Law and Custom before 1066

This chapter prepares the ground by exploring the character of law and custom in England before the emergence of the common law. The so-called codes issued by some of the Anglo-Saxon kings, especially the great doom-book of King Alfred, were not comprehensive bodies of law. Disputes were settled by customary methods, mostly in local assemblies, in the county and hundred. There were no lawyers or juries. Disputes of fact were tried by putting a party on oath, and in the most serious cases requiring the oath to be supported by a physical ‘ordeal’. Some features of the common-law system were in place before 1066, particularly the concepts of royal and seignorial jurisdiction, the pleas of the Crown, the delegation of royal authority to sheriffs and franchise-holders, and the use of writing as an exercise of authority.