Simon of Pattishall, Pioneer Professional Judge

1977 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-127 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph V. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Civil Servant ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law

The latter part of the twentieth century may not find many of us wishing to pay tribute to bureaucrats, but as Helen Cam reminded us, the civil servant “deserves more credit than he has yet had for building up and maintaining our precious tradition of law and order.” In the late twelfth century and the thirteenth century the process of “bureaucratization” first got underway in England. An early professional civil servant, one specializing in judicial activity, was Simon of Pattishall. His name surfaces in the records in 1190, and it disappears after 1216. His time of activity, then, coincides with an important period for English common law: the years between “Glanvill” and Magna Carta.Simon was one of that group of royal judges who might be termed the first “professionals,” a group that took shape by the middle years of Richard I's reign. By the time of John, about ninety men acted at various times as royal judges, either at the Bench at Westminster, with the court following the king, or as itinerant justices. Many of these had only temporary appointments, making circuits in the counties; but a core of fifteen, who concentrated on the work of the courts, can be regarded as early members of a professional judiciary. Simon of PattishalPs is perhaps the most respected name among the fifteen. He had the longest career on the bench, from 1190 until 1216. He founded a judicial dynasty, for his clerk, Martin of Pattishall, became a judge, as did his clerk, William Raleigh, who had as his clerk Henry of Bracton, author of the great treatise on English law.

The Reputation of Royal Judges Under the Angevin Kings

1979 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 301-316 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph V. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
John Of Salisbury ◽  
Royal Patronage ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law

In twelfth and thirteenth-century England complaints that justice was being sold were common, culminating with King John's tacit admission in Magna Carta. Coupled with these complaints were charges of corruption against royal judges, or against royal aulici, curiales, or familiares, since until the middle of Richard I's reign no professional judiciary existed. Even in King John's time, familiares regis still served as judges. Yet a core of royal servants specializing in justice, “professionals” in a certain sense, had been created. Historians since Maitland have generally held a high opinion of these judges. According to Maitland, under Henry II and Richard I, “English law was administered by the ablest, the best educated men in the realm.…” F.M. Powicke wrote that the judiciary of Henry III was “probably the most stable and helpful, as it was the most intelligent, element in the State at this time.” How are we to reconcile historians' high opinion of the royal justices with their contemporaries' low opinion? Were the chroniclers simply drawing stock figures in their depictions of corrupt judges, or was their picture drawn from life?Royal officials, including judges, proved popular targets for the pens of twelfth century moralists and satirists, some of whom wrote out of personal bitterness, having failed in the contest for royal patronage and high office.2 Capable of condemning curiales in classical Latin style was John of Salisbury. He knew many of Henry II's courtiers, and he came to despise them, especially those in clerical orders.

Edward the Confessor

2020 ◽  
pp. 132-172
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Richard Ii ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
English Law ◽  
Edward The Confessor ◽  
King John ◽  
Papal Legate

Chapter 4 shows how during John’s reign the baronial opposition appropriated the figure of the recently canonized Edward the Confessor, and used him as a standard against which to judge the current king. A key part was played by the London Collection of the Leges Anglorum, which compiled and in important respects elaborated and extended the compilations of Old English law codes made during the twelfth century. The Collection informed opposition thinking prior to the crisis which produced Magna Carta. The chapter also subjects to minute analysis two very unusual episodes recorded in thirteenth-century annals of provincial churches. First, the St Augustine’s, Canterbury account of Duke William’s having allowed the men of Kent, uniquely, to continue to use Old English Laws and customs. This episode is supposed to have taken place at Swanscombe Down in 1066. The second is the Burton Abbey account of what purports to be a dialogue between King John and a papal legate, allegedly in 1211. The nub of the dialogue is a disagreement about the role of Edward the Confessor. The chapter then shows how Henry III re-appropriated St Edward for the royal cause, but by emphasizing his saintliness rather than his alleged legislation. Henry focussed on the development of the cult, expressed in liturgical, artistic, and architectural terms, and focussed on the rebuilt Westminster Abbey. The chapter concludes with a brief envoi on the later medieval expression of the cult, especially under Richard II.

