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09 - Normans in European History by Charles Homer Haskins · Normans in European History

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  Speaker 1: Section eight of the Normans in European History by Charles
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  Speaker 1: Homer Haskins. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain
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  Speaker 1: recording by Pamela Nagami, Chapter four the Norman Empire, Part
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  Speaker 1: two of Henry's Hereditary Territories. Anjou seems the least important
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  Speaker 1: from the point of view of constitutional influence. Much smaller
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  Speaker 1: in area than either Normandy or England. It was a
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  Speaker 1: compact and comparatively centralized state long before Henry's accession, but
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  Speaker 1: the opportunity for immediate action on the Count's part simplified
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  Speaker 1: its government to a point where its experience was of
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  Speaker 1: no great value under Anglo Norman conditions. Certainly, no ak
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  Speaker 1: of an influence is traceable in the field of finance,
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  Speaker 1: and none seems probable in the administration of justice. In
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  Speaker 1: the case of Normandy and England, the resemblance of institutions
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  Speaker 1: is closest, and a host of interesting problem present themselves,
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  Speaker 1: which carry us back to the effects of the Norman
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  Speaker 1: conquest and even further. It is, of course one of
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  Speaker 1: the fundamental problems of English history. How far the government
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  Speaker 1: of England was Normanized in the century following the conquest
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  Speaker 1: to a French scholar like Bootmi. Everything begins a new
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  Speaker 1: and ten sixty six when the line which the whole
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  Speaker 1: history of political institutions has subsequently followed was traced and
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  Speaker 1: defined footnote the English Constitution, page three and footnote to Freeman.
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  Speaker 1: On the other hand, the changes then introduced were temporary
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  Speaker 1: and not fundamental. He is never tired of repeating that
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  Speaker 1: the old English are the real English. Progress comes from
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  Speaker 1: going back to the principles of the Anglo Saxon period
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  Speaker 1: and casting aside innovations which have crept in in modern
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  Speaker 1: and evil times. We have advanced by falling back on
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  Speaker 1: a more ancient state of things. We have reformed, formed,
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  Speaker 1: by calling to life again the institutions of earlier and
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  Speaker 1: ruder times, by setting ourselves free from the slavish subtleties
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  Speaker 1: of Norman lawyers, by casting aside as an accursed thing,
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  Speaker 1: the innovations of Tudor tyranny and stuart usurpation. Footnote Origin
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  Speaker 1: of the English Constitution, London, eighteen seventy two, page twenty
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  Speaker 1: and following and footnote. The trend of present scholarly opinion
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  Speaker 1: lies between these extremes. It refuses to throw away the
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  Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon period, whose institutions we are just beginning to
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  Speaker 1: read Arte, but it rejects its idealization at Freeman's hands,
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  Speaker 1: who it has been said, saw all things through a
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  Speaker 1: mist of moots and whetans, and not as they really were.
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  Speaker 1: In it finds more truth in Carlyle's remark that the
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  Speaker 1: pot bellied equanimity of the Anglo Saxon needed the drilling
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  Speaker 1: and discipline of a century of Norman tyranny. Footnote Stubbs
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  Speaker 1: Benedict to Peterborough, Volume II, page thirty five, and footnote
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  Speaker 1: whether he needed much or little. The Norman drill master
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  Speaker 1: came and did his work, and when he had finished,
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  Speaker 1: the two countries were in many respects alike. He left
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  Speaker 1: his mark on the English language and on English literature,
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  Speaker 1: which were submerged for three centuries under the French of
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  Speaker 1: the court, the castle and the town, and in the
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  Speaker 1: process were permanently modified into a mixed speech. He left
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  Speaker 1: his mark on architecture, in the great cathedrals of the
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  Speaker 1: Norman bishops and the massive castles with the Norman keeps.
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  Speaker 1: He made England a feudal society, however far it may
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  Speaker 1: have gone in that direction. Before and its laws from
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  Speaker 1: that day to this a feudal law. And he remade
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  Speaker 1: the central government under the strong hand of a masterful dynasty,
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  Speaker 1: which compelled its subjects to will what the king willed.
