felons and suffer death. This is to avoid further infection. The towns
may tax their inhabitants for the relief of infected persons.
Devising or speaking seditious rumors are penalized by the pillory and
loss of both ears for the first offense; and 200 pounds and six months
imprisonment for the second offense. Slandering the Queen is penalized
by the pillory and loss of one ear, or by [1,333s.] 100 marks and three
months imprisonment, at the choice of the offender. The second offense
is a felony. Printing, writing, or publishing seditious books is a
felony without benefit of clergy. Wishing the Queen dead, prophesying
when she would die, or who would succeed her to the Crown is a felony
without benefit of clergy. Attainders for these felonies shall not work
corruption of the blood [heirs may inherit the property of the felon].
A debtor may not engage in a fraudulent collusion to sell his land and
goods in order to avoid his creditors. This was designed to remedy the
following problem:
A native or denizen merchant in wholesale or retail goods who leaves
the nation to defraud his creditors shall be declared a bankrupt. The
Chancellor may conduct an investigation to ascertain his land, house,
and goods, no matter who may hold them. They shall be appraised and sold
to satisfy his debts.
Lands, tenements, goods and chattels of accountants teller, or receiver
who are in debt may be obtained by court order to satisfy the debt by
garnishing the heir of the debtor after the heir has reached 21 and for
the 8 years next ensuing.
Loan contracts for money lent may not be for more than 200s. for each
2000s. yearly (i.e. 10% interest). All loans of money or forbearing of
money in sales of goods not meeting this requirement shall be punishable
by forfeit of the interest only.
Pawn brokers accepting stolen goods shall forfeit twice their value to
the owner from whom stolen.
When the hue and cry is raised for a robbery in a hundred, and other
hundreds have been negligent, faulty, or defective in pursuit of the
robber, then they must pay half the damages to the person robbed, while
the hundred in which the robbery occurred pays the other half. Robbers
shall be pursued by horse and by foot.
The mother and reputed father of any bastard who has been left to be
kept at the parish where born must pay weekly for the upkeep and relief
of such child, so that the true aged and disabled of the parish get
their relief and to punish the lewd life.
Any innkeeper, victualer, or alehouse keeper who allows drinking by
persons other than those invited by a traveler who accompanies him
during his necessary abode there or other than laborers and
handicraftsmen in towns upon the usual working days for one hour at
dinner time to take their diet in an alehouse or other than laborers and
workmen following their work to any given town to sojourn, lodge, or
victual in any inn, alehouse or victualing house shall forfeit 10s. for
each offense. This is because the use of inns, alehouses, and victualing
houses was intended for relief and lodgings of traveling people and
people not able to provide their own victuals, but not for entertainment
and harboring of lewd and idle people who become drunk.
No butcher may cut any hide or any ox, bull, steer, or cow so that it
is impaired or may kill any calf under five weeks old. No butcher may be
a tanner. No one may be a tanner unless that person has apprenticed as
such for seven years, or is the son or wife of a tanner who has tanned
for four years, or is a son or daughter of a tanner who inherits his
tanhouse. Tanners may not be shoemakers, curriers, butchers, or
leatherworkers. Only tanners may buy raw hides. Only leatherworkers may
buy leather. Only sufficiently strong and substantial leather may be
used for sole-leather. Curriers may not be tanners. Curriers may not
refuse to curry leather. London searchers shall inspect leather, seal
and mark that which is sufficient, and seize any that is insufficiently
tanned, curried, wrought, or used.
The incorporated company of ship masters may erect beacons and marks on
the seashores and hills above, because certain steeples and other marks
used for navigation have fallen down and ships therefore have been lost
in the sea.
There shall be one sheriff per county, because now there are enough
able men to supply one per county.
No one shall bribe an elector to vote for a certain person for fellow,
scholar, or officer of a college, school, or hall or hospital so that
the fittest persons will be elected, though lacking in money or friends,
and learning will therefore be advanced.
No master at a university may lease any land unless 1/3 of it is
retained for raising crops to supply the colleges and halls for food for
their scholars.
Fish, but no meat, may be eaten on Wednesdays so that there will be
more fishermen and mariners and repair of ports. (This was done because
fishing had declined since the dissolution of the monasteries, where
fissh was eaten eveery Friday. Eating fish instead of meat in Lent in
the springtime remained a tradition.)
Every person over 6 years of age shall wear on Sundays a wool knitted
cap made by the cappers, except for maidens, ladies, gentlewomen, noble
persons, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen with 2,667s. of land,
since the practice of not wearing caps has damaged the capping industry.
This employed cappers and poor people they had employed and the decrepit
and lame as carders, spinners, knitters, parters, forsers, thickers,
dressers, dyers, battelers, shearers, pressers, edgers, liners, and
bandmakers.
