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
A King's grant of land entailed two documents: a charter giving
boundaries and conditions and a writ, usually addressed to the shire
court, listing the judicial and financial privileges conveyed with the
land. These were usually sac [jurisdiction of a lord to hold court and
to impose fines and amercements] and soke [jurisdiction of a private
court of a noble or institution to execute the laws and administer
justice over inhabitants and tenants of the estate], toll [right to
have a market and to collect a payment on the sale of cattle and other
property on one's own estate] and team [a privilege granted by royal
charter to the lord of a manor for the having, restraining, and judging
of villeins with their children, goods, and chattels], and
infangenetheof [the authority to hang and take the chattels of a thief
caught on his estate].
The town of Coventry consisted of a large monastery estate,
headed by an abbot, and a large private estate headed by a lord. The
monastery was granted by Edward the Confessor full freedom and these
jurisdictions: sac and soke, toll and team, hamsocne [the authority to
fine a person for breaking into and making entry by force into the
dwelling of another], forestall [the authority to fine a person for
robbing others on the road], bloodwite [the authority to impose a
forfeiture for assault involving bloodshed], fightwite [the authority
to fine for fighting], weordwite [the authority to fine for
manslaughter, but not for willful murder], and mundbryce [the authority
to fine for any breach of the peace, such as trespass on lands].
Every man was expected to have a lord to whom he gave fealty.
He swore by a fealty oath such as: "By the Lord, before whom this relic
is holy, I will be to faithful and true, and love all that he loves,
and shun all that he shuns, according to God's law, and according to
the world's principle, and never, by will nor by force, by word nor by
work, do ought of what is loathful to him; on condition that he keep me
as I am willing to deserve, and all that fulfill that our agreement
was, when I to him submitted and chose his will." If a man was homeless
or lordless, his brothers were expected to find him such, e.g. in the
folkmote. Otherwise, he was to be treated as a fugitive and could be
slain, and anyone who had harbored him would pay a penalty. Brothers
were also expected to protect their minor kinsmen. When the oath of
fealty was sworn, the man usually did homage to this lord symbolized by
holding his hands together between those of his lord.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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