Kitabı oku: «El sistema financiero a finales de la Edad Media: instrumentos y métodos», sayfa 7
37 Un buen ejemplo de este tipo de documentos que no respondían a la firma de un contrato entre acreedor y deudor eran las cartas de poder, donde se recogía el compromiso de un otorgante, el fiador, para salir como tal en favor del receptor de la carta de poder, el fiado.
38 A fines del siglo XV, la tipología notarial castellana presenta aún un importante grado de indefinición. Entre las cartas de obligación es posible distinguir varios tipos documentales: obligación de cambio, de lanas, de carnicería, incluso cartas denominadas de obligación y fianza, que pueden ser similares a las cartas de obligación generales o a las cartas de fianza. Entre las cartas de pago podemos citar de forma especial las cartas de pago y lasto (el acreedor se daba por pagado de una deuda traspasando su derecho al fiador que había hecho efectivo dicho pago). Sobre instrumentos financieros y tipología véase: David Carvajal de la Vega, Mauricio Herrero Jiménez, Francisco J. Molina de la Torre e Irene Ruiz Albi: Mercaderes y cambiadores en los protocolos notariales de la provincia de Valladolid (1486-1520), Valladolid, Universidad de Valladolid, 2015, pp. 29 y ss.; y la obra clásica de José Bono Huerta: Los archivos notariales, Sevilla, Junta de Andalucía / Dirección General del Libro, Bibliotecas y Archivos, 1985.
39 Como ejemplo de la primera operación, encontramos a Diego de Aguilar, el mozo, lencero, y Francisco de Cuenca, platero, vecinos de Valladolid, que salieron como fiadores de Pedro de Guadalajara, joyero, vecino también de Valladolid, en el censo perpetuo contraído por este con el convento de Santa Clara de Tordesillas sobre unas casas que el monasterio poseía en la calle de la Costanilla de Valladolid. AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 14065/1, ff. 729v-732r. En cuanto al segundo caso, podemos citar una carta de fianza por la que Francisco Corvalán, vecino de Medina de Rioseco, salía por fiador de Antón Audinete, platero, vecino de la misma villa, para estar «a justicia» con Juan de Villalón, mercader, vecino de Medina de Rioseco, para lo que le demandara, AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 8439, ff. 35v-36r.
40 Los legajos 1 y 2 de la sección Protocolos del AHPV son un buen ejemplo de esta concentración. Estas piezas recogen mayoritariamente cartas de arrendamiento de casas propiedad del cabildo de la colegiata a vecinos de la villa durante los primeros años del siglo XVI. D. Carvajal et al.: Mercaderes y cambiadores en los protocolos notariales, pp. 24-28.
41 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 1, ff. 383r-392v. y leg. 2, f. 246.
42 Sobre un total de 356 casos registrados. Fuentes: AHPV, Protocolos, legs. 1, 29, 32, 4394, 6095, 6813, 7330, 7838, 7839, 7840, 8433, 8434, 8436, 8438, 8439, 8440, 8441, 8448, 14065/1, 20152. 20153, 20154 y 20205, pertenecientes a las localidades de Medina del Campo, Medina de Rioseco, Valladolid, Toledo y menores.
43 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, ff. 495r-496v.
44 De nuevo, valga como ejemplo el poder otorgado por Juan del Castillo, vecino de Toledo, a Diego López de Santa Justa, hijo de Pedro López, mercader, vecino de Toledo, y a Fernando Núñez de Madrid, su suegro, vecino de la misma ciudad, para que puedan obligarle como su fiador, hasta en cuantía de 100.000 mrs., para pagar a sus acreedores. AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, ff. 565r-566r (Toledo, 1519/08/18).
45 «Tiene gran provecho a aquel que la recibe (la fianza), pues está por ello más seguro de aquello que le han de dar o hacer, porque quedan ambos obligados, tanto el fiador como el deudor principal», Partida V, Título XII, Ley I.
46 Valgan como ejemplo los estudios de Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli: «Il credito al consumo in Italia: dai banchi ebarici ai Monti di pietà», o Myriam Greilsammer: «Il credito al consumo in Europa: dai lombardi ai Monti di pietà», ambos en Franco Franceschi, Richard A. Goldthwaite y Reinhold C. Mueller (coords.): Il Rinascimiento italiano e l’Europa. Commercio e cultura mercantile, Treviso, Fonzacione Cassamarca / Angello Colla Editore, 2007, pp. 567-589 y 591-611.
