Study Saviour
Crime and punishment timelined summary of grade 9 notes:
Anglo Saxons:
❖ Factors: religion, poverty, government and societal attitudes.
❖ 1000 AD - 1066 AD - ended by the Norman Conquest.
❖ Blood feuds are used (and these are replaced later by the Normans).
❖ Tithings were used (every man above age 12 was in a group of these 10 men and
they’d all be punished if one man broke the law within his tithing - serving as
further deterrent not to do crime), along with hue and cry and trial by jury in
hundred courts - (oath helpers did exist) and were all methods of Anglo Saxon
law enforcement, along with trial by ordeal (such as hot iron and water).
❖ Wergild were used as a punishment (and these were later replaced by Normans
with fines paid directly to the King). Corporal and capital punishment were used
often as deterrents, along with whipping and stocks and pillory.
❖ People were only imprisoned whilst awaiting trial.
❖ Folk moots / hundred courts were courts that operated in individual villages and
met monthly, shire courts met 2 times a year, royal courts dealt with more serious
offences.
Normans:
❖ 1066 William the Conqueror King.
❖ Castles built to maintain control and authority.
❖ Many laws remained the same along with law enforcement - trial by ordeal kept
but now trial by combat was introduced - fighting to the death.
❖ Church courts for clergy were introduced - much greater leniency.
❖ The official language in courts became Norman - French.
❖ Normans introduced forest laws - hunting and bows and dogs forbidden, for
example for hunting meant that 2 fingers required to fire a bow would be cut off.
❖ Wergilds were replaced with murdrum fines.
❖ Normans introduced sanctuary and 40 days sanctuary could be claimed, after
which you would have to go into exile or read the ‘neck verse’ benefit of the
clergy could be had - along with trial in Church courts.
❖ Introduced parish constables - unpaid volunteers and they led the hue and cry.
❖ Sheriffs were introduced by Normans and were royal officials who went in pursuit
of serious criminals and brought them in front of the royal courts - could form a
posse to do a more ‘enhanced’ hue and cry.
1500-1700:
, ❖ Many punishments remain the same- although stocks and pillory as a corporal
punishment’s use has changed… for example those who cannot pay fines go to
the stocks and those who sell rotten food to the pillory.
❖ Justices of the peace are introduced (local magistrates that meet 4 times a year
to do quarter sessions) and are part of law enforcement now. Royal judges were
known as County Assizes.
❖ Superstitions such as witchcraft become more prominent.
❖ Treason now constitutes hanging, drawing and quartering (such as in the case of
the Gunpowder plotters).
❖ Jails are in existence and only used for prostitutes and vagabonds.
❖ Hue and cry is still used - along with parish constables who lead this.
❖ Population growth and urbanisation make hue and cry more difficult - the system
is becoming somewhat outdated.
❖ Religious turmoil is on the up - Henry the 8th for example in the 1534 Break from
Rome.
❖ Landowners attitudes are changing.
❖ Printing press had gained traction in the early 1500s.
❖ Economic changes ameliorated closer to the Industrial Revolution.
❖ Trial by ordeal and combat no longer used - instead courts use judges or juries.
❖ Sanctuary only used for less serious crimes - along with Benefit of the Clergy.
❖ Witchcraft: 1542 - witchcraft becomes a crime punishable by death, 1604 - King
James I enforces major witch hunts and in 1597 Daemonologie.
❖ 1642-49 - English civil war people took the law into their own hands - such as
Matthew Hopkins (1645) and County Assizes can’t get around the country.
❖ Vagabonds: 1494 - Vagabonds Act makes it a law vagabonds and beggars could
be put in the stocks for 3 days and nights and sent away, 1531 - beggars and
vagabonds categorised as sturdy beggars and deserving beggars, in 1547 the
Vagrancy Act made it law for beggars to word and could be whipped branded or
enslaved / executed if they were repeat offenders. In 1601 the idea of a deserving
poor emerged and the Poor Act emerged in the Elizabethan era.
❖ Henry VII banned all pirate armies and many became unemployed and
monasteries were dissolved and so the Catholic Church’s charity was no longer
available, population was rising and there was greater urbanisation, and lastly
travel improved and there were more roads on which people travelled.
❖ Heresy: John Wyliffe in the 1370s began to question the Roman Catholic Church
and truth of what the Church was saying - questioned transubstantiation and was
part of the Lollards, heretics then began to be burned at the stake. Following this
Martin Luther, 1483-1546, criticised the Church for selling indulgences (forgiven for
minor crimes such as adultery) and also wanted the Bible to be translate from
Latin to German - similarly William Tylndale translated the Bible from Latin to
English - they were both excommunicated for the Church. Mary I burned at the
stake 283 Protestants
❖ The bloody code: 1688 - 1830, In 1815 225 crimes were punishable by death
(including theft of any item over the value of a shilling).
