CHAP. VII.

131

and baronial courts to the court of the king; and, lest the expense and trouble of a journey to court should discourage suitors, itinerant judges were established in the reign of Henry II. (A.D. 1176), who made their circuits through the kingdom, and tried all causes that were brought before them. For this purpose England was divided into six districts, nearly corresponding to the judges' circuits of the present day.

5. Courts of Justice.-Besides the Great Council of the Realm, the king had an ordinary or select council, for administrative and judicial purposes, which was also called Curia or Aula Regis (the King's Court). It attended the person of the sovereign, and was composed of the great officers of state: as the chief justiciary, chancellor, constable, marshal, chamberlain, treasurer, steward, and others nominated by the king. These were his councilors in political matters, and also the supreme court of justice of the kingdom, in which the king sometimes sat in person. A particular branch, called the Court of Exchequer, was established in very early times for the administration of all mattera connected with the revenue. Its existence can at all events be traced to the reign of Henry L. By degrees, when suits began to multiply in the king's court, and pleadings became more technical and intricate, another branch was detached for the decision of private suits, which was called the Court of Common Pleas. It seems to have its beginning in the reign of Richard I.; but it was completely established by Magna Charta, of which the 14th clause enacted, "Common Pleas shall not follow our court, but be held in some certain place." The Court of King's Bench was formed out of the ancient Curia Regis, and at last monopolized this title, before common to it with the great and ordinary councils. The rolls of the King's Bench begin in the sixth year of Richard L. Properly the King's Bench was destined for suits relating to the king and the realm; but private suits were allowed to be carried to it from the courts below.

The county courts and Hundred-courts still continued as in Saxon times. All the freeholders of the county, even the greatest barons, were obliged to attend the sheriffs in these courts, and to assist them in the administration of justice. Such courts were unknown upon the Continent, and served as a powerful check upon the courts of the bar

* Palgrave, Normandy and England, i., p. 107 sq. and notes, p. 120. Comp. Hallam Middle Ages, ii., p. 314. The Grand Customary itself, however, ascribes the Collection to Rolf: Lappenberg, Anglo-Norman Kings, by Thorpe, p. 92.

+ Palgrave, bid, p. 113; Hallam, ibid., p. 413. The chief justiciary presided in the king's court, and was, by virtue of his office, the regent of the kingdom during the ab ence of the sovereign. He was thus the greatest subject in the kingdom.

of

In judicial proceedings the ancient practice compurgation by the oaths of friends and of trial by ordeal (p. 75) still subsisted under the Anglo-Norman kings; but the trial by ordeal was to some extent superseded by that of combat, which, if not introduced by the Normans, was very seldom practiced before the Conquest. The privilege of compurgation, an evident source of perjury, was abolished by Henry II., though by some exemption it continued to be preserved long afterward in London and boroughs. Trial by ordeal was abolished by the fourth Lateran Council at the beginning of the reign of Henry III. A regulation of Henry II. introduced an important change in suits for the recovery of land, by allowing a tenant who was unwilling to risk a judicial combat to put himself on the assize; that is, to refer the case to four knights chosen by the sheriff, who in their turn selected twelve more. These sixteen decided the case by their ver. dict; but this proceeding was limited to the king's court and that of the itinerant justices, and never took place in the county court or that of the hundred. This practice will again claim our attention when we come to trace the history of trial by jury.

6. Revenue of the Crown.-The power of the Anglo-Norman kings was much supported by a great revenue, and by a revenue that was fixed, perpetual, and independent of the subject. The first branch of the king's stated revenue was the royal demesnes or crown lands. The king was never content with the stated rents, but levied, at his pleasure, heavy taxes, called tallages, on the inhabitants both of town and country who lived within his demesne. They were assessed by the itinerant justices on their circuits. The tenants in capite were bound, as we have already seen, to furnish in war a soldier for every knight's fee, and if they neglected to do so, they were obliged to pay the king a composition in money called escurge or scutage. Another tax, levied upon all the lands at the king's discretion, was Danegeld, which was continued after all apprehension of the Danes had passed away; but the last instance recorded of its payment is in the 20th year of Henry II. The king also derived a considerable revenue from certain burdens which his military tenants were liable. The most important of these feudal incidents as they were called, were Reliefs, Fines upon alienation, Escheats, Forfeitures, Aids, Wardship, and Marriage. 1. A Relief, which was the same as the Saxon heriot, was a fine paid by the heir to his lord on succeeding to a fief. The fine was at first arbitrary, but by Magna Charta it was fixed at about a fourth of the

