In medieval England, a loveday (; ) was a day assigned to mediate between parties and resolve legal differences under arbitration rather than common law. They were held between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries, by which time they had died out.
Origins Marc Bloch pointed out in his Feudal Society that even in a relatively young country such as England, by the year 1000, charters 'abound' with not just litigants, but individuals creating their own systems of mediation and arbitration.Bloch, M., Feudal Society, trans. Manyon, L.A. (2 vols, London, 1961), 359. The earliest known usage of the word 'loveday' is from 1290, although in the early years of its existence it appears to have been less of a legal and more of a religious day, devoted to Christian charity.Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 352. A hundred years later, Chaucer described it as being symbolised by hand-holding and the renewal of friendship. M.T Clanchy traced the loveday back to a twelfth-century maxim of 'agreement prevails over law, and love over judgement' as the most public and most local of mediated settlements.Clanchy, M.T., 'Law and Love in the Middle Ages', in Disputes and Settlements: Law and human Relations in the West, ed. J. Bossy (Cambridge, 1983), 47-8
Mechanics In 'loveday', 'love' meant concord or a settlement,Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 357. and 'day' as a legal term meant a case-opening rather than a twenty-four hour period.Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 354, n. 19. There were few, if any restrictions on the kind of business that the loveday could address, as long as the court had authorised it,Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 355. and this included cases that were pending at a higher court.Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 356. The results of the loveday could vary; often they broke down (including a celebrated affair in 1411, when on their way to their own loveday, one party ambushed his opponent, with 500 armed men),Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 360. or they could result in feasts being held, not just for the protagonists, but which the entire manor attended.
Later middle ages From the later thirteenth century, a loveday gradually became a day where legal redress could be obtained. It was called the dies amoris by Bracton (Latin being the legal lingua franca), and in the contemporary book of manorial law, the Court Baron in the French, jour d'amour.Bennett, J.W., 'The Mediaeval Loveday' Speculum, Vol. 33, No. 3 (1958), 353. It was a court-appointed day, although the details (time, place, etc.) were up to the litigants to decide. Historians have since debated the extent to which the growth of lovedays was a reflection of the decline in royal authority; Christine Carpenter has suggested that until the fourteenth century the King's writ was sufficient to keep the peace,C. Carpenter, 'Bastard Feudalism in the Fourteenth Century', in Kings, Lords and Men in Scotland and Britain, 1300-1625: Essays in Honour of Jenny Wormald, eds S. Boardman and J. Goodare (Edinburgh, 2014), 89. whilst Edward Powell proposed that, actually, an efficient means of legal self-sufficiency (particularly the means to resolve one's own disputes) was essential particularly if the crown was weak,Powell, E., 'Arbitration and the Law in England in the Late Middle Ages: The Alexander Prize Essay', Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 33 (1983), 66-7. as was the case for much of the fifteenth century, during the Wars of the Roses.
Notable instances 1458: The Love Day was held between King Henry VI, Queen Margaret, and the duke of York and other warring nobles in the early years of the Wars of the Roses, in an unsuccessful attempt to avert all-out civil war.Hicks, M.A., The Wars of the Roses (London, 2010), 137-40. 1533: During the conquest of Chile, the feuding between the Conquistadors Francisco Pizarro and Diego de Almagro was resolved in Cuzco by means of a religious Loveday.Weckmann, L., 'The Middle Ages in the Conquest of America,' Speculum 26 (1951), 135.
References