Part 47

If anyone finds a hawk [used to hunt birds, ducks, and pheasant] that a lord has lost, he must take it to the sheriff for keeping for the lord to claim. If there is no claim after four months, the finder may have it only if he is a gentleman. If one steals a hawk from a lord or conceals from him the fact that it has been found, he shall pay the price of the hawk and be imprisoned for two years.

No laborer or any other man who does not have lands and tenements of the value of 40s. per year shall keep a greyhound [or other hound or dog] to hunt, nor shall they use nets or cords or other devices to take [deer, hare, rabbits, nor other gentlemen's game], upon pain of one year imprisonment. (The rabbit had been introduced by the Normans.) This 1390 law was primarily intended to stop the meetings of laborers and artificers.

No man shall eat more than two courses of meat or fish in his house or elsewhere, except at festivals, when three are allowed [because great men ate costly meats to excess and the lesser people were thereby impoverished].

No one may export silver, whether bullion or coinage, or wine except foreign merchants may carry back the portion of their money not used to buy English commodities. The penalty for bringing false or counterfeit money into the nation is loss of life and member. An assigned searcher [inspector] for coinage of the nation on the sea passing out of the nation or bad money in the nation shall have one third of it. No foreign money may be used in the nation.

Each goldsmith shall have an identifying mark, which shall be placed on his vessel or work only after inspection by the King's surveyor.

No one shall give anything to a beggar who is capable of working.

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.

Admiralty law came into being when ancient naval manners and customs were written down as the "Black Book of the Admiralty". This included the organization of the fleet under the Admiral, sea-maneuver rules such as not laying anchor until the Admiral's ship had, engagement rules, and the distribution of captured goods: one-fourth to the vessel owner, one-fourth to the king if the seamen were paid by the king's wages, and the rest divided among the crew and Admiral. Stealing a boat or an anchor holding a boat was punishable by hanging. Stealing an oar or an anchor was punishable by forty days imprisonment for the first offense, six months imprisonment for the second, and hanging for the third. Desertion was punishable by loss of double the amount of wages earned and imprisonment for one year. Cases were tried by jury in the Admiral's court.

Wines, vinegar, oil and honey imported shall be gauged by the King's appointees.

- Judicial Procedure -

The office of Justice of the Peace was developed and filled by knights, esquires and gentlemen who were closely associated with the magnates. There was no salary nor any requirement of knowledge of the law. They were to pursue, restrain, arrest, imprison, try, and duly punish felons, trespassers, and rioters according to the law. They were expected to arrest vagrants who would not work and imprison them until sureties for good behavior was found for them. They also were empowered to inspect weights and measures. Trespass included forcible offenses of breaking of a fence enclosing private property, assault and battery, false imprisonment, and taking away goods and chattels.

The action of trespass was replacing private suits for murder and for personal injury.

Pardons may be given only for slaying another in one's own defense or by misfortune [accident], and not for slaying by lying in wait, assault, or malice aforethought.

Justices of Assize, sheriffs, and Justices of the Peace and mayors shall have power to inquire of all vagabonds and compel them to find surety of their good bearing or be imprisoned.

A reversioner shall be received in court to defend his right when a tenant for a term of life, tenant in dower, or by the Law of England, or in Tail after Possibility of Issue extinct are sued in court for the land, so as to prevent collusion by the demandants.

A person in debt may not avoid his creditors by giving his tenements or chattels to his friends in collusion to have the profits at their will.

Where there was a garnishment given touching a plea of land, a writ of deceit is also maintainable.

Actions of debt will be heard only in the county where the contract was made. The action of debt includes enforcement of contracts executed or under seal, e.g. rent due on a lease, hire of an archer, contract of sale or repair of an item. Thus there is a growing connection between the actions of debt and contract.

Executors have an action for trespass to their testators' goods and chattels in like manner as did the testator when alive.

If a man dies intestate, his goods shall be administered by his next and most lawful friends appointed. Such administrators shall have the same powers and duties as executors and be accountable as are executors to the ecclesiastical court.

Children born to English parents in parts beyond the sea may inherit from their ancestors in the same manner as those born in the nation.

A person grieved by a false oath in a town court proceeding may appeal to the King's Bench or Common Pleas, regardless of any town franchise.

The Court of the King's Bench worked independently of the King. It was exceptional to find the king sitting on his bench. It became confined to the established common law.