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, Magna Carta, and the development of the State

Henry II's reforms regarding land law protected tenants against their lords, by allowing them to look to the lord's superior, the king. One group of tenants did not have that option, the tenants-in-chief who held directly of the king. Their discontents are reflected in the varying attitude towards law displayed in Magna Carta, issued by King John in 1215. Certainly some clauses show the popularity of new procedures, for example promising the frequent holding of assizes such as novel disseisin. However, others protested about the abuses of royal law, for example the delaying or selling of justice, a problem which seems to reflect the huge amounts sometimes charged tenants in chief. They were demanding that law be applied to all free men in similar fashion.

'Henry II's reforms regarding land law protected tenants against their lords, by allowing them to look to the lord's superior, the king.'

It is further notable that whilst some clauses of Magna Carta talk in terms of lords and tenants, others refer to free men generally. It is as if two, probably unconscious, models underlie the charter, one regarding the realm as based upon a hierarchy of lordship, the second regarding it as consisting of the king and all his free subjects. This model, which we earlier associated with ideas of the state, had been encouraged by developments in law and justice. In 1170 Henry II's officers had heard complaints concerning the administration not only of sheriffs but also of lords. Likewise, his justices travelling throughout the realm had brought the free men in the local courts into regular, direct contact with central government, where their predecessors had dealt with local officials. Henry's regime was not necessarily more powerful than that of the greatest Anglo-Saxon or Norman kings, but it worked in a different way, a way which foreshadowed later mediaeval developments towards a state.

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Published: 2001-05-01