After his appointment as chief justice of King's Bench in 1495, John Fyneux pressured the ecclesiastical hierarchy through indictments for escapes which explored which officials had responsibility for the prisons and how they were managed, and thereby successfully asserted the royal right of oversight. By the end of Henry VII's reign his bishops, faced with ruinous fines like other lords, had largely accepted their role as gaolers under royal authority, and thus contributed to the bureaucratisation of the hierarchy which Henry VIII would exploit to such good effect.
Between the mid-fifteenth and mid-sixteenth century Prerogativa Regis, a central text of fiscal feudalism, was introduced into the curriculum of the Inns of Court, developed, and then abandoned. This 2003 book argues that while lawyers often turned their attention to the text when political and financial issues brought it to the fore, they sought to maintain an intellectual consistency and coherence in the law. Discussions of both substance and procedure demonstrate how readers reflected the concerns of their time in the topics they chose to consider and how they drew on the learning of both their predecessors and their peers at the Inns. The first study based primarily on readings, this book threw light on legal education, early Tudor financial and administrative procedure, and the relationship between the ways that law was made, taught and used.
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