Vikings: Lords of the Ice Sea

Chapter 366 The Judicial Power of the Nobles
After the meeting, Vigé assigned the Crown Prince a new task—to inspect the six newly established counties on the British Isles.

After being confined to Londinium for two and a half years, the Crown Prince gladly accepted the situation. He went home to play with his newborn son, then packed his things and led a contingent of guards on a journey north.

Soon, the Crown Prince returned to Luton, a town he had been away from for many days. The layout of the town had not changed much, and the air was filled with a faint aroma of alcohol, as if a large banquet had been held not long ago.

"What happened?" The crown prince walked into the official residence and asked the town mayor, who was dealing with accounts.

"Your Highness? Uh, it's nothing serious. Members of the expeditionary force are returning home one after another, and some of them are squandering their wealth, inviting their families and neighbors to feast and drink. This has been going on for quite some time now."

In subsequent conversations, the crown prince learned of the town's fate during the war:
The town of Luton and its surrounding villages had a total population of nine thousand, with a total of three hundred and ten people mobilized, all of whom were incorporated into the field army. After many battles, sixty people died in battle or from illness, twenty were wounded, and fifteen lucky ones were promoted to knights, achieving a leap in social class.

After the revelry, the newly recruited knight invited the young men from his village to travel to Europe, promising them land and tax reductions.

As advised by the War Ministry, each knight was to recruit at least five able-bodied men to help maintain order and prevent a rebellion by the Franks on the estate.

"The knights have left one after another, along with their families, a total of 280 people have moved away. Including those who died in battle or from illness, Luton Town has lost 340 residents, the vast majority of whom are young and able-bodied men. The assessments for the next few years are likely to be difficult."

As the mayor muttered to himself, the crown prince flipped through the various paper documents on his desk.

The situation in Luton was uneventful. The conscripts were added to the Third Field Division and did not encounter too many tough battles. The casualty rate and the rate of noble promotion were at a moderate level.

Overall, the 1st Field Division suffered the heaviest casualties. During the Battle of Rickfield, an infantry battalion was hit by a cavalry charge and lost more than 90% of its men. This entire battalion came from a town in Nottinghamshire, which devastated the local population.

Correspondingly, the First Field Division had a much higher rate of noble promotion than other units, producing three earls, forty-three barons, and more than five hundred knights.

After lunch, the crown prince strolled around town. The post office was quiet, the temple was operating normally, the hospital was extremely busy, and a new primary school had been built on the outskirts of town.

The primary school had only two full-time teachers, and the affairs were complicated. The shaman would occasionally come to help. This phenomenon was very common. The emperor was a diligent person and naturally could not tolerate his subordinates being lazy. The shamans of temples in various places often had multiple positions. In addition to hospitals and schools, they also occasionally had to attend circuit courts and listen to the judgments.

According to the cabinet's plan, town primary schools will only be promoted in the counties of Londinium and Tyne at present, and the county of Paris will be promoted after the war bonds are paid off.

Tyne, Londinium, and Paris hold special status and are given the highest priority. The remaining thirty-odd municipalities are expected to each have one public school (primary and secondary).

In addition, the Cabinet plans to build public schools in every earldom of Britain to cultivate a sufficient literate population.

After touring the town, the crown prince inspected the countryside. Due to a lack of sufficient labor, the winter wheat seedlings were not growing well, and some fields were not cultivated but used for grazing sheep.

As he passed a stream, an old man fishing caught his attention.

"Are you Lawrence?"

“Your Highness, do you still remember me?” The old man stood up, leaning on his cane. His left leg was lame, and a scar remained on his face. Before the other could ask, he explained, “Last winter, while fighting in Bavaria, my brothers were ambushed by the enemy. I was caught off guard and hit by five arrows. I recuperated in a field hospital for a while afterward, and luckily, I survived.”

Although he didn't achieve any major feats, Lawrence had served Viggo for a very long time—a full twenty-five years. Thanks to this seniority, he was fortunate enough to be promoted to baron and receive a large estate in the Champagne region.

Unfortunately, the baron was in poor health and no longer wanted to move. He sent his eldest son to govern the fiefdom while he stayed in Luton to retire.

As dusk approached, the Baron invited the Crown Prince to his home for dinner. At the table, the Crown Prince remained silent for most of the time, listening attentively to what the Baron had to say.

Previously, the Crown Prince viewed the war from a macro perspective, dealing with various reports and documents. Now, standing from the perspective of a junior officer, he has a deeper understanding of the cruelty and hardship of war.

"With such a massive number of men and warhorses, the Franks truly deserve their reputation as the hegemon of Europe. Fortunately, Father commanded them well; if this had dragged on, the Franks would have worn us down sooner or later."

After spending the night at the manor, the crown prince set off north to inspect the newly acquired directly administered counties.

The group traveled along the smooth, wide main road to Liverpool. Passing through Manchuni, the Crown Prince discovered over two hundred commoners gathered on a lawn near a temple, seemingly holding a makeshift court.

An oak table stood in the middle of the meadow, with the judge and the temple shaman sitting behind it, while two arguing farmers stood in front of it, fighting over a vegetable patch of less than a tenth of an acre.

The judge listened, his fingers occasionally tapping on the table. He had a gray beard and wore a respectable fine wool coat, the cuffs revealing a clean linen lining. The onlookers whispered among themselves, occasionally a yawn could be heard, along with a woman's murmur as she soothed a child, and the distant, noisy call of a cuckoo.

The evidence was a piece of parchment riddled with wormholes and scrawled with crooked lines. The judge laid it out on the table and weighed down the curled corners with a small stone. The farmers craned their necks to look, and the murmurs grew louder and louder.

Soon, the judge made a ruling, and the temple shaman wrote three copies of the ruling: one was nailed to the notice board in front of the temple, one was kept in the Earl's mansion, and the third was sent to Rendynew for safekeeping.

"It seems that Father's measures have worked." The Crown Prince fell into deep thought.

During the old dynasty, the great nobles held full judicial power within their territories, and Ragnar and the two queens were too busy enjoying themselves to be interested in this matter.

After the civil war ended, the Tyneburg family became the new royal family, and Vigé promulgated the Royal Code, declaring that ultimate sovereignty and supreme judicial power belonged to the king.

Subsequently, the king implemented a series of reforms to continuously weaken the judicial power of the great nobles. Today, they can only manage disputes concerning land, debt, property, and inheritance among the people within their borders, as well as minor offenses such as theft and small-scale brawls.

According to information received by the Crown Prince, the judicial power of the great nobles within Britain will be further weakened after the completion of the Imperial Code.

Disputes involving property exceeding £5, felonies (murder/robbery), or land disputes exceeding thirty acres must be referred to the Royal Circuit Court.

As for the noble territories of continental Europe, the cabinet's administrative capacity was insufficient, and it would not interfere with the judicial power of those nobles for a long time. Even if trouble was caused in a certain part of the Frankish kingdom, it would not be able to cross the English Channel and affect Lentneum.

(End of this chapter)