ABSTRACT
After finishing this chapter students should understand and be able to discuss:
The importance of trial by ordeal as a judicial tool in the Anglo-Saxon era
The high rates of violence and homicide in medieval England
The impact of the Norman invasion in 1066 on the development of various criminal justice professions (bailiff, constable, and others)
The evolution of the sheriff from shire reeve
The development of the jury system
The difference between the adversarial (common law) and inquisitorial (civil law) legal processes
The impact of the Magna Carta on the development of constitutional law and political freedom
When the Romans invaded the British Isles in 55 b.c., they found a primitive island inhabited by Celtic tribes who had immigrated there from what today is southern Germany. There was no unity among these cultures, and the term England had not yet been coined. The Romans unsuccessfully attempted to put the stamp of its legal traditions on the people they came into contact with, but by the time Roman troops were withdrawn 400 years later, except for Roman roads, walls, and town sites, little had changed on the island. When the legions were removed in the early fifth century, the Romanized Britons proved ill equipped to defend their borders against marauding invaders from northern Europe. Among the Germanic and Scandinavian invaders were Saxons, Angles, and Jutes. 1 Their prolonged conquest of the island swept away any vestige of Celtic or Roman legal traditions and gave the island its 32 Teutonic name England, or “Land of the Angles.” Out of this welter of cultures emerged the tribal foundation that would give birth to English common law. The three tribes that were to become known as the English would go on to conquer and prosper in most parts of England.