Item, Whereas the Elections of Knights of the shires to come to the Parliaments of our Lord the King, in many counties of England have now of late been made by very great, outrageous and excessive number of people dwelling within the same Counties, of the which the most part was of people of small substance and of no value, whereof every of them pretended a voice equivalent, as to such elections to be made, with the most worthy Knights and Esquires dwelling within the same Counties; whereby manslaughters, riots, batteries and diversions among the gentlemen and other people of the same counties shall very likely rise and be, unless convenient remedy be provided in this behalf: Our Lord the King, considering the premises, hath provided ordained and established, by the authority of this present Parliament, that the Knights of the Shires to be chosen within the same realm of England to come to the Parliaments, shall be chosen in every County by people dwelling and resident in the same, whereof every one of them shall have free land or tenement to the value of forty shillings by the year, at the least, above all charges; and that they which shall be so chosen shall be dwelling and resident within the same Counties.... And every sheriff of England shall have power to examine upon the Evangelists every such chosen, how much he may expend by the year. THE CONDEMNATION OF THE MAID JOAN (1431). =Source.=--Waurin's _Chronicles_, 1422-1431, pp. 239-244. (Rolls Series.) ... "It is a sufficiently common report already spread abroad, as it were everywhere, how this woman who caused herself to be called Joan the maid, a false soothsayer, for two years or more, against the divine law and the condition of her female sex, has clothed and conducted herself in the dress and manner of man, a thing displeasing and abominable to God, and in such condition was carried before our capital enemy and yours, to whom and to those of his party she often gave it out, and even to churchmen, nobles, and people, that she was sent by God, presumptuously boasting herself that she often had personal and visible communication with Saint Michael and a great multitude of other angels and saints of Paradise, with Saint Katherine and Saint Margaret; by which false givings-out, and by the hope of future victories which she promised, she turned away the hearts of many men and women from the truth, and turned them towards fables and lies: she also clothed herself with armour suitable for knights and esquires, raised a standard, and with too great excess, pride, and presumption demanded to have the very excellent arms of France, which in part she obtained, and bore them in many expeditions and assaults, that is to say, a shield with two fleurs-de-lis of gold on a field azure, and a sword with the point fixed upwards in a crown; and in this condition she has taken the field, with the leadership of men at arms and archers, in armies