2b information (from wilkes pp 22 5)

Could you get justice in the Middle Ages?

Who caught the criminals?

There were no policemen in the Middle Ages. The Anglo-Saxons placed crime prevention squarely on the local community through the tithing, the Hue and Cry, and the posse comitatus.

The tithing was a group of ten people. Everyone had to be a member of a tithing and each had to take responsibility for the others. Thus if any one member of the tithing broke the law the others had to take responsibility for getting the accused to court. If they failed, they would face punishment themselves. The hue and cry meant that anyone wronged could call upon everyone else in a community to chase a criminal simply by calling out for them to do so. Again, if they did not respond all the community was in the wrong. The posse comitatus could be raised by the king's county official, the sheriff, to chase a criminal. Anyone called upon to join it had to do so.

This system obviously has its roots in a time when the king -the government - has almost no paid officials. This worked when everybody lived in small, stable communities where everyone knew each other, but by the later medieval period new systems were needed. Towns were growing and these larger communities had to appoint their own officials called constables/watchmen/beadles, to keep the peace. Some places set up a watch – a group of people who patrolled the streets at night and a constable was chosen to coordinate the watch. They weren’t particularly popular jobs. People didn’t get paid and you lost a lot of sleep whilst walking around the streets all night. As a result, watchmen and constables didn’t always do their job properly. If they did, they might be chosen again!

The more powerful and better off people in a local area felt they should control local crimes and their prevention. Gradually a new position was set up: the Justice of the Peace -JP. They were not elected by the local community, but appointed by the King. They were thus part of a move towards central control over law and order. A system in which everyone was involved was giving way to one in which law enforcement was the job of certain people.

Where were criminals put on trial?

Most crimes were dealt with in the Manor Court. This met several times a year, usually in the landowner’s manor house. Here, the lord or his representative acted as judge and he would collect taxes from the villagers and sort out any arguments or problems concerning law and order. The Manor Court dealt with small crimes, such as failing to keep your dog under control or selling weak ale. A jury of 12 decided whether they thought the prisoner was guilty or not and the judge chose the punishment. Sometimes, a

Could you get justice in the Middle Ages? judge may have recommended that a crime was too serious to deal with and sent it to the County (or Shire) court, which met twice a year. This court acted in the name of the King and was sometimes known as the Royal Court.

Henry II made a number of key changes to the legal system; he decided that trials by ordeal weren’t fair so widely extended the judge and jury system. He appointed honest lawyers to tour the country and hold regular courts, hoping that these would be fairer and more consistent than some of the Manor Courts.

Trial by jury took over as the official method of trial in any Royal Court.

How were criminals punished?

This was a mainly law-abiding time, with a powerful Church which taught a duty to be merciful. With communities in charge of crime prevention and detection, punishments had to be simple and generally seen to be fair. Fierce, physical punishments like mutilation (cutting off part of the offender's body), common in earlier periods, were now rarely used. Public humiliation or ‘showing’ was common; a pair of street fighters might be sentenced to spend some time in the stocks or pillory. For small crimes, a fine was still the most common punishment but in some cases the judge may have made the punishment fit the crime e.g. a fishmonger who sold bad fish might have his goods tied around his neck while he was dragged through the streets, On the other hand, there was no police force, so serious offences had to be dealt with firmly and quickly. The death penalty was used quite often.

Those in authority who operated the system of justice did not expect to have to spend lots of money on it. Expensive punishments, like prison (gaol, as they called it) were not often used. There were gaols, often in the dungeons of castles, but criminals were not routinely sent there.