WATCH AND WARD
The intimate bond which linked together the Kingly Office and the
general police organisation invested the latter with a certain concrete
dignity that was beneficial. The people were impressed by the fact
that police was the special province of the highest personage in the
land, at a time when they were incapable of appreciating the abstract
importance of the subject. The responsibility for peace-maintenance
was in this way definitely fixed on the one individual, who besides
being best able to enforce compliance with his commands, had also the
greatest stake in the continued preservation of the public peace; a
kingdom without order being a kingdom in name only. This was so well
recognised that, overbearing or indifferent as too many of our English
sovereigns proved themselves, not one of them ever repudiated this
responsibility, or failed to lay claim to be considered as the champion
of order.
The benefits that resulted from this royal pre-eminence were, it must
be confessed, often counter-balanced and sometimes outweighed by
corresponding disadvantages--good kings were rare--the hand of a king
who was inclined to oppress his people became the more grievous by
reason of his police supremacy--whilst under a weak king the burden
of oppression grew intolerable on account of the numberless oppressors
who immediately arose to take advantage of his supineness. The reign
of Henry III., externally brilliant, internally miserable, is a case
in point; for fifty-six long years peace gave place to chaos--the
king robbed, and the barons plundered, whenever and whomsoever
they could--shoals of needy foreigners invaded England--the clergy
swindled their congregations first on one pretext then on another, and
remitted the bulk of their spoil to the pope's nominees in far-off
Italy--"crimes," we are told, "escaped with impunity because the
ministers themselves were in confederacy with the robbers." Men had
cause to be dissatisfied and an excuse for taking the law into their
own hands, with the result that violence from above was answered by
violence from below. The lawlessness which followed took several forms
and infected all classes of the community--the half-starved peasantry,
hitherto patient, now scoured the country, and regained by force a
portion of the spoil amassed at their expense by foreigners and others
who had traded on the ignorant superstitions of the native English. The
outbreak which at first was directed against the Italian clergy soon
degenerated into a general campaign of license, until, as we learn,
"men were never secure in their houses, and whole villages were often
plundered by bands of robbers."[26] The king adopted a capricious
policy of repression, but his action, never vigorous, came too late to
be effectual, and failed to pacify the disturbed districts.
The obvious, if still unconfessed, inability of Henry III. to cope
with the disorders which infested the realm served as a pretext to the
barons to usurp the royal functions of peace-maintenance, and keeping
the king a virtual prisoner in their hands, they caused the so-called
Mad Parliament holden at Oxford in 1258 to create a Committee of Reform
armed with authority to formulate new regulations for the preservation
of the peace. This committee appointed that four knights should be
chosen by the freeholders of each county with power to inquire into
and present to Parliament the police shortcomings of their respective
shires, enacting as a further safeguard that the freeholders concerned
should annually elect a new sheriff, and that the sheriff should be
called upon to render to Parliament an account of his stewardship on
relinquishing office.
These regulations, which formed part of the "Provisions of Oxford,"
were well conceived, and for the moment proved extremely popular. But
they left little permanent impress on the future life of the nation
because they were fraudulently put forth by the barons, who, as it
soon appeared, were only scheming to win the populace over to their
side in the struggle for power, and who were far more anxious for
their own aggrandisement than they were for any object connected with
the mitigation of the troubles that afflicted the people. The whole
attitude of the nobles was so lawless, supporting, as they did, bands
of adherents to prey on each other's lands and on the chattels of
the defenceless commonalty, that no lasting good could be expected
to follow upon their most specious actions, their very gifts were
presumptive evidence of premeditated guilt, and their evil disposition
was a matter of common knowledge. "Knights and Esquires," says the
Dictum of Kenilworth,[27] "who were robbers, if they have no land,
shall pay the half of their goods, and find sufficient security to keep
henceforth the peace of the kingdom." Well might Hume exclaim, "Such
were the manners of the times!"
The practical disappearance of the decennary societies, followed
by the failure of the Provisions of Oxford to restore peace to the
State, necessitated the creation of some more effectual agency for
the re-establishment of good order. Such a substitute was fortunately
provided by the famous Statute of Winchester, which was passed in the
thirteenth year of Edward I., of whom it has been said that he did more
for the preservation of the peace in the first thirteen years of his
reign than was collectively accomplished by the thirteen monarchs next
succeeding.
