A Thousand Years of English Terms

King Edward the Confessor
depicted on the Bayeux Tapestry.

Time was a different thing in the Middle Ages.  Vestiges of it survive into our days but with the advent of the clock the greater precision began to change everything.  Not just during the individual day — previously measured in canonical hours of prayer — but in calendar time.

One person did not say to another, “Meet you at three o’clock”.    There was no clock to be o’.  But the church bell rang the hour of Nones and you arranged to meet “upon the Nones bell”.  One didn’t arrange to meet in London on December 3 but rather on St. Winifred’s Day.  The farther back in English history the less likely it was that one knew off the top of one’s head what the calendar date of the given day was.

The British year is still nominally divided into calendar “terms” as a matter of tradition.  Little more is left beside the names.  We even tend to recite them in a different order. 

Through the Middle Ages until early modern times, the first and most important term of the legal year was Michaelmas Term.  Most town and city governments in the realm held their elections just before the Feast of St Michael and All Angels — the source of the term’s name — which falls on 29 September. The new Aldermen were generally paraded through the streets to begin St. Michael’s festivities by sharing a toast at the home of the outgoing mayor.

At the Royal Exchequer, In London, the sheriffs of every county presented their accounting books and the outstanding amounts due the king from his county revenues.  If they did not have the full amount they were not allowed to leave until they had made up the difference in cash on the barrel head.  In parallel, the new sheriffs were also being selected by the king and Exchequer for year-long administrations beginning in the next Hilary Term.

The feast was a chance to celebrate before entering in the nightmare of the imperious Office of the Exchequer.  The actual Michaelmas Term began by law within Octabis Sancti Michaelis — i.e. within the first eight days after the feast.  The business of the Exchequer required so much preparation that it alone opened its term within Quindenas Sancti Michaelis — the first 15 days after.

As the revenues were coming in, the Exchequer was paying out the annuities the king had awarded his allies.  Annuities that were paid every 12 months were almost always paid during Michaelmas (if they were paid on time).  Annuities that were awarded half every 6 months were paid during Michaelmas and Easter Terms.  While the mood was upon him, and the government open for business, the king tended to grant new gifts of lands and offices.

All of those who owed rent to another for lands in fief or copyhold paid their obligations annually, semi-annually or quarterly at the beginning of the terms.  In Michaelmas, in particular, all the kingdom was tallying its credits and debits and entering them in the appropriate official records.

All of these operations were occurring because the terms were expressly law terms.  All of the courts of the realm, from the smallest to the august Parliament itself, opened their doors, receiving and issuing legal process, hearing cases.[1]  Returns upon court process[2] were not due on specific dates.  They were due within the octabis or quindenas of the term or of minor Saints’ Days within the term.  Also, often, at the beginning of a following term. 

The second, chronologically was the Hilary Term, so named because it was calculated from the feast day of St Hilary of Poitiers, on 14 January.  The feast day was first chosen because it fell on the Octabis of Epiphany[3].  Eventually it came to mark the term without reference to Epiphany.

The second in importance and third chronologically was the Easter Term. This began on the Octabis following the Quindenas of Easter[4] — within the 8 days after the fifteenth day after Easter.  Last in importance and chronology was the Trinity Term. 

The Feast of the Trinity fell on the first Sunday after Pentecost — i.e. Trinity Sunday.  The term began as early as the Monday after.  The statutes that first established the annual term schedule (beginning with the Saxon reign of Edward  the Confessor) did not even mention a Trinity Term.  In them there were only three terms.  More than occasionally, after it did begin to appear in official documents, Trinity Term was simply foregone.  This occurred for a range of reasons beyond the present scope.  In a nutshell, the term barely existed.

All terms except for Trinity ended with the beginning of a major religious season.  The realm was handed over from the king’s purposes, pursued during the terms, to the church’s, pursued during the “vacations” between the terms.  Michaelmas ended with Advent.  Hilary Term ended with Lent.  Easter Term ended with Pentecost.

Trinity had no stated termination point.  For practical purposes, it ended when the demands of the annual harvest made it impractical to pursue other business.  After harvest came the harvest festivals.  Following them came the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels and the beginning of the new legal year.

It very much bears mentioning that the system of court terms has continued for nearly a thousand years.  Over those years it was modified by new statutes.  The above dates and rules are the most persistent across those years but practice varied.  In some respects, particularly as regards the Trinity Term, it varied widely.  Regarding the Hilary Term it also varied in substantial ways.  Changes to the rules of Michaelmas and Easter Terms, however, were rare and minor.

---

[1] The various colleges that supplied the clerks and lawyers to the realm observed the same term schedule.

[2] “Returns” actually refer to the given court receiving certification from a given county sheriff that he had delivered its writ or other process to the person to which it was addressed.

[3] Quindenas Epiphaniae

[4] Quindenas Paschae

Also at Virtual Grub Street:

• Shakespeare’s Barnacles.  March 3, 2016.  “Prospero will wake, he fears, before they can murder him, and will cast a spell on them.”
• The King's Esnecce.  January 13, 2019.  “It comes as no surprise, then, that when Maud’s son, Henry Plantagenet, Count or Duke of most of the western territories of France, and, by terms of the treaty, heir to Stephen, next rose to the throne as Henry II, he was quick to arrange for the safest possible means of transit across the channel.”
• Connections: Henry II, Toulouse, 1159.  November 27, 2018.  “Once he became Chancellor, Becket never looked back.  He abandoned his duties as Archdeacon and preaching duties attached to his other positions.  He outfitted a lavish  household and lived like a secular lord.”
• Check out the Medieval Topics Article Index for many more articles about this fascinating time.
• Check out the English Renaissance Article Index for many more articles and reviews about this fascinating time.