TL;DRAbstract
Treason could be committed against a man's immediate lord as well as the monarch, and indeed in the Germanic law codes infidelity towards one's lord was much more prominent. In the twelfth century, probably owing to the wave of Romanism, the king's legal advisers began to emphasize the gravity of the crime while seeking to distinguish between the king and lesser lords as offended parties. Maitland suggested that the distinction was not readily accepted and that petty treason perpetrated against a lord was but slowly marked off from high treason perpetrated against the king. Certainly those who wrote on matters of law in the later thirteenth century made no great effort to separate one type of treason from the other and with a single exception avoided direct reference to the less heinous kind.
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Treason could be committed against a man's immediate lord as well as the monarch, and indeed in the Germanic law codes infidelity towards one's lord was much more prominent. In the twelfth century, probably owing to the wave of Romanism, the king's legal advisers began to emphasize the gravity of the crime while seeking to distinguish between the king and lesser lords as offended parties. Maitland suggested that the distinction was not readily accepted and that petty treason perpetrated against a lord was but slowly marked off from high treason perpetrated against the king. Certainly those who wrote on matters of law in the later thirteenth century made no great effort to separate one type of treason from the other and with a single exception avoided direct reference to the less heinous kind.
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