Edward I

Edward I in United Kingdom

Edward I Records

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Edward I and his Medieval Law

This is an account of Edward I and his impact on legal history through his pieces of legislation.

Les Leis Williame

Then we have another document which professes to give us the old laws, the laws which King Edward held and which King William granted to the people of England. We have it both in French and in Latin, and to distinguish it from its fellows it has been called the bilingual code. We shall call it the Leis Williame. Its history is obscure and has been made the more obscure by contact with the forgeries of the false Ingulf. The Latin text is a translation of the French text, though not an exact translation of any version of the French text that has come down to modern times; but the French text may have been made from a Latin or from an English original. That we have here no authoritative code but mere private work will scarcely be disputed. It falls somewhat easily into three parts. The first seems to consist of certain rules of the Old English law as they were understood[80] under the Norman kings together with some of the Norman novelties. It is an intelligent and to all seeming a trustworthy statement. It harmonizes well with the ancient dooms, but is not made up of extracts from them.

Its author may have been specially familiar with the Danelaw. The last part of the document is a pretty close translation of certain parts of the code of Cnut. Then between these two parts there come a few articles which betray the influence of Roman law. If the whole document comes from one man, we cannot well suppose him to have done his work after the early years of the twelfth century; his statement of the old law seems too good to be of later date. We must further suppose that, having come to the end of the English rules that were known to him as living law, he taxed his memory for other rules and succeeded in remembering some half-dozen large maxims which had caught his eye in some Roman book, and that finally, being weary of trying to remember and to define, he took up the code of Cnut and translated part of it. The first section of his work is far from valueless; it is one more proof that attempts were being made to state the laga Eadwardi in a rational form. As to the middle section, it shows us how men were helplessly looking about for some general principles of jurisprudence which would deliver them from their practical and intellectual difficulties.

Leges Edwardi Confessoris

Lastly, we have a book written in Latin which expressly purports[81] to give us the law of Edward as it was stated to the Conqueror in the fourth year of his reign by juries representing the various parts of England.67 However, the purest form in which we have it speaks of what was done in the reign of William Rufus,68 and probably [112] was compiled in the last years of Henry I.

It is private work of a bad and untrustworthy kind. It has about it something of the political pamphlet and is adorned with pious legends. The author, perhaps a secular clerk of French parentage, writes in the interest of the churches, and, it is to be feared, tells lies for them.70 He professes to hate the Danes of the past and the Danelaw. According to him, William, being himself of Scandinavian race, was on the point of imposing the Danelaw upon the whole country, but at length was induced by the suppliant jurors to confirm the law of Edward. This, it is explained, was really the law of Edgar, but, from Edgar’s death until the accession of the Confessor, law had slumbered in England—thus does this romancer strive to blacken the memory of Cnut, the great lawgiver.

Little, if any, use is made of the Anglo-Saxon dooms; loose, oral tradition is the author’s best warrant. Unfortunately, however, the patriotic and ecclesiastical leanings of his book made it the most popular of all the old law-books. In the thirteenth century it was venerable; even Bracton quoted from it. A second and more polished edition of it was soon made by its author’s or another’s hand; also there is a French version. And then men added to it other pious legends about the good old days when sheriffs were elective and the like. It has gone on doing its bad work down to our own time. It should only be used with extreme caution, for its statements, when not supported by other evidence, will hardly tell us more than that some man of the twelfth century, probably some man of Henry I.’s day, would have liked those statements to be true.

Character of the law disclosed by the Leges

The picture that these law-books set before us is that of an ancient system which has received a rude shock from without while within it was rapidly decaying. The men who would state the existing law are compelled to take the old English dooms as the basis for their work, even though they can hardly understand the Old English language. The old dooms are written law; they have not been abrogated; they have been confirmed; other written law there is none or next to none; Normandy has none; northern France has none, or none that is not effete. At a pinch a man may find something useful in the new science of the canonists, in the aged Lex Salica, in vague rumours of Roman law which come from afar. Any rule that looks authoritative and reasonable is welcome; we may say that it is law because it ought to be law. But in the main we must make the best of the dooms of Cnut and the older dooms. And the difficulty of making much that is good of them is not caused merely by the collision of two races, or by any preference of the Normans for laws that are not English.

No doubt in the local courts confusion had been confounded by the influx of conquering Frenchmen; but there were causes enough of confusion which would have done their work even had there been no ethnical conflict to aid them. Everywhere in western Europe new principles of social and political order were emerging; new classes were being formed; the old laws, the only written laws, were becoming obsolete; the state was taking a new shape. If from the northern France or from the Germany of the first years of the twelfth century we could have a law-book,[83] it would not be very simple or elegant or intelligible. As it is, our neighbours have little to show between the last of the capitularies and those feudal law-books which stand on a level with our own Glanvill.

