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

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Speaker 1: Section twenty six of the Normans in Europe by Arthur
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Speaker 1: Henry Johnson. This librovox recording is in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: Read by Pamel and Agami, Chapter seventeen, Norman Administration, Part one.
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Speaker 1: The great constitutional work of the Anglo Norman period was,
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Speaker 1: as we have seen, the organization of administrative routine. The
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Speaker 1: Norman king was virtually a despotic sovereign. William gained England
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Speaker 1: at a time when the theoretical powers of the Anglo
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Speaker 1: Saxon king were at their highest, and to these he
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Speaker 1: added the prerogatives of the feudal sovereign, without the practical
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Speaker 1: limits which abroad were found in the independence of the
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Speaker 1: feudal vassals. The nobles enjoyed none of the semi royal rites,
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Speaker 1: or jurisdiction or taxation in their domains, And when William
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Speaker 1: the First exacted the oath of homage from every subject
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Speaker 1: at the Council of Serum, he destroyed even the authority
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Speaker 1: which the feudal vassals abroad enjoyed over their sub vassals.
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Speaker 1: The wee Tangamote, which under the Anglo Saxons had served
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Speaker 1: as a constitutional check on the powers of the king,
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Speaker 1: was turned into a feudal court, the creature and servant
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Speaker 1: of the sovereign. The king became the lord and source
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Speaker 1: of all justice, and there was no authority in theory
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Speaker 1: or in practice which could gainsay his will. One limit
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Speaker 1: alone remained. The crown still in theory, remained elective, and
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Speaker 1: the right of deposition was preserved. Hence the kings, as
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Speaker 1: in the case of Rufus Henry I and Stephen, were
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Speaker 1: forced to secure their title by concessions, which, unfortunately there
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Speaker 1: was no constitutional means of enforcing. The king, thus powerful
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Speaker 1: in theory and in practice, the chief interest in Norman
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Speaker 1: times necessarily centers around his person, and all that England
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Speaker 1: then gained must be attributed to the royal authority and
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Speaker 1: to the officials who surrounded him. The most important of
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Speaker 1: these originally were the high Steward, the Chamberlain, the constable,
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Speaker 1: officers exclusively of the royal household, which, though not without
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Speaker 1: analogies and Anglo Saxon times, had been copied by the
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Speaker 1: Norman dukes from the old officials of the carollings of
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Speaker 1: these officers. The high Steward or seneschal acted as supreme
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Speaker 1: official in the royal court. The Chamberlain was the financial
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Speaker 1: officer of the royal household. The Constable was the quartermaster
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Speaker 1: general of the royal Army. He mustered the forces and
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Speaker 1: ordered their disposition on service. He paid the mercenaries, and
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Speaker 1: had the jurisdiction over offenses against the laws of war
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Speaker 1: and other disputes in the army. The Constable subsequently shared
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Speaker 1: his powers with the Marshal and officer of later creation, who,
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Speaker 1: besides the share he had in the duties of the constable,
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Speaker 1: took a special cognizance of disputes in the court itself.
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Speaker 1: The steward, the Constable, and the Marshal each had their
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Speaker 1: separate courts independent of the common law, and in later
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Speaker 1: times these were the object of much complaint, as interfering
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Speaker 1: with the right of a subject to be tried by
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Speaker 1: his peers. By the side of these officers of the household,
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Speaker 1: there rapidly rose a ministerial class who soon supplanted them.
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Speaker 1: The household offices became hereditary in certain families, definitely in
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Speaker 1: the reign of Henry the Second, and fell back into
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Speaker 1: an honorable position, but one of secondary constitutional importance. The
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Speaker 1: ministerial officers are chiefly these the justiciary the Treasurer the Chancellor.
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Speaker 1: Of these, the justiciary was in the Norman times by
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Speaker 1: far the most important. The origin of the office is obscure.
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Speaker 1: It was unknown abroad before the Norman conquest, and was
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Speaker 1: therefore of purely Anglo Norman creation. The first justiciary was
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Speaker 1: William fitz Osberne, the Steward or Seneschal of William, and
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Speaker 1: this has been taken as an indication that the origin
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Speaker 1: is to be sought in the seneschal ship, the duties
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Speaker 1: of which were transferred to this new office. However, this
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Speaker 1: may be Ronald Flambard, the oppressive minister of William, Rufus,
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Speaker 1: must be considered the first consolidator of the office, and
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Speaker 1: Roger of Salisbury, the famous Minister of Henry, the first
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Speaker 1: the final organizer of its duties, his powers growing side
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Speaker 1: by side with the advancing centralization of government when they
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Speaker 1: reached their climax in the reign of Henry. The first
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Speaker 1: were these. He was ex officio regent of the Kingdom
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Speaker 1: and the king's absence. He was the President of the
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Speaker 1: Couria Regies and of its Financial Committee or Session the Exchequer.
