If the defendant's wound healed within a prescribed period, he was set free as innocent if not, execution usually followed.įigure 1: A map of pre-1066 Britain – a country with different regional laws For example, courts generally consisted of informal public assemblies that weighed conflicting claims in a case and, if unable to reach a decision, might require an accused to show their guilt or innocence by carrying a red-hot iron or snatching a stone from a cauldron of boiling water or some other ‘test’ of veracity. Each county had its own local court dispensing its own justice in accordance with local customs that varied from community to community and were enforced in often arbitrary fashion.
The law of the Jutes in the south of England, for example, was different from that of the Mercians in the middle of the country (see map below). Before 1066 the English legal system involved a mass of oral customary rules, which varied according to region.
Prior to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, there was no unitary, national legal system. 2 Part A Historical development of the common law 2.1 The history of the common law
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