Monthly Archives: February 2018

UCU dispute: ‘Leaked UUK Limerick’?

This week in UK legal history, it’s all about the pensions strike by lecturers, professional services and librarians:

https://www.ucu.org.uk/strikeforuss

I feel sure that Bracton’s sister would have been completely behind the union on this one. (offering solidarity on behalf of the Union of Families of Reputed Medieval Treatise Writers along with Glanvill’s Auntie and Britton’s Kitten).

The following lines have reached me – I cannot speak for the provenance of this work of literature, (and I take the point of the International Association of Weasels about some of their members being quite honest and straightforward, and that of the British Trough Diners’ Club  that they have made great strides in improving their image by the promotion of dainty eating amongst members and guests, and do not appreciate reinforcement of tired stereotypes of greed and indelicacy) but it does seem to chime in with the attitudes of a certain body …

 

We’re getting unwelcome attention

For our stance of tone-deaf condescension

We could end this all easily

But we’d rather be weaselly –

Promise ‘talks’, (only not about pensions).

 

[PS, Just ignore those unpleasant ‘noises off’

It’s just some VCs, falling, snout first, into a trough.]

( https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/feb/24/vice-chancellors-expenses-scandal-channel-4-dispatches-universities )

Update: good heavens, here’s another ‘leaked position paper’ (yes – it does strike me as odd that policy is being expressed through the medium of limericks, but who am I to question?)

We know it’s unfair, doesn’t mean we

Can’t stiff our staff really obscenely

We can dump defined benefit

If we sex up the ‘deficit’

Now: pass me my porn star martini.

Dying of a broken heart (due to loss of land): taking advantage of the unwell in thirteenth century Devon

Earlier this month, I blogged about a case of land-fraud in medieval Yorkshire, involving people taking advantage of a woman who was physically and mentally incapable, forging a charter and taking her land, only for her to recover and take great pains to sort things out:

https://vifgage.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2018/02/02/land-fraud-and-vulnerability-in-medieval-yorkshire/

Today, I came across another fraudulent charter case with some nuggets about medieval health, health-care, attitudes to the unwell and ideas about causation in relation to health. It is from the other end of England, from Devon, and from a slightly earlier period than the Agnes Bertram case.

The case appears in a roll of the eyre of Devon 1269 (JUST 1/178 m. 20; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/JUST1/JUST1no178/aJUST1no178fronts/IMG_1319.htm ).

John son of John v. Walter de Fraunckenney is a case concerning some land and a mill on Dartmoor. John (we will call him John II) said that this land had previously been held of his father (John I) by one Henry de Fraunckenney. According to John II, the land should have come back to him (escheat), because Henry had died without a legitimate heir.

Walter argued that John’s case could not stand, because he had got the story, and the chain of land relationships, wrong – in fact, Henry had not held the land at the time of his death, but had transferred it to Walter some two years before his death.  He had a charter which showed this transfer (feoffment).

The jurors confirmed that Henry had held the land of John I, father of John II, but that, when Henry was ill (langwidus) and lying on his sick-bed, in Dorset, Walter (who was Henry’s bailiff there) had used a maid (or maiden? The word is domicella), who was looking after (custodiebat) Henry, and who attended him diligently/constantly (assidue) made the charter of feoffment, without Henry’s knowledge. Walter had then come to the land in question and had shown the charter to Henry’s bailiff there, one Michael, demanding to be let in. Michael did not let him in, however, not having had an order to that effect from Henry, his lord.  Walter went in anyway and started taking the oaths of fealty of the villeins on the land.  Henry knew nothing about this at the time, but rumour of it reached him, and he was so grieved (tantum angustiabatur pro dolore) that he died at once. The jurors were asked how long before Henry’s death Walter’s intrusion had gone on, and they said it had persisted for a third of a year. They were also asked about the charter’s provenance, and said that it had not been made in the proper open, legal, manner.

(There may be further stages to locate, as the case was sent for judgment to Westminster, though I have not found them yet).

