Medieval legal records as sources for modern historians : coroners and their records in Hampshire and Wiltshire, 1327-1399

Abstract

This thesis aims to establish, by scrutiny and discussion of the records of the coroners themselves, and of other records in which their activities appear, how advisable it is to use legal records to attempt sociological or criminal analyses of late-medieval society. It discusses the reliability and accuracy of coroners' records, how representative they are both of the activities of coroners and of the incidence of the types of death in which inquests should have been held. It sets coroners' records within the context of the medieval legal system, and explains why coroners juries brought in verdicts which did not truthfully represent the reality of events. It examines the careers and characters of coroners, and to what extent they were prone to corruption. Coroners' rolls formed the most immediate source for this study, but a wide range of other legal records was surveyed in order to build up as full a picture of the numbers and activities of coroners as was possible. These included all gaol delivery rolls for both counties 1327-1399; all King's Bench rolls 1327- 1377, and those King's Bench rolls 1377-1399 containing records of the justices' visits to both counties. A wide range of published sources was also examined. It is concluded that while county coroners' records are not suitable for statistical or criminological analysis, the records of urban coroners can, with caution, be so used. The real value of these records, however, lies in the evidence they offer of community reactions to, and stratagems for dealing with, unnatural deaths in general, and homicides in particular. The research undertaken established that we are not yet fully aware of the range of courts functioning in medieval England; that large areas of each county did not receive adequate coverage by law-enforcement officials; that the coroner's function in legal process following homicides was not as important as has been believed; that those accused of homicide were often tried on indictments which did not follow known legal procedure; and that the New Forest in particular was an area in which no legal process concerning common law offences can be traced at all. It also suggested that gentry families provided their sons with a thorough, albeit informal, grounding in the law, and demonstrated that even among rural communities awareness of the law and of the methods by which to manipulate it was widespread. This implies that informal education and literacy permeated more deeply into medieval society than is usually conceded. It demonstrates some of the areas in which fruitful further research could be undertaken.

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