Reason, Conscience and Equity: Bishops as the King's Judges in Later Medieval England

Abstract

It has long been recognized that many late medieval bishops were heavily involved in secular government. Scholars have tended to characterize these activities in fairly general terms, labelling those who chose to serve the crown as 'administrators', 'bureaucrats' or 'civil servants'. In fact, they are better described as king's judges, for a large part of what bishops did in government was dispensing justice in the king's name. The first part of this article explores the contexts of this judicial activity, showing that bishops were especially active in institutions such as parliament, chancery and the council which offered justice to the king's subjects on a discretionary basis. Discretionary justice was closely informed by the precepts of natural law, which in turn derived authority from the abstract notion of the divine will. The second half of the article suggests that the strong theological underpinning of discretionary justice meant that bishops' involvement in secular government did not stand in opposition to their spiritual vocation or their role as leaders of the church. I argue that the sweeping and rather disparaging contemporary and modern characterizations of 'civil-servant' bishops as self-serving careerists ought to be replaced by a more nuanced understanding of the rationale and motivation of those senior clergymen who involved themselves in secular governance.

Tilly Goes to Church: The Religious and Medieval Roots of European State Fragmentation

“…They held both high secular and ecclesiastical office, “providing both sacral authority and literate clerics for his chancellery, backing his judicial authority with legitimacy and efficiency” (Mann 1986, 382–3). As late as the fourteenth century, English bishops exercised discretionary justice in parliaments, councils, and chanceries (Dodd 2014, 216). There was no “clear area of separate governmental responsibilities that could be termed secular” (Morris 1989, 18).…”

‘Allowable or not?’ John Stokesley, the court of requests and royal justice in sixteenth-century England

“…48 In this earlier period, it was acceptablepreferable, eventhat justice according to these principles be overseen by churchmen, who were often civilians by training but might also be inexperienced in law (like Stokesley). 49 Their extra-legal, exceptional judgments neither relied on nor set legal precedent and bound only the relevant parties. As such, Requests' decisions often resembled arbitration rather than a binding verdict.…”

Conscience and the King's Household Clergy in the Early Tudor Court of Requests

“…The creative jurisdiction of Requests, unbound by the customs, maxims and statutes of English law, allowed them to put their administrative experience and learning in natural law to use in the care of vulnerable litigants. 42 Perhaps the firmest evidence of the discretion of the dean and the almoner at work within the Requests process is to be found in the provisions for the admission of destitute litigants to the court in forma pauperis. A statute of 1495 had stipulated that 'poor' litigants might have their fees for counsel and process entirely waived in the king's 'Courtes of Recorde', although this was a category probably not including Requests, as equity courts were typically held to operate beyond the law of the land and without setting legal precedent.…”