This Winchester statute is especially important to our inquiry,
because it sums up and gives permanency to those expedients introduced
in former reigns, which were considered worthy of retention for the
protection of society; and because it presents to us a complete picture
of that police system of the middle ages which continued with but
little alteration for more than five hundred years, and which even
now, though greatly changed in its outward appearance, is still the
foundation upon which our present police structure is built.
The Statute of Winchester is not here presented as a brand-new
system of police extemporised in the year 1285, but rather as the
definite product of a long series of experiments all tending in the
same direction. Legislation hastily conceived seldom survives; and
however the case may stand in other lands, or in other departments
of government, every police measure which has won a permanent place
in English history has had a gradual growth, now retarded, now
accelerated--here something removed as old fallacies were exposed,
there something added as new knowledge was acquired. A few well-known
and representative examples of the process at this stage of its
development may be enumerated.
First in importance comes the "Assize of Clarendon," issued in 1166,
which describes how notorious and reputed felons are to be 'presented'
to the Courts of the Justices or to the sheriffs, which commands one
sheriff to assist another in the pursuit and capture of fugitives,
and which deals with the restrictions to be enforced against the
entertainers of strangers and the harbourers of vagabonds. The Assize
of Northampton, which was issued three years after the rebellion of
1173, prescribes severer punishments, provides for the registration
of outlaws, and reduces the powers of sheriffs. A writ for the
conservation of the peace issued in 1233 is referred to by Dr Stubbs in
these words: "This is a valuable illustration of the permanence of the
old English regulations for the security of peace in the country....
The principle thus expanded is here developed into a separate system
of Watch and Ward, which a few years later is brought into conjunction
with the Assize of Arms, and completed by Edward I. in the Statute of
Winchester, and by the assignment of Justices of the Peace under Edward
III." Finally, Writs for enforcing Watch and Ward and the Assize of
Arms, issued in 1252 and in 1253, may be instanced as the immediate
precursors of the Statute of Winchester.
Few legislative measures have stood so long or so prominently as this
Act of 1285. Its vitality has been remarkable; we find it periodically
referred to, and its provisions re-enforced whenever an increase of
lawlessness afflicted the State, as the universal and proper remedy to
apply to all distempers of the sort; we find it cited as the standard
authority on Watch and Ward, even in the eighteenth century, when
two Acts of Parliament[28] quote it to prove that the protection of
a district is a constitutional duty compulsorily incumbent on its
inhabitants; nor was it until 1793, in which year a Committee of the
House of Commons appointed to inquire into the state of the nightly
watch of the city of Westminster stated that "the Statute of Winchester
being very obsolete is a very improper regulation," that people began
to talk of it as old-fashioned.
After stating that, "robberies, murders, burnings and thefts, be
more often used than heretofore," the statute confirms the ancient
responsibility of the hundred for offences committed within its
boundaries, "so that the whole hundred, where the robbery shall be
done, with the franchises being within the precinct of the same
hundred, shall be answerable for the robberies," and ordains that
"cries shall be made in all counties, markets, hundreds, fairs and
all other places, where great resort of people is, so that none shall
excuse himself by ignorance."
Another paragraph defines the law with regard to "Watch and Ward"--the
gates of walled towns are to be shut between sunset and daybreak, men
are forbidden to live in the suburbs, except under the guarantee of a
responsible householder, and it is enacted that in every city "from
the day of the Ascension until the day of St Michael," a watch of six
men is to be stationed at each gate: every borough has to provide a
watch of twelve persons, whilst the number of watchmen insisted upon
by law for the protection of the smaller towns, varies from four to
six, according to the number of inhabitants in each. Strangers must
not pass the gates during the hours of darkness, any attempting to do
so are to be arrested by the Watch, and detained until morning, when,
"if they find cause of suspicion, they shall forthwith deliver him to
the sheriff," but if no such cause is found, "he shall go quit." The
affiliated institutions "Hue and Cry" and the "Assize of Arms" are next
considered. Both had previously existed in some form or other, but had
been allowed to fall into disuse, so it is now laid down afresh that
in case strangers do not obey the arrest of the Watch, "hue and cry
shall be levied upon them, and such as keep the watch shall follow
with hue and cry, with all the towns near." Sheriffs are reminded that
it is their duty to follow the cry with the country-side, in pursuit of
law-breakers: and that if they are neglectful, a report will be made by
the constables to the judges, who will inform the king of the default.