scholarly journals THE PROBLEM OF THE NON-JUSTICIABILITY OF RELIGIOUS DEFAMATIONS

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 241-257 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Smith
Keyword(s):  
Catholic Church ◽  
Common Law ◽  
The State ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
Civil Case ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
The Common ◽  
English Law

English law has long held the principle that religions should be free from interference by the state in certain matters. The original 1215 edition of the Magna Carta proclaimed, as its first article, ‘THAT WE HAVE GRANTED TO GOD, and by this present charter have confirmed for us and our heirs in perpetuity, that the English Church shall be free, and shall have its rights undiminished, and its liberties unimpaired.’This article was intended to protect the established Catholic Church from the powers of the state, specifically from interference in church elections by the executive in the form of the person of the monarch. The notion that religions were institutions with practices and beliefs that were outside the control of the state in certain respects was adopted by the common law and is found in modern times in the principle of non-justiciability on the matter of religion in certain types of civil case. 

scholarly journals Warranty and Good Lordship in Twelfth Century England

1987 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 437-503 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul R. Hyams
Keyword(s):  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Context ◽  
The Social ◽  
English Law

This paper starts from charters. It may even be regarded as an attempt to trace and explain the rise and development of express warranty clauses in English private documents, an exercise in diplomatic. The main stimulus behind the investigation is, however, something quite different: the challenge of understanding English law before the advent of a common law. I want my explanations to be consistent not merely with the social relations that produced the charters, but also with the mental terms in which they were thought out and interpreted, their legal context.

Who Was the Author ofGlanvill?Reflections on the Education of Henry II's Common Lawyers

1990 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-127
Author(s):  
Ralph V. Turner
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
English Society

The legal treatise calledGlanvillis proof that by the end of Henry II's reign men capable of shaping the custom of the Englishcuria regisinto a systematic law book were present at Westminster.Glanvillis “the first textbook of the English common law.” This treatise was written near the end of Henry II's reign and since the thirteenth century, it has borne the name of his justiciar, Ranulf de Glanvill, although not many scholars today accept his authorship. Why, then, should we raise once more the question: Who was the author ofGlanvill?It remains a valid question because it affords an opportunity for reflection on questions concerning schools, learning, and twelfth-century English society. It forces us to consider the connections among the emerging English common law, the schools, the Scholastic method, and the study of Roman and canon law. It requires us to consider the contributions of Roman and eccesiastical law to Henry II's legal reforms.

The Conquest in Later Medieval English Law I

2020 ◽  
pp. 209-246
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Historical Material ◽  
Forensic Practice ◽  
Domesday Book ◽  
English Law ◽  
Law Reports

Chapter 6 begins by demonstrating how the compilations of Old English royal law codes underpinned the great thirteenth-century conspectus of common law known as Bracton. It traces them, and the theme of the Conquest, through subsequent thirteenth-century books of English jurisprudence—specifically Britton, Fleta, and the Mirror of Justices. It examines the role of historical material, particularly ancient charters and Domesday Book, in forensic practice in the thirteenth century and later. There are two particular foci: ‘ancient demesne’ cases, and the Quo warranto inquest, on both of which this discussion throws new light. Much use is made of the recent substantial edition of thirteenth-century Law Reports.

Non-Alienation Clauses in Thirteenth-Century English Charters

1985 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Scott L. Waugh
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Legal Reforms ◽  
Long Line ◽  
The Family ◽  
Magna Carta ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Church

During the thirteenth century, English lords acted to halt the deterioration of their feudal powers brought about by social and legal changes at the end of the twelfth century. Their determination produced a long line of legislation on feudal incidents, mortmain, and subinfeudation that stretched from Magna Carta to the Statute of Quia Emptores in 1290. Yet, until that legislation was finally in place, landlords had to find other methods of maintaining their lordship over free tenures. Professor Donald Sutherland, for example, has shown that lords asserted “a new authority to take into their hands the holdings of their free tenants if the tenants attempted to alienate the holdings in ways that prejudiced the lord's rights.” Lords also used conditional grants to restrict alienation, and beginning in the early thirteenth century, they played an important role in the effort to reassert tenurial lordship. Conditional grants have been studied primarily in the context of the family, which used them to create marriage portions, jointures, and entails. This study of a sampling of cartularies and charters, however, analyzes the different forms of restrictions on alienation in order to demonstrate how lords used the expanding remedies of the royal courts to reinforce their private lordship.The right to consent to a tenant's alienation of his holding had been an essential prop of lordship prior to Henry II's legal reforms. Through his consent, the lord could determine the acceptability of his tenants and ensure the adequate performance of services attached to the holdings. He also protected himself against a serious loss of resources through grants in alms to the Church or through dowries to women marrying out of his lordship. Seizure of the tenement was the sanction that lords used to enforce their rights of consent. If a tenant failed to obtain that consent, he lost his land.

