Assize of Arms of 1181

The Assize of Arms of 1181 was a proclamation of King Henry II of England concerning the obligation of all freemen of England to possess and bear arms in the service of king and realm and to swear allegiance to the king, on pain of "vengeance, not merely on their lands or chattels, but on their limbs". The assize stipulated precisely the military equipment that each man should have according to his rank and wealth. The assize effectively revived the old Anglo‐Saxon fyrd duty. The Assize established restrictions on weapon possession by Jews, terms of inheritance, and prohibition of exports of arms, ships and timber.

"Every knight was forced to arm himself with a coat of mail, and shield and lance; every freeholder with lance and hauberk, every burgess and poorer freeman with lance and an iron helmet. This universal levy of the armed nation was wholly at the disposal of the king for defense. ... By his Assize of Arms Henry restored the Ancient Anglo-Saxon Militia System, and supplied the requisite counterbalance to the military power of the great feudatories, which, notwithstanding the temptation to avoid service by payment of scutage, they were still able and too willing to maintain."

"In all these measures (Assize of Arms, &c.) we may trace one main object, the strengthening of the Royal power, and one main means, or directing principle—the doing so by increasing the safety and security of the people. Whatever was done to help the people, served to reduce the power of the great feudal baronage, to disarm their forces, to abolish their jurisdictions, to diminish their chances of tyranny."

Text of the Assize of Arms
The Act reads as follows:

Background
The Norman invasion of 1066 led to the introduction to England of a very structural form of feudalism. This was a strong social hierarchy with the king at its apex with most people owing fealty to another. The Norman, Anglo-Saxon and Viking armies had been very loose gatherings of fighting men, and looting and pillage was common among them, and therefore, as far as their kings were concerned, these forces had only loose loyalties to them.

The power of the Norman kings ruling at that time in England was not founded therefore on any form of standing army. If a king needed to raise forces this would often have to be mercenary or professional forces paid for by the king or his followers. The Assize of Arms needs to be seen in this context. Although it did not create a standing army in the modern sense, it did lay down conditions which would enable the King to call up a fighting force at any time without the need for any formal form of taxation, which would be adequately armed to preserve social order within the country or to ward off any external threats.

Connection to the English and American Bills of Rights
Some in the United States have claimed that the Assize of Arms is an ancient right to bear arms, though this claim is disputed, noting that the Assize of Arms was an obligation, not a right (i.e., a choice). The Supreme Court of the United States ruling in District of Columbia v. Heller regarding the right to bear arms referred only to the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as precedent.

Some have asserted that the Assize of Arms is part of the legal basis for the English Bill of Rights and the right to keep and bear arms mentioned in the United States Bill of Rights (specifically in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution  ).

The Assize of Arms did not describe an ancient legal or political individual right to arms, rather the Assize of Arms represented an imposed responsibility on subjects.

The Supreme Court of the United States in District of Columbia v. Heller was presented by the petitioners with written evidence that the Assize of Arms merely marked the beginning of the militia system in England. It claimed that a lower court's citation of the English Bill of Rights of 1689 as a source of a preexisting right had "misinterpreted it to guarantee a private right to possess guns, when it rather laid down the right of a class of citizens, Protestants, to take part in the military affairs of the realm. Nowhere was an individual’s right to arm in self-defense guaranteed." The court's final judgment on the right to bear arms concluded that the writers of the second amendment had intended to create such a right, based on the early settlers' experience and on the English Bill of Rights. However, the court made no judgment on whether the right dated back to the Assize of Arms.