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.

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.

Anglo-Norman Canonists of the Twelfth Century: An Introductory Study

Traditio ◽  
1951 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. 279-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan Kuttner ◽  
Eleanor Rathbone
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Country Of Origin ◽  
Constitutional History ◽  
Anglo Norman ◽  
History Of ◽  
Established Fact ◽  
The Common

Among the various aspects of the operation of canon law in medieval England, the history of the Anglo-Norman school of canonists which flourished in the late twelfth and the early thirteenth centuries remains largely unexplored. Modern historians have frequently emphasized, to be sure, the eager interest which English churchmen of the twelfth century took in problems and issues of canon law; and it can now be considered an established fact that the English Church throughout this period was well abreast of the developments which everywhere resulted from the growing centralization of ecclesiastical procedure, from the work of Gratian and his school, and from the ever-increasing number of authoritative responses and appellate decisions rendered by the popes in their decretal letters. The importance of the system of delegate jurisdiction in the cases referred back by Rome to the country of origin has been noted, and so has the conspicuous number of twelfth-century English collections of decretals, which testifies to a particular zeal and tradition, among Anglo-Norman canonists, in supplementing Gratian's work by records of the new papal law. The problem, also, of the influence exercised by Roman and canon law on the early development of the Common Law is being discussed with growing interest among students of English legal and constitutional history.

The Two Jurisdictions: Theological and Legal Justifications of Church Property in the Thirteenth Century

1987 ◽  
Vol 24 ◽  
pp. 75-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Janet Coleman
Keyword(s):  
Coercive Force ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Universal Jurisdiction ◽  
The Other ◽  
The One

With the revival of Roman and the development of canon law in the twelfth century a doctrine of supreme and universal jurisdiction began to be expounded with increasing vigour by the papacy. By the thirteenth century those learned in Roman and canon law began to distinguish in more subtle ways between jurisdiction on the one hand and holy orders on the other; between the capacity to make law and to discover law; between legislating and adjudicating; and, most importantly, between ruling and owning. Jurisdiction had become one of a cluster of terms used to define aspects of rulership, authority, prelacy, and imperium. It combined the idea of rightful administration with the legitimate and authoritative use of coercive force.

scholarly journals The Procedure and Practice of Witness Testimony in English Ecclesiastical Courts, c.1193–1300

2020 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 114-130
Author(s):  
Sarah B. White
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Standard Procedure ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Public Knowledge ◽  
Witness Testimony ◽  
Church Courts ◽  
Ecclesiastical Courts

In the twelfth century, the English church courts made considerable use of compurgation and of sworn members of the community to aid in the resolution of disputes, but by the end of the thirteenth century, academic canon law depended almost entirely on witness testimony. Romano-canonical proceduralists established rules for examining witnesses, rejecting testimonies and resolving conflicts. However, these academic ideals were not always possible or even desirable in practice. Although Roman procedure required witnesses to be eyewitnesses, English ecclesiastical practice allowed witnesses to testify to public knowledge. Furthermore, individuals who were not qualified to testify did so regardless, and their testimonies were not excluded even following exceptions. This is not to say that standard procedure was not followed; more often than not, it was. However, these differences between theory and practice indicate that practitioners (and perhaps judges) in the English ecclesiastical courts were experimenting with ways to use witness testimony beyond the confines of the academic law.

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 ‘Poenitentiale' of Robert of Flamborough: An Early Handbook for the Confessor in its Manuscript Tradition

Traditio ◽  
1960 ◽  
Vol 16 ◽  
pp. 541-556 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francis Firth
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
The Other ◽  
Manuscript Tradition

The Poenitentiale or Liber Poenitentialis of Robert of Flamborough, canon penitentiary of the Abbey of St. Victor at Paris, is a practical manual which made available to the ordinary confessor of the early thirteenth century the fruit of the speculation of canonists and theologians as well as the jurisprudence of popes — all of which had been accumulating during the latter half of the twelfth century. It applied the canon law of the time to such matters as marriage, ordination, simony, usury and feudal contracts. Such a work is of obvious interest to the scholar, and two recent articles, one by Stephan Kuttner in Traditio in 1944 and the other by Pierre Michaud-Quantin in Recherches de Théologie ancienne et médiévale in 1959, have dealt with it at some length. Some features have come to my attention which apparently had escaped the notice of others.

Conclusion

2019 ◽  
pp. 240-246
Author(s):  
Thomas J. McSweeney
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Textual Production ◽  
Legal Literature ◽  
Royal Courts ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

The culture of textual production that these justices tried to create did not survive the thirteenth century. In the second half of the century, English legal literature became more insular in its outlook. But Bracton and the plea roll collections represent an important moment in the history of the common law, when people were reflecting on what law is and how it should be practiced. Through Bracton we can catch a glimpse of people who were thinking about what it meant to administer the law of the king’s courts, in a time before the common law was the common law. In these texts, we see the justices of the royal courts turning to Roman and canon law for inspiration.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-32
Author(s):  
Thomas J. McSweeney
Keyword(s):  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Common Law ◽  
Early History ◽  
First Century ◽  
Central Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
The Law

A central question in the early history of the common law is how much influence Roman and canon law exerted over the common law in its first century. The debates over Roman- and canon-law influence have largely stalled, however. This chapter introduces a new way forward in those debates. Most scholars who have looked for Roman- and canon-law influence on the common law have looked for similarities in particular rules and have argued that common lawyers adopted those rules from Roman or canon law. Priests of the Law argues that we are more likely to find borrowings in the context of more fundamental questions. The early thirteenth century was a time before the common law was the common law. There was debate over its nature and who should control it. In their attempts to answer these questions, the authors of Bracton turned to Roman and canon law.

scholarly journals “Twelfth-Century Italian Confraternities as Institutions of Pastoral Care,” Journal of Medieval History 42 (2016)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Neslihan Senocak
Keyword(s):  
Pastoral Care ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Spiritual Care ◽  
Canon Law ◽  
Final Analysis ◽  
Medieval History ◽  
Early Medieval ◽  
Late Medieval ◽  
Medieval Italy

When studied through canon law and scholastic pastoraliaproduced in the universities in the thirteenth century and beyond, medieval pastoral care comes across as spiritual care, more specifically the administration of sacraments and preaching, provided by the clergy for the faithful. This article complicates that view by arguing that in the twelfth century, the laity alongside the clergy was active in the provision and organisation of pastoral care. The sources examined are the surviving statutes of five religious confraternities – along with the obituaries and sermons in two cases – in Italy that flourished in the twelfth century and before. Each of these confraternities was centred around a church, established after an apostolic ideal, included laymen and women and local pastoral clergy of all levels, met regularly to celebrate the Eucharist, prayed for the dead members and made public confessions. Members prayed for and attended to the corporal needs of each other in case of sickness. In the final analysis, these twelfth-century confraternities appear astransitional institutions between the early medieval monasticconfraternities focusing on prayer and the late medieval andrenaissance confraternities focusing on charity. Their study opens a window onto the lay expectations of and contribution to pastoral care in medieval Italy.

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