Rotuli de Finibus Tempore Regis Johannis

[Jan Wolfe]

In the Rotuli de Finibus Tempore Regis Johannis, I would appreciate assistance in expanding the abbreviations in the entry for Northumberland on page 304 in Membrane 14
https://books.google.com/books?id=rIVTAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA304
What was the role of Radulf Taillard in this transaction?

[Vance Mead]

I'm going to go out on a limb and saw off the branch behind me.
Here's a start anyway. The words in () I wasn't sure how to expand.

Ric' de Humfravill dat domino Rex i palfrey pro habendo brevium de pace per Radulf Taillard (sen) suum quod non potuit habere (n) per ipsum in propria persona de medietate ville de Nederton de qua tenens; ponit se (in) i magnam assisam.

[Jan Wolfe]

Thank you very much, Vance. Do you think that "sen" could be an abbreviation for seneschal?

[Peter Stewart]

He was Richard de Umfraville's seneschal - the expanded text is:

Ricardus de Humfravilla dat domino regi j. palefridum pro habendo brevi
de pace per Radulfum Taillardum senescallum suum quod non potuit habere
nisi per ipsum in propria persona de medietate ville de Nedertona de qua
tenens est et ponit se inde in magnam assisam.

The fine points of this contretemps had better be explained by someone
more familiar than I am with English feudal administration.

Peter Stewart

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[Jan Wolfe]

Thank you very much, Peter. It's fun to learn a little something about an otherwise obscure ancestor (Radulf Taillard) from so long ago and to have some idea of when and where he lived. According to a 1616 pedigree of the Knightly family, Radulf's daughter Juliana married John de St. John of Hambleton, Rutland.

[Peter Stewart]

I agree with you Jan, though a bit like Humphrey Appleby - "up to a point".

In this case I might be interested like you to learn about Radulf
Taillard, but my eyes would glaze over at what little it tells about
Richard de Umfraville.

A large part of my aversion to English genealogy is caused by the vast
deposit of feudal administrivia that has been preserved. This can leave
a distorted impression of the society it reflects, as if the country was
ruled by and for a class of opportunistic, petty and highly litigious
landholders who spent their lives fussing competitively over status and
possessions.

I find it a relief to know and care much less about what my Scottish and
Continental forebears avidly held onto.

By now I hoped someone would have told us about the pretexts and process
for obtaining briefs of peace from the king. It appears to me that
Richard had tried and failed to get possession of his withheld share of
Netherton through the efforts of his seneschal Radulf and was seeking a
kind of royal injunction to achieve this while a lawsuit over it was
pending - but maybe this is not all there was to it and someone who
knows the appropriate antiquarian jargon could explain what else might
have been going on behind this bare record.

Peter Stewart

[Wibs]

I also agree with you Peter.

I was amazed to read in Marchant's book "The Church under the Law: Justice, Administration and Discipline in the Diocese of York, 1560–1640" that every clergyman and every cathedral dignitary in York, were qualified lawyers. My own research into the probate process in the Northern Province, and the personnel of Chancery and the Privy Seal Office, 1377-1413 showed that almost every clerk was an ordained clergyman.

They were a rapinous lot, given that they had the means and deep enough pockets to see off anyone who complained about their lands and goods being seized, often by the use of forged deeds, and paid witnesses.

England was ruled, not so much by the aristocracy, but by the administrative clerics.

I have often wondered if life was really as litigious as the records suggest.

Wibs

[pj.ev...@gmail.com]

The fictional Temple of the White Rat is like that - they have ranks like advocate divine and solicitor sacrosanct. (That's from T Kingfisher's books, Swordheart and so on.)

[Peter Stewart]

There has been some interesting academic work lately on dispute
resolution in various regions, and a comparative study taking England
under the Angevin kings as the main reference point could provide (if it
hasn't already) a worthwhile PhD subject. For starters, I wonder if the
level of inter-family violence was generally much lower in England than
elsewhere. Given the apparently much higher rate of litigation over
property in England, it ought to be different anyway.

A modern legacy of endless medieval lawsuits over tenancies and
possessions in England is that legal professions throughout the
English-speaking world today seem to be more overpopulated and overpaid
than in other parts of the world, and the legal systems they manipulate
are apparently even more asinine.

Throughout most of the 20th century in legislatures that were
predominantly Anglo-Celtic and male, rule of law degenerated into rule
of lawyers. More diverse representation has diluted the dominance of the
legal profession, but unfortunately the pettiness and self-interested
agenda of the old lawyer fogeys is getting replaced by scatter-brained
craziness and zealotry on the right and undisciplined idealism on the
left - e.g. the Taylor-Greeneing and Gaetzing vs Ocasio-Cortezing of the
US congress.

