Latest / Normans in Europe / 27 - Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson

Transcript

27 - Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson · Normans in Europe

0:00
Speaker 1: Section twenty seven of the Normans in Europe by Arthur
0:03
Speaker 1: Henry Johnson. This librevox recording is in the public domain.
0:08
Speaker 1: Read by Pamelinagami, Chapter seventeen, Norman Administration, Part two, the
0:16
Speaker 1: manner was nothing more than the ancient township which had
0:19
Speaker 1: by now fallen to a feudal lord. They had, as
0:23
Speaker 1: before shown, virtually existed in Anglo Saxon times in the
0:27
Speaker 1: case of those Thanes who had gained independent rights of
0:30
Speaker 1: jurisdiction conveyed the grants of sac and soak. In Norman times,
0:36
Speaker 1: they were so much increased that nearly the whole of
0:39
Speaker 1: England was divided into manners, either of the king or
0:43
Speaker 1: belonging to some lord, with the exception of a few
0:46
Speaker 1: enfranchised burghs. These manners would be thus divided. Part the
0:51
Speaker 1: lord would keep for his own use under the name
0:54
Speaker 1: of the demain. The rest would be granted out to
0:58
Speaker 1: freehold tenets on very terms of tenure, or would form
1:02
Speaker 1: the waste over which the lord retained the right of sporting,
1:05
Speaker 1: while the tenants of the manor might there feed their
1:08
Speaker 1: cattle or cut their turf and peat of the demain. Again,
1:12
Speaker 1: part was retained in the actual occupation of the lord
1:15
Speaker 1: his park and farm, which were termed the demain proper.
1:20
Speaker 1: On the rest the villains would be settled. Bound to
1:24
Speaker 1: the soil, they might not leave it, and in return
1:26
Speaker 1: for their small holdings they had to till the demain proper.
1:31
Speaker 1: If the land were sold, they passed with it. In
1:34
Speaker 1: these manners, the old town reef had given up his
1:37
Speaker 1: place to the steward of the lord. But in other
1:40
Speaker 1: respects the procedure was the same as in the popular courts.
1:44
Speaker 1: The rights of jurisdiction varied according to the terms of grant.
1:48
Speaker 1: All had their court baron representing the gmoat of the
1:52
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon township, in which by laws were passed and
1:56
Speaker 1: local business transacted, and all their custom for the business
2:01
Speaker 1: of the villainage. In these cases, the lords were not
2:04
Speaker 1: exempt from the jurisdiction of the hundred court. Others would
2:09
Speaker 1: have by grant court's leet for criminal purposes, and others
2:13
Speaker 1: a right to hold views of frank pledges they were
2:16
Speaker 1: called when the manner would be free from the court's
2:19
Speaker 1: leet and touring of the sheriff, respectively. In some Great
2:24
Speaker 1: Baronial jurisdictions, which included almost the whole shire. The lords
2:29
Speaker 1: enjoyed entire independence of the sheriff and the shire court,
2:33
Speaker 1: and the suitors to their courts, exemption from all attendants
2:37
Speaker 1: at the popular courts. The number of these greater jurisdictions
2:42
Speaker 1: which were hereditary always had a tendency to increase, and
2:47
Speaker 1: were dangerous, not only as decreasing the profits of the
2:50
Speaker 1: popular courts in the crown, but as serving as a
2:54
Speaker 1: basis for baronial tyranny. In such times as those of
2:57
Speaker 1: Stephen there was no means of checking them except by
3:02
Speaker 1: increasing the central power, and it was not till the
3:05
Speaker 1: reign of Henry the Second that they were compelled to
3:08
Speaker 1: admit the Justices of Air to exercise jurisdiction in them.
3:13
Speaker 1: There was no privilege to which the Norman kings clung
3:16
Speaker 1: so closely, or which caused so much misery and discontent,
3:21
Speaker 1: as their exclusive right of enjoying the sport in the
3:24
Speaker 1: royal forests. William had desolated the new Forest with cold
3:29
Speaker 1: blooded indifference, and the curse had been visited on his family.
3:34
Speaker 1: Rufus had much increased the forests, even Henry had refused
3:39
Speaker 1: to part with any when he had to appeal to
3:41
Speaker 1: the people in his Charter and added more to their number.
