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The Evidential Value of Approvers' Appeals: The Case of William Rose, 1389

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2011

J.B. Post
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Extract

The criminals of medieval England are coming under increasing scrutiny. Predictably, the earliest attempts to illustrate criminality in this period have been anecdotal in approach. Predictably, too, the case studies are concentrated at higher levels in society, where criminals or their victims were sufficiently prominent to merit the attention of chroniclers or to leave heavy traces in the more accessible records of central government. Such studies have been useful in reinforcing the impression that organized crime enjoyed distinguished support and participation. For some time Sir John Molyns was able to shelter his persistent offences behind his political connection. Merchants robbed in Cannock Chase in 1341 found prosecution difficult; their assailants were knights from powerful midland families, conducting the robbery from Lapley priory. The Folville gang, led by members of minor landowning families, included various beneficed clergy and the constable of Rockingham castle. The Coterels recruited the sheriff of Nottingham and enjoyed the support of Lichfield chapter. The crimes were also at an exalted level: murdering a baron of the Exchequer, kidnapping a king's bench justice, extortion by threats from a mayor of Nottingham, or from one of the Luttrells. Even William Wawe, an Anglo-Irish thug of indifferent social standing, owes his immortality to the breadth of his operations and his preference for churchmen as victims.

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Articles
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 3 , Issue 1 , Spring 1985 , pp. 91 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 1985

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References

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16. KB 29/39 m.14 and KB 27/552 Rex m.16.

17. sE.g. KB 27/546 Rex m.ll [Adam Hasting]; KB 27/468 Rex m.24d [Thomas More].

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24. E 372/234 Item Suth‘t’ m.1 d.

25. JUST 1/797.

26. JUST 3/179 m.7d.

27. KB 27/531 Rex m.15; KB 29/39 m.18.

28. Statute of Gloucester, c.9: annotated text in Post, J.B., ‘Ravishment of Women and the Statutes of Westminster’, in Baker, J.H., ed.. Legal Records and the Historian (Royal Historical Society, Studies in History, 1978) 163–64Google Scholar.

29. Victoria County History of Buckinghamshire III (London, 1925) 114Google Scholar.

30. JUST 2/155 m.15 [John Bincombe of Taunton].

31. Hampshire Record Office, 5.M.50/181.

32. JUST 3/179 mm.4d and 5.

33. KB 27/519 Rex m.19; KB 27/532 Rex m.14d.

34. F[urley], J.S., Town Life in the Fourteenth Century (Winchester, no date) 154–55Google Scholar.

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36. KB 27/468 Rex mm.24 and 24d.

37. KB 27/536 Rex m.14.

38. KB 9/108 m.17; KB 9/171 m.5.

39. KB 27/529 Rex m.20.

40. KB 27/527 Rex m.4d, and JUST 3/179 m.9.

41. Cf. Cockburn, J.S., ‘Trial By the Book? Fact and Theory In The Criminal Process 1558–1625’, Legal Records and the Historian (Royal Historical Society, Studies in History, 1978) 65–66Google Scholar.

42. JUST 3/179 m.6.

43. KB 27/529 Rex mm.24d and 25; KB 27/532 Rex m.23.

44. KB 27/530 Rex m. 15; KB 27/536 Rex m. 20d.

45. KB 27/530 Rex m. 23d.

46. KB 27/530 Rex m. 25d; KB 27/532 Rex m.15.

47. KB 27/531 Rex m. 15.

48. KB 29/39 m.18.

49. JUST 1/797 m.2; KB 27/530 Rex mm. 11 and 31.

50. JUST 3/179 mm.7 and 8d; cf. JUST 1/796 m.2 (printed in Proceedings Before the Justices of the Peace in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries (Ames Foundation, 1938) 218Google Scholar. nos.28–29).

51. KB 9/108 m.3.

52. KB 9/108 m.22.

53. KB 27/527 Rex m.1d; KB 27/530 Rex mm. 31 and 11; KB 27/531 Rex m. 2d.

54. KB 27/533 Rex m.1.

55. KB 27/536 Rex m. 10.

56. KB 27/534 Rex m. 2; KB 27/536 Rex m. 10.

57. Calendar of Patent Rolls 1391–1396 (London, 1905) 241–42Google Scholar; cf. KB 27/527 Rex. m.1d.

58. KB 27/537 Rex m.16d; KB 27/527 Rex m. 11.

59. KB 27/534 Rex m.4.

60. KB 27/530 Rex m. 31; KB 27/531 Rex m.2d.

61. KB 27/532 Rex m.3d.

62. KB 27/533 Rex m.12d.

63. Jens Röhrkasten of the Free University of Berlin is examining the appeals of more than five hundred approvers from the first half of the fourteenth century.