Apart from the intrinsic interest of seeing the infinite variety of people’s bad behaviour, the case shows, again, one of the potential vulnerabilities of the medieval system of land transfer and proof of right: charters could be forged. There would appear to have been a particular opportunity to do this here, given (a) Henry’s infirmity and (b) his absence from the land in question. It also gives a glimpse into the sick-room, showing the constant attendance on Henry of the maid (even if she did turn out to be a wrong ‘un). I am interested by the word ‘custodiebat’: I have translated it as ‘looked after’ but it could also have a more, well, custodial, or controlling, aspect to it. Most fascinatingly, in one throw-away line, the jurors tell us that they think sudden death could be caused (at least to one already ‘languishing’) by grief at being cheated out of one’s land. This path from economic loss to very bad health also turned up in the case of the unfortunate furiosus noted in https://vifgage.blogs.bristol.ac.uk/2018/02/03/medieval-mental-health-describing-explaining-and-excusing-a-furiosus/

and strikes me as worth further consideration.

GS

18/2/2018

Medieval mental health: describing, explaining and excusing a ‘furiosus’

Today’s tale comes from Sussex, and from the latter years of Edward I’s reign. It is to be found in a roll of ‘criminal’ proceedings of 1306 (JUST /934 m.3; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/JUST1/JUST1no934/aJUST1no934fronts/IMG_5655.htm)  and associated Patent Roll records (CPR 1301-7 p. 416: https://archive.org/details/calendarpatentr00offigoog ). The longer record is in the roll of pleas and gaol delivery before Bereford, Hengham and Mallore, justices commissioned to hear certain cases in Sussex, in Hillary term 1306.

The record states that Nigel Coppedone of Pende had been indicted for the death of Henry Rosselyn of Bradewater, killed in the field of Lancing, on a date in 1305. Nigel pleaded ‘not guilty’, and accepted jury trial.

It tells us that the jury swore the following to be the true story of events surrounding Henry’s killing:

Nigel had recently been a sailor, taking his own ship in the fleet which was supplying the English in Gascony, fighting there against the king of France. Unfortunately, Nigel’s ship, along with others, was captured by the enemies of the king of England, and he lost all of his goods which were on the ship. Nigel was also beaten and wounded. As a result of the beating, the wounds, and the loss of such a large quantity of goods, he was injured, exhausted and mentally incapable or ‘insane’ (in demencia… furore…) for a long time. Grieving, his friends tied him up, as one does with a mad person (furiosus). Tied up in this way, he was brought to these parts, and entrusted to other friends and neighbours of his. They kept him tied up for a long time, because he continued to exhibit the behaviour of a furiosus, but he broke free of his chains, and escaped their custody. He ate raw meat and ran about naked all over the place. Henry got in his way when he was on the run, and, in a state of madness (furiose), Nigel killed him. And afterwards he ran about in the same way (i.e. furiosus). And they specified that he did not kill Henry through malice or by pre-planned felony, but was led to do it by madness (furore tantum ad hoc ipsum inducente). They backed this up by linking it to the statement that before the deed, during and after it, he was in a continuous state of madness (furor). Therefore he was to be sent to jail to await a royal pardon. This pardon was forthcoming, and is reproduced in the record. It accepts the explanation that Nigel had killed Henry through madness (furore ductus). A summary appears in the Calendar of Patent Rolls (above).

Why is this interesting?

Clearly, it is a striking and tragic story. It is also a valuable source for ‘lay’ and ‘official’ attitudes to mental disorders and appropriate responses to them. Some things are not new: it is well-known that a person who was in an obvious state of mental disorder when committing homicide could expect a pardon (see, e.g. N. Hurnard, The King’s Pardon for Homicide (Oxford, 1969). The tying up – or chaining- of violently unwell people is also known. What is a little different to other accounts I have seen, however, is (i) the thoroughness of the jury’s explanation and (ii) what that allows us to deduce about their ideas of the causes and effects of mental disorder. We could note that they see a causal link between Nigel’s mistreatment and the loss of his goods on the one hand, and his descent into ‘fury’ on the other. Their care to ensure that Nigel is not held criminally responsible for his actions also leads them to talk about the periods before and after the killing, adding fascinating details about the sort of behaviours thought to indicate ‘fury’ – the raw meat, the nakedness, the running around. They portray ‘fury’ as something which entirely removes responsibility – and is, in a sense, a cause of the killing: Nigel is led by ‘fury’ into doing what he does.

