A History of Police in EnglandLee, W. L. Melville (William Lauriston Melville)
History
A History of Police in England
Lee, W. L. Melville (William Lauriston Melville)
Police -- England
Generally speaking, the house-row arrangement worked smoothly enough,
but that friction occasionally arose, when the constables came to call
upon unwilling citizens to perform the police duties incumbent on them,
the following extract from "Town Life in the Fifteenth Century" bears
witness: "In Aylesbury" according to the constables' report, "one Reygg
kept a house all the year until the watch time came, and when he was
summoned to the watch there came Edward Chalkyll 'fasesying' and said
he would not watch for no man and thus bare him up, and that caused
the other to be bolder for to bar the King's watch.... He said and
threatened us with his master," add the constables, "and thus we be
over crakyd' that we dare not go, for when they be 'mayten' they be the
bolder. John Bossey said the same wise that he would not watch for us,
and three others lacked each of them a night."[76]
The police regulations for the government of London, as introduced in
1285, had become very minute and exacting by the latter half of the
fifteenth century, many restrictions being placed on the enjoyment of
personal liberty. The use of coal was prohibited, Sunday trading was
forbidden, and, amongst other rules for the control of the wheeled
traffic, a maximum width between wheels for vehicles was laid down
which might on no account be exceeded. Ordinances also were promulgated
against tradesmen who should attempt to advertise their callings in
an objectionable manner, such as, for instance, the display of a
basin of blood by barbers anxious to let people know that phlebotomy
was included in the list of their accomplishments. The provisions of
the before-quoted Statuta Civitatis (London), touching the control
of leprous persons continued in force, and about this time special
officers were appointed to prevent such as were infected with the
plague from associating with those who were whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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