158 ANECDOTES OF FEUDAL TIMES IN ENGLAND. 



Tacitus, the idle, the cowardly, and the deformed,* were destroyed 

 by submersion. By the laws of the ancient Burgundians, women 

 who eloped from their husbands were smothered in mud.f Of 

 drowning 1 as a punishment, Sir Henry Spelman adduces, from the 

 archives of Rochester, an instance which occurred in England in 

 the year 1200. Two women came into the town of Suffliete in the 

 county of Kent, who had stolen many cloths in the town of Groin- 

 done ; and the men of the same town of Croindone, whose cloths 

 were feloniously carried away, followed the women to the town of 

 Suffliete, and there they were taken and imprisoned, and had their 

 judgment in the court of Suffliete to carry hot iron ; one of them 

 was acquitted, and the other condemned, whereupon, she was 

 drowned in the Beckpool. All this happened, the record continues, 

 in the time of Gilbert, Lord Bishop of Rochester; and at that judg- 

 ment were present the coroners of our lord the king : Paul de 

 Stanes was then cacherel (steward) of the hundred of Acstane. And 

 at that time Robert de Heshame, a monk, was keeper of the manor 

 of Suffliete. And in judging the women there were Sir Henry de 

 Cobham, and many other eminent men of the country.^ 



The ordeal, or trial by hot iron, to which these women were 

 subjected, continued in operation until 1219, when Henry III. and 

 his council issued a circular missive to the justices, prohibiting this 

 supposed appeal to the judgment of God. The punishment of 

 gibbeting seems to have been introduced in this reign, and is men- 

 tioned by the historian, Matthew Paris. A gibbet was erected in 

 London in the year 1236, on which one man was hanged after he 

 was dead, and another while living, and suffered to perish. Pre- 

 vious to this exhibition, the king issued an order to the sheriff' of 

 Middlesex to cause to be made without delay in the place where 

 the gaols were formerly erected, that is to say at the Elms, two 

 good gibbets of strong and excellent timber for hanging robbers, 

 and other malefactors. The cost incurred was to be defrayed at the 

 exchequer, and the instrument is dated 22nd May, 4 Henry III.|| 



The following explanation of the privilege of a corporation at 

 this period is contained in the return of the jurors of Wallingford, 

 in Berkshire, 1261. The jurors say upon their oaths, that no per- 

 son in this borough, for any fact by him committed, ought to be 

 hanged ; for, according to the custom of this borough, he ought to 



more decisive proofs of the vitality of the Saxon language than the remote 

 existence of a few terms, which were even then becoming obsolete, may be 

 derived from the ballad which commences 



" It was in the merry month of May 



When the little birds were singing on each spray," &c. 



With two exceptions, and with slight changes in the orthography, all the 

 words are Saxon. 



* " Corpore infames." De Morib. cap. 28. 



t Barrington, Obs. on Ancient Statutes. 



J Gloss, art. Furca et Fossa. Pytte and Gallows. 



I Rymer, Foedera, Tom. I. p. 154. New Edit. 



(I Rot. Liter. Clausar. p. 419- 