annual value of the fief. The king was en-1 titled to a sort of extra relief, called Primer Seisin, on the death of any of his tenants in capite, provided the heir had attained his majority. The primer seisin consisted of one year's profits of the land. 2. A Fine upon alienation was a sum paid to the lord when the tenant transferred his fief to another. 3. An Escheat was when a fief reverted to the superior lord in consequence of the tenant having died without heirs. 4. A Forfeiture arose from the vassal failing to perform his duties toward either his lord or the state. "Under rapacious kings, such as the Norman line in England, a new doctrine was introduced, the corruption of blood, by which the heir was effectually excluded from deducing his title, at any distant time, through an attainted ancestor." (Hallam.) 5. Aids were contributions which the lord was entitled to demand from his vassal under certain circumstances. They were raised according to local customs, and were felt to be a great grievance. Three only were retained by the Magna Charta-to make the lord's eldest son a knight, to marry his eldest daughter, and to ransom his person from captivity. 6. Wardship was the right of the lord to the care of his tenant's person during his minority, and to receive the profits of his estate. 7. Marriage. The lord might tender a husband to his female ward in her minority, and if she rejected the proposal she forfeited the sum which the guardian could have obtained for such an alliance. This was afterward extended to the male wards. In both cases it became the source of great abuse and extortion.

7. The Church.-The policy of William the Conqueror was favorable to the Church of Rome, which had supported his claims to the English throne. One of his most important innovations was the separation of the civil and ecclesiastical jurisdictions, which had been united in the Anglo-Saxon times. He prohibited the bishops from sitting in the county courts; he allowed ecclesiastical causes to be tried in spiritual courts only; and he so much exalted the power of the clergy that he assigned to the Church more than one third of the knights' fees into which he divided England.

8. Villenage.--A great part of the population under the Anglo-Norman kings was in a state of slavery, to which the name of Villenage was applied. In the Anglo-Saxon times a large part of the population consisted of cearls, or freemen, forming a class between the thanes and the serfs. But under the Normans most of the ceorls were thrust down into slavery, and the Anglo-Saxon ceorls and serfs became the Norman villeins. It would seem, however, that the ceorls who had acquired land were allowed in many cases to retain their land and their freedom. These are the Socmanni or Socmen of DomesdayBook, the same as the small freeholders or yeomanry of later times. The condition of the villeins appears to have increased in rigor under the successive Anglo-Norman kings down to the time of Henry II., at which period the villein was absolutely de

pendent upon the will of the lord, and was incapable of holding any property of his own. Yet he appears to have possessed some personal rights; for though subject to be sold by his master, an action would lie against the latter for murder, rape, or mutilation. Villeins were divided into two classes, called villeins regardant and villeins in gross. The former were adscripti glebæ, or attached to certain lands; and when these lands changed owners the villeins regardant became the property of the new possessors. The villeins in gross, on the contrary, might be sold in open market, and transferred from hand to hand without regard to any land or settlement. They were called en gross because this term, in our legal phraseology, indicates property held absolutely, and without reference to any other. But there appears to have been no essential difference in the condition of these villeins. The way in which the villeins emerged from this degraded position into the peasantry of England will be narrated at the end of the next book.

B. AUTHORITIES FOR NORMAN HISTORY.

The principal sources of Norman history are: Dudo of St. Quentin, whose work contains the lives of the first three dukes (în Duchesne); William of Jumièges (Gemeticus), who epitomized the preceding work, and continued it down to the Battle of Hastings [ibid.]; William of Poitiers, Gesta Gulielmi ducis Normannorum et regis Anglorum [ibid.]; Ordericus Vitalis, Historia Eccl. [ibid.]; Wace, or Gasse, Roman de Rou; the Hypodeigma Neustria [Parker, Camden.]

