Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-7bb8b95d7b-wpx69 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-09-17T16:23:09.225Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

2 - The Treatise Writers and the English Law of Treason at the End of the Thirteenth Century

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 October 2009

Get access

Summary

Bracton's definition of treason in his De Legibus et Consuetudinibus Angliae or rather that definition as refined by the later writers Fleta and Britton was the terminus a quo for all later declaration of law in that field. The works of Fleta and Britton were compiled at least a generation after Bracton's De Legibus and were based largely upon it. They do however help to establish more precisely how the law of treason stood at the time of Edward I. Bracton, Fleta and Britton each included the killing of the king or plotting to kill the king and Bracton and Fleta appended the mere giving of assent to such a scheme. Britton held it was treason to disinherit the king of his kingdom as it was to kill the king's father, mother, consort or children. Only Bracton included the concealment of a knowledge of a traitorous plot in as many words. Unlike the other two writers Britton distinguished between great and little treason. These were not the same as the crimes referred to in the 1352 act as high and petty treason. Great treason was not only to procure the death of the king but also to kill one's own lord or to violate his wife or daughters. One treason on which all the three writers were in agreement was forgery. This was held to include the counterfeiting of false coin, the clipping of good coin and the falsifying of the king's seal. The Mirror of Justices, written about 1290 and attributed to Andrew Horn, chamberlain of London, seems to have owed less to Bracton than did Fleta and Britton.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1970

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×