Strong Verbs Are Just Better

While professionally Hurring Up And Waiting, I have been reading my way through Richard Firth Green's A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England, a book I could have sworn I had read at least three times. But clearly I had skimmed the nitty-gritty of the first few chapters on "folklaw" and legal change in the high Middle Ages. Today, I learned about the last time a civil case in England was tried by combat.

It was, by all accounts, a bit of an odd occasion: Geoffrey Le Scrope, Chief Justice of the King's Bench, sat in Northhampton at an Eyre Court in 1320 (systematic Eyres had not been held some decades). The proceedings were between one Thomas Staunton and the Cluniac priory of Lenton over some sort of rights re a parish church. Staunton had summonsed the prior by writ, and each had appointed a champion (both named William).

Firth Green points out that the amount of detail in the record suggests that someone, or everyone, knew this was an old practice that might never be seen again. First up, before the champions even arrived, someone brought to Scrope's attention that traditionally, two oaths had been sworn: one at the bar and one at the fild of combat; some procedural discussion was had about whether that meant that one champion swore at the bar and one outside? Scrope eventually decided on uniformity.

The two Williams arrived, with attendants bearing symbolic items. The prior's champion, one hand on the bible and the other holding the other William by the hand, swore on oath that the priory had the rights to the church. Staunton's champion then reversed the pose and swore on oath that the prior's William had perjured himself vis a vis the church.

Scrope then appealed to the parties to compromise; and urged the two Williams to, if either of them should find himself in a position to kill the other, not to do so if the other William's master would intervene. Having second thoughts, perhaps, about this form of justice-seeking.

Nevertheless, the two Williams were escorted outside to make a second oath, which would have been to the effect of "I, William, have done nothing sinful lately, so if I lose it's not because God hates me, this is all a judgment of my master's rights or wrongs." However, Thomas Staunton lost his nerve, and offered to give up his claim to the church if the priory covered the court costs (a familiar situation, I'm sure, to many a civil lawyer).

At this point, you'd think Scrope would be relieved. But no! Here, perhaps, we discover why this antiquated proceeding was being conducted at all: he wanted to see some wrestling. He told off Staunton, and insisted on seeing the two Williams put on a display fight with staves, and then wrestling. Scrope generously awarded each William the staff he'd been fighting with, as a prize.

It seems like Firth Green is in the camp of "trial by combat as an incentive to negotiation and settlement" that the law textbook slightly sniffily mentions in its two-sentence coverage of the practice (either mediated trial by combat serves as an alternative to a society-wide constant brawl, or the formal prospect of trial by combat encourages confessions, negotiations, etc), but it's pretty clear Firth Green doesn't love that level of explanations-to-children, and disagrees with many people who the Law100 textbook would lump together. So I'm having fun with that.