Assizes Of Jerusalem

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The Assizes of Jerusalem are a collection of numerous medieval legal treatises written in

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th -4; we might wonder whether there's a point at which it's appropriate to talk of the beginnings of French, that is, when it wa ...

containing the law of the

Jerusalem Jerusalem is a city in the Southern Levant, on a plateau in the Judaean Mountains between the Mediterranean Sea, Mediterranean and the Dead Sea. It is one of the List of oldest continuously inhabited cities, oldest cities in the world, and ...

and Kingdom of Cyprus">Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

. They were compiled in the thirteenth century, and are the largest collection of surviving medieval laws.

History

As Peter Edbury says: "one group of sources from the Latin East that have long excited the attention of scholars are the legal treatises often known collectively, if somewhat misleadingly, as the Assises of Jerusalem." The

assize The assizes (), or courts of assize, were periodic courts held around England and Wales until 1972, when together with the quarter sessions they were abolished by the Courts Act 1971 and replaced by a single permanent Crown Court. The assizes ex ...

s, or ''assises'' in

French French may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France ** French people, a nation and ethnic group ** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices Arts and media * The French (band), ...

, survive in written form only from the 13th century, at least a generation after the collapse of the

Kingdom of Jerusalem The Kingdom of Jerusalem, also known as the Crusader Kingdom, was one of the Crusader states established in the Levant immediately after the First Crusade. It lasted for almost two hundred years, from the accession of Godfrey of Bouillon in 1 ...

. The earliest laws of the Kingdom were promulgated at the

Council of Nablus The Council of Nablus was a council of ecclesiastic and secular lords in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, held on January 16, 1120. History The council was convened at Nablus by Warmund, Patriarch of Jerusalem, and King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. ...

in 1120, but these laws seem to have fallen out of use and were replaced by the assizes by the 13th century and presumably even earlier. Although no laws or court cases survive from the height of the kingdom in the 12th century, the kingdom obviously had laws and a well-developed legal structure. By the 13th century, the development of this structure was lost to memory, but jurists such as

Philip of Novara Philip of Novara (c. 1200 – c. 1270) was a medieval historian, warrior, musician, diplomat, poet, and lawyer born at Novara, Italy, into a noble house, who spent his entire adult life in the Middle East. He primarily served the Ibelin family ...

and John of Ibelin recounted the legends that had grown up about the early kingdom. According to them, both the Haute Cour and the burgess court were established in 1099 by

Godfrey of Bouillon Godfrey of Bouillon (; ; ; ; 1060 – 18 July 1100) was a preeminent leader of the First Crusade, and the first ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem from 1099 to 1100. Although initially reluctant to take the title of king, he agreed to rule as pri ...

, who set himself up as judge of the high court. The laws of both were said to have been written down from the very beginning in 1099, and were simply lost when Jerusalem was captured by

Saladin Salah ad-Din Yusuf ibn Ayyub ( – 4 March 1193), commonly known as Saladin, was the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty. Hailing from a Kurdish family, he was the first sultan of both Egypt and Syria. An important figure of the Third Crusade, h ...

in 1187. These laws were kept in a chest in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and were thus known in

Old French Old French (, , ; ) was the language spoken in most of the northern half of France approximately between the late 8th Patriarch of Jerusalem, and the Officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem">viscount of Jerusalem There were six major officers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem: the constable, the marshal, the seneschal, the chamberlain (which were known as the "Grand Offices"), the butler and the chancellor. At certain times there were also bailiffs, viscounts ...

. Each law, according to Philip, was written on one page, beginning with a large initial illuminated in gold, and with a rubric">Illuminated manuscript">illuminated in gold, and with a rubric written in red ink. Philip claimed to have obtained his information from an old knight and jurist named Ralph of Tiberias, and John in turn probably got his information from Philip. Whether or not these legends were true (Edbury, for one, believes they were not), the 13th century jurists envisioned the legal structure of the kingdom to have existed continuously from the original conquest. Some of the treatises are said to represent Western feudal law, as interpreted by baronial jurists to weaken royal power, but later scholarship argues that the works present an idealized legal model rather than proof of an existing feudal structure.

Texts

The surviving collections of laws are: *The ''Livre au Roi''. This is the earliest surviving text, dating from approximately 1200. It was written for

Amalric II of Jerusalem Aimery of Lusignan (, , ''Amorí''; before 11551 April 1205), erroneously referred to as Amalric () in earlier scholarship, reigned as the first king of Cyprus from 1196 to his death in 1205. He also reigned as the king of Jerusalem as the hu ...

(the "Roi" of the title) and has a decidedly royalist slant. It is the only text preserving the ''établissement'' of

King Baldwin II Baldwin II, also known as Baldwin of Bourcq (; – 21August 1131), was Count of Edessa from 1100 to 1118, and King of Jerusalem from 1118 until his death. He accompanied Godfrey of Bouillon and Baldwin I of Jerusalem, Baldwin of Boulogne to th ...

