29.3 Europe: a.d. 1401 to 1500  (Page 14/16)

At the very end of the century Henry VII put down an insurrection in Cornwall, where the people had risen to protest taxes imposed for defense against Scottish invasion forces. (Ref. 50 ) Some remarks about the legal system in England are in order. There was a good deal of antagonism between the barristers and the priests of the civil service. The latter had usually studied canon law and also the old Roman civil law, codified by Justinian in the 6th century. Although parts of the Roman law had survived in most of western Europe and even in Scotland, the English common law had developed along different lines. By this 15th century torture was freely used in political cases brought before the Privy Council, where the civilians, mostly priests, conducted the trials. (Ref. 291 ) Of incidental interest is the fact that construction of Westminister Abbey was under way as the century ended. (Ref. 169 )

Scotland

The infant heir, James I, while going to France for safety, was taken prisoner en route by the English and on the almost immediate death thereafter of Robert II, the regent, Albany, actually ruled Scotland in an uneasy peace that allowed some recovery of prosperity amid good harvests. The Scottish church achieved opulence and the ecclesiastical income equaled all other incomes combined.

The ordinary Scottish man living in the last half of the century had a rough life, but in a warm, human society. The crown laid down all sorts of rules - such as no drinking in taverns after nine o'clock, no staying with friends when traveling (i.e. must stay in taverns), every man with a plow and 8 oxen was to plant a designated amount of wheat, peas and beans, commoner women could not wear clothes of silk, scarlet gowns or trimming of martin fur and must have their heads covered. The peasant with his kin usually worked 30 acres with a wooden plow and oxen and lived in a turf house, such acreage "leased" to him for five years. At the end of the century, James IV did give his serfs the land in fee, however, and encouraged his barons to do likewise. The great burghs, started by the merchants, were becoming cities, with vermin, wandering dogs and free-running swine, fish stalls, general squalor and plenty of beggars. Each man kept horse and weapons ready to be available for war within 12 hours of the first beacon flare. John Major, an educated historian of the times, described two nations in Scotland - the wild Scots of the mountains and the householding Scots of the south, both-quarrelsome and contentious, with the "lairds" thinking of nothing else but fighting. The two "peoples" had different tongues and hated each other. The land was rich in fish, wildfowl, deer and immense quantities of salmon and herring were exported to France, Flanders and England. (Ref. 170 )

The last two-thirds of the century was a bloody era with the ransomed James I, James II and III all meeting violent deaths and the nobles did their share of killing each other.

"For eight years Douglases and Hepburns, Stewarts, Ruthvens and Crawfords, Kennedys and Ogilivies fought with or against each other on both sides of the Forth."