Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE
- Preface
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- CHAPTER I FAMILY AND ESTATES: History of the Shareshull family and of their landed estates, with special reference to the chief justice
- CHAPTER II PROFESSIONAL CAREER: Shareshull's elementary and legal education; his career as pleader and as judge; his appointments to common pleas, king's bench and exchequer, also to innumerable commissions, special and general
- CHAPTER III PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Shareshull's relations with the king on diplomatic missions and in parliament and council; his work on the private domains of the Black Prince
- CHAPTER IV LEGISLATION: Shareshull's part in framing ordinances and statutes, especially the legal and economic enactments of 1349-52
- CHAPTER V LAW ENFORCEMENT: Shareshull's policy of law enforcement, and of the imposition of huge financial penalties by means of commissions of oyer and terminer and of eyres, by the development of the justices of the peace and of the justices of labourers, and by a novel use of the king's bench
- CHAPTER VI STAFF AND EXPENSES: The enrolment and the preservation of proceedings before Shareshull; his group of trained clerks; arrangements for travelling and for transporting documents, for housing, food and clothing; annual stipends and daily fees
- CHAPTER VII SHARESHULL AND SHARDELOW: An account of the confusion between William Shareshull and his colleague John Shardelow; an attempt at disentangling them
- CHAPTER VIII LEGAL DOCTRINE:Shareshull's judicial pleadings and opinions: his legal thought in general, his learning, his doctrines of private law and of criminal law
- CHAPTER IX VINDICATION OF CHARACTER: Analysis of the charges against Shareshull and of the attitude of his contemporaries towards him; reasons for his retirement to a Franciscan convent
- CHAPTER X His PLACE IN HISTORY: An estimate of Shareshull's personality and of his significance for legal, economic and administrative history
- APPENDIXES
- NOTES
- List of statutes cited
- List of reports of cases cited
- Index
CHAPTER I - FAMILY AND ESTATES: History of the Shareshull family and of their landed estates, with special reference to the chief justice
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2016
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- GENERAL EDITOR'S PREFACE
- Preface
- Introduction
- Abbreviations
- CHAPTER I FAMILY AND ESTATES: History of the Shareshull family and of their landed estates, with special reference to the chief justice
- CHAPTER II PROFESSIONAL CAREER: Shareshull's elementary and legal education; his career as pleader and as judge; his appointments to common pleas, king's bench and exchequer, also to innumerable commissions, special and general
- CHAPTER III PUBLIC AFFAIRS: Shareshull's relations with the king on diplomatic missions and in parliament and council; his work on the private domains of the Black Prince
- CHAPTER IV LEGISLATION: Shareshull's part in framing ordinances and statutes, especially the legal and economic enactments of 1349-52
- CHAPTER V LAW ENFORCEMENT: Shareshull's policy of law enforcement, and of the imposition of huge financial penalties by means of commissions of oyer and terminer and of eyres, by the development of the justices of the peace and of the justices of labourers, and by a novel use of the king's bench
- CHAPTER VI STAFF AND EXPENSES: The enrolment and the preservation of proceedings before Shareshull; his group of trained clerks; arrangements for travelling and for transporting documents, for housing, food and clothing; annual stipends and daily fees
- CHAPTER VII SHARESHULL AND SHARDELOW: An account of the confusion between William Shareshull and his colleague John Shardelow; an attempt at disentangling them
- CHAPTER VIII LEGAL DOCTRINE:Shareshull's judicial pleadings and opinions: his legal thought in general, his learning, his doctrines of private law and of criminal law
- CHAPTER IX VINDICATION OF CHARACTER: Analysis of the charges against Shareshull and of the attitude of his contemporaries towards him; reasons for his retirement to a Franciscan convent
- CHAPTER X His PLACE IN HISTORY: An estimate of Shareshull's personality and of his significance for legal, economic and administrative history
- APPENDIXES
- NOTES
- List of statutes cited
- List of reports of cases cited
- Index
Summary
ORIGIN OF THE FAMILY
WILLIAM SHARESHULL, chief justice of king's bench, 1350-61, was born c. 1289/90 and died early in 1370.
The family name undoubtedly came from the Staffordshire village in Cuttlestone hundred, just north of Wolverhampton, now known as Shareshill. But the name was not confined to Staffordshire; it accompanied the future chief justice to Oxfordshire and transformed his new home, Barton Odonis, a liberty of about 1000 acres, into Barton Shareshull or Shareshull Barton. The hundred and seven variations in spelling are bewildering: some are clearly due to errors of scribes or printers, for example, the substitution of ‘ n ’ for ‘u’ in ‘Sarneshull’ or strange versions like ‘Saleshul’ or ‘Sharghul’, or ‘Schardeshull’ or to phonetic spellings like ‘Charshull’. There is, however, a certain chronological sequence, which is not always strictly adhered to. The eleventh-century ‘Sarechel’ is succeeded by a number of forms beginning with ‘Sar’, changed later into ‘Schar’, and ending with ‘hill’, ‘hulf’ or ‘hull’. The V vanishes from the Staffordshire placename before it does from the personal name, but by the second decade of the fourteenth century ‘Shareshulle’ is rivalling ‘Schareshulle’ as a surname. As Pike noted, the former is found in Latin records, the latter in French reports. The only personal signature of the chief justice that has come to my attention is at the end of a French letter of 1354 enrolled in an abbot's register: ‘Par William de Shareshulle.’ That the final ‘ e ’ should soon completely vanish is almost inevitable. By about 1400 ‘ Shareshull’ is usual for the family name and ‘ Shareshill ’ for the Staffordshire village. The name of the Oxfordshire village, with the disappearance of the Shareshull male line and therefore with a growing ignorance of the Staffordshire background, undergoes strange vicissitudes, such as ‘Barton Chershill’ or ‘Barton Sherswell’, finally becoming ‘ Sesswell Barton’, and surviving on maps of a little over a century ago as ‘Seswell Farm’.
The connexion of the village of Shareshill with Oxfordshire had not originated with the Shareshulls.
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- The Place in Legal History of Sir William ShareshullChief Justice of the King's Bench 1350–1361, pp. 1 - 13Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013