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  Speaker 1: Whatever permanence we may assign to Anglo Saxon local institutions,
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  Speaker 1: and we cannot help granting them this in considerable measure.
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  Speaker 1: It is not now held that there was any notable
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  Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon influence upon the central administration. At best, England,
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  Speaker 1: before the conquest, was a loose aggregation of tribal commonwealths,
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  Speaker 1: divided by local feeling and by the jealousies of the
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  Speaker 1: great earls, and its kingship did not grow stronger with
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  Speaker 1: process of time. The National Assembly of wise Men, whose
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  Speaker 1: persistence freemen labored in vain to prove, became the feudal
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  Speaker 1: Council of the Norman barons, and this council, the courier
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  Speaker 1: reegies and the royal household, which was its permanent nucleus,
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  Speaker 1: became the starting point of a new constitutional development which
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  Speaker 1: produced the House of Lords, the courts of law, and
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  Speaker 1: the great departments of the central administration. Yet in a
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  Speaker 1: vigorous state, central and local are never wholly separable, and
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  Speaker 1: it is where they touched that recent study has been
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  Speaker 1: able to show some continuity of development between the two periods,
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  Speaker 1: namely in the fiscal system, which culminated in the exchequer
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  Speaker 1: of the English kings. Of all the institutions of the
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  Speaker 1: Anglo Norman state, none is more important and none more
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  Speaker 1: characteristic than the exchequer, illustrating as it does at the
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  Speaker 1: same time the comparative wealth of the sovereigns and the
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  Speaker 1: efficient conduct of their government. Nowhere in Western Europe did
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  Speaker 1: a king receive so large a revenue. Is here, Nowhere
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  Speaker 1: was it collected and administered in so regular in business
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  Speaker 1: like a fashion. Nowhere do the accounts afford so complete
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  Speaker 1: a view of the whole framework of society. The main
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  Speaker 1: features of this system are simple and striking. In every
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  Speaker 1: administrative district of Normandy in England, the king had an
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  Speaker 1: agent in England, the sheriff in Normandy the Vicomte or bayi,
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  Speaker 1: to collect his revenues, which consisted chiefly of the income
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  Speaker 1: from lands and forests, the fees and fines in the
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  Speaker 1: royal courts, the proceeds of the various feudal incidents, and
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  Speaker 1: the various payments, which there were from time to time
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  Speaker 1: levied under the name of Danegelt, Scotage aid or gift.
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  Speaker 1: Twice a year at Easter and Michaelmas. These agents were
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  Speaker 1: required to come to the Treasury and render their accounts
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  Speaker 1: to the King's officers. At Easter, the sheriff was expected
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  Speaker 1: to pay in half of his receipts, receiving therefore, down
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  Speaker 1: to eighteen twenty six, a receipt in the form of
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  Speaker 1: a notched stick or tally split down the middle, so
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  Speaker 1: that there was exact agreement between the portion retained at
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  Speaker 1: the exchequer and the portion carried off by the Sheriff,
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  Speaker 1: to be produced when the accounts of the year were
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  Speaker 1: settled at Michaelmas. The Great Session of the Exchequer at
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  Speaker 1: Michaelmas was a very important occasion and is described for
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  Speaker 1: us in detail in a most interesting contemporary treaties, the
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  Speaker 1: Dialog on the Exchequer, written by Richard, the King's Treasurer
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  Speaker 1: in eleven seventy eight and eleven seventy nine. There the
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  Speaker 1: sheriff met the great officials of the King's household, who
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  Speaker 1: were also the great officers of the Anglo Norman state.
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  Speaker 1: The Judiciar Chancellor, Constable, treasurer, Chamberlain's and marshall, reinforced by clerks,
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  Speaker 1: tally cutters, calculators and other assistants. The place in the
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  Speaker 1: institution took their names from a checkered table or chessboard.
