, including silks, bows, woolen cloths, iron and hardware goods,
harness and saddlery, except printed books.
The following merchandise shall not be brought into the nation
already wrought: woolen cloth or caps, silk laces, ribbons, fringes,
and embroidery, gold laces, saddles, stirrups, harnesses, spurs,
bridles, gridirons, locks, hammers, fire tongs, dripping pans, dice,
tennis balls, points, purses, gloves, girdles, harness for girdles of
iron steel or of tin, any thing wrought of any treated leather, towed
furs, shoes, galoshes, corks, knives, daggers, woodknives, thick blunt
needles, sheers for tailors, scissors, razors, sheaths, playing cards,
pins, pattens [wooden shoes on iron supports worn in wet weather], pack
needles, painted ware, forcers, caskets, rings of copper or of gilt
sheet metal, chaffing dishes, hanging candlesticks, chaffing balls,
mass bells, rings for curtains, ladles, skimmers, counterfeit felt hat
moulds, water pitchers with wide spouts, hats, brushes, cards for wool,
white iron wire, upon pain of their forfeiture. One half this
forfeiture goes to the king and the other half to the person seizing
the wares.
No sheep may be exported, because being shorn elsewhere would
deprive the king of customs.
No wheat, rye, or barley may be imported unless the prices are
such that national agriculture is not hurt.
Clothmakers must pay their laborers, such as carders and
spinsters, in current coin and not in pins and girdles and the like.
The term "freemen" in the Magna Carta includes women.
The election of a knight from a county to go to Parliament
shall be proclaimed by the sheriff in the full county so all may attend
and none shall be commanded to do something else at that time. Election
is to be by majority of the votes and its results will be sealed and
sent to Parliament.
Electors and electees to Parliament must reside in the county
or be citizens or burgesses of a borough. To be an elector to
Parliament, a knight must reside in the county and have a freehold of
land or tenements there of the value of at least 40s. per year, because
participation in elections of too many people of little substance or
worth had led to homicides, assaults, and feuds. (These "yeomen" were
about one sixth of the population. Most former electors and every
leaseholder and every copyholder were now excluded. Those elected for
Parliament were still gentry chosen by substantial freeholders.)
London ordinances forbade placing rubbish or dung in the Thames
River or any town ditch or casting water or anything else out of a
window. The roads were maintained with tolls on carts and horses
bringing victuals or grains into the city and on merchandise unloaded
from ships at the port. No carter shall drive his cart more quickly
when it is unloaded than when it is loaded. No pie bakers shall sell
beef pies as venison pies, or make any meat pie with entrails. To
assist the poor, bread and ale shall be sold by the farthing.
Desertion by a soldier is penalized by forfeiture of all land
and property.
The common law held that a bailee is entitled to possession
against all persons except the owner of the bailed property.
Former justice Sir Thomas Littleton wrote a legal textbook
describing tenancies in dower; the tenures of socage, knight's service,
serjeanty, and burgage; estates in fee simple, fee tail, and fee
conditional; inheritance and alienation of land. For instance, "Also,
if feoffment be made upon such condition, that if the feoffor pay to
the feofee at a certain day, etc., 800s. forty pounds of money, that
then the feoffor may reenter, etc., in this case the feoffee is called
tenant in mortgage, ... and if he doth not pay, then the land which he
puts in pledge upon condition for the payment of the money is gone from
him for ever, and so dead as to the tenant, etc."
Joint tenants are distinguished from tenants in common by
Littleton thus: "Joint-tenants are, as if a man be seised of certain
lands or tenements, etc., and thereof enfeoffeth two, or three, or
four, or more, to have and to hold to them (and to their heirs, or
letteth to them) for term of their lives, or for term of another's
life; by force of which feoffment or lease they are seised, such are
joint-tenants. ... And it is to be understood, that the nature of
joint-tenancy is, that he that surviveth shall have solely the entire
tenancy, according to such estate as he hath, ..." "Tenants in common
are they that have lands or tenements in fee-simple, fee-tail, or for
term of life, etc., the which have such lands and tenements by several
title, and not by joint title, and neither of them knoweth thereof his
severalty, but they ought by the law to occupy such lands or tenements
in common pro indiviso [undivided], to take the profits in common.
...As if a man enfeoff two joint-tenants in fee, and the one of them
alien that which to him belongeth to another in fee, now the other
joint-tenant and the alienee are tenants in common, because they are in
such tenements by several titles, ..."
There are legal maxims and customs of ancient origin which have
become well established and known though not written down as statutes.
Some delineated by Christopher St. Germain in "Doctor and Student" in
1518 are:
1. -The spouse of a deceased person takes all personal and real
chattels of the deceased.
2. -For inheritance of land, if there are no descendant children, the
brothers and sisters take alike, and if there are none, the next blood
kin of the whole blood take, and if none, the land escheats to the
lord. Land may never ascend from a son to his father or mother.
3. -A child born before espousals is a bastard and may not inherit,
even if his father is the husband.
4. -If a middle brother purchases lands in fee and dies without heirs
of his body, his eldest brother takes his lands and not the younger
brother. The next possible heir in line is the younger brother, and the
next after him, the father's brother.
5. -For lands held in socage, if the heir is under 14, the next friend
to the heir, to whom inheritance may not descend, shall have the ward
of his body and lands until the heir is 14, at which time the heir may
enter.
6. -For lands held by knight's service, if the heir is under 14, then
the lord shall have the ward and marriage of the heir until the heir is
21, if male, or 14 (changed to 16 in 1285), if female. When of age, the
heir shall pay relief. By the right of marriage, a lord could give his
ward-heirs in marriage to a suitable match. Should this match be
refused, its value, determined by a judge, was forfeited to the lord.
7. -A lease for a term of years is a real chattel rather than a free
tenement, and may pass without livery of seisin.
8. -He who has possession of land, though it is by disseisin, has right
against all men but against him who has right.
9. -If a tenant is past due his rent, the lord may distrain his beasts
which are on the land.
10. -All birds, fowls, and wild beasts of the forest and warren are
excepted out of the law and custom of property. No property may be had
of them unless they are tame. However, the eggs of hawks and herons and
the like belong to the man whose land they are on.
11. If a man steals goods to the value of 12d., or above, it is felony,
and he shall die for it. If it is under the value of 12d., then it is
but petty larceny, and he shall not die for it, but shall be punished
at the discretion of the judges. This not apply to goods taken from the
person, which is robbery, a felony punishable by death.
12. If the son is attainted [convicted of treason or felony with the
death penalty and forfeiture of all lands and goods] in the life of the
father, and after he purchases his -charter of pardon of the King, and
after the father dies; in this case the land shall escheat to the lord
of the fee, insomuch that though he has a younger brother, yet the land
shall not descend to him: for by the attainder of the elder brother the
blood is corrupt, and the father in the law died -without heir.
13. A man declared outlaw forfeits his profits from land and his goods
to the King.
14. He who is arraigned upon an indictment of felony shall be admitted,
in favor of life, to challenge thirty-five inquirers (three whole
inquests would have thirty-six) peremptorily. With cause, he may
challenge as many as he has cause to challenge if he can prove it. Such
peremptory challenge shall not be admitted in a private suit.
15. An accessory shall not be put to answer before the principal.
16. If a man commands another to commit a trespass, and he does it, the
one who made the command is a trespasser.
17. The land of every man is in the law enclosed from other, though it
lies in the open field, and a trespasser in it may be brought to court.
18. Every man is bound to make recompense for such hurt as his beasts
do in the growing grain or grass of his neighbor, though he didn't know
that they were there.
19. If two titles are concurrent together, the oldest title shall be
preferred.
20. He who recovers debt or damages in the King's court when the person
charged is not in custody, may within a year after the judgment take
the body of the defendant, and commit him to prison until he has paid
the debt and damages.
21. If the demandant or plaintiff, hanging his writ (writ pending in
court), will enter into the thing demanded, his writ shall abate.
22. By the alienation of the tenant, hanging the writ, or his entry
into religion, or if he is made a knight, or she is a woman and takes a
husband hanging the writ, the writ shall not abate.
23. The king may disseise no man and no man may disseise the king, nor
pull any reversion or remainder out of him.
Judicial Procedure
The prohibition against maintenance was given penalties in 1406
of 100s. per person for a knight or lower giving livery of cloth or
hats, and of 40s. for the receiver of such. A person who brought such
suit to court was to be given half the penalty. The Justices of Assize
and King's Bench were authorized to inquire about such practices. The
statute explicitly included ladies and any writing, oath, or promise as
well as indenture. Excepted were guilds, fraternities, and craftsmen of
cities and boroughs which were founded on a good purpose; universities;
the mayor and sheriffs of London; and also lords, knights, and esquires
in time of war. A penalty of one year in prison without bail was given.
In 1468, there was a penalty of 100s. per livery to the giver of such,
100s. per month to the retainer or taker of such, and 100s. per month
to the person retained. Still this law was seldom obeyed.
People took grievances outside the confines of the rigid common
law to the Chancellor, who could give equitable remedies under
authority of a statute of 1285 (described in Chapter 8). The Chancery
heard many cases of breach of faith in the "use", a form of trust in
which three parties were involved: the holder of land, feofees to whom
the holder had made it over by conveyance or "bargain and sale", and
the beneficiary or receiver of the profits of the land, who was often
the holder, his children, relatives, friends, an institution, or a
corporation. This system of using land had been created by the friars
to get around the prohibition against holding property. Lords and
gentry quickly adopted it. The advantages of the use were that 1) there
was no legal restriction to will away the beneficial interest of the
use although the land itself could not be conveyed by will; 2) it was
hard for the king to collect feudal incidents because the feoffees were
often unknown 3) the original holder was protected from forfeiture of
his land in case of conviction of treason if the Crown went to someone
he had not supported. Chancery gave a remedy for dishonest or
defaulting feofees.
Chancery also provided the equitable relief of specific
performance in disputes over agreements, for instance, conveyance of
certain land, whereas the common law courts awarded only monetary
damages by the writ of covenant.
Chancery ordered accounts to be made in matters of foreign
trade because the common law courts were limited to accounts pursuant
to transactions made within the nation. It also involved itself in the
administration of assets and accounting of partners to each other.
The Chancellor took jurisdiction of cases of debt, detinue, and
account which had been decided in other courts with oath-helping by the
defendant. He did not trust the reliance on friends of the defendant
swearing that his statement made in his defense was true. An important
evidentiary difference between procedures of the Chancery and the
common law courts was that the Chancellor could orally question the
plaintiff and the defendant under oath. He also could order persons to
appear at his court by subpoena, under pain of punishment, such as a
heavy fine.
The Court of Common Pleas had three types of jurisdiction: 1)
common law jurisdiction between person and person, including actions
regarding land, which was exclusive, 2) personal actions of debt,
detinue, account and covenant, and 3) mixed actions, both personal and
regarding land, e.g. ejectment. It had shared jurisdiction with the
Court of the King's Bench in maintenance, conspiracy, other breaches of
statute, trespass, trespass on the case, and their derivatives. Most of
its business had to do with recovery of debt, from 40s. to thousands of
pounds.
Whereas the characteristic award of the common law courts was
seisin of land or monetary damages, Chancery often enjoined certain
action. Because malicious suits were a problem, the Chancery identified
such suits and issued injunctions against taking them to any court.
The Chancery was given jurisdiction by statute over men of
great power taking by force women who had lands and tenements or goods
and not setting them free unless they bound themselves to pay great
sums to the offenders or to marry them. A statute also gave Chancery
jurisdiction over servants taking their masters' goods at his death.
Chancery could issue writs of habeas corpus [produce the body] to bring
a person before a court or judge.
Justices of the Peace, appointed by the Crown, investigated all
riots and arrested rioters, by authority of statute. If they had
departed, the Justices certified the case to the King. The case was
then set for trial first before the king and his council and then at
the King's Bench. If the suspected rioters did not appear at either
trial, they could be convicted for default of appearance. If a riot was
not investigated and the rioters sought, the Justice of the Peace
nearest forfeited 2,000s. Justices of the Peace were not paid. For
complex cases and criminal cases with defendants of high social status,
they deferred to the Justices of Assize, who rode on circuit once or
twice a year. Since there was no requirement of legal knowledge for a
Justice of the Peace, many referred to the "Boke of the Justice of the
Peas" compiled about 1422 for them to use. Manor courts still formally
admitted new tenants, registered titles, sales of land and exchanges of
land, and commutation of services, enrolled leases and rules of
succession, settled boundary disputes, and regulated the village
agriculture.
All attorneys shall be examined by the royal justices for their
learnedness in the law and, at their discretion, those that are good
and virtuous shall be received to make any suit in any royal court.
These attorneys shall be sworn to serve well and truly in their offices.
Attorneys may plead on behalf of parties in the hundred courts.
A qualification for jurors was to have an estate to one's own
use or one of whom other persons had estates of fee simple, fee tail,
or freehold in lands and tenements, which were at least 40s. per year
in value. In a plea of land worth at least 40s. yearly or a personal
plea with relief sought at least 800s., jurors had to have land in the
bailiwick to the value of at least 400s., because perjury was
considered less likely in the more sufficient men.
In criminal cases, there were many complaints made that the
same men being on the grand assize and petty assize was unfair because
prejudicial. So it became possible for a defendant to challenge an
indictor for cause before the indictor was put on the petty assize.
Then the petty assize came to be drawn from the country at large and
was a true petty or trial jury. Jurors were separated from witnesses.
In the 1700s, the principle was established that a juror should not sit
on a case of which he had previous knowledge.
Justices of the Peace were to have lands worth 267s. yearly,
because those with less had used the office for extortion and lost the
respect and obedience of the people.
A Sheriff was not to arrest, but to transfer indictments to the
Justices of the Peace of the county. He had to reside in his bailiwick.
The sheriff could be sued for misfeasance such as bribery in the King's
court.
Impeachment was replaced with bill of attainder during the
swift succession of parliaments during the civil war. This was a more
rapid and efficient technique of bringing down unpopular ministers or
political foes. There was no introduction of evidence, nor opportunity
for the person accused to defend himself, nor any court procedure, as
there was with impeachment.
An example of a case of common law decided by Court of King's
Bench is Russell's Case (1482) as follows:
In the king's bench one Thomas Russell and Alice his wife brought a
writ of trespass for goods taken from Alice while she was single. The
defendant appeared and pleaded not guilty but was found guilty by a
jury at nisi prius, which assessed the damages at 20 pounds. Before the
case was next to be heard in the King's Court an injunction issued out
of the Chancery to the plaintiffs not to proceed to judgment, on pain
of 100 pounds, and for a long time judgment was not asked for. Then
Hussey CJKB. asked Spelman and Fincham, who appeared for the plaintiff
if they wanted to ask for judgment according to the verdict. Fincham
[P]: We would ask for judgment, except for fear of the penalty provided
for in the injunction, for fear that our client will be imprisoned by
the Chancellor if he disobeys. Fairfax, JKB: He can ask for judgment in
spite of the injunction, for if it is addressed to the plaintiff his
attorney can ask for judgment, and vice versa. Hussey, CJKB: We have
consulted together on this matter among ourselves and we see no harm
which can come to the plaintiff if he proceeds to judgment. The law
will not make him pay the penalty provided in the injunction. If the
Chancellor wants to imprison him he must send him to the Fleet Prison,
and, as soon as you are there you will inform us and we shall issue a
habeas corpus returnable before us, and when you appear before us we
shall discharge you, so you will not come to much harm, and we shall do
all we can for you. Nevertheless, Fairfax said he would go to the
Chancellor and ask him if he would discharge the injunction. And they
asked for judgment and it was held that they should recover their
damages as assessed by the jury, but they would not give judgment for
damages caused by the vexation the plaintiff suffered through the
Chancery injunction. And they said that if the Chancellor would not
discharge the injunction, they would give judgment if the plaintiff
would ask for it.
An example of a petition to chancery in the 1400s is Hulkere v.
Alcote, as follows:
To the right reverend father in God and gracious lord bishop of Bath,
chancellor of England, your poor and continual bedwoman Lucy Hulkere,
widow of Westminster, most meekly and piteously beseeches: that whereas
she has sued for many years in the King's Bench and in the Common Pleas
for withholding diverse charters and evidences of land, leaving and
delaying her dower of the manor of Manthorpe in Lincolnshire and also
of the manor of Gildenburton in Northamptonshire, together with the
withdrawing of her true goods which her husband gave her on his
deathbed to the value of 100 pounds and more, under record of notary,
sued against Harry Alcote and Elizabeth of the foresaid Gildenburton
within the same county of Northampton. And by collusion and fickle
counsel of the foresaid Harry and Elizabeth his mother there was led
and shown for him within the Common Pleas a false release, sealed, to
void and exclude all her true suit by record of true clerks and
attorneys of the aforesaid Common Pleas. Of the which false release
proved she has a copy to show. [All this is] to her great hindrance and
perpetual destruction unless she have help and remedy by your righteous
and gracious lordship in this matter at this time. That it please your
noble grace and pity graciously to grant a writ subpoena to command the
foresaid Henry Alcote and Elizabeth Alcote to come before your presence
by a certain day by you limited in all haste that they may come to
Westminster to answer to this matter abovesaid, for love of God and a
deed of charity, considering graciously that the foresaid Harry Alcote,
with another fellow of his affinity who is not lately hanged for a
thief in Franceled her into a garden at Gildenburton and put her down
on the ground, laying upon her body a board and a summer saddle and
great stones upon the board, the foresaid Harry Alcote sitting across
her feet and the other at her head for to have slain her and murdered
her, and by grace of our lady her mother- in-law out walking heard a
piteous voice crying and by her goodness she was saved and delivered,
and otherwise would be dead. Pledges to prosecute: John Devenshire of
Berdevyle in Essex and James Kelom of London. Returnable in Michaelmas
term.
Chapter 11
The Times: 1485-1509
Henry Tudor and other exiles defeated and killed Richard III on
Bosworth field, which ends the civil War of the Roses between the
Lancaster and York factions. As King, Henry VII restored order to the
nation. He was readily accepted as king because he was descended from
the Lancaster royal line and he married a woman from the York royal
line. Henry was intelligent and sensitive. He weighed alternatives and
possible consequences before taking action. He was convinced by reason
on what plans to make. In his reign of 24 years, Henry applied himself
diligently to the details of the work of government to make it work
well. He strengthened the monarchy, shored up the legal system to work
again, and provided a peace in the land in which a renaissance of the
arts and sciences, culture, and the intellectual life could flourish.
His primary strategy was enacting and enforcing statutes to shore up
the undermined legal system, which includes the establishment of a new
court: the Court of the Star Chamber, to obtain punishment of persons
whom juries were afraid to convict. It had no jury and no grand jury
indictment. For speed and certainty, it tried people "ex officio": by
virtue of its office. Suspects were required to take an oath ex
officio, by which they swore to truthfully answer all questions put to
them. A man could not refuse to answer on the grounds of
self-incrimination. The Star Chamber was the room in which the King's
council had met since the 1300s.
The most prevalent problems were: murder, robbery, rape or
forced marriage of wealthy women, counterfeiting of coin, extortion,
misdemeanors by sheriffs and escheators, bribing of sheriffs and
jurors, perjury, livery and maintenance agreements, idleness, unlawful
plays, and riots. Interference with the course of justice was not
committed only by lords on behalf of their retainers; men of humbler
station were equally prone to help their friends in court or to give
assistance in return for payment. Rural juries were intimidated by the
old baronage and their armed retinues. Juries in municipal courts were
subverted by gangs of townsmen. Justices of the Peace didn't enforce
the laws. The agricultural work of the nation had been adversely
affected.
Henry made policy with the advice of his council and had
Parliament enact it into legislation. He dominated Parliament by having
selected most of its members. Many of his council were sons of
burgesses and had been trained in universities. He chose competent and
especially trusted men for his officers and commanders of castles and
garrison. The fact that only the king had artillery deterred barons
from revolting. Also, the baronial forces were depleted due to the
civil War of the Roses. If Henry thought a magnate was exercising his
territorial power to the King's detriment, he confronted him with an
army and forced him to bind his whole family in recognizances for large
sums of money to ensure future good conduct. Since the king had the
authority to interpret these pledges, they were a formidable check on
any activity which could be considered to be disloyal. The earl of
Kent, whose debts put him entirely at the King's mercy, was bound to
"be seen daily once in the day within the King's house". Henry also
required recognizances from men of all classes, including clergy,
captains of royal castles, and receivers of land. The higher nobility
now consisted of about twenty families. The heavy fines by the Star
Court put an end to conspiracies to defraud, champerty [an agreement
with a litigant to pay costs of litigation for a share in the damages
awarded], livery, and maintenance. The ties between the nobility and
the Justices of the Peace had encouraged corruption of justice. So
Henry appointed many of the lesser gentry and attorneys as Justices of
the Peace. Also he appointed a few of his councilors as nonresident
Justices of the Peace. There were a total of about thirty Justices of
the Peace per county. Their appointments were indefinite and most
remained until retirement or death. Henry instituted the Yeomen of the
Guard to be his personal bodyguards night and day.
Many bills of attainder caused lords to lose their land to the
King. Most of these lords had been chronic disturbers of the peace.
Henry required retainers to be licensed, which system lasted until
about 1600. Henry was also known to exhaust the resources of barons he
suspected of disloyalty by accepting their hospitality for himself and
his household for an extended period of time.
Henry built up royal funds by using every available procedure
of government to get money, by maximizing income from royal estates by
transferring authority over them from the Exchequer to knowledgeable
receivers, and from forfeitures of land and property due to attainders
of treason. He also personally reviewed all accounts and initialed
every page, making sure that all payments were made. He regularly
ordered all men with an income of 800s. [40 pounds] yearly from lands
or revenue in hand to receive knighthoods, which were avoided by those
who did not want to fight, or pay a high fee. As a result, the Crown
became rich and therefore powerful.
Henry's Queen, Elizabeth, was a good influence on his
character. Her active beneficence was a counteracting influence to his
avaricious predisposition. When Henry and his Queen traveled through
the nation, they often stopped to talk to the common people. They
sometimes gave away money, such as to a man who had lost his hand.
Henry paid for an intelligent boy he met to go to school.
Henry had the first paper mill erected in the nation. He
fostered the reading of books and the study of Roman law, the classics,
and the Bible. He had his own library and gave books to other libraries.
The age of entry to university was between 13 and 16. It took
four years' study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric to achieve the
Bachelor of Arts degree and another five before a master could begin a
specialized study of the civil law, canon law, theology, or medicine.
Humanist studies were espoused by individual scholars at the three
centers of higher learning: Oxford University, Cambridge University,
and the Inns of Court in London. The Inns of Court attracted the sons
of gentry and merchants pursuing practical and social accomplishments.
The text of "readings" to members of the inns survive from this time.
In the legalistic climate of these times, attorneys were prosperous.
The enclosure of land by hedges for sheep farming continued,
especially by rich merchants who bought country land for this purpose.
Often this was land that had been under the plough. Any villeins were
given their freedom and they and the tenants at will were thrown off it
immediately. That land held by copyholders of land who had only a life
estate, was withheld from their sons. Only freeholders and copyholders
with the custom of the manor in their favor were secure against
eviction. But they could be pressured to sell by tactics such as
breeding rabbits or keeping geese on adjoining land to the detriment of
their crops, or preventing them from taking their traditional short
cuts across the now enclosed land to their fields. The real line of
distinction between rural people was one of material means instead of
legal status: free or unfree. On one extreme was the well-to-do yeoman
farmer farming his own land. On the other extreme was the agricultural
laborer working for wages. Henry made several proclamations ordering
certain enclosures to be destroyed and tillage to be restored.
Other land put to use for sheep breeding was waste land. There
were three sheep to every person. The nearby woodlands no longer had
wolves or lynx who could kill the sheep. Bears and elk are also
gone.There were still deer, wild boar, wildcats and wild cattle in vast
forests for the lords to hunt. Wood was used for houses, arms, carts,
bridges, and ships.
The villages were still isolated from each other, so that a
visitor from miles away was treated as warily as a foreigner. Most
people lived and died where they had been born. A person's dialect
indicated his place of origin. The life of the village still revolved
around the church. In some parishes, its activities were highly
organized, with different groups performing different functions. For
example, the matrons looked after a certain altar; the maidens raised
money for a chapel or saw to the gilding of the images; the older men
collected money for church repair; and the younger men organized the
church ales and the church plays. Wills often left property or rents
from leased land to the church. Church cows and sheep given could be
leased out to villagers. Church buildings given could be leased out,
turned over to the poor, used to brew ale or bake bread for church
ales, or used in general as a place for church activities. Church ales
would usually a good source of income; alehouses would be closed during
the ceremonies and parishioners would contribute malt for the ale and
grain, eggs, butter, cheese, and fruits.
The largest town, London, had a population of about 70,000.
Other towns had a population less than 20,000. The population was
increasing, but did not reach the level of the period just before the
black death.
In most large towns, there were groups of tailors and
hatmakers, glovers, and other leatherworkers. Some towns had a
specialization due to their proximity to the sources of raw materials,
such as nails, cutlery, and effigies and altars. Despite the spread of
wool manufacturing to the countryside, there was a marked increase of
industry and prosperity in the towns. The principal streets of the
larger towns were paved with gravel. Guild halls became important and
imposing architecturally.
A large area of London was taken up by walled gardens of the
monasteries and large mansions. There were some houses of stone and
timber and some mansions of brick and timber clustered around palaces.
In these, bedrooms increased in number, with rich bed hangings, linen
sheets, and bolsters. Bedspreads were introduced. Nightgowns were worn.
Fireplaces became usual in all the rooms. Tapestries covered the walls.
Carpets were used in the private rooms. Some of the great halls had
tiled floors. The old trestle tables were replaced by tables with legs.
Benches and stools had backs to lean on. A long gallery was used for
exercise, recreation such as music and dancing, and private
conversations. Women and men wore elaborate headdresses. On the outer
periphery are taverns and brothels, both made of mud and straw. Houses
are beginning to be built outside the walls of London along the Thames
because the collapse of the power of the great feudal lords decreased
the fear of an armed attack on London. The merchants introduced this
idea of living at a distance from the place of work so that they could
escape living in the narrow, damp, and dark lanes of the City and have
more light and space. Indeed no baronial army ever threatened the king
again. East of London were cattle pastures, flour mills, bakers,
cloth-fulling mills, lime burners, brick and tile makers, bell
founders, and ship repairing. There was a drawbridge on the south part
of London Bridge for defense and to let ships through. Water sports
were played on the Thames such as tilting at each other with lances
from different boats.
The Tailors' and Linen Armorers' Guild received a charter in
1503 from the king as the "Merchant Tailors" to use all wares and
merchandise, especially wool cloth, as well wholesale as retail,
throughout the nation. Some schooling was now being made compulsory in
certain trades; the goldsmiths' company made a rule that all
apprentices had to be able to read and write. There are guilds of
ironmongers, salters, and haberdashers [hats and caps]
A yeoman was the second-rank person of some importance, below a
knight, below a gentleman, below a full member of a guild. In London,
it meant the journeyman or second adult in a small workshop. These
yeomen had their own fraternities and were often on strike. Some yeomen
in the large London industries, e.g. goldsmiths, tailors, cloth
workers, who had served an apprenticeship started their own businesses
in London suburbs outside the jurisdiction of their craft to search
them.
The Merchant Adventurers created a London fellowship
confederacy to make membership of their society and compliance with its
regulations binding on all cloth traders and to deal with common
interests and difficulties such as taxation, relations with rulers, and
dangers at sea. They made and enforced trading rules, chartered fleets,
and organized armed convoys when the seas were unsafe and coordinated
policies with Henry VII. Membership could be bought for a large fee or
gained by apprenticeship or by being the son of a member.
Tudor government was paternalistic, curtailing cutthroat
competition, fixing prices and wages, and licensing production under
grants of monopoly to achieve a stable and contented society and a fair
living for all.
Foreign trade was revived because it was a period of
comparative peace. The nation sought to sell as much as possible to
foreign nations and to buy at little as possible and thereby increase
its wealth in gold and silver, which could be used for currency.
Ships weighed 200 tons and had twice the cargo space they had
previously. Their bows were more pointed and their high prows made them
better able to withstand gales. The mariners' compass with a pivoting
needle and circular dial with a scale was introduced. The scale gave
precision to directions. Ships had three masts. On the first was a
square sail. On the second was a square sail with a small rectangular
sail above it. On the third was a three cornered lateen sail. These
sails make it possible to sail in almost any direction. This opened the
seas of the world to navigation. At this time navigators kept their
knowledge and expertise secret from others. Adventurous seamen went on
voyages of discovery, such as John Cabot to North America in 1497,
following Italian Christopher Columbus' discovery of the new world in
1492. Ferdinand Magellan of Portugal circumnavigated the world in 1519,
proving uncontrovertedly that the earth was spherical rather than flat.
Theologians had to admit that Jerusalem was not the center of the
world. Sailors overcame their fear of tumbling into one of the openings
into hell that they believed were far out into the Atlantic Ocean and
ceased to believe that a red sunset in the morning was due to a
reflection from hell. Seamen could venture forth into the darkness of
the broad Atlantic Ocean with a fair expectation of finding their way
home again. They gradually learned that there were no sea serpents or
monsters that would devour foolhardy mariners. They learned to endure
months at sea on a diet of salt beef, beans, biscuits, and stale water
and the bare deck for a bed. But there were still mutinies and
disobedient pilots. Mortality rates among seamen were high. There are
more navy ships, and they have some cannon.
The blast furnace was introduced in the iron industry. A blast
of hot air was constantly forced from a stove into the lower part of
the furnace which was heating at high temperature a mixture of the iron
ore and a reducing agent that combined with the oxygen released. After
the iron was extracted, it was allowed to harden and then reheated and
hammered on an anvil to shape it and to force out the hard, brittle
impurities. Blast furnace heat was maintained by bellows worked by
water wheels. Alchemists sought to make gold from the baser metals and
to make a substance that would give them immortality. There was some
thought that suffocation in mines, caverns, wells, and cellars was not
due to evil spirits, but to bad air such as caused by "exhalation of
metals".
In 1502, German Peter Henlein invented the pocket watch and the
mainspring inside it.
There were morality plays in which the seven deadly sins: pride,
covetousness, lust, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth, fought the seven
cardinal virtues: faith, hope, charity, prudence, temperance, justice,
and strength, respectively, for the human soul. The play "Everyman"
demonstrates that every man can get to heaven only by being virtuous
and doing good deeds in his lifetime. It emphasizes that death may come
anytime to every man, when his deeds will be judged as to their
goodness or sinfulness. Card games were introduced. The legend of Robin
Hood was written down.
The Commons gained the stature of the Lords and statutes were
regularly enacted by the "assent of the Lords spiritual and temporal
and the Commons". The Commons now assented instead merely requested
enactments.
The Law
Royal proclamations clarifying, refining or amplifying the law
had the force of parliamentary statutes. In 1486, the King proclaimed
that "Forasmuch as many of the King our sovereign lord's subjects
[have] been disposed daily to hear feigned, contrived, and forged
tidings and tales, and the same tidings and tales, neither dreading God
nor his Highness, utter and tell again as though they were true, to the
great hurt of divers of his subjects and to his grievous displeasure:
Therefore, in eschewing of such untrue and forged tidings and tales,
the King our said sovereign lord straitly chargeth and commandeth that
no manner person, whatsoever he be, utter nor tell any such tidings or
tales but he bring forth the same person the which was author and
teller of the said tidings or tales, upon pain to be set on the
pillory, there to stand as long as it shall be thought convenient to
the mayor, bailiff, or other official of any city, borough, or town
where it shall happen any such person to be taken and accused for any
such telling or reporting of any such tidings or tales. Furthermore the
same our sovereign lord straitly chargeth and commandeth that all
mayors, bailiffs, and other officers diligently search and inquire of
all such persons tellers of such tidings and tales not bringing forth
the author of the same, and them set on the pillory as it is above
said." He also proclaimed in 1487 that no one, except peace officers,
may carry a weapon, e.g. bows, arrows, or swords, in any town or city
unless on a journey. He proclaimed in 1498 that no one may refuse to
receive silver pennies or other lawful coin as payment regardless of
their condition as clipped, worn, thin, or old, on pain of imprisonment
and further punishment.
A statute provided that: Lords holding castles, manors, lands
and tenements by knight's service of the king shall have a writ of
right for wardship of the body as well as of the land of any minor heir
of a deceased person who had the use [beneficial enjoyment of a trust]
of the land for himself and his heirs as if the land had been in the
possession of the deceased person. And if such an heir is of age, he
shall pay relief to the lord as if he had inherited possession of the
land. An heir in ward shall have an action of waste against his lord as
if his ancestor had died seised of the land. That is, lands of "those
who use" shall be liable for execution of his debt and to the chief
lord for his relief and heriot, and if he is a bondsman, they may be
seized by the lord. The king tried to retain the benefits of feudal
incidents on land by this Statute of Uses, but attorneys sought to
circumvent it by drafting elaborate and technical instruments to convey
land free of feudal burdens.
Any woman who has an estate in dower, or for a term of life, or
in [fee] tail, jointly with her husband, or only to herself, or to her
use, in any manors, lands, tenements, or other hereditaments of the
inheritance or purchase of her husband, or given to the said husband
and wife in tail, or for term of life, by any of the ancestors of the
said husband, or by any other person seised to the use of the said
husband, or of his ancestors, who, by herself or with any after taken
husband; discontinue, alienate, release, confirm with warranty or, by
collusion, allow any recovery of the same against them or any other
seised to their use, such action shall be void. Then, the person to
whom the interest, title, or inheritance would go after the death of
such woman may enter and possess such premises. This does not affect
the common law that a woman who is single or remarried may give, sell,
or make discontinuance of any lands for the term of her life only.
All deeds of gift of goods and chattels made of trust, to the
use of the giver [grantor and beneficiary of trust], to defraud
creditors are void.
It is a felony to carry off against her will, a woman with
lands and tenements or movable goods, or who is heir-apparent to an
ancestor. This includes taking, procuring, abetting, or knowingly
receiving a woman taken against her will.
A vagabond, idle, or suspected person shall be put in the
stocks for three days with only bread and water, and then be put out of
the town. If he returns, he shall spend six days in the stocks. (A few
years later this was changed to one and three days, respectively.)
Every beggar who is not able to work, shall return to the hundred where
he last dwelled, is best known, or was born and stay there.
No one may take pheasants or partridges by net snares or other
devices from his own warren [breeding ground], upon the freehold of any
other person, or else forfeit 200s., one half to the owner of the land
and the other half to the suer. No one may take eggs of any falcon,
hawk, or swan out of their nest, whether it is on his land or any other
man's land, on pain of imprisonment for one year and fine at the King's
will, one half to the King, and the other half to the holder of the
land, or owner of the swan. No man shall bear any English hawk, but
shall have a certificate for any imported hawk, on pain for forfeiture
of such. No one shall drive falcons or hawks from their customary
breeding place to another place to breed or slay any for hurting him,
or else forfeit 200s. after examination by a Justice of the Peace, one
half going to the king and one half to the suer.
Any person without a forest of his own who has a net device
with which to catch deer shall pay 200s. for each month of possession.
Anyone stalking a deer with beasts anywhere not in his own forest shall
forfeit 200s. Anyone taking any heron by device other than a hawk or
long bow shall forfeit 6s.8d. No one shall take a young heron from its
nest or pay 10s. for each such heron. Two justices may decide such an
issue, and one tenth of the fine shall go to them.
No man shall shoot a crossbow except in defense of his house,
other than a lord or one having 2,667s. of land because their use had
resulted in too many deer being killed. (The longbow was not forbidden.)
No beasts may be slaughtered or cut up by butchers within the
walls of a town, or pay 12d. for every ox and 8d. for every cow or
other beast, so that people will not be annoyed and distempered by foul
air, which may cause them sickness.
No tanner may be a currier [dressed, dyed, and finished tanned
leather] and no currier may be a tanner. No shoemaker [cordwainer] may
be a currier and no currier may be a shoemaker. No currier shall curry
hides which have not been tanned. No tanner shall sell other than red
leather. No tanner may sell a hide before it is dried. No tanner may
tan sheepskins.
No long bow shall be sold over the price of 3s.4d.
Good wood for making bows may be imported without paying
customs.
No grained cloth of the finest making shall be sold for more
than 16s., nor any other colored cloth for more than 11s. per yard, or
else forfeit 40s. for every yard so sold. No hat shall be sold for more
than 20d. and no cap shall be sold for more than 2s.8d., or else
forfeit 40s. for each so sold.
Silver may not be sold or used for any use but goldsmithery or
amending of plate to make it good as sterling, so that there will be
enough silver with which to make coinage.
Each feather bed, bolster, or pillow for sale shall be stuffed
with one type of stuffing, that is, dry pulled feathers or with clean
down alone, and with no sealed feathers nor marsh grass, nor any other
corrupt stuffings. Each quilt, mattress, or cushion for sale shall be
stuffed with one type of stuffing, that is, clean wool, or clean flocks
alone, and with no horsehair, marsh grass, neatshair, deershair, or
goatshair, which is wrought in lime fats and gives off an abominable
and contagious odor when heated by a man's body, on pain of forfeiture
of such.
Salmon shall be sold by standard volume butts and barrels.
Large salmon shall be sold without any small fish or broken-bellied
salmon and the small fish shall be packed by themselves only, or else
forfeit 6s.8d. Herring shall be sold at standard volumes. The herring
shall be as good in the middle and in every part of the package as at
the ends of the package, or else forfeit 3s.4d. Eels shall be sold at
standard volumes, and good eels shall not be mixed with lesser quality
eels, or else forfeit 10s. The fish shall be packed in the manner
prescribed or else forfeit 3s.4d. for each vessel.
Fustians shall always be shorn with the long shear, so that it
can be worn for at least two years. If an iron or anything else used to
dress such injures the cloth so that it wears out after four months,
20s. shall be forfeited for each default, one half to the king and the
other half to the suer.
Pewter and brass ware for sale shall be of the quality of that
of London and marked by its maker, on pain of forfeiture of such, and
may be sold only at open fairs and markets or in the seller's home, or
else forfeit 200s. If such false ware is sold, its maker shall forfeit
its value, one half to the king and one half to the searchers. Anyone
using false weights of such wares shall forfeit 20s., one half to the
king and one half to the suer, or if he cannot pay this fine, to be put
in the stocks until market day and then be put in the pillory all the
market time.
No alien nor denizen [foreigner allowed to reside in the nation
with certain rights and privileges] may carry out of the nation any raw
wool or any woolen cloth which has not been barbed, rowed, and shorn.
Silk ribbons, laces, and girdles of silk may not be imported,
since they can be made in the nation.
No one shall import wine into the nation, but on English ships,
or else forfeit the wine, one half to the king and one half to the
seizer of the wine.
No one may take out of the nation any [male] horse or any mare
worth more than 6s.8s. or under the age of three years, upon pain of
forfeiture of such. However, a denizen may take a horse for his own use
and not to sell. This is to stop losing horses needed for defense of
the nation and to stop the price of a horse from going up.
Freemen of London may go to fairs and markets with wares to
sell, despite the London ordinance to the contrary.
Merchants residing in the nation but outside London shall have
free access to foreign markets without exaction taken of more than
133s. sterling by the confederacy of London merchants, which have
increased their fee so much, 400s., that merchants not in the
confederacy have been driven to sell their goods in London for less
than they would get at a foreign market. Exacting more is punishable by
a fine of 400s. and damages to the grieved party of ten times the
excess amount taken.
For the privilege of selling merchandise, a duty of scavage
shall be taken of merchant aliens, but not of denizens. Any town
official who allows disturbing of a person trying to sell his
merchandise because he has not paid scavage, shall pay a fine of 400s.
Coin clipped or diminished shall not be current in payment, but
may be converted at the King's mint into plate or bullion. Anyone
refusing to take coins with only normal wear may be imprisoned by the
mayor, sheriff, bailiff, constable or other chief officer. New coins,
which have a circle or inscription around the outer edge, will be
deemed clipped if this circle or inscription is interfered with.
The penalty for usury is placement in the pillory, imprisonment
for half a year, and a fine of 400s. (The penalty was later changed to
one half thereof.)
Lawbooks in use at the Inns of Court included "The Books of
Magna Carta with diverse Old Statutes", "Doctor and Student" by St.
Germain, "Grand Abridgment" by Fitzherbert, and "New Natura Brevium" by
Lombard.
Judicial Procedure
This statute made changes in the judicial process: The
Chancellor, Treasurer, keeper of the King's privy seal, or two of them,
with a bishop selected by them, and a temporal lord of the King's
council selected by them, and the two Chief Justices of the King's
Bench shall constitute the Court of the Star Chamber. It shall have the
authority to call before it by writ or by privy seal anyone accused of
"unlawful maintenances, giving of liveries, signs and tokens, and
retainers by indentures, promises, oaths, writings, or otherwise
embraceries of his subjects" and witnesses, and impose punishment as if
convicted under due process of law. These laws shall now be enforced:
If a town does not punish the murderer of a man murdered in the town,
the town shall be punished. A town shall hold any man who wounds
another in peril of death, until there is perfect knowledge whether the
man hurt should live or die. Upon viewing a dead body, the coroner
should inquire of the killers, their abettors, and anyone present at
the killing and certify these names. In addition, the murderer and
accessories indicted shall be tried at the King's suit within a year of
the murder, which trial will not be delayed until a private suit is
taken. If acquitted at the King's suit, he shall go back to prison or
let out with bail for the remainder of the year, in which time the
slain man's wife or next of kin may sue. For every inquiry made upon
viewing a slain body, coroners shall be paid 13s.4d. out of the goods
of the slayer or from a town not taking a murderer, but letting him
escape. If the coroner does not make inquiry upon viewing a dead body,
he shall be fined 100s. to the King. If a party fails to appear for
trial after a justice has taken bail from him, a record of such shall
be sent to the King.
Henry sat on the Star Chamber. Up to 1600, it heard many cases
of forgery, perjury, riot, maintenance, fraud, libel, and conspiracy.
It could mete out any punishment, except death or any dismemberment.
This included life imprisonment, fines, pillory, whipping, branding,
and mutilation. If a Justice of the Peace does not act on any person's
complaint, that person may take that complaint to another Justice of
the Peace, and if there is no remedy then, he may take his complaint to
a Justice of Assize, and if there is not remedy then, he may take his
complaint to the King or the Chancellor. There shall then be inquiry
into why the other justices did not remedy the situation. If it is
found that they were in default in executing the laws, they shall
forfeit their commissions and be punished according to their demerits.
Justices of the Peace shall make inquiry of all offenses in
unlawful retaining, examine all suspects, and certify them to the
King's Bench for trial there or in the King's council, and the latter
might also proceed against suspects on its own initiative on
information given.
Perjury committed by unlawful maintenance, embracing, or
corruption of officers, or in the Chancery, or before the King's
council, shall be punished in the discretion of the Chancellor,
Treasurer, both the Chief Justices, and the clerk of the rolls.
The Star Chamber, Chancellor, King's Bench and King and council
have the power to examine all defendants, by oath or otherwise, to
adjudge them convicted or attainted. They can also be found guilty by
confession, examination, or otherwise. If a defendant denied doing the
acts of which he is convicted, he was subject to an additional fine to
the king and imprisonment. Violations of statutes may be heard by the
Justices of Assize or the Justices of the Peace, except treason,
murder, and other felony.
Actions on the case shall be treated as expeditiously in the
courts of the King's Bench and Common Pleas as actions of trespass or
debt.
Proclamation at four court terms of a levy of a fine shall be a
final end to an issue of land, tenements, or other hereditaments and
the decision shall bind persons and their heirs, whether they have
knowledge or not of the decision, except for women-covert who were not
parties, persons under the age of twenty-one, in prison, out of the
nation, or not of whole mind, who are not parties. These may sue within
five years of losing such condition. Also, anyone not a party may claim
a right, title, claim, or interest in the said lands, tenements, or
other hereditaments at the time of such fine recorded, within five
years after proclamations of the fine.
A defendant who appeals a decision for the purpose of delaying
execution of such shall pay costs and damages to the plaintiff for the
delay.
No sheriff, undersheriff, or county clerk shall enter any
complaints in their books unless the complaining party is present. And
no more complaints than the complaining party knows about shall be
entered. The penalty is 40s. for each such false complaint, one half to
the king and the other half to the suer after examination by a Justice
of the Peace. This is to prevent extortion of defendants by false
complaints. The justice shall certify this examination to the King, on
pain of a fine of 40s. A bailiff of a hundred who does not do his duty
to summon defendants shall pay a fine of 40s. for each such default,
after examination by a Justice of the Peace. Sheriffs' records of fines
imposed and bailiffs' records of fines collected may be reviewed by a
Justice of the Peace to examine for deceit.
Any sheriff allowing a prisoner to escape, whether from
negligence or for a bribe, shall be fined, if the prisoner was indicted
of high treason, at least 1,333s. for each escape. However, if the
prisoner was in their keeping because of a suspicion of high treason,
the fine shall be at least 800s.; and if indicted of murder or petite
treason, at least 400s.; and if suspected of murder or petite treason,
200s.; and if suspected of other felonies, 100s. Petite treason was
that by a wife to her husband or a man to his lord.
Any person not responding to a summons for jury service shall
be fined 12d. for the first default, and 2s. for the second, and double
for each subsequent default.
A pauper may sue in any court and be assigned a attorney at no
cost to him.
A Justice of the Peace to whom has been reported hunting by
persons disguised with painted faces or visors or otherwise, may issue
a warrant for the sheriff or other county officer to arrest such
persons and bring them before the justice. Such hunting in disguise or
hunting at night or disobeying such warrant is a felony. This is to
stop large mobs of disguised people from hunting together and then
causing riots, robberies, and murders.
Benefit of clergy may be used only once, since this privilege
has made clerics more bold in committing murder, rape, robbery, and
theft. However, there will be no benefit of clergy in the case of
murder of one's immediate lord, master, or sovereign. (This begins the
gradual restriction over many years of benefit of clergy until it
disappears. Also, benefit of clergy was often disregarded in unpeaceful
times.)
For an issue of riot or unlawful assembly, the sheriff shall
call 24 jurors, each of lands and tenements at least 20s. of charter
land or freehold or 26s.8d. of copyhold or of both. For each default of
the sheriff, he shall pay 400s. And if the jury acquits, then the
justice, sheriff, and under-sheriff shall certify the names of any
jurors maintained or embraced and their misdemeanors, or else forfeit
400s. Any person proved to be a maintainer or embracer shall forfeit
400s. to the king and be committed to ward.
The principal leaders of any riot or unlawful assembly shall be
imprisoned and fined and be bound to the peace with sureties at a sum
determined by the Justices of the Peace. If the riot is by forty people
or heinous, the Justices of Peace shall certify such and send the
record of conviction to the King.
The King's steward, Treasurer, and comptroller have authority
to question by twelve discreet persons any servant of the king about
making any confederacies, compassings, conspiracies, or imaginations
with any other person to destroy or murder the king or one of his
council or a lord. Trial shall be by twelve men of the King's household
and punishment as by felony in the common law.
Ohanges in the judicial process other than those made by
statute were made by court decision. For instance, the royal justices
decided that only the king could grant sanctuary for treason and not
the church. After this, the church withdrew the right of sanctuary from
second time offenders.
The King's council has practically limited itself to cases in
which the state has an interest, especially the maintenance of public
order. Chancery became an independent court rather than the arm of the
king and his council. In Chancery and the King's Bench, the
intellectual revival brought by humanism inspires novel procedures to
be devised to meet current problems in disputed titles to land,
inheritance, debt, breach of contract, promises to perform acts or
services, deceit, nuisance, defamation, and the sale of goods.
A new remedy is specific performance, that is, performance of
an act rather than money damages.
Evidence is now taken from witnesses.
Various courts had overlapping jurisdiction. For instance,
trespass could be brought in the Court of Common Pleas because it was a
civil action between two private persons. It could also be brought in
the Court of the King's Bench because it broke the King's peace. It was
advantageous for a party to sue for trespass in the King's court
because there a defendant could be made to pay a fine to the king or be
imprisoned, or declared outlaw if he did not appear at court.
A wrongful step on the defendant's land, a wrongful touch to
his person or chattels could be held to constitute sufficient force and
an adequate breach of the king's peace to sustain a trespass action.
Trespass on the case did not require the element of force or of breach
of the peace that the trespass offense requires. Trespass on the case
expands in usage to cover many types of situations. Stemming from it is
"assumpsit", which provided damages for breach of an oral agreement and
for a written agreement without a seal.
Parliament's supremacy over all regular courts of law was
firmly established and it was called "the high court of Parliament",
paradoxically, since it rarely came to function as a law court.
When a land holder enfeoffs his land and tenements to people
unknown to the remainderman in [fee] tail, so that he does not know who
to sue, he may sue the receiver of the profits of the land and
tenements for a remedy. And the receivers shall have the same
advantages and defenses as the feoffees or as if they were tenants. And
if any deceased person had the use for himself and his heirs, then any
of his heirs shall have the same advantages and defenses as if his
ancestor had died seised of the land and tenements. And all recoveries
shall be good against all receivers and their heirs, and the feofees
and their heirs, and the co- feoffees of the receivers and their heirs,
as though the receivers were tenants indeed, or feofees to their use,
or their heirs of the freehold of the land and tenements.
If a person feoffs his land to other persons while retaining
the use thereof for himself, it shall be treated as if he were still
seised of the land. Thus, relief and heriot will still be paid for land
in socage. And debts and executions of judgments may be had upon the
land and tenements.
The penalty for not paying customs is double the value of the
goods.
The town of London shall have jurisdiction over flooding and
unlawful fishing nets in that part of the Thames River that flows next
to it.
The city of London shall have jurisdiction to enforce free
passage of boats on the Thames River in the city, interruption of which
carries a fine of 400s., two-thirds to the king and one third to the
suer.
Jurors impaneled in London shall be of lands, tenements, or
goods and chattels, to the value of 133s. And if the case concerns debt
or damages at least 133s, the jurors shall have lands, tenements,
goods, or chattels, to the value of 333s. This is to curtail the
perjury that has gone on with jurors of little substance, discretion,
and reputation.
A party grieved by a false verdict of any court in London may
appeal to the Hustings Court of London, which hears common pleas before
the mayor and aldermen. Each of the twelve alderman shall pick from his
ward four jurors of the substance of at least 2,000s. to be impaneled.
If twenty-four of them find that the jurors of the petty jury has given
an untrue verdict, each such juror shall pay a fine of at least 400s.
and imprisonment not more than six months without release on bail or
surety. However, if it is found that the verdict was true, then the
grand jury may inquire if any juror was bribed. If so, such juror
bribed and the defendant who bribed him shall each pay ten times the
amount of the bribe to the plaintiff and be imprisoned not more than
six months without release on bail or surety.
The Bishop's Court in London had nine offenders a week by 1500. Half of
these cases were for adultery and sexual offenses, and the rest were
for slander, blasphemy, missing church services, and breach of faith.
Punishment was penance by walking barefoot before the cross in the
Sunday Procession dressed in a sheet and holding a candle.
The following is an example of a case in the chancery court. "A
subpoena was sued against Sir William Capell in Chancery because the
plaintiff in the subpoena had borrowed 60 pounds from him in plate,
which he sold for 40 pounds, and was also bound by a statute-merchant
to the aforesaid Sir William in 80 pounds for payment of this money,
and had also made a feoffment to certain persons of certain land and by
indenture willed that if he paid the 60 pounds the feoffees should be
feooffees to his use, but otherwise they should be feoffees to the use
of the said Sir William; and he did not pay the money and so Sir
William took the profits of the land and sued execution of the
statute-merchant.
Kebell thought he could have this land in conscience, even though he
had execution of the statute-merchant, because he does not have this
land in return for the money in such a way that he is paid twice, but
has it by way of penalty; and (the plaintiff) may bind himself to that,
just as he may give the land away for nothing. If someone holds of me
in return for one penny of rent, he may bind himself in 100 pounds for
payment of this rent and if he fails I may have this penalty in
conscience.
THE CHANCELLOR. When someone is beholden in another in a principal
debt, the debtee cannot in conscience take anything in respect of this
indebtedness except the principal debt, even if the debtor is bound to
him in twenty penalties.
Kebell. In that case you might do much good to those who are bound in
this court to keep the peace and are to forfeit their bonds.
THE CHANCELLOR. The sum which is forfeited for breaking the peace may
be taken in conscience, for nothing can be well done nor can the realm
be governed without peace. This court could not be held without peace.
Therefore it is right that whoever acts against the peace should be
punished. And by breaking the peace a crime is committed, and therefore
it is right that he should pay this forfeiture. (But THE CHANCELLOR
held in this case that the debtee may in conscience take so much of the
penalty as represents his damage by the withholding of the debt.)"
This is the case of the Earl of Suffolk v. Berney in the Common
pleas court: " If the parker of a park licences a man to kill deer in
the park, and he kills a deer by virtue of this licence, both of them
commit trespass; for he has no authority to do this, his authority
being to keep and not to give or sell. But if someone has a warrant to
take a deer, and he is a gentleman, he may take company with him and
hunt there for the same deer according to his degree (but not
otherwise). And it was held that if a parker has a warrant for a deer,
and by virtue of that he requests various people to help him kill this
deer, everyone who goes with him may chase after it by licence from the
parker by parol, without writing."
An example of a manorial case is: "And they present that
Margaret Edmond, who held of the lord according to the custom of the
manor one cottage with curtilage, four acres of land and one acre of
meadow lately in the tenure of William Crosse, took as her husband a
certain unknown outsider without the lord's licence. Therefore she
forfeited her estate in the aforesaid cottage and land, by reason of
which there accrues to the lord as a heriot one heifer, price 4s. And
thereupon William Staunton came and took the said cottage, land and
meadow from the lord, to hold to himself and his according to the
custom of the manor, rendering 3s. therein to the lord yearly at the
terms usual there, thus 3d. yearly of increment for rent. And he will
give the lord 2s. in the name of heriot when it should accrue.. And he
gives nothing to the lord as a fine, but he did fealty to the lord.
Another manorial case is: And that John Mille, who held of the
lord for the term of his life according to the custom of the aforesaid
manor as of the part of Thomas Long, knight, one messuage and three
yardlands of land there by the rent and services therein owed, has
ended his last day since the last court, whereof there accrues to the
lord as heriot one horse, price 10s. And that Edith, the wife of the
said John, claims to hold the aforesaid messuage and land with the
appurtenances while she should keep herself single and chaste according
to the custom of the aforesaid manor. And she did fealty to the lord.
And she was admitted as tenant therein by the pledge of William Spenser
and John Smyth, both for the matter and for repair of the aforesaid
tenement etc."`
Chapter 12
The Times: 1509-1558
Renaissance humanism came into being in the nation. In this
development, scholars in London, Oxford, and Cambridge emphasized the
value of classical learning, especially Platonism and the study of
Greek literature as the means of better understanding and writing. They
studied the original Greek texts and became disillusioned with the
filtered interpretations of the church, for example of the Bible and
Aristotle. There had long been displeasure with the priests of the
church. They were supposed to preach four times yearly, visit the sick,
say the daily liturgies, and hear confessions at least yearly. But
there were many lapses. Many were not celibate, and some openly lived
with a woman and had children. Complaints about them included not
residing within their parish community, doing other work such as
raising crops, and taking too much in probate, mortuary fees, and
marriage fees. Probate fees had risen from at most 5s. to 60s. in the
last hundred years. Mortuary fees ranged from 1/3 to 1/9 of a deceased
person's goods. Sanctuary was abused. People objected to the right of
arrest by ecclesiastical authorities.
Also, most parish priests did not have a theology degree or
even a Bachelor's degree, as did many laymen. In fact, many laymen were
better educated than the parish priests. No one other than a laborer
was illiterate in the towns.
Humanist grammar [secondary] schools were established in London
by merchants and guilds. In 1510, the founder and dean of St. Paul's
School placed its management in the hands of London "citizens of
established reputation" because he had lost confidence in the good
faith of priests and noblemen. The sons of the nobility, attorneys, and
merchants were starting to go to grammar school now instead of being
taught at home by a tutor. At school, they mingled with sons of yeomen,
farmers, and tradesmen, who were usually poor. The usual age of entry
was six or seven. Classical Latin and Greek were taught and the
literature of the best classical authors was read. Secondary education
teachers were expected to know Latin and have studied the ancient
philosophers, history, and geography. The method of teaching was for
the teacher to read textbooks to the class from a prepared curriculum.
The students were taught in Latin and expected not to speak English in
school. They learned how to read and to write Latin, to develop and
amplify a theme by logical analysis, and to essay on the same subject
in the narrative, persuasive, argumentative, commending, consoling, and
inciting styles. They had horn books with the alphabet and perhaps a
Biblical verse on them. This was a piece of wood with a paper on it
held down by a sheet of transparent horn. They also learned arithmetic
(solving arithmetical problems and casting accounts). Disobedience
incurred flogging by teacher as well as by parents. Spare the rod and
spoil the child was the philosophy. Schools now guarded the morals and
behavior of students. There were two week vacations at Christmas and at
Easter. Royal grammar books for English and Latin were proclaimed by
Henry in 1543 to be the only grammar book authorized for students. In
1545, he proclaimed a certain primer of prayers in English to be the
only one to be used by students.
The first school of humanist studies arose in Oxford with the
Foundation of Corpus Christi College in 1516 by Bishop Richard Fox. It
had the first permanent Reader or Professor in Greek. The Professor of
Humanity was to extirpate all barbarisms by the study of Cicero,
Sallust, Valerius Maximus, and Quintilian. The Reader of Theology was
to read texts of the Holy Fathers but not those of their commentators.
Oxford University was granted a charter which put the greater part of
the town under control of the Chancellor and scholars. The mayor of
Oxford was required to take an oath at his election to maintain the
privileges and customs of the university. Roman law and other Regius
professorships were founded by the king at Oxford and Cambridge.
Teaching of undergraduates was the responsibility of the university
rather than of the colleges, though some colleges had live-in teachers.
Most colleges were exclusively for graduate fellows, though this was
beginning to change. The university took responsibility for the
student's morals and behavior and tutors sometimes whipped the
undergraduates. For young noblemen, a more important part of their
education than going to university was travel on the continent with a
tutor. This exposure to foreign fields was no longer readily available
through war or pilgrimage. The purpose was practical - to learn about
foreign people and their languages, countries, and courts. Knowledge of
the terrain, resources, prosperity, and stability of their countries
was particularly useful to a future diplomatic or political career.
Understanding of the celestial world began to change.
Contemporary thought was that the nature of all things was to remain at
rest, so that movement and motion had to be explained by causes. The
earth was stationary and the heavens were spherical and revolved around
the earth every twenty-four hours. The universe was finite. The
firmament extended outward in a series of rotating, crystalline,
ethereal spheres to which were attached the various points of celestial
geography. First came the circle of the moon. The sun orbited the
earth. The fixed stars rotated on an outer firmament. Finally, there
was the abode of God and his heavenly hosts. Different principles ruled
the celestial world; it was orderly, stable, ageless, and enduring. But
the world of man changed constantly due to its mixed four elements of
air, earth, fire, and water each trying to disentangle itself from the
others and seeking to find its natural location. The heavenly spheres
could affect the destinies of men, such as through fate, fortune,
intelligence, cherubim, seraphim, angels, and archangels. Astrologers
read the celestial signs and messages.
Then a seed of doubt was cast on this theory by Nicholaus
Copernicus, a timid monk in Poland, who found inconsistencies in
Ptolemy's work, but saw similarity in the movements of the earth and
other planets. He inferred from the "wandering" planetary movements
with loops that their motion could be explained simply if they were
revolving in circular paths around the sun, rather than around the
earth. In his book of 1543, he also expressed his belief that the earth
also revolved around the sun. This idea so shocked the world that the
word "revolution" became associated with radical change. He thought it
more likely that the earth rotated than that the stars moved with great
speed in their large orbits. He proposed that the earth spins on its
own axis about once every twenty-four hours, with a spin axis at about
a 23 1/2 degree tilt from the orbital axis, thus explaining a slow
change in the overall appearances of the fixed stars which had been
observed since the time of Ptolemy. He deduced from astronomical
measurements that the correct order of the planets from the Sun was:
Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. The church considered
his ideas heretical because contradictory to its dogma that man and the
earth were the center of the universe. A central sun evoked images of
pagan practices of sun worship. News of new ideas in science traveled
quickly to English scholars and professionals.
The physicians of London were incorporated to oversee and
govern the practice of medicine. Medicine consisted largely of magical
remedies of sorcerers and astrologers and herbal remedies administered
by quacks. People still generally believed that disease was caused by
witches and demons. A faculty of physicians was established at Oxford
and Cambridge. A Royal College of Physicians was founded in London in
1518 by the King's physician. The College of Physicians taught more
practical medicine and anatomy than the universities. Only graduates of
the College of Physicians or of Oxford or Cambridge were allowed to
practice medicine or surgery.
Medical texts were Hippocrates and Galen. These viewed disease
as only part of the process of nature without anything divine. They
stressed empiricism, experience, collections of facts, evidences of the
senses, and avoidance of philosophical speculations. Some observations
of Hippocrates were: -"When sleep puts an end to delirium, it is a
hopeful sign." -"When on a starvation diet, the patient should not be
allowed to become fatigued." "Old men usually have less illness than
young ones, but such as they have last, as a rule, till death."
"Pleurisy, pneumonia, colds, sore throat, and headache are more likely
to occur during winter seasons." "When one oversleeps, or fails to
sleep, the condition suggests disease." Hippocrates had asserted that
madness was simply a disease of the brain and then Galen had agreed and
advocated merciful treatment of the insane. Galen's great remedies were
proper diet, exercise, massage, and bathing. He taught the importance
of a good water supply and good drainage. He advised that baking bread
in a large oven was superior to cooking in a small oven, over ashes, or
in a pan in wholesomeness, digestibility, and flavor. Greek medicinal
doctrines were assumed, such as that preservation of the health of the
body was dependent on air, food, drink, movement and repose, sleeping
and waking, excretion and retention, and the passions.
It was widely known that sleep was restorative and that bad
news or worry could spoil one's digestion. An Italian book of 1507
showed that post-mortem examinations could show cause of death by
gallstones, heart disease, thrombosis of the veins, or abscesses. In
1540 began the practice of giving bodies of hanged felons to surgeons
to dissect. This was to deter the commission of felony. There was some
feeling that dissection was a sacrilege, that the practice of medicine
was a form of sorcery, and that illness and disease should be dealt
with by prayer and/or atonement because caused by sin, the wrath of
God, or by the devil. Food that was digested was thought to turn into a
vapor which passed along the veins and was concreted as blood, flesh,
and fat. After 1546, there was a book listing hundreds of drugs with
preparation directions, but their use and application was by trial and
error.
Flemish physician Andreas Vesalius, secretly dissected human
corpses, finding them hanging on public gibbets or competing with dogs
for those incompletely buried in cemeteries. He begged doctors to allow
him to examine the bodies of their fatal cases. He ingratiated himself
with judges who determined the time and place of execution of
criminals. In 1543 he published the first finely detailed description
of human anatomy. In it, there was no missing rib on one side of man,
and this challenged the theory of the woman Eve having been made from a
rib of the man Adam.
In the 1540s, Ambroise Pare from France, a barber-surgeon who
was the son of a servant, was an army surgeon. Wounds at this time were
treated with boiling oil and spurting vessels were closed by being
seared with a red-hot iron. After he ran out of boiling oil, he
observed that the soldiers without this treatment were healing better
than those with this treatment. So he advocated ceasing the practice of
cauterizing wounds. He also began tying arteries with cord to stop
their bleeding after amputation many other surgical techniques.
In Switzerland, Theophrastus Paracelsus, an astrologer and
alchemist who later became a physician, did not believe that humor
imbalance caused disease nor in treatment by bloodletting or purging.
He believed that there were external causes of disease, e.g. toxic
matter in food, contagion, defective physical or mental constitution,
cosmic influences differing with climate and country, or affliction
sent Providence. He urged that wounds be kept clean rather than given
poultices. In 1530, he pioneered the application of chemistry to
physiology, pathology, and the treatment of disease by starting
clinical diagnosis and treatment of disease by highly specific
medicines, instead of by cure-alls. For instance, he used alkalis to
treat disease, such as gout, indicated by certain substances in the
urine, which also started urinalysis. He perceived that syphilis was
caused by contagion and used mercury to cure it. He found curative
powers also in opium, sulphur, iron, and arsenic. Opium was made by
drying and cooking the capsule of the poppy and was one of the few
really effective early drugs. Paracelsus urged alchemists to try to
prepare drugs from minerals for the relief of suffering. He claimed to
acquire knowledge of cures through spiritual contacts to occult wisdom.
He believed that a human being has an invisible body as well as a
visible one and that it is closely attuned to imagination and the
spiritual aspect of an individual. He noticed that one's attitudes and
emotions, such as anger, could affect one's health. He sometimes used
suggestion and signs to help a patient form mental images, which
translated into cures. He saw insanity as illness instead of possession
by evil spirits.
Students were beginning to read for the bar by their own study
of the newly available printed texts, treatises, and collections of
statute law and of cases, instead of listening in court and talking
with attorneys.
In 1523, Anthony Fitzherbert wrote "Boke of Husbandry", which
set forth the most current methods of arable farming, giving details of
tools and equipment, advice on capital outlay, methods of manuring,
draining, ploughing, and rick-building. It was used by many constantly,
and was often carried around in the pocket. This began a new way to
disseminate new methods in agriculture. He also wrote a "Boke of
Surveying", which relied on the perch rod and compass dial, and gave
instruction on how to set down the results of a survey. In 1533, Gemma
Frisius laid down the principles of topographical survey by
triangulation. This improved the quality of surveys and produced
accurate plots.
Geoffrey Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" was a popular book.
Through Chaucer, London English became a national standard and the
notion of "correct pronunciation" came into being.The discoveries and
adventures of Amerigo Vespucci, a Portuguese explorer, were widely
read. The North and South American continents were named for him.
London merchant guilds began to be identified mainly with
hospitality and benevolence instead of being trading organizations.
Twelve great companies dominated city politics and effectively chose
the mayor and aldermen. They were, in order of precedence, Mercers,
Grocers, Drapers, Fishmongers, Goldsmiths, Skinners, Tailors,
Haberdashers, Ironmongers, Salters, Vintners, and the Clothworkers
(composed from leading fullers and shearmen). The leading men of these
guilds were generally aldermen and the guilds acted like municipal
committees of trade and manufactures. Then they superintended the trade
and manufactures of London much like a government department. They were
called Livery Companies and categorized their memberships in three
grades: mere membership, livery membership, and placement on the
governing body. Livery members were distinguished by having the
clothing of the brotherhood [its livery] and all privileges, and
proprietary and municipal rights, in the fullest degree. They generally
had a right to a place at the Company banquets. They were invited by
the governing body, as a matter of favor, to other entertainments.
These liverymen were usually those who had bought membership and paid
higher fees because they were richer. Their pensions were larger than
those of mere members. Those with mere membership were freemen who had
only the simple freedom of the trade. The masters were usually
householders. The journeymen, yeomanry, bachelors were simple freemen.
Most of these companies had almshouses attached to their halls for the
impoverished, disabled, and elderly members and their widows and
children. For instance, many members of the Goldsmiths had been blinded
by the fire and smoke of quicksilver and some members had been rendered
crazed and infirm by working in that trade. The freedom and rights of
citizenship of the city could only be obtained through membership in a
livery company.
A lesser guild, the Leathersellers, absorbed the Glovers,
Pursers, and Pouchmakers, some of whom became wage earners of the
Leathersellers. But others of these craftsmen remained independent. The
Whittawyers, who treated horse, deer, and sheep hides with alum and
oil, had become wage earners for the Skinners.
Londoners went to the fields outside the city for recreation
and games. When farmers enclosed some suburban common fields in 1514, a
crowd of young men marched out to them and, crying "shovels and
spades", uprooted the hedges and filled in the ditches, thus reclaiming
the land for their traditional games. The last major riot in London was
aroused by a speaker on May Day in 1517 when a thousand disorderly
young men, mostly apprentices, defied the curfew and looted shops and
houses of aliens. A duke with two thousand soldiers put it down in
mid-afternoon, after which the king executed fifteen of the rioters.
Many English migrated to London. There were ambitious young men
and women hopeful of betterment through employment, apprenticeship,
higher wages, or successful marriage. On the other hand, there were
subsistence migrants forced to leave their homes for food, work, or
somewhere to live. There was much social mobility. For instance,
between 1551 and 1553, of 881 persons admitted as freemen of London, 46
were the sons of gentlemen, 136 the sons of yeomen, and 289 the sons of
farm workers. London grew in population about twice as fast as the
nation.
There are 26 wards of London as of 1550. This is the number for
the next four centuries. Each ward has an alderman, a clerk, and a
chief constable. There are also in each ward about 100 to 300 elected
officials including prickers, benchers, blackbootmen, fewellers
[keepers of greyhounds], scribes, a halter-cutter, introducers,
upperspeakers, under speakers, butlers, porters, inquestmen,
scavengers, constables, watchmen, a beadle, jurymen, and common
councilmen. The wardmote had inquest jurisdiction over immorality or
bad behavior such as vagrancy, delinquency, illegitimacy, and disputes.
This contributed greatly to social stability. In 1546, Henry ordered
the London brothels closed. A small gaol was established in the Clink
district of Southwark, giving the name "clink" to any small gaol.
London ordinances required journeymen to work from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in
winter, with a total of 90 minutes breaks for breakfast, dinner, and an
afternoon drink, for 7d. In the summer they had to work for two hours
longer for 8d. At its peak in the 1540s the court employed about 200
gentlemen, which was about half the peerage and one-fifth of the
greater gentry. Henry issued a proclamation ordering noblemen and
gentlemen in London not employed by the court to return to their
country homes to perform their service to the king.
Though there was much agreement on the faults of the church and
the need to reform it, there were many disagreements on what philosophy
of life should take the place of church teachings. The humanist Thomas
More was a university trained intellectual. His book "Utopia",
idealized an imaginary society living according to the principles of
natural virtue. In it, everything is owned in common and there is no
need for money. All believe that there is a God who created the world
and all good things and who guides men, and that the soul is immortal.
But otherwise people choose their religious beliefs and their priests.
From this perspective, the practices of other Christians, scholastic
theologians, priests and monks, superstition, and ritual looked absurd.
More encouraged a religious revival. Aristotle's position that virtuous
men would rule best is successfully debated against Plato's position
that intellectuals and philosophers would be the ideal rulers.
More believed the new humanistic studies should be brought to
women as well as to men. He had tutors teach all his children Latin,
Greek, logic, theology, philosophy, mathematics, and astronomy from an
early age. His eldest daughter Margaret became a recognized scholar and
translated his treatise on the lord's prayer. Other high class women
became highly educated. They voiced their opinions on religious
matters. In the 1530s, the Duchess of Suffolk spoke out for reform of
the clergy and against images, relics, shrines, pilgrimages, and
services in Latin. She and the countess of Sussex supported ministers
and established seminaries for the spread of the reformed faith.
More pled for proportion between punishment and crime. He urged
that theft no longer be punished by death because this only encouraged
the thief to murder his victim to eliminate evidence of the theft. He
opined that the purpose of punishment was to reform offenders. He
advocated justice for the poor to the standard of justice received by
the rich.
Erasmus, a former monk, visited the nation for a couple of
years and argued that reason should prevail over religious belief. He
wrote the book "In Praise of Folly", which noted man's elaborate pains
in misdirected efforts to gain the wrong thing. For instance, it
questioned what man would stick his head into the halter of marriage if
he first weighed the inconveniences of that life? Or what woman would
ever embrace her husband if she foresaw or considered the dangers of
childbirth and the drudgery of motherhood? Childhood and senility are
the most pleasant stages of life because ignorance is bliss. Old age
forgetfulness washes away the cares of the mind. A foolish and doting
old man is freed from the miseries that torment the wise and has the
chief joy of life: garrulousness. The seekers of wisdom are the
farthest from happiness; they forget the human station to which they
were born and use their arts as engines with which to attack nature.
The least unhappy are those who approximate the naiveness of the beasts
and who never attempt what is beyond men. As an example, is anyone
happier than a moron or fool? Their cheerful confusion of the mind
frees the spirit from care and gives it many-sided delights. Fools are
free from the fear of death and from the pangs of conscience. They are
not filled with vain worries and hopes. They are not troubled by the
thousand cares to which this life is subject. They experience no shame,
fear, ambition, envy, or love. In a world where men are mostly at odds,
all agree in their attitude towards these innocents. They are sought
after and sheltered; everyone permits them to do and say what they wish
with impunity. However, the usual opinion is that nothing is more
lamentable than madness. The Christian religion has some kinship with
folly, while it has none at all with wisdom. For proof of this, notice
that children, old people, women, and fools take more delight than
anyone else in holy and religious things, led no doubt solely by
instinct. Next, notice that the founders of religion have prized
simplicity and have been the bitterest foes of learning. Finally, no
people act more foolishly than those who have been truly possessed with
Christian piety. They give away whatever is theirs; they overlook
injuries, allow themselves to be cheated, make no distinction between
friends and enemies, shun pleasure, and feast on hunger, vigils, tears,
labors, and scorn. They disdain life, and utterly prefer death. In
short, they have become altogether indifferent to ordinary interests,
as if their souls lived elsewhere and not in their bodies. What is
this, if not to be mad? The life of Christians is run over with
nonsense. They make elaborate funeral arrangements, with candles,
mourners, singers, and pallbearers. They must think that their sight
will be returned to them after they are dead, or that their corpses
will fall ashamed at not being buried grandly. Christian theologians,
in order to prove a point, will pluck four or five words out from
different places, even falsifying the sense of them if necessary, and
disregard the fact that their context was relevant or even contradicted
their points. They do this with such brazen skill that our attorneys
are often jealous of them.
Attorney Christopher St. German wrote the legal treatise
"Doctor and Student", in which he deems the law of natural reason to be
supreme and eternal. The law of God and the law of man, as enunciated
by the church and royalty, merely supplement the law of natural reason
and may change from time to time. Examples of the law of reason are: It
is good to be loved. Evil is to be avoided. Do onto others as you would
have them do unto you. Do nothing against the truth. Live peacefully
with others. Justice is to be done to every man. No one is to wrong
another. A trespasser should be punished. From these is deduced that a
man should love his benefactor. It is lawful to put away force with
force. It is lawful for every man to defend himself and his goods
against an unlawful power.
Like his father, Henry VIII dominated Parliament. He used this
power to reform the church of England in the 1530's. The Protestant
reformation cause, started in Germany in 1517 by Martin Luther posting
his thesis, had become identified with Henry's efforts to have his
marriage of eighteen years to the virtuous Catherine annulled so he
could marry a much younger woman: Anne and have a son. The end of his
six successive wives was: annulled, beheaded, died; annulled, beheaded,
survived. Henry VIII was egotistical, arrogant, and self- indulgent.
This nature allowed him to declare himself the head of the church of
England instead of the pope.
Henry used and then discarded officers of state. One such was
Thomas Wolsey, the son of a town grazier [one who pastures cattle and
rears them for market] and butcher, who was another supporter of
classical learning. He rose through the church, the gateway to
advancement in a diversity of occupations of clergy such as secretary,
librarian, teacher, attorney, doctor, author, civil servant, diplomat,
and statesman. He was a court priest when he aligned himself with
Henry, both of whom wanted power and glory and dressed extravagantly.
But he was brilliant and more of a strategist than Henry. Wolsey called
himself a reformer and started a purge of criminals, vagrants and
prostitutes within London, bringing many before the council. But most
of his reforming plans were not brought to fruition, but ended after
his campaign resulted in more power for himself. Wolsey rose to be
Chancellor to the King and also Archbishop of York. As the
representative of the pope for England, he exercised almost full papal
authority there. But he controlled the church in England in the King's
interest. He was second only to the King and he strengthened the crown
by consolidating power and income that had been scattered among nobles
and officeholders. He also came to control the many courts. Wolsey
centralized the church in England and dissolved the smaller
monasteries, the proceeds of which he used to build colleges at Oxford
and his home town. He was an impartial and respected justice. When
Wolsey was not able to convince the pope to give Henry an annulment of
his marriage, Henry dismissed him and took his property, shortly after
which Wolsey died on his way to be imprisoned in the Tower to be tried
for treason.
Thomas. Cromwell, a top royal official, was a self-taught
attorney, arbitrator, merchant, and accountant. He was the son of a
clothworker/blacksmith/brewer/innkeeper, Like Wolsey, he was a natural
orator. He drafted and had passed legislation that created a new church
of England. He had all men swear an oath to the terms of the succession
statute. Thomas More, the successor Chancellor to Wolsey, was known for
his honesty and was a highly respected man. More did not yield to
Henry's bullying for support for his statute declaring the succession
to be vested in the children of his second marriage, and his statute
declaring himself the supreme head of the church of England, instead of
the pope. He did not expressly deny this supremacy statute, so was not
guilty of treason under its terms. But silence did not save him. He was
attainted for treason on specious grounds and beheaded. His conviction
rested on the testimony of one perjured witness, who misquoted More as
saying that Parliament did not have the power to require assent to the
supremacy statute because it was repugnant to the common law of
Christendom.
Henry ruled with an iron fist. In 1536, he issued a
proclamation that "any rioters or those in an unlawful assembly shall
return to their houses" or "we will proceed against them with all our
royal force and destroy them and their wives and children." In 1538, he
proclaimed that anyone hurting or maiming an officer while trying to
make an arrest "shall lose and forfeit all their lands, goods, and
chattel" and shall suffer perpetual imprisonment. Moreover, if one
murdered such an officer, he would suffer death without privilege of
sanctuary or of clergy. In 1540, he proclaimed that there would be no
shooting by handgun except on a shooting range. Henry had Parliament
pass bills of attainder against many people. For the first time, harsh
treatment of prisoners in the Tower, such as placement in dungeons with
little food, no bed, and no change of clothes, became almost a matter
of policy. Through his host of spies, Cromwell heard what men said to
their closest friends. Words idly spoken were distorted into
treasonable utterances. Fear spread through the people. Silence was a
person's only possibility of safety.
Cromwell developed a technique for the management of the House
of Commons which lasted for generations. He promulgated books in
defense of royal spiritual authority, which argued that canon law was
not divine but merely human and that clerical authority had no
foundation in the Bible. A reformed English Bible was put in all parish
churches. Reformers were licensed to preach. Cromwell ordered sermons
to be said which proclaimed the supremacy of the King. He instituted
registers to record baptisms, marriages, and burials in every county,
for the purpose of reducing disputes over descent and inheritance. He
dissolved all the lesser monasteries. When Cromwell procured a foreign
wife for Henry whom Henry found unattractive, he was attainted and
executed.
Henry now reconstructed his council to have a fixed membership,
an official hierarchy based on rank, a secretariat, an official record,
and formal powers to summon individuals before it by legal process.
Because it met in the King's Privy Lodgings, it was called the "Privy
Council". It had an executive function and met daily instead of just
during the terms of the Westminster courts from late autumn to early
summer. It communicated with the king through intermediaries, of whom
the most important was the King's Secretary. The judicial part of the
council was the Court of the Star Chamber, which met at Westminster.
When Henry went to war in France, part of the council went with him,
and part of it stayed to attend the Queen Regent.
Thomas Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury, wrote the first
English Common Book of Prayer. With its use beginning in 1549, church
services were to be held in English instead of Latin. The celebration
of the Lord's Supper was a communion among the parishioners and
minister all sharing wine and bread. It replaced the mass, in which the
priests were thought to perform a miraculous change of the substance of
bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ, which the priest then
offered as a sacrifice for remission of pain or guilt. This reflected
the blood sacrifice of Christ dying on the cross. In the mass, only the
priests drank the wine. The mass, miracles, the worship of saints,
prayers for souls in purgatory, and pilgrimages to shrines such as that
of Thomas Becket, were all to be discontinued. Imprisonment or exile
rather than death was made the penalty for heresy and blasphemy, and
also for adultery.
After the King dissolved the greater monasteries, he took and
sold their ornaments, silver plate and jewelry, lead from roofs of
their buildings, and finally much of the land itself. Many maps of
manors and lands were made at this time. Three monasteries were
converted into the first three treating hospitals in London, one for
the diseased, one for the poor, and one, Bethlehem (or "Bedlam" for
short), for the mentally ill. But there were still many poor, sick,
blind, aged, and impotent people in the streets since the closure of
the monasteries. In 1552, there were 2,100 people in need of relief,
including 300 orphans, 600 sick or aged, 350 poor men overburdened with
their children, 650 decayed householders, and 200 idle vagabonds. The
poor often begged at parishes, where they spread disease. London then
set up a poor relief scheme. The Bridewell was established to set to
work the idle, vagabonds, and prostitutes making feather bed ticks and
wool-cards, drawing of wire, carding, knitting, and winding of silk.
Parishes were required to give money for the poor in 1563. Other towns
followed London's lead in levying a poor rate.
Henry used the proceeds from the sale of the monasteries for
building many new palaces and wood ships for his navy. In war, these
navy ships had heavy guns which could sink other ships. In peace time,
these ships were hired out to traders. Large ships were constructed in
docks, made partly by digging and partly by building walls. In 1545,
Henry issued a proclamation ordering all vagabonds, ruffians,
masterless men, and evil-disposed persons to serve him in his navy.
The former land of the monasteries, about 30% of the country's
land, was sold and resold, usually to great landowners, or leased.
Title deeds became important as attorneys sought the security that
title could give. Some land went to entrepreneurial cloth
manufacturers, who converted the buildings for the manufacture of
cloth. They bought the raw wool and hired craftsmen for every step of
the manufacturing process to be done in one continuous process. This
was faster than buying and selling the wool material between craftsmen
who lived in different areas. Also, it was more efficient because the
amount of raw wool bought could be adjusted to the demand for cloth.
Many landowners now could live in towns exclusively off the
rents of their rural land. Rents were increased so much that tenants
could not pay and were evicted. They usually became beggars or thieves.
Much of their former land was converted from crop raising to pasture
for large herds of sheep. Arable farming required many workers, whereas
sheep farming required only one shepherd and herdsman. There were
exceptional profits made from the export of wool cloth. But much raw
wool was still exported. Its price went up from 6s.8d. per tod [about
28 pounds] in 1340 to 20s.8d. in 1546.
Villeinage was now virtually extinct. But a lord could usually
claim a small money-rent from the freeholder, sometimes a relief when
his land was sold or passed at death, and occasionally a heriot from
his heir.
There was steady inflation. Landlords made their leases short
term so that they could raise rents as prices rose. Copyholders
gradually acquired a valuable right in their holdings: their rent
became light - less that a shilling an acre.
The knights had 70% of the land, the nobles 10%, the church
10%, and king 5%. At least 85% of the population still lived in the
country. Rich traders built town or country houses in which the
emphasis was on comfort and privacy. There was more furniture, bigger
windows filled with glass, thick wallpaper, and formal gardens. Use of
thick, insulating wallpaper rose with the rise of paper mills. It was
stenciled, hand-painted, or printed. Some floors were tiled instead of
stone or wood. They were still strewn with straw. The owners ate in a
private dining room and slept in their own rooms with down quilts.
Their soap was white. They had clothing of white linen and white wool,
leather slippers, and felt hats. Men wore long tunics open at the neck
and filled in with pleated linen and enormous puffed sleeves. The
fortunes of landowners varied; some went into aristocratic debt by
ostentatiously spending on building, clothes, food, and drink, and some
became indebted by inefficient management. Some had to sell their
manors and dismiss their servants.
All people generally had enough food because of the
commercialization of agriculture. Even the standard meal of the peasant
was bread, bacon, cheese, and beer or cider, with beef about twice a
week. Also, roads were good enough for the transport of foodstuffs
thereon. Four-wheeled wagons for carrying people as well as goods.
Goods were also transported by the pulling of barges on the rivers from
paths along the river. A plough with wheels was used as well as those
without.
Henry made proclamations reminding people of the apparel laws,
but they were difficult to enforce. Henry also made a proclamation
limiting the consumption of certain meat according to status. Seven
dishes were allowed to bishops, dukes, marquises, and earls; six to
other temporal lords; five to justices, the King's council, sheriffs,
and persons with an income of at least 200 pounds yearly or goods worth
2000 pounds; four to persons with an income of at least 100 pounds or
goods worth 1000 pounds; and three dishes to persons with an income of
at least 100 pounds or goods worth 500 pounds. There were limits on
types of meat served, such as a maximum of one dish of great fowl such
as crane, swan, and peacock; eight quail per dish; and twelve larks in
a dish. People used tin or pewter dishes, platters, goblets, saucers,
spoons, saltcellars, pots, and basins. They used soap to wash
themselves, their clothes, and their dishes. A solid, waxy soap was
from evaporating a mixture of goat fat, water, and ash high in
potassium carbonate. They had bedcovers on their beds. Cloth bore the
mark of its weaver and came in many colors. Cloth could be held
together with pins that had a shank with a hook by which they were
closed. They burned wood logs in the fireplaces in their houses. So
much wood was used that young trees were required by statute to be
given enough lateral space to spread their limbs and were not cut down
until mature. The organ and the harp, precursor to the piano, were
played.
People went to barbers to cut their hair and to extract teeth.
They went to people experienced with herbs, roots, and waters for
treatment of skin conditions such as sores, cuts, burns, swellings,
irritated eyes or scaly faces. For more complicated ailments, they went
to physicians, who prescribed potions and medicines. They bought
potions and medicines from apothecaries and pharmacists.
The King, earls, who ruled counties, and barons, who had land
and a place in the House of Lords, still lived in the most comfort. The
King's house had courtyards, gardens, orchards, wood-yards, tennis
courts, and bowling alleys.
The walls of the towns were manned by the citizens themselves,
with police and watchmen at their disposal. In inns, travelers slept
ten to a bed and there were many fleas and an occasional rat or mouse
running through the rushes strewn on the floor. The inn provided a bed
and ale, but travelers brought their own food. Each slept with his
purse under his pillow.
In markets, sellers set up booths for their wares. They sold
grain for making oatmeal or for sowing one's own ground. Wine, butter,
cheese, fish, chicken, and candles could also be bought. Butchers
bought killed sheep, lambs, calves, and pigs to cut up for selling.
Tanned leather was sold to girdlemakers and shoemakers. Goods bought in
markets were presumed not to be stolen, so that a purchaser could not
be dispossessed of goods bought unless he had knowledge that they were
stolen.
The ruling group of the towns came to be composed mostly of
merchants, manufacturers, attorneys, and physicians. Some townswomen
were independent traders. The governed class contained small master
craftsmen and journeyman artisans, small traders, and dependent
servants. The major streets of London were paved with stone, with a
channel in the middle. More water conduits from hills, heaths, and
springs were built to provide the citizens of London with more water.
The sewers carried only surface water away. Households were forbidden
to use the sewers. Privies emptied into cesspools.
The Merchant Adventurers' Fellowship brought virtually all
adventurers under its control and organized and regulated the national
cloth trade. It had a General Court of the Adventurers sitting in the
London Mercers' Hall. Various companies were granted monopolies for
trade in certain areas of the world such as Turkey, Spain, France,
Venice, the Baltic, and Africa. These were regulated companies. That is
they obtained complete control of a particular foreign market, but any
merchant who cared to join the company, pay its dues, and obey its
regulations, might share in the benefits of its monopoly. The companies
generally confined trade to men who were primarily merchants and not
shopkeepers. In 1553 explorer Sebastian Cabot formed the Muscovy
Company, which was granted a monopoly in its charter for trade with
north Russia. It was oriented primarily to export English woolen cloth.
It was the first company trading on a joint stock, which was arranged
as a matter of convenience and safety. The risks were too great for any
few individuals. It hired ships and assigned space to each member to
ship his goods at his own risk. The dividend was returned to the
subscribers of the capital they put in plus an appropriate share of any
profits made on the voyage. The members began leaving their money with
the company for the next voyage. A general stock grew up. In 1568 were
the first industrial companies: Mines Royal, and Mineral and Battery
Works. The cloth, mining, iron, and woodcraft industries employed
full-time workers on wages. In the ironworks and foundries, the furnace
blowing engines were worked by water wheels or by a gear attached to
donkeys or horses. The forge hammers were worked at first by levers and
later by water wheels. The day and night hammering filled the
neighborhood with their noise.
