Middle Ages Manorial Courts In England

Medieval England Manoral Courts which embodied the England local judicial system is an important sources of the common law. Studying self-sufficient feudal manoral court as the representative of the economic legal system is particularly important in England. This article aims to mid-Middle Ages (thirteenth century) and Wakefield manor court records as the research object. By analyzing the essential parts of the court, trial procedures and so on, we could sketch out the basic situation of the manoral court. On this basis, we could make further discussed the main issues of the manoral court rolls, including the manor lords, villein, priests, knights and other classes involved in cases related to the main content and approach. Through these studying, we can try to understand the value and significance of manoral court to the feudal economy and society,.The whole thesis is mainly divided into four parts. The first part is an instruction, demonstrating the motivation of choosing the subject and the tendency of related research. In the second part, it introduces the basic structure of the mannor court. The basic structure contains the host, the inquisition, the jury, the guarantor, the implementing agencies etc. The proceedings includes the open court, the full court, the resummon, essoign, adjourn, withdrawal mechanism. Manor Court is essentially a mature institution, it has formed a relatively complete system. The third part is the focus of this paper. It is mainly based on the second part, By analyzing relationship between the manor lord and other sectors of the manor, we examined the features of the complex social relationships which manor courts deal with in the manor. In the last part, it summarizes the basic characteristics of the local manoral court, and argues that protecting the feudal rights and obligations is the fundamental purpose of manor court existence.