Criminal Law

In the EF period, if a crime was committed, a complaint had to be sworn to the local court. A number of witnesses were required to back the accused up and swear to their good name (usually 12, although an oath-taker of high rank could reduce this number). If an accused could not provide men to swear (or not enough), they could undertake trial by ordeal or pay le chefe, a fine based on weregeld. Additionally, if unable (or unwilling) to undertake such actions, an accused could run. However, this was seen as an admission of guilt and marked them as an outlaw; they forfeited all goods and could be killed on sight as a ‘wolf’s-head’.

During the EF period in some countries, such as England, a trial by combat, or by ordeal, was mandatory in serious cases–unless the accuser was female, which led to women often bringing such actions).

Communal responsibility was often enforced for payment of fines and in the instances of the non appearance of accused parties–those helping an outlaw being guilty of committing the crime of Aiding and Abetting, which carried the same sentence as that faced by the outlaw. From the HC period non-appearance in court after multiple summons (usually five) would result in being declared an outlaw.

However, as societies grew more complex, Roman law came to play more of a part in legal procedure, with rulers increasingly regarding all violent offences as being subject to royal authority. Each administrative sub-region providing sworn witnesses to the royal official (In England each hundred elected 12 witnesses, and each tithing 4), and who acted as a jury of investigatory assistants to the Shire Reeve. Having ascertained the facts (or swept them under the carpet), they informed the authorities and answered from their local knowledge to a royal judge.

After the abandonment of Trial by Ordeal, a second jury (sometimes called a Petit Jury) sat to determine the accused’s guilt. Witnesses from the first trial might serve again, possibly hindering the overturning of verdicts. In very serious cases a ruler might call yet more juries–until a more agreeable verdict was reached, although this was only usually done in cases of treason and killings (where a ruler might desire to intervene for political reasons).

However, as peasants became more legally astute, they increasingly used the law to make their positions more comfortable at the expense of their lords. The trouble for fief holders was that all witnesses and jurors were local men, and thus tenants–and getting them to side against one of their own could be very difficult, especially in a distant fief that had to be administered by a deputy (seneschal, chamberlain or castellan). Appeals merely went to another petit jury, again made up of locals! Thus compromise agreements and tradition often held sway.