| Abstract | Paper -a:
'One liberty, one oath, one fine': thus an artisans' spokesman described the freedom of the borough of Lynn (Norfolk) in 1425, not as it was, but as he believed it should be. The divide between merchants and artificers, even those who purchased the burgess-ship, was so longstanding in Lynn, and so ingrained, that the (unwritten) bar to artificers enjoying full civic rights has previously escaped the notice of urban historians. The artisans' struggle for a political voice is the missing key to understanding conflicts which beset the town in the early 15th century.
Paper -b:
This lecture discusses and critically questions the borderline between freedom (libertas) and unfreedom (servitium) that scholars sometimes rigidly postulated for the early Middle Ages. The examination of the early medieval source texts makes clear how difficult it is to attribute different actors as free, half-free, or un-free; members of the formally same legal status (ingenuus, libertus, servus, mancipium etc) can thus be bearers of partly diverging legal qualities and personal ties. In this field of tension between freedom and unfreedom, the self-sale and self-pledge deeds take on a special significance. In them, practices emerge that blurred of unsurety between boundaries of freedom and un-freedom, indicating that legal status should not be thought of as a rigid construct.
Paper -c:
Sanctuary is about boundaries: physical, administrative, social, psychological, and financial. This paper will discuss the nature of the boundary changes from the time of Hubert Walter to the reign of Henry VIII. In the Articles of Eyre 1194 Hubert Walter created the office of Crowner/Keeper of the Pleas of the Crown which removed the Sheriff from the collection of monies associated with those who took sanctuary. The Crowner, later coroner, also took the individual's oath of abjuration and assigned a point of departure. The physical boundary of the high altar and the frith stohl/sanctuary seat expand to the lytch gate and beyond. Many of the changes came slowly and by the reign of Henry VIII the number of those who could remain for the 40 days was limited.
Paper -d:
Unlike secular ambassadors, who were mere negotiators and were sent to other kingdoms (i.e. outside the jurisdiction of their lord), apostolic legates, although also sent to other kingdoms, were formally sent throughout Christendom (i.e. within the jurisdiction of the Pope). The aim of this paper is to analyse the boundaries of the jurisdiction of papal legates as set out by the canonist Guillaume Durand (1230-1296) in his Speculum Legatorum, a still unpublished treatise on the nature and duties of legates.
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