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
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 repair 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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