Early European History Part 90

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE "WHITE TOWER"

Forms part of the Tower of London. Built by William the Conqueror]

DOMESDAY BOOK, 1085 A.D.

The extent of William's authority is ill.u.s.trated by the survey which he caused to have made of the taxable property of the kingdom. Royal commissioners went throughout the length and breadth of England to find out how much farm land there was in every county, how many landowners there were, and what each man possessed, to the last ox or cow or pig. The reports were set down in the famous Domesday Book, perhaps so called because one could no more appeal from it than from the Last Judgment. A similar census of population and property had never before been taken in the Middle Ages.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A Pa.s.sAGE FROM DOMESDAY BOOK Beginning of the entry for Oxford. The handwriting is the beautiful Carolingian minuscule which the Norman Conquest introduced into England.

The two volumes of this compilation and the chest in which they were formerly preserved may be seen in the Public Record Office, London.]

THE SALISBURY OATH, 1086 A.D.

Almost at the close of his reign William is said to have summoned all the landowning men in England to a great meeting on Salisbury Plain. They a.s.sembled there to the number, as it is reported, of sixty thousand and promised "that they would be faithful to him against all other men." The Salisbury Oath was a national act of homage and allegiance to the king.

183. ENGLAND UNDER HENRY II, 1154-1189 A.D.; ROYAL JUSTICE AND THE COMMON LAW

HENRY II, PLANTAGENET Henry II, who ascended the English throne in 1154 A.D., was a grandson of William the Conqueror and the first of the famous Plantagenet [2] family, Henry spent more than half of his reign abroad, looking after his extensive possessions in France but this fact did not prevent him from giving England good government. Three things in which all Englishmen take special pride--the courts, the jury system, and the Common law--began to take shape during Henry's reign.

THE KING'S COURT

Henry, first of all, developed the royal court of justice. This had been, at first, simply the court of the king's chief va.s.sals, corresponding to the local feudal courts. [3] Henry transformed it from an occasional a.s.sembly of warlike n.o.bles into a regular body of trained lawyers, and at the same time opened its doors to all except serfs. In the king's court any freeman could find a justice that was cheaper and speedier than that dispensed by the feudal lords. The higher courts of England have sprung from this inst.i.tution.

CIRCUIT JUDGES

Henry also took measures to bring the king's justice directly to the people. He sent members of the royal court on circuit throughout the kingdom. At least once a year a judge was to hold an a.s.sembly in each county and try such cases as were brought before him. This system of circuit judges helped to make the law uniform in all parts of England.

TRIAL BY "PETTY JURY"

The king's court owed much of its popularity to the fact that it employed a better form of trying cases than the old ordeal, oath-swearing, or judicial duel. Henry introduced a method of jury trial which had long been in use in Normandy. When a case came before the king's judges on circuit, they were to select twelve knights, usually neighbors of the parties engaged in the dispute, to make an investigation and give a "verdict" [4]

as to which side was in the right. These selected men bore the name of "jurors," [5] because they swore to tell the truth. In Henry's time this method of securing justice applied only to civil cases, that is, to cases affecting land and other forms of property, but later it was extended to persons charged with criminal offenses. Thus arose the "petty jury," an inst.i.tution which nearly all European peoples have borrowed from England.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WINDSOR CASTLE The town of Windsor lies on the west bank of the Thames about twenty-one miles from London. Its famous castle has been the chief residence of English sovereigns from the time of William the Conqueror. The ma.s.sive round tower which forms the most conspicuous feature of the castle was built by Henry III about 1272 A.D. but Edward III wholly reconstructed it about 1344 A.D. The state apartments of the castle include the throne room, a guard room with medieval armor a reception room adorned with tapestries picture galleries and the royal library.]

ACCUSATION BY THE "GRAND JURY"

Another of Henry's innovations developed into the "grand jury." Before his time many offenders went unpunished, especially if they were so powerful that no private individual dared accuse them. Henry provided that when the king's justices came to a county court a number of selected men should be put upon their oath and required to give the names of any persons whom they knew or believed to be guilty of crimes. Such persons were then to be arrested and tried. This "grand jury," as it came to be called, thus had the public duty of making accusations, whether its members felt any personal interest in the matter or not.

THE COMMON LAW

The decisions handed down by the legal experts who composed the royal court formed the basis of the English system of jurisprudence. It received the name Common law because it grew out of such customs as were common to the realm, as distinguished from those which were merely local. This law, from Henry's II's time, became so widespread and so firmly established that it could not be supplanted by the Roman law followed on the Continent. Carried by English colonists across the seas, it has now come to prevail throughout a great part of the world.

184. THE GREAT CHARTER, 1215 A.D.

RICHARD I AND JOHN, 1189-1216 A.D.

The great Henry, from whose legal reforms English-speaking peoples receive benefit even to-day, was followed by his son, Richard, the Lion-hearted crusader. [6] After a short reign Richard was succeeded by his brother, John, a man so cruel, tyrannical, and wicked that he is usually regarded as the worst of English kings. In a war with the French ruler, Philip Augustus, John lost Normandy and some of the other English possessions on the Continent. [7] In a dispute with Innocent III he ended by making an abject submission to the Papacy. [8] Finally, John's oppressive government provoked a revolt, and he was forced to grant the charter of privileges known as Magna Carta.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Map, DOMINIONS OF THE PLANTAGENETS IN ENGLAND AND FRANCE]

WINNING OF MAGNA CARTA, 1215 A.D.