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Speaker 1: And he united in his own person all the rights
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Speaker 1: and duties of supreme, financial, judicial and executive officer. He
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Speaker 1: was surrounded by a number of officers who, when sitting
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Speaker 1: in the courier regies, were called justices, but in the
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Speaker 1: exchequer barons of the Exchequer. Representing the king. The Justiciary
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Speaker 1: went his circuits, by which he kept the local courts
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Speaker 1: in due subordination, watching over the financial privileges of the king,
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Speaker 1: and held periodical jail deliveries. Already in the time of
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Speaker 1: Henry the First, as we have seen, his own officers
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Speaker 1: of justices were beginning to take his place, owing to
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Speaker 1: press of business and increasing centralization to become under Henry
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Speaker 1: the Second, the itinerant justices with regular and fixed circuits.
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Speaker 1: The Justiciary from the time of Ranolph Flambard was universally
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Speaker 1: an ecclesiastic, probably to prevent the great powers of the
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Speaker 1: office from becoming the prerogative of any one family or
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Speaker 1: in any sense hereditary, and because churchmen alone could be
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Speaker 1: trusted to administer these distinctly anti feudal duties faithfully. Next
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Speaker 1: to the Justiciary came the treasurer. To him was entrusted
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Speaker 1: the keeping of the royal treasure of Winchester. He was
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Speaker 1: an important officer in the exchequer, and received the accounts
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Speaker 1: of the sheriff in that court. The Chancellor. This officer,
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Speaker 1: who in after times became the most important of all
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Speaker 1: and the second subject of the realm, next to the archbishop,
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Speaker 1: stood only third in normanheimes. The office appears in England
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Speaker 1: as early as the reign of Edward the Confessor, and
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Speaker 1: was probably derived from the Archicancollarius of the Carollings. The
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Speaker 1: derivation of the name Conkelly or screen behind which the
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Speaker 1: secretarial work of the household was carried on, tells us
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Speaker 1: of his duties. He was the Secretary of State and
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Speaker 1: chief of the clerks of the King's court. Always an ecclesiastic,
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Speaker 1: he held the position of chief chaplain to the King.
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Speaker 1: He kept the King's conscience as the phrase went, and
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Speaker 1: administered the revenues of vacant benefices until they were filled up.
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Speaker 1: All these officials were members of the Curia Ragies. This
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Speaker 1: term seems to be applied indiscriminately to the Committee of
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Speaker 1: the Commune Conchilium and to the supreme judicial court of
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Speaker 1: the Realm, and it is by no means improbable that
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Speaker 1: they were originally one and the same the Committee of
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Speaker 1: the National Council administering justice in virtue of the King's
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Speaker 1: assumed presents there or the King's Judicial Court usurping the
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Speaker 1: legislative functions of the National Council. It is, however, with
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Speaker 1: the Curia Ragies as a judicial court, that we are
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Speaker 1: now concerned again. Many opinions have been held as to
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Speaker 1: the origin of this court. Some claim for it a
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Speaker 1: purely Saxon origin and look upon it as representing the
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Speaker 1: Committee of the old Wittenkamote. By others it is declared
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Speaker 1: to be of purely Norman growth. The truth seems to
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Speaker 1: lie between no doubt. The Dukes of Normandy had their
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Speaker 1: Curia ducas or feudal court, in common with other feudatories.
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Speaker 1: This they brought with them to England, and, uniting it
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Speaker 1: with the Committee of the Wittankamote, turned it into the
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Speaker 1: Curia Regees. For the rest its powers were of gradual growth,
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Speaker 1: and as they appear under Henry, the first were different
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Speaker 1: at once from its Anglo Saxon and Norman prototypes, a
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Speaker 1: court of Anglo Norman creation and organization with a double origin.
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Speaker 1: The Couria Reeghies, then as a judicial court, was the
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Speaker 1: court of the King, sitting to administer justice with his councilors.
