lord has lost, he must take it to the sheriff for keeping for the lord
to claim. If there is no claim after four months, the finder may have it
only if he is a gentleman. If one steals a hawk from a lord or conceals
from him the fact that it has been found, he shall pay the price of the
hawk and be imprisoned for two years.
No laborer or any other man who does not have lands and tenements of
the value of 40s. per year shall keep a greyhound or other hound or dog
to hunt, nor shall they use nets or cords or other devices to take deer,
hare, rabbits, nor other gentlemen's game, upon pain of one year
imprisonment. (The rabbit had been introduced by the Normans.) This 1390
law was primarily intended to stop the meetings of laborers and
artificers.
No man shall eat more than two courses of meat or fish in his house or
elsewhere, except at festivals, when three are allowed [because great
men ate costly meats to excess and the lesser people were thereby
impoverished].
No one may export silver, whether bullion or coinage, or wine except
foreign merchants may carry back the portion of their money not used to
buy English commodities. The penalty for bringing false or counterfeit
money into the nation is loss of life and member. An assigned searcher
[inspector] for coinage of the nation on the sea passing out of the
nation or bad money in the nation shall have one third of it. No foreign
money may be used in the nation.
Each goldsmith shall have an identifying mark, which shall be placed on
his vessel or work only after inspection by the King's surveyor.
No one shall give anything to a beggar who is capable of working.
Vagrants begging in London were banned by this 1359 ordinance:
"Forasmuch as many men and women, and others, of divers counties, who
might work, to the help of the common people, have betaken themselves
from out of their own country to the city of London and do go about
begging there so as to have their own ease and repose, not wishing to
labor or work for their sustenance, to the great damage of the common
people; and also do waste divers alms which would otherwise be given to
many poor folks, such as lepers, blind, halt, and persons oppressed with
old age and divers other maladies, to the destruction of the support of
the same - we do command on behalf of our lord the King, whom may God
preserve and bless, that all those who go about begging in the said city
and who are able to labor and work for the profit of the common people
shall quit the said city between now and Monday next ensuing. And if any
such shall be found begging after the day aforesaid, the same shall be
taken and put in the stocks on Cornhill for half a day the first time,
and the second time he shall remain in the stocks one whole day, and the
third time he shall be taken and shall remain in prison for forty days
and shall then forswear the said city forever. And every constable and
the beadle of every ward of the said city shall be empowered to arrest
such manner of folks and to put them in the stocks in manner aforesaid."
The hundred year cry to "let the king live on his own" found fruition
in a 1352 statute requiring consent of the Parliament before any
commission of array for militia could be taken and a 1362 statute
requiring purchases of goods and means of conveyance for the king and
his household to be made only by agreement with the seller and with
payment to him before the king traveled on, instead of at the low prices
determined unilaterally by the king's purveyor.
Every man who has wood within the forest may take houseboot [right to
take wood for repair of one's house] and heyboot [right to take material
for the maintenance of hedges and fences, and the making of farming
utensils] in his wood without being arrested so long as it take such
within the view of the foresters.
No fecal matter, dung, garbage, or entrails of animals killed shall be
put into ditches or rivers or other waters, so that maladies and
diseases will not be caused by corrupted and infected air. The penalty
is 400s. to the king after trial by the Chancellor.
Gifts or alienation of land to guilds, fraternities, or towns are
forbidden. Instead, it escheats to its lord, or in his default, to the
King.
No man will be charged to go out of his county to do military service
except in case of an enemy invasion of the nation. Men who chose to go
into the king's service outside the nation shall be paid wages by the
king until their return.
Admiralty law came into being when ancient naval manners and customs
were written down as the "Black Book of the Admiralty". This included
the organization of the fleet under the Admiral, sea-maneuver rules such
as not laying anchor until the Admiral's ship had, engagement rules, and
the distribution of captured goods: one-fourth to the vessel owner,
one-fourth to the king if the seamen were paid by the king's wages, and
the rest divided among the crew and Admiral. Stealing a boat or an
anchor holding a boat was punishable by hanging. Stealing an oar or an
anchor was punishable by forty days imprisonment for the first offense,
six months imprisonment for the second, and hanging for the third.