, which allowed the king to disinherit his

vassal A vassal or liege subject is a person regarded as having a mutual obligation to a lord or monarch, in the context of the feudal system in medieval Europe. While the subordinate party is called a vassal, the dominant party is called a suzerain ...

s, bypassing the normal judgement of the Haute Cour. Otherwise its contents are very similar to the other authors. *Le Livre de Forme de Plait. Philip of Novara's legal treatise, written from a more aristocratic viewpoint, was written in the 1250s. He also wrote a history of the conflict between the Ibelins (his patrons) and the

Hohenstaufen The Hohenstaufen dynasty (, , ), also known as the Staufer, was a noble family of unclear origin that rose to rule the Duchy of Swabia from 1079, and to royal rule in the Holy Roman Empire during the Middle Ages from 1138 until 1254. The dynast ...

s on

Cyprus Cyprus (), officially the Republic of Cyprus, is an island country in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Situated in West Asia, its cultural identity and geopolitical orientation are overwhelmingly Southeast European. Cyprus is the List of isl ...

and in

Acre The acre ( ) is a Unit of measurement, unit of land area used in the Imperial units, British imperial and the United States customary units#Area, United States customary systems. It is traditionally defined as the area of one Chain (unit), ch ...

. * John of Ibelin. John,

count of Jaffa and Ascalon The double County of Jaffa and Ascalon was one of the four major seigneuries comprising the major Crusader state of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, according to 13th-century commentator John of Ibelin. History Jaffa was fortified by Godfrey of Bouill ...

and regent of the Kingdom of Jerusalem in Acre, was a participant in the struggle that Philip recorded elsewhere. From 1264 to 1266 he wrote ''Livre des assises'', the longest legal treatise from the Latin East, and indeed from anywhere in medieval Europe. *Geoffrey La Tor or Geoffrey le Tort, and

James of Ibelin James of Ibelin (; died in 1276) was count of Jaffa and, titularly, of Ascalon too as well as a noted jurist in the Kingdom of Jerusalem. James was the son of Count John of Jaffa and Ascalon, himself a noted jurist in the crusader kingdom. John h ...

, John's son, independently wrote very small treatises, much less important than the larger works of Philip and John. *The ''Livre des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois''. This is a lengthy work detailing the assizes the lower court of the kingdom, the burgess court, established for the non-noble class. Their author is anonymous, but they were also written in the mid-13th century. According to

Joshua Prawer Joshua Prawer (; November 22, 1917 – April 30, 1990) was a notable Israelis, Israeli historian and a scholar of the Crusades and Kingdom of Jerusalem. His work often attempted to portray Crusader society as a forerunner to later European Colon ...

they derive from ''Lo Codi'', a

Provençal Provençal may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Provence, a region of France ** Provençal dialect, a dialect of the Occitan language, spoken in the southeast of France ** ''Provençal'', meaning the whole Occitan language * Provenca ...

law code itself based on

Roman law Roman law is the law, legal system of ancient Rome, including the legal developments spanning over a thousand years of jurisprudence, from the Twelve Tables (), to the (AD 529) ordered by Eastern Roman emperor Justinian I. Roman law also den ...

. Also important on its own, although found in the ''Livre au Roi'', Philip, and John, is the '' Assise sur la ligece'', a law promulgated by

King Amalric Amalric (; 113611 July 1174), formerly known in historiography as , was the king of Jerusalem from 1163 until his death. He was, in the opinion of his Muslim adversaries, the bravest and cleverest of the crusader kings. Amalric was the younger ...

in the 1170s, which effectively made every lord in the kingdom a direct vassal of the king and gave equal voting rights to

rear-vassal A vavasour (also vavasor; Old French ''vavassor'', ''vavassour''; Modern French ''vavasseur''; Italian language">Italian ''valvassore'', ''varvassore''; Late Latin ''vavassor'') is a term in feudalism, feudal law. A vavasour was the vassal or leas ...

s as much as the greater barons.

Modern editions

All of these works were edited in the mid- to late-19th century by Auguste Arthur, comte de Beugnot, and published in the '' Recueil des Historiens des Croisades'' by the

Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres The () is a French learned society devoted to history, founded in February 1663 as one of the five academies of the . The academy's scope was the study of ancient inscriptions (epigraphy) and historical literature (see Belles-lettres). History ...

, in two volumes designated "''Lois''." Also included in the RHC are the 13th- and 14th-century ordinances of the

Kingdom of Cyprus The Kingdom of Cyprus (; ) was a medieval kingdom of the Crusader states that existed between 1192 and 1489. Initially ruled as an independent Christian kingdom, it was established by the French House of Lusignan after the Third Crusade. I ...

; a document concerning succession and regency, written by (or attributed to)

John of Brienne John of Brienne ( 1170 – 19–23 March 1237), also known as John I, was the king of Jerusalem from 1210 to 1225 and Latin emperor of Constantinople from 1229 to 1237. He was the youngest son of Erard II of Brienne, a wealthy nobleman in Cham ...

king of Jerusalem The king or queen of Jerusalem was the supreme ruler of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a Crusader state founded in Jerusalem by the Latin Church, Latin Catholic leaders of the First Crusade, when the city was Siege of Jerusalem (1099), conquered in ...

