Martin, Vincent

The predominance of the “voie de cour” in the Norman custumals of the thirteenth century - 2020.


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The Norman custumals of the Middle Ages place particular importance on the resolution of disputes by the “voie de cour,” which entrusts those in charge of justice with settling disputes after a trial. This observation is not new and appears in particular in certain works by Jean Yver. The present study reviews the predominance of the judicial resolution of conflict in thirteenth-century Norman society by examining the provisions of the Très ancien coutumier de Normandie and the Summa de legibus Normannie in curia laicali. This approach not only makes it possible to confirm—by synthesizing them—the number of studies carried out by researchers in recent decades, but also to enrich them with new thinking, in particular by highlighting certain passages in the aforementioned custumals that have rarely been used to explore this issue. This article also complements previous work by putting the Norman solutions into perspective with those implemented, at the same time, in the rest of the kingdom.