Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George IIIReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George III
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Felony included such crimes as homicide, arson, rape, robbery,
burglary, and larceny. Murder still meant secret homicide.
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 six offenses could be prosecuted by
indictment or private accusation by an individual. The penalties
involved loss of life or limb or outlawry; a felon's goods were
confiscated by the crown and his land was forfeited to the crown
for a year and a day, after which it escheated to the felon's
lord. 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"
[wrongful detention of a good or chattel which had been loaned,
rented, or left for safe-keeping with a "bailee", but belonged to
the plaintiff], "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 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.
Breaches of the forest charter laws were determined by justices of
the King's forest, parks, and chases, along with men of assize.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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