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Fidei laesio and debt revisited: the Lichfield consistory court, 1464–1478

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 September 2024

Dave Fogg Postles Open the ORCID record for Dave Fogg Postles [Opens in a new window]
Dave Fogg Postles*
Affiliation:
University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield, UK
*
Email: davep@davelinux.info
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Abstract

Although the contours of fidei laesio (pleas for debt in ecclesiastical courts) were established by Helmholz and suggestions about the wider impact on credit relationships were offered by Briggs, there still remains scope for a detailed examination of the causes in an ecclesiastical court to establish precisely the extent of the litigation in those fora, the composition of the litigants, the character of the debts, and the incentives and impediments to actions (although Helmholz broadly indicated these issues). Accordingly, an examination has been undertaken of two extant registers of the Lichfield consistory court (1464–1478) which survive for the period of maximum referral to these courts by lay (and clerical) creditors and debtors. The information allows a new perspective on the character of the credit relationships prosecuted in the consistory court.

French abstract

French Abstract

Alors que les cadres du fidei laesio (procès pour dettes devant les tribunaux ecclésiastiques) ont été dressés par Richard Helmholz et bien que Chris Briggs ait suggéré une portée plus large de ces procédures sur les relations de crédit, nous considérons cependant qu'il est pertinent d'examiner de façon détaillée une série d'affaires de ce genre, traitées par un tribunal ecclésiastique, pour établir précisément leur importance au sein de ces Cours, la typologie des justiciables, la nature des dettes concernées, identifiant ainsi incitations et obstacles à ces actions en justice (questions déjà passablement évoquées par Helmholz). En conséquence, nous avons entrepris d'étudier deux registres bien conservés du tribunal Consistoire de Lichfield (1464–1478). Survivantes, ces archives témoignent de la période où un maximum de ces affaires, concernant créanciers et débiteurs aussi bien laïcs que religieux, furent renvoyées à ces tribunaux ecclésiastiques. L'information fournie par cette source historique permet d'ouvrir une perspective nouvelle sur le caractère des relations de crédit ayant fait l'objet, à l'époque, de poursuites judiciaires en Consistoire.

German abstract

German Abstract

Die Grundzüge des fidei laesio (Schuldklagen vor kirchlichen Gerichten) wurden von Helmholz klargestellt und weiterführende Überlegungen zu deren Auswirkungen auf Kreditbeziehungen von Briggs vorgetragen. Gleichwohl besteht weiterhin Anlass für eine genauere Untersuchung der Grundsätze, nach denen in einem kirchlichen Gericht in solchen Fällen der Umfang der Rechtsstreitigkeiten, die Zusammensetzung der Prozessparteien, die Art der Schulden sowie die Anreize und Hinderungsgründe für eine Klage bestimmt wurden (obwohl diese Fragen von Helmholz bereits grob angerissen wurden). Zu diesem Zweck wurden zwei Register des bischöflichen Gerichts in Lichfield (1464–1478) untersucht, die für die gesamte Übergabefrist solcher Fälle durch weltliche (oder geistliche) Gläubiger oder Schuldner an das Gericht erhalten geblieben sind. Die daraus gewonnenen Informationen eröffnen eine neue Perspektive auf die Eigenart der Kreditbeziehungen, die vor dem bischöflichen Gericht verhandelt wurden.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Continuity and Change , Volume 39 , Issue 1 , May 2024 , pp. 1 - 20
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Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

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References

Notes

1 Staffordshire Record Office [SRO] Lichfield Diocesan Records [LDR] B/C/1/1, fo. 133v (1466). A short version of this paper was presented at the conference on ‘Trust in the Pre-Modern World’ at Oxford in January 2023. I owe a significant debt to the organisers, Ian Forrest, Annabel Hancock and Siyao Jiang. The staff of the SRO were unfailingly helpful during the office's long closure in preparation for a new history centre. This revised version has benefited from the suggestions of three anonymous referees. Richard Helmholz kindly responded to a query about the education of proctors. Dr Katie Phillips helpfully read through the paper to eliminate some infelicities; any that remain are my fault.

2 Helmholz, R. H., ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’, Law Quarterly Review 91 (1975), 406–32Google Scholar; also Woodcock, B., Medieval ecclesiastical courts in the diocese of Canterbury (Oxford, 1952), 84, 89–92Google Scholar.

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10 Helmholz, ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’; Helmholz, Roman canon law in reformation England, 26.

