raniE
Big Bearded Guy
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I think the whole "peasants had no rights, nobles had all the rights" thing is often very exaggerated. In the 13th and 14th century, juries in manorial courts in England were more often made up of serfs than of free men. Nothing informal about it, these juries are in the court rolls of the manors.
At the same time, peasants had means to avail themselves of several different kinds of courts.
This stuff does not point toward a society where summary judgments were handed out by the lord of the manor and the peasants just had to live with it. We're talking jury trials, several different kinds of courts to choose from to press your claim. And everything was not always rigged in the favor of the lord of the manor either.
The alleged rule that there could not be a manorial jury without the presence of at least two free tenants was evidently no longer observed by the fourteenth century and manorial juries were frequently composed entirely of villeins. Indeed there were cases in several manors where free men chosen to serve on a jury objected to doing so on the grounds that they were free.
At the same time, peasants had means to avail themselves of several different kinds of courts.
The common law courts were growing throughout the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, expanding their jurisdiction over civil litigation through the development of the forms of action, but they did not provide quick, simple and accessible justice in minor local disputes. With the decline of the eyre by the fourteenth century, the ability of poor local residents to obtain justice without formality or expense declined, since they would usually lack the means to buy a writ or to cope with the technicalities of the common law, with all its complexities, without legal representation. A case in the manorial court could be commenced by a simple oral plaint or plea, whereas at common law the complainant would need to obtain the correct writ in accordance with the developing knowledge of the forms of action.
This stuff does not point toward a society where summary judgments were handed out by the lord of the manor and the peasants just had to live with it. We're talking jury trials, several different kinds of courts to choose from to press your claim. And everything was not always rigged in the favor of the lord of the manor either.
It is received wisdom that the jury was a salutary counterbalance to the power of the steward in the manorial courts and that the power of the jury decreased in the fourteenth century, as the steward became more powerful, and the use of special juries, summoned to decide a question of the lord’s interests, increased. However the jury was still a living and important part of manorial justice in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when the rolls continue to report juries exerting their influence over the steward and instances of parties paying for an inquest to decide their case, especially in disputes involving land.