Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) EditionReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: King AEthelbert - King George III, 600 A.D. - 1776: June 2011 (Sixth) Edition
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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