3:46
Speaker 1: At a somewhat later date, it was computed that there
3:48
Speaker 1: were sixty seven forests, besides thirty chases, and seven hundred
3:53
Speaker 1: and eighty one parks. Over these, the jurisdiction was vested
3:58
Speaker 1: in the forest courts. Here a distinct system of law prevailed.
4:04
Speaker 1: They were ruled by royal officials, independent of the ordinary
4:07
Speaker 1: judges of the popular courts and courierragis, not bound by
4:12
Speaker 1: the common law, and irresponsible except to the King. Their
4:16
Speaker 1: laws and customs were their own and variable until Henry
4:21
Speaker 1: the second issued the first Forest Code, Even then marked
4:26
Speaker 1: by such severity that it is said the punishment for
4:29
Speaker 1: breach of forest law was heavier than for heresy. Nothing
4:34
Speaker 1: proves more strongly the arbitrary rule of the Norman kings
4:38
Speaker 1: or their selfishness, than the stubbornness with which they clung
4:42
Speaker 1: to their forests and forest courts. In Anglo Saxon times,
4:47
Speaker 1: some of the more fortunate boroughs had gained an exemption
4:51
Speaker 1: from the hundred Court and enjoyed their own rights of
4:54
Speaker 1: jurisdiction in their ward and boroughmotes, with an organization similar
4:58
Speaker 1: to that of the popular courts. They still however, remained
5:02
Speaker 1: subject to the shire court and the sheriff collected from
5:06
Speaker 1: them the royal dues. By the Norman conquest, they fell
5:10
Speaker 1: into the domain of some great lord or of the king,
5:13
Speaker 1: and the status of citizens exactly corresponded with that of
5:17
Speaker 1: the inhabitants of the rural districts, those who held property
5:21
Speaker 1: being termed brigage tenants corresponding to the soakage tenants, and
5:26
Speaker 1: the lower class of citizens to the villains of the
5:29
Speaker 1: rural manner. For any further advance, they now had to
5:33
Speaker 1: look to the grant of the lord or king in
5:36
Speaker 1: whose domain they lay. Those who were not rich enough
5:40
Speaker 1: to buy these privileges, or were in the domains of
5:43
Speaker 1: some lord who had not the power of granting these immunities,
5:47
Speaker 1: remained much in the condition in which the Norman conquest
5:50
Speaker 1: found them, and survived to the present day in our
5:53
Speaker 1: market towns with the humble machinery of police and magistracy
5:58
Speaker 1: in connection with their markets. The more privileged gained their
6:02
Speaker 1: charters from king or lord. Having one independent jurisdiction, The
6:07
Speaker 1: next step was to procure an independent administration. This, as
6:12
Speaker 1: was so often the case in Norman times, first took
6:15
Speaker 1: the form of a fiscal question. Hitherto, the sheriff had
6:20
Speaker 1: himself compounded for the dues of the boroughs in the
6:23
Speaker 1: farm of his county, and levied the dues upon the
6:26
Speaker 1: town himself and to his own profit. Probably in many
6:30
Speaker 1: cases more was exacted than was legal, but the towns
6:33
Speaker 1: had no remedy. It was natural, therefore that they should
6:37
Speaker 1: wish to compound directly with the King or Lord, and
6:40
Speaker 1: thus be freed from the common valuation of the shire.
6:44
Speaker 1: This was done by obtaining charters, by which the burghers
6:48
Speaker 1: themselves rented the borough dues, paying to the King or
6:51
Speaker 1: Lord the rent of the borough fiirma bourghi, and collected
6:55
Speaker 1: at themselves from the citizens. Thus they were freed from
6:59
Speaker 1: the exactions of the sheriff, and changed their varying dues
7:02
Speaker 1: into a fixed and certain rent. The grant of the
7:05
Speaker 1: firm implied an emancipation from villain services, and since the
7:09
Speaker 1: firm was generally granted to the ward mode of the town,
7:13
Speaker 1: all members of that court holders of land or houses
7:16
Speaker 1: within the borough henceforth held their land on free burgage tenure. This,
7:22
Speaker 1: with a few other privileges, was all that was gained
7:25
Speaker 1: in Norman times. Side by side with the growth of
7:29
Speaker 1: the boroughs, the system of guilds had arisen. For the
7:34
Speaker 1: origin of these we must look to Anglo Saxon times.