11 Helmholz, ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’, 419.

12 Helmholz, ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’, 468–9.

13 Helmholz, ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’, 423–4.

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20 SRO LDR B/C/1/1 and B/C/1/2.

21 Helmholz, ‘Assumpsit and fidei laesio’.

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26 A. Dyer and D. M. Palliser eds, The diocesan population returns for 1563 and 1603 (Oxford: The British Academy Records of Social and Economic History new series 31, 2005), 76–7, 102–3.

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28 Poos, Lower ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 575.

29 R. H. Helmholz, ‘Usury and the medieval English church courts’, Speculum 61 (1986), 364–80.

30 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 136v.

31 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 190r.

32 SRO LDR B/C/1/1/, fo. 195r.

33 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 198r: excommunicatus Quo die adueniente dicta pars rea comparuit et humiliter petiit beneficia absolucionis et absolutus est (excommunicated on which day the said party appeared and humbly begged the benefit of absolution and (he is) absolved).

34 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 144r: Quo die adueniente Dicte partes non comparuerunt ideo excommunicate sunt (On which day the said parties did not appear and therefore they are excommunicated).

35 J. Bosssy, ‘The mass as a social institution, 1200–1700’, Past & Present 100 (1983), 29–61; F. Hill, Excommunication in thirteenth-century England (Oxford, 2022), 60–8, 114–15.

36 J. S. Beckerman, ‘The forty shillings jurisdictional limit in medieval personal actions’, in D. Jenkins ed., Legal history studies (Cardiff, 1975), 110–17.

37 E. M. Elvey ed., The courts of the archdeaconry of Buckingham 1483–1523 (Buckinghamshire Record Society 19, 1975), 203 (286), 72–203.

38 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 195r.

39 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 56r: Quo die adueniente dictus J (cancelled) Robertus comparuit et confessus est se Debere Dicto Johanni Palmer xlij s viijd (On which day the said Robert appeared and admitted to being 42s. 8d. in debt to the said John Palmer). Also B/C/1/2, fos 27v and 364r.

40 SRO LDR B/C/12, fo. 334v.

41 SRO B/C/1/2, fos 85v and 121v.

42 J. Rose, ‘Law, lawyers and legal records: litigating and practising law in late medieval England’, in D. Ibbetson, N. Jones and N. Ramsay, eds., English legal history and its sources (Cambridge, 2019), 121–38, at 138.

43 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 118v: Quo die adueniente dicta pars rea confessus (sic) est se fidem fecisse Dicto Johanni Clampard et iurauit per sancta Dei euangelia et per ipsum tactum et stando laudo abitrio iudicio et ordinacioni in alto et basso Johannis Delves armigeri de et super Dicta causa una cum expensis factis in Consistorio Episcopali lich’ (On which day the said defendant admitted that he had made a promise to the said John Clampard and swore on the holy gospels and by his oath to stand to the arbitration, judgment and award of John Delves esquire in all manner and for the costs of the cause in the bishop of Lichfield's consistory court).

44 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fo. 316r: et statim compromiserunt in duos veros (sic – recte viros) videlicet Hugonem Boland et (Hu – cancelled) Rogerum Byngham arbitratores inter ipsos electos et dicti Johannes et Elena iurauerunt et eorum uterque iurauit de stando laudum vel arbitrium dictorum arbitrorum sub pena x li. prouiso tamen (sic) (and immediately they agreed on two men, that is Hugh Boland and Roger Byngham, arbitrators selected by them and the said John and Helen swore and each swore to abide by the judgment or award of the said arbitrators under pain of £10 provided however …). Transcriptions by this author of the courts’ recourse to arbitration can be found at: http://davelinux.info/wordpress/?p=138.

45 C. Haigh, Reformation and resistance in Tudor Lancashire (Cambridge, 1975), 1–6.

46 Everitt, A., ‘The marketing of agricultural produce’, in Thirsk, J. ed., The agrarian history of England and Wales Volume IV 1500–1640 (Cambridge, 1967), 468–75Google Scholar.

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48 Keele University Special Collections and Archives, M. K. Dale translation of Tamworth Borough court rolls, 170, 172.

49 Dale, Tamworth Borough Court, 164.

50 Dale, Tamworth Borough Court, 162, 165.

51 H. Wood, Medieval Tamworth (Tamworth, 1972), 21.

52 Wood, Medieval Tamworth, 30.

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56 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 170v.

