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 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
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
The familiar modern theory of the ‘separation of powers’ makes it particularly difficult to classify and to analyse the varied functions of a judge as performed in the fourteenth century. Twentieth-century habits of thought lead one to try to distinguish between Shareshull's ‘judicial’ career and his ‘political’ career in parliament and council. But the fallacy of the distinction when applied to a public servant under Edward III is obvious. The well-known term, ‘high court of parliament’, the various judicial procedures in parliament, the frequency with which the council in, or outside of, parliament, acted as a judicial body, long before the development of star chamber or of chancery as a court of equity—all warn us that taxation, legislation, diplomatic arrangements, general supervision of the country, do not in this period constitute the sole business of parliament, increasingly important although they have become. Yet it still remains true that the major part of the routine work in common law was dealt with by common pleas and king's bench and by innumerable itinerant commissions, and that the judicial work of parliament was more often (not exclusively) concerned with supplying remedies not easily secured in the ordinary courts by ordinary methods. However artificial and unintelligible the distinction would have appeared to Shareshull and his associates, for convenience of treatment it has seemed wise to attempt to describe his ‘political’ separately from his ‘judicial’ career, with constant emphasis on the interrelation between the two.
Nowhere is there a greater difference between modern and medieval concepts and phraseology than in the use of the words ‘parliament’ and ‘ council’. This is not the place to enter into the long controversy; it is sufficient to state that I have accepted Plucknett's view as against that of Richardson and Sayles and therefore for 1327-36 have listed in Appendix II (2) under the heading ‘parliament’ an assembly of magnates, lay and spiritual, if the commons were also summoned, reserving the vague term ‘great council’ for those assemblies of magnates to which no commons were summoned.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Place in Legal History of Sir William ShareshullChief Justice of the King's Bench 1350–1361, pp. 28 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2013