While the complex process which we call feudalism is transmuting the world, no one issues laws or writes about law. If in England it is otherwise, this seems to be chiefly due to two causes:—In England the age of the capitularies had not ended; but lately Cnut had legislated on a scale which for the eleventh century must be called magnificent. And then that very collision between two races which makes the law-books disorderly and obscure has made them necessary. The laga Eadwardi is confirmed. Even clerks of Norman race wish to know what the laga Eadwardi is.

Practical problems in the Leges

These law-books have, we may say, one main theme. It is a very old theme. An offence, probably some violent offence, has been committed. Who then is to get money, and how much money, out of the offender? It is the old theme of wer and wíte and bót. But the criminal tariff has become exceedingly complex, and is breaking down under its own weight. In the first place the old tribal differences, which have become local differences, cannot yet be disregarded. A text writer must still start with this, that England is divided between three laws, Wessex law, Mercian law, Danelaw. We must not make light of the few variances between these three laws which are expressly noticed by the books. If in the eleventh century a middle finger is more valuable than a first finger among the men of the Danelaw and less valuable among the men of Wessex, here is a difference which would have its equivalent in modern England if the law of Lancashire differed from the law of Yorkshire about the negotiable qualities of a bill of exchange, a difference fruitful of knotty problems.

The law of Herefordshire, as settled by Earl William FitzOsbern, was that no knight should have to pay more than seven shillings for any offence. Becket asserted even in the king’s court that the heaviest amercement known to Kentish law was forty shillings. But the country was becoming covered with small courts; every one who could was acquiring or assuming sake and soke. The courts rose one above the other; the great old tribal customs were breaking up into multitudinous petty customs. This introduced new complexities. We can see that for the writer of the Leges Henrici the grand central problem of the law is the question, Who in the myriad of possible cases has sake and soke, the right to hold a court for the offender and to pocket the profits of jurisdiction?

The claims of the lords, the claims of the church, the claims of the king are adding to the number of the various fines and mulcts that can be exacted, and are often at variance with each other. Let us suppose that a man learned in the law is asked to advise upon a case of homicide. Godwin and Roger met and quarrelled, and Godwin slew Roger. What must be paid; by whom; to whom? Our jurist is not very careful about those psychical elements of the case which might interest us, but on the other hand he requires information about a vast number of particulars which would seem to us trivial. He cannot begin to cast up his sum until he has before him some such statement as this:—Godwin was a free ceorl of the Abbot of Ely: Roger, the son of a Norman father, was born in En gland of an English mother and was a vavassor of Count Alan: the deed was done on the Monday after Septuagesima, in the county of Cambridge, on a road which ran between the land which Gerard a Norman knight held of Count Eustace and the land of the Bishop of Lincoln: this road was not one of the king’s highways: Godwin was pursued by the neighbours into the county of Huntingdon and arrested on the land of the Abbot of Ramsey: Roger, when the encounter took place, was on his way to the hundred moot: he has left a widow, a paternal uncle and a maternal aunt. As a matter of fact, the result will probably be that Godwin, unable to satisfy the various claims to which his deed has given rise, will be hanged or mutilated.

This, however, is but a slovenly, practical solution of the nice problem, and even if he be hanged, there may be a severe struggle over such poor chattels as he had. The old law consisted very largely of rules about these matters; but it is falling to pieces under the pressure of those new elements which feudalism has brought with it. For a while there must be chaos and “unlaw”; every[85] lord may assume what jurisdictional powers he pleases and will be able to find in the complicated tangle of rules some plausible excuse for the assumption. The Normans, hallowed and lay, have thrown themselves with all their native ardour into the warfare of litigation and chicane over rights which have Old English names; “nullus clericus nisi causidicus.”

Source: Sir Frederick Pollock, The History of English Law before the Time of Edward I (1895)

Legal Materials

(Compiled by the University of South Caroline Gould School of Law) Given-Wilson , Chris, Gen. ed. The Parliament Rolls of Medieval England 1275-1504. 16 Vols. Woodbridge, London: Boydell Press, National Archives, 2005.

