BRITAIN IN MIDDLE AGES 1066 – 1484

Anglo-Normans (1066 –1215)

 

The Normans came to govern following one of the most famous battles in English history: the Battle of Hastings in 1066. William of Normandy was crowned King of England (1066 - 87). Various revolts against William I (both English and Norman) were repeatedly crushed. In 1069, William forced the Scottish King to submit to him as superior. Military conquest followed by settlement and firm administrative control led to the Normanisation of England, Wales and lowland Scotland.

The Norman Conquest did have immediate social, political and cultural implications. There were considerable changes in the social structure of the British kingdoms as a new aristocracy was introduced with attendant views on obligations and service. Effects of the conquest included a complete change of the ruling classes in English society: only thirteen English magnates can be found in the Domesday Book. The new rough foreign aristocracy captured power and lands. By 1100 there were 500 Norman castles in the English countryside. Stone castles became a common sight, serving as administrative centers as well as military and economic strongpoints.

There was a blow against the Church as well; Saxon bishops were either deposed or replaced by Normans. During the 11^th and 12^th centuries an apparatus of government of exceptional effectiveness was established. England was also drawn into close links with the other side of Channel. Cultural and economic links with France and continental Europe were re-established.

However, there was a language gap between the local (Anglo-Saxon) population and the new landowners, of both the Church and the Norman Aristocracy. French replaced English as the official language. Latin was a language of monasteries, Norman French was now the language of law and authority. Inflected English, spoken differently in the various regions remained the language of the people.

 

The Domesday Book (1086)

The brightest evidence of the situation in the country was the Domesday Book, a survey of England's land and people. The Domesday Book was the result of a great survey commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1085. He sent officials to 13,418 places to determine who lived there and what they owned. The main manuscript, "Great Domesday," is an exhaustive record of landholders, their titles and possessions. It was written by a single scribe and contains entries for all the English counties which comprised England at that time. Norfolk, Suffolk and Essex were included in a smaller manuscript known as Little Domesday. The purpose of the survey is a matter of historical debate. Some argue that the primary purpose was financial, pointing to the emphasis on assessment within the text. However, it can also be viewed as a register of title, aimed at resolving disputed titles and lands. The first draft was probably brought to William by August 1, 1086 in preparation for the Salisbury Oath, where 'landowning men of any account' were summoned to swear allegiance to the king. It was the most complete record of any country at that time and continued to be consulted on legal and tenurial matters well into the Middle Ages. It came to be known as the Domesday Book, Domesday meaning 'day of judgment.'

According to the Domesday Book, Norman society still rested on "lordship, secular and spiritual, and the King, wise or foolish, was the lord of lords, with only Lord in Heaven and the Saints above him." Historians have introduced into their interpretation of Norman and other European lordship the term "feudalism."

 

Feudalism

Feudalism comes form the Late Latin word feudum, a commonly used term in the Middle Ages which means fief, or land held under certain obligations by feodati. Even though the word origin is from the Middle Ages, the concept of feudalism was not invented until the 17^th century, in the modern era. Feudalism is a set of reciprocal legal and military obligations among the warrior nobility of Europe during the Middle Ages revolving around the three key concepts of lords, vassals and fiefs. Feudalism is defined by how these three elements fit together. A lord was a noble who owned land. A vassal was given land by the lord. The land was known as a fief. In exchange for the fief, the vassal would provide military service to the lord. The obligations and relations between lord, vassal and fief form the basis of feudalism.

The term was used in both narrow and broad sense. Narrowly it was related to military (knightly) service as a condition of tenure of land. Broadly it was related to the tenure of land itself, obligation and dependence, as expressed in the term "vassalage." The first relationship focuses on warfare in an age of violence, the second on the use as well as the tenure of land in an age when land was the key to society.

 

All land in the country belonged to the Crown. The king was the greatest landowner in the country and he gave away the land to the great landowners who were his tenants-in-chief (barons). The barons held their land as a gift, in return for specified services to the Crown. When barons gave away their land, they also required knightly services for their tenants. During the reign of William I 170 barons had in their service about 4000 knights who were distinguishable as a social group. In the 13^th century King John Lackland (1199-1216) replaced military service of his tenants-in-chief by payments, known as "shield money." The Domesday Book was designed for fiscal purposes to increase and protect the King's revenue.

The full implications of the social, political and cultural changes following the Norman Conquest took time to work themselves out. They were: a political unification of the country and the centralization of government – a strong royal government, feudal interdependence; the supreme power of the King over all his vassals; the establishment of the feudal hierarchy, a further development of the relationship between the King and the barons, sometimes stormy, sometimes cohesive, an emergence of English Common law (from precedent to precedent), and the making of Parliament.

 

Common Law

 

The Common Law originally developed under the auspices of the adversarial system in England from judicial decisions that were based in tradition, custom, and precedent. The form of reasoning used in common law is known as casuistry or case-based reasoning. Common law may be unwritten or written in statutes or codes. The common law, as applied in civil cases (as distinct from criminal cases), was devised as a means of compensating someone for wrongful acts known as torts, including both intentional torts and torts caused by negligence and as developing the body of law recognizing and regulating contracts. Today common law is generally thought of as applying only to civil disputes; originally it encompassed the criminal law before criminal codes were adopted in most common law jurisdictions in the late 19^th century. The type of procedure practiced in common law courts is known as the adversarial system; this is also a development of the common law.

Before the institutional stability imposed on England by William Conqueror in 1066, English citizens were governed by unwritten local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in arbitrary fashion. For example, courts generally consisted of informal public assemblies that weighed conflicting claims in a case and, if unable to reach a decision, might require an accused to test guilt or innocence by carrying a red-hot iron or snatching a stone from a caldron of boiling water or some other "test" of veracity. It the defendant's wound healed within a prescribed period, he was set free as innocent; if not, execution usually followed.

In 1154, Henry II became the first Plantagenet king. Among many achievements, Henry II institutionalized common law by creating a unified system of law "common" to the country through

§ incorporating and elevating local custom to the national,

§ ending local control and peculiarities, 

§ eliminating arbitrary remedies,

§ reinstating a jury system of citizens sworn on oath to investigate reliably criminal accusations and civil claims.

The jury reached its verdict through evaluating common local knowledge, not necessarily through the presentation of evidence, a distinguishing factor from today's civil and criminal court systems.

Henry II 's creation of a powerful and unified court system, which curbed somewhat the power of canonical (church) courts, brought him (and England) into conflict with the church, most famously, with Thomas Becket, the archbishop of Canterbury. Things were resolved eventually, at least for a time, in Henry's favor when a group of his henchmen murdered Becket. For its part, the Church soon canonized Becket as a saint.