Land held in common was partitioned. There were leases of
mansion houses, smaller dwelling houses, houses with a wharf having a
crane, houses with a timber yard, houses with a garden, houses with a
shed, shops, warehouses, cellars, and stables. Lands with a dye-house
or a brew-house were devised by will along with their dying or brewing
implements. There were dairies making butter and cheese.
Citizens paid taxes to the king amounting to one tenth of their
annual income from land or wages. Merchants paid "forced loans" and
benevolences. The national government was much centralized and had
full-time workers on wages. A national commission of sewers continually
surveyed walls, ditches, banks, gutters, sewers, ponds, bridges,
rivers, streams, mills, locks, trenches, fish- breeding ponds, and
flood gates. When low places were threatened with flooding, it hired
laborers, bought timber, and hired carts with horses or oxen for
necessary work. Mayors of cities repaired water conduits and pipes
under their cities' ground.
The matchlock musket came into use, but did not replace the bow
because its matchcord didn't remain lit in rainy weather. The matchlock
was an improvement over the former musket because both hands could be
used to hold and aim the matchlock musket because the powder was
ignited by a device that touched a slow-burning cord to the powder when
a trigger was pulled with one finger.
After the break with Rome, cooperation among villagers in
church activities largely ceased. The altars and images previously
taken care of by them disappeared and the paintings on the walls were
covered with white or erased, and scripture texts put in their place.
People now read the new Bible, the "Paraphrases" of Erasmus, Foxe's
"Book of Martyrs", and the works of Bishop Jewel. The Book of Martyrs
taught the duty and splendor of rising above all physical danger or
suffering. The canon law of the church was abolished and its study
prohibited. Professorships of the civil law were founded at the two
universities. The Inns of Court grew. Attorneys had more work with the
new laws passed to replace the church canons of the church. They played
an important role in town government and many became wealthy. They
acquired town houses in addition to their rural estates.
Church reforms included abolishing church sanctuaries. Benefit
of clergy was restricted more. Parsons were allowed to marry.
Archbishops were selected by the king without involvement by the pope.
Decisions by archbishops in testamentary, matrimonial, and marriage
annulment matters were appealable to the Court of Chancery instead of
to the pope. The clergy's canons were subject to the King's approval.
The control of the church added to the powers of the Crown to summon
and dissolve Parliament, coin money, create peers [members of the House
of Lords who received individual writs of summons to Parliament],
pardon criminals, order the arrest of dangerous persons without
customary process of law in times of likely insurrection, tax and call
men to arms without the consent of Parliament if the country were
threatened with invasion.
About 1550 there began indictments and executions for
witchcraftery which lasted for about a century. One of the reasons for
suspecting a woman to be a witch was that she lived alone, which was
very unusual.
Henry ordered all alien Anabaptists, who denied the validity of
infant baptism, to leave the realm.
The Law
Offices may not be bought and sold, but only granted by
justices of the royal courts.
The King's proclamations shall be observed and kept as though
they were acts of Parliament. The penalty shall not be more than that
stated in the proclamation, except for heresy.
A person having land in socage or fee simple may will and
devise his land by will or testament in writing.
A person holding land by knight's service may will and devise
by his last will and testament in writing part of his land to his wife
and other parts of his land to his children, as long as 1/3 of entailed
land is left to the King.
Anyone serving the king in war may alienate his lands for the
performance of his will, and if he dies, his feoffees or executors
shall have the wardship of his heir and land.
A person who leases land for a term of years, even if by
indenture or without a writing, may have a court remedy as do tenants
of freehold for any expulsion by the lessor which is contrary to the
lease, covenant, or agreement. These termers, their executors and
assigns, shall hold and enjoy their terms against the lessors, their
heirs and assigns. The lessor shall have a remedy for rents due or
waste by a termer after recovering the land as well as if he had not
recovered the land.
A lord may distrain land within his fee for rents, customs, or
services due without naming the tenant, because of the existence of
secret feoffments and leases made by their tenants to unknown persons.
Anyone seised of land to the use or trust of other persons by
reason of a will or conveyance shall be held to have lawful seisin and
possession of the land, because by common law, land is not devisable by
will or testament, yet land has been so conveyed, which has deprived
married men of their courtesy, women of their dower, the king of the
lands of persons attainted, the king of a year's profits from felons'
lands, and lords of their escheats. (This was difficult to enforce.)
A woman may not have both a jointure [promise of husband to
wife of property or income for life after his death] and dower of her
husband's land. (Persons had purchased land to hold jointly with their
wives)
A sale of land must be in writing, sealed, and registered in
its county with the clerk of that county. If the land is worth less
than 40s. per year, the clerk is paid 12d. If the land exceeds 40s.
yearly, the clerk is paid 2s.6d.
An adult may lease his lands or tenements only by a writing
under his seal for a term of years or a term of life, because many
people who had taken leases of lands and tenements for a term of years
or a term of lives had to spend a lot for repair and were then evicted
by heirs of their lessors.
A husband may not lease out his wife's land.
No woman-covert, child, idiot, or person of insane memory may
devise land by will or testament.
The land of tenants-in-common may be partitioned by them so
that each holds a certain part.
No bishop or other official having authority to take probate of
testaments may take a fee for probating a testament where the goods of
the testator are under 100s., except that the scribe writing the
probate of the testament may take 6d., and for the commission of
administration of the goods of any man dying intestate, being up to
100s, may be charged 6d. Where the goods are over 100s. but up to 800s.
sterling, probate fees may be 3s.6d. at most, whereof the official may
take 2s.6d. at most, with 12d. residue to the scribe for registering
the testament. Where the goods are over 800s. sterling, probate fees
may be 5s. at most, whereof the official may take 2s.6d. at most, with
2s.6d. residue to the scribe, or the scribe may choose to take 1d. per
10 lines of writing of the testament. If the deceased had willed by his
testament any land to be sold, the money thereof coming nor the profits
of the land shall not be counted as the goods or chattel of the
deceased. Where probate fees have customarily been less, they shall
remain the same. The official shall approve and seal the testament
without delay and deliver it to the executors named in such testaments
for the said sum. If a person dies intestate or executors refuse to
prove the testament, then the official shall grant the administration
of the goods to the widow of the deceased person, or to the next of
kin, or to both, in the discretion of the official, taking surety of
them for the true administration of the goods, chattels, and debts.
Where kin of unequal degree request the administration, it shall be
given to the wife and, at his discretion, other requestors. The
executors or administrators, along with at least two persons to whom
the deceased was indebted, or to whom legacies were made, or, upon
their refusal or absence, two honest kinsmen, shall make an inventory
of the deceased's personal property, goods, chattels, ware,
merchandise, and take it upon their oaths to the official.
No parish clergyman or other spiritual person shall take a
mortuary fee or money from a deceased person with movable goods under
the value of 133s., a deceased woman-covert, a child, a person keeping
no house, or a traveler. Only one mortuary fee may be taken of each
deceased and that in the place where he most dwelled and lived. Where
the deceased's personal property and goods are to the value of 133s. or
more, above his debts paid, and under 600s., a mortuary up to 3s. 4d.
may be taken. Where such goods are 600s. or more and under 800s.,
mortuary up to 6s.8d. may be taken. Where such goods are 800s. or
above, mortuary up to 10s. may be taken. But where mortuaries have
customarily been less, they shall remain the same.
Executors of a will declaring land to be sold for the payment
of debts, performance of legacies to wife and children, and charitable
deeds for the health of souls, may sell the land despite the refusal of
other executors to agree to such sale.
A man may not marry his mother, stepmother, sister, niece,
aunt, or daughter.
Any clergy preaching contrary to the King's religious doctrine
shall recant for the first offense. He shall abjure and bear a faggot
(a badge resembling a faggot of wood which would have been used for
burning him as a heretic) for the second offense. If he refuses to
abjure or bear a faggot or offends a third time, he shall be burned and
lose all his goods. If a layperson teaches, defends, or maintains a
religious doctrine other than the King's, he shall recant and be
imprisoned for twenty days for the first offense. He shall abjure and
bear a faggot if he does not recant or offends a second time. He shall
forfeit his goods and suffer perpetual imprisonment if he does not
abjure or bear a faggot or offends a third time.
The entry of an apprentice into a craft shall not cost more
than 2s.6d. After his term, his entry shall not be more than 3s.4d.
This replaced the various fees ranging from this to 40s.
No master of a craft may require his apprentice to make an oath
not to compete with him by setting up a shop after the term of his
apprenticeship.
No alien may take up a craft or occupation in the nation.
No brewer of ale or beer to sell shall make wood vessels or
barrels, and coopers shall use only good and seasonable wood to make
barrels and shall put their mark thereon. Every ale or beer barrel
shall contain 32 of the King's standard gallons. The price of beer
barrels sold to ale or beer brewers or others shall be 9d.
An ale-brewer may employ in his service one cooper only to
bind, hoop and pin, but not to make, his master's ale vessels.
No butcher may keep a tanning-house.
Tanned leather shall be sold only in open fairs and markets and
after it is inspected and sealed.
Only people living in designated towns may make cloth to sell,
to prevent the ruin of these towns by people taking up both agriculture
and cloth-making outside these towns. No one making cloth for sale may
have more than one woolen loom or else forfeit 20s. This to protect the
weavers' ability to maintain themselves and their families from rich
clothiers who keep many looms and employ journeymen and unskillful
persons at low wages. No one owning a fulling mill may own a weaving
loom. No weaver may own a fulling mill.
No one shall shoot in or keep in his house any handgun or
crossbow unless he has 2,000s. yearly.
No one may hunt or kill hare in the snow since their killing in
great numbers by men other than the king and noblemen has depleted them.
No one shall take an egg or bird of any falcon or hawk out of
its nest on the King's land. No one may disguise himself with hidden or
painted face to enter a forest or park enclosed with a wall for keeping
deer to steal any deer or hare.
Ducks and geese shall not be taken with any net or device
during the summer, when they haven't enough feathers to fly. But a
freeholder of 40s. yearly may hunt and take such with long bow and
spaniels.
No one may sell or buy any pheasant except the King's officers
may buy such for the King.
No butcher may kill any calf born in the spring.
No grain, beef, mutton, veal, or pork may be sold outside the
nation.
Every person with 36 acres of agricultural land, shall sow one
quarter acre with flax or hemp-feed.
All persons shall kill crows on their land to prevent them from
eating so much grain at sowing and ripening time and destroying hay
stacks and the thatched roofs of houses and barns. They shall assemble
yearly to survey all the land to decide how best to destroy all the
young breed of crows for that year. Every village and town with at
least ten households shall put up and maintain crow nets for the
destruction of crows.
No land used for raising crops may be converted to pasture. No
woods may be converted to agriculture or pasture. The efforts to
enforce these proved these prohibitions were not successful.
No one shall cut down or break up dikes holding salt water and
fresh water from flooding houses and pastures.
No one shall dump tin-mining debris, dung, or rubbish into
rivers flowing into ports or take any wood from the walls of the port,
so that ships may always enter at low tide.
A person may lay out a new highway on his land where the old
one has been so damaged by waterways that horses with carriages cannot
pass, with the consent of local officials.
Only poor, aged, and disabled persons may beg. Begging without
a license is punishable by whipping or setting in the stocks 3 days
with only bread and water.
Alien palm readers shall no longer be allowed into the nation,
because they have been committing felonies and robberies.
Butchers may not sell beef, pork, mutton, or veal from
carcasses for more than 1/2 penny and 1/2 farthing [1/4 penny] per
pound.
French wines may not sell at retail for more than 8d. per
gallon.
A barrel maker or cooper may sell a beer barrel for 10d.
No longer may aliens bring books into the nation to sell
because now there are sufficient printers and bookbinders in the nation.
No one may buy fresh fish other than sturgeon, porpoise, or
seal from an alien to put to sale in the nation.
Every person with an enclosed park where there are deer, shall
keep two tall and strong mares in such park and shall not allow them to
be mounted by any short horse, because the breeding of good, swift, and
strong horses has diminished.
A man may have only as many trotting horses for the saddle as
are appropriate to his degree.
No one may maintain for a living a house for unlawful games
such as bowling, tennis, dice, or cards. No artificer, craftsman,
husbandman, apprentice, laborer, journeyman, mariner, fisherman may
play these games except at Christmas under his master's supervision.
Noblemen and others with a yearly income of at least 2,000s. may allow
his servants to play these games at his house.
Hemp or flax may not be watered in any river or stream where
animals are watered.
No one shall sell merchandise to another and then buy back the
same merchandise within three months at a lower price. No one shall
sell merchandise to be paid for in a year above the sum of 200s. per
2000s. worth of merchandise. No one shall sell or mortgage any land
upon condition of payment of a sum of money before a certain date above
the sum of 200s. per 2000s. per year.
No one shall commit forgery by counterfeiting a letter made in
another person's name to steal any money, goods, or jewels.
No one shall libel by accusing another of treason in writing
and leaving it in an open place without subscribing his own name to it.
If any servant converts to his own use more than 40s. worth of
jewels, money, or goods from caskets entrusted to him for safekeeping
by a nobleman or other master or mistress, it shall be a felony.
If a person breaks into a dwelling house by night to commit
burglary or murder, is killed by anyone in that house, or a person is
killed in self-defense, the killer shall not forfeit any lands or goods
for the killing.
Killing by poisoning shall be deemed murder and is punishable
by death.
A person who has committed a murder, robbery, or other felony
he has committed shall be imprisoned for his natural life and be burned
on the hand, because those who have been exiled have disclosed their
knowledge of the commodities and secrets of this nation and gathered
together to practice archery for the benefit of the foreign realm. If
he escapes such imprisonment, he shall forfeit his life.
A person convicted or outlawed shall be penalized by loss of
life, but not loss of lands or goods, which shall go to his wife as
dower and his heirs.
Buggery may not be committed on any person or beast.
No one shall slander or libel the king by speeches or writing
or printing or painting.
No one shall steal fish from a pond on another's land by using
nets or hooks with bait or by drying up the pond.
The mayor of London shall appoint householders to supervise
watermen rowing people across the Thames River because many people have
been robbed and drowned by these rowers. All such boats must be at
least 23 feet long and 5 feet wide.
No man shall take away or marry any maiden under 16 years of
age with an inheritance against the will of her father.
Any marriage solemnized in church and consummated shall be
valid regardless of any prior agreement for marriage.
Sheriffs shall not lose their office because they have not
collected enough money for the Exchequer, but shall have allowances
sufficient to perform their duties.
Butchers, brewers, and bakers shall not conspire together to
sell their victuals only at certain prices. Artificers, workmen and
laborers shall not conspire to work only at a certain rate or only at
certain hours of the day.
No one shall sell any woolen cloth that shrinks when it is wet.
No one shall use a rope or device to stretch cloth for sale so
to make it appear as more in quantity than it is.
No one may sell cloth at retail unless the town where it was
dressed, dyed, and pressed has placed its seal on the cloth. Cloth may
not be pressed with a hot press, but only with a cold press.
Only artificers using the cutting of leather, may buy and sell
tanned leather and only for the purpose of converting it into made
wares.
A beggar's child above five years may be taken into service by
anyone that will.
Cattle may be bought only in the open fair or market and only
by a butcher or for a household, team, or dairy, but not for resale
live.
Butter and cheese shall not be bought to be sold again except
at retail in open shop, fair, or market.
No man may enter a craft of cloth-making until he has been an
apprentice for seven years or has married a clothiers' wife and
practicing the trade for years with her and her servants sorting the
wool.
No country person shall sell wares such as linen drapery, wool
drapery, hats, or groceries by retail in any incorporated town, but
only in open fairs.
For every 60 sheep there shall be kept one milk cow because of
the scarcity of cattle.
No clothier may keep more than one wool loom in his house,
because many weavers do not have enough work to support their families.
No weaver may have more than two wool looms.
No clothmaker, fuller, shearman, weaver, tailor, or shoemaker
shall retain a journeyman to work by the piece for less than a three
month period. Every craftsman who has three apprentices shall have one
journeyman. Servants in agriculture and bargemen shall serve by the
whole year and not by day wages.
There shall be a sales tax of 12d. per pound of wool cloth
goods for the Crown.
All people shall attend church on Sundays to remember God's
benefits and goodness to all and to give thanks for these with prayers
and to pray to be given daily necessities.
Anyone fighting in church shall be excluded from the fellowship
of the parish community.
No one going from house to house to repair metal goods or sell
small goods he is carrying may do this trade outside the town where he
lives.
No one may sell ale or beer without a license, because there
have been too many disorders in common alehouses. Offenders may be put
in the town or county gaol for three days.
Only persons with yearly incomes of 1,333s. or owning goods
worth 13,333s. may store wine in his house and only for the use of his
household.
No one may sell forged iron, calling it steel, because the
edged tools and weapons made from it are useless.
Parish communities shall repair the highways for four days each
year using oxen, cart, plough, shovels, and spades.
The children of priests are declared legitimate so they may
inherit their ancestor's lands. The priests may be tenants by courtesy
after the death of their wives of such land and tenements that their
wives happened to be seized of in fee simple or in fee tail, during the
spousals.
As of 1541, it was felony to practice witchcraft, sorcery,
enchantment, or conjuration [invocation of spirits] for the purpose 1)
of obtaining money, or 2) to consume any person in his body, members,
or goods, or 3) to provoke any person to unlawful love or lucre of
money, or 4) to declare where stolen goods be, or 5) to despite Christ,
or 6) to pull down any cross.
The Year Books of case decisions ceased in 1535.
Judicial Procedure
Since the nation was now peaceful, expediency was no longer
needed, so judicial procedures again became lengthy and formal with
records.
The Privy Council took the authority of the Star Chamber court,
which organized itself as a specialty court.
A specific group of full-time councilors heard pleas of private
suitors. By royal proclamation of 1546, only those admitted by the
Chancellor and two chief justices may practice as counsel or in legal
pleading in any of the King's courts. Also, such a person must be
serjeant-at-law, reader, utter barrister, or an eight-year fellow of
one of the four houses of court, except in the Court of Common Pleas.
Doctors of the civil law may practice in the church or Chancery
courts.
The Chancery court enforced the obligations known as trusts, in
the name of equity and good conscience. It adopted every analogy that
the common law presented. Its procedure was to force the defendant to
answer on oath the charges that were brought against him. All pleadings
and usually testimony was put into writing. Much evidence consisted of
written affidavits. There was no jury. The Chancery court did not
record its decisions apparently because it did not see itself as bound
by precedents.
When acting as the highest court, the House of Lords was
presided over by the Chancellor, who sat on his prescribed place on the
wool sacks. It had the following jurisdiction: trial of peers for high
treason and serious felony, appeals on writs of error from courts of
the common law, and impeachment. The House of Lords served as judge of
impeachment cases, whereas the House of Commons served as fact finders.
Witnesses could be sworn in to state pertinent facts necessary
for full understanding and adjudication of cases, because they are
reliable now that there is no unlicensed livery and maintenance and
because jurors no longer necessarily know all the relevant facts.
Justices shall tax inhabitants of the county for building gaols
throughout the nation, for imprisonment of felons, to be kept by the
sheriffs and repaired out of the Exchequer.
Piracy at sea or in river or creek or port are adjudicated in
counties because of the difficulty of obtaining witnesses from the
ship, who might be murdered or who are on other voyages on the sea, for
adjudication by the admiral.
Piracy and murder on ships is punishable by death only after
confession or proof by disinterested witnesses.
Land held by tenants in common may be partitioned by court
order, because some of these tenants have cut down all the trees to
take the wood and pulled down the houses to convert the material to
their own use.
Persons worth 800s. a year in goods shall be admitted in trials
of felons in corporate towns although they have no freehold of land.
Each justice of the high courts may employ one chaplain.
The bishops, nobility, and Justices of the Peace were commanded
to imprison clergy who taught papal authority. Justices of the Peace
and sheriffs were to watch over the bishops. The Justices of Assize
were to assess the effectiveness of the Justices of the Peace as well
as enforce the treason statute on circuit.
The criminal court went outside the common law to prosecute
political enemies, e.g. by dispensing with a jury.
The leet court and sheriff's turn court have much less
jurisdiction. They may dispose of presentments of trespasses and
nuisances, but not felony or question of freehold. Such presentments
are made by a set of at least twelve men, and the presented person is
amerced there and then.
The humanist intellectual revival caused the church courts to
try to eliminate contradictions with state law, for instance in debt,
restitution, illegitimacy, and the age of legal majority.
An example of a case in the King's Bench is this: "A French
priest was indicted in Kent for bringing false ducats into the realm in
order to make payment, knowing them to be false. He was thereupon
arraigned and found guilty, and the judgment was respited and the
record sent into the King's Bench. And there he was discharged; for the
statute of 25 Edw. 3 is for bringing (in) false money counterfeiting
coin of the realm, and the ducats are not coin of the realm"
In the case of R. v. Thorpe "A man robbed a church in Essex
and was indicted for it in Essex; and he went to Ipswich in Suffolk and
a goldsmith received him; and they were both indicted in Suffolk, one
as principal and the other as accessory, because the principal had
brought part of the stolen goods to Ipswich. And the justices in Essex
sent a writ for the principal, whereby he was there arraigned and found
guilty and hanged. Then the other indictment in Suffolk was removed
into the King's Bench, and upon process the sheriff returned the
principal dead; so the accessory came by process and pleaded the death
of the principal, and the attorney for the king confessed it, and
therefore he was discharged."
In the case of R. v. More, "And then on Thursday, the first day
of July, Sir Thomas more, knight (who had earlier been Chancellor of
England and was afterwards discharged from the same office) was
arraigned before the said SIR THOMAS AUDLEY, Chancellor and the other
commissioners, for treason, in that he was an aider, counsellor and
abettor to the said Fisher, and also that he falsely, maliciously, and
traitorously desiring, willing, and scheming, contrived, practised and
attempted to deprive the king of his dignity, name and title of Supreme
Head on earth of the Church of England. (He was) found guilty, and the
said Chancellor gave judgment. And the said More stood firmly upon the
statute of 26 Hen 8, for he said that the Parliament could not make the
king Supreme Head, etc. He was beheaded at Tower Hill,"
Chapter 13
The Times: 1558-1601
Queen Elizabeth I was intelligent, educated, and wise about
human nature. When young, she was a brilliant student and studied the
Bible, philosophy, literature, oratory, and Greek and Roman history.
She wrote in English, Latin, French, and Italian. She read Greek,
including the Greek Testament, Greek orators, and Greek dramatists, at
age seven, when the first professorship of Greek was founded at
Cambridge University. Learning from books was one of her highest values
throughout her life.
She read so much and was so influenced by Cicero that she
acquired his style of writing. Her Chief Secretary William Cecil was so
guided by Cicero's "Offices" that he carried a copy in his pocket.
Cicero opined that government officials had a duty to make the safety
and interest of citizens its greatest aim and to influence all their
thoughts and endeavors without ever considering personal advantage.
Government was not to serve the interest of any one group to the
prejudice or neglect of the rest, for then discord and sedition would
occur. Furthermore, a ruler should try to become loved and not feared,
because men hated those whom they feared, and wished them dead.
Therefore obedience proceeding from fear could not last, whereas that
which was the effect of love would last forever. An oppressor ruling by
terror would be resented by the citizens, who in secret would choose a
worthier person. Then liberty, having been chained up, would be
unleashed more fiercely than otherwise. To obtain the peoples' love, a
ruler should be kind and bountiful. To obtain the peoples' trust, a
ruler should be just, wise, and faithful. To demonstrate this, a ruler
should be eloquent in showing the people an understanding better than
theirs, the wisdom to anticipate events, and the ability to deal with
adverse events. And this demonstration should be done with modesty. One
cannot get the peoples' trust by vain shows, hypocritical pretenses,
composed countenances, and studied forms of words. The first goal of a
ruler is to take care that each individual is secured in the quiet
enjoyment of his own property. The second goal is to impose taxes that
are not burdensome. The third goal is to furnish the people with
necessaries. The law should be enforced keeping in mind that its
fundamental purpose is to keep up agreement and union among citizens.
Elizabeth cared deeply for the welfare of all citizens of
whatever class. She was sensitive to public opinion and was loved by
her people. She respected truth and was sincere, avoiding guile or
fraud. She claimed that she had never dishonored her tongue with a
falsehood to anyone. She expected that any covert manipulations by
monarchs would be found out and therefore would damage their
credibility. "It becometh therefor all of our rank to deal sincerely;
lest if we use it not, when we do it we be hardly believed."
She was frugal and diplomatically avoided unnecessary wars,
saying that her purse was the pockets of her people. Her credit
reputation was so good that she could always get loans at small rates
of interest from other countries. England was a small Protestant nation
threatened by the larger Catholic nations of France and Spain. When
Elizabeth flirted and talked of marriage with foreign princes, they
laid aside any thoughts of conquering England by war, hoping to obtain
it my marriage. Not only did she not seek to conquer other lands, but
she turned down an invitation to rule the Netherlands.
Elizabeth prayed for divine guidance as in this prayer:
"Almighty God and King of all kings, Lord of heaven and earth, by whose
leave earthly princes rule over mortals, when the most prudent of kings
who administered a kingdom, Solomon, frankly confessed that he was not
capable enough unless Thou broughtst him power and help, how much less
am I, Thy handmaid, in my unwarlike sex and feminine nature, adequate
to administer these Thy kingdoms of England and of Ireland, and to
govern an innumerable and warlike people, or able to bear the immense
magnitude of such a burden, if Thou, most merciful Father didst not
provide for me (undeserving of a kingdom) freely and against the
opinion of many men. Instruct me from heaven, and give help so that I
reign by Thy grace, without which even the wisest among the sons of men
can think nothing rightly. Send therefore, O inexhaustible Fount of all
wisdom, from Thy holy heaven and the most high throne of Thy majesty,
Thy wisdom to be ever with me, that it may keep watch with me in
governing the commonwealth, and that it may take pains, that it may
teach me, Thy handmaid, and may train me that I may be able to
distinguish between good and evil, equity and iniquity, so as rightly
to judge Thy people, justly to impose deserved punishments on those who
do harm, mercifully to protect the innocent, freely to encourage those
who are industrious and useful to the commonwealth. And besides, that I
may know what is acceptable to Thee alone, vouchsafe that I wish, dare,
and can perform it without paying respect to any earthly persons or
things. So that when Thou Thyself, the just Judge, who askest many and
great things from those to whom many and great things are entrusted,
when Thou requirest an exact accounting, charge me not with badly
administering my commonwealth and kingdom. But if by human
thoughtlessness or infirmity Thy handmaid strays from the right in some
thing, absolve me of it by Thy mercy, most high King and most mild
Father, for the sake of Thy Son Jesus Christ; and at the same time
grant that after this worldly kingdom has been exacted of me, I may
enjoy with Thee an eternity in Thy heavenly and unending kingdom,
through the same Jesus Christ, Thy Son and the Assessor of Thy kingdom,
our Lord and Mediator. To whom with Thee and with the Holy Spirit, one
everlasting King, immortal, invisible, only-wise God, be all honor and
glory forever and ever, amen."
Elizabeth promoted commercial speculations, which diffused a
vast increase of wealth among her people. The Elizabethan era was one
of general prosperity. Her good spirits and gayness created a happy
mood in the nation. She loved dancing and madrigal music was popular.
She came to dress elaborately and fancifully. Her dresses were fitted
not only at the waist, but along the torso by a long and pointed bodice
stiffened with wood, steel, or whalebone. Her skirt was held out with a
petticoat with progressively larger hoops. There were two layers of
skirt with the top one parted to show the bottom one. The materials
used were silks, satins, velvets, and brocades. On her dress were
quiltings, slashings, and embroidery. It was covered with gold
ornaments, pearls, gems, and unusual stones from America. She wore
decorated gloves. Ladies copied her and discarded their simple
over-tunics for elaborate dresses. The under-tunic became a petticoat
and the over-tunic a dress. Often they also wore a fan with a mirror, a
ball of scent, a miniature portrait of someone dear to them, and
sometimes a watch. Single ladies did not wear hats, but had long,
flowing hair and low cut dresses showing their bosoms. Married ladies
curled their hair and wore it in high masses on their heads with jewels
interwoven into it. Both gentlemen and ladies wore hats both indoors
and outside and large, pleated collars around their necks (with the
newly discovered starch), perfume, rings with stones or pearls, and
high-heeled shoes. Gentlemen's' tight sleeves, stiffened and fitted
doublet with short skirt, and short cloak were ornamented and their
silk or velvet hats flamboyant, with feathers. At their leather belts
they hung pouches and perhaps a watch. They wore both rapiers [swords
with cutting edges] and daggers daily as there were many quarrels.
There were various artistic beard cuts and various lengths of hair,
which was often curled and worn in ringlets. Barbers sought to give a
man a haircut that would favor his appearance, for instance a long
slender beard for a round face to make it seem narrower and a broad and
large cut for a lean and straight face. Men now wore stuffed breeches
and stockings instead of long hosen. Some wore a jeweled and
embroidered codpiece between their legs to emphasize their virility.
Both gentlemen and ladies wore silk stockings and socks over them and
then boots. Coats dipped in boiled linseed oil with resin served as
raincoats. Both men and women wore velvet or wool full length
nightgowns with long sleeves and fur lining and trimming to bed, which
was the custom for the next 150 years. Fashions changed every year due
to the introduction of cheaper, lighter, and less durable cloths by
immigrant craftsmen. When Elizabeth became old, she had a wig made to
match her youthful long red hair. Other ladies then began wearing wigs.
Every few years, Elizabeth issued a proclamation reminding
people of the apparel laws and reiterating certain provisions which had
been disregarded. For instance, only the royal family and dukes and
marquises in mantles [cloaks] of the garter could wear the color
purple. One had to be at least an earl to wear gold or silver or sable.
Only dukes, marquises, earls and their children, barons, and knights of
the order could wear imported wool, velvet, crimson, scarlet, or blue,
or certain furs., except that barons' sons, knights, or men who could
dispend at least 200 pounds yearly could wear velvet in gowns or coats,
embroidery, and furs of leopards. Spurs, swords, rapiers, daggers, and
woodknives were restricted to knights and barons' sons or higher. A man
who could dispend at least 100 pounds per year could wear taffeta,
satin, damask, or cloth made of camels' hair and silk, in his outer
garments. One had to be the son and heir or the daughter of a knight or
wife of said son or a man who could dispend 20 pounds yearly or had 200
pounds worth in goods to wear silk in one's hat, bonnet, nightcap,
girdle, scabbard, or hose. Yeomen, husbandmen, serving men, and
craftsmen were very restricted in what they could wear. Poor men wore
skirted fustian tunics, loose breeches, and coarse stockings or canvas
leggings.
Children wore the same type of apparel as their elders. They
were given milk at meals for good growth. It was recognized that
sickness could be influenced by diet and herbs. Sickness was still
viewed as an imperfect balance of the four humors.
Women spent much of their time doing needlework and embroidery.
Since so many of the women who spent their days spinning were single,
unmarried women became known as "spinsters".
There were many lifestyle possibilities in the nation:
gentleman, that is one who owned land or was in a profession such as a
attorney, physician, priest or who was a university graduate,
government official, or a military officer; employment in agriculture,
arts, sciences; employment in households and offices of noblemen and
gentlemen; self-sufficient farmers with their own farm; fisherman or
mariner on the sea or apprentice of such; employment by carriers of
grain into cities, by market towns, or for digging, seeking, finding,
getting, melting, fining, working, trying, making of any silver, tin,
lead, iron, copper, stone, coal; glassmaker.
Typical wages in the country were: field-workers 2-3d. a day,
ploughmen 1s. a week with board, shepherd 6d. a week and board, his boy
2 1/2 d., hedgers 6d. a day, threshers 3-7d. depending on the grain,
thatching for five days 2d., master mason or carpenter or joiner 4d. a
day and food or 8d. without food, a smith 2d. a day with food, a
bricklayer 2 1/2 d. a day with food, a shoemaker 2d. a day with food.
These people lived primarily on food from their own ground.
There was typical work for each month of the year in the
country: January - ditching and hedging after the frost broke, February
- catch moles in the meadows, March - protect the sheep from prowling
dogs, April - put up hop poles, sell bark to the tanner before the
timber is felled, fell elm and ash for carts and ploughs, fell hazel
for forks, fell sallow for rakes, fell horn for flails, May - weed and
hire children to pick up stones from the fallow land, June - wash and
shear the sheep, July - hay harvest, August - wheat harvest, September
and October - gather the fruit, sell the wool from the summer shearing,
stack logs for winter, buy salt fish for Lent in the town and lay it up
to dry, November - have the chimneys swept before winter, thresh grain
in the barn, December - grind tools, repair yokes, forks, and farm
implements, cover strawberry and flower beds with straw to protect them
from the cold, split kindling wood with beetle and wedge, tan their
leather, make leather jugs, make baskets for catching fish, and carve
wood spoons, plates, and bowls.
There was a wave of building and renovation activity in town
and country. Housing is now, for the first time, purely for dwelling
and not for defense. Houses were designed symmetrically with decorative
features instead of a haphazard addition of rooms. Windows were large
and put on the outer walls instead of just inside the courtyard. A
scarcity of timber caused proportionally more stone to be used for
dwelling houses and proportionately more brick to be used for royal
palaces and mansions. The rest of the house was plaster painted white
interspersed with vertical, horizontal, and sloping timber, usually
oak, painted black. There were locks and bolts for protection from
intruders. The hall was still the main room, and usually extended up to
the roof. Richly carved screens separated the hall from the kitchen.
The floors were stone or wood, and sometimes tile. They were often
covered with rushes or plaited rush mats, on which incomers could
remove the mud from their boots. Some private rooms had carpets on the
floor. Walls were smoothly plastered or had carved wood paneling to
control drafts. Painted cloths replaced tapestries on walls. Family
portraits decorated some walls, usually in the dining room. Iron stands
with candles were hung from the ceiling and used on tables. Plastered
ceilings and a lavish use of glass made rooms lighter and cozy. Broad
and gracious open stairways with carved wood banisters replaced the
narrow winding stone steps of a circular stairwell. Most houses had
several ornamented brick chimneys and clear, but uneven, glass in the
windows. There were fireplaces in living rooms, dining rooms, kitchen,
and bedrooms, as well as in the hall and great chamber. Parlors were
used for eating and sitting only, but not for sleeping. Closets were
rooms off bedrooms in which one could read and write on a writing
table, and store one's books, papers, maps, calendar, medals,
collections, rarities, and oddities. Sometimes there was a study room
or breakfast room as well. A gentleman used his study not only to read
and to write, but to hold collections of early chronicles, charters,
deeds, copied manuscripts, and coins that reflected the budding
interest in antiquarianism; and to study his family genealogy, for
which he had hired someone to make an elaborate diagram. He was
inclined to have a few classical, religious, medical, legal, and
political books there. Rooms were more spacious than before and
contained oak furniture such as enclosed cupboards; cabinets; buffets
from which food could be served; tables, chairs and benches with backs
and cushions, and sometimes with arms; lidded chests for storing
clothes and linens, and occasionally chests of drawers or wardrobes,
either hanging or with shelves, for clothes. Chests of drawers
developed from a drawer at the bottom of a wardrobe. Carpeting covered
tables, chests, and beds. Great houses had a wardrobe chamber with a
fireplace in front of which the yeoman of the wardrobe and his
assistants could repair clothes and hangings. Separate bedchambers
replaced bed-sitting rooms. Bedrooms all led out of each other. The
lady's chamber was next to her lord's chamber, and her ladies' chambers
were close to her chamber. But curtains on the four-poster beds with
tops provided privacy and warmth. Beds had elaborately carved
bedsteads, sheets, and a feather cover as well as a feather mattress.
Often family members, servants, and friends shared the same bed for
warmth or convenience. Each bedroom typically had a cabinet with a
mirror, e.g. of burnished metal or crystal, and comb on top. One
brushed his teeth with tooth soap and a linen cloth, as physicians
advised. Each bedroom had a pitcher and water bowl, usually silver or
pewter, for washing in the morning, and a chamber pot or a stool with a
hole over a bucket for nighttime use, and also fragrant flowers to
override the unpleasant odors. The chamber pots and buckets were
emptied into cesspits. A large set of lodgings had attached to it
latrines consisting of a small cell in which a seat with a hole was
placed over a shaft which connected to a pit or a drain. The servants
slept in turrets or attics. Elizabeth had a room just for her bath.
Breakfast was substantial, with meat, and usually eaten in
one's bedroom. The great hall, often hung around with bows, pikes,
swords, and guns, was not abandoned, but the family took meals there
only on rare occasions. Instead they withdrew to a parlor, for domestic
use, or the great chamber, for entertaining. Parlors were situated on
the ground floor: the family lived and relaxed there, and had informal
meals in a dining parlor.
More than medieval castles and manor houses, mansions were
designed with privacy in mind. The formal or "state" rooms were on the
first floor above the ground floor, usually comprising a great chamber,
a withdrawing chamber, one or more bedchambers, and a long gallery.
Each room had carved chairs and cabinets. Taking a meal in the great
chamber involved the same ceremonial ritual as in the manorial great
chamber dating from the 1400s. The table was covered with a linen
cloth. The lady of the house sat in a chair at the upper end of the
table and was served first. People of high rank sat at her end of the
table "above" the fancy silver salt cellar and pepper. People of low
rank sat "below" it near the other end of the table. Grace was said
before the meal. Noon dinner and supper were served by cupbearer,
sewer, carver, and assistants. Fine clear Italian glass drinking
vessels replaced even gold and silver goblets. Food was eaten from
silver dishes with silver spoons. Some gentry used two-pronged forks.
Meats were plentiful and varied: e.g. beef, mutton, veal, lamb, kid,
pork, hare, capon, red deer, fish and wild fowl as well as the
traditional venison and brawn [boar]. Kitchen gardens and orchards
supplied apricots, almonds, gooseberries, raspberries, melons,
currants, oranges, and lemons as well as the traditional apples, pears,
plums, mulberries, quinces, pomegranates, figs, cherries, walnuts,
chestnuts, hazel nuts, filberts, almonds, strawberries, blackberries,
dewberries, blueberries, and peaches. Also grown were sweet potatoes,
artichokes, cabbages, turnips, broad beans, peas, pumpkins, cucumbers,
radishes, carrots, celery, parsnips, onions, garlic, leeks, endive,
capers, spinach, sorrel, lettuce, parsley, mustard, cress, sage,
tarragon, fennel, thyme, mint, savory, rhubarb, and medicinal herbs.
The well-to-do started to grow apricots, peaches, and oranges under
glass. Sugar was used to make sweet dishes. Toothpicks made of brass or
silver or merely a stiff quill were used. After the meal, some men and
women were invited for conversation in a withdrawing or drawing
chamber. Some might take a walk in the gardens. After the upper table
was served, the food was sent to the great hall to the steward and high
household officers at the high table and other servants: serving men
and women, bakers, brewers, cooks, pot cleaners, laundresses,
shepherds, hogherds, dairy maids, falconers, huntsmen, and stable men.
What was left was given to the poor at the gates of the house. Great
chambers were used primarily for meals, but also for music; dancing;
plays; masques; playing cards, dice, backgammon, or chess; and daily
prayers if there was no chapel.
Without the necessity of fortifications, the estate of a noble
or gentleman could spread out to include not only a garden for the
kitchen, but extensive orchards and beautiful formal gardens of flowers
and scrubs, sometimes with fountains and maybe a maze of hedges. Trees
were planted, pruned, and grafted onto each other.
Householders had the responsibility to teach their family and
servants religion and morals, and often read from the Bible to them.
Many thought that the writers of the Bible wrote down the exact words
of God, so the passages of the Bible should be taken literally. A noble
lord made written rules with penalties for his country household, which
numbered about a hundred, including family, retainers, and servants. He
enforced them by fines, flogging, and threats of dismissal. The lady of
the house saw that the household held together as an economic and
social unit. The noble's family, retainers, guests, and the head
servants, such as chaplain and children's tutor, and possibly a
musician, dined together at one table. The family included step
children and married sons and daughters with their spouses. Young
couples often lived with the parents of one of them. Chandeliers of
candles lit rooms. There were sandglass clocks. Popular home activities
included reading, conversation, gardening, and music-making. Smoking
tobacco from a clay pipe and taking snuff became popular with men. For
amusement, one of the lord's household would take his place in managing
the estate for twelve days. He was called the "lord of misrule", and
mimicked his lord, and issued comic orders. Clothes were washed in
rivers and wells. At spring cleanings, windows were opened, every
washable surface washed, and feather beds and pillows exposed to the
sun.
Most dwellings were of brick and stone. Only a few were of wood
or mud and straw. The average house was now four rooms instead of
three. Yeomen might have six rooms. A weaver's house had a hall, two
bedrooms, and a kitchen besides the shop. Farmers might have two
instead of one room. A joiner had a one-room house with a feather bed
and bolster. Even craftsmen, artificers and simple farmers slept on
feather beds on bed frames with pillows, sheets, blankets, and
coverlets. Loom tapestry and painted cloth was hung to keep out the
cold in their single story homes. They also had pewter spoons and
plates, instead of just wood or earthenware ones. Even the poorer class
had glass drinking vessels, though of a coarse grade. The poor still
used wooden plates and spoons. Laborers had canvas sheets. Richer
farmers would build a chamber above the hall, replacing the open hearth
with a fireplace and chimney at a wall. Poorer people favored ground
floor extensions, adding a kitchen or second bedchamber to their
cottages. Kitchens were often separate buildings to reduce the risk of
fire. Roasting was done on a spit and baking in irons boxes placed in
the fire or in a brick oven at the side of the fireplace. Sometimes
dogs were used to turn a spit by continual running in a treadmill. Some
people lived in hovels due to the custom in many places that a person
could live in a home he built on village waste land if he could build
it in one night.
Yeomen farmers still worked from dawn to dusk. Mixed farming
began. In this, some of the arable land produced food for man and the
rest produced food for sheep, cattle, pigs, and poultry. This was made
possible by the introduction of clover, artificial grasses, and turnip
and other root crops for the animals. Since the sheep ate these crops
in the field, they provided manure to maintain the fertility of the
soil. This meant that many animals could be maintained throughout the
winter instead of being slaughtered and salted. So salted meat and
salted fish were no longer the staple food of the poorer people during
the winter. Farm laborers ate soup, porridge, milk, cheese, bacon, and
beer or mead (depending on the district), and dark barley or rye bread,
which often served as his plate. Gentlemen ate wheat bread. There was a
scarcity of fruits and vegetables that adversely affected the health of
the affluent as well as of the poor due to the overall decline in
farming. During winter, there were many red noses and coughing.
Farmers' wives used looms as well as spinning wheels with foot treadles.
The value of grain and meat rose compared to wool. Grain became
six times its value in the previous reign. Wool fell from 20s.8d. per
tod to 16s. So sheep farming, which had taken about 5% of the arable
land, was supplanted somewhat by crop raising, and the rural population
could be employed for agriculture. In some places, the threefold system
of rotation was replaced by alternating land used for crops with that
used for pasture. The necessity of manuring and the rotation of crops
and grasses such as clover for enrichment of the soil were recognized.
Wheat, rye, barley, peas, and beans were raised. There was much
appropriation of common land by individual owners by sale or force.
Many farms were enclosed by fences or hedges so that each holder could
be independent of his neighbors. Red and black currants, rhubarb,
apricots, and oranges were now grown. These independent farmers could
sell wool to clothiers, and butter, cheese, and meat to the towns. They
also often did smithwork and ironwork, making nails, horseshoes, keys,
locks, and agricultural implements to sell. A laborer could earn 6d. a
day in winter and 7d. a day in summer. Unfree villeinage ceased on the
royal estates. But most land was still farmed in common and worked in
strips without enclosure. Elizabeth made several proclamations ordering
the enclosure of certain enclosed land to be destroyed and the land
returned to tillage. Windmills now had vanes replacing manual labor to
change the position of their sails when the wind direction changed.
Prosperous traders and farmers who owned their own land assumed local
offices as established members of the community.
The population of the nation was about five million. Population
expansion had allowed landlords to insist on shorter leases and higher
rents, instead of having to choose between accepting a long lease and
good rent or allowing their estates to pass out of cultivation. Over
50% of the population were on the margin of subsistence. 90% of the
population lived in the countryside and 5% in the London and 5% in the
other towns. Life expectancy was about 40 years of age. Over 50% were
under the age of 23, while only about 9% were over 60. Fluctuations in
rates of population growth were traceable back to bad harvests and to
epidemics and the two were still closely related to each other: "first
dirth and then plague".
Most of London was confined within the city wall. There were
orchards and gardens both inside and outside the walls, and fields
outside. Flower gardens and nurseries came into existence. No part of
the city was more than a ten minute walk to the fields. Some wealthy
merchants had four story mansions or country houses outside the city
walls. The suburbs of the City of London grew in a long line along the
river; on the west side were noblemen's houses on both sides of the
Strand. East of the Tower was a seafaring and industrial population.
Goldsmiths' Row was replete with four story houses. A few wealthy
merchants became money- lenders for interest, despite the law against
usury. The mayor of London was typically a rich merchant prince. Each
trade occupied its own section of the town and every shop had its own
signboard, for instance, hat and cap sellers, cloth sellers, grocers,
butchers, cooks, taverns, and booksellers. Many of the London wards
were associated with a craft, such as Candlewick Ward, Bread St. Ward,
Vintry Ward, and Cordwainer Ward. Some wards were associated with their
location in the city, such as Bridge Ward, Tower Ward, Aldgate Ward,
Queenhithe Ward, and Billingsgate Ward. People lived at the back or on
the second floor of their shops. In the back yard, they grew vegetables
such as melons, carrots, turnips, cabbages, pumpkins, parsnips, and
cucumbers; herbs; and kept a pig. The pigs could still wander through
the streets. Hyde Park was the Queen's hunting ground. London had a
small zoo of ten animals, including a lion, tiger, lynx, and wolf.
London was England's greatest manufacturing city. By 1600 the
greatest trading companies in London ceased to be associated only with
their traditional goods and were dominated by merchants whose main
interest was in the cloth trade. Ambitious merchants joined a livery
company to become freemen of the city and for the status and social
benefits of membership. The companies still made charitable endowments,
had funeral feasts, cared for the welfare of guild members, and made
lavish displays of pageantry. They were intimately involved with the
government of the city. They supplied members for the Court of
Aldermen, which relied on the companies to maintain the City's
emergency grain stores, to assess and collect taxes, to provide loans
to the Crown, to control prices and markets, to provide armed men when
trouble was expected, and to raise armies for the Crown at times of
rebellion, war, or visits from foreign monarchs. From about 1540 to
1700, there were 23% involved in cloth or clothing industries such as
weavers, tailors, hosiers, haberdashers, and cappers. 9% were
leatherworkers such as skinners; tanners; those in the heavy leather
crafts such as shoemakers, saddlers, and cobblers; and those in the
light leather crafts such as glovers and pursers. Another 9% worked in
metals, such as the armorers, smiths, cutlers, locksmiths, and
coppersmiths. 8% worked in the building trades. The victualing trades,
such as bakers, brewers, butchers, costermongers [sold fruit and
vegetables from a cart or street stand], millers, fishmongers,
oystermen, and tapsters [bartender], grew from 9% before 1600 to 16% by
1700. Of London's workforce, 60% were involved in production; 13% were
merchants before 1600; 7% were merchants by 1700; 7% were transport
workers such as watermen, sailors, porters, coachmen, and shipwrights;
and 5-9% were professionals and officials (this number declining). Life
in London was lived in the open air in the streets. The merchant
transacted business agreements and the attorney saw his clients in the
street or at certain pillars at St. Paul's Church, where there was a
market for all kinds of goods and services, including gentlemen's
valets, groceries, spirits, books, and loans, which continued even
during the daily service. Some gentlemen had offices distant from their
dwelling houses such as attorneys, who had a good income from trade
disputes and claims to land, which often changed hands. Plays and
recreation also occurred in the streets, such as performances by
dancers, musicians, jugglers, clowns, tumblers, magicians, and men who
swallowed fire. The churches were continuously open and used by trades
and peddlers, including tailors and letter-writers. Water carriers
carried water in wood vessels on their shoulders from the Thames River
or its conduits to the inhabitants three gallons at a time. A gentleman
concocted an engine to convey Thames water by lead pipes up into men's
houses in a certain section of the city. In 1581, a man took out a
lease on one of the arches of London Bridge. There he built a
waterwheel from which he pumped water to residents who lived beside the
bridge. Soldiers, adventurers, physicians, apprentices, prostitutes,
and cooks were all distinguishable by their appearances. An ordinance
required apprentices to wear long blue gowns and white breeches with
stockings, with no ornamentation of silk, lace, gold or silver and no
jewelry. They could wear a meat knife, but not a sword or dagger.
Apprentices lived with their masters and worked from 6 or 7 a.m. to 9
p.m. Some people knitted wool caps as they walked to later sell. There
were sections of town for booksellers, butchers, brewers, hosiers,
shoemakers, curriers, cooks, poulters, bow makers, textwriters,
pattenmakers, and horse and oxen sellers. Large merchant companies had
great halls for trade, such as the mercers, grocers, drapers,
fishmongers, and goldsmiths. The other great guilds were the skinners,
merchant tailers, salters, haberdashers, ironmongers, vintners, and
clothworkers. Smaller guilds were those of the bakers, weavers,
fruiterers, dyers, Thames watermen and lightermen, carpenters, joiners,
turners, and parish clerks. The guilds insured quality by inspecting
goods for a fee.
About 1571, mercer and Merchant Adventurer Thomas Gresham
established the Royal Exchange as a place for merchants and brokers to
meet for business purposes. It became the center of London's business
life. Its great bell rang at midday and at 6 p.m. Its courtyard was
lined with shops that rented at 50s. yearly and became a popular social
and recreational area. Gresham formulated his law that when two kinds
of money of equal denomination but unequal intrinsic value are in
circulation at the same time, the one of greater value will tend to be
hoarded or exported, i.e. bad money will drive good money out of
circulation.
The work-saving knitting frame was invented in 1589 by minister
William Lee; it knit crosswise loops using one continuous yarn and was
operated by hand. The stocking knitters, who knitted by hand, put up a
bitter struggle against its use and chased Lee out of the country. But
it did come into use. Some framework stocking knitters paid frame rent
for the use of their knitting frames. Frame knitting became a scattered
industry.
By 1600 basement services were frequently found in town houses
built on restricted sites in London. Lastly, provision of water
supplies and improved sanitary arrangements reflected concern with
private and public health. There was virtually no drainage. In the case
of town houses, some owners would go to considerable effort to solve
drainage problems, often paying cash to the civic authorities, but
sometimes performing some service for the town at Court or at
Westminster, in return for unlimited water or some drainage. Most
affluent households, including the Queen's, moved from house to house,
so their cesspits could be cleaned out and the vacated buildings aired
after use. A few cesspits were made air tight. Otherwise, there was
extensive burning of incense. Refuse was emptied out of front doors and
shoveled into heaps on street corners. It was then dumped into the
Thames or along the highways leading out of town. People put on perfume
to avoid the stench. By 1600, the first toilet and water closet, where
water flushed away the waste, was built. This provided a clean toilet
area all year round. But these toilets were not much used because of
sewer smells coming from them. The sky above London was darkened
somewhat by the burning of coal in houses.
Taverns served meals as well as ale. They were popular meeting
places for both men and women of all backgrounds to met their friends.
Men went to taverns for camaraderie and to conduct business. Women
usually went to taverns with each other. Two taverns in particular were
popular with the intelligentsia. Music was usually played in the
background and games were sometimes played. Beer made with hops and
malt was introduced and soon there were beer drinking contests.
Drunkenness became a problem.
At night, the gates of the city were closed and citizens were
expected to hang out lanterns. The constable and his watchmen carried
lanterns and patrolled the streets asking anyone they saw why they were
out so late at night. Crime was rampant in the streets and criminals
were executed near to the crime scene.
There were a few horse-drawn coaches with leather flaps or
curtains in the unglazed windows to keep out the weather. The main
thoroughfare in London was still the Thames River. Nobles, peers, and
dignitaries living on the Thames had their own boats and landings. Also
at the banks, merchants of all nations had landing places where ships
unloaded, warehouses, and cellars for goods and merchandise. Swans swam
in the clear bright water. Watermen rowed people across the Thames for
a fee. In Southwark were theaters, outlaws, cutpurses, prostitutes, and
prisons. In 1550 Southwark became the 26th and last ward of London. In
the summer, people ate supper outside in public.
As of old times, brokers approved by the Mayor and aldermen
made contracts with merchants concerning their wares. Some contracts
included holding wares as security. Some craftsmen and manual workers
extended this idea to used garments and household articles, which they
took as pawns, or security for money loaned. This began pawn brokerage,
which was lucrative. The problem was that many of the items pawned had
been stolen.
Elizabeth had good judgment in selecting her ministers and
advisors for her Privy Council, which was organized like Henry VIII's
Privy Council. The Queen's Privy Council of about twelve ministers
handled foreign affairs, drafted official communiques, issued
proclamations, supervised the county offices: the 1500 Justices of the
Peace, chief constables, sheriffs, lord lieutenants, and the county
militias. It fixed wages and prices in London, advised Justices of the
Peace on wages elsewhere, and controlled exports of grain to keep
prices down and supplies ample. It banned the eating of meat two days a
week so that the fishing industry and port towns would prosper. When
grain was scarce in 1596, Elizabeth made a proclamation against those
ingrossers, forestallers, and ingraters of grain who increased its
price by spreading false rumors that it was scarce because much of it
was being exported, which was forbidden. There were labor strikes in
some towns for higher wages after periods of inflation. In 1591, London
authorities rounded up the sturdy vagabonds and set them to work
cleaning out the city ditches for 4d. per day. During the Tudor period,
the office of Secretary of State was established.
Elizabeth did not allow any gentleman to live in London purely
for pleasure, but sent those not employed by the Court back to their
country manors to take care of and feed the poor of their parishes. Her
proclamation stated that "sundry persons of ability that had intended
to save their charges by living privately in London or towns corporate,
thereby leaving their hospitality and the relief of their poor
neighbors, are charged not to break up their households; and all others
that have of late time broken up their households to return to their
houses again without delay." She never issued a license for more than
100 retainers. She was partially successful in stopping Justices of the
Peace and sheriffs from wearing the liveries of great men. She
continued the policy of Henry VII to replace the rule of force by the
rule of law. Service of the crown and influence at court became a
better route to power and fortune than individual factions based on
local power structures. At the lowest level, bribery became more
effective than bullying. The qualities of the courtier, such as wit,
and the lawyer became more fashionable than the qualities of the
soldier.
Most of the men in Elizabeth's court had attended a university,
such as Francis Bacon, son of the Lord Keeper, who became a writer,
attorney, member of the Commons, and experimental philosopher; and
Walter Ralegh, the writer and sea fighter, who had a humble origin.
Many wives and daughters of Privy Councilors attended the Queen in her
privy chamber. Most of the knights or gentlemen of the royal household
were also members of Parliament or Justices of the Peace for certain
districts in the counties. Instead of the office of Chancellor, which
was the highest legal office, Elizabeth appointed a man of common birth
to be Lord Keeper of the Great Seal; she never made a Lord Keeper a
peer. Elizabeth encouraged her lords to frankly make known their views
to her, in public or in private, before she decided on a course of
action. She had affectionate nicknames for her closest courtiers, and
liked to make puns. The rooms of the Queen were arranged as they had
been under Henry VIII: the great hall was the main dining room where
the servants ate and which Elizabeth attended on high days and
holidays; the great chamber was the main reception room, where her
gentlemen and yeomen of the guard waited; the presence chamber was
where she received important visitors; beyond lay her privy chamber and
her bedchamber. She ate her meals in the privy chamber attended only by
her ladies. She believed that a light supper was conducive to good
health. The Lord Chamberlain attended the Queen's person and managed
her privy chamber and her well-born grooms and yeomen and
ladies-in-waiting. The Lord Steward managed the domestic servants below
the stairs, from the Lord Treasurer to the cooks and grooms of the
stable. The court did not travel as much as in the past, but became
associated with London. Elizabeth took her entire court on summer
visits to the country houses of leading nobility and gentry. Courtiers
adopted symbolic "devices" as statements of their reaction to life or
events, e.g. a cupid firing arrows at a unicorn signified chastity
under attack by sexual desire. They carried them enameled on jewels,
had them painted in the background of their portraits, and sometimes
had them expressed on furniture, plate, buildings, or food.
The authority of the Queen was the authority of the state.
Elizabeth's experience led her to believe that it was most important
for a monarch to have justice, temperance, magnanimity, and judgment.
She claimed that she never set one person before another, but upon just
cause, and had never preferred anyone to office for the preferrer's
sake, but only when she believed the person worthy and fit for the
office. She never blamed those who did their best and never discharged
anyone form office except for cause. Further, she had never been
partial or prejudiced nor had listened to any person contrary to law to
pervert her verdicts. She never credited a tale that was first told to
her and never corrupted her judgment with a censure before she had
heard the cause. She did not think that the glory of the title of
monarch made all she did lawful. To her, clemency was as eminent in
supreme authority as justice and severity.
Secular education and especially the profession of law was now
the route for an able but poor person to rise to power, rather than as
formerly through military service or through the church.
The first stage of education was primary education, which was
devoted to learning to read and write in English. This was carried out
at endowed schools or at home by one's mother or a tutor. The children
of the gentry were usually taught in their homes by private teachers of
small classes. Many of the poor became literate enough to read the
Bible and to write letters. However, most agricultural workers and
laborers remained illiterate. They signed with an "x", which
represented the Christian cross and signified its solemnity. Children
of the poor were expected to work from the age of 6 or 7.
The next stage of education was grammar [secondary] school or a
private tutor. A student was taught rhetoric (e.g. poetry, history,
precepts of rhetoric, and classical oratory), some logic, and Latin and
Greek grammar. English grammar was learned through Latin grammar and
English style through translation from Latin. As a result, they wrote
English in a Latin style. Literary criticism was learned through
rhetoric. There were disputations on philosophical questions such as
how many angels could sit on a pin's point, and at some schools,
orations. The students sat in groups around the hall for their lessons.
The boys and some girls were also taught hawking, hunting and archery.
There were no playgrounds. The grammar student and the undergraduate
were tested for proficiency by written themes and oral disputations,
both in Latin. The middle classes from the squire to the petty
tradesman were brought into contact with the works of the best Greek
and Roman writers. The best schools and many others had the students
read Cicero - the "De Officiis", the epistles and orations; and some of
Ovid, Terence, Sallust, Virgil, some medieval Latin works, the
"Distichs" of Cato, and sometimes Erasmus and Sir Thomas More. The
students also had to repeat prayers, recite the Lord's Prayer and the
Ten Commandments, and to memorize catechisms. Because the students came
from the various social classes such as gentlemen, parsons, yeomen,
mercers, and masons, they learned to be on friendly and natural terms
with other classes. A typical school-day lasted from 7:00 AM -to 5:00
PM. There were so many grammar schools founded and financed by
merchants and guilds such as the Mercers and Fishmongers that every
incorporated town had at least one. Grammar schools were headed by
schoolmasters, who were licensed by the bishop and paid by the town.
Flogging with a birch rod was used for discipline. However, the grammar
schools did not become the breeding grounds for humanist ideas because
the sovereigns were faced with religious atomism and political unrest,
so used the grammar schools to maintain public order and achieve
political and religious conformity.
Many grammar schools had preparatory classes called "petties"
for boys and girls who could not read and write to learn to do so. The
girls did not usually stay beyond the age of nine. This was done by a
schoolmaster's assistant, a parish clerk, or some older boys.
Some founders of grammar schools linked their schools with
particular colleges in the universities following the example of
Winchester being associated with New College, Oxford; and Eton with
King's College, Cambridge. The new charter of Westminster in 1560
associated the school with Christ Church, Oxford and Trinity College,
Cambridge.
The government of Oxford University, which had been Catholic,
was taken from the resident teachers and put into the hands of the
Vice-Chancellor, Doctors, Heads of Colleges, and Proctors. Cambridge
already had a strong reformed element from Erasmus' influence. Oxford
University and Cambridge University were incorporated to have a
perpetual existence for the virtuous education of youth and maintenance
of good literature. The Chancellors, masters, and scholars had a common
seal. Oxford was authorized to and did acquire its own printing press.
Undergraduate students entered about age 16 and resided in rooms in
colleges rather than in scattered lodgings. The graduate fellows of the
college who were M.A.s of under three years standing had the
responsibility, instead of the university, for teaching the
undergraduates. This led many to regard their fellowship as a position
for life rather than until they completed their post-graduate studies.
But they were still required to resign on marrying or taking up an
ecclesiastical benefice. The undergraduates were fee-paying members of
the college or poor scholars. Some of the fee-paying members or
gentlemen-commoners or fellow-commoners were the sons of the nobility
and gentry and even shared the fellows' table. The undergraduate
students were required to have a particular tutors, who were
responsible for their moral behavior as well as their academic studies.
It was through the tutors that modern studies fit for the education of
a Renaissance gentleman became the norm. Those students not seeking a
degree could devise their own courses of study with their tutors'
permission. Less than about 40% stayed long enough to get a degree.
Many students who were working on the seven year program for a Master's
Degree went out of residence at college after the four year's
"bachelor" course. Students had text books to read rather than simply
listening to a teacher read books to them.
In addition to the lecturing of the M.A.s and the endowed
university lectureships, the university held exercises every Monday,
Wednesday, and Friday in which the student was meant through
disputation, to apply the formal precepts in logic and rhetoric to the
practical business of public speaking and debate. Final examinations
were still by disputation. The students came to learn to read Latin
easily. Students acted in Latin plays. If a student went to a tavern,
he could be flogged. For too elaborate clothing, he could be fined.
Fines for absence from class were imposed. However, from this time
until 1945, a young man's university days were regarded as a period for
the "sowing of wild oats".
All students had to reside in a college or hall, subscribe to
the 39 articles of the university, the Queen's supremacy, and the
prayer book. Meals were taken together in the college halls. The
universities were divided into three tables: a fellows' table of earls,
barons, gentlemen, and doctors; a second table of masters of arts,
bachelors, and eminent citizens, and a third table of people of low
condition. Professors, doctors, masters of arts and students were all
distinguishable by their gowns.
Undergraduate education was considered to be for the purpose of
good living as well as good learning. It was to affect the body, mind,
manners, sentiment, and business, instead of just leading to becoming a
better disputant. The emphasis on manners came mostly from an Italian
influence. The university curriculum included Latin and Greek languages
and was for four years. The student spent at least one year on logic
(syllogizing, induction, deduction, fallacies, and the application of
logic to other studies), at least one year on rhetoric, and at least
one year on philosophy. The latter included physics, metaphysics,
history, law, moral and political philosophy, modern languages, and
ethics (domestic principles of government, military history, diplomatic
history, and public principles of government), and mathematics
(arithmetic, geometry, algebra, music, optics, astronomy). The
astronomy taught was that of Ptolemy, whose view was that the celestial
bodies revolved around a spherical earth, on which he had laid out
lines of longitude and latitude. There were lectures on Greek and Latin
literature, including Aristotle, Plato, and Cicero. There were no
courses on English history in the universities.
About 1564, the curriculum was changed to two terms of grammar,
four terms of rhetoric, five terms of dialectic (examining ideas and
opinions logically, e.g. ascertaining truth by analyzing words in their
context and equivocations), three terms of arithmetic, and two terms of
music. There were now negative numbers, irrational numbers such as
square roots of non-integers, and imaginary numbers such as square
roots of negative numbers. The circumference and area of a circle could
be computed from its radius, and the Pythagorean theorem related the
three sides of a right triangle. Also available were astrology, alchemy
(making various substances such as acids and alcohols), cultivation of
gardens, and breeding of stock, especially dogs and horses. Astronomy,
geometry, natural and moral philosophy, and metaphysics were necessary
for a master's degree. The university libraries of theological
manuscripts in Latin were supplemented with many non-religious books.
There were graduate studies in theology, medicine, music, and
law, which was a merging of civil and canon law together with
preparatory work for studying common law at the Inns of Court in London.
In London, legal training was given at the four Inns of Court.
Students were called to dinner by a horn. Only young gentry were
admitted there. A year's residence there after university gave a
gentleman's son enough law to decide disputes of tenants on family
estates or to act as Justice of the Peace in his home county. A full
legal education gave him the ability to handle all family legal
matters, including property matters. Many later became Justices of the
Peace or members of Parliament. Students spent two years in the clerks'
commons, and two in the masters' commons. Besides reading textbooks in
Latin, the students observed at court and did work for practicing
attorneys. After about four more years' apprenticeship, a student could
be called to the outer bar. There was a real bar of iron or wood
separating the justices from the attorneys and litigants. As "Utter
Barrister" or attorney, he would swear to "do no falsehood in the
court, increase no fees but be contented with the old fees accustomed,
delay no man for lucre or malice, but use myself in the office of an
Attorney within the Court according to my learning and discretion, so
help me God, Amen". Students often also studied and attended lectures
on astronomy, geography, history, mathematics, theology, music,
navigation, foreign languages, and lectures on anatomy and medicine
sponsored by the College of Physicians. A tour of the continent became
a part of every gentleman's education. After about eight years'
experience, attorneys could become Readers, who gave lecturess; or
Benchers, who made the rules. Benchers, who were elected by other
Benchers, were entrusted with the government of their Inn of Court, and
usually were King's counsel. Five to ten years later, a few of these
were picked by the Queen for Serjeant at Law, and therefore eligible to
plead at the bar of common pleas. Justices were chosen from the
Serjeants at Law.
Gresham left the Royal exchange to the city and the Mercer's
Company on condition that they use some of its profits to appoint and
pay seven lecturers in law, rhetoric, divinity, music, physics,
geometry, and astronomy to teach at his mansion, which was called
Gresham College. They were installed in 1598 according to his Will.
Their lectures were free, open to all, and often in English. They
embraced mathematics and new scientific ideas and emphasized their
practical applications. A tradition of research and teaching was
established in mathematics and astronomy.
There were language schools teaching French, Italian, and Spanish to
the aspiring merchant and to gentlemen's sons and daughters.
Many people kept diaries. Letter writing was frequent at court.
Most forms of English literature were now available in print. Many
ladies read aloud to each other in reading circles and to their
households. Some wrote poetry and did translations. Correctness of
spelling was beginning to be developed. Printers tended to standardize
it. There was much reading of romances, jest books, histories, plays,
prayer collections, and encyclopedias, as well as the Bible. In schools
and gentry households, favorite reading was Edmund Spenser's "Faerie
Queen" about moral virtues and the faults and errors which beset them;
Erasmus' New Testament, "Paraphrases", "Colloquies", and "Adages"; Sir
Thomas North's edition of Plutarch's "Lives of the Noble Grecians and
Romans"; Elyot's "The Book Named the Governor"; and Hoby's translation
of "The Courtier". Gentlemen read books on the ideals of gentlemanly
conduct, such as "Institucion of a Gentleman" (1555), and Laurence
Humphrey's "The Nobles: or of Nobilites". Francis Bacon's "Essays or
Counsels Civil and Moral" were popular for their wisdom. In them he
commented on many subjects from marriage to atheism. He cautioned
against unworthy authority, mass opinion, custom, and ostentation of
apparent wisdom. He urged the use of words with their correct meaning.
At a more popular level were Caxton's "The Golden Legend",
Baldwin's "Mirror for Magistrates", Foxe's "Book of Martyrs" about
English Protestant who suffered at the stake, sensational stories and
pamphlets, printed sermons (including those of Switzerland's Calvin),
chronicles, travel books, almanacs, herbals, and medical works. English
fiction began and was read. There were some books for children. Books
were copyrighted, although non-gentlemen writers needed a patron. At
the lowest level of literacy were ballads. Next to sermons, the
printing press was kept busiest with rhymed ballads about current
events. Printed broadsheets on political issues could be distributed
quickly. In London, news was brought to the Governor of the News
Staple, who classified it as authentic, apocryphal, barber's news,
tailor's news, etc. and stamped it. Books were also censored for matter
against the state church. This was carried out through the Stationers'
Company. This company was now, by charter, the official authority over
the entire book trade, with almost sole rights of printing. (Schools
had rights of printing). It could burn other books and imprison their
printers.
Italian business techniques were set forth in textbooks for
merchants, using Italian terms of business: debit (debito), credit
(credito), inventory (inventorio), journal (giornal), and cash (cassa).
The arithmetic of accounting operations, including multiplication, was
described in "An Introduction for to Lerne to Reckonwith the Penne or
Counters" in 1537. Accounting advice was extended to farmers as well as
merchants in the 1569 "The Pathway to Perfectness in the Accomptes of
Debitor and Creditor" by James Peele, a salter of London. It repeated
the age-old maxim: ...receive before you write, and write before you
pay, So shall no part of your accompt in any wise decay. The 1589
"Marchants Avizo" by Johne Browne, merchant of Bristol, gave
information on foreign currencies and keeping of accounts, and included
specimens of various business documents such as insurance policies, and
bills of exchange. It also advised: Take heed of using a false balance
or measure...covet not over familiarity amongst men it maketh thee
spend much loss of time. Be not hasty in giving credit to every man,
but take heed to a man that is full of words, that hath red eyes, that
goeth much to law, and that is suspected to live unchaste ... When thou
promiseth anything be not stuck to perform it, for he that giveth
quickly giveth double ... Fear God...know thy Prince...love thy parents
...give reverence to thy betters ...be courteous and lowly to all
men... be not wise in thine own conceit. The old prohibitions of the
now declining canon law were still observed. That is, one should not
seek wealth for its own sake or beyond what was requisite for a
livelihood in one's station, exploit a customer's difficulties to
extract an extravagant price, charge excessive interest, or engross to
"corner the market".
The printing press had made possible the methodizing of
knowledge and its dissemination to a lay public. Knowledge associated
with the various professions, occupations, and trades was no longer
secret or guarded as a mystery, to be passed on only to a chosen few.
The sharing of knowledge was to benefit the community at large. Reading
became an out-of-school activity, for instruction as well as for
pleasure.
In 1565, graphite was discovered in England, and gave rise to
the pencil. Surveying accuracy was improved with the new theodolite,
which determined directions and measured angles and used a telescope
that pivoted horizontally and vertically. Scientists had the use of an
air thermometer, in which a column of air in a glass tube sitting in a
dish of water contracted or expanded with changes in the temperature,
causing the water to move up or down the tube.
William Shakespeare, a glovemaker's son, wrote plays about
historical events and plays which portrayed various human personalities
and their interactions with each other. They were enjoyed by all
classes of people. His histories were especially popular. The Queen and
various earls each employed players and actors, who went on tour as a
troupe and performed on a round open-air stage, with people standing
around to watch. In London, theaters such as the Globe were built
specifically for the performance of plays, which before had been
performed at inns. The audience applauded and hissed. There were
costumes, but no sets. Ordinary admission was 2d. Before being
performed, a play had to be licensed by the Master of the Revels to
make sure that there was nothing detrimental to the peace and public
order. Elizabeth issued a proclamation forbidding unlicensed interludes
or plays, especially concerning religion or government policy on pain
of imprisonment for at least fourteen days. The common people still
went to morality plays, but also to plays in which historical
personages were portrayed, such as Richard II, Henry IV, and Henry V.
Some plays were on contemporary issues. Musicians played together as
orchestras. Music with singing was a popular pastime after supper;
everyone was expected to participate. Dancing was popular with all
classes. Gentlemen played cards, dice, chess, billiards, and tennis.
They fenced and had games on horseback. Their deer-hunting diminished
as forests were cut down for agriculture and the deer were viewed as an
enemy eating crops. Falconry diminished as hedges and enclosures
displaced the broad expanses of land.
Country people enjoyed music, dancing, pantomime shows with
masks, hurling, running, swimming, leap frog, blind man's buff,
shovelboard played with the hands, and football between villages with
the goal to get the ball into one's own village. Football and
shin-kicking matches often resulted in injuries. They bought ballads
from traveling peddlers. Early morning dew gathered in May and early
June was thought to have special curative powers. There were many tales
involving fairies, witches, devils, ghosts, evil spirits, angels, and
monsters which were enjoyed by adults as well as children. Many people
still believed in charms, curses, divination, omens, fate, and advice
from astrologers. The ghosts of the earth walked the earth, usually
because of some foul play to be disclosed, wrong to be set right, to
warn those dear to them of peril, or to watch over hidden treasure.
Good witches cured and healed. Fairies blessed homes, rewarded minor
virtues, and punished mild wrongdoing. When fairies were unhappy, the
weather was bad. There were parties for children.
The merry guild feast was no longer a feature of village life.
There were fewer holydays and festivals. The most prosperous period of
the laborer was closing. An agricultural laborer's yearly wage was
about 154s., but his cost of living, which now included house rent, was
about 160s. a year. In 1533, daily wages in the summer for an
agricultural laborer were about 4d. and for an artisan 6d. In 1563 in
the county of Rutland, daily wages for laborers were 7d. in summer and
6d. in winter; and for artisans were 9d. in summer and 8d. in winter.
Unemployment was widespread.
There were endowed hospitals in London for the sick and infirm.
There were others for orphans, for derelict children, and for the
destitute. They worked at jobs in the hospital according to their
abilities. There was also a house of correction for discipline of the
idle and vicious by productive work. Elizabeth continued the practice
of touching people to cure scrofula, although she could not bring
herself to fully believe in the reality of such cures, contrary to her
chaplain and her physician.
In the towns, shop shutters were let down to form a counter at
the front of the shop. Goods were made and/or stored inside the shop.
Towns held a market once a week. Fairs occurred once or twice a year.
At given times in the towns, everyone was to throw buckets of water
onto the street to cleanse it. During epidemics in towns, there was
quarantine of those affected to stay in their houses unless going out
on business. Their houses were marked and they had to carry a white rod
when outside. The quarantine of a person lasted for forty days. The
straw in his house was burned and his clothes treated. People who died
had to be buried under six feet of ground. There was an outbreak of
plague in London roughly every ten years.
There was a pity for the distressed that resulted in towns
voting money for a people of a village that had burned down or been
decimated by the plague.
Communities were taxed for the upkeep and relief of the
prisoners in the gaols in their communities.
Queen Elizabeth was puzzling over the proper relationship
between the crown and the church when Richard Hooker, a humble scholar,
theologian, and clergyman, attempted to find a justification in reason
for the establishment of the Church of England as an official part of
the governing apparatus of the nation. His thinking was a turning point
from the medieval notion that God ordered society, including the
designation of its monarch and its natural laws, and the belief in a
divine structure with a great chain of being, beginning with God and
working down through the hierarchy of angels and saints to men, beasts,
and vegetables, which structure fostered order in society. Hooker
restated the concept of Aristotle that the purpose of society is to
enable men to live well. He wrote that although the monarch was head of
state and head of religion, the highest authority in civil affairs was
Parliament, and in religion, the Convocation. The monarch had to
maintain divine law, but could not make it. From this later came the
idea that the state derives its authority from the will of the people
and the consent of the governed.
Protestant women had more freedom in marriage and were allowed
to participate in more church activities compared to Catholic women,
but they were not generally allowed to become pastors. Due to
sensitivities on the part of both Catholics and Protestants about a
female being the head of the church, Elizabeth was given the title of
"Supreme Governor" of the church instead of "Supreme Head". Elizabeth
was not doctrinaire in religious matters, but pragmatic. She always
looked for ways to accommodate all views on what religious aspects to
adopt or decline. Images, relics, pilgrimages, and rosaries were
discouraged. But the Catholic practice of kneeling at prayer, and
bowing and doffing caps at the name of Jesus were retained. Also
retained was the place of the altar or communion table at the east end
of churches, special communion wafers instead of common bread, and
elaborate clergy vestments. The communion prayer contained words
expressing both the Catholic view that the wafer and wine contained the
real presence of the body and blood of Christ, and the Protestant view
that they were commemorative only. Communion was celebrated only at
Easter and other great festivals. Church services included a sermon and
were in accordance with a reformed prayer book and in English, as was
the Bible. Care was even taken not to use words that would offend the
Scots, Lutherans, Calvinists, or Huguenots. People could hold what
religious beliefs they would, even atheism, as long as they maintained
an outward conformity. Attendance at state church services on Sunday
mornings and evenings and Holydays was enforced by a fine of 12d.
imposed by the church wardens. Babies were to be baptized before they
were one month old or the parents would be punished.
The new religion had to be protected. Members of the House of
Commons, lawyers, schoolmasters were to take the oath of supremacy or
be imprisoned and make a forfeiture; a second refusal brought death.
When numerous Anabaptists came from the continent to live in the port
towns, the Queen issued a proclamation ordering them to leave the realm
because their pernicious opinions could corrupt the church. The new
church still accepted the theory of the devil causing storms, but
opposed ringing the holy church bells to attempt to drive him away. The
sins of people were also thought to cause storms, and also plagues.
In 1562, the Church of England wrote down its Christian
Protestant beliefs in thirty-nine Articles of Religion, which
specifically excluded certain Catholic beliefs. They were incorporated
into statute in 1571 establishing them as the tenets of the official
religion of England. The first eighteen endorsed the ideas of one God,
Christ as the son of God who was sacrificed for all the sins of men,
the resurrection of Christ from the dead and ascension into heaven, the
Holy Ghost proceeding from the father and the son, the books of the
Bible, the original sin of Adam and his offspring, justification of man
by faith in Christ rather than by good works, goods works as the
inspired fruit and proof of faith in Christ, Christ in the flesh as
like man except for the absence of sin, the chance for sinners who have
been Baptised to be forgiven if they truly repent and amend their
lives, the predestination of some to be brought by Christ to eternal
salvation and their minds to be drawn up to high and heavenly things,
and salvation only by the name of Christ and not by a sect. Other
tenets described the proper functions of the church, distinguishing
them from Roman Catholic practice. Specifically, the church was not to
expound one place of scripture so that it was inconsistent with another
place of scripture. Because man can err, the church was not to ordain
or enforce anything to be believed for necessity of salvation.
Explicitly renounced were the Romish doctrine concerning purgatory,
pardons, worshipping, adoration of images or relics, invocation of
saints, and the use in church of any language, such as Latin, not
understood by the people. Only the sacraments of Baptism and the Lord's
Supper were recognized. The Lord's Supper was to be a sign of the love
that Christians ought to have among themselves and a sacrament of
redemption by Christ's death. The wine in the cup of blessing as well
as the bread of the Lord's Supper was to be taken by lay- people and to
be a partaking of Christ; there was no Romish mass. Excommunication was
limited to those who openly denounced the church. Anyone openly
breaking the traditions or ceremonies of the church which were approved
by common authority were to be rebuked. Elizabeth told the bishops that
she wished certain homilies to be read in church, which encouraged good
works such as fasting, prayer, alms-giving, Christian behavior,
repentance, and which discouraged idolatry, gluttony, drunkenness,
excess of apparel, idleness, rebellion, and wife-beating, however
provoked. She considered homilies more instructive and learned than
ministers' sermons, which were often influenced by various gentlemen
and were inconsistent with each other. Consecration of bishops and
ministers was regulated. They were allowed to marry. The standard
prayer was designated thus: "Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be
Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done, on earth as it is in
heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our offenses
as we forgive those who have offended against us. And lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the
power, and the glory forever and ever, amen."
There was difficulty persuading educated and moral men to be
church ministers, even though Elizabeth expressed to the bishops her
preference for ministers who were honest and wise instead of learned in
religious matters. The Bible was read at home and familiar to everyone.
This led to the growth of the Puritan movement. The Puritans believed
in the right of the individual Christian to interpret the Scriptures
for himself by spiritual illumination. They opposed the mystical
interpretation of the Communion service. The Puritans complained that
the church exerted insufficient control over the morals of the
congregation. Their ideas of morality were very strict and even plays
were thought to be immoral. The Independent Puritans were those
Protestants who had fled from Mary's Catholic reign to the continent,
where they were persuaded to the ideas of John Calvin of Geneva. He
stressed the old idea of predestination in the salvation of souls,
which had in the past been accepted by nearly all English Christian
leaders, thinkers, and teachers, but not stressed. The act of
conversion was a common experience among the early Puritans. The
concomitant hatred of past sins and love of God which was felt in
thankfulness for mercy were proof of selection for salvation. The good
works that followed were merely an obligation showing that one's faith
was real, but not a way to salvation.
The puritans also accepted Calvin's idea of independent church
government. They therefore thought that ministers and lay elders of
each parish should regulate religious affairs and that the bishops, who
were "petty popes", should be reduced to an equality with the rest of
the clergy, since they did not rule by divine right. The office of
archbishop should be eliminated and the head of state should not
necessarily be governor of the church. These ideas were widely
disseminated in books and pamphlets. The puritans disrupted the
established church's Sunday services, tearing the surplice off the
minister's back and the wafers and wine from the altar rail. The
puritans arranged "lectures" on Sunday afternoons and on weekdays.
These were given gratuitously or funded by boroughs. They were strict
about not working on the Sabbath, which day they gave to spiritual
exercises, meditations, and works of mercy. The only work allowed was
preparing meals for themselves, caring for their animals, and milking
the cows. They enforced a strict moral discipline on themselves. The
puritans formed a party in the House of Commons.
The puritan movement included William Brewster, an assistant to
a court official who was disciplined for delivering, upon pressure from
the council, the Queen's signed execution order for Mary of Scotland
after the Queen had told him to hold it until she directed otherwise.
After exhausting every other alternative, the Queen had reluctantly
agreed with her Privy Council on the execution in 1572 of Mary, Queen
of Scots, who had been involved in a plot to assassinate her and claim
the throne of England. Elizabeth's Council had persuaded her that it
was impossible for her to live in safety otherwise.
The debased coinage was replaced by a recoinage of newly minted
coins with a true silver weight.
Goldsmiths, who also worked silver, often acted as guardians of
clients' wealth. They began to borrow at interest at one rate in order
to lend out to traders at a higher rate. This began banking.
Patents were begun to encourage the new merchant lords to
develop local manufactures or to expand import and export trade.
Patents were for a new manufacture or an improved older one and
determined the wages of its trades. There was chartering of merchant
companies and granting of exclusive rights to new industries as
monopolies. Some monopolies or licenses were patents or copyrights of
inventors. Others established trading companies for trade to certain
foreign lands and supporting consular services. People holding
monopolies were accountable to the government. There were monopolies on
certain smoked fish, fish oil, seal oil, oil of blubber, vinegar, salt,
currants, aniseed, juniper berry liquor, bottles, glasses, brushes,
pots, bags, cloth, starch, steel, tin, iron, cards, horn, ox shinbones,
ashes, leather pieces, earth coal, calamite stone, powder, saltpeter,
and lead manufacturing by-products.
For far-flung enterprises and those where special arrangements
with foreign countries was required, there was sharing of stock of
companies, usually by merchants of the same type of goods. In
joint-stock companies each member took a certain number of shares and
all the selling of the goods of each merchant was carried on by the
officials of the company. The device of joint stock might take the form
of a fully incorporated body or of a less formal and unincorporated
syndicate. The greatest joint-stock company was East India Company,
chartered in 1600 to trade there in competition with the Dutch East
India Company. It was given a fifteen year monopoly on trade east of
the southern tip of Africa. Unlike the Muscovy Company, and Merchants
of the Staple, individual members could not trade on their own account,
but only through the corporate body on its voyages. Each particular
voyage was regulated and assisted by the Crown and Privy Council, for
instance when further subscriptions were needed, or when carpenters
were needed to be pressed into service for fitting out ships, or to
deal with an unsuccessful captain. Its charter retained many of the
aspects of the medieval trade guild: power to purchase lands, to sue
and be sued, to make by-laws, and to punish offenders by fine or
imprisonment. Admission was by purchase of a share in a voyage,
redemption, presentation, patrimony (adult sons of members), and
apprenticeship. Purchase of a share in a voyage was the most common
method. A share for the first ship cost one hundred pounds. Cash
payments for less than the price of a share could be invested for
ultimate redemption. Occasionally presentation or a faculty "for the
making of a freeman" was granted to some nobleman or powerful member.
Members' liability was limited to their individual subscriptions. Each
voyage had 1) a Royal Commission authorizing the Company to undertake
the expedition and vesting in its commanders powers for punishing
offenses during the voyage, and quenching any mutiny, quarrels, or
dissension that might arise; 2) a code of instructions from the Company
to the Admiral and to commanders of ships setting forth in great detail
the scope and objects of the voyage together with minute regulations
for its conduct and trade; 3) authorization for coinage of money or
export of specie (gold or silver); and 4) letters missive from the
sovereign to foreign rulers at whose ports the ships were to trade. The
first voyage brought back spices that were sold at auction in London
for ten times their price in the Indies and brought to shareholders a
profit equivalent to 9 1/2% yearly for the ten years when the going
interest rate was 8% a year.
Town government was often controlled by a few merchant
wholesalers. The entire trade of a town might be controlled by its
drapers or by a company of the Merchant Adventurers of London. The
charter of the latter as of 1564 allowed a common seal, perpetual
existence, liberty to purchase lands, and liberty to exercise their
government in any part of the nation. It was controlled by a group of
rich Londoners, no more than 50, who owned the bulk of the cloth
exported. There were policies of insurance given by groups of people
for losses of ships and their goods. Marine insurance was regulated.
New companies were incorporated for many trades. They were
associations of employers rather than the old guilds which were
associations of actual workers. The ostensible reason was the
supervision of the quality of the wares produced in that trade, though
shoemakers, haberdashers, saddlers, and curriers exercised close
supervision over these wares.Companies paid heavily for their patents
or charters.
There was no sharp line between craftsman and shopkeeper or
between shopkeeper and wholesale merchant. In London, an enterprising
citizen could pass freely from one occupation to another. Borrowing
money for a new enterprise was common. Industrial suburbs grew up
around London and some towns became known as specialists in certain
industries. The building crafts in the towns often joined together into
one company, e.g. wrights, carpenters, slaters, and sawyers, or
joiners, turners, carvers, bricklayers, tilers, wallers, plasterers,
and paviors. These companies included small contractors, independent
masters, and journeymen. The master craftsman often was a tradesman as
well, who supplied timber, bricks, or lime for the building being
constructed. The company of painters was chartered with a provision
prohibiting painting by persons not apprenticed for seven years.
The prosperous merchants began to form a capitalistic class as
capitalism grew. Competition for renting farm land, previously unknown,
caused these rents to rise. The price of wheat rose to an average of
14s. per quarter, thereby encouraging tillage once more. There was
steady inflation.
With enclosure of agricultural land there could be more
innovation and more efficiency, e.g. the time for sowing could be
chosen. It was easier to prevent over-grazing and half-starved animals
as a result. The complications of the open system with its endless
quarrels and lawsuits were avoided. Now noblemen talked about manure
and drainage, rotation of crops, clover, and turnips instead of
hunting, horses, and dogs. The breed of horses and cattle was improved.
There were specializations such as the hunting horse and the coach
horse. By royal proclamation of 1562, there were requirements for the
keeping of certain horses. For instance, everyone with lands of at
least 1,000 pounds had to keep six horses or geldings able for
demi-lances [rider bearing a light lance] and ten horses or geldings
for light horsemen [rode to battle, but fought on foot]. One with under
100 pounds but over 100 marks yearly had to keep one gelding for a
light horseman. Dogs had been bred into various types of hounds for
hunting, water and land spaniels for falconry, and other dogs as house
dogs or toy dogs. There were no longer any wild boar or wild cattle.
The turkey joined the cocks, hens, geese, ducks, pigeons, and peacocks
in the farmyard. Manure and dressings were used to fertilize the soil.
Hay became a major crop because it could be grown on grazing lands and
required little care.
There are new and bigger industries such as glassware, iron,
brasswares, alum and coppers, gunpowder, paper, coal, and sugar. The
coal trade was given a monopoly. Coal was used for fuel as well as
wood, which was becoming scarce. Iron smelters increasingly used coal
instead of charcoal, which was limited. Iron was used for firebacks,
pots, and boilers. Good quality steel was first produced in 1565 with
the help of German craftsmen, and a slitting mill was opened in 1588.
