p-lawyers-msg - 11/27/99 Medieval laws and lawyers. NOTE: See also the files: commerce-msg, p-education-msg, monks-msg, universities-msg, med-law-art, punishments-msg, p-medicine-msg. ************************************************************************ NOTICE - This file is a collection of various messages having a common theme that I have collected from my reading of the various computer networks. Some messages date back to 1989, some may be as recent as yesterday. This file is part of a collection of files called Stefan's Florilegium. These files are available on the Internet at: http://www.florilegium.org I have done a limited amount of editing. Messages having to do with separate topics were sometimes split into different files and sometimes extraneous information was removed. For instance, the message IDs were removed to save space and remove clutter. The comments made in these messages are not necessarily my viewpoints. I make no claims as to the accuracy of the information given by the individual authors. Please respect the time and efforts of those who have written these messages. The copyright status of these messages is unclear at this time. If information is published from these messages, please give credit to the originator(s). Thank you, Mark S. Harris AKA: THLord Stefan li Rous Stefan at florilegium.org ************************************************************************ Newsgroups: rec.org.sca From: mittle at watson.ibm.com (Arval d'Espas Nord) Subject: Period Lawyer Jokes (was Re: Congrats to Harold Feld/ Yakkov) Date: Tue, 30 Nov 1993 20:05:09 GMT Organization: IBM T.J. Watson Research Kate Sanderson asked: > Anybody know any period lawyer jokes? The "kill all the lawyers" motif appears several times in period literature. One example can be found in "Tirant lo Blanc", a 15th century Catalan novel of the greatest knight who ever lived. At one point, he suggests holding a grand parade of all the guilds, letting the lawyers march first for their honor. As the parade passes over a bridge, guards should close the bridge from both sides, isolating the lawyers. All but one of them should be killed, and he should be given but 24 hours to decide any case, on pain of his life. Shakespeare offers his own version: 2 Henry VI, IV.ii DICK The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers. CADE Nay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? that parchment, being scribbled o'er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings: but I say, 'tis the bee's wax; for I did but seal once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. As You Like It, III.ii ROSALIND Time travels in divers paces with divers persons. I'll tell you who Time ambles withal, who Time trots withal, who Time gallops withal and who he stands still withal. ... ORLANDO Who stays it still withal? ROSALIND With lawyers in the vacation, for they sleep between term and term and then they perceive not how Time moves. Hamlet, V.i HAMLET There's another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? why does he suffer this rude knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery? Hum! This fellow might be in's time a great buyer of land, with his statutes, his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine of his fines, and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? will his vouchers vouch him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor himself have no more, ha? King Lear, I.iv KENT This is nothing, fool. Fool Then 'tis like the breath of an unfee'd lawyer; you gave me nothing for't. =========================================================================== Arval d'Espas Nord mittle at watson.ibm.com From: ga_tewes at postoffice.utas.edu.au (Alex Tewes) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Period Lawyer Jokes Date: 2 Dec 1993 05:17:59 GMT Organization: University of Tasmania My favourite Period Lawyer Story comes from the book "Tirant lo Blanc" (13thC?) anyway, the book was highly recommended by Cervantes. In one section it tells the story of a Grand Tournament to be held in England. The weeks of Tourneys were to start with a parade through town which was to include the Chivalry, the Nobility, and also the Town Guilds. A great argument arose among the Guilds concerning precedence ( nothing new there...) The ruckus was so loud that the King himself went to investigate what was going on. A little detective work proved that most of the problem had been caused by three lawyers acting for various guilds, so the King had a scaffold built and the lawyers were promptly hanged. Pity the practice didn't catch on.... ------------------------------------------------------------------ _-_-|\ Martin de Mont Blanc (mka Alex Tewes) / \ ga_tewes at postoffice.utas.edu.au \_.