The clauses relating to the Assize of Arms command every male between
the ages of fifteen and sixty to have harness in his house, "for to
keep the peace"; the nature of the arms to be provided depends upon
the man's rank, and on the value of his property, and varies from "an
hauberke, an helme of iron, a sword, a knife and a horse" for a knight,
down to bows and arrows, which were the only weapons that the poorest
class had to furnish. In each hundred two constables were appointed to
make a half-yearly inspection of arms, and "such defaults as they may
find" shall be notified through the judges to the king, and the king
"shall find remedy therein."
The Assize of Arms was something more than a mere police regulation.
Sheriffs and constables were royal officers, and the powers entrusted
to them, which included the liberty to make domiciliary visits for the
purpose of viewing the armour, together with the general supervision
they exercised over an armed population, placed at the king's disposal
a force that could on occasion be employed for political ends
unconnected with the professed motive of the Assize, that of peace
maintenance.
The only other part of the statute that need now be noticed deals
with the regulating of highways: it is directed that roads leading
from one market town to another "shall be enlarged so that there be
neither dyke, tree nor bush whereby a man may lurk to do hurt, within
two hundred foot on the one side and two hundred foot on the other side
of the way": this, however, is not to apply to oaks or great trees, but
if a park march with the roadway, the lord must "minish his park the
space of two hundred foot from the highways, as before is said, or that
he make such a wall, dyke or hedge, that offenders may not pass, nor
return to do evil."
The declared object of the Statute of Winchester, was, in the words
of the preamble, "for to abate the power of felons," and the highway
clause is said to have been designed against the depredations of
bands of robbers called Drawlatches and Roberdsmen, who, concealing
themselves in the thick undergrowth by the roadside, had been a terror
to travellers for the last hundred years or more.
If the law could have been enforced in this particular, so as to leave
a clear two hundred feet both sides of the road, the result would have
been admirable, but the regulation was framed on too ambitious a scale,
with the result that it was generally disregarded, or at the best only
partially carried out, and it is extremely unlikely that many lords
minished their parks as they were ordered.
It was, of course, extremely difficult to give effect to the new police
system throughout England; conditions and customs varied in different
districts; before the introduction of newspapers ideas spread but
slowly; and people did not readily comprehend strange institutions,
nor accept them, when understood, without protest. This was especially
the case in the north-westerly provinces; the men of Cheshire, amongst
others, were dissatisfied with the new arrangements, and petitioned
the king to relieve them of the burden of maintaining so many peace
officers; but Edward was not to be influenced against his judgment,
by these entreaties, and answered in an abrupt manner that he would
not change the law, nor revoke his statutes. The men of Shropshire and
Westmoreland also, who, as it appears, had successfully evaded their
obligations under the decennary system, now took it upon themselves to
ignore the provisions of the Statute of Winchester; with the result
that some fifteen years later, on it being brought to his notice that
the regulations which he had laid down were not being properly carried
out, the king ordained that "the same statute be sent again into every
county to be read and proclaimed four times a year, and kept in every
particular as strictly as the great charters, upon pain of incurring
the penalties therein limited."
It is worthy of notice, that as early as the thirteenth century, the
police of the capital city was placed on a different footing from
that of the rest of the kingdom, a distinction which, to some extent,
has been retained until the present day. The Statute of Winchester
did not apply to London, but in its stead a local Act[29] was passed
in the same year, having special reference to the government of
the metropolis. From this and from other sources, a comprehensive
reconstruction might be made of the police arrangements that controlled
London at the time of Edward I., the principal features of which may
here be briefly indicated.
The city was divided into twenty-four wards, and in each ward there
were six watchmen supervised by an alderman, who was expected to
acquaint himself with the personal characters of the residents of his
ward, and was ordered to secure any malefactors that he might find;
the aldermen, therefore, were executive as well as judicial officers,
and might have to adjudicate in the morning upon the evidence they
themselves had collected overnight.
In addition to the ward-watchmen there was a separate force called the
"marching watch" (the germ of the patrols of later days), whose duty
it was to exercise a general vigilance for the maintenance of peace in
the city, and to give their assistance to the stationary watchmen as
occasion demanded. Foreigners, who were not freemen of the city, might
not be innkeepers, and lepers were forbidden to leave their houses
under the severest penalties; regulations were made against the rearing
of oxen or swine within the city walls, and against the establishment
of schools of arms where fencing with the buckler was taught. By
day the gates were open, but even then care was taken to exclude
undesirable visitors, for two sergeants "skillful men and fluent of
speech" were placed at each gate to scrutinise all those who passed in
or out.