Small metal goods, especially cutlery, were made, as well as nails,
bolts, hinges, locks, ploughing and harrowing equipment, rakes, pitch
forks, shovels, spades, and sickles. Lead was used for windows and
roofs. Copper and brass were used to make pots and pans. Pewter was
used for plates, drinking vessels, and candlesticks. Competition was
the mainspring of trade and therefore of town life.
The mode of travel of the gentry was riding horses, but most
people traveled by walking. People carried passes for travel that
certified they were of good conduct and not a vagrant or sturdy rogue.
Bands of roving vagabonds terrorized the countryside. After a land
survey completed in 1579 there arose travel books with maps,
itineraries, and mileage between towns in England and Wales. Also, the
Queen sent her official mail by four royal postal routes along high
roads from London to various corners of the nation. Horses are posted
along the way for the mail-deliverer's use. However, private mail still
goes by packman or common carrier. The nation's inland trade developed
a lot. There were many more wayfaring traders operating from town inns.
In 1564, the first canal was built with locks at Exeter. More locks and
canals facilitated river travel. At London Bridge, waterwheels and
pumps were installed.
New sea navigation techniques improved voyages. Seamen learned
to fix their positions, using an astrolabe or quadrant to take the
altitude of the sun and stars and to reckon by the north star. They
used a nocturnal, which was read by touch, to help keep time at night
by taking the altitude of the stars. They calculated tides. To measure
distances, they invented the traverse board, which was bored with holes
upon lines, showing the points of the compass; by means of pegs, the
steersman kept an account of the course steered. A log tied to a rope
with knots at equal intervals was used to measure speed. There were
compasses with a bearing dial on a circular plate with degrees up to
360 noted thereon. Seamen had access to compilations of Arab
mathematicians and astronomers and to navigational manuals and
technical works on the science of navigation and the instruments
necessary for precision sailing. For merchants there were maps, books
about maps, cosmographical surveys, and books on the newly discovered
lands. In 1569 John Mercator produced a map taking into account the
converging of the meridians towards the pole. On this chart, a straight
line course would correspond to a mariner's actual course through the
water on the earth's sphere, instead of having the inaccuracies of a
straight line on a map which suggested that the world was flat. It was
in use by 1600.
In 1600 William Gilbert, son of a gentleman, and physician to
Queen Elizabeth, wrote a book on the magnetic properties of the earth.
He cultivated the method of experiment and of inductive reasoning from
observation and insisted on the need for a search for knowledge not in
books but in things themselves. He showed that the earth was a great
magnet with a north pole and a south pole, by comparing it to
lodestones made into spheres in which a north and south pole could be
found by intersecting lines of magnetism indicated by a needle on the
stone. The vertical dip of the needle was explained by the magnetic
attraction of the north pole. He showed how a lodestone's declination
could be used to determine latitude at sea. He showed how the charge of
a body could be retained for a period of time by covering the body with
some non-conducting substance, such as silk. He distinguished magnetism
from electricity, giving the latter its name. He discovered that
atmospheric conditions affected the production of electricity, dryness
decreasing it, and moisture increasing it. He expounded the idea of
Copernicus that the earth revolves around the sun in a solar system.
However, the prevailing belief was still that the earth was at the
center of the universe.
Christmas was an especially festive time of good fellowship.
People greeted each other with "Good cheer", "God be with you", or
"Against the new year". Carols were often sung and musicians played
many tunes. There was dancing and gambling. There were big dinners with
many kinds of meat and drink. A hearty fire heated all the house. Many
alms were given to beggars.
Parliament enacted laws and voted taxes. The Queen, House of
Lords, and House of Commons cooperated together. There was relatively
little dissension or debating. Bills in the House of Lords were read,
voted on, discussed, and passed with the lords, peers, bishops, and
justices sitting in their places according to their degree. The
justices sat on the wool sacks. A bar separated this area from the rest
of the room, where the members of the commons stood. There were many
bills concerning personal, local, or sectional interests, but priority
consideration was given to public measures. The House of Lords still
had 55 members. The Queen appointed and paid the Speaker, Clerk, and
Sergeant at Arms of the Commons. The knights in the Commons were almost
invariably from the county's leading families and chosen by consensus
of knights with free land of at least 40s. in the county court. In the
towns, the electors might be the town corporation, holders of certain
properties, all the freemen, all the rate-payers, or all the male
inhabitants. Disputed elections were not usually concerned with
political issues, but were rivalries for power. The Commons gradually
won for its members freedom from arrest without its permission and the
right of punishing and expelling members for crimes committed. Tax on
land remained at 10% of its estimated yearly income. The Queen deferred
to the church convocation to define Christian faith and religion, thus
separating church and state functions.
The Treasury sought to keep a balanced budget by selling royal
land and keeping Crown expenditures down. The Crown carried a slight
debt incurred before the Queen's accession.
Violence was still a part of the texture of everyday life.
Private armories and armed gangs were not uncommon. Agricultural
laborers kept sword and bow in a corner of their fields. Non-political
brutal crime and homicides were commonplace. There were frequent local
riots and disturbances, in the country and in the towns. Occasionally
there were large-scale rebellions. But the rebellion of the Earl of
Essex in 1601 had no aftermath in violence. In 1590, the Queen issued a
proclamation enforcing curfew for London apprentices, who had been
misruly. The Queen issued proclamations to certain counties to place
vagrant soldiers or vagrants under martial law because of numerous
robberies. She ordered the deportation of vagrant Irishmen in 1594.
Theft and robbery were so usual that there were names for
various techniques used. A Ruffler went with a weapon to seek service,
saying that he was a servitor in the wars, but his chief "trade" was to
rob poor wayfaring men and market women. A Prigman went with a stick in
his hand like an idle person, but stole clothes off hedges. A Whipjack
begged like a mariner, but with a counterfeit license (called a
"gibe"); he mostly robbed booths in fairs or pilfered ware from stalls,
which was called "heaving of the booth". A Frater had a counterfeit
license to beg for some hospital, but preyed upon poor women coming and
going to market. A Quire Bird was a person recently let out of prison,
and was commonly a horse stealer. An Upright Man carried a truncheon of
a staff and called others to account to him and give him a share or
"snap" of all that they had gained in one month, and he often beat
them. He took the chief place at any market walk and other assemblies.
Workers at inns often teamed up with robbers, telling them of wares or
money travelers were carrying so the robber could profitably rob them
after they left the inn.
Francis Drake sailed around the world from 1577 to 1580. Walter
Ralegh made an expedition to North America in 1584 with the Queen's
authority to "discover barbarous countries, not actually possessed of
any Christian prince and inhabited by Christian people, to occupy and
enjoy". He found and named the land of Virginia in honor of the Queen,
who was a virgin, and started a colony on Roanoke Island there. Drake
and Ralegh plundered Spanish ships for cargo such as American gold and
silver, much of which was used to pay for the war with Spain and much
going to investors. Seamen on navy and pirate ships raided captured
vessels to seize personal possessions of the Spanish on board. The
experience fighting Spanish ships led to improvements in ship design;
building ships was no longer merely by copying another ship or a small
model. When the seas were unsafe because of the war with Spain, the
export of English wool was disturbed and later replaced by trading from
world ports. Many London merchants grew rich from using their ships for
pirating.
In 1588, a Spanish Armada came to invade England, return it to
Catholicism, and stop the pirating of Spanish ships. In that battle off
England's shores, Drake and other experienced sea fighters led two
hundred English ships, of which about 20 were built to sink other ships
rather than to board and capture them. These new English ships were
longer and narrower and did away with the towering superstructures at
bow and stern. This made them more maneuverable and easier to sail.
Also, the English guns were lighter, more numerous, and outranged the
Spanish guns. So the smaller English ships were able to get close
enough to fire broadside after broadside against the big Spanish
troop-transport galleons, without being fired upon. The English sent
fire ships into the Spanish fleet when it was anchored, causing it's
ships to disperse in a panic. Then the direction of the wind forced the
Spanish galleons northward, where most of them were destroyed by
storms. The English seamen had been arbitrarily pressed into this
service.
A royal proclamation of 1601 offered a reward of 100 pounds for
information on libels against the Queen. There had been mounting
demonstrations against her monopolies, which mostly affected household
items. There had been abuses of monopolies, such as the steel monopoly
had been sold for 12 pounds 10s., but steel was then sold at 5d. per
pound instead of the former 2 1/2 d. per pound. Further the steel was
mixed and of a lesser quality. This so damaged the knife and sword
industry that about 2000 workers lost their jobs from it and became
beggars. Monopoly was a severe burden to the middle and poorer classes.
Also, the power of patent holders to arrest and imprison persons
charged with infringing upon their rights was extended to any disliked
person.
When the House of Commons protested against monopolies in 1601,
Elizabeth reduced them. She addressed her Council and the Commons
saying that "Mr. Speaker, you give me thanks, but I doubt me that I
have more cause to thank you all than you me; and I charge you to thank
them of the Lower House from me. For had I not received a knowledge
from you, I might have fallen into the lapse of an error only for lack
of true information. Since I was queen yet did I never put my pen to
any grant but that upon pretext and semblance made unto me, it was both
good and beneficial to the subject in general, though a private profit
to some of my ancient servants who had deserved well. But the contrary
being found by experience, I am exceedingly beholding to such subjects
as would move the same at the first. And I am not so simple to suppose
but that there be some of the Lower House whom these grievances never
touched; and for them I think they speak out of zeal to their countries
and not out of spleen or malevolent affection, as being parties
grieved. And I take it exceedingly gratefully from them, because it
gives us to know that no respects or interests had moved them other
than the minds they bear to suffer no diminution of our honor and our
subjects' love unto us, the zeal of which affection tending to ease my
people and knit their hearts unto me, I embrace with a princely care.
For above all earthly treasures I esteem my people's love, more than
which I desire not to merit. That my grants should be grievous unto my
people and oppressions to be privileged under color of our patents, our
kingly dignity shall not suffer it. Yea, when I heard it I could give
no rest unto my thoughts until I had reformed it. Shall they (think
you) escape unpunished that have thus oppressed you, and I have been
respectless of their duty and regardless of our honor? No, no, Mr.
Speaker, I assure you, were it not more for conscience' sake than for
any glory or increase of love that I desire, these errors, troubles,
vexations, and oppressions done by these varlets and low persons (not
worthy the name of subjects) should not escape without condign
punishment. But I perceive they dealt with me like physicians who,
ministering a drug, make it more acceptable by giving it a good
aromatical savor; or when they give pills, do gild them all over. I
have ever used to set the Last Judgment day before my eyes and so to
rule as I shall be judged, to answer before a higher judge. To whose
judgment seat I do appeal that never thought was cherished in my heart
that tended not unto my people's good. And now if my kingly bounties
have been abused and my grants turned to the hurts of my people,
contrary to my will and meaning, or if any in authority under me have
neglected or perverted what I have committed to them, I hope Good will
not lay their culps [sins] and offenses to my charge. Who, though there
were danger in repealing our grants, yet what danger would I not rather
incur for your good than I would suffer them still to continue? I know
the title of a king is a glorious title, but assure yourself that the
shining glory of princely authority hath not so dazzled the eyes of our
understanding but that we well know and remember that we also are to
yield an account of our actions before the great Judge. To be a king
and wear a crown is a thing more glorious to them that see it than it
is pleasant to them that bear it. For myself, I was never so much
enticed with the glorious name of a king or royal authority of a queen
as delighted that God hath made me His instrument to maintain His truth
and glory, and to defend this kingdom from peril, dishonor, tyranny,
and oppression. There will never queen sit in my seat with more zeal to
my country, care to my subjects, and that will sooner with willingness
venture her life for your good and safety, than myself. For it is not
my desire to live or reign longer than my life and reign shall be for
your good. And though you have had and may have many princes more
mighty and wise sitting in this seat, yet you never had or shall have
any that will be more careful and loving."
About 1584, Richard Hakluyt, a Bristol clergyman, wrote "A
Particular Discourse concerning Western Discoveries". This was to
become the classic statement of the case for English colonization. It
held out hope that the English would find needed timber for masts,
pitch, tar, and ashes for soap.
In Rome in 1600, Giordano Bruno, an Italian monk and priest,
was burned alive at the stake by a court of the inquisition for not
recanting, although tortured, his heretical and blasphemous philosophy.
He had opined that Christianity was irrational and had no scientific
basis. He declared that Christ was only a skillful magician, that the
Bible could not be taken literally, that God and nature were not
separate as taught by Genesis, that the Catholic Church encouraged
ignorance from the instinct of self-preservation, and that the earth
and planets revolved around the sun, as did other planets around the
"fixed" stars and other suns.
The Jesuits, a new Catholic order brimming with zeal, sent
missionaries to England to secretly convert people to Catholicism. The
practice of Catholicism had gone underground in England, and some
Catholic householders maintained Catholic priests in hidden places in
their homes.
Although estate tails (estates descendible only to the heirs of the
body of the original feofee) by law could not be sold or given away,
this was circumvented by the fraudulent use of a "straw man". In
collaboration with the possessor of the property, this straw man sued
the possessor asserting that the property had been wrongfully taken
from the straw man. The possessor pleaded that the crier of the court
who had warranted the title should be called to defend the action. He
failed to appear until after judgment had been given to the straw man.
Then the straw man conveyed it to the possessor or his nominee in fee
simple.
The Law
The following statute of artificers regulated labor for the
next two centuries: No master or mistress may employ a servant for a
term less than one year in the crafts of clothiers, woolen cloth
weavers, tuckers, fullers, clothworkers, shearmen, dyers, hosiers,
tailors, shoemakers, glovemakers, tanners, pewterers, bakers, brewers,
cutlers, smith, farriers, curriers, saddlers, spurriers, turners,
cappers, hatmakers, feltmakers, bow-makers, arrow-makers,
arrowhead-makers, butchers, cooks, or millers. Also, every craftsman
unmarried or under age 30 who is not working must accept employment by
any person needing the craft work. Also, any common person between 12
and 60 who is not working must accept employment in agriculture. And,
unmarried women between 12 and 40 may be required by town officials to
work by the year, the week, or day for wages they determine.
All artificers and laborers hired by the day or week shall work from 5
am to 7 PM. All artificers must labor at agriculture at haytime and
harvest to avoid the loss of grain or hay. Every householder who raises
crops may receive as an apprentice a child between 10 and 18 to serve
in agriculture until he is age 21. A householder in a town may receive
a child as an apprentice for 7 years, but merchants may only take as
apprentices children of parents with 40s. freehold.
No one may be a craftsman until he has served seven years as an
apprentice. These artificers may have children as apprentices: smith,
wheelmaker, ploughmaker, millmaker, miller, carpenter, rough mason,
plasterer, a timber sawer, an ore burner, a lime burner, brickmaker,
bricklayer, tilemaker, tiler, layer of slate roofs, layer of wood
shingle roofs, layer of straw roofs, cooper, earthen potter, linen
weaver, housewife who weaves wool for sale or for household use.
Purposes of the statute of artificiers were to advance agriculture,
diminish idleness, and inhibit migration to the towns. It excluded
three fourths of the rural population.)
Troops of vagabonds with weapons in the highways who pretend to
be soldiers or mariners have committed robberies and murders. So all
vagabonds shall settle down in some service or labor or trade.
A vagabond or mighty strong beggar [able to work] shall be
whipped.
Incorrigible and dangerous rogues shall be branded with an "R"
mark on the left shoulder and be put to labor, because banishment did
not work as they came back undetected. If one is caught again begging,
he shall be deemed a felon.
If a person marries a second time while the first spouse is
still living, it shall be a felony and thus punishable by death.
No attainder shall result in the forfeiture of dower by the
offender's wife nor disinheritance of his heirs.
No one shall forge a deed of land, charter, sealed writing,
court roll or will.
No one shall libel or slander so as to cause a rebellion.
Embezzlement or theft by a servant of his master's goods of
40s. or more is a felony.
Cut-purses and pick-purses shall not have benefit of clergy.
A person robbing a house of 5s. by day when no one is there
shall not have benefit of clergy, because too many poor persons who
cannot hire a servant to look after their house when they go to work
have been robbed.
Benefit of clergy may not be had for stabbing a person who has
no weapon drawn, if he dies within six months.
Fraudulent and secret conveyances made to retain the use of
one's land when one sells the land to a bona fide purchaser for value
in fee simple, fee tail, for life, for lives, or for years are void.
Crown officials such as treasurers, receivers, accountants, and
revenue collectors shall not embezzle Crown funds and shall be
personally liable for arrears.
Persons forcibly taking others across county lines to hold them
for ransom and those taking or giving blackmail money and those who
burn barns or stacks of grain shall be declared felons and shall suffer
death, without any benefit of clergy or sanctuary.
Any person killing any pheasant, partridge, dove, pigeon, duck
or the like with any gun, crossbow, stonebow, or longbow, or with dogs
and nets or snares, or taking the eggs of such from their nests, or
tracing or taking hares in the snow shall be imprisoned for three
months unless he pays 20s. per head or, after one month's imprisonment,
have two sureties bound for 400s. This is because the past penalty of
payment hasn't deterred offenders, who frequently cannot pay.
Persons affected by the plague may not leave their houses or be
deemed felons and suffer death. This is to avoid further infection. The
towns may tax their inhabitants for the relief of infected persons.
Devising or speaking seditious rumors are penalized by the
pillory and loss of both ears for the first offense; and 200 pounds and
six months imprisonment for the second offense. Slandering the Queen is
penalized by the pillory and loss of one ear, or by 100 marks and three
months imprisonment, at the choice of the offender. The second offense
is a felony. Printing, writing, or publishing seditious books is a
felony without benefit of clergy. Wishing the Queen dead, prophesying
when she would die, or who would succeed her to the Crown is a felony
without benefit of clergy. Attainders for these felonies shall not work
corruption of the blood [heirs may inherit the property of the felon].
A debtor may not engage in a fraudulent collusion to sell his
land and goods in order to avoid his creditors. This was designed to
remedy the following problem:
A native or denizen merchant in wholesale or retail goods who
leaves the nation to defraud his creditors shall be declared a
bankrupt. The Chancellor may conduct an investigation to ascertain his
land, house, and goods, no matter who may hold them. They shall be
appraised and sold to satisfy his debts.
Lands, tenements, goods and chattels of accountants teller, or
receiver who are in debt may be obtained by court order to satisfy the
debt by garnishing the heir of the debtor after the heir has reached 21
and for the 8 years next ensuing.
Loan contracts for money lent may not be for more than 200s.
for each 2000s. yearly (i.e. 10% interest). All loans of money or
forbearing of money in sales of goods not meeting this requirement
shall be punishable by forfeit of the interest only.
Pawn brokers accepting stolen goods shall forfeit twice their
value to the owner from whom stolen.
When the hue and cry is raised for a robbery in a hundred, and
other hundreds have been negligent, faulty, or defective in pursuit of
the robber, then they must pay half the damages to the person robbed,
while the hundred in which the robbery occurred pays the other half.
Robbers shall be pursued by horse and by foot.
The mother and reputed father of any bastard who has been left
to be kept at the parish where born must pay weekly for the upkeep and
relief of such child, so that the true aged and disabled of the parish
get their relief and to punish the lewd life.
Any innkeeper, victualer, or alehouse keeper who allows
drinking by persons other than those invited by a traveler who
accompanies him during his necessary abode there or other than laborers
and handicraftsmen in towns upon the usual working days for one hour at
dinner time to take their diet in an alehouse or other than laborers
and workmen following their work to any given town to sojourn, lodge,
or victual in any inn, alehouse or victualing house shall forfeit 10s.
for each offense. This is because the use of inns, alehouses, and
victualing houses was intended for relief and lodgings of traveling
people and people not able to provide their own victuals, but not for
entertainment and harboring of lewd and idle people who become drunk.
No butcher may cut any hide or any ox, bull, steer, or cow so
that it is impaired or may kill any calf under five weeks old. No
butcher may be a tanner. No one may be a tanner unless that person has
apprenticed as such for seven years, or is the son or wife of a tanner
who has tanned for four years, or is a son or daughter of a tanner who
inherits his tanhouse. Tanners may not be shoemakers, curriers,
butchers, or leatherworkers. Only tanners may buy raw hides. Only
leatherworkers may buy leather. Only sufficiently strong and
substantial leather may be used for sole-leather. Curriers may not be
tanners. Curriers may not refuse to curry leather. London searchers
shall inspect leather, seal and mark that which is sufficient, and
seize any that is insufficiently tanned, curried, wrought, or used.
The incorporated company of ship masters may erect beacons and
marks on the seashores and hills above, because certain steeples and
other marks used for navigation have fallen down and ships therefore
have been lost in the sea.
There shall be one sheriff per county, because now there are
enough able men to supply one per county.
No one shall bribe an elector to vote for a certain person for
fellow, scholar, or officer of a college, school, or hall or hospital
so that the fittest persons will be elected, though lacking in money or
friends, and learning will therefore be advanced.
No master at a university may lease any land unless 1/3 of it
is retained for raising crops to supply the colleges and halls for food
for their scholars.
Fish, but no meat, may be eaten on Wednesdays so that there
will be more fishermen and mariners and repair of ports. (This was done
because fishing had declined since the dissolution of the monasteries,
where fissh was eaten eveery Friday. Eating fish instead of meat in
Lent in the springtime remained a tradition.)
Every person over 6 years of age shall wear on Sundays a wool
knitted cap made by the cappers, except for maidens, ladies,
gentlewomen, noble persons, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen with
2,667s. of land, since the practice of not wearing caps has damaged the
capping industry. This employed cappers and poor people they had
employed and the decrepit and lame as carders, spinners, knitters,
parters, forsers, thickers, dressers, dyers, battelers, shearers,
pressers, edgers, liners, and bandmakers.
No man under the degree of knight may wear a hat or cap of
velvet. Caps may not be made of felt, but only knit wool. Only hats may
be made of felt. This is to assist the craft of making wool caps.
No one may make any hat unless he has served as apprentice for
at least seven years. This is to prevent false and deceitful hat-
making by unskillful persons.
No one shall make false linen by stretching it and adding
little pieces of wood, which is so weak that it comes apart after five
washings.
Timber shall not be felled to make logs for fires for the
making of iron.
No one may take small fish to feed to dogs and pigs. Only nets
with mesh leaving three inches spaces may be used to catch fish.
Cottage and dwelling houses for workmen or laborers in mineral
works, coal mines, or quarries of stone or slate for the making of
brick, tile, lime, or coals shall be built only within a mile from such
works. Dwelling houses beyond this must be supported by four acres of
land to be continually occupied and manured as long as the dwelling
house is inhabited or else forfeit 40s. per month to the Queen.
Cottages and dwelling houses for sailors or laborers working on ships
for the sea shall be built only within a mile of the sea. A cottage may
be built in a forest or park for a game keeper of the deer. A cottage
may be built for a herdman or shepherd for the keeping of cattle or
sheep of the town. A cottage may be built for a poor, lame, sick, aged,
or disabled person on waste or common land. More families than one may
not be placed in one cottage or dwelling house. (This is a zoning law.)
Any person with land in fee-simple may establish a hospital,
abiding place, or house of correction to have continuance forever as a
corporation for the sustenance and relief of the maimed, poor, or
disabled people as to set the poor to work. The net income shall not
exceed 40,000s. yearly.
No new iron mills or furnaces for making or working of any iron
or iron metal shall be established in the country around London and the
owners of carriages of coals, mines and iron which have impaired or
destroyed the highways shall also carry coal ashes, gravel, or stone to
repair these highways or else make a payment of 2s.6d. for each cart
load not carried.
For repairing of highways, the supervisors may take the rubbish
or smallest stones of any quarry along the road in their precinct.
Persons with 100s. in goods or 40s. in lands shall find two
able men in their parish community to repair the highways yearly.
Landowners of Oxford shall be taxed for the repair of the
highway and bridge there.
The price of barrels shall be set by mayors of the towns where
they are sold.
Rugs shall weigh 44 pounds at least and be 35 yards at least in
length and at most 3/4 yard wide.
No cattle may be put in any enclosed woods that have been
growing less than five years. At the end of five years growth, calves
may be put in. At the end of six years growth, cattle may be put in.
Woods around London shall not be felled to be converted to
coals for iron-works because London needs the wood to make buildings
and for fireplaces.
Every melter and maker of wax from honeycombs shall put his
mark on every piece of his wax to be sold. Wrought wax such as in
lights, staff-torches, red wax or sealing wax, book candles, or searing
candles shall bear its maker's mark. All barrels of honey shall bear
the mark of the honeymaker.
Wool cloth, cotton cloth, flannel cloth, hose-yarn, hats, and
caps shall be dyed black only with dye from the woad plant and not with
any false black dye.
No one shall take or kill any pheasants with nets or devices at
nighttime because such have become scarce.
Pontage [toll for upkeep and repair of bridges] shall be taken
at certain bridges: carts 2d., horse and pack 1d., a flock of sheep 2d.
No bishop may lease land for more than twenty-one years or
longer than the lives of three designated persons.
No bishop may alienate any possession of their sees to the
crown. Such are void.
Watermen transporting people on the Thames River shall have
served as apprentice to a waterman for five years or have been the son
of a waterman. This is to prevent the loss of lives and goods by
inexperienced watermen.
Spices and potions, including pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg,
cinnamon, ginger, almonds, and dates, which have usually been garbled
[cleaned or sorted by sifting] shall be garbled, cleaned, sorted, and
sealed by the Garbler before sale. This is to prevent mingled, corrupt,
and unclean spices and potions from being sold.
Plasterers shall cease painting because it has intruded upon
the livelihoods of painters who have been apprenticed as such.
Fishermen and their guides may continue to use the coastland
for their fishing activities despite the trespass to landowners.
Since sails for ships in recent years have been made in the
realm instead of imported, none shall make such cloth unless he has
been apprenticed in such or brought up in the trade for seven years.
This is to stop the badness of such cloth.
Tonnage and poundage on goods exported and imported shall be
taken to provide safeguard of the seas for such goods.
All persons must go to the established church on Sundays and
holy days. The penalty was at first forfeiture 12d. along with church
punishment, and later, 20 pounds per month and being bound by two
sureties for 200 pounds for good behavior, and if the 20 pounds is not
paid, then forfeiture of all goods to be applied to the amount due and
two-thirds of one's land.
These laws were directed against Catholicism, but were laxly
enforced as long as worship was not open and no one wore priestly
clothes:
1) The writing, preaching, or maintaining of any foreign spiritual
jurisdiction shall be punished by forfeiture of goods or, if the goods
are not worth 20 pounds, one year imprisonment, for the first offense;
forfeiture of goods and lands and the King's protection, for the second
offense; and the penalty for high treason for the third offense.
2) Any person leading others to the Romish [Catholic] religion is
guilty of high treason. The penalty for saying mass is 200 marks and
one year's imprisonment. The penalty for hearing mass is 100 marks and
one year's imprisonment. If one is suspected of being a Jesuit or
priest giving mass, one must answer questions on examination or be
imprisoned.
3) Papists [those who in conscience refused to take the oath of
supremacy of the Crown over the church] must stay in their place of
abode and not go five miles from it, unless licensed to do so for
business, or else forfeit one's goods and profits of land for life. If
a copyholder, land is forfeited to one's lord. But if the goods are not
worth 800s. or the land is not worth at least 267s., the realm must be
abjured. Otherwise, the papist is declared a felon without benefit of
clergy.
4) If a child is sent to a foreign land for Catholic education, he
cannot inherit lands or goods or money, unless he conforms to the
established church on his return. There is also a 100 pound penalty for
the persons who sent him.
Judicial Procedure
The Star Chamber became the central criminal court after 1560,
and punished perjury, corruption, malfeasance throughout the legal
system such as jury corruption and judicial bribery, rioting, slander,
and libel. Its procedure was inquisitory rather than accusative. It
heard witnesses in camera [not in the presence of the suspected]. Trial
was by systematic interrogation of the suspected on oath, with torture
if necessary in treason cases. Silence could be taken for a confession
of guilt. There was no jury. Queen Elizabeth chose not to sit on this
court. Punishments were imprisonment, fines, the pillory, ear cropping
or tacking, whipping, stigmata on the face, but not death or any
dismemberment except for the ears. (The gentry was exempt from
whipping.)
Because the publication of many books and pamphlets against the
government, especially the church, had led to discontents with the
established church and to the spreading of sects and schisms, the Star
Chamber in 1585 held that the printing trade was to be confined to
London, except for one press at Oxford and one at Cambridge. No book or
pamphlet could be printed unless the text was first seen, examined, and
allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. Book
publishers in violation were to be imprisoned for six months and banned
from printing; their equipment was to be destroyed. Wardens were
authorized to search wherever "they shall have reasonable cause of
suspicion", and to seize all such books and pamphlets printed. But
printers continued to print unlicensed material.
The Ecclesiastical High Commission [later called the Court of
High Commission or High Court of Ecclesiastical Causes] took over
criminal cases formerly heard by the church courts. It also heard
matters of domestic morals. It was led by bishops and Privy Council
members who in 1559 were authorized by a statute of Parliament to keep
order within the church, discipline the clergy, and punish such lay
offenses as were included in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Obstinate
heresy is still a crime punished by death, but practically, the bishops
have little power of forcing heretics to stand trial. If anyone
maintains papal authority, he forfeits his goods; on a third
conviction, he is a traitor. The clergyman who adopts a prayer book
other that the prescribed one commits a crime. Excommunication has
imprisonment behind it. Elizabeth gave this court the power to fine and
imprison, which the former church courts had not had. At first, the
chief work was depriving papists of their benefices.
Suits on titles to land were restricted to the common law
courts and no longer to be heard in the Star Chamber, Chancery Court,
or in the Court of Requests (equity for poor people).
The Queen's Privy Council investigated sedition and treason,
security of the regime, major economic offenses, international
problems, civil commotion, officials abusing their positions, and
persons perverting the course of justice. It frequently issued orders
to Justices of the Peace, for instance to investigate riots and crimes,
to enforce the statutes against vagrancy and illegal games, to regulate
alehouses, to ensure that butchers, innkeepers, and victualers did not
sell meat on fish days, and to gather information needed from the
counties. The Justices of the Peace decided misdemeanors such as
abduction of heiresses, illegal entry, petty thievery, damage to crops,
fence-breaking, brawling, personal feuds, drunken pranks, swearing,
profanation of the Sabbath, alehouse nuisances, drunkenness, perjury,
and malfeasance by officials. They held petty and quarter sessions. The
Justices of the Peace had administrative duties in control of vagrancy,
upkeep of roads and bridges, and arbitration of lawsuits referred to
them by courts. They listed the poor in each parish community, assessed
rates for their maintenance, and appointed overseers to administer the
welfare system, deploying surplus funds to provide houses of correction
for vagrants. Raw materials such as wool, flax, hemp, and iron were
bought upon which the able-bodied unemployed could be set to work at
the parochial level. They determined wages in their districts, with no
statutory ceiling on them, for all laborers, weavers, spinsters,
workmen and workwomen working by the day, week, month, or year, or
taking any work at any person's hand. There were about 50 Justices of
the Peace per county. All were unpaid. They performed these duties for
the next 200 years.
The Court of Queen's Bench and Exchequer indirectly expanded
their jurisdiction to include suits between citizens, formerly heard
only the Court of Common Pleas or Chancery. Chancery interrogated
defendants. Chancery often issued injunctions against suits in the
common law courts. Trial by combat was very rare.
The Justices of Assize rode on circuit twice a year to enforce
the criminal law and reported their assessment of the work of the
Justices of the Peace back to the Privy Council. The duty to hear and
determine felonies was taken from Justices of the Peace by 1590. The
Justices of Assize did this work. Accused people could wait for years
in gaol before their case was heard. Felonies included breach of
prison, hunting by night with painted faces, taking horses to Scotland,
stealing of hawks' eggs, stealing cattle, highway robbery, robbing on
the sea, robbing houses, letting out of ponds, cutting of purses,
deer-stealing at night, conjuring and witchcraft, diminution of coin,
counterfeiting of coins, and impenitent roguery and idleness. The
penalty was death. Many people were hanged for the felony of theft over
12d. Some bold men accused of felony refused to plead so that they
could not be tried and found guilty. They died of heavy weights being
placed on their bodies. But then their property could go to their heirs.
Trials of noblemen for treason shall be by their peers.
Stewards of leet and baron courts may no longer receive, in
their own names, profits of the court over 12d. since they have vexed
subjects with grievous fines and amercements so that profits of justice
have grown much.
Jurors shall be selected from those people who have at least
80s. annual income instead of 40s. because sheriffs have been taking
bribes by the most able and sufficient freeholders to be spared at home
and the poorer and simpler people, who are least able to discern the
causes in question, and most unable to bear the charges of appearance
and attendance in such cases have been the jurors. Also there had been
inflation.
Defendants sued or informed against upon penal statutes may
appear by attorney so that they may avoid the inconvenience of
traveling a long distance to attend and put to bail.
Not only sheriffs, but their employees who impanel juries or
execute process in the courts shall take an oath of office.
A hundred shall answer for any robbery therein only if there
has been negligence or fault in pursuit of the robber after a hue and
cry is made because the past law has been too harsh and required
payment for offenses from people unable to pay who have done everything
reasonable to catch the robber.
Pleadings had to be in writing and oral testimony was given by
sworn witnesses. Case decisions are in books compiled by various
reporters who sit in on court hearings rather than in year books.
In the common law, trespass has given rise to the offshoot
branch of "ejectment", which becomes the common means of recovering
possession of land, no matter what kind of title the claimant asserts.
Trespass on the case has given rise to the offshoot branch of "trover"
[finding another's goods and converting them to one's own use]. The use
of the action of trover gradually supplants the action of detinue,
which involves compurgation.
In the common law courts, the action of assumpsit for enforcing
certain promises is used more than the action of debt in those cases
where there is a debt based on an agreement. The essential nature of
"consideration" in contract is evolving from the procedural
requirements for the action of assumpsit. Consideration may consist in
mutual promises, a precedent debt, or a detriment incurred by one who
has simultaneously received a promise related to the detrimental
action. Consideration must be something, an act, or forbearance of an
act that is of value. For instance, forbearance to sue a worthless
claim is not consideration.
The abstract concept of contract as an agreement between two
parties which is supported by consideration is developing as the number
of various agreements that are court enforceable expands. For instance
the word "consideration" is used in Hayward's Case in 1595 in the Court
of Wards on the construction of a deed. Sir Rowland Hayward was seised
in fee of the Doddington manor and other lands and tenements, whereof
part was in demesne, part in lease for years with rents reserved, and
part in copyhold, by indenture, "in consideration of a certain sum of
money" paid to him by Richard Warren and others, to whom he demised,
granted, bargained and sold the said manor, lands and tenements, and
the reversions and remainders of them, with all the rents reserved upon
any demise, to have and to hold to them and their assigns, presently
after the decease of Sir Rowland, for the term of 17 years. It was held
that the grantees could elect to take by bargain and sale or by demise,
each of which had different consequences.
In another case, A delivered 400s. to B to the use of C, a woman, to be
delivered to her on the day of her marriage. Before this day, A
countermanded it, and called home the money. It was held in the
Chancery Court that C could not recover because "there is no
consideration why she should have it".
In a case concerning a deed, A sold land to B for 400s., with
confidence, that it would be to the use of A. This bargain "hath a
consideration in itself ... and such a consideration is an indenture of
bargain and sale". It was held that the transaction was not examinable
except for fraud and that A was therefore estopped.
A court reporter at the King's Bench formulated two principles on
consideration of the case of Wilkes against Leuson as: "The heir is
estopped from falsifying the consideration acknowledged in the deed of
feoffment of his ancestor. Where a tenant in capite made a feoffment
without consideration, but falsely alleged one in the deed on an office
finding his dying seised, the master of the wards cannot remove the
feoffees on examining into the consideration, and retain the land until
&c. and though the heir tended, still if he do not prosecute his
livery, the Queen must admit the feoffees to their traverse, and to
have the farm, &c." The court reporter summarized this case as follows:
Wilkes, who was merchant of the staple, who died in February last past,
made a feoffment in the August before his death to one Leuson, a
knight, and his brother, and another, of the manor of Hodnel in the
county of Warwick; and the deed, (seen) for seven thousand pounds
[140,000s.] to him paid by the feoffees, of which sum he made
acquittance in the same deed (although in fact and in truth not a
half-penny was paid), gave, granted, and confirmed &c "habendum eir et
hoeredibus suis in perpetuum, ad proprium opus et usum ipsorum A. B. et
C. in perpetuum," and not "hoeredum suorum," together with a clause of
warranty to them, their heirs and assigns, in forma proedicta: and
notwithstanding this feoffment he occupied the land with sheep, and
took other profits during his life; and afterwards his death was found
on a diem clausit extremum by office, that he died seised of the said
manor in fee, and one I. Wilkes his brother of full age found his next
heir, and a tenure in capite found, and now within the three months the
said feoffees sued in the court of wards to be admitted to their
traverse, and also to have the manor in farm until &c. And although the
said I. Wilkes the brother had tendered a livery, yet he had not
hitherto prosecuted it, but for cause had discontinued. And whether now
the master of the wards at his discretion could remove the feoffees by
injunction out of possession upon examination of the said consideration
of the said feoffment which was false, and none such in truth, and
retain it in the hands of the Queen donec et quousque &c. was a great
question. And by the opinion of the learned counsel of that court he
cannot do it, but the Queen is bound in justice to give livery to him
who is found heir by the office, or if he will not proceed with that,
to grant to the tenderers the traverse, and to have the farm, &c. the
request above mentioned. And this by the statutes ... And note, that no
averment can be allowed to the heir, that the said consideration was
false against the deed and acknowledgment of his ancestor, for that
would be to admit an inconvenience. And note the limitation of the use
above, for divers doubted whether the feoffees shall have a fee-simple
in the sue, because the use is not expressed, except only "to
themselves (by their names) for ever;" but if those words had been
wanting, it would have been clear enough that the consideration of
seven thousand pounds had been sufficient, &c. for the law intends a
sufficient consideration by reason of the said sum; but when the use is
expressed otherwise by the party himself, it is otherwise. And also the
warranty in the deed was "to them, their heirs, and assigns, in form
aforesaid," which is a declaration of the intent of Wilkes, that the
feoffees shall not have the use in fee simple; and it may be that the
use, during their three lives, is worth seven thousand pounds, and more
&c. And suppose that the feoffment had been "to have to them and their
heirs to the proper use and behoof of them the feoffees for the term of
their lives for ever for seven thousand pounds," would they have any
other estate than for the term of their lives in the use? I believe
not; and so in the other case.
A last example of a case concerning consideration is that of Assaby and
Others against Lady Anne Manners and Others. The court reporter
characterized the principle of the case as: "A. in consideration of his
daughter's marriage covenants to stand seised to his own use for life,
and that at his death she and her husband shall have the land in [fee]
tail, and that all persons should stand seised to those uses, and also
for further assurance. After the marriage he bargains and sell with
fine and recovery to one with full notice of the covenants and use;
this is of no avail, but on the death of A. the daughter and her
husband may enter." The court reporter summarized this case as follows:
A. was seised of land in fee, and in consideration of a marriage to be
had between his daughter and heir apparent, and B. son and heir
apparent of C. he covenanted and agreed by indenture with C. that he
himself would have, hold, and retain the land to himself, and the
profits of during his life, and that after his decease the said son and
daughter should have the land to them and to the heirs of their two
bodies lawfully begotten, and that all persons then or afterwards
seised of the land should stand and be seised immediately after the
marriage solemnized to the use of the said A. for the term of his life,
and after his death to the use of the said son and daughter in tail as
above, and covenanted further to make an assurance of the land before a
certain day accordingly &c. and then the marriage took effect; and
afterwards A. bargained and sold the land for two hundred marks (of
which not a penny is paid) to a stranger, who had notice of the first
agreements, covenants, and use, and enfeoffed divers persons to this
last use, against whom a common recovery was had to his last use; and
also A. levied a fine to the recoverers before any execution had, and
notwithstanding all these things A. continued possession in taking the
profits during his life; and afterwards died; and the son and daughter
entered, and made a feoffment to their first use. And all this matter
was found in assize by Assaby and others against Lady Anne Manners and
others. And judgment was given that the entry and feoffment were good
and lawful, and the use changed by the first indenture and agreement.
Yet error was alleged. The judgment in the assize is affirmed.
The famous Shelley's Case stands for the principle that where
in any instrument an estate for life is given to the ancestor, and
afterwards by the same instrument, the inheritance is limited whether
mediately, or immediately, to his heirs, or heirs of his body, as a
class to take in succession as heirs to him, the word "heirs" is a word
of limitation, and the ancestor takes the whole estate. For example,
where property goes to A for life and the remainder goes to A's heirs,
A's life estate and the remainder merge into a fee in A. A can sell or
devise this interest.
Edward Shelley was a tenant in fee tail general. He had two sons. The
older son predeceased his father, leaving a daughter and his wife
pregnant with a son. Edward had a common recovery (the premises being
in lease for years) to the use of himself for term of his life, after
his decease to the use of the male heirs of his body, and of the male
heirs of the body of such heirs, remainder over. After judgment and the
awarding of the writ of seisin, but before its execution, Edward died.
After his death, and before the birth of his older son's son, the writ
of seisin was executed. The younger son entered the land and leased it
to a third party. Afterwards, the son of the older son was born. He
entered the land and ejected the third party. It was held that the
younger son had taken quasi by descent until the birth of the older
son's son. The entry by the older son's son was lawful. The third party
was lawfully ejected. (Shelley's Case, King's Bench, 1581, English
Reports - Full Reprint, Vol. 76, Page 206.)
About 1567, London authorities punished Nicholas Jennings alias
Blunt for using elaborate disguises to present himself as an epileptic
to beg for handouts from the public. He was pilloried, whipped, and
pulled behind a cart through the streets. He was kept at the Bridewell
and was set to work at a mill.
Chapter 14
The Times: 1601-1625
Due in part to increasing population, the prices of foodstuffs
had risen sixfold from the later 1400s, during which it had been
stable. This inflation gradually impoverished those living on fixed
wages. Landlords could insist on even shorter leases and higher rents.
London quadrupled in population. Many lands that were in scattered
strips, pasture lands, waste lands, and lands gained from drainage and
disafforestation were enclosed for the introduction of convertible
agriculture (e.g. market-oriented specialization) and only sometimes
for sheep. The accompanying extinguishment of common rights was
devastating to small tenants and cottagers. Gentry and yeomen benefited
greatly. There was a gradual consolidation of the land into fewer hands
and demise of the small family farm. In towns, the mass of poor,
unskilled workers with irregular work grew. Prices finally flattened
out in the 1620s.
Society became polarized with a wealthy few growing wealthier
and a mass of poor growing poorer. This social stratification became a
permanent fixture of English society. Poverty was no longer due to
death of a spouse or parent, sickness or injury, or a phase in the life
cycle such as youth or old age. Many full-time wage earners were in
constant danger of destitution. More subdivided land holdings in the
country made holdings of cottagers minuscule. But these were eligible
for parish relief under the poor laws. Beside them were substantial
numbers of rogues and vagabonds wandering the roads. These vagrants
were usually young unmarried men. There were no more licensed liveries
of lords.
During the time 1580 to 1680, there were distinct social
classes in England which determined dress, convention in comportment
which determined face-to-face contacts between superiors and inferiors,
order of seating in church, place arrangement at tables, and rank order
in public processions. It was influenced by power, wealth, life-style,
educational level, and birth. The various classes lived in separate
worlds; their paths did not cross each other. People moved only within
their own class. Each class had a separate existence as well as a
different life style from the other classes. So each class developed a
wariness of other classes. However, there was much social mobility
between adjacent classes.
At the top were the gentry, about 2% of the population. Theirs
was a landed wealth with large estate mansions. They employed many
servants and could live a life of leisure. Their lady wives often
managed the household with many servants and freely visited friends and
went out shopping, riding, or walking. They conversed with neighbors
and made merry with them at childbirths, christenings, churchings, and
funerals. Gentlemen usually had positions of responsibility such as
lords of manors and leaders in their parishes. These families often
sent the oldest son to university to become a Justice of the Peace and
then a member of Parliament. They also served as county officers such
as High Constable of their hundred and grand jury member. Their social,
economic, and family ties were at least countywide. They composed about
700 gentle families, including the peers, who had even more landed
wealth, which was geographically dispersed. After the peers were:
baronets (created in 1611), knights, esquires, and then ordinary
gentlemen. These titles were acquired by being the son of such or by
purchase. Most gentry had a house in London, where they spent most of
their time, as well as country mansions. About 4/5 of the land was in
the hands of 7,000 of the nobility and landed gentry due in part to
estate tails constructed by attorneys to favor hereditary interests.
The gentry had also profited by commerce and possessions in the
colonies. The country life of a country squire or gentleman dealt with
all the daily affairs of a farm. He had men plough, sow, and reap. He
takes part in the haying and getting cut grass under cover when a rain
came. His sow farrows; his horse is gelded; a first lamb is born. He
drags his pond and takes out great carps. His horses stray and he finds
them in the pound. Boys are bound to him for service. He hires
servants, and some work out their time and some run away. Knaves steal
his sheep. His hog is stabbed. He and a neighbor argue about the
setting up of a cottage. He borrows money for a daughter's dowry. He
holds a leet court. He attends church on Sunday and reads the lesson
when called upon. He visits the local tavern to hear from his
neighbors. Country folk brawl. Wenches get pregnant. Men commit
suicide, usually by hanging. Many gentlemen spent their fortunes and
died poor. New gentlemen from the lower classes took their places.
The second class included the wealthier merchants and
professional men of the towns. These men were prominent in town
government. They usually had close family ties with the gentry,
especially as sons. When wealthy enough, they often bought a country
estate. The professional men included military officers, civil service
officials, attorneys, some physicians, and a few clergymen. The
instabilities of trade, high mortality rates in the towns, and high
turnover rate among the leading urban families prevented any separate
urban interest group arising that would be opposed to the landed
gentry. Also included in this second group were the most prosperous
yeomanry of the countryside.
The third class was the yeomanry at large, which included many
more than the initial group who possessed land in freehold of at least
40s., partly due to inflation. Freehold was the superior form of
holding land because one was free to sell, exchange, or devise the land
and had a political right to vote in Parliamentary elections. Other
yeomen were those who possessed enough land, as copyholder or
leaseholder, to be protected from fluctuations in the amount of the
annual harvest, that is, at least 50 acres. A copyholder rented land
from a lord for a period of years or lives, usually three lives
including that of the widow, and paid a substantial amount whenever the
copyhold came up for renewal. The copyholder and leaseholder were
distinguished from the mere tenant-at-will, whose only right was to
gather his growing crop when his landlord decided to terminate his
tenancy. The average yeoman had a one and a half story house, with a
milkhouse, a malthouse, and other small buildings attached to the
dwelling. The house would contain a main living room, a parlor, where
there would be one or more beds, and several other rooms with beds. No
longer was there a central great hall. Cooking was done in a kitchen or
over the open fire in the fireplace of the main room. Furniture
included large oak tables, stools, long bencches with or without backs,
chests, cupboards, and a few hard-backed simple chairs. Dishware was
wood or pewter. The yeomen often became sureties for recognizances,
witnesses to wills, parish managers, churchwardens, vestrymen, the
chief civil officers of parishes and towns, overseers of the poor,
surveyors of bridges and highways, jurymen and constables for the
Justices of the Peace, and sheriffs' bailiffs. The families and
servants of these yeomen ate meat, fish, wheaten bread, beer, cheese,
milk, butter, and fruit. Their wives were responsible for the dairy,
poultry, orchard, garden, and perhaps pigs. They smoked and cured hams
and bacon, salted fish, dried herbs for the kitchen or lavender and
pot-pourri for sweetening the linen, and arranged apples and roots in
lofts or long garrets under the roof to last the winter. They preserved
fruits candied or in syrup. They preserved wines; made perfumes, washes
for preserving the hair and complexion, rosemary to cleanse the hair,
and elder-flower water for sunburn; distilled beverages; ordered wool
hemp, and flax to spin for cloth (the weaving was usually done in the
village); fashioned and sewed clothes and house linens; embroidered;
dyed; malted oats; brewed; baked; and extracted oils. Many prepared
herb medicines and treated injuries, such as dressing wounds, binding
arteries, and setting broken bones. Wives also ploughed and sowed,
weeded the crops, and sheared sheep. They sometimes cared for the poor
and sold produce at the market. Some yeomen were also tanners,
painters, carpenters, or blacksmiths; and as such they were frequently
brought before the Justices of the Peace for exercising a craft without
having served an apprenticeship. The third class also included the
freemen of the towns, who could engage independently in trade and had
political rights. These freemen were about one-third of the male
population of the town.
The fourth class included the ordinary farmer leasing by
copyhold, for usually 21 years, five to fifty acres. From this class
were drawn sidesmen [assistants to churchwardens] and constables. They
had neither voice nor authority in government. Their daily diet was
bacon, beer, bread, and cheese. Also in this class were the independent
urban craftsmen who were not town freemen. Their only voice in
government was at the parish level.
The fifth and lowest class included the laborers and cottagers,
who were usually tenants at will. They were dependent on day labor.
They started work at dawn, had breakfast for half an hour at six,
worked until dinner, and then until supper at about six; in the summer
they would then do chores around the barns until eight or nine. Some
were hedgers, ditchers, ploughmen, reapers, shepherds, and herdsmen.
The cottagers' typical earnings of about 1s. a day amounted to about
200 shillings a year, which was almost subsistence level. Accordingly
they also farmed a little on their four acres of land with garden. Some
also had a few animals. They lived in one or two room cottages of clay
and branches of trees or wood, sometimes with a brick fireplace and
chimney, and few windows. They ate bread, cheese, lard, soup, and
greens. If a laborer was unmarried, he lived with the farmer. Theirs
was a constant battle for survival. They often moved, because of
deprivation, to seek opportunity elsewhere. The town wage-earning
laborers ranged from journeymen craftsmen to poor casual laborers. The
mass of workers in London were not members of guilds, and the crime
rate was high.
The last three classes also contained rural craftsmen and
tradesmen, who also farmed. The variety of trades became very large,
e.g. tinsmiths, chain smiths, pewterers, violin makers, and glass
painters. The curriers, who prepared hides for shoemakers, coachmakers,
saddlers, and bookbinders, were incorporated.
The fourth and fifth classes comprised about three fourths of
the population.
Then there were the maritime groups: traders, ship owners,
master and seamen, and the fishers.
Over one fourth of all households had servants. They were the
social equals of day laborers, but materially better off with food and
clothing plus an allowance of money of two pounds [40s.] a year. Those
who sewed got additional pay for this work. There was no great chasm
between the family and the servants. They did not segregate into a
parlor class and a kitchen class. The top servants were as educated as
their masters and ate at the same table. Great households had a
chaplain and a steward to oversee the other servants. There was usually
a cook. Lower servants ate together. Servants were disciplined by cuffs
and slaps and by the rod by master or mistress. Maids wore short gowns,
a large apron, and a gypsy hat tied down over a cap. Chamber maids
helped to dress their mistresses. Servants might sleep on trundle beds
stored under their master's or mistress's bed, in a separate room, or
on the straw loft over the stables. A footman wore a blue tunic or
skirted coat with corded loop fasteners, knee-britches, and white
stockings. He walked or ran on foot by the side of his master or
mistress when they rode out on horseback or in a carriage and ran
errands for him, such as leading a lame horse home or running messages.
A good footman is described in this reference letter: "Sir, - You wrote
me lately for a footman, and I think this bearer will fit you: I know
he can run well, for he has run away twice from me, but he knew the way
back again: yet, though he has a running head as well as running heels
(and who will expect a footman to be a stayed man) I would not part
with him were I not to go post to the North. There be some things in
him that answer for his waggeries: he will come when you call him, go
when you bid him, and shut the door after him; he is faithful and
stout, and a lover of his master. He is a great enemy to all dogs, if
they bark at him in his running; for I have seen him confront a huge
mastiff, and knock him down. When you go a country journey, or have him
run with you a-hunting, you must spirit him with liquor; you must allow
him also something extraordinary for socks, else you must not have him
wait at your table; when his grease melts in running hard, it is
subject to fall into his toes. I send him to you but for trial, if he
be not for your turn, turn him over to me again when I come back..."
Dress was not as elaborate as in Elizabethan times. For
instance, fewer jewels were worn. Ladies typically wore a brooch,
earrings, and pearl necklaces. Men also wore earrings. Watches with
elaborate cases were common. Women's dresses were of satin, taffeta,
and velvet, and were made by dressmakers. Pockets were carried in the
hand, fastened to the waist by a ribbon, or sewn in petticoats and
accessible by a placket opening. The corset was greatly reduced.
Women's hair was in little natural-looking curls, a few small tendrils
on the forehead with soft ringlets behind the ears, and the back coiled
into a simple knot. Men also wore their hair in ringlets. They had
pockets in their trousers, first as a cloth pouch inserted into an
opening in the side seam, and later sewn into the side seam. The
bereaved wore black, and widows wore a black veil over their head until
they remarried or died. Rouge was worn by lower class women.
Toothbrushes, made with horsehair, were a new and costly luxury. The
law dictating what classes could wear what clothes was difficult to
enforce and the last such law was in 1597.
Merchants who had become rich by pirating could now afford to
extend their trading ventures well beyond the Atlantic sea. Cotton
chintzes, calicoes, taffetas, muslins, and ginghams from India now
became fashionable as dress fabrics. Simple cotton replaced linen as
the norm for napkins, tablecloths, bed sheets, and underwear. Then it
became the fashion to use calicoes for curtains, cushions, chairs, and
beds. Its inexpensiveness made these items affordable for many. There
was a cotton-weaving industry in England from about 1621, established
by cotton workmen who fled to England in 1585 from Antwerp, which had
been captured. By 1616, there were automatic weaving looms in London
which could be operated by a novice.
Even large houses now tended to do without a courtyard and
became compacted into one soaring and stately whole. A typical country
house had deep-set windows of glass looking into a walled green court
with a sundial in it and fringed around with small trees. The gables
roofs were steep and full of crooks and angles, and covered with rough
slate if there was a source for such nearby. There was an extensive use
of red tile, either rectangular or other shapes and with design such as
fishscales. The rooms are broad and spacious and include hall, great
parlor, little parlor, matted chamber, and study. In the hall was still
the great, heavy table. Dining tables were covered with cloth, carpet,
or printed leather. Meals were increasingly eaten in a parlor. Noble
men now preferred to be waited upon by pages and grooms instead of by
their social equals as before. After dinner, they deserted the parlor
to retire into drawing rooms for conversation and desserts of sweet
wine and spiced delicacies supplemented by fruit. Afterward, there
might be dancing and then supper. In smaller parlors, there was
increasing use of oval oak tables with folding leaves. Chests of
drawers richly carved or inlaid and with brass handles were coming into
increased use. Walls were lined with panels and had pictures or were
hung with tapestry. Carpets, rugs, and curtains kept people warm. There
were many stools to sit on, and some arm chairs. Wide and handsome open
staircases separated the floors. Upstairs, the sitting and bedrooms
open into each other with broad, heavy doors. Bedrooms had four-post
beds and wardrobes with shelves and pegs. Under the roof are garrets,
apple-lofts, and root-chambers. Underneath is a cellar. Outside is a
farmyard with outbuildings such as bake house, dairy, cheese-press
house, brewery, stilling house, malt house, fowl house, dove cot, pig
stye, slaughter-house, wood house, barns, stable, and sometimes a mill.
There were stew-ponds for fish and a park with a decoy for wild fowl.
There was also a laundry, carpenter's bench, blacksmith's forge, and
pots and equipment of a house painter.
In the 1600s, towns were fortified by walled ditches instead of
relying on castles, which couldn't contain enough men to protect the
townspeople. Also in towns, water was supplied by local pumps and
wells. In 1613, a thirty-eight-mile aqueduct brought spring water into
London. In the country, floors were of polished wood or stone and
strewn with rushes. A ladies' attendant might sleep the same bedroom on
a bed which slid under the ladies' bed. Apprentices and shop boys had
to sleep under the counter. Country laborers slept in a loft on straw.
Bread was made in each household. There were bedroom chairs with
enclosed chamber pots.
Wood fires were the usual type. Coal was coming into use in the
towns and near coal mines. Charcoal was also used. Food was roasted on
a spit over a fire, baked, or broiled. People still licked their
fingers at meals. The well-to-do had wax candles. Tallow dips were used
by the poor and for the kitchen. People drank cordials and homemade
wines made with grapes, currants, oranges, or ginger. Some mead was
also drunk.
Tobacco, potatoes, tea, asparagus, kidney beans, scarlet
runners, cardoons (similar to artichokes), horseradish, sugarcane, and
turkeys for Christmas, were introduced from the New World, China, and
India. Tea was a rare and expensive luxury. Coffee was a new drink.
With the cane sugar was made sweetened puddings, pies, and drinks. The
potato caused the advent of distillation of concentrated alcohol from
fermented potato mashes. There was a distiller's company by 1638.
Distilleries' drinks had higher alcoholic content than wine or beer.
The Merchant Adventurers sold in town stores silks, satins,
diamonds, pearls, silver, and gold. There were women peddlers selling
hats and hosiery from door to door and women shopkeepers, booksellers,
alehouse keepers, linen drapers, brewers, and ale- wives. London had
polluted air and water, industrial noise, and traffic congestion.
Work on farms was still year-round. In January and February,
fields were ploughed and harrowed and the manure spread. Also, trees
and hedges were set, fruit trees pruned, and timber lopped. In March
and April, the fields were stirred again and the wheat and rye sown. In
May gardens were planted, hop vines trained to poles, ditches scoured,
lambs weaned, and sheep watched for "rot". In June sheep were washed
and sheared, and fields were spread with lime and clay, and manured. In
July hay was cut, dried, and stacked. In August crops were harvested,
which called for extra help from neighbors and townsmen who took
holidays at harvesting. Then there was threshing, and the sowing of
winter wheat and rye. In the autumn, cider from apples and perry from
pears might be made. By November the fall planting was finished and the
time had come for the killing of cattle and hanging up their salted
carcasses for winter meat. Straw would be laid down with dung, to be
spread next spring on the fields. Stock that could not live outdoors in
winter were brought into barns.
Government regulated the economy. In times of dearth, it
ordered Justices of the Peace to buy grain and sell it below cost. It
forbade employers to lay off workers whose products they could not
sell. It used the Star Chamber Court to enforce economic regulations.
Enclosures of land were made to carry on improved methods of
tillage, which yielded more grain and more sheep fleece. Drainage of
extensive marsh land created more land for agriculture. Waste land was
used to breed game and "fowling" contributed to farmers' and laborers'
livelihoods. Killing game was not the exclusive right of landowners,
but was a common privilege. The agricultural laborer, who worked for
wages and composed most of the wage- earning population, found it hard
to make ends meet.
There were food riots usually during years of harvest failure,
in which organized groups seized foodstuffs being transported or in
markets. Also, there were enclosure riots, in which organized groups
destroyed hedges and fences erected in agrarian reorganization to
restrict access to or to subdivide former common pasture land. These
self- help riots were last resorts to appeals. They were relatively
orderly and did not expand into random violence. The rioters were
seldom punished more than a fining or whipping of the leaders and
action was taken to satisfy their legitimate grievances.
The poor came to resent the rich and there was a rise in crime
among the poor. Penal laws were frequently updated in an effort to
bring more order.
In 1610, weekly wages for a mason were 8s. or 5s., for a
laborer were 6s. or 4s., for a carpenter 8s. or 6s. An unskilled
laborer received 1s. a day.
There were conventions of paternalism and deference between
neighbors of unequal social status. A social superior often protected
his lessers from impoverishment For instance, the landlord lessened
rents in times of harvest failure. A social superior would help find
employment for a lesser person or his children, stand surety for a
recognizance, intervene in a court case, or have his wife tend a sick
member of his lesser's family. A social obligation was felt by most of
the rich, the landlords, the yeomen farmers, and the clergy. This
system of paternalism and social deference was expressed and reinforced
at commonly attended village sports and games, dances, wakes and "ales"
(the proceeds of which went to the relief of a certain person in
distress), "rush-bearings", parish feasts, weddings, christenings,
"churchings" to give thanks for births, and funerals. Even the poor
were buried in coffins. Also there was social interaction at the local
alehouse, where neighbors drank, talked, sang, and played at bowls or
"shove goat" together.
Quarrelling was commonplace. For instance, borough authorities
would squabble over the choice of a schoolmaster; the parson would
carry on a long fight with parishioners over tithe hens and pigs; two
country gentlemen would continue a vendetta started by their
great-grandfathers over a ditch or hunting rights; the parishioners
would wrangle with the churchwardens over the allocation of pews. The
position of one's pew reflected social position. Men tried to keep the
pews of their ancestors and the newly prosperous wanted the recognition
in the better pews, for which they had to pay a higher amount. But, on
the other hand, farmers were full of good will toward their neighbors.
They lent farm and kitchen equipment, helped raise timbers for a
neighbor's new barn, sent food and cooked dishes to those providing a
funeral feast and to the sick and incurable.
Village standards of behavior required that a person not to
drink to excess, quarrel, argue, profane, gossip, cause a nuisance,
abuse wife or children, or harbor suspicious strangers, and to pay scot
and bear lot as he was asked. Neighbors generally got along well and
frequently borrowed and loaned small sums of money to each other
without interest for needs that suddenly arose. Bad behavior was
addressed by the church by mediation and, if this failed, by exclusion
from holy communion. There was also whipping and the stocks.
Marital sex was thought to be good for the health and happiness
of the husband and enjoyable by wives. The possibility of female orgasm
was encouraged. Both women and men were thought to have "seed" and
drank certain potions to cause pregnancy or to prevent birth. Some
argued that orgasm of both partners was necessary for the "seed" of the
male and female to mix to produce pregnancy. Most women were in a
virtual state of perpetual pregnancy. Both Catholics and Protestants
thought that God wanted them to multiply and cover the earth. Catholics
thought that the only goal of sex was procreation. Men were considered
ready for marriage only when they could support a family, which was
usually at about age 30. Brides were normally virgins, but there was
bridal pregnancy of about 20%. Women usually married at about age 25.
Marriages were usually within one's own class and religion. The
aristocracy often initiated matches of their children for the sake of
continuity in the family estates and tried to obtain the consent of
their children for the match in mind. The age of consent to marry was
14 for boys and 12 for girls. Girls in arranged marriages often married
at 13, and boys before they went to university. But the girls usually
stayed with their parents for a couple of years before living with
their husbands. If married before puberty, consummation of the marriage
waited for such time. In other classes, the initiative was usually
taken by the child. Dowries and marriage portions usually were given by
the parents of the bride. Wet-nurses frequently were used, even by
Puritans. There were no baby bottles. Many babies died, causing their
parents much grief. About 1/4 of women's deaths occurred during
childbirth. A child was deemed to be the husband's if he was within the
four seas, i.e. not in foreign lands, for an agreed length of time.
Illegitimacy was infrequent, and punished by church-mandated public
penance by the mother and lesser penance and maintenance by the father.
The church court punished adultery and defamation for improper sexual
conduct.
The established church still taught that the husband was to be
the authority in marriage and had the duty to provide for, protect, and
maintain his wife. Wives were to obey their husbands, but could also
admonish and advise their husbands without reproach. In literature,
women were portrayed as inferior to men intellectually and morally as
well as physically. In reality wives did not fit the image of women
portrayed by the church and literature. Quarrels between husband and
wife were not uncommon and were not stopped by a husband's assertion of
authority. Wives were very active in the harvesting and did casual
labor of washing, weeding, and stone-picking. Farmers' and tradesmen's
wives kept accounts, looked after the garden, orchard, pigs, and
poultry; brewed beer; spun wool and flax; and acted as agents in
business affairs. Wives of craftsmen and tradesmen participated
actively in their husbands' shops. Wives of weavers spun for their
husband's employers. Wives of the gentry ran their households with
their husbands. The lady of a large mansion superintended the
household, ordering and looking after the servants, and seeing to the
education of her children. Mothers handed down their recipes to their
daughters. Women still did much needlework and embroidering for
clothing and house, such as cushions, screens, bed curtains, window
curtains, hangings, footstools, book covers, and small chests of
drawers for valuables. Liking simplicity, Puritan women did less of
this work.
Naming one's wife as executor of one's will was the norm.
Jointures [property for a widow] were negotiated at the betrothal of
ladies. Widows of manorial tenants were guaranteed by law one-third of
family real property, despite creditors. But most testators went beyond
this and gave a life interest in the farm or family house. So it was
customary for a widow to remain in occupation of the land until her
death or remarriage. Few widows or widowers lived with one of their
children. Widows usually had their husband's guild rights and
privileges conferred upon them, e.g. to receive apprentices. In London,
custom gave 1/3 of a deceased husband's estate to his wife on his
death, but 2/3 if there were no children. The other part went according
to his will. If a widow did not remarry in memory of her
husband, she was esteemed. But remarriage was common because the life
expectancy after birth was about 35 years.
Sons of the well-to-do went into law, the Church, the army, or
the navy. If not fit for such, they usually went into a trade,
apprenticing, for instance, with a draper, silk merchant, or goldsmith.
Sometimes a son was sent to the house of a great man as a page or
esquire to learn the ways of courtiers and perhaps become a diplomat.
The guild with its master and their employees was being
replaced by a company of masters.
James I ruled over both England and Scotland. He had come from
Scotland, so was unfamiliar with English love of their rights, passion
for liberty and justice, and extensive discussing of religion and
quoting scripture. When he came to the throne, he had a conference with
a group of Puritans who asked for certain reforms: ceremonies such as
the cross in baptism and the ring in marriage should not be used, only
educated men competent to preach should be made ministers, bishops
should not be allowed to hold benefices that they did not administer,
and minor officials should not excommunicate for trifles and
twelve-penny matters. He not only denied their requests, but had the
English Bible revised into the King James version, which was published
in 1611. This was to replace the popular Geneva Bible written by
English Protestant refugees from Catholic Queen Mary's reign, which he
did not like because some of its commentary was not highly favorable to
kings. James didn't believe a king had to live by the law; he hadn't as
king of Scotland. He tried to imbue into England the idea of a divine
right of kings to rule that he had held in Scotland. The established
church quickly endorsed and preached this idea.
The selection of the clergy of the parish churches was now
often in the hands of the parishioners, having been sold to them by the
patron lord of the manor. Some patrons sold the right of selection to a
tradesman or yeoman who wished to select his son or a relative. Some
rights of selection were in the hands of bishops, the colleges, and the
Crown. The parish clergyman was appointed for life and removed only for
grave cause. Most parishioners wanted a sermon created by their
minister instead of repetitious homilies and constant prayer. They
thought that the object of worship in church was to rouse men to think
and act about the problems of the world.
In 1622, the King mandated that clergymen quote scripture only
in context of the Book of Articles of Religion of 1562 or the two Books
of Homilies and not preach any sermon on Sunday afternoon except on
some part of the Catechism or some text out of the Creed, Ten
Commandments, or the Lord's Prayer.
The Puritan movement grew. About 5% of the Protestants were
Puritans. These included country gentlemen and wealthier traders. They
dressed simply in gray or other drab colors and wore their hair short
to protest the fashion of long curls. They lived simply and disapproved
of dancing because it induced lasciviousness and of theater because of
its lewdness. Theaters and brothels still shared the same
neighborhoods, the same customers, and sometimes the same employees.
Prostitutes went to plays to find customers; men shouldered and shoved
each other in competing to sit next to attractive women to get to know
them. The Puritans also disapproved of cock fights because they led to
gambling and disorder, and Maypole celebrations because of their
paganism. There was less humor. Many became stoics. The Puritan church
ceremonies were plain, with no ornamentation. Puritans prayed several
times a day and read the Bible to each other in family groups to look
for guidance in their conduct and life. They asked for God to intervene
in personal matters and looked for signs of his pleasure or displeasure
in happenings such as a tree falling close but not touching him, or his
horse throwing him without injury to him. When there was an illness in
the family or misfortune, they examined their past life for sins and
tried to correct shortcomings. They circulated records of puritan lives
including spiritual diaries. They believed in the equality of men and
that a good man was better than a bad peer, bishop, or king. Puritan
influence made families closer and not merely dependent on the will of
the husband or father. There was a sense of spiritual fellowship among
family members as individuals. They emphasized the real need of a
lasting love relationship between husband and wife, so a mutual liking
that could develop into love between a young couple in an arranged
match was essential.
Most Puritans felt that the bishops were as tyrannical as the
pope had been and that more reform was needed. They favored the
Presbyterian form of church government developed by John Calvin in
Switzerland. The presbyter was the position below bishop. Parishes were
governed by boards consisting of a minister and lay elders elected by
the parishioners. These boards sent elected representatives to
councils. All lay elders and ministers had equal rank with each other.
The Calvinist God preordained salvation only for the elect and
damnation and everlasting punishment for the rest of humanity, but the
Puritans had an optimism about avoiding this damnation. They believed
that at his conversion a person received grace, which was a sign that
he was predestined for salvation. They rejected all ecclesiastical
institutions except as established by each parish over its own elected
pastor and members. They rejected the established church's control from
the top by bishops. They believed in negotiating directly with God for
the welfare of the soul without the priest or church organization.
The fear of witchcraft grew with Puritanism. Poor decrepit old
defenseless women, often deformed and feeble-minded, were thought to be
witches. Their warts and tumors were thought to be teats for the devil
to suck or the devil's mark. Cursing or ill-tempers, probably from old
age pains, or having cats were further indications of witchery.
When the king learned in 1618 that the English Puritans had
prevented certain recreations after the Sunday service, he proclaimed
that the people should not be restrained from lawful recreations and
exercise such as dancing, May-games, Whitsunales, Morris-dances,
May-pole sports, archery for men, leaping, and vaulting. Also women
could carry rushes to decorate the church as they had done in the past.
His stated purpose was to prevent people such as Catholics from being
deterred from conversion, to promote physical fitness for war, and to
keep people from drinking and making discontented speeches in their ale
houses. Still unlawful on Sunday were bear and bull baitings and
bowlings.
Besides the Puritans, there were other Independent sects, such
as the Congregationalists, whose churches gathered together by the
inspiration of Jesus. This sect was started by English merchants
residing in Holland who set up congregations of Englishmen under their
patronage there; they kept minister and elders well under their
control. The Baptists emerged out of the Independents. They believed
that only adults, who were capable of full belief, and not children,
could be baptized. They also believed that it was the right of any man
to seek God's truth for himself in the scriptures and that obedience to
the state should not extend beyond personal conscience.
One fourth of all children born did not live to the age of ten,
most dying in their first year. Babies had close caps over their head,
a rattle, and slept in a sturdy wood cradle that rocked on the floor,
usually near the hearth. Babies of wealthier families had nurses. The
babies of ladies were suckled by wet nurses. Parents raised children
with affection and tried to prepare them to become independent
self-sustaining adults. There was less severity than in Tudor times,
although the maxim "spare the rod and spoil the child" was generally
believed, especially by Puritans, and applied to even very young
children. In disciplining a child, an admonition was first used, and
the rod as a last resort, with an explanation of the reasons for its
use. There were nursery rhymes and stories such as "Little Bo-Peep",
"Jack and the Beanstalk", "Tom Thumb", "Chicken Little", and Robin Hood
and King Arthur tales, and probably also "Puss in Boots", "Red
Ridinghood", "Cinderella", "Beauty and the Beast", "Bluebeard" and
Aesop's Fables. "Little Jack Horner" who sat in a corner was a satire
on the Puritan aversion to Christmas pudding and sense of conscious
virtue. Toys included dolls, balls, drums, and hobby horses. Children
played "hide and seek", "here we go around the Mulberry bush", and
other group games. School children were taught by "horn books". This
was a piece of paper with the alphabet and perhaps a religious verse,
such as the Paternoster prayer, that was mounted on wood and covered
with thin horn to prevent tearing. Little girls cross-stitched the
alphabet and numerals on samplers. Block alphabets were coming into
use. Most market towns had a grammar school which would qualify a
student for university. They were attended by sons of noblemen, country
squires [poor gentlemen], merchants, and substantial yeomen, and in
some free schools, the poor. School hours were from 6:00 a.m. to noon
or later. Multiplication was taught. If affordable, families had their
children involved in education after they were small until they left
home at about fifteen for apprenticeship or service. Otherwise,
children worked with their families from the age of seven, e.g. carding
and spinning wool, until leaving home at about fifteen.
There were boarding schools such as Winchester, Eton,
Westminster, St. Paul's, and Merchant Taylors'. There, senior boys
selected for conduct and ability supervised younger boys. They thereby
got experience for a future in public life. The system was also a check
on bullying of the weak by the strong. The curriculum included Lilly's
"Grammar"; Aesop; Terence's Roman comic plays; Virgil's "Aeneid", the
national epic of Rome; Cicero's "Letters" reflecting Roman life;
Sallust's histories showing people and their motives; Caesar's
"Commentaries" on the Gallic and civil wars; Horace's "Epistles" about
life and poetry; poet Ovid's "Metamorphoses" on adventures and love
affairs of deities and heroes, "Fasti" on Roman religious festivals and
customs; Donatus' grammar book; and other ancient Latin authors.
Football, with hog bladders, and tennis were played. These schools were
self-supporting and did their own farming.
Private schools for girls were founded in and around London.
They were attended by daughters of the well-to-do merchant class,
nobility, and gentry. They were taught singing, playing of instruments,
dancing, French, fine sewing, embroidery, and sometimes arithmetic.
There were not many girls' boarding schools. Fewer served in the house
of some noble lady as before. Most commonly, the sons and daughters of
gentlemen and nobles were taught by private tutors. A tutor in the
house educated the girls to the same extent as the boys. Frequently,
the mother educated her daughters. A considerable number of girls of
other backgrounds such as the yeomanry and the town citizenry somehow
learned to read and write.
Boys began at university usually from age 14 to 18, but
sometimes as young as 12. The universities provided a broad-based
education in the classics, logic and rhetoric, history, theology, and
modern languages for gentlemen and gave a homogenous national culture
to the ruling class. There was a humanist ideal of a gentleman scholar.
The method of study was based largely on lectures and disputations.
Each fellow had about five students to tutor. In many cases, he took
charge of the finances of his students, paying his bills to tradesmen
and the college. His reimbursement by the students' fathers put them
into friendly contact with the family. The students slept in trundle
beds around his bed and had an adjacent room for study. Aristotle,
whose authority was paramount, remained the lynch pin of university
studies, especially for logic and dialectic. The study of rhetoric was
based on Quintilian, the Latin writer, and the Greek treatise of
Hermogenes of Tarsus. Also studied was Cicero's orations as models of
style. Examination for degrees was by disputation over a thesis of the
student. The B.A. degree was given after four years of study, and the
M.A. after three more. There were advanced degrees in civil law, which
required seven more years of study, medicine, seven years, divinity,
more than seven years, and music. Many of the men who continued for
advanced degrees became fellows and took part in the teaching. Most
fellowships were restricted to clerics. Oxford and Cambridge
Universities operated under a tutorial system. Access to grammar
schools and universities was closed to girls of whatever class. Oxford
University now had the Bodleian Library. In the universities, there
were three types of students: poor scholars, who received scholarships
and also performed various kinds of service such as kitchen work and
did errands for fellows such as carrying water and waiting on tables;
commoners, who paid low fees and were often the sons of economical
gentlemen or businessmen; and the Fellow Commoners, a privileged and
well-to-do minority, usually sons of noblemen or great country
gentlemen. The Fellow Commoners paid high fees, had large rooms,
sometimes had a personal tutor or servant, and had the right to eat
with the Fellows at High Table. Here, gentlemen made friends with their
social equals from all over the country. Students wore new- fashioned
gowns of many colors and colored stockings. They put on stage plays in
Latin and English. The students played at running, jumping, and
pitching the bar, and at the forbidden swimming and football. They were
not to have irreligious books or dogs. Cards and dice could be played
only at Christmas time. Students still drank, swore, and rioted, but
they were disallowed from going into town without special permission.
Those below a B.A. had to be accompanied by a tutor or an M.A. They
were forbidden from taverns, boxing matches, dances, cock fights, and
loitering in the street or market. Sometimes a disputation between two
colleges turned into a street brawl. Punishment was by flogging. Each
university had a chancellor, usually a great nobleman or statesman, who
represented the university in dealings with the government and
initiated policies. The vice-chancellor was appointed for a year from
the group of heads of college. He looked out for the government of
halls, enforced the rules of the university, kept its courts, licensed
wine shops, and shared control of the town with the mayor.
Tutors were common. They resided at the boy's house or took
boys to board with them at their houses in England or on the continent.
The tutor sometimes accompanied his student to grammar school or
university. Puritans frequently sent their sons to board in the house
of some Frenchman or Swiss Protestant to learn the Calvinist doctrines
or on tour with a tutor. Certain halls in the universities were
predominately Puritan. Catholics were required to have their children
taught in a home of a Protestant, a relative if possible.
The Inns of Court were known as "the third university". It
served the profession of law, and was a training ground for the sons of
nobility and the gentry and for those entering the service of the
commonwealth. The Inns were self-governing and ruled by custom.
Students were to live within the Inn, two to a room, but often there
were not enough rooms, so some students lived outside the quadrangles.
Every student was supposed to partake of Commons or meals for a certain
fraction of the year - from eight weeks to three months and there to
argue issues in cases brought up by their seniors. In hall the students
were not allowed to wear hats, though caps were permitted, nor were
they to appear booted or spurred or carrying swords. For the first two
years, they would read and talk much of the law, and were called Clerks
Commoners. After two years they became Mootmen or Inner Barristers. In
five or six years they might be selected to be called to the bar as
Utter Barristers, whose number was fixed. There was no formal
examination. The Utter Barrister spent at least three more years
performing exercises and assisting in directing the studies of the
younger men. After this time, he could plead in the general courts at
Westminster, but usually carried on law work in the offices of other
men and prepared cases for them. Participating in moots (practice
courts) was an important part of their education. Lectures on statutes
and their histories were given by Readers.
Physicians were licensed by universities, by the local bishop,
or in London, by the College of Physicians and Surgeons. Most were
university graduates, and because of the expense of the education, from
well-to-do families. For the B.A., they emphasized Greek. For the M.A.,
they studied the works of Greek physicians Galen and Hippocrates, Roman
physician Claudius, and perhaps some medieval authorities. After the
M.A., they listened to lectures by the Regius Professor of Medicine and
saw a few dissections. Three years of study gave them a M.B., and four
more years beyond this the M.D. degree. A physician's examination of a
patient cost 10s. The physician asked about his symptoms and feelings
of pain, looked at his eyes, looked at his body for spots indicative of
certain diseases, guessed whether he had a fever, felt his pulse, and
examined his urine and stool. There were no laboratory tests. Smallpox
was quickly recognized. Wrapping red cloth around the person and
covering the windows with red cloth being promoted healing without
scarring. Gout was frequent. Syphilis was common in London and other
large centers, especially in Court circles. It was ameliorated by
mercury. An imbalance of the four humors: blood, phlegm, choler, bile
was redressed by bloodletting, searing, draining, and/or purging. Heart
trouble was not easily diagnosed and cancer was not recognized as a
life-threatening disease. Childbirth was attended by physicians if the
patient was well-to-do or the case was serious. Otherwise women were
attended only by midwives. They often died in childbirth, many in their
twenties.
A visit by a physician cost 13s.4d. Melancholia, which made one
always fearful and full of dread, and mania, which made one think he
could do supernatural things, were considered to be types of madness
different from infirmities of the body. Despite a belief held by some
that anatomical investigation of the human body was a sin against the
holy ghost, physicians were allowed to dissect corpses. So there were
anatomy textbooks and anatomy was related to surgery. Barber-surgeons
extracted teeth and performed surgery. The white and red striped barber
pole initially indicated a place of surgery; The red represented blood
and the white bandages.
The theory of nutrition was still based on the four humors and
deficiency diseases were not understood as such. Physician William
Harvey, son of a yeoman, discovered the circulation of the blood from
heart to lungs to heart to body about 1617. He had studied anatomy at
Padua on the continent and received an M.D. there and later at
Cambridge. Then he accepted a position at the hospital of St.
Bartholomew to treat the poor who came there at least once a week for a
year. He agreed to give the poor full benefit of his knowledge, to
prescribe only such medicines as should do the poor good without regard
to the pecuniary interest of the apothecary accompanying him, to take
no reward from patients, and to render account for any negligence on
his part. He also dissected animals. One day he noted when stroking
downward on the back of one hand with the finger of the other, that a
vein seemed to disappear, but that it reappeared when he released his
finger. He surmised that there was a valve preventing the blood's
immediate return to the vein. Then he ascertained that the heart was a
pump that caused pulses, which had been thought to be caused by
throbbing of the veins. He tied the arteries and found that the
arterial blood flowed away from the heart. He tied the veins and found
that venal blood flowed into the heart. He found that the blood flowed
from the lungs to the left side of the heart, and from thence was
pumped out to the body. Blood also flowed from the body to the right
side of the heart, from which it was pumped to the lungs. The two
contractions closely followed one another, rather than occurring at the
same time. The valves in the veins prevented backflow. It was now clear
why all the blood could be drained away by a single opening in a vein.
It was also clear why a tight ligature, which blocked the arteries,
made a limb bloodless and pale and why a looser ligature, which pressed
only on the veins, made a limb swell turgid with blood. Multiplying an
estimate of the amount of blood per beat with the number of beats, he
concluded that the amount of blood did not change as it circulated. He
concluded that the only purpose of the heart was to circulate the
blood. This diminished the religious concept that the heart was the
seat of the soul and that blood had a spiritual significance and was
sacred.
The physicians turned surgery over to the surgeons, who
received a charter in 1605 by which barbers were excluded from all
surgical work except bloodletting and the drawing of teeth. Surgeons
dealt with skin disease, ulcers, hernia, bladder stones, and broken
bones, which they had some skill in setting. They performed
amputations, which were without antiseptics or anesthesia. Internal
operations usually resulted in death. Caesarian section was attempted,
but did not save the life of the mother. Apprenticeship was the route
to becoming a surgeon. A College of Surgeons was founded. Students
learned anatomy, for which they received the corpses of four executed
felons a year.
The apothecaries and grocers received a charter in 1607, but in
1618, the apothecaries were given the sole right to purchase and sell
potions, and to search the shops of grocers and stop the sale by them
of any potions. In London, the apothecaries were looked over by the
College of Physicians to see that they were not selling evil potions or
poisons. In 1618 was the first pharmacy book.
There were three hospitals in London, two for the poor, and
Bedlam [Bethlehem] Hospital for the insane. Others were treated at home
or in the physician's home.
Theaters were shut down in times of plague to prevent spread of
disease there. Towndwellers who could afford it left to live in the
country.
Shakespeare wrote most of his plays in this period. Most
popular reading was still Bibles, prayer books, psalm books, and
devotional works. Also popular were almanacs, which started with a
single sheet of paper. An almanac usually had a calendar; information
on fairs, roads, and posts; farming hints; popularized scientific
knowledge; historical information; sensational news; astrological
predictions; and later, social, political, and religious comment. Many
households had an almanac. Books tried to reconcile religion and
science as well as religion and passion or sensuality. Walter Ralegh's
"History of the World", written while he was in prison, was popular.
Ben Johnson wrote poetry and satiric comedies. Gentlemen read books of
manners such as James Cleland's "Institution of a Young Noble Man"
(1607). In 1622, the first regular weekly newspaper was started.
Although there was a large advance in the quality of boys'
education and in literacy, the great majority of the people were unable
to read fluently. Since writing was taught after one could read
fluently, literacy was indicated by the ability to sign one's name.
Almost all gentlemen and professional men were literate. About half the
yeomen and tradesmen and craftsmen were. Only about 15% of husbandmen,
laborers, servants, and women were literate.
The Elizabethan love of madrigal playing gradually gave way to
a taste for instrumental music, including organs and flutes. The violin
was introduced and popular with all classes. Ballads were sung, such as
"Barbary Allen", about a young man who died for love of her, after
which she died of sorrow. When they were buried next to each other, a
rose from his grave grew around a briar from her grave. The ballad
"Geordie" relates a story of a man hanged for stealing and selling
sixteen of the king's royal deer. The ballad "Matty Groves" is about a
great Lord's fair young bride seducing a lad, who was then killed by
the Lord. In the ballad "Henry Martin", the youngest man of three
brothers is chosen by lot to turn pirate to support his brothers. When
his pirate ship tries to take a merchant ship, there is sea fight in
which the merchant ship sinks and her men drown. The ballad "The Trees
They Do Grow High" tells of an arranged marriage between a 24 year old
woman and the 14 year old son of a great lord. She tied blue ribbons on
his head when he went to college to let the maidens know that he was
married. But he died at age 16, after having sired a son.
May Day was a holiday with dancing around a Maypole and people
dressed up as characters such as Queen of the May, Robin Hood, Little
John, Friar Tuck, Maid Marion, the fool, and the piper. New Year's Day
was changed to January 1st.
Golf was played in Scotland, and James introduced it into
England. James I was the last monarch to engage in falconry.
Francis Bacon wrote the "Advancement of Learning" and "Novum
Organum" (New Learning) in which he encouraged the use of the inductive
method to find out scientific truths and also truths in general, that
is reasoning from a sample to the whole. According to him, the only way
to arrive at the truth was to observe and determine the correlations of
facts. He advocated a process of elimination of hypothesized ideas.
First, experiments were made, then general conclusions were drawn from
them, and then these generalizations were tested in further
experiments. His "New Learning" showed the way out of the scholastic
method and reverence for dogma into the experimental method. He wrote
"Natural and Experimental History". He studied the effect of cold in
preventing animal putrefaction.
By this time, what was known about mathematics included
fractional exponents, trigonometry in terms of arcs of angles, long
division, square root symbol, decimal fractions, methods for solving
cubic equations, trigonometry in terms of ratios of sides of a right
triangle, equal sign, plus and minus signs, and a consistent theory of
imaginary numbers.
John Napier, a large Calvinist landholder in Scotland who had
built his own castle, did mathematics in his older years. He explored
imaginary numbers, which involve square roots of negative numbers. By
1614, he had started and developed the theory of logarithms: the
relationships among positive and negative exponents of numbers. This
simplified calculations because the multiplication and division of
numbers with a common base could be done by addition and subtraction of
their exponents. His table of logarithms, which took him twenty years
to compile, was used in trigonometry, navigation, and astronomy. It
reduced the enormous labor involved in trigonometric calculations. In
1622, Willliam Oughtred invented the slide rule for calculations.
Galileo Galilei was a professor of mathematics at the
University of Padua in Italy and was later a protege of the powerful
Medici family. He pioneered the scientific method of theory building by
observation of phenomena instead of resort to sources such as
Aristotle. He conducted experiments, e.g. throwing objects off the
tower of Pisa in 1590 to show that all, whether light or heavy, fall at
the same rate. This disproved the widely held belief that heavier
objects fall faster than light objects. He reasoned by induction from
experiments that the force of gravity has the same effect on all
objects regardless of their size or weight. His law stated that the
speed of their descent increases uniformly with the time of the fall,
i.e. speed [velocity] = gravity's acceleration multiplied by time. This
was a pioneering mathematization of a physical phenomenon.
From his observation that an object sliding along a plane
travels increasingly farther and slows down at a decreasing rate as the
surfaces become smoother and more lubricated, he opined that the
natural state of a body in motion is to stay in motion, and that it is
slowed down by a resistant force, which he called "friction". He
conceived of the air giving a frictional force to an object moving
through the air. From his experiments showing that a rolling ball rolls
up a plane farther the lesser the slope of the plane, he intuited that
if the plane were horizontal, the ball would never stop rolling except
for friction. He opined that bodies that are at rest stay at rest and
bodies that are in motion stay in uniform motion ("inertia"), unless
and until acted upon by some force. This was a radical departure from
Aristotle's theory that any horizontal motion requires a prime mover.
