Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage, King AEthelbert, 596 to King George III, 1775
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Each borough has its own civil and criminal ordinances and
police jurisdiction. Borough courts tended to deal with more
laws than other local courts because of the borough's denser
populations, which were composed of merchants,
manufacturers, and traders, as well as those engaged in
agriculture. Only borough courts have jurisdiction over
fairs. In some boroughs the villein who resides for a year
and a day becomes free. There are special ordinances
relating to apprentices. There are sometimes ordinances
against enticing away servants bound by agreement to serve
another. The wife who is a trader is regarded in many places
as a feme sole [single woman rather than a feme covert
[woman-covert], who was under the protection of a husband].
There may be special ordinances as to the liability of
masters for the acts of their apprentices and agents, or as
to brokers, debt, or earnest money binding a bargain. The
criminal and police jurisdiction in the borough was
organized upon the same model as in the country at large,
and was controlled by the King's courts upon similar
principles, though there are some survivals of old rules,
such as mention of the bot and the wer. The crimes committed
are similar to those of the country, such as violence,
breaches of the assize of bread and beer, stirring up suits
before the ecclesiastical courts, digging up or obstructing
the highway, not being enrolled in a tithing, encroachments
upon or obstructions of rights of common. The most striking
difference with the country at large are the ordinances on
the repair or demolition of buildings, encroachments on
another's building, fires, and nuisances. Specimens of other
characteristic urban disputes are: selling bad food, using
bad materials, unskillful or careless workmanship,
fraudulent weights and measures, fraud in buying and
selling, forestalling or regrating [buying in one market to
resell in another market], acting in a way likely to
endanger the liberties of the borough, usury, trading
without being a citizen, assisting other unlicensed persons
to trade, unlawfully forming a guild, complaints against
various guilds in which trade might be organized. Since the
ordinances were always liable to be called in question
before the King's courts, they tended to become uniform and
in harmony with the principles of the common law. Also,
trading between boroughs kept them knowledgeable about each
other's customs and conditions for trade, which then tended
to standardize. Boroughs often had seals to prove communal
consent and tended to act as a corporate body.
Borough ordinances often include arson such as this one:
"And if a street be set on fire by any one, his body shall
be attached and cast into the midst of the fire." Robbery by
the miller was specially treated by an ordinance that "And
if the miller be attainted [found guilty] of robbery of the
grain or of the flour to the amount of 4d., he shall be
hanged from the beam in his mill."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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