Kings, Courts, Cures, and Sinecures: The Statute of Provisors and the Common Law

Abstract

The notion that the pursuit of self-interest can ultimately bring universal good used to be widely held, but with the demise of the Manchester School of economics and of Herbert Spencer's philosophy it has almost completely gone out of favor. We are apt to forget that trial by jury, due process, and the rest of the beneficent heritage of medieval law originated in royal courts which were primarily interested in defending and promoting the king's interests, whatever the cost to others' rights or ideas of justice. For many years necessities of government warped the growth of English law where the king's needs were most closely engaged. His requirements shaped the remedies, his prerogatives shaped the possibilities of defense, while those who might stand in his way received nothing for their protection but the right to petition, and those who did not affect his immediate interests might be sent elsewhere to find their justice. At no time was this more evident than when the interests of the medieval clergy in their ecclesiastical benefices, already eroded by papal provisions, were attacked anew by the Common Law to aid the royal treasury.