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
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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