This treatise was written early in the twelfth century as a supplement to a digest of Old English Laws known as the Quadripartitus. It reflects a transitional period in the history of English jurisprudence. It is incompetent in draughtsmanship and frequently very vague in its terms. Nor can it be regarded as being beyond question authoritative. It must therefore be used with caution. With these qualifications it may, however, be consulted with profit in respect of the procedure adopted in local and feudal courts during the first quarter of the twelfth century. But its usefulness is further limited by the fact that the confusion of its language and arrangement makes it impossible to supply more than a very rough rendering of the author's probable meaning in translation; and the passages which here follow should be read with this in mind. The text as a whole is discussed by F. Liebermann in Uber das englische Rechtsbuch Leges Henrici (Halle,1901), and many comments on its feudal implications are made in the course of F.M. Stenton's English Feudalism (1932). The text is printed in full in F. Liebermann, Die Gesetze der Angelsachsen (Halle, 1898), vol.I, pp.544-611. Extracts therefrom (including some of those which appear below) are printed in W. Stubbs, Select Charters (ed. 1913), pp. 123-126.

VII, 1. According to ancient custom, and as lately established by the beneficent rule of the king, (Henry I.) the pleas of the shire court shall be held at the recognized terms and times throughout the different provinces of England. Nor shall anyone be burdened further unless the needs of the king and the convenience of the realm demand that meetings shall be more frequent. (See the writ printed above, No. 43.) 

VII, 2. There shall take part in these meetings bishops, earls, sheriffs, (The term used is, however, vice-domini not vice-committees.) representatives, (vicarii.) hundred men, aldermen, stewards, reeves, barons, vavassors, town reeves and other lords of land. And these shall diligently labour so that the humble may not suffer their wonted injuries through lack of punishment being meted out to evildoers, or through the crimes of oppressors, or through the subversion of judgments. 

VII, 3. The true laws of Christianity ought to be dealt with first; then the pleas of the king; and lastly the needs of individuals which are held to be worthy of consideration. And all disputes which are brought to the notice of the shire court shall be settled thereat, either by amicable arrangement or by the rigour of judgment. 

VII, 4. The shire moot and the borough moot ought to meet twice a year; and the hundred moot and the wapentake moot twelve times a year. And seven days notice must be given of the meeting unless the public weal, or those things necessary to the efficiency of the king's government demand greater speed. (Cf.No.43.) 

VII, 5. And if, owing to lack of judges or by any other chance a matter which should be dealt with by the hundred court is delayed beyond two or three more meetings of that court, let it be brought to a just settlement. 

VII, 6. And if anyone, by lack of right, or by violence, shall so disturb his plea in the hundred court or in any other properly appointed place that is brought for hearing into the shire court, let him lose it, or otherwise make such amends as may be just. 

VII, 7. Any one of the barons of the king, or any one of the barons of any other man taking part in the shire court according to law shall there be entitled to speak in respect of all the land (and the men upon it) which in that shire he holds in demesne. And it shall be likewise done if his steward shall there properly represent him. If either the baron or his steward be absent from necessity, then the reeve and the priest and four of the better men of the village shall represent all those who shall not have been summoned by name to the plea. (i.e. a lord shall be responsible for his men, and if the lord or his steward be absent, then the priest, the reeve and four of the more prominent men of the village to which the man belongs shall be made responsible for him.) 

VII, 8. Likewise we have decreed what should be done concerning the time and place and manner of judgment in the hundred court, and concerning the just hearing of the causes of individuals, and concerning the presence either of the lord and his steward, or of the priest and reeve and four good men. 

VIII, 1. If, however, there be need of a specially full session of the hundred court, let there be summoned twice a year to the hundred court all the freemen who are `hearth-fast' and householders so that they may decide, among other things, whether the tithings are complete, and who for any reason has left them, or whether any of them are over-full. (Early evidence of the sheriff's tourn, which was regularized in the time of Henry II. It seems clear that at least from the time of Henry I the sheriff presided over two sessions of the hundred court each year, which all freemen of the hundred were required to attend in order that inquiry should be made respecting the condition of the tithings in the hundred. ) 

VIII, 1a. Let there be in each tithing one man as leader over the other nine: and likewise in each hundred let there be one of the better men who may be called alderman, and let him be zealous to promote with all vigilance the observance of the laws of God and man. 