47 Hilario Casado Alonso: «Comercio textil, crédito al consumo y ventas al fiado en las ferias de Medina del Campo en la primera mitad del siglo XVI», en Salustiano de Dios et al. (eds.): Historia de la propiedad: crédito y garantía, Madrid, Servicio de Estudios del Colegio de Registradores, 2007, pp. 127-160.
48 D. Carvajal: Crédito privado y deuda, pp. 363 y ss.
49 Este mismo fenómeno se aprecia en las fianzas otorgadas a los cambiadores públicos en Valladolid. Cuando los regidores requirieron afianzar mejor las mesas de cambio públicas del año 1497, procedieron a exigir nuevas obligaciones de fiadores hasta cumplir con el montante fijado. D. Carvajal: «El control económico de la villa».
50 David Carvajal de la Vega: «En los precedentes de la banca castellana moderna: cambiadores al Norte del Tajo a inicios del siglo XVI», en Ernesto García Fernández y Juan Antonio Bonachía Hernando (eds.): Hacienda, Mercado y Poder al Norte de la Corona de Castilla en el tránsito del Medievo a la Modernidad, Valladolid, Ed. Castilla, 2015, pp. 17-37.
51 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, f. 828v. Martín de Cáceres, cazador, deudor, y Antonio de Aranda, sastre, fiador, se obligan a pagar a Sebastián Romero, cambiador, vecino de Medina del Campo, 11.250 mrs. de un préstamo, en el plazo de veinte días.
52 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 8440, f. 246v. Sancho López, mercero, vecino de Valladolid, como principal pagador, y Pedro Díez de Ceballos, vecino de Medina del Campo, como su fiador, se obligan a pagar a García Cocón, cambiador, vecino de Valladolid, 28.000 mrs. que había prestado al dicho Sancho López, mediada la feria de octubre de Medina del Campo de 1516.
53 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, f. 912. Alonso de Baeza, mercader, vecino de Baeza, deudor; Gutierre García y Alonso Ortiz, mercaderes, vecinos de Toledo, y Pedro de Baeza, mercader, vecino de Granada, fiadores, se obligan de mancomún a pagar a Diego de Mazuelo, cambiador, mercader, vecino de Burgos, 100.000 mrs. que le prestó, mediada la feria de Cuaresma de Villalón de 1520.
54 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7838, ff. 359r-v.
55 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 8434, ff. 45r-47r (1517). Otra de las bulas cuya administración y venta fue concertada ante notario fue la bula de fábrica de San Pedro, concedida por León X, gestionada por el mercader genovés Tomás de Forneri, estante en la Corte. AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, f. 905r (1519).
56 Sobre un total de 224 cartas de obligación. Fuentes, vid. nota 42.
57 D. Carvajal: «El control económico de la villa».
58 Sobre un total de 207 obligaciones cuya cuantía fiada conocemos. Datos en maravedís. Fuente, vid. nota 42.
59 La disponibilidad e información aportada por determinadas fuentes son algunas de las razones de mayor peso para comprender esta descompensación, puesto que la documentación fiscal otorga una mayor relevancia formal y documental al fiador en comparación con otros ámbitos donde también aparece esta figura (compraventas, finanzas, depósitos, etc.).
60 Sobre las excepciones de la mujer como fiadora: Partida V, Título XII, Ley III. Las más relevantes eran para conseguir la libertad de una persona, por su dote o por fianzas otorgadas libremente renunciando a los derechos que la ley le reservaba.
61 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7839, ff. 397v-399r y leg. 7840, f. 826v.
62 Fuente, vid. nota 42.
63 Cuaderno de alcabalas de 1491, M. A. Ladero Quesada: Legislación hacendística, art. 47. pp. 138-139.
64 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 20154, f. 236r; leg. 8436, f. 15r-v y leg. 7838, f. 359r-v, respectivamente.
65 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7839, f. 657r-v, y leg. 7840, f. 538v.
66 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7840, ff. 607v-608r, y leg. 20153, f. 333r.
67 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 7330, f. 321r-v.
68 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 6813, ff. 612r-613v.
