At Londone I leve, Liketh wel my waires; And louren whan thei lakken hem. It is noght long y passed, There was a careful commune, Whan no cart came to towne With breed fro Stratforde: Tho gennen beggaris wepe, And werkmen were agast a lite; This wole be thought longe. In the date of oure Drighte, In a drye Aprill. A thousand and thre hundred Twies twenty and ten, My waires were gesene Whan Chichestre was Maire.’] was taken by Roger le Paumer, Sheriff of London, and weighed before the Mayor and Aldermen; and it was found that the halfpenny loaf weighed less than it ought by eight shillings. But, seeing that the bread was cold, and ought not to have been weighed in such state, by the custom of the City, it was agreed that it should not be forfeited this time. But, in order that such an offence as this might not pass unpunished, it was awarded as to bread so taken that three halfpenny loaves should always be sold for a penny, but that the bakeresses aforesaid should this time have such penny.’ 5. Edward II., A.D. 1311. ‘The bread taken from William de Somersete, baker, on the Thursday next before the Feast of St. Laurence (10th August) in the fifth year of the reign of King Edward, was examined and adjudged upon befor Richer de Refham, Mayor, Thomas Romayn, John de Wengrave, and other Aldermen; and, because it was found that such bread was putrid, and altogether rotten, and made of putrid wheat, so that persons by eating that bread would be poisoned and choked, the Sheriff was ordered to take him, and have him here on the Friday next after the Feast of St. Laurence; then to receive judgment for the same.’ In the 1 Ed. III. (1327) a curious fraud was brought to light, and John Brid and seven other bakers, and two bakeresses, were tried before the Mayor and Aldermen, ‘for that the said John, for falsely and maliciously obtaining his own private advantage, did skilfully and artfully cause a certain hole to be made upon a table of his, called a _molding borde_ pertaining to his bakehouse, after the manner of a mouse-trap, in which mice are caught, there being a certain wicket warily provided for closing and opening such hole.