In various iterations in fiction, I’ve seen monarchs (those with power and not just figureheads) depicted as holding court, receiving entrities from civilians who had some personal dispute (Joffrey Baratheon, First of His Name, got bored of it all and just ordered litigants to fight to the death), resolving legal matters, and so on.
Was this a thing back when the monarchs of England had absolute power (which I’m guessing was William the Conqueror through John I)? Did WtC and his descendants do this type of thing?
Yes, if you wanted justice you had to find the king and petition him for redress. Kings moved around continually, not least because the cost of maintaining the court fell on whoever had the ‘honour’ of hosting the court - such costs could and did cripple the host financially for some years, as in some cases it was intended to.
Richard I is known to have delegated some of these functions to proto-justices, but the Justices of the Peace Act of 1361 (an Act of 34 Edw 3 ch. 1) remains the basis for the lower courts today.
One of the complaints of the barons with King John was that the Curia Regis (« royal court ») followed the King around the country, making it hard for ordinary litigants to seek Justice. They asked/demanded that common pleas (ie disputes between subject and subject ) should be held at a fixed place.
That demand was implemented in one of the articles of Magna Carta, which was the origin of the split between the King’s Bench (so named because the king himself sat on it and dispensed justice) and the Court of Common Pleas, which thenceforth only sat at Westminster Hall, in London.
As time passed, the kings rarely sat on the King’s Bench and it was staffed by professional judges, learned in the law. The last king who tried to sit personally on the KB was, of course, a Stuart with high views of the royal prerogative: James I. He was politely but firmly told by Justice Coke that the kings no longer could sit on the KB. That was the first recognition of the separation of powers in English law.
European monarchs in the Middle Ages did not have absolute power. Even before written documents such as the Magna Carta, their political leeway was constrained by the influence and interests of a variety of other actors, such as the church, self-administering cities, and local nobles. Even though the latter, in theory, derived their landholdings from a feudal tenure from the king, revoking such a tenure was not straightforward. Absolutism, in the sense of the doctrine that the king’s power was truly absolute, is a much later invention - 17th century, Louis XIV.
But dispensing justice was, in fact, one of the accepted functions of a medieval king. But even here they were not fully free and absolute in how they decided a dispute; they were expected to do so in accordance with traditional, and usually unwritten, customary law norms.
And the Chancellor also entertained pleas, which resulted in the development of the Chancery court (a.k.a. Equity court), which resulted in a split between Law and Equity that still exists in American law to some extent.
And just to point out, if it isn’t already too obvious: The whole reason that a court of law is called a court is because it was something that originally happened before the king in the royal court.
William instituted the curia regis, as Piper said, modelled on Norman courts. At certain times of the year, this was amplified into the Great Council (Magnum Concilium)
I just said, « My Lady, you’ll see in our brief that we’ve cited three Acts from the time of King Edward III which are still in force in Saskatchewan. »
(There are three statutes passed by the English Parliament which are considered the foundation of the office of Justice of the Peace.)
Here’s Sir Edward Coke’s account of his debate with King James. Coke bluntly but firmly told the King, to his face, that he could not sit in court cases, which was a very brave action for an individual to say to a King who believed fervently in the divine right of kings:
A controversy of land between parties was heard by the King, and sentence given, which was repealed for this, that it did not belong to the common law: then the King said, that he thought the law was founded upon reason, and that he and others had reason, as well as the Judges: to which it was answered by me, that true it was, that God had endowed His Majesty with excellent science, and great endowments of nature; but His Majesty was not learned in the laws of his realm of England, and causes which concern the life, or inheritance, or goods, or fortunes of his subjects, are not to be decided by natural reason but by the artificial reason and judgment of law, which law is an act which requires long study and experience, before that a man can attain to the cognizance of it: that the law was the golden met-wand and measure to try the causes of the subjects; and which protected His Majesty in safety and peace: with which the King was greatly offended, and said, that then he should be under the law, which was treason to affirm, as he said; to which I said, that Bracton saith, quod Rex non debed esse sub homine, sed sub Deo et lege [That the King ought not to be under any man but under God and the law.].
I take it this was the case referred to when the Supreme Court slapped down Boris Johnson over one or other of his attempts to bypass Parliament over Brexit?
There’s also a tendency in some MPs to think their bit of “the Crown in Parliament” is better entitled by its sovereignty, and more qualified by their idea of “common sense”, to judge how the law should be applied. Periodic reminders of this principle mightn’t be a bad idea.
Going back a bit (from Edward III), we have Henry II, who ascended the throne of a kingdom wracked by civil war and teetering on the brink of anarchy. Among the steps he took to reassert royal authority was a major reform of the justice system, which included itinerant judges who were responsible for administering the King’s law.
His reform of criminal law was even more impressive. He issued new legislation at Clarendon in 1166 and Northampton in 1176. It was at Clarendon where the procedures of criminal justice were first established, addressing how serious felonies such as murder, robbery and theft would be dealt with. Juries of presentment were established, consisting of twelve lawful men in each hundred (a subdivision of a county) and four in each vill (village). These juries were not there to decide on guilt or innocence, but to support an accusation of a serious crime.
Anyone who was accused of such crimes would be put in prison to await trial. Those trials could only be heard by the King’s justices, who travelled the country to do so. Henry first introduced his system of itinerant justices at Clarendon but refined the system at Northampton. England was divided into six circuits, with three justices, the justices of the general eyre, allocated to each.