69 F. Ruiz Gómez: Las aldeas castellanas, p. 66.
70 AHPV, Protocolos, leg. 8441, f. 679v; leg. 8434, f. 289v, y leg. 8436, f. 97r-v.
71 Fuente: vid. nota 42.
72 Partida V, Título XII, Ley X.
73 ARChV, Registro de Ejecutorias, c. 150, 42.
74 Siguiendo lo indicado por la ley: Partida V, Título XII, Ley XI.
75 ARChV, Pleitos Civiles, Alonso Rodríguez (D), c. 37, 3.
76 R. W. Goldsmith: Premodern Financial Systems, pp. 229 y ss.
CREDIT AGREEMENTS AND LITIGATION OVER DEBT IN ENGLISH MANORIAL COURTS
Phillipp R. Schofield Aberystwyth University
Work on rural credit, especially credit agreements involving members of the peasantry, has grown significantly in the last two decades. Earlier work by Elaine Clark on the fifteenth-century small town of Writtle (Essex) offered a pioneering examination of credit arrangements and the ways in which these intersected. She also offered some careful and important commentary on the form of agreement, which included money loans and sale credits1. Work on rural credit in the last two decades has chiefly been undertaken by the present author and by Chris Briggs and in a number of publications, including Briggs, major monograph on the topic of rural credit and indebtedness, they have aimed to set out the variety of ways in which credit can be examined for rural England during this period.2 This has resulted in discussion of the form and nature of credit arrangements and some identification of distinctions between the kinds of credit extended, the likely differences in terms of credit agreements over time, as well as discussion of the nature of credit agreement.
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As regards the last point, there is some obvious distinction to be drawn between the historical view of credit arrangements as essentially the product of horizontal agreements, conducted typically between parties of generally similar means and without the operation of significantly unequal power relations and, conversely, credit agreements that were created in essentially vertical relationships in which one party, typically the creditor, enjoys a considerably enhanced bargaining position relative to the other party. Briggs, in particular, has sought to show that much credit extended in the medieval English countryside was not the product of distress or unequal bargaining positions, occasioned perhaps by crisis events such as harvest failure or famine; instead, as he has argued, credit agreements were often the product of fairly small-scale exchange between parties dealing in proximity and often in forms of mutual support aimed at facilitating consumption.3 The present author, who has tended to work on credit and indebtedness in the decades either side of 1300, has also, as Briggs has noted, often represented credit in terms of distress and has associated it, on occasion and typically indirectly, with other indices of apparent upheaval in crisis years, including heightened land market activity.4 In recent work, the present author has attempted to show that a considerable amount of the credit recovered in the early fourteenth century had been extended in large sums and often extended over what were seemingly quite long periods of time. In particular, there is plentiful evidence for the involvement of relatively wealthy merchants and townsmen engaging, often as creditors, with peasant debtors, and often in credit agreements involving very large sums of money and/or large amounts of goods, especially grain.5
In this paper, further reflection will be made upon the role of external agents in developing modes of business dealing in the medieval English village. Before we return to this theme however we will need to set out a more general context. In what follows therefore we will begin with a discussion of credit agreements, their form and evidence for them in the medieval English countryside, especially at the level of the peasantry. We will then discuss evidence for the role of external agents, both as lawyers and attorneys as well as merchants and townsmen in the medieval English village, and consider the likely significance of their role in helping establish modes of dealing and of conducting business at the local level.
