The Constitutional History of England, in Its Origin and Development, Volume 1Clarendon Press, 1874 - Constitutional history |
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Common terms and phrases
Alfred ancient Anglia Anglo-Saxon archbishop assembly Assize Assize of Clarendon barons Bede bishops Canterbury Canute century character Chron church clergy comitatus comites connexion Conq Conqueror Conquest constitutional coronation council court crown Curia Regis customs Danegeld Danes Danish Dipl Domesday ealdorman earl earldom ecclesiastical Edgar Edward the Confessor election England English estates Ethelred Exchequer existence feudal folkland Frank Freeman German gesith Gneist grant guild held Henry Henry II hereditary Hist Hoveden hundred Ibid John judicial jurisdiction jury justice justiciar Kemble Kent king king's kingdom knights land Lanfranc legislation lord Maurer ment Mercia Norman Normandy Northumbria oath officers omnes organisation Palgrave peace Pipe Roll political principle probably quod regni reign Richard Robert royal scarcely scutage Select Charters sheriff shire Stephen tenure territorial thegn tion township vassals Waitz wergild Wessex whilst Winchester witan witenagemot
Popular passages
Page 530 - The Great Charter is the first great public act of the nation, after it has realised its own identity : the consummation of .the work for which unconsciously kings, prelates, and lawyers have been labouring for a century. There is not a word in it that recalls the distinctions of race and blood, or that maintains the differences of English and Norman law. It is in one view the...
Page 326 - Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot and I may not tell of all the wounds, and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land ; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse.
Page 251 - ... kinsmen and servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in the surrender by land-owners of their estates to churches or powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as tenants for rent or service.
Page 325 - In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did that which was right in his own eyes." But it was worse in England in King Stephen's days. For because then the king was powerless, and...
Page 173 - Saxons, shewed these to all my ' witan,' and they then said that it seemed good to them all to be holden. Cap. 4. If any one plot against the king's life, of himself, or by harbouring of exiles, or of his men ; let him be liable in his life and in all that he has.
Page 250 - ... obligation of service and defence : the lord to protect his vassal, the vassal to do service to his lord; the defence and service being based on and regulated by the nature and extent of the land held by the one of the other.
Page 621 - The humble processes by which men had made their by-laws in the manorial courts and amerced the offenders; by which they had assessed the estates or presented the report of their neighbours; by which they had learned to work with the judges of the king's court for the determination of questions of custom, right, justice, and equity, were the training for the higher functions, in which they were to work out the right of taxation, legislation, and political determination on national action.
Page 265 - It is a measure of precaution taken against the disintegrating power of feudalism, providing a direct tie between the sovereign and all freeholders which no inferior relation existing between them and the mesne lords would justify them in breaking.
Page 467 - Whether or no it owes some part of its importance to the loss of the legal enactments that had preceded it, it is the most important document of the nature of law, or edict, that has appeared since the Conquest ; and, whether it be regarded in its bearing on legal history, or in its ultimate constitutional results, it has the greatest interest. The council in which it was passed is described as consisting of the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and barons of all England ; Becket, however, was...
Page 226 - The recognition of the legal obligation of tithe dates from the eighth century, both on the continent and in England. In AD 779 Charles the Great ordained that every one should pay tithe, and that the...