Historians have long argued that arbitration was the preferred means of
resolution for most disputes in later medieval England; but does this apply
also to the settlement of homicides? Despite the strenuous efforts of the
English legal system after the Norman Conquest to force homicides through
the royal courts, historians have argued that homicide continued to be
settled out-of-court throughout the medieval period. This study examines six
cases of arbitration centred on homicide from the fifteenth century to
demonstrate that arbitration was rarely implemented as a means to resolve
homicides. When it was, it was a relatively small, inter-related group of
gentry who exploited the provision because they were well placed to
manipulate the law and because their behaviour was supervised by the
kingdom’s magnates only once problems had arisen. Accordingly, arbitration
for homicide was unusual and the practice was anything but inclusive.