Our Legal Heritage Part 82

Loan contracts for money lent may not be for more than 200s. for each 2000s. yearly (i.e. 10% interest). All loans of money or forbearing of money in sales of goods not meeting this requirement shall be punishable by forfeit of the interest only.

p.a.w.n brokers accepting stolen goods shall forfeit twice their value to the owner from whom stolen.

When the hue and cry is raised for a robbery in a hundred, and other hundreds have been negligent, faulty, or defective in pursuit of the robber, then they must pay half the damages to the person robbed, while the hundred in which the robbery occurred pays the other half. Robbers shall be pursued by horse and by foot.

The mother and reputed father of any b.a.s.t.a.r.d who has been left to be kept at the parish where born must pay weekly for the upkeep and relief of such child, so that the true aged and disabled of the parish get their relief and to punish the lewd life.

Any innkeeper, victualer, or alehouse keeper who allows drinking by persons other than those invited by a traveler who accompanies him during his necessary abode there or other than laborers and handicraftsmen in towns upon the usual working days for one hour at dinner time to take their diet in an alehouse or other than laborers and workmen following their work to any given town to sojourn, lodge, or victual in any inn, alehouse or victualing house shall forfeit 10s. for each offense. This is because the use of inns, alehouses, and victualing houses was intended for relief and lodgings of traveling people and people not able to provide their own victuals, but not for entertainment and harboring of lewd and idle people who become drunk.

No butcher may cut any hide or any ox, bull, steer, or cow so that it is impaired or may kill any calf under five weeks old. No butcher may be a tanner. No one may be a tanner unless that person has apprenticed as such for seven years, or is the son or wife of a tanner who has tanned for four years, or is a son or daughter of a tanner who inherits his tanhouse. Tanners may not be shoemakers, curriers, butchers, or leatherworkers. Only tanners may buy raw hides. Only leatherworkers may buy leather. Only sufficiently strong and substantial leather may be used for sole-leather. Curriers may not be tanners. Curriers may not refuse to curry leather. London searchers shall inspect leather, seal and mark that which is sufficient, and seize any that is insufficiently tanned, curried, wrought, or used.

The incorporated company of s.h.i.+p masters may erect beacons and marks on the seash.o.r.es and hills above, because certain steeples and other marks used for navigation have fallen down and s.h.i.+ps therefore have been lost in the sea.

There shall be one sheriff per county, because now there are enough able men to supply one per county.

No one shall bribe an elector to vote for a certain person for fellow, scholar, or officer of a college, school, or hall or hospital so that the fittest persons will be elected, though lacking in money or friends, and learning will therefore be advanced.

No master at a university may lease any land unless 1/3 of it is retained for raising crops to supply the colleges and halls for food for their scholars.

Fish, but no meat, may be eaten on Wednesdays so that there will be more fishermen and mariners and repair of ports. (This was done because fis.h.i.+ng had declined since the dissolution of the monasteries, where fissh was eaten eveery Friday. Eating fish instead of meat in Lent in the springtime remained a tradition.)

Every person over 6 years of age shall wear on Sundays a wool knitted cap made by the cappers, except for maidens, ladies, gentlewomen, n.o.ble persons, and every lord, knight, and gentlemen with 2,667s. of land, since the practice of not wearing caps has damaged the capping industry.

This employed cappers and poor people they had employed and the decrepit and lame as carders, spinners, knitters, parters, forsers, thickers, dressers, dyers, battelers, shearers, pressers, edgers, liners, and bandmakers.

No man under the degree of knight may wear a hat or cap of velvet. Caps may not be made of felt, but only knit wool. Only hats may be made of felt. This is to a.s.sist the craft of making wool caps.

No one may make any hat unless he has served as apprentice for at least seven years. This is to prevent false and deceitful hat- making by unskillful persons.

No one shall make false linen by stretching it and adding little pieces of wood, which is so weak that it comes apart after five was.h.i.+ngs.

Timber shall not be felled to make logs for fires for the making of iron.

No one may take small fish to feed to dogs and pigs. Only nets with mesh leaving three inches s.p.a.ces may be used to catch fish.

Cottage and dwelling houses for workmen or laborers in mineral works, coal mines, or quarries of stone or slate for the making of brick, tile, lime, or coals shall be built only within a mile from such works.

Dwelling houses beyond this must be supported by four acres of land to be continually occupied and manured as long as the dwelling house is inhabited or else forfeit 40s. per month to the Queen. Cottages and dwelling houses for sailors or laborers working on s.h.i.+ps for the sea shall be built only within a mile of the sea. A cottage may be built in a forest or park for a game keeper of the deer. A cottage may be built for a herdman or shepherd for the keeping of cattle or sheep of the town. A cottage may be built for a poor, lame, sick, aged, or disabled person on waste or common land. More families than one may not be placed in one cottage or dwelling house. (This is a zoning law.)

Any person with land in fee-simple may establish a hospital, abiding place, or house of correction to have continuance forever as a corporation for the sustenance and relief of the maimed, poor, or disabled people as to set the poor to work. The net income shall not exceed 40,000s. yearly.

No new iron mills or furnaces for making or working of any iron or iron metal shall be established in the country around London and the owners of carriages of coals, mines and iron which have impaired or destroyed the highways shall also carry coal ashes, gravel, or stone to repair these highways or else make a payment of 2s.6d. for each cart load not carried.

For repairing of highways, the supervisors may take the rubbish or smallest stones of any quarry along the road in their precinct.

Persons with 100s. in goods or 40s. in lands shall find two able men in their parish community to repair the highways yearly.

Landowners of Oxford shall be taxed for the repair of the highway and bridge there.

The price of barrels shall be set by mayors of the towns where they are sold.