VIII, 2. It is provided for the common welfare that each man, who wishes to be held fully worthy of his were and his wite and his law, shall be in a hundred from the twelfth year of his age, and also in a tithing or frankpledge. (The tithing was recognized as an institution of the realm as early as the Laws of Cnut. On this was based the Anglo-Norman institution of frankpledge, and the present passage illustrates the process. Frankpledge has been defined as "a system of compulsory collective bail fixed for individuals, not after their arrest for crime, but as a safeguard in anticipation of it". This bail was collicted at the sheriff's tourn when "View of frankpledge" is held. (See W.A. Morris, The Frankplege System, 1910.)) Hired men, mercenaries and wage-earners shall however be in the surety of their lords. 

VIII, 3. And let every lord have with him those who are subject to his jurisdiction so that he may hold them to justice for their crimes, or if necessary plead on their behalf. 

VIII, 4. It has been said of those who do not hold land that if they serve in another shire and visit their kindred, then shall their kindred be responsible for them to public justice, and if they incur fines their kindred shall make payment for them. 

XIX, 2. Over all the lands which the king has in his demesne he has also the jurisdiction. But out of certain lands the king has given manors but retained the jurisdiction in his own hand. Nor are the royal rights of jurisdiction inevitably alienated when manors are given: rather it is a matter for individual arrangement. (The distinction is here apparently between franchised jurisdiction, i.e. jurisdiction granted by the king to favoured individuals, and feudal jurisdiction, i.e. that jurisdiction which was inherent in feudal lordship.) 

XXIX. The judges for the king are the barons of the shire who hold free lands therein. Through them are to be judged the causes of individuals by means of alternate pleadings. But villeins and cottars and farthingmen (Probably holders of quarter virgates.) and those who are base-born and without property are not to be numbered among the judges of the laws. 

XXXI, 3. In the business of the shire court there shall take part bishops, earls and other powers, (potestates.) who shall declare with just consideration the laws of God and man. 

XXXI, 4. No man may dispute the judgment of the king's court, but it shall be permitted to men who have knowledge of the plea to appeal against the judgment of other courts. 

XXXI, 5. No man may be convicted in a capital plea by evidence alone. (i.e. formal proof, such as compurgation or the ordeal, will be required.) 

XXXI, 7. Each man is to be judged by his equals (Or `peers', the Latin word is pares.) and by men of the same province. 

XXXII, 2. No man shall sit judgment on his lord, and in the case of the lord to whom he owes liege homage, he shall not do this even if the king is interested in the plea. (On this and the subsequent statements of feudal rights and duties, the comment in F.M. Stenton, op.cit.,should be consulted.) 

XXXIII, 1. If anyone has a plea to bring forward in his court, or in any place properly appointed for such a purpose, let him call together his equals (pares.) and his neighbours, in order that by the judgment they may thus be compelled to give, he may be able fully to prove the justice of his cause in a manner which cannot be disputed. 

XLIII, 6. Whoever holds his lands from several lords shall be chiefly responsible to the lord from whom he holds his chief residence and who is his liege lord. 

XLIII, 6a. If a man has given homage to several lords, and is seized and impleaded by one of them, then his liege lord, from whom he holds his residence, may be his pledge by right against all the others, nor can the liege lord be denied the `manbot' (The fine paid if the man be killed.) of his man... 

XLIII, 8. If the lord takes away from his man the land of the fief by reason of which he is that lord's man, or if the lord deserts his man in the man's mortal need, then may the man make the lord suffer forfeiture of his rights over him. 

XLIII, 9. None the less, the man must suffer insult and injury from his lord for thirty days in time of war, and for a year and a day in time of peace; but during the interval he may demand justice from his lord be legal process through his equals, (Compares.) his neighbours, his household officials or through strangers.  

LV, 1. Every lord is allowed to summon his men, so that he may do justice upon them in his court. If the man be resident in a manor for from the honour from which he holds, he shall none the less go to the plea if the lord summon him. But if his lord holds several fiefs, he cannot legally compel a man of one honour to go to the court of another, unless the plea to which the lord summons him concerns a man of that honour. 

LV, 2. If the man holds of several lords and honours, he owes more to him from whom he holds his dwelling, and he shall be judged by that lord to whom he shall owe liege homage. 

LV, 3. Every man owes duty to his lord for the lord's life and limbs and earthly honour, and for the keeping of the lord's counsel honestly and with profit saving only his fealty to God and to the prince of his country. Theft and treachery and murder and what is against God and the Catholic faith are not to be condoned or demanded. But faith shall be kept to all lords, except in respect of these things, and chiefly to him who is a man's liege lord. And the permission of the liege lord must be obtained before his man makes any other his lord.