Crime, Courts and Punishment in Edward's England

The Reach of the King’s Justice

When Edward I came to the throne in 1272, the king’s justice was already the most centralised in Europe. Henry II had built a system of royal courts, royal writs and travelling judges that could pull cases out of local lords’ hands and into the king’s. Edward inherited this machine and sharpened it. By the 1280s a peasant in a Lincolnshire village or a merchant in a Cornish port could expect a royal judge to ride into his county at least once every few years to hear major crimes. The result was a kingdom where the law of the land — what historians later called the common law — really did reach into the localities.

The Royal Courts at Westminster

By Edward’s reign three permanent benches met at Westminster. The Court of King’s Bench handled major criminal cases and offences against the king. The Court of Common Pleas dealt with civil disputes between subjects, especially over land. The Exchequer of Pleas handled cases concerning royal revenue. Each had its own chief justice, its own clerks and its own books of pleadings, with judgements gradually building up the case law that lawyers cited for centuries.

Most ordinary people, though, never travelled to Westminster. The king’s justice came to them. Travelling judges — the eyre — toured the counties in great circuits, hearing every Crown plea outstanding. The eyre was a major event: it pulled together every coroner’s roll, every escaped prisoner, every claim of liberty. Because it was so heavy, by Edward’s reign the eyre was being supplemented by faster assize commissions, which dealt with specific cases on a short list and could be issued more often.

From Trial by Ordeal to Trial by Jury

In 1215 the Pope had banned clergy from taking part in trial by ordeal, which had relied on a priest blessing the iron or the water. English judges responded by turning to the jury — twelve men of the neighbourhood who decided whether an accused was guilty. By Edward’s reign trial by jury was the standard route for serious crime. There were two stages: a presenting jury (called the grand jury) listed those suspected of crimes, and a trial jury (the petit jury) decided whether each was guilty. Witnesses were sometimes called, but the jurors were expected to know local reputations themselves — a far more local kind of justice than today’s.

A defendant who refused to plead at all could be sentenced to peine forte et dure — pressed under heavy stones until they pleaded or died. The system was harsh, but it was at least public, regular and (compared with the older ordeals) rational.

The Statute of Winchester, 1285

In October 1285 Edward issued the Statute of Winchester, the most significant piece of legislation on local policing in the medieval period. It built on the older Anglo-Saxon system of frankpledge — collective responsibility — and gave it teeth.

Every man between fifteen and sixty had to keep arms suited to his rank, from a knight’s sword and lance down to a peasant’s bow and arrows. A formal watch was set in each town, with gates closed at sunset; strangers entering after dark could be arrested. When a crime was reported, anyone hearing the alarm had to raise the hue and cry and join the chase. If the criminal was not caught, the whole hundred — the local administrative district — was collectively fined. Crucially, hedges and undergrowth within 200 feet of major roads had to be cleared so that highwaymen had nowhere to hide.

Punishment as Public Spectacle

Medieval punishment was meant to be seen. Petty offenders — thieves, fraudsters and brewers selling short measures — were placed in the pillory in the market place, where neighbours could mock or pelt them with rotten food. The stocks held offenders by the feet. Felons sentenced to death were hanged at the town gallows, often on market day, so that the largest possible crowd would witness the sentence. Bodies were sometimes left to rot in chains as a warning to travellers.