Common Law - Henry II and the Birth of a State

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• 1. Law and the State
• 2. Law before Henry II and the Impetus for Reform from 1154
• 3. The Angevin Legal Reforms
• 4. Law, Magna Carta, and the development of the State
• 5. Find out more
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Law before Henry II and the Impetus for Reform from 1154

Even before the reforms of Henry II (1154-89), which are often seen as the vital period for the creation of English common law, England had known a legal regime characterised by considerable royal control. From Anglo-Saxon England came a tradition of law-making which focused on the king as the protector of the realm, the corrector of wrongs. Likewise, the powerful administration of the period tackled many of the same problems of theft and interpersonal violence as would Henry II, and in rather similar ways. This administration, characterised in particular by the courts of the shire and its sub-division the hundred, survived the Norman Conquest. Crucially, in contrast with some areas of France and elsewhere in Europe, these administrative areas largely remained under royal control. The Normans also brought important elements of their own to English law, most notably customs relating to land-holding.

'From Anglo-Saxon England came a tradition of law-making which focused on the king as the protector of the realm...'

In the middle of the twelfth century, however, both the extensive involvement of the king in particular legal matters and the general administrative pattern were severely threatened by the civil war of King Stephen's reign (1135-54). The need to restore royal authority, to return the realm to its condition in his grandfather's reign, was one of the main forces behind Henry II's reforms. The same desire underlay his efforts to reassert control of the Church. These efforts brought him into conflict with his own chosen archbishop, Thomas Becket, and the circle who conducted the dispute with Becket, and developed their ideas of kingship in that context, were the men whose ideas shaped the legal reforms. At the same time, impersonal factors, such as the growth of literate government, also had an impact upon legal development.

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Published: 2001-05-01