7:38
Speaker 1: The distinguishing feature of early Teutonic society lay in its
7:41
Speaker 1: strong spirit of local organization in itself, probably a remains
7:46
Speaker 1: of the old family tie. As this family tie became weakened,
7:52
Speaker 1: they seemed to have sought for some other personal bond
7:55
Speaker 1: founded on the analogy of the family, which might take
7:58
Speaker 1: its place. Hence the rise of guilds, which appear universally
8:03
Speaker 1: in Western Europe, taking various forms, of which the following
8:07
Speaker 1: are the most important. Religious or social guilds. These were
8:12
Speaker 1: probably the earliest and resorted to for some religious purpose,
8:17
Speaker 1: such as prayers for quick and dead, burial of their dead,
8:21
Speaker 1: representation of miracle plays, alms and good works. Others again
8:27
Speaker 1: formed friendly societies for mutual help and protection. If one
8:32
Speaker 1: misdoue runs one of their by laws, let all bear it,
8:36
Speaker 1: let all share the same lot. Others, under the name
8:40
Speaker 1: of frith guilds formed assurance companies against loss or theft,
8:45
Speaker 1: to give compensation when any member had suffered, and to
8:49
Speaker 1: avenge all insults. As common ones It is to these
8:53
Speaker 1: frith guilds that we probably owe the idea which afterwards
8:56
Speaker 1: led to the system of frank pledge. At times all
9:01
Speaker 1: these objects would be united in one guild. The existence
9:06
Speaker 1: of such associations as these, and their rules of membership
9:09
Speaker 1: speak highly for the peace and order loving character of
9:12
Speaker 1: the people, and as they survived the Norman conquest, they
9:17
Speaker 1: affected our after history. No rebel or man of bad
9:22
Speaker 1: fame might be enrolled a member, and such offenses worked
9:26
Speaker 1: instant forfeiture, while a rule from a guild of later
9:30
Speaker 1: dates speaks highly for their moral and industrial influence. If
9:35
Speaker 1: any man fall poor from using to lie long in bed,
9:39
Speaker 1: and at rising off his bed, will not work, but
9:42
Speaker 1: go to the tavern, wine ale wrestling, and in this
9:46
Speaker 1: manner fallth poor, that man shall never have help or
9:49
Speaker 1: good of the company, neither in life or death, but
9:53
Speaker 1: shall be put out of the company. As trade increased,
9:57
Speaker 1: the same spirit of association led to the rise of
10:00
Speaker 1: merchant and craft guilds. Of these. The merchant guilds probably
10:05
Speaker 1: existed in some few cases before the conquest, but rapidly
10:10
Speaker 1: increased during the Norman period. They were associations of merchants
10:15
Speaker 1: uniting for purposes of mutual assistance in trade. They gained
10:20
Speaker 1: by charters the monopoly of trade, and then gradually obtained
10:24
Speaker 1: the virtual government of the towns. By the following means.
10:28
Speaker 1: The guild, including as it did, all the important men
10:32
Speaker 1: of the town, would necessarily be members of the borough courts. Thus,
10:37
Speaker 1: the members of the guild and the governing body of
10:39
Speaker 1: the town would be composed of the same persons, and
10:42
Speaker 1: guild law would tend to become town law. But further,
10:47
Speaker 1: in some cases, the merchant guilds seemed themselves to have
10:51
Speaker 1: purchased the firma bourgi and in virtue of this, would
10:55
Speaker 1: have the right of assessing the contributions upon the citizens. Thus,
11:00
Speaker 1: membership in a merchant guild would be indispensable for the
11:03
Speaker 1: full status of a burgher, who thereby gained a stronger
11:07
Speaker 1: spirit of cooperative union. Still, the governing body of the
11:12
Speaker 1: town and the guild were not as yet identical. Their
11:15
Speaker 1: organization was separate, and the influence of the guild was
11:19
Speaker 1: indirect rather than actual or avowed. Beneath these merchant guilds,
11:25
Speaker 1: the lower craft guilds or associations of craftsmen had begun
11:28
Speaker 1: to arise, but for their future development and the consequent
11:33
Speaker 1: struggle between them and the merchant guilds. For the municipal
11:36
Speaker 1: government we have to wait for a later date. The
11:40
Speaker 1: towns then in Norman times had gained an independent jurisdiction,
11:45
Speaker 1: some independence of administration in fiscal matters, and various privileges,
11:51
Speaker 1: but they were still subject to the shire court. They
11:54
Speaker 1: were in no sense a corporate unity as they subsequently became,
11:58
Speaker 1: and their organization still that of the rural hundreds and townships.
