Government in Norman and Angevin England
The resulting civil war, known as the Anarchy, weakened royal authority and ended in a negotiated settlement whereby Matilda's son succeeded Stephen as Henry II.
John was the first English king since the Conquest to spend large amounts of time in England; however, his tyrannical behavior turned the barons against him.
They forced John to agree to Magna Carta, which would have critical constitutional implications for England's late medieval government.
[4] The Normans introduced feudalism, which created stronger and multi-generational ties between lords and vassals and became the basis of English land law.
William the Conqueror claimed ownership of all land in England,[note 1] making all Englishmen directly or indirectly tenants of the Crown.
After William's death on the White Ship, Henry designated his daughter, Empress Matilda, as his heir and made the barons swear fealty to her on three occasions.
[13] After Henry I died, Matilda's cousin, Stephen of Blois, won support for his accession by making concessions to various barons.
Henry I had himself elected by a small group of barons at Winchester after his older brother, William Rufus, died in a hunting accident.
[15] Henry II added "dei gratia" (Latin for "by the grace of God") to the royal style, but the idea that kings rule by divine sanction was much older.
It lasted only three days between the death of William Rufus and the crowning of Henry I, who wanted to secure the throne for himself while his elder brother Robert Curthose was in Normandy.
As part of the ceremony, the king swore a three-fold oath to protect the church and Christian people, to prohibit crime, and to rule with justice and mercy.
[22] The Glanvill legal treatise, written during the reign of Henry II, states "quod principi placuit legis habet vigorem" (in English "what pleases the prince has the force of law").
Kings periodically enlarged the curia regis by summoning large numbers of barons and bishops to discuss important national business and promulgate legislation.
As tenants-in-chief, earls, barons, bishops, and abbots owed their lord the king their attendance and advice when summoned to his court.
While some barons always attended, the composition varied each time the curia met, depending on who received a writ of summons from the king.
The cause of this transition were new financial burdens imposed by the Crown to finance the Third Crusade, ransom Richard I, and pay for the series of Anglo-French wars fought between the Plantagenet and Capetian dynasties.
[62] England was ultimately divided into 39 counties, which existed with only minor boundary changes until 1974 when the Local Government Act 1972 went into effect.
[64] His jobs included:[65] Once a sheriff paid the county farm to the exchequer, he kept any excess revenue derived from royal lands.
This trend was reversed under Henry I, who preferred his sheriffs to be clerks or knights drawn either from the royal household or the local civil service.
[67][68] The palatine counties (such as Cheshire and Durham) enjoyed autonomy from royal control because they were located along the Welsh or Scottish borders.
[69] At the time of the Conquest, England was highly urbanised compared to other parts of Europe, even though only ten per cent of people lived in towns.
Twice a year the hundred court met with the sheriff presiding to ensure that every free adult male was part of a tithing.
[77] Initially, important cases were heard coram rege (Latin for "in the presence of the king himself") with the advice of his curia regis.
But the growth of the legal system required specialization, and the judicial functions of the curia regis were delegated to two courts sitting at Westminster Hall.
[86] Henry II instituted the general eyres in which a group of between two and nine itinerant justices were assigned a circuit of counties to visit.
Manorial courts had jurisdiction over "debt under forty shillings, contracts and conventions made within the power of the lord, cattle wounding [and other sorts of things], damage to crops by animals, assault not leading to bloodshed, trespass or damaging of timber where the king's peace was not involved ..."[89] Tenants-in-chief possessed fiefs called "honours" made up of many different manors scattered over several shires.
[92] In Norman times, court procedure involved the pleadings of the parties, information supplied by juries, documentary evidence, and witness testimony.
[97] The Assize of Clarendon of 1166 required that juries of presentment identify those "accused or notoriously suspect of being a robber, murderer or thief" and provide this information to the itinerant judges when they visited the county.
[99] In civil cases, such as land disputes, the Grand Assize of 1179 gave defendants the option of having the matter settled by a jury of twelve knights instead of trial by battle.
The king and magnates retained professional household troops (see housecarl), and all free men were obligated to perform military service in the fyrd.
