World History

9.

Articles from the Assize of Northampton.

1176 (Latin text, Stubbs, Select Charters, ninth edition, pp. 179–181. Translation by the editor.)

1. If any one shall be charged before the justices of the lord king with murder or theft or robbery, or with the reception of men doing such things, or with falsifying1 or arson, by the oath of twelve knights of the hundred, and if knights are not present, by the oath of twelve free, legal2 men, and by the oath of four men of each vill of the hundred, let him go to the judgment of water, and if he fail let him lose one foot. And at Northampton it was added for rigor of justice that likewise he lose his right hand with his foot, and that he abjure the kingdom, and that he leave the kingdom within forty days. And if he has been cleared at the water, let him find pledges and remain in the kingdom, unless he has been charged with murder or other heinous crime by the community of the county and of the legal knights of the locality, with which, if he has been charged in the aforesaid way, although he has been safe at the water, nevertheless within forty days let him leave the kingdom, and let him take his chattels with him, saving the right of his lords, and let him abjure the kingdom at the mercy of the lord king.

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4. Also if any freeholder dies let his heirs remain in such seisin as their father had of his fief on the day of his death; and let them have his chattels, Whence they may satisfy the will of the deceased; and afterward let them seek their lord and from their fief let them pay him relief and do the other things which they ought to do for him. And if there be an heir under age, let the lord of the fief receive his homage and have him in wardship as long as he should. And let the other lords, if there be several, receive his homage, and let him do for them what he ought to do. And let the wife of the deceased have her dowry and the portion of his chattels which pertains to her. And if the lord of the fief refuse the deceased’ heirs the seisin of the said deceased which they ask, let the justices of the lord king cause a recognition to be made by twelve legal men as to What seisin the deceased had of it on the day of his death; and according to the recognition, let them restitution to the heirs. And if any one do contrary to this and be convicted of it, let him remain at the king’ mercy.

5. And the justices of the lord king shall cause inquest to be made concerning disseisins committed contrary to the Assize since the lord king came into England next after the conclusion of peace between him and the king his son.

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1 Probably the generale crimen falsi referred to by Glanville, Bk. xiv, ch. 7, where it is taken up in connection with the other crimes mentioned in the present category. Glanville says that this general crime of falsifying has several specific forms, as falsifying charters, measures, money, etc. Ducange limits the falsoneria of the Assize of Northampton to counterfeiting money and cites the present passage in illustration, while Maitland (History of English Law, I, 152) translates it "forgery."

2 The word translated "legal" or "lawful" in this and similar connections indicates men whose oaths were presumably good; that is, men who had never been found perjurers.