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[notorial dissent]

During what we consider the medieval period til well after John, UNLESS you were untitled nobility or anything less than the Lord of the Manor you didn't count for much, or at all. The "common law" of the time was enforced at sword point and consent was neither needed nor required. The agitation and outright conflict from 1066 on between the Norman conquers and the conquered Anglos Saxons is proof of the consent lie, they didn't consent and the Normans DIDN'T CARE.

As an extra credit question why was the reason for the article pertaining to the City of London? It wasn't put there for pretty or to make sovcit loony's head explode, although that is a desirable affect as well.

If medieval law were to be summed up in a few words then it would be, as your liege commands(ultimately the King), so shall you do, all the way down to the lowliest of peasant or villain. WITHOUT QUESTION.

[grixit]

As i've said before, english common law begins with a single principle: Henceforth, William of Normandy owns everything. After that comes a whole lot addendums and modifications.

[Gregg]

Oh, they could question it, but the answer was as often as not "you'd look better a head shorter than you are" Or "lemme hang you from this tree by the neck whilst I explain why you're not right"

Ya had free speech, but ya had consequences.

[longdog]

It is the same phenomenon as discussing Magna Carta and equating "the barons" with "the common people".

I've found pointing out that the barons were mostly French puts the cat amongst the pigeons.

I've not actually bothered looking it up but it's probably partly true and they will be incapable of doing any real research to prove me wrong

[Gregg]

The average peasant or serf was effectively included in the property of the Barons and other nobility.

[Gregg]

It is the same phenomenon as discussing Magna Carta and equating "the barons" with "the common people".

I've found pointing out that the barons were mostly French puts the cat amongst the pigeons.

I've not actually bothered looking it up but it's probably partly true and they will be incapable of doing any real research to prove me wrong

I think that a lot of this could be stopped if we could find a decree where any pleading at Common Law under Magna Carta must be made in either Old French or Latin. Is there such a thing as Cockney Latin?

I had always thought that King John was the first post conquest King of England who spoke English, although someone has told me that's not really right. He was raised speaking French, as Henry II I'm certain only spoke English when being played by Peter O'Toole.

I think I found that John MAY have been able to speak some English but his day to day language was French and Edward I was the first King of England who spoke English any more than on special occasions and it wasn't until Henry IV that the King's English was the King's first language.

Do they teach any of this in school there? Over here in the colonies the only English Monarchs we learn about are George III (who is a bad guy in our schools more than in yours), Henry VIII and Elizabeth I who we credit with inventing quaint little village squares with decorative little podiums for quaint little public speeches and cute little blocks of wood with a notch where you cut off the people's heads. Oh, and we're okay with Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, because she's a pretty nice girl who doesn't have a lot to say.

[notorial dissent]

The average peasant or serf was effectively included in the property of the Barons and other nobility.

No effectively about it. Peasants/serfs were bound to the land and were considered chattel to the Lord of the Manor or whoever held it in fief, was possessed of the land.

[longdog]

OK... I've now done my in depth historical research over a period of some minutes. I've looked on Wikipedia, Googled and spoke to my mate who has PhD in history but doesn't really know much about this time and place...

If you define early 13c Normandy as France and if you define being French as being culturally and linguistically a part of the ruling Norman hierarchy... Yes... They were almost all French.

As they all seem to be more than happy to call HMtheQ (gawd bless 'er) a German because her great, great grandfather was Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and most of them are of the "he's got brown skin he's a paki" mob then the argument of "No... Mate... They were a bunch of Frogs" is a logically sound one.

So an 800 year old treaty between a bunch of feudal "Frogs" that neither side had any intention of abiding by and both sides reneged on within months still binds a 21st century democracy and always will... Good to know.

I must remember the next time I murder somebody to only do it in front of a woman who's not the victims wife... Then they cant touch me... It's in the bible Magna Carta people!

[notorial dissent]

The lingua franca of the Conqueror period was Norman French, which was a dialect of French. English as we know it didn't exist at the time. The local language was Anglo-Saxon which only bares a slight resemblance to English modern or otherwise, think Chaucer only worse. It was considered a peasant language and the Normans felt it, and the Saxons were beneath them. The Norman kings prior to John probably spent more time in Normandy than they did England. John being the exception as he didn't really have any French lands to begin with and he eventually lost the ones the family had held, the Channel Islands being the last remnants of Normandy that survived under English control.

[AnOwlCalledSage]

most of them are of the "he's got brown skin he's a paki" mob

They are not really that sophisticated. I've got white skin but I've been called a "Paki" - despite my Asian ancestors coming from a completely different part of the sub-continent.

Of course, the real skunk in the works was that the Normans were "North men" - i.e Viking descendants who went native and married into and adopted the customs of that area of France, in much the way the Normans eventually assimilated with the Anglo-Saxons a few centuries later. 1066 was basically a big fight at a family BBQ!

