Hi everyone, not sure if this has been answered here but I am having trouble understanding the concept of Feudalism. Currently at university and we are discussing the historical role of policing in the past from the Ancient ages right through to the 18th century where Capitalism and Democracy came to a fore. My lecturer assumed or expected that we knew how Feudalism operated back then and didn't go into much detail. From the research I've done it seems that the state was run by the church and all legal/policing procedures were dealt without any real formal proceedings and precedent wasn't taken into account when decisions were made. My question is, who were the policing force in these times? Was there an army/police force? How was evidence evaluated by the monarch? How was corruption dealt with (rouge soldiers/treason?
I can give some information about England in the reign of Henry II (reigned 1154 – 1189). I qualify it like that because that's all important. England was not any other land. There were radical changes over time: shire and hundred courts were major foci earlier; justices on eyre were revived in this time and became more important; later, I gather there were justices of the peace, quarter sessions, assizes (meaning a type of major court), central courts like King's Bench ... but I know little about them.
So I have to repeat: I can give some information about England in the reign of Henry II (reigned 1154 – 1189).
"all legal/policing procedures were dealt without any real formal proceedings". No.
England had law and courts. You could argue that it had too many courts. There were hundred courts (lowest level in size, mostly criminal cases). There were shire courts, run by but not judged by the sheriff. Lords had manoral courts to deal with land claims and claims between their men. Lord who were powerful, or heirs of those who had been powerful, might have privileges, depending on the person: the right to hang a thief if caught with the stolen goods, the power to take certain fines, to view the frankpledge, the power to absorb the hundred court or even the shire court, or even to exclude all royal officers. There were lots of these "franchises". Henry II revived the practice of Henry I of sending out royal justices riding in circuits, "on eyre" (c.f. the modern term "circuit court") to hear major cases and appeals.
And of course courts intersected. A serf's cases were generally heard in the manorial court, but the shire court heard the case if they contested whether they were a serf at all. The shire court heard appeals from manoral courts if the lord defaulted on land cases. "Its complexity was in practice such that it defied analysis and description, and could at the time often be mastered only by those with local knowledge." (p. 251)
One of the biggest thorns in the side of Henry II in his entire life: The Church increasingly tried to wrest all control of cases involving churchmen, and more areas of jurisdiction. Henry II disliked it because he apparently disliked any changes from Henry I, and church courts were lax. Thomas Becket provoked a major kerfluffle. After his death, a compromise was worked out.
The hundred court ... Its special concern, however, was with police work. It was at this level that the "hue and cry" was administered, that those suspected of serious crime were named for later trial, and those who had no lord to go surety for them were put under pledge to keep the peace. Such men were group in tens under a tithing man: they had to go surety for each other, and pay a fine if they did not produce an erring member to stand to judgement when he should. Twice a year the sheriff would hold a specially full session of the hundred court and "view the frankpledge" to see that the tithings were properly organised.
(W. L. Warren, Henry II, p. 249)
There were formal proceedings, often elaborate. I don't know anything about cases of right in land, except that the proceedings were long and elaborate, and ended in trial by combat.
For criminal law, Warren doesn't know how accusations were generally made before then. I believe that minor cases were handled by the hundred or the shire. Henry II required juries of presentment to be elected to declare what crimes had been committed in their area, and if possible to indict serious criminals and their abettors. At first this was before the sheriffs, but later it was done in front of the justices on eyre. Before, those accused could clear themselves by compurgators (a body of men willing to swear that he was innocent), or by the ordeal of hot iron (grab a hot iron bar; if the wound heals cleanly, innocent; festering, guilty).
For murder, theft, receiving of stolen goods, forgery, and arson (but in the assize of Northampton, "except minor thefts and robberies which were committed in time of war, as of horses, oxen, and lesser things"): Henry II standardized it on the ordeal of water. From a medieval description,
Let the hands of the accussed be bound together under the bent knees after the manner of a man who is playing the game of Champ-estroit. Then he shall be bound around the loins with a rope strong enough to hold him; and in the rope will be made a knot at the distance of the length of his hair; and so he shall be let down gently into the water so as not to make a splash. If he sinks down to the knot he shall be drawn up and saved; otherwise let him be adjudged a guilty man by the spectators.
(p. 283, footnote 1) Please suppress all jokes; those of us who have seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail are already muttering about weighing as much as a duck and watery tarts without your help thank you; the unfortunates would not get it.
Anyone who failed was hanged, or had their right hand and a foot cut off and banished from the realm within 40 days. After 1176, those who passed the ordeal but were still notoriously suspect of "base felony" were banished too.
(The sources were the Assize of Clerendon 1166, http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/ass-clar/view/#edition/apparatus-1 , and the Assize of Northamton 1176, http://www.earlyenglishlaws.ac.uk/laws/texts/ass-nor/view/#edition-12/hv-image In Latin, alas, and Google Translate has ... issues. Yay for the respective translations at https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Select_Historical_Documents_of_the_Middle_Ages/Book_I/Assize_of_Clarendon and http://monsalvatworld.narod.ru/frsdominus/statiibook/henry2/northemassiza.htm )
But there was another path. (p. 356) A person could prosecute a criminal suit on their own. (You still can in England and Wales, but since 1986, the Crown Prosecution Service can block it.) Felonies and offenses against the king's peace went to the royal justices. But the accuser had to stand ready to prove it by his body -- that is, to do trial by combat. But even from the earliest surviving eyre rolls, the justices were skeptical about private prosecution -- why didn't the jury of presentment report it?
If I may address some of the premises before the meat?
There's an increasing opinion among professional historians that "feudal" wasn't a system, that it is a vague term, it was a post-period constructed concept, systems of society and government varied wildly by place and time, attempting to use it to explain medieval society misleads, so it is not useful as an investigatory or explanatory term in the history field. In this case, it's more focused to ask about your particular area (The British Isles?) and time period (post-Roman to 1700?); "feudalism" is irrelevant.
Other side points:
The "(UK)" was formed in 1801, so it's anachronistic for this period. Scotland had and has a somewhat different criminal justice system from England. Ireland wasn't under firm English control until, what, Tudor times? Wales had its own laws until late medieval times.
I don't know of any place in Western Europe where "the state was run by the church", unless a churchman was the actual ruler (papal states, German episcopal states), in which case state = church. For many places and times, the state didn't control the church. I think it's better to just look at the situation in the times and places of interest, and look at the intersecting spheres of church and state.
If you still want to know about the problem of "feudalism" (but like I wrote, I don't think you need to to consider your actual questions), earlier today /u/knoperope kindly provided a list of links to previous discussions. Normally I should provide /u links to alert them, so they could join in, but since "feudal" isn't a focus of your basic questions, I won't.