12:03
Speaker 1: The condition of London was indeed somewhat more advanced by
12:08
Speaker 1: the Charter of Henry the First. It received the firm
12:11
Speaker 1: of the whole County of Middlesex, with the right of
12:14
Speaker 1: appointing the sheriff. The citizens were freed from all jurisdiction
12:19
Speaker 1: of any other shire court and from the obligation of
12:22
Speaker 1: trial by combat, together with other privileges and immunities. They
12:28
Speaker 1: had their folk mote answering to the shire court elsewhere,
12:32
Speaker 1: their ward mote corresponding to the rural hundred courts, and
12:36
Speaker 1: their Hustings Court or weekly meeting of the citizens in common. Still,
12:41
Speaker 1: even London, though far in advance of any other towns,
12:44
Speaker 1: had no municipality as yet it was in fact a
12:48
Speaker 1: civic shire, as the other towns were civic hundreds, and
12:52
Speaker 1: under their folkmote or shire court, the several townships, parishes
12:57
Speaker 1: and manners of which it was composed retained their separate
13:01
Speaker 1: jurisdiction and organization. The military system of the Norman kings
13:07
Speaker 1: was threefold. One, the Anglo Saxon organization of the militia
13:12
Speaker 1: was retained. By this, every man was bound to serve
13:16
Speaker 1: the king on foot in times of danger. They were
13:18
Speaker 1: marshaled under the sheriff of each shire, and each man
13:22
Speaker 1: received the sum of ten shillings from his county to
13:25
Speaker 1: meet the expenses of his service. Two to this the
13:29
Speaker 1: Normans added the feudal levee, by which every tenant by
13:33
Speaker 1: knight service had to furnish one fully armed horseman for
13:37
Speaker 1: forty days in the year. When summoned by the king,
13:40
Speaker 1: either on home or foreign service, the baron led his
13:45
Speaker 1: own knights, and the host was marshaled by the constable
13:48
Speaker 1: and marshal those knights who held immediately of the crown
13:52
Speaker 1: appearing with the militia under the sheriff. Three. These levees
13:57
Speaker 1: were further supplemented in time of war or by foreign
14:01
Speaker 1: mercenaries of footmen and archers. Thus William the first hired
14:05
Speaker 1: mercenaries to resist the invasion of Canute of Denmark and
14:09
Speaker 1: ten eighty five, and Stephen's employment of Flemish and Breton
14:13
Speaker 1: mercenaries at the outbreak of the Civil war alienated many
14:17
Speaker 1: of his partisans. We have spoken of the probable relation
14:22
Speaker 1: which the courier regies held to the Commune, Conchilium or
14:25
Speaker 1: National Council. This national Council is to be considered as
14:29
Speaker 1: a continuation of the Anglo Saxon Wittingomote under the character
14:34
Speaker 1: of a feudal court. Theoretically all freeholders holding in chief
14:39
Speaker 1: of the crown were members, and on a few great occasions,
14:42
Speaker 1: as at the Council of Salsbury and tenn eighty five,
14:45
Speaker 1: such general musters would be made. But in those days
14:49
Speaker 1: attendance at the Royal Council was looked upon as a
14:52
Speaker 1: burden rather than a privilege, and its ordinary members would
14:57
Speaker 1: accordingly be confined to the archbishops, the bishops, abbots, earls,
15:02
Speaker 1: barons and knights, and of these probably only a limited
15:06
Speaker 1: number of the more important would ordinarily appear. The abbots
15:11
Speaker 1: and friars sat in virtue of their holding a barony
15:14
Speaker 1: of the King, the archbishops and bishops as being besides
15:18
Speaker 1: the chief advisers of the crown. The earls, originally the
15:22
Speaker 1: successors of the Anglo Saxon Earls, whose numbers, at first small,
15:27
Speaker 1: were increased in the reigns of Henry the First and Stephen,
15:30
Speaker 1: gained their dignity by special investiture of the sword of
15:33
Speaker 1: their country by the King. The proceeds of jurisdiction they
15:38
Speaker 1: shared with the sheriff, receiving a third of the finds
15:41
Speaker 1: arising in the shire courts. The barons were the successors
15:45
Speaker 1: of the king's thegns of Anglo Saxon times. They held
15:49
Speaker 1: in chief of the king and enjoyed a dignity, sometimes personal,
15:53
Speaker 1: sometimes territorial. The class was composed of many grades, varying
15:59
Speaker 1: according to their personal qualifications, official duties, and extent of property.