[Pottapaug1938]

The lingua franca of the Conqueror period was Norman French, which was a dialect of French. English as we know it didn't exist at the time. The local language was Anglo-Saxon which only bares a slight resemblance to English modern or otherwise, think Chaucer only worse. It was considered a peasant language and the Normans felt it, and the Saxons were beneath them. The Norman kings prior to John probably spent more time in Normandy than they did England. John being the exception as he didn't really have any French lands to begin with and he eventually lost the ones the family had held, the Channel Islands being the last remnants of Normandy that survived under English control.

John had the sobriquet "Lackland" hung on him, precisely because unlike his brothers, he had no lands to call his own.

[Burnaby49]

If you define early 13c Normandy as France and if you define being French as being culturally and linguistically a part of the ruling Norman hierarchy... Yes... They were almost all French.

It's my understanding that the Normans were actually vikings hence Norman/northmen. The vikings landed on the French coast and started taking over, king of France tried to stop them, couldn't, so agree to let them keep what they'd conquered. They were eventually completely assimilated into French culture and disappeared as a recognizeable ethnic group but, in 1066, still more Viking than French.

[AndyPandy]

The average peasant or serf was effectively included in the property of the Barons and other nobility.

From recollection, at the time of King John 3% of the population where ‘nobility’, 10% were Freemen (hence where the Freeman on the Land phrase comes from) and the rest were serfs.

[Siegfried Shrink]

I find it mildly interesting that those pesky Vikings/Normans ruled areas as far south as scicily.

Roger II, (born December 22, 1095—died February 26, 1154, Palermo [Sicily]), grand count of Sicily (1105–30) and king of the Norman kingdom of Sicily (1130–54). He also incorporated the mainland territories of Calabria in 1122 and Apulia in 1127.

[Gregg]

The average peasant or serf was effectively included in the property of the Barons and other nobility.

From recollection, at the time of King John 3% of the population where ‘nobility’, 10% were Freemen (hence where the Freeman on the Land phrase comes from) and the rest were serfs.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see

[Famspear]

[ . . . ] The local language was Anglo-Saxon which only bares a slight resemblance to English modern or otherwise, think Chaucer only worse [ . . . ]

Wait a minute. You're saying that Anglo-Saxon words were different from modern English words? Why, what could be more understandable to a modern day reader fluent in English than this, from the Anglo-Saxon (“Old English”) in the year 1020:

Cnut cyning gret his arcebiscopas and his leodbiscopas and Ƿurcyl eorl and ealle his eorlas and ealne his þeodscype, twelfhynde and twyhynde, gehadode and læwede, on Englalande freondlice. And ic cyðe eow, þaet ic wylle beon hold hlaford and unswicende to godes gerihtum and to rihtre woroldlage.

Ic nam me to gemynde þa gewritu and þa word, þe se arcebiscop Lyfing me fram þam papan brohte of Rome, þæt ic scold æghwær godes lof upp aræran and unriht alecgan and full frið wyrcean be ðære mihte, þe me god syllan wolde.

---excerpt from a writ in the year 1020 from King Cnut (Canute), a Danish Viking who was King of England from 1016 to 1035, from Kaiser, “Medieval English” (Berlin, 1958), as reproduced in “The History of English”, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 28a, G.&C. Merriam Co. (8th ed. 1976).



A translation:

Canute the king greets his archbishops and his provincial bishops and Earl Thurcyl and all his earls and all his people, rich and poor, ordained and lay, in England, in friendly fashion. And I assure you that I wish to be a gracious lord and devoted to the laws of God and to just human law.

I have remembered the writs and the words that Archbishop Lyfing brought me from the Pope of Rome, that I should in all ways support the praise of God and put down injustice and promote perfect peace to the extent of the strength that God would grant me.

--from “The History of English”, Webster’s New Collegiate Dictionary, p. 28a, G.&C. Merriam Co. (8th ed. 1976).

[Famspear]

Almost everything has changed in the 999 years that have passed.

The conjunction "and" is easily recognized, as are the pronouns "his" and "me" and the preposition "of". The word for "all" was "ealne", which seems to imply a slightly changed pronunciation.

The singular first person nominative case pronoun "I" was "ic" back then, which illustrates the Germanic origin of the Anglo-Saxon language (compare the spelling "ich" in modern-day standard German).

[Pottapaug1938]

I wonder if all of these magic ancient writs, to say nothing of the Magna Carta, would work, if they were written and filed using the original alphabets and languages....

[Siegfried Shrink]

That Anglosaxon was quite interesting, I found I could read about half of it with a bit of help from my German, although it was harder than original Chaucer it was easier than Beowulf.

[longdog]

[ . . . ] The local language was Anglo-Saxon which only bares a slight resemblance to English modern or otherwise, think Chaucer only worse [ . . . ]

Wait a minute. You're saying that Anglo-Saxon words were different from modern English words? Why, what could be more understandable to a modern day reader fluent in English than this, from the Anglo-Saxon (“Old English”) in the year 1020:

One of my great uncles, who only died about 15 years ago was one of the last people who was able (but usually unwilling) to speak full blown Kentish which was virtually incomprehensible to me born 70 years later and 35 miles away. His grandparents who he learned it off were "native speakers" and could speak little else and they only died in the 1920s.

Kentish bumpkins... A fine breed that I be 'appy to be descended fraarm.