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
Henry involved the Royal Court in many criminal issues, using the
agencies of the county and hundred courts. To detect crimes, he required
royal justices to routinely ask selected representatives: knights or
other landholders, of every neighborhood if any person were suspected of
any murder, robbery, theft, etc. A traveling royal justice or a sheriff
would then hold an inquest, in which the representatives answered by
oath what people were reputed to have done certain crimes. They made
such inquiries through assizes of presentment, usually composed of
twelve men from each hundred and the four best men of each township.
(These later evolved into grand juries). These assizes were an ancient
institution in many parts of the country. They consisted of
representatives of the hundreds, usually knights, and villages who
testified under oath to all crimes committed in their neighborhood, and
indicted those they suspected as responsible and those harboring them.
What Henry's assize did was to insist upon the adoption of a standard
procedure everywhere systematically. The procedure was made more regular
instead of depending on crime waves. If indicted, the suspected persons
were then sent to the ordeal. There was no trial by compurgation in the
Royal Courts, which was abolished by Henry. If determined guilty, he
forfeited his chattels to the king and his land reverted to his
landlord.
If a man failed at the ordeal, the penalty prescribed by the assize of
Clarendon of 1166 was loss of a foot and abjuring the realm. The assize
of Northhampton of 1176 added loss of the right hand. A man who had a
bad reputation had to abjure the realm even if he had successfully
undergone the ordeal.
As before, a person could also be brought to trial by the accusation of
the person wronged. If the accused still denied the charge after the
accuser testified and the matter investigated by inquiries and
interrogation and then analyzed, trial by combat was held, unless the
accuser was over the age of sixty or maimed, in which case the accused
went to the ordeal.
The ordeal was abolished by the Lateran Council of 1215.
Criminal matters such as killing the king or sedition or betraying the
nation or the army, fraudulent concealment of treasure trove [finding a
hoard of coins which had been buried when danger approached], breach of
the King's peace, homicide, murder (homicide for which there were no
eyewitnesses), burning (a town, house, men, animals or other chattel for
hatred or revenge), robbery, rape and falsifying (e.g. false charters or
false measures or false money) were punishable by death or loss of limb.
All murders were now punished alike because the applicability of the
murdrum couldn't be determined since it was impossible to prove that the
slain man had been English.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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