Galileo drew a graph of distance versus time for the rolling ball,
which indicated that the distance traveled was proportional to the
square of the time elapsed.
He put his ideas of vertical and horizontal motion together to
explain the movement of projectiles, which travel horizontally, but
also fall downward vertically. He realized that the movement of a
projectile involved a horizontal impetus of projection and a vertical
force of gravity, each being independent of the other, but acting
simultaneously, instead of sequentially. He demonstrated that a
projectile follows the path of a parabola, instead of a straight line,
and that it descends a vertical distance which is proportional to -the
square of the time taken to fall. That is, a thrown object will strike
the ground in the same amount of time as an object simply dropped from
the same height. This suggested that gravity was a constant force.
Galilieo described mathematically the motion of a lever such as
a seesaw in which the weight on one side multiplied by its distance
from the fulcrum is equal to the weight on the other side multiplied by
its distance from the fulcrum.
Galileo determined that a pendulum, such as a hanging lamp,
swings back and forth in equal intervals of time. He measured this time
with water running through a tube; the weight of the water was
proportional to the time elapsed. Also, pendulums with equal cord
length swing at the same rate, regardless of the substance, weight, or
shape of the material at the end. So a pendulum could be a mechanical
clock. - Galileo knew that ice floated on water because ice is less
dense and therefore lighter than water. It had formerly been thought
that ice was heavier than water, but floated on water because of its
shape, especially broad, flat-bottomed pieces of ice.
The telescope was invented in 1608. The next year, Galileo
built a greatly improved telescope to observe bodies in the skies. He
observed that the spots on the moon had shifting illumination and that
the moon's perimeter had a jagged outline. From this he deduced that
the surface of the moon had mountains, valleys, and craters much like
the earth, and was illuminated by reflected light. He noticed that the
planet Jupiter had moons orbiting it in a manner similar to the orbit
of the Earth's moon. He observed that when the planet Venus was very
small it had a round shape and when it was very large, and therefore
nearer the earth, it had a crescent shape. Also, Venus progressed
through periodic phases of increasingly wide crescent shapes in a
manner similar to the phases of crescent shapes of the Earth's moon. He
realized that these features of Venus could be explained only if Venus
revolved around the sun, rather than around the earth. This finding
added credence to the Copernican theory that the earth and all planets
revolve around the sun. But church doctrine that the sun revolved
around the earth was supported by the Biblical story of God making the
sun stand still to give additional sunlight on a certain day so a
certain task could be completed that day. Galileo argued against a
literal interpretation of the Bible, so he was denounced by the church.
His finding of sunspots on the sun conflicted with church doctrine that
the celestial bodies such as the sun were perfect and unblemished. His
observation that certain sun spots were on certain locations of the
sun, but changed location over time, suggested that the sun might be
rotating. He observed that when air was withdrawn by a suction pump
from the top of a long glass tube whose lower open end was submerged in
a pan of water, the water rose to a height of 34 feet and no higher.
This result indicated that the evacuated space above the water was a
vacuum: an empty space. The notion of a vacuum, a space where there is
nothing or void, was difficult for philosophers to accept. They
believed that nature abhored a vacuum and would prevent it. About 1600,
Galileo invented the first thermometer by heating air at the top of a
tube whose open end was in a bowl of water; as the top end cooled, the
air contracted and water rose part way up the tube; the column of water
rose or fell with every change of temperature. Galileo invented the
compound refracting microscope, which used more than one lens, about
1612.
Galileo's book on the arguments for and against the Copernican
theory was unexpectedly popular when published in 1632. The general
public was so persuaded by the arguments that the earth revolved around
the sun that Papal authority felt threatened. So Galileo was tried and
convicted of heresy and sentenced to house arrest as an example to
others who might question church doctrine, even though the seventy year
old Galileo recanted and some of the inquisition judges who convicted
him believed the Copernican theory and their decision did not assert
the contrary.
Johannes Kepler was a mathematician from Germany who made his
living as an astrologer. He was in contact with Galileo by letter, as
most scientists of Europe were with each other. Kepler was fascinated
with perfect geometric shapes, which he tried to relate to celestial
phenomenon. He discerned that the orbit of Mars was not perfectly
circular. He knew that the apparent path of the sun with respect to the
constellation of fixed stars differed in speed at different times of
the year. He opined that this showed that the speed of the earth
revolving around the sun varied according to the time of year. Then he
measured the angles between the earth and the sun and the earth and
Mars as they changed through the Martian year. He noted when the earth,
Mars, and the Sun were on the same straight line. Then he deduced the
earth's true orbit, and from this the true orbits of the other planets.
Then by trial and error, he attempted to match this empirical data with
regular mathematically defined shapes, until he discovered in 1609 that
these paths were elliptical. Also, the planets each move faster when
they are nearer the sun and more slowly when they are farther from the
sun so that in equal time intervals, a line from the planet to the sun
will sweep out equal areas. This observation led him to opine that
there is a force between the sun and each planet, and that this force
is the same as that which keeps the moon in its orbit around the earth.
Thirdly, in 1619, he found that the square of the time for each
planet's orbit about the sun is proportional to the cube of that
planet's mean distance from the sun, so that the farther planets orbit
at a slower speed. He connected the earth's tides with the
gravitational pull of the moon. Kepler also confirmed that the paths of
comets were governed by a law and were farther from the earth than the
moon. This contradicted the church's explanation that what lies within
the moon's orbit pertains to the earth and is essentially transitory
and evil, while what lies beyond belongs to the heavens and is
permanent and pure.
Renee Descartes, a French mathematician, scientist, and
philosopher, had a revelation that the structure of the universe was
mathematical and that nature obeyed mathematical rules. In 1637, he
invented analytic [Cartesian] geometry, in which lines and geometric
shapes can be described by algebraic equations and vice-versa. All
conic sections: circles, ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas, could be
represented by equations with two unknowns, or variables, on a
coordinate system in which each point is represented by a pair of
numbers representing distances from the two axis lines. An algebraic
equation with two unknowns, could be represented as a shape thereon. An
algebraic equation with one unknown represented a straight line
thereon. The points of intersection geometrically were equivalent to
the common solution of the associated algebraic equations. He started
the convention of representing unknown quantities by x, y, and z and
known quantities by a, b, and c. So, for instance, a circle with center
at point 2,3 and a radius of 4 was represented by the equation: (x-2)
squared + (y-3) squared = 4. He pioneered the standard exponential
notation for cubes and higher powers of numbers. Analytic geometry
aided in making good lenses for eyeglasses. The glass was first
manufactured with attention to quality. Then, after it cooled and
solidified, the clearest pieces were picked and their surfaces ground
into the proper curvature.
Descartes formulated the law of refraction of light, which
deduces the angle of refraction [deflection] of light through a medium
from the lights' angle of incidence and the speed of light in each
media in which the light passes. This explained why a rainbow is
circular. In 1644, he described the universe in terms of matter and
motion and suggested that there were universal laws and an evolutionary
explanation for such. He opined that all effects in nature could be
explained by spatial extension and motion laws that 1) each part of
matter retains the shape, size, motion, or rest unless collision with
another part occurs; 2) one part of matter can only gain as much motion
through collision as is lost by the part colliding with it; and 3)
motion tends to be in a straight line. Descartes feared persecution by
the church because his ideas did not correlate with the Biblical notion
of God's creation of the universe in the order of light, then sky and
oceans and dry land, then plants, then seasons and the sun and moon and
stars, then fish and birds, then all animals, and finally man.
Descartes believed in a good and perfect God, and thought of the world
as divided into matter and spirit. The human mind was spirit and could
exist outside the human body. Without the mind, human body was a
machine. The human mind had knowledge without sense experience, e.g.
the truths of mathematics and physics. Ideas and imagination were
innate. His observation that sensory appearances are often misleading,
such as in dreams or hallucinations, led him to the conclusion that he
could only conclude that: "I think, therefore I am." He rejected the
doctrine that things had a proper behavior according to their natures,
e.g. the nature of acorns is to develop into oak trees. As an example
of erroneous forming of conceptions of substance with our senses alone,
he pointed out that honeycomb has a certain taste, scent, and texture,
but if exposed to fire, it loses all these forms and assumes others. He
considered to be erroneous the belief that there are no bodies around
us except those perceivable by our senses. He was a strong proponent of
the deductive method of finding truths, e.g. arguing logically from a
very few self- evident principles, known by intuition, to determine the
nature of the universe.
Christian Huygens, a Dutch physicist, used the melting and the
boiling point of water as fixed points in a scale of measurements,
which first gave definiteness to thermometric tests.
There was much mining of coal, tin, copper, lead, and iron in
the 1600s. Coal was transported from the coal pits down to the rivers
to be loaded onto ships on coal wagons riding on wooden rails. The full
coal cars could then be sent down by gravity and the empty wagons
pulled up by horses. Sheet metal, e.g. lead, was used for roofing. Coal
was much used for heating houses, and for laundry, cooking, and
industrial use, such as extraction of salt, soap boilers, and
manufacture of glass, bricks and tiles for buildings, anchors for
ships, and tobacco pipes. It was used in the trades: bakers,
confectioners, brewers, dyers, sugar refiners, coopers, starch makers,
copper workers, alum makers, and iron workers.
In 1604 the Haberdashers, who sold imported felt for hats, got
a charter of incorporation.
A tapestry factory was established in 1619.
Flax-working machines came into existence.
The royal postal system carried private as well as royal
letters, to increase income to the Crown. Postmasters got regular pay
for handling without charge the mail of letters that came from or went
to the letter office in London. The postmaster kept horses which he
let, with horn and guide, to persons riding "in post" at 3d. per mile.
The post was to travel 7 mph in summer and 5 mph in winter and sound
his horn four times in every mile or whenever he met travelers.
Wool and animals for butchering were sold in London with the
sellers' agent in London taking the proceeds and paying out to their
order, the origin of check writing.
Scriveners drew up legal documents, arranged mortgages, handled
property transactions, and put borrowers in touch with lenders. They
and the goldsmiths and merchants developed promissory notes, checks,
and private paper money.
The influx of silver from the New World was a major factor in
the second great inflation in England and in the devaluation of money
to about one third of what it had been. Also contributing to the
inflation was an outracing of demand over supply, and a debasement of
the coinage. This inflation benefited tenants to the detriment of their
lords because their rents could not be adjusted upward.
There was an increase in bankruptcies. Houses of Correction
were built.
As Attorney General, Edward Coke was impassioned and
melodramatic. He once described the parts of the penalty of treason as
follows: being drawn to the place of execution reflected the person's
not being worthy any more to tread upon the face of the earth; being
drawn backward at a horse tail was due to his retrograde nature; being
drawn head downward on the ground indicated that he was unfit to
breathe the common air; being hanged by the neck between heaven and
earth indicated that he was unworthy of either; being cut down alive
and his privy parts cut off and burnt before his face indicated he was
unworthily begotten and unfit to leave any generation after him; having
his bowels and inners taken out and burnt indicated he had inwardly
conceived and harbored such horrible treason; his head cut off, which
had imagined the treason, and his body to be quartered and the quarters
set up to the view and detestation of men a prey for the fowls of the
air. Coke was subsequently elevated to the position of Chief of Common
Pleas and then to Chief of the King's Bench. But there Coke propounded
a doctrine of the supremacy of the law over the king as well as over
Parliament. For instance, Coke would not agree to stay any case in
which the king had a concern in power or profit, to consult with him.
But the other eleven justices did agree. Since James I believed in the
divine right of kings, he therefore dismissed Coke from his position as
Chief Justice of the King's Bench. James even believed that he could
suspend any law for reasons known only to him and issue proclamations
that were not limited to the reinforcement of old laws, but made new
offenses with punishment of fine and/or imprisonment.
The old writ of habeas corpus [produce the body] had been just to bring
to court those persons needed for proceedings, but Coke in 1614 had
cited the writ with a new meaning "to have the body together with the
cause of detention".
Coke then became a member of Parliament and led the Commons,
where he exalted the authority of Parliament vis a vis the king; that
is, the king could not make any changes in law, religion, or taxation
without consent of Parliament. James arrested Coke and two other
members of the Commons and put its leader John Pym under house arrest
for their outspoken opinions against the King's intended alliance with
Catholic Spain and intended taking of a Spanish wife. Because of the
deadlock that developed between the king and Parliament, certain
matters could not be addressed by legislation and were left to be
decided judicially. This made judicial review of disputes important.
James vastly increased the number of peerages, selling many,
for example for 10,000 pounds. Since there was a tacit understanding
that members of Parliament would not accept remuneration, this
restricted eligibility for membership to the rich. The House of Commons
was composed mostly of attorneys, merchants from the large towns, and
country gentlemen. The gentry members had 600 pounds [12,000s] annual
income from land and the burgess members had 300 pounds [6,000s.].
There were two knights from every county, elected by men holding at
least forty-shilling freeholds; four representatives from London, and
one or two from every other borough, generally elected by the top
business families'; and a representative from each of the two
universities. For Speaker, they always chose someone suggested to them
by the Crown. He decided who would talk and could hasten or delay
bills, usually for the benefit of the Crown. The Clerk, a lifetime
appointment of the Crown, wrote out the bills and their amendments and
kept track of proceedings. Many in the Commons were Puritan in
sympathy. In 1607, the House of Commons developed a committee system to
avoid being presided over by the royally designated speaker. A
committee could consist of all the members of the House of Commons with
an elected chairman. An increasing number of issues were discussed in
committee before coming to the Commons and the Commons came to ratify
readily what had been done in committee.
By 1610, there had developed in the House of Commons an
opposition to feudal tenures, purveyance, wardships, and impositions
(special import and export duties on aliens set by the king without the
consent of Parliament that were supposed to be for the purpose of
regulating trade instead of for revenue). There was also a call for
free speech and an end to the King's habit at the end of Parliament of
imprisoning for a time those who had been too outspoken. The Commons
also asserted itself into foreign affairs by expressing an opinion
against a treaty proposed by the king on which war could ensue. The
treaty was abandoned. In London, organized groups such as the
apothecaries, the skinners, and the grocers, were circulating printed
statements of their cases to members of committees of the House of
Commons rather than just seeking out a friendly Privy Council member.
In 1621, the protests made to committeemen about monopolies sold by
James frightened him into canceling many of them. He had made many
grants against competition in violation of law. The right of the
Commons to expel a member was asserted by the expulsion of a
monopolist. By 1629, the speeches of prominent members and the course
of proceedings were copied by stationers and sold in a weekly news
report.
The King's Privy Council dealt constantly with foreign affairs,
and also with the great companies, and problems arising such as gold
leaving the country, the Dutch ships increased efficiency in
transporting goods, the declining market for English cloth, strikes in
the mining industry, decaying harbor works, the quality of food and
drink, the wrongs done to the poor, and above all, the general peace
and order. They formed commissions to study situations and sent orders
to Justices of the Peace on methods to address certain problems and to
Sheriffs to carry out certain acts. About 1618, a group within the
Privy Council began to concentrate on foreign affairs, especially
"cabinet counsels", that is, with secret matters. James sold high
offices of state to supplement his income. His income from customs had
increased so much that it was now three times that from Crown lands.
The Sheriff looked after Crown lands and revenues in his
county. He gathered the rents, the annuities, the stray animals, the
deodands, the fees due to the King, the goods of felons and traitors.
He was still a means of communication between the Privy Council and the
county. He announced new statutes of Parliament and proclamations by
the king at the county courts and in the markets. He used posse
comitatus to disperse riots. He was the functionary of the assize
court, impaneling its juries, bringing accused men before it, and
carrying out its penalties. He carried out elections of members of the
House of Commons.
There were two high constables for each hundred. They were
chosen by the Justices of the Peace at quarter sessions, and were
usually small gentry or well-to-do yeomen. They were the intermediaries
between the justices and the petty constables. The petty constable was
the executive official of the village. He was usually elected by the
suitors to the leet court of the manor for a year. He might be a
farmer, an artisan, a carpenter, a shoemaker, or many times a
tradesman, a butcher, or baker. He often visited the alehouse to learn
of any trouble in the making. He would intervene in quarrels and riots
and tell the participants to desist in the King's name. If they didn't,
he could call on all bystanders to help him "force a quiet". He had to
lead the rioters and causers of injuries to others, hold them there
until he could bring him before the nearest justice. He would inform
the justice of plots to trespass or forcibly enter land to take
possession. He saw to it that no new cottages were built in the
villages without due authority. He supervised markets and inns. He
reported lapses of care for apprentices by their masters to the
justice. At harvest time, he called upon all able bodied persons to
assist and punished those who didn't respond by putting them in the
stocks or fining them forty shillings. He arrested and whipped vagrants
and sturdy rogues and sent them back to their place of birth through
constables on the way. If a horse was stolen, he raised the hue and cry
to all neighboring constables. He made inquiry into the paternity of
the coming child of an unmarried pregnant girl to make him take
responsibility for the child and pay her 8d. a week lest it fall into
the responsibility of the village. In a town, he might have watchmen to
help him see that the streets were peaceful at night. The constable
assisted the Justice of the Peace, the high constable, and the Sheriff.
He pressed men into military service. He collected taxes for the
Sheriff and collected the money for purveyance, the money for the poor,
maimed soldiers, and various kinds of prisoners, which the parish had
to pay. He was often the spokesman for the village in village concerns,
such as too many alehouses, brought to the attention of justices at
quarter sessions. The constable and churchwardens together collected
money for the parish, looked after the needy, and kept in close touch
with the overseers of the poor, who cared for the sick and old, found
work for the idle, took charge of bastards, apprenticed orphan
children, and provided supplies for the workhouse.
In 1609 the East India Company was given a monopoly by the
Crown that was indefinitely long as long as it was profitable to the
realm in the King's opinion. Interlopers were to forfeit their ships
and goods, one-half to the Company and one-half to the Crown. Monopoly
status made the Company competitive with the Dutch and Portuguese
monopoly companies. The Crown received a gift or a loan from the
Company in return. At first, the Company raised capital for each
separate voyage. But voyages tried to undercut each other and rival
factions squabbled over cargoes. So the company then raised a
"terminable joint-stock" for a period of years. The first of these was
issued in 1613-16 and financed a fleet every year for four years.
Subscriptions were called in by yearly installments and dividends paid
out yearly. The voyage of 1613 brought shareholders a profit equivalent
to about 11% a year. By 1620, the Company operated thirty to forty
"tall ships", many built in its own dockyards. These dockyards were so
technologically advanced that they were daily viewed by visitors and
ambassadors. Here, besides wet and dry docks, there were timber yards,
a foundry and cordage works for supplying the ships' hardware and a
bakery and saltings for their provisioning. More than 200 craftsmen
were directly employed in the yard. Overall the company was one of
London' largest employers.
In 1607, the Muscovy Company, hired Henry Hudson to find a
northwest passage through North America to the Pacific Ocean.
In 1606, the first charter of the Virginia Company was issued
for trading purposes. It gave the settlers "all liberties, franchises,
and immunities" they had in England. To oversee this colony, the Crown
appointed a council. Virginia established the Episcopal Church by law.
Virginia became a joint-stock company in 1609. But exports were few
(timber, soap ashes, pitch, tar, and dyes) for several years, and then
tobacco emerged as a source of profit. King James imposed a heavy
duties on imported tobacco because it corrupted man's breath with a
stinking smoke.
Life was difficult for Puritan Separatists, who wanted to
separate from the established church. They were imprisoned and their
houses were watched day and night for illegal meetings. In 1620, after
trying Holland and when there was a depression in England, a few
Puritan Separatists, along with other pilgrims, left for Virginia in
the Mayflower, but landed in New England and founded Plymouth Colony.
They were led by William Bradford and William Brewster, their spiritual
leader. They planted fields and made friends with the Indians. In 1621,
they secured a patent to the merchants and planters together for a
voluntary joint-stock company in New England. Later, it became the
self-governing Massachusetts Bay Colony.
The canons of the church of 1604 provided for excommunication
for anyone who propounded that the king did not have the same authority
in ecclesiastical matters as the godly kings among the Jews and
Christian emperors in the primitive church, that the Church of England
was not a true and apostolic church, that worship according the Book of
Common prayer and administration of sacraments was corrupt or
superstitious, or that other methods of the church were wicked,
unchristian, or superstitious.
Church sanctuary was abolished for those accused of criminal
offenses because it had been abused by thieves paying their rent by
thieving at night. It remained available to those accused of civil
offenses.
About 5% of the population was Catholic, although it was
against the law to practice this religion. Indeed it long been the
practice to sequester their lands, punish them for going to mass, fine
them for not attending the established church, banish their priests,
and imprison those who aided priests. There was a Catholic plot in 1605
to blow up Parliament and the king with gunpowder and to restore
Catholicism as the state religion with a Catholic king. It was
discovered and the conspirators were executed. Then there was a
crackdown on Catholics, with houses being searched for hiding places
for priests. Also, legislation was passed barring Catholics from many
offices.
The Law
Churchwardens of every parish shall oversee the poor in their
parish. They shall, with consent of the Justices of the Peace, set to
work children whose parents cannot maintain them and also set to work
married or unmarried persons who have no trade and no means to maintain
themselves. Churchwardens shall tax every inhabitant, including parson
and vicar and every occupier of land and houses, as they shall think
fit. There will be a convenient stock of flax, hemp, wool, thread, iron
and other necessary ware and stuff to set the poor on work. There will
be competent sums of money for the relief of the lame, impotent, old,
blind, and others not able to work, and also for the putting out of
children to be apprentices. Child apprentices may be bound until 21
years of age or until time of marriage. They shall account to the
Justices of the Peace for all money received and paid. The penalty for
absence or neglect is 20s. If any parish cannot raise sufficient funds,
the Justices of the Peace may tax other nearby parishes to pay, and
then the hundred, and then the county. Grandparents, parents, and
children of every poor, old, blind, lame, or impotent person not able
to work, being of sufficient ability, shall at their own charge,
relieve and maintain every such poor person in that manner and
according to that rate as Justices of the Peace of that county
determine, or else forfeit 20s. per month. Two Justices of the Peace
may commit to gaol or house of correction persons refusing to work and
disobedient churchwardens and overseers. The overseers may, with the
consent of the lord of the manor, build houses on common or waste land
for the poor at the expense of the parish, in which they may place more
than one family in each house.
Every parish shall pay weekly 2-10d. toward the relief of sick,
hurt, and maimed soldiers and mariners. Counties with more than fifty
parishes need pay only 2-6d. The county treasurer shall keep registers
and accounts. Soldiers begging shall lose their pension and shall be
adjudged common rogues or vagabonds subject to imprisonment and
punishment.
A seminal patent-protection law was passed in 1624. It stated
that all monopolies to any person or persons, bodies politic or
corporate for the sole buying, selling, making, working, or using of
anything within the realm are void. This does not include London or
towns. Parties aggrieved by such may recover treble damages in the
superior courts, with double costs. Excepted are existing patents, for
21 years or less, for new inventions and for future patents for 14
years or less. Excepted also are patents for printing or making
saltpeter, gunpowder, shot or ordinance, etc.; patents concerning allum
mines or Newcastle coal or glass making or export of calves' skins or
making smalts [deep-blue pigment or glass] or melting iron ore; grants
of office; and licenses for taverns.
Persons stealing crops from lands or fruit from trees shall be
whipped.
Every person shall receive the holy communion in church at
least once a year or else forfeit 20 pounds for the first year and 40
pounds for the second year, and threescore pounds for every year after
until he takes the said sacrament.
Every person convicted of drunkenness shall be penalized 5s. or
else placed in the stocks for six hours, because the loathsome and
odious sin of drunkenness has grown into common use lately and it is
the root of many other sins, such as bloodshed, stabbings, murder,
swearing, fornication, and adultery, and is detrimental to the arts and
manual trades and diverse workmen, who become impoverished. Offenders
convicted a second time shall be bound with two sureties to the sum of
200s.
Lewd women, having bastards, chargeable to the parish, shall be
committed to the house of correction to be punished and set to work for
one year.
Mothers concealing the death of a bastard baby shall suffer as
for murder, unless one witness proves the child was born dead.
Persons deserting their families shall be deemed incorrigible
rogues and punished as such.
Persons such as sorters who purloin or embezzle wool or yarn
delivered to them by clothiers and the receivers thereof, knowing the
same, shall recompense the party grieved or else be whipped and set in
the stocks.
Because benefit of clergy is not allowed to women convicted of
felony by reason whereof many women suffer death for small causes, any
woman convicted for the felonious taking of any money, goods or
chattels greater than 12d. and less than 10s. other than burglary or
robbery on the highway or from the person of any man or woman without
their knowledge, shall be branded and marked in the hand upon the
brawne of the left thumb with a "T" and imprisonment, whipping,
stocking, or sending to the house of correction for a year or less.
Actors profaning God, Jesus, or the Holy Ghost on stage are to
be penalized 200s.
In 1604 it was decided that it was not necessary to prove that
witchcraft caused the death of a person for there to be punishment for
the witchcraftery. All that was necessary now was the practice of
witchcraft. The punishment was death by hanging. Also, consulting or
feeding an evil spirit was felony.
Sheriffs summoning defendants without a writ shall pay 200s.
and damages to the defendant, and 400s. to the King.
Since administrators of goods of people dying intestate who
fail to pay the creditors of the deceased often can't pay the debts
from their own money, the people (who are not creditors) receiving the
goods shall pay the creditors.
No merchant may dress black rabbit skins, nor export them,
unless dressed by skinners and bought from them because the skinners
have been thus deprived of their livelihoods to their impoverishment
throughout the realm.
Beer may be exported when malt is at 16s. per quarter because
exporting beer instead of barley and malt will (1) increase the export
tax to the King, (2) increase income for coopers and brewers, and (3)
provide more jobs in transporting beer, which is more voluminous, to
the great comfort of the port towns.
Fish which are spawning and growing in harbors may not be taken
by any net or weirs because this practice has hurt fishermen and the
realm.
No one shall sell beer or ale to an unlicensed alehousekeeper
because abuses there have become intolerable.
No person at least 18 years of age may be naturalized or
restored in blood after being attainted unless he takes the sacrament
and the Oath of Supremacy [of the king over the church of England], and
Oath of Allegiance [to the king].
Money given by will for the apprenticeship of poor children
shall be managed by incorporated towns and unincorporated parishes.
Masters receiving such apprentices shall become bound with sufficient
sureties.
Houses of correction shall be built in every county.
London may make a trench to bring water to the north part of
the city and shall compensate the owners of lands by agreement with
them of an amount or an amount determined by commissioners.
All hospitals and abiding places for the poor, lame, maimed,
and impotent persons or for houses of correction founded according to
the statute of Elizabeth shall be incorporated and have perpetual
succession.
Only lands and hereditaments paying rents to the Crown within
the last sixty years shall be claimed by the Crown; the title of all
persons and corporation who have enjoyed uninterruptedly against the
Crown for the last sixty years are confirmed against the Crown.
No one may take more than 8% interest on loans because 10% has
caused many, including gentry, merchant, farmer, and tradesman, to sell
their land and forsake their trade to pay their debts.
As Attorney General, Edward Coke introduced the crime of
"seditious libel" in a case before the Star Chamber in 1606. These
written slanders or libels were viewed as incitements to disorder and
private vengeance. Because the tendency to cause quarrels was the
essence of the crime, the truth of the libel was not a defense, but
might be an aggravation of criminality.
Edward Coke, former Chief Justice of both the Court of Common
Pleas and Court of the Queen's Bench, wrote his Reports on court cases
of all kinds through forty years and his Institutes on the law, in
which he explained and systematized the common law and which was
suitable for students. This included a commentary and update of
Littleton, published in 1627; old and current statutes; a description
of the criminal law; and lastly an explanation of the court system, the
last two published in 1644. Coke declared that "a man's house is his
castle".
Coke waged a long battle with his wife over her extensive lands
and personal property and the selection of a husband for their
daughter. In his Institutes, he described the doctrine of coverture as
"With respect to such part of the wife's personality as is not in her
possession, as money owing or bequeathed to her, or accrued to her in
case of intestacy, or contingent interests, these are a qualified gift
by law to the husband, on condition that he reduce them into possession
during the coverture, for if he happen to die, in the lifetime of his
wife, without reducing such property into possession, she and not his
representative will be entitled to it. His disposing of it to another
is the same as reducing it into his own possession." He further states
that "The interest of the husband in, and his authority over, the
personal estate of the wife, is, however, considerably modified by
equity, in some particular circumstances. A settlement made upon the
wife in contemplation of marriage, and in consideration of her fortune,
will entitle the representatives of the husband, though he die before
his wife, to the whole of her goods and chattels, whether reduced into
possession or not during the coverture. ... A settlement made after
marriage will entitle the representative of the husband to such an
estate in preference to the wife. ... A court of equity will not
interfere with the husband's right to receive the income during the
coverture, though the wife resist the application."
No person convicted of Catholicism may practice the common law
as a counsellor, clerk, attorney, or solicitor, nor may practice civil
law as advocate, or proctor, nor shall be justice, minister, clerk, or
steward in any court, nor practice medicine, nor perform as apothecary,
nor be officer in a town, in the army, or navy, or forfeit 100 pounds
as punishment. Nor may they be administrators of estates, or have
custody of any child as guardian. Nor may they possess any armor,
gunpowder, or arms. Nor may anyone print or import Popish books
rosaries, or else forfeit 40s
Papists running a school must forfeit 40s. a day for such.
Anyone conveying a child beyond the seas to be educated in popery may
not sue in the courts, may not hold any office, and shall forfeit 100
pounds and all lands. But the child returning may have his family lands
restored to him if he receives the sacrament of the lord's supper in
the established church after reaching 18 years of age.
Judicial Procedure
James I asserted an authority to determine the jurisdiction
between the various courts.
The Court of the King's Bench had the major part of the civil
business of the courts.
The Star Chamber Court still was primarily directed against
force and fraud and defended the common people from over-mighty lords
and over-pliable Justices of the Peace, for instance by deterring
enclosure. It also enforced monopolies. However, there was a growing
tendency for King James, who sat on it, to abuse its power with high
fines. For instance, a lord accused with foul language by a huntsman of
following hounds of a chase too closely threatened to use his horse
whip on the huntsman's master when the huntsman threatened to complain
to his master. The lord was fined 10,000 pounds. James' council used
torture to obtain information from accused felons about possible
conspiracies against him.
The ordinary administrative court of first instance is formed
by the single Justices of the Peace, who issue orders regarding public
safety, order, public morals, health, the poor, highways, water,
fields, forests, fisheries, trade, building, and fire, and particularly
begging and vagrancy as well as regulations of wages, servants,
apprentices, and day laborers. For more important resolutions, the
special sessions of the Justices of the Peace of a hundred for a court
of intermediate instance and appointed overseers of the poor. All
Justices of the Peace were present at the quarter sessions, which were
held at least four times a year, and were primarily a court of appeal
from penal sentences, but also make the county rate, appoint county
treasurers and county prison and house of correction governors,
regulate prices and wages, settle fees of county officials, grant
licenses for powder mills, and register dissenting chapels. It heard
appeals expressly allowed by statute. The central courts also heard
appeals by writ of certiorari as to whether an administrative act was
in accordance with existing law, whether the court is competent, and
whether the administrative law has been rightly interpreted. This writ
of certiorari ceased in the 1700s.
Justices of the Peace who have the power to give restitution of
possession to tenants of any freehold estate of their lands or
tenements which have been forcibly entered and withheld, shall have
like power for tenants for term of years, tenants by copy of court
roll, guardians by knight service, and tenants by elegit statute
merchant and staple of lands or tenements [tenant-plaintiffs holding
property to receive income therefrom for satisfaction of a debt of
defendants].
The Justices of the Peace were chosen by the Crown, usually by
the Chancellor. The qualifications were residence in the county,
suitability of moral character, religious uniformity, and the
possession of lands or tenements with twenty pounds a year. They were
almost exclusively country gentlemen, except in the towns. In the
corporate towns, the mayor, bailiff, recorder, and senior aldermen were
ex officio [by virtue of the office] Justices of the Peace. Their main
duty was to keep the peace. If a justice heard of a riot in the making,
he could compel individuals at the place to give bonds of
"good-a-bearing" and cause a proclamation to be made in the King's name
for them to disperse. Two justices or more had the authority to arrest
the rioters and send a record of it to the assizes and to the Privy
Council. If the riot had taken place before their arrival, they could
make an inquiry by a jury and certify the results to the King and his
Council. The justices had men brought before them on many kinds of
charges, on their own summons, or on initiative of the petty constable.
They tried to draw these men into confession by questioning. After
indictment, a person had the choice of a petty jury trial or paying a
fine. The Justices of the Peace could insist upon presentment juries or
surveys of offenses by local officers, but, without the institution of
policemen, not many crimes were prosecuted because victims were
unwilling or could not afford to initiate judicial action. Their
unwillingness was partly due to the severity of penalties, e.g. death
for the theft of over 12s. and whippings and fines for misdemeanors.
Further, the offender was frequently a neighbor with whom one would
have to live. Mediation by the local constable often took place. When
there an outbreak of lawlessness in an area, a commission might be set
up especially for that area to enforce the law.
Assault cases were common in courts of assize and courts of
quarter sessions. The quarter sessions were those of a number of
Justices of the Peace held for a couple of days four times a year for
the more important cases in the jurisdiction of the Justices of the
Peace. Assault was violence or threat of imminent violence. Fines were
graduated according to the means of the offender, who was usually bound
over to keep the peace. Most involved offenders and victims who were
neighbors and included people of substantial standing in the village.
Also, a sizable minority were directed against local officers such as
constables, bailiffs, or tax- collectors.
Three-fourths of all assize indictments and many
quarter-sessions indictments were for various types of theft, including
petty larceny, grand larceny, housebreaking, burglary, sheep stealing,
and robbery. These offenses were mostly opportunistic rather than
planned, except for London's underworld of professional thieves and the
cutpurses of country markets and highway robbers on lonely roads. There
were substantial peaks in theft in periods of harvest failure and
industrial depression, especially by vagrants. But most of the poor
never stole.
The Justices of the Peace usually deferred to the learned
Justices of Assize for cases of felony, murder, rape, highway robbery,
and witchcraft. Most homicides were the result of an impassioned
argument leading to blows inflicted by nearby commonplace items picked
up and used as weapons. Only 18% of homicides were within the family.
Men were still declared outlaw if they failed to come to court after
repeated summons.
The Lord Keeper regularly advised the assize justices, before
each circuit departure, to relieve the poor, supply the markets,
maintain the roads (which were frequently impassable in winter for
wagons or coaches), enforce church attendance, suppress superfluous and
disorderly alehouses, and put down riots, robberies, and vagrancy, and
in times of dearth, to suppress speculation in foodstuffs, prevent
famine, and preserve order. In fact, the justices were most attentive
to offenses which affected them as rate payers for the poor. These were
offenses against cottaging laws (e.g. erection of cottages which lacked
the statutory four acres of land), harboring of "inmates", disputes of
settlement of paupers, bastardy, vagrancy, church nonattendance, and
above all, disorderly alehouses. Alehousing had been a well-
established means of poor employment since the 1200s, so it was hard to
enforce licensing laws. Further, alehouses were the centers of social
life for the common people; both women and men met their friends there.
If an attorney or solicitor delays his client's suits to work his own
gain or over charges his client, the client can recover his costs and
treble damages and the attorney and solicitor shall be disbarred. None
may be admitted to any court of the king but such as have been brought
up in the same court or is otherwise well-practiced in soliciting of
causes and has been found by their dealings to be skillful and honest.
An attorney who allows another to use his name shall forfeit 400
shillings and be disbarred.
Offenders shall pay the charge of their own conveyance to gaol
or the sum shall be levied by sale of their goods so that the King's
subjects will no longer be burdened thereby.
Plaintiffs' costs shall be paid by the defendants only where
there is a judgment against the defendant in all actions in which the
plaintiff is entitled to costs on judgment for him, to discourage
frivolous and unjust suits.
Defendants may not petition to remove a case to the Westminster
courts after a jury is selected because such has resulted in
unnecessary expense to plaintiffs and delay for defendants in which
they suborn perjury by obtaining witnesses to perjure themselves.
In 1619, by the writ of quo warranto, a government office or
official could be made to explain by what right he performed certain
acts.
The Court of High Commission heard mostly matrimonial cases,
but also moral offenses both of clergy and laity, and simony [buying or
selling ecclesiastical preferment, ecclesiastical pardons, or other
things regarded as sacred or spirtual], plurality, drunkenness, and
other clerical irregularities.
By 1616, Chancery could order injunctions to stop activities.
In Slade's case of 1602, the Court of the Queen's Bench held
that assumpsit may be brought in place of the action of debt. So
assumpsit supplants debt for recovering liquidated sums and is then
called "indebitatus assumpsit".
The trial of Sir Walter Ralegh in 1603 began a call by people
for a right to confront and question one's accusers. Before trial,
privy counselors who in theory sat as impartial justices,
cross-examined Ralegh in prison. With a carefully selected jury
present, the trial began with reading of the indictment, which Ralegh
had not yet seen. He was charged with treason in plotting with Catholic
Spain to put Arabella Stuart on the throne. Arabella was to write to
Spain promising peace, toleration of Catholics in England, and
direction by Spain in her marriage choice. He pled not guilty and took
no exception to any jurors, stating that he knew them all to be honest
men. Next, Attorney General Edward Coke, his enemy and rival, and he
engaged in a debate about who was right, with Coke outright bullying
him. Coke then produced a signed confession by Lord Cobham that
implicated him in the alleged conspiracy and accepting 10,000 crowns
for his part. Ralegh was given permission to speak. He said that Cobham
had retracted his confession. He ridiculed the idea that he would
betray England to Spain for gold after fighting against Spain,
including risking his life three times, and spending 4,000 pounds for
the defeat of Spain. He pointed to a treatise he had written to the
king on the present state of Spain and reasons against peace. Then
there was a discussion on the validity of Cobham's confession. Cecil
gave an oration of Ralegh. Coke gave a speech. Ralegh asked to have his
accuser brought before him face to face. He cited law that two
witnesses were necessary for a conviction for treason. Chief Justice
Popham replied that only one witness was necessary under common law,
which applied to his case, and that the trial was properly conducted by
examination of the defendant. Coke added that it would be improper to
call Cobham because he was a party. Then Coke surprised Ralegh with a
letter from Cobham stating that Ralegh had asked Cobham to procure him
an annual pension of 1500 pounds from Spain for disclosing
intelligence. Ralegh acknowledged that a pension was offered, but
denied that he had ever intended to accept it. He admitted that it was
a fault not to inform authorities of this offer. The jury deliberated
for fifteen minutes and returned with a verdict of guilty. The Chief
Justice delivered the sentence for treason: drawing, hanging,
disemboweling, beheading, and quartering. The whole trial was not so
much to access guilt, but to show the general public that the person
was guilty.
Church courts were revived after a period of disuse. They could
annul an unconsummated or legally invalid marriage (e.g. consanguinity,
impotence, a witnessed precontract to marry) and order judicial
separations in case of adultery, cruelty, or apostasy. Annuled
marriages made a person's children illegitimate. An action at common
law for "criminal conversation" [adultery] with the plaintiff's spouse
or for assault and battery could result in an order for separation. But
only a private statute of Parliament could grant a divorce, which
allowed remarriage. It was granted in only a few cases and only to the
very wealthy. Church officials spied upon people's conduct to draw them
into their courts and gain more money from the profits of justice.
In 1610, Edward Coke, Chief Justice of the Court of Common
Pleas, decided that the statute giving the Royal College of Physicians
power to imprison and fine those practicing without a license was
invalid and unenforceable because it gave the college half of each fine
awarded, which was a conflict of interest with its role as an
adjudicator. Coke said that a maxim of the common law was that no man
ought to be judge in his own cause. By this decision, he asserted a
court supremacy over Parliament with respect to the validity of
statutes. He opined that the courts should not only be independent of
the Crown, but should act as arbiter of the Constitution to decide all
disputed questions. In his words, "When an Act of Parliament is against
common right and reason, the common law will control it and adjudge
such Act to be void."
Justices still explained and in some degree interpreted
legislative acts of Parliament as they had since the 1500s, but their
right to do so was coming into question and was slowly lost.
Female scolds were still dunked into water as punishment.
Only barristers, who were called to the bar after being in long
residence in one of the Inns of Court, could practice before the King's
court. Attorneys and solicitors prepared cases for barristers and
practiced before minor courts.
The king appointed the justices, with the advice of the
Chancellor. James I often intimidated the justices to see things his
way.
The oath of a justice was: "Well and truly ye shall serve the
King and his people. And ye shall take no fee or livery of none but the
King, nor gift or reward of none that hath a do before you except it
shall be meat or drink of small value, as long as the plea hangs before
you. And ye shall do equal law and execution of Right to all the King's
subjects rich and poor, without regard to any person. Ye shall counsel
our Sovereign Lord the King in his need. And ye shall not delay any
person of common right for the letters of the King or of any person or
for any other cause ... So help you God."
The courts of King's Bench and Common Pleas, and the Chancery
all met simultaneously in Westminster Hall. Throngs passed up and down
the middle aisles between the courts, including booksellers,
stationers, scriveners, and vendors of bread and hot meat. The hall was
so cold that people kept on their coats and hats.
The last court case concerning villeinage was in 1618.
Chapter 15
The Times: 1625-1642
The entourage of Charles I came to be called "Cavaliers". They
were named by their opponents for the Spanish caballero who was a
Catholic who prosecuted Protestants. Their hair had long, curled, and
flowing locks. They wore a broad-rimmed decorated hat. Their fancy
jackets and breeches were loose. Boots were wide and folded over at the
top. Young men wore earrings and painted their faces. A lady wore her
hair in ringlets on each side of her face. Her dress was fitted at the
waist, with a peaked bodice. It was low at the shoulders with a scoop
neckline in front. She often wore much lace, especially at the neck
down to the bust line. Her outer dress and under-skirt that was
revealed in front, were full and made of satin and stiff silk or
velvet. Only hose of silk were worn at court.
A majority of prosperous industrial towns and fee farmers, led
sometimes by lords or old landed gentry, were Puritans. They dressed
plainly and in somber colors such as black, grey, and buff, with no
ornamentation except plain white collars and cuffs of linen rather than
of lace. Wool replaced silk and velvet. No jewelry was worn. The
Puritan women also wore long white aprons. The Puritan women smoothed
their hair back into little knobs and covered their hair and head with
a white covering. Both Puritan men and women wore broad-rimed hats and
plain shoes. The ordinary country man wore a felt hat, broadcloth coat,
woolen trousers, hand-knitted worsted stockings, and plain, strong
shoes. The Puritan men for a time had short-cut hair. The Puritan-
Parliamentarians were given the name "Roundheads" after the crop-
headed London apprentices whose rioting had marked every stage of the
conflict between king and Parliament.
Religion was a favorite and serious topic of discussion, even
among the illiterate. Nine-tenths of the people were Protestant. On the
whole, they were more inclined to salvation by grace than to salvation
by good works. Popular reading included guides for good manners such as
"The Rich Cabinet" by Thomas Gainsford, and "Youths Behavior"
translated from the French by Francis Hawkins. It advised not to sit
with one leg on the other, but with the feet even; not to spit on one's
fingers; and not to sniffle in the sight of others. Books for ladies
such as "Delights for Ladies" by Hugh Platt told them how to adorn
themselves, tables, closets, and rooms with beautiful objects,
perfumes, and waters. It taught preserving and the making of candy
preserved by sugar, cooking, and housewifery. Gervase Markham wrote
advice for men in "Hobsons Horse-load of Letters", which addressed
serious negotiations, private businesses, amorous accomplishment,
wanton merriment, and the defense of honor and reputation. "A Helpe to
Discourse" primed a man to meet company with suggested questions and
answers, epigrams, riddles, and jests. In Henry Peacham's "The Compleat
Gentleman" (1622), the model Cavalier is portrayed in terms of
horsemanship, tilting, sports, choice of companions, reserved and
dignified conduct, good scholarship, and responsibility. This popular
book was a guide to university, where there was a seven year course of
classroom lectures. It advised conversation with men of the soundest
reputation for religion, life, and learning, but recreation with those
of the same rank and quality. First place was to be given to religion,
so that the foundation of all studies would be the service of God.
Following in importance were: speaking and writing in English or Latin
(grammar, syntax, and rhetoric), astronomy, astrology, geography (whose
authorities were Pliny, Strabo, and the pagan writers of the first
century), chorography [map-making], mathematics (including arithmetic
and geometry), poetry, (reading, writing, and criticizing), music
(including part-music), drawing, limning [putting drawings in books],
painting, art history, exercise (riding, running, leaping, tilting,
throwing, wrestling, swimming, shooting, and falconry), logic and
disputation (if related to one's intended profession such as the law),
philosophy (Plato and Aristotle), and some medicine and botany.
Richard Brathwaite's "The English Gentleman" portrays the
somber Puritan who accepts the gospel of work. He is a staid and
serious businessman. "Matrimonial Honour" by Daniel Rogers opined that
for success, a marriage must be godly, with the parties equally
religious, worshipping together in private and in public. A hasty or
worldly marriage would bring repentance. The spouses should agree, but
keep to their spheres. Children should not be spoiled.
Large households were more or less self-supporting and were
managed by their ladies. Work included ordering wool, hemp, and flax;
making cloth and dying it; dairy work; brewing; malting; baking;
preserving wines; extracting oils; distilling perfume; and putting on
banquets. Couches were coming into use in parlors.
The king and his court entourage settled for most of the year
in Whitehall instead of traveling around the country. The king let the
public into Hyde Park, the king's private hunting park, for recreation.
The City of London and Westminster were still separate, but a mass of
hovels was springing up in between them. In certain areas there were
houses crowded with those wanted for minor offenses, small thefts, and
debt. Bailiffs did not dare venture into these areas because the
inhabitants hid and defended each other unless the offense was a major
one. The penalty for stealing even small sums was still death. The
water carrier was still active and the night transport of sewage
necessary.
Inigo Jones was the first architect of consequence. He had
studied in Italy and designed and built the Banqueting House at
Whitehall, near Westminster, in London in 1622. It had classical
proportions and nice shaping and dressing in stone. He was now an
arbiter of taste for the King Charles and his Queen and built many
structures for them, including the Queen's Chapel at St. James Palace
and her bedroom in the Queen's Hose in Greenwich. All over London and
the country he and his pupils built many classical buildings, including
houses, churches, stables, lodgings, out-buildings, staircases,
galleries, watergates, and archways. They stood in stark contrast to
the Tudor buildings around them. In the 1632, Jones started town
planning in London with Covent Garden fruit and vegetable market and
terraced houses around a central piazza surrounded by open arcades with
a Tuscan church at one end. In 1634, a man from the suburb of Hackney
introduced a line of coaches rented at 1s. per hour. They soon became
very popular.
The Flemish Johann Baptista van Helmont demonstrated that
metals dissolved in acid can be recovered through chemical means and
enunciated the doctrine that each thing in nature has its own specific
organization.
A large part of England was rebuilt as yeomen expanded their
houses and others lower in rank replaced mud and wood hovels with brick
and stone cottages. A separate kitchen appeared. The ground floors are
boarded over to create bedrooms. Permanent stairs replace ladders.
Glass appears in windows. Glass and crockery replace wood and pewter,
Chairs replace benches. Knives and forks become common.
About 1640 began travel between towns by covered wagons called
stage coaches. They carried passengers and goods and stopped at inns
for stabling and repairs.
Work was begun in 1630 to make canals that would make marsh
waters run to the sea. Barges on canals were the most efficient mode of
transportation. A barge could carry 50 tons on a canal and only 30 tons
on a river. A single horse could haul an 8-ton wagon on iron rails or
on a soft road, but only 1/8 of a ton on his back.
A new trend of spring-sown crops led to better crop balance and
reduced the risks of scarcity in a bad year. But the economy was still
volatile.
There were riots in London in 1640-1 from a complete breakdown
in political consensus, the factions being the Royalist City elite
versus the middling and lesser merchants and craftsmen.
In 1631, the clock makers broke away from the control of the
Blacksmiths. The gunmakers also broke away from the Blacksmiths. The
tinplate workers broke away from the Ironmongers.
"Searching" for bad cloth became more difficult as the industry
became more diversified. For instance, a new machine called a gig- mill
did the work of many hand finishers. In 1633, Charles issued a
commission for the reformation of the cloth industry with minute
directions for the manufacture of cloth. But there were many
disagreements over the details of manufacture and reform was difficult
to enforce.
By the 1630s, many parishes had a resident intellectual for the
first time. The parish priests came from gentry, upper yeomanry, urban
tradesmen and clerical families. They were educated and highly learned.
They had libraries and were in touch with contemporary religious
debates. They saw their role primarily as pastoral care. Many wanted to
improve the religious knowledge and moral conduct of their
parishioners. Puritan influence deepened as they forbade dancing,
games, minstrels, and festivals. They punished superstitious conduct.
They initiated prosecutions in church courts for sexual lapses and
drunkenness. The church court had little coercive power and its
punishments were restricted to penance or excommunication. Many Puritan
sects espoused equality for women. By the 1640s women were preachers,
e.g. in the Baptist and Anabaptist religions and, until 1660,
prophetesses. These sects were mostly composed of the lower echelons of
society.
Poor people did not respond to sermons as did the well-to-do.
Nor were they as involved in church activity, attending church only for
marriages, baptisms, and funerals.
Charles I not only believed in the divine right of kings and
was authoritarian; he was the ultimate autocrat. He had an unalterable
conviction that he was superior to other men, who were insignificant
and privileged to revolve around him. He issued directives to reverse
jury verdicts. Parliamentarians Oliver Cromwell and other educated men
opposed this view. The Commons voted not to grant Charles the usual
custom-dues for life, making it instead renewable each year,
conditioned on the king's behavior. Charles dissolved Parliament before
this passed. He continued to take tonnage and poundage.
Charles wanted money for war so he imposed many taxes, but
without the consent of Parliament. They included many of which had
fallen into disuse. He imposed a compulsory "loan" on private
individuals, which the courts held was illegal, and imprisoned those
who refused. Bail was denied to these men. Simpler people who refused
were threatened with impressment into the Navy, which included being
landed on shore to fight as marines and soldiers. They sought to revive
the old writ of habeas corpus to get released, but to no avail. Charles
billeted unpaid and unruly soldiers in private homes, which they
plundered. It was customary to quarter them in inns and public houses
at royal expense. Martial law was declared and soldiers were executed.
But the citizens did not want martial law either.
The Magna Carta was now seen as a protector of basic liberties,
instead of a restoration of certain past rights.. Both attorneys and
laymen read "The Pastyme of People" written by John Rastell in 1529,
which described the history of the Magna Carta from 1215 to 1225. Also
read was the "Great Abridgment" of the English law written by Rastell
in 1527, and Coke's volume of his Institutes which dealt with the Magna
Carta, which the Crown took to prevent being published until 1642, when
Parliament allowed it. Broad-scale pamphleteering turned England into a
school of political discussion. Oxford University favored the
established church and Cambridge University was Puritan.
The House of Commons asserted a preeminence to the House of
Lords for the following reasons: The estates of the members of the
House of Commons were three times the extent of the members' of the
House of Lords. Bishops' estates had diminished considerably because of
secularization. The members of the House of Commons were elected
[chosen] by the people.
The House of Commons drew up a Petition of Right in 1627, which
expanded upon the principles of Magna Carta and sought to fix definite
bounds between royal power and the power of the law. It protested the
loans compelled under pain of imprisonment and stated that no tax or
the like should be exacted without the common consent of Parliament. It
quoted previous law that "...no freeman may be taken or imprisoned, or
be disseised of his freeholds or liberties, or his free customs, or be
outlawed or exiled; or in any manner destroyed, but by the lawful
judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land" and that "...no man
of what estate or condition that he be, should be put out of his land
or tenements, nor taken, nor imprisoned nor disinherited, nor put to
death without being brought to answer by due process of law". It
continued that "... divers of your subjects have of late been
imprisoned without any cause showed; and when for their deliverance
they were brought before your Justices by your Majesty's writs of
Habeas Corpus, there to undergo and receive as the court should order,
and their keepers commanded to certify the causes of their detainer, no
cause was certified, but that they were detained by your Majesty's
special command, signified by the Lords of your Privy Council, and yet
were returned back to several prisons, without being charged with
anything to which they might make answer according to the law." It also
protested the billeting of soldiers in private houses and martial law
trying soldiers and sailors. If these terms were agreed to by the King,
he was to be given a good sum of money. Since he needed the money, he
yielded. He expected tonnage and poundage for the Navy for life, as was
the custom. But he got it only for one year, to be renewable yearly.
The King agreed to the petition, quietly putting his narrow
interpretation on it, and it was put into the statute book.
In 1629 Parliament distinguished between treason to the king
and treason to the Commonwealth.
The Chief Justice held in 1638 that acts of Parliament to take
away the King's royal power in the defense of his kingdom were void;
the king may command his subjects, their persons, their goods, and
their money and acts of Parliament make no difference. But the people
refused to pay these taxes.
Charles thought of more ways to obtain money and disregarded
his agreement to the Petition of Right.
Without the consent of Parliament, Charles extended ship money
to all the kingdom instead of just the ports. It was used to outfit
ships for the protection of the coasts. Hampden refused to pay it on
principle and the courts ruled against him in the case of King v. John
Hampden and he was sent to prison. When distraints were tried, the
common people used violence to prevent them. The bailiffs were pelted
with rocks when they came to distrain property. One man used his
pitchfork to take back his steer being taken by the bailiff. If a
distraint was successful, people would refuse to buy the distrained
property of their neighbors.
Charles revived the right of the Crown to force knighthood on
the landed gentry for a fee.
Charles sold monopolies in such goods as soap, leather, salt,
wine, coal, and linen rags although they had been abolished in the last
Parliament of James. This made employment uncertain for workers and
prices high for the public, and put masters in danger of loss of
capital.
Fines were levied on people for the redress of defects in their
title deeds. Crown forest boundaries were arbitrarily extended and
landowners near Crown forests were heavily fined for their
encroachments on them. Money was extorted from London by an illegal
proclamation by which every house had to pay three years' rental to the
Crown to save itself from demolition.
But what incensed the people more than the money issue were the
changes in the established church. High churchmen, called Ritualists,
enforced ceremonies offensive to Puritan feeling in every parish. The
centrally placed communion tables were to be placed at the east end
within railings and called "altars", or "mercy seats" as if for mass.
They were to be ornamented with crucifixes, images, pretty trifles,
books, candles and rich tapestries. Bowing was to be done when
approaching them. Clergymen were to be called "priests" and their
authority treated as divine. Worship was to be done in accordance with
the prescribed forms of Romish Breviars, Rituals, and Mass-books. Its
ritual was to have pomp and ceremony, including kneeling for communion.
Rings were to be used in marriages and crosses used in baptisms.
Churches, fonts, tables, pulpits, chalices and the like were to be
consecrated, thereby putting holiness in them. Churches that did not do
this but used unconsecrated or "polluted" articles were closed by
interdiction [a Catholic censure withdrawing most sacraments and
Christian burial]. Days, postures, meats, and vestments were to be
regarded. The clergy was to wear supplices [white linen vestments
flowing to the foot with lawn sleeves] and embroidered copes [vestment
over the head]. A Bishop wore a four-cornered cap, cope and surplice
with lawn-sleeves, tippet (long, black scarf), hood, and canonical
coat. Churchwardens were to take oaths to inform against any who
disobeyed. The law still required that all attend Sunday sermons. But
parishes had some control over who was their preacher, even though a
minister could be assigned to a parish by the bishops without the
consent of the patron of the church or parish people. By increasing the
meager pay of a parish clergyman, they could choose one with a
compatible theology or employ a lecturer from outside. The Ritualists
scolded clergymen for "gospel preaching" and suppressed Puritan
preaching in public meetings. Preaching or printing matter concerning
the controversy of free will versus predestination was forbidden.
Geneva Bibles, which were popular among laymen, were prohibited from
being imported. Many were excommunicated for sitting instead of
kneeling at communion. The clergy prohibited marriage if they liked by
withholding their license, and they licensed marriages without banns.
The Ritualists encouraged certain sports to be played after church on
Sunday. The Puritans protested vehemently to this because they wanted
to strictly observe the Sabbath. The Puritans saw the high churchmen as
wanting to return to the doctrine and customs they thought to be
Papist. The Ritualists were absolutists in their political views and
accepted the King's intervention in church matters. The ecclesiastical
Court of High Commission enforced the edicts of the church,
excommunicating those who did not conform and expelling clergymen who,
for instance, did not bow at the name of Jesus or wear the surplice. It
was used against the Puritans and imposed high fines and imprisonment
for religious eccentricity and Puritan preaching. Charles supported the
established church in this endeavor because it agreed that he had a
divine right to rule.
The universities and high churchmen were beginning to adopt the
doctrine of free will over predestination. Parliamentarian and Puritan
Oliver Cromwell and others feared this presaged a return to
justification by works and the popish faith. In Parliament, he spoke
out against the tyranny of the bishops, whose offices he wanted
abolished, and the elaborateness of church services.
To avoid persecution, many Puritans emigrated to Virginia and
New England. They were led by magistrates, country gentlemen, prominent
businessmen, attorneys, and other professionals. In 1629, the
Massachusetts Bay Colony was chartered at the instigation of John
Winthrop as a Puritan refuge. Its leaders led a migration of Puritans
organized to include five each of armorers, bakers, blacksmiths,
carpenters, shoemakers, merchants; three each of clothiers, chandlers,
coopers, military officers, physicians, and tailors; two each of
fishermen, herdsmen, and masons; on tanner, and one weaver. The fare
was five pounds and an applicant was interviewed to make sure he was a
Puritan. He got 50 acres, or more for a larger family. But if he paid
50 pounds into the common stock he received 200 acres of land, plus 50
more for each dependent. Maryland was founded in 1632 as a haven for
Catholics, but its charter precluded a government-established religion.
It was granted to Lord Baltimore to hold in free socage and was named
after Charles' wife, who was Catholic. Catholics in England could
practice their religion only in their homes and could not carry arms.
As hostility grew, censorship of books and plays accelerated
and the number of authorized printers was reduced in 1637 by decree of
the Star Chamber. In 1640s effective government control of the press
collapsed. Then there were many pamphlets and newspapers with all
variety of interpretation of the Bible and all sorts of political
opinion, such as on taxation; law and the liberties of the subject;
religion; land and trade; and authority and property. Twenty-two
pamphlets were published in 1640 and 1,996 in 1642.
In 1640 the canons of the church included a requirement for
parsons to exclaim divine right of kings every year. The Commons soon
resolved that this was contrary to the fundamental laws and liberties
of the realm.
The Short Parliament of 1640 was dissolved soon because the
Commons demanded redress of its grievances. The Long Parliament of
1640-1653 requested by the House of Lords was agreed to by Charles
because he still wanted money. In election of members to the Long
Parliament, voters wanted to know where contenders stood on certain
political issues. In this Parliament, the Commons ceased to agree on
all issues and started to rely on majority rule.
The House of Commons was led by John Pym, a middle class
landholder with extensive commercial interests. The Commons treated the
King's refusal to act with them as a relinquishment of his power to
Parliament. When it met at the Long Parliament, Pym expressed the
grievances of the King's actions against the privileges of Parliament,
against religion, and against the liberties of the subjects.
Specifically, he decried the disregard of free speech and of freedom
from prosecution afterward, and the arbitrary dissolution of
Parliament. Secondly, he alleged popery had been encouraged and the
ecclesiastical jurisdiction enlarged. Thirdly, he protested the patent
monopolies given to favorites to the detriment of the buying public,
the imposition of ship money levies beyond the need of national defense
and without the consent of Parliament, the revival of the feudal
practice of imposing a fine for refusal to accept a knighthood with its
attendant obligations, the enlargement of the King's forests and
driving out from hence tenants with lucrative holdings, extra judicial
declarations of justices without hearing of counsel or argument in many
criminal matters, and the abuses of the prerogative courts in defending
monopolies. Parliament's assertion into religious matters and foreign
affairs was unprecedented, those areas having been exclusively in the
power of the King.
The Long Parliament begun in 1640 removed many of the King's
ministers and forbade clergy from sitting in Parliament or exercising
any temporal authority. It passed measures which were not agreed to by
the King. It undid the lawless acts of the King and the court decision
in the case of King v. Hampden. Ship money was declared illegal. The
new concept that the present Parliament should not be dissolved but by
its own consent was adopted. The Star Chamber and Court of High
Commission were abolished. The oath ex officio, an oath to answer all
questions, was originally meant for facts at issue, but had been
extended by these courts to opinions, beliefs, and religion and had led
to abuses. The Star Chamber had been the only court which punished
infractions of the Kings' edicts, so now his proclamations were
unenforceable. Protection against self-incrimination was given by the
provision that no person be forced "to confess or accuse him or herself
of crime, offense, delinquency, or misdemeanor, or any neglect... or
thing whereby, or by reason whereof, he or she shall or may be liable
or exposed to any censure, pain, penalty, or punishment whatsoever, as
had been the practice in the Star Chamber and the Court of High
Commission.
These measures were also adopted: No one may be compelled to
take knighthood nor undergo any fine for not so doing. The forest
boundaries are returned to their former place. All subjects may now
import gunpowder; they may also make and sell gunpowder and import
saltpeter.
The Root and Branch Petition of 1640 to abolish episcopacy
roots and branches complained about pressure on ministers by bishops on
threat of dismissal not to preach about predestination, free grace,
perseverance, original sin remaining after baptism, the Sabbath,
doctrine against universal grace, election for faith foreseen,
free-will against anti-Christ, non- residents, nor human inventions in
God's worship. It also complained about the great increase of idle,
lewd, and dissolute, ignorant and erroneous men in the ministry who
wanted only to wear a canonical coat, a surplice, and a hood, bow at
the name of Jesus, and be zealous of superstitious ceremonies. It also
complained about the swarming of lascivious, idle, and unprofitable
books, pamphlets, play-books, and ballads, such as Ovid's "Fits of
Love", "The Parliament of Women", Barn's "Poems", and Parker's
"Ballads". Further it opposed the restraint of reprinting books
formerly licensed without relicensing. It protested the growth of
popery and increase of priests and Jesuits, the strict observance of
saints' days whereby large fines were imposed on people working on
them, the increase of whoredoms and adulteries because of the bishops'
corrupt administration of justice and taking of bribes, and the
practice of excommunicating for trivial matters such as working on a
holy day or not paying a fee. It further protested the fining and
imprisoning of many people; breaking up men's houses and studies;
taking away men's books, letters, and writings; seizing upon their
estates; removing them from their callings; and separating them from
their wives, to the utter infringement of the laws and of people's
liberties. It complained that these practices caused many clothiers,
merchants, and others to flee to Holland, thus undermining the wool
industry. It finally complained of the multitude of monopolies and
patents, large increase of customs, and ship-money. Many Londoners
signed this petition.
The House of Commons decided to forbid bowing at the name of
Jesus. When the House of Lords disagreed with this, the House of
Commons claimed that it represented all the people and didn't need the
concurrence of the House of Lords. The House of Commons ordered that
all communion tables be removed from the east end of churches, that the
railings be taken away, and all candles and basins be removed from it.
Further, all crucifixes, images of the Virgin Mary, and pictures of any
of the Trinity were to be demolished, including those in markets and
streets. Further, all bowing at the name of Jesus or toward the east
end of the church or toward the communion table was forbidden. All
dancing or other sports on Sunday was forbidden. Enforcement was to be
done by Justices of the Peace and Mayors. But these orders never became
statutes.
Enforcement of the law for not coming to church was not now
regularly enforced, so Catholics had a respite.
Rebellion of Irish Catholics against England and English
Protestants broke out in Ireland in 1641. Parliament didn't trust the
King with an army that he could use against themselves so it passed the
following two measures expanding the Navy and calling out the militia
and naming certain persons to be Lieutenants of each county.
The Admiral shall impress as many seamen as necessary for the
defense of the realm. This includes mariners, sailors, watermen, ship
carpenters, but no one over the age of 50 or masters or masters' mates.
If one hides, he shall be imprisoned for three months without bail.
Justices of the Peace shall impress as many soldiers as the
king may order for war in Ireland. This is despite the right of a
citizen to be free from being compelled to go out of his county to be a
soldier because the danger from Ireland is imminent. Excluded are
clergymen, scholars, students, those rated at a subsidy of land of
three pounds or goods of five pounds, esquires or above, the sons of
such or their widows, those under eighteen or over sixty years of age,
mariners, seamen, and fishermen. The penalty for disobeying is
imprisonment, without bail or misprise, and a fine of ten pounds. If an
offender can't pay the fine, he shall be imprisoned a year more,
without bail or misprise.
The right to call out the county militia had been a prerogative
of the Crown, so the King issued a Proclamation ordering the soldiers
to ignore this order and obey him. So Parliament declared this
Proclamation void.
The King accused five leaders of Parliament, including Pym, of
trying to subvert the government of the kingdom, to deprive the King of
his regal power, to alienate the affections of the people toward their
King, forcing the Parliament to their ends by foul aspersions, and
inviting the Scots to invade England. In 1642, the King entered
Parliament with 300 soldiers to arrest these five. They had flown, but
Parliament was shocked that the King had threatened the liberties of
Parliament with military force. The citizens of London, in their fear
of popery, rose in arms against the King, who left the city. Both sides
raised big armies. The goal of the Parliamentarians was to capture the
King alive and force him to concessions.
When the Parliamentarians took Oxford in 1648, they purged its
faculty of royalists.
The Law
Real wages, which had been falling, reached their low point and
the gap between the poor and others widened. There were depressions
from 1629-32 and from 1636 to about 1640, which called for Royal
proclamations for the relief and distress, especially among the poor.
The Book of Orders, for the relief of distress in earlier reigns, was
to be reissued. The assize of beer and bread maintaining quality,
prices, weights, and measures, was to be duly kept. Hoarding of
foodstuffs was to be punished. Fish days and lent were to be observed
to maintain the fishers. Abstaining from suppers on Fridays and on the
eves of feasts was ordered in all taverns and commended to private
families. City corporations were to give up their usual feasts and half
the charge given to the poor. Foreign ships were not to be supplied
with food for long voyages. The revised Book of Orders also covered the
regulation of beggary, the binding of apprentices, and the general
relief of the poor. All magistrates were to enforce the rules and raise
special rates from all parishes, the richer of these to help the poorer.
From 1625 to 1627 these statutes were passed:
No one shall engage in sports or any pastimes outside his own parish or
bearbaiting, bullbaiting, interludes, plays or other unlawful pastimes
inside his parish on Sundays because such has led to quarrels and
bloodshed and nonattendance at church. The fine is 3s.4d. or if the
offender does not have the money or goods to sell to pay, he shall be
set in the public stocks for three hours.
No carrier with any horse or wagon or cart or drover with cattle may
travel on Sunday or else forfeit 20s.
No butcher may kill or sell any victual on Sunday or else forfeit 6s.8d.
Every innkeeper, alehousekeeper, and other victualer permitting a
patron who is not an inhabitant of the area to become drunk shall
forfeit 5s. or be place in the stocks for six hours. Offenders
convicted a second time shall be bound by two sureties to the sum of
200s.
As of 1627, a parent sending a child out of the country to go
to a Catholic school was to forfeit 100 pounds, one half to the
informer and one half to the king.
The Petition of Right herebefore described was passed as a
statute in 1627.
Judicial Procedure
The Star Chamber decided cases as diverse as a case of
subordination of witnesses, cases of counterfeiters of farthing tokens,
and cases of apothecaries compounding ill medicines. It tried to keep
down the prices of foodstuffs for the benefit of the poor; it repressed
extortion and false accusations, and disbarred an attorney for sharp
practices; it punished defamation, fraud, riots, forgery of wills; it
forbade duels. A special virtue of its position was that it could
handle without fear matters in which men of social or local influence
might intimidate or overawe juries or even country justices. It
punished a lord who caused records to be forged, unlawfully entered
lands, and seized tithes. It disciplined a nobleman for drawing a sword
on a lord hunting hare.
In one of its cases, Sir Edward Bullock, a knight wanting to
enclose a common of a thousand acres threatened his neighbor Blackhall
when he would not sell his lands and rights. The knight hired a man to
break down the hedges and open a gate that had been staked up, so that
his neighbor's cattle would stray. He sued his neighbor three times for
trespass, lost his cases, and threatened revenge on all the witnesses
who testified against him. He had the house of one pulled down. The
pregnant wife and a naked child were turned out and had to lie in the
streets because no one dared to take them in, even when a justice so
directed. The witness, his wife, and family took refuge in an unheated
outbuilding in the winter. He and his wife and one child died there.
The knight had another witness cudgeled so that she was black and blue
from the waist up, and could not put on her clothes for a month. The
knight threatened to set fire to the house of another witness, and sent
his men to pull him out of doors and keep him prisoner for some hours.
The Star Chamber imprisoned the knight and his men. The knight was
fined 1,000 pounds and the men 50 pounds each. The knight also had to
pay one witness 100 pounds in reparation to the surviving children of
the family whose house had been pulled down.
But the power of the Star Chamber was abused by King Charles I.
For instance, one lord was accused by another of calling him a base
lord. The evidence was paltry. But he was fined 8,000 pounds, one-half
going to the King. A lord who was accused of converting agricultural
land to pasture was fined 4,000 pounds. A person who exported fuller's
earth, contrary to the King's proclamation, was pilloried and fined
2,000 pounds. A man who defaced a stained-glass window in a church was
fined 500 pounds and ordered to pay for a plain glass replacement. A
man who became sheriff of a county and had taken the oath which bound
him to remain in the county was elected to Parliament and stood in
opposition to the king on many matters. He was imprisoned for many
years until he made a humble submission and had to pay a heavy fine. A
London importer who was alleged to have said "That the Merchants are in
no part of the world so screwed and wrung as in England; That in Turkey
they have more encouragement" was fined 2,000 pounds for seditious and
slanderous words against his majesty's happy government. A Scottish
minister circulated a book appealing to Parliament to turn out the
bishops and to resist its own dissolution by the King. In it he called
the bishops men of blood, anti-Christian, satanical, ravens, and
magpies, preying on the state. He was against kneeling at the sacrament
and denounced the Queen for her Catholic religion. He blamed the state
for the death of citizens of a certain town by famine. For as he did
"scandalize his Majesties Sacred Person, his Religious, Wise, and just
Government, the Person of his Royal Consort the Queen, the Persons of
the Lords and Peers of this realm, especially the Reverend Bishops", he
was fined 10,000 pounds, was to be unfrocked (which was done by the
Court of High Commission), and was whipped, pilloried, one ear nailed
to the pillory and cut off, his cheek branded, and his nose slit. Then
he was imprisoned for life, but only served ten years, being released
by a statute of the Long Parliament. A Puritan writer Pyrnne wrote a
book that included a condemnation of masks and plays, and all who took
part, and all who looked on as sinful, pernicious, and unlawful. It
opined that Nero had attended plays and deserved to be murdered. Since
Charles had attended plays and the Queen had taken part in a mask, it
was inferred that Pyrnne meant them harm. His indictment alleged that
"he hath presumed to cast aspersions upon the King, the Queen, and the
Commonwealth, and endeavored to infuse an opinion onto the people that
it is lawful to lay violent hands upon Princes that are either actors,
favorers, or spectators of stage plays". The justices saw in the book
an attempt to undermine authority. The Chief Justice called the book a
most wicked, infamous, scandalous, and seditious libel. Pyrnne was
sentenced to be degraded by Oxford and disbarred by Lincoln's Inn, to
be fined 5,000 pounds, to be pilloried and to have his ears cut off,
and then to be imprisoned for life. Three men who wrote attacks on the
bishops and ecclesiastical courts, such as alleging that the bishops
suppression of fasts and preaching had brought the pestilence upon the
people and that the bishops had dishonored God and exercised papal
jurisdiction in their own names, were each sentenced to 5,000 fine, the
pillory, where their ears were cut off, and to life imprisonment. One,
who had been convicted for libel before, was branded on both cheeks:
"S.L." for Seditious Libeller. Others printed similar material. In vain
the Star Chamber limited the number of London printers to twenty, and
made licensing stricter. These prisoners were set free by the Long
Parliament.
Charles I intimidated justices to obey him in decision-making
even more than James I.
Charles I so abused the power of the Star Chamber court that it
was abolished by the Long Parliament and with it, the involvement of
the King's Council in civil and criminal cases.
The regular church courts punished people for heresy, non-
attendance at church, sexual immorality, working on the Sabbath or a
holy day, non-payment of tithes, and lending money at interest. The
special ecclesiastical court, the Court of High Commission, was
composed of clerics appointed by the king and decided cases of marriage
annulment, alimony, adultery, married couples living separately,
cruelty of husbands to wives, and habitual drunkenness. But it also
took on cases of schismatics and extended its power over them to
include staid and solid Puritans, who uniformly believed that salvation
was the only worthy earthly aim. Acting on information attained through
secret channels or from visitations, it would summon the accused, who
was required to give, under oath, "full, true, and perfect" answers to
broad and undetailed charges made by secret informants. Refusal to take
the oath resulted in commitment for contempt of court. If he denied the
charges and fled, the court could hold the hearing without him. Many
fled out of the country or went into hiding in it. If the accused went
to the hearing, he could not take an attorney with him. Most of the
issues involved clergy refusing to use the litany, to make the sign of
the cross in baptism, to wear the surplice, or to publish the Book of
Sports, and insistence on extempore prayer and preaching. Other issues
were clergy who, from the pulpit, inveighed against ship-money and
unjust taxes, and spoke rudely against the bishops and tyrannical
princes. One case is that of Samuel Ward, the town preacher of a large
town, heard in 1635. He neglected bowing or kneeling on coming to his
seat in church and preached against the Book of Sports. He did not read
the set prayers from the official book, but said prayers he had himself
conceived. To this he replied that a parrot could be taught to repeat
forms and an ape to imitate gestures. But his most serious offenses had
to do with his utterances from the pulpit derogatory to the tenets and
discipline of the church. He was accused of saying that he believed
that congregations still had the right of election of all officers,
including ministers. Also, he allegedly said that in preaching on the
Christmas holidays he told his people "that in the following days they
might do their ordinary business, intending to cross that vulgar
superstitious belief, that whoever works on any of those twelve days
shall be lousy". He allegedly warned his people to beware of a relapse
into popery. Ward was convicted of depraving the liturgy, tending
toward schism, frightening the people, and encouraging the overthrow of
all manner of government. He was removed from his position, deprived of
his ministerial function, suspended and silenced during the King's
pleasure. He was ordered to make submission and recantation both in
court and in his church and to give bond for 200 pounds. When he did
not do this, he was sent to prison and lay there nearly four years, and
died a few months later. In another case, a Mrs. Traske was imprisoned
for at least eleven years for keeping Saturday as her Sabbath. Many
people were excommunicated and books censored for essentially political
reasons.
In 1637, the king proclaimed that the common law courts could
not intervene in ecclesiastical courts.
The Court of High Commission was abolished by the Long
Parliament.
Justices of the Peace had general and quarter sessions, the
latter of which were held four times a year with all Justices of the
Peace attending. It was primarily a court of appeal from penal
sentences. But it was also an administrative body to determine taxes
and make appointments of officials and grant licenses for businesses.
In 1638, in distributing a deceased person's estate, the
Chancery court upheld a trust designed to hold the property for an
heiress so that it did not become her husband's property.
At the request of Parliament, the King had all justices serve
during their good behavior instead of serving at the King's will, which
had been the practice for ages. This increased the independence of the
judiciary.
The rack was used for the last time in 1640 before the Long
Parliament met. It was used to torture a rioter before hanging.
Men were still pressed to death for failure to plead,
pickpockets still executed for the first offense, and husband murderers
still burned.
Chapter 16
The Times: 1642-1660
For four years, there was civil war between the King, backed
generally by the upper class, the established church, and most of the
gentry, against the Parliamentarians, backed generally by middle class
yeomen, town dwellers, some of the gentry, most of the great
corporations, the City of London, the ports, the seamen, and the Navy.
Oxford University was royalist, and Cambridge University was Puritan in
sympathy. Archery was not used in the war, having become just sport by
1633. Flint-lock pistols, which relied on flint striking steel to
ignite the powder, as well as swords were used by horsemen in the civil
war. Footmen were musketeers using a match lock with a cord boiled in
vinegar as the match, and dressed in leather doublets and an iron-pot
headpiece; or pikemen with long wooden poles with spearheads of iron or
steel and short swords, and dressed in armor. This was the last time
armor was used. The Parliamentarians wore orange scarves to distinguish
themselves from their enemy. Cromwell, who had a natural aptitude for
military matters, selected for his troops, Puritan zealots with a
Puritan code of behavior which included no drinking or swearing. He
selected horsemen based on ability rather than social class. He was
regarded as one of the leaders of the Independents, who wanted total
abolition of the monarchy and of the aristocracy. When made a leader of
the New Model Army, Cromwell dressed all his foot men in red with only
the facings being regimental colors. The New Model Army had been
assembled because there had been disagreement about policy among the
members of Parliament who held commissions. Almost all members gave up
their commissions. For their continued support, many wives and also
prostitutes put on men's clothing and followed the troops. They nursed
the wounded. Those many wives who stayed at home pleaded and answered
in court; petitioned to the House of Commons, e.g. for release of
debtors from prison, high taxes, lack of work, and arbitrary
government; and made other public appearances. Puritan and royalist
newspapers printed the news at least once weekly. Poet John Milton pled
for civil and religious freedom, freedom of social life, and freedom of
the press. He stated: "Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to
argue freely, according to conscience, above all liberties."
The Mayor and citizens of London were given authority in 1642
to fortify all highways leading to the city and levy a tax on
inhabitants for this purpose. When London was deprived of coal during
the war, trees and flowers again flourished there.
Officers and seamen in navy ships were authorized in 1642 to
take one-third of all prize goods captured, the other two-thirds going
to the state.
Parliament approved certain persons to set forth ships at their
own expense to defend the realm in 1643. They were allowed to keep any
ships, goods, ammunition, or moneys they seized.
Saltpeter men were appointed by Parliament in 1643 and later
times to search and dig for saltpeter in pigeon houses, stables, and
outhouses, but not dwelling, shops, or milkhouses. They had to repair
any damage done to the contentment of the owners.
Complaints were made to Parliament that there were scandalous
and ill-affected fomenters of the civil war and disobeyers of the
ordinaries of Parliament and deserters of their ordinary places of
residence. These complaints were made by members of the University of
Cambridge, students, clergy in surrounding counties, and schoolmasters.
So a committee was established in 1643 to investigate and sequester
their lands and goods, excepting one- fifth of the estate for the wife
and children.
When Charles was captured in 1646, the episcopacy of the
bishops was abolished. When Parliament was about to reinstate Charles
as king with weakened powers and establish a Presbyterian state church,
the soldiers, who were religious Independents and who still had not
been fully paid (the infantry pay was 18 weeks in arrears and the
cavalry 43 weeks) despite plans to disband them, spontaneously took the
King by force. They demanded liberty of conscience to practice their
own religion and their pay. Cromwell sided with the army and then
became leader of the House of Commons. Charles dissembled in his
negotiations with the army generals. He felt freed from his promises as
soon as the pressure was removed. The army could not forgive Charles'
duplicity and deceitfulness and insisted upon his death as the only way
to bring peace. Cromwell gave up hope on negotiations with Charles when
he intercepted a letter by Charles to his Queen decreeing the final
doom of the army adherents in favor of the Scottish Presbyterians.
During protracted negotiations over months between the army and
Parliament over a new constitution, a renewed support for the King,
which was inspired by him, necessitated a second civil war to put down
this revolt and subdue its Scot supporters. Eventually the army took
control of Parliament by force, only allowing the few members who
agreed with them on the trial of the King into Parliamentary meetings.
So Charles was tried in 1649, found guilty of "an unlimited and
tyrannical power to rule according to his will, and to overthrow the
rights and liberties of the people ... which by the fundamental
constitutions of this kingdom were reserved on the peoples' behalf in
the right and power of frequent and successive parliaments or national
meetings in council", and maintaining a war against his subjects, which
amounted to treason. To prevent his adherents from trying to reinstate
him, he was condemned to death and beheaded in January 1649.
To pay for the civil war, an assessment tax on the yearly value
of rents, annuities, and offices was often levied. The main burden of
this tax fell on the gentry rather than the merchants and smaller men
of property, as previous taxes had. An excise tax, a tax on
consumption, was begun on ale and beer and then extended to meat, salt,
starch, soap, and paper. It was gradually extended to many goods. The
excise taxes were paid, as was the customs tax, by manufacturers on
goods made in England and by foreign manufacturers on goods at the
ports.
Parishes had to give maintenance to maimed soldiers and
provision for the livelihood to the wives and children of killed
soldiers. Masters of apprentices who became soldiers had to take them
back as apprentices without loss for their absence in defense of the
Commonwealth. Masters who received considerable loss by the absence of
their apprentices received reasonable satisfaction from the public
stock.
From 1640-60, Royalists were purged from Oxford and a group of
Baconians moved into the university behind Parliamentary armies. At the
two universities, books were no longer chained to the bookcases. The
universities were freed from taxation.
After the civil wars, Cromwell led the country. He was a
military, political, and religious leader. He had become a Puritan
zealot after a youth of gambling, drinking, debauchery, and rioting. He
believed that military success was a reflection of divine favor and he
regarded himself as one the few elect preordained for salvation. Those
in power in the new Commonwealth tended to explain their regime in
terms of popular consent, and the takeover from Charles I as due to his
breaking of a contract with the people.
Most people dressed in Puritan fashion. A Puritan's favorite
readings were the Old Testament, Epistles of St. Paul, and writings of
John Calvin.
Wealth and prosperity steadily increased in spite of the civil
wars. During Cromwell's tenure, there was a marked revival of economic
prosperity. By the mid-1600s, landlords had been able to shorten their
leases so that a lease of twenty-one years was the predominant form of
landholding.
Patent protection was given in 1642 for seven years to the
inventors of a device for salvaging ships' goods and cannons from the
seas. With it they could convert to their own use one half of the items
retrieved, the other half going to the Navy and Parliament. Patent
protection was given in 1650 to George Manby on his new invention for
boiling liquors and making salt with less coal and wood and iron, lead,
and copper for fourteen years. Patent protection was given in 1651 for
fourteen years to Jeromy Buck for melting iron, lead, tin, copper,
brass, and other metals with coal without burning charcoal.
The Merchant Adventurers were incorporated again in 1643 to
have a monopoly. It was required to admit into membership for 100
pounds anyone free of London and bred as a merchant, and for 50 pounds
any non-inhabitant of London. The penalty for trading for one who was
not free of the corporation was forfeiture of his goods.
In 1648, the House of Commons abolished the monarchy and in
1649 the House of Lords. Also in 1649 it declared that England "should
thenceforth be governed as a commonwealth and free state by the supreme
authority of this nation, the representatives of the people in
Parliament." It made a new constitution.
John Milton defended the Commonwealth as superior to the
monarchy because it could not deteriorate into tyranny in his books:
"First Defense of the People of England" in 1651, and "Second Defense"
in 1654. He lauded Cromwell as great in war and great in peace, and
exemplifying the principle that "nature appoints that wise men should
govern fools".
Thomas Hobbes, the son of a clergyman, and tutor to students,
wrote "Leviathan" in 1651 on his theory of sovereignty. Hobbes thought
that states are formed as the only alternative to anarchy, barbarism,
and war, so that supremacy and unity of a sovereign power is essential
to a civilized life and the protection of the citizenry. A sovereign
may be a man or body of men as long as his or its authority is
generally recognized. There must be a social contract among the
citizenry to obey a certain sovereign. To avoid religious conflict,
there must be a complete subordination of the church to the state and
the religion of a state must be dependent upon its secular sovereign.
Hobbes thought that knowledge of the world came through experience and
not reason alone. Only matter exists, and everything that happens can
be predicted in accordance with exact, scientific laws. He regarded
human societies as purely mechanical systems set in motion by human
desires. He saw self interest as the mainspring of moral law.
Conflicting self interests transformed into a lawful system of
agreements. Hobbes opined that all power really originated in the
people and that the end of all power was for the people's good.
On the other hand, James Harrington, who wrote "The
Commonwealth of Oceana" in 1656, opined that a stable society depended
on a direct relationship between the distribution of property and
political power; no one with property worth more than 2,000 pounds
should be allowed to acquire more and property should be divided among
children. A senate of mature property owners were to make and debate
the laws while an assembly elected by universal suffrage was to vote on
them because "a popular assembly without a senate cannot be wise and a
senate without a popular assembly will not be honest". A third of the
Senate would turn over every year. John Milton defended the execution
of the King in "The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates" in which he
maintained that the people may "as often as they shall judge it for the
best either to choose him or reject him or depose him, though no
tyrant, merely by the liberty and right of freeborn men to be governed
as seems to the best". He also wrote in favor of liberty of the press.
Ordinary speech found its way into prose writing.
Lands of more than 700 Royalists, including church lands, were
confiscated and sold or leased by county committees. Many Royalists put
their lands into trusts or turned them over to relatives or sold them
outright to prevent confiscation. It was an upheaval comparable to the
dissolution of the monasteries. Also, specified Papists who had taken
up arms against the realm lost their lands, goods, money, rents, and
two-thirds of their personal estates. But allowance was made for the
maintenance of their wives and children.
The Book of Common Prayer was abolished because of its
burdensome ceremonies. It was replaced by a Directory for Public
Worship. According to this, the Sunday service was to include reading
of the Scriptures, prayer, and a sermon, ordinarily on some text of
scripture which would be explained with reasons therefore and applied
to peoples' lives so they could see if they had sinned or not. The
ending of episcopal patronage gave some parishes the right to elect
their own ministers.
All festivals and holy days were abolished, e.g. Christmas,
Easter, Whitsuntide. Instead, scholars, apprentices, and servants were
to have recreation and stores were to be closed every second Tuesday of
the month. The usual merry-making, music, dancing, and sports after the
Sunday service were discontinued.
A day for fasting: the last Wednesday of every month, was
declared by statute. This day was to be "kept with the more solemn
humiliation, because it may call to remembrance our sins, and the sins
of our forefathers, who have turned this Feast, pretending the memory
of Christ into an extreme forgetfulness of him, by giving liberty to
carnal and sensual delights, being contrary to the life which Christ
himself led here upon earth, ...". This statute lasted for only five
years from 1644 because observance of it was not consistent throughout
the country.
Educational opportunities such as in grammar schools were more
widespread and stronger than ever before or since until the 1800s.
About 78% of men in London were literate, and 30% of men nationwide.
About half the women in London were literate by 1700.
In 1645, the marshalls of the admiralty and five major ports
were ordered to search all ships for stolen children since it had been
a problem in London.
The elderships of the church were given power in 1645 to
suspend from the sacrament of the Lord's Supper all ignorant and
scandalous persons. Ignorance was lack of knowledge that there is a God
and this is the one true God we worship, that this God is one, yet
three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, that God created man in his
own image, that all have sinned and therefore shall die, that there is
one mediator between God and man: Jesus Christ, who died on the cross
to save men from their sins, that he rose from the dead, ascended into
heaven, sits at the right hand of God, and intercedes for us, that
Christ and his benefits are applied only by faith, that the souls of
the faithful live with Christ in blessedness, that non-believers and
non-repenters shall perish eternally, that the sacraments are baptism
and communion, and that there is a judgment day on which the righteous
will be given life eternal and the wicked shall receive everlasting
punishment. Scandalous persons are those who blasphemously speak or
write anything of God, his holy work or the sacraments; an incestuous
person; an adulterer; a fornicator; a drunkard; a profane swearer or
cursor; a murderer; a worshipper of images, crosses, crucifixes,
relics, saints, or angels; makers of images of the trinity; one who
professes not to be in charity with his neighbor; any challenging
another to fight or accepting such challenge; on the Lord's day,
dancing, dicing, cards, masking, wake, shooting, bowling, football,
wrestling, plays, interludes, fencing, bullbaiting, bearbaiting,
hawking, hunting, coursing [hunting with hounds], fishing, fowling,
selling wares, travel without reasonable cause; a brothel-house keeper;
one who solicits the chastity of another; one who marries a Papist or
consents to the marriage of his child to a Papist; own who goes for
advice to a witch, wizard, or fortune-teller; one who assaults his
parents, or any magistrate, minister, or elder in the execution of his
office; and one attainted of barratry [purchase or sale of office or
preferment], forgery, extortion, or bribery. If such a person persists,
he shall be excommunicated.