Desertion was punishable by loss of double the amount of wages earned
and imprisonment for one year. Cases were tried by jury in the Admiral's
court.
Wines, vinegar, oil and honey imported shall be gauged by the King's
appointees.
- Judicial Procedure -
The office of Justice of the Peace was developed and filled by knights,
esquires and gentlemen who were closely associated with the magnates.
There was no salary nor any requirement of knowledge of the law. They
were to pursue, restrain, arrest, imprison, try, and duly punish felons,
trespassers, and rioters according to the law. They were expected to
arrest vagrants who would not work and imprison them until sureties for
good behavior was found for them. They also were empowered to inspect
weights and measures. Trespass included forcible offenses of breaking of
a fence enclosing private property, assault and battery, false
imprisonment, and taking away goods and chattels.
The action of trespass was replacing private suits for murder and for
personal injury.
Pardons may be given only for slaying another in one's own defense or
by misfortune [accident], and not for slaying by lying in wait, assault,
or malice aforethought.
Justices of Assize, sheriffs, and Justices of the Peace and mayors
shall have power to inquire of all vagabonds and compel them to find
surety of their good bearing or be imprisoned.
A reversioner shall be received in court to defend his right when a
tenant for a term of life, tenant in dower, or by curtesy of the nation,
or in [Fee] Tail after Possibility of Issue extinct are sued in court
for the land, so as to prevent collusion by the demandants.
A person in debt may not avoid his creditors by giving his tenements or
chattels to his friends in collusion to have the profits at his will.
Where there was a garnishment given touching a plea of land, a writ of
deceit is also maintainable.
Actions of debt will be heard only in the county where the contract was
made. The action of debt includes enforcement of contracts executed or
under seal, e.g. rent due on a lease, hire of an archer, contract of
sale or repair of an item. Thus there is a growing connection between
the actions of debt and contract.
Executors have an action for trespass to their testators' goods and
chattels in like manner as did the testator when alive.
If a man dies intestate, his goods shall be administered by his next
and most lawful friends appointed. Such administrators shall have the
same powers and duties as executors and be accountable as are executors
to the ecclesiastical court.
Children born to English parents in parts beyond the sea may inherit
from their ancestors in the same manner as those born in the nation.
A person grieved by a false oath in a town court proceeding may appeal
to the King's Bench or Common Pleas, regardless of any town franchise.
It was exceptional for the King to sit on the Court of the King's
Bench, which worked independently of the King.and became confined to the
established common law.
Decisions of the common law courts are appealable to the House of
Lords. The king's council members who are not peers, in particular the
justices and the Masters of the Chancery, are summoned by the House of
Lords only as mere assistants. Parliament may change the common law by
statute. The right of a peer to be tried for capital crimes by a court
composed of his peers was established. There was a widespread belief
that all the peers are by right the king's councilors.
No attorney may practice law and also be a justice of assize. No
justice may take any gift except from the king nor give counsel to any
litigant before him.
In 1390, there was a statute against maintainers, instigators,
barretors, procurers, and embracers of quarrels and inquests because of
great and outrageous oppressions of parties in court. Because this
encouraged maintenance by the retinue of lords with fees, robes, and
other liveries, such maintainers were to be put out of their lords'
service, and could not be retained by another lord. No one was to give
livery to anyone else, except household members and those retained for
life for peace or for war. Justices of the Peace were authorized to
inquire about yeomen, or other of lower estate than squire, bearing
livery of any lord.