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  Speaker 1: The Latin name scacarium means a chessboard in size and shape,
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  Speaker 1: not unlike a billiard table covered with cloth, which was
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  Speaker 1: ruled off into columns. For pence, shillings, pounds, hundreds and
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  Speaker 1: thousands of pounds on one side were set forth in
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  Speaker 1: this graphic manner the sums which the sheriff was required
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  Speaker 1: to pay on the other. He and his clerk tried
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  Speaker 1: to offset these with tallies, receipts, warrants and counters representing
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  Speaker 1: actual cash. Played with skill and care on each side,
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  Speaker 1: for the stakes were high. This great match was likened
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  Speaker 1: to a game of chess between the Sheriff and the
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  Speaker 1: King's officers. Its results were recorded each year, district by district,
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  Speaker 1: an item by item on a great role called the
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  Speaker 1: pipe roll, from the pipes or skins of parchment sowed
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  Speaker 1: end to end of which it was made up. For
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  Speaker 1: England we have an unbroken series of these roles from
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  Speaker 1: the second year of Henry the Second, as well as
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  Speaker 1: an odd role of Henry the First, constituting a record
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  Speaker 1: of finance and government quite unique in contemporary Europe. The
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  Speaker 1: series was doubtless as complete for Normandy, but there survives
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  Speaker 1: from Henry's reign only the role of eleven eighty and
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  Speaker 1: fragments of that of eleven eighty four. For the other
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  Speaker 1: Plantagenet lands, nothing remains. This remarkable fiscal system comprised accordingly,
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  Speaker 1: a regular method of collecting revenue, a central treasury and
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  Speaker 1: board of account in a distinctive and careful mode of
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  Speaker 1: auditing the accounts. There was nothing like it north of Sicily,
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  Speaker 1: and contemporaries admired it both for its administrative efficiency and
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  Speaker 1: for the wealth and resources which it implied. Although something
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  Speaker 1: of the sort seems to have existed in all of
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  Speaker 1: the territories of the Plantagenet Empire, and the different bodies
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  Speaker 1: seem to have maintained a certain amount of cooperation. All
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  Speaker 1: our records come from England and Normandy, and there can
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  Speaker 1: be no question that it is distinctively an Anglo Norman institution.
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  Speaker 1: Whether however, it is English or Norman in origin, and
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  Speaker 1: how it came into existence are still in many respects
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  Speaker 1: obscure questions. The exchequer is not an innovation of Henry
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  Speaker 1: the Second. For the surviving role of Henry the First,
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  Speaker 1: and certain incidental evidence show that it existed on both
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  Speaker 1: sides of the Channel and the reign of his grandfather.
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  Speaker 1: In the time of the author of the dialogue, there
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  Speaker 1: was a tradition that it had been imported from Normandy
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  Speaker 1: by William the co but this must be discounted by
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  Speaker 1: the fact that certain elements of the system can be
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  Speaker 1: traced in Anglo Saxon England. The truth is that the
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  Speaker 1: Exchequer is a complicated institution, some parts of which may
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  Speaker 1: be quite ancient, and the results of parallel development on
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  Speaker 1: both sides of the Channel. At least the problem of
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  Speaker 1: priority has reached no certain solution. Its most characteristic feature, however,
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  Speaker 1: its peculiar method of reckoning, is not seen either of
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  Speaker 1: Norman or English origin, but derived from the apicus of
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  Speaker 1: the ancient Romans, as used and taught in the Continental
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  Speaker 1: schools of the eleventh and twelfth centuries. One who tries
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  Speaker 1: to perform with Roman numerals a simple problem in addition
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  Speaker 1: or subtraction, or better yet, in multiplication or division, will
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  Speaker 1: have no difficulty in understanding why people unacquainted with the
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  Speaker 1: Arabic system of notation have had recourse to accounting machine
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  Speaker 1: or apicus. The difficulty, of course, lies not so much
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  Speaker 1: much in the clumsy form of the individual Roman numbers
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  Speaker 1: as in the absence of the zero and the reckoning
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  Speaker 1: by position which it makes possible this defect. The apochus
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  Speaker 1: supplied by means of a sanded board or a cloth
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  Speaker 1: covered table, or a string of counters. It provided a
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  Speaker 1: row of columns, each of which represented a decimal group units, tens, hundreds,
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  Speaker 1: et cetera, by which numerical operations could be readily and
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  Speaker 1: accurately performed. Employed by the ancient Romans as by the