-._ / v <------ Barony of Ynys Fawr/Lochac/West (That's Tasmania, AUSTRALIA) --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: jeffs at math.bu.EDU (Jeff Suzuki) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: lawyer jokes Date: 1 Dec 1993 14:54:04 -0500 Organization: The Internet >Anybody know any period lawyer jokes? If memory serves, "First, we hang all the lawyers" was supposed to be a comic interruption in an otherwise depressing play. Tio From: jliedl at nickel.laurentian.ca Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Period Lawyer Jokes Date: 1 Dec 93 11:14:33 -0500 Organization: Laurentian University My favorite period lawyer anecdote is when I list off all the different groups that were allowed to immigrate to Hispaniola (Spanish colony in New World) at the start of the sixteenth century--convict, slaves, anyone, _except_ lawyers (they were forbidden as a source of dissension in a population). Sort of the snake in paradise, I guess? Ancarett Nankivellis Janice Liedl Laurentian University, Canada JLIEDL at NICKEL.LAURENTIAN.CA From: Engle.3 at nd.EDU (Harriet) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: re: Lyon book (was: any law students...) Date: 13 Jul 1994 22:13:15 -0400 Organization: the internet Greetings! I have found the listing of Bryce Lyon's "A Constitutional and Legal History of Medieval England" and lost the address of the fellow who wanted it. Batting 1.000 today... Lyon, Bryce Dale (title as above) 2nd edition, pub. NYC- Norton,c 1980 ISBN 0393951324. The first edition is also Norton, with a date of 1960, I think. Hope this helps. **************************************************************************** * Harriet Engle, Engle.3 at nd.edu * Chief Announcer WSND 88.9 FM ND/South Bend * SCA: Eiric MacBean,White Waters,Middle * Brother in the Great Dark Horde * Disclaimer: Notre Dame has as little to do with me as possible ;-) **************************************************************************** From: haslock at oleum.zso.dec.com (Nigel Haslock) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: prisoners, punishments, etc. Date: 9 Sep 1994 00:07:28 GMT Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation Greetings from Fiacha, If I understand the Irish codes correctly, they were purely compensation based. However, the system was very different from any of todays systems. Step one. The two aggrieved parties hunted up a lawyer. Step two. The lawyer listens to the complaints and the testimony of witnesses. If two witnesses give conflicting stories, the higher status witness is assumed to be truthful. Step three. The lawyer states what laws apply, quoting legendary situations that parallel the incident. He then declares who has been injured and quotes the standard compensation for the injury, taking into account the status of the injured party. High status individuals are minimally damaged by loss of goods but are severely damaged by attacks on their good name and reputation; low status individuals are severely damaged by loss of goods but minimally damaged by attacks on their name and reputation. The maximum compensation that could be paid to the victim was the victim's "honour price". This ranged from virtually nothing up to seven ounces of silver (the equivalent of seven years gross income for a semi skilled worker). Things could go wrong. If you are a poor farmer and a noble comes by and steals some of your livestock, what do you do. You could complain to higher authority, you could find another noble of equal status and becomes his man or you can start a hunger strike on the noble's doorstep. The object of the hunger strike is to shame the noble into letting the case be heard. Reputation being important to the nobility and generosity being a prised virtue, having someone starving on your doorstep was very damaging. The next problem is that of jurisdiction. Within a tuath (the people who follow a specific righ, roughly a clan but very close in concept to an English barony) it is clear that the law applies and that social pressure will ensure that the compensation will be paid. There are no guarantees when the two parties are from different tuatha. Given that the first job of a newly appointed righ is to lead the men of the tuath of a raid for more cattle, expecting him to allow a lawyer to tell him to give them back is pretty silly. Thus Irish law only applies with the tuath (treaties and alliances could extend the range for a while). As a result, you can escape justice by running away. It was OK to let people run away because they could not take their wealth with them. You can't take livestock because you will not be able to find anywhere to keep them (good land is always owned by someone). Also, you will not be able to defend you right to own them (non-members of a tuath have zero status within the tuath). By running, you are acting like a runaway slave and are likely to be treated like a runaway slave. Obviously, there are some treasures that equate to transportable wealth but they are not common and trading them for necessities could be difficult. Most importantly, the concept of prison and long term confinement is not likely to occur to a semi nomadic culture. The christian farming communities might have come up with the idea but are not likely to have seen the need given the traditional system of compensation that was already in place. It is important to notice that the Irish system of laws survived the danish settlers and converted the Anglo-norman settlers who were far enough from Dublin to get away with it. It took Cromwell to break the system and replace it with English "justice". Regards Fiacha haslock at zso.dec.com From: HAROLD.FELD at hq.doe.GOV Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Conversion of Beer Taps Date: 23 Aug 1995 13:17:52 -0400 Organization: The Internet Greetings from Yaakov. From the description made by Guillietta (sp?), that actions described are, indeed, common law