Whereas it is contained in the Magna Carta that none shall be
imprisoned nor put out of his freehold, nor of his franchises nor free
custom, unless it be by the law of the land; it is established that from
henceforth none shall be taken by petition or suggestion made to the
king unless by indictment of good and lawful people of the same
neighborhood where such deeds be done, in due manner, or by process made
by writ original at the common law; nor that none be out of his
franchise, nor of his freeholds, unless he be duly brought into answer
and before judges of the same by the course of law.
The Chancery came to have a separate and independent equitable
jurisdiction. It heard petitions of misconduct of government officials
or of powerful oppressors, fraud, accident, abuse of trust, wardship of
infants, dower, and rent charges. Because the common law and its
procedures had become technical and rigid, the Chancery was given equity
jurisdiction by statute in 1285. King Edward III proclaimed that
petitions for remedies that the common law didn't cover be addressed to
the Chancellor, who was not bound by established law, but could do
equity. In Chancery, if there is a case that is similar to a case for
which there is a writ, but is not in technical conformity with the
requirements of the common law for a remedy, then a new writ may be made
for that case by the Chancellor. These were called "actions on the
case". Also, Parliament may create new remedies. There were so many
cases that were similar to a case with no remedy specified in the common
law, that litigants were flowing into the Chancery. The Chancellor gave
swift and equitable relief, which was summary. With the backing of the
council, the Chancellor made decisions implementing the policy of the
Statute of Laborers. Most of these concerned occupational competency,
for instance negligent activity of carriers, builders, shepherds,
doctors, cloth workers, smiths, innkeepers, and gaolers. For instance,
the common law action of detinue could force return of cloth bailed for
fulling or sheep bailed for pasturing, but could not address damages due
to faulty work. The Chancellor addressed issues of loss of wool, dead
lambs, and damaged sheep, as well as dead sheep. He imposed a legal duty
on innkeepers to prevent injury or damage to a patron or his goods from
third parties. A dog bite or other damage by a dog known by its owner to
be vicious was made a more serious offense than general damage by any
dog. A person starting a fire was given a duty to prevent the fire from
damaging property of others. The King will fine instead of seize the
land of his tenants who sell or alienate their land, such fine to be
determined by the Chancellor by due process.
Only barons who were peers of the House of Lords were entitled to trial
in the House of Lords. In practice, however, this pertained only to
major crimes.
Treason was tried by the lords in Parliament, by bill of "attainder".
It was often used for political purposes. Most attainders were reversed
as a term of peace made between competing factions.
The King's coroner and a murderer who had taken sanctuary in a church
often agreed to the penalty of confession and perpetual banishment from
the nation as follows: "Memorandum that on July 6, [1347], Henry de
Roseye abjured the realm of England before John Bernard, the King's
coroner, at the church of Tendale in the County of Kent in form
following: 'Hear this, O lord the coroner, that I, Henry de Roseye, have
stolen an ox and a cow of the widow of John Welsshe of Retherfeld; and I
have stolen eighteen beasts from divers men in the said county. And I
acknowledge that I have feloniously killed Roger le Swan in the town of
Strete in the hundred of Strete in the rape [a division of a county] of
Lewes and that I am a felon of the lord King of England. And because I
have committed many ill deeds and thefts in his land, I abjure the land
of the Lord Edward King of England, and [I acknowledge] that I ought to
hasten to the port of Hastings, which thou hast given me, and that I
ought not to depart from the way, and if I do so I am willing to be
taken as a thief and felon of the lord King, and that at Hastings I will
diligently seek passage, and that I will not wait there save for the
flood and one ebb if I can have passage; and if I cannot have passage
within that period, I will go up to the knees into the sea every day,
endeavoring to cross; and unless I can do so within forty days, I will
return at once to the church, as a thief and a felon of the lord King,
so help me God."
