Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776Reilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
Only those imprisoned for the smaller offenses of a single
incidence of petty larceny, receipt of felons, or accessory to a
felony, or some other trespass not punishable by life or limb shall be
let out by sufficient surety. Prisoners who were outlawed or escaped
from prison or are notorious thieves or were imprisoned for felonious
house burning, passing false money, counterfeiting the King's seal,
treason touching the king himself, or other major offenses or have been
excommunicated by the church may not be released.
Killing in self-defense and by mischance shall be pardoned from
the King's indictment. Killing by a child or a person of unsound mind
shall be pardoned from the King's indictment. (But a private accuser
can still sue.)
Any man who ravishes [abducts] any woman without her consent or
by force shall have the criminal penalty of loss of life or limb. (The
criminal penalty used to be just two years in prison.)
Trespasses in parks or ponds shall be punished by imprisonment
for three years and a fine as well as paying damages to the wronged
person. After his imprisonment, he shall find a surety or leave the
nation.
"Forasmuch as there have been often times found in the country
devisors of tales, where discord, or occasion of discord, has many
times arisen between the King and his people, or great men of this
realm; For the damage that has and may thereof ensue, it is commanded,
that from henceforth none be so hardy to tell or publish any false news
or tales, whereby discord or occasion of discord or slander may grow
between the King and his people, or the great men of the realm." Anyone
doing so shall be imprisoned until he brings into the court the first
author of the tale.
A system of registration and enforcement of commercial
agreements was established by statute. Merchants could obtain a writing
of a debt sealed by the debtor and authenticated by royal seal or a
seal of a mayor of certain towns, and kept by the creditor. Failure to
pay a such a debt was punishable by imprisonment and, after three
months, the selling of borough tenements and chattels and of county
lands. During the three months, the merchant held this property in a
new tenure of "statute merchant". (Prior to this, it was difficult for
a foreign merchant to collect a debt because he could not appear in
court which did not recognize him as one of its proper "suitors" or
constituents, so he had to trust a local attorney. Also, the remedy was
inadequate because the history of the law of debt was based on debt as
a substitute for the blood feud, so that failure to pay meant slavery
or death. Also a debtor's land was protected by feudal custom, which
was contrary to the idea of imposing a new tenant on a lord.)
"In no city, borough, town, market, or fair shall a person of
the realm be distrained for a debt for which he is not the debtor or
pledge."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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