Peter Stewart

[mbying...@gmail.com]

If I understand this correctly (I am not an expert in the intricacies of feudal law, though I’ve read a bit about it), there has been some dispute conducted at the level of a local court, in which a challenger (not named here) has made some claim on the moiety that Richard de Umfraville holds and has offered to prove his case through the duel. Richard does not want to rely on this method, so he has bought a Writ of Peace from King John so that the case can be decided instead by jurors at a Grand Assize, which shifts the action to the King’s Court. Ralph Taillard is Richard’s steward (seneschal), who actually makes the payment of the palfrey. I suppose the “non potuit habere” means that Richard should have been there in person to get his writ, but there may be some other explanation.
-- Mark Byington

[Peter Stewart]

On 02-Mar-23 8:23 AM, mbying...@gmail.com wrote:
> If I understand this correctly (I am not an expert in the intricacies of feudal law, though I’ve read a bit about it), there has been some dispute conducted at the level of a local court, in which a challenger (not named here) has made some claim on the moiety that Richard de Umfraville holds and has offered to prove his case through the duel. Richard does not want to rely on this method, so he has bought a Writ of Peace from King John so that the case can be decided instead by jurors at a Grand Assize, which shifts the action to the King’s Court. Ralph Taillard is Richard’s steward (seneschal), who actually makes the payment of the palfrey. I suppose the “non potuit habere” means that Richard should have been there in person to get his writ, but there may be some other explanation.

This is not quite how I understood it - there is nothing stated about a
duel, and as far as I can tell the local court would have been under
Richard de Umfraville's control anyway.

I took it to mean (reading "potuit" as a slip for "potuerit") that
Richard as tenant-in-chief was rendering a horse to the king in return
for a brief of peace through his seneschal Radulf Taillard regarding
half of Netherton because he could not obtain it except through Radulf
himself from whom it was held - i.e. I suppose Radulf was Richard's
sub-tenant in Netherton and the problem was with a sub-sub-tenant
refusing to give up part of it.

But this may well be wrong: I am not very conversant with records like
this, as I can't often stay awake when having to read them and would
rather run a mile (which I can't do) than poke into them.

[Jan Wolfe]

The following article requires some serious staying awake effort but provides some information about the legal/land tenure system changes in England during the second half of the 12th century that led to the demise of trial by battle in land disputes: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO.Leeson.Trial_by_Battle.pdf.

See the part about Angevin reforms, such as the introduction of assizes of novel disseisin and mort d'ancestor in 1166 and 1176, and other changes that made alienation of land less costly.

Mark, I am curious about what aspect of the document led you to the idea that it was a response to an offer of trial by dual from a claimant to the property?

[Peter Stewart]

On 03-Mar-23 8:55 AM, Jan Wolfe wrote:
> On Thursday, March 2, 2023 at 12:24:41 AM UTC-5, Peter Stewart wrote:
>> On 02-Mar-23 8:23 AM, mbying...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> If I understand this correctly (I am not an expert in the intricacies of feudal law, though I’ve read a bit about it), there has been some dispute conducted at the level of a local court, in which a challenger (not named here) has made some claim on the moiety that Richard de Umfraville holds and has offered to prove his case through the duel. Richard does not want to rely on this method, so he has bought a Writ of Peace from King John so that the case can be decided instead by jurors at a Grand Assize, which shifts the action to the King’s Court. Ralph Taillard is Richard’s steward (seneschal), who actually makes the payment of the palfrey. I suppose the “non potuit habere” means that Richard should have been there in person to get his writ, but there may be some other explanation.
>> This is not quite how I understood it - there is nothing stated about a
>> duel, and as far as I can tell the local court would have been under
>> Richard de Umfraville's control anyway.
>>
>> I took it to mean (reading "potuit" as a slip for "potuerit") that
>> Richard as tenant-in-chief was rendering a horse to the king in return
>> for a brief of peace through his seneschal Radulf Taillard regarding
>> half of Netherton because he could not obtain it except through Radulf
>> himself from whom it was held - i.e. I suppose Radulf was Richard's
>> sub-tenant in Netherton and the problem was with a sub-sub-tenant
>> refusing to give up part of it.
>>
>> But this may well be wrong: I am not very conversant with records like
>> this, as I can't often stay awake when having to read them and would
>> rather run a mile (which I can't do) than poke into them.
>> Peter Stewart
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> This email has been checked for viruses by AVG antivirus software.
>> www.avg.com
>
> The following article requires some serious staying awake effort but provides some information about the legal/land tenure system changes in England during the second half of the 12th century that led to the demise of trial by battle in land disputes: https://law.yale.edu/sites/default/files/documents/pdf/Intellectual_Life/LEO.Leeson.Trial_by_Battle.pdf.

Thanks Jan - I can readily stay awake through articles like this one,
it's the feudal telegraphese of English administrative records that puts
me to sleep, along with the dreary accountancy of their subject matter.