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  Speaker 1: modern Chinese, the arithmetic of the apicus became a regular
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  Speaker 1: subject of instruction in the schools of the Middle Ages,
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  Speaker 1: whence its reckoning was introduced into the operations of the
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  Speaker 1: Anglo Norman Treasury. The most recent student of the subject,
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  Speaker 1: Reginald lane Pool, connects the change with the Englishmen who
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  Speaker 1: studied at the Cathedral School of Lowell early in the
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  Speaker 1: twelfth century. To me, it seemed somewhat earlier, brought by
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  Speaker 1: Abachists who came to England in the eleventh century from
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  Speaker 1: the Schools of Lorraine. Footnote Pool the Exchequer in the
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  Speaker 1: twelfth century, pages forty two to fifty seven, Haskins the
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  Speaker 1: Abacus in The King's Courier in English Historical Review, Volume
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  Speaker 1: twenty seven, pages one hundred and one to one hundred
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  Speaker 1: and six, and footnote. In either case, its introduction was
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  Speaker 1: much more than a change of bookkeeping. Convenient as such,
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  Speaker 1: reckoning was in general, it was the only possible method
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  Speaker 1: for men who could neither read nor write, like the
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  Speaker 1: Anglo Norman sheriffs in many of the royal officers, and
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  Speaker 1: its use made it possible to carry on the fiscal
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  Speaker 1: business of the state on a large scale, in an
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  Speaker 1: open and public fashion, with full justice to all parties,
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  Speaker 1: and with accuracy, certainty and dispatch. It was a business
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  Speaker 1: like system for busy and business like men. In the
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  Speaker 1: history of judicial administration, the personal initiative of Henry the
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  Speaker 1: Second is more more evident than in finance. The King
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  Speaker 1: had an especial fondness for legal questions and often participated
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  Speaker 1: in their decision. Yet his influence was exerted, particularly in
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  Speaker 1: developing a system of courts and judges which could work
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  Speaker 1: in his absence and without his intervention. Although the institution
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  Speaker 1: is found previously both in England and Normandy, it is
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  Speaker 1: in Henry's reign that the system of itinerant justices is
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  Speaker 1: fully organized, with regular circuits and a rapidly extending jurisdiction,
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  Speaker 1: which broke down local privileges and exemptions, and by its
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  Speaker 1: decisions created the common law, hitherto chiefly a feudal assembly
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  Speaker 1: concerned with the causes of the king and his barons.
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  Speaker 1: After Henry's time, the King's Court is a permanent body
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  Speaker 1: of professional judges and a tribunal for the whole realm.
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  Speaker 1: It is no accident that his reign produced in the
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  Speaker 1: Treatise of Glenville on the Laws and Customs of England,
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  Speaker 1: the first of the great series of textbooks which are
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  Speaker 1: the landmarks of English legal development. Henry's reign is also
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  Speaker 1: an important period in the growth of Norman law, the
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  Speaker 1: earliest formulation of which reaches us ten years after his
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  Speaker 1: death in the Trezencien Kutumied Normandy. And the reduction of
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  Speaker 1: local custom to writing is a process which went on
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  Speaker 1: in his other continental possessions. Yet, as in finance, England
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  Speaker 1: and Normandy, plainly took the lead in legal literature and
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  Speaker 1: in legal development. Indeed, the distinction between justice and finance
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  Speaker 1: is less sharp than we might at first suppose, for
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  Speaker 1: the growth of jurisdiction meant increased profit from fees and fines,
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  Speaker 1: and heavy payments were necessary to secure the intervention of
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  Speaker 1: the royal judges. In this sense, Henry has often been
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  Speaker 1: called in rightly a seller of justice, But his latest
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  Speaker 1: biographer is pointed out that if the commodity was expensive,
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  Speaker 1: it was at least the best of its kind, and
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  Speaker 1: there is a profound gulf between the selling of justice
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  Speaker 1: and of injustice. A bribe might be required to set
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  Speaker 1: the machine of the law and motion, but it would
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  Speaker 1: be unavailing to divert its course when once started. Footnote
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  Speaker 1: Saltzman Henry, the second page one seventy six, and footnote
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  Speaker 1: the wheels of government are turned by self interest as
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  Speaker 1: well as by unselfish statesmanship. Of the many judicial reforms
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  Speaker 1: of Henry's reign, none is more significant than the measures
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  Speaker 1: which he took for extending the use of the jury
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  Speaker 1: as a method of trial in the royal courts, and
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  Speaker 1: none illustrates better the relation of Norman to English institutions.
