MEDIEVAL MANORIAL COURT.   Term Paper ID:21605 Click to get this paper

Essay Subject: Examines roots of British common law & trial-by-peer-jury in feudal Norman England manorialism, land policy, lord-peasant relations.... More...

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Paper Abstract: Examines roots of British common law & trial-by-peer-jury in feudal Norman England manorialism, land policy, lord-peasant relations. Paper Introduction: Modern law in English-influenced judiciaries stems from a variety of sources. It is a not a "pure" tradition, deriving as it does from legal definitions both pre-defined and defined only by accepted conventions. Two key factors in the modern, English-based equation are "common law" and a trial-by-"peer" jury process. The roots of both these factors can be found in the medieval manorial court of feudal Norman England. Two great systems of law dominate the Western world: civil law and common law. Civil law is descended from the codified laws of the Roman Empire; it is used by most European countries. Common law, by contrast, is not embodied in a text or code. Rather, in England - and, by heritage, the United States, United Kingdom and Commonwealth descendants of English judicial tradition - common law grew from the "manorial court" system of Text of the Paper: The entire text of the paper is shown below. However, the text is somewhat scrambled. We want to give you as much information as we possibly can about our papers and essays, but we cannot give them away for free. In the text below you will find that while disordered, many of the phrases are essentially intact. From this text you will be able to get a solid sense of the writing style, the concepts addressed, and the sources used in the research paper. The actual practice of the manorial courts was as given toirregularities as the common law. ----------------------- 1 As practicedin England, manorialism had its origins in 4th century continental Europe,reached its zenith in the 11th and 12th centuries, and then began a longdecline that ended in only with the dawning of the Industrial Age; on thecontinent, it lingered in central and eastern Europe until the very late19th century. Two great systems of law dominate the Western world: civil law andcommon law. By the 4th century,though, the centralized authority of Rome and its great, protective empirehad all but vanished. It is a not a "pure" tradition, deriving as it does from legaldefinitions both pre-defined and defined only by accepted conventions. Manorialism existed alongside feudalism, but should not be confusedwith it. In the 12th and 13th centuries power was increasinglyconcentrated in the crown instead of in the hands of local lords. For the peasantry, too, the general impression was favorable.Without making light of the genuine oppression felt and often expressed bythe peasants, the English peasantry's participation in the judicial processof the manorial court was one of the few areas where they had theopportunity to exert some sort of control over their lives. Small farmers, bound to the landor not, found themselves forced by circumstance to seek the protection ofmore powerful neighbors. Jurists eventually wrotelearned commentaries on the common law. Thus was born "manorialism." Manorialism, also known as "seignorialism," was the economic, socialand administrative system that prevailed in the Middle Ages. As practiced in England, then, in the classic manor the usable landwas divided into the "demesne," the arable, and the meadow lands. Some were free,others were serfs (or "villeins"), who were actually bound to the land.There is sharp debate among scholars over the status of the Englishpeasantry: how many were free and what they could do with their freedom.One school of scholarship argues that, while the Conquest ended theoutright slavery practiced by the Anglo-Saxons, it downgraded the freedomof the ordinary inhabitant of the countryside. One should not make too much of the manorial court system for, asnoted repeatedly, there was nothing "systematic" about it and, as with mostlegal proceedings, the majority of the English population rarely came incontact with it. Its structure stoppedabove the level of the peasant. Tenantsrights to the arable land were usually heritable - as were the complicatedsystems of payments to the lord. As can be expected, such division of lands inevitably led todisputes. Throughout Europe the economy reverted tosubsistence farming. Common law, by contrast, isnot embodied in a text or code. Feudalism was the political and legal structure regulating therelations among the various levels of the nobility. The manorial system itself, in England, did not survivethe Middle Ages. Rather, in the contest to definepolitical power that characterized England's evolution from feudalism tonation-state, the early English kings clearly understood that it was intheir interest to set aside certain realms of activity for their ownconsideration. Manorialism, by contrast, comprised inherited relations betweenpeasants and their lords. Contrarily, another schoolof thought holds that records indicate that a substantial number ofpeasants retained a considerable degree of freedom and mobility.Regardless, there