In the same year, Henry de Ba (Bath) Justiciar, came to the Guildhall of London, bringing to the Mayor and Sheriffs a writ from his lordship the King; who thereupon summoned before him all the vintners of the City. The Justiciar wishing to amerce all these for breach of the assise of wine, the citizens made answer, that the vintners who had broken the assise ought, and are wont, solely to be amerced at the Common Pleas of the Crown, and not before a Justiciar at the Tower. To whom the Justiciar made answer ... that this will not satisfy his lordship the King, for that it does not seem just or right that they may break the assise for seven years or more with impunity, and only once be amerced for so many offences. To which reply was made, that his lordship the King is both wont to and may whenever he pleases, upon election by the citizens, appoint two wardens to keep that assise, in manner as heretofore; ... that the same wardens, too, when any one is convicted of breach of the assise, ought to sell the wine found in the tun, in reference to which the breach has been committed, and to produce the money at the Pleas of the Crown holden before the Justiciars, the transgressor nevertheless being there also amerced. METHODS OF WEIGHING A.D. 1256 It has usually been the custom, when wares which have to be sold by balance, are weighed, for the draught of the balance to incline on the wares side, the case of gold and silver excepted which are always weighed with the pin standing midway, and inclining neither towards the weight nor towards the gold or silver; and consequently that the weigher who weighs in the City by the balance of his lordship the King, is able, by reason of such draught, to give a greater weight to one person than to another, through favour, maybe, or through fear, or through a bribe passing between them, or perhaps inadvertence. It was therefore provided and enacted on the Saturday after the Feast of St. Nicholas (6 December) in the one and fortieth year of the reign of King Henry, son of King John, that all wares which have to be weighed by the King’s balances in the City, shall be weighed like gold and silver, the draught in no degree inclining towards the wares; and that in lieu of such draught, the vendor ought to give to the buyer four pounds in every hundred. A.D. 1257. In this year there was a failure of the crops; upon which failure a famine ensued, to such a degree that the people from the villages resorted to the City for food; and there upon the famine waxing still greater, many thousand persons perished; many thousands more too would have died of hunger, had not corn just then arrived from Almaine. [The German States.] KING’S PRISAGE. A.D. 1257