Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) EditionReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) Edition
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
twelve shall view the land (or tenements from which the services are
demanded). And summon by good summoners N., who is tenant, to be there
to hear the recognition. Witness..." The claimant could object to any of
the twelve knights for just cause as determined by the court. Each of
the twelve gave an oath as to whether the plaintiff's or the defendant's
position was correct. This oath was not to speak falsehood nor conceal
truth according to knowledge gained by eyewitness or "by the words of
their fathers and by such words as they are bound to have such
confidence in as if they were their own". If any did not know the truth
of the matter, others were found until twelve agreed [the recognitors]
on which party had the greater right. Perjury was punished by forfeiture
of all one's goods and chattels to the king and at least one year's
imprisonment. If the tenant in court vouched another to warranty, such
as the lord to whom he paid homage, that warrantor would stand in his
place in the proceedings. If the warrantor lost, he would have to give
to his vassal equivalent land in exchange. Burgage tenure was not
usually decided by assize. Also, if the parties were relatives, neither
the assize nor the combat was available to them, but the matter had to
be decided by the law of inheritance.
Itinerant justices could conduct these assizes: petty and grand. In
1198, the hundred is empowered to act on all the business of the
session, including all recognitions and petty assizes ordered by the
king's writ, where the property in dispute was worth no more than 200s.
[ten pounds] a year. The four knights came to be selected by the suitors
of the county court rather than by the sheriff.
This assize procedure extended in time to all other types of civil
actions.
Also removable to the Royal Court from the county courts were issues of
a lord's claim to a person as his villein (combat not available),
service or relief due to a lord, dower rights, a creditor's refusal to
restore a gage [something given as security] to a debtor who offered
payment or a deposit, money due to a lender, a seller, or a person to
whom one had an obligation under a charter, fish or harvest or cattle
taken from lands unjustly occupied, cattle taken from pasture, rights to
enjoy a common, to stop troubling someone's transport, to make
restitution of land wrongfully occupied, to make a lord's bailiff
account to him for the profits of the manor.
The Royal Court also decided disputes regarding baronies, nuisance or
encroachments on royal land or public ways or public waterways, such as
diverting waters from their right course and issues of nuisance by the
making or destroying of a ditch or the destruction of a pond by a mill
to the injury of a person's freehold. Other pleas of the Crown were:
insult to the royal dignity, treason, breaches of safe-conducts, and
injury to the King's servants.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account