CREDIT AGREEMENTS: EVIDENCE AND FORM
Most of the evidence for peasant-level debt in medieval England comes from litigation and, in particular, litigation recorded in manorial courts. We have very little, though certainly some, evidence from the point that credit is extended but we do have a great deal of information arising from the point of recovery and, given that, recovery recorded as part of the process of debt litigation. While some of that material resides in fora other than manorial courts, including central courts, borough courts and other ancillary documentation, such as wills, the bulk of evidence and, to date, the greater part of historical investigation is focussed upon manorial courts. Manorial courts in England survive in great number from the second half of the thirteenth century and have been used extensively by historians of the medieval English countryside and in particular of the peasantry since the end of the nineteenth century.6 Some of the earliest work on manorial courts and the evidence they offered was undertaken by legal historians and, in particular, F. W. Maitland whose seminally important study of the customary law in manorial courts has remained a standard point of reference for more than a century.7 That said, a great deal of the work on the medieval English peasantry has not been focussed upon law and litigation in the manorial court; instead, considerable emphasis has been upon such topics as socio-economic dealing, the land market, lord-tenant relations, rent and so on. Only intermittently, at least until quite recently, has the study of litigation featured prominently in work in this area and it remains a main topic of research for only a handful of researchers.8
To date a good deal of relevant research has been aimed at establishing the typicality of debt, its extent and frequency, as well as understanding the form and structure of credit agreements and resultant debt in so far as this can be understood from litigation. Historians primarily interested in inter-personal litigation in the manorial court have challenged any easy assumptions regarding the significance of patterns in the frequency of debt litigation relative to external factors such as harvest failure or fluctuation in the money supply.9 They have suggested that a detailed understanding of the law, and most especially due process, informing debt recorded as litigation in manorial courts is required before any confident assertions can be made regarding the applicability of debt litigation evidence to changing socio-economic conditions. With that in mind, the last decade or more has seen a number of detailed studies of litigation in manorial courts; this work has, in the broadest terms, suggested the following ten points:
First. Most debt litigation in manorial courts was not supported by written evidence; typically litigation was conducted between parties who had, at an earlier date, established their credit agreement through oral agreement, most likely supported by witnesses.
Second. This tendency for oral agreement is evidenced in the litigation, often in terms of the proof employed in order to secure judgement; the use of oath-helpers, through compurgation or wager of law, makes clear the kind of evidential basis that most likely predominated, namely the oral oath of the party supported by the oaths of his or her helpers, the latter intended to attest to the integrity of the party.10
Third. Where reference to other than oral proof is made it tends to relate to relatively weak forms of non-oral or written proof; in particular there is evidence for the use of tallies (notched sticks used to record an account) and written instruments of various and often indistinct kinds. Parties to litigation also used devices, such as the payment of a token coin (so-called earnest or God’s money) intended to aid the subsequent mental recovery of contract details. There is also some indication, especially in debts arising after a significant period of time or following the death of a party to a debt, that individuals maintained, in some form, records or accounts of debt, though little or no direct evidence of any kind survives in this respect.11
Fourth. On occasion, but quite rarely, parties to a credit agreement made use of the manor court in order to register or recognise their agreement through the entering of a formal record or recognisance of the agreement in the court roll; as noted, relative to litigation over failed credit agreements such agreements recorded at the inception of the debt are rare.12
Fifth. There is almost no evidence for the use of sealed documents in the inter-personal debt litigation recorded in the manor court; this would be consistent with the legal view that the manorial court, a private seigneurial court in which compurgation was used as the foundation of most pleading, did not have the jurisdictional authority to try cases involving specialty (i. e. where sealed instruments, such as bonds, were in evidence). There is also the closely related point that cases in which compurgation was employed as the evidential basis implied of necessity that sealed documents were not available as proof, since the latter was a stronger proof and defeated a claim based upon the evidence of oath helpers (according to the legal maxim that ‘specialty bars compurgation).13
Sixth. Much of the litigation recorded in manorial courts could be quite formulaic and laconic; there is clear evidence of a development of process and a general tendency for a more consistent and sophisticated recording of litigation by the end of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries. While the earliest courts, from the middle decades of the thirteenth century, are far less systematic in their recording of litigation, there is plentiful evidence for a standardisation of terminology by the early fourteenth century.14
Seventh. While inquest jurors were increasingly involved in other forms of action, such as trespass and litigation over land, debt litigation was less frequently tested by inquest jury and, instead, compurgation tended to predominate, surviving as a mode of trial throughout the middle ages in debt and long after it had been superseded by supposedly more modern forms of proof as employed in other forms of action.15
Eight. The general development of litigation within manorial courts in the period c. 1250 to c. 1350 suggests that, rather than creating their own localised forms of action and processes, most manorial courts were, to a greater or lesser extent, developing their law in parallel with developments in the king’s court, in other words at common law. The processes by which this relationship between customary seigneurial courts and common law courts was established and legal practice shared between them remains uncertain but it is reasonable to suppose that practice in the manorial court was influenced by a range of factors including those who moved between central courts and local and private courts. Such people included estate officials, such as stewards, as well as their manorial lords, attorneys and legal advisers and, of course, litigants. Some of the latter were, of course, peasants including villeins or unfree peasants, but they also included, as we shall discuss more fully in a later section of this essay, litigants from beyond the manor, such as merchants and townsmen.
