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
The courts of the King and barons became schools of chivalry
wherein seven year old noble boys became as pages or valets,
wore a dagger and waited upon the ladies of the household. At
age fourteen, they were advanced to squires and admitted into
more familiar association with the knights and ladies of the
court. They perfected their skills in dancing, riding, fencing,
hawking, hunting and jousting. Before knighthood, they played
team sports in which one team tried to put the other team to
rout. A knight usually selected a wife from the court at which
he grew up.
These incidents of land tenure began (but were not firmly
established until the reign of Henry II). Each tenant, whether
baron or subtenant, had to pay an "aid" in money for ransom if
his lord was captured in war, for the knighthood of his lord's
eldest son, and for the marriage of his lord's eldest daughter.
Land could be held by an heir only if he could fight. The eldest
son began to succeed to the whole of the lands in all military
tenures. An heir of a tenant had to pay a heavy "relief" on
succession to his estate. If there was a delay in proving
heirship or paying relief, the lord would hold the land and
receive its income in the meantime, often a year. If an heir was
still a minor or female, he or she passed into his lord's
wardship, in which the lord had guardianship of the heir and
possession of the estate, with all its profits. A female heir was
expected to marry a man acceptable to the lord. The estate of an
heiress and her land was generally sold to the highest bidder.
If there were no heirs, the land escheated to the lord. If a
tenant committed felony, his land escheated to his lord.
Astrologers resided with the families of the barons. People went
to fortune tellers' shops. There was horse racing, steeple
races, and chess for recreation. Girls had dolls; boys had toy
soldiers, spinning tops, toy horses, ships, and wooden models.
The state of medicine is indicated by this medical advice brought
to the nation by William's son after treatment on the continent:
"If thou would have health and vigor Shun cares and avoid anger.
Be temperate in eating And in the use of wine. After a heavy meal
Rise and take the air Sleep not with an overloaded stomach And
above all thou must Respond to Nature when she calls."
Many free sokemen were caught up in the subjugation by baron
landlords and were reduced almost to the condition of the unfree
villein. The services they performed for their lords were often
indistinguishable. They might also hold their land by villein
tenure, although free as a person with the legal rights of a
free man. The free man still had a place in court proceedings
which the unfree villein did not.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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