Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- 1 The Promulgation of the Law in Anglo-Saxon England
- 2 The Enforcement of the Law in Anglo-Saxon England
- 3 A Norman Yoke?
- 4 Henry II and the Creation of the Common Law
- 5 Becket and Criminous Clergy
- 6 The Achievement of Henry II
- 7 Magna Carta
- 8 From Ordeal to Jury
- 9 Legal Eagles
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
6 - The Achievement of Henry II
from PART I - LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 May 2015
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- Abbreviations
- Introduction
- PART I LAYING DOWN THE LAW: 600–1500
- 1 The Promulgation of the Law in Anglo-Saxon England
- 2 The Enforcement of the Law in Anglo-Saxon England
- 3 A Norman Yoke?
- 4 Henry II and the Creation of the Common Law
- 5 Becket and Criminous Clergy
- 6 The Achievement of Henry II
- 7 Magna Carta
- 8 From Ordeal to Jury
- 9 Legal Eagles
- PART II CONFLICT OF LAWS: 1500–1766
- PART III THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE LAW
- PART IV THE RULE OF LAW: 1907–2014
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Not only must royal power be furnished with arms against rebels and nations which rise up against the king and the realm, but it is also fitting that it should be adorned with laws … so that in time of both peace and war our glorious king may so successfully perform his office that, crushing the pride of the unbridled and ungovernable with the right hand of strength and tempering justice for the humble and meek with the rod of equity, he may both be victorious in wars with his enemies and also show himself continually impartial in dealing with his subjects.
Glanvill, PrologueIn the early twelfth century the legal lieutenants who were responsible for the king's justice in the localities had limited authority. As the passive representatives of an absent king they presided over special sessions of a county court where others – local worthies or suitors following local custom – passed judgment. Henry II transformed their status and power. From 1176 the royal justices in eyre made judgments themselves in what was a local session of a national royal court. They were becoming fully-fledged judges with the beginnings of an independent authority, not the mere mouthpieces of the king. For the first time, judgment-making was not subject to the vagaries of local politics, popularity or influence. The judges were royal appointees with no local roots or allegiances.
The first stirrings of a judicial professionalism were being seen, and royal justices would soon have their own headquarters at Westminster Hall and a law manual in Glanvill. The fact that so many early manuscripts of this vademecum survive suggest that each royal justice may have had one. 2 Much of the common law was to be judge-made. If it originated in royal diktat, it developed as a result of a combination of a sensible, if circumscribed, discretionary power which Henry II had conferred on his justices, with their own sense of the importance of consensus and collective wisdom. Royal justices were becoming a corporate body: the judiciary.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Law, Liberty and the ConstitutionA Brief History of the Common Law, pp. 62 - 68Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2015