Medieval Law

[Toby Frost]

What's your story? Seems like that's what should dictate which laws you actually need to worry about.

I agree. Even in a story about a lawyer, the reader only needs to know about the law where it interacts with the story. So long as it feels in keeping with the setting and makes basic sense (even if the "sense" is rather warped by our standards), it should be fine (and in a society with no mass media and no easy access to appeal courts, the lord could probably do what he liked to those below him, to a large extent).

I've recently been writing a story in which a castle lies on a border. If country A captures it, and imposes its law, the heroine can't inherit the castle from her father. If country B captures it, she can inherit property and hence stands to keep the castle. That's enough to set up a conflict, and also to suggest that the law is complex, awkward and unreasonable.

Obviously, different stories need different things, but even mentioning the law in a lot of fantasy makes the world sound unusually developed and detailed (most of the time, right and wrong fight with swords). Other elements might strengthen this without having to actually make laws up: an area in a town where lawyers gather, a description of an office full of paperwork, the existence of a law reporting service and so on.

 

[The Judge]

Following on from Abernovo's suggestion, there are the Shardlake murder-mysteries by CJ Sansom, the main character of which is a lawyer in Henrician England, and each book deals with an aspect of his legal practice. As novels they're bloated and info-dumped, and Shardlake is too frequently a modern liberal in his outlook, but the legal aspects are well done (Sansom himself is/was a lawyer, I think).

Anyhow, your world-building sounds very intriguing and I'm kicking myself I've never thought of something similar, since as sknox says, this duplication and overlapping of jurisdictions and the bewildering labyrinth it could produce is very typical of how it was in reality -- indeed, how in England it continued to be until the C19th in some respects.

However, I'm not sure that just bolting on English Tudor or Elizabethan law to your world is exactly the way forward. Very crudely, law comes from culture; culture arises from history; history is born in geography, and all (well, all save geography) are housed within a shifting framework of pragmatism and idealism, economic reality and the Four Horsemen. Change one element and the rest change to a greater or lesser degree. For instance:

• under Henry VIII men had to practice so many hours at the weekend with the longbow. There's no standing army, and Henry believes in war as a means of accumulating wealth and prestige, so he needs men ready to fight, and even if he were less warlike, the continental powers aren't, so soldiers would still be needed. A pacifist monarch in a time of peace, or living on a island far enough away from warring countries isn't going to need a law of that kind.
• I thought there was a law in Elizabeth's reign requiring all bodies to be buried in shrouds made of English wool (though looking quickly the only statute I've found is from the 1660s) -- it's an economic decision to help out sheep farmers when the price of wool has plummeted. Under different economic conditions, no such law was needed in previous centuries.
• Elizabeth enacted laws requiring attendance at church with fines for non-attendance. At a time when she's under real threat from Catholic nations abroad and her advisors fear traitors at home, they use the law to try to force Catholics into the open. Again, not a law that's needed when there is no such internal threat, real or perceived.
• under medieval and Tudor law, a married woman was a feme covert, with no legal personality of her own -- unable to contract her own debts or run her own business (though local custom might allow for this). This is a direct result of inequality between the sexes -- in a more equal society there would be no law of this kind.
• sumptuary laws forbade certain articles of clothing or fabrics being worn by the lower classes. Again, a more equal society would have no such laws.

So while looking at Tudor laws would be enormously interesting, you need to ensure that your invented nations/cities have the background which would provide for similar laws.

By the way, while statute law isn't the be-all and end-all of the legal system, especially in a common-law jurisdiction, it does show you what the government of the time is worried about. Wikipedia has a list of some of the more important Acts of Parliament passed in the Tudor period which it might be worth glancing at Category:Acts of the Parliament of England (1485–1603) - Wikipedia

 

[sknox]

And as complex as all that is, it's clarity and harmony compared to French law, which in turn is pure reason compared to German law or Italian law (if there can even be said to be such a thing in the Middle Ages). In those places, local laws were in constant tension with royal or imperial law.

Another thing. It's perfectly true that disputes were often settled on the battlefield, but those disputes frequently had legal cases running parallel, and the combatants had their legal positions carefully spelled out. Medieval society was relentlessly litigious, especially by the 12thc or so.