One hour after sunset, curfew was rung simultaneously from the Church
of St Martin's Le Grand and in the other parishes, the gates were then
shut, taverns were closed, and men might not go about the streets armed
till the morning, "unless he be a great man, or other lawful person of
good repute, or their certain messengers, having their warrants to go
from one to another with lanthorn in hand."
The peace officers were authorised to arrest anyone who broke these
regulations, and to bring him the following day before the Warden,
Mayor, or Aldermen of the city, for punishment; officers were secured
against all penalties for acts done in the execution of their office,
and no complaints were permitted to be made against them with regard
to the imprisonment or punishment of offenders, "unless it be that an
officer should do so of open malice, and for his own revenge, or for
the revenge of another that maliciously procureth the same, and not for
the keeping of the peace."
It will be observed that the intention both of the Statute of
Winchester and of these regulations for the government of London is
in the main a preventive one, that whilst every care is taken to
place obstructions in the way of transgressors, and every caution
exercised to render a criminal career difficult, we hear but little of
the penalties that follow upon detection. This tendency is in marked
contrast to the custom of subsequent legislation, which increasingly
insisted on the infliction of punishment as the only effectual means
of diminishing crime. The earliest English police known to us, relied
almost entirely, as has already been pointed out, on the efficacy of
the preventive principle. The system inaugurated by the Statute of
Winchester which took the place of the ancient institutions, may be
considered as the connecting link between the two extreme conceptions
of police functions, between the policy of prevention and the policy
of repression. Watch and Ward was the civil equivalent of the sentry
who, in time of war is posted outside the camp, and whose functions are
purely preventive, whilst Hue and Cry was partly preventive and partly
repressive. Although the main object of the latter institution was the
apprehension of offenders, quite half its value depended on the effect
produced on the minds of intending criminals by the fear that any
illegal act on their part might raise the whole county in arms against
them, and by the knowledge that escape was well-nigh impossible.
The law against vagrancy was conceived in the same spirit, the Statute
in question requiring Bailiffs of towns to make enquiry every week of
all persons lodging in the suburbs, in order that neither vagrants, nor
"people against the peace" might find shelter, a regulation designed on
the lines of the universal police maxim "Allow the thief no rest." The
custom was to make the householder responsible for the deeds of those
whom he harboured, and to punish the indiscriminate giver of alms.[30]
This method was not only more humane, but it also proved more effectual
than the everlasting imprisonment, whipping, and branding of vagrants,
that Tudor legislation enjoined.
Neglect of the Hue and Cry, failure to make "fresh and quick pursuit,"
and sometimes want of success when pursuit was duly made, were
visited by the imposition of fines upon the neglectful or unfortunate
inhabitants as the case might be: many examples of this are on record,
_e.g._ (Exchequer Rolls, vol. i. sect. 14).
"Item. The citizens of Lincoln fined fifty marks for suffering a
robber to escape, etc.: and the men of Colchester for the like.
Item. (Sussex: 16 Edward I.) Homicide committed in a fray: the
offender who had stabbed his adversary, a butcher, takes refuge in
the Church of Crawley and abjures the realm: townships of Crawley and
Hurst amerced because they did not make suit.
Item. A quarrel in an alehouse at Hodley, in which a man is struck
on the head and dies four days afterwards. The offender escapes, and
all the persons present in the alehouse amerced, because they did not
secure him."[31]
When Hue and Cry had been raised against a fugitive, every man had to
lay aside his work and join in the pursuit to the best of his ability,
anyone failing to do so, or withdrawing himself without permission,
was considered to have taken the part of the person who was fleeing
from justice, and the two might be hunted down together, and when
apprehended, delivered to the Sheriffs, "not to be set at liberty, but
by the King, or by his chief justice."[32] Once levied, Hue and Cry
recognised no boundaries, the pursuit spread from hundred to hundred,
and from county to county, "till they come to the seaside," or until
the man surrendered himself. "The life of Hue and Cry," says Coke, "is
fresh suit," and in order that valuable time should not be lost in
preliminary enquiries, no liability for malfeasance attached to those
who followed the chase; if therefore an innocent man was hunted down,
he had no remedy against his pursuers, but, to obtain satisfaction,
had first to discover the author of the false report. If the fugitive
sought refuge in a house, and refused to open the door, the peace
officer might break it open, and in the event of a man grievously
wounding another, it was held that killing was no murder, provided that
Hue and Cry had been duly levied, and provided also, that the offender
could not otherwise be taken.[33]
The best, and as a rule, the only practicable chance of escape open
to the pursued, lay in the possibility of his reaching a sanctuary
before the hunters came up with him. If a man took sanctuary, his life
was safe, but he remained a close prisoner within the precincts of
the asylum in which he had found refuge until he received the King's
pardon, or until he purchased his freedom by "abjuring the realm," an
undertaking which entailed upon him perpetual banishment, besides the
forfeiture of all his belongings.
