justiciar

justiciar, more properly ‘chief justiciar’, the normal title of the governor of Ireland from the late 12th to the mid‐14th centuries. It mirrored usage in England, where from the reign of Henry II until 1234 the justiciar was a bishop or magnate who headed the administration and ruled during royal absences. The justiciar of Ireland was administrator, military commander, and judge. The office was held sometimes by settler lords and sometimes by ecclesiastics, but from the mid‐13th century more commonly by English knights connected with the king's military household. By the later 13th century the justiciar received an annual salary of £500 from the Irish exchequer, from which he retained his own small military household, and presided over a court roughly equivalent to the English King's Bench. Except in emergencies, when a governor might be chosen by the Irish council, he was appointed by the king, who remained free to intervene in all matters, and usually forbade the justiciar to dismiss other high officials or to exercise rights of patronage above a certain value. In the late Middle Ages, the title of king's lieutenant was increasingly adopted for high‐born governors, and that of justiciar came to denote a stop‐gap appointment.

Robin Frame