Ranulf de Glanvill

Background

He was born c. 1112 at Stratford St Andrew near Saxmundham in Suffolk, but there is little information about his early life.

Career

English common law developed partly in response to the pioneering work of Ranulf Glanvill.

He regained it by helping raise troops against Scottish invaders in 1173–74, and his reward from King Henry II was a series of increasingly important appointments: justice of the king's court, itinerant justice in the northern circuit, and ambassador to the court in Flanders.

For a few centuries before Glanvill became influential, English law was mired in feudalism.

By the twelfth century, feudalistic law was dying.

The local courts still adhered to its methods, but the king's courts offered a superior form of justice that was at once less bloody and less superstitious.

This was a writ-based, or formulary, system.

It allowed litigants to frame a complaint in terms of a particular action, which had its own writ and established modes of pleading and trial.

Although primitive by modern standards, the formulary system represented a considerable advance for its time.

As the feudal forms fell into disuse, they were replaced with a dominant system of central courts that followed uniform procedure throughout the realm and made English law simpler and better.

The Tractatus played a crucial role in this improvement.

In fourteen books, it covered each of the eighty distinct writs used in the king's courts.

One important writ, for example, was the grand assize, a procedure for settling land disputes that replaced the feudal practice of battle with a form of jury system.

In this way, too, they may avoid the greatest of all punishments, unexpected and untimely death.

As with other writs, the Tractatus painstakingly spelled out how the grand assize worked.

Although records from the period associate Glanvill with the treatise, scholars believe he is unlikely to have written it.

However, its authorship is of secondary importance to its effect.

Besides encouraging the spread of unified procedure, it provided the foundation for later classics, in particular Henry de Bracton's thirteenth-century treatise on English law and custom, De legibus et consuetudinibus Angliae.

Achievements

• He is author of Tractatus de legibus et consuetudinibus regni Anglie (The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Kingdom of England), the earliest treatise on the laws of England.
  
  He founded two abbeys, both in Suffolk: Butley, for Black Canons, was founded in 1171, and Leiston Abbey, for White Canons, in 1183. He also built a leper hospital at Somerton, in Norfolk.

Works

More photos

• book

  • The Treatise on the Laws and Customs of the Realm of England commonly called Glanvill

    (This classic edition of Glanvill, by the great medievalis...)

Views

Quotations: "The legal constitution is based above all on equity; and justice, which is seldom arrived at by battle …, is more easily and quickly attained through its use. "

- Ranulf Glanvill

Connections

Ranulf married Bertha de Valoignes, daughter of Theobald de Valoignes, lord of the manor of Parham, Suffolk, by whom he had three daughters:

Maud de Glanvill, who married Sir William de Auberville.

Mabel de Glanville, who married a certain de Arden.

Helewis de Glaville, who married Robert fitz Ralph fitz Ribald.

Spouse:

Bertha de Valoignes

nephew:

Hubert Walter

Daughter:

Helewis de Glaville

Daughter:

Maud de Glanvill

Daughter:

Mabel de Glanville