The most important developments in the growth of English common law in the period
1066 to 1216 came before the reign of Henry II. How far do you agree?
Common law refers to a legal system and laws which are the same and consistent throughout the country
and whilst kings before Henry II, mainly Henry I and William I, made developments to the growth of English
common law, it was not until Henry II’s reign that the most important developments came. Henry II largely
built on the foundations of his predecessors but there were inherent faults in their systems which Henry II
was able to fix, thus meaning that the most important developments in the growth of English common law
came after the reign of Henry II, during the Angevin period.
Some historians may argue that the Anglo-Normans, those before the reign of Henry II, made the most
important developments in English common law and whilst they did lay the foundations, their
contributions were not the most significant. William I is often known for laying the foundations for English
common law in the period, primarily reinforcing the Anglo-Saxon system with the use of writs and the
chancery. This system seemingly worked well so William kept it. William I also made some changes,
particularly through the introduction of the feudal system where men would be given land to hold in the
king’s name and this required new feudal courts to deal with any disputes regarding this new system.
However, William I’s system had two inherent faults. Firstly, whilst the feudal system was used throughout
the country, there was a great variety in laws in different shires due to the feudal fiefs applying the law
how they deemed appropriate, thus there was little development in common law due to local variations in
how the law operated. Also, there was inequality within the law with Anglo-Saxons being treated more
harshly than their Norman peers. This was particularly evident with the law of murdrum where if a Norman
was killed, all of the Anglo-Saxons in the area would be fined whereas there seemed to be little
repercussions if an Anglo-Saxon was killed. Henry I later built upon this system and was able to solve the
latter problem by introducing equality in the eyes of the law with both Anglo-Normans and Anglo-Saxons
being treated equally. A key example of this concept in practice was the moneyers incident where Henry I
found that people had been reminting the coin and thus, both Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans who were
found guilty were punished equally. Moreover, he also began to develop the concept of common law and
to some extent, solved the issue of local variations within the law through the introduction of the bench, a
group of 6 itinerant judges who toured the country and heard cases. However, whilst this helped to
increase how swiftly and efficiently the legal system operated, there were still local variations and thus
there were still limitations in his system. In addition, neither William II nor Stephen made any significant
developments in common law. William II was disinterested in the law so contributed little to it and due to
civil war, Stephen was forced to decentralise government and disband the bench. This led to regression as
there were now 20 earldoms in the east, each with an earl ruling it and this meant that there were even
further variations in the law as the earl chose how to operate the law in his earldom. Therefore, whilst
Henry II’s predecessors, mainly Henry I and William I, laid the foundations for common law, it was not yet
fully developed due to local variations so they did not make the most important developments.
To a greater extent, it is evident that the greatest developments in English common law came during the
reign of Henry II and after. Henry II largely built on the foundations laid by William I and Henry I but heavily
improved them, fixing the inherent weaknesses. After the decentralisation of government in Stephen’s
reign, Henry II reintroduced central government, including the chancery and the bench and built upon it,
fixing the issues of local variations. He did this at the assize of Clarendon by fully introducing the concept of
common law and this was confirmed at the assize of Northampton. It was decided at these assizes that the
same law would be used throughout the country, replacing the local variations, and it is for this reason that
Henry II is often attributed as being the founder of English common law. Henry II further introduced
common law by setting up a permanent headquarters at Westminster. This meant that the judges were
able to discuss with one another cases and their rulings, leading to precedent where judges would decide
