[179] Those who divided among themselves the prospective profit of a lawsuit “maintained” in this way, were called “champertors,” _campi participes_, which was forbidden by numerous statutes. See e.g. the “Ordinacio de Conspiratoribus,” 33 Ed. I, year 1305. [180] 4 Ed. III, chap. 2, year 1330. [181] 20 Ed. III, chap. 4, 5, 6, year 1346. [182] “Le Roi désire que commun droit soit fait à toutz, auxibien à povres come à riches.” 1 Ed. III, stat. ii, ch. 14. [183] In the petition to the Good Parliament, 1376, she is included among “les femmes qui ont pursuys en les Courtz du Roi diverses busoignes et quereles par voie de maintenance et pur lower (gain) et part avoir.” [184] Statute 2 Richard II, stat. i. cap. 6, A.D. 1378. [185] The picture in this statute is so complete that there is scarcely need to quote other texts; they are, however, numerous. In the petitions to parliament will be found many complaints by private people for acts of violence of which they had been victims, for imprisonment by their enemies, robberies, arson, destruction of game or fish in the parks. Examples: petition of Agnes Atte Wode, she and her son beaten and robbed (ibid. i. p. 372); of Agnes of Aldenby, beaten by malefactors (“Rolls of Parliament,” i. p. 375); of the inhabitants of several towns of the county of Hertford, who have been imprisoned and forced to pay ransom by the knight John of Patmer (i. p. 389); of John of Grey, who was attacked by fifteen malefactors so resolute as to set fire to a town and storm a castle (i. p. 397); of Robert Power, who is robbed and his mansion sacked, his people beaten, by “men all armed as men of war” (i. p. 410); of Ralph le Botiller, who has seen his mansion pillaged and burnt by eighty men, who came with arms and baggage, bringing ropes and hatchets on carts (ii. p. 88), etc. In France, it is well known, the misdeeds of this kind were still more numerous but then a continual state of war was raging there. [186] “Rolls of Parliament,” ii. p. 351. [187] One founded with that object by Matthew of Dunstable in 1295, and “known as the chantry of Biddenham bridge in Bromham parish.” “Victoria History of the Counties of England,” Bedfordshire, vol. iii. p. 49. [188] “Statutes of the Realm,” year 1285. [189] “Chronica Monasterii de Melsa,” Rolls Series, ii. 275. [190] “Rolls of Parliament,” vol. ii. p. 201 (22 E. III, 1348). [191] Ibid., vol. ii. p. 165. [192] Earliest reference in England: that in the laws of Ethelbert, King of Kent, later part of the sixth century, where it is said that “the penalty for violation of church _frith_ is to be twice that exacted for an ordinary breach of peace.” Trenholme, “The Right of Sanctuary in England,” University of Missouri Studies, 1903, p. 11. [193] Trenholme, as above, p. 48. [194] R. W. Billings, “Architectural Illustrations . . . of the Church at Durham,” London, 1843, p. 20.