The tourn (tour, turn) was the bi-annual inspection of the
hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101.
In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...
s of his
shire made by the
sheriff
A sheriff is a government official, with varying duties, existing in some countries with historical ties to England where the office originated. There is an analogous, although independently developed, office in Iceland that is commonly transla ...
in
medieval
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...
. During it he would preside over the especially full meetings of the
hundred court (more normally three-weekly) which met during the tourn at
Easter
Easter,Traditional names for the feast in English are "Easter Day", as in the '' Book of Common Prayer''; "Easter Sunday", used by James Ussher''The Whole Works of the Most Rev. James Ussher, Volume 4'') and Samuel Pepys''The Diary of Samuel ...
and
Michaelmas
Michaelmas ( ; also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels) is a Christian festival observed in some Western liturgical calendars on 29 September, a ...
.
Origins
The tourn is first recorded by that name in 1205, but
Frederic William Maitland considered that it was already in action at the time of the 1166
Assize of Clarendon. Anglo-Saxon precedents for the tourn, in the form of exceptional shrieval holdings of the hundred court, are however already apparent by the early 11th century.
Profits and abuses
A central part of the tourn was known as 'views of
frankpledge
Frankpledge was a system of joint suretyship common in England throughout the Early Middle Ages and High Middle Ages. The essential characteristic was the compulsory sharing of responsibility among persons connected in tithings. This unit, under ...
', when the sheriff looked into the frankpledge or frith-borh system, for which all freemen and suitors of the hundred, as well as the reeve and four representatives from each
vill
Vill is a term used in English history to describe the basic rural land unit, roughly comparable to that of a parish, manor, village or tithing.
Medieval developments
The vill was the smallest territorial and administrative unit—a geographical ...
, were meant to be present. Fines for non-attendance, the frankpledge penny, and penalties from criminals presented, all added up to sources of profit from the tourn, which sheriffs were naturally inclined to capitalise on.
Among the abuses that followed were multiplication of the number of tourn sessions and the exaction of money for non-attendance: one sheriff went so far as to extend the tourn to a county (Northumberland) where it was previously unknown, to multiply fines for non-attendance from the unwary. Unsurprisingly, attempted restrictions on the tourn formed a substantial part of the constitutional struggle of the 13th century. -
Magna Carta
(Medieval Latin for "Great Charter of Freedoms"), commonly called (also ''Magna Charta''; "Great Charter"), is a royal charter of rights agreed to by King John of England at Runnymede, near Windsor, Berkshire, Windsor, on 15 June 1215. ...
insisting on no more than a bi-annual tourn, with fees for view of frankpledge restricted to those of Henry II's time. The Baronial Opposition reiterated the earlier points, and added to the classes of people exempt from attendance at the tourn – matters so popular that the victorious royalists took them up unchanged in the
Statute of Marlborough.
Geographical expansion/Temporal decline
The second half of the 13th century saw the tourn extended to Northern counties and to North Wales, (though not to the southern principality).
Later however the importance of the tourn (as of frankpledge) went into decline; and under Edward IV its legal scope was formally delimited (though not entirely removed).
[J. Reeves, ''History of the English Law'' (1880), p. 14]
See also
References
{{Reflist, 2}
Medieval English court system
English legal terminology