No man under the degree of knight may wear a hat or cap of velvet. Caps
may not be made of felt, but only knit wool. Only hats may be made of
felt. This is to assist the craft of making wool caps.
No one may make any hat unless he has served as apprentice for at least
seven years. This is to prevent false and deceitful hat- making by
unskillful persons.
No one shall make false linen by stretching it and adding little pieces
of wood, which is so weak that it comes apart after five washings.
Timber shall not be felled to make logs for fires for the making of
iron.
No one may take small fish to feed to dogs and pigs. Only nets with
mesh leaving three inches spaces may be used to catch fish.
Cottage and dwelling houses for workmen or laborers in mineral works,
coal mines, or quarries of stone or slate for the making of brick, tile,
lime, or coals shall be built only within a mile from such works.
Dwelling houses beyond this must be supported by four acres of land to
be continually occupied and manured as long as the dwelling house is
inhabited or else forfeit 40s. per month to the Queen. Cottages and
dwelling houses for sailors or laborers working on ships for the sea
shall be built only within a mile of the sea. A cottage may be built in
a forest or park for a game keeper of the deer. A cottage may be built
for a herdman or shepherd for the keeping of cattle or sheep of the
town. A cottage may be built for a poor, lame, sick, aged, or disabled
person on waste or common land. More families than one may not be placed
in one cottage or dwelling house. (This is a zoning law.)
Any person with land in fee-simple may establish a hospital, abiding
place, or house of correction to have continuance forever as a
corporation for the sustenance and relief of the maimed, poor, or
disabled people as to set the poor to work. The net income shall not
exceed 40,000s. yearly.
No new iron mills or furnaces for making or working of any iron or iron
metal shall be established in the country around London and the owners
of carriages of coals, mines and iron which have impaired or destroyed
the highways shall also carry coal ashes, gravel, or stone to repair
these highways or else make a payment of 2s.6d. for each cart load not
carried.
For repairing of highways, the supervisors may take the rubbish or
smallest stones of any quarry along the road in their precinct.
Persons with 100s. in goods or 40s. in lands shall find two able men in
their parish community to repair the highways yearly.
Landowners of Oxford shall be taxed for the repair of the highway and
bridge there.
The price of barrels shall be set by mayors of the towns where they are
sold.
Rugs shall weigh 44 pounds at least and be 35 yards at least in length
and at most 3/4 yard wide.
No cattle may be put in any enclosed woods that have been growing less
than five years. At the end of five years growth, calves may be put in.
At the end of six years growth, cattle may be put in.
Woods around London shall not be felled to be converted to coals for
iron-works because London needs the wood to make buildings and for
fireplaces.
Every melter and maker of wax from honeycombs shall put his mark on
every piece of his wax to be sold. Wrought wax such as in lights,
staff-torches, red wax or sealing wax, book candles, or searing candles
shall bear its maker's mark. All barrels of honey shall bear the mark of
the honeymaker.
Wool cloth, cotton cloth, flannel cloth, hose-yarn, hats, and caps
shall be dyed black only with dye from the woad plant and not with any
false black dye.
No one shall take or kill any pheasants with nets or devices at
nighttime because such have become scarce.
Pontage [toll for upkeep and repair of bridges] shall be taken at
certain bridges: carts 2d., horse and pack 1d., a flock of sheep 2d.
No bishop may lease land for more than twenty-one years or longer than
the lives of three designated persons.
No bishop may alienate any possession of their sees to the crown. Such
are void.
Watermen transporting people on the Thames River shall have served as
apprentice to a waterman for five years or have been the son of a
waterman. This is to prevent the loss of lives and goods by
inexperienced watermen.
Spices and potions, including pepper, cloves, mace, nutmeg, cinnamon,
ginger, almonds, and dates, which have usually been garbled [cleaned or
sorted by sifting] shall be garbled, cleaned, sorted, and sealed by the
Garbler before sale. This is to prevent mingled, corrupt, and unclean
spices and potions from being sold.
Plasterers shall cease painting because it has intruded upon the
livelihoods of painters who have been apprenticed as such.
Fishermen and their guides may continue to use the coastland for their
fishing activities despite the trespass to landowners.
Since sails for ships in recent years have been made in the realm
instead of imported, none shall make such cloth unless he has been
apprenticed in such or brought up in the trade for seven years. This is
to stop the badness of such cloth.
Tonnage and poundage on goods exported and imported shall be taken to
provide safeguard of the seas for such goods.
All persons must go to the established church on Sundays and holy days.
The penalty was at first forfeiture 12d. along with church punishment,
and later, 20 pounds per month and being bound by two sureties for 200
pounds for good behavior, and if the 20 pounds is not paid, then
forfeiture of all goods to be applied to the amount due and two-thirds
of one's land.
