The Constitutional History of England in Its Origin and Development, Volume 1 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alfred ancient Angliae Anglo-Saxon archbishop assembly Assize Assize of Clarendon barons Bede bishops Canterbury Canute century chancellor character Chron church clergy comitatus common connexion Conqueror Conquest constitutional coronation council crown Curia Regis customs Danegeld Dipl Domesday ealdorman earl earldom ecclesiastical Edgar Edward the Confessor election England English estates Ethelred Exchequer existence feudal folkland Frank German gesith Gneist guild held Henry Henry II Henry's hereditary Hist homage Hoveden hundred Ibid importance John judicial jurisdiction jury justice justiciar Kemble Kent king king's kingdom knights land Lanfranc London lord Madox Magna Carta mark Maurer ment Mercia Norman Normandy oath officers organisation Palgrave peace Pipe Roll political possessed principle probably quod regni reign Richard royal Saxons scarcely scutage Select Charters sheriff shire Stephen tenure territorial thegn tion township vassals Waitz wergild whilst William Rufus Winchester witan witenagemot writ
Popular passages
Page iii - But it has a deep value and an abiding interest to those who have courage to work upon it. It presents, in every branch, a regularly developed series of causes and consequences, and abounds in examples of that continuity of life, the realization of which is necessary to give the reader a personal hold on the past and a right judgment of the present. For the roots of the present lie deep in the past, and nothing in the past is dead to the man who would learn how the present comes to be what it is.
Page 537 - No free man shall be taken, or imprisoned, or disseised, or outlawed, or exiled, or in any way destroyed, nor will we go upon him, nor will we send against him, except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land.
Page 566 - And for holding the general council of the kingdom concerning the assessment of aids, except in the three cases aforesaid, and for the assessing of scutages, we will cause to be summoned the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons of the realm, singly by our letters.
Page 566 - Bailiffs, all those who hold of us in chief, at a certain day, that is to say at the distance of forty days [before their meeting], at the least, and to a certain place; and in all the letters of summons, we will express the cause of the summons: and the summons being thus made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the counsel of those who shall be present, although all who had been summoned have not come.
Page 84 - If churls have a common meadow or other partible land' to fence, and some have fenced their part, some have not, and (cattle stray in and) eat up their common corn or grass ; let those go who own the gap and compensate to the others...
Page 175 - ... if any one plot against the king's life, of himself or by harbouring of exiles, or of his men, let him be liable in his life and in all that he has.
Page 328 - Many thousands they exhausted with hunger. I cannot and I may not tell of all the wounds, and all the tortures that they inflicted upon the wretched men of this land ; and this state of things lasted the nineteen years that Stephen was king, and ever grew worse and worse. They were continually levying an exaction from the towns, which they called Tenserie...
Page 253 - ... kinsmen and servants, with a special undertaking to be faithful; partly in the surrender by land-owners of their estates to churches or powerful men, to be received back again and held by them as tenants for rent or service.
Page 252 - ... a complete organization of society through the medium of land tenure, in which from the king down to the lowest landowner...
Page 377 - Norman kings was the court in which the whole financial business of the country was transacted, and as the whole administration of justice, and even the military organisation, was dependent upon the fiscal officers, the whole framework of society may be said to have passed annually under its review. It derived its name from the chequered cloth which covered the table at which the accounts were taken...