57 T. Phipps, Medieval urban women and urban justice: commerce, crime and community in England, 1300–1500 (Manchester, 2020), 48 (Table 2.1).

58 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 131v.

59 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 157r.

60 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fo. 26v.

61 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 180v (1 December 1467).

62 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 211r.

63 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 296r.

64 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fo. 27r (17 December 1471).

65 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 321r.

66 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 76v.

67 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 243v.

68 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fo. 332r.

69 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 29v.

70 Thomas was elected dean in 1457 and died in 1492: A. J. Kettle and D. A. Johnson, A history of Lichfield cathedral (reprinted Stafford, 2001), 197.

71 For its context, Carpenter, C., Locality and polity: A study of Warwickshire landed society, 1401–1499 (Cambridge, 1992), 51CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

72 Phipps, Medieval urban women and urban justice, 53 (Table 2.2), 55 (Table 2.3), 59 (Tables 2.4 and 2.5) and 62 (Table 2.6).

73 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fos 13r, 16v, and 31r.

74 D. M. Owen, The Medieval canon law: teaching, literature and transmission (Cambridge, 1990), 2.

75 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 76v.

76 SRO LDR B/C/1/1/, fo. 146r.

77 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 164v.

78 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 171r.

79 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 113r.

80 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 110v.

81 Helmholz, The Oxford history of the laws of England. Volume I. The canon law and ecclesiastical jurisdiction from 597 to the 1640s (Oxford, 2003), 339–44. There is one cause of fidei laesio in the archdeaconry of Buckingham in which the assistance of a proctor was invoked: Courts of the Archdeaconry of Buckingham, 49 (60), which seems exceptional.

82 See the eight and five articles for the interrogatories in fidei laesio in the University of York Archives York cause papers CP.E.176 (1390) and CP.E.156 (1393).

83 Helmholz, Oxford history, 225 has examples of proctors’ expenses. The poor were exempt (226).

84 Helmholz, Oxford history, 191, 223.

85 A. B. Emden, The biographical register of the university of Oxford to A. D. 1500. Volume I. A-E, 3 volumes (Oxford, 1957–9), 498.

86 For example, SRO LDR B/C/1/1/, fos 26v (Croftes c. Woodhouse: fidei laesio), 71r (Croftes c. Pencriche et al.: defamation), 81v (Croftes c. Burdens and four others: fidei laesio).

87 SRO LDR B/C/1/2, fo. 120r.

88 J. C. Bates ed., The register of William Bothe, bishop of Coventry and Lichfield, 1447–1452 (Canterbury and York Society xcviii, 2008), 8 (18), 80 (281). For the position of notaries in the Middle Ages, P. Zutshi, ‘Notaries public in England in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries’, Historia. Institutiocones. Documentos 23 (1996), 421–33.

89 Helmholz, Oxford history, 215.

90 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fos 68v–71v (6 August 1465).

91 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fos 300v–303r.

92 H. E. Salter ed., Munimenta Civitatis Oxonie (Oxford Historical Society 71, 1920), xxiv.

93 Pax et dimissus est: Courts of the archdeaconry of Buckingham, 203 (286).

94 SRO LDR B/C/1/1/, fos. 62v, 136v.

95 SRO LDR B/C/1/1, fo. 136v: Quo die adueniente iudex taxauit expensas ad iiij or libras & iudex assignauit terminum ad soluendum citra proximam cuream (sic) post pascha sub pena excommunicacionis (On which day the judge assessed the costs at £4 and he appointed a time for the payment before the next sitting after Easter under pain of excommunication).

96 See, however, Briggs, ‘Seigniorial control’.

97 Merton College, Oxford, Muniments (MM) 6605, 6611.

98 MM 6579, 6607.

99 Devon Record Office Bedford MSS Werrington Court Rolls.

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103 This approach was suggested by one of the referees. It needs to be followed cautiously and can only be indicative.

104 Courts of the archdeaconry of Buckingham, 72–204.

105 Lower ecclesiastical jurisdiction, lvi, 451.

106 Poos, Lower ecclesiastical jurisdiction, 270–592.

107 Phipps, Medieval urban women, 48; also, Britnell, R. H., Growth and decline in Colchester 1300–1525 (Cambridge, 1986), 207CrossRefGoogle Scholar (Table 14.1); J. Davis, Medieval market morality: life, law and ethics in the English marketplace 1200–1500 (Cambridge, 2011).

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114 Courts of the archdeaconry of Buckingham, 203 (286).

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