Cromwell did not disapprove of activities prohibited because of
the recreation they provided, but thought that they had become too
central to people's lives. He did not close the taverns or ale houses.
In 1653 it was required that public preachers be approved by a
commission nominated by the Lord Protector and Parliament because there
had been too many "weak, scandalous, popish, and ill- affected" ones.
In 1654 named persons were ejected as scandalous, ignorant and
insufficient ministers and schoolmasters.
Because the poorer parishes of London were having problems
supporting their poor, a Corporation for the poor of London was
established in 1647 with authority to erect workhouses and houses of
correction.
Imprisoned debtors who had less than five pounds and less that
five pounds worth of trade tools and clothing and bedding for his
family were ordered released in 1649.
Wardship was abolished. Military tenures were abolished. Feudal
tenures were converted into freehold in 1646.
In 1653 those living in Crown forest land were given free
socage in that land. The game laws were not enforced, so people could
eat deer.
Enclosures were increasing and Parliament was disinclined to
protect copyholders against enclosures, favoring those with rights of
ownership. Enclosure was no longer deterred especially after abolition
of the Star Chamber. The legal device of "strict settlement" evolved to
prevent heirs from breaking up estates enabled families to concentrate
land and capital into large units. The oldest son inherited the land
and the younger sons now received money. Clover seed was sold in London
by 1650. It revolutionized the cultivation of barren land. England
began to export instead of import grain. But vagrancy increased from
people dispossessed of land. And the village artisan, when deprived of
his field and of his rights of common, could not continue to work at
home, but had to accept the wages offered to him in an employer's
workshop.
Employers and entrepreneurs were now free from control by the
Crown. There were no more attempts to supervise quality of manufactures
or to fix prices or regulate wages. There was greater freedom
established in relations between employers and workers. The government
no longer tried to compel employers to keep employees in times of
economic slump. The requirement of seven year apprenticeships and being
the son of a freeholder to be an apprentice were not enforced.
The economy was still volatile due ostensibly to variable
harvests, amount of gold and money in circulation, and balances of
trade, and to periods of plague. Wages rose steadily. The rise in
prices ended about 1650, and prices remained stable until about 1775.
There was more mobility of people. Taxation became regular and it was
controlled by representatives of the taxpayers. Population growth
gradually stabilized.
Capitalism was coming into being. For instance, the clothier
was now a manufacturer. He had become a contractor, taking wool to the
specialist spinner, the yarn to the specialist weaver, the rough cloth
to be washed and stretched, and finally to the dyer. This cloth was
sold at retail by the drapers. Tin on the surface was exhausted, so
capital was used to drive deep shafts in tin mines. No longer did a
single man with a single ship sail around until he found a market, but
companies trading overseas had their ships, wharves, and depots
furnished by men's savings put into a common stock. The first major
capitalist industries were coal mining, iron mining, and foreign trade
because they all needed large investments, and thus joint-stock company
organization.
Cromwell reconstituted the East India Company on a wider and
more permanent basis. He gave it a new charter in 1657 which included
authority to make stock permanent, thus ensuring a continuity of
capital. This solved the problem of the competition of overlapping
voyages which still occurred despite their terms of several years. The
company became one of the first permanent joint-stock companies. Now
the stock was never wound up. The Company had permanent capital which
could grow. The absence of competition among voyages made the Company
stronger in the face of a common enemy, such as a rival trading country
or Indian groups. The charter also authorized the company to fortify
and colonize any of its establishments and to transport to them
settlers, stores, and ammunition.
Later in 1657, the Company threw open the freedom of the
Company to the public for a nominal sum of five pounds. Now the
Merchant Adventurers and private traders could participate. It provided
that dividends were to be paid only in cash and not in kind (goods). It
also provided for appraisals of the Company's property to be made every
three years, so any shareholders could redeem their shares
proportionately. His shares would then be resold. People began to buy
and sell their shares among each other. The Company made the minimum
subscription 100 pounds. Each person holding 500 pounds worth of shares
had one vote. Holding 1,000 pounds worth of shares qualified one for
election to the committee of twenty-four. The seats of the members of
this committee and of the Governor and Deputy Governor could no longer
be permanent, but had limited and staggered terms. The continuity of
capital took the place of the permanence of the governing body in
providing stability. There was a regular scale of salaries for
employees, and rules of conduct such as the one disallowing any clerk
of the India House from going to play houses, dancing schools, or
taverns. The Company established almshouses for its widows and orphans.
In 1657 the Muscovy Company, renewed its charter for trade in
Russia and established a New General Stock. If a man bought a share, he
bought freedom of the company. An annual dividend was declared from the
annual profits.
Commercial men regularly kept accounts with bankers. Merchants
used division to apportion profits or losses to the parties whose
capital was involved. Simple and compound interest were used. The
concept of contract became a familiar one.
Regular private bankers of London emerged from the Goldsmiths
from 1640 to 1675. They issued bank notes and paid checks.
Cromwell increased trade by seizing territories, establishing
colonies, and warring with competitors for master of the seas and
trade. In 1649 it was provided that no one who paid his assessment for
soldiers' pay would have to quarter any of them.
Authority was given in 1649 to impress seamen: mariners,
sailors, watermen, surgeons, gunners, ship carpenters, caukers,
coopers, whoymen, and carmen for carriage of victuals.
English ships were embellished with decoration. Their sail area
was increased by triangular fore and aft sails. The Navy increased from
39 to 80 vessels.
After serving in foreign wars, ex-soldiers were allowed in 1654
to practice any trade without serving a seven year apprenticeship.
Colonies New Hampshire and Maine were established in 1635,
Connecticut in 1636, and Rhode Island in 1638, as offshoots from other
colonies.
In 1649 a corporation was established to teach the Gospel of
Jesus Christ in New England to Indians.
About 1650, steel was hardened by repeated quenchings and
temperings when the steel had reached certain colors. Brass was made
from copper and zinc alloyed together.
There were power-driven rolls for the coinage from 1657. Strips
of silver were passed between engraved rolls. Then coins were punched
out and their edges serrated.
In the 1650s, Huygens made the first pendulum that worked
practically in a mechanical clock. This new clock increased the
accuracy of time-keeping tenfold. He also introduced the concept of
mathematical expectation into probability theory.
There was a thermometer which used liquid such as water or
alcohol in a glass tube instead of air.
Dutchman Stevinus showed that the pressure at the bottom of a
column of liquid is proportional to the height of the column, and not
to its bulk, about 1634. He also studied oblique forces, and the
balancing of such that could bring about "stable equilibrium".
Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian student of Galileo,
discovered in 1643 that any fluid will be supported at a definite
height, according to its relative weight, as compared with air. He
realized that a mercury column, 30 inches in height, in a long glass
tube inverted in a cup of mercury, was being supported by air pressure
exerted on the mercury in the cup. When he observed that this height
changed with the weather, he had invented the mercury barometer. In his
work, he created and used vacuums.
Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, physicist, and religious
philosopher, was a child prodigy. At the age of 12, he proved Euclid's
32nd theorem that the sum of the angles of a triangle is equal to two
right angles. Before age 16, he wrote a book on conic sections. He is
famous for his theorem that a hexagon inscribed in a conic section has
the property that the three meeting points of the opposed sides are
always in a straight line. He constructed a calculator, which could
handle nine-digit numbers, in 1644 to assist his father, also a gifted
mathematician, in tax computations he did as a local government
official. He had Torricelli's mercury barometer carried up a mountain
and found that the height of the column dropped as altitude increased,
and thus that air pressure decreased with altitude. This showed that
the attribution of these effects to nature's abhorrence of a vacuum
were due instead solely to the weight and pressure of air. He
determined that the height to which the mercury rose was the same
regardless of the shape of the vessel containing it. Around 1646, he
did experiments with double vacuums and on the results formulated his
principle that pressure applied to a confined liquid is transmitted
undiminished through the liquid in all directions regardless of the
area to which the pressure is applied. Around 1653, he laid the
foundations for the theory of probabilities after being asked by a
gambling friend why, in playing dice, some frequencies came up more
often than others. He developed a means of calculating probabilities
with his "Pascal's Triangle" of coefficients of (a+b) raised to the nth
power. Each row represents the coefficients of a power one greater than
the power of the previous row. Each number is the sum of the nearest
two numbers in the row above it. He and lawyer and mathematician Pierre
Fermat invented the theory of probabilities.
Fermat also proved that the law for refraction (bending) of light
results from light's following the path that takes the shortest time.
He founded number theory, the study of properties of whole numbers, in
1640. Fermat formulated the notion of a line tangent to a curve and
started the development of differential calculus, in which a rate of
change is expressed as a function of time in equation form and also as
a tangent to the curve associated with that equation. This work helped
lay the foundation for the mathematics field of analysis. He and German
Gottfried Leibniz formulated the principle that an equation with two
unknown quantities can represent a curve. Leibnitz believed that man's
mind can arrive at truths about entities by pure thought.
Jean Ray from France concluded from his experiments that every
piece of material has a given weight, including air and fire. Otto von
Guericke from Germany discovered that, in a vacuum, sound does not
travel, fire is extinguished, and animals stop breathing.
At a time when mathematics was only a business of traders,
merchants, seamen, carpenters, and surveyors, mathematician John
Wallis, the son of a minister, studied sections of cones [circles,
ellipses, parabola, and hyperbolas] as curves of the second algebraic
degree, i.e. with an exponent of two, i.e. y = (a (x squared)) + b. He
also worked with negative and fractional exponents. Around 1655 he
invented the infinite arithmetic and introduced the symbol for
infinity. He determined that the area under any curve defined by the
equation y = (x to the nth power), was x to the (n+1)th power divided
by n+1. He introduced the concept of the limit of a string of numbers.
He wrote a treatise on algebra which was historical as well as
practical. He also decoded enemy cyphers for the sovereign.
Some English gentlemen interested in the new scientific methods
originated by Galileo had meetings beginning about 1645 to discuss
scientific topics. One group met at Gresham College and was headed by
Wallis. Another group was led by Robert Boyle, a philosopher,
physicist, and chemist. They wrote in English instead of Latin. These
meetings later gave rise to the Royal Society for science.
Since the Puritans forbade music in churches, but enjoyed it in
domestic circumstances, much secular music was composed, published, and
played. There were many musical clubs. The violin became very popular.
Solo songs were much sung. The first English opera: "The Siege of
Rhodes" was written and performed with women on stage. Writers of the
time included John Milton, political philosopher James Harrington, poet
Edmund Waller, Thomas Fuller, poet Abraham Cowley, and biographer Issak
Walton. John Aubrey wrote anecdotes about famous men. Jeremy Taylor,
chaplain to Charles I, wrote on theology. People still read French
romances translated into English. Dancing was still popular. Coffee
houses came into prominence as places of social discourse. The first
coffee house was established in London in 1652; ten years later, there
were 82 coffee houses in the City. There were elegant pleasure gardens,
with a fee for access. They were used for promenades and picnics.
Ladies and their gallants rendezvoused there. Cromwell introduced the
habit of port drinking to England.
In 1657, one general Post Offices was established with one
Postmaster General for all of England. No other person could have the
horsing of the through-posts. It cost 2d. for a letter to or from 80
miles of London and 3d. for one outside 80 miles of London.
The Society of Friends was founded by the son of a weaver. They
greeted everyone as "friend" and did not bow; remove their hat, as was
the custom when before the king or an earl; or otherwise show any
reverence to anyone. From 1650, they were called Quakers because they
trembled when religiously stirred. They reverted to the ancient "thou"
and "thee" appellations. Their dress was particularly simple, with no
buttons, lace, ruffles, or embroidery. They hated ritual so much that
they rejected baptism and communion. They did not observe the Sabbath
as a special day different from other days. They derided the holiness
of churches. No clergy were admitted into their sect. When they met for
divine worship, each rose to deliver extemporaneous inspirations of the
Holy Ghost. Women were admitted to teach the brethren and were
considered proper vehicles to convey the dictates of the spirit.
Quakers believed that every man, in his own life, could be fully
victorious over sin. They denied any clerical authority and all texts.
They believed in the separation of church and state. They refused to
swear to any oath, e.g. in court, or to participate in war. They
refused to take off their hats to anyone but God. It was their practice
to turn the other cheek when one cheek had been struck. If asked for
his cloak, a Quaker would give it. He never asked more for his wares
than the precise sum which he was determined to accept. The Quakers
encouraged widows and widowers to provide for children from a first
spouse when remarrying. They carefully selected masters and mistresses
who wanted to take on child apprentices for their suitability for such
responsibility. The education of Quaker women did not decline, as it
did for other women. From the fervor of their zeal, the Quakers broke
into churches, disturbed public worship, and harassed the clergyman and
audience with railing and reproaches. When brought before a magistrate,
they show no reverence but treated him as an equal. Sometimes they were
thrown into mad house or prisons and sometimes whipped or pilloried.
They endured stoically under this suffering. Mary Fisher from Yorkshire
introduced Quakerism to colonial New England.
In 1653 there were separation agreements between spouses as to
property, e.g. support and maintenance.
Cromwell had bad experiences with Parliaments. The Rump
Parliament was a remnant of the Long Parliament. The army and then
Cromwell, although a member, came to believe that its members were
self- interested, preoccupied with perpetuating themselves in seats of
power, and corrupt. They thought that their own hopes of reform in the
law, in the church, and in public finances were being deliberately
frustrated. Cromwell came to doubt that it would ever give the people
adequate government and protection. He started to believe that one man
as chief executive could do this better. Cromwell dismissed the Rump
Parliament in 1653. A new constitution created a Puritan "Parliament of
Saints". These men were nominated in various ways, such as by church
parishes, and selected by Cromwell. This one-house Parliament of Saints
in 1653 made Cromwell Lord Protector for life with executive power of
the state, with responsibility for making peace and establishing order
after a decade of civil strife and political chaos. He was to
administer the government and be the chief magistrate. It also provided
for triennial Parliaments consisting of one house, and religious
freedom for all except Roman Catholics and adherents of the formerly
established Church of England. Cromwell did not tolerate the ritual of
the formerly established English church nor allow any of its adherents
to have any office under him. His was a purely Puritan government. He
did not sell offices. The Parliament of Saints challenged many vested
interests in property such as sales of delinquents' and Papists' lands.
It clashed severely over the continuation of tithes to the church. It
became disorderly when some declared the Parliament dissolved and left.
Others remained in their seats. To avoid a Parliamentary crisis,
Cromwell had soldiers close the Parliament of Saints and lock its
doors. The people supported this action because they were dissatisfied
with the state of public affairs. The next Parliament that was tried
was elected on a new constitutional basis of men with 200 pounds, but
these men voted to make Parliament sovereign without a chief executive,
thereby abolishing the protectorate. Cromwell was distressed that this
Parliament had also voted themselves to be the sole determinors of
atheism and blasphemy instead of advancing liberty of religious
conscience and religious toleration as Cromwell had advocated. He
dissolved this Parliament, declaring that it was not acting for the
public good. A last Parliament was also dissolved by Cromwell for
tending to loosen the bonds of government and thereby threatening the
peace of the nation.
Cromwell had first ruled as a democratic leader who did not
believe in force, but preferred to persuade with reason. He initially
believed that people would do the right thing according to their
consciences, but was disillusioned and then became autocratic. He came
to rule as a military dictator. Payment of taxes was enforced by
distraint. After 1654, he issued about 100 proclamations covering
public amusements, roads, finances, the condition of prisons, the
imprisonment of debtors, banning of dueling and cockfighting, law
reform, control of religion and education, and reorganization of the
army. The singing of ballads was banned. The Court of Chancery was
reformed by proclamation. The established church was reformed and the
power to interfere with different faiths was denied to it. Each parish
could choose its form of service, whether Presbyterian, Congregational,
Baptist, or any other seen as fundamental by the Puritans. No one was
compelled to attend any particular church or to accept the discipline
of any particular minister. But the Book of Common Prayer was
forbidden. There was freedom of worship for Presbyterians,
Independents, Baptists, Quakers, Catholics, and Jews who had secretly
migrated to England to avoid persecution on the continent, but not
Prelatists , who favored government of the church by bishops).
In 1655, Cromwell placed major generals in charge of eleven
newly- established provinces. As their Governors, they had authority to
levy troops, exact taxes imposed by the Protector, disarm Royalists and
Catholics, examine into the conduct of the clergy and schoolmasters,
arrest dangerous and suspicious persons, prevent unlawful assemblies,
and to enforce the existing laws against immorality and blasphemy. The
only appeal was to the Protector. Since they were Puritans, they
ordered public ale houses to close as dusk, banned idlers, minstrels,
and actors, forbade exercising of horses on Sunday and the holding of
markets on Saturday as well as Sunday, censored the press, and
proscribed newspapers. Horse races, which meetings were used for
seditious purposes, were closed. Theaters were closed. Dancing was
discontinued. Organs and choirs in churches were prohibited. Court
masks continued because they provided soothing music. After a year,
Cromwell withdrew the major-generals. From this time, men of property
hated the idea of a standing army.
In 1657, the officers of a new Parliament modified the
constitution and Cromwell approved it. It was to secure liberties of
the people as they never before had. Under the modified constitution,
there were again two houses. The Commons regained its old right of
exclusively deciding on the qualification of its members. Parliamentary
restrictions were imposed on the choice of members of the Council,
officers of state, and officers of the army. A fixed revenue was voted
to the Protector. No moneys were to be raised except by consent of
Parliament. Liberty of worship was guaranteed to all except Papists;
Prelatists; Socinians, who denied the divinity of Jesus; for those who
denied the inspiration of the Scriptures. Liberty of conscience was
secured for all. In 1658, Cromwell tried another Parliament, but
dissolved it because it wrangled without resolution.
There was continual problem with Catholics. Mayors, Justices
and capital burgesses of towns where Papists or others had caused
rebellion and insurrection and plundered, robbed, pillaged, murdered
and raped, were given the power in 1642 to call, assemble, train, and
arm soldiers for defense. The Committee of the Militia of London was
given authority in 1647 to search all houses and places for Papists and
to search for and seize any arms, ammunition, and war materials in
custody of such persons. In 1648, all Papists and soldiers of fortune
who had borne arms against Parliament were ordered to depart from
within twenty miles of London and Westminster or be imprisoned as
traitors. In 1657 convicted Papists and people marrying convicted
Papists were required to take an oath renouncing the pope and Catholic
Church or lose two-thirds of their lands and estate, retaining their
house on the remaining one-third. If one went to mass in an
ambassador's house, the fine was 100 pounds and imprisonment for six
months, one half going to the informer. In 1659 all householders in
London and Westminster had to give a list of persons lodging in their
house, and the horses and arms there. But the laws against Catholics
practicing their religion were not rigorously enforced, nor were those
against adherents of the formerly established Church of England.
After Cromwell died, the people demanded the return of a
genuine and free Parliament. The old constitution was restored and a
new House of Commons was elected. It called Charles II to return to be
king if he promised religious freedom and backpay to the army, which
had not recently been paid. When Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were
disbanded, they did not drift into thievery as royalists soldiers had
before, but took up honest work such as baker, mason, brewer, baker, or
haberdasher. Puritanism now made itself felt not by the sword, but in
literature and politics. It affected the character of the English, who
tend to be stoics, and imbued capitalists with a hard-working attitude.
The Law
After the civil wars, the law against enclosure was not
enforced.
What was passed in Parliament in Cromwell's time were called
statutes, but after Cromwell's time, these statutes were not recognized
as legitimate.
"whereas Public Sports do not well agree with Public
Calamities, not Public Stage-plays with the Seasons of Humiliation,
this being an Exercise of sad and pious Solemnity, and the other being
Spectacles of Pleasure, too commonly expressing lascivious Mirth and
Levity ... Public Stage Plays shall cease, and be forborne instead of
which are recommended to the People of this Land the profitable and
seasonable considerations of Repentance, Reconciliation, and Peace with
God, ..."
No book or pamphlet may be printed, bound, stitched, or sold or
imported unless licensed and entered into the Register Book of the
Company of Stationers. Officials of this company and of Parliament may
search all places which they shall think meet for all unlicensed
printing presses and all suspected printing houses, warehouses, and
shops and other places for unlicensed books and pamphlets and papers
and seize them and apprehend all authors, printers, and other involved
people and bring them before Parliament or the Committee on
Examinations for punishment. Justices of the Peace and other officers
may order doors and locks broken for this purpose. The fine is ten
pounds for authors, five pounds for printers, two pounds for
booksellers, and one pound for buyers who conceal a book bought. One
half of each fine shall go to the person who discovers and prosecutes
the offender, and the other half shall go to the poor. This law
suppressed royalist newspapers but was enforced only with great
difficulty.
All shall observe Sunday and days of Thanksgiving in their
"duties of Piety and true Religion publicly and privately" and none may
sell wares or goods, including fruit or herbs upon pain of forfeiture
of such. None may, without reasonable cause, travel, carry burdens, or
do any worldly labors or work whatsoever or pay a fine of 10s. This
work shall include grinding grain, fulling in mills, burning turf or
earth, gathering taxes, melting wax for candles, brewing, baking,
butchering cattle, tailors fitting or carrying clothes, barbers
trimming hair, being present at fairs or markets, or washing, whiting,
or drying clothes. Nor may any one maintain or be present at
wrestlings, shooting, bowling, ringing of bells for pleasure or
pastime, masks, wake, church-ale, dancing, games, sport or, for those
over 14, forfeit 5s., and for those having care or education of a child
under 14, 12d. Maypoles, a "Heathenish vanity, generally abused to
superstition and wickedness", shall be taken down by officers or else
forfeit 5s. per week. If any offender can't pay his fine, he shall be
put in the stocks for three hours. However meat maybe dressed in
private families, and victual sold in inns and victualing houses in a
moderate way, and milk sold before 9a.m. or after 4p.m.
Persons of the trinity, angels, or saints shall be demolished.
Altar and communion tables must not be raised but leveled. There may be
no copes, surplices, superstitious vestments, or holy water fonts.
There may be no crosses, crucifixes, pictures of the trinity, angels or
saints on plates. All organs must be taken away.
The fine for using the Book of Common Prayer is five pounds for
the first offense, ten pounds for the second offense, and one year
imprisonment without bail for the third offense. The penalty for
writing or preaching against the Directory for Public Worship is five
to fifty pounds.
Blasphemies and heresies such as teaching or writing or
printing that there is no God, that God is not almighty, that Jesus was
not divine, that the resurrection of Jesus did not occur, that the
Bible is not the word of God, or that there is no judgment day after
death, are felony without benefit of clergy. If such an offender
recants, he shall stay in gaol until he obtains two sureties. If he
offends again after recantation, it is felony without benefit of clergy.
In 1650 adultery was declared to be a felony, except for a wife
whose husband had been beyond the seas for three years or had been
reputed to be dead. Incest was also declared to be a felony. It was
defined as marrying or having carnal knowledge of one's grandparent,
parent, sibling, mother's brother or sister, father's wife, mother's
husband, son's wife, daughter's husband, wife's mother or daughter, or
husband's father or son. Fornication was given a punishment of three
months imprisonment and until security was obtained for one year for
good behavior. It was defined as carnal knowledge of a virgin,
unmarried woman, or widow. A common bawd or one keeping a brothel or
bawdy house was to be whipped, set in the pillory, marked in the
forehead by a hot iron with the letter: B, and then imprisoned for
three years without bail and until there were sureties for good
behavior for life. The second offense was felony without benefit of
clergy. There was to be no corruption of the blood. However, juries
were reluctant to convict for adultery and incest.
There shall be no profane swearing or cursing of forfeit by a
lord 30s., a baronet or knight 20s., an esquire 10s., a gentleman
6s.8d., and all others 3s.4d. There is a double fine for the second
offense. For the tenth offense, the offender shall be bound by sureties
for good behavior for three years.
A person equating himself or another with God or not believing
in God shall be imprisoned for six months without bail. For the second
offense, he shall be banished from the nation.
No longer shall people be punished for nonattendance at church
on Sunday or days of Thanksgiving, but may be at some other place of
prayer, preaching, reading, or the scriptures.
Hawkers and ballad singers have been libelous, so are to be
whipped as common rogues and then dismissed. Also, their ballads and
pamphlets are to be confiscated. Vagrant, idle, loose, dissolute and
disorderly persons and fiddlers in inns, alehouses, and taverns are to
be punished as rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars, that is, whipped.
In 1649, treason against Parliament was defined as writing,
printing, or declaring that the government is tyrannical, usurped, or
unlawful; or that Parliament is not the supreme authority of the
nation; or plot, contrive, or endeavor to stir up or raise force
against the government. Attainder for such would not work corruption of
the blood.
Treason to the Protector was defined the same as it was to the
King.
Army deserters are to be corporally punished or executed.
Fellable wood and underwood, but no timber trees, may be cut
within 60 miles of London because fuel is needed, especially by the
poor. This will be supervised by overseers appointed by Parliament.
No one may import foreign hats or hatbands to relieve that
industry in England.
As of 1656, certain food could not be exported when the prices
of such exceeded a stated amount. For instance, 5 pounds for a 36
gallon barrel of beef, 6d. for a pound of bacon, 4 pounds and 10s. for
a 224 gallon barrel of butter, and 24s. for 64 pounds of rye, pease, or
beans. The customs for such items was more for foreigners than for
natives, for instance 3s. for natives and 5s. for foreigners for a
barrel of beef.
Butter for sale must not be corrupt and be properly weighed.
One must obtain a license to buy wheat or other grain and put
it to sale in meal or flour or else forfeit three times the value.
All books of the law, writs, pleadings, and patents shall be in
English or else forfeit 20 pounds.
No deer may be killed or else forfeit 15 pounds, half to the
informer and half to the poor.
Interest may not exceed 6 pounds for a loan of 100 pounds
yearly as of 1651.
No goods are to be imported from America, Asia, or Africa
except in English ships or else forfeit all goods and the ship, one
half of which goes to the one who seizes the goods and prosecutes. None
may be imported from Europe except in English ships or ships from the
country of origin of the goods. No salt fish may be imported or
exported but in English vessels.
There is a 10 pound reward for discovery of highwaymen and
burglars or persons who break and enter into houses and there use
violence.
No cart or wagon or carriage on the road may be drawn by more
than five horses or six oxen and a horse except for military vehicles.
Notice of intended marriages shall be published once a week for
three weeks in a public meeting place called church or a public market
place next to church. Exceptions to the marriage shall be noted by the
Register and considered by the Justice of the Peace before the marriage
is performed. The words used shall be: "...promise to be unto thee a
loving and faithful husband..." and "promise to be unto thee a loving,
faithful, and obedient wife...".
There shall be no cock-fighting because it disturbs the peace
and usually is accompanied by gaming, drinking, swearing, and
quarreling.
Anyone challenging or accepting a challenge to duel shall be
imprisoned for six months without bail, and must acquire two sureties
for a year. Anyone fighting a duel in which death ensues, shall be
banished for life.
Horse races were forbidden in 1654 for six months to discourage
mischievous plots and designs by enemies of the state. The penalty was
forfeiting the horse. Attendees were to be brought to justice.
As of 1657, a house or building built within ten miles of the
walls of the City of London not having at least four acres had to pay a
fine of one year's rent. All houses within London or Westminster or the
suburbs must be brick or stone, and built straight up without
protruding into the street or else forfeit 100 pounds.
As of 1657 persons living extravagantly without visible estate
or calling may be made by Justices of the Peace to acquire sureties for
good behavior or go to gaol. They would also be sent to the house of
correction to work for three months for the first offense and for a
time specified by the Justice of the Peace for the second offense.
Anyone winning at betting or playing at cards, dice, tennis,
and horse races shall forfeit double his winnings.
Excluded from pardon were buggery with man [sodomy] or animal
[bestiality], carnal ravishment of women, and bigamy.
Husbands were responsible for their wives' oaths and fathers
for their daughters'.
Drunkenness was much punished.
Judicial Procedure
The Protector is the supreme magistrate of the Commonwealth,
with power to pardon all crimes, except murder and treason.
Parliament was no longer a court.
Use of the torture was proscribed in 1649.
In 1652, the justices were given a salary of 1,000 pounds and
forbidden to take fees or rewards. They also got tenure, thus freeing
them from government pressure. Now civil justice was honestly dispensed
and justices were learned and honest.
The jurisdiction of Admiralty court was defined to include:
ships and vessels with tackle, apparel and furniture thereof;
repairing, victualing, and furnishing provisions of ships and vessels
for sea; all cases of bottomry [ship-owner indemnified if the vessel
were lost, but paid over a substantial share of the profits if it
reached its destination safely], contracts beyond the seas concerning
shipping or navigation; charter, parties, contracts for freight; bills
of lading; mariners wages; damage of goods on board ships; and damage
by one ship to another including by anchors or want of laying buoys. It
did not include contracts between merchants.
Military tenure was abolished in 1660.
Chapter 17
The Times: 1660-1702
The monarchy was restored and Charles II came to the throne.
The episcopacy of the bishops and the Book of Common Prayer were
restored. This book retained all its ceremonies, despite opposition by
the Presbyterians. The confiscated Royalist, church, and Crown lands
were ordered to be restored, and most were. Charles II was presented
with the traditional rights of choosing his own Privy Council,
ministers of state, and justices; making foreign policy; controlling
the armed forces; and approving statutes. He was also presented with
the power to call and dismiss Parliament, but later, in 1694, a statute
required that Parliament be held at least once every three years, to
avoid royal schemes of non-parliamentary government. The House of Lords
was reestablished and there were again bishops in it, though fewer than
before - about 1/8 instead of about 1/3. There were 160 peers for the
next century. The House of Commons was elected in the usual way, but
without a king's writ. The Commons was composed mostly of royalist
established church members. Its leaders were important members of the
King's Privy Council.
The feudal tenures of the crown, such as knights' service, were
converted into free socage. They were discharged of homage, reliefs,
escuage, and aids. Charles relinquished purveyance, wardships, and
forfeitures of marriage. In return, Parliament granted him a fixed
yearly income of 100,000 pounds from excise tax on beer, cider, and tea.
Several hundreds of dissenter ministers and school teachers
were ejected from their positions, but later those who were not
Baptists were returned by statute of Parliament because Baptists did
not believe in an established church.
Charles II was an easygoing and kindly man and hard to ruffle.
He had a weariness in the folly of men and a cynical disbelief in human
virtue. His wit and great sense of humor softened many a potentially
tense situation. His restoration to the throne brought in a time of
enjoyment of life in reaction to the Puritanism of before. At his
succession, the elected Parliament was oriented toward royalty and the
established church. He was voted an income of 1,200,000 pounds a year.
He also sold many of the last crown lands. But he always had great
debts, which he described as a "desperate but not serious" situation.
This was in part due to his generous maintenance of several successive
mistresses and more than about a dozen illegitimate children. His
entourage also included physicians, surgeons, a librarian, a poet
laureate, chaplains, painters, an historiographer, musicians, a royal
composer, and an astronomer. Charles even joked on his deathbed that "I
am sorry gentlemen, for being such an unconscionable time a-dying."
The day of Charles II's restoration and birthday was designated
as a day of thanksgiving when all were to participate in prayers and
the singing of psalms at some church or other suitable public place.
Charles initiated the return of Sunday afternoon wrestling,
archery, music, and dancing. Theaters reopened with actresses playing
women's parts, an audience only in front of the stage instead of around
it, a drop curtain, and painted two-dimensional scenery. Actresses were
allowed pursuant to royal proclamation so that plays should become
"useful and instructive representations of human life" rather than
"harmless delights". Charles went to plays regularly. Actresses were
assumed to be mistresses of patrons in return for their jobs, but one
fourth were actually chaste women married to actors. Comedies were the
preferred plays. Courtesans were sympathetically and even admirably
treated in plays, which mocked all restraints and glorified immorality
with the exception of pornography, which was banned. Bad actors were
hissed off the stage. Henry Purcell wrote religious music for churches,
ceremonial music for the English court, and theater music for English
opera. Opera made music a vehicle for human emotions. The gentry sang
to the lute and danced to string instruments. Many owned and played
musical instruments. Humble people had folksongs and instruments like
the pipe and tabor for dancing. Singing in parts was popular in town
and country. In 1672 John Banister started the first regular series of
public concerts in his house. There were lovely formal gardens in which
to walk, to see fireworks, and to buy the new ice cream. Charles did
much garden and park planning and let the public enjoy the royal St.
James Park. He loved hunting too and had the royal forests replenished
with deer after poaching during the Cromwell era had greatly reduced
their numbers.
Charles II introduced sailing and yacht racing for pleasure. He
also participated in and promoted horse racing. The breeding of
thoroughbred horses began with breeding to Arab mares. Gelding horses
were now preferred over stallions. There were trotters, cart horses,
and some "fast" race horses. Boxing (with no gloves nor ring) was a
national sport. Ice skating with iron blades was popular. Valentine's
day was celebrated. Italian puppet shows played in London.
Dress returned to elaborateness. Gentlemen wore Cavalier-style
long wigs with curls, despite the church's dislike of wigs. This could
hide the short hair of a former Puritan Roundhead. In 1666, Charles
introduced a new mode of inexpensive court dress which was made
entirely from English textiles. This gave rise to gentlemen's weskits
to below the knee with a coat of the same length and full sleeves.
Stockings and shoes replaced the long fitted boots. Charles set a court
tradition of men wearing a scarf tied around the neck. Ladies often
wore their hair in masses of ringlets with little corkscrew curls on
each side of their heads, and later piled their hair up elaborately on
their heads. They wore satin or silk dresses fitted at the waist with a
pointed bodice, and full skirt. The shoulder line was low and the
sleeves full and open at the front with fastenings of jeweled clasps.
The only fast colors were reds, blues, purple, and yellow, but not
green. They kept their hands warm in muffs. Women wore perfume, rouge,
and face patches. Some women put on a lot of make-up. Many men dressed
effeminately with rouge, face patches, heavily scented clothing, muffs,
and many ribbons of many colors. The facial beauty patches were in
shapes such as stars, crescent moons, and hearts; they diverted
attention from the common smallpox scars. There were Oxford shoes,
which laced up the front through eyelets. The members of the House of
Commons dressed like the gentry and assumed their manners. There was
exaggeration in all complimentary and ceremonial language.
The gentry were beginning to be thought of as a "squirearchy".
They owned about half the land of the country.
The population according to class was as follows: N: Number of
Households. T: Titles, Degrees. Social Ranks, H: Household Size, and Y:
Household Yearly Income in Pounds.
___N_______________T______________________________S___________Y__16
Temporal lords 40 3,200
26 Spiritual lords 20 1,300
800 Baronets 16 880
600 Knights 13 650
3,000 Esquires 10 450
12,000 Gentlemen 8 280
5,000 Persons in greater offices and places 8 240
5,000 Persons in lesser offices and places 6 120
2,000 Eminent merchants and traders by sea 8 400
8,000 Lesser merchants and traders by sea 6 198
10,000 Persons in the law 7 154 2,000
Eminent clergymen 6 72
8,000 Lesser clergymen 5 50
40,000 Freeholders of the better sort 7 91
120,000 Freeholders of the lesser sort 5.5 55
150,000 Farmers 5 42.5
15,000 Persons in liberal arts and sciences 5 60
50,000 Shopkeepers and tradesmen 4.5 45
60,000 Artisans and handicrafts 4 38
5,000 Naval officers 4 80
4,000 Military officers 4 60
50,000 Common seamen 3 20
364,000 Laboring people and out-servants 3.5 15
400,000 Cottagers and paupers 3.25 6.5
35,000 Common soldiers 2 14
25,000 Vagrants, as gypsies, thieves, beggars
As can be seen, agriculture is still the most common occupation.
Great houses now had a central dining chamber for dining, with
sets of suites, usually for couples, around it. Each suite had an
ante-chamber and/or drawing room, and then a bedchamber, off of which
there was a servant's room and a closet [cabinet]. No longer did
personal servants bed down in the drawing room or outside their
master's door or in a truckle bed at his feet. The servant's room was
connected to a back staircase for use by servants. Secret guests also
used it. The csbinet room was the innermost sanctum for privacy and
gave its name to the later cabinet of the government.
There were fewer servants and they were of a lower social
status than before. They were often sons of merchants, clergymen, and
army officers. Gentlemen no longer advanced by service to a great man,
but instead through grammar school and university education, commerce,
the law, or the armed services. This change came about because the
state now maintained reasonable law and order. There were more female
servants, who were paid less to cook and to clean as well as do laundry
and nursing. Servants were kept more in the background, preferably out
of sight. The elaborate ceremonial ritual with sewer, carver, and
cupbearer was gone. A butler replaced the yeomen of the buttery, ewery,
and pantry, and footmen began to wait on the table at which the lord,
his lady, and other couples sat. Servants no longer had meals in the
hall, which now had a grand staircase up to the dining chamber. The
highest servants, the officers: clerk of the kitchen, clerk of the
check [comptroller], head cook, butler, and groom of the chambers, and
female housekeeper ate in the gentleman-of the-horse's room, although
at a separate table. The kitchen staff ate in the kitchen. The footmen,
underbutler, porters, coachmen, grooms, stable-boys, gardeners, maids
ate in a servants' room. The steward was no longer the chief household
officer, but had a room near the kitchen. The bulk of the servants
slept in the basement or subordinate wings of the house.
Great houses of nobles had more rooms, such as a chapel,
library, parlors, dressings rooms, and galleries; there was a variety
of architectural floor plans. The structure of a noble household of an
earl was as follows: The chief official was the receiver general. He
had financial responsibility for the household and prepared accounts
for the household and for the tenants' estates. These were checked by
an auditor. The receiver general was often the son of a country
gentleman and had a salary of 50 pounds raised to 100 pounds with
longevity. He had a servant and an assistant. If married, he had a
house on the property. There was perhaps an attorney on retainer who
were paid for a certain number of hours per week or month. The
gentleman of the privy purse kept the accounts of the family and bought
them apparel and toiletries. He was in close personal attendance upon
the earl. His salary was 20 pounds a year. Besides the receiver general
and the gentleman of the chamber, the tutor and chaplain had the
closest personal contact with the family. The lady had a gentlewoman
with a maid servant. The receiver general supervised most of the staff.
There was a steward of 40 pounds a year. He supervised a clerk of the
kitchen and a house bailiff of 20 pounds a year. The bailiff had
responsibility for the produce of the estate, e.g. the gardens, the
deer park, and the fish ponds. Under the clerk of the kitchen was the
cook man and kitchen boys, the latter of whom were clothed and fed, but
not paid. The steward also supervised the 4 pound yearly porters, who
kept the gates; the watchmen outside; and the head housekeeper, usually
a woman of 2 to 6 pounds yearly. She supervised the laundry maid and
general maids, who spent much of their time sewing. The steward was
also responsible for the wine cellar. A dozen footmen belonged partly
to the house and partly to the stables and received 2 to 6 pounds
yearly. They waited on the lord and lady in the house and accompanied
them in travels and did errands for them. The gentleman of the horse
supervised the stables, coach, dogs, kennels, and 16 pound yearly
huntsman. Boy pages also worked partly in the house and partly in the
stables. They were clothed and fed, but not paid. The head gardener
received 80 pounds for tending the flowers, vegetables, and fruit
trees. He had casual workers as needed to assist him. The steward was
also responsible for the London house. Here there was a housekeeper, a
watchman, and a 40 pound a year gardener, all there permanently. When
the lord was there, bargemen were employed for his barge. The salaries
for the family estate totaled about 600 pounds a year. Sometimes
married sons' or daughters' families stayed for months at the family
estate; then they would pay for their part of the food.
Well-to-do people drank imported tea and coffee, sometimes from
porcelain ware, and usually after dinner or supper. Most tea leaves
were brewed first for the family and guests and a second time for the
servants; then they were given to the servants' relatives or friends.
Queen Mary encouraged the fashion of collecting Chinese porcelain. The
rich had red or black and gilt lacquered cabinets and cupboards. Oak
gave way to walnut, with its variegated surfaces. There were
grandfather clocks. Some fireplaces now had cast-iron firebacks.
Stuffing began to be upholstered to woodwork benches. Chairs were
taller in the back. Ladies did needlework to cover them and also made
patchwork quilts. Cane seats came into fashion.
From the spring of 1665 to the end of 1666 there was a Great
Plague, mostly in London. It was the last and worst plague since the
Black Death of 1348. It lasted over a year and about one-third died
from it. Households with a plague victim were walled up with its
residents inside to reduce contagion, and then marked with a red cross.
Church bells tolling their requiems clanged in ceaseless discord. The
mournful cry "bring out your dead" echoed in deserted streets. At night
groups of people shoveled the corpses into open graves. To prepare for
this revolting task, they often first became drunk out of their senses.
People acquired wild beliefs in hope of avoiding the plague. For
instance, at one time it was thought that syphilis would prevent it, so
maddened hordes stormed the brothels. At another time, it was rumored
that the plague could be burned out of the air, and all one day
bonfires blazed outside every door and people sweltered in the heat.
Other localities posted sentries on the road to keep Londoners out of
their areas to prevent the plague from spreading there. Since sneezing
was thought to be the first sign of a person getting the plague, it
became common to ask God to bless a person who sneezed. In London,
statistics were collected on the number of plague victims and their
places of death to try to determine the cause of the plague by
correlation, a new method. This was a natural sequent to merchant John
Gaunt's 1662 book "Natural and Political Observations Made upon the
Bills of Mortality", which compiled yearly vital statistics from which
to analyze, for instance, causes of death due to particular diseases.
It reached conclusions such as that fall was the most unhealthy season;
females had longer life spans than males; and infant mortality was very
high.
In 1666 a fire destroyed three-fourths of the City of London.
The blazing buildings were so hot that people with leather buckets of
water, hand squirts, and manually operated water-pumping machines could
not get near them. There was a lot of noise from falling buildings.
Panic and desperation were widespread. There was a lot of crying out
and running about distractedly. People saved some of their possessions
by burying them or removing them from the fire's path as they moved to
different lodgings. The streets were full of carts piled high with
furniture and merchandise. The Thames River was thick with heavily
laden barges. Melting lead from St. Paul's church ran down the streets
in a stream. The Tower of London, upwind of the fire, was saved by
blowing up surrounding buildings. Eventually the wind abated and the
fire was put out. A Fire Court with royal justices was created to offer
settlement terms about property that were free, fair, fast, and final.
Army tents and supplies, and soup kitchens sustained the citizens in
the fields.
After the fire, buildings had to be brick or stone rather than
wood, except for doors and windows. Also, more plaster and tile was
used. All roofs had to be of tile or slate, rather than thatch. There
was a general use of tile for roofing. About 1714, came slate for
roofings. All buildings had to be at least two stories high, with flat
facades rather than overhanging upper floors. They had to have wide
brick walls around them to avoid the spread of fires. Many streets,
squares, and alleys were professionally planned, after the example of
Inigo Jones, who had continued his town planning with Lincoln's Inn
field's open square surrounded by houses with iron balconies. Another
example was Leiscester Square. Main streets had to be wide enough to
stop a fire. The street selling that had caused so much congestion was
removed to new market places. The massive rebuilding of London ended
the monopoly of the building trade claimed by the Mason's Company.
Astronomer and geometrician Christopher Wren designed and built a new
St. Paul's Cathedral and many churches in London, thus becoming
England's first architect. He worked up from a square base through all
sorts of shapes to a circular double dome on top. The fire put an end
to Whitehall as a royal residence and St. James Palace was used
instead. But at least one fire hazard remained: the practice of
lighting new fires by taking buckets of hot coals from one room or
house to another. This was faster than the several minutes it took to
use a tinder box to start a flame, i.e. striking a piece of flint upon
a piece of steel making a spark which was dropped onto tinder and then
blown upon. Matches were invented in this period, but expensive and
unsafe.
Nicholas Barbon began fire insurance in the 1670s. If fire
broke out on an insured premises, the insurance company's firemen would
come with leather buckets and grappling irons, and later small hand
pumps. Barbon also redeveloped many districts in London, tearing down
old buildings without hesitation. He started the system of selling off
leases to individual builders, who hoped to recover their building
costs by selling their houses before they were completed and before
substantial payments on the lease became due. Entrepreneurial
master-builders subcontracted work to craftsmen and took a large profit
or a large loss and debt. Aristocrats bought large parcels of land on
which they built their own mansions surrounded by lots to be rented to
building contractors and speculators like Barbon. The houses built on
these lots were sold and the underlying land rented. These rentals of
land made the mansions self-supporting. Barbon built rows of identical
townhouses. Sometimes houses were built on all the lots around a
square, which had gardens reserved for the use of those who lived on
the square. Most of the new building was beyond the old City walls.
Marine insurance for storms, shipwreck, piracy, mutiny, and enemy
action was also initiated. Before the fire, e.g. in Tudor times, the
writing of risks had been carried on as a sideline by merchants,
bankers, and even money lenders in their private offices and was a
private transaction between individuals.
London was residential and commercial. Around the outside were
tenements of the poor. From 1520 to 1690, London's population had risen
tenfold, while the nation's had only doubled. London went from 2% to
11% of the nation's population. In 1690, London's population was about
half a million. After 1690, London's population grew at the same rate
as the nation's. The first directory of addresses in London was
published in 1677. Business began to follow the clock more strictly and
many people thought of their watches as a necessity.
London coffee houses, which also sold wine, liquors, and meals,
became specialty meeting places. They were quieter and cheaper than
taverns; for a penny, one could sip a cup of coffee by the fire, read
the newspapers, and engage in conversation. Merchants, stock jobbers,
politician groups, soldiers, doctors and clergymen, scholars, and
literary men all had special coffee house meeting places. Notices and
letters of general interest were posted therein. Many merchants,
brokers, and underwriters, especially those whose houses had been
burned in the fire, conducted their business at their coffee house and
used it as their business address. Men in marine insurance and shipping
met at Lloyd's Coffeehouse, which was run by Edward Lloyd who
established it for this purpose in 1687. Lloyd provided reliable
shipping news with a network of correspondents in the principal ports
at home and on the continent and circulated a handwritten sheet of
lists of vessels and their latest movements at his coffeehouse. The
patrons cheered safe arrivals and shared their grief over ships lost.
They insured their own risks at one moment and underwrote those of
their friends the next. Auctions of goods and of ships and ship
materials which had been advertised in the newspapers were conducted
from a pulpit in the coffeehouse.
French wine was consumed less because of heavy taxation and
spirits and beer were consumed more. The streets were alive with
taverns, coffee houses, eating houses, and hackney coaches past 9 p.m.
at night. Coffee houses were suppressed by royal proclamation in 1675
because "malicious and scandalous reports" defaming his majesty's
government were spread there, which disturbed the peace and quiet of
the realm. But this provoked such an uproar that it was reduced to a
responsibility of the owner to prevent scandalous papers and libels
from being read and hindering any declarations any false and scandalous
reports against the government or its ministers.
London air was filthy with smoke from coal burning. In 1684 the
streets were lit with improved lights which combined oil lamps with
lenses and reflectors. Groups of householders combined to hire lighting
contractors to fulfill their statutory responsibility to hang candles
or lights in some part of their houses near the street to light it for
passengers until 9:00 p.m., and later to midnight. In 1694 a monopoly
was sold to one lighting company. In 1663 a body of paid watchmen was
established in London. An office of magistrate was created and filled
with tradesmen and craftsmen, who could make a living from the fines
and fees. This was to supplement the unpaid Justices of the Peace. The
public was encouraged to assist in crime prevention, such as being
witnesses, but most policing was left to the parishes. Crowds punished
those who transgressed community moral standards, threatened their
economic or social interests, or offended their religious or patriotic
beliefs. Often a crowd would react before the call of "stop thief" or
the hue and cry from the local constable. Pickpockets would be drenched
under a pump. Cheats would be beaten up. Dishonest shops and brothels
would be ransacked or destroyed. The most common targets were
promiscuous women and pregnant servants.
There were many highway robberies and mob actions in London.
Mobs in the thousands would turn out against the Catholics, especially
at times of unemployment and trade depression. Working people still saw
demonstrations and violence as the best way to achieve their economic
goals, since strikes didn't work. For example, the silk workers used
street violence to get protective legislation against imports and
mechanization in 1675. The manufacture of silk material had been
brought to England by French workers driven from France. In 1697, three
thousand London silk weavers demonstrated outside the Commons and East
India House against the importation of raw silks by the East India Co.,
and a couple months later, they attacked a house in the city owned by a
gentleman of the company. In 1701, heavy duties were imposed on the
import of Indian silks and wearing of Indian silks was prohibited by
statute. Sometimes mobs would break open the prisons to release fellow
rioters or take action against strike breakers or informers. Parish
constables elected by their neighbors could not control the mobs and
stayed within their parishes. Dueling was still prevalent, even though
against the law.
In London and Westminster, it was hard to enforce the
requirement that inhabitants keep the street in front of their house
clean and store the filth until the daily raker or scavenger came with
cart and dung pot. So a commission was made responsible for paving and
keeping clean the streets, making and repairing vaults, sewers, drains,
and gutters, and removing encroachments. It compensated those with
encroachments of over 30 years. It assessed inhabitants of such streets
16d. per square yard from the front of their building to the center of
the street. Women continued to empty their pails and pans outside their
doors and did their washing on stools in the streets. There was a
penalty of 5d. for throwing filth in front of one's house, and 20d. for
throwing it elsewhere in the streets. Scavengers and rakers could lodge
their coal ashes, dust, dirt, and other filth in such vacant public
places as the commission deemed convenient for accommodating country
carts returning otherwise empty after their loads were sold.
However, this system did not work because people would not pay
their assessments. So there was a return to the former system of
requiring citizens to sweep and clean the streets in front of their
buildings twice a week and keep the filth until a scavenger or raker
came. The penalty for not doing so was 3s.4d., later raised to 10s. Any
one throwing coal ashes, dust, dirt, rubbish, or dung onto the streets
or lanes incurred a fine of 5s. There was a fine of 20s. for hooping or
washing any pipes or barrels in any lane or open passage or repairing
coaches, sawing wood, or chiseling stones in the streets. Pigs kept in
or about one's house had to be forfeited.
One way that people traveled was to be carried in sedan chairs
held up by two horizontal poles with one man at the front ends and
another man in back. There were so many sedan chairs and coaches for
hire in London that the watermen lost business. All hackney coaches in
London or Westminster were required to be licensed and marked with
their owner's distinctive mark so that complaints could be made. Their
maximum rate was 10s. for a 12 hour day, and 18d. for the first hour
and 12d. for every hour thereafter. Licensed coachmen were not allowed
to practice any other trade. The coaches paid the commission 5 pounds
yearly. Hay sold along the road brought 6d. per load, and straw 2d. per
load, to the commission. There had to by paid 3d. for every cart load
of hay sold at the hay market and 1d. for every cart of straw, to go
towards paving and repairing the hay market street.
Overall, agriculture improved. Fields that would have been left fallow
were planted with new crops which restored indispensable chemical
elements to the soil. At the same time, they supplied winter food for
stock. The size and weight of animals for slaughter grew. There was so
much stock breeding that it was more economical for a family to buy
meat, milk, and eggs, than to maintain its own animals. There was an
explosion in the growing of beans, peas, lettuce, asparagus,
artichokes, and clover. The demand for food in London and other urban
areas made enclosure for crop cultivation even more profitable than for
sheep grazing. The government made no more attempts to curtail the
enclosure of farm lands. The number of enclosures grew because
copyholders were not successful in obtaining the legal security of
tenure. But most land was not enclosed.
In 1661 in the county of Essex, the wages for mowing one acre
of grass were 1s.10d.; for reaping, shearing, binding one acre of wheat
4s.; and for threshing a quarter of wheat or rye 1s.
Wives participated with their husbands in general agricultural
chores and did the dairy work including making cheese. Every
householder kept chickens because egg production was cheap, their
market price being only 1s. for a hundred. Wives also took care of the
gardening work and traditionally kept for their own the cash that came
in from garden, dairy, and poultry products. A wife made jellies and
preserves when the fruit trees, bushes, and vines were bearing.
Imported sugar enabled fruit to be preserved as jam in jars sealed with
a layer of mutton fat to make them airtight. She was likely to concoct
medications from her herbs. Meat had to be smoked or salted when there
was not enough fodder to keep animals alive through the winter. She saw
to it that the soap was boiled and the candles molded. She cooked the
daily meals, did the washing, produced cloth for the family's use, and
sewed the family's clothing.
Women had less work and lower pay than men. Since most cottages
had a spinning wheel, spinning work was readily available to wives. In
the 1670s, a female weaver or spinner was paid 2-4d. per day. A
domestic servant, who was usually female, was paid 40-80s. a year. Men
in the trades objected to competition from lower-paid women.
Aristocratic ladies actively managed their family's household and
estates. The only work available to a high middle- class woman who was
waiting to get married was to be a governess in another household or a
lady-in-waiting to a gentlewoman. Children often worked; this was
recommended so that they were under the direct supervision of their
parents rather than getting into mischief in the village. The mother
typically mingled severity with gentleness, but the father did not dare
to err on the side of leniency. Discipline was by whipping. Children
were treated as little adults. The lack of a conception of childhood
innocence even extended to the practice of adults to tell bawdy jokes
in their presence or play with their children's genitals.
About 1660, the Royal Society of London for the Promotion of
Natural Knowledge was founded by Charles II, who became its patron. It
was formed from discussion groups of the new experimental philosophy.
It included the Baconians formerly at Oxford and Cambridge, who were
ejected at the Restoration, and a group of Gresham professors of
geometry and astronomy. The Royal Society met at Gresham College. Its
goal was to compare ideas in mathematics and science and identify
specific aims of science. It published scientific reports to make its
findings generally known. This was a great improvement over the private
correspondence among scientists, which was limited by the use of
various languages. Charles himself had his own laboratory and dabbled
in chemistry and anatomy. Similar societies were formed in many places
in the world. Theologicians warned that scientific research was
dangerous. But it's advances improved agriculture, manufactures,
medicine, surgery, navigation, naval architecture, gunnery, and
engineering.
Issac Newton was a genius, who in his childhood designed and
built model windmills, water wheels, water clocks, sundials, and kites.
He came from a family which had risen from the yeomen ranks to the
gentry. For a few years after graduating from Cambridge University in
1665, he secluded himself in the countryside to study. Here, using the
work of John Wallis, he formulated the binomial theorem that expands
(A+B) raised to the nth exponent power, where n is an integer. He also
worked with numbers that had exponents that were fractions, unending
decimals, or negative numbers. Certain patterns of numbers, such as the
sum of doubling each number in a series as in: 1+2+4+8+...never
terminates; the series is infinite. He then developed the notion of a
number being the limit of the summation of an infinite converging
series of a pattern of numbers, such as the limit of
1+(1/2)+(1/4)+(1/8)...= 2. By considering the state of motion of a
mass-point in an infinitely short time under the influence of an
external force, he developed rules for finding areas under algebraic
curves [integration], such as the hyperbola, and finding tangents to
algebraic curves [differentiation], which he recognized as inverse
processes. That is, differentiating the integral of a function results
in a return to that function.
Newton discovered that colors arose from the separation, rather
than a modification, of white light, that is natural sunlight. He did
this using a prism to dissect the white light into its spectrum of
constituent colors and then using a prism and lens to recombine the
colors to reconstitute white light. The spectrum was the same as that
of a rainbow. He determined the angle of refraction of each color by
beaming white light through a prism, and then through a hole in a board
which isolated one color, to another prism. When he discovered that all
colors reflect from a mirror at the same angle, he invented and built
the reflecting telescope, which used a parabolic concave mirror and a
flat mirror instead of a convex lens, thereby eliminating the
distortions and rainbow coloring around the edges that resulted from
the refraction of different colors at different angles. He deemed a ray
of light to consist of a rapidly moving stream of atomic particles,
rather than Robert Hooke's pulses or Christian Huygens' waves, because
shadows showed a sharp boundary between the light and the absence of
light. He reasoned that if light was made up of pulses or waves, it
could spread around obstacles or corners as sound seemed to do. He
approximated the speed of sound by timing echoes in corridors of
various lengths.
Newton was methodical and combined the inductive and deductive
methods of inquiry, first making observations, and then generalizing
them into a theory, and finally deducing consequences from the theory
which could be tested by experimentation. This was the first clear
expression of the basis of the "scientific method". He carried
mathematization of data from experiments as far as possible.
Newton theorized that the same gravity force that pulled an
apple down from a tree extended out to the moon to hold it in its orbit
around the earth. He saw a connection between these movements by
imagining a cannon on a mountain shooting a series of cannonballs
parallel to the earth's surface. The first shot has only a tiny charge
of explosive, and the cannonball barely makes it out of the muzzle
before falling to the ground. The second shot is propelled by a larger
charge, and follows a parabolic arc as it falls. The next shots, fired
with increasingly more propellant, eventually disappear over the
horizon as they fall. Lastly, with enough gunpowder, a speeding
cannonball would completely circle the earth without hitting it. By
extrapolating from these ever faster projectiles, he opined that the
moon was held in its orbit by the same earth force that operated on the
projectiles. He correlated the moon's orbit with the measured
acceleration of gravity on the surface of the earth. He put various
substances with different masses and weights into the shell of a
pendulum and observed that the pendulum had the same period [time for
one oscillation] and fell at the same rate as free-falling objects.
Then he formulated the idea that the ultimate agent of nature was a
force acting between bodies rather than a moving body itself. Gravity
did not act in proportion to the surfaces of bodies, but in proportion
to quantity of matter. Gravity penetrated to the very center of all
bodies without diminution by the body. Gravity's force extended to
immense distances and decreased in exact proportion to the square of
the distance.
Newton opined that an object moves because of external forces
on it rather than by forces internal to the object. These are his three
laws of motion. 1) He connected the concepts of force and acceleration
with a new concept, that of mass. Mass is a quantity intrinsic to an
object that determines how it responds to forces, such as the force of
gravity. The greater the mass of a body, the stronger the force of
gravity on it, and the more difficult it is to get it moving. He found
that the acceleration of a body by a force is inversely proportional to
its mass, and formulated the equation that force equals mass multiplied
by acceleration. So if a force acts on a planet, it produces a change
in velocity that is proportional to the force and in the same direction
as the force.2) His law of inertia is that any body, persists in its
state of rest or of uniform motion in a straight line, unless affected
by an outside force. 3) His next law is that when a body A exerts a
force on a body B, then B also exerts a force on A which is equal in
amount but opposite in direction. This means that forces that operate
between different parts of a planet produce no net force upon the whole
planet, so that the mass of a planet can be treated as if it is
concentrated at a point.
His law of gravitation explains how the whole universe is held
together. This law holds that every object in the universe attracts
every other object with a single gravitational force that is directly
proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional
to the square of the distance between their centers. Newton had at
first accepted the Cartesian system of celestial vortices of aether
that swirled the planets and comets around their orbits. He determined
that Kepler's law that areas were swept out in equal times implied that
gravity acts in the direction of a line between the planet and the sun.
The gross features of the universe and Kepler's observations led to his
recognition that the attraction between two bodies decreases inversely
in proportion to the square of the distance between them. Only one kind
of force would satisfy Kepler's requirement that the sun was a focus of
an ellipse and still be consistent with Kepler's law that the square of
a planet's period was proportional to the cube of its mean distance
from the sun; that was the inverse square law. Then he came to accept
Robert Hooke's hypothesis that planets are kept in their orbits by the
combination of an attractive power of the sun and of motion in a
straight line that was tangential to their orbits. From astronomical
data, he calculated this centripetal acceleration of each planet
towards the sun to be proportional to the inverse square of its
distance from the sun. He also calculated the "centrifugal"
accelerations in a straight line. His experiments showed that the
centripetal force in a circular orbit was equal to the mass of the body
multiplied by the square of its velocity, all divided by the radius of
the circular path. He used calculus and differential equations to
determine centripetal forces of elliptical orbits, where the distance
from the sun, the velocity, and the acceleration were variables.
Newton showed that his single gravitational force could account
for the way free-falling objects descend to the ground, the parabolic
trajectory of projectiles, the path of the moon in its orbit around the
earth, the course of the tides every twelve hours, the lower densities
of the earth's atmosphere at greater heights, the paths of Jupiter's
moons, the paths of comets, and the elliptical paths of the planets in
their orbits around the sun. This determination discredited the
previous belief that invisible angels moved the planets. Newton proved
from his law of gravitation and his three laws of motion the truth of
Kepler's laws of elliptical planetary motion. Newton demonstrated from
data collected from the comet of 1680 that comets moved according to
his law of gravitation. He showed that the path of a body traveling
within the gravitational force of the sun is a circle, an ellipse, a
parabola, or a hyperbola. He used the concept of a common center of
gravity as a reference point for other motions. The fact that the
center of gravity of the solar system was within the body of the sun
verified that the sun was indeed at the center of the solar system.
Newton deduced that the tides were created by the rotation of
the earth with bulges of water on the earth's surfaces that were
closest and farthest from the moon. The moon "pulled" the water nearest
to it with a greater force than average. It "pulled" the water farthest
from it with a force weaker than average. These two moving bulges
created two tides a day.
Newton's "Principia Mathematica Philosophiae Naturalis", was
published in 1687. The established church denounced it as being against
the scripture of the Bible. Newton did not agree with the established
church on many points, such as the trinity, and was considered a
heretic. He had his own interpretations of the Bible and doubted the
divinity of Jesus. But it was accepted for dissenters like Newton to
qualify for full civil rights by maintaining an outward conformity and
taking the sacrament in the established church once a year. Newton was
given a royal dispensation from taking holy orders as prescribed by the
rules for tenure of fellows of his college at Cambridge University. He
did believe in a God who created the universe and who had a ubiquitous
presence in all space. When Catholic King James II tried to have a
Catholic monk admitted to the degree of a Master of Arts at Cambridge
University without taking the oath of adherence to the established
Protestant church, so that he could participate in the business of the
university, Newton was active in the opposition that defeated this
attempt. As a result, he was elected to Parliament by Cambridge.
When Olaus Roemer, a Danish astronomer, was applying Newton's
laws to the paths of the moons of Jupiter to make a table of eclipses
of Jupiter's moons for use in determining one's longitude, he noticed
that the eclipses were five hundred seconds ahead of average time at
that time of year when the earth and Jupiter were on the same side of
the sun, and five hundred seconds behind average time six months later,
when Jupiter was on the other side of the sun. He reasoned that this
difference was due to the light from Jupiter's moons taking more time
to reach the earth when Jupiter was farther from the earth, i.e. on the
other side of the sun. He concluded that light does not travel
instantaneously, but at a certain speed. From the fact that it took
1000 seconds for light to travel the diameter of the earth's orbit, he
calculated its speed in 1676.
In 1668, Christian Huygens formulated the law of conservation
of momentum [mass multiplied by velocity], which held that when objects
collide, they may each change direction, but the sum of all their
momenta will remain the same. Huygens also recognized the conservation
of what was later called "kinetic energy", which is associated with
movement. He developed laws of centrifugal force for uniform motion in
a circle. He derived the formula for computing the oscillations of a
simple pendulum. In 1690, he posited the theory that light consists of
a series of waves. It states that all points of a wave front of light
in a vacuum may be regarded as new sources of wavelets that expand in
every at a rate depending on their velocities. He thought this a better
explanation of bending and interference of light than Newton's particle
theory.
In 1661, Robert Boyle, called the father of modern chemistry,
defined an element as a substance that cannot be further decomposed. He
distinguished an element from both a mixture, which is easily
separable, and a compound, which is not easily separable. He used an
air pump he developed and a glass jar to create a confined vacuum space
for experiments to find the properties of heat, light, and sound. He
noted that burning objects such as candles and coal, when placed in the
receiver of his air pump, went out after a time although air was still
present. He opined that animals were dependent upon a fresh supply of
air to live. He studied the relationship between the volume, density,
and pressure of air and gases. He proved by experiment that the volume
of a gas at a constant temperature varies in inverse proportion to the
pressure applied to the gas. Since gas is compressible, he opined that
gases must be composed of discrete particles separated by void, and
also that basic physical properties were due to motions of particles,
or atoms, which was an ancient Greek conjecture. This cast doubt on the
long-held belief that everything was composed from four basic elements:
air, water, fire, and earth. Boyle's laboratory at Oxford was denounced
by the Oxford clergy as destroying religion. In 1679, the steam
pressure cooker was invented by Denis Papin from France. He invented
the atmospheric engine in 1690.
Robert Hooke helped Boyle build his air pump. Hooke was
thirteen when his father, a minister, died. Hooke was a genius with
innate mechanical skill and was an able mathematician. He applied a
spiral spring to regulate the balance of watches. A lord financed him
as a Gresham lecturer of geometry for 50 pounds a year. In 1666, he
used a pendulum to measure the force of gravity and showed that the
center of gravity of the earth and moon is a point describing an
ellipse around the sun. In 1667, he explained the twinkling of the
stars by irregular atmospheric refractions. He formulated the theory
that light is composed of pulses. Hooke's Law states that the amount an
elastic body such as a spring stretches out of shape is in direct
proportion to the force acting on it: its tension. He invented the
odometer, a wheel to measure distances. He constructed an arithmetical
machine. He invented the universal joint, which can move in many
angles. His book of drawings of microscopic animals is a classic. He
proposed that fossils can be used as a source of information about the
earth's history. Hooke became rich from his inventions, but this was
not known until his death, when thousands of pounds were found in his
iron chest.
In 1668, Wallis postulated the correct theory of impacts of
inelastic bodies, based on the principle of conservation of momentum.
In 1685, he introduced the first graphical representation of complex
numbers.
Royal astronomer and genius Edmond Halley, the son of a soap
maker, studied tides, magnetism, and the paths of comets and stars. He
went on voyages to study the heavens from different positions, thereby
laying the foundations of physical geography. He showed that the stars
change in position in relation to each other. With Newton's help, he
calculated the orbit of a comet he saw in 1682 to be elliptical rather
than parabolic and then proved it was the same comet that had appeared
in 1531 and 1607, indicating it's regularity; it was then named
"Halley's comet". However, the Church of England still embraced the
idea that comets and eclipses were evidence of God's wrath. Greenwich
Observatory was built in 1675. Halley used a barometer to measure the
density of the atmosphere and related its readings to elevations into
the atmosphere and to weather. He determined that the cause of the
tropical trade winds was the sun warming the tropical air at the
equator, causing it to rise and move north as it was replaced by cooler
air from the north. This body of air was deflected by the rotation of
the earth. He illustrated the tropical winds with the first
meteorological map. He made a descent in a diving bell, which was used
to try to reach wrecked treasure ships. He studied fossils and
perceived them as remnants of living beings that had died long ago, and
imagined a succession of living things. Halley surveyed the tides and
coasts of the British Channel for the king in 1701.
In 1675, apothecary Nicolas Lemery divided substances into
mineral, vegetable, and animal. He wrote a dictionary of
pharmaceuticals.
John Ray and Francis Willoughby were friends who traveled
together to study plants and animals respectively. John Ray started the
science of zoology with his edition of Francis Willoughby's
"Ornithology" on birds and his own "History of Fishes". He also
attempted the first scientific classification of animals in his
"Synopsis of Quadrupeds". Ray compared anatomies and experimented on
movements of plants and the ascent of sap. He knew that fossils were
remnants of old animals. Ray first suggested the concept of species in
classification of animals and plants. He opined that the goodness and
wisdom of God was shown not only by the usefulness of animals to man's
uses as taught by the church, but also by the adaptation of animals to
their own lives and surroundings. The vast array and dispersal of
animals found by world explorers all over the world cast doubt on the
biblical story of Noah putting two of every kind of animal on an ark.
The science of botany began with Ray's "History of Plants" and the
researches of Robert Morrison, who was Charles' physician and keeper of
his gardens.
Nicholaus Steno, a Danish physician, diagrammed six levels of
stratification on the earth's surface and demonstrated in 1669 that
layers of strata of rock are always deposited with the oldest layers on
the bottom and the youngest layers on the top. This began the science
of geology. He argued that shifts in the earth's strata caused the
formation of mountains. He identified fossils as ancient creatures. The
idea that fossils were remnants of dead animals existing before man
conflicted with the religious idea that Adam's fall began sin and
caused death. The idea from fossils that existing species of animals
were modifications of predecessor animals conflicted with the religious
belief that Noah's ark had preserved all the varieties of animals. John
Aubrey described Stonehenge, thus founding prehistoric archaeology. He
thought it to be a Druid temple.
The telescope and compound microscope, which has an objective
lens and an eyepiece lens for producing a wide range of magnifications,
were further developed. The cellular basis of life was discovered and
described by Robert Hooke. Nehemia Grew, the son of a grammar school
master who became a physician, observed and drew plant anatomy,
including leaves, flowers, fruits, seeds, ovules, pollen grains, and
stamens. He was the first to observe the existence of plant sexuality.
Italian Marcello Malpighi, a physician, used the new compound
microscope to study human skin, spleen, kidneys, and liver and also
compared the livers of several types of animals. He discovered
capillaries linking the arterial and venous circulation in the lungs.
Dutchman Anton van Leeuwenhock, a cloth manufacturer who made
microscopes to inspect the quality of cloth, turned them to use in
understanding the life cycles of mites, lice, and fleas. He correctly
described human blood cells. When he found what he described as tiny
animals (bacteria, protozoa, and rotifers), he sent clear descriptions
of them to the Royal Society in London as proof against the theory of
spontaneous generation, which held that lower forms of life could arise
from nonliving matter. This started the science of bacteriology. With
the discovery of the egg in the female reproductive system, the status
of women was lifted.
Physician Thomas Willis, son of a farmer, dissected brains of
men and animals to study the anatomical relations of nerves and
arteries. Excess urine had been associated with a wasting disease.
Willis identified diabetes mellitus with excess of urine that was
sweet. Physician Thomas Sydenham, son of a gentleman, observed epidemic
diseases of London over successive years, thus founding epidemiology.
He also furthered clinical medicine by emphasizing detailed
observations of patients and maintaining accurate records. He wrote a
treatise on gout and identified scarlet fever. He introduced a cooling
method of treating smallpox. But he still relied on the big three
treatments: bloodletting, purging, and sweating. Bloodletting was to
draw off bad blood so that it could be replaced by a better fluid.
Another treatment used was cupping, whereby a vacuum was created by
heated glass cups to draw blood to the surface of the skin. John Locke
performed one of the first successful operations draining a kind of
abscess of a man's liver. It was common for people who felt ill to take
a laxative and rest at home.
In 1690, physicians opened the first dispensaries, which gave
treatment and medicine together, to take business away from their
rivals: the apothecaries. London's apothecaries were released in 1694
from jury service and service as constable, scavenger, or other parish
or ward office because it was necessary that they be available to
attend the sick at all times. Peruvian bark which had quinine as its
alkaloid had been introduced as a proven cure for the ague, a fever
with chills usually due to malaria, in 1653. The English ceased to
believe in holy wells, but went to spas such as Bath for treatment of
disease.
There was more bathing because private homes in towns now had indoor
baths. The public baths came into disuse.
For childbirth, only rich women were attended by physicians. Most
physicians used talismen such as the eagle stone at deliveries.
Caesarian section almost always led to the death of the mother.
Midwives were licensed by the church and could baptize babies. Jane
Sharp wrote "The Midwives Book" with anatomical illustrations.
Women over thirty had fewer children and the last child born was at an
earlier age than before. This was in part due to birth control such as
coitus-interruptus, long breast-feeding of a current child and/or the
taboo against sex if the wife was still breast-feeding. Rich women
often employed wet-nurses to breast- feed their babies. Babies seldom
thrived, or even survived, without out a regular supply of breast milk.
John Locke, an Oxford don, physician, and son of an attorney, expressed
a view that the monarchy was not based on divine right, but rather on a
contractual relationship with the people, who were reasonable, free,
and equal by nature. This idea was first adopted by revolutionists and
then became accepted as orthodoxy. Also, he articulated the right of
resistance, the supremacy of legislative assemblies, and the
responsibility of rulers to answer to their subjects. He theorized that
men turn to forming a civil government when there is a need to protect
accumulated property from some unreasonable men. This, along with the
protection of life and liberty, was the primary function of government,
before royal pleasure, national pride, or foreign conquest. He wrote
theories on the interaction of supply, demand, interest rates, rents,
coinage, and foreign exchange rates. He believed that interest rates
should be the natural ones determined by market forces rather than by
the legislature, especially if there was an attempt to lower interest
rates below their natural rate, which was not only undesirable but
easily circumvented. He thought that attempting to legislate contrary
to natural economic laws, e.g. prices, was doomed to failure from
unexpected consequences. He agreed with most mercantilists that by
maintaining a large inflow of precious metals through consistent export
of surpluses in foreign trade would lead to low interest rates,
increased trade, increased capital stock, high employment, and high
prices, and therefore a healthy economy and enrichment of the nation.
Locke thought that knowledge comes primarily from experience,
i.e. sensation and reflection, rather than from innate ideas placed in
the mind by God, so that observation and experimentation are necessary
to find truth. He theorized that propositions of truth have probability
rather than certainty. Probable propositions included opinion, belief,
and revelation. His "Thoughts on Education" was a great book on the
formation of character. Locke also advocated the use of a large field
for inventing labor-saving and economic devices for agriculture. He
espoused freedom of thought in "Letters on Toleration" and wrote "An
Essay Concerning Human Understanding", which described how the mind
functions in learning about the world and which attempted to reconcile
science and Christianity. He was a great admirer and friend of Newton
and they shared religious views. He was also a member of the Royal
Society.
At Oxford and Cambridge Universities, there were the most
enlightened theologians, classicists, orientalists, philologists,
mathematicians, chemists, architects, and musicians. There were
professors of Anglo-Saxon, Hebrew, and Arabic. John Locke's influence
caused modern philosophy to supercede traditional scholasticism. There
were no more disputations to qualify for degrees. Some of the students
were the sons of noblemen and sat at meals with the heads, tutors, and
fellows of the colleges. Most students were the sons of landowners,
clergymen, professional men, or prosperous men of business. They were
known as the gentlemen commoner students. The few poor students were
known as servitors and paid for their education by menial work.
Corporal punishment ceased. Instead there were fines, suspension, and
expulsion. Fellows of colleges had common rooms for drinking and
smoking together as they had done in taverns outside college walls. The
king had authority to grant licenses in sell or give land in
perpetuity, to encourage founding and augmenting colleges and schools.
The two universities were vested with the presentation of benefices
that had belonged to Papists.
English nonconformists such as Presbyterians were excluded from
Oxford and Cambridge Universities, so they were educated at Glasgow in
Scotland.
Grammar schools were blamed for the past civil war by educating
too many people above their station, so ecclesiastical control now
stifled them. A few dissenting schools were established. Charity was
given to schools for children of the poor for placement as apprentices,
but not to educate them above their stations.
In the 1670s, about 70% of males in London were literate. By
1680, illiteracy was a special characteristic of the poor instead of a
characteristic of the vast majority of common people as in 1580.
Fountain pens came into use.
Many books written tended to be about the author's experiences,
for instance Samuel Pepys' "Diary", Gilbert Burnet's "History of my own
Times", John Evelyn's lifelong diary with vivid descriptions of
striking events of the day, and nonconformist Celia Fiennes'
description of her tour of England on horseback. There were many
political biographies. Historians did not yet study history as a
continuous process, but narrated self-contained stories to instruct by
example. William Fleetwood wrote about economic history in "Chronicon
Preciogum". George Hicks put together a "Thesaurus" of the northern
languages. Thomas Hyde wrote on ancient Persian religion. John Spenser
compared Jewish rites with those of other Semitic people, thus starting
comparative religion. Richard Bentley, William's librarian, wrote a
"Dissertation" on the ancient Greeks. He compared the ancient Greek
life with modern life. He also confuted atheism on the Newtonian
system. A translated version of "Critical History of Old Testament" by
Frenchman Richard Simon identified the old testament as history instead
of divine revelation. John Milton wrote "Paradise Lost", which retells
the Biblical story of the Creation and the fall of Adam and Eve against
the backdrop of Satan's rebellion and expulsion from heaven and
emphasized God's justice in spite of everything. The poem deals with
the puritan struggling against evil and the problem of sin and
redemption. It has a cold and severe conception of moral virtue and
stoical self-repression in its characters. There is no sympathy with
the human condition. Reading this book made the English more serious,
earnest, and sober in life and conduct and more firm in the love of
freedom. John Bunyan wrote "Pilgrim's Progress" in which a tinker takes
a journey to find the Everlasting City of heaven and on the way meets
people who try to harm him. But he derives strength from his
adversities. The journey is a metaphor for the Christian soul trying to
find salvation. It is Puritan in its sympathies and has insights into
human nature. John Dryden wrote on large social, political, and
humanistic issues, often by political satire. William Congreve wrote
plays such as a comedy on manners. William Wycherley wrote cynical
satires and portrayed folly, affection, and vice. John Vanbrugh wrote
plays satirizing London high society and social institutions. John
Toland wrote "Christianity and Mysterious" on deism. "Puss in Boots",
"Red Ridinghood", and "Cinderella" became available in print. There
were many female poets, bookwriters, and playwrights. Anne Finch, later
Vicountess Conway, wrote the philosophical book: "Principle of the Most
Ancient and Modern Philosophy" to reconcile the new science with
Christian belief. In it every creature had a body and a spirit. Mrs.
Aphra Behn wrote "Oroonoko", one of the first novels. Basua Makin,
governess of the little sister of Charles II wrote an essay to revive
the education of women, arguing that women's activity in wartime showed
that they were fit to be educated. Elizabeth Elstob, who studied
Teutonic languages, was one of the founders of women's education. Mary
Astell proposed a college for women. Some women painted portraits.
There were rigid censorship acts from 1662 to 1695. The first
required that no one could print a book without first registering it
with the Company of Stationers of London and having it licensed by
appropriate authority: common law books by the Lord Chancellor or the
Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, affairs of state and history books by
the Secretaries of State, heraldry books by the Earl Marshall or Kings
of Arms Garter, university books by the Chancellor or Vice Chancellor
of either of the universities, and all others including divinity,
physics, and philosophy by the Archbishop of Canterbury, or Bishop of
London. Books could be imported only into London and not sold until
approved by the Archbishop of Canterbury or Bishop of London after
being opened and viewed by a scholar appointed by these bishops and a
representative of the Company of Stationers. If heretical, seditious,
scandalous, schismatic or otherwise dangerous or offensive, the
importer could be punished. No one could print or import copies of any
books without consent of the owner with right by letters patent. The
penalty for not doing so was to forfeit 6s.9d. for each such book, of
which the king would receive one half and the owner one half. Printers
had to set their own name to the books they printed and also the name
of the author or else forfeit such book. Only freemen of London who
were members of the Company of Stationers could sell books. The Company
of Stationers had the authority accompanied by a constable to search
all houses and shops where they knew or had "probable reason" to
suspect books were being printed. They could search houses of persons
of other trades only by special warrant. They could examine books found
to determine if they were licensed and, if not, to seize them. Justices
could imprison offenders. The first offense by offending printers was
to be punished by suspension from printing for three years, the second
offense by permanent disallowance from printing, fine, imprisonment,
and corporal punishment not extending to life or limb. This statute was
enforced by frequent prosecutions, such as of publishers of
pornographic books.
The only newspapers to appear between 1660 and 1679 were
official government sheets. But in 1695 the requirement to license
publications, including newspapers, was abolished, thereby giving some
freedom to the press. Locke had argued for this freedom, stating "I
know not why a man should not have liberty to print whatever he would
speak and to be answerable for the one just as he is for the other..."
In 1702 the first daily newspaper in the world came into existence in
England. The Stationer's Company monopoly of printing also ended in
1695. Printing was not regulated and no longer criminal just because it
was unauthorized. Printing could now be done in other places than
London, York, Oxford, and Cambridge.
The rich got richer and the poor got poorer. Many successful
merchants and manufacturers bought landed estates and established a
line of country squires or baronets or even peers. The fashion started
in the nobility and the richest mercantile families that their wives
should become ladies of leisure. For workers though, there was constant
underemployment. In periods of economic crisis industrial workers lost
their jobs. Much work was seasonal. Anyone who could work most of the
time was fortunate. Laboring and out- servants, who comprised one
fourth of the population, and cottagers and paupers, who comprised
another fourth of the population, had to spend more than they earned.
The poor rate collected from the parishes for the cottagers and paupers
was 3d. per week. There was an agricultural depression that was deepest
in the 1680s after the collapse of a boom. It was the only bad
depression experienced in peace time. There was famine in 1698.
Any person receiving relief from any parish and his family
members cohabiting with him was required to wear a badge with a "P"
which identified his parish. This was to differentiate them from idle,
sturdy, and disorderly beggars who were not entitled to relief.
There were more poor people and, despite the poor laws, many
became rogues or vagabonds or starved to death. Many went from parish
to parish to build cottages and consumed all the wood there and then
went to another parish. So the parishes were allowed by statute to
remove any person coming to settle in any tenement under the value of
ten pounds who was likely to be chargeable to it. They were then
removed to the last parish were they had resided for at least forty
days. Excepted were people temporarily moving to another parish to work
at harvest time. The overall effect was to decrease the mobility of
people. But a later statute permitted greater movement of poor people
by allowing those who were poor for want of work to go to another
parish where labor was wanted. They had to bring a certificate of their
present parish membership to the new parish, where they could settle if
they rented a tenement worth ten pounds a year or served in a parish
office. Later, settlement had to be given to inhabitants paying its
parish's rates, and unmarried inhabitants hired for one year, and
apprentices bound by indenture. But parishes were displeased with the
requirement to give settlements to these people because they feared
they would become poor and need parish assistance, thereby increasing
the rates to be paid.
Parish poor houses were converted into spinning schools to
obtain an income. Parishes of large towns were combined to set up large
workhouses, where the poor could be set to unskilled manufacture, but
the managers lacked the character and education to make them work.
Because prisoners often died before trial and the poor
prisoners became instructed in the practice of thievery in prison, they
were set to work on materials provided to them at public expense. No
parish was rated at more than 6d. per week for such. The president and
governors of corporations oversaw rogues, vagrants, sturdy beggars, and
idle or disorderly persons working in corporations or workhouses.
Assessments were made for building and repairing gaols in order
to maintain the health and safe custody of the prisoners. Also, gaol
fever, a virulent form of typhus, was so prevalent in the large prisons
for criminals and debtors that it frequently spread through the
adjacent towns. During some assizes, it killed sheriffs, lawyers, and
justices.
In 1692, London lands were taxed for the relief of orphans.
Churchwardens could seize the goods and chattels of putative fathers
and mothers deserting bastard children.
From 1691 to 1740, Societies for the Reformation of Manners
prosecuted poor people for moral offenses.
All hackney coaches and stage coaches in all the realm became
required to be licensed. The turnpike system came into use. Tolls were
paid for road upkeep and repair by private companies. The local
parishes ceased to have this responsibility. John Ogilby wrote the
first road book based on actual surveys of the roads. Stage coaches
cost a shilling for every five miles and went 40-50 miles a day. The
trip from London to Oxford was twelve hours. The company of Coach and
Coach Harness Makers was founded with the consent of the king. The body
of a coach hung from the frame by leather braces. One axle pivoted for
turns. Plate glass was used in the windows. Rivers improved so that
most places were no more distant from navigable waters than a long
day's haul on land.
The several post offices were put under the authority of one
Postmaster General appointed by the king for the purpose of speed and
safety of dispatches, which were carried by horseback. One sheet letter
going less than 80 miles cost 2d., and more than 80 miles, 4d.
When the army was disbanded after the Restoration, its officers
and soldiers were allowed return to their trades and their
apprenticeships without serving the usual seven years. Parishes were
required to provide for poor and maimed officers and soldiers who
served Charles I or Charles II. The Royal Hospital founded by Charles
as a home for veteran soldiers opened in 1692. Greenwich palace was
converted to a hospital for seamen and their widows and children to
encourage men to become seamen: mariner, seaman, waterman, fisherman,
lighterman, bargeman, keelman, or seafaring man in the king's Navy.
Also, children of disabled seamen were to be educated at the expense of
the hospital.
Charles retained one regiment from which he started a small
standing army, which slowly increased in size ever after. The army was
primarily mercenary, as it had been in medieval times, with officers
buying their commissions. Colonels were the proprietors of their
regiments and captains were the proprietors of their companies. The
soldiers were ill mannered, swearing and cursing and stealing,
sometimes from peoples' homes, and intimidating people with their
swords. The bayonet was invented to attach onto a gun, which were
muzzle-loading with a match lock. So pikemen with their long spears
became obsolete. Hand grenades and small explosive bombs came into use
about 1670.
Explosives were also used in mines. Mines for coal became
deeper as coal replaced the use of increasingly expensive wood charcoal
for brewing and for brick, glass, and china manufacture. Flooding of
coal, tin and copper mines became a problem. In 1698, Thomas Savery
invented the Miner's Friend, a practical atmospheric steam engine
without a piston.
There was resort to many devices to fund wars. The land tax was
still the primary tax. The customs and excise taxes were often extended
to more goods and wares. Sometimes there were duties imposed on
marriages, births, and deaths. Also, hawkers, peddlers, and other
trading persons going from town to town to other men's houses on foot
or on horse carrying wares had to buy a license. There were also loans
from privileged companies such as the Bank of England, East India Co.,
and the South Sea Co. Commissioners were appointed to take and state
the account of all money in the public revenue. This discouraged the
prevalent corruption of government officials and thereby the people
were encouraged to pay their taxes.
The Goldsmiths loaned money to the king and to private persons
and to the Exchequer. Receipts from Goldsmiths for storage in strong
boxes had become a de facto paper currency. But when the Goldsmiths had
no more money to lend, the Bank of England was founded in 1694 under
whig auspices to provide money for war. It was the first institution to
issue notes in excess of its total deposits. However, it was not
allowed to lend money to the Crown without the consent of Parliament.
It was incorporated as the first English joint-stock bank and had about
1,300 shareholders. These original subscribers were individuals from
London from many walks of life, including well-to-do tradesmen and
about 12% of whom were women: wives, widows, or spinsters. Not many
corporations were original subscribers. Holders of at least 500 pounds
could vote, of 2000 pounds could be directors, and of 4000 pounds could
be Governor. The Bank issued notes payable to bearer and discounted
bills, but these were not legal tender. It lent at 8% to the Crown and
occasionally to corporations. Money was also borrowed by offering
annuities on single lives. This was the first time the government
borrowed directly from the public on a long- term basis.
In 1695 there was inflation due to over issue by the Bank
because of inexperience, pressure from government, and the Bank's greed
for business. After a dividend of 5% in 1695, the next year there was
no dividend and so the bank stock price fell. In 1696, five pound and
ten pound short term bonds were sold to the public. Also in that year
was the first run on the bank. This occurred two days after clipped
money lost currency; people wanted the new recoined money, but the Mint
had not supplied the Bank with sufficient supplies. Interest instead of
cash was given for notes. Cash was short for months. The Bank's credit
was much shaken. It was then given a monopoly so that its notes would
not have competition. Thereafter, its dividends were good - about 12%
per year. Because of its monopoly, its dividends were about 3% above
the current going rate of interest. About this time, Exchequer Bills,
with interest, were started by the Exchequer and circulated by the Bank
of England. They were frequently endorsed many times by successive
holders.
The Bank simply took over from the goldsmiths its main everyday
business of deposit, with a running cash note [cashier's note, specie
note, cash note], which was payable on demand and normally did not bear
interest; and a drawn note [precursor to the check, but not on special
paper]. The Bank gradually convinced many of its clients to use its
"check" [cheque] paper when drawing. The check paper was unique to the
Bank and embellished with distinctive scroll work to serve as an
obstacle to fraud. Over time the running cash note tended to be for
round sums of at least twenty pounds and multiples of five pounds. The
Bank of England had a monopoly on issuing notes in the London area.
Country banks arose and issued bearer notes payable on demand and
interest-bearing notes in their areas. The Bank of England gave to its
depositors the service of paying annually to a designee without further
order.
