ABSTRACT
Confessions came to play a vital instrumental and legitimating role within the adjudicative structures introduced by the Normans. They were also of pivotal importance for institutions, established to preserve the orthodoxies of Church and State, operating largely outside the common law. Inquisitorial procedures became routine features of Church and Crown justice. They were designed to secure confessions from those suspected or accused of infringing the prevailing socio-political order and were frequently made use of both internally and extraneously to the common law. The statute seems to have again intended that any persons suspected or accused of heresy should be convicted only after the prosecution had negotiated the common law due process procedures of formal accusation and public trial. The power and influence of the Crown over the criminal process as manifest within the prerogative courts, was also evident within common law criminal procedures.
