Page:Cambridge Medieval History Volume 3.pdf/510

Rh tumbrel, etc. by English noblemen and ecclesiastical magnates. The institution of the advocaria (avouerie, Vogtei), on the contrary, never attained to much importance in England, while it flourished greatly in Germany, France and Flanders. It sprang from the delegation of public power within the territory of an ecclesiastical franchise to a layman, who thereby came to be a kind of policemaster as well as a judge. The ordinary judges, the counts and their subordinates were forbidden to enter the enfranchised district. On the other hand the bishop or abbot at the head of it abstained from the shedding of blood and did not meddle with criminal justice or deal with cases of public coercion: he appointed an advocate who had to arrest criminals, to conduct them before the proper courts, to execute those found guilty, to assist the ecclesiastical lord in cases when force had to be employed for the collection of rents or the taking of distress. These powers ripened in the course of the feudal age to an independent jurisdiction which greatly hampered the freedom of action of the ecclesiastical lord and encroached on his interests. Besides, churches and monasteries often availed themselves of the advocaria in order to obtain protection from a powerful neighbour: the surrender of certain rights and sources of income was the price paid for support in those troubled times. No wonder that in the eleventh and twelfth centuries the advocates often became local tyrants at whose hands their clients had to suffer a great deal. This is how, for instance, the Cartulary of St Mihiel in Flanders describes the conduct of a certain Count Raynald, an advocate of the monastery in question: "Count Raynald was the first to commit robberies in our estates under the customary term of talliatae; he also put our men into prison and forced them to give up their own by means of torture – he bequeathed this tyranny to his son, the present Raynald. The latter exceeded the malice of his father to such an extent that our men cannot put up any longer with such oppression and leave our estates. They are either unable or do not care to acquit themselves of outstanding rents: he is the only person they are afraid of ."

The conflicts between ecclesiastical potentates and their secular "advocates" often led to regular treaties, the so-called règlements d'avouerie. The Vogt of the Abbey of Prüm is forbidden to "clip" (tondere – clip the hair as for convicts) or to flay anyone except those who are guilty of murder, brigandage or battery, nor has he any part in the wer-geld of a man unless he has helped to capture and to judge him. In Echternach the Vogt is excluded from participating in civil trials. In houses appertaining to the garden and the cellar, the laundry and the kitchen of the monks, he is forbidden to hold any pleas or to exact any services, except pro monomachia (trial by battle) et sanguineu percussura (cf. A. S. blodwite) et scabinis constituendis (the appointment of popular