but this is called a 'Woosset,' which is pronounced 'Oosset'.
It is a rough band followed by a person bearing a long pole,
with a cross-bar across it, on which is placed a shirt, and
at the top of the pole is a horse's skull with a pair of
bull's horns attached to it. This I have also seen. I have
omitted to mention that cucking-stools were of two kinds--the
one fixed, the other moveable. That mentioned in 'Worcester
in the Olden Times' (p. 110), must have been of the latter
kind. A lithograph of each is in No. 1 of the Magazine of
the Wilts Archæological Society. The bridle for scolds still
exists in several places; there is one in the Ashmoloean
Museum at Oxford; another was in the magistrates' room at
Shrewsbury, but has been stolen within the last few years;
one is figured in one of the volumes of the Penny Magazine,
under the title 'Obsolete Punishments,' and another in Plott's
'Staffordshire;' but it is very remarkable that though so
commonly seen, these bridles, called 'Branks,' are nowhere
mentioned in our law books, though cucking-stools always are
whenever the offence of scolding is treated of or referred to."
But to return to ecclesiastical matters. In the year 1620, Robert Lucy,
of Droitwich, was ordered to appear before the Sessions Court "for
killinge of fleshe this Lent." By the statutes 2nd and 3rd Edward VI,
chap. 19, and 5th Elizabeth, chap. 5 (an act for maintenance of the
navy), the eating of flesh in Lent is prohibited under penalties; but I
know of no statute which inflicts any penalty on butchers for killing
in Lent.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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