Bishop Britton[99] (thirteenth century) says that only those accused of felony were to be kept in irons, and none were to be ill-treated except according to sentence. In the _Mirror of Justice_ we read that “every common prison[100] is a gaol, and only the king has the keeping of it[101]; every other man’s prison is private, etc.; and because it is forbidden that any one be tormented before judgment, the law wills that no one be placed among vermin and putrefaction, or in any horrible or dangerous place, or in the water, or in the dark, or any other torment; but it is lawful for gaolers to put fetters upon those whom they suspect of trying to escape, but the fetters must not weigh more than 12 oz....”[102] The captives having been collected together within the gaols would have to wait till the next assize. It might be a long time—months (as even now) or years[103]—for the king’s judges were dreaded—and of those who could not get mainpernors (bail),[104] many would die of want or disease before the justices were ready to try them. Meanwhile the prisoners and their families were to be kept at their own expense; according to Bishop Britton[105] the gaoler was required to take nothing from the poor—who would in general possess nothing to be taken—and not more than fourpence for the keep of any prisoner.[106] None were to be detained from inability to pay the fees. Such were the rules approved by Edward I. In practice, it appears probable that, for the next five hundred years or so, the prisoners would be well fed if they had means, and might be starved to death if they had not.[107] Those who survived until the opening of the court would be brought up, according to Bracton,[108] with their hands free, though sometimes in leg-irons. We find the description amplified by Britton;[109] they were to be “barefooted, uncoifed and bareheaded, in their coat only, without irons of any kind,[110] so that they might not be deprived of reason by pain, nor be constrained to answer by force.”[111] But thus far no punishments had been meted out; these followed upon conviction, and were of a physical and sanguinary character. According to Bracton an offender might be broken on the wheel for treason, a crime so great that it was scarcely to be permitted that the relations should live.[112] For the “common” criminal there was hanging,[113] and the ghastly mutilations enjoined by the Norman kings were continued; indeed they were made more savage for many offences after 1176.[114] Up to the reign of Henry III. the penalty for poaching in the king’s forests was death or the loss of eyesight.[115] Rape up to the reign of Edward I. might also involve loss of eyes and emasculation.[116]