 

[Eli Grey]

I agree. Even in a story about a lawyer, the reader only needs to know about the law where it interacts with the story. So long as it feels in keeping with the setting and makes basic sense (even if the "sense" is rather warped by our standards), it should be fine (and in a society with no mass media and no easy access to appeal courts, the lord could probably do what he liked to those below him, to a large extent).

I've recently been writing a story in which a castle lies on a border. If country A captures it, and imposes its law, the heroine can't inherit the castle from her father. If country B captures it, she can inherit property and hence stands to keep the castle. That's enough to set up a conflict, and also to suggest that the law is complex, awkward and unreasonable.

Obviously, different stories need different things, but even mentioning the law in a lot of fantasy makes the world sound unusually developed and detailed (most of the time, right and wrong fight with swords). Other elements might strengthen this without having to actually make laws up: an area in a town where lawyers gather, a description of an office full of paperwork, the existence of a law reporting service and so on.

I like your character's predicament.

I plan to keep it simple. Mentioning laws as the story needs them to be mentioned is enough. That includes characters briefly mentioning how someone in town was affected by a particular law. The story isn't so much about the lawyer but one does play a major role in the background, but in the end he's more prominent.

 

[Eli Grey]

Following on from Abernovo's suggestion, there are the Shardlake murder-mysteries by CJ Sansom, the main character of which is a lawyer in Henrician England, and each book deals with an aspect of his legal practice. As novels they're bloated and info-dumped, and Shardlake is too frequently a modern liberal in his outlook, but the legal aspects are well done (Sansom himself is/was a lawyer, I think).

Anyhow, your world-building sounds very intriguing and I'm kicking myself I've never thought of something similar, since as sknox says, this duplication and overlapping of jurisdictions and the bewildering labyrinth it could produce is very typical of how it was in reality -- indeed, how in England it continued to be until the C19th in some respects.

However, I'm not sure that just bolting on English Tudor or Elizabethan law to your world is exactly the way forward. Very crudely, law comes from culture; culture arises from history; history is born in geography, and all (well, all save geography) are housed within a shifting framework of pragmatism and idealism, economic reality and the Four Horsemen. Change one element and the rest change to a greater or lesser degree. For instance:

• under Henry VIII men had to practice so many hours at the weekend with the longbow. There's no standing army, and Henry believes in war as a means of accumulating wealth and prestige, so he needs men ready to fight, and even if he were less warlike, the continental powers aren't, so soldiers would still be needed. A pacifist monarch in a time of peace, or living on a island far enough away from warring countries isn't going to need a law of that kind.
• I thought there was a law in Elizabeth's reign requiring all bodies to be buried in shrouds made of English wool (though looking quickly the only statute I've found is from the 1660s) -- it's an economic decision to help out sheep farmers when the price of wool has plummeted. Under different economic conditions, no such law was needed in previous centuries.
• Elizabeth enacted laws requiring attendance at church with fines for non-attendance. At a time when she's under real threat from Catholic nations abroad and her advisors fear traitors at home, they use the law to try to force Catholics into the open. Again, not a law that's needed when there is no such internal threat, real or perceived.
• under medieval and Tudor law, a married woman was a feme covert, with no legal personality of her own -- unable to contract her own debts or run her own business (though local custom might allow for this). This is a direct result of inequality between the sexes -- in a more equal society there would be no law of this kind.
• sumptuary laws forbade certain articles of clothing or fabrics being worn by the lower classes. Again, a more equal society would have no such laws.

So while looking at Tudor laws would be enormously interesting, you need to ensure that your invented nations/cities have the background which would provide for similar laws.

By the way, while statute law isn't the be-all and end-all of the legal system, especially in a common-law jurisdiction, it does show you what the government of the time is worried about. Wikipedia has a list of some of the more important Acts of Parliament passed in the Tudor period which it might be worth glancing at Category:Acts of the Parliament of England (1485–1603) - Wikipedia

I put a few Shardlake novels on my Amazon list.

I like what you said above highlighted in red. These are things I know but I haven't addressed as I'm creating laws. I like the examples you give too. As far as clothing though, it's an old tradition going back before the supreme authority came into existence that certain colors were worn on certain days. It's an old tradition that the supreme authority stopped, though it came back as the supreme authority started losing its influence in some places.

 

[Eli Grey]

The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England by Ian Mortimer. It's not specifically about law but it's touched on and some things are addressed. This is the later part of the Tudor period. The same author has a Medieval time period book.

Thanks. I have it on my list.