Norman Legal Systems and the Evolution of Medieval English

Norman Justice I: Ordeals and Wager of Battle

• Proof by ordeal: Remained common until the early 13th century.
• Wager of battle: Used to recover land or in cases of felony or treason.
• Social context: Common among nobles.

Norman Justice II: The Rise of the Jury System

• Communal justice: Historically functioned like an opinion survey.
• Jury evolution: By the late 12th century, juries of twelve free men were established to decide the facts of cases, rather than the law itself.

Norman Justice III: Foundations of Common Law

• Royal justice: The birth of the common law system, with procedures based primarily on customary law rather than Roman law.
• Judicial authority: A clear differentiation between judicial and political authority emerged, leading to the development of judge-made law.

Norman Justice IV: Legal Status of Married Women

• Feme Covert: A married woman was legally defined as a feme covert, with her husband acting as her baron (lord).
• Legal implications: If a wife killed her husband, the offense was classified as treason rather than murder.
• Property and contracts: Land and personal property were vested in the husband, and married women were prohibited from entering into contracts.

Socio-linguistic Outcomes of the Norman Era

• Language hierarchy: French became the superstrate language of power, creating a multilingual society.
• Social stratification:
  • Peasants: English-speaking monolinguals.
  • Aristocrats: French-speaking.
  • Clergy and scholars: Bilingual (French-Latin) or trilingual.
  • Interface class: French-English bilinguals.
• Functional distribution: Latin was used for documents and scholarship; French for court, law, and literature; English for everyday speech and folk traditions.
• Literary decline: Writing in English declined for one hundred years and eventually ceased for another century.

The Decline of French as a Spoken Language

• Political shifts: The English crown lost Normandy in 1204, reducing the importance of French contacts.
• Aristocratic transition: The aristocracy gradually shifted to English, a process likely starting among minor families who intermarried with English-speaking landowners.
• Official displacement: English began displacing French in official functions during the 14th century, a process that continued until the 18th century.

Wales Before the Act of Union (1536)

Geography and Settlement:

• Terrain: Characterized by mountains, plateaus, valleys, and lowland plains near the English border. Soil quality was generally poor due to glaciation.
• Settlement: Patterns were more dispersed than nucleated.

Religious and Political Context:

• Christianity: Wales was Christianized during the Roman period and adopted Celtic Christian traits in the 5th and 6th centuries.
• St. David: A 6th-century leader and son of a chieftain who established an ecclesiastical capital at St. David’s.

Political Development Before the Normans

• Fragmentation: Kingdoms were often divided, with some allying with Wessex.
• Brief unity: Achieved through conquest under Gruffudd ap Llywelyn in the 11th century.
• Social structure: Divided into free and bond populations, with uplanders generally remaining free.