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  Speaker 1: Characteristic as the jury is in the history of English
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  Speaker 1: government and of English law, as at once the palladium
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  Speaker 1: of personal liberty and the basis of representative institutions in Parliament.
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  Speaker 1: It is a striking fact that originally it was not
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  Speaker 1: Popular but Royal, not English but Norman, or rather Frankish
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  Speaker 1: through the intermediary of Normandy. Footnote Pollock and Maitland History
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  Speaker 1: of English Law, Volume one, page one, forty two and footnote.
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  Speaker 1: Although it has a history which can be traced for
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  Speaker 1: more than a thousand years, the jury does not definitely
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  Speaker 1: make its appearance in England until after the Norman Conquest,
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  Speaker 1: and the decisive steps in its further development were taken
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  Speaker 1: during the union of England and Normandy, and probably as
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  Speaker 1: a result of Norman experience. It is now the general
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  Speaker 1: opinion of scholars that the modern jury is an outgrowth
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  Speaker 1: of the sworn inquests of neighbors held by command of
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  Speaker 1: the Norman and angam And kings, and that the procedure
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  Speaker 1: in these inquests is in all essential respects the same
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  Speaker 1: as that employed by the Frankish rulers three centuries before.
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  Speaker 1: It is also generally agreed that while such inquests appear
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  Speaker 1: in England immediately after the Norman conquests. The returns of
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  Speaker 1: the Domesday Survey are a striking example. Their employment in
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  Speaker 1: lawsuits remains exceptional until the time of Henry the Second,
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  Speaker 1: when they became, in certain cases a matter of right
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  Speaker 1: and a part of the settled law of the land.
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  Speaker 1: What had been heretofore a special privilege of the King
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  Speaker 1: and of those to whom he granted it became under
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  Speaker 1: Henry a right of his subjects and a part of
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  Speaker 1: the regular system of justice. Accomplished doubtless gradually, first for
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  Speaker 1: one class of cases, and then for another. This extension
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  Speaker 1: of the king's prerogative procedure to his subjects seems to
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  Speaker 1: have been formulated in a definite royal act or a
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  Speaker 1: series of acts, probably by royal ordinances or assizes, whence
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  Speaker 1: the procedure is often called the assize. In England, the
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  Speaker 1: earliest of these sizes known to us appears in eleven
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  Speaker 1: sixty four in the Constitutions of Clarendon, followed shortly by
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  Speaker 1: applications of this mode of trial to other kinds of cases.
