The need to maintain the peace within a group of people is not unique to modern society. Humans have placed importance on keeping order since prehistoric times. The manner in which a particular culture’s moral codes, social structure and laws have been enforced continues to be an evolving process. Within more recent historical times, law enforcement officers have fulfilled that role.

People who were utilized as enforcers of the law, in times of old, were not ordained with titles as such. The laws and decrees passed down by rulers were enforced by soldiers, not by police officers as we know them today. Often, a military detail would be exclusively responsible for maintaining law and order in any area in which it was stationed. Perhaps the primary difference between law enforcement and military duties is their respective purposes: the military exists to conquer armies and protect borders at the bequest of its leaders, while law enforcement personnel have the duty to investigate crimes, prevent breaches of the peace, arrest criminals and resolve situations in a manner that ensures safety and preserves life. In a historical context, bygone cultures drew no such distinctions.

An important part of any culture’s history is the evolution of its system of laws and those charged with the duty of enforcing them. That process by which the system of laws and law enforcers are nurtured and honed has produced a specialized professional unlike anything before.

Law and order in the ancient world

The first approximation of enforcing laws existed at the dawning of the cave-dwellers. A tribe or clan of people were expected to maintain their social order and group mores by means of individual responsibility to the group — a system of law enforcement that would reemerge in the Dark Ages in Europe centuries later.

It was incumbent upon each member of the tribe to follow certain rules, dictated by a chief, or face such punishments as ostracization, banishment, torture or even death. The tribal chief was the maker of laws and often solely decided the proper punishment when a member of the tribe broke a law. In some ancient cultures, a crime against an individual might be adjudicated by the victim or their family.

Some of the earliest written records came from the land of Sumer, located in the area of the Tigris–Euphrates River valley. Many of these records date as far back as 2300 BC and give glimpses of the ancient people’s laws and punishments. In 2200 BC, just a hundred years later, official law would be established by King Hammurabi in his Code of Hammurabi. This codification, instructing on such things as liabilities for inadequate home construction, established the legal principle of lex talionis — “an eye for an eye” punishment.

One of the world’s first organized court systems was established in Egypt, roughly in 1500 BC. A number of courts were created and presided over by judges appointed by the Pharaoh. Officers of the court who performed law-enforcement-type duties carried wooden staffs topped with metal pommels inscribed with the Pharaoh’s name as a sign of their authority. These ornate staffs were the forerunners of the modern batons carried by law enforcement officers throughout the world today.

At about the time of Christ, the Roman Praetorian Guard — appointed by the Emperor Augustus Caesar — served a quasi-law-enforcement role in areas conquered by Rome. During Augustus’ tenure, units of vigiles were created and placed in roles as both firefighters and law enforcement personnel. Their alert watch over Rome and other cities helped maintain security and avoid catastrophic fires.

One of the world’s first organized court systems was established in Egypt, roughly in 1500 BC.

The early foundations: Tithing and frankpledge systems

As the Dark Ages were ending and Rome’s occupation of Great Britain ebbed, Germanic invaders entered England. Like any new occupiers, the Germanic people brought with them their own laws and customs. Intermarriage between native Englanders and the Germanic people produced the stalwart Anglo-Saxons. The Anglo-Saxons fostered the growth of self-governing farming communities.

During the reign of Alfred the Great (849–899), all freemen were obliged to belong to an association that bound them to other groups of people throughout the British Isles. It became law that if an individual from one particular group was convicted of a crime, the entire group was held responsible for paying the fine. This type of self-governing system encouraged group members to be watchful of each other’s activities. This would be the rudiment of what we’d come to understand as citizen’s arrest.

In the tithing system, all males over the age of 12 were placed into groups of 10 men — a tithing. The chief of a tithing was referred to as a “tithing man.” Ten groups of tithings were called a hundred. A hundred would be headed by a “hundred man,” or what would later be called a constable. Groups of hundreds were categorized as a shire. The leader of a shire, responsible for all law enforcement activities within his jurisdiction, was called a “reeve” or “shire-reeve.” That term would finally be modernized into the word “sheriff.”

The shire-reeve was both a law enforcer and a judge, traveling from hundred to hundred to conduct his business. It was within his authority to convene a posse comitatus, where he would gather men from with his shire to search for absconding lawbreakers. The idea of organizing a posse would be reintroduced in the mid-19th century in the American West, as any fan of old Westerns can attest.

After the invasion of the Norman ruler William the Conqueror in 1066, the tithing system was modified into the frankpledge system. William divided his kingdom into 55 distinct military districts, each headed by a shire-reeve who answered directly to him, ensuring absolute loyalty to the crown. One of the changes William made was to refashion the duties of the shire-reeves into strictly law enforcement activities, as judges were appointed separately to oversee judicial proceedings. This was a move toward the more modern separation of authority in the law enforcement and judicial systems used today.

In 1285, King Edward I established a night watch program, as well as his Statute of Winchester, which was the first institution of modern common law. Men were hired as night watchmen to enforce the curfew and guard the gates of the king’s castle. Edward further decreed that groups of 100 merchants would be responsible for maintaining his law and preservation of peace in their respective districts. This particular system is known as the watch and ward system, and it created a 24-hours-per-day watch in each district.

In the 14th century, the shire-reeves were replaced by justices of the peace. This newly created position was assisted by constables. Originally, justices of the peace had law enforcement responsibilities, but later those duties would be judicial in nature.

As the feudal era ended, the church took a more prominent role in the creation and enforcement of the law. Those antiquated groups of hundreds were slowly changed into parishes. Each parish represented groups of people belonging to a specific church, and a constable was appointed in each parish to oversee all law enforcement activities. This form of law enforcement would remain intact in England until the 18th century.

In my next article, I’ll discuss the foundations of law enforcement in the United States, beginning with colonial-era policing.