Crime and punishment timelined summary of grade 9 notes:
Anglo Saxons:
❖ Factors: religion, poverty, government and societal attitudes.
❖ 1000 AD - 1066 AD - ended by the Norman Conquest.
❖ Blood feuds are used (and these are replaced later by the Normans).
❖ Tithings were used (every man above age 12 was in a group of these 10 men and
they’d all be punished if one man broke the law within his tithing - serving as
further deterrent not to do crime), along with hue and cry and trial by jury in
hundred courts - (oath helpers did exist) and were all methods of Anglo Saxon
law enforcement, along with trial by ordeal (such as hot iron and water).
❖ Wergild were used as a punishment (and these were later replaced by Normans
with fines paid directly to the King). Corporal and capital punishment were used
often as deterrents, along with whipping and stocks and pillory.
❖ People were only imprisoned whilst awaiting trial.
❖ Folk moots / hundred courts were courts that operated in individual villages and
met monthly, shire courts met 2 times a year, royal courts dealt with more serious
offences.
Normans:
❖ 1066 William the Conqueror King.
❖ Castles built to maintain control and authority.
❖ Many laws remained the same along with law enforcement - trial by ordeal kept
but now trial by combat was introduced - fighting to the death.
❖ Church courts for clergy were introduced - much greater leniency.
❖ The official language in courts became Norman - French.
❖ Normans introduced forest laws - hunting and bows and dogs forbidden, for
example for hunting meant that 2 fingers required to fire a bow would be cut off.
❖ Wergilds were replaced with murdrum fines.
❖ Normans introduced sanctuary and 40 days sanctuary could be claimed, after
which you would have to go into exile or read the ‘neck verse’ benefit of the
clergy could be had - along with trial in Church courts.
❖ Introduced parish constables - unpaid volunteers and they led the hue and cry.
❖ Sheriffs were introduced by Normans and were royal officials who went in pursuit
of serious criminals and brought them in front of the royal courts - could form a
posse to do a more ‘enhanced’ hue and cry.
1500-1700:
, ❖ Many punishments remain the same- although stocks and pillory as a corporal
punishment’s use has changed… for example those who cannot pay fines go to
the stocks and those who sell rotten food to the pillory.
❖ Justices of the peace are introduced (local magistrates that meet 4 times a year
to do quarter sessions) and are part of law enforcement now. Royal judges were
known as County Assizes.
❖ Superstitions such as witchcraft become more prominent.
❖ Treason now constitutes hanging, drawing and quartering (such as in the case of
the Gunpowder plotters).
❖ Jails are in existence and only used for prostitutes and vagabonds.
❖ Hue and cry is still used - along with parish constables who lead this.
❖ Population growth and urbanisation make hue and cry more difficult - the system
is becoming somewhat outdated.
❖ Religious turmoil is on the up - Henry the 8th for example in the 1534 Break from
Rome.
❖ Landowners attitudes are changing.
❖ Printing press had gained traction in the early 1500s.
❖ Economic changes ameliorated closer to the Industrial Revolution.
❖ Trial by ordeal and combat no longer used - instead courts use judges or juries.
❖ Sanctuary only used for less serious crimes - along with Benefit of the Clergy.
❖ Witchcraft: 1542 - witchcraft becomes a crime punishable by death, 1604 - King
James I enforces major witch hunts and in 1597 Daemonologie.
❖ 1642-49 - English civil war people took the law into their own hands - such as
Matthew Hopkins (1645) and County Assizes can’t get around the country.
❖ Vagabonds: 1494 - Vagabonds Act makes it a law vagabonds and beggars could
be put in the stocks for 3 days and nights and sent away, 1531 - beggars and
vagabonds categorised as sturdy beggars and deserving beggars, in 1547 the
Vagrancy Act made it law for beggars to word and could be whipped branded or
enslaved / executed if they were repeat offenders. In 1601 the idea of a deserving
poor emerged and the Poor Act emerged in the Elizabethan era.
❖ Henry VII banned all pirate armies and many became unemployed and
monasteries were dissolved and so the Catholic Church’s charity was no longer
available, population was rising and there was greater urbanisation, and lastly
travel improved and there were more roads on which people travelled.
❖ Heresy: John Wyliffe in the 1370s began to question the Roman Catholic Church
and truth of what the Church was saying - questioned transubstantiation and was
part of the Lollards, heretics then began to be burned at the stake. Following this
Martin Luther, 1483-1546, criticised the Church for selling indulgences (forgiven for
minor crimes such as adultery) and also wanted the Bible to be translate from
Latin to German - similarly William Tylndale translated the Bible from Latin to
English - they were both excommunicated for the Church. Mary I burned at the
stake 283 Protestants
❖ The bloody code: 1688 - 1830, In 1815 225 crimes were punishable by death
(including theft of any item over the value of a shilling).