is little dispute that few peasants could ever use theirlegal freedom (Lyon 172). Twokey factors in the modern, English-based equation are "common law" and atrial-by-"peer" jury process. A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England. Nevertheless,two important factors in that new equation were the foundations of commonlaw and peer participation that evolved from the manorial court system.Those factors remain a viable part of English-based judicial systems tothis day. In the Norman tradition of feudalism, the monarchwas the supreme landlord - all title to real property ultimately tracedback to the crown of William I and his descendants. Works CitedBennett, H. In fact, the first line of protection the English peasanthad from an impetuous manorial court was the prerogative of the crown.With the intent of centralizing their power base, the first Norman kingssought to improve on continental feudalism by assigning their own sheriffsand coroners to the manor localities, the better to oversee matters ofdirect consequence to the king's financial resources. Thelong-term effects of peasant participation in the manorial court systemwere more beneficial: the English sense of "democracy" grew from thatparticipation and, as peasants and nobles grew more sophisticated in theirclose dealings in such a cooperative setting, there was laid the foundationfor development of a civil servant class arising from the peasantry. "He owessuit of court from three weeks to three weeks," feudal English law decreed(Bennett 195), and every manor had a local court with jurisdiction over themanor's serfs and freemen. In return, in additionto providing his tenants with land, the lord was expected to offer militaryprotection - and economic security: in theory, at least, the lord was tomake available credit and food during times of crop failure. The Estates of Ramsey Abbey: A Study in Economic Growth and Organization. Modern law in English-influenced judiciaries stems from a variety ofsources. Civil law is descended from the codified laws of the RomanEmpire; it is used by most European countries. The king made landgrants to the great lords; they in turn made grants to their own retainers,or vassals. Moreover, the legalposition of the peasants differed in time and place. Free peasants had the legal right to do so, but it wasusually not economically possible. Ambrose. New York: Harper & Row, 196 .Raftis, J. Although serfs were not slaves and hadcertain clearly established rights, they were not free to sever their tiesto the manor. Without equal as a publicrecord in medieval Europe, Domesday surveyed the taxable potential of landsheld by the king and of those allotted to his tenants-in-chief. As mentioned earlier, the manorial court was first and foremost aforum for deciding disputes. Since the majority of manorial court businessrevolved around mundane matters such as land usage and labor obligations,it was to the benefit of the lord to assign a jury of Saxon-speakingpeasants the task of sifting facts and presenting their opinion to him fordecision. As a result, the farmersbecame more firmly tied to the land with the evolution of a formalizedsystem of landlord and tenant - of lord and peasant. Such law was highly irregular. The organizationalcodification of William I in the Domesday Book census (1 85-86 A.D.)established both firmly by erasing whatever egalitarian tendencies thedisplaced Anglo-Saxon structure had exhibited. In addition to rent in crops and money,each tenant was required to donate a specific number of days of labor eachyear to the lord for such public-service tasks. The tenants were alsoobliged to give military service in times of need. The origins of manorialism can be traced to the period of economicdecline that characterized the late Roman Empire, played out in adevelopmental pattern similar to that characterizing the rise of feudalism. Each grant created certain obligations for both landlord andtenant: private courts were created to oversee the performance of thoseduties. On the highest level, the great lords provided honorial courts tosettle disputes among their titled vassals, the knights and lessernobility. As noted earlier, the chaotic political and economicconditions of this early medieval period (often termed the "Dark Ages") ledto subjection of the weak by the strong. S. By the time of the Norman Conquest, the basic structures of feudalismand manorialism were already in place in England. In return, payments were made to thelord in the form of crops, services and, as the non-urban economy grew moresophisticated, money. While localadministration remained unique, certain overall characteristics of thesystem emerged predominant, particularly the growing reliance upon a "jury"system comprised of peers. The same financial and labor obligations lay onfreeman and serf tenants alike. Thus, the positionof the manor lord was not one of undefined power over the local peasantry(Hone 15, Lyon 172-173). The Manor and Manorial Records. 