Thomas Weyland

Sir Thomas Weyland (* around 1230; † January 1298 in Brundon ) was an English knight and judge. From 1278 to 1289 he was Chief Justice of the Court of Common Bench .

Origin and siblings

Thomas Weyland was the third son of the landowner Herbert Weyland from Essex and his wife Beatrice. His mother was a daughter of Stephen of Witnesham . After the death of her father, she and her five sisters inherited his small estate Witnesham near Ipswich in Suffolk . Weyland's eldest brother John became a clergyman. From about 1244 until his death in 1259, he served as a judge at the Common Bench . His second oldest brother, William, served as a civil servant and judge in England and Ireland from 1248. Weyland's younger brother Richard served in East Anglia from about 1265 as an administrator in the service of several magnates, including the Earl of Norfolk , John de Burgh and the Cathedral Priory of Ely and Bury St Edmunds Abbey . He died in 1296 or 1297.

Rise to royal judge

Thomas Weyland is first mentioned in 1251 as a lawyer for his eldest brother John. 1258 he bought for 100 marks the estate of Chillesford in Suffolk, and in 1259 he paid another 300 marks for the purchase of the estate of Blaxhall , Suffolk. It is unclear how, as the younger son of a small landowner, he was able to raise these considerable sums of money. Nothing is unknown about Weyland's legal education and it is considered unlikely that he was a clergyman at the court like his eldest brother John. Although he had also become a clergyman at first, around 1266 he married Anne, a daughter of Richard de Coleville . Before 1270 he was knighted for this purpose. It is possible that as a young man he initially worked as an administrator in the service of several magnates, but only towards the end of the reign of King Henry III. he is mentioned in 1272 as an administrator in the service of Roger Bigod, 5th Earl of Norfolk and his brother-in-law John fitz John , before he became the king's traveling judge. At Michaelmas 1274, Weyland served as a judge on the Court of Common Bench . Initially, he was subordinate to Judge Roger of Seaton († 1279) before he resigned in the summer of 1278.

High Justice of the Common Bench

After Roger of Seaton's resignation, Weyland succeeded him as Chief Justice of the Court of Common Bench. For the first time, a significant number of files and documents from the Common Bench have been preserved from his tenure as chief judge. These show that Weyland had a clear understanding of the law and, together with William of Brompton, had considerable influence on the jurisprudence. To a small extent, his contemporaries considered him corrupt, but after leaving office there were numerous other complaints about his judgments. Not all of these complaints were evidently justified, but some were evidently justified. Above all, one case in which he intervened in a legal dispute over property was clearly illegal at the time. In the lawsuit, a relative was involved from him, and apparently Weyland was for this perversion of justice rewarded with a share of the disputed ownership. He was also able to expand his land holdings considerably during his tenure as Chief Justice. Between 1278 and 1289 he spent an average of £ 150 a year on land purchases. He was able to raise part of this money from his legal income as a judge, and in addition he was able to triple his income from property to at least £ 150 a year in 1274, after which he had inherited his brother William's estates in England and Ireland. Still, Weyland appears to have invested some of the bribes he apparently received in real estate. In his native Suffolk alone, he acquired seven other estates or larger estates, three extensive estates in Essex, and other scattered estates in other parts of England. In addition, Weyland had married Margaret, the widow of John of Moze, in his second marriage before 1276 . Her name was probably Filliol before and brought a stately Wittum into the marriage, which she was entitled to for life.

Deposition and sentencing

However, his erroneous judgments did not lead to Weyland's removal. On July 20, 1289, two of his servants killed a man during a fair. They may have been involved in a brawl while drunk, but more likely the man was killed because he was involved in a rival group within the Earl of Norfolk's retinue . There had been bitter struggles over power and influence within the Earl's retinue, and Weyland, as a close advisor to the Earl, was likely involved in the bitter power struggle. The man who was killed, known as William Carwel , Carewel the Forester or Carewel the Parker of Framlingham , came from Ireland, but was also part of the retinue of the Earl of Norfolk and lived in Suffolk. When Weyland's servants returned to his Monewden estate , he did not have them arrested, although he learned of the manslaughter. However, the Earl of Norfolk demanded that the perpetrators be punished, after which a commission of inquiry was set up on September 4, 1289. As a result, the two perpetrators were arrested, convicted and hanged as murderers on September 14 in Melton , Suffolk. While Weyland was not charged with ordering the murder, coroners charged the Chief Justice with covering up the killers. A sheriff's officer arrested Weyland in Witnesham, but the latter was able to escape that night and flee to the Babwell Franciscan settlement at the gates of Bury St Edmunds . There he quickly entered the Franciscan order . When King Edward I found out, he did not want the church asylum hurting Babwell but ordered starve the office. After the Franciscan Brothers were allowed to leave the branch, Weyland finally had to surrender starving in mid-January 1290. Presumably under the assurance of safe conduct, he was taken to the Tower of London . In the Tower he was given the choice of either being sentenced to permanent imprisonment or going into exile. He naturally chose exile, upon which he had to swear during the trial against him on February 20, 1290 in the Tower that he would leave England and not go there or into any of the king's other properties without the express permission of the king. He was then given nine days to walk Dover and leave the country.

Exile and pardon

Weyland's lands in England and Ireland were to go to the King, who graciously allowed Weyland's wife Margaret to keep her Wittum and personal property. Weyland had to swear to renounce his rights to it. However, since Weyland had already decreed that apart from three estates, its properties were intended for the supply of its children, most of its lands were ultimately not confiscated. This meant that Weyland was still able to draw income from almost all of its lands even in exile. Although there were protracted lawsuits against several magnates who made claims to the goods, only the Earl of Gloucester was able to assert his claim to Chipping Sodbury in Gloucestershire . Weyland himself lived in Paris from 1292 at the latest. He was one of the jurists who, at the request of a royal ambassador, gave an assessment of the Scottish succession dispute in 1292 . He recommended dividing Scotland among the three most promising candidates for the throne, Bruce , Balliol and Hastings , as he believed that Edward I would benefit most from this division. But this idea was not pursued any further. Presumably in 1297 the king pardoned Weyland so that he could return to England. He died a little later on an estate that belonged to his wife's Wittum and was buried in the priory church of Woodbridge in Suffolk.

Marriages and offspring

From his first marriage to Anna de Coleville, Weyland had three children:

• John
• William
• Alina

From his second marriage to Margaret of Moze, Weyland had four children:

• Richard
• Elena
• Margaret
• Thomas

literature

• Paul Brand: Chief justice and felon: the career of Thomas Weyland . In: The making of the common law (1992), pp. 113-133

Web links

• Paul Brand: Weyland, Sir Thomas (c.1230–1298). In: Henry Colin Gray Matthew, Brian Harrison (Eds.): Oxford Dictionary of National Biography , from the earliest times to the year 2000 (ODNB). Oxford University Press, Oxford 2004, ISBN 0-19-861411-X , ( oxforddnb.com license required ), as of 2004

Individual evidence

1. ^ Hunt Janin: Medieval justice. Cases and laws in France, England, and Germany, 500-1500. McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC 2004, ISBN 978-0-7864-1841-1 , p. 113
2. ^ Hunt Janin: Medieval justice. Cases and laws in France, England, and Germany, 500-1500. McFarland & Co., Jefferson, NC 2004, ISBN 978-0-7864-1841-1 , p. 113
3. ^ Michael Prestwich: Edward I. University of California, Berkeley 1988, ISBN 0-520-06266-3 , p. 368