conversion. It is not *theft*, because the kegs were brought onto the property in question in a law abiding manner. For those interested in Medieval history (remeber the middle ages) and the history of the common law, the action of conversion has a rather amusing history. After about the 12th century, the common law developed a tremendous problem in dealing with difficulties not narrowly pigeonholed by the writ system (this ultimately led to the expansion of the action for tresspass in the 15th and 16th centuries as King's Bench derived its revenues from writs. In the face of such narriow justice, folks began to abandon King's Bench and Common Pleas for Chancery. King's Bench survived both through inventive use of the tresspass action and the growing bureaucracy surrounding Chancery.) In any event, the common law judges had a problem: if the object came into possession legally, it could not be theft, since theft is defined as seizing someone else's property. The answer was a legal fiction. Plaintif asserted that the defendant had always conspired in his heart of hearts to keep the property. Thus, even though the defendant had received the object legally, it was through fraud. This "fraud" eliminated the element of consent and allowed an action to proceed. Yaakov (who wishes we did more legal stuff in the context of the game) From: jeffs at math.bu.edu (Jeff Suzuki) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Medieval Laws Date: 26 Sep 1995 20:16:53 GMT Organization: Boston University Peter Rose (WISH at uriacc.uri.EDU) wrote: : >>I'm looking for a compact list of common Medival Laws such as "Anybody : >>caught stealing will get their hand cut off" or similar stuff. Is there a : >>list somewhere? Thanks! : > : >I have been wondering if the Irish brehon laws were published. Perhaps : >someone could point us both in the right direction. : > : I dunno about brief, or Irish, but if you're at all interested in : a relevent digression, you should skim through the 1st volume of : Blackstone's _On English Law_. On the principle of "dry is probably OK" (so sue me), Henry Charles Lea has a couple of books out; one of them (IMSC) is _The Duel and the Oath_, which deals with things legal, and the other that comes to mind regards the Inquisition (titled, oddly enough, _The Inquisition_). The first _seemed_ to be pretty well researched and footnoted, but was dry as toast and I only suffered through the first three or so chapters. William the Alchymist From: Gerekr at aol.COM Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Medieval Law Date: 27 Sep 1995 14:37:20 -0400 Organization: The Internet David/(Cariadoc) mentioned _Gragas_ . The full citation is: Dennis, Andrew et al. _Laws of Early Iceland: Gragas._ Winnipeg: University of Manitoba Press, 1980. When Chimene talked with them back in April only vol. I was available, with vol. II expected in October, I think. Their publication date keeps retreating however. A translation of the Frostathing Law from Norway is available in the University of Illinois Studies in Language and Literature series, 1922. These are available from Johnson Reprints, I believe. I'm sorry, I don't remember the translator or volume, but there is a copy in the University of Oregon library if you need the additional information. There was also a copy of the law of the province of Skane from c1300 in the Codex Runicus (Regius). I don't know if there is a translation available, but I've translated a few extracts. It's in runic, including one of the oldest folk songs known. Meistari Gerekr Gerekr at aol.com From: bjm10 at cornell.edu (Bryan J. Maloney) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: MURDER, back onto an historical bent Date: Tue, 16 Jan 1996 12:32:57 -0400 Organization: Cornell University This discussion reminds me of something I figured out whilst reading translations of a few ancient and medieval law codes (that I was an utter FOOL about and didn't Xerox at the time). Today, we speak of "an eye for an eye" as a harsh, to some people excessively harsh, approach towards criminal justice. Even many of those who advocate it do so from a mostly visceral, "get even", position. Here's where it gets to be a history lesson: The Mosaic criminal law code may be unique among ancient and medieval European law codes in that it prescribes a single punishment for a given crime, REGARDLESS OF THE STATUS OF THE VICTIM OR THE PERPETRATOR. This is quite a change from other codes, which make assault or murder of an ordinary freeman a lesser crime than assault upon or murder of somebody higher up on the social ladder. Thus, "an eye for an eye" was a remarkably egalitarian approach towards criminal justice. You didn't charge a higher penalty for attacking a rich man, and you didn't permit rich men to get away with crimes by paying weregild (or equivalent). This was not completely equal, since women, children, slaves, and foreigners had lesser protection, but it was still an interesting innovation. I later found out that I was far from the first person to realize this about the Mosaic code, but I still found it to be quite interesting. From: kellogg at rohan.sdsu.edu (kellogg) Newsgroups: alt.history.living,rec.org.sca,soc.history,soc.history.living Subject: Anglo-Saxon Law codes on-line (was: Re: Heriots in Anglo-Saxon England) Date: 25 Mar 1996 19:54:21 GMT Organization: San Diego