2nd ed. During the 9th and1 th centuries, Muslim, Magyar and (particularly in England) Vikingincursions contributed to the growing dependency of the peasantry (Hone 3-13). Since heredity dictated the choice ofmanor lord, there was no guarantee of administrative ability among thelanded nobility. Their own "consideration," usually, focussed on revenues -especially as monetary fines (which could go directly to London) replacedpunishments in terms of labor and crop penalties (Lyon 274). Althoughnow sharing equal status with civil law in the Anglo-oriented judicialsystems, common law is based upon relational experience and precedent.Historically, the common law judge of medieval England did not consult anofficial text before rendering his judgement, but drew instead uponprecedents established by other court decisions. In return for this protection, they gave upcertain rights and a portion of their income. Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 1957. Itlegitimized the changes imposed upon England by the Norman conquerors andprovided the monarchy a detailed account of the financial resources, feudaland manorial, that the crown could exploit in the future (Lyon 54-55,Raftis 19-21). There wereimmediate benefits to such participation: the time spent in manorial courtsatisfied feudal labor obligations; it allowed the opportunity forimmediate redress for perceived grievances (albeit a limited list). Although these commanded therespect of the legal profession, they did not constitute law and judgeswere not compelled to follow them when deciding cases. Although manorialism varied from region to region - indeed,from manor to manor (Bennett 199) - it was essentially a system whereby theland, or manor, was owned by the lord via king's grant and was parceled outto individual peasants who farmed it. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956.Hone, Nathaniel J. Common lawdeveloped in England after the introduction of Norman feudalism followingthe Conquest in 1 66. Life on the English Manor: A Study of Peasant Conditions, 115 - 14 . Imperial laws had bound some farmers to the soil. All the same, the manorial court was the primary instrument ofjustice and administration over the English peasantry. Moreover, early feudalism evolved fromfreely-chosen, nonheritable relations: the weak gravitating to the strong,freely exchanging certain rights and freedoms for allegiance with and/orprotection from stronger entities, be they individual warlords or alliancesof same. While the English nobility had their common law evolve through thehonorial courts, every vassal lord had his own manorial court toadminister, whatever his position on the social scale (Hone 14). As noted earlier, forthis level of justice, common law was the standard, with the manor lorddeciding cases on the basis of customary laws handed down from onegeneration to the next. "A peasant was fortunate orunfortunate in so far as his lot brought him under the control of a mild ora grasping lord, a weak or a strong" (Bennett 199). Then, as the great wars of the latter Middle Ages, such as theHundred Years' War, and plagues such as the Black Death wreaked havoc withthe population, rural labor shortages and improved agricultural technologychanged the peasantry's position in the economic equation. As language differences subsided, the common law practice ofutilizing a jury of peers continued as a matter of administrativeconvenience: the manor lord who was lazy could have the peasantsthemselves handle the tedious task, the manor lord who was conscientiousunderstood readily that peasant participation in the administration ofjustice led to less resentment, more ready acceptance of the status quoand, often, harsh sentences (Bennett 2 9). The lord was the arbiter of such disputes, the dispenser ofjustice in the form of a local, or manorial, court. (Note: Norman vassals - the Saxon nobility weredisenfranchised within a decade of the Conquest). Rather, in England - and, by heritage, theUnited States, United Kingdom and Commonwealth descendants of Englishjudicial tradition - common law grew from the "manorial court" system ofthe Middle Ages and evolved case after case in court decisions. Which is not to say that the crown held any particular interest inprotecting the rights of the peasantry. During the first century of Norman rule, themanor lord was as likely to speak only French as his peasants were toconverse only in Saxon. The lawyerly proverb,"Justice is great profit," describes the prevailing incentive of feudal law(Bennett 197). London: Kennikat Press, 1971.Lyon, Bryce. The roots of both these factors can be foundin the medieval manorial court of feudal Norman England. The principal concern ofsuch courts was the land grants that the vassals received in return formilitary service: the courts oversaw the rules of inheritance, marriage,and other matters that pertained to the land grants. The riseof commerce and industry brought new power and prosperity to the cities;peasants increasingly had economic options available to them not tied tothe land. Thedemesne was the land retained by the lord for his own use; arable land wasparcelled out to the peasants, or tenants, whose right to the land wasknown as "tenure;" the meadow lands (aka "common lands") were generallyused for grazing livestock and were available to all the tenants. If this paper is not what you are looking for, you can search again: Search for: or Click here to request an essay written just for you.