The best modern works on the early history of Normandy are: The Epitome prefixed to Lappenberg's Hist. of England under the Norman Kings, translated and supplemented by Benjamin Thorpe; Palgrave, Hist. of Normandy and England, Svo (only 2 vols. published, containing the history of Normandy to the death of Richard I.); Thierry, Histoire de la Conqu ́te de l'Angleterre par les Normands, 4 vols., 8vo.

C. AUTHORITIES FOR ANGLO-NORMAN HISTORY.

Many of these authorities have been already enumerated in note C, appended to Book I. (p. 76). Thus, of those mentioned there, the Saxon Chronicle continues down to the year 1154; Florence of Worcester's work to 1308; Simeon of Durham's, with the continuation, 1156; Henry of Huntingdon's to 1154; Brompton's to 1199; Eadmer's to 1122; Hoveden's to 1201; Ingulf's to 1089, with continuations by Peter of Blois and by anonymous writers to 1486; Malmsbury's Gesta Regum to 1142; Peter Langtoft's work to 1307; Hugo Candidus' to 1175; Matthew of Westminster's (Flores Historiarum) to 1307; Roger of Wendover's to 1235.

Of the authorities for Norman history mentioned in the preceding note, the work of Ordericus Vitalis is also serviceable for Anglo-Norman history, as it comes down to the year 1141.

Robert de Thorigny, a monk of the abbey

of Bec, continued the history of William of Jumièges down to the year 1137; and it forms the 8th book of that work as published in Camden's Anglica, Normanica, etc. William of Newbury treats of the period from 1066 to 1197. The Chronicle of Radulphus de Diceto, a dean of St. Paul's, with a continuation, comes down to the year 1200. It is published in Twysden's Collection. The Chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury reaches to about the same period as the preceding (ibid.). Benedict of Peterborough's Chronicle embraces the period from 1170 to 1192 (in Hearne). Walter of Coventry continued Hoveden, besides writing other chronicles; but his works exist only in manuscript. Ralph of Coggeshall, who died about 1227, wrote a Chronicon Anglicanum from the Conquest to the year 1200. It has never been printed in England, but will be found in Martène and Durand's collection. The chroniclers of St. Alban's, formerly cited under the name of Matthew Paris, are in reality three persons-Roger of Wendover, Matthew Paris, and William Rishanger. Roger of Wendover, who has been already mentioned, is a contemporary authority from 1201. His work has been published by the English Historical Society. The principal work of Matthew Paris is the Historia Major (A.D. 1066 to 1259, with a continuation to 1273); but only the portion from 1235 to 1259 belongs to M. Paris, the remainder being a plagiarism from Wendover with interpolations. William Rishanger is the continuator of Paris from 1260 to 1273, and his work therefore belongs to the period embraced in the next book.

Other works that may be mentioned relating to the present period are-a chronicle

from 1066 to 1289, by Thomas Wikes, a monk of the abbey of Oseney near Oxford (Gale); and Henry Knighton's Chronicle from 950 to 1395 (Twysden). Many chronicles of this period bear no author's name, and are called after the abbey or monastery in which they were composed or preserved. Among the principal of them may be named-the Annales Burtonenses, A.D. 1044–1262 (in Fulman's Collection); Annales Waverleienses, 1066-1291 (Gale); Chronicon de Mailros (Melrose), 753–1270 (Fulman, the Bannatyne Club), etc.

Among the works relating to particular periods may be named the Lives of Thomas à Becket by John of Salisbury, Benedict of Peterborough, Edward Grim, Herbert of Bosham, and others, published by Dr. Giles, in the Patres Ecclesiae Anglicana.

Richard of Devizes wrote a chronicle of the first three years of Richard I., which is published by the English Historical Society. The Itinerarium Regis Anglorum Ricardi et aliorum in terram Hierosolymorum, published in Gale, contains an account of King Richard's crusade. It is commonly attrib. uted, but without any grounds, to Geoffrey Vinesauf.

Among modern works relating to this period may be mentioned that of Thierry, alluded to in the preceding note; Lappenberg's Hist. of England under the Norman Kings, translated by Thorpe (also mentioned in the preceding note), which comes down to the end of Stephen's reign; the continuation of this work by Pauli, Geschichte von England; and Lord Lyttleton's Life of Henry II. (6 vols. Svo), a standard work in English literature, and remarkable for the purity of its style.