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Litigants in the English “Court of Poor Men's Causes,” or Court of Requests, 1515–25

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 November 2019

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Abstract

The early-Tudor English government oversaw the rise of various centralised courts offering the king's subjects access to extraordinary justice in their private suits. One such new arena was the ‘Court of Requests’, an early equity or conscience court long overshadowed in histories of the period by the better-known courts of Star Chamber and Chancery. This article analyses the little-studied Requests archives to ask who sued there and when/why the court became associated with specifically poor men's causes. Focusing on the formative decade of ‘popularisation’ between 1515 and 1525, it finds that whilst litigants appear to have been largely from the lower sectors of society compared to their counterparts in the other conciliar courts, most petitioners opted for imprecise, rhetorical and non-static descriptions of their relative poverty – defined not just economically, but also in terms of age, property, and kin – in comparison to their opponents, appealing to the specific interpretation of conscience in Requests. The article thus scrutinises the methodologies we use for uncovering the demography of early-modern central courts, and has implications for understanding litigants' legal strategies, recorded identification as distinct from self-identification, and the theory and practice behind commonly-held ideals about the provision of royal justice for the ‘poor’.

Type
Original Article
Information
Law and History Review , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , May 2020 , pp. 303 - 337
Copyright
Copyright © the American Society for Legal History, Inc. 2019

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Footnotes

Her thesis, entitled “Justice in Requests, c.1485-c.1535,” examines the principle and practice of the king's extraordinary, discretionary justice in the early Tudor Court of Requests. This article draws on research originally undertaken for an M.A. dissertation at the University of York. Further research was made possible by a generous grant from the F.W. Maitland Memorial Fund at the Cambridge University Law Faculty. The author is grateful to Tom Johnson, Paul Cavill, Carys Brown, and Brodie Waddell for encouragement and feedback on various drafts, and expresses gratitude to Gautham Rao and to the four anonymous reviewers for Law and History Review for their constructive comments on the submitted article.

References

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23. REQ 2: Pleadings, bundles 1–13.

24. REQ 3: Miscellaneous.

25. Orders and decrees were not kept for Chancery until 26 Henry VIII: Haskett, “The Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 281; the order and decree books for Star Chamber, once kept in the Star Chamber office at Gray's Inn, are lost, although we can reconstruct thirty-one decrees from drafts for Wolsey's years: Guy, John, “Wolsey's Star Chamber: a study in archival reconstruction,” Journal for the Society of Archivists 5 (1975): 169, 171CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

26. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 6.

27. REQ1/4 (covering the years 1515–19), 1/104 (covering 1520–21), 1/105 (covering 1520–22), fragments belonging to 1/105 found in REQ3/29 and 30 (covering 1521–22), and REQ1/5 (covering 1523–33).

28. Ninety petitions drawn from across the thirteen relevant REQ 2 bundles and ten from REQ3/2, 4, 6, and 10, all dated from internal evidence and councillor signatures between 1515 and 1525.

29. Discussed in Wrightson, Keith, “The Social Order of Early Modern England,” in The World We Have Gained: Histories of Population and Social Structure, ed. Bonfield, Lloyd, Smith, Richard M., and Wrightson, Keith (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 177–84Google Scholar.

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31. See, for example, Stretton's use of the Elizabethan order books to ascertain how litigants “styled themselves,” when the descriptions would in fact have been written by clerks of the court: Stretton, Women Waging Law, 94.

32. Haskett, “Conscience, Justice and Authority in the Late-Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 151; and Guy, The Court of Star Chamber.

33. Stretton, Women Waging Law, 178.

34. Stretton, Women Waging Law, 98.

35. On provision of in forma pauperum admissions in English church courts, see Helmholz, R. H., Canon Law and the Law of England (London: The Hambledon Press, 1987), 44, 47Google Scholar.

36. An Acte to admytt such persons as are poore to sue in forma pauperis, 1495, 11 Hen. VII, c. 12.

37. This reading listed “courts which are not of record and yet are of the law of the land,” including court baron, hundred, and sheriff's tourn: printed in Baker, Sir John, ed., Selected readings and commentaries on Magna Carta 1400–1604, Selden Society Volume 132 (London: Selden Society, 2015), 252Google Scholar.

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40. Baker, The Oxford History of the Laws of England, 203–4; and Huntington Library Ellesmere MS 2655 fo. 7v.

41. Only in the 1540s do we begin to see notations reading “admittetur in forma pauperis”: REQ2/1/45, 2/3/197, 2/8/221.

42. These twenty-three examples being: REQ2/1/2, REQ2/2/54, 66, REQ2/3/140, 165, REQ2/4/50, 52, REQ2/5/58, 323, REQ2/6/34, REQ2/7/40, 122, 127, 130, REQ2/8/339, REQ2/10/63, REQ2/12/126, 155, 159, REQ3/6 Tolby v Knighte, REQ3/9 Cause v Abbot of Furness, and REQ3/10 Pante v Knight, Symmes v Bekford.

43. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 62; and Metzger, “The Last Phase of the Medieval Chancery,” 82.

44. Printed in Leadam, ed., Select Cases in the Court of Requests, lxxxv.

45. For example, in REQ2/3/34, 137; there are a number of cases within and outside of the period of interest in which remittal to common law was made with no specific reasoning given: REQ2/12/30, REQ2/4/49, and REQ1/1 fos. 154v, 155, 162v, 164, 168v, and 178.

46. REQ2/3/137.

47. Shepard, Alexandra, Accounting for Oneself: Worth, Status, and the Social Order in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 95–96CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

48. Helmholz, Canon Law and the Law of England, 44, 47.

49. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 97.

50. Tierney, Brian, Medieval Poor Law: A Sketch of Canonical Theory and its Application in England (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), 13Google Scholar; see William Lyndwood's summary of the various canon-law definitions of “pauper,” and his view that a “pauper” was someone who could not pay his legal counsel: Provinciale seu constitutions Angliae (Oxford: H. Hall, 1679), 68cGoogle Scholar.

51. REQ3/30 Anthony Chapman; Knox, “The Court of Requests,” 323–24; and Hastings, Margaret, The Court of Common Pleas in Fifteenth Century England: A Study of Legal Administration and Procedure (New York: Cornell University Press, 1947), 251–55Google Scholar.

52. REQ3/30 Anthony Chapman; REQ2/6/223; and Knox, “The Court of Requests,” 323–24.

53. REQ3/4 Copinger v Wyrall.

54. REQ1/4 fo. 28–28v. Other petitions gave a total of 2s for the same, including REQ3/6 Daldry v Forde. The existence of draft orders and decrees in the REQ 2 Pleadings for which there appear to be no surviving fine copy in REQ 1 implies that formal endorsement of a decree was not essential, however.

55. REQ2/10/235.

56. REQ2/13/100 fo. 3.

57. REQ2/6/209, 223; see also REQ3/4 Copinger v Wyrall; and REQ3/6 Daldry v Forde, Johnson v Johnson.

58. REQ2/3/162.

59. Data drawn from the 2,833 cases with noted origin counties, listed in List of Proceedings in the Court of Requests: preserved in the Public Record Office (New York: Kraus Reprint Co., 1963)Google Scholar.

60. REQ1/4 fos. 135, 153.

61. REQ2/8/221, REQ2/10/249.

62. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 63.

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66. REQ2/9/75.

67. REQ2/1/1; and TNA C1/391/8, C1/477/41.

68. REQ2/8/84; and TNA STAC2/28/135.

69. REQ2/12/18; and REQ2/11/80.

70. REQ2/12/209, REQ2/5/22; STAC2/3/68; REQ2/3/134, 313, REQ2/4/394; C1/1063/78-79; and STAC2/28/1, STAC2/30/24, STAC3/9/140.

71. Data are drawn from REQ1/4, 1/104, 1/105, and 1/5, and the fragments from REQ3/22, 29, and 30. In addition, twenty-three of the entries appear only in the transcriptions of attendance registers and full entries made from the order books in the 1590s by Robert Beale: London, British Library Additional MS 48025, fos. 46–60v; and also from Caesar's abstracts, produced at approximately the same time: Caesar, The Ancient State, Authoritie, and Proceedings in the Court of Requests.

72. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 102–3.

73. With an income of £259 9s 4d according to Valor Ecclesiasticus temp. Henr. VIII. Auctoritate regia institutus, V., 153.

74. Haskett, “The Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 291–92.

75. Ibid., 291.

76. REQ1/104 fo. 136; REQ3/30 fo. 276; and REQ3/6 Tolby v Knighte.

77. Baron, Stephen, De regimine principum (1509), trans. and ed. Mroczkowski, P. J. (New York: Peter Lang, 1990), 79Google Scholar; and Dudley, Edmund, The Tree of Commonwealth, ed. Brodie, D.M. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1948), 44Google Scholar.

78. Haskett, “The Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 286, 289; and Brooks, Pettyfoggers and Vipers of the Commonwealth, 281–83.

79. Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 585.

80. REQ2/7/84; also REQ2/6/176, REQ3/4 Dowker v Shelton.

81. REQ2/8/84; and REQ1/4 fo. 135v.

82. Haskett, “The Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 290–91.

83. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 62.

84. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 112; in the sumptuary acts and proclamations of the early sixteenth century, for example, land valued at £100 and goods worth £10 were used to demarcate access to certain clothing and fabric: Hayward, Maria, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII's England (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 29–39Google Scholar.

85. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 62; and Haskett, “The Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 290.

86. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 25, 31, 120–26; the degree of choice apparent in Requests is in contrast to the common law, where writs for personal actions had required the “Estate or Degree or Mystery” of at least the defendant since 1413: The Statute of Additions, 1 Hen. V., c. 5.

87. REQ2/12/43 fo. 6.

88. REQ2/2/5.

89. REQ2/3/135.

90. REQ2/2/173.

91. REQ2/3/166, REQ2/12/39.

92. REQ3/10 Pante v Knighte; also REQ2/3/122, REQ2/11/40 fo. 29; and REQ3/2 Alison v Rose.

93. REQ2/12/209; REQ2/9/86; and REQ2/2/106.

94. As discussed in Braddick, Michael J. and Walter, John, “Grids of Power: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Early Modern Society,” in Negotiating Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland, ed. Braddick, Michael J. and Walter, John (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001), 39CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

95. REQ2/2/176; REQ2/3/246; and REQ2/2/106.

96. REQ2/1/1.

97. REQ2/2/41.

98. As in REQ2/3/135, 301; REQ2/4/50; and REQ3/10 Pante v Knighte.

99. REQ2/4/50.

100. REQ2/11/103 fo. 4; Miller, Helen, Henry VIII and the English Nobility (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1986), 262Google Scholar.

101. REQ2/3/140.

102. REQ2/9/75.

103. REQ2/3/137.

104. REQ2/2/176.

105. REQ2/3/36.

106. REQ2/3/137.

107. REQ2/6/214.

108. Outlined also in Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 1–9.

109. Haskett, “Conscience, Justice and Authority in the Late-Medieval English Court of Chancery,” 161–62.

110. The latter was a term used frequently in Requests petitions throughout the archives and across the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, referring to power or local standing that the petitioner felt had been wrongfully or forcefully gained (extorted). It is often paired with references to “might” or “maintenance.” Some examples include: REQ2/2/101, 145, 194; REQ2/3/341, 385; REQ2/4/314, 361; REQ2/5/372; REQ2/6/76; REQ2/9/70; REQ2/10/8; and REQ2/12/14, 21.

111. REQ2/2/73; and REQ2/13/82.

112. REQ2/13/14 fo. 1; REQ2/7/378; REQ2/9/142; and REQ2/4/123 fo. 3.

113. REQ2/13/14 fo. 1; REQ2/12/43 fo. 6; and REQ2/4/123 fo. 3.

114. Shepard, Accounting for Oneself, 144; see, for example,, the sumptuary regulations in Hughes, Paul F. and Larkin, James F., eds., Tudor Royal Proclamations Volume 1 (London: Yale University Press, 1964), 128–29Google Scholar; An Act against wearing of costly Apparel, 1510, 1 Hen. VIII, c.14; see also Sir Elyot, Thomas, The Book Named the Governor, ed. Lehmberg, S. E. (London: J. M. Dent & Sons Ltd., 1962), 3Google Scholar.

115. Slack, Paul, Poverty and Policy in Tudor & Stuart England (London: Longman, 1988), 18Google Scholar.

116. Haskett, “Access to Grace: Bills, Justice, and Governance in England, 1300–1500,” 297–317.

117. Where the order books demonstrate that the court heard an average of 131 cases per year in the period between Michaelmas term 1515 and Michaelmas term 1519, they provide only twenty entries, including nine decrees, across nineteen individual cases for the time between the beginning of 1525 and December 1528. This is based on counting cases in REQ1/4 and REQ1/5. The abstracts, complete with folio numbers, in Sir Julius Caesar's 1590s tract on Requests indicates that we are not missing any material from the present-day REQ1/5: Caesar, The Ancient State, Authoritie, and Proceedings in the Court of Requests, 79–82.

118. Hall, Hall's Chronicle, 585.

119. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber, 6.

120. Guy, The Court of Star Chamber and its Records, 62; and Metzger, “The Last Phase of the Medieval Chancery,” 82.

121. Haskett, T.S., “Country Lawyers? The Composers of English Chancery Bills,” in The Life of the Law: Proceedings of the Tenth British Legal History Conference, University of Oxford, 1991, ed. Birks, Peter (London: Hambledon Press, 1993), 9–23Google Scholar; and Guy, Christopher St. German on Chancery and Statute, 65–66. Stretton also advised a “detailed study of the Requests bar”: Stretton, , ed., Marital Litigation in the Court of Requests 1542–1642, Camden Fifth Series, vol. 32 (London: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 13–14Google Scholar.