These sacred asylums, within whose precincts the law was powerless,
were often made use of in a manner never contemplated when the
privilege of affording protection to fugitives was first extended to
them. If an offender was unpopular his chance of reaching sanctuary
was very remote, it was easy enough to head him off, or to surround
the place in such a manner that approach meant certain capture; on the
other hand, if the country folk were disposed to favour the escape of
the hunted man, there was little difficulty in managing the pursuit
in such a way that he should reach his goal in safety. Hue and Cry
was therefore not as effectual as it ought to have been, especially
against men who for one reason or another enjoyed the goodwill of their
neighbours, and its efficacy was still further reduced by the freedom
with which Charters of Pardon were granted by the King to powerful
nobles and others, who were prepared to pay for the concession.[34]
In addition to the Statute of Winchester upon which his reputation
as a police reformer mainly rests, Edward I. was the author of other
valuable measures designed to produce and conserve a state of public
tranquillity. Under former rulers Sheriffs had been allowed a dangerous
amount of freedom, which they had abused for their own advantage,
both by improperly admitting to bail offenders who ought not to have
been permitted to remain at large, and by exacting bail from others
on trivial or trumped-up charges. This practice Edward combated, and
forbade sheriffs, under severe penalties, to hold to bail any who
were not strictly bailable. Mindful also of the disturbances wrought
by idle rumour, he set himself to put a stop to the dissemination of
scandal by irresponsible tale-bearers, and decreed that henceforth
those "who be so hardy as to tell or publish any false news or tales
whereby discord may arise" should be "taken and kept in prison until he
is brought into the Court which was the first author of the tale."[35]
Of greater practical value, however, were his enactments dealing with
Coroners[36] (so-called because they were principally concerned with
pleas of the Crown). With the intention that these most important
officers should stand high in the estimation of all men, Edward,
in 1275, ordained that no one under the degree of knight should be
chosen to the office, and in the year following he defined the powers
of Coroners, setting forth what steps they were called upon to take
for the better preservation of the peace, and in what manner their
functions ought to be carried out. It was enacted[37] that, in the
event of any person meeting with an unnatural or violent death, the
township concerned had to immediately give notice to the nearest
Coroner, who was thereupon bound to issue a precept to the constables
of the neighbouring vills, requiring them to cause to appear before
him a competent number of good and lawful men in order that the matter
might forthwith be investigated at the place where the corpse had been
found. If, upon inquiry, and upon the oath of the jurymen, it should
appear that foul play had been the cause of death, the Coroner was,
by the same statute, further instructed to use his best endeavour to
discover the guilty party, and if the murderer was known, the Coroner
was authorised to deliver him to the Sheriff and to proceed to his
house, and there to cause a valuation of all his belongings to be
made, the amount thereof being notified and secured to the township or
hundred, which was then answerable to the judges for any amercement
that might subsequently be imposed. Nor was the business of holding
inquisitions in cases of sudden death the only duty of the Coroner; he
was also expected to make enquiry, in like manner, of every reported
case of housebreaking, and was required to keep a watchful eye on
any of the King's subjects who seemed to live riotously, haunting
taverns and the like, and to attach them by four or more pledges on
the not unreasonable suspicion that the funds which supported such
extravagances proceeded either from some illegal practice, or from a
secret store of treasure trove. Though answerable to the King, Coroners
were chosen by the county, and sworn by the sheriff; any holder of the
office concealing felonies, or failing in his duty through favour to
the misdoers, was liable to be fined at the King's pleasure and to be
imprisoned for a year.
