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 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
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
Until Shareshull, very fortunately, helped to throw down a fence in 1309 at the age of twenty or thereabouts, his activities in childhood and youth left no apparent trace in material existing to-day. All that his biographer can do therefore is to suggest reasonable hypotheses based on the present knowledge of medieval education in western Europe, and particularly of the possibilities of schooling in Staffordshire, and of the methods by which lawyers were trained; based also on the linguistic and legal learning shown by Shareshull in his later years.
In recent research it has been urged with great show of plausibility that in about 1300, both on the continent and in England, elementary schools were numerous in cathedrals as well as in monasteries, and that competent schoolmasters not only clerical but also lay were to be found in cities and towns and even in villages. Therefore although education was ‘not free in the sense of being gratuitous’, nor ‘compulsory for children of a certain age’, it was accessible to those who wanted it or whose parents wanted it for them. It is emphasized that ordinarily Latin was studied with great thoroughness for a number of years by youths who were going on to higher subjects, philosophy, theology, medicine or law. It is true that plenty of obvious instances occur to one's mind of colossal ignorance of Latin shown for example by the medieval clergy ; but it must be remembered that priests owed their benefices to appointments secured often through favour, whereas at the bar, now that judges were usually chosen from members of a non-clerical group who had won distinction as advocates, a young man of humble origin like Shareshull had to make his way mainly through his own merit; la carriere ouverte aux talents. He could not afford in his professional work to make mistakes in Latin or in law, or to show ignorance of statutes and of previous decisions or of the intricacies of Ancient Demesne tenure.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Place in Legal History of Sir William ShareshullChief Justice of the King's Bench 1350–1361, pp. 14 - 27Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013