These laws were directed against Catholicism, but were laxly enforced
as long as worship was not open and no one wore priestly clothes:
1) The writing, preaching, or maintaining of any foreign spiritual
jurisdiction shall be punished by forfeiture of goods or, if the goods
are not worth 20 pounds, one year imprisonment, for the first offense;
forfeiture of goods and lands and the King's protection, for the second
offense; and the penalty for high treason for the third offense.
2) Any person leading others to the Romish [Catholic] religion is guilty
of high treason. The penalty for saying mass is [2,667s.] 200 marks and
one year's imprisonment. The penalty for hearing mass is [1,333s.] 100
marks and one year's imprisonment. If one is suspected of being a Jesuit
or priest giving mass, one must answer questions on examination or be
imprisoned.
3) Papists [those who in conscience refused to take the oath of
supremacy of the Crown over the church] must stay in their place of
abode and not go five miles from it, unless licensed to do so for
business, or else forfeit one's goods and profits of land for life. If a
copyholder, land is forfeited to one's lord. But if the goods are not
worth 800s. or the land is not worth at least 267s., the realm must be
abjured. Otherwise, the papist is declared a felon without benefit of
clergy.
4) If a child is sent to a foreign land for Catholic education, he
cannot inherit lands or goods or money, unless he conforms to the
established church on his return. There is also a 100 pound penalty for
the persons who sent him.
- Judicial Procedure -
Trials of noblemen for treason shall be by their peers.
Stewards of leet and baron courts may no longer receive, in their own
names, profits of the court over 12d. since they have vexed subjects
with grievous fines and amercements so that profits of justice have
grown much
Jurors shall be selected from those people who have at least 80s.
annual income instead of 40s. because sheriffs have been taking bribes
by the most able and sufficient freeholders to be spared at home and the
poorer and simpler people, who are least able to discern the causes in
question, and most unable to bear the charges of appearance and
attendance in such cases have been the jurors. Also there had been
inflation.
Defendants sued or informed against upon penal statutes may appear by
attorney so that they may avoid the inconvenience of traveling a long
distance to attend and put to bail.
Not only sheriffs, but their employees who impanel juries or execute
process in the courts shall take an oath of office.
A hundred shall answer for any robbery therein only if there has been
negligence or fault in pursuit of the robber after a hue and cry is made
because the past law has been too harsh and required payment for
offenses from people unable to pay who have done everything reasonable
to catch the robber.
The Star Chamber became the central criminal court after 1560, and
punished perjury, corruption, malfeasance throughout the legal system
such as jury corruption and judicial bribery, rioting, slander, and
libel. Its procedure was inquisitory rather than accusative. It heard
witnesses in camera [not in the presence of the suspected]. Trial was by
systematic interrogation of the suspected on oath, with torture if
necessary in treason cases. Silence could be taken for a confession of
guilt. There was no jury. Queen Elizabeth chose not to sit on this
court. Punishments were imprisonment, fines, the pillory, ear cropping
or tacking, whipping, stigmata on the face, but not death or any
dismemberment except for the ears. (The gentry was exempt from
whipping.)
Because the publication of many books and pamphlets against the
government, especially the church, had led to discontents with the
established church and to the spreading of sects and schisms, the Star
Chamber in 1585 held that the printing trade was to be confined to
London, except for one press at Oxford and one at Cambridge. No book or
pamphlet could be printed unless the text was first seen, examined, and
allowed by the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Bishop of London. Book
publishers in violation were to be imprisoned for six months and banned
from printing; their equipment was to be destroyed. Wardens were
authorized to search wherever "they shall have reasonable cause of
suspicion", and to seize all such books and pamphlets printed. But
printers continued to print unlicensed material.
The Ecclesiastical High Commission [later called the Court of High
Commission or High Court of Ecclesiastical Causes] took over criminal
cases formerly heard by the church courts. It also heard matters of
domestic morals. It was led by bishops and Privy Council members who in
1559 were authorized by a statute of Parliament to keep order within the
church, discipline the clergy, and punish such lay offenses as were
included in the ecclesiastical jurisdiction. Obstinate heresy is still a
capital crime, but practically the bishops have little power of forcing
heretics to stand trial. If anyone maintains papal authority, he
forfeits his goods; on a third conviction, he is a traitor. The
clergyman who adopts a prayer book other that the prescribed one commits
a crime. Excommunication has imprisonment behind it. Elizabeth gave this
court the power to fine and imprison, which the former church courts had
not had. At first, the chief work was depriving papists of their
benefices.
Suits on titles to land were restricted to the common law courts and no
longer to be heard in the Star Chamber, Chancery Court, or in the Court
of Requests (equity for poor people).