Ninth. Despite, or perhaps in part because of, the previous point it is clear, as Chris Briggs has pointed out, that some manor courts developed legal processes far more fully and effectively than did others. In such instances it seems likely that certain courts within a region, perhaps encouraged by their manorial lord, developed as courts of litigation, and attracted a range of business accordingly, while other courts remained largely free of inter-personal litigation of the kind discussed here.16
Tenth. While a good deal of the litigation, as already noted, is quite often formulaic and quite brief, on occasion individual cases are detailed and include discussion of substantive elements of law. It seems at least probable that on such occasions, individuals, possibly including professional lawyers, with a sophisticated level of legal awareness encouraged the introduction of informed and complex legal argument as part of pleading in some manor courts.17
It is elaboration and further investigation of this last point, in particular, and its implications for our understanding of the nature of credit agreements and indebtedness in the medieval village that will be the main element of the second part of this essay. Together the above points also help to illustrate that law in manorial courts was in a condition of considerable development in the decades either side of 1300 and that it was sufficiently flexible as to be open to an array of potential influences.
EXTERNAL AGENTS AND CREDIT IN THE MANOR COURT
There seems little doubt that a number of individuals other than peasant litigants themselves were involved in the debt litigation recorded in manorial courts. We can explore this in two respects, firstly in terms of third party involvement in litigation, as regards such roles as attorney and legal advisor, as well as those who organised the processes of the court. Secondly, and no less importantly, of course, there is the issue of involvement of non-peasant litigants in debt litigation recorded in the manor court. We deal with each issue in turn.
Third-party involvement in debt litigation recorded in the manor court
The extent to which the law in the manorial court was informed by external agency is a moot point. While there is no doubt that peasant litigants were on occasion capable of generating their own legal argument and engaging in pleading in the manorial court through their own agency,18 it is also clear that pleading was also influenced by third parties, sometimes identified as attorneys, who may conceivably have included professional pleaders. Stewards and other manorial officials also influenced the process of law in the manorial court; while their oversight was not directed wholly or indeed largely at inter-personal litigation but was concentrated upon maintaining their lord’s interest in matters pertaining to, in particular, landholding, land transfer and rent, it is also evident, from occasional entries in the manor court, that stewards helped to direct and, indeed, to encourage inter-personal litigation, points to which we will return below.
In the first instance, it is clear that peasants in the manor court could act as advisers to peasant litigants and help thereby to form the process of law and litigation in the manor court. In such instances, peasant advisers, undoubtedly sometimes referred to as attorneys in manorial court litigation, were often themselves experienced litigants who brought their expertise to the benefit of other villagers, and for financial or other gain.19 Occasional detail in litigation referencing attorneys or other named supporters of litigants suggests that peasant «attorneys» might help their fellow peasant litigant in organising writs and access to other courts; they might also simply appear in the court or, on occasion at a certain stage of a contract (for instance as payer or recipient of goods or money) on behalf of the litigant, essentially as a proxy and not necessarily as someone bringing specialised knowledge or great insight to the case. There is also a marked, though not absolutely consistent, tendency for female litigants to make use of male attorneys.20
It is far from straightforward, without a thorough prosopographical analysis of the relevant corpus of manorial court rolls, to distinguish between peasant «attorneys» and external attorneys whose presence in the court is solely as a professional legal adviser. Where we gain a sense of legal advisors present in debt cases and, as likely, guiding the litigant or handling their case for them, it still remains difficult to identify with any certainty the extent of their role. Take, for instance, a debt case from Horsham St Faith (Norfolk) in May 1316, in which the plaintiff, through his named attorney (William Lauk’), sought recovery of 52 s. owing from the purchase of pigs and other chattels. The defendant agreed that he owed 32 s., but denied owing the additional 20 s., the latter to be subject to an inquest at a later court. We might assume that the attorney led the pleading in this case on behalf of the plaintiff but the bare details of the case do not permit us a closer view.21 At Bottisham in August 1344 a group of thirteenth plaintiffs brought their case against a single defendant through their attorney, Thomas Dykeman. The case suggests a fairly involved legal process; for instance, the sum claimed by the plaintiffs was 39 s. 11 d. ¾, the maximum possible sum and just below the 40 s. limit for the jurisdiction of