Chapter 3 - THE MAKING OF THE PROVISIONS OF WESTMINSTER: THE SOCIAL AND LEGAL CONTEXT AND THE EVOLUTION OF THE INDIVIDUAL CLAUSES: II

Summary

REFORMS INTENDED TO REDRESS GRIEVANCES ABOUT THE WORKINGS OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM

Several clauses of the Provisions were concerned with the workings of the English criminal justice system. These were not intended to produce major changes either in the general principles of the criminal law or in the overall framework of the administration of criminal justice. Their purpose was a much more limited one: to redress a number of grievances about the details of its operation. They were primarily concerned with financial penalties imposed by the justices in eyre during their visitations of counties or by sheriffs and their subordinates when they visited individual hundreds for the biennial sheriff's tourn. Both types of penalty benefited the king and the reforms were therefore ones which potentially at least reduced the king's profits from criminal justice.

The murdrum fine

The murdrum fine was a collective fine payable whenever the body of a murdered person was discovered, unless the murderer was identified and produced for justice or it could be shown that the victim was of English origin. These characteristics make it plain that its original purpose was to safeguard the lives of a non-English minority facing a hostile native population. It may go back to the period of Danish rule under Cnut and have been originally intended to ensure the safety of Cnut's Danish followers. The alternative possibility is that it was invented shortly after the Norman Conquest and was aimed at preserving the lives of the Conqueror's French followers.