A decision of the common law courts held that bills of exchange
(written orders to pay a given a sum on a given date) were transferable
to other people by successive endorsements. So long distance payments
no longer had to be made in coin, with all the dangers of highway
robbery.
The financial revolution of the 1690s meant that the merchant
elite could invest in government bonds or company bonds at 5-6%, or
London leases at 10%, as opposed to income from landed estates, which
was under 3%. Shareholders were no longer personally liable for company
losses. Interest on loans was no longer considered sinful as long as it
was not oppressive. The greater ability to borrow spurred the growth of
capitalism.
All brokers and stock jobbers in London and Westminster of bank
stock, bank bills, shares and interests in joint stock must be licensed
by the mayor, which shall necessitate their taking an oath to exercise
their office without fraud or collusion to the best of his skill and
knowledge as of 1697. This is to avoid the collusion of fixing values
to their own advantage.
Compilations of tables of mortality originated the science of
life-statistics. This made life insurance possible. But it was
administered by ad hoc offices rather than companies and was not
reliable in making payments.
William Petty made a statistical study of economics and
determined that the basic values of an economy derive not from its
store of treasure, but from its capacity for production. Trade was
studied empirically by statistics by new offices such as the Inspector
General of Imports and Exports.
Charles instituted a hearth tax of 2s. per year in 1662, with
constables and officers authorized to verify the number of hearths and
stoves in houses. It was repealed in 1688 because it could not be
enforced except by exposing every man's house to be entered and
searched at pleasure by persons unknown to the people, which was
oppressive and a badge of slavery.
By bribes, Charles built up a body of support in Parliament
which could be relied upon for a majority. They came to be called
"tories" by their opponents. "Tory" had been a term of abuse for Irish
Catholic bandits. The tory and whig groups were known by their
disagreement over the authoritarianism of the Crown. The tories were
sympathetic to the doctrine of divine right and favored a doctrinally
high church. The tories represented landed property and the established
church, and usually wore blue in contrast to the purple of royalty.
Many royalists became tories. The whigs refused to accept the
sacrosanct character of the monarchy. The whigs opined that government
depended upon consent of the people and that the people had a right of
resistance. They subordinated the Crown to Parliament. The whigs
represented the dissenters and the mercantile classes, and often wore
red. Many former Puritans became whigs. "Whig" had been a term of abuse
for Scots Presbyterian rebels and horse thieves.
The gout and venereal disease were common among political
leaders. A primitive condom just introduced to the aristocracy from
France helped deter syphilis, but was uncomfortable and unreliable.
Under Charles II, the Treasury as a supreme financial body
separated from the Exchequer as a depository of revenue. A gold guinea
coin was issued. From 1690, government policy was controlled by
specific appropriations. Money bills had to originate in the Commons,
and could not be amended by the House of Lords.
Boards became independent of the king's Privy Council and
answerable to the secretary of state.
In the 1680s, Charles compelled some of the livery companies in
London to give up their charters to him and he called in many
corporation charters of boroughs whenever some light excuse could be
found to justify it. This was done by the use of the writ of quo
warranto [by what authority] before a court. In London he had the tory
mayor revive an ancient custom of selecting a sheriff by drinking to
him at the annual feast. Two tory sheriffs were installed into office.
All these actions gave the king a voice in selection of the officers of
London and boroughs, since Royal commissioners would then determine who
the officers would be. This was to assure London's representation in
Parliament by Crown loyalists as London had been whig. It also allowed
influenced selection of sympathetic jurors.
Criminal seditious libel was brought into the common law courts
in 1664, when Benjamin Keach was tried for writing a book containing
contradictions of the doctrine of the established church. He wrote
against infant baptism and asserted that laymen might preach the
gospel. The justice intimidated the jury to find him guilty. He was
sentenced to be fined, to spend two hours in the pillory in two
successive weeks, and his book to be burned before his face. He was to
be imprisoned until he found sureties for his good behavior and
renunciation of his doctrine and for his future appearance in court.
Juries were loath to find anyone guilty of seditious libel.
James II succeeded Charles II to the throne and fostered Roman
Catholicism by appointments and by attempting to suspend laws
unfavorable to Catholics. He commanded all bishops to read in the
churches his Declaration of Indulgence exempting both Catholic and
Protestant dissenters from all penal statutes based on religion. Seven
bishops refused to obey and jointly petitioned him, stating that his
action was illegal according to Parliament. He prosecuted them for
seditious libel in the petition. The jury found them not guilty. James
discharged the two justices of the five who had rejected the seditious
libel doctrine which had been created by the Star Chamber Court. This
roused the whigs and tories in turn to discharge him by joining in
inviting Protestants William of Orange and Mary to take the throne in
his place. James was effectively chased out of England by William's
advancing army in the Glorious Revolution of 1688-9, which took away
the powers of final authority from the king, but without transferring
them to any other body. A "Bill of Rights" stated that
1. -The king may not suspend laws or dispense with them without
consent of Parliament.
2. -The establishment of a Court of Commissioners and like bodies for
ecclesiastical causes is illegal.
3. -The king may not levy money or extend an authorized levy without
consent of Parliament.
4. -Subjects have a right to petition the king without prosecution.
5. -The king may not raise or keep a standing army within the country
in time of peace without the consent of Parliament.
6. -Protestants may have arms for their defense as allowed by law.
7. -The elections of members of Parliament should be free.
8. -The freedom of speech or debates or proceedings in Parliament
should not be impeached or questioned in any court or place outside of
Parliament.
9. -Excessive bail should not be required, nor excessive fines imposed,
nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted (so no more men were
whipped to death).
10. Jury selection should not be tampered with, and jurors who try men
for high treason should be freeholders.
11. All grants and promises of fines and forfeiture of particular
persons, before conviction, are illegal and void.
12. Parliament should be held frequently for redress of grievances and
for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the laws.
13. All Protestants may freely exercise their religion and the king
will maintain the Protestant religion and the law and liberty of the
realm.
The right of the peoples' representatives to select and depose
the king and to change the order of succession was established. There
was no divine right or hereditary right to the Crown. An English
monarch was created by an act of Parliament. The king still called and
dissolved Parliaments, except that Parliament continued for six months
after the death of a king. From 1689, Parliament sat every year.
Freedom of speech for members of Parliament was established by a
resolution overturning a King's Bench felony conviction of Sir John
Elliot.
By the act of settlement of 1701, no officer or pensioner of
the king could be a member of Parliament. All resolutions by the Privy
Council had to be signed by the members consenting to them. No one born
outside the realm could be a member of the Privy Council or of
Parliament, or could have any civil or military office or place of
trust, or any grants of land or tenements from the king. Justices
served during good behavior instead of at the pleasure of the king.
After the Glorious Revolution, Tories tended to accept of the
Whig principles of limited constitutional monarchy instead of rule by
divine right.
Under William and Mary, the ministers were first chosen by them
but could be impeached by the Commons and then removed by the
Parliament. The Commons removed anyone who disagreed with them as soon
as he made a mistake. But the king could pardon anyone convicted by
Parliamentary bill of attainder. This was inconsistent, so no one was
allowed to plead pardon by the king in an impeachment by the Commons.
Thus Parliament gained control of who would be ministers.
The Glorious Revolution favored the capitalists and the
commercial magnates even though it had been started by the landed
families, with whom they now intermarried. There were companies in the
fishing, silk, baize [a coarse wool], sugar, rope, paper, iron,
hardware, cutlery, gunpowder, saw milling, and pottery trades. These
industries for manufacturing were organized on capitalist lines rather
than being subject to guilds. That is, production was controlled by men
with money and the means of manufacture. The largest pottery workshops
employed about six men. One man shaped the pots, another made the
handles and put them on, while the others did the decoration, the
glazing, and the firing. New companies could be formed without royal or
Parliamentary consent. Regulated companies declined. There were no more
commercial monopolies. The Merchant Adventurers lost their last
monopoly privileges and their entrance fees were abolished. Their
method of limiting the volume of their exports of English cloth to
Germany to keep up prices was obsolete. Now they tried to capture the
market by selling cheap. There were more joint-stock companies and on a
larger scale. They also no longer restricted output to keep prices
high, but geared to export many inexpensive goods.
Drinking of gin, which had first been made by a Flemish
physician, became popular under King William, who was Dutch. The year
of his accession, the gin monopoly ended.
From the mid-1500s to 1700, coal production increased fourteen
times. Sir Ambrose Crowley, an iron maker with coal works, established
disability and medical benefits and pensions for his workers.
The capitalist organization of the mining, glass manufacture,
salt, soap, wire and other monopolized industries was made possible
only by government support. Salt and glass manufacture expanded. Glass
drinking vessels were in common use. Mirrors of blown plate glass were
manufactured in England. In 1670, Vauxhall glass works were opened with
workmen brought from Venice to blow their fine glass and make mirrors.
Some plate glass by casting was imported. Plate glass was a large and
strong glass piece, which was formed by the liquid glass being poured
on a table. This glass was not distorted, so mirrors could be made
perfectly reflective. Then plate glass for coaches, mirrors, and
windows became manufactured in England; this new industry was organized
on capitalist lines.
The domestic or "putting out" system came into use. In this
system, the worker usually owned his own machinery and the capitalist
owned the material, which he put out to the worker at home. The
merchant manufacturer bought raw wool and had it carded, spun, woven,
fulled, and dressed at his own expense. Some farmers became spinners in
the winter when outside work was impossible. The manufacture of nails
was also done by this system. Accordingly, the guilds and municipal
corporations in towns ceased to control the recruiting, conditions of
work, and pay of industries. Only a quarter of 200 towns had any
organized guilds at all. The growing town of Birmingham was not a
chartered borough, so never was encumbered with guild regulations.
Overall, the guild and apprentice regulations were effectively enforced
only in agriculture work. Artisans became known as tradesmen. Work was
usually irregular, some seasonal. In bad years, when a worker had to
borrow money, he used work tools, such as his loom, as security. In
this way, one's work tools often became the property of a merchant.
Some merchant clothiers also owned a fulling mill and a shop where the
cloth was sold. The capitalists first became owners of the materials,
then of the implements, and then of the work places. But production was
still confined to the known wants of its habitual market. Men used to
working at home were generally not inclined to go to work in a factory.
So there was an assortment of unskilled factory labor, such as country
people driven from their villages by the growth of large estates,
disbanded soldiers, and paupers. They had to be taught, trained, and
above all disciplined.
Smiths used trip hammers powered by watermills which turned
axles with cams on them. They made iron gates, fences, balconies, and
staircases with hammer, anvil, and chisel. Cast iron was made by
running liquefied metal into molds. This was harder but more brittle
than the tough but malleable wrought iron. Tinkers went from house to
house to repair metal items such as pots and pans.
The East India Company had about half the trade of the nation.
Its shares were frequently bought and sold. It responded to anger over
its semi-monopoly status by granting liberty to all English subjects
below the age of forty to live in its Indian settlements and to trade
practically everywhere. Bombay, India became subject to the East India
Company. Charters gave the East India Company the right to coin money,
to exercise jurisdiction over English subjects, to levy taxes, to build
and command fortresses, to command English and Indian troops, to make
peace and war, and to enter into alliances with Indian rulers. The
Company always paid high dividends and the market price of its shares
generally rose. 100 pound stock was worth 130 pounds in 1669, 245
pounds in 1677, 280 pounds in 1681, 360 and even up to 500 pounds in
1683, and then fell to 190 pounds in 1692. In 1693 a new charter for
the Company included loss of monopoly status by resolution of the
Commons. With this resolution, Parliament assumed the right of
regulating commerce, now no longer the king's province. Thereafter the
Commons regulated trade with India and determined who could participate
in trade there. Political issues developed, which initiated corruption
at elections by entertainment and bribes to candidates, which were
later proscribed. The trade opened up to many more traders and
investors. Ordinary investors came to include women and Quakers. The
Stock Exchange was incorporated about 1694.
Exports included grain, silk, metal wares, foodstuffs, lead,
and tin. Cloth and manufactures were exported to America. Dyeing and
dressing of cloth became the norm and undressed cloth exports fell
sharply. Imports included linen; flax; hemp; timber; iron; raw, thrown,
and woven silk; wine; brandy; fruit; coffee; chocolate, served as a
drink or used in cooking; cauliflower; and oil. From America came
molasses, sugar, tobacco, and dyes. Sugar was in great demand for tea,
coffee, and chocolate. The East India Company imported calico, silk,
pepper, spices, China tea, potions, and saltpeter. Tonnage of English
shipping doubled by 1688 Exports and imports increased 50% by 1700.
When there was a surplus of grain, it was exported. About 1696,
the king set up a board of trade of eight paid members and great
officers of state, who nominally belonged to it, and a staff. This was
to achieve a favorable balance of trade. For instance, it imposed
tariffs to protect internal markets and put restraints on imports of
goods producible in the country, e.g. live cattle, dairy products, and
woolen goods. It also restricted the export of raw wool. England led
the way in protectionist measures.
Parliament required an oath of allegiance to the new sovereigns
William and Mary from all those in public functions, including the
clergy. By extending this rule to the clergy, Parliament asserted a
supremacy of Parliament over the church. It also asserted a supremacy
over the king by requiring all monarchs to take a coronation oath
promising to govern according to the statutes, laws, and customs of
Parliament, to make judgments with law and justice in mercy, and to
maintain the Protestant religion established by law.
England competed with other nations for land in the New World.
Carolina, named for Charles II, was colonized for commerce in 1663. The
Episcopal Church, an analogue of the Church of England, was established
there by law. The whole coast became English after war with the
Netherlands gave New York, named for Charles II's brother the Duke of
York, and New Jersey to England in 1667. Presbyterians and Baptists
fled from religious tests and persecutions in England to colonize New
Jersey. For free passage to the English colonies, people became
indentured servants, agreeing to serve the master of the ship or his
assigns with a certain kind of labor for a term of a few years
according to a written contract made before departure. Also, various
statutes made transportation to any part of America available to any
person who would pay for his transportation, for a term of years,
usually seven, as a new possible penalty for offenses. In 1636, Harvard
College was founded in New England to advance literature, arts, and
sciences, as well as to train ministers. Some American colonists sent
their sons to be educated at the Inns of Court in London.
In 1682, Quaker William Penn, son of an Admiral, founded the
colony of Pennsylvania for Quakers in a "Holy Experiment" in political
and religious freedom. The king had granted proprietary rights to this
land to him to discharge a Crown debt to his father. When Penn refused
to take off his hat before King Charles and asked why Charles took off
his own, Charles, unruffled, replied that "It's the custom of this
place that only one man should remain uncovered at a time". The
Pennsylvania Charter of 1701 went beyond Magna Carta and England's law
in guaranteeing right to counsel and giving a right to defendants to
summon witnesses in all criminal cases. It gave Penn absolute authority
and he established liberty of conscience, i.e.freedom of religion, and
freedom from arbitrary arrest. In 1751, some Quakers founded a small
hospital in Pennsylvania as an asylum for the insane, where they would
be treated humanely.
Proprietary colonies, in which an individual or syndicate held
under the crown a sort of feudal overlordship, were founded in America:
namely, Virginia, Maryland, Carolina, New York and New Jersey in 1663,
and Pennsylvania and Delaware in 1682. New Hampshire was made a royal
province in 1680 to cut off the expansion of Massachusetts, which had
been avoiding the trade laws. These colonies were distinguished from
the corporate colonies of Massachusetts, Plymouth, Connecticut, and
Rhode Island, which made their own arrangements for internal government
without a royal executive. Charles persuaded the Chancery Court to
declare the charter of Massachusetts void; it was given a new charter
in 1691 which made it a royal province. New York was made a royal
province in 1691. Maryland's proprietor gave way to a royal governor in
1692. Soon all colonies except Rhode Island, Connecticut, Pennsylvania
were royal provinces, with governors nominated by the Crown. This
bringing of union to the colonies was done for maintenance of order, to
coordinate defense, and to enforce trade laws.
In 1670, the Hudson's Bay Company was incorporated to engage in
fur trade with Indian trappers in the Hudson Bay and to find a
northwest passage to China.
In 1701 the founding of the "Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel in Foreign Parts" by the Church of England created many
missionaries in the colonies, where they called their churches
"Episcopalian".
Increase Mather and his son Cotton Mather were Puritan
ministers in colonial Boston. Increase was for a time the President of
Harvard College and participated in obtaining the new charter of
colonial Massachusetts of 1691. He and his son tried to maintain the
principles of the Puritan founders of Massachusetts, which included the
theories of diabolical possession and witchcraft. But the thought of
Presbyterians, Anglicans, and Baptists became influential also. In 1692
in the small town of Salem, Massachusetts, some hysterical girls
showing strange spasms and sounds charged they had been bewitched by
certain other residents. Victims were deceived, flogged, or tortured
into forced confessions and then excommunicated from the church. They
were then hanged and their property confiscated. One man endured being
pressed to death for refusal to plead so that his property would be
inherited by his family rather than confiscated due to being convicted.
Eventually, some prominent citizens including judges were accused. Then
the more thoughtful people began to doubt the whole phenomenon and
admitted error. The excommunications were revoked. Cotton Mather came
to accept Newton's science and advocated inoculation. He encouraged
Puritanism into a simpler piety and charity. This influenced American
Protestantism toward a generalized concern with good works, morality,
and social leadership.
The Law
Treason to the king is to compass, imagine, or intend death or
any bodily harm tending to death, or maiming or wounding, or
imprisonment, or restraint as well as trying to depose him or levy war
against him. Also included is printing, writing, preaching, or
malicious speaking. Traitors shall suffer death and forfeiture as in
high treason.
The fine for having, buying, or selling clipped coins is 500
pounds, one-half going to the informer, and one-half going to the king.
The offender shall also be branded in the right cheek with the letter
"R". He shall be imprisoned until he pays the 500 pounds. No hammered
coins are lawful. Anyone except a smith in the king's mint making tools
or presses or other machines that can make counterfeit coins or having
such which were stolen from the mint shall be guilty of high treason.
Any malicious and willful burning or destroying of stacks of
hay, grain, or barns, or killing any horses, sheep, or cattle at
nighttime shall be felony and punished by transportation to the
American colonies for seven years.
Any person apprehending a thief or robber on the highway will
be rewarded 40 pounds from the local sheriff, to discourage the many
robberies and murders which have made travel dangerous. Also, executors
of persons murdered while trying to apprehend a robber shall have the
reward.
Anyone killing, hurting, or taking away deer from any forest or
park or other ground without consent of the owner or custodian shall
pay a 20 pound fine. This was later increased to 20 pounds for hunting
deer and 30 pounds for wounding or killing deer, with the pillory for
one hour on market day and gaol for a year without bail for those who
couldn't pay.
Any person privately and feloniously stealing any goods,
including horses, by day or night, in any shop, warehouse, coach
stable, or stable, whether there is a break-in or not, and whether or
not the owner is present, or anyone assisting or hiring such person may
not have benefit of clergy. Any person who apprehends and prosecutes
such person is excused from having to serve in parish and ward offices.
An offender being out of prison who informs against two other offenders
who are convicted is to be pardoned. Any person convicted of theft or
larceny and having benefit of clergy is to be burnt in the cheek
nearest the nose instead of on the hand.
When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not
paid on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted
it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which shall be
served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all interest and
charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill of exchange is lost
or miscarried, another shall be given in its place.
No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound
loan.
Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise
money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.
Because the gaols were full of people in debt due to the late
unhappy times such as the London fire, all prisoners for debt were
released upon taking an oath that they had no property over ten pounds
nor had disposed or conveyed property to defraud creditors. Creditors
not wanting them released had to contribute to their maintenance in
gaol.
Any sale of land or lease or estate of freehold or copyhold
shall be in writing and signed. An interest in land given orally shall
have only the force of estates at will. All contracts for sale of goods
or merchandise for the price of at least 10 pounds shall be in writing
and signed by the parties or shall be accompanied by part payment or
partial acceptance of the goods. This is to deter fraud. This statute
caused many small freeholders, including yeomen, who paid rent by
custom to be dispossessed.
Mortgagees can hold the land of any mortgagor who borrows money
upon security of the land or obtains another mortgage without prior
notice to the initial mortgagee. The mortgagor has six months to pay
off the mortgage and all interest and charges or vacate the land and
lose his equity therein. But a widow's dower will not be affected if
she did not join with her husband in the mortgage.
If rent is not paid in a reasonable time, the renter's goods
and grain may not only be distrained, but sold.
One coparcener [one person of two or more persons who inherit
as co-owners of land] of a joint tenancy [land held that descends to
the heir of a co-owner who dies] or tenancy in common [land held that
accrues to the surviving co-owner if one dies] may have a court
partition the property without the presence of other coparceners,
because such coparceners are often difficult to find. This is to avoid
wasting of land lying uncultivated and unmanured.
After the intestate death of a father of any sons or daughters
without wives or children of their own in the life time of their
mothers, the mother and every brother and sister shall share equally
except the customs of London and York shall not be affected.
Administrators have to make an inventory. They have to account on
request by an interested person. They must be bonded by two sureties.
Executors and administrators of estates of deceased persons
must pay the debts of the deceased person rather than waste or convert
the goods and chattels to their own use. Creditors may recover their
debts from heirs or devisees of the will of a debtor.
Men gone beyond the sea who could not be accounted for were
deemed dead after seven years, so their life estates could be
terminated.
Whereas lawful games are not to be used as constant callings
for a livelihood, and young people are deceived and debauched and their
money taken, anyone "winning" money by deceitful or fraudulent gambling
shall forfeit three times his "winnings".
The making or selling of fireworks is forbidden or else forfeit
5 pounds. Firing or throwing such from one's house onto or across the
street is a common nuisance with a penalty of 20s. This is to avoid the
loss of life and of eyes.
No more than 20 people may petition the king nor more than 10
people may assemble to present a petition to the king, because more has
been tumultuous and disorderly.
Anyone may without fee set up a hemp business including
breaking, hatchelling [separating the coarse part and broken pieces of
the stalk from the fine, fibrous parts by drawing the material through
long iron teeth set in a board], and dressing it; or a flax business,
including making and whitening thread, spinning, weaving, making,
whitening, or bleaching hemp or flax cloth; making twine or nets for
fishing or treating cordage for tapestry or hangings, because the daily
importation of such has in effect taken the work from the poor and
unemployed of England.
No sheep, wool, woolfells, shearlings, yarn, fuller's earth, or
fulling clay may be exported as has secretly been done, so that the
poor of the realm may have work.
Fishermen may sell their fish to others than Fishmongers at
Billingsgate fish market because the Fishmongers have forestalled the
market and set their own prices. The buyers of such fish may resell
them in any other London market by retail, except than only Fishmongers
may sell in shops or houses.
No tanned or untanned skin or hide of any ox, steer, bull, cow,
or calf may be exported because the price of leather has risen
excessively and leather workers can't get enough raw material to carry
on their trade and because poor people cannot afford leather items they
need.
The newly incorporated Company of Silk Throwers (drew the silk
off the cocoon) employs many of the poor, but others practice the
trade, so an apprenticeship of seven years is required to practice the
trade in the realm. Winders or doublers who purloin or embezzle and
sell silk from the thrower who employs him and the buyer of such silk
shall make such recompense as ordered by a Justice of the Peace or be
whipped or set in the stocks for the first offense.
The regulation of the Silk Throwers company restricting the
number of spindles to be worked at one time is voided because it has
taken livelihoods away and caused foreign thrown silk [silk twisted
from cocoons into thread] to be imported.
Buttons on garments must be made of silk, mohair, gimp, and
thread and by needle to keep employed the many throwers, twisters,
spinners, winders, and dyers preparing the materials for these buttons.
No button may be made of cloth or wood.
When a bill of exchange drawn to at least five pounds is not
paid on demand at the time it is made payable, the person who accepted
it may make a protest in writing before a notary public, which shall be
served on the maker of such bill, who must pay it and all interest and
charges from the date of the protest. But if a bill of exchange is lost
or miscarried, another shall be given in its place.
No one may take more than 6 pounds in interest for a 100 pound
loan.
Persons seeking election to Parliament may not give or promise
money, meat, drink, entertainment, present or gift to any elector.
Because the gaols were full of people in debt due to the late
unhappy times such as the London fire, all prisoners for debt were
released upon taking an oath that they had no property over ten pounds
nor had disposed or conveyed property to defraud creditors. Creditors
not wanting them released had to contribute to their maintenance in
gaol.
Retailers of wine may not add to imported wines cider, honey,
sugar, molasses, lime, raisin juice, or herbs.
Butter sold must be of one sort and not contain bad butter
mixed in with good butter. Butter pots must bear the name or mark of
their potter.
Salt may be sold only by weight, to avoid deceit by retailers
and wrong to buyers.
No tobacco maybe grown in England because the colonies would be
discouraged from growing it and the king would not receive customs from
it.
No goods are to be imported to or exported from America, Asia,
or Africa except in English ships, with masters and 3/4 of the mariners
Englishmen. No manufacture of Europe may be imported into any colony or
territory except shipped from England in English ships manned by
Englishmen. As of 1672, if bond is not given for colonial exports of
sugar, ginger, tobacco, cotton, indigo, cacao nuts, or fustic [tree
that yields a yellow dye] and other dye- woods going to England, a duty
must be paid. As of 1696, no colonial goods are to be imported or
exported or carried from one colony to another, except in ships owned
and built in England, Ireland, or the colonies with the masters and
three fourths of the mariners from such places. These navigation acts
were strictly enforced.
Only persons with lands and tenements or estate worth over 100
pounds per year or having a lease of at least 99 years worth 150 pounds
per year and owners and keepers of forests or parks may have any guns,
bows, greyhounds, hunting dogs such as setting dogs, snares, or other
hunting equipment. These persons may kill hare, pheasants, partridges,
and other game. Gamekeepers authorized by Justices of the Peace may
search houses and outhouses and seize unlawful hunting equipment. If
hunting equipment or game is found in a house without good account to
the Justices of the Peace, they shall impose a fine of 5s. to 20s.,
one-half going to the informer and one-half going to the poor of the
parish.
Army officers or soldiers who desert or mutiny shall suffer
death or such other punishment as decided by a court martial of senior
officers rather than the usual form of law, which is too slow.
Seamen not showing up on board after notice shall serve six
months without pay, but shall not suffer as deserters. Seamen do not
have to perform service in the Army.
Pirates may be punished by death and loss of all lands and
chattels. Any person aiding, advising, or concealing pirates may be
likewise punished. Officers and seamen killed or wounded in the defense
of a ship or who seize or destroy pirates may be paid by the owners an
amount up to 2 pounds per 100 pounds of freight as determined by a
group of disinterested merchants and the judge. The amount due to a man
killed will be paid to his widow and children. This is to be done when
the ship arrives in port. Any person who informs of any combinations or
confederacies planning to run away with or to destroy a ship shall be
rewarded by the commander or master of such 10 pounds for a ship 100
tons or under, and 15 pounds for a ship over 100 tons. The trial may be
in England or the American colonies, whose authorities may issue
warrants for arrest of alleged pirates. Deserters from ships, because
they often become pirates, shall forfeit all wages. Masters forcing any
man fit to travel to stay on shore or willfully leaves him behind shall
suffer three months in prison without bail.
Persons may mine for ores on their own land, but must turn it
over to the king who will give compensation for it, including gold,
silver, copper (16 pounds per tun), lead (9 pounds per tun), tin (40s.
per tun), and iron (40s. per tun).
By statutes of 1660 and 1662, when goods have been carried off
ships without customs being paid, the Chief Magistrate of the place
where the offense was committed or the adjoining place, or the Lord
Treasurer, or a Baron of the Exchequer may, upon oath, issue out a
warrant to any person to enter, with the assistance of a sheriff,
constable or other public official, any house, shop, cellar, warehouse,
or room in the day time where the contraband goods are "suspected to be
concealed", and in case of resistance, to break open doors, chests,
trunks, or other packages and to seize such goods, provided that if the
information whereupon any house is searched proves to be false, the
injured party shall recover his full damages and costs against the
informer by action of trespass. This was extended to the colonies in
1696.
The penalty for cursing or swearing by a servant, day laborer,
soldier, or seaman is 1s. For others, it is 2s. The fine is doubled for
the second offense, and tripled for the third offense. If an adult
offender can't pay, he shall be put in the stocks for one hour. If a
child offender can't pay, he shall be whipped by the constable or by a
parent in the presence of the constable.
The equity courts are now conceding limited proprietary rights
to married women by enforcing premarital settlements or trust
arrangements that designate certain property as a wife's separate
estate and exempt it from control by the husband. Such protective
devices generally reflected a father's desire to shield his daughter
from poverty and benefited only the landed aristocracy in practice.
Also, husbands are not allowed to punish and beat their wives as
before. But the lower rank of men were slow to give this up. A wife
could have the security of the peace against her husband. He could
restrain her liberty only for gross misbehavior.
In 1685, the courts ruled that apprenticeships were necessary
only for servants hired by the year, thus exempting most wage laborers.
There were many variations in religious practices for statutes
to address. The Quakers and Baptists were opposed to any state church.
The Independents and Presbyterians accepted the idea of a state church.
The members of the established church and Roman Catholics adhered to
their version the state church as they had experienced it in the past.
Atheism had a bad reputation. In 1662, the Jews established the first
synagogue in London. The Privy Council recognized their religious
status as long as they were peaceful and obeyed the laws. They engaged
in pawn-broking as well as money-lending.
There were various statutes enacted over the course of time
regarding religion, as follows:
All ministers, school teachers, mayors and other town
officials, including magistrates, were required to take the oaths of
allegiance and supremacy [of the King over the church] or be removed
from office.
A great number of people refused to come to their parish church
or other public place where common prayer and sacraments were
administered and the word of God was preached according to the
established church. The morning and afternoon Sunday services with
sermons, sometimes by guest preachers, continued. So factions and
schisms developed. In response, the king changed the Book of Common
Prayer and its prayers were required by statute in 1662 to be read by
some priest or deacon in all the churches and places of public worship
wherever and whenever there was any preaching or lecturing. Attendance
at one's local parish church was never again required.
Attendance at the established Church of England was never again
required. Nor was preaching or lecturing constrained. Instead, a
statute was passed in 1677 that: Every person shall be pious and
exercise religion publicly and privately on Sunday. No work may be done
or goods sold or else forfeit 5s. or the goods respectively. No one may
travel or else forfeit 5-20s. In a further statute of 1688, because
some ease to scrupulous consciences in the exercise of religion may be
an effectual means to unite Protestant subjects in interest and
affection, Protestant nonconformists who took the oaths, or declaration
in the case of Quakers, and a declaration that they were not Catholic,
did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, and did not go to mass were
declared not liable for punishment in any ecclesiastical court by
reason of their nonconformity to the Church of England, except
Protestant dissenters meeting behind locked doors. But payment of
tithes and performance of parish duties were still obligatory.
Non-conformist preachers had to subscribe to the tenets of belief
listed in the first eighteen Articles of Religion, but were exempted
from the articles on expounding inconsistencies in scripture, the
traditions of the church, homilies, and consecration of bishops and
ministers of the Elizabethan statute and the statute on uniformity of
prayers and sacraments of Charles II.
As of 1665, no nonconformist minister, i.e. one who endeavored
any alteration of government either in church or state, was allowed to
live or visit within five miles of any corporate town or any place
where he had acted as minister or else forfeit 40 pounds. Persons not
frequenting the established church were not allowed to teach in any
public or private school or else forfeit 40 pounds.
By statute of 1670, anyone at least sixteen years old who is
present at any assembly, conventile [private meeting of religious
dissidents to pray and expound scripture], or meeting under pretence of
any exercise of religion in other manner than according to the
established Church of England at which there are at least five persons
present shall be fined 5s. for the first offense and 10s. for the
second offense. This does not include members of the same household
meeting in their home. Anyone who preaches or teaches at such a meeting
shall pay 20 pounds for the first offense, and 40 pounds for further
offenses. The householder who permits such a meeting shall pay 20
pounds. A justice or Justice of the Peace or chief magistrate may break
open doors and enter by force any house or other place where they have
been informed of any such meeting and take persons there into custody
for prosecution. This is to discourage the growing of dangerous
seditious persons under pretence of tender consciences.
Religious nonconformity continued especially among the humble
people. The penal statutes caused hundreds of these nonconformists to
be put in gaol. From time to time, the king would release them and
suspend these laws. Sometimes, Charles II allowed dissenters to meet in
private for worship if they got a license from him. Religious
gatherings grew in numbers, size, and geographical extent. Dissenters
were then allowed by statute to meet behind locked or barred doors. But
they had to pay tithes and could be prosecuted in the ecclesiastical
courts for not doing so. By statute, all congregations and assemblies
for religious worship had to register with the local bishop or
archbishop. Disturbers of religious worship were required to find two
sureties for the amount of 50 pounds.
Quakers were active in the countryside. They were about one
tenth of the population and did not believe in a state church. There
were some Quakers schools and some Quaker workhouses to give work to
the poor. For the reason that they met together in large numbers to the
great endangering of public peace and safety and to the terror of the
people, and because they had secret communications and separated
themselves from the rest of the people and from the usual places of
worship, a statute was passed in 1662, that any Quakers who assembled
to the number of five or more under the pretense of unauthorized
religious worship and any person maintaining that taking an oath before
a magistrate was unlawful and contrary to the word of God or refusing
to take a required oath was to forfeit 5 pounds for the first offense
or be imprisoned for 3 months if he couldn't pay. For the second
offense, the penalty was 10 pounds or imprisonment for 6 months with
hard labor. The third offense required abjuring the realm or being
transported to a plantation of the king beyond the seas. The policy of
Charles II was to allow Quakers to meet undisturbed, to keep their hats
on before magistrates, and to not come to the parish church. But this
policy was only partially adopted in the country. From 1689, by
statute, the Quakers were allowed to affirm or declare instead of
making the customary oath.
Many Presbyterians became Unitarians, who rejected the trinity
of "Father, Son, and Holy Ghost" and doubted the divinity of Jesus, but
accepted revelation. This statute was then passed in 1697: Any person
having been educated in or having at any time made profession of the
Christian religion who, by writing, printing, teaching, or advised
speaking, denies the Holy trinity, asserts that there is more than one
god, or that the Bible is not of divine authority, shall be disabled
for any ecclesiastical, civil, or military office. The penalty for a
second offense is being disabled from suing or pleading any action in
any court, being guardian of any child, or executor or administrator of
any estate, or receiving any legacy or deed of gift and imprisonment
for three years without bail or mainprize.
Catholicism was always disfavored. Catholic priests were
executed with little evidence. At times, Charles commuted the death
penalty for them to banishment. Sometimes there were effigies of the
pope burned in the streets. Such burnings were later banned. At times
Charles allowed Catholics to attend mass.
By statute of 1672, all civil and military officers and king's
officials must take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance and take the
sacrament of the established Church of England or be incapable of
office. They also had to make a declaration that they believed that
there is not any transubstantiation in the sacrament of the Lord's
Supper, or in the elements of bread and wine, when they were
consecrated. This is to prevent dangers from Papists. As of 1678, no
one may be a member of Parliament if he has refused to take the oaths
of allegiance and supremacy and the declaration that they were not
Catholic, did not adore the Virgin Mary or any saint, and did not go to
mass.
Papists were made to pay higher taxes. Every temporal and
spiritual person, corporation, and guild had to pay taxes to subsidize
the king in the amount of 2s.8d. for every pound's worth of personal
property and money. But Papists had to pay 5s.4d. for such. Persons and
corporations having land worth at least 20s. yearly, had to pay 4s. for
every pounds' worth. But Papists and aliens had to pay 8s. for such.
But Charles' successor, King James II was Catholic and gave
many offices to Catholics. This prompted a reaction against Papists and
more statutes restricting them. After James II was chased out of
England, a statute of 1688 required suspected Papists in London to make
a declaration that they were not Catholic, did not adore the Virgin
Mary or any saint, did not go to mass, or else stay ten miles outside
of London. Excluded were tradesmen and manual workers, who had only to
register. All Papists had to forfeit their arms and any horse worth
more than 5 pounds. Also, no King or Queen or spouse of such could be a
Papist, but had to make the same declaration as members of Parliament,
and join in the communion of the established Church of England. As of
1696, a person who was serjeant at law, counsellor at law, barrister,
advocate, attorney, solicitor, proctor, clerk, or notary had to take
the oath of supremacy and allegiance. As of 1698, Papists who kept a
school or tried to educate the young were threatened with perpetual
imprisonment. Also, Popish parents were prohibited from forcing their
children who were inclined towards Protestantism to become Catholic by
refusing them suitable maintenance. As of 1699, a reward of 100 pounds
was offered to any person who apprehended a Popish bishop, priest, or
Jesuit saying mass. Also, no Papist was allowed to buy land.
Judicial Procedure
After the Restoration, all legal decisions of the Commonwealth
and Protectorate were confirmed subject to a right of appeal.
The Star Chamber was not restored, and Parliament assumed its
control of the press. The King's Bench succeeded to most of the Star
Chamber's jurisdiction. No longer could the Privy Council influence
criminal cases and the general supervision of legal processes through
the Star Chamber.
The High Commission court was not restored, but church courts
were, but with depleted powers. They accepted subordination to the
common law courts. Because the church's administration was inefficient
and corrupt and its punishments inadequate, they gradually lost their
power to the common law justices and Justices of the Peace. They had
virtually no authority over laymen. They could still punish heresy, but
lost jurisdiction over the law of libel and slander, which then were
transformed by the civil courts, and over prostitution and scandalous
lewdness. Local ordinances for suppression of brothels, which were run
by madams, were founded on breach of the peace. In 1678, the death
sentence was taken away from the church courts. In 1697, church
sanctuary was abolished.
The county courts faded into insignificance, as the Justices of
the Peace took on more jurisdiction.
In 1668, new justices were issued patents with "at pleasure"
instead of "during good behavior" describing their tenure. Charles II
and James II frequently dismissed justices not favorably disposed to
the Crown. In 1697, they were to have fixed salaries instead of the
profits of justice. By statute of 1701, justices' commissions were to
be made with an established salary determined by Parliament and a
tenure to last during good behavior. They could be removed only by the
address of both Houses of Parliament. This gave them independence from
the king. Their tenure lasted for the life of the monarch.
As of 1679, no man could be held in prison but on a charge or
conviction of crime or for debt. Every prisoner on a criminal charge
could demand as a right from the Court of the King's Bench the issue of
a writ of habeas corpus which bound his gaoler to produce the prisoner
and the warrant on which he was imprisoned for review as to legality.
This forced trials to be speedy, which they had not hitherto been. Now
it was impossible for the Crown to detain a person for political
reasons in defiance of both Parliament and the courts, as Charles I had
done. The writ was suspended in times of war and domestic unrest: 1689,
1696, 1708.
In 1670, William Penn was arrested for sedition for delivering
a sermon in London, contrary to the statute that only the Church of
England could conduct meetings for worship. The jurors would not
convict him, so were gaoled and fined by the justices. The jurors filed
a writ of habeas corpus in the Court of Common Pleas, which held in
their favor. Thereafter the English jury had full independence to
decide verdicts. By court decision of 1679, jurors were held not to be
responsible to the justice for their verdict.
After 1688, hearsay was inadmissible as evidence, which Coke
had recommended. The old system of original writs was abandoned, and
the general concept or a wrong to person or property took its place.
A person who was sergeant at law, counselor at law, barrister,
advocate, attorney, solicitor, proctor [supervisor of students taking
an eexam], clerk, or notary in the courts had to take the required
oaths of allegiance and supremacy.
As of 1692, persons outlawed could appear by attorney as well
as in person to argue reversal of such outlawry, except in cases of
treason and felony.
As of 1696, persons accused of high treason where there might
be corruption of the blood or for misprison [concealing knowledge] of
such treason had to be taken before a grand jury for indictment within
three years of the offense. Those indicted or outlawed for such were
given a copy of the whole indictment, but not the names of witnesses,
at least five days before trial in order to prepare their defense. They
could have a copy of the panel of jurors at least two days before
trial. They could be represented in their defense by not more than two
counsel learned in the law and assigned by the court. Their counsel had
free access to them at all reasonable hours. They could make proof
through lawful witnesses under oath. In a trial of commoners for their
lives, a jury of twelve freeholders had to all agree on acquittal or
conviction. In a trial of a peer, the others peers in Parliament
determined the outcome by a majority vote.
Jurors were required to have at least 20 pounds income from
freehold land or rents in fee, fee tail, or for life. This increase in
the quality of the jury enabled it to better discern the issues in
dispute.
Jury sympathy was determined by the sheriff who chose the jury.
So if a sheriff was popularly elected, as in London, he chose jurors
who favored individual and corporate liberty. If the king selected the
sheriff, he chose tories, who supported the Crown.
Issues of bastardy or lawfulness of marriage had to be tried by
a jury.
The civil suit of trespass on the case branched into assumpsit
[a promise], trover [to recover goods converted to the use of another],
deceit, negligence, and libel and slander. The latter supplements bad
words punished by the local courts and defamation punished by the
church courts. Trover becomes the normal mode of trying the title to
personal property and goods as the courts oblige the defendant to
answer the charge of conversion without permitting him to dispute the
loss and finding of the goods by the plaintiff.
This is an example of the initiation of a suit by a writ for trespass
on the case: "The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show:
wherefore (e.g.:___) he fixed piles across the water of Plim along
which, between the Humber and Gaunt, there is a common passage for
ships and boats, whereby a certain ship, with thirty quarters of malt
of him the said A, was sunk under water, and twenty quarters of the
malt of the price of one hundred shillings perished; and other wrongs
&c. as in trespass."
This is an example of a writ for trespass on the case in
assumpsit: "The King to the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to
show: wherefore whereas he the Said X undertook well and competently to
cure the right eye of the Said A, which was accidentally injured, for a
certain sum of money beforehand received, he the same X so negligently
and carelessly applied his cure to the said eye, that the said A by the
fault of him the said X totally lost the sight of the said eye, to the
damage of him the said A of twenty pounds, as he saith, and have there
&c. wherefore whereas he the said X undertook to make and build three
carriages for conveying victuals of him the said A to parts beyond the
sea for a certain sum of money beforehand received, within a certain
term between them agreed; he the said X did not take care to make and
build the carriages aforesaid within the term aforesaid, by which he
the said A hath wholly lost divers his goods and chattels, to the value
of one hundred marks, which ought to have been conveyed in the
carriages aforesaid, for want thereof to the great damage of him the
said A as it is said: and have there &c."
This is an example of a writ for case on indebitatus assumpsit:
"The King to the sheriff &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas
the said X heretofore, to wit (date and place) was indebted to the said
A in the sum of for divers goods wares and merchandises by the said A
before that time sold and delivered to the said X at his special
instance and request, and being so indebted, he the said X in
consideration thereof afterwards to wit (date and place aforesaid)
undertook and faithfully promised the said A to pay him the said sum of
money when he the said X should be thereto afterwards requested. Yet
the said X, not regarding his said promise and undertaking but
contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly to deceive
and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not yet paid the said sum
of money or any part thereof to the said A (although oftentimes
afterwards requested). But the said X to pay the same or any part
thereof hath hitherto wholly refused and still refuses, to the damage
of the said A of ------ pounds as it is said. And have you there &c."
This is an example of a writ for case for trover: "The King to
the sheriff greeting &c. as in Trespass to show: for that, whereas the
said A heretofore to wit [date and place] was lawfully possessed as of
his own property, of certain goods and chattels to wit, twenty tables
and twenty chairs of great value to wit of the value of ___ pounds of
lawful money of great Britain; and, being so possessed thereof he the
said A afterwards, to wit (date and place aforesaid) casually lost the
said goods and chattels out of his possession: and the same afterward,
to wit (date and place aforesaid) came into the possession of the said
X by finding; Yet the said X well knowing the said goods and chattels
to be the property of the said A and of right to belong and appertain
to him, but, contriving and fraudulently intending craftily and subtly
to deceive and defraud the said A in this behalf, hath not as yet
delivered the said goods and chattels, or any part thereof, to the said
A (although often requested so to do) but so to do hath hitherto wholly
refused and still refuses; and afterwards to wit (date and place
aforesaid) converted and disposed of the said goods and chattels to his
the said X's own use, to the damage of the said A of ____ pounds as it
is said; and have you there &c."
The rigid writs with specific forms of action for common law
cases started to fall into disuse. Later, trespass on the case
bifurcates into misdemeanor and the tort of trespass.
Persons in prison on suspicion of treason could not be released
on bail as of 1688.
If one of several defendants of a case was acquitted, all
defendants recovered their costs from the plaintiffs. A person found
guilty of malicious prosecution recovered his costs from his accuser.
Mercantile cases were decided in light of mercantile custom
rather than according to the strict rules of the common law.
Merchants and traders could settle their trade disputes by
arbitration, which decision could be enforced by court order.
The chief justice could empower persons by commission to take
affidavits from people in the country for court proceedings in
Westminster.
Judgments were docketed so they could easily be found e.g. by
heirs, executors, administrators, purchasers, and mortgagees.
Court judgments and fines could be challenged for error only
within twenty years.
Court decisions were still appealable to the House of Lords. In
1668, Skinner v. East India Company held that the House of Lords could
not exercise original jurisdiction in civil cases between commoners as
it had claimed, but retained its appellate jurisdiction. In 1675, the
House of Lords acquired the new judicial function of hearing appeals
from the Chancery Court by virtue of the case of Shirley vs. Fagg.
Any gaol keeper allowing a prisoner to escape in return for
money lost his office forever and had to forfeit 500 pounds.
The last burning of a woman as a penalty for an offense, which
had been only occasional, was in 1688.
The last bill of attainder, which condemned a person to death,
occurred in 1697.
The pillory was still in use.
Benefit of clergy was taken away from those who stole cloth or
woolen manufactures from their drying racks or who embezzled military
stores or ammunition worth at least 20s, or stole goods of over 5s.
value from a dwelling house with a person therein put in fear, a
dwelling house in daytime with a person therein, or by day or night a
shop or warehouse.
A statute of 1661 gave jurisdiction to naval courts-martial to
decide cases at sea, e.g. insubordination; failure to fight the enemy,
a pirate, or rebels; not assisting a friend, mutiny, drunkenness,
creating a disturbance to protest the quality of the food, quarreling,
sleeping on watch, sodomy, murder, robbery, theft, and misdemeanors.
Usually the penalty was to be determined by the courts-martial, but
sometimes death was decreed.
In the American colonies, judges were still appointed by the
royal governors and paid by the local legislatures. They still served
at the pleasure of the king.
Chapter 18
The Times: 1702-1776
Dress was plainer than before. Gentlemen wore white linen
shirts; waistcoats fitted at the waist and covering the trunk at least;
long lawn ties wound around the throat and tied in front with the tails
tucked in, knee-length coats that were wide in the skirts and in the
sleeve cuffs and having large gold, silver, or bronze buttons which
didn't reach to the buttonholes on the other side of the coat; knee
breeches of cloth, knitted wool, thread, and silk; and silk stockings
rolled up at the knee. Some shoes had metal buckles. Gold fobs with
watches or seals hung from the breeches pocket. The clothes were made
of silk, satin, or velvet and often in colors such as yellow, orange,
scarlet, blue, violet, pink, and dull slate, and decorated with gold
and silver trimmings. A slender sword was worn on the side. Short wigs,
often powdered with heavily scented white or gray wheat flour, with
rolls over the ears and hair tied at the back, were worn for formal
occasions. Wigs were made of human, horse, goat, or cow hair, or
mohair, worsted, silk, or wire. Sometimes feathers and cork were also
used. There were new colors and cuts of dress for every season. By
1750, wearing a sword was just a symbol of gentility. Gentlemen often
had valets to help them dress. Ladies wore fitted full-length dresses
held out by hoops with shoulders hidden, sometimes with a laced bodice
with stays, and lace at the neck. The waistline fashion fluctuated
between high and low and in tightness. The dress could be brocade,
satin, velvet, silk, etc. Some put jewels in their hair and had high
elaborate hats with wide brims tilted forward. Hair was in ringlets at
the side or dressed close to the head with a small top knot covered
with a laced cap. They also wore wigs when dressing up, decorated with
ribbons and artificial flowers. Hooded cloaks were used outdoors and
hoods were used for sun or wind. They carried leather purses with
gloves at elbow length. Both gentlemen and ladies wore cosmetics and
face patches and used tooth powders, breath sweeteners, lip salves, and
choice perfume. Some had false teeth of bone or ivory wired into place.
Both gentlemen and ladies had accessories such as fans, handkerchiefs,
head scratchers, and elaborately designed snuff boxes, patch boxes, and
perfume containers. Both sniffed tobacco snuff but only men smoked it.
They walked with tall, elegant canes, and women also carried parasols.
Hats were made of wool and hair of beaver, rabbit, or camel. A popular
hat was three-cornered, and usually of beaver or dark felt. There was
often a rosette or such to show one's political opinion. Straw hats
were worn in the summer. There were ready-made clothes and shoes,
especially for children. Night gowns and night caps were worn to bed.
About 1714, umbrellas for rain were introduced. They were made of waxed
silk or taffeta. All but the poorest wore silk and lace. A prosperous
countryman wore riding clothes consisting of breeches and boots,
cut-away coat, and low top hat.
The highest class were the peers and peeresses of the House of
Lords and their spouses and families. They were the nobility and held
the high political offices, the high ranks in the army and navy, and
owned large estates, usually scattered over the country. Some were
lawyers or merchants. There was much intermarriage among these
families. Indeed, many a noble family had salvaged its fortunes by
marriage to a London merchant. The richest people in London were
international merchants. These high class families lived in mansions
with four or five living rooms, two to five acre gardens, and stables.
The next class were the gentry. Their family heads had land and
were often Justices of the Peace. They were sometimes members of the
House of Commons. The oldest son took over from his father, while the
others had to find a living such as in the church, law, medicine, or
trade. The gentry usually lived in mansions.
The old yeoman class was disappearing due to their selling
their land to larger landowners. Farming on a large scale was more
productive.
The next class were the "middling sort". In this class were
merchants, lawyers, substantial tenant farmers, smaller freeholders,
millers, innkeepers, in town traders, middlemen, clothiers,
ironmongers, goldsmiths, grocers, linen drapers, apothecaries, school
masters, clerks and civil servants, customs and excise men, and
.shopkeepers, who now kept their wares inside and lived on the second
floor. The town people lived in town houses of two stories plus an
attic.
The next class were the manual workers. These were wage earners
or independent craftsmen, farriers, rural smiths (who shod horses and
made stair rails, window-bars, torch extinguishers, lamp irons, bells,
bolts, hinges, locks, and fire-grates), sawyers, carpenters, joiners,
wheelwrights, nail makers, brick makers, plumbers (made lead cisterns,
kitchen sinks, rainwater heads, drain pipes and lead flats for houses
and ornaments), thatchers, spinners (silk, flax, hemp, wool, hair),
dyers, wool combers, weavers, shoemakers, hat makers, belt and buckle
makers, dressmakers, milliners (hats, caps, bonnets, cloaks, hoods,
muffs), feather workers, button makers, lace makers, steel pin makers,
brewers, cutlery makers, soap makers, candle makers (made from beeswax,
tallow, mutton-fat, or beef-drippings), comb makers,
barber/hairdressers (shaved, cut hair, made wigs and braids, and let
blood), curriers, leather workers, carpet weavers, paper makers,
tin-plate makers, printers, enamel workers, braziers and coppersmiths
(made kettles, saucepans, canisters, milk pails, lanterns, candle
boxes, candle sticks, and lamp lighters), basket makers, jewelers (made
rings, perfumes, match boxes, buckles, and tops of canes), watch and
clock makers, type founders, letter cutters, trunk and chest makers,
cabinet makers, saddlers, coach body builders, coach carriage makers,
shipwrights, rope makers, and sail makers. These workers typically
worked in their stone or brick houses in a rural setting, with gardens,
a cow, a horse, pigs, and poultry around them on 2-6 acres. They now
ate white or wheaten bread instead of rye bread, much meat and cheese,
and drank tea. Working men could now afford leather shoes. These people
also worked in the harvesting of grain. Some consolidation of work was
starting. For instance, the weaver, who had furnished himself with warp
and weft, worked it up, and brought it to market himself was being
displaced by weavers who worked under supervision for one merchant in a
town on looms the merchant had acquired. Many women and children were
so employed. It was not unusual for a man to work 13 hours a day for 6
days a week. The wage earners were well above the subsistence level as
long as trade was good. Real wages were higher than at any time since
the mid-1400s. But eventually, as the employer came to realize how
dependent the weaver had become on him, wages tended to fall. In 1757 a
Gloucester weaver, with his wife to help him, could earn, when work was
good, from 13s. to 18s. a week. A few years later, he could only earn
about 11s. A woman spinner earned 10-15d. a day in 1764, but 3-5d. in
1780. In the same period, men's wages fell from 17d. to 10d. a day.
Only certain workers, whose special occupation needed greater skill,
e.g. the wool-combers, whose wool was longer and of better quality than
carded wool, and shearers, were better paid. In 1770, wool combers made
13s. a week; their wage was about the same all over the country because
they traveled form town to town in search of work and always supported
each other. Also in 1770, Newcastle miners earned 15s. a week,
Sheffield cutlers 13s.6d. a week, a Rotherham blacksmith 13s. a week, a
furnace keeper at Horsehay about 12s. a week, a Staffordshire potter
from 8-12s., a Witney blanket weaver or a Wilton carpet weaver 11s. or
more a week, a Manchester cotton weaver from 7-10s. a week, and a Leeds
cloth weaver about 8s. In this class also were ploughmen, cowmen,
dairymaids of the bigger farms. They had cottages of wood, clay, and
straw, with clay floors and low ceilings, and a divided ground floor. A
few had homes built of stone, covered with slate or thatch.
Wages of industry were higher than those of agriculture. In
1770, a day laborer earned 5-6s. a week in winter and 7-9s. in summer,
without board or lodging. In the short harvest time, he could earn 12s.
a week.
Lastly were the mass of the population of London: hordes of
laborers who depended on casual employment and could be dismissed at
will.
About half the population had no resources but their labor,
which was usually unskilled and lowly paid. In good times they had just
enough to feed themselves.
The gap between rich and poor became greater. Marriage remained
a main way to wealth. Also, one trained in the law could aspire to have
a successful career in high political office, which also brought
wealth. But there was less social mobility than in the previous century
and many landed families were consolidating their position.
Industrialists who had made a fortune for example, in steel, cotton,
coal mining, and porcelain, and merchants who wanted to turn themselves
into landed gentlemen found it very difficult to buy landed estates.
Old dissenter families, Quakers in particular, who were highly esteemed
as businessmen, as industrialists, and as model employers were excluded
from the Anglican landowning society. Rich tradesmen, artists, actors,
and writers found it difficult to buy substantial houses in the small
market towns and countryside because of an entrenched hierarchical
atmosphere there that didn't exist in London. The only gentlemen who
were in household service were librarians, tutors, or chaplains. They
ate with the family and did not consider themselves servants. Servants
were kept more at a distance. By the 1750s the servant class was
clearly defined. Their quarters were moved to the basement of the house
and they ate together in the kitchen. But some householders still had
special occasions when everyone ate together in the dining room, with
the servants at one end of the table. Servants had no right to free
time or to holidays. In 1767 about one tenth of the population in
London had servants. Even bricklayers and milk sellers had a servant.
Most families had just one servant. Most wives employed some other
woman or child to help in washing and scouring or in the minding of the
children.
London had grown beyond the locations of its walls around the
City. London stretched ten miles along the Thames, and was three miles
wide in the center. On the east of the City was the port and industry.
The west side ended at Hyde Park and Regent's Park and was residential.
In 1710 it was still possible to shoot woodcock in Regent Street. In
1750, Westminster Bridge was opened. In 1760, the City walls were taken
down to ease congestion. The typical London house, usually brick, was
on a rectangular plan and had a basement to utilize all the space
possible. Walls were now more covered with hung damask, brocade, silk,
and wallpaper or plain paint rather than by wood paneling. There were
pictures on the walls. On the first floor was a front hall or parlor
and a back parlor. One of these parlor rooms was the most important
room, where the family entertained or spent leisure time. In it were
sofas, armchairs, and stools of mahogany or white gilded wood. They
were upholstered with damask or needlework. Imported mahogany was
replacing the favorite walnut that had replaced oak. Much wood was
inlaid with a variety of other types of woods. There was also a carved
tripod table, china table, card table, and perhaps bookcases and/or
tea-table. Furniture with original designs made by the cabinet-maker
Chippendale was available. His genius was in combining various motifs
into one harmonious design. Cabinet makers had to keep abreast of his
standards and to imitate them to conform with their customers' orders.
Cabriole legs with claw and ball feet came into fashion with Queen Anne
about 1712. Between windows were tall mirrors. From 1760, glass
chandeliers hung from the ceiling to reflect candlelight coming from
standing candlesticks or glazed hanging lanterns with brass frames. The
fireplace had an elaborate mantel. The fire was kept going all day. It
was lit by a tender box, which was unreliable. An iron fireback was
behind the fire. The firewood was placed on andirons. Fire grates were
used from about 1712. At a corner of the building was added a closet.
On the second floor was a dining room, continuation of the closet
below, and a drawing room, dressing room, or bedroom, and perhaps a
study or music room with harpsichord. The dining room had a fireplace;
curtains over the windows looped up at the cornices; one or more
mahogany tables; a set of mahogany chairs with leather or hair- cloth
seats fixed with brass nails, perhaps with some sort of metal
springing; two mahogany sideboards with marble tops; cupboards or
shelves or cabinets with displays of china porcelain; a wine-cooler; a
dumb-waiter; and a folding leather screen. The china, which was
displayed, was mostly imported, but there was some English china.
Later, there was famous Wedgwood stoneware and pottery with bright,
unfading glaze, or with dull black and red surfaces, biscuit ware of
pale green, blue or purple, upon which white designs stood out like
cameos. They came from the pottery factory at Staffordshire founded by
potter Josiah Wedgwood in 1769. There were silver and pewter plates and
serving pieces, silver candlesticks, silver knives, spoons, and two and
three pronged forks, glass saltcellars from 1724, and fingerbowls from
which one rinsed one's mouth or cleaned one's fingers after dinner
which were made of glass from about 1760. On the third floor were
bedrooms and a nursery. In the bedrooms, there was a high bed with
curtains, canopies, piles of blankets and pillows, and steps up to it;
wardrobe; chairs; a hand wash stand; chests of drawers; writing bureau;
dressing table with a couple drawers and a mirror; swing standing
mirror; tin rush candle canister; and night commode. Children and
servants slept on low wooden bedsteads. Walls were stucco, a form of
cement that could be sculpted, or paneled or hung with silk and printed
paper. Servants, such as the page and footmen, slept in the attic and
perhaps in the kitchen or cellar. There was a wood staircase for the
family and a back staircase for the servants. The floors and stairs
were protected with carpeting. The kitchen was in the basement or in a
covered shed in the back. It had an open fire and a tin oven. The cold
water tap over the stone sink could supply cold water from a cistern in
the basement or hand-pumped to a roof cistern through wooden pipes at
very low pressure at stated hours for a fee. There was a wash shed in
back. Water pumped from the Thames into underground pipes was thus
distributed to householders three times a week. Some water came from a
well or spring, rain, and street water sellers. Water carriers were
still employed at set fees. Water was kept in lead cisterns. The
wealthy had basement cisterns filled by a commercial company. The free
public conduits of water were out of use by 1750. The front door of the
house had two strong bolts on the inside and a heavy chain. The windows
could be shuttered and barred. There were sash windows with cords and
brass pulleys. At the back of the house was a garden and perhaps a
coach house or stables. Landscaping to reproduce an idealized country
scene replaced formal gardens. Foreign trees were imported. The latrine
was usually not in the house, but somewhere in the back garden area.
Under it was a brick drain leading to a public sewer or to a cesspool.
Smelly gases arose from it. Sometimes people gathered such waste up to
sell to farmers returning home in an otherwise empty wagon. In 1760,
patented inside toilets began to be used. Each stood in its own room. A
watchmaker named Alexander Cummings patented in 1775 the water-closet,
which had a stink trap u-bend behind which, after flushing, water
resided and prevented the backflow of noxious sewer gas. Its pans and
overhead cisterns were made of pottery. They were supported by wood
structures. There were better cements for building. Chinese porcelain,
embroidery, and lacquer work were popular. Furniture and landscaped
gardens were often done in a Chinese style.
Many of the well-to-do now lived in districts without as well
as within the city limits. Many streets east of the City were named
after the governing families whose estates were there. Their mansions
had interior columns, archways, marble halls and fireplaces, carving,
gilding, rich colors, and high ornamented ceilings. They each had a
picture gallery, a library, stables with coachmen, grooms, and
stableboys, and a still-room for concocting liquors and cordials such
as cherry brandy, sloe gin, and elderberry wine. Medicine and scents
were also developed in the still-room. Hands were washed in bowls held
up by wooden stands. There were built-in bathtubs, but they usually
lacked hot and cold running water, so hot water usually had to carried
up to them.
In these mansions, there were many private parties and balls.
The standard for politeness here was high and gentlemen were expected
to keep their tempers. This came about because impoliteness could
easily lead to a quarrel and then a duel. The pistol was replacing the
sword as the weapon of choice for duels. Good manners developed for all
occasions, with much less swearing and less rudeness. By gentlemen's
agreements, men did favors for each other without a monetary price, but
with the expectancy of a favor in return. The love of one man for
another was recognized as the highest and noblest of human passions.
People of high social standing left their country estates to spend the
winter season in their townhouses in London with its many recreations
such as receptions, routs ]fashionable gatherings], levies,
masquerades, balls, dinner parties, clubs, pleasure gardens, theaters,
shops, shows, taverns, and chocolate and coffee houses. Coffee houses
provided Turkish coffee, West Indian sugar and cocoa, Chinese tea,
Virginia tobacco, and newspapers. They were frequented by learned
scholars and wits, dandies, politicians, and professional newsmongers.
Men of fashion often engaged in wagers and gambling at their clubs and
coffee houses. There were wagers on such matters as the longevity of
friends and prominent people, fertility of female friends, wartime
actions, and political matters. Gentlemen often had valets. Carriage by
sedan-chair was common. In 1776, Buckingham House was bought as a
palace for the royal couple.
Physicians and lawyers lived in two-story brick mansions with
attics and sash windows that could be lifted up and down with the help
of a pulley. They had rectangular wood panes each with a sheet of glass
cut from a circle of blown glass. The old blown glass was not regular,
but had a wrinkled appearance. The center of each pane of glass was
thicker with a knot in the middle left from the blow pipe. In front of
the house were railings which supported two lanterns at the doorway.
People from different parts of London differed in ways of
thinking, conversation, customs, manners, and interests. For instance
there were sections where sailors lived, and where weavers,
watchmakers, and cow keepers each lived and worked. There were many
specialized craftsmen who worked with their own tools in their own
shops or houses, for some superior who had contact with the market and
who supervised the final processes of manufacture. These included the
goldsmiths, upholsterers, coach makers, saddlers, and watchmakers, all
of whom had many dependents. The watchmakers had specialists making
wheels, pinions, springs, hands, dials, chains, keys, caps, and studs
in their own houses. The type of industrial organization most common in
London was that in which work was given out to be done in the homes of
the workers: the putting out system. Some industries, such as
watchmaking, silk weaving, and shoemaking were on both a putting out
system and a system of an apprenticeship to journeymen working on piece
work. Shoes were made to order and ready made. The customer was
measured in a shop, the clicker cut out the upper leathers, which were
given to the closer to be closed, and then to the maker for the sole
and heel to be put on. Another class of shoemaker worked alone or with
an apprentice in a garret, cellar, or stall, using pieces of leather
cut out for him by the currier or leather cutter. London industries
included the making of bread, beer, spirits, and vinegar; sugar
refining; tobacco refining and snuffmaking; spinning and/or weaving of
woolens, worsteds, silk ribbons, tape, and cloth; and making printed
calico, clothes, linens, laces, tassels, fancy embroidery, stays,
stockings, hats, shoes, leather goods such as boots, shoes, hats,
gloves, harnesses, and saddles, jewelry, glass, candles, tapestry,
musical instruments, cutlery, furniture, paint, varnish, paper, tools,
swords, guns, heavy artillery, ships, sails, rope, carriages, precious
and base metalwares such as brass and pewter ware, and printer's ink
and glue; printing; and publishing. Surgical instruments made included
straight and curved knives and probes, lancets, scissors, spatulas,
trepans (for cutting bone), and cupping cases. Optical instruments made
included eyeglasses, telescopes, and microscopes. In 1727 eyeglasses
were held in place by frames that went over the ears, which replaced
unreliable cords over the ears and leather straps tied behind one's
head. Also made were nautical instruments, quadrants, sundials,
sectors, globes, scales, model solar systems, and air pumps.
In London, the old distinction between craftsmen and laborers
was blurred by the existence of trades which employed workmen under a
skilled foreman instead of journeymen who had served an apprenticeship.
These trades were, on a large scale, new. Among the most important of
these trades were the distillers and brewers of liquors, the
tobacconists and snuff makers, the sugar refiners and soap boilers, the
vinegar makers, and makers of varnish, glue, printers' ink, and colors.
The latest chemical theories and the chemical explanation of dying
brought about the invention of new colors and new processes in dying
cloth. Workers in these trades were considered as laborers, but their
wages were high and their positions relatively secure. They learned
their jobs by doing them. The older trades of a similar character, such
as tallow melters and chandlers, wax chandlers, fellmongers [removed
hair or wool from hides in preparation for leather making], and the
tanners, employed journeymen.
The skilled artisan who worked at home and either made goods
for a master or sold to the trade verged into the shopkeeping class. On
the other hand, the lowest type of shopkeeper, the chandler, the dealer
in old iron, the tripe shop, the milk retailer, the keeper of a cook
shop or a green cellar belonged to the class of casual and unskilled
labor. The lowly chimney sweep, paid 6d. a day, served an
apprenticeship as a boy, and then was his own master.
The watermen and lightermen, by virtue of their fellowship and
their apprenticeship and often the ownership of a boat, belonged to the
class of skilled laborers. Craftsmen in the building trades and
paviours had their laborers as smiths had their hammermen to do the
heavy work at laborers' pay. The street ragpickers, the ballad sellers,
and the match sellers belonged to the class of beggars.
There were buildings for boiling and distilling turpentine, for
casting brass or iron, and for making glass for chemical works for sale.
Working women in London in 1750 were employed in domestic
service: 25%, nursing and midwifery: 12%, cleaning and laundry: 10%,
vitiating: 9%, shopkeeping: 8%, hawking: 6%, and textiles: 5%. Those
employed in domestic service were mostly young women who later married.
Some women were schoolteachers, innkeepers, or manufacturers, which
were middle-class employments. Many women in the realm engaged in a
variety of occupations from fanmaking and hairdressing to catering,
and, as widows, often carried on their husband's trade, including
bookselling, hatmaking, building or ironmongery.
Although shops still had small frontages of about 15 feet and
the windows had small panes of bottle glass which partly obscured the
view of the goods, there were magnificent shops with large windows
displaying fine goods. There were bookshops, and print shops with
prints of political satire with caricatures. The shops were generally
open six days a week from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and years later to 10 p.m.
In 1675 Josiah Wedgwood opened a showroom in London for his high
quality pottery from Staffordshire. Consumption was on a mass scale,
many people buying what they wanted instead of just what they needed.
There were circulating libraries, public concert halls, and
professional boxing matches. At coffee houses, chocolate houses, and
taverns, people played at dice and cards, gambled, talked politics and
read daily newspapers, in which there was advertising, reports of
marriages and deaths, grain prices, and book reviews. Different
professions and classes and groups, such as the whigs, the tories,
classical scholars, scientists, clergymen, intellectuals, actors,
writers, and journeymen of particular crafts, had their favorite
meeting places. Coffee houses reflected the character of their
neighborhoods. They acted as postal centers, lost property offices,
business addresses, physicians' consulting rooms, lawyers' and
merchants' businesses, matrimonial agencies, masonic lodges, auction
rooms, and gambling dens. Some retained a supply of prostitutes. Many
taverns had a rentable private room for the better-off to drink wine,
have meals, meet friends, gamble, do business, and hold meetings of
societies and clubs, especially political clubs. From this beginning
sprang private clubs such as the Blue Stocking Club in 1750 and the
Literary Club in 1764, Lloyd's for sale and insurance of ships in 1771,
and the stock exchange in 1773. The Blue stocking Club was established
by women who organized conversational parties with guests of intellect
and wit. There was opera, playhouses, concerts usually with Georg
Handel's oratorios such as The Messiah or the foreigners Bach and
Haydn, tea-gardens, fire works, balls, masquerades, wax works, beer
shops, and bawdy houses, except on Sunday. There were straight plays,
comic operas, and melodramas. Three-dimensional sets replaced the two-
dimensional backdrop. Plays containing thinly veiled satires on
politicians were becoming popular. Some plays had crude and licentious
material. Theaters still shared a close association with brothels.
Unlicensed theaters were closed down by a statute of 1737, but most
came to acquire patronage to get a license. This shaped the development
of drama in London for a century.
The Beggar's Opera depicting an immoral society unable to
master its bandits was written by John Gay as a powerful attack on a
government which most of London hated. With its many ballads it became
very popular. One such ballad goes:
"Through all the employments of life -
Each neighbor abuses his brother;
Whore and Rogue they call Husband and Wife;
All professions be-rogue one another.
The Priest calls the Lawyer a cheat,
The Lawyer be-knaves the Divine;
And the Statesman, because he's so great, Thinks his trade as honest as
mine."
Another is:
"A Fox may steal your hens, sir,
A Whore your health and pence, sir,
Your daughter rob your chest, sir,
Your wife may steal your rest, sir,
A thief your goods and plate.
But this is all but picking,
With rest, pence, chest and chicken,
It ever was decreed, sir,
If Lawyer's hand is fee'd, sir,
He steals your whole estate."
The Thames was crowded with sailing boats and with a line of
boats waiting to unload. Foreign and native ships lined the river banks
in rows. Theft of cargo from docked ships was still a problem and
pirates were still executed at low tide on gallows. Londoners went to
the bridges crossing the Thames to breathe fresh air. London air was so
smoky and polluted by coal-burning in kitchens and factories that it
gave a cough to newcomers. The river was so polluted by the sewers by
1760 that all the swans and most of the fish had disappeared. A Mansion
House was built for the Mayor in 1753. The king's zoo had ten lions,
one panther, two tigers, and four leopards. Deer hunting in Hyde Park
was now confined to its northwest corner, which was enclosed for the
king, who occasionally hunted there. Elsewhere in the park were laid
out walks and fountains. Gardens were now natural instead of formal.
The streets were usually crowded with people and traffic. Many people
traveled by sedan chair. On the streets were barrows with goods such as
lace, threads, fruits, and chickens; beggars, ballad singers,
musicians, bands, street dancers, apple women, piemen, muffin men,
fruit sellers, nut sellers, pudding sellers, milk maids selling milk
from buckets, milk sold directly from the cow, vendors of asses' milk,
hawkers, newspaper boys, scavengers with carts, postal collectors,
lamplighters on their ladders, wenches, chimney sweeps, rat catchers,
pick pockets, swaggering bravados, strolling strumpets, brawling
watermen, card sharps, overdressed beaux, dancing dogs, and acrobatic
monkeys. Each trade had it own call. Billingsgate open-air market was
now exclusively for the sale of fish. Small tradesmen such as dairymen,
butchers, bakers, fishmongers, and chandlers delivered to regular
customers food bought from distributing centers. Workers by necessity
lived near their place of work because there was no cheap transport and
walking through the streets after dark was unpleasant and dangerous.
Hours of work for most craftsmen was from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m., six days a
week.
It was common for working class families in London to live in a
single room of their house and rent the rest, furnished, to people of
different degrees of prosperity and even of different social grades.
Servants and apprentices slept in the kitchen, the shop, or the garret.
The very poor, such as casual laborers and street sellers, silk
winders, charwomen, usually lived in damp cellars subject to floods
from excessive rain, or in cold and windy garrets. Tenancy was usually
on a weekly basis because of the general uncertainty of life and trade.
Conditions were so cramped that cabinet makers made beds which
masqueraded in the day time as tables, bureaus, cupboards, or
bookcases. The very poor slept in common lodging houses, sleeping
uncovered on the floor, twenty to a room. Some poor families slept in
small hovels made of mud and straw with their pigs, domestic fowl,
dogs, and even asses and horses. Homeless children slept on the
streets. All classes lived so much at coffee houses, alehouses or
clubs, which they often used as their addresses, that house room was a
secondary consideration. There was an alehouse on almost every street
in London to provide cheap food and beer, lodging, employment
information, credit, newspapers, tobacco, and meeting places for
tradesmen. Some alehouses were recognized employment agencies for
certain trades, such as the hatters, smiths, carpenters, weavers, boot
and shoe makers, metal workers, bakers, tailors, plumbers, painter and
glaziers, and bookbinders. They were often run by one of the trade,
retired or otherwise. Some alehouses catered to criminals and
prostitutes. For cheap and simple eating there were chophouses,
cookshops, and beef steak houses.
There were about 10,000 English immigrants a year to London in
the 1700s. They were mostly young people. London needed many immigrants
because of its high death rate. Over twenty London people a week died
from starvation alone; they were mostly women. Only about one-fourth of
London's population had been born in London. Especially welcome were
sturdy country people for heavy manual labor, the better educated boys
from the north for shops and offices, and the honest country people, as
contrasted with London's poor, for domestic service. Girls mostly
looked for domestic service, but were sometimes made the mistress of
the housekeeper or steered into prostitution as soon as they entered
the city. An ambitious young man would seek an apprentice job, work
hard, flatter his master, and try to marry his master's daughter. It
was easier to find a place to live in London than in the villages,
though there was much overcrowding. Many shopkeepers and workshop
owners in London were involved in leasing, purchases, and contracts.
Queen Anne was authorized by Parliament to build about 50 more
churches in London and Westminster and their suburbs, to be paid for by
a coal tax on imports into the port of London. Churches in London were
to be rebuilt with money paid by funeral rates, rates for tolling the
bells, and rates for the use of palls [altar cloths]. Queen Anne also
appropriated all her revenues from the first fruits and tenths of
ecclesiastical benefices: 16,500 pounds, to the clerical poor in 1704.
There were fewer quarrels among passersby on the London
streets; men were less likely to wear their swords. But there were fist
fights by common men which gathered crowds and occasioned betting. Most
crime was petty theft, but mobs and riots were frequent, as there were
no police. Watchmen and constables were often old and physically
incapacitated. The watchmen were householders taking their turn. This
duty of householders watching the streets had evolved from the ancient
obligation of wards to provide men to guard the walls at night. But few
wanted these jobs by which they could offend their neighbors. Many
citizens paid a rate to be excused from watch and ward duty. Constables
were often tavern keepers. Many riots were started when penal laws
against the Catholics were repealed. They began with the cries of "no
popery", but then targeted rich men's houses. Mobs sacked and pillaged
at will, burned houses, and flung open the prisons to increase their
numbers. There were political riots between Tories and Whigs. Working
men still used violence to protect their livelihoods, such as
destroying the lodgings and public houses of cheap immigrant labor such
as the Irish. The stocking-knitters destroyed stocking-knitting frames
so that the number of apprentices who could be employed would not reach
the limit specified by its guild's regulations. Parish workhouse
children also provided a cheap supply of labor which forced down the
wages of the stocking knitters. In 1720 a statute banned wearing of
calico after mobs tore calico garments off women. In 1765, thousands
marched on Parliament and persuaded it to ban foreign silk imports. But
when a mob destroyed engine-looms, the army was used against the
rioters and two of them were hanged. This was the last major mob
action. Around the Tower, there were still demagogues standing on
upturned carts haranguing passing crowds. The Tower area was a favorite
place for demonstrators, and for unemployed and dissatisfied workmen,
particularly coal heavers and underpaid seamen protesting their low pay
and poor living conditions. There was more crime, especially at night,
now with organized bands of men or gangs of children. Bounty hunters
made a lot of money catching offenders. In 1736, to deter the frequent
robberies, burglaries, and other felonies at night, many glass lamps
were set up in places determined by the mayor. They had to burn from
sunset to sunrise. In 1736, a lighting rate was imposed by the City to
pay for all night lighting all year by hired lamplighters. Anyone
breaking or damaging the lights of London would forfeit 40s. for the
first offense, 50s. for the second offense, and 3 pounds for the third
offense. The aldermen had to contract to pay for lighting, trimming,
snuffing, cleaning, supplying, maintaining, and repairing them. To pay
for this system, citizens paid according to the amount of rent their
holdings were worth. If they didn't pay, they could not vote.
Bad areas of thieves and prostitutes and the slums east of the
City were gradually being replaced by warehouses and offices. In 1757,
London Bridge was widened and the houses were cleared off it. There
were lanes for carriages in the middle and for pedestrians on each
side. Its arches were also widened to make the passage of vessels
underneath easier. Lights were put on it to be lit all night. And
watchmen were put on it for protection and safety of passengers. This
was paid for by tolls of 1/2 d. per horse, 1d. per carriage, and
2d.-1s. for vessels with goods passing underneath. About 1762, a body
of enterprising citizens secured private acts of Parliament which
allowed them to levy a house tax in return for providing paving and
lighting, which then greatly improved, as did sanitation. Sidewalks
were raised between the street proper and the buildings, replacing the
protective posts which had lined the roads. Flat stones were put in
place of the pebbles on the roadway. Signs hanging out from stores,
which had blocked the sunlight, were placed flat on the front of the
buildings. This also made the streets more airy. The buildings were
given numbered addresses and street names were placed on buildings.
Loading and unloading could not exceed one hour. Nuisances like empty
carts could be removed. Cranes used in warehouses had to be stored in
unobtrusive places. One who drove on the foot pavement had to forfeit
10s. for the first offense, 20s. for the second offense, and 40s. for
other offenses. Wells were dug and pumps erected for watering the
streets. Pavements were to be repaired on complaint. Dust boxes and
dust holes were built and had to be used for refuse awaiting pickup by
the raker or else forfeit 10s. In 1762, the system of having every man
responsible for cleaning the street in front of his door, which
occasioned piles of rubbish in the central troughs of the streets
waiting for the next rain to be washed away, was abandoned. But house
occupants were required to keep the sidewalk in front of their house
clean or else forfeit 2s. If one broke a light, he had to pay damages
if it was accidental, and also 20s. if willful. Wards were to choose
substantial inhabitants to be collectors for a year at a time to
collect the rates, which were not to exceed 1s.6d. per pound of rents.
If one declined to be a collector, he had to forfeit 50 pounds. There
were special stands for hackney coaches, which were 12s.6d. for a day
of twelve hours. Their regulations were extended to Sundays.
In London, the normal system of building was for builders to
buy up leases, put up a new building, and sell it before the lease
became due. The rules for party walls between buildings were made more
stringent: 2 1/2 bricks thick in cellar, 2 bricks thick to the garret
floor, and 1 1/2 bricks above the roofs or gutters. They had to be made
of brick or stone. In 1772, rain water from roofs had to be carried to
the streets in lead or other pipes that were affixed against the side
of the building. In 1774, iron, copper, or other pipe or funnel for
conveying smoke or steam were not to be near any inside timber, or in
front of most any building or next to any public street, square, or
court.
In the 1720s firefighters had to fill a tank on a wagon by hand
with buckets. On top of the tank was a hose that could spray water
high. London parishes were authorized to place upon the water pipes
underground stop-blocks of wood with a plug and firecocks to go into
such pipe at various distances so that there would be no loss in time
in digging down to the pipes to get water to fight fires. Parishes were
required to keep at known places, ladders and a large engine and a hand
engine to throw up water to extinguish fires including one leather hose
with socket fitting the plug or firecock, so that buckets would not be
needed. The Sun Insurance Company was incorporated for fire insurance
in 1711. Insurance offices were authorized to employ watermen with
poles, hooks, and hatchets to be always ready at a call to extinguish
fires.
No more than 12 sacks of meal, 12 quarters of malt, 750 bricks,
or 1 chalder of coal per load on wagons or carts with wheels bound with
[narrow] iron tire are allowed within ten miles of London or
Westminster, or else forfeit one horse. This is to prevent decay of the
roads.
For every wagon and cart in London, there must be a person on
foot to guide it to prevent the maiming, wounding, and killing of
people, especially the old and children, when drivers ride on their
wagons and carts. Later, it was required that carts must display the
name of the owner and be registered. Still later, there was a penalty
of 10s. for not having a person on foot to guide any cart. Later still,
in 1757, if a new owner of a cart did not put his name thereon, he had
to forfeit 40s., and the cart and horse could be seized and sold to pay
the forfeiture. Persons willfully obstructing passage on streets with
empty carts or barrels or pipes shall forfeit 5-12s. or do hard labor
up to one month. The justices of London assessed rates and made
regulations for carriage of goods. Certain houses and buildings were
bought and pulled down to widen several streets, lanes, and passages.
In 1774, persons driving cattle in London, whose negligence or
improper treatment of such cattle cause them to do mischief shall
forfeit 5-20s. or else go to a House of Correction for up to one month
or be publicly whipped.
The roads around London were neither very attractive nor very
safe. Along them was land covered with water from drains and refuse and
dung heaps. Hogs were kept in large numbers on the outskirts and fed on
the garbage of the town. Smoking brick kilns surrounded a great part of
London. In the brickyards vagrants lived and slept, cooking their food
at the kilns.
Queen Anne's drinking of tea made it a popular drink, but it
was still expensive. This habit improved health because to make tea,
the water had to be boiled before drunk. Breakfast included tea and
bread and butter, and later toast with melted butter. The rich also had
coffee and chocolate. The morning newspaper was often read at
breakfast. The chief dinner dishes were roast beef, roast mutton,
boiled beef or pork, with puddings and vegetables. Roast meat was still
the basic diet of town and country gentlemen. There were also fowls,
tripes, rabbits, hares, pigeons, and venison. Many elaborate sauces
were made. The national dish was the pudding, a compound of steak,
kidney, larks, and oyster. Drinks included ginger beer, lemonade,
barley water, coffee, chocolate, tea, and foreign wine. Port from
Portugal was introduced about 1703, and rum about 1714. Rum, made from
sugar, first became popular as a medicine, well-whisked with butter.
Beer was drunk by the poorer and middle classes. The poor could afford
very little meat now, unlike 200 years ago. Their standard fare was
cheese, bread, and tea, the latter of which was usually from used tea
leaves bought from rich houses.
Households were smaller; a peer had a household of about 25-50.
The proportion of women in a household grew to one-third to one-half.
Dinner guests sat and were served in order of rank, with gentlemen on
one side of the table and ladies on the other. Later, a fashion came in
to sit alternately by sex. Dinner was in several courses and lasted a
few hours. Toasts might be made. It was bad manners to put one's elbows
on the table, to sniff the food, to eat too slowly or too quickly, to
scratch, spit, or blow one's nose at the table, or to pick one's teeth
with a toothpick before the dishes were removed. After dinner, the men
drank, smoked, and talked at the table. There was a chamber pot under
the sideboard for their use. Politics was a popular subject. The women
talked together in the drawing room. Later, the men joined the women
for tea and coffee. The evening often finished with card games, reading
newspapers, verse-making, fortune-telling, walks in the garden,
impromptu dancing, perhaps gambling, and supper.
The nobility and gentry became more mobile and now mixed
together at parties. At these afternoon parties, there were a variety
of simultaneous activities, instead of everyone participating in the
same activities together as a group. Guests could choose to engage in
conversation, news, cards, tea-drinking, music, dancing, and even go
into supper at different times. Sometimes a man other than her husband
escorted a lady to a party. Having lovers outside marriage was socially
accepted if discrete.
Single women were discouraged from thinking of their
independent status as desirable. Their single status was to be regarded
as unfortunate. Weddings took place in public in church instead of
privately. There were banns, or announcements, publicized before the
wedding so that anyone who knew of a reason why the marriage should not
take place could speak up. Brides wore a white silk or satin dress with
a train. Over one third of brides who were capable of having children
were already pregnant when they married. In 1753 a marriage statute
required licenses to marry, the consent of parents or guardians for
minors to marry, the calling of banns, and four weeks residence in the
parish where the license was given by bishop or other authority. These
requirements addressed the problems of the kidnapping of heiresses,
prostitutes trapping unwary youths after getting them drunk, and
priests performing marriages clandestinely and not in church, which
required banns. Two witnesses to the marriage were required to sign a
certificate of marriage, which was then to be registered in the parish
books. Manufactured goods relieved ladies from baking of bread,
brewing, and spinning. So they often visited with friends, wrote
letters, embroidered, and supervised the servants.
Funerals ceremonies started with socializing at the house with
refreshments, then going in a procession to the church for burial, and
finally returning to the house for more socializing.
It was possible for a woman-covert to be seized of land in fee
simple or in tail general or special to her separate use, free from
control or intermeddling of her husband.
Houses were warmed in winter by burning coal. Moderate homes
had tent-beds in use, with which cloth was hung on all four sides of
the bed from a light iron framework above the bed. The beds were warmed
with a warming pan heated in a fire before use. There were often bed
bugs and fleas. Everyone wore nightcaps to bed. Pewter tableware was
used, but the poor used tinware instead. Copper, brass, and iron pots
and pans were increasingly common.
Most towns had a regular market once or twice a week. In them,
street cleaning was still a responsibility of individual householders.
Water was still obtained from wells and pumps. There was no municipal
government as such. Public works were done by special commissions set
up for particular purposes, such as lighting, cleaning and paving the
streets, night watchmen, traffic regulation, removing nuisances, and
improving local amenities. Large towns had hospitals for the poor. In
the larger manufacturing towns, there were literary and philosophical
societies for debates and discussions. These put together libraries for
use of their members. Also in these large towns, there were
booksellers' shops, printing houses, weekly newspapers, playhouses,
concerts, and horseracing courses, the latter of which was mostly
patronized by gentlemen. Some private citizens of various towns
followed the example of London and obtained from Parliament the right
to levy a house rate for paving and lighting.
Towns tended to be known for certain specialties, such as
seaside holiday resorts, spas like Bath, cathedral towns, fashionable
shopping for gentry, and towns with certain industries like glass and
china manufacture, pinmaking, pottery, tanning, manufacture of linen,
silk, cotton, and the knitting trade. Certain towns were famous for
certain varieties of wool cloth. Before 1750, a town with more than
5,000 inhabitants was considered a large town. Shopkeeping was
supplanting fairs and markets. Certain industries were done on a large
scale and required workers to be at the same site, e.g. brewing and
distilling; building ships; printing fustians; making paper, soap from
animal fat or candles; coal mining, iron production, mining and
smelting of tin and copper, refining of salt, and digging of clay.
Certain other industries also required some kind of power or team work
for their production, e.g. refining sugar; finishing cloth; making
bricks; glassmaking; manufacture of ropes and sails, and processing of
copper and brass into rods and sheets. Often the manufacturer's house
was surrounded by the many cottages of his workers. There the wife and
children usually were busy carding and spinning. Putting out work and
subcontracting were widespread and created many small-scale
capitalists. Workers' hours were typically 6 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Though grammar schools were endowed for the education of local
poor boys, they sought fee-paying sons of gentlemen. They taught
arithmetic as well as reading and writing. Translation and reading of
Latin was still important, e.g. Aesop's Fables, Virgil, Cicero's
Letters, Caesar's Commentaries, Horace, Pliny, Juvenal, Ovid, Livy, and
Plautus. The "Eton Grammar" book replaced the "Royal Grammar" as the
standard for Latin and English grammar. The boys lived in boarding
houses superintended by "dames" or older boys. There were usually two
boys to a bed. There was bullying and initiation ceremonies such as
tossing small boys up from a held blanket or having younger boys run
naked in the snow. There were occasional rebellions by the boys and
fights with the townspeople. Flogging with a birch or caning with a rod
until blood was drawn from the bare buttocks was the usual punishment.