The Queen's Privy Council investigated sedition and treason, security
of the regime, major economic offenses, international problems, civil
commotion, officials abusing their positions, and persons perverting the
course of justice. It frequently issued orders to Justices of the Peace,
for instance to investigate riots and crimes, to enforce the statutes
against vagrancy and illegal games, to regulate alehouses, to ensure
that butchers, innkeepers, and victualers did not sell meat on fish
days, and to gather information needed from the counties. The Justices
of the Peace decided misdemeanors such as abduction of heiresses,
illegal entry, petty thievery, damage to crops, fence-breaking,
brawling, personal feuds, drunken pranks, swearing, profanation of the
Sabbath, alehouse nuisances, drunkenness, perjury, and malfeasance by
officials. They held petty and quarter sessions. The Justices of the
Peace had administrative duties in control of vagrancy, upkeep of roads
and bridges, and arbitration of lawsuits referred to them by courts.
They listed the poor in each parish community, assessed rates for their
maintenance, and appointed overseers to administer the welfare system,
deploying surplus funds to provide houses of correction for vagrants.
Raw materials such as wool, flax, hemp, and iron were bought upon which
the able-bodied unemployed could be set to work at the parochial level.
They determined wages in their districts, with no statutory ceiling on
them, for all laborers, weavers, spinsters, workmen and workwomen
working by the day, week, month, or year, or taking any work at any
person's hand. There were about 50 Justices of the Peace per county. All
were unpaid. They performed these duties for the next 200 years.
The Justices of Assize rode on circuit twice a year to enforce the
criminal law and reported their assessment of the work of the Justices
of the Peace back to the Privy Council.
The duty to hear and determine felonies was taken from Justices of the
Peace by 1590. The Justices of Assize did this work. Accused people
could wait for years in gaol before their case was heard. Felonies
included breach of prison, hunting by night with painted faces, taking
horses to Scotland, stealing of hawks' eggs, stealing cattle, highway
robbery, robbing on the sea, robbing houses, letting out of ponds,
cutting of purses, deer-stealing at night, conjuring and witchcraft,
diminution of coin, counterfeiting of coins, and impenitent roguery and
idleness. The penalty was death. Many people were hanged for the felony
of theft over 12d. Some bold men accused of felony refused to plead so
that they could not be tried and found guilty. They died of heavy
weights being placed on their bodies. But then their property could go
to their heirs.
The Court of Queen's Bench and Exchequer indirectly expanded their
jurisdiction to include suits between citizens, formerly heard only the
Court of Common Pleas or Chancery. Chancery interrogated defendants.
Chancery often issued injunctions against suits in the common law
courts. Trial by combat was very rare.
Pleadings had to be in writing and oral testimony was given by sworn
witnesses. Case decisions are in books compiled by various reporters who
sit in on court hearings rather than in year books.
In the common law, trespass has given rise to the offshoot branch of
"ejectment", which becomes the common means of recovering possession of
land, no matter what kind of title the claimant asserts. Trespass on the
case has given rise to the offshoot branch of "trover" [finding
another's goods and converting them to one's own use]. The use of the
action of trover gradually supplants the action of detinue, which
involves compurgation.
In the common law courts, the action of assumpsit for enforcing certain
promises is used more than the action of debt in those cases where there
is a debt based on an agreement. The essential nature of "consideration"
in contract is evolving from the procedural requirements for the action
of assumpsit. Consideration may consist in mutual promises, a precedent
debt, or a detriment incurred by one who has simultaneously received a
promise related to the detrimental action. Consideration must be
something, an act, or forbearance of an act that is of value. For
instance, forbearance to sue a worthless claim is not consideration.
The abstract concept of contract as an agreement between two parties
which is supported by consideration is developing as the number of
various agreements that are court enforceable expands. For instance the
word "consideration" is used in Hayward's Case in 1595 in the Court of
Wards on the construction of a deed. Sir Rowland Hayward was seised in
fee of the Doddington manor and other lands and tenements, whereof part
was in demesne, part in lease for years with rents reserved, and part in
copyhold, by indenture, "in consideration of a certain sum of money"
paid to him by Richard Warren and others, to whom he demised, granted,
bargained and sold the said manor, lands and tenements, and the
reversions and remainders of them, with all the rents reserved upon any
demise, to have and to hold to them and their assigns, presently after
the decease of Sir Rowland, for the term of 17 years. It was held that
the grantees could elect to take by bargain and sale or by demise, each
of which had different consequences.
In another case, A delivered 400s. to B to the use of C, a woman, to be
delivered to her on the day of her marriage. Before this day, A
countermanded it, and called home the money. It was held in the Chancery
Court that C could not recover because "there is no consideration why
she should have it".
In a case concerning a deed, A sold land to B for 400s., with
confidence, that it would be to the use of A. This bargain "hath a
consideration in itself ... and such a consideration is an indenture of
bargain and sale". It was held that the transaction was not examinable
except for fraud and that A was therefore estopped.