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  Speaker 1: In Normandy, repeated references to similar assizes occurs some years
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  Speaker 1: earlier between eleven fifty six and eleven fifty nine, so
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  Speaker 1: that as far as present evidence goes, the priority of
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  Speaker 1: Normandy in this respect is clear. Moreover, Normandy offers two
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  Speaker 1: pieces of evidence that are still earlier. In the oldest
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  Speaker 1: cartulary of Bayeux Cathedral, called the Black Book, and still
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  Speaker 1: preserved high up in one of its ancient towers, are
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  Speaker 1: two writs of the Duke ordering his justices to have
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  Speaker 1: determined by sworn inquest in accordance with the Duke's desize
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  Speaker 1: the facts and dispute between the Bishop of Beyeux and
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  Speaker 1: certain of his tenants. The ducal initial was left blank
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  Speaker 1: when these writs were copied into the cartullery, in order
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  Speaker 1: that it might later be inserted in colors by an
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  Speaker 1: illuminator who never came in. Those who who first studied
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  Speaker 1: these documents drew the hasty conclusion that they were issued
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  Speaker 1: by Henry as Duke of Normandy before he became king.
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  Speaker 1: It was not, however, usual for the medieval scribe to
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  Speaker 1: leave the rubricter entirely without guidance when he came to
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  Speaker 1: insert his initials, but to mark the proper letter lightly
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  Speaker 1: in the place itself were in the margin, and an
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  Speaker 1: attentive examination of the well thumbed margins of the Bayeux
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  Speaker 1: Black Book shows that this was no exception to the rule,
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  Speaker 1: and that in both cases in question, the initial G
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  Speaker 1: had been carefully indicated. G can of course stand only
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  Speaker 1: for Henry's father, Jeffrey, so that some general use of
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  Speaker 1: the assize as a method of trial in the ducal
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  Speaker 1: courts can be proved for his reign, as no such
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  Speaker 1: documents have reached us for his predecessors. It would be
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  Speaker 1: tempting to assume the influence of ange and precedence, but
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  Speaker 1: this runs counter to what we know of the judicial
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  Speaker 1: institutions of Anjou in this period, as well as the
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  Speaker 1: policy of Geoffrey and Normandy, which was to follow in
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  Speaker 1: all respects the system of Henry the First. Although the
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  Speaker 1: first general use of the sworn inquest as a mode
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  Speaker 1: of trial thus antedates Henry the Second, it is still
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  Speaker 1: a Norman institution. It would carry us too far to
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  Speaker 1: discuss the many problems connected with the use of the
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  Speaker 1: jury in Henry's reign, or to follow the many changes
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  Speaker 1: still needed to convert the sworn inquest into the modern jury.
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  Speaker 1: It is sufficient for our present purpose to mark its
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  Speaker 1: Norman character, first as being carried to England by the
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  Speaker 1: Normans in its older form, and then as being developed
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  Speaker 1: into its newer form on Norman soil. It should, however,
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  Speaker 1: be remembered that its later history belongs to England rather
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  Speaker 1: than to Normandy. With the rise of new forms of
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  Speaker 1: procedure in the thirteenth century, the jury on the continent
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  Speaker 1: declines and finally disappears. But for the conquest of England,
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: says Maitland, it would have perished, and long ago had
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: become a matter for the antiquary footnote Pollock and Maitland,
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: Volume one, page one forty one and footnote. In England, however,
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: it was early brought into relations with the local courts
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: of the hundred and the county, where it struck route
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: and developed into a popular method of trial, which was
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: later to become a defense against the king's officers who
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: had first introduced it. All bulwark of individual liberty. The
• 21:27
  Speaker 1: jury also holds an important place in the establishment of
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: representative government, for it was through representative juries that the
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: voice of the countryside first asserted itself in local courts
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: for the assessment of taxes as well as for the
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: decision of cases, and it was in the negotiations of
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: royal officials with the local juries that we can trace
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: the beginnings of the House of Commons. It is no
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: accident that the first employment of local juries for the
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: assessment of military and fiscal obligations belongs to the later
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: years of Henry the second. It may seem a far
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: cry from the Frankish inquests of the ninth century to
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: the juries and the representative assemblies of the twentieth, but
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: the development is continuous, and it leads through Normandy. In
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: this sense, the English speaking countries are all heirs of
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the early Normans and of the Norman kings, who all
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: unconsciously provided for the extension and the perpetuation of the
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Norman methods of trial. At such points Norman history merges
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: in that of England, the British Empire, and the United States.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: End of Section eight.