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 began the use of writs to intervene in civil matters, such as
inquiry by oath and recognition of rights as to land, the obligations of
tenure, the legitimacy of heirs, and the enforcement of local justice.
The Crown used its superior coercive power to enforce the legal
decisions of other courts. These writs allowed people to come to the
Royal Court on certain issues. There was a vigorous interventionism in
the land law subsequent to appeals to the king in landlord-tenant
relations, brought by a lord or by an undertenant. Assizes [those who
sit together] of local people who knew relevant facts were put together
to assist the court. Henry appointed some locally based justices, called
justiciars. Also, he sent justices out on eyres [journeys] to hold
assizes. This was done at special sessions of the county courts, hundred
courts, and manor courts. Records of the verdicts of the Royal Court
were sent with these itinerant justices for use as precedent in these
courts. Thus royal authority was brought into the localities and served
to check baronial power over the common people. These itinerant justices
also transacted the local business of the Exchequer in each county.
Henry created the office of chief justiciar, which carried out judicial
and administrative functions.
The Royal Court retained cases of gaol delivery [arrested person who
had been held in gaol was delivered to the court] and amercements. It
also decided cases in which the powers of the popular courts had been
exhausted or had failed to do justice. The Royal Court also decided land
disputes between barons who were too strong to submit to the county
courts.
The King's Court of the Exchequer reviewed the accounts of sheriffs,
including receipts and expenditures on the Crown's behalf as well as
sums due to the Treasury, located still at Winchester. These sums
included rent from royal estates, the Danegeld land tax, the fines from
local courts, and aid from baronial estates. Its records were the "Pipe
Rolls", so named because sheets of parchment were fastened at the top,
each of which dropped into a roll at the bottom and so assumed the shape
of a pipe.
The county and hundred courts assessed the personal property of
individuals and their taxes due to the King. The county court decided
land disputes between people who had different barons as their
respective lords.
The free landholders were expected to attend county, hundred, and manor
courts. They owed "suit" to it. The suitors found the dooms [laws] by
which the presiding officer pronounced the sentence.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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