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
Towns failing to bring disturbers of this right to justice shall
forfeit their franchise to the king and pay double damages to the
merchant. The disturber shall be imprisoned for a year.
Cloth may not be tacked nor folded for sale to merchants unless they
are opened to the buyers for inspection, for instance for concealed
inferior wool. Workers, weavers, and fullers shall put their seals to
every cloth. Anyone may bring his own wools, woolfells, leather, and
lead to the staple to sell without being compelled to sell them in the
country. Special streets or warehouses were appointed with warehouse
rent fixed by the mayor and constables with four of the principal
inhabitants. Customs duties were regulated and machinery provided for
their collection. No one may forestall or regrate, that is, buy at one
price and sell at a higher price in the same locale. Forestallers were
those who bought raw material on its way to market. Regrators were those
who tried to create a "corner" in the article in the market itself.
Imported cloth shall be inspected by the King's officials for non-
standard measurements or defects [despite town franchises].
No one shall leave the nation except at designated ports, on pain of
one year's imprisonment.
Social distinctions by attire were mandated by statute of 1363. A
servant, his wife, son, or daughter, shall only wear cloth worth no more
than 27s. and shall not have more than one dish of meat or fish a day.
Carters, ploughmen, drivers of the plough, oxherds, cowherds, shepherds,
and all other people owning less than 40s. of goods and chattels shall
only wear blanket and russet worth no more than 12d. and girdles of
linen according to their estate. Craftsmen and free peasants shall only
wear cloth worth no more than 40s. Esquires and gentlemen below the rank
of knight with no land nor rent over 2,000s. a year shall only wear
cloth worth no more than 60s., no gold, silver, stone, fur, or the color
purple. Esquires with land up to 2,667s. per year may wear 67s. cloth,
cloth of silk and silver, miniver [grey squirrel] fur and stones, except
stones on the head. Merchants, citizens, burgesses, artificers, and
people of handicraft having goods and chattels worth 10,000s. shall wear
cloth the same value as that worn by esquires and gentlemen with land or
rent within 2,000s. per year. The same merchants and burgesses with
goods and chattels worth 13,333s. and esquires and gentlemen with land
or rent within 400s. per year may not wear gold cloth, miniver fur,
ermine [white] fur, or embroidered stones. A knight with land or rents
within 2,667s. yearly are limited to cloth of 80s., but his wife may
wear a stone on her head. Knights and ladies with land or rents within
8,000s. to 20,000s. yearly may not wear fur of ermine or of letuse, but
may wear gold, and such ladies may wear pearls as well as stones on
their heads. The penalty is forfeiture of such apparel. This statute is
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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