State University Computing Services ben at hrofi.demon.co.uk wrote: : P.S. Does anyone know if there are online copies of Anglo-Saxon laws : from Cnut to Edward the Confessor available? The laws of Alfred and Ine can be found at . They are in the original language. The same document can also be found at . I haven't found any translations to Modern English yet. Hope this helps. Avenel Kellough From: HAROLD.FELD at hq.doe.GOV Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Peasants & Laborers Date: 25 Mar 1996 15:28:57 -0500 Greetings from Yaakov. I'm not sure how true any of this is outside of England, but there are a few *major* developments for English law on the matter. The first is Littleton's "Land Tenures." With one stroke, the system of classification of people by land tenure and land tenure by possession of rights was frozen in time and remains an influence on real property law *to* *this* *day* (in Common Law countries). It is hard to overstate the importance of Littleton to the development of common law in this area from the 13th Century (I *think* Littleton is 13th Century, notes are at home) to the 18th. The second is the Statute of Laborers, passed in (I think) 1353 in response to the labor shortage caused by the plague. The statute fixed wages for "laborers" at their pre-plague level. However, "craftsmen" were exempted from the statute. As you might imagine, considerable litigation ensued over who was or was not a craftsman or a laborer. Yaakov From: sbloch at adl15.adelphi.edu (Stephen Bloch) Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Brehon law Date: 9 Nov 1996 21:44:44 GMT Organization: Adelphi University, Garden City, NY Diane Carter wrote: >Does anyone know of any sources to study the early Irish laws-Brehon >laws. All help is greatly appreciated. A number of years ago I was browsing my then-local University library and ran into a book entitled _Seanchus Mor_. As I recall, when St. Patrick converted a bunch of the ruling class of Ireland, he had the Ard-Righ's brehon(s) recite laws from memory for a couple of days, with his own monks taking dictation (in Irish Gaelic). I believe little or none of this material had ever been written down before. Anyway, St. Patrick then went through all these laws and crossed out anything he felt directly contradicted Christian teaching (apparently with a good measure of restraint, i.e. most of the Brehon Law was left intact). The book was copied out for future reference, and over the next few centuries it acquired a lot of layers of commentary (sorta like the Talmud). The book I saw in the UCSD library was a reprinting, with facing-page English translation, of the result, complete with different type sizes and positions on the page to indicate different hands and marginal notations. mar-Joshua ibn-Eleazar ha-Shalib -- Stephen Bloch sbloch at panther.adelphi.edu http://www.adelphi.edu/~sbloch/ Math/CS Dept, Adelphi University From: "James W. Reilly" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Brehon law Date: Wed, 13 Nov 1996 00:31:51 +0100 mr. Block makes a very good point with only very minor aberrations to the results of my own research. As my research has come up with this story of St. Patrick's re-writing of the Brehon Laws, is that instead of taking out things that he felt to be unchristian, he sat with the brehons and went over the Irish laws (Brehon if you wish) one by one and re-formulated them in a christian manner without actually changing the meaning of any of them. This may be totally unimportant, but the information is there if anyone is interested. Enda From: "Maureen S. O'Brien" Newsgroups: rec.org.sca Subject: Re: Brehon Laws Date: Thu, 03 Apr 1997 00:02:19 -0800 Organization: Dayton Network Access Company Eric C. Smith wrote: > I am in search of reference material on the Brehon Laws of Ireland. > Specifically, I hope to find a source for the actual set of laws > themselves, in translation of course as I do not speak, much less read, > Irish Gaelic of any period. Ancient Laws of Ireland: Senchus Mor and Athgabail (Law of Distraint), Vol. I (William S. Hein & Co., Buffalo NY, 1983). This is a reprint of a book originally pubbed in Dublin in 1865 by the Royal Stationery Office. One side in Middle Irish, the other in English translation, with notes and introduction. W.N. Hancock et al ed. and trans. Ancient Laws of Ireland, Vol. 1: Senchus Mor, and Athgabail (Law of distraint). William S. Hein & Co, Buffalo NY, 1983. A reprint of the 1865 book, with Irish on one page and English translation on the facing page. Includes notes and introduction. Very interesting! Look for it in your local law school library. I've seen it there at the University of Toledo, not usually a Celtic studies powerhouse. (Not to mention the medieval Chinese lawbooks and casebooks translated by Van Gulik.) The rest of these books I haven't read. Fergus Kelly, A Guide to Early Irish Law. Dublin, 1988. D.A. Binchy ed. and trans., Corpus Juris Hibernici. 6 vols. Dublin, 1978. "", "Bretha Crolige", Eriu 12 (1952): 1-77. "", "Bretha Dein Checht", Eriu 20 (1966): 1-66. "", Crith Gablach, Dublin, 1941. W.N. Hancock et al ed. and trans., Ancient Laws of Ireland. 6 vols. in all. Dublin, 1865- 1901. Maybe those guys in Buffalo reprinted the other 5? Good luck. If you find these babies, tell me where. Edited by Mark S. Harris p-lawyers-msg Page 10 of 10