Life in the fifteenth century

1. Life in the 15th Century

2. Henry V and English
• Until 1417 Correspondence in French and
Latin
• After 1417 in English
– Letters to London officals
– Letters to his brother and to Privy Council

3. News & Propaganda
• Proclamation through sheriffs
• Criers
– Cities, markets
• Posting
– Churches, guildhalls

4. Daily Life in the 15th Century
Dr. Jennifer Paston

5. Lawyers
And counters on the bench that stand by the bar,
They will beguile you in your hand unless you beware.
He will take 40 pence to take down his hood,
And speak for you a word or two and do you little good,
I warrant.
Attorneys in country, they get silver for naught;
They make men begin what they never had thought;
And when they come to the ring, they hop if they can.
All they can get that way, they think all is won for them
With skill.
No man should trust them, so false they are in the bile.
Poem on the Evil Times of Edward II

6. Attorneys
Before the end of the 12th century parties must
attend court in person
Courts become fixed in one place
Limited rights to be represented
1235 First statutory reference to right to have an
attorney
1318, 1383 Right of those abroad to be represented
by attorneys

7. Split
• Serjeants at Law presented the case and
responded to any argument that arose
– Focused on appearing in court
– Later called Utter-barrister
• Attorneys appeared on behalf of a claimant
and spoke for him.
– Handled the managerial, preparatory side

8. Church Courts
• Proctors
• Provision for fees
• Rebuke for failure to file for a client
• Need only serve the client to the extent he
thought the cause was just

9. 1275 Statute of Westminster I
• Address official misconduct
• Excess litigation
• Bribes

10. 14th Century London
• 1292 ~140 lawyers
– Attempt to apply limits
• 1400 ~2000 lawyers

11. 1402 Commons Petition
• “falsifications, deceits, and nullifications . . .
for some time . . . still being made day to day .
. . more than were ever made in the past, by a
large number of attorneys.”
• “several have learned little or nothing of the
law;” some were “of very tender age;”
“negligence and ignorance” prevented
accurate record keeping.
Rose, Jonathan. "Medieval Attitudes Toward the Legal Profession: The Past as
Prologue." Stetson L. Rev. 28 (1998): 345

12. Statute 4 Henry IV (1402)
Justices to examine all attorneys.
Enroll only those who were ‘good and virtuous
and of good fame…’
Clients of those not enrolled advised to seek
new attorneys
• 1455 Similar statute applied to Norfolk and
Suffolk and the city of Norwich

13. 1455 Petition of Commons
Attorneys [come] to every Fair, Market, and
other Places, where is any Assembly of People,
exhorting, procuring, moving, and inciting the
People to attempt untrue [and] foreign Suits, for
small Trespasses, little Offences, and small Sums
of Debt, whose Actions be triable and
determinable in Court Barons; whereby proceed
many Suits, more of evil Will and Malice, than of
the Truth of the Thing . . .

14. 1494 Paupers
• Right to a court appointed attorney

15. The Chaucer Family
• Tavern keepers
• John Chaucer, wine merchant, customs agent
• Geoffrey
– Page to countess of Ulster
– Diplomatic missions
– Marriage to Philippa Roelt, later sister-in-law to
John of Gaunt

16. Chaucer and Descendants
Geoffrey(1340-1400)
Thomas Chaucer (1367-
1434)
• Married Maud of
Ewelme
• Manager for Cardinal
Henry Beaufort
• Speaker of the House

17. Alice Chaucer (1404-1475)
• Married John Phelip (1414−15)
– Inherits land
• Married Thomas Montagu (1421−28), earl of
Salisbury
– Inherits wealth
• Married William de la Pole ( ~1432-50), earl
and later duke of Suffolk
• Enmity with the Pastons

18. John de la Pole (1442−92)
• His father impeached, exiled, murdered but
not attainted
• Married (1450) to Margaret Beaufort
(1443−1509)
– Marriage set aside by Henry VI
• Married (1458) to Elizabeth (1440-~1503)
, daughter of Richard, duke of York

19. Pastons and the Fastolf Estate
• Executor for Fastolf
– Claim of oral will
• Objective to establish a college of monks at
Caister Castle
• Opposition from dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk
(widow, Alice) and the Bishop of

20. Plan of Caister Castle

21. Caister Castle, Home of Sir John Fastolf

22. Magdalen College, Beneficiary of the estate of Sir John