An eyre or iter, sometimes called a general eyre, was the name of a circuit travelled by an itinerant justice in medieval England (a

justice in eyre In English law, the justices in eyre were the highest magistrates, and presided over the ''court of justice-seat'', a triennial court held to punish offenders against the forest law and enquire into the state of the forest and its officers ('' eyr ...

), or the circuit court over which they presided, or the right of the monarch (or justices acting in their name) to visit and inspect the holdings of any vassal. The eyre involved visits and inspections at irregular intervals of the houses of vassals in the kingdom. The term is derived from Old French ''erre'', from Latin ''iter'' ("journey"), and is

cognate In historical linguistics, cognates or lexical cognates are sets of words in different languages that have been inherited in direct descent from an etymology, etymological ancestor in a proto-language, common parent language. Because language c ...

with errand and

errant A knight-errant (or knight errant) is a figure of medieval Chivalric romance, chivalric romance literature. The adjective '':wikt:errant, errant'' (meaning "wandering, roving") indicates how the knight-errant would wander the land in search of adv ...

. Eyres were also held in those parts of Ireland under secure English rule, but the eyre system seems to have largely gone into abeyance in Ireland at the end of the thirteenth century, and the last Irish eyre was held in 1322.

Eyre of 1194

The eyre of 1194 was initiated under

Hubert Walter Hubert Walter ( – 13 July 1205) was an influential royal adviser in the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries in the positions of Chief Justiciar of England, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Lord Chancellor. As chancellor, Walter b ...

's justiciarship to restore royal justice following the anarchy of

Prince John's rebellion John (24 December 1166 – 19 October 1216) was King of England from 1199 until his death in 1216. He lost the Duchy of Normandy and most of his other French lands to King Philip II of France, resulting in the collapse of the Angevin Emp ...

. Within two months, justices on eyre had visited every shire in England. The Articles of Eyre appointed local knights as coroners to record crown pleas to be presented to the justices. The motivation for this administrative reform was the need to raise money for King Richard I's reconquest of Normandy. The coroners were also required to account for the wealth forfeited by the rebels and list the financial resources of each shire.

Eyre of 1233

One medieval chronicle asserts that the 1233 Eyre of Cornwall provoked terror in the populace, with men having "fled into the woods" in fear of the judges.

Itinerant justices

*1170

Gervase de Cornhill Gervase de Cornhill (sometimes Gervase of Cornhill; 1110 – c. 1183) was an Anglo-Norman royal official and sheriff. Beginning his royal service as a justice in London in 1147, he continued to serve both King Stephen of England and Henry II ...

; John Cumin *1177 Robert Marmion *1190 Simon of Pattishall *1208 Richard of Staines *1209 Gerard de Camville *1217 Thomas de Multon *1218 Walter of Pattishall *1221 Thomas De Heydon *1224-5 John de Bayeux *1225 John de Baalun *1225 Martin of Pattishall *1225 Richard de Veym *1225 Peter, abbot of Tewkesbury *1226 Alambire lucas

Eyre of 1194

Eyre of 1233

Itinerant justices

References

Further reading