Bettany Hughes
Today, we assume that if you commit a significant crime, you'll end up in prison. But the prison system is a surprisingly recent invention, only established in the mid 1800s. For centuries in this country there were a whole range of crimes, from poaching to cold-blooded murder, that carried just one punishment - death. So what was the point of this brutal approach? Since the 1200s, the state has wanted to keep tabs on those involved in criminal trials and some of the records survive. We know who Judge Jeffries condemned at the Bloody Assizes and how Dick Turpin was charged. The original documents can short-circuit us into the lives of those who'd fallen foul of the criminal justice system.

In the 1200s, the state started keeping records of criminal trials. Amazingly, many of these records survive. I'm in London, on my way to hear stories of mediaeval intrigue from records of the earliest jury trials. What I particularly want to find out is how independent juries were. My first stop is the Public Record Office. I'd arranged to meet Michael Clanchy, a man who knows a thing or two about crime and punishment in mediaeval England.

Michael Clanchy
And this is the record from Hampshire in 1249. The standard procedure was trial by jury. Trial by 12 people as we now have it, but the great difference is that a jury in the 13th century, or throughout the Middle Ages, consisted of local people with local knowledge of those who were accused.

Bettany
So the jury knew the criminal and the crime? That sounds like a system ripe for corruption and it seems it was, as the case of a spectacular robbery in Hampshire shows.

We're on our way to the Pass of Alton, a once notorious stretch on the old road from Southampton to London. Here, in 1248, two foreign merchants were attacked and robbed of 200 marks, a huge sum of money. So why would the merchants have chosen this route?

Michael
Well, they really had no choice. This is called the Passage of Alton because it was the only way through this piece of forest and any piece of forest was, of course, very dangerous to travellers.

Bettany
The gang of robbers was living in these woods, waiting for the great baggage train from Southampton to arrive. When it did, they ambushed the merchants' party and seized the 200 marks. The merchants escaped with their lives and fled to complain to the king. The records of the case paint a vivid picture of how the robbers survived in the woods.

Michael
There's one man, Richard Pitcomb, and his wife who are accused of supplying them with cooked food in the form of a whole pig and two sheep, and there's another person who is accused of supplying them with cider. And so one imagines them here, having a sort of big camp fire, lots of food and drink.

Bettany
They sound exactly like Robin Hood.

Michael
Yes. A person called Robin Hood is mentioned in a Yorkshire record of this sort from much the same time, and what is so interesting about this record is we do have a description of actual real people in these woods, who were described as outlaws and committed this great robbery.

Bettany
Following the robbery, many local people were arrested. Some charged with the robbery itself. Others as accessories. They were tried in Winchester. The conspiracy was so widespread, that the first local jury failed to return any verdicts. They were too close to the events. Angered by this corruption, King Henry III ordered that they be thrown in prison and a new jury was summoned.

Do you think he was making a point by hosting the proceedings here?

Michael
Yes. What he is doing is summoning the people of Hampshire to his own house, as it were, and many of them would never have seen him before and would never have seen a building like this with these great marble shafts. The King would have come from that door, there, probably crowned and robed, then makes this great speech. Appears to be very angry and says, you must tell the truth about these robberies.

Bettany
So how did the jurors decide?

Michael
Well, in this case, the second time round they do at last make some accusations and declare some people to be guilty.

Bettany
The documents tell us 60 people were charged with conspiracy in the robbery. Many of those the jury found guilty, like Cecily Colemore, were fined but there were also less familiar harsher punishments, like outlawry.

Michael
Accused people who failed to appear in court are automatically outlawed, that is the penalty, and so whenever you see written ex U T L, ut legati, that stands for outlawed. Non venerod, these accused people have not come, and so, uratorese decont, the jurors say that they are guilty, idio, and so they in their turn are ut legati, they become outlawed also.

Bettany
And if you're an outlaw, what does that mean? What do you risk happening to you?

Michael
Just very literally, it goes right back to Anglo-Saxon times, it means you are beyond the protection of the law and if you are beyond the protection of the law, if you return to any village, if anyone recognises you, they are entitled to kill you or certainly entitled to arrest you and you will be summarily killed. One of the law books says just like a wild animal. You're no longer treated as a person.

Bettany
Was anybody executed as a result of this trial?

Michael
Yes. Here is a case of someone who is hanged. You can see this, just from this one single letter there. S, full-stop with a little squiggle above it and that stands in Latin for suspendata. He is to be hanged, it is the order of the court.

Bettany
The jury had spoken but it was the power of the King that was on display.

Vic Gatrell
Control had to be maintained through symbolic means, through public statements that the sovereign, the king, was mighty, that the anger of the king was huge and monstrous and that the anger of the king could be exercised in whatever way the king chose upon those who offended against his dignity and against his integrity. So the argument is that punishment had to be excessive in order to demonstrate and to dramatise the power of the king.

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