Sh11
the Medieval English Coroner

Abstract

The office of Coroner is a uniquely English institution. Scotland never had coroners. England exported her Coroner to almost everywhere coloured red in the Victorian atlas. The first mention of the Coroner dates from the reign of Alfred the Great. We have no records of that period. The Coroner, as we know him today, dates from September 1194, during the reign of Richard the Lionheart whose interest in England was as a source of money to help finance his obsession with warfare. Much of today’s English legal structure was born in the last decade of the 12th century. The edict that formally established the Coroners was Article 20 of the “Articles of Eyre” in September 1194. In 1195, Justices of the Peace were established. Ironically, they became the major reason for the decline of the Coroner in later centuries. Coroners originally had to be Knights and men of substance. They were unpaid. Their prime function was to service the Royal Courts of Law, the General Eyre, which circulated slowly around the kingdom. This took so long to return to each county that, unless careful records were kept by the coroners, many cases never came to trial and potential revenue was lost to the Crown. Other activities of the Coroner includes jurisdiction over “treasure troves”, shipwrecks and catches of royal fish: the whale and the sturgeon. Historically, his most important role, the only one to survive until today, was his role in the investigation of sudden death.