Capital punishment only for very severe crimes and
re-offenders
Introduced:
Trial by combat
The accuser and the accused fought to the death
or until one surrendered. The winner was
innocent, the loser was guilty and punished
Only French spoken in
court procedures -
meaning that Saxons
didn't understand the
justice system
The Murdrum Fine
A severe fine imposed on all
the people of a region when a
Norman was murdered
Forest laws
Severe punishments for any Saxon
who cut down trees or hunted game
in William's 'Royal Forests' (about
30% of England)
Church courts
Less severe courts for members
of the clergy
Women had no rights
William introduced a justice system that
discriminated against the Saxons
Punishments and
Justice systems
Wergild:
punishment
A system of fines for murder or physical assault -
different fines for different parts of the body
Used to prevent people from
committing violent crimes as
they didn't want to pay a fine
Hue and Cry: way to
catch a criminal
If someone raised the hue and cry, the whole
village had to drop everything and help catch
the criminal
Because there was no police force,
Saxons protected eachother from
crime
Also made the odds of catching a criminal higher
Tithings: way to
prevent crime
A group of 10 men over the age of 12
formed a tithing. Anyone who
committed a crime was to be taken by
his tithing to court, or everyone else
had to pay a fine
Tithings were based on loyalty and collective responsibility to the
other men in the tithing. No one wanted to betray the other people
in their tithing and so didn't commit crimes
Execution:
punishment
If a crime was too serious for a normal
punishment, the criminal was killed
Made people fear the law which prevented
them from comitting crimes
Mutilation: punishment
If someone committed a crime, they may have had to
pay for it by losing a hand or an ear
This could affect someone's life greatly as working
without a hand is very difficult - no one wanted to risk
this and so there was less crime
Trial by jury: a way of judging if
someone was innocent or guilty
If someone was accused of a crime, they were
taken to a jury who decided whether or not they
were guilty after hearing both sides of the story
Was used so that almost the
whole village had had some say
in the fate of the accused and so
that they were judged fairly
Trial by Ordeal: a way of
judging if someone was
innocent or guilty
If the jury couldn't decide
if someone was guilty or
not, they left it up to god.
4 types of trial:
Trial by hot iron
Trial by hot water
Trial by cold water
Trial by 'blessed' bread
So that god could 'decide' properly if the
accused was guilty or not - better to do this
than the jury make the wrong decision
Prisons
Rarely used except for keeping
the criminal until trial