He presided over
church councils and appointed bishops. As for the administration
of justice, the public courts were almost all under members of
Edward's court, bishops, earls, and reeves. Edward's mind was
often troubled and disturbed by the threat that law and justice
would be overthrown, by the pervasiveness of disputes and discord,
by the raging of wicked presumption, by money interfering with
right and justice, and by avarice kindling all of these. He saw it
as his duty to courageously oppose the wicked by taking good men
as models, by enriching the churches of God, by relieving those
oppressed by wicked judges, and by judging equitably between the
powerful and the humble. He was so greatly revered that a comet
was thought to accompany his death.
The king established the office of the Chancery to draft documents
and keep records. It created the writ, which was a small piece of
parchment addressed to a royal official or dependent commanding
him to perform some task for the King. By the 1000s A.D., the writ
contained a seal: a lump of wax with the impress of the Great Seal
of England which hung from the bottom of the document. Writing was
done with a sharpened goose-wing quill. Ink was obtained from
mixing fluid from the galls made by wasps for their eggs on oak
trees, rainwater or vinegar, gum arabic, and iron salts for color.
A King's grant of land entailed two documents: a charter giving
boundaries and conditions and a writ, usually addressed to the
shire court, listing the judicial and financial privileges
conveyed with the land.
Pages:
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87