Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
[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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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