Crime and Punishment?

Question

The legal system in Medieval England was very effective and fair ? explain

My thought was it could be effective but not really fair

Answer 1

your right it was effective but definitly not fair. The accused had no voice in defending themselves.

Answer 2

Well... you have to understand first that the position was different.

There were no police, no detectives. Violence was fairly common. England was famous for it. The degree to which the law was enforced depended greatly on whether or not the King was in the country, or a broad.

There were frequent armed conflicts within the country - in the 12th Century the war between Empress Maud and King Stephen, in the 13th the rebellion of nobles against King John leading to magna carta, in the 14th the peasants revolt... in the 15th the Wars of the Roses and Owain Glyndwr's rebellion in Wales.

The legal system was fragmented. There were at least 4 separate systems opperating with vigour for a substantial part of the medieval period - Ecclessiastical, Manorial, local jurisdictions and the royal courts.

Methods of proof were different. At the begining of period, trial by battle was used to decide serious disputes. A common method of proof for most of the period was Wager of Law - getting people to swear in support of your case, even though they were not witnesses. The medieval jury wasn't an impartial body for listing to evidence and arguments. It was a group of people from the community concerned with the case, sent to *find out* the facts.

Prison was generally used only in debt cases. For the most part crime was punished by fines, compensation, mutilation, branding, execution or exile.

By our standards it was not fair. By our standards it was not particularly effective either. Despite the brutality of the punishments, crimes were hardly uncommon - without any regular enforcement a criminal could simply move on when one area became too alert to his activities. The rich, higher class criminals could often avoid punishment by fighting in England's latest war or paying fines to the king and asking nicely. That in equality itself tended to make the crime more common and the law less than fair.