the manor court.22 Dykeman also appears as a pledge in support of claimants in other, possibly related cases at about the same time; his family name, which can also be found elsewhere in the rolls, suggests that he was local and we should not necessarily think of him as a professional pleader whose presence in the manor court at Bottisham is explicable only in such terms.23 In other instances, it is perhaps the detail, sophistication and frame of reference of the pleading that at least hints at outside agency and the kind of legal expertise which it may have been less easy for a peasant «attorney» to have acquired through their experience as a litigant. Relatively few debt cases recorded in the manor court include details of the pleadings used by the parties in order to construct a case; from time to time, however, we are offered a sense of the details of pleadings. So, for instance, at Longdon (Staffordshire), the attorneys of plaintiffs generated quite complicated and technical pleas, sometimes moving beyond the immediate in order to use a technicality, such as the requisite number of individuals required to permit an adjournment.24
It is also reasonably evident that rather more involved legal argument was brought into pleading by manorial officials, sometimes from within particular jurisdictions and, on occasion, from neighbouring or competing jurisdictions. At Longdon (Staffs.), for instance, bailiffs from neighbouring manors served as attorneys for individual peasant litigants. This appears to have been so in the case of on William le Messager who appears frequently in the Longdon manor court as an attorney, representing more than one litigant, but was also, seemingly, bailiff on a neighbouring manor.25 Furthermore, and albeit rarely, bailiffs from neighbouring manors sometimes came into the manorial court of lords other than their own in order to recover wayward litigants, especially villein defendants and, arguing relevant seigneurial authority, return them and, conceivably the case, to their own jurisdiction.26
Stewards were also very important in facilitating and developing inter-personal litigation in the manor court. As estate officials charged with helping to oversee the running of the estate and its constituent manors, stewards were well-placed to direct and adjust matters of day-to-day management. They also responded to the dictates of their lord and were tasked with implementing their policy changes; as Razi and Smith suggest, the surge in business activity, including the introduction of inter-personal litigation in manorial courts from the third quarter of the thirteenth century may have a great deal to do with stewards acting upon seigneurial initiatives intended to make their courts effective and remunerative centres for inter-personal litigation.27 On occasion the intervention of stewards could be deeply unwelcome and cause significant and damaging change to the management of fora such as the manor courts.28 In other instances, stewards undoubtedly sought to ensure that manorial courts functioned effectively as courts capable of providing a secure and effective jurisdiction capable of meeting the demands of potential litigants and, no doubt especially, wealthy plaintiffs capable of judging their court against the standard of other courts, including borough, county and central courts. That they were capable of doing so is explained in no small part by their own experience in a variety of legal fora and jurisdictional contexts. Paul Brand has described the career of an early fourteenth-century steward, Henry Tyrell of Mannington (Norfolk), who combined his experience in a variety of offices with his own considerable activity as a litigant in informing his work as an estate steward. Tyrell, a member of the minor local gentry, was immersed in his own litigation but also used that to the advantage of others, including the free and unfree tenants who, along with his employer, his lord, he also advised as part of his role in managing his lord’s estate.29 It is clear that stewards sometimes presided in court and litigants sought legal and, more particularly, processual advice from them on occasion. At Ruyton (Shropshire), for instance, the defendant requested that the steward allow him to withdraw before pleading in order to take legal advice, something to which the steward, contrary to the wishes of the court and in a manner that on this occasion actually proved fatal to the defence, agreed.30 All of the above discussion in this section can be taken to suggest that in the manor court, or at least in those manor courts in which inter-personal litigation was especially prevalent, there was both an identified process for overseeing litigation and for allowing litigants, and especially plaintiffs, to bring their cases to court with reasonable confidence that the court would offer an effective forum for a satisfactory resolution of their dispute. It is important to note in this respect, therefore, that the court was, especially in the case of inter-personal litigation, open to the influence not only of the lord and his officials but also of the litigants and potential litigants themselves. If, from the point of view of the lord, his court was to be an attractive venue in which wealthy litigants would sue and, thereby, enhance his seigneurial revenue through the fines, amercements and the associated business that came into his court as a result it needed to be a suitable and trustworthy forum for those litigants.
