The King's Pardon for Homicide before AD 1307

by : Naomi D. Hurnard

This study seeks to explain why the man who committed homicide by misadventure or in self-defence needed a pardon. It examines the working of the system of pardoning in England in the thirteenth century, its effects on the claims of the victims' kinsmen to secure reparation or bring down retribution on the slayers, and the risk to public order from the king's clemency to those who had killed feloniously. It traces the development of inquisitions into alleged excuses, and an appendix deals with the closely related history of the writ de odio et atia.