Property damage by a tenant of a London building was assessed in a 1374
case: "John Parker, butcher, was summoned to answer Clement Spray in a
plea of trespass, wherein the latter complained that the said John, who
had hired a tavern at the corner of St. Martin- le-Grand from him for
fifteen months, had committed waste and damage therein, although by the
custom of the city no tenant for a term of years was entitled to destroy
any portion of the buildings or fixtures let to him. He alleged that the
defendant had taken down the door post of the tavern and also of the
shop, the boarded door of a partition of the tavern, a seat in the
tavern, a plastered partition wall, the stone flooring in the chamber,
the hearth of the kitchen, and the mantelpiece above it, a partition in
the kitchen, two doors and other partitions, of a total value of 21s.
four pounds, 1s. 8d., and to his damage, 400s. [20 pounds]. The
defendant denied the trespass and put himself on the country. Afterwards
a jury [panel]... found the defendant guilty of the aforesaid trespass
to the plaintiff's damage, 40d. Judgment was given for that amount and a
fine of 1s. to the King, which the defendant paid immediately in court."
The innkeeper's duty to safeguard the person and property of his
lodgers was applied in this case:
"John Trentedeus of Southwark was summoned to answer William Latymer
touching a plea why, whereas according to the law and custom of the
realm of England, innkeepers who keep a common inn are bound to keep
safely by day and by night without reduction or loss men who are passing
through the parts where such inns are and lodging their goods within
those inns, so that, by default of the innkeepers or their servants, no
damage should in any way happen to such their guests ...
On Monday after the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary in the
fourth year of the now King by default of the said John, certain
malefactors took and carried away two small portable chests with 533s.
and also with charters and writings, to wit two writings obligatory, in
the one of which is contained that a certain Robert Bour is bound to the
said William in 2,000s. and in the other that a certain John Pusele is
bound to the same William in 800s. 40 pounds ... and with other
muniments [writings defending claims or rights] of the same William, to
wit his return of all the writs of the lord King for the counties of
Somerset and Dorset, whereof the same William was then sheriff, for the
morrow of the Purification of the Blessed Mary the Virgin in the year
aforesaid, as well before the same lord the King in his Chancery and in
his Bench as before the justices of the King's Common Bench and his
barons of his Exchequer, returnable at Westminster on the said morrow,
and likewise the rolls of the court of Cranestock for all the courts
held there from the first year of the reign of the said lord the King
until the said Monday, contained in the same chests being lodged within
the inn of the same John at Southwark
And the said John ... says that on the said Monday about the second hour
after noon the said William entered his inn to be lodged there, and at
once when he entered, the same John assigned to the said William a
certain chamber being in that inn, fitting for his rank, with a door and
a lock affixed to the same door with sufficient nails, so that he should
lie there and put and keep his things there, and delivered to the said
William the key to the door of the said chamber, which chamber the said
William accepted...
William says that ... when the said John had delivered to him the said
chamber and key as above, the same William, being occupied about divers
businesses to be done in the city of London, went out from the said inn
into the city to expedite the said businesses and handed over the key of
the door to a certain servant of the said William to take care of in
meantime, ordering the servant to remain in the inn meanwhile and to
take care of his horses there; and afterwards, when night was falling,
the same William being in the city and the key still in the keeping of
the said servant, the wife of the said John called unto her into her
hall the said servant who had the key, giving him food and drink with a
merry countenance and asking him divers questions and occupying him thus
for a long time, until the staple of the lock of the door aforesaid was
thrust on one side out of its right place and the door of the chamber
was thereby opened and his goods, being in the inn of the said John,
were taken and carried off by the said malefactors ... The said John
says ...[that his wife did not call the servant into the hall, but that]
when the said servant came into the said hall and asked his wife for
bread and ale and other necessaries to be brought to the said chamber of
his master, his wife immediately and without delay delivered to the same
servant the things for which he asked ... protesting that no goods of
the same William in the said inn were carried away by the said John his
servant or any strange malefactors other than the persons of the
household of the said William."
