anglo saxon and norman

• anglo saxon society

  -collective responsibility

  -majority in small communities

  -religion at centre of lives
• anglo saxon policing

  village reeve

  legal blood feuds

  hue and cry

  tithings (10 men, 12+)
• trials by ordeal 


  cold water, hot iron, hot water, blessed bread
• corporal punishment

  maiming, mutilation, stocks and pilary, outlaw, humiliation, branding
• capital punishments

  beheading, wergild, hanging at hundred boundary, buried upside down
• anglo saxon trials

  oath of comprigation

  trial by jury

  swearing of an oath
• norman society


  increased power of church

  increased power of king

  vikings from normandy
• norman policing changes


  forest officials for forest laws

  shire reeve instead of village reeve
• norman punishments


  capital increase (fear of rebellion)

  fines to king

  add eye gouging
• norman trials

  trial by combat added
• 1250-1300


  12 per 100,000 murdered, 5x today, includes suicide
• percentages of crime


  18% against people, 73% against property
• 1320s


  outlaw gangs
• 1450-1500


  army of retainers
• 1295


  establishment of parliament
• 1315-16


  food famine
• 1548-51


  black death, 1/3-1/2 dead
• 1381


  peasants revolt, lead by wat tyler
• 1455-86


  war of the roses
• 1166

  assize of clarendon, royal judges twice a year, created royal justice system
• 1285


  statute of winchester
• 1361


  JPs, quarterly sessions
• 1389


  JPs paid 4 shillings a day
• weak kings

  edward II (gay), richard II (peasant's revolt), henry VI (only 1 when he became king)
• 1275


  redefine felony= rape, murder, treason, burglary and theft
• example of local variation in punishment (till 1350)


  kent buried alive, portsmouth burnt alive
• 1351


  redefines treason= high, petty, counterfeiting coins
• 1401


  heresy punished by burning at stake
• 1414


  JPs arrest heretics
• 1076


  church courts now introduced benefit of clergy, read psalm 51
• 1215

  pope banned trial by ordeal