There were some national boys' boarding schools such as Eton,
Winchester, and Westminster. In these schools, boys could mix with sons
of rich and powerful people, thus establishing important connections
for their adult life. But there was more bullying of small boys by
large boys at these schools and the smaller boys became menial servants
of their seniors. Occasionally there were student riots. However, most
grammar schools were not residential. Because the grammar schools were
limited to boys, many boarding schools for girls were established.
Tradesmen's daughters were often sent to these to learn to act like
ladies. Most upper class girls were taught, at home or at school,
English, writing, arithmetic, drawing, courtly dancing, needlework,
music, and French. Dissenting academies were established for those who
did not pass the religious tests of the grammar schools. Pencils were
now in use.
Sons of gentlemen usually took "The Grand Tour" of the
continent before going to university. These tours lasted for months or
years, and always included Paris and a Protestant French university.
The students went in groups with tutors. The chief purpose was now
cultural, instead of practical. On these tours there was often
misbehavior such as drinking and fighting. In 1720, Travelers Checks
were developed for those on the Grand Tour.
The universities began to teach science. The new professorships
at Cambridge University were: chemistry, astronomy, experimental
philosophy, anatomy, botany, geology, geometry, and Arabic. Ideas in
geology challenged the Bible's description of the creation of the world
and there was a controversy over the origin and nature of fossils. In
1715, a large pointed weapon of black flint was found in contact with
the bones of an elephant in a gravel bed in London. Oral and written
examinations began to replace disputations. Few professors lectured.
Dissenters were excluded from universities as well as from
offices and grammar schools. Oxford and Cambridge Universities were
open only to members of the Church of England, so other universities
were established for dissenters. They taught geography, mathematics,
science, physics, astronomy, mechanics, hydrostatics, and anatomy. At
Oxford and Cambridge and Harvard Universities, students in science were
relegated to different instructors, buildings, and degree ceremonies
than students in literature, who often looked down on them as socially
and intellectually inferior.
The Inns of Court had ceased to provide residence. The period
of education at law school at the Inns of Court was now reduced in 1760
from seven to five years for ordinary students and to three years for
graduates of Oxford or Cambridge Universities. The textbooks were:
"Doctor and Student" by Christopher Saint-German in 1518 and
"Institutes of the Laws of England" by Thomas Wood in 1720. Most landed
families tried to ensure that at least one member of the family in each
generation was educated at the Inns of Court after going to Oxford or
Cambridge. In 1739, attorneys formed a "Society of Gentlemen
Practitioners in the Courts of Law and Equity". In order to earn a
living, most attorneys had to attach themselves to some great patron
and serve his interests. So it was hard for an ordinary person to find
an impartial attorney or to find any attorney willing to contest a
powerful family.
The first encyclopedia came into existence in 1728. In 1740 was
the first public circulating library in London. Samuel Johnson put
together the first dictionary in 1755. It standardized spelling and
pronunciation. Then came dictionaries for the arts, sciences, and
commerce. There were histories with political biases such as the Earl
of Clarendon's "History of the Great Rebellion". Alexander Pope wrote
witty satire on human faults of the period such as "Rape of the Lock".
Daniel Defoe wrote "Robinson Crusoe", "Moll Flanders", and "The Poor
Man's Plea" protesting disparity of judicial treatment of rich and
poor, for instance for drunkenness. Henry Fielding wrote one of the
first novels: "Tom Jones". Joseph Addison wrote essays on social
behavior. Jonathan Swift wrote the satire on the times, "Gulliver's
Travels". Samuel Richardson wrote some of the first novels, such as
"Clarissa"; he wrote on values such as religious faith, moral virtue,
and family closeness. Catherine Macaulay started writing her weighty
and impressive "History of England". Many schoolmistresses wrote
textbooks on a variety of subjects. Poet and essayist Hester Chapone
wrote "Letters on the Improvement of the Mind". Elizabeth Carter wrote
poetry and translated Greek works; her work was published in "The
Gentleman's Magazine". Hannah More wrote the play "The Inflexible
Captive". The diaries of Caroline Girle Powys Daniel told of her
extensive travels in the nation, and the various life styles of polite
society she visited. Defoe's newspaper was the first great political
journal. He claimed that the people have a right to control the
proceedings of Parliament. Essayists like Richard Steele, who
introduced the periodical essay in his newspaper, and Joseph Addison,
in his newspaper, wrote in a conversational style about the social life
around them and the thoughts and behavior of common men and women in a
light and good-humored way. They separated humor from the old-style
farce and gave it taste and gentility. And with this came a moderation,
reserve, and urbanity in matters of religion, politics, and society.
Religious issues even became a matter of indifference. Fairies,
witches, astrology, and alchemy were no longer taken seriously by
educated men. Tales of fairies, witches, ghosts, and miracles were
deemed appropriate for children. Childrens' stories were becoming a
distinct literary form. Nursery rhymes included "Hush-a-bye baby on the
tree top" and the five little piggies. "Mother Goose's Melody" was
published in 1765. There were picture books for children such as
Cinderella, Red Riding Hood, and Sleeping Beauty. Craftsmen made small
models of their wares, such as dolls' china, dolls' furniture, silver,
and flat lead soldiers. Babies had rattles and teething rings.
In 1710 copyrights for books was given for 14 years, renewable
for another 14 years. Alexander Pope's translation of the Iliad and
Odyssey made him financially independent. He collected advance payments
from subscribers who would be listed in the book. A new book industry
emerged in London with booksellers as master manufacturers who employed
writers, authors, copyers, and subwriters. Booksellers sold books of
sermons, histories, political and literary satires, literary criticism,
and dictionaries. There was a growing popularity of novels. Books were
expensive to buy. Regular magazines on the new and strange were
published. There were three daily, six weekly, and ten thrice yearly
newspapers. Newspapers increased in number from 8 founded in 1700 to a
total of 25 in 1727. By 1753, there were over a million throughout the
country. Workmen usually began their day by reading a newspaper at a
coffee house.
Authors of books which have been registered at the Stationers
Hall had the sole liberty of printing and reprinting such book for 14
years. Others who printed or sold or published such -forfeited the
books and paid one penny for each sheet found in their custody, 1/2 to
the Queen and 1/2 to the suer. The printer had to give a copy of each
book printed to the Company of Stationers, the Royal Library, the
libraries of the Oxford and Cambridge universities, and certain other
libraries.
In 1775, the two universities in England, the four universities
in Scotland, and the several colleges of Eton, Westminster, and
Winchester were given in perpetuity a copyright in books given or
bequeathed to them.
The British Museum was incorporated to hold the collections of
Robert Cotton of manuscripts, books, records, coins, and medals and of
Hans Sloane, which contained rare books, coins, precious stones,
pictures, plants, and mathematical instruments and had been left to the
public.
Italian opera was introduced in 1706 by Georg Handel on his
visit to England. His music became the standard music of Georgian
England. The Academy of Ancient Music was founded in 1710. It set the
standard of selection and performance. In existence were the violin
(including ones made by Stadivari), viola, cello, double bass, oboe,
trumpet, clarinet, bassoon, trombone, horn, flute, harp, organ,
harpsichord, in which the strings were plucked, and piano, in which the
strings are struck by little hammers. Orchestras had at least thirty
members. Many hymns were written.
Painting by artists developed. Gentlemen had portraits painted
of their horses and dogs as well as of family. Joshua Reynolds painted
the wealth and beauty of England. Painters such as Gainsborough did
landscapes and dramatic history paintings too, but neither of these
sold as well as portraits. Scenery was painted for the theater. Places
of business had signs painted which portrayed animals. Coaches were
painted with mythological creatures and such. Gentlemen collected
antique statuary and painting, such as by Rembrandt and Rubens. In 1711
an academy of painting was founded, which included women painters. The
first public exhibition of paintings was in 1760. The Society of
Artists was formed in 1761 and incorporated by royal charter in 1765.
This differentiated them from the Painter-Stainers Company of face
painters, coach painters, and house painters. The Royal Academy of
London was founded in 1768 to merge all private academies and societies
into one official body and to recognize the best artistic work. Joshua
Reynolds was its first president. It was at first financed by the king.
Under George I, sculptors became distinct from masons. They did
monuments and portrait busts of the royal family, nobles, and great
men. From Italian influence, Palladian architecture came into vogue. It
was typified externally by a panoramic look achieved by horizontal
lines, balanced alternatives of plain wall and openings, and portico
with a heavy pediment like the front of a Roman temple. Stucco was
often used to plaster housefronts, flute columns, and ornament
pediments. Architects took students. Designers of engraved, etched, and
historical prints were given the sole right to print them for 14 years.
Copiers had to forfeit 5s. per print.
Foreigners were now interested in learning about English life,
philosophy, and opinion. They learned English to read English
literature such as Shakespeare. No longer were France and Italy the
only centers of culture and influence on other nations. By 1713,
England was the leading sea power by far.
The Royal Society was still the principal focus of scientific
activity. Issac Newton was its President for several years and drew in
more foreigners. Its members were mathematicians, chemists, botanists,
physicians, engineers, authors, poets, and theologians. Papers given
there generated much discussion at its meetings. Newton opined that
small particles attract each other by some force in a similar way that
large bodies attracted each other. This force in immediate contact was
exceedingly strong and performed chemical interactions, but at greater
distances had no effect. Also there were local associations and
societies. There were learned journals such as "Philosophical
Transactions".
Drovers bought cattle in the countryside, drove them to big
towns, and sold them to fattening graziers or fatted them themselves.
Then they were driven into town and sold to the wholesale butcher, who
sold the carcass to the retail butcher, the hides to the tanner, and
the bones to the glue maker. Flocks of geese were also driven into
towns, after their feet were given a protective covering of tar. There
were also middlemen wholesalers for cheese, butter, cloth, and iron.
There was a rage of distemper among the cattle so serious that
to prevent its spread, the king was authorized by Parliament to make
regulations for prohibiting the removal or sale of cattle and for the
burial of distempered cattle. Later, the king was authorized to
prohibit the killing of cow calves. No one was to sell any ox, bull,
cow, calf, steer, or heifer until he had possession of such for forty
days or else forfeit ten pounds, Later, the king was authorized to
regulate the movement of cattle from one place to another.
The main industry of the country was still agriculture. In the
countryside, about half the arable land was under the open field
system, in which land was cultivated in common. Enclosures of land were
still taking place. The enclosures were now done by statutory
commissions to ensure equitable allotments.
Agricultural improvements came first to enclosed land, which
comprised about half of the agricultural land. In the 1733, Jethro Tull
published a book about his 1701 invention of the seed-drill to first
pulverize the soil for cultivation without manure and then to deposit
seed at a uniform depth in regulated quantities and in rows instead of
being thrown haphazardly. Also explained was the horse-hoe to stir the
soil about the roots of the plants to preserve moisture, promote
aeration, admit warmth, and destroy weeds. There were more horses than
oxen in use now in the fields. -The horse-hoe was first used by large
independent farmers on enclosed land. Also invented was a threshing
machine with a set of sticks to replace hand threshing with flails.
Under-drainage as well as irrigation was practiced. Lord Townshend
alternated turnips, grasses, and grain in his fields, and thus provided
winter food for his cattle. The two-field crop rotation with fallow
periods was often displaced by the three-field system rotating grain
crops, legumes, and fallowness. Independent farming gave rise to the
improvement of breeds of livestock by selective breeding.
Enclosed land produced 26 bushels of grain compared to 18
bushels for common field land. It produced 9 pounds of sheep fleece
compared to 3 1/2 pounds for common field land. Overall, soils were
improved by being treated with clay, chalk, or lime. Artificial pasture
was extended and there was increased use of clover, sainfoin, and
rye-grass. Grain productivity was four times that of 1200. A fatted ox
was 800 pounds compared to the former 400 pounds which it weighed from
the 1300s to the 1600s. The fleece of sheep increased fourfold.
By statute of 1756, persons having rights of common in certain
land may, by the major part in number and in value of each's tenement,
enclose such land for planting and growth of timber or underwood.
Every village had a smith, carpenter, and miller. The larger
villages also had a potter, a turner, a malster, a weaver, a tanner,
and perhaps a mercer or grocer middleman. Wheelwrights made ploughs,
harrows, carts, and wagons. Ploughs had one, two, or no wheels. Poor
farming families took up extra work in the villages such as making
gloves, knitting stockings, or spinning yarn. Craftsmen still helped
farmers at harvest time.
Much of the rural population was now dispersed over the
countryside instead of being concentrated in villages because so many
small holders had sold out due to enclosures of farm land, especially
of common land and waste land. The rural working class lived in two
room cottages, with low ceilings, small windows, and an earth floor.
Patience was required for those willing to wait for an existing cottage
in a village to be vacated. Most laborers did not marry unless and
until they found a cottage. Ancient custom that a person could build a
home for himself on waste land if he did it in one night was ceasing to
be respected. Farmers usually preferred employing day-laborers than
keeping servants. There were many migrant workers, mainly from Ireland,
for the busy summer haymaking and harvesting.
The children of laborers and of small farmers had little
schooling because they were needed for work. They scared the birds,
weeded the fields, picked the stones, tended the poultry, set beans,
combed the wool, and collected the rushes and dipped them in the tallow.
Farm people relied on well water or rain water collected in
lead cisterns. A farmhouse fireplace had pots hung from iron rods.
Saucepans sat on iron stands, which were stored above the mantel when
not in use. Spits were rotated by pulleys powered by the upward current
of hot air or by a mechanical device. Bacon was smoked in the chimney
accessible by a staircase or upper floor.
There still existed customary freeholders, who owned their land
subject to certain customary obligations to the lord of a manor.
The people displaced by enclosure became laborers dependent on
wages or paupers. Their discontent was expressed in this poem:
- "They hang the man and flog the woman - - That steals a goose from
off the common - - But leave the greater criminal loose - - That steals
the common from the goose."
Eventually there was some relief given to the poor workers. By
statute of 1773, wastes, commons, and fields having several owners with
different interests might by three-quarters vote in number and in value
of the occupiers cultivate such for up to six years. However, cottagers
and those with certain sheep walks, or cattle pasture, could not be
excluded from their rights of common. By statute of 1776, the
Elizabethan statute restricting locations where cottages could be
erected and their inhabitants was repealed because the industrious poor
were under great difficulties to procure habitations.
Land could be rented out at ten times the original value. Land
was typically rented out for 7, 14, or 21 years. Great fortunes were
made by large landowners who built grand country estates. The
manufacturers and merchants made much money, but agriculture was still
the basis of the national wealth. As the population grew, the number of
people in the manufacturing classes was almost that of the
agriculturalists, but they had at least twice the income of the
agriculturalists.
The greatest industry after agriculture was cloth. Most of this
activity took places in the homes, but families could earn more if each
family member was willing to exchange the informality of domestic work
for the long hours and harsh discipline of the factory or workshop.
More wool was made into cloth in the country. Dyed and finished wool
cloth and less raw wool and unfinished broadcloth, was exported.
Bleaching was done by protracted washing and open-air drying in "bleach
fields". There were great advances in the technology of making cloth.
Thomas Lombe, the son of a weaver, became a mercer and merchant
in London. He went to Italy to discover their secret in manufacturing
silk so inexpensively. He not only found his way in to see their silk
machines, but made some drawings and sent them to England hidden in
pieces of silk. He got a patent in 1718 and he and his brother set up a
mill using water power to twist together the silk fibers from the
cocoons into thread -in 1719. His factory was five hundred feet long
and about five stories high. One water wheel worked the vast number of
parts on the machines. The machines inside were very tall, cylindrical
in shape, and rotated on vertical axes. Several rows of bobbins, set on
the circumference, received the threads, and by a rapid rotary movement
gave them the necessary twist. At the top the thrown silk was
automatically wound on a winder, all ready to be made into hanks
[coils] for sale. The workman's chief task was to reknot the threads
whenever they broke. Each man was in charge of sixty threads. There
were three hundred workmen. Lombe made a fortune of 120,000 pounds and
was knighted and made an alderman of London. After his patent expired
in 1732, his mill became the prototype for later cotton and wool
spinning mills in the later 1700s. There were many woolen manufacture
towns. Clothiers might employ up to three thousand workers. At these,
the spinning was done by unskilled labor, especially women and children
in villages and towns. Weaving, wool combing, and carding were skilled
occupations.
In 1733, clockmaker and weaver John Kay invented a flying
shuttle for weaving. It was fitted with small wheels and set in a kind
of wooden groove. On either side there were two wooden hammers hung on
horizontal rods to give the shuttle and to and fro action. The two
hammers were bound together by two strings attached to a single handle,
so that with one hand the shuttle could be driven either way. With a
sharp tap by the weaver, first one and then the other hammer moved on
its rod. It hit the shuttle, which slid along its groove. At the end of
each rod there was a spring to stop the hammer and replace it in
position. The flying shuttle doubled the weavers' output. Now the
broadest cloth could be woven by one man instead of two. This shuttle
was used in a machine for cotton. But the manufacturers who used the
flying shuttle combined together and refused to pay royalties to Kay,
who was ruined by legal expenses. Now the price of thread rose because
of increased demand for it. The weavers, who had to pay the spinners,
then found it hard to make a living. But the process of spinning was
soon to catch up.
In 1738, John Wyatt, a ship's carpenter who also invented the
harpoon shot from a gun, patented a spinning machine whereby carded
wool or cotton was joined together to make a long and narrow mass. One
end of this mass was drawn in between a pair of rotating rollers, of
which one surface was smooth and the other rough, indented, or covered
with leather, cloth, shagg, hair, brushes, or points of metal. From
here, the mass went between another set of rollers, which were moving
faster than the first pair. This stretched the mass and drew it into
any degree of fineness of thread by adjusting the speed of the second
pair of rollers. Then the thread went by a flier, which twisted it.
After this the thread was wound off onto spindles or bobbins, whose
rotation was regulated by the faster pair of rollers. Or the mass could
be drawn by rotating spindles directly from one pair of rollers. This
machine was worked by two donkeys and was tended by ten female workers.
Because of bankruptcy in 1742, the invention was sold to Edward Cave,
the editor of "Gentleman's Magazine". He set up a workshop with five
machines, each fitted with fifty spindles and worked by water wheels.
Carding was done by cylindrical carding machines invented by Lewis Paul.
In 1764, the plant was bought by carpenter and weaver James
Hargreaves. He was watching his wife spin when the spinning wheel
tipped over onto its side. It continued to revolve, while the thread,
held between two fingers, seemed to be spinning itself, even though the
spindle was in a vertical instead of a horizontal position. It occurred
to him that a large number of vertical spindles arranged side by side
could be turned by the same wheel and that, therefore, many threads
could be spun at once. He named his machine the "the Jenny" after his
wife. This "spinning Jenny" could spin a hundred threads at a time. He
patented it about 1770. The machine consisted of a rectangular frame on
four legs. At one end was a row of vertical spindles. Across the frame
were two parallel wooden rails, lying close together, which were
mounted on a sort of carriage and slid backwards and forwards as
desired. The cotton, which had been previously carded, stretched, and
twisted passed between the two rails and then was wound on spindles.
With one hand the spinner worked the carriage backwards and forwards,
and with the other he turned the handle which worked the spindles. In
this way, the thread was drawn and twisted at the same time. The jenny
did the work of about 30 spinning wheels. No longer did it take ten
spinners to keep one weaver busy. But manufacturers refused to pay him
royalties for his invention. He was offered 3,000 pounds for his rights
in the jenny, but refused it. The courts held that the model of his
jenny had been used in industry before it was patented and any rights
he may have had were declared to have lapsed. Nevertheless, he made
over 4,000 pounds. The spinning jenny was used in many homes.
Richard Arkwright came from a poor family and was taught to
read by an uncle. He became a barber and made wigs. He taught himself
crafts necessary to invent and patent in 1769 a spinning frame worked
by a water wheel, which he called a" water frame". He strengthened
cotton thread by adding rollers to the spinning process which were able
to strengthen the cotton thread and make it of even thickness so that
it could be used instead of costly linen as the warp. With capital from
two rich hosiers, he set up a workshop next to a swift and powerful
river running down a narrow gorge. Then he turned his attention to
weaving this thread with multiple spinning wheels in the first
practical cotton mill factory. In 1773, he set up weaving workshops
making pure cotton calicoes which were as good as Indian calicoes. This
was the first all-cotton cloth made in England. He had confronted and
solved the problem of a statute of 1721 which proscribed wearing or
using printed, painted, stained or dyed calicoes e.g. in apparel, bed,
chair, cushion, window curtain, and furniture, except those dyed all in
blue, or else forfeit 20 pounds by a seller, 5 pounds by a wearer, and
20 pounds by other users. The purpose was to provide wool-working jobs
to the poor, whose numbers had been increasing excessively because of
lack of work. Arkwright argued that the statute should not include
printed or painted cloth made in Great Britain in its ancient tradition
of fustians with an all linen warp for strength and a cotton weft for
fineness. This statute was so "clarified" in 1735. When wool-weavers
had expressed their opposition to imported printed cottons and calicoes
by tearing them off people, a statute of 1720 provided that any one who
willfully and maliciously assaulted a person in the public streets or
highways with an intent to tear, spoil, cut, burn, or deface the
garments or clothes of such person and carried this out was guilty of
felony punishable by transportation for seven years. The prohibition
against the manufacture and wearing and using of pure cotton fabrics
came to an end in 1774 on arguments of Arkwright made to Parliament
that his pure cottons would bleach, print, wash and wear better than
fustians.
In 1775, Arkwright added machines to do work prefatory to
spinning. Raw cotton was first fed by a sloping hose to a feeder that
was perpetually revolving. From here it went a carding machine of three
rollers of different diameters covered with bent metal teeth. The
first, with teeth bent in the direction of its revolution, caught up
the cotton fibers. The second, revolving in the same direction but much
faster, carded the fibers into the requisite fineness by contact with
the third, whose teeth and motion were in the opposite direction. Next,
a crank and comb detached the carded cotton so that it came off as a
continuous ribbon. Then the ribbon went into a revolving cone, which
twisted it on itself. Eventually Arkwright became rich from his
creation of the modern factory, which was widely copied. He established
discipline in his mills and he made his presence felt everywhere there,
watching his men and obtaining from them the steadiest and most careful
work. He provided housing and services to attract workers.
After cotton, the inventions of the spinning jenny and the
water- powered frame were applied to wool. Silk and cotton manufacture
led the way in using new machinery because they were recently imported
industries so not bound down by tradition and legal restraint. Yarn
production so improved that weavers became very prosperous. Cards with
metal teeth challenged the use of wood and horn cards with thistles on
them in carding wool. Merchants who traveled all over the world and saw
new selling opportunities, and therefore kept encouraging the
manufacturers to increase their production and improve their methods.
Factory owners united to present suggestions to Parliament.
Manufacturing broke loose from traditional confines in several
ways. To avoid the monopolistic confines of chartered towns, many
entrepreneurs set up new industries in Birmingham or Manchester, which
grew enormously. Manchester had no municipal corporation and was still
under the jurisdiction of a manor court. It sent no representative to
the House of Commons. All over the country the Justices of the Peace
had largely ceased regulating wages, especially in the newer industries
such as cotton, where apprenticeship was optional. Apprenticeship
lapsed in many industries, excepting the older crafts. Several legal
decisions had declared seven years practice of a trade as good as an
apprenticeship.
Apprentices still lived in their masters' houses and were still
treated as family members. The regulations of the Cutlers' Company
remained in force as its masters used their great manual skill to make
cutlery in their own homes with the help of their children and
apprentices. Trades in some towns which had guild regulations that had
the force of law hung on to their customs with difficulty.
Although there were few large factories in the country under
effective management of a capitalist, trade unionism was beginning as
two distinct classes of men were being formed in factories. The factory
owner was so high above his workmen that he found himself on the same
level as other capitalists, the banker, who gave him credit, and the
merchant, who gave him customers. Journeymen in factories could no
longer aspire to become masters of their trade and no longer socialized
with their employers. Hard and fast rules replaced the freedom of the
small workshops. Each worker had his allotted place and his strictly
defined and invariable duty. Everyone had to work, steadily and without
stopping, under the vigilant eye of a foreman who secured obedience by
means of fines, physical means, or dismissals. Work started, meals were
eaten, and work stopped at fixed hours, signaled by the ringing of a
bell. Factory hours were typically fourteen hours or more. Organized
resistance, as usual, began not with those most ill-treated, but with
those men who had some bargaining power through their skills.
Wool-combers, who worked next to a charcoal stove where they
heated the teeth of the comb, were the most skilled of the cloth
industry were hard to replace. Since they were nomadic, they quickly
organized nation-wide. They agreed that if any employer hired a comber
not in their organization, none of them would work for him. They also
would beat up and destroy the comb-pot of the outsider. In 1720 and
1749, the Tiverton wool-combers objected to the import of combed wool
from Ireland by burning Irish wool in clothiers' stores and attacking
several houses. They had strike funds and went on strike in 1749. Their
bloody brawls caused the military to intervene. Then many of them left
town in a body, harming the local industry. The earnings of
wool-combers was high, reaching from 10s. to 12s. a week in 1770, the
highest rate of a weaver.
In 1716, the Colchester weavers accused their employers of
taking on too many apprentices. When the weavers organized and sought
to regulate the weaving trade, a statute was passed in 1725 making
their combinations void. Strike offenses such as housebreaking and
destruction of goods or personal threats had penalties of
transportation for seven years. Still in 1728, the Gloucester weavers
protested against men being employed who had not served their
apprenticeship.
When the journeymen tailors in and around London organized a
union, a statute made their agreements entering into combinations to
advance their wages to unreasonable prices and to lessen their usual
hours of work, illegal and void, because this had encouraged idleness
and increased the number of poor. Tailors' wages were not to exceed 2s.
per day and their hours of work were to be 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. for the
next three months, and 1s.8d. per day for the rest of the year. A
master tailor paying more would forfeit 5 pounds. A journeyman
receiving more was sent to the House of Correction for 2 months.
Justices of the Peace could still alter these wages and hours depending
on local scarcity or plenty. Despite this statute, the journeymen
tailors complained to Parliament of their low wages and lack of work
due to their masters calling them to work only about half the year.
There was much seasonal fluctuation in their trade as there was in all
trades. The slack period for the tailors was the winter, when the
people of fashion retired to their country estates. After their
complaint, their wages then rose from 1s.10d. per day in 1720, to
1s.8d.- 2s. in 1721, to 2s.- 2s.6d. in 1751, to 2s.2d.- 2s.6d. in 1763,
to up to 2s.7 1/2 d. in 1767, and to 3s. in 1775. Foremen were excluded
from wage control. When they complained of their long hours, which were
two hours longer than the 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. of most handicraft trades,
their hours were reduced in 1767 by one hour to 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. and
their pay was set at 6d. per hour for overtime work at night during
periods of general mourning, e.g. mourning for a deceased courtier.
Their work hours were lowered another hour to 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. in 1768.
The stocking frame-knitters guild, which had been chartered in
1663, went on strike to protest the use of workhouse children as an
abuse of apprenticeship which lowered their wages. They broke many of
their frames, which belonged to their employers, to limit their number.
In 1749, combinations to advance wages, decrease hours of work,
or regulate prices were declared void for journeymen dyers, journeyman
hot pressers, all wool workers, brickmakers and tilemakers, journeymen
servants, workmen, laborers, felt and hat makers, and silk, linen,
cotton, iron, leather, and fur workers in and around London. The
penalty was prison or hard labor at a House of Correction for three
months without bail. In 1756, Justices of the Peace were to determine
the rates of wages of wool workers according to numbers of yards. But
this was repealed the next year to prevent combinations of workers.
Wage agreements between clothiers and weavers were declared binding.
Clothiers not paying wages within two days of delivery of work
forfeited 40s.
In 1763 the silk weavers in east London drew up a scale of
wages, and upon its being rejected, 2000 of them broke their tools,
destroyed the materials, and left their workshops. A battalion of
guards had to take possession of the area. In 1765, the silk weavers
marched on Westminster to stop the import of French silks. In 1768, the
weavers rebelled against a 4d. per yard reduction in their wages,
filling the streets in riotous crowds and pillaging houses. After the
garrison of the Tower came, the workmen resisted with cudgels and
cutlasses, resulting in deaths and woundings. The throwsters [those who
pulled the silk fibers from the cocoons of the silk worms and twisted
them together to make a thread] and the handkerchief weavers also
became discontent. A battle between soldiers and silk weavers at their
meeting place resulted in several men on both sides being killed. In
1773, wages and prices for the work of journeymen silk weavers in and
around London were designated to be regulated by the Mayor and Justices
of the Peace. Foremen were excluded. No silk weaver could have more
than two apprentices or else forfeit 20 pounds. Journeymen weavers
entering into combinations forfeited 40s. This statute satisfied the
weavers, but they formed a union to ensure that it was followed.
In 1750, 1761, and 1765, there were strikes which stopped the
work of the coal industry and harbor at Newcastle for weeks. In 1763,
the keelmen formed a combination to force their employers to use the
official measure fixed by statute for the measurement of loads of coals.
The book "Consideration upon the East-India Trade" dating from
1701 advocated free foreign trade. It argued that the import of goods
from India not only benefited the consumer but also the nation, because
it was a waste of labor to use it in producing goods which could be
bought cheap abroad. This labor could be better put to use at easily
learned plain work in the new industries. Also the low cost of imported
goods would motivate the invention of machines in the nation which
would be even more efficient in manufacturing these goods. But English
manufacturers were still suspicious of free trade.
Making beer and distilling gin from barley were widespread. The
pastimes of gambling and drinking were popular with all classes. In the
trades, this was promoted by the uncertainties of life and work and a
general sense of instability. Many London tradesmen started their day
with a breakfast of beer, bread, and cheese, the traditional breakfast
of countrymen. Gambling and dissipation reduced some London men with
good businesses to destitution, the work house, or street begging.
Drunken gentlemen played pranks such as imitating a woman in distress
or throwing a person in a horse trough. Some innkeepers had "straw
houses" where customers who were so drunk they were unable to walk home
could sleep in fresh straw. A person could get drunk for a few pence.
Gambling with cards was a popular pastime after dinner. Cricket matches
were played by all classes instead of just by humbler people; there
were county cricket matches. Gentlemen often took their coachmen with
them to public events such as cricket matches. Tennis was a sport of
the wealthy classes. Billiards, chess, and games with cards or dice
were played, especially in alehouses. There was horse racing on any
open ground to which people brought their horses to race. Jockeys tried
to unseat each other. Hunting of rabbits and then foxes replaced deer
hunting. Bird and duck hunting was usually with flint lock guns instead
of hawks, as the hedges provided cover from hawks. There was fishing
with line, hook, and bait. Watching the hanging of felons, about 35 a
year in London, was popular, as was going to Bedlam to watch for a fee
the insane being flogged. People went to the Tower to try to get a
glance at a famous prisoner looking through a window or taking a walk
along the battlements. Besides the grand pleasure gardens for gentry,
there were lesser pleasure gardens in London for working families,
which offered fresh air, tea, beer, swimming, fishing, courting,
bowling, and cheap entertainment. Running, vaulting, and leaping were
still popular in the countryside. Fairs had amusements such as fire
swallowers, ventriloquists, puppet shows, acrobats, jugglers, animal
performances, pantomimes, boxing, dwarfs, and albinos, but less
trading. In 1769 was the first circus. Circuses included feats of
horsemanship and clowns. There was also eating and drinking
competitions, foot races, football, archery, some wrestling, and some
bowling on greens or alleys. In winter there was ice skating with
blades and sliding. The right of public access to St. James Park became
entrenched by the 1700s. There was sailing, rowing, swimming, and
hopscotch. George III made sea-bathing popular and it was supposed to
be good for one's health. There was steeple chasing as of 1752.
Horse-racing was given rules. On Sunday, there was no singing, music
playing, dancing, or games, but the Bible was read aloud, prayers were
said, and hymns were sung. Sabbath-breakers were fined by magistrates.
Men often spent Sunday in a tavern.
In general, commodity prices were stable. But when harvests
were poor, such as in 1709 when there was famine, and between 1765 and
1775, bread prices rose. The price of wheat in London, which since 1710
had been between 25s. and 45s., rose to 66s. in 1773. Then the poor
engaged in food riots. These riots were often accompanied by mob
violence, burning, and looting of grain mills, shops, and markets. The
English economy was so dependent on foreign trade, which had trebled
since the 1710s, that the slightest disturbance in the maritime trade
threatened the English with starvation. In many localities the men in
need of parochial relief were sent around from one farm to another for
employment, part of their wages being paid from the poor rates. The
poor often went from parish to parish seeking poor relief. Settled
people tended to fear wandering people. Parishes sought to keep down
their poor rates by devices such as removing mothers in labor lest the
infant be born in the parish. So a statute was passed that a child born
to a wandering woman could not have the place of birth as his
settlement, but takes the same settlement as his mother. Another device
to prevent others from establishing settlement in a parish was for its
farmers to hire laborers for only fifty-one weeks. Also, some
apprentices were bound by means other than indenture to avoid
settlement. Laborers who came to work in industries were refused
settlement and sent back to their original parishes whenever they
seemed likely to become dependent on the rates. Statutes then provided
that a parish must give settlement to apprentices bound for forty days
there, not only by indenture, but by deed, writings, or contracts not
indented. In 1722, parishes were authorized to purchase houses in which
to lodge or employ the poor and to contract with any person for the
lodging, keeping, maintaining, and employing of the poor. These persons
could take the benefit of the work, labor, and service of these poor,
which was then used for the relief of other poor. The poor refusing
such lodging could not then get relief. Many of the poor starved to
death. The propertied classes turned a blind eye to the predicament of
the poor, opining that they were idle or could save more and did not
need higher earnings.
Charitable organizations gave to the poor and set up all day
Sunday schools to set wayward children on a moral path. The Sunday
schools could accommodate children who worked during the week.
Punishment of children by parents or others could be by whipping or
even sitting in stocks. About half of the people were dependent on poor
relief or charities.
Desertion by a man of his family was a common offense. Parishes
providing upkeep for the family sent men to find the errant husbands.
The parish would ask unmarried mothers who was the father of their
child and then force him to marry her or pay for the upkeep of the
child. He often made a bargain with the parish to release him of his
obligation for a sum of money paid to the parish. But many young parish
children died of neglect, and later, parishes were required to list
children under four to aid in accounting for them. Divorces were still
few and expensive, but increasing in number; there were more 60 in this
period. It was easier for a man to get a divorce for one act of
adultery by his wife, than for a wife to get one for habitual
unfaithfulness.
Vagrants and other offenders could be committed to Houses of
Correction as well as to county gaols, because of the expense of the
latter.
Crime was exacerbated by orgies of liquor drinking by the
common people, especially between 1730 and 1750, the sale of which did
not have to be licensed as did ale. In 1736, it was required that
retailers of brandy, rum, and other distilled spirituous liquors be
licensed and to pay 50 pounds a year for their license, because
excessive use had been detrimental to health, rendering persons unfit
for useful labor and business, debauching their morals, and inciting
them to vices. Only persons keeping public victualing houses, inns,
coffee houses, alehouses or brandy shops who exercised no other trade
were allowed to obtain a license. This excluded employers who had sold
liquors to their journeymen, workmen, servants, and laborers at
exorbitant prices. Street vendors who sold liquors had to forfeit 10
pounds. A duty of 20s. per gallon was imposed on the retailers. There
were riots in London against this statute and its new duties. There had
been a tremendous growth in liquor drinking, which did not stop but
went underground after this statute. In 1753, a penalty of 10 pounds or
hard labor for two months was made for selling spirituous liquors
without a license. Also licenses were restricted to people who were
certified by four reputable and substantial householders to be of good
fame and sober life and conversation. Sellers had to maintain good
order in their premises or else forfeit 10 pounds. About 1754 only
innkeepers, victualers, and vendors paying rent of at least 200
shillings could sell gin at retail. The punishment for the second
offense was whipping and imprisonment. That for the third offense was
transportation out of the country. In 1751, additional duties were
placed on spirituous liquors to discourage immoderate drinking going on
by people of the meanest and lowest sort to the detriment of the health
and morals of the common people. In 1761, these duties were again
raised. In 1768, officers were authorized to seize all horses, cattle,
and carriages used to transport foreign spirituous liquors for which
duties had been evaded. In 1773, the penalty for selling without a
license was raised to 50 pounds, which could not be mitigated below 5
pounds. Half the forfeiture was to go to the suer.
The informer system for enforcing laws had its drawbacks.
Informers were not trained and were sometimes retaliated against for
informing. Sometimes this meant being tortured to death. Sometimes
there were schemes in which a leader of thieves, would take a profit in
the stolen goods by posing as a good citizen who tracked down and
returned them to the owners for a fee. Also he might inform on his
companions to get the reward for informing or to punish a troublesome
one. Sometimes the owner of goods was involved in a fake robbery. An
effort in 1749 to turn the whole haphazard system of informers, into a
specialized organization for the detection and apprehension of
criminals had caused a mob to form and make threats. Englishmen
associated a police force with French tyranny. Nevertheless, about
1750, Sir John Fielding, a Bow Street magistrate, and his half-brother
picked men to police the street under the direct control of the Bow
Street magistrates. This first police district made an impact on the
increasing violence of the times. In 1753, a proposal before Parliament
to have a national census was also defeated by public fear of liberty
being curtailed by having to make account of the number and
circumstances of one's family and giving out information that could be
used by enemies both in the realm and abroad.
In 1714, the mercury thermometer was invented by Gabriel
Fahrenheit of Germany; this was much more accurate than the alcohol and
water thermometers. Sweden's Anders Celcius invented the Celsius scale.
The hydrometer, which measures air humidity, was also invented. These
made possible weather forecasting. In 1718, the French chemist Etienne
Geoffroy published a table of affinities among chemical substances, a
precursor to the periodic table of elements. Carolus Linneaus, a
Swedish naturalist and botanist, established the scientific method of
naming plants and animals by genus and species. When he showed that
there was a sexual system in plants, church authorities were so shocked
that they suppressed this knowledge as they did other scientific
knowledge. Rev. Stephen Hales made ventilators for ships, prisons, and
granaries, using the method of injecting air with bellows. This saved
many lives in the prisons. In 1727, he discovered that water that
plants lost by evaporation was restored by the roots up the stems. He
found that gas could be obtained from plants by dry distillation and
invented a way to collect gases by heating certain substances.
Hans Sloane, the son of a receiver-general of taxes, who became
a physician, had collected hundreds of species of plants in Jamacia
while physician to its governor. He became physician to George II and
was a benefactor to many hospitals and devised a botanic garden in
London for the Society of Apothecaries.
Italian Luigi Marsigli started the science of oceanography with
a treatise discussing topography, circulation, ocean plants and
animals, along with many measurements. Frenchman Jean-Etienne Guettard
prepared the first true geological maps, showing rocks and minerals. He
identified heat as the causative factor of change in the earth's
landforms. John Mitchell studied earthquakes.
In 1735, George Hadley, a London lawyer and philosopher,
determined that the cause of the prevailing westerly winds was the
rotation of the earth to the east. Benjamin Franklin in 1743 observed
that a particularly violent storm occurred in Boston a day after a
particularly violent occurred in Philadelphia, and realized that they
were the same storm, even though the storm's surface winds were from
the northeast. He determined that Atlantic coastal storms traveled from
the southwest to the northeast. In 1770, he prepared the first
scientific chart of the Gulf Stream.
Daniel Bernoulli, a Swiss university lecturer in physics,
mechanics, medicine, and anatomy, proved his theorem that any degree of
statistical accuracy can be obtained by sufficiently increasing the
observations, thereby also representing the first application of
calculus to probability theory. In 1738, he showed that as the velocity
of horizontal fluid flow increases, its pressure decreases. This
followed from his theorem that the total mechanical energy of a flowing
liquid, comprising the energy associated with fluid pressure, the
gravitational potential energy of elevation, and kinetic energy of
fluid motion remains constant; that is, the mechanical energy is
conserved. This was the first mathematical study of fluid flow. He
demonstrated that the impact of molecules on a surface would explain
pressure, and that assuming the constant random motion of molecules,
pressure and motion will increase with temperature. He explained the
behavior of gases with changing pressure and temperature, establishing
the kinetic theory of gases. Jean Nollet from France discovered
osmosis, the passage of a solution through a semi-permeable membrane
separating two solutions with different concentrations.
In 1754, Scotsman physician Joseph Black identified carbon
dioxide, the first gas recognized as distinct from everyday breathing
air. He did this by using a balance to weigh alkalies before and after
exposure to heat. They lost weight by losing carbon dioxide. His
development of the concept of latent heat, the quantity of heat
absorbed or released when a substance changes its physical phase at
constant temperature, was the first application of quantitative
analysis to chemical reactions. He ascertained the effects of carbon
dioxide on animals and its production by respiration, fermentation, and
burning of charcoal. At this time, all flammable materials were thought
to contain "phlogiston", which was given off as they burned and was
associated with the transfer of heat. Plants were thought to remove
phlogiston from the air and therefore burned when they were dry.
In 1773, Joseph Priestley, a nonconformist minister,
schoolmaster, and tutor, identified oxygen by heating red oxide of
mercury. He had become interested in the study of gases by watching the
process of fermentation in a brewery next to his house. Using a candle,
mice, and plants in jars sealed over water, he showed that the
processes of combustion, respiration, and putrefaction caused one-fifth
of air exposed over water to disappear, and that plants restored air
vitiated by these processes. This discovery of where breathable air
comes from helped explain the system of life on the planet. When he
isolated oxygen, he noted that it was better than air in supporting
respiration and combustion.
Hydrogen (inflammable air) and nitrogen were discovered. The
differences between acids, bases, and salts and their relationship to
one another became understood. There was some theoretical as well as
empirical knowledge about metals, e.g. in boiling points, intermetallic
compounds, and changes in properties.
In 1742, Benjamin Frankin invented the Franklin stove, which
greatly improved heating efficiency. As a freestanding cast-iron
fireplace, it supplied heat in all directions instead of only from the
one direction of the usual wall fireplace. Also, the heat absorbed by
its cast-iron sides provided warmth even after the fire went out.
Static electricity was being discerned. It had been noticed
that shaking a mercury barometer produced a strange glow in its
"vacuum". Experiments showed that a glass rubbed in vacuo would shine
brightly and that an exhausted glass globe rapidly whirled on a spindle
and rubbing against the hand produced a brilliant glow. And further, as
Newton wrote: "if at the same time a piece of white paper or white
cloth, or the end of ones finger be held at the distance of about a
quarter of an inch or half an inch from that part of the glass where it
is most in motion, the electric vapor which is excited by the friction
of the glass against the hand, will by dashing against the white paper,
cloth, or finger, be put into such an agitation as to emit light, and
make the white paper, cloth, or finger, appear lucid like a glowworm".
In the study of electricity, conductors and insulators were recognized.
There were demonstrations of electrical phenomena such as seeing the
ignition of brandy by a spark shooting from a man's finger and the
feeling the transfer of an electrical impulse created from a rubbed
glass globe among a circle of people by their holding hands. In 1733,
Frenchman Charles DuFay discovered that there are two types of static
electric charges, and that like charges repel each other while unlike
charges attract, linking electricity to magnetism.
In 1750, Benjamin Franklin "caught" lightning with a sharp
pointed wire attached to the top of a kite which led down to a key at
the other end. When a thunder cloud electrified the kite, a charge was
seen coming from the key to an approaching finger. This charge was then
stored in an early type of capacitosr, a1745 Leyden jar, and then
reproduced to create the same feeling of transfer of electrical impulse
among a circle of hand-holders, thereby illustrating that it was the
same phenomenon as electricity. This countered the theological belief
that thunder and lightning were signs of divine displeasure or the work
of the devil. Franklin invented the lightening rod, which was then used
to protect buildings. About ten years later, the first lightening rod
on an English church was erected, which showed the church's acceptance
of his theory. Franklin theorized that there were electric charges
everywhere and designated them as positive or negative. He observed
that opposite charges attracted each other, but that like charges
repelled each other. In 1766, Joseph Priestly did an experiment
suggested by Franklin and showed that electrical force follows the same
law as gravitational force; that is, that the attraction or repulsion
between two electrical charges varies inversely in proportion to the
square of the distance between them.
Joseph-Louis LaGrange from France developed differential
equations. Natural history museums were established. A group split off
from the Royal Society to show collections of curiosities.
In 1754, a self-educated mechanic founded the Society for the
Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce. It had sections on
agriculture, manufactures, mechanics, chemistry, liberal arts, and
trade and colonies. It sponsored contests at which prizes were given,
such as that in 1761 for the best invention of a machine that would
spin six threads of wool, flax, cotton, or silk at one time with only
one person attending it.
Machines still mostly relied on human, animal, and water power.
Abraham Darby was a Quaker and millwright who made large
cooking pots of iron, which cost less than bronze. Around 1709, he
experimented with various substances to take the place of wood charcoal
in iron smelting. Coal was a remote possibility. In forging or working
metals coal had more or less the same qualities as wood charcoal, but
this was not the case in smelting ores, especially iron ore. Coal
contained sulphur compounds which caused the iron ore to deteriorate.
So he controlled the burning of coal to burn out these impurities,
which produced coke. His son took over after his death and improved the
methods of coking, strengthened the bellows, and added ore limestone
and other reagents to the mixture. By 1756, his large blast furnace
using both pit coal and wood charcoal was very productive. He made iron
goods of such quality as those imported.
In 1767, Richard Reynolds replaced the wooden rails connecting
a blast furnace to mines with cast iron rails. He had apprenticed as a
grocer and then became a partner in a large ironworks of Darby with a
man whose daughter he married. After Darby died and before Darby's sons
became of age, Reynolds was in charge of the ironworks. He cast
cylinders of the early steam engines.
In 1749 John Roebuck, a physician and son of a prosperous
manufacturer of Sheffield goods, found a cheaper way to manufacture
sulphuric acid. He did this by using leaden chambers instead of glass
globes to collect the vapor from burning nitre and sulphur over water.
This reduced the cost of sulfuric acid to one-fourth of its previous
cost, so that sulfuric acid came to be used to bleach linen instead of
sour milk. He also made cast iron into malleable iron by smelting iron
using coke from pit-coal instead of charcoal. But flooding in his mines
and further ventures resulted in his ruin and bankruptcy.
Thomas Newcomen, a Baptist ironmonger, blacksmith, and
locksmith, supplied iron tools to mine workers. He was aware of the
problem of flooding of mines and the awkward system of pumps which were
used one above the other and were powered by teams of horses. He made a
very valuable contribution to power generation by inventing the
atmospheric pressure steam engine with piston around 1712. He did this
by connecting theory with experiment, through the use of scientific
knowledge, especially the Royal Society's investigation into
atmospheric pressure. First cold water was poured on a cylinder in
which a piston could move up and down. This caused steam inside the
cylinder to cool and condense into water. The vacuum created inside the
cylinder under the piston caused atmospheric pressure on top of the
piston to push the piston down. The piston was attached by a rod to the
end of a beam which end then swung down from a point on a vertical
stand to which it was attached. When the beam swung, its other end,
which was attached to a rod connected to a pump, rose, thus working the
pump. Then steam from water heated in a boiler under and communicating
with the cylinder was allowed into the cylinder under the piston. This
overcame the atmospheric pressure on the piston from above and allowed
the piston to rise by a counterweight on the rod over and connecting to
the pump. Boys opened and closed the steam valve, which let steam into
the cylinder from below, and the water valve, which let cold water pour
on the cylinder from above. Then the boys were replaced by the valves
being connected to the swinging beam which caused them to open and
close at perfectly regular intervals. A story gives the credit for this
improvement to an inventive valve boy who wanted to play with his
friends. In 1712, the mining industry used this steam engine to pump
water out of mine-shafts which had flooded. These engines were also
used to supply water to reservoirs' locks at canals, and drinking water
facilities in towns. One such engine developed power equivalent to
fifty horses working at one sixth the cost. It was the first automatic
machine since the clock.
Then James Watt invented the steam engine which used steam as a
force acting on the piston. Watt made his living making scientific
instruments for Glasgow University. Around 1764, he was fixing one of
Newcomen's engines belonging to the university, when he saw its
inefficiencies, such as the loss of heat when the cylinder was cooled.
He saved this heat energy by having the steam condensed in another
vessel distinct but connected to the cylinder. This condenser was kept
constantly cool by cold water. So the condensed steam was pumped back
into the boiler and it circulated continuously, thus obviating the need
for constant resupply of water. In order to avoid the necessity of
using water to keep the piston air-tight, and also to prevent the air
from cooling the cylinder during the descent of the piston, he used the
expansion of the steam to push the piston instead of atmospheric
pressure. Then, in order to expand the use of the steam engine beyond
that of a pump, he converted the oscillating motion of the beam into
rotary motion. He formed a partnership with John Roebuck, who had a
two-thirds interest. But when Roebuck needed money, he sold his
interest to Matthew Boulton. Boulton wanted better power that that of
his watermill for his workshops that made metal buttons, watch chains,
shoebuckles of engraved steel, ornamental bronzes, vases, chandeliers,
tripods, silver and plated wares, and imitation gold and tortoiseshell
work. In dry weather, about eight horses were needed to aid in driving
the machinery. A steam pump could pump water from the bottom of the
watermill to the top to be used again. He had built up this factory of
five buildings and six hundred workers, with 9,000 pounds derived from
his marriage to an heiress. By 1774, the partnership had built a model
steam engine with rotary power whose design could be sold. The price of
the engine was set as the amount of money saved on fuel costs in the
first three years of its operation. This machine was a relatively
economical user of energy, capable of performing almost any kind of
work.
About 1750, John Wilkinson, the son of a farmer who also
oversaw an iron furnace, substituted mineral coal for wood charcoal in
the smelting and puddling of iron ore. In 1766, he made it possible to
transport coal out of mines on rail wagons drawn by horses. As father
of the iron industry, he made iron chairs, vats for breweries and
distilleries, and iron pipes of all sizes. With his invention of the
first precision boring machine, he provided Watt with metal cylinders
of perfectly accurate shape, which were necessary for the smooth
working of Watt's steam engine. In 1775 he bought a pumping steam
engine from Boulton and Watt's company for his ironworks. It pumped
three times as fast as Newcomen's engine.
Watt's steam engine came to be used for power-loom weaving and
then for all sorts of manufactures. It would put England ahead of every
manufacturing country in the world. Millwrights built, installed, and
later designed not only steam engines but the machinery that they
drove. These men were essential in setting up the first factories. They
were the most imaginative and resourceful craftsmen. They knew how to
use a turner's, a carpenter's and a blacksmith's tools and had
supervised or done smith work, brick-laying or stone-mason's work in
erecting and maintaining windmills with their many gears and bearings.
There was a good deal of variety in mills, as well as in the structure
and workmanship of them, some being worked by horses, some by wind, and
others by water. They had some knowledge of arithmetic and practical
mechanics. They could draw out a plan and calculate the speed and power
of a wheel. Although technically in a branch of carpentry, the
millwrights learned to work with metal as well. Metal was superior to
wood not only because of its strength but because wood parts were
irregular in motion and wore out rapidly. So iron and brass parts came
to replace wood and leather parts.
In 1728, J. Paine got a patent for rolling iron instead of
hammering it. The iron bars, being heated in a long hot arch or cavern
passed between two large metal rollers, which had certain notches or
furrows on their surfaces.
Clockmaker and Quaker Benjamin Huntsman was struck with the
difficulty of finding finely tempered steel for the springs of his
watches and pendulums of his clocks. He experimented for years to find
a homogeneous and flawless metal, and finally, in 1740, invented cast
steel, which had high tensile strength and was much harder than
ordinary steel. He did this by remelting refined high quality wrought
iron bars at very high temperatures in sealed fireclay crucibles,
together with small quantities of charcoal and ground glass as
reagents. This distributed the carbon evenly in the metal, which
hammering could not do. He approached the Sheffield cutlers, who
finally agreed to try his cast steel for fear of losing their business
to some other manufacturers who were approaching Huntsman. Since
Huntsman had no patent, he worked at night and employed only men who
would keep his secret. His steel was made at night. His factory became
prosperous about 1770 and the excellence of his steel manufacture was
never equaled. Steel and wrought iron was scarce and expensive.
Around 1748, iron founder Samuel Walker, discovered Huntsman's
secret by appearing at Huntsman's factory disguised as a shivering
tramp who asked to warm himself by the furnace fire. He feigned sleep
while watching the whole process. When he began to make cast steel, his
annual output grew from 900 pounds in 1747 to 11,000 pounds in 1760 and
he made a fortune.
Silver was plated over copper from 1751. White metal from tin
and antimony was used from about 1770.
The brass industry was beginning to produce brass from copper
and zinc that was as good as foreign brass. The secret of plate-glass
manufacture came to England in the 1770s.
In 1773, a corporation was set up for the manufacture of plate
glass. It could raise joint-stock because of the great risk and large
expense of the undertaking.
In 1775, chemist William Cookworthy was given a fourteen year
patent for the discovery of certain clay and stone in England from
which he made England's first true porcelain, i.e. that which could
sustain the most extreme degree of fire without melting, and also had
grain as smooth and lustrous, and the transparency and beauty of color,
equal in degree to the best Chinese or Dresden porcelain.
The import duties on diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds and
other precious stones and jewels was dropped to increase the business
of cutting and polishing them.
The world's first chocolate factory was set up in England in
1728. Milk was added to chocolate.
The Fanmakers were incorporated in 1709.
A linen company to sell cambricks [a fine white linen] and
lawns [a thin and fine linen] was incorporated in 1763.
A free market for fish was established in Westminster to
supplement the free fish market in London to prevent forestalling and
monopolizing of the fish industry and to increase the number of
fishermen. Duties for its maintenance were paid by the fishermen.
Certain men were given the right to incorporate fisheries of white
herring for twenty one years to improve the fisheries and give
employment to the poor. They were authorized to sell subscriptions and
to build ships provided the fishery employ 100,000 in such fishery.
There were restrictions on taking fish from rivers during their
breeding season. Herring fishermen were allowed to land and dry their
nets and erect tents and pickle, cure, and reload fish on uncultivated
land up to 100 yards beyond the high water mark all any shore,
forelands, harbors, and ports, without paying the landholder. Later, a
bounty of 30s. per ton was authorized to be given for vessels that were
fitted out and used for white herring fishery.
Anyone wishing to be admitted to the Levant (Turkey) trading
company was to be made free of such on paying 20 pounds, so that this
trade might be increased.
In the 1760s the first cooking school was established by Mrs.
Elizabeth Raffald, a servant.
As for health, there were many occupational hazards. These
included paralysis by mercury of refiners of silver and gold, paralysis
by mercurial fumes of molten lead by plumbers, palsy of glaziers
working with melted lead and of watch gilders, lead poisoning of
painters, blinding by sawdust of sawyers, and the affects of fumes on
pewterers and letter founders. Particles of copper were breathed in by
copper workers, whose hair and beards then turned green. Braziers
became deaf. Hairdressers, bakers, masons, bricklayers' laborers, coal
heavers, chimney sweeps, flax and feather dressers, and workers in
leather warehouses suffered pulmonary diseases. Chimney sweeps also had
warty skin cancer from their bodies being habitually covered with soot
and the lethal cancer of the scrotum. Working with charcoal fires
affected confectioners, chocolate makers, and sail-cloth makers.
Tanners, catgut makers, and tallow-candle makers became nauseous. Heavy
work weakened many bodies and caused hernias. Bending over work for
long hours caused stooped posture and hump backs.
The association between dirt and disease was just beginning to
be made. The principles of infection and hygiene were not well
understood. Bathing every couple of months was not unusual. There was
some theological feeling that cleanliness betokened pride and
filthiness humility. Most houses had a bathtub that could be placed
beside the fire in a bedroom. About 80% of the population had been
getting smallpox, which blinded, maimed or disfigured many. Deaths from
smallpox were only occasional in the country, but constant in London,
where about 13% of every generation died from it. Making death
commonplace, especially in the winter months when thick, dirty clothes
were worn day and night, were typhus, which was carried by lice;
typhoid, which was spread by flies from horse dung; tuberculosis; and
influenza. Dysentery and diarrhea made death commonplace especially in
the summer when flies transmitted bacteria from filth to food and the
water was its most foul. There was great meaning in the prayer "Now I
lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep; if I should die
before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take." Thyphus spread easily
in hospitals and gaols where vermin could live in the beds made of
wood. Colds and toothache were also common. Venereal disease was not
uncommon among the well-to-do in London. Condoms were used to deter
disease, but were still crude, coarse, uncomfortable, and unreliable.
London had almost double the mortality rate of the nation. The number
of baptisms in London were about 80% of its burials. About 40% of the
deaths in London were among children under two, due to infantile
diseases fostered by malnutrition, maternal ignorance such as giving
babies adult food, ill-health, bad water, dirty food, poor hygiene, and
overcrowding. Many children died from diptheria, measles, scarlet
fever, and smallpox. Ten or twelve children with three or four
surviving was a common family pattern. Many well-to-do in London kept
their children in the country for their better health. No matter what
the ailment, physicians regularly bled patients and often gave them
enemas with wooden funnels. Sometimes a blister or irritant was applied
to the skin to draw out the evil humors. Cupping was used to provide
suction to remove pressure from various parts of the body. Also used
were poultices, ointments, and herbal treatments, notably quinine.
Opium was given to deaden pain. There were about 70 drugs in use.
Charms, spells, astrology, and folk remedies still played a major role
in medicine. A physician attended surgeries to give advice. Physicians
could visit apothecary shops once a year and throw away any drugs
falling below an arbitrary standard of excellence. In 1703 the House of
Lords decided a jurisdictional contest between the College of
Physicians and the Society of Apothecaries. It permitted the
apothecaries to direct the remedies as well as to prepare them,
although they could only charge for the drugs they provided. The poor
sought advice from apothecaries.
There was progress in health. Scurvy virtually disappeared as a
cause of death due to the eating of more vegetables. People were
cleaner when wearing cotton, which had to be washed. In 1721, free
inoculations for smallpox began in England, pioneered by Lady Mary
Wortley Montague, also a poet and letter writer. She led the way by
having herself and her son inoculated. Theologicians denounced this
practice as a diabolical interference with disease sent by Providence
for the punishment of sin. Sarah Wallen Mapp was a famous bone-setter.
In 1727 surgeon William Cheselden, whose master was specially licensed
to perform the operation of removing stones in the hospital, reduced
the death rate for removing stones due to hemorrhage, shock, and
infection down to 17% by his invention of a lateral operation. He also
published an anatomy book and treated certain kinds of blindness by
forming an opening in the eye to serve as an artificial pupil. In 1736,
Claudius Aymand conducted the first successful appendectomy.
Nutritional deficiency diseases were beginning to be
understood. In 1753, James Lind, a surgeon in the navy who noted that
more men died of scurvy than in battle, published his work on his
dietary controlled experiment on seamen showing that oranges, lemons,
limes, green food, and onions cured scurvy. He published his methods of
prevention and cure of malarial fevers and his method of disinfecting
ships with the smoke of wood and gunpowder. In 1761, he discovered that
steam from salt water was fresh, and proposed a method of distillation
to supply ships with fresh water. In 1761 Giovanni Morgagni from Italy
opined that disease resulted from a breakdown of organs and tissues
that was viewable on autopsy. He wrote an extensive book showing the
anatomy of diseases, e.g. affections of pericardium and aorta, (e.g.
aneurysm), valve diseases, ulceration, rupture, dilation, and
hypertrophy. He associated clinical observation with anatomy of
disease. For example, pain on the left upper chest, numbness of the
left arm, and difficulty breathing occurring together with exertion
were associated with dilation of the aorta and hardening of arteries,
which caused delay of blood in the aorta, in the heart, and in the lung
vessels. Bernoulli showed that the living human body constantly changes
so that all its particles are renewed in a certain number of years.
Stephen Hale described the first quantitative estimate of blood
pressure and fundamental characteristics of blood circulation. In 1728,
Frenchman Dr. Pierre Fauchard, the father of dentistry, recommended
rubbing one's teeth and gums with a piece of sponge.
Since three out of four babies died shortly after birth, beds
in hospitals for pregnant women were established starting in 1739. The
next year physicians began to replace midwives. A hospital was
established for abandoned foundling children in 1739 so they wouldn't
die, as they usually did, in the care of parishes or workhouses or be
exposed in the streets or left on door steps of the wealthy. It was
besieged by women with babies in their arms. In 1762 a statute made the
principles of the foundling hospital obligatory for all London parish
children under six; they were to be sent to nurses outside London who
were to be paid at least 2s. a week by the parish. In 1766, this was
extended to all parishes, and nurses who cared for a child well for a
year was given a reward of at least 10s. Also, parish children were not
allowed to be apprenticed for more than seven years or until age 21 and
an apprentice fee of at least 4 pounds, 2s. was to be paid to the
master or mistress by the parish.
After 1740, there was a steady growth of population due to
improved midwifery. William Smellie taught scientific midwifery in
London from 1741 and wrote a "Treatise on Midwifery" in 1752, which had
a clear explanation of the mechanism of labor. At this time there were
several maternity hospitals. Forceps existed for difficult deliveries.
In 1750, Dr. Cadogan wrote his book: "An Essay on the Nursing and
Management of Children, which made a great improvement in the care of
young children. For instance, it recommended loose clothing, no tight
swaddling clothes, and a simple diet. Swaddling clothes were used to
retain a baby's evacuations but produced discomfort and serious skin
conditions. A hospital was founded for venereal diseases in 1746,
another as an asylum for the penitent and orphaned girls who might
otherwise be inclined to prostitution, and yet another for prostitutes
in 1758. Coitus interruptus was widely used for birth control. There
were also clandestine abortions and intentional neglect of newborns.
Melancholy was widespread. Suicides were frequent and drugs
were sold for this purpose. In 1725, the mentally ill were classified
as curable or incurable. There were many private asylums. A lunatic who
was furiously mad and dangerous was required to be safely locked up or
chained in his place of settlement. There were frequent and dangerous
abuses in madhouses, so in 1774, no one was to keep or confine more
than one lunatic without a license granted by the Royal College of
Physicians or else forfeit 500 pounds. A Justice of the Peace and a
physician inspected all madhouses to observe conditions and care of
patients there. If refused admittance, the license was forfeited.
In 1712 was the last time a monarch touched a person to cure
him of a malady such as scrofula.
In 1743 surgery students began to dissect corpses with their
own hands to better learn anatomy. In 1744 the Company of Surgeons was
separated out of the Company of Barber-Surgeons. The barbers were
proscribed from performing surgery and had to have a separate
corporation from the surgeons because of the ignorance and
unskillfulness of barbers healing wounds, blows, and hurts e.g. by
blood letting and drawing of teeth. There was a Surgeon's Hall,
officers chosen by the surgeons, and bylaws. The surgeons were required
to examine candidates for the position of surgeon in the king's army
and navy. They were exempted from parish, ward, and leet offices, and
juries. In 1752, a statute provided that the corpses of murderers were
to be sent to the Surgeon's Hall to be anatomized, for the purpose of
deterring murders. The penalty for rescuing the corpse of a murderer
was to suffer death.
The first dispensary for the poor was established in 1769 to
give free medicine and treatment to the infant poor, and then to the
infants of the industrious poor.
The progress of science was seen to threaten the authority of
the church. There was a general belief in God, but not much attention
to Jesus. Feared to come were free thought, rationalism, and atheism.
There was still a big gap between local parsons and bishops, who were
educated, well-off, and related to the aristocracy. On the whole,
preachers talked about morality and Christian belief. They stressed
good works and benevolence. But many Protestant clergy were more
concerned with their own livings than with their parishioners. They
were indolent and did not set a good example of moral living.
From 1715, Freemasonry spread and swiftly provided a spiritual
haven for those who believed in God and desired ritual and mysticism.
About 1744, John Wesley, the son of an Anglican clergyman,
became a religious leader for mining and industrial laborers, who were
crowded into the slums of industrializing cities, and largely ignored
by the Church of England. He had been led to this by a profound
religious experience. He led an evangelical revival with a promise of
individual salvation. He lead an aesthetic life, eating bread, and
sleeping on boards. The person to be saved from the horrors of eternal
damnation in hell was to discipline himself to regular prayer,
self-criticism, and hard work and to forsake worldly pleasures such as
drinking, overeating, and even frivolous talk. This methodical
regularity of living led to the movement being called Methodist. Wesley
believed in witchcraft and magic. He opined that bodily diseases and
insanity could be caused by devils and that some dreams are caused by
occult powers of evil. The Methodists engaged increasingly in
philanthropic activities. They gave to the poor, and visited the sick
and the imprisoned. Wesley preached in the open air where all who
wanted to attend could attend and also wear whatever clothes they had.
Large crowds of poor people gathered for these meetings. Crowds of poor
people were generally feared because of their mob potential. These
Methodist meetings were stormed as were Quaker meetings, with shouts of
"the church in danger". The Methodists' homes were invaded and their
belongings destroyed or taken or their persons beaten with tacit
permission of authorities. Some Justices of the Peace drafted preachers
into the army or navy as vagabonds. Eventually, however, the Methodist
revival imbued energy and piety into the lethargic clergy of the
established church. A new moral enthusiasm and philanthropic energy
grabbed the nation. Prisons were reformed, penal laws made more wise,
slave trade abolished, and popular education given momentum. In the
established church, charity gained precedence over theology and comfort
over self-examination and guilt. Evangelist George Whitfield preached
Calvinism and it split off from Methodism. Then Calvinism went into
full decline. Presbyterianism collapsed into Unitarianism and a general
tendency towards deism developed.
Church sanctuary was abolished for those accused of civil
offenses.
There was much travel by scheduled coaches, which usually
carried several passengers and were drawn by four horses. Regular
service of public vehicles to and from London went four miles an hour;
it took two days to go from London to Oxford. It was not unusual for a
coach to bog down or overturn. Sometimes it had to detour around an
impassable stretch of road or borrow a couple of oxen from a nearby
farm to get out of a quagmire. Men and horses drowned in some of the
potholes. Robbery was endemic and some of the roads were so unsafe from
highwaymen that bands of armed horsemen were hired to accompany the
coaches. It was not unusual to come across gibbets for hanging at
crossroads. In London inns at coach stops, there were casual workers
who were associated with gangs of thieves specializing in passengers'
goods. These workers would inform their associate thieves of specific
goods that had been loaded onto certain coaches, which were then robbed
selectively. Traveling merchants preferred packhorses to carts because
they could cross overland or through watercourses more easily. These
pack horses traveled in regular caravans in single file. The leader had
a bell around his neck to warn, from a distance, riders or carts coming
in the opposite direction. Carts traveled about two miles an hour. In
1711 the trustee system superseded administration by the Justices of
the Peace of the turnpike system, including tolls and toll booths. The
toll booths were frequently attacked by riotous mobs. So anyone pulling
down or destroying turnpike gates at which tolls were to be paid went
to prison or was put to hard labor in a House of Correction for three
months without bail. He was also whipped in the market place between
11:00 and 2:00. If he offended a second time, he was transported for
seven years. Later the penalty of prison up to three years was added as
an alternative. The hundred had to pay the damages up to 20 pounds. The
penalty for threatening the toll collector or forcibly passing through
was 5 pounds for the first offense, and 10 pounds for the second
offense with imprisonment for one year for those who couldn't pay.
By 1750, about 60 miles could be made in a day. The turnpike
trusts took over most of London's major highways during the 1700s.
There was no travel on Sundays until 1750.
In 1745, shocked by the difficulty caused by bad roads in
concentrating the royal army to stop the Scottish invasion, the king
began systematically to improve all the roads. There was much road and
highway widening and repair, and also river bank and pier repair, going
on all over the country. Marsh lands were drained. Harbors were
deepened. There were numerous statutes trying to adjust the needs of
travel with the condition of the roads. For instance, there had to be a
pole between wheel horses or double shafts. Carriages, wagons, or carts
drawn by more horses, oxen, or animals, or with very heavy loads, or
with wheels bound with iron tires were observed to cause more damage,
so they were restricted or had to pay higher tolls. Then broad and
smooth iron tires were observed to not cause the amount of damage as
did narrow or irregular iron tires and their use was encouraged. From
1741, weighing machines were kept at toll gates. By 1766, turnpike
roads had to be at least 30 feet wide, and hedges and fences thereon
had to be taken down by their owners. Cartways to markets had to be at
least 20 feet wide, and horseways 3 (later 8) feet wide. There were
ditches, drains, and gutters to carry off water. Names and abodes of
owners were to be put on carriages, wagons, and carts or forfeit 2-5
pounds, except for carriages or coaches of a nobleman or gentleman for
his private use or those drawn by only one horse or two oxen, or those
with wide wheels and a light load. There were town name signs,
direction posts, and milestones. In 1773, the Surveyors and the
Commissioners of Turnpikes were given authority to requisition local
men, carts and draught animals for compulsory labor, or money instead,
in maintaining the roads and making new ditches and drains. They could
take any local sand, gravel, chalk, or stone from waste or common land
or, if not needed by and satisfaction was made to the owner, from
enclosed land. The surveyor was to be chosen locally for a year and
could be given an allowance. New roads required the consent of the
landowners and a negotiated price.
A driver of a carriage, wagon, or cart on the public highway
who by negligence or misbehavior caused any hurt or damage to a person
or any other carriage or hindered free passage of any other carriage
was to forfeit up to 20s. Anyone leaving an empty cart or other
obstruction on a public highway was to forfeit up to 20s. Any cart,
wagon, or carriage driven without a person on foot or on horseback
leading it had a forfeiture up to 20s. Any driver of an empty cart,
wagon, or carriage who refused or neglected to make way for any coach
or loaded cart, wagon, or carriage was to forfeit up to 20. Any
offender could be apprehended without warrant by anyone who saw his
offense, and who was then to deliver him to a constable or other peace
officer.
By 1719, the mail service was well-regulated. Letter rates
within 80 miles of London were 3d. per piece of paper, then 12d. per
ounce. Within 60 miles of New York City in America there were 4d. per
piece of paper, then 1s.4d. per ounce. Letters were still carried by
post horses. From London to New York, they were 1s. per piece of paper
for the first three pieces, then 4s. per ounce. In 1765, this rate was
extended to all colonial ports.
In 1754, canals began to be constructed linking the main
rivers. The barges were hauled by horses or men from the land near the
river's edge. Now goods of many inland towns cheapened and reached a
national instead of just a local market. In 1761 an almost illiterate
man called James Brindley cut the first real canal at Worsley for the
Duke of Bridgewater, who owned the coal deposits there. He kept the
line of the canal at one level to avoid having to make locks. It
crossed one river as a forty foot high aqueduct. He refused to use the
beds of small rivers, whose sluggish flow gave no adequate security
against silting. Coal at the destination point of Manchester fell to
half its former price. After Wedgwood headed a campaign to persuade
Parliament to construct a certain canal, he bought adjacent land on
which he built his great factory.
In 1713, the maximum interest rate that could be charged was
reduced to 5% for the advancement of trade and improvement of lands
because that rate was the norm in foreign lands. Thus the maximum
interest rate fell from 10 to 8 to 6 and then to 5%. When Issac Newton
was Master of the Mint, he noted that too restricted a currency caused
a high interest rate to prevail, which was bad for commerce and the
plans to set the poor to work, but that too large a quantity of money
in circulation caused interest rates to fall, which encouraged luxury
imports and the export of bullion.
The Bank of England provided a safer deposit and lower interest
than goldsmiths or scriveners. It also issued notes for 10 and 15
(since 1759), and 20 pounds. Outside retail trade and wages payments,
business was conducted on a credit basis with a paper promise to pay at
some future date. Check use was still formal and rare. Tradesmen
typically authorized their apprentices to "write off or draw" from
their accounts, bringing their bank books. Depositors authorized other
people such as certain servants, relatives, cashiers, or company
secretaries to make use of their accounts. After 1721, the Bank
dividend was about 6% a year.
Promissory notes were assignable and endorsable and the holder
could recover against the signer or any endorser as was the case with
bills of exchange. In 1775, no more promissory or other notes, bills of
exchange, draughts, or undertakings in writing and being negotiable or
transferable could be made for under 20s., because it was hard for the
poorer sort of manufacturer, artificer, laborer and others to use them
without being subject to great extortion and abuse. Cash was to be used
instead.
By 1711, government finances had become so chaotic that the
Chancellor of the Exchequer sought to re-establish public credit by
means of a chartered commercial company, the shares of which were
offered in substitution for government stock. This South Sea Company
was established in 1711 with a monopoly to trade in South America. The
prospects of huge profits sent the share prices soaring. There was also
an increase in the money supply. These factors led to a speculation
bubble in 1720 in this stock. Also, many stock-jobbers promoted
companies of every description, such as one to extract gold from
seawater. There was an insurance boom with about seventy insurance
companies in existence, many virtually gambling in life contingencies.
There was speculation in insurance for all types of occurrences, such
as housebreaking, highway robbery, death by gin-drinking, and horses
becoming disabled. The total capital invested in all these enterprises
rose to over five times the cash resources of all Europe. When the
bubble burst, 100 pound South Sea stock had gone up to 1050 pounds and
back down again to 120. Since the government had in effect bought this
stock at a low price and paid off its debt with this stock at a high
price, this bubble relieved the government of much of its massive debt.
It also redistributed wealth. After the bubble burst, investors took
refuge in investing in 3-4% government fixed-interest securities. A
result of this bubble burst was the chartering of two corporations for
marine insurance and prohibition of such by any partnership or firm.
Private persons could continue to write policies, and they chose
Lloyd's Coffeehouse as their headquarters; it came to dominate the
world of marine insurance after the two chartered companies came to
concentrate on fire and life insurance. Lloyd's list became the
foundation for a new newspaper. There were specialty boxes at Lloyd's
such as on America or the Baltic. Many ships were reported captured by
enemies or pirates, but underwriting insurance was a lucrative business
for many.
In 1717 the gold guinea was assigned a value of 21s. In 1774,
the gold standard was introduced. In 1774, clipped and deficient gold
coin was called in to be exchanged for new coin.
Local taxes were collected for the church, the poor, county
courts of justice, borough administration, and highways. National taxes
included the income, customs, and excise taxes. When the government
tried to levy excise taxes on wine, tobacco, and then on cider, there
was a public protest with mobs demonstrating against the power given to
excise inspectors to search in people's homes. These excise taxes were
no longer levied.
Duties were placed on items for encouraging industries within
the country and to pay the expenses of government. There were more and
higher duties to pay for war. At various times there were duties on
hides, skins, seal skins, gilt and silver wire, malt, mum [strong beer
made from malted wheat], cider, perry, spices, tea, coffee, cocoa nuts,
chocolate, cocoa paste, snuff, chinaware, drugs, calicoes, herrings,
apples, oysters, raw Italian and Chinese silk, gum arabic, gum senega,
tallow, hogs-lard, grease, beaver skins and wool, imported brandy,
raisins, coals and coal dust, coaches for one's own use or for hire,
except licensed hackney coaches; silver plate owned by persons,
corporations, and bodies politic; leases, bonds, and other deeds;
licenses for retailing wine, beer, and ale; 5% of salaries, fees, and
perquisites from office and employments including royal pensions and
gratuities over 100 pounds. When the price of wheat was high, as in
1765, when it was 6s. per bushel, wheat products could not be exported.
At other times, they could not be imported. Duties on imported wheat,
barley, rye, oats, beans, rice, Indian corn were also dropped. The
prohibition of importing salted beef, pork, bacon, and butter was
dropped. In 1770, no live cattle, pigs, mutton, pork, beef, either
fresh or salted could be exported or forfeit 50 pounds for every such
animal or 5s. per pound of such meat. In 1773, peas, beans, bacon,
hams, and cheese could be imported duty free, and in 1775 Labrador
codfish. In 1775, raw goat skins could be imported duty-free to improve
the domestic manufacture of red, green, and blue leather.
In 1773, there were given costs above which various commodities
could not be exported: wheat at 44s. per quarter, rye, peas, or beans
at 28s., barley and beer at 22s., oats at 14s. or else forfeit the
goods, 20s. per bushel and the ship or boat in which laden. (There are
8 bushes in a quarter.)
A window tax replaced the hearth tax. These duties were 2s. on
dwelling houses, increased by 6d. per window for houses with 10-14
windows, and increased by 9d. per window for houses with 15-19 windows,
and increased by 1s. per window for houses with 20 or more windows, per
year to be paid by the occupant. These were increased three more times,
until the dwelling house duty was 3s. and the duty for 25 or more
windows was 2s. Another duty for war was that on imported starch,
certain imported clothes, cards, dice, soap, vellum, parchment, and
paper made in the realm (4d.-1s.6d. per ream depending on quality) or
imported (1-16s. per ream). For pamphlets and newspapers made in the
realm there was a duty of 2d. per sheet and 12d. for every
advertisement. When the duty was paid, the paper was stamped. The
penalty for nonpayment was 10 pounds for sellers and 5 pounds for those
writing or printing on the paper. Later, there was a penalty of
imprisonment in a House of Correction up to three months for sellers or
hawkers of pamphlets or newspapers, and the apprehender received a
reward of 20s. A parson marrying a couple without publishing banns or
license could forfeit 100 pounds.
Not paying duties was punishable by various forfeitures of
money. Officers for duties could search warehouses on suspicion of
concealment of coffee, tea, chocolate, or cocoa beans with an intent to
avoid duties after making an oath before a duty commissioner or Justice
of the Peace setting forth the grounds of such suspicion. A special
warrant could be issued authorizing the officer to seize such goods.
Wars were funded not only by some duties, but by lotteries and
short-term funding purchased at 5% yearly interest from the Bank of
England and by long-term funding by the sale of annuities.
County militias could be raised and called out to march
together in order to be better prepared to suppress insurrections or
invasions. Their horsemen were to be provided with broad sword, a case
of pistols with 12 inch barrels, a carabine with belt and bucket, a
saddle, and a bit and bridle. Each foot soldier was to be provided with
a bayonet, a cartouch-box, and a sword. In the militia act of 1757,
there were quotas for each parish, to be chosen by lot from lists of
men 18-50 years old. After militia service for three years, one could
not be called again until by rotation, and, if married, he was allowed
to practice any trade in which he was able in any town or place. While
he was in the militia, his parish had to pay an allowance to his
family, if distressed, the usual price of an agricultural laborer,
according to the number and ages of the children. Quakers could provide
a substitute or pay money to defray expenses of a substitute for three
years. Exempt were peers, commissioned officers in royal army or royal
castle, other military personnel, members of either university,
clergymen, teachers of any separate congregation, constables and peace
officers, and watermen of the Thames River.
This militia act was due to an invasion scare in 1756 because
Great Britain then had no allies on the continent. The old strategy of
maintaining a small army of 17,000 men and relying on volunteers had
really depended on England's allies to tie down France's land forces.
The militia act of 1757 was designed to reassure squires they would not
be used as adjuncts to the army. Only those with much property could be
officers. Enlistees could still carry on their trades and jobs. Costs
were to be from general taxation rather than by locality. But it was
almost impossible to get officers and there were many riots when parish
authorities tried to draw up lists of those liable to serve. In 1759
the navy prevented French invasion.
Able-bodied men without a calling, employment, or visible means
of maintenance or livelihood could be searched for and conscripted into
the army. Volunteers who enlisted were paid 40s. and were not taken out
of her majesty's service by any process other than for some criminal
matter. King George II was the last king to lead his troops into
battle. Later, parishes were given 20s. for every soldier they
summoned. Also, persons who had a vote for member of Parliament were
exempted.
Whipping was the usual punishment for offenses. A soldier who
deserted or joined in any mutiny or sedition in the royal army within
the realm was to suffer death or any other punishment determined by
court martial. In 1760, a soldier (later, or a marine) who slept at his
post, left his post before being relieved, communicated with any rebel
or enemy, struck or disobeyed any superior officer could suffer death,
including those soldiers in America.
During war, chief officers of towns quartered and billeted
royal army officers and soldiers in inns, livery stables, alehouses,
and victualing houses for 4d. a day, but not in any private house
without consent of the owner. From 1714 to 1739, the army regiments
were split up and scattered among the ale-houses of small towns for
maintenance; this was to disperse the soldiers. It was easier to count
them, thereby keeping a check on their number, which might be
exaggerated if they were in large groups in barracks. The towns
protested having to maintain soldiers and town magistrates imposed
severe penalties for small offenses by soldiers. Their drunkenness and
violence were not tolerated as they were for ordinary people. Their
officers not being with them, the soldiers retaliated with
troublesomeness. As of 1763 English troops could be quartered in
unoccupied houses or barns and supplied with necessities such as
bedding, firewood, candles, vinegar, salt, cooking utensils, and beer
or cider. The Royal Hospital gave pensions to maimed and worn out
soldiers treated there.
Sailors had more status than soldiers because they had regular
work as seamen in times of peace and they did not remind the people of
the idea of a standing army, which they had hated especially since
Cromwell.
Justices of the Peace, mayors, and other officers could bind
boys as apprentices to sea service if they were at least ten and their
parents were chargeable to the parish or begged for alms. This
indenture to the masters or owners of ships lasted until the boy
reached 21. The boy's parish paid 50s. for clothing and bedding for
such sea service. No such apprentice could be impressed into the navy
until at least 18 years of age. Master and owners of ships that carried
30-50 tuns had to take one such apprentice and one more boy for the
next 50 tuns, and one more boy for every 100 tuns over 100 tuns, or
else forfeit 10 pounds to the boy's parish. Boys voluntarily binding
themselves to such sea service were exempt from impressment for the
next three years. This was to increase the number of able and
experience mariners and seamen for the navy and for the trade and
commerce of the nation.
No masters or commanders of merchant ships were to proceed on a
voyage beyond the seas without first agreeing in writing on wages with
the seamen, except for apprentices. Such agreement had to be signed by
the seamen. Offenders were to forfeit 5 pounds per seaman, which sum
went to the use of Greenwich Hospital. Any seaman leaving the ship
before being discharged in writing was to forfeit one month's pay
because too many left the ship before it was unladen.
There were some ships of 2000 tons. The steering wheel had been
introduced because a sudden heavy sea could wrest a tiller from the
hands of a helmsman. Triangular head-sails with jib boom and stay-sails
on stays between masts were in use so that ships could sail closer into
the wind. The length of ships was still determined by the same length
of trees that could be grown. Sailing ships were still vulnerable to a
lee shore. Latitude was easy to determine using the reflecting octant
invented by John Hadley in 1731, and a sextant invented in 1757, with
mirrors and a small telescope to measure the angle between a celestial
body such as the sun or north star and the horizon. But longitude could
not be determined with any degree of accuracy. One method relied on
accurate predictions of the future position of the moon as observed
from a fixed reference point, such as Greenwich. By precisely observing
the local time of the moon's occultation of a known star at a
particular place, and looking up in a table the predicted time of the
event at Greenwich, one could approximate the time difference of the
place from Greenwich. There were so many shipwrecks on this account
that the government offered a reward to anyone who found a way to
measure longitude accurately. In 1763 carpenter and clockmaker John
Harrison made the chronometer to do this with an accuracy of 2 1/2
seconds per month, and received 5,000 pounds. He was promised 10,000
pounds to explain the principle of his timekeeper and build three more.
The chronometer kept time with extreme accuracy and was mounted to
remove the effect of the ship's motion. To find a ship's position, a
navigator noted the time and measured the positions of certain stars.
He compared these positions with tables that showed the stars'
positions at Greenwich mean time, and then calculated the ship's
position.
Officer positions were no longer bought, but were subject to
examination for a minimum of knowledge, especially in navigation. In
1729 the Naval Academy was established. Boys entered at age 13 to 16
and spent two or three years there.
Only about 15% of the crew of navy ships were volunteers. Many
were gaolbirds, having chosen the Navy over more gaol time for debt.
Press gangs seized men in the port towns and from ships coming into
harbor. From 10% to 20% of the crew were foreigners, many of these
pressed men. About 1756, the Marine Society was founded for training
and placing poor boys in work in naval and merchant ships. This not
only supplied men and boys for the Navy, but saved boys from a life of
vagrancy and crime. These boys usually became reliable and obedient
sailors.
The life of a sailor was a hard one, requiring much strength.
Sailors did not know how to swim, so falling overboard usually meant
death. Flogging was the usual punishment in the Navy, even for small
offenses. The amount of flogging due for each offense rose over time.
If flogging were fatal, there would be an inquiry and occasionally
punishment. A sailor's meals were usually hard bread invested with
weevils and maggots, dried or salted meat or fish, and small quantities
of oatmeal, butter, and cheese. Many sailors had scurvy or other
deficiency diseases. Experiments with lime and lemon juice as remedies
for scurvy were made around 1764, but were not used in the Navy until
about 1800. Many more sailors died from these diseases than from
battle. Rum and water was a daily ration introduced in 1745. The
ordinary sailor was paid about one pound a month, a rate established in
1650s which became outdated. This was not in cash, but in a ticket
which entitled him to payment in full if he presented it at the pay
office in London, but was subject to swinging deductions if he tried to
cash it in another port.
Prize money from conquered ships was substantial. To encourage
seamen to enter the navy, Parliament provided that the prizes be
divided among flag officers, commanders, other officers, seamen,
marines, and soldiers on board every ship of war, including private
ships commissioned by the Admiral, as directed by the king, or as
agreed with the owner of a private ship. It included an enemy's ships,
and goods and arms on the ships or in fortresses on the land. There was
also bounty money for enemy ships taken or destroyed. For retaking or
salvaging English goods taken by the enemy, 1/8th their value was paid.
Privateers colluding with others to fraudulently take their merchant
ships forfeited their ships, with 1/3rd going to the person who made
the discovery and prosecuted.
Later, any able seaman volunteering for the navy was to receive
5 pounds bounty. Any seaman volunteering for the navy was to receive a
bounty of 3 pounds. If a navy seaman was killed or drowned, his widow
was to receive a year's pay as bounty. No seaman in a merchant ship was
to receive more than 35s. per month because of war at that time.
Still later, anyone who ran goods or avoided customs was
excused and indemnified if he enlisted in the navy as a common sailor
for three years.
Those under 18 or over 55 were made exempt from impressment
into the king's service. The time of service was limited to five years
if the serviceman so demanded. Worn out and decrepit seamen no longer
being treated at the Royal Hospital for Seamen at Greenwich received a
pension as determined by the hospital.
In war, the Navy favored blockading tactics over attack by
fireships, which grew obsolete. In peace, when not used in convoys to
remote lands, many ships of war were used as cruisers to guard the
coast, to trade, and to accompany merchant ships going out and
returning home. About 1755, marine forces of the navy were raised and
quartered on shore.
No war ship could carry goods except gold, silver, and jewels
and except the goods of a ship in danger of shipwreck or already
shipwrecked.
The king was authorized to prohibit the export of gunpowder,
saltpeter, ammunition, and arms.
When a ship had been forced on shore or stranded on the coast,
it had been the practice for people to plunder it and to demand high
payment for salvaging its goods. So a statute required that salvage
only be done by sheriff, mayors, and other officials. A person who
defaced the marks on goods or hindered the saving of the ship had to
pay double satisfaction to the person aggrieved and spend 12 months at
hard labor in a House of Correction. If a person unduly carried off
goods, he forfeited treble damages. If he made a hole in the ship or
stole the pump from the ship, he was guilty of felony without benefit
of clergy.
The owner of the island of Skerries was allowed to erect a
lighthouse and charge passing ships other than Navy ships 1d. per tun.
Only pilots examined and admitted into the society of pilots
and, if no such pilot was readily available, a ship's own owner,
master, or mate could pilot ships up the Thames River, or else forfeit
10 pounds for the first offense, 20 pounds for the second, and 40
pounds thereafter. Any pilot losing a ship could no longer be a pilot.
There had to be at least 120 qualified pilots. The prices of piloting
were 3 pounds 10s. for ships drawing 7 feet of water, and 10s. more for
each additional foot drawn up to 8 pounds 10s. for ships drawing 17
feet of water.
To preserve navigation, ships were not to throw any ballast,
filth, rubbish, gravel, earth, stone, or filth into rivers or ports
where the tide or water flowed or ran or else forfeit 50s.- 5 pounds.
Ships on the Thames River could take as ballast to stabilize a ship
without cargo: dung, compost, earth, or soil from laystalls in London.
There was a toll on ships entering the port of London to pay for
repairs to its walls.
