Medieval Law Quotes
William the Conqueror. In Wager of Battle—often called “trial by combat”, a guilty person could challenge his accuser to combat. If the accuser won, the person must have been guilty; if the accused person won, he must have been falsely accused. It was assumed that this method gave God a clear opportunity to do justice. As silly as this appears to us today, at the time, most people believed that God was indeed looking at every event and would intercede to be sure that justice would prevail. In reality, it allowed the stronger men with good weapons skills to literally get away with murder or anything else. A similar logic operated with the Ordeal of Iron and other so called “ordeals”. In the ordeal by iron, the accused was required to lift a red hot iron rod. He would of course be burned. If the burn healed, God was showing that he was innocent. But if the burn festered and got infected, God was showing that he was guilty. If he didn’t die of gangrene or other infection, he could then be executed or otherwise punished. In England the Ordeal by Iron commanded by King William was abolished in 1215. Some scholars argued that there was a method to the madness of trial by ordeal. If most people were so religious or superstitious that they believed that God would be sure that the right outcome would prevail. A false accuser would recant rather than expose himself to almost certain death in combat with an innocent person who God would surely protect. Of course the pious people would be at a great disadvantage to the non-believers who would not be intimidated. Trial by combat lasted much longer and evolved into dueling which was quite prevalent in America until later in the 19th century.
This quotation illustrates how the power and mechanism of an established church operated to control ideas and maintain theological monopoly. In this case, no one could sell or rent any facility in the city to a cleric or church of any kind or persuasion without first having the approval of the Bishop who had theological control of that territory. Even Catholic scholars could not rent a room in the city unless their scholarship met with the Bishop’s approval. This was history with which the American Founding were very familiar, and wanted to avoid by adopting the 1st Amendment.
This was often referred to as “The Golden Bull.” The Church clerics formed the judiciary for civil as well as religious matters. In time Catholic Europe would separate the judicial authority between religious and civil courts, the final step was to bring clerics and the church under the civil control and authority which was fought vehemently by the church which for years tried to retain at least the right to try priests and other church officials even for civil crimes.
This early form of estate tax was a very popular act, as inheritors no longer had to pay the full "market price" of the estate to the state in order for the family to continue possession. Thus the estate tax was a welcome alternative for the then wealthy families.
This required much of the population to maintain and bear arms. Another part of the law required the arms-bearers to be at the service of the king and as such was the king's militia.
It was a quasi constitution in limited areas and declared the representatives of the people coordinate with the governor and council, and that no taxes could be laid without their consent—a degree of freedom and self-determinism what was far greater than those of the other colonies save Pennsylvania. Several years earlier, the English portion of the colony clamored for representative government and was ready to break into open rebellion against Governor Edmund Andros and the authority of the Duke of York. The Duke promised an elected assembly and 18 elected New Yorkers constituted the first representative assembly. Their first act was to pass the Charter of Liberties which was approved by the Duke’s new Governor Thomas Dongan. So the Charter of Liberties was the first set of laws in America passed by a vote of elected representatives of the people.