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Speaker 1: These were theoretically all the members of the National Council,
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Speaker 1: practically the great officers of state, and a few expressly
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Speaker 1: summoned justices, and in the absence of the King, it
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Speaker 1: was presided over by the Justiciary. Its original jurisdiction extended
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Speaker 1: to disputes between the tenants in chief and in other
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Speaker 1: cases where leave had been obtained, but its more important
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Speaker 1: duties belonged to it as a court of appeal from
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Speaker 1: the inferior courts. In this way, the local courts were
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Speaker 1: united to the central courts, and this connection was much
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Speaker 1: increased when the justices of the Supreme Court became itinerant justices,
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Speaker 1: or were made sheriffs, as was the policy of Henry
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Speaker 1: the First. When sitting for financial purposes, it was called
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Speaker 1: the Exchequer, and since in Norman times the financial necessities
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Speaker 1: of the king were the primary motives in developing the
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Speaker 1: judicial system. This its financial side was the most important.
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Speaker 1: At two full sessions held at Easter and Michaelmas, the
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Speaker 1: sheriff suppeared and paid the farm of the shire, each
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Speaker 1: county share of the Danegeld. The proceeds of the pleas
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Speaker 1: of the Crown and the feudal dues. These, with the
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Speaker 1: sale of offices and exactions under the forest laws, forming
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Speaker 1: the chief incidents of Norman taxation. The farm of the
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Speaker 1: shire was the sum for which the shire was let
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Speaker 1: to the sheriff, who reimbursed himself from the royal dues,
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Speaker 1: the fines in the court, the profits from the royal domains,
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Speaker 1: or from other sources. The Danegeld was a tax levied
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Speaker 1: since Anglo Saxon times for the defense of the realm,
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Speaker 1: but much increased by William the First and Henry the First.
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Speaker 1: The pleas of the Crown were special offenses, the finds
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Speaker 1: of which went directly to the Crown, especially the merred
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Speaker 1: drum or sum of money payable by each hundred in
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Speaker 1: cases where a murder had been committed within their limits.
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Speaker 1: By William the First, this was exacted in cases where
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Speaker 1: the murdered man could not be proved to be an Englishman,
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Speaker 1: and the verdict which settled this was called the presentment
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Speaker 1: of englishry. Of these accounts, the Treasurer and the Chancellor
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Speaker 1: each kept an account termed the pipe Roll of the Treasurer,
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Speaker 1: and the role of the Chancellor. Cases of dispute were
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Speaker 1: settled by the barons of the Exchequer, who went their
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Speaker 1: circuits for this purpose, and these were probably the origin
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Speaker 1: of the later judicial circuits of the justices in Air.
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Speaker 1: Under the Central Court, with its two sides, judicial and financial,
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Speaker 1: worked the local courts of the shire, the hundred and
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Speaker 1: the Manor. These were continued from Anglo Saxon times, and
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Speaker 1: the procedure remained the same, with the addition of the
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Speaker 1: trial by combat in cases where Normans were concerned, and
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Speaker 1: the inquests by sworn jurors for the purpose of gaining
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Speaker 1: information such as that required for the compilation of the
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Speaker 1: Doomsday Survey, for the assessment of taxation, and for the
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Speaker 1: settlement of disputes involving land. In the Shire court, presided
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Speaker 1: over by the Sheriff the King's nominee greater causes civil
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Speaker 1: and criminal were tried. The hundred Court, presided over by
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Speaker 1: the Bailiff, settled small disputes of debt, and when presided
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Speaker 1: over by the Sheriff, was termed the Sheriff's leet. In
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Speaker 1: criminal matters, the Sheriff's tourn for holding views of frank
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Speaker 1: pledge in connection with the system of police. The bond
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Speaker 1: between these courts and the central court was very slight
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Speaker 1: at first, and it was the work of the Norman
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Speaker 1: period to draw it tighter. William the First had, for
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Speaker 1: this purpose resorted to the custom of holding three annual
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Speaker 1: sessions of the courierraegies in the three great towns of
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Speaker 1: the South Westminster, Winchester and Gloucester. Henry the First sent
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Speaker 1: his barons of the exchequer to sit in the county
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Speaker 1: court for the assessment of revenue. The justices in his
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Speaker 1: rain also began to go their circuits, and were often
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Speaker 1: themselves made sheriffs, by which the subordination of these local
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Speaker 1: courts was effectually secured. Besides these popular courts, there existed
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Speaker 1: also the manorial courts, the forest courts, and the courts
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Speaker 1: of the enfranchised boroughs. End of Section twenty six