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
Regulation of trade became national instead of local. Trade was
relatively free; almost the only internal transportation tolls were
petty portages and viages levied to recoup the expense of a bridge or
road which had been built by private enterprise. Responsibility for the
coinage was transferred from the individual moneyers working in
different boroughs to a central official who was to become Master of
the Mint. The round half penny and farthing [1/4 penny] were created so
that the penny needn't be cut into halves and quarters anymore.
Edward I called meetings of representatives from all social and
geographic sectors of the nation at one Parliament to determine taxes
due to the Crown that would replace feudal aids. He declared that "what
touches all, should be approved by all". He wanted taxes from the
burgesses in the towns and the clergy's ecclesiastical property as well
as from landholders. He argued to the clergy that if barons had to both
fight and pay, they who could do no fighting must at least pay. When
the clergy refused to pay, he put them outside the royal protection and
threatened outlawry and confiscation of their lands. Then they agreed
to pay and to renounce all papal orders contrary to the King's
authority.
Edward I wanted to bring all his subjects undder hisimmediate
aujthority by the process of bringing all together to the same assembly
under his common presidency. So his Model Parliament of 1295 was
composed of the three communities. The first were the lords, which
included seven earls and forty-one barons. Because of the increase of
lesser barons due to a long national peace and prosperity, the lords
attending were reduced in numbers and peerage became dependent not on
land tenure, but on royal writ of summons. The great barons were chosen
by the king and received a special summons in their own names to the
council or Parliament. Others were called by a general summons. The
second community was the clergy, represented by the two archbishops,
bishops from each of eighteen dioceses, and sixty-seven abbots. The
third community was the commons. It was composed of two knights elected
by the suitors who were then present at the county court, two burgesses
elected by principal burgesses of each borough, and two representatives
from each city. The country knights had a natural affinity with the
towns in part because their younger sons sought their occupation, wife,
and estate there. Also, great lords recruited younger brothers of
yeoman families for servants and fighting men, who ultimately settled
down as tradesmen in the towns. The country people and the town people
also had a community of interest by both being encompassed by the
county courts. The peasants were not represented in the county courts
nor in Parliament. One had to have land to be entitled to vote in
Parliament because the landowner had a stake in the country, a material
security for his good behavior.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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