Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Queen Elizabeth was a good influence on Henry's character. Her
active beneficence was a counteracting influence to his
avaricious predisposition. When Henry and his Queen traveled
through the nation, they often stopped to talk to the common
people. They sometimes gave away money, such as to a man who had
lost his hand. Henry paid for an intelligent boy he met to go to
school.
Henry had the first paper mill erected in the nation. He fostered
the reading of books and the study of Roman law, the classics,
and the Bible. He had his own library and gave books to other
libraries.
The age of entry to university was between 13 and 16. It took
four years' study of grammar, logic, and rhetoric to achieve the
Bachelor of Arts degree and another five before a master could
begin a specialized study of the civil law, canon law, theology,
or medicine. Arabic numbers replaced Roman numerals, making
multiplication and division possible. Humanist studies were
espoused by individual scholars at the three centers of higher
learning: Oxford University, Cambridge University, and the Inns
of Court in London. The Inns of Court attracted the sons of
gentry and merchants pursuing practical and social
accomplishments. The text of 'readings' to members of the inns
survive from this time. In the legalistic climate of these
times, attorneys were prosperous.
The enclosure of land by hedges for sheep farming continued,
especially by rich merchants who bought country land for this
purpose. Often this was land under the plough. The tenants at
will were thrown off it immediately. That land held by
copyholders of land who had only a life estate, was withheld from
their sons. Only freeholders and copyholders with the custom of
the manor in their favor were secure against eviction. The real
line of distinction between rural people was one of material
means instead of legal status: free or unfree. On one extreme
was the well-to-do yeoman farmer farming his own land. On the
other extreme was the agricultural laborer working for wages.
Other land put to use for sheep breeding was waste land. There
were three sheep to every person. The nearby woodlands no longer
had wolves or lynx who could kill the sheep. Bears and elk are
also gone.
There were still deer, wild boar, wildcats and wild cattle in
vast forests for the lords to hunt. Wood was used for houses,
arms, carts, bridges, and ships.
The villages were still isolated from each other, so that a
visitor from miles away was treated as warily as a foreigner.
Most people lived and died where they had been born. A person's
dialect indicated his place of origin. The largest town, London,
had a population of about 70,000. Other towns had a population
less than 20,000. The population was increasing, but did not
reach the level of the period just before the black death.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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