; and a document concerning military service, written by (or attributed to)

Hugh III of Cyprus Hugh III (; – 24 March 1284), also called Hugh of Antioch-Lusignan and the Great, was the king of Cyprus (as Hugh III) from 1267 and king of Jerusalem (as Hugh I) from 1268. Born into the family of the princes of Antioch, he effectively rul ...

. There are also a number of

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the ...

s, although a far more complete collection of charters was collected in the late 19th and early 20th century by

Reinhold Röhricht Gustav Reinhold Röhricht (18 November 1842 – 2 May 1905) was a German historian of the Crusades. Biography He was born in Bunzlau in Silesia (now Bolesławiec, Poland), the third son of a miller. He studied at the Gymnasium in Sagan (now ...

. In the judgement of all later editors, from Maurice Grandclaude in the early 20th century to Edbury today, Beugnot was a very poor editor; fortunately, some, but not all, of these works have been edited separately. A French critical edition of the ''Livre au Roi'' was published by Myriam Greilshammer in 1995, and in 2003 Edbury published a critical edition of John of Ibelin's text. No new edition of the Old French assizes of the burgess court has been published since Beugnot's publication in 1843, but in the 15th century they were translated into

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, and from the Greek manuscripts an English translation has recently been made by Nicholas Coureas. Modern historians generally recognize the dangers in attributing 13th-century laws to the 12th-century kingdom, although earlier it was believed that these assizes represented the purest form of

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with the fall of the West ...

European

feudalism Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

. In reality the laws probably reflect the practise of neither the 12th or the 13th century, as they were written from scratch in the 13th and were consciously designed to harken back to the less-troubled days of the 12th century, despite the important legal changes that had occurred in the meantime (

trial by ordeal Trial by ordeal was an ancient judicial practice by which the guilt or innocence of the accused (called a "proband") was determined by subjecting them to a painful, or at least an unpleasant, usually dangerous experience. In medieval Europe, like ...

, for example, was outlawed in the

Fourth Lateran Council The Fourth Council of the Lateran or Lateran IV was convoked by Pope Innocent III in April 1213 and opened at the Lateran Palace in Rome on 11 November 1215. Due to the great length of time between the council's convocation and its meeting, m ...

of 1215). As mentioned above, it is somewhat misleading to call all of these texts the "Assizes of Jerusalem" as if they were written together at the same time; they often contradict one another or omit information that another text has. Together, however, they are the largest collection of laws written in a medieval European state for this period.

Sources and further reading

* M. Le Comte Beugnot, ed., ''Livre de Philippe de Navarre''. Recueil des Historiens des Croisades. Lois, tome premier. Paris: Académie Royal des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1841. *M. Le Comte Beugnot, ed., ''Livre des Assises de la Cour des Bourgeois''. Recueil des Historiens des Croisades: Lois, tome deuxième. Paris: Académie Royal des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1843. *Nicholas Coureas, trans., ''The Assizes of the Lusignan Kingdom of Cyprus''. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2002. *Kωνσταντίνος Σάθας
''Ασίζαι του Βασιλείου των Ιεροσολύμων και της Κύπρου''
Μεσαιωνική Βιβλιοθήκη Τόμος ΣΤ΄. Εν Βενετία: Τύποις του Φοίνικος (1877). *Philip of Novara, ''Le Livre de forme de plait'', ed. and trans.

Peter W. Edbury Peter may refer to: People * List of people named Peter, a list of people and fictional characters with the given name * Peter (given name) ** Saint Peter (died 60s), apostle of Jesus, leader of the early Christian Church * Peter (surname), a sur ...

. Nicosia: Cyprus Research Centre, 2009. *John of Ibelin, ''Le Livre des Assises'', ed.

. Leiden: Brill, 2003. *Peter W. Edbury, "Law and Custom in the Latin East: Les Letres dou Sepulcre," ''

Mediterranean Historical Review ''Mediterranean Historical Review'' is a peer-reviewed academic journal established in 1986, covering the ancient, medieval, early modern, and contemporary history of the Mediterranean basin. It is published by Routledge on behalf of the School of ...

'' 10 (1995). *Peter W. Edbury, "Feudal Obligation in the Latin East," ''Byzantion'' 47 (1977). *Peter W. Edbury, ''John of Ibelin and the Kingdom of Jerusalem''. Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press, 1997. * Maurice Grandclaude, "Liste des assises remontant au premier royaume de Jérusalem (1099-1187)," in ''Mélanges Paul Fournier''. Paris: Société d'Histoire du Droit, 1929. *Myriam Greilsammer, ed., ''Le Livre au Roi''. Paris: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, 1995. *

, ''Crusader Institutions''. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. *

, ed., ''Regesta Regni Hierosolymitani'' (MXCVII-MCCXCI), with ''Additamentum''. New York: 1893–1904.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Recueil des historians des croisades: Lois, vol. 1
(at Google Books)
Recueil des historians des croisades: Lois, vol. 2
(at Google Books) Feudalism in the Kingdom of Jerusalem Medieval legal codes Medieval law Customary legal systems Legal history of France Legal treatises Old French texts