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1984 U. Ill. L. Rev. 705 (1984)
Common Law Juries and Feudal Marriage Customs in Medieval England: The Pleas of Ravishment

handle is hein.journals/unilllr1984 and id is 715 raw text is: COMMON LAW JURIES AND FEUDAL MARRIAGE CUSTOMS IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND: THE PLEAS OF RAVISHMENTt Sue Sheridan Walker* I. INTRODUCTION The common law courts of medieval England protected feudal rights of wardship and marriage.' The violation of these rights by a ward or third party engendered considerable litigation. Accordingly, the manuscript plea rolls2 of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries contain previously unexamined evidence about feudal marriage cus- toms. Legal writers such as Bracton in the thirteenth century echoed canon law provisions by warning that marriages of wards were not to t This paper was read at the Ninety-Eighth Annual Meeting of the American Historical Association in San Francisco, California in 1983. * Professor of History, Northeastern Illinois University; B.A. 1958, Loyola University, M.A. 1961, Loyola University, Ph.D. 1966, University of Chicago. The author wishes to acknowledge a grant from the National Endowmentfor the Humanitiesfor 1982-83, the assistance of the staffs of the Public Record Office in London, England, the Newberry Library in Chicago, Illinois, and the Pontflcal Institute for Mediaeval Studies in Toronto, Canada. In addition, the author appreciates the kindness offriends who read this manuscript.- Professors James A. Brundage, Richard H Helmholz, Eleanor Searle, Michael M. Sheehan, and Donald W Sutherland This article is dedicated to Professor Michael M. Sheehan in celebration of his birthday. 1. Rights of guardianship varied with the type of land tenure, military or socage. The lords of lands held by feudal, that is military, tenure enjoyed non-fiduciary guardianship of the lands during minority (they received the whole profits of the estate less a sum of money to maintain the heir) and they enjoyed the right to sell or arrange the marriage of the heir or heiress, to the lord's financial benefit. By contrast, in socage tenures the wardship was a trustee arrangement: the heir and the land were in the custody of his closest relative, who could not inherit the estate. That guardian was liable to account for his or her stewardship and the profits of the land and marriage were for the benefit of the heir, not the guardian. Feudal wardship was a fiscal perquisite, socage wardship an onerous burden. Baker has commented on the value of feudal marriage rights, the guardian was entitled to select a suitable marriage for the ward, and because large sums of money or exchanges of property were involved in arranging suitable matches for young heirs and heiresses this right could be highly valuable. J.H. BAKER, AN INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH LEGAL HISTORY 206-07 (1979). 2. The plea rolls are the records of the royal courts which contain entries of the actual proceedings. They are on 30-36 parchment sheets, fastened at the top, and are written in an abbreviated Latin known as court hand. Most of these voluminous documents are still in manu- scripts. See I GUIDE TO THE CONTENTS OF THE PUBLIC RECORD OFFICE (1963), at 94 (Exchequer of Pleas), 117 (Curia Regis and King's Bench), 123-25 (Justices Itinerant), at 137 (Common Pleas).

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