The Norman Conquest had made the king so strong that his authority could be resisted only by a union of all cla.s.ses of the people. The feudal lords were obliged to unite with the clergy and the commons, [9] in order to save their honor, their estates, and their heads. Matters came to a crisis in 1215 A.D., when the n.o.bles, supported by the archbishop of Canterbury, placed their demands for reform in writing before the king. John swore furiously that they were "idle dreams without a shadow of reason" and refused to make any concessions. Thereupon the n.o.bles formed the "army of G.o.d and the Holy Church," as it was called, and occupied London, thus ranging the townspeople on their side. Deserted by all except the hired troops which he had brought from the Continent, John was compelled to yield. At Runnimede on the Thames, not far from Windsor, he set his seal to the Great Charter.

[Ill.u.s.tration: EXTRACT FROM THE GREAT CHARTER Facsimile of the opening lines. Four copies of Magna Carta, sealed with the great seal of King John, as well as several unsealed copies, are in existence. The British Museum possesses two of the sealed copies; the other two belong to the cathedrals of Lincoln and Salisbury, respectively.]

CHARACTER OF MAGNA CARTA

Magna Carta does not profess to be a charter of liberties for all Englishmen. Most of its sixty-three clauses merely guarantee to each member of the coalition against John--n.o.bles, clergy, and commons--those special privileges which the Norman rulers had tried to take away. Very little is said in this long doc.u.ment about the serfs, who composed probably five-sixths of the population of England in the thirteenth century.

SIGNIFICANCE OF MAGNA CARTA

But there are three clauses of Magna Carta which came to have a most important part in the history of English freedom. The first declared that no taxes were to be levied on the n.o.bles--besides the three recognized feudal aids [10]--except by consent of the Great Council of the realm.

[11] By this clause the n.o.bles compelled the king to secure their consent before imposing any taxation. The second set forth that no one was to be arrested, imprisoned, or punished in any way, except after a trial by his equals and in accordance with the law of the land. The third said simply that to no one should justice be sold, denied, or delayed. These last two clauses contained the germ of great legal principles on which the English people relied for protection against despotic kings. They form a part of our American inheritance from England and have pa.s.sed into the laws of all our states.

185. PARLIAMENT DURING THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY

HENRY III, 1216-1272 A.D.

The thirteenth century, which opened so auspiciously with the winning of the Great Charter, is also memorable as the time when England developed her Parliament [12] into something like its present form. The first steps in parliamentary government were taken during the reign of John's son, Henry III.

THE WITENAGEMOT AND THE GREAT COUNCIL

It had long been the custom in England that in all important matters a ruler ought not to act without the advice and consent of his leading men.

The Anglo-Saxon kings sought the advice and consent of their Witenagemot, [13] a body of n.o.bles, royal officers, bishops, and abbots. It approved laws, served as a court of final appeal, elected a new monarch, and at times deposed him. The Witenagemot did not disappear after the Norman Conquest. Under the name of the Great Council it continued to meet from time to time for consultation with the king. This a.s.sembly was now to be transformed from a feudal body into a parliament representing the entire nation.

SIMON DE MONTFORT'S PARLIAMENT, 1265 A.D.

The Great Council, which by one of the provisions of Magna Carta had been required to give its consent to the levying of feudal dues, met quite frequently during Henry III's reign. On one occasion, when Henry was in urgent need of money and the bishops and lords refused to grant it, the king took the significant step of calling to the council two knights from each county to declare what aid they would give him. These knights, so ran Henry's summons, were to come "in the stead of each and all," in other words, they were to act as representatives of the counties. Then in 1265 A.D., when the n.o.bles were at war with the king, a second and even more significant step was taken. Their leader, Simon de Montfort, summoned to the council not only two knights from each county, but also two citizens from each of the more important towns.

THE REPRESENTATIVE SYSTEM

The custom of selecting certain men to act in the name and on the behalf of the community had existed during Anglo-Saxon times in local government.

Representatives of the counties had been employed by the Norman kings to act as a.s.sessors in levying taxes. As we have just learned, the "juries"

of Henry II also consisted of such representatives. The English people, in fact, were quite familiar with the idea of representation long before it was applied on a larger scale to Parliament.

"MODEL PARLIAMENT" OF EDWARD I, 1295 A.D.

Simon de Montfort's Parliament included only his own supporters, and hence was not a truly national body. But it made a precedent for the future.

Thirty years later Edward I called together at Westminster, now a part of London, a Parliament which included all cla.s.ses of the people. Here were present archbishops, bishops, and abbots, earls and barons, two knights from every county, and two townsmen to represent each town in that county.

After this time all these cla.s.ses were regularly summoned to meet in a.s.sembly at Westminster.

HOUSE OF LORDS AND HOUSE OF COMMONS

The separation of Parliament into two chambers came in the fourteenth century. The House of Lords included the n.o.bles and higher clergy, the House of Commons, the representatives from counties and cities. This bicameral arrangement, as it is called, has been followed in the parliaments of most modern countries.

POWERS OF PARLIAMENT