[ArM5] Medieval Law question

[Juergen Wolter]

Adam,


I am not an expert on Common Law in 1220, but there are three issues in this 
legal matter which you might consider further:

(1) The chances of Thomas the manor Bailiff and Reeve to remain in office 
based on heredity appear to be very slim to me: Reeves, Bailiffs or Sheriffs 
represent a lord in serious fiscal and financial matters, implying that 
lord's trust in both their capabilities and their loyalty. Thomas failed 
quite blatantly in both respects. Latest from 1170 on Sheriffs found illoyal 
or incapable by the king's justice where routinely sacked and replaced by 
knights from the office of the exchequer, strengthening the kings influence. 
Thomas might keep some property from his family's glory days as manor 
Bailiffs if he has a writ to show for it, though: then only the king's 
justice could take that away.
(2) Also latest from 1170 on,  the king's justiciars start to not only 
decide in cases of high justice, but can also take on - e. g. financially - 
promising low justice cases.
As long as neither Haybert nor Simon got any serious and irrecoverable 
disabilities from the sorry altercation in the middle of the fields, 
probably the best both parties can do is: not generate a lawsuit at all. If 
somebody were foolish enough to make out of that fight a case for the low 
justice courts, the king's justiciar might take it on, get all the juicy 
fines to be gotten from a rich freeman and the manor, and since no lasting 
harm was done will not allot any party damages (or make the allotted damages 
cancel out each other, for irony's sake).
(3) Even if Haybert was somehow permanently maimed, his or his father's 
chances to receive damages would be very slim, however, since he publicly 
attacked a representative of his lord. The covenant might perhaps have to 
represent Sorcha in the right light: not as a warrior charged and failing to 
shield Simon, but as a frightened female bystander trying to protect the 
lord's envoy from serious imminent harm - thus also protecting Haybert from 
capital punishment.
I reckon, too, that after Haybert's attack the covenant at least could 
threaten him with imprisonment, unless his father consents to an out of 
court settlement of all the outstanding conflicts and then leaves the area.


Kind regards,

Berengar