Many persons insuring ships for large premiums became bankrupt,
thus ruining or impoverishing many merchants and traders. So the king
was authorized to grant charters to two distinct corporations for the
insurance of ships, goods, and merchandise or going to sea or for
lending money upon bottomry [borrowing money and and pledging the ship
as security]. Each corporation had to pay 300,000 pounds to the
Exchequer and to have sufficient ready money to pay for losses insured
by them. They were to raise capital stock and could make calls of money
from their members in proportion to their stocks for any further money
required.
Any owner, master, or mariner who cast away, burned, or
otherwise destroyed a ship to the prejudice of underwriters of policies
of insurance or of any merchants whose goods have been loaded on the
ship was to suffer death.
The owners of ships were not liable for losses by reason of
theft without their knowledge by the master or mariners of goods beyond
the value of the ship. This was to prevent the discouragement of owning
ships.
The insurance of merchant ships must give salvage rights
[rights to take what may be left of the ships insured after paying the
insurance on them] to the insurer. A lender on bottomry had benefit of
salvage. No insurance could be for a greater amount than the value of
one's interest in the ship or in the goods on board.
No waterman carrying passengers or goods for hire e.g. by
wherryboat, tiltboat, or rowbarge, on the Thames River could take an
apprentice unless he was a housekeeper or had some known place of abode
where he could keep such apprentice or else forfeit ten pounds, and if
he couldn't pay, do hard labor at the House of Correction for 14-30
days. Also he could not keep the apprentice bound to him. No apprentice
could be entrusted with a vessel until he was 16 if a waterman's son
and 17 if was he the son of a landman, and he had at least two years'
experience. None but freemen, i.e. one having served an apprenticeship
of seven years, could row or work any vessel for hire or be subject to
the same punishment. This was to avoid the mischiefs which happen by
entrusting apprentices too weak, unable, and unskillful in the work,
with the care of goods and lives of passengers. Later amendment
required that apprentices be age 14 to 20 and that there be no more
than 40 passengers, with the penalty of transportation if there were
over 40 and one drowned.
No boat on the Thames River could be used for selling liquors,
tobacco, fruit, or gingerbread to seamen and laborers because such had
led to theft of ropes, cables, goods, and stores from the ships.
Excepted were boats registered at the guilds of Trinity and of St.
Clement, but they had to show their owner's name and could only operate
in daylight hours. The penalty was forfeiture of the boat.
All ships coming from places infected with the plague had to be
quarantined and any person leaving a quarantined ship had to return and
later forfeit 20 pounds, of which 1/3 could go to the informer, the
rest to the poor. This was later raised to 200 pounds and six months in
prison, and if the person escaped, he was to suffer death. Also later,
a master of a ship coming from infected places or having infected
people on board was guilty of felony and forfeited 200 pounds. If he
did not take his vessel to the quarantine area on notice, he forfeited
a further 200 pounds (later 500 pounds) and the ship, which could then
be burned. The king was authorized to prohibit commerce for one year
with any country infected by the plague and to forbid any persons of
the realm from going to an infected place.
By 1714, there was a clear distinction between a king's private
income and the Crown's public revenue. From 1714, the king's Treasurer
as a matter of routine submitted annual budgets to Parliament. He was
usually also the leader of the House of Commons and the Chancellor of
the Exchequer.
Proclamations by the Crown were more restricted to colonial and
foreign affairs, to executive orders, and to instructions to officials.
The high offices included the Chancellor, Treasurer, Keeper, President
of the Council, Privy Seal, and two Secretaries of State, who were in
charge of all foreign and domestic matters other than taxation, one for
the north and one for the south. With Thomas More, the Chancellor had
become more of a judge and less of a statesman. Other offices were:
Paymaster General, Secretary of War, and Treasurer of the Navy.
Starting with the monarch, government positions were given by patronage
to friends and relatives, or if none, to the highest bidder. These
offices were usually milked for fees and employed deputies, clerks, and
scribes who worked for long hours at very modest wages. Most people
believed that the offices of power and influence in the realm belonged
to the nobility and gentry as indubitably as the throne belonged to the
king. Assaulting, wounding, striking, or trying to kill a member of the
Privy Council engaged in his duties was punishable by death without
benefit of clergy. Civil and military commissions, patents, grants of
any office or employment, including Justice of Assize, Justice of the
Peace, court writs, court proceedings continued in force for six months
after a king's death, unless superceded in the meantime.
The king's ministers were those members of his Privy Council
who carried out the work of government. By distributing patronage, the
ministers acquired the influence to become leading members of the House
of Commons or the House of Lords. They made policy, secured the king's
consent, and then put through the necessary legislation. The king was
to act only through his ministers and all public business was to be
formally done in Privy Council with all its decisions signed by its
members. The king gradually lost power. The last royal veto of a
Parliamentary bill was in 1708. By 1714, the Privy Council ceased
making decisions of policy. Instead a cabinet not identified with any
particular party was chosen by the Queen, who presided over their
meetings, which were held every Sunday. It dealt with Parliament. In
1720, the number of peers in the House of Lords was fixed, so that the
Crown could create no more. About 1720, Robert Walpole, son of a
country squire, who came to be first minister of the Crown and the
leader of the Whigs, organized the cabinet so that it was of one view.
He led it for twenty years and thus became the first prime minister. A
prime minister was needed because the king spoke no English. Walpole
was brilliant at finance and lessened taxation. He restored trust in
the government after the South Sea bubble scandal. He was successful in
preserving the peace with other nations and providing stability in
England that led to prosperity. The Whigs opposed a standing army and
over-reaching influence of the Crown. They espoused the liberty of
individual subjects. Their slogan was "liberty and property". They
generally favored foreign wars.
Members of the Parliament felt responsible for the good of the
whole country instead of accounting to their electors, but self-
interest also played a part. Leading commercial magnates of the realm
sought to be members of Parliament or governors of the Bank of England
so they could take up government loans at advantageous rates, snap up
contracts to supply government departments at exorbitant prices, and
play an important part in deciding what duties should be charged on
what goods. About 5% of the population could vote. Voting was open,
rather than by secret ballot. Seats in Parliament could normally be
bought either by coming to an arrangement with some landowner who had
the right to nominate to a closed seat or by buying enough votes in
constituencies where the electorate was larger and the contest more
open. Factory owners and leading landowners sat together on committees
drawing up plans for public works such as canal building, obtained the
necessary permits from public authorities and organized the whole
enterprise. In 1714, Parliament was allowed to last for seven years
unless sooner dissolved by the king because of the expense and tumult
of elections, which frequently occasioned riots, and sometimes battles
in which men were killed and prisoners taken on both sides. Politics
had become a career. Members of Parliament could not be arrested while
Parliament was in session.
As of 1710, electees to the Commons had to have 600 pounds
annual income for knights or 300 pounds annually for burgesses. This
did not include the eldest son or heir apparent of any peer or lord of
Parliament or any person with the above qualifications. The
universities were exempted.
As of 1729, a person electing a member of the Commons had to
swear or affirm that he had not received any money, office, employment,
or reward or promise of such for his vote. If he swore falsely, it was
perjury and he was to forfeit 500 pounds and his right to vote. Later,
voters for member of Parliament had to have residence for a year. Still
later, voters were required to have been freemen of the city or town
for one year or else forfeit 100 pounds, except if entitled to freedom
by birth, marriage, or servitude according to the custom of such city
or town. Voters were still required to have a freehold of land of 40s.
a year income, but holders of estates by copy of court roll were
specifically precluded from voting or else forfeit 50 pounds.
In 1724, since unauthorized persons had intruded into
assemblies of citizens of London and presumed to vote therein, the
presiding officer -appointed clerks to take the poll and oath required
for elections for Parliament, mayor, sheriffs, chamberlains,
bridgemasters, and auditors of chamberlains. The oath was that one was
a freeman of London, a liveryman of a certain named company, had been
so for 12 months, and had named his place of abode. The oath for
alderman or common council elections was that the voter was a freeman
of London and a householder in a named ward who had paid scot of at
least a total of 30s. and bore lot. A list of the voters and of persons
disallowed was given to candidates by the presiding officer.
Soldiers could not be quartered within 20 miles of a place of
election so that the election was kept free.
Voters in public corporations must have held their stock for
six months before voting them to discourage splitting stock and making
temporary conveyances thereof to give certain people more of a vote,
e.g. in declaring dividends and choosing directors.
Ambassadors were made immune from arrest, prosecution and
imprisonment to preserve their rights and privileges and protection by
the Queen and the law of nations.
The Supporters of the Bill of Rights Society was founded and
paid agents to give speeches throughout the country and used the press
for its goals.
James Burgh demanded universal suffrage in his 1773 book:
"Political Disquisitions".
In 1707 there was union with Scotland, in which their
Parliaments were combined into one. The country was known as Great
Britain. The last Scottish rebellion resulted in attainder of its
leaders for levying war against the king. In 1746, they were given the
chance to surrender by a certain date, and receive a pardon on
condition of transportation. In 1747, anyone impeached by the Commons
of high treason whereby there could be corruption of the blood or for
misprison of such treason could make his defense by up to two counsel
learned in the law, who were assigned for that purpose on the
application of the person impeached. In 1748, counsel could interrogate
witnesses in such cases where testimony of witnesses were not reduced
to writing.
There was a steady flow of emigrants to the American colonies,
including transported convicts and indentured servants. Delaware became
a colony in 1703. In 1729, the king bought Carolina from its seven
proprietors for 2,500 pounds apiece. Person having estates, rights,
titles, or interest there, except officers, were allowed by Parliament
to sue the king with the court establishing the value to be paid, but
no more than at a rate of 2,500 pounds per 1/8 of the property. Georgia
was chartered in 1733 on request of James Oglethorpe, who became its
first governor, as a refuge for debtors and the poor and needy. It
established the Episcopal Church by law. In 1730 Carolina and 1735
Georgia were allowed to sell rice directly to certain lands instead of
to England only. Later, sugar was allowed to be carried directly from
America to European ports in English ships without first touching some
English port. Foreigners who had lived in the American colonies for
seven years, and later foreigners who served two years in the royal
army in America as soldiers or as engineers, were allowed to become
citizens of Great Britain on taking oaths of loyalty and Protestantism.
This included Quakers and Jews. The Jews could omit the phrase "upon
the true faith of a Christian."
In 1756, indentured servants in America were allowed to
volunteer as soldiers in the British army serving in America. If his
proprietor objected, the servant was to be restored to him or
reasonable compensation given in proportion to the original purchase
price of his service and the time of his service remaining.
There was much competition among countries for colonies. Quebec
and then Montreal in 1760 in Canada were captured from the French.
About 1768 James Cook discovered New Zealand and Australia; his maps
greatly helped future voyages. The English East India Company took over
India as its Mogul Empire broke up.
Manufacturing in the American colonies that would compete with
British industry was suppressed by Great Britain. There were increasing
duties on goods imported into the colonies and restrictions on exports.
In 1763, Parliament imposed duties on foreign imports going to America
via Britain: to wit, sugar, indigo, coffee, certain wines, wrought
silks, calicoes, and cambrick linen. Foreign vessels at anchor or
hovering on colonial coasts and not departing within 48 hours were made
liable to be forfeited with their goods. Uncustomed goods into or
prohibited goods into or out of the colonies seized by customs
officials on the ship or on land and any boats and cattle used to
transport them occasioned a forfeiture of treble value, of which 1/3
went to the king, 1/3 went to the colonial governor, and 1/3 went to
the suer. Any officer making a collusive seizure or other fraud was to
forfeit 500 pounds and his office. In 1765, there was imposed a duty on
papers in the colonies to defray expenses of their defense by the
British military. The duty on every skin, piece of vellum [calf skin]
or parchment, and sheet of paper used in any law court was 3d.- 2
pounds. There were also duties on counselor or solicitor appointments
of 10 pounds per sheet. Duties extended to licenses for retailing
spirituous liquors and wines, bonds for payment of money, warrants for
surveying or setting out of any lands, grants and deeds of land,
appointments to certain civil public offices, indentures, leases,
conveyances, bills of sale, grants and certificates under public seal,
insurance policies, mortgages, passports, pamphlets, newspapers (about
1s. per sheet), advertisements in papers (2s. each), cards, and dice.
The papers taxed were to carry a stamp showing that the duties on them
had been paid. Parliament thought the tax to be fair because it fell on
the colonies in proportion to their wealth. But the colonists saw this
tax as improper because it was a departure from the nature of past
duties in that it was an "internal tax". All of the original thirteen
American colonies had adopted Magna Carta principles directly or
indirectly into their law. The stamp duties seemed to the colonists to
violate these principles of liberty. Patrick Henry asserted that only
Virginia could impose taxes in Virginia. Schoolmaster and lawyer John
Adams in Massachusetts asserted that no freeman should be subject to
any tax to which he had not assented. In theory, colonists had the same
rights as Englishmen per their charters, but in fact, they were not
represented in Parliament and Englishmen in Parliament made the laws
which affected the colonists. They could not be members of the House of
Lords because they did not have property in England. There were
demonstrations and intimidation of stamp agents by the Sons of Liberty.
Merchants agreed to buy no more goods from England. The stamp duty was
repealed the same year it had been enacted because it had been
"attended with many inconveniences and may be productive of
consequences greatly detrimental to the commercial interests of these
kingdoms".
To counter the wide-scale running of goods to avoid the customs
tax, the customs office was reorganized in 1766 to have commissions
resident in the colonies and courts of admiralty established there to
expedite cases of smuggling. This angered the colonists, especially
Boston. Boston smuggling had become a common and respectable business.
It was the port of entry for molasses from the West Indies from which
New England rum was made and exported. The entire molasses trade that
was essential to the New England economy had been built upon massive
customs evasions; royal customs officials had participated in this by
taking only token customs for the sake of appearance in London and
thereby had become rich.
In 1766 Parliament imposed a duty of 3d. per pound weight on
tea and duties on reams of paper, glass, and lead into the colonies.
These import duties were presented as external rather than internal
taxes to counter the rationale the colonies gave against the stamp tax.
But these items were of common use and their duties raised the cost of
living. The king's customs officials were authorized to enter any
house, warehouse, shop, or cellar to search for and seize prohibited or
uncustomed goods by a general writ of assistance.
These writs of assistance had been authorized before and had
angered Bostonians because they had been issued without probable cause.
In Paxton's case of 1761, the Massachusetts Superior Court had declared
legal the issuance of general writs of assistance to customs officers
to search any house for specific goods for which customs had not been
paid. The authority for this was based on the Parliamentary statutes of
1660 and 1662 authorizing warrants to be given to any person to enter,
with the assistance of a public official any house where contraband
goods were suspected to be concealed, to search for and seize those
goods, using force if necessary. They were called "writs of assistance"
because the bearer could command the assistance of a local public
official in making entry and seizure. A "general" writ of assistance
differed from a "special" writ of assistance in that the latter was
issued on a one-time basis. The general writ of assistance in Boston
was good for six months after the death of the issuing sovereign.
Authority relied on for such writs was a 1696 statute giving customs
officers in the colonies the same powers as those in England, a 1699
act by the Massachusetts Provincial Legislature giving the Superior
Court of Massachusetts the same such power as that of the Exchequer,
and the Massachusetts' Governor's direction about 1757 to the
Massachusetts Superior Court of Judicature to perform the function of
issuing such warrants. The Massachusetts court issued them in the
nature of the writs of assistance issued from the Exchequer court in
England, but had issued them routinely instead of requiring the showing
of probable cause based on sworn information that the Exchequer court
required. Few judges in the other American colonies granted the writ.
Seditious libel trials in England and the colonies were
followed closely and their defendants broadly supported. John Wilkes, a
member of the House of Commons, published a criticism of a new minister
in 1763. He called King George's speech on a treaty "the most abandoned
instance of ministerial effrontery ever attempted to be imposed on
mankind". After being found guilty of seditious libel, he again ran for
the House of Commons, and was repeatedly elected and expelled. He was
subsequently elected alderman, sheriff, and mayor of London. In 1770,
Alexander MacDougall was voted guilty of seditious libel by the New
York Colonial Assembly for authoring a handbill which denounced a
collusive agreement by which the assembly voted to furnish supplies for
the British troops in New York in exchange for the royal governor's
signature to a paper-money bill. When he was arrested, the Sons of
Liberty rallied to his support, demanding freedom of the press.
Benjamin Franklin's brother had been imprisoned for a month by the
Massachusetts assembly for printing in his newspaper criticisms of the
assembly. He was forbidden to print the paper. Benjamin supported him
by publishing extracts from other papers, such as "Without freedom of
thought, there can be no such thing as wisdom; and no such thing as
public liberty without freedom of speech... Whoever would overthrow the
liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech; a
thing terrible to public traitors."
By statute of 1766, the New York house of representatives was
prohibited from meeting or voting until they provisioned the King's
troops as required by law.
In 1769, Harvard College seated its students in class in
alphabetical order instead of by social rank according to birth.
By 1769, the colonies' boycott of British goods in protest of
the new duties cause these imports to decline so much that British
merchants protested. So the duties were dropped, except for that on
tea, which was retained as a matter of principle to assert the power of
the crown to tax the colonies. Then in 1773 the East India Company was
allowed to sell tea directly to the colonies to help it avoid
bankruptcy. The effect of this was to lower the cost of tea in the
colonies by avoiding the English middleman, and the American middleman,
but also to give the East India Company a monopoly. The colonies felt
threatened by this power of Britain to give monopolies to traders. When
the tea ships arrived in Boston in late 1773, Bostonians held a town
meeting and decided not to let the tea be landed. They threw this cargo
of tea, worth about 18,000 pounds, overboard. This Boston Tea Party was
a direct challenge to British authority. In response, Parliament closed
the port of Boston until compensation was made to the East India
Company. By statute of 1774, no one was to enter or exit the port of
Boston or else forfeit goods, arms, stores, and boats that carried
goods to ships. Every involved wharf keeper was to forfeit treble the
value of the goods and any boats, horses, cattle, or carriages used.
Ships hovering nearby were to depart within six hours of an order by a
navy ship or customs officer or be forfeited with all goods aboard,
except for ships carrying fuel or victuals brought coastwise for
necessary use and sustenance of inhabitants after search by customs
officers, and with a customs official and armed men for his defense on
board. This statute was passed because of dangerous commotions and
insurrections in Boston to the subversion of the king's government and
destruction of the public peace in which valuable cargoes of tea were
destroyed. Later, the Governor was given the right to send colonists or
magistrates charged with murder or other capital offenses, such as
might be alleged to occur in the suppression of riots or enforcement of
the revenue laws, to England or another colony for trial when he opined
that an impartial trial could not be had in Massachusetts Bay. A later
statute that year altered the charter of Massachusetts Bay province so
that the choice of its council was transferred from the people to the
King to serve at his pleasure, and the appointment and removal of
judges and appointment of sheriffs was transferred to the Governor to
be made without the consent of the council. This was due to the open
resistance to the execution of the laws in Boston. Further, no meeting
of freeholders or inhabitants of townships was to be held without
consent of the Governor after expressing the special business of such
meeting because there had been too many meetings that had passed
dangerous and unwarranted resolutions. Also, jurors were to be selected
by sheriffs rather than elected by freeholders and inhabitants.
The commander of the British troops in North America was made
Governor of Massachuseetts. King George thought that the colonists must
be reduced to absolute obedience, even if ruthless force was necessary.
The people of Massachusetts were incensed. They were all familiar with
the rights of Magna Carta since mandatory education taught them all to
read and write. Mandatory education every township of fifty households
had to appoint one person to teach all children to read and write.
Every one hundred families had to set up a grammar school.) The example
in Massachusetts showed other colonies what England was prepared to do
to them. Also disliked was the policy of restricting settlement west of
the Allegheny mountains; the take over of Indian affairs by royal
appointees; the maintenance of a standing army of about 6,000 men which
was to be quartered, supplied, and transported by the colonists; and
expanded restrictions on colonial paper currencies.
The Virginia House of Burgesses set aside the effective date of
the port bill as a day of prayer and fasting, and for this was
dissolved by its governor. Whereupon its members called a convention of
delegates from the colonies to consider the "united interests of
America". This congress met and decided to actively resist British
policy. As opposition to British rule spread in the colonies, a statute
was passed stating that because of the combinations and disorders in
Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Connecticut, and Rhode Island to the
destruction of commerce and violation of laws, these inhabitants should
not enjoy the same privileges and benefits of trade as obedient
subjects and that therefore no goods or wares were to be brought from
there to any other colony, and exports to and imports from Great
Britain were restricted, on pain of forfeiting the goods and the ship
on which they were laden. There vessels were restricted from fishing
off Newfoundland. These conditions were to be in force until the
Governors were convinced that peace and obedience to laws was restored.
Later in 1775, these trade restrictions were extended to New Jersey,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and South Carolina. In 1776, since
all the thirteen colonies had assembled an armed force and attacked
British forces, these trade restrictions were extended to Delaware, New
York, Georgia, and North Carolina and expanded to prohibit all trade
during the present rebellion to prevent assistance to them. War had
started; the new rifle was used instead of the musket.
By statute of 1775, anyone harboring of army or marine
deserters in the colonies forfeited 5 pounds Anyone persuading a
soldier or marine to desert drew a forfeiture of 40 pounds or else up
to six months in prison without bail and one hour in the pillory on
market day.
Bounties were made available to vessels from and fitted out in
Great Britain for Newfoundland fishing.
Any shipmaster carrying as passengers any fisherman, sailor, or
artificer to America forfeited 200 pounds because such men had been
seduced from British fishing vessels in Newfoundland, to the detriment
of the fishing industry.
The many years of significant achievements of the colonists,
such as taming the wilderness and building cities, had given them
confidence in their ability to govern themselves. The average colonial
family had a better standard of living than the average family in
England. Many of its top citizenry had reached their positions by hard
work applied to opportunities for upward mobility. With the confidence
of success, the American colonies in 1776 declared their independence
from Britain, relying on the principles stated by John Locke and Jean
Jacques Rousseau that man was naturally free and all men equal, and
that society was only created with their consent. Issac's Newtons's
unified laws of the universe had contributed to this idea of a natural
law of rights of men. Thomas Jefferson wrote a Declaration of
Independence which listed the colonies' grievances against the Crown
which reiterated many of the provisions of the Petition of Right and
Bill of Rights, specifically dispensing with and suspending laws,
maintaining a standing army and quartering troops without legislative
consent, imposing arbitrary taxation, encouraging illegal prosecutions
in strange courts, and corrupting the jury process. It was adopted
about July 4, 1776. Thereafter, the American colonies did not follow
English law. Past English law became the legal heritage of the United
States of America.
The Law
Anyone who feloniously steals or aids in the stealing of goods,
wares, or merchandise over 5s. from a shop, warehouse, coach house, or
stable, by night or by day, whether the owner is present or not,
whether there is a break in or not, may not have benefit of clergy.
Anyone stealing goods of 40s. worth from a ship on any river or
in any port or creek or from any wharf may not have benefit of clergy.
Anyone receiving or buying goods they know to be stolen or who
harbors or conceals any burglars, felons, or thieves knowing them to be
such shall be taken as accessory to the felony and shall suffer death
as punishment if the principal felon is convicted.
A person taking money or reward for helping any other person to
stolen goods or chattels is guilty of felony unless he brings the thief
to trial.
As of 1717, any person convicted of grand or petty larceny or
any felonious stealing or taking of money, goods, or chattels, either
from the person or from the house of any person who is entitled to
benefit of clergy and who is liable only to whipping or burning in the
hand may instead be transported to the American colonies to the use of
any person who will pay for his transportation for seven years. Any
person convicted of an offense punishable by death and without benefit
of clergy and buyers and receivers of stolen goods may be given mercy
by the king on condition of transportation to any part of America to
the use of any person who will pay for his transportation, for fourteen
years or other term agreed upon. Returning before the expiration of the
term is punishable by death.
Anyone assaulting another with an offensive weapon with a
design to rob may be transported for seven years.
Any person armed with swords, firearms, or other offensive
weapons and having their faces blackened or otherwise being disguised,
who appears in any forest, park, or grounds enclosed by a wall or fence
wherein deer are kept (including the king's deer) or in any warren or
place where hares or conies are kept or in any high road, open heath,
common, or down, or who unlawfully hunts, wounds, kills, or steals any
deer or steals any hare or rabbit or steals any fish out of any river
or pond or who unlawfully and maliciously breaks down the head or mound
of any fish pond, causing the loss of fish, or who unlawfully and
maliciously kills, maims, or wounds any cattle, or who cuts down any
trees planted in any avenue or growing in any garden or orchard for
ornament, shelter, or profit, or who sets fire to any house, barn or
out house [outer building], hovel, or stack of grain, straw, hay or
wood, or who willfully and maliciously shoots any person in any
dwelling house or other place, or who sends any letter with no
signature or a fictitious signature, demanding money, venison, or other
valuable thing, or who forcibly rescues any person lawfully in custody
for any of these offenses, or who procures others by gift or promise of
money or other reward to join with him in any such unlawful act is
guilty of felony and shall suffer death without benefit of clergy.
Persons abetting them are also guilty of felony and shall suffer death
without benefit of clergy. Attainder shall not work corruption of the
blood, loss of dower, or forfeiture of lands, goods, or chattel. The
persons sustaining damages can recover 200 pounds or less from the
hundred, with inhabitants paying proportionately, unless one of the
offenders is convicted within six months. If other hundreds have not
diligently followed the hue and cry, they shall pay half such damages.
In 1735, it was required that there be notice to the constable or other
officer or tythingman and public notice in the London Gazette
describing the robbery, offenders, and goods taken before the hundred
had to pay damages. Also, it did not have to pay damages if one
offender was apprehended with 40 days of publication in the London
Gazette, but did have to pay the apprehender 10 pounds. In 1754 was
also included letters threatening killing people or burning houses,
barns or stacks of grain, hay, or straw, without any demand. Also,
persons who rescued such offenders from gaol were given the same
penalty.
Later, persons obtaining money or goods by false pretenses with
an intent to defraud or cheat or sending a letter without a true
signature threatening to accuse any person of a crime with an intent to
extort money or goods, are punishable by fine and prison, pillory, or
whipping or transportation for seven years.
Later, no person may recover more than 200 pounds after a hue
and cry unless there are at least two witnesses to the robbery.
No one may advertise a reward for return of things stolen or
lost with no questions asked, because this has resulted in thefts and
robberies.
Anyone stealing sheep or cattle or parts thereof is a felon and
shall suffer death without benefit of clergy.
Persons who steal or aid in stealing any lead, iron bar, iron
gate, palisade, or iron rail fixed to any house or its outhouses,
garden, orchard, or courtyard is guilty of felony and may be
transported for seven years. In 1756 also included was copper, brass,
bell-metal, and solder; buyers and receivers; and mills, warehouses,
workshops, wharves, ships, barges, and other vessels. Search warrants
were authorized in case of suspicion. Officers and solicited buyers and
receivers were required to take persons who at night were reasonably
suspected of having or carrying such items, to an accounting before a
Justice of the Peace. Also a notice was put in the newspaper for any
owners to claim such. If the person did not give a satisfactory account
of the items, he was guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by forfeiture
of 2 pounds or prison up to one month for the first offense, 4 pounds
or prison for two months for the second offense, and 6 pounds or prison
for any subsequent offense (without bail). An officer or solicited
buyer or receiver who did not take a suspect to a Justice of the Peace
was punishable by the same penalties except the amounts of forfeiture
were 1 pound, 2 pounds, and 4 pounds respectively. A felon who brought
two buyers or receivers to justice was to be pardoned.
A description of any goods and the appearance of a rogue or
vagabond or idle and disorderly person shall be advertised in a public
paper for identification by the owner as stolen.
Pawning goods without consent of the owner is punishable by
forfeiture of 20s. or hard labor for fourteen days with whipping there.
Maliciously destroying river banks resulting in lands being
overflowed or damaged is a felony for which one shall suffer death
without benefit of clergy. Later, transportation for seven years was
made an alternative.
The punishment for forgery or counterfeiting or assisting in
such or claiming a counterfeit item is good while knowing that it is
not, with an intent to defraud is death without benefit of clergy. The
punishment for perjury or subordination of perjury is hard labor in the
House of correction for up to seven years or transportation for up to
seven years. The punishment for altering numbers on bills of exchange
or other payment papers is death.
It is high treason to counterfeit the coinage. A person who
tenders coin, knowing it to be false, shall spend six months in prison
and acquire sureties for good behavior for the next six months. If he
offends again, he shall spend two years in prison and acquire sureties
for good behavior for the next two years. The third offense is felony
without benefit of clergy.
In 1773, making or possessing any frame, mould, or instrument
for forging paper notes of the Bank of England and putting this
identification thereon is felony with penalty of death without benefit
of clergy. Anyone who forges promissory notes, bills of exchange, or
inland bills of the Bank of England by engraving or etching on metal or
wood "Bank of England" or "Bank Post Bill" shall go to gaol for up to
six months.
Anyone selling gold or silver ware, vessel, plate or other item
large enough to be marked which has not been marked by its maker shall
forfeit 10 pounds or be kept at hard labor up to six months. Anyone
counterfeiting such mark shall forfeit 100 pounds. Later, vendors of
these items were required to be licensed and the penalty for
counterfeiting was raised to felony for which one shall suffer death
without benefit of clergy. Later still, transportation for fourteen
years was allowed as an alternative. If an item was not all silver,
e.g. had metal underneath, 100 pounds was to be forfeited.
In 1769, receivers of stolen jewels and gold and silver plate
and watches knowing them to be stolen, in cases of burglary and highway
robbery, were subject to transportation for 14 years.
Anyone who willfully and maliciously set on fire any mine or
pit of coal is guilty of felony and shall suffer death without benefit
of clergy. Anyone who willfully and maliciously floods a coal work,
mine pit or who makes underground cavities or passages with intent to
destroy or damage such, or obstructs any sough or sewer made for
draining such, which has been held in common for 50 years, shall
forfeit treble damages. This is to deter these offenses, which have
been done to enhance the price of coals and gain a monopoly thereof.
If twelve or more people who riotously and tumultuously
assemble and disturb the peace, do not disburse within an hour of an
order to disburse by a justice or sheriff or mayor, they shall be
deemed felons without benefit of clergy. Any people pulling down or
destroying a church, dwelling house, barn, stable, or other out house;
any mill; any engine used for draining water from any coal, lead, tin,
or copper mines, or for drawing coals from mines; or bridge, wagon, or
fences used in such industry will be deemed felons without benefit of
clergy and may be transported for seven years. The cost of repair is to
be borne by the hundred or town.
The earlier statute that substituted burning in the cheek for
burning in the hand is repealed because this not only did not deter
offenders, but on the contrary, made them unfit for honest livelihoods
and therefore more desperate. Those convicted of theft or larceny shall
be burnt in the hand and may be kept at hard labor in a House of
Correction for 2-24 months, without bail.
Anyone stealing goods off shipwrecks, or putting out a false
light to bring a ship to danger, or beating or wounding with an intent
to kill or otherwise obstructing a person escaping from the ship to
save his life shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. Except that
goods of small value taken without violence shall be punished as petty
larceny. The houses of suspect people may be searched by warrant. If
there are goods found or if people are found offering goods to sell,
they may be ordered by a justice to give an account of these goods. If
the account is not satisfactory, the punishment is forfeiture of treble
their value or six months in prison. A reasonable reward may be given
to the discoverer. Anyone assaulting a magistrate or officer involved
in salvage work shall be transported for seven years.
Armed persons up to three in number assembled to assist in
illegal exporting or running, landing, or carrying away prohibited or
uncustomed goods, and any person apprehended by any revenue officer,
and anyone with his face blackened or masked who obstructs, assaults,
opposes, or resists any revenue officer seizing such goods, or who
shoots at or maims or wounds any revenue officer attempting to go on
any ship shall suffer death as felons without benefit of clergy or
serve as commons sailors in the navy for at least one year. Harborers
of such offenders will be transported for seven years. The hundreds
shall pay 100 pounds for each revenue officer killed, and up to 40
pounds for each one beaten, wounded, or maimed, and damages up to 200
pounds for goods, unless an offender is caught and convicted in six
months. There is a reward of 500 pounds to an apprehender, and 50
pounds for an attempt to apprehend in which one loses a limb or eye or
is maimed or wounded, and 100 pounds to his family if he is killed. An
offender who brings two of his accomplices to justice will be acquitted
and rewarded 50 pounds for each such accomplice. Later, an incentive
was given to customs officers to have a portion of the proceeds of the
sale of such goods seized by them, such as 2/3 for wrought silks and
calicoes, and 1/3 for tea, coffee, foreign brandy, and rum. Still
later, any person could seize wrought silk, including ribbons, laces,
and girdles containing it, from the importer or retailer, and the
importer was to forfeit 100 pounds, and any import assistants 50
pounds, and retailers or concealers 50 pounds, with one half going to
the suer. Also, the goods were to be publicly burnt. Still later, the
penalty was increased to forfeiture of 200 pounds for all offenders,
but not including wearers, and the goods were to be publicly sold for
export rather than burnt. Then the import of silk stockings, silk
mitts, and silk gloves was prohibited for the support of the English
silk industry. Retailers, sellers, and concealers of such were to
forfeit the goods and 200 pounds. Search warrants could be issued. In
1765, importers, sellers, and manufacturing users of most foreign
wrought silks or velvets were to forfeit the goods and 100 pounds. The
goods were sold for export with the proceeds going 1/2 to the king, and
1/2 to the seizing officer. The wearer was not liable. The burden of
proof of the place of manufacture was on the person prosecuted rather
than on the prosecutor. Persons breaking into houses or shops to
destroy any wool or silk being made or tools or racks used shall suffer
death as felons, to prevent combinations of workmen. In 1768, bounties
were made available to American exporters of raw silk to Great Britain,
whose climate was not conducive to the growing of mulberry trees on
which silk worms feed. In 1774, cotton printed, stained, or dyed that
has been manufactured in Great Britain may be worn and used, but must
have a mark woven in the warp that it was manufactured in Great
Britain. Persons importing other such cloth shall forfeit it and ten
pounds per piece. Persons selling such with a counterfeit stamp with an
intent to defraud shall suffer death without benefit of clergy. The
protective measures for English silk manufacture did not work well.
Any pirate, accessory to piracy, commander or master or other
person of any ship or vessel who trades with a pirate or furnishes him
with ammunition or provisions of fits out a ship to trade with pirates
shall suffer death and loss of lands, goods, and chattels. Seamen
maimed in fighting pirates may be admitted into Greenwich Hospital.
(This hospital received support from duties paid by vessels of the
realm and of the colonies.) Masters or seamen not fighting shall
forfeit their wages and spend 6 months in prison if the ship is taken.
Masters shall not advance to any seamen above half his wages since
deserting is the chief occasion of their turning into pirates.
In London penalties for crimes against property rose so that by
1740, a child could be hanged for stealing a handkerchief worth 1s.
from a person's body.
Trade and the economy boomed in time of war, buttressed by the
increased production in the coal, iron, steel, shipbuilding, and cloth
industries. But peace brought depression and much misery, including the
imprisonment of many debtors. When very many were imprisoned, statutes
allowed release on certain conditions. After assets were paid to
creditors in proportion to the amounts owed to them, debtors could be
discharged from prison if they owed no party more than 100 pounds
(later no restriction and still later, 50 pounds, and even later, 500
pounds, and in 1772, 1000 pounds, and in 1774, 2000 pounds) and take an
oath that they have less than 10 pounds (20 in 1772) worth of property
(including 40s. in money in 1774), because there were so many debtors
in prison who were impoverished by war losses and other misfortunes in
trades and professions, and were totally disabled from paying their
creditors, and they and their families either starved or became a
burden to their parishes and became an occasion of pestilence and other
contagious diseases. Exempted were those debtors for whom there was an
objection by one of their creditors who paid for the maintenance of
that debtor in prison. Prisoners discharged were also discharged from
chamber [cell] rent and gaolers' fees, but not from their debts to
creditors. During war, no male prisoner could be discharged unless he
enlisted in the royal army or navy until the end of the war. In 1774,
the discoverer of any asset of a debtor not listed by that debtor was
to receive a reward of 20 pounds per hundred, and anyone concealing an
asset of a debtor was to forfeit 100 pounds as well as double the value
of the asset.
A person declared bankrupt shall subsequently be examined from
time to time as to their goods, money, or other effects or estate to
prevent the frauds frequently committed by bankrupts. A default or
willful omission shall be deemed felony without benefit of clergy.
A bankrupt or other person concealing goods to the value of at
least 20 pounds or his books with intent to defraud is a felony without
benefit of clergy.
A debtor refusing to come to court for examination or hiding
assets of more than 20 pounds is guilty of felony and his goods and
estate shall be divided among his creditors.
Later, a bankrupt coming to an examination was allowed to keep
5 (or 7 1/2 or 10) pounds per 100, up to a maximum of 200 (or 250 or
300, respectively) pounds if he paid his creditors 10s. (or 12s.6d. or
15s. respectively) per pound. His future estate was still liable to
creditors, excepting tools of trade, necessary household goods,
bedding, furniture, and wearing apparel of the family up to 10 pounds,
if it could pay every creditor 15s. per pound. If he didn't pay this,
he could be imprisoned. Bankrupts excepted from the benefits of this
act are those who lost 5 pounds in any one day or 100 pounds in the
preceding year from gambling or wagers.
No goods or chattels on lands or tenements which are leased for
life or lives or term of years or at will or otherwise "shall be liable
to be taken by virtue of any Execution on any pretence whatsoever
unless the party at whose suit the said Execution is sued out shall
before the removal of such goods from off the said premises by virtue
of such Execution or Extent pay to the landlord" all money due as rent.
If the lessee fraudulently or clandestinely conveys or carries off his
goods or chattels with intent to deprive the landlord or lessor from
distraining the same for arrears of such rent, the lessor or landlord
may, within five days, seize such goods and chattels as a distress for
the arrears of rent and may sell them as if actually distrained on the
premises.
Every person under 21 and every woman-covert who is entitled by
descent or will to be admitted tenants of any copyhold lands or
hereditaments may be ordered to appear by a guardian or attorney to be
compelled to be so admitted and to pay such fines as are owing by the
lands. If one is so admitted, but does not pay, the lord may enter the
lands and receive its rents, but not sell timber, until the fine and
costs are satisfied, after which the land is to be given back and may
not be forfeited to the lord.
Tenants holding over any lands after their term expired and
after demand for possession was made shall pay double the yearly value
of such to the landlord. The landlord may reenter and eject a tenant if
rent is in arrears for 1/2 year.
Landlords may distrain within 30 days and sell goods and
chattels fraudulently or clandestinely carried off the premises by
renters in arrears of rent. This applies to goods sold to others privy
to the fraud. They may use force if necessary to break open houses upon
giving a Justice of the Peace reasonable grounds to suspect and to
break open other buildings in the presence of a constable. The renter
is to forfeit double the value of such. The landlord may distrain the
renter's cattle on any common or any growing grain, roots, or fruit.
Attornments of renters made to strangers who claim title and turn the
landlord out of possession are void.
Chief leases may be renewed without surrendering all the under
leases. This is to prevent subtenants from delaying the renewal of the
principal lease by refusing to surrender their leases, notwithstanding
that they have covenanted to do so. But the rents and duties of the new
subleases may not exceed those of their former leases.
Any person claiming a remainder, reversion, or expectancy in
any estate upon a person's death, who has cause to believe that that
person is dead and that the death is being concealed by the person's
guardian, trustee, husband, or other person, may request yearly an
order in chancery for the production of such tenant for life. Upon
refusal, the tenant for life shall be deemed dead.
As of 1752, all devices, legacies, and bequests made by will in
Great Britain or the colonies had to be in writing and witnessed by
three witnesses, or would be held void. No witness was to receive
anything by the will that he witnessed.
An accessory before or after the fact of felony may be
prosecuted and tried not only if the principal accused felon has been
convicted, but even if he stood mute or peremptorily challenged over 20
persons to serve on the jury. The accessories shall be punished the
same as if the principal had been attainted. Buyers and receivers of
stolen goods may be prosecuted and punished if they knew the goods to
be stolen, even if the principal felon has not been convicted. The
punishment will be as for misdemeanor by fine and imprisonment. This is
to deter the counselors and contrivers of theft and other felonies and
the receivers of stolen goods from taking advantage of the former rule
that an accessory could not be convicted or punished unless the
principal had first been attainted. And if any captain or mariner or
other officer belonging to any ship willfully casts away, burns, or
otherwise destroys that ship to the prejudice of its owners or
merchants loading goods onto the ship, he shall suffer death as a felon.
Journeymen shoemakers or employees of such who sell or pawn
boots, shoes, slippers, cut leather or other materials for making such
goods which are not his proper goods, or exchange for worse good
leather which has been entrusted to them, shall for the first offense,
recompense the injured person, or if his goods are insufficient for
distress, may be whipped. For the second offense, he shall be sent to
hard labor in a House of Correction for 14-30 days. A person who buys
or receives or takes in pawn such goods shall suffer the same
penalties. Justices of the Peace may issue warrants to search houses
and buildings in the daytime if there is "just cause to suspect" such
goods therein based upon information given to him under oath.
Anyone employed in the working up of woolen, linen, fustian,
cotton, or iron manufacture who embezzles or purloins any materials for
their work shall forfeit double the value of the damages done and
anyone convicted thereof may be put into the House of Correction until
he pays, or if he can't pay, to be publicly whipped and kept at hard
labor for no more than 14 days. Persons convicted of buying or
receiving such materials shall suffer like penalties and forfeitures as
one convicted of embezzling or purloining such materials. Laborers
employed in such manufacture must be paid in coin and not in cloth,
victuals, or commodities in lieu thereof. Leatherworkers were added
with a penalty of up to double the value. Later this statute was
amended to include a penalty for the second offense of forfeiture of
four times the value, or else hard labor at a House of Correction for
1-3 months and whipping once or more in the market town. Like penalties
were given for buyers of such material knowing it to be false. One who
neglected finishing and delivering such goods because he was leaving
this employment was to be sent to the House of Correction for up to one
month.
The penalty for possessing or offering to sell any hare,
pheasant, partridge, moor or heath game or grouse by any carrier,
innkeeper, victualer, or alehouse keeper is 5 pounds, 1/2 to the
informer, and 1/2 to the poor of the parish. If unable to pay, the
offender shall be placed in the House of Correction for three months
without bail. Unauthorized persons keeping or using greyhounds, setting
dogs, or any engine to kill game shall suffer the same penalties. In
1770, anyone killing hare at night or using any gun, dog, or other
engine to take or kill or destroy any hare, pheasant, partridge, moor
game, heath game, or grouse in the night shall be whipped and also go
to gaol or the House of Correction for 3-6 months without bail for the
first offense, and for 6-12 months without bail for any further
offense. If such occurs on a Sunday, the offender must forfeit 20-30
pounds or go to gaol for 3-6 months. In 1773, no one may kill or take
or possess any heath fowl or any grouse except at a limited period
during the year.
Each manor may have only one gamekeeper allowed to kill game
such as hare, pheasant, partridge and only for his household's use.
This gamekeeper must be either qualified by law or a servant of the
land's lord. Other persons possessing game or keeping a greyhound or
setting dogs or guns or other devices to kill game must forfeit them
and five pounds.
Anyone killing or attempting to kill by shooting any house dove
or pigeon shall forfeit 20s. or do hard labor for one to three months.
Excepted are owners of dove cotes or pigeon houses erected for the
preservation and breeding of such.
A gamekeeper or other officer of a forest or park who kills a
deer without consent of the owner must forfeit 50 pounds per deer, to
be taken by distress if necessary, and if he can't pay, he is to be
imprisoned for three years without bail and set in the pillory for two
hours on some market day. A later penalty was transportation for seven
years. Anyone pulling down walls of any forest or park where deer are
kept, without the consent of the owner, must forfeit 30 pounds and if
he can't pay, he is to be imprisoned for one year without bail and
spend one hour in the pillory on market day. Later, the killing of deer
in open fields or forests was given the same penalties instead of only
the monetary penalty prescribed by former law (former chapter). The
penalty for a second offense was given as transportation for seven
years. Anyone beating or wounding a gamekeeper with an intent to kill
any deer in an open or closed place was to be transported for seven
years.
Anyone who apprehends and prosecutes a person guilty of
burglary or felonious breaking and entering any house in the day time
shall be rewarded 40 pounds in addition to being discharged from parish
and ward offices.
Justices of the Peace may authorize constables and other peace
officers to enter any house to search for stolen venison. Any person
apprehending an offender or causing such to be convicted who is killed
or wounded so as to lose an eye or the use of a limb shall receive 50
pounds. Any person buying suspect venison or skin of deer shall produce
the seller or be punished the same as a deer killer: 30 pounds or, if
he couldn't pay, one year in prison without bail and one hour in the
pillory on market day. An offender who discloses his accomplices and
their occupations and places of abode and discovers where they may be
found and they are subsequently convicted, shall be pardoned.
All persons pretending to be patent gatherers or collectors for
prison gaols or hospitals and all fencers, bearwards, common players of
interludes, minstrels, jugglers, and pretended gypsies, and those
dressing like Egyptians or pretending to have skill in physiognomy,
palm-reading, or like crafty science, or pretending to tell fortunes,
and beggars, and all persons able in body who run away and leave their
wives or children to the parish shall be deemed rogues and vagabonds.
Apprehenders of such persons bringing them before a Justice of the
Peace may be rewarded 2s. Any constable not apprehending such shall
forfeit 10s. Persons wandering outside the place determined by a
Justice of the Peace to be his settlement may be whipped on the back
until it is bloody or sent to hard labor at a House of Correction. If
he was dangerous and incorrigible, for instance as indicated by
swearing falsely before a Justice of the Peace, he could suffer both
punishments with the whipping being on three market days. If he escaped
from the House of Correction, it was felony. If he has been absent for
more than two years, he could be put out as an apprentice for seven
years in the realm, in the colonies, or in a British factory beyond the
seas. Included later were performers for gain from outside their parish
of any play, tragedy, comedy, opera, farce or other entertainment of
the stage, including performances in public places where wine, ale,
beer, or other liquors are sold, or else forfeit 50 pounds. Exempted
were performances authorized by the king in Westminster.
Unlicensed places of entertainment are deemed disorderly (like
bawdy houses and gaming houses) because they increase idleness, which
produces mischief and inconvenience. Persons therein may be seized by a
constable. Persons keeping such a place shall forfeit 100 pounds. No
licensed place of entertainment may be opened until 5:00 p.m.
Later there was an award of 5s. for apprehending a person
leaving his wife and children to the parish, living idly, refusing to
work at going rates, or going from door or placing themselves in the
streets to beg. This includes begging by persons who pretend to be
soldiers, mariners, seafaring men, or harvest workers. These rogues and
vagabonds shall be sent to hard labor at a House of Correction for up
to one month. The real soldiers, mariners, seafaring men, and harvest
workers shall carry official documents indicating their route and
limiting the time of such passage.
Persons pretending to be lame who beg are to be removed. If he
comes back to beg, his back may be whipped until bloody. If a constable
neglects this duty, he shall forfeit 10s.
Masters of ships bringing in vagabonds or beggars from Ireland
or the colonies shall forfeit five pounds for each one. This money
shall be used for reconveying such people back at a price determined by
a Justice of the Peace. A master of a ship refusing to take such a
person shall forfeit five pounds. These vagabonds and beggars may be
whipped.
Anyone who profanely curses or swears shall suffer the
following penalties: day laborer, common soldier, common sailor, common
seaman - 1s., anyone else below the degree of gentleman - 2s.,
gentlemen and above - 5s., and for the second offense, a double fine,
for further offense, a treble fine. If a person can't pay, he shall be
put to hard labor at a House of Correction for ten days, or if a common
soldier, common sailor, or common seaman, he shall be set in the stocks
for 1-2 hours. This is to prevent the provocation of divine vengeance.
Anyone setting up or maintaining lotteries or deceitful games
must forfeit 200 pounds, or go to prison up to 6 months. Any one who
plays at such, such as by drawing lots or using cards or dice, must
forfeit 50 pounds. Sales of lottery items, such as houses, lands,
plate, jewels, or ships, are void and these items will be forfeited to
any person who sues. Such have caused many families to become
impoverished, especially through their children or through the servants
of gentlemen, traders, and merchants. Backgammon games are exempt.
Later, People who lost up to ten pounds in deceitful gaming were
allowed to sue to recover this money from the winners. Also, anyone
winning or losing ten pounds at one time or twenty pounds within 24
hours shall be fined five times the value of such. Offenders
discovering others, who are convicted, are indemnified from all
penalties and shall be admitted to give evidence.
No one may run more than one horse, mare, or gelding in a horse
race. No prize may be under 50 pounds value. This is because a great
number of horse races for small prizes have contributed to idleness, to
the impoverishment of the meaner sort of people, and has prejudiced the
breed of strong and useful horses.
Wagers and agreements in the nature of puts and refusals
relating to prices of stocks or securities are void. Those making or
executing such agreements must forfeit 500 pounds. Those selling stock
which one does not possess must forfeit 500 pounds. Brokers negotiating
such agreements must forfeit 100 pounds.
Only a person with an interest in the life or death of another
may have insurance on this other, to prevent the mischievous kind of
gaming that has been introduced.
Apples and pears may not be sold by any measure other than a
standard water measure, or else forfeit 10s., one-half to the informer,
and one-half to the poor, except for measures sealed by the Company of
Fruiterers. This is to decrease the suits between buyers and sellers.
There shall be enough silver and gold on silver and gold plated
silk thread and wire so that it does not crumble off, thereby wasting
the bullion of the nation. This is also to encourage its export by
making it competitive in trade with such foreign articles, which may
not be imported.
Malt to be sold or exported must not be fraudulently mixed with
unmalted grain to lower duties payable or else forfeit 5s.
Any one who adulterates coffee with water, grease, butter, and
such shall forfeit 20 pounds, 1/2 to the king, and 1/2 to the suer.
Walnut tree leaves, hop leaves, sycamore leaves and such may
not be made to imitate tobacco leaves for sale or else forfeit 5s. per
pound.
Persons near London may not make unsound, hollow, or improperly
heated bricks.
Makers of narrow woolen cloths must weave or set in the head of
every piece his initials or else forfeit one pound. This is to prevent
frauds and abuses, particularly in stretching and straining the cloth.
The fulling mill owner must append his seal of lead with his name and
with his measurements. The searcher to be appointed must measure such
cloths when wet for conformity to standard measurements and append his
seal with his measurements. He may also inspect any places he chooses.
In 1774, any wool-making employee not returning all working
tools and implements and wool and all materials with which entrusted
back to his employer, or who fraudulently steams, damps, or waters such
wool, or who takes off any mark on any piece of cloth, shall go to the
House of Correction for one month. If he absconds with or sells such or
anyone fraudulently buys or receives such from him, a search warrant
may be issued to seize any other such tools or material. If found, the
possessor may be brought to account before a Justice of the Peace, and
if his account is not satisfactory, he shall forfeit such. A search
warrant may also be issued for houses on "just cause to suspect" by
oath of a credible witness. For a second offense, the penalty is up to
three months in a House of Correction. For a third offense, the penalty
is up to six months in a House of Correction and public whipping.
Bakers must mark their bread with W for white, WH for wheaten,
and H for household or else forfeit 20s. to the informer. In 1758, a
new assize of bread set prices for rye, barley, oats, and beans by the
bushel. The prices for the three qualities of wheat, for wheaten
(prized and unprized), and for household grain by the bushel were to be
determined from within a statutory range by the local Mayor or Justice
of the Peace. Mayors and Justices of the Peace were to determine a fair
profit for their local bakers for all the types of bread. A miller,
mealman, or baker adulterating bread was to forfeit 40s. 10 pounds,
part of which money could be used in publishing his name, abode, and
offense in the local newspaper. Later, there was a forfeiture of 1-5s.
for every ounce underweight. Household bread was to be 1/4 cheaper than
wheaten or forfeit 10-40s. Bread inferior to wheaten was not to be sold
at a price higher than household or else forfeit up to 20s. If the
forfeiture was not paid, it could be levied by distress, or otherwise
the offender was to spend one month in gaol or a House of Correction.
Straw to be sold in London must be sound, firmly bound in a
truss, and of a given weight or else forfeit it and 20s. if no truss,
and 1s. if in truss but underweight or of mixed quality. Handlers must
keep registers of sellers, buyers, weights, dates of sale, and prices
or else forfeit 10-20s.
Frame-work knitted pieces and stockings shall be marked with
the correct number of threads by the master, frame-work knitter, or
master hosier, or forfeit the goods and 5 pounds. If a journeyman
apprentice, or servant employ does not mark correctly, he shall forfeit
the goods and 5s.-40s. Sellers of such shall forfeit the goods and 5
pounds per piece.
At every fishing season, the quantity of salt, foreign or
domestic, used by a proprietor for curing fish for export shall be
accounted and sworn to so that it can be compared with the quantity of
fish exported by the proprietor to ensure that the salt duties are
fully paid, or else forfeit 40 pounds. If such salt is sold for other
uses than curing fish, the proprietor is to forfeit 20s. per bushel
sold and the users thereof, to forfeit 20s. per bushel bought,
delivered, or used. If one can't pay, he is to be whipped and put to
hard labor in a House of Correction for up to three months.
Agreements between coal owners, lightermen, fitters, master or
owners of ships, hindering the free sale, loading, and unloading,
navigating, or disposing of coals are illegal, null, and void. This is
engrossing and has caused the price of coals to go up.
No coal trader or dealer may use his own lighters, barges, or
other vessels to carry coals on the Thames River to and from any ship
and to and from any wharf, dock, or creek because this has impaired the
business of the watermen and wherrymen, whose vessels must now be
registered and display such mark on their hulls. No lightermen nor
buyers of coals may act as agent for any master or owner of a ship
importing coals into London or else forfeit 200 pounds, because this
combination has caused the price of coal to go up. Selling one sort of
coal for another is punishable by forfeiture of 500 pounds. Only
standard size coal sacks may be used for selling coal and they must be
sealed and stamped by an official at the Guildhouse before sale. The
mayor and aldermen of London may set the price of coals coming into
this port. In other areas, Justices of the Peace set the prices of
coals which allowed "a competent profit". If a merchant refused to sell
at that price, the Justice of the Peace could authorize seizure and
sale by officers.
Later, coal measurers must give the coal cart driver a ticket
with the name of the sellers and consumers, the quantity and quality of
the coal, its price, the date of sale, and the name of the cart driver
or else forfeit 5 pounds. The cart driver must give this ticket to the
consumer or forfeit 5 pounds. If coal is carried by cart without a
ticket, the seller forfeits 50 pounds and the driver 5 pounds.
Any owner of timber trees, fruit trees, and other trees used
for shelter, ornament, or profit, which are cut down or otherwise
destroyed shall be made good by his parish or town, as is an owner of
hedges and dikes overthrown by persons in the night. In 1765, anyone
cutting down or destroying any oak or other timber trees at night shall
forfeit up to 20 pounds for the first offense, up to 30 pounds for the
second offense, and shall be transported to the colonies for seven
years for any further offense. Anyone digging up or destroying or
carrying away any root, shrub, or plant worth up to 5s. in a garden,
nursery, or other enclosed ground at night shall forfeit up to 2 pounds
for the first offense, up to 5 pounds for the second offense, and shall
be transported to the colonies for seven years for any further offense.
Anyone not paying is to be gaoled. Aiders and buyers who know the item
was stolen shall incur the same penalties. Later, many other types of
trees, such as beach, ash, elm, cedar, and walnut were included as
timber trees, and hollies, thorns, and quicksets included as plants.
Any person using violence to hinder the purchase or
transportation of grain, e.g. by beating or wounding a buyer; beating
or wounding the driver or horse of a cart loaded with wheat, flour,
meal, malt, or other grain, or cutting the harness of or driving away
the horse, or cutting or carrying away the sacks of grain is to be put
in the common gaol or House of Correction with hard labor for 1-3
months, and whipped in the market place between 11:00 and 2:00. The
penalty for a second offense or for destroying a storehouse or granary
where grain is kept to be exported or for taking or spoiling such
grain, or for throwing such off a ship or vessel is transportation for
seven years. The hundreds concerned are to pay damages up to a total of
100 pounds, but only if notice is given to the constable within two
days and there is an oath and examination before a Justice of the Peace
within ten days of the owner or his servants. If any offender is
convicted within a year, the hundreds are released.
Anyone who steals at night any cloth or wool or woolen goods
set out to dry on racks shall forfeit treble damages, or if he can't
pay, be sent to prison for three months without bail. For the second
offense, he shall forfeit treble damages and be sent to prison for six
months without bail. For the third offense, he shall be transported for
seven years. Upon complaint, a Justice of the Peace may authorize a
constable or other peace officer to enter and search houses, outhouses,
yards, and gardens of a person suspected by the owner. This person
shall account to the Justice of the Peace and may bring a witness to
his purchase of the items. If the account is unsatisfactory, he shall
be penalized.
Anyone taking linens, fustians, or cottons set out for
whitening, bleaching, or printing up to the value of 10s. in lands,
grounds, or buildings may be transported for seven years. Later, this
penalty was increased to death without benefit of clergy or
transportation for fourteen years.
Anyone stealing or maliciously pulling up or destroying any
turnips on a person's land must pay damages or go to gaol for up to one
month. He may be whipped. The penalty for a second offense is three
months in a House of Correction. This statute of 1750 was, in 1773,
extended to include potatoes, cabbages, parsnips, peas, and carrots. A
penalty up to 10s. was added. Evidence of the owner was to be taken.
In 1769, anyone who steals a dog or receives such knowing it to
be stolen shall forfeit 20-30 pounds for the first offense, and 30-50
pounds for the second offense or go to gaol or the House of Correction
for 12-18 months and be publicly whipped there. Search warrants may be
issued to search for stolen dogs or their skins. One-half of the
forfeiture will go to the informer.
Officers of the revenue who collude with importers to return to
them goods which have been seized for nonpayment of duties shall
forfeit 500 pounds and lose office, unless they disclose their
accomplices within two months. The importer shall forfeit treble the
value of such goods.
Any ship not more than 50 tons hovering on the coast with
customable or prohibited goods may be boarded by a customs officer, who
may demand bond for treble the value of the goods.
In 1724, persons contracting with artificers and manufacturers
of wool, iron, steel, brass, and other metals, clockmakers, or
watchmakers, to go to a foreign country and there receive greater wages
and advantages shall forfeit 100 pounds and spend 3 months in prison
for the first offense, and shall forfeit a sum determined by the court
and spend 12 months in prison for the second offense. An artificer or
manufacturer not returning after warning is given by the ambassador is
to forfeit hereditaments, goods, and lands and to be deemed an alien.
Later, in 1750, cotton and silk were included and the penalty was
increased to 500 pounds and 12 months in gaol for the first offense,
and 1000 pounds and 2 years in prison for the second offense. Also,
anyone exporting tools of wool or silk manufacture was to forfeit the
tools and 200 pounds. This statute was strictly enforced. In 1774,
tools of cotton and linen manufacture were included.
In 1772, all statutes against engrossing, forestalling, and
regrating were repealed because they had prevented free trade and
tended to increase prices, e.g. of grain, meal, flour, cattle, and
other victuals.
Anyone assisting a felon (except for petty larceny) to try to
escape from gaol, is guilty of felony and shall be transported for
seven years. Anyone assisting a person who owes or is to pay 100 pounds
to try to escape from gaol is guilty of a misdemeanor. In 1772, prison
keepers were indemnified from creditors for any escapes of debtors due
to conspiracy and break out with weapons and firearms rather than due
to negligence of the prison keeper, as had been occurring.
No more than 600 pounds of gunpowder may be kept in any
building in London or Westminster or suburbs thereof. Later, no more
than 200 pounds of gunpowder were allowed to be kept therein for more
than 24 hours. Buildings may be searched on "reasonable cause" shown to
a Justice of the Peace. Later, no more than 400 pounds of gunpowder
could be kept for more than 24 hours near any town, or more than 300
pounds for more than 24 hours in any place. Then no gunpowder could be
conveyed by land over 25 barrels or by water over 200 barrels.
It was customary for officers to take the oaths of allegiance
and supremacy to any new monarch. When George I became king in 1714,
all civil and military officers, clergy, schoolmasters, and lawyers,
solicitors, clerks, etc. living within 30 miles of London had to take
an oath of allegiance and a new oath that the person was not Papist and
agreed that no foreigners had jurisdiction in the realm, such as to
excommunicate someone and thus declaring he could be legitimately
killed. Soon after, it was required that Papists had to register their
names and real estates. Commissioners were appointed to make inquiries.
If a person did not take the oaths or did not register, he was to
forfeit 2/3 of his land to the king and 1/3 to a Protestant who sued
for such. This was in order to deter future rebellions against the king
and efforts to destroy the Protestant religion.
As late as 1722, there was a Papist conspiracy to take the
Tower of London and the King, and make a Catholic king. This resulted
in the imprisonment of the conspirators and a new statute: Persons not
taking the oath of allegiance and above oath that they were not Papist
shall register their lands and yearly rents and pay double the land tax
and 100,000 pounds. After payment, they are discharged from forfeiting
2/3 of their lands' rents for one year.
Papists enlisting in the army are liable to corporal
punishment, but not death, as determined by a court martial.
Any mayor, bailiff, or other magistrate who is present at any
meeting for public worship other than the Church of England will lose
office and is barred from any public office or employment.
Jews may not refuse suitable maintenance to their children who
are Christian to pressure them to convert back to Judaism.
Black slaves were common for a time in London. This was a
result of the voluminous triangle trade of manufactured goods from
England, slaves from West Africa, and sugar and tobacco from the West
Indies. Slavery was largely abolished by judicial decision of Chief
Justice Mansfield in 1772.
If a sheriff does not answer for money collected for the
Exchequer, he shall forfeit treble damages to the aggrieved person,
double the sum missing to the aggrieved person, 100 pounds to the king,
and 100 pounds to the party who sues. If a sheriff take a fee for
levying or collecting money due to the king (except 4d. for an
acquittance) or take a sum for not levying money due, he is guilty of
extortion, injustice, and oppression and shall forfeit treble damages
and costs to the aggrieved person, and double the sum extorted to the
aggrieved person. A sheriff may not levy more than 12d. for every 20s.
of yearly income of any manor for up to 100 pounds of income, and 6d.
for value over 100 pounds.
No one may cut pine trees that are fit for masts of ship in New
England without license by the Queen or else forfeit 100 pounds. Later,
pine trees on private property were exempted.
Citizens of Great Britain may sue colonial debtors by oath
before British magistrates and a debtor's colonial lands and houses and
negroes may be used to satisfy his debts.
Anyone pretending to act under a charter and taking
subscriptions in Great Britain or the colonies must forfeit treble
damages.
No hats, including beaver hats, may be exported from any colony
even to another colony because this has hurt British hat manufacture.
The penalty is 500 pounds. No one in the colonies except present
hatmakers who are householders and journeymen may make hats unless they
serve a seven year apprenticeship. No hatmaker in the colonies may have
more than two apprentices at once.
Whaling ships near Greenland were prohibited from returning
until their hulls were full. Vessels built or fitted out in America may
engage in whaling.
Pig iron from the colonies may be imported free, but there may
be no mill for slitting or rolling iron and no plateing-forge or other
engine to work with a tilt hammer and no furnace for making steel
erected or used in the colonies or else forfeit 200 pounds.
No paper bills of credit may be used in New England because
such have depreciated.
William Blackstone lectured on law at Oxford University in
1753. As a result, the first professorship of English law was
established. His lectures were published in 1769 as the "Commentaries
on the Laws of England". They greatly influenced the American colonists
and were the basis of legal education in England and America for years.
They were comprehensive and covered real property, crime and
punishment, court procedure, contract, corporations, and commercial
law. He wrote "The Great Charter and Charter of the Forest" in 1759.
Judicial Procedure
There were twelve common law justices of the Court of the
King's Bench, Court of Common Pleas, and Court of the Exchequer. The
Chief Justices of all of these courts were paid partly from fees paid
to the court. The other Justices of these courts were paid completely
by salary, which in 1759 was well over 500 pounds per year. These
justices were to continue in office even after a king died and could be
removed only for good cause upon the address of both houses of
Parliament. The officers of these courts were attorneys. There was one
justice at Doctors' Commons. The two chancery justices (since Edward I)
were the Lord Chancellor and the Master of the Rolls. The salary of the
eleven masters of the court of chancery in 1765 was 400 pounds per
year. The officers of this court were solicitors.
Appeals from the Exchequer could be made to a court of the
King's Bench and Common Pleas combined. Appeals from Common Pleas could
be made to the King's Bench. Decisions of the King's Bench and other
common law courts could be appealed to Parliament's House of Lords.
The common law courts rode circuit twice a year in five
circuits and once a year in the north circuit. So an accused person
could spend up to a year in gaol waiting for trial. Few prisoners were
granted bail. In each common law court, the law justices in banc would
hear demurrers [contentions that the other party was wrong in the law].
No one with an interest in a suit, including the plaintiff and the
defendant, could give evidence. There was no power to amend pleadings,
so misspelling of the defendant's name, for instance, could result in
dismissal of the suit. In 1730, the pleadings and indictments ceased to
be in Latin.
In the common law courts, trespass in ejectment served the purposes of
most of the actions involving land. Assumpsit covered the whole
province of debt, for which compurgation still existed, and much more.
Trover more than covered the old province of detinue, for which
compurgation still existed. Trespass still served for all cases in
which the defendant had been guilty of directly applying force to the
plaintiff's body, goods or chattels. Trespass on the case covered
miscellaneous torts. Replevin was still used. Covenant remained in use
for the enforcement of promises under seal.
Account gradually came under the equity jurisdiction of Chancery.
Common law writs of dower are largely superseded by the relief given to
the doweress in the courts of equity, where new and valuable rights
were given to her and to her personal representatives against the heir
and his representatives. The actions of indebitatus assumpsit is being
extended to actions upon quasi-contract, in which the element of
contract is not required e.g. quantum meruit, where a contract is
implied from the facts of the case. The deodand doctrine is still in
force.
In Chancery, a plaintiff filed a complaint and interrogatories
prepared by counsel. Only in Chancery could there be discovery, such as
interrogatories [written questions]. Court officials asked the
questions of witnesses without the presence of the parties or their
lawyers. Officials wrote down the answers in their own terms. So there
was no cross-examination possible. Most decrees took many years to be
made.
The ordinary administrative court of first instance is that of
one or two Justices of the Peace who issued orders in matters of public
safety, public order, public morals, health, the poor, highways, water,
fields, forests, fisheries, trade, building, fire, begging, and
vagrancy. They examined suspicious persons and issued warrants for the
removal of any person likely to become a public charge. The Justice of
the Peace also regulated wages, servants, apprentices, and day
laborers. In his judicial capacity, he tried all crimes and felonies
except treason, though in practice death penalty cases were transferred
to the assize justices. The Justices of the Peace of a hundred hold
special sessions such as for appointment of parochial officers, highway
disputes, and the grant of wine, beer, and spirit licenses. The
appointment of overseers of the poor, authorization of parish rates,
and reading of the Riot Act to mobs to disperse them, required more
than one of the Justices of the Peace of the hundred to participate.
All the Justices of the Peace of the county met four times a year at
Quarter Sessions to hear appeals from penal sentences, to determine the
county rate of tax, to appoint treasurers of the county and governors
of the county prison and house of correction, to issue regulations on
prices of provisions and on wages, to settle fees of the county
officials, to grant licenses for powder-mills and other industries, to
hear nuisance complaints such as those against parishes failing to keep
their roads in repair, to make regulations for the holding of markets,
to hear complaints concerning local government, and to register
dissenting chapels. In more and more matters specified by statute, the
Quarter Sessions heard appeals from the orders of individual Justices
of the Peace instead of common law courts hearing them by writ of
certiorari. The writ of certiorari allowed administrative decisions to
be reviewed by the common law courts for compliance with law,
competency of the court, and interpretation of the administrative law.
The writ of habeas corpus appealed administrative decisions to imprison
not only after arrest for criminal proceedings, but any coercive
measure for enforcing an administrative order. The writ of mandamus was
available for enforcing the injunctions of administrative law against
towns, corporations, and all other authorities and private persons,
where the ordinary punishments were insufficient. Justices of the Peace
in rural areas were squires and in towns aldermen.
In 1747, Justices of the Peace were authorized to decide issues
between masters and mistresses and their employees who were hired for
at least one year. If a servant misbehaved, they could authorize
reduction of wage, discharge, and hard labor at a house of Correction
up to one month. If a servant was not paid, he could authorize payment
of wages up to 10 pounds for an agricultural servant, and up to 5
pounds for an artificer, handicraftsman, miner, collier, keelman,
pitman, glassman, potter, or ordinary laborer. Later, tinners and
miners were added to the last category. In 1758, employees of less than
a year were included.
In 1775, Justices of the Peace were authorized to administer
any oath for the purpose of levying penalties.
To be a Justice of the Peace, one must have income of 100
pounds a year from a freehold, copyhold, or customary estate that is
for life or for a term of at least 21 years, or be entitled to a
reversion of lands leased for 1 or 2 or 3 lives, or for any term of
years determinable on the death of 1 or 2 or 3 lives. Excepted were
peers, justices, and heads of colleges or vice chancellors at the
universities. The Justices of the Peace were selected by the
superintending Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant, the latter of whom were
usually peer with a ministers' office or a high court official. No
attorney or solicitor or proctor could be a Justice of the Peace unless
the locality had Justices of the Peace by charter.
No one may practice as an attorney in the courts of King's
Bench, Common Pleas, or Exchequer until he has been examined by a judge
of such court on his fitness and qualifications and has taken the oath
to honestly demean himself and practice according to his best knowledge
and ability. The same applies to a solicitor in the equity courts. This
shall not exclude persons who have been bound to an attorney or
solicitor for four years. Attorneys and solicitors, with consent of an
attorney of another court, may participate in proceedings of such other
court. No attorney may have more than two clerks bound to him at one
time. Attorneys may be admitted as solicitors and vice-versa.
The qualification for jury service is having land with an
income over rents of at least 20 pounds, with leases for 500 years or
more, or 99 years, or any term determinable on one or more lives. Being
a freeholder is not necessary. In London, the qualification is being a
householder and having lands to the value of 100 pounds. No sheriff may
excuse a qualified person from jury service for money or other reward.
Selection of jurors for each case is to be done by some impartial
person pulling their names from a box. Later, persons refusing jury
service could be fined.
In 1763, the homes of John Wilkes and others were searched for
a seditious and treasonous published paper and all related papers
because they had been rumored to have some relationship to the
conception, writing, publication, or distribution of the paper. Wilkes
had such papers and was convicted of libel. He countersued for damages
due to criminal trespass. The court held that general search warrants
were subversive of the liberty of the subject of the search in
violation of the British Constitution, declared the statute void, and
found for Wilkes. The Court of Common Pleas agreed on appeal and put
the burden of proof on the persons searching to justify the search
warrant. His decision gave support to William Pitt's assertion that
"every man's home is his castle".
For actions under 10 pounds in a superior court and actions
under 40s. in an inferior court, the offender shall be served with
process to appear in court rather than being arrested. For money at
issue, an affidavit shall be taken. No more money may be taken for bail
than the amount at controversy. This is to prevent frivolous and
vexatious arrests. Perjurers, forgers, those involved in barratry or
suborning perjury, and pretenders practicing as attorneys or solicitors
in the courts of law or equity shall be transported for seven years to
the American colonies. Unqualified people acting as attorneys or
solicitors in the county court shall forfeit 20 pounds.
Writs of error at variance from the original record or
otherwise defective may be amended to correct the defect by the court
where such writ is returnable. No judgment is to be reversed for any
defect in any bill or writ, excepting an appeal of felony or murder, or
misdemeanor. This is to prevent delays of justice. Justices of the
Peace may correct defects of form on appeals to them.
Plaintiffs neglecting to go to trial after an issue has been
joined may be nonsuited.
Poor persons may be paid up to 6d. to give evidence against
felons.
Pirates may not be tried again for the same crime or for a
certain crime and high treason. When the marine force was raised, the
marines were also given protection from double jeopardy.
A request for Certiorari for removal of convictions, judgments, orders
made by Justices of the Peace must be made within six months and after
notice to the Justice of the Peace who may argue cause against granting
certiorari.
Mercantile law was developed by the common law courts,
especially the King's Bench.
The king was to appoint the marshal of the King's Bench. The
marshal was to select his inferior officers to hold office as long as
they "behave themselves well within". These offices had been sold by
James I to a certain person, his heirs, and assigns. The marshal was to
keep the prison of this court in good repair from his fees and profits
of office.
The office of sheriff was now an accessory department of the
common law courts for summons, executions, summoning the jury, and
carrying out the sentence of the law.
Summons for excise offenses may be left at a person's abode,
workhouse, or shop as well as on his person.
The coroner's office now investigated unusual deaths with a
jury from the neighborhood elected by county freeholders.
The last beheading was of a Scottish lord in 1747; he had been
involved in an attempt to restore the Stuarts to the throne. So many
people came that some overcrowded bleachers fell down and crushed about
20 spectators. Henceforth, every sentence of death was by hanging, even
for peers.
In 1772, the process of pressing a man to death, if he refused
to plead to an indictment was abolished. Instead, persons accused or
indicted, in Great Britain or America, of felony or piracy who stand
mute shall be convicted of such charge. Property of a felon was still
forfeited to the crown.
From 1749 on were established special procedures for speedy
decisions in local courts in some areas for debts or damages under 40s.
and imprisonment for such was limited for up to three months.
Otherwise, sentences were longer, and debts grew during the time in
prison. When prisons were overcrowded, Parliament let the inmates out
if they gave up their possessions. They could go to Georgia.
There were felons' prisons and debtors' prisons. Sometimes they
were one and the same. There was much fighting among inmates. The
inmates slept on hay if lucky. There were no washing facilities and
little light. Counties or friends paid for their bread. They were also
sold beer, which made them drunk and riotous. The sale of beer was a
recognized and legitimate source of profit to the keeper. This was
remedied by statute of 1760 that no sheriff or other officer may take
an arrested person to a tavern or other public house or charge him for
any wine, beer, ale, victuals, tobacco or other liquor without his
consent and shall allow prisoners to be brought beer, ale, victuals,
bedding, and linen as the prisoner sees fit. Sheriffs often kept people
imprisoned unless and until they paid all their fees due to the
sheriff. In 1772 was founded the Society for the Discharge and Relief
of Persons Imprisoned for Small Debts for those inmates unfortunate
instead of fraudulent or extravagant. Legacies were often made to
debtors. There was much Gaol Distemper fever with fatal consequences.
When John Howard, a grocer who had inherited wealth, but poor health,
became a sheriff, he visited many gaols. When he saw the squalid
conditions there, he advocated hygienic practices. In 1774, Justices of
the Peace were authorized to order walls and ceilings of gaols to be
scraped and washed, ventilators for supplies of fresh air, a separate
room for the sick prisoners, commodious bathing tubs, provision of
clothes for prisoners, keeping of prisoners not below the ground, and
apothecaries at a stated salary to attend and to report the state of
health of prisoners.
In 1773, clergymen were employed in gaols to alleviate the
distress of prisoners and to contribute to morality and religion. Also,
no longer may any fees be taken by gaol keepers or sheriffs because
persons not indicted or found not guilty have been kept in prison
pending payment of such fees. Instead, the counties shall pay to gaol
keepers up to 13s.4d. per prisoner so discharged.
Colonials acts which infringed upon the English common or
statutory law, or were against the interests of other American colonies
were submitted to the Privy Council, which allowed or disallowed them.
Appeals from the colonial courts came to the Privy Council.
Judges in the colonies were appointed by royal governors and
paid by colonial legislatures. They served at the pleasure of the king.
Colonial courts included superior courts of judicature, courts of
assize, general gaol delivery, general sessions of the peace, inferior
court of common pleas, and commissions of Oyer and Terminer. There were
also Justices of the Peace, marshals, provosts, and attorney generals.
There were few cases of vagrancy, theft, or homicide. This may have
been because the people were few and dependent on each other, and
economic opportunities were great.
Benefit of clergy for certain crimes was available in the
American colonies to all who could read and write. For instance, it
could be used in trials for manslaughter.
Appendix: Sovereigns of England
Accession - - Name - - - - - - - - - Relation
871 - Alfred the Great
899 - Edward the Elder - - - - - - - son of Alfred
924 - AEthelstan - - - - - - - - - - son of Edward the Elder
939 - Edmund - - - - - - - - - - - - son of Edward the Elder
946 - Eadred - - - - - - - - - - - - son of Edward the Elder
955 - Eadwig - - - - - - - - - - - - son of Edmund
959 - Edgar - - - - - - - - - - - - son of Edmund
975 - Edward the Martyr - - - - - - son of Edgar
978 - AEthelred the Unready - - - - son of Edgar
1016 - Edmund Ironside - - - - - - - son of AEthelred the Unready
1016 - Canute
1035 - Harold I Harefoot - - - - - - son of Canute
1040 - Hardicanute - - - - - - - - - son of Canute
1042 - Edward the Confessor - - - - -son of Aethelred the Unready
1066 - Harold II
1066 - William I, the Conquerer
1087 - William II - - - - - - - - - -son of William I
1100 - Henry I (and Matilda) - - - - son of William I
1135 - Stephen 1154 - Henry II(and Eleanor) - grandson of Henry I
1189 - Richard I, the Lion-Hearted - son of Henry II
1199 - John - - - - - - - - - - - - son of Henry II
1216 - Henry III - - - - - - - - - - son of John
1272 - Edward I (and Eleanor) - - - son of Henry III
1307 - Edward II - - - - - - - - - - son of Edward I
1327 - Edward III - - - - - - - - - son of Edward II
1377 - Richard II - - - - - - - - - grandson of Edward III
1399 - Henry IV
1413 - Henry V - - - - - - - - - - - son of Henry IV
1422 - Henry VI - - - - - - - - - - son of Henry V
1461 - Edward IV
1483 - Edward V - - - - - - - - - - son of Edward IV
1483 - Richard III
1485 - Henry VII (and Elizabeth)
1509 - Henry VIII - - - - - - - - - son of Henry VII
1547 - Edward VI - - - - - - - - - - son of Henry VIII
1553 - Mary - - - - - - - - - - - - daughter of Henry VIII
1558 - Elizabeth I - - - - - - - - - daughter of Henry VIII
1603 - James I
1625 - Charles I - - - - - - - - - - - son of James I
1649 - Oliver Cromwell
1660 - Charles II - - - - - - - - - - -son of Charles I
1685 - James II - - - - - - - - - - - -son of Charles I
1689 - William and Mary
1694 - William III
1702 - Anne - - - - - - - - - - - granddaughter of James II
1714 - George I
1727 - George II - - - - - - - - - - - son of George I
1760 - George III - - - - - - - - - - son of George II
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- - - - - - - - - - - - -THE END
- - - - - - - - - - - - - INDEX
abbey; abbot, abbess; abduction; accessory; account; administrator;
admiralty; adultery; adverse possession; adulterated; advowson;
AEthelbert; AEthelred; affidavit; agreement; agriculture; Augustine.
St.; aids; alderman; ale; alehouses; Alfred; alienate; aliens;
allegiance; alms; amerce; America; Anabaptist; ancient; Anglo-Saxons;
Anglo-Saxon Chronicles; annulment; apothecaries; apparel laws; appeal;
appellate; apprentices; appurtance; archbishop; architect; Aristotle;
Arkwright, Richard; arraign; arson; Arthur; Articles of Religion;
artificer; artisan; assault; assay; assign; assize; assizes; assumpsit;
astrology; at pleasure; atheism; attainder; attaint; attorneys; babies;
bachelor; Bachelor of Arts; back-berend; Bacon, Francis; Bacon, Roger;
bacteriology; bail; bailiff; baker; ballads; Bank of England;
bankruptcy; Baptist; bar; barber; barber-surgeon; bargain and sale;
barons; baron court; barristers; bastard; bath; battery; beadle;
beating; Becket; beer; beggar; benefit of clergy; benevolence; Beowulf;
bequeath, bequest; Bible; bigamy; bill; bill of attainder; bill of
exchange; Bill of Rights; billet; Birmingham; bishops; Black Death;
Blackstone, William; blinding; blodwite; blood-letting; bocland; Book
of Common Prayer; bordars; borough; Boston; bot; Boyle, Robert;
Bracton, Henry de; brass; brawling; breach; breach of the peace; bread;
Brewster; bribery; brick; bridge; bridgebot; Bristol; brokers; Bullock,
case of; burgbot; burgess; burglary; burh; burial; burning; butcher;
butler; Calais; Calvin; Cambridge University; canals; cannon;
capitalism; carbon dioxide; carpenter; carriages; carucage; carver;
castle; castle-guard; cathedral; Catholics; cattle; cavaliers; Cecil,
William; censorship; ceorl; certiorari; challenge; champerty;
chancellor; chancery; Chancery Court; charter; chattel; Chaucer,
Geoffrey; chemistry; chevage; Chief Justice; Chief Justiciars; child;
child abuse; children; childwyte; Christian; chivalry; Christmas;
church; Church of England; church sanctuary; Cicero; circuit; citizen;
city; civil; civil courts; civil war; claim; clans; class; clergy;
clerics; cloth-maker; coaches; coal; coffee houses; coin; Coke, Edward;
College of Physicians and Surgeons; colonies; commission; common land;
common law; Commons, House of; Commonwealth; compurgation; compurgator;
confession; Congregationalists; Conqueror; consideration; constable;
constitution; contract; conventile; conveyance; conviction; cooper;
Copernicus; copper; copyhold; copyrights; cordwainer; Coronation
Charter; coroner; corporation; corruption of the blood; council;
counterfeit; county; county courts; courtesy; Court of Common Pleas;
Court of High Commission; Court of King's Bench; courtesy; court
martial; covenant; coverture; Coventry; craft; craft guild; Cranmer,
Thomas; creditor; crime; criminal; Cromwell, Oliver; Cromwell, Thomas;
crown; cupbearer; curfew; currier; custody; customary tenant; customs;
damages; danegeld; Danes; darrein presentment; daughter; death; death
penalty; debt, debtors; deceased; decree; deed; deer; defamation;
defendant; demesne; denizen; deodand; descendant; Descartes, Renee;
desertion; detinue; devise; dispensary; disseisin; dissenter;
distraint; distress; divorce; doctorate; dog; Doomsday Book; doublet;
dower; dowery; Drake, Francis; drover; drunkenness; duel; during good
behavior; duties; dwelling; dyers; earl; East India Company; Easter;
ecclesiastic; Edith; education; Eleanor, wife of Edward I; Eleanor,
wife of Henry II; election; electricity; Elizabeth, wife of Henry VII;
embroiderer; enclosure; English; engrose; Episcopal Church; equity;
equity court; Erasmus; escape from gaol; escheat, escheator; escuage;
esquire; established church; estate; estate administration; estate
tail; Euclid; Exchequer; excommunication; excise tax; executor; export;
extent; eyre; factory; fair; father; fealty; fee; fee simple; fee tail;
felony; feme covert; feme sole; feoff; Fermat, Pierre; feudal; feudal
tenures; fihtwite; fine; fire; firdfare; fire-fighters; fishermen,
fishmonger; flint; flogging; flymenfyrm; flying shuttle; folkmote; food
riots; footmen; forced loans; forced marriage; forestall; Forest
Charter; forestall; forestel; forests; forfeit; forgery; forms of
action; fornication; fortifications; foster-lean; France; frank-almoin;
Franklin, Benjamin; frankpledge; fraternity; fraud; freedom of speech;
freehold, freeholder; freeman; freemason; freewoman; friar; frith
guild; fuller; fustian; fyrd; fyrding; fyrdwite; gage; Galilei,
Galileo; gambling; games; gaols; Gaol Distemper; Gawaine; gentleman;
gentry; geology; Georgia; German, Christopher St., gift; Gilbert,
William; guildhall; guilds; gin; Glanvill; glass; Glorious Revolution;
gloves; God; godfather; gold; Goldsmiths; Good Parliament; goods;
government; grain; grammar schools; grand assize; grand jury; Grand
Tour; grants; grave; gravitation; Greek; Gresham, Thomas; grithbrice;
guardian, guardianship; Guenevere; hair; hall; Halley, Edmond;
hamsocne; hand-habbende; harboring; Harrington, James; Harvard College;
health; heir; heresy; heriot; hidage; hide; High Commission Court;
Hilda; hillforts; holidays, holydays; homage; homicide; Hooke, Robert;
horse; horse racing; hospitals; house-breaking; house-holder; House of
Commons; House of Lords; houses; houses of correction; hue and cry;
humanism, humors; hundred rolls; husbreche; Huygens, Christian;
hundred; hundred courts; hunt; husband; hustings court; hut;
illegitimacy; illness; illuminators; impeach; import; imprisonment;
incest; income tax; Independents; indenture; indictment; industry;
infangthef; infiht; inflation; inheritance; innkeeper; Inns of Court;
inoculation; inquest; insocna; insurance; interest; interrogatory;
intestate; iron; itinerant; jail; Jesus; Jews; Joan of Arc; joint
tenants; joint-stock companies; jointure; Jones, Inigo; journeyman;
judge; jurisdiction; jurors; jury; justice; justices in eyre; Justices
of Assize; Justices of the Peace; justiciar; Kent county; Keplar,
Johannes; kill; kin, kindred; king; King Alfred the Great; King Charles
I; King Charles II; King Edward I; King Edward the Confessor; King
George III; King Henry I; King Henry II; King Henry VII; King Henry
VIII; King James I; King James II; King John; King Richard the
Lion-Hearted; King William and Mary; King William I, The Conqueror;
king's peace; knight; knight's fee; knights' guild; knitting; laborer;
ladies; land; landlord; land-owner; larceny; lastage; Latin; law
merchant; lawsuit; lawyer; Laxton; lay; leap year; lease; leather; leet
court; legacy; legerwite; legislation; legitimacy; Leibniz, Christian;
Leicester; letters; libel; Liberi Quadripartitus; library; license;
life; life-estate; lighthouse; limb; linen; Lion of Justice; literacy;
literature; Littleton, Thomas; livery; Lloyds; Locke, John; London;
Long Parliament; longitude; lord; Lords, House of; loriner; lottery;
loyalty; machine; magistrates; Magna Carta; magnate; maiden; mail;
magic; malicious prosecution; maintenance; Manchester; manor; manor
courts; manufacturing; manumission; Marco Polo; market; marriage;
marriage agreement; marriage portion; marshall; marquise;
Massachusetts; Master of Arts; masters; Matilda; Mayflower; mayor;
Maypole; mead; measures; meat; medicine; melee; member; merchandise;
merchant; merchant adventurers; merchant guilds; merchet; Merciless
Parliament; mercy; Merton; mesne; Methodists; microscope; Middlesex;
midwives; military service; militia; miller; minister; minor;
minstrels; miskenning; moat; Model Parliament; monarchy; monasteries;
money; moneyer; monks; monopoly; moot; More, Thomas; morgen-gift;
morning gift; mort d'ancestor; mortgage; mortmain; mother; murder;
murdrum; mutilation; Napier, John; navy; Newcastle- on-Tyne; New
England; New Model Army; newspapers; Newton, Issac; New World;
nobility; noblemen, nobles; nonconformists; Normans; novel disseisin;
nuisance; nun; Oakham, William; oaths; offender; oil; one hundred year
war; open field system; ordeal; ordinance; orphans; outlaw; Oxford
University; oxygen; papists; parent; parishes; Parliament; Parliament
of Saints; partition; party; Pascal, Blaise; passport; patents; pauper;
pawn; Peasant's Revolt; peers; peine forte et dure; penalty;
penitentiary; Penn, William; Pennsylvania; penny; per stirpes; perjury;
personal injury; personal property; petty serjeanty; petition; Petition
of Right; physicians; Piers Plowman; pigherds; pilgrim; pillory; pipe
rolls; piracy; pirate; plague; plaintiff; Plato; plays; pleading;
pleas; police; pontage; poor; pope; popery; population; port;
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