Mediæval London, Volume 1: Historical & SocialBesant, Walter
History
Mediæval London, Volume 1: Historical & Social
Besant, Walter
London (England) -- History -- To 1500; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- To 1500
5. Bakers are to make loaves of two sizes, viz. two for a penny, and
four for a penny. Bread shall be sold in the market only. Every baker
to have his own stamp by which his bread may be known. The baker of
brown bread not to make white bread and the converse. A baker shall
not buy corn to sell it again. A baker shall not sell his flour to
cooks for making pastry. Once a month every baker’s bread shall be
examined.
If a baker be found to be selling bread under weight he is to be
placed on a hurdle with the faulty loaf hanging from his neck and
dragged through the “great streets where there may be most people
assembled and through the great streets which are the most dirty.”
For a second offence he is to be dragged in like manner and set in
pillory. For a third offence he is to be dragged, set in pillory, his
oven pulled down and himself forbidden to carry on that trade any
longer.
A baker is not allowed to give the regratess (_i.e._ the woman who
retails bread from house to house) the “handsel money” of sixpence on
Monday or the “curtesy-money” of threepence on Friday: but, instead,
he is to give her thirteen loaves as twelve.
6. _Of Brewers and Taverners._ No measures to be used except the
gallon, pottle, and quart. These are to be stamped by the Alderman.
The tun of the brewster (brewing was conducted principally by women)
to contain 150 gallons. And since the measures (which were made of
wood) do sometimes shrink from dryness, they are to be examined four
times a year.
7. No stranger to sell by retail in the City unless he has been
received into the freedom and enrolled at Guildhall.
No stranger to keep an Inn or to let lodgings in the City.
If a stranger, however, obtain the freedom of the City he may keep an
Inn in any part of the City except the river-side.
8. All citizens to be in scot and lot. Scot is the payment of
contributions and taxes, Lot, the assessment of it in due proportions.
9. No pigs to be allowed in the streets and lanes. If any man find a
pig in the street he may kill it and keep it.
10. Markets to be held only in places assigned. Retailers of
provisions not to buy before Prime.
11. None but freemen to receive apprentices. No time of apprenticeship
to be less than seven years. And an apprentice who has served his time
must take up his freedom and be enrolled before he carries on his
trade.
12. The Mayor, Sheriffs, Aldermen, or their serjeants, clerks, and
bedels, shall not keep a baker’s oven, or a tavern, or any trade of
low repute.
13. Carts carrying firewood, timber, or charcoal, not to stand in the
City except on Cornhill.
14. No one to go into Southwark for the purchase of corn, beasts, or
other merchandise whereby a market might be established.
15. Lepers not to go about the streets or to sleep in the City. They
are to have their common “attorney” or procter who shall go round the
Churches on Sunday morning to collect alms for them.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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