Another little glimpse of a much bigger subject is afforded by the description of those around Nigel as he becomes disordered: his shipmates are grieved by this. And, although chaining up does not strike the modern reader as a kind way to treat somebody like Nigel, we should note that those doing the chaining are described as his ‘friends’,  indicating that he was not cast off by those who had known him before, and that they were probably trying to do their best for him. One wonders, of course, what would have been the perspective on all of this of the friends and family of the unfortunate Henry.

GS

3/2/2018

Land, fraud and vulnerability in medieval Yorkshire

Just in case anyone is not convinced that medieval land cases are worth the bother, here’s a tale of fairly outrageous behaviour from Yorkshire, found in a plea roll of the eyre of 1293-4 (JUST 1/1084 m. 48; AALT image 4715; http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/JUST1/JUST1no1084/aJUST1no1084fronts/IMG_4715.htm ), which might have something of interest for those looking at several different aspects of medieval history.

The record tells us that the Prioress of Yedingham (a Benedictine house) had previously appeared before the royal justices by attorney and claimed some land on behalf of her foundation, from Agnes daughter of Raph Bertram. Agnes had defaulted and the Prioress had been awarded seisin (more or less possession in this context) of the land. This was thought to be a little fishy, and possibly a collusive transfer, done in this way to get around Edward I’s legislation against transfers into ‘mortmain’. The mischief being fought in this legislation was the sort of transfer which meant that lords would lose the windfalls they usually received in connection with the normal human lifecycle (death, marriage, wardship): i.e. transfers to the ‘dead hand’ of an ecclesiastical institution. One way of trying to do this without being obvious about it would be by pretending to have lost the land to the transferee in a legal case, rather than making a straightforward transfer. To find out what had happened in this case, an inquiry was to be held, and 12 jurors were sworn to tell the truth of the matter.

They said that the land had indeed been lost by agreement and collusion, then went on to tell a rather strange tale. Agnes had been unwell (infirmabatur) for six months before the enactment of ‘the statute’ (this might refer to the Statute of Mortmain 1279, but more likely to mean the statute Quia Emptores 1290, which also dealt with mortmain). The description of the illness is no more specific than that, but the effect of it is stated to be that she was not in good mental health: quasi non compos mentis sue. During this period, a clerk with whom (they said) she used to sleep came and found her in that state, and at once had her taken away from her own land to another house. Once there, he made a charter in Agnes’s name, then used that to transfer Agnes’s land to the predecessor of the current Prioress.  Afterwards, Agnes returned to full mental health (revenit ad statum suum). A servant (ancilla) who was living with her told her what had happened. As soon as Agnes heard and understood this, she had herself put in what seems to be a basket (in quodam corbello; I assume this is a slightly unusual twist on corbis, and it certainly makes more sense than my initial guess of ‘crow’…] and had herself taken to the manor of one Richard de Breaus, chief lord of the tenement. Richard reseised her of the land, which she held for three years before the collusive action with the new Prioress.

There seem to be some annoying gaps in the narrative here. What was the naughty clerk’s game? Was the business with a basket a way of concealing herself and escaping from the house to which she had been taken (in the manner of St Paul in Acts 9) or was she physically incapacitated and unable to move without being carried?  And why, after making heroic efforts to get the land back, would Agnes arrange to transfer it to the priory in any case? I hope she was being well paid, either in temporal or spiritual currency, not being bullied out of it. Still – despite the usual holes, there is some good material in this case on mental health and ideas about it, on the vulnerability of those in ill-health, but also on the possibility of recovery of mind and determination to get back control of land out of which one had been cheated.

GS

2/2/2018