When someone found buried treasure? It belonged to the king. The duties of the new office were highly varied, but the charge was simple: generate revenue by promoting the king’s rights and interests. The new coroners (or ‘Crowners’ as they were called for centuries) did not hold court but rather documented the claims the king could make when finally his court rolled into town. This was a particular problem for Richard I (Richard the Lion-Hearted) who desperately needed money to finance his crusades, wars in France, and (once) his own ransom.Įnter Walter Hubert, legendary bureaucrat and architect of the 1194 Articles, which, among other reforms set up a new cadre of county officers tasked with ‘ keeping the pleas of the crown’ ( custos placitorum coronae). Justices took years to complete their circuit, during which time villages were at the mercy of the county sheriff, who grew fat squeezing the peasants without kicking much up to the king. This process was called “ holding the pleas of the crown.” By 1194, the process had become grossly inefficient and prone to abuse. In medieval England, itinerant justices traveled the countryside along the ‘Eyre’ (the judicial circuit) inspecting villages, holding court, settling disputes, and levying fines. The first formal mention we have of the ‘coroner’ is in 1194 in the Articles of Eyre.
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