Notes: Also available online in National archives https://bibpurl.Online Computer Library Center (OCLC) number (used in Worldcat).org.libproxy.usc.edu/web/15805Abstract: Texts in Latin, Anglo-Norman or Middle English with modern English translations ; introduction and notes in modern English. Contains full text and translation of the meetings of the English parliaments from Edward I to Henry VII, covering the years from 1275 to 1504. Contents:

Vol. 1, Edward I, 1275-1294 , edited by Paul Brand

Vol. 2, Edward I, 1294-1307, edited by Paul Brand

Vol. 3, Edward II, 1307-1327, edited by Seymour Phillips

Vol. 4, Edward III, 1327-1348, edited by Seymour Phillips & Mark Ormrod

Vol. 5, Edward III, 1351-1377, edited by Mark Ormrod

Vol. 6, Richard II, 1377-1384, edited by Geoffrey Martin & Chris Given-Wilson

Vol. 7, Richard II, 1385-1397, edited by Chris Given-Wilson

Vol. 8, Henry IV, 1399-1413, edited by Chris Given-Wilson

Vol. 9, Henry V, 1413-1422, edited by Chris Given-Wilson

Vol. 10, Henry VI, 1422-1431, edited by Anne Curry

Vol. 11, Henry VI, 1432-1445, edited by Anne Curry

Vol. 12, Henry VI, 1447-1460, edited by Anne Curry & Rosemary Horrox

Vol. 13, Edward IV, 1461-1470, edited by Rosemary Horrox

Vol. 14, Edward IV, 1472-1483, edited by Rosemary Horrox

Vol. 15, Richard III, 1484-1485; Henry VII, 1485-1487, edited by Rosemary Horrox

Vol. 16, Henry VII, 1489-1504, edited by Rosemary Horrox

Gwillim, Henry, and Charles Ellis, eds. A Collection of Acts and Records of Parliament, With Reports of Cases, Argued and Determined in the Courts of Law and Equity, Respecting Tithes. 2nd ed. London: J. Butterworth, 1825.

Notes: First edition (1801) also available online in The Making of Modern Law; ModernEconomy (subscription databases)Abstract: Collection of Acts and Records of Parliament with reports of cases covering the years 1224-1824.

Maitland, Frederic W., ed. Memoranda De Parliamento, 1305; Records of the Parliament Holden at Westminster on the Twenty-Eighth Day of February, in the Thirty-Third Year of the Reign of King Edward the First (A.D. 1305) . Rerum Britannicarum Medii Aevi Scriptores (Rolls Series), 98. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1893.

Abstract: Text in Latin. Considered the best edited of all the ancient printed parliament rolls. Contains, besides the roll of 1305, thirteen original petitions.

Palgrave, Francis, ed. The Parliamentary Writs and Writs of Military Summons 1273-1327; Together With the Records and Muniments, Relating to the Suit and Service Due and Performed to the King’s High Court of Parliament and the Councils of the Realm ; or Affording Evidence of Attendance Given at Parliaments and Councils. 2 Vols. in 4. London: The Record Commission, 1827-1834.

Abstract: Contains writs summoning peers to parliament, writs and returns for the election of members of the House of Commons, writs for levying expenses of representatives of the commons, and writs and other documents relating to military service. Part 3, Nomina villarum, is an alphabetical digest and index of persons.

Richardson, Henry G., and George O. Sayles, eds. Rotuli Parliamentorum Anglie Hactenus Inediti: 1279-1373. Royal Historical Society. Camden 3rd ser., 51. London: Offices of the Society, 1935.

Abstract: Contains Parliament Rolls 1279-1373 omitted from the Rotuli Parliamentorum; ut petitiones, et placita in parliamento. (London, 1767). The memoranda of the Easter parliament in 1279 is the earliest surviving record of its kind.

Sayles, George O., ed. The Functions of the Medieval Parliament of England. London: Hambledon, 1988.

Abstract: Intended as a source book to illustrate the early history of parliament, it contains an important selection of documents in translation. Each of the 130 or so parliaments that met between 1258 and 1350 has been furnished with documents, mainly official, showing its actions. The original source of each document is given.

Bibliographies of English Law History

  • Maxwell, William H. A Legal Bibliography of the British Commonwealth of Nations. Volume 1: English Law to 1800. London: Sweet and Maxwell, 1955-
  • Beale, Joseph H. A Bibliography of Early English Law Books. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1926.
  • Winfield, Percy H. The Chief Sources of English Legal History. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925.

Resources

See Also

  • Imprisonment (in this legal Encyclopedia)
  • Edict (in this legal Encyclopedia)
  • Court of Chancery and Equity (in this legal Encyclopedia)
  • Burglary (in this legal Encyclopedia)
  • Medieval Church Law (in this legal Encyclopedia)

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