Category: Magna Carta
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Magna Carta Juridical Nature
Introduction The juridical nature of the document to which John set his seal at Runnymede will be differently estimated according as it is judged by present–day or by medieval standards. The Early 20th Century Point of View Much ingenuity has been expended in the effort to discover […]
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Suit and Service
This phrase expresses the essential obligations inherent in the very nature of the feudal tie. It may be expanded (as regards tenure in chivalry) into the duty of attendance at the lord’s court, whether met for administrative or judicial purposes, or for reasons of mere display, and the […]
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Criminal Justice under Henry II
Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton By his Assizes of Clarendon and Northampton, Henry II reserved important crimes for the exclusive consideration of his own judges either on circuit or at his court; and he demanded entry for these judges into all franchises for that purpose. In […]
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Feudal Courts
History of Feudal Courts Feudal Courts Centuries before the Norman Conquest, the system of popular or district justice found itself confronted with a rival scheme of jurisdictions—the innumerable private courts belonging to the feudal lords. These private tribunals, known as feudal, […]
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Feudal Aids
The feudal tenant was expected to come to the aid of his lord in any special crisis or emergency. At first, the occasions on which these “aids” might be demanded were varied and undefined. Gradually they were limited to three. Glanvill, indeed, mentions only two: the knighting of the […]
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Events Leading to Magna Carta
The Great Charter is too often treated as the outcome of accidental causes; its sources are traced no deeper than the personal tyrannies and blunders of King John. That monarch’s misdeeds are held to have goaded into action a widespread opposition that never rested until it had achieved […]
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Magna Carta Commentaries and Treatises
Magna Carta: Commentaries and Treatises Introduction At the beginning of the twentieth century, Charles McIlwain observed that the new histories of the Magna Carta were portraying the charter as a “document of reaction” that could only fulfill its purported greatness “when men [were] no […]
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English Court System
Early History of the English Court System When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they imposed the Carolingian judicial system on the Anglo-Saxons. In the long struggle between king and landed nobility that ensued, one of the principal weapons of the Crown was the Curia Regis (king’s […]