16:05
Speaker 1: The knights representing the old Thanes were really the lesser barons,
16:10
Speaker 1: in fact, the whole class of tenants by knight's service.
16:14
Speaker 1: The powers of the council thus formed, theoretically extended to
16:18
Speaker 1: legislation and taxation. The king acknowledged its council and consent
16:23
Speaker 1: in the former in in the latter probably laid before
16:26
Speaker 1: it any plan for increasing the existing taxes. But practically
16:31
Speaker 1: the king was absolute and its council and consent a
16:36
Speaker 1: mere form. The council, however, still enjoyed certain powers. These
16:41
Speaker 1: courts were held annually on the festivals of Easter, Pentecost
16:45
Speaker 1: and Christmas, at the towns of Winchester, Gloucester and Westminster, respectively.
16:50
Speaker 1: When the king wore his crown before his subjects, it
16:54
Speaker 1: formed a court of judicature for trying peers, as in
16:58
Speaker 1: the case of walthy Off in the rain of William
17:00
Speaker 1: the First, and of Robert of Boulem in that of
17:03
Speaker 1: Henry the First. Here also the following business was transacted.
17:08
Speaker 1: The bishops were nominated until Henry the First granted the
17:11
Speaker 1: right of free election to the chapters. Here the earldoms
17:15
Speaker 1: and other dignities would be conferred, questions of policy discussed,
17:20
Speaker 1: and ecclesiastical canons ratified, though the archbishops often held an
17:25
Speaker 1: ecclesiastical council at the same time, where the canons themselves
17:29
Speaker 1: would be prepared. Even in these matters, the council probably
17:34
Speaker 1: did little more than give its formal assent, and the
17:37
Speaker 1: only point in which its authority was practically exercised was
17:41
Speaker 1: in the election of the king. On those occasions the
17:44
Speaker 1: royal authority was in abeyance, the nation resumed its rights,
17:49
Speaker 1: only to lose them again as soon as they had
17:52
Speaker 1: elected their future master. Thus the Norman king enjoyed an
17:56
Speaker 1: authority confined, indeed within certain theoretical limits, but practically irresponsible,
18:03
Speaker 1: and the government might be inaptly described as a despotism
18:07
Speaker 1: tempered by the elective principle of the administration of Normandy.
18:12
Speaker 1: During this as in the earlier period, we have but
18:15
Speaker 1: scanty evidence. All the authorities, of which the Grand Coutumier
18:20
Speaker 1: of Normandy is the most important, are of later compilation
18:25
Speaker 1: and of original charters, roles or other documents. There is
18:28
Speaker 1: a curious dearth. We may be sure, however, that there
18:33
Speaker 1: was a close connection between England and Normandy at this date,
18:37
Speaker 1: though probably owing to the disturbed condition of the Duchy,
18:40
Speaker 1: England was considerably in advance. We have noticed before the
18:45
Speaker 1: analogies between the Couria Regies and the Exchequer of England
18:49
Speaker 1: and the Couria Duchies and Exchequer of Normandy. No doubt
18:54
Speaker 1: England here borrowed largely, especially in the forms of procedure
18:58
Speaker 1: from her foreign system, but so had she done from
19:02
Speaker 1: Anglo Saxon institutions. And the debt of Normandy to England
19:07
Speaker 1: was probably as great. Of the municipal life in Normandy
19:11
Speaker 1: again we know, but little we hear of sworn communes,
19:15
Speaker 1: and Lama had wrested privileges from William as early as
19:19
Speaker 1: ten seventy three. But in common with the rest of France,
19:23
Speaker 1: the object of municipal freedom in Normandy was more distinctly
19:27
Speaker 1: political than in England. And a comparison of the few
19:31
Speaker 1: charters which remain leads us to the conclusion that in this,
19:35
Speaker 1: as in other matters, the advantage lay with England. In conclusion,
19:40
Speaker 1: the question how far England and Normandy borrowed each from
19:44
Speaker 1: the other will best be answered if we remember that
19:48
Speaker 1: it was a period of transition and of growth in
19:51
Speaker 1: both countries, and that the administrative systems of each country
19:55
Speaker 1: grew together. End of Section two twenty seven read by
20:02
Speaker 1: Pamel Nagami, m d. In Encino, California, March twenty twenty two.
20:08
Speaker 1: End of the Normans in Europe by Arthur Henry Johnson