Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George IIIReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage : 600-1776 King Aethelbert - King George III
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Vagrants begging in London were banned by this 1359 ordinance:
"Forasmuch as many men and women, and others, of divers counties,
who might work, to the help of the common people, have betaken
themselves from out of their own country to the city of London and
do go about begging there so as to have their own ease and repose,
not wishing to labor or work for their sustenance, to the great
damage of the common people; and also do waste divers alms which
would otherwise be given to many poor folks, such as lepers,
blind, halt, and persons oppressed with old age and divers other
maladies, to the destruction of the support of the same - we do
command on behalf of our lord the King, whom may God preserve and
bless, that all those who go about begging in the said city and
who are able to labor and work for the profit of the common people
shall quit the said city between now and Monday next ensuing. And
if any such shall be found begging after the day aforesaid, the
same shall be taken and put in the stocks on Cornhill for half a
day the first time, and the second time he shall remain in the
stocks one whole day, and the third time he shall be taken and
shall remain in prison for forty days and shall then forswear the
said city forever. And every constable and the beadle of every
ward of the said city shall be empowered to arrest such manner of
folks and to put them in the stocks in manner aforesaid."
The hundred year cry to "let the king live on his own" found
fruition in a 1352 statute requiring consent of the Parliament
before any commission of array for militia could be taken and a
1362 statute requiring purchases of goods and means of conveyance
for the king and his household to be made only by agreement with
the seller and with payment to him before the king traveled on,
instead of at the low prices determined unilaterally by the king's
purveyor.
Every man who has wood within the forest may take houseboot [right
to take wood for reapir of one's house] and heyboot [right to take
material for the maintenance of hedges and fences, and the making
of farming utensils] in his wood without being arrested so long as
it take such within the view of the foresters.
No fecal matter, dung, garbage, or entrails of animals killed
shall be put into ditches or rivers or other waters, so that
maladies and diseases will not be caused by corrupted and infected
air. The penalty is 400s. to the king after trial by the
Chancellor.
Gifts or alienation of land to guilds, fraternities, or towns are
forbidden. Instead, it escheats to its lord, or in his default, to
the King.
No man will be charged to go out of his county to do military
service except in case of an enemy invasion of the nation. Men who
chose to go into the king's service outside the nation shall be
paid wages by the king until their return.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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