The Assise Sur La Ligece and the Commune of Acre

Traditio ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 179-204 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Riley-Smith
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Practical Application ◽  
Middle Years ◽  
Long Period ◽  
Great Achievement ◽  
Final Failure ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Government

No law of the Kingdom of Jerusalem and few incidents in its constitutional history have received so much attention from recent historians as the Assise sur la ligece and the establishment of the Commune of Acre. But perhaps for the reason that a great achievement of the last few years has been the delineation of the twelfth-century monarchy, the later history of the Assise and its practical application in a series of disputes between the government and the baronage have not received much attention. The sources for the Assise all date from the middle years of the thirteenth century, by which time the Palestinian jurists' interpretation of it was at the end of a long period of development; and there is something to be said for trying to trace its history from that moment towards the end of the twelfth century when it became the basis for baronial resistance to the crown. In this paper, therefore, I will study the law's development from the reign of Aimery (1198-1205). I will argue that it was in the course of a dispute between that king and Ralph of Tiberias that the Assise was interpreted in such a way as to justify open opposition to arbitrary acts by the king; that this interpretation was used with most success early in 1229, during the Crusade of the Emperor Frederick II; but that, as far as the Kingdom of Jerusalem was concerned, the creation of the Commune of Acre in 1231-2 coincided with its final failure, and events at that time revealed inherent weaknesses in its use as an instrument of resistance. It follows that the detailed treatment of the law by Philip of Novara and John of Jaffa some decades later is a further demonstration of their fascinating but essentially unrealistic vision.

The Excavation, Reconstruction, and Fabrication of Old English Law in the Twelfth Century

2020 ◽  
pp. 104-131
Author(s):  
George Garnett
Keyword(s):  
Old English ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Common Law ◽  
English History ◽  
English Law

Chapter 3 examines the attempt, parallel with the writing of English history, to preserve and fabricate mainly in Latin pre-Conquest English royal law codes—codes which William I and his successors were said to have endorsed. The first of these compilations of Old English law translated into Latin, dating from the very beginning of the twelfth century, was Quadripartitus. There were also many others, including Tripartita, the Leges Henrici, and the Leges Edwardi Confessoris. The chapter shows that many of these are preserved in manuscripts which also include contemporary works of history; others—most notably for the rest of this book, the codex which ended up sequentially in the hands of Archbishop Matthew Parker and of Sir Edward Coke (BL MS. Add. 49366)—were purely legal. It demonstrates that these authentic and apocryphal collections did not become obsolete with the establishment of new common law procedures in Henry II’s reign, but continued to be treated as foundational of English law. The watchword in this case too was continuity with the pre-Conquest past.

‘Gaufred, deere maister soverain’

2020 ◽  
pp. 125-143
Author(s):  
James Simpson
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Many

This chapter briefly surveys and characterizes the rhetorical culture inherited by Chaucer. It then surveys and critiques twentieth-century scholarship on Chaucer and rhetoric. The body of the chapter argues that Chaucer’s understanding of rhetoric is directly derived from late twelfth-century Neoplatonic sources. Examples demonstrate Chaucer’s flexible familiarity with each branch of twelfth-century Neoplatonic rhetoric and poetics. Chaucer also modified the Neoplatonic rhetoric he received. The late twelfth-, early thirteenth-century rhetorician Geoffrey of Vinsauf might be Chaucer’s ‘dere mayster soverayn’, but among the many skills taught by rhetoric is that of only ostensibly following one’s master: Chaucer himself is the ‘maister soverain’ of a poetic-rhetoric.

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