Our Legal Heritage Part 56

Any merchant selling at a fair after it has ended will forfeit to the king twice the value of that sold.

Anyone finding and proving cloth contrary to the a.s.size of cloth shall have one-third of it for his labor.

No shoemaker nor cordwainer shall tan their leather and no tanner shall make shoes, in order that tanning not be false or poorly done.

All denizen [foreigner permitted to reside in the realm with certain rights and privileges] and alien merchants may buy and sell goods and merchandise, in gross, in any part of the country, despite town charters or franchises, to anyone except an enemy of the King. They may also sell small wares: victuals, fur, silk, coverchiefs [an item of woman's apparel], silver wire, and gold wire in retail, but not cloth or wine.

They must sell their goods within three months of arrival. Any alien bringing goods to the nation to sell must buy goods of the nation to the value of at least one-half that of his merchandise sold. These merchants must engage in no collusion to lower the price of merchandise bought, take merchandise bought to the staple, and promise to hold no staple beyond the sea for the same merchandise. An amendment disallowed denizens from taking wools, leather, woolfells, or lead for export, but only strangers.

Towns failing to bring disturbers of this right to justice shall forfeit their franchise to the king and pay double damages to the merchant. The disturber shall be imprisoned for a year.

Cloth may not be tacked nor folded for sale to merchants unless they are opened to the buyers for inspection, for instance for concealed inferior wool. Workers, weavers, and fullers shall put their seals to every cloth. Anyone may bring his own wools, woolfells, leather, and lead to the staple to sell without being compelled to sell them in the country. Special streets or warehouses were appointed with warehouse rent fixed by the mayor and constables with four of the princ.i.p.al inhabitants. Customs duties were regulated and machinery provided for their collection. No one may forestall or regrate, that is, buy at one price and sell at a higher price in the same locale. Forestallers were those who bought raw material on its way to market. Regrators were those who tried to create a "corner" in the article in the market itself.

Imported cloth shall be inspected by the King's officials for non- standard measurements or defects [despite town franchises].

No one shall leave the nation except at designated ports, on pain of one year's imprisonment.

Social distinctions by attire were mandated by statute of 1363. A servant, his wife, son, or daughter, shall only wear cloth worth no more than 27s. and shall not have more than one dish of meat or fish a day.

Carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, cowherds, shepherds, and all other people owning less than 40s. of goods and chattels shall only wear blanket and russet worth no more than 12d. and girdles of linen according to their estate. Craftsmen and free peasants shall only wear cloth worth no more than 40s. Esquires and gentlemen below the rank of knight with no land nor rent over 2,000s. a year shall only wear cloth worth no more than 60s., no gold, silver, stone, fur, or the color purple. Esquires with land up to 2,667s. per year may wear 67s. cloth, cloth of silk and silver, miniver [grey squirrel] fur and stones, except stones on the head. Merchants, citizens, burgesses, artificers, and people of handicraft having goods and chattels worth 10,000s. shall wear cloth the same value as that worn by esquires and gentlemen with land or rent within 2,000s. per year. The same merchants and burgesses with goods and chattels worth 13,333s. and esquires and gentlemen with land or rent within 400s. per year may not wear gold cloth, miniver fur, ermine [white] fur, or embroidered stones. A knight with land or rents within 2,667s. yearly are limited to cloth of 80s., but his wife may wear a stone on her head. Knights and ladies with land or rents within 8,000s. to 20,000s. yearly may not wear fur of ermine or of letuse, but may wear gold, and such ladies may wear pearls as well as stones on their heads. The penalty is forfeiture of such apparel. This statute is necessary because of "outrageous and excessive apparel of diverse persons against their estate and degree, to the great destruction and impoverishment of all the land".

If anyone finds a hawk [used to hunt birds, ducks, and pheasant] that a 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 a.s.signed searcher [inspector] for coinage of the nation on the sea pa.s.sing 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 G.o.d 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 -