elisewang.bsky.social
medievalist. law & literature (old) | conspiracy theories (old and new) | taiwan (new and yet to be) | šlos angeles
carnegie fellow ā24-ā26, writing a book on medieval conspiracy theories
elisedwang.com
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It might be LA, for handheld and those quick little carts that can be anywhere in a second. Iāve seen a guy cut across six lanes of traffic to feed a concert line.
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A bit earlier: National Guard shooting into a gaggle of press and demonstrators. āThis os America!ā one demonstrator shouts
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Iām your gal!
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And this has gotten so scary so fast that I think some people assume theyāre not cut out for it.
Look, Iām a professor of medieval literature. Iām not exactly on anyoneās list of āpeople to call if stuff goes sideways.ā Thatās the point of popular resistance.
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š we love an editor attentive to bird facts
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According to the law, all of them should have hanged for that. But Scrope settled for four pounds and something elseāthe fact that, 700 years later, we all know what Simon, Richard, and all their little friends did.
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They confer for a long time. Finally, Simon himself steps forward.
Half a penny, he says.
Twenty pounds, Scrope says.
They finally agree on a guilty plea and four pounds.
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Scrope holds his breath. These men arenāt going down for this. But if he can get them to pay a fine, then it will be on the record that they were guilty of conspiracy and assault on a coroner. And then the next time, or the time after that, there will be enough of a record to finally get them.
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Paying off twelve men starts to add up. Andānot to make any assumptionsābut it might not be the only jury you need to buy.
Richard wasnāt expecting Scrope to justā¦say it. He returns to Simon and they confer.
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We all know whatās going on, he says. I know and you know that a jury trial is a waste of our time. Men like you, you can rig that in your sleep.
Butāand here Scrope took his gambleāthatās awfully expensive.
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Scrope doesnāt exactly have a witness ready to testify. But heās got experience with men like Simon and Richard. He knows that he will leave and they will still own Northampton.
So he makes a calculated play: heās straight with them.
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He smiles. Look, this thing youāve heard? Never happened. We werenāt even there. And if some of us were there, we never touched Walter the coroner. And if he resigned his position and promised to never hold it again, wellāhe did it of his own free will.
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So Scrope, by some feat of strength or act of god, gets eleven of these men in the same room.
He tells them the charges. They ask to confer, and he lets them. Then Richard, friend of the king and some kind of consigliere for Simon, steps forward.
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For ālocal big men,ā donāt think local principal, think men like John Molyns, asshole for hire, who would be hired by one lord to go to another lordās land and steal his livestock, set fire to the cottages of his farmers, kill his servants, and rape whomever he pleased until his target surrendered.
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Scrope thinks they have a case. So he brings Simon and his men before the court.
This in itself is a bit of a flex on his part. Thereās a low-key (and sometimes high-key) power struggle going on. The king wants control of his lands, and the local big men want him to piss off.