Attitudes to Royal Justice in Fourteenth-Century Yorkshire

Abstract

According to many of the Anglo-Saxon chroniclers northerners are characterised by their 'fickleness'. Indeed it appears to have been a standard trait used to describe Northumbrians or Cumbrians, though problems were also blamed on the 'fickle and treacherous Yorkshireman'. The minutiae of local judicial administration in the county has already received the attention of historians and that work will not be duplicated here. Rather, this paper will look at the broader picture afforded by the mechanics of legal administration in the fourteenth century, the nature of the county's experience of royal justice, and the way in which the business of royal justice affected and interacted with local concerns and local people.