Law and Murder

The Rule of Law

In the 12th Century, the Rule of Law advanced when the Digest of the Roman Emperor Justinian was discovered in Italy 500 years after its creation. Young men from across Europe travelled to Bologna to study Roman law, including an Englishman named Thomas Becket. Roman law would become the foundation of the laws of many European nations. However, English law remained idiosyncratic. In England, Roman law was figuratively rebuffed. Yet, Justinian's Digest still indirectly led to the creation of the first book of English law, Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie or The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England attributed to Ranulf de Glanvill--the book is known by the shorthand of "Glanvill." It was modelled after Justinian's Digest and Gratian's Decretum, the code of the canon law of the Roman Church. Glanvill was the initial step in the creation of uniform English laws, replacing the patchwork quilt of different laws in different locations. Glanvill was a part of the movement to funnel cases into the king's courts in Westminster Hall and money into the king's treasury.

However, as English law advanced, it remained the King's Law. All governmental power--judicial, executive and legislative--was held by the monarch. That was never more evident than when the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Becket, was murdered by King Henry II's knights in Canterbury Cathedral.