On the Coram Rege Roll of 1395 is a case on the issue of whether a
court crier can be seized by officers of a staple:
"Edmund Hikelyng, 'crier', sues William Baddele and wife Maud, John
Olney, and William Knyghtbrugge for assault and imprisonment at
Westminster, attacking him with a stick and imprisoning him for one hour
on Wednesday before St. Martin, 19 Richard II.
Baddele says Mark Faire of Winchester was prosecuting a bill of debt for
18s. against Edmund and John More before William Brampton, mayor of the
staple of Westminster, and Thomas Alby and William Askham, constables of
the said staple, and on that day the Mayor and the constables issued a
writ of capias against Edmund and John to answer Mark and be before the
Mayor and the constables at the next court. This writ was delivered to
Baddele as sergeant of the staple, and by virtue of it he took and
imprisoned Edmund in the staple. Maud and the others say they aided
Baddele by virtue of the said writ.
Edmund does not acknowledge Baddele to be sergeant of the staple or Mark
a merchant of the staple or that he was taken in the staple. He is
minister of the King's Court of his Bench and is crier under Thomas
Thorne, the chief crier, his master. Every servant of the court is under
special protection while doing his duty or on his way to do it. On the
day in question, he was at Westminster carrying his master's staff of
office before Hugh Huls, one of the King's justices, and William took
him in the presence of the said justice and imprisoned him.
The case is adjourned for consideration from Hilary to Easter."
A law of equity began to be developed from decisions by the Chancellor
in his court of conscience from around 1370. One such case was that of
Godwyne v. Profyt sometime after 1393. This petition was made to the
Chancellor: To the most reverend Father in God, and most gracious Lord,
the bishop of Exeter, Chancellor of England. Thomas Godwyne and Joan his
wife, late wife of Peter at More of Southwerk, most humbly beseech that,
whereas at Michaelmas in the 17th year of our most excellent lord King
Richard who now is, the said Peter at More in his lifetime enfeoffed
Thomas Profyt parson of St. George's church Southwerk, Richard Saundre,
and John Denewey, in a tenement with the appurtenances situated in
Southwerk and 24 acres of land 6 acres of meadow in the said parish of
St. George and in the parish of our Lady of Newington, on the conditions
following, to wit, that the said three feoffees should, immediately
after the death of the said Peter, enfeoff the said Joan in all the said
lands and tenements with all their appurtenances for the life of the
said Joan, with remainder after her decease to one Nicholas at More,
brother of the said Peter, to hold to him and the heirs of his body
begotten, and for default of issue, then to be sold by four worthy
people of the said parish, and the money to be received for the same to
be given to Holy Church for his soul; whereupon the said Peter died. And
after his death two of the said feoffees, Richard and John, by the
procurement of one John Solas, released all their estate in the said
lands and tenements to the said Thomas Profyt, on the said conditions,
out of the great trust that they had in the said Thomas Profyt, who was
their confessor, that he would perform the will of the said Peter [at
More] in the form aforesaid; and this well and lawfully to do the said
Thomas Profyt swore on his Verbum Dei and to perform the said conditions
on all points. And since the release was so made, the said Thomas
Profyt, through the scheming and false covin of the said John Solas, has
sold all the lands and tenements aforesaid to the same John Solas for
ever. And the said John Solas is bound to the said Thomas Profyt in 100
pounds by a bond to make defense of the said lands and tenements by the
bribery and maintenance against every one; and so by their false
interpretation and conspiracy the said Joan, Nicholas, and Holy Church
are like to be disinherited and put out of their estate and right, as is
abovesaid, for ever, tortiously, against the said conditions, and
contrary to the will of the said Peter [at More]. May it please your
most righteous Lordship to command the said Thomas Profyt, Richard
Saundre, and John Denewy to come before you, and to examine them to tell
the truth of all the said matter, so that the said Joan, who has not the
wherewithal to live, may have her right in the said lands and tenements,
as by the examination before you, most gracious Lord, shall be found and
proved; for God and in way of holy charity.
- - - Chapter 10 - - -
- The Times: 1399-1485 -