Much of the good work done for the internal peace of the kingdom by
Edward I. was undone by his successor, whose predilection for evil
counsellors led to much Baronial resistance, and threw the country
back into that state of lawlessness from which it had been delivered by
the wise police regulations of the Statute of Winchester.
Organised bands of robbers harried the country, setting at defiance
sheriffs, judges, and even the King himself, who was stopped near
Norwich by a freebooting knight called Sir Gosseline Denville, and
stripped of his money and other valuables. With such an example of
reckless disregard of the King's peace before them, it is not wonderful
that the lower orders of the people ignored the restrictions that the
law imposed; the weak had no protectors, so the hand that was strong
enough to take and to hold fast was seldom empty. These predatory
rovers waxed so powerful, and grew so numerous as the result of the
impunity they enjoyed, that nothing short of a regular military
campaign sufficed to free the land from their ravages. The end of this
same Denville illustrates the extensive nature of these operations.
After years spent in successful plundering, and after an unprecedented
reward had been put on his head, he was at length brought to bay by the
sheriff of Yorkshire, who, with five hundred men surrounded the inn
where the robber slept, and in the course of the desperate fight which
followed between the _posse comitatus_ of the peace officer and the
banditti, it is said that two hundred men were killed before the knight
and his brother were captured.[38]
Indolent and incapable as Edward II. proved, his police administration
was not altogether without merit, and an important Statute passed in
the eighteenth year of his reign is worthy of more than passing notice.
In order that the value of this Act may be fully appreciated a few
words of preliminary explanation are necessary. One of the principal
functions of the Norman Sheriff at his annual visit of inspection
or Tourn, was to inform himself (by making inquiry from the chief
frankpledges) as to the nature and extent of the crime existing in his
district, and to make a report thereof to the King, if, in his opinion,
any particular offence or class of offences was unduly prevalent. The
exercise of this function, which was known as "presentment," to some
extent secured the trial and punishment of criminals, by bringing their
offences to the knowledge of the central authority, and the officer
who made the report may, in a sense, be considered to have acted the
part of a public prosecutor. When the Court Leet took the place of
the Sheriff's Tourn this function was partially lost, and the object
of the Statute in question was to increase the value of the Court
Leet as a preventive agency, by reaffirming and clearly defining its
responsibility with regard to the important duty of presentment, which
it had inherited along with the other functions of the Sheriff's Tourn.
To this end Courts Leet were now (1325) ordered to certify that all the
chief-pledges were present at the sitting of the Court to which they
were summoned, and that they duly brought to the notice of the same
Court all offences committed within their knowledge. For their guidance
a list of the matters which concerned them, arranged under thirty-four
headings, was added, of which the most important were the following:--
(_a_) Of damages done to walls, houses, ditches and
hedges set up or beaten down to annoyance.
(_b_) Of Bounds withdrawn or taken away.
(_c_) Of breakers of houses.
(_d_) Of petty larrons, and their receivers (_i.e._
harbourers).
(_e_) Of such as go messages for thieves.
(_f_) Of cries levied and not pursued.
(_g_) Of bloodshed and of frays made.
(_h_) Of escape of thieves and felons.
(_i_) Of clippers and forgers of money.
(_j_) Of persons outlawed returned, not having the
King's warrant.
(_k_) Of women ravished not presented before the
Coroner.
(_l_) Of false balances, measures, and weights.
(_m_) Of such as continually haunt taverns, and no
man knoweth whereon they do live.
(_n_) Of such as sleep by day, and watch by night,
and eat and drink well, and have nothing.
(_o_) Of persons imprisoned and let go without
mainprize.
(_p_) Of the Assize of Ale and Bread broken.
A glance at the subjects enumerated in this schedule is sufficient to
illustrate the comprehensive nature of the part assigned to Courts
Leet in the general scheme of peace maintenance, and to show how in
addition to their primary duty of bringing to light all breaches of
the peace, these local police courts were furthermore charged with
the supervision of everything that tends to promote good order and
good citizenship, such as, for example, the regulating of weights and
measures and the abatement of public nuisances.
This Statute is entitled "A Statute for View of Frankpledge," but it
was not put forward with any intention of reverting to the old system
of police by decennary societies, nor with any idea of superseding or
even modifying the Statute of Winchester, but rather as an auxiliary
measure to enlarge the sphere of usefulness of that Statute, and
to render its administration more effectual, by ensuring that no
violations of its provisions should go undetected and unpunished.