In this case, with the matter brought up by Richard de Umfraville recast
by the clerk into the third person, it isn't entirely clear to me
whether "ipsum" refers to Radulf Taillard, as I assume makes better
sense, or to Richard himself. If the latter, then it may be that Richard
was trying to displace a sub-tenant in part of Netherton who may have
been enfeoffed there before his time, and that he wanted the king to
authorise his seneschal Radulf to achieve this on his behalf without
Radulf himself holding a sub-tenancy.

> See the part about Angevin reforms, such as the introduction of assizes of novel disseisin and mort d'ancestor in 1166 and 1176, and other changes that made alienation of land less costly.
>
> Mark, I am curious about what aspect of the document led you to the idea that it was a response to an offer of trial by dual from a claimant to the property?

There doesn't appear to be much written about seeking a brief of peace
from the king. Staving off violence would seem to be a likely reason,
but seeing only mentions of this kind of order in similar records
doesn't make its causes or effects very plain.

Peter Stewart

[mbying...@gmail.com]

Jan - Nothing in the entry itself alludes to a duel, of course – the frustrating thing about these legal records is that they are so terse and rarely relate the context in enough detail to make the case fully understandable. But I also would not expect this particular type of entry in a fine roll to mention an impending trial by battle, since the details would have been known to those relevant to the case and need not be written into this record. The purpose of this record is to note that a Writ of Peace was purchased for a palfrey, putting a halt to some previous legal process in a local court until the Grand Assize is assembled to decide the case. I have seen the Writ used more than once to avoid trial by battle in favor of a jury of twelve, but I don’t suppose that has to be the only use for it. As to who was making a claim against Richard de Umfraville, or what kind of claim it was, that information is not made clear in this entry. Peter, your reading seems plausible to me, though I think we’d need more context to be sure. The only cases I remember noticing that involved the Writ of Peace had to do with avoidance of combat (the person buying the writ evidently doubted in his or his champion’s ability to prevail in battle, or he thought his claim was clear enough that a jury would find in his favor – either way, his chances would have been better by the Grand Assize), but I’m sure that’s not the only situation in which it was used. Perhaps the pipe rolls or other plea records would provide more information? But Northumberland doesn’t seem to be well represented among surviving records for John’s reign, at least from what I can see at a quick glance.

[Peter Stewart]

On 03-Mar-23 2:46 PM, mbying...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> Jan - Nothing in the entry itself alludes to a duel, of course – the frustrating thing about these legal records is that they are so terse and rarely relate the context in enough detail to make the case fully understandable. But I also would not expect this particular type of entry in a fine roll to mention an impending trial by battle, since the details would have been known to those relevant to the case and need not be written into this record. The purpose of this record is to note that a Writ of Peace was purchased for a palfrey, putting a halt to some previous legal process in a local court until the Grand Assize is assembled to decide the case. I have seen the Writ used more than once to avoid trial by battle in favor of a jury of twelve, but I don’t suppose that has to be the only use for it. As to who was making a claim against Richard de Umfraville, or what kind of claim it was, that information is not made clear in this entry. Peter, your reading seems plausible to me, though I think we’d need more context to be sure. The only cases I remember noticing that involved the Writ of Peace had to do with avoidance of combat (the person buying the writ evidently doubted in his or his champion’s ability to prevail in battle, or he thought his claim was clear enough that a jury would find in his favor – either way, his chances would have been better by the Grand Assize), but I’m sure that’s not the only situation in which it was used. Perhaps the pipe rolls or other plea records would provide more information? But Northumberland doesn’t seem to be well represented among surviving records for John’s reign, at least from what I can see at a quick glance.

It turns out that my reading is inadequate, since Richard de Umfraville
was not the tenant-in-chief of Netherton but a sub-tenant there and in
other Coquetdale towns of Eustace Tyson and his son William, lords of
Alnwick, who would have controlled the local court. I wonder if Richard
wasn't stepping out of line with his overlord at the time by going to
the king about this - in 1212 John made him surrender Prudhoe castle,
his main stronghold, as security for his good behaviour so he may have
been a persistent trouble-maker.

If the royal stables obtained a horse for the king's intervention every
time some hothead wanted to fight a duel, remounts might have been
supplied well in excess of requirements.

[Jan Wolfe]

Googling "writ of peace" provides links to theses and articles with information consistent with Mark's explanation of the usual purpose of a writ of peace. As Peter notes, the writ process for removing cases from the feudal court to the King's court was a source of substantial revenue to the King. How clever, Henry. This also contributed to the development of English common law. It seems to me that deciding cases by a 12-person jury that considers evidence is a substantial improvement over deciding cases by combat. Good work, Henry, and lawyers.

[Peter Stewart]

Just so - the great underlying and unspoken principle of English law is
to find ways for governments, lawyers and criminals to extract benefit
whenever they can get away with it.

Peter Stewart