Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen ElizabethReilly, S. A.
History
Our Legal Heritage: The First Thousand Years: 600 - 1600: King Aethelbert - Queen Elizabeth
Reilly, S. A.
Law -- England -- History
The following merchandise shall not be brought into the nation
already wrought: woolen cloth or caps, silk laces, ribbons,
fringes, and embroidery, gold laces, saddles, stirrups,
harnesses, spurs, bridles, gridirons, locks, hammers, fire
tongs, dripping pans, dice, tennis balls, points, purses, gloves,
girdles, harness for girdles of iron steel or of tin, any thing
wrought of any treated leather, towed furs, shoes, galoshes,
corks, knives, daggers, woodknives, thick blunt needles, sheers
for tailors, scissors, razors, sheaths, playing cards, pins,
pattens [wooden shoes on iron supports worn in wet weather], pack
needles, painted ware, forcers, caskets, rings of copper or of
gilt sheet metal, chaffing dishes, hanging candlesticks,
chaffing balls, Mass bells, rings for curtains, ladles,
skimmers, counterfeit felt hat moulds, water pitchers with wide
spouts, hats, brushes, cards for wool, white iron wire, upon
pain of their forfeiture. One half this forfeiture goes to the
King and the other half to the person seizing the wares.
No sheep may be exported, because being shorn elsewhere would
deprive the King of customs.
No wheat, rye, or barley may be imported unless the prices are
such that national agriculture is not hurt.
Clothmakers must pay their laborers, such as carders and
spinsters, in current coin and not in pins and girdles and the
like.
The term "freemen" in the Magna Carta includes women.
The election of a knight from a shire to go to Parliament shall
be proclaimed by the sheriff in the full county so all may
attend and none shall be commanded to do something else at that
time. Election results will be sealed and sent to Parliament.
To be elected to Parliament, a knight must reside in the county
and have free land or tenements to the value of 40s. per year,
because participation in elections of too many people of little
substance or worth had led to homicides, assaults, and feuds.
(These "yeomen" were about one sixth of the population. Most
former voters and every leaseholder and every copyholder were
excluded. The requirement lasted for 400 years.)
London ordinances forbade placing rubbish or dung in the Thames
River or any town ditch or casting water or anything else out of
a window. The roads were maintained with tolls on carts and
horses bringing victuals or grains into the city and on
merchandise unloaded from ships at the port. No carter shall
drive his cart more quickly when it is unloaded than when it is
loaded. No pie bakers shall sell beef pies as venison pies, or
make any meat pie with entrails. To assist the poor, bread and
ale shall be sold by the farthing.
Desertion by a soldier is penalized by forfeiture of all land and
property.
The common law held that a bailee is entitled to possession
against all persons except the owner of the bailed property.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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