Middle English Literature

Court of King’s Bench
Library of the Inner Temple, Miscellaneous MS 188, Court of King’s Bench
Manuscript date: ca. 1470
Language: French
By the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, England’s secular court system was
highly developed and extensively centralized. Three main branches admin-
istered justice: the Court of King’s Bench was the highest court of appeals
and also the court that dealt with matters relating to the king’s person and
property; the Court of Exchequer principally handled financial cases; and the
Court of Common Pleas adjudicated the matters of private free individuals.
The Chancery was the central royal governmental secretarial office. Centered
in London, these courts also administered itinerant justices, who traveled
around the country to adjudicate local trials and disputes, advising, working
with, and superseding the many local courts around the country (see “The
Revolt,” p. 175). The principal forms of justice were writ and jury.
The Inner Temple Library manuscript survives only as four manuscript
leaves that show the four courts, each in vivid colors. Presumably they
belonged originally to a law treatise. The Court of King’s Bench image shows
five presiding judges, below them court officials, two ushers on the table, and
a jury to the left. A marshal guards the prisoner, and two sergeants-of-law
stand on either side in front of other shackled prisoners.
Primary documents and further reading
Alford, J. A. (1977) “Literature and Law in Medieval England.” PMLA 92: 941–51.
Alford, J. A. and D. P. Seniff (1984) Literature and Law in the Middle Ages: A
Bibliography of Scholarship. New York: Garland.
Baildon, W. P. (ed.) (1896) Select Cases in Chancery, A. D. 1364 to 1471. London:
Seldon Society.
Fortescue, Sir John (1997) On the Laws and Governance of England, ed. S. Lockwood.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Green, R. F. (1999) “Medieval Literature and the Law.” In D. Wallace (ed.) The
Cambridge History of Medieval English Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 407–31.
Plucknett, T. F. T. (ed.) (1929) Year Books of Richard II: 13 Richard II, 1389–1390.
London: Ames Foundation.
Pollock, F. and F. W. Maitland (1968) [1895] The History of English Law Before the
Time of Edward I, 2 vols. London: Cambridge University Press.
Sayles, G. O. (ed.) (1971) Select Cases in the Court of King’s Bench under Richard II,
Henry IV, and Henry V, vol. 7. London: Seldon Society.

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