EVIDENCES RELATING TO EAST HULL. 73 



stable and a Bailiff, and then dealt with some thirty or forty 

 "suitors," who were absent, either excusing- or fining them 

 eightpence each. Henry Randes was the Steward. The 

 Jury of about fifteen was sworn and they had to take the 

 list of offences and deliver their verdict a few days later at 

 the house of John Lewis in Hull, under a penalty of from 

 six and eight pence to forty shillings each. Waste, or stray, 

 cattle had to be handed over to John Lewis. 



The ordinary offences were such as not keeping up 

 ditches or fences for which they were responsible, omitting 

 to make a clute or dam across a ditch where necessary, 

 driving cattle across a clute, not bringing in their rams from 

 Summergangs at the proper season, turning horses into a 

 sheep pasture, turning pigs or geese into a pasture, not 

 taking their sheep out of the meadow ground at the feast of 

 the Purification, driving cattle across a field at forbidden 

 times, turning out sheep or cattle where they had no right, 

 taking them in or out without informing the Wardens or 

 Jesters, permitting swine to go unringed or to go "wroting" 

 in the field, allowing dogs to chase sheep, keeping an unlaw- 

 ful dog, turning out diseased animals, as Richard Hoge did 

 with "tow skabed horsses " and one with glanders to the 

 infection of the others, fold-breach, or liberating cattle im- 

 pounded for trespass, or for non payment of "Jest money." 



The fines varied greatly for the same offence as to place, 

 time, and the extent of the offence. Generally the basis for 

 the calculation was the noble of six shillings and eight pence. 

 Turning out diseased animals might cost 3s. 4d. or 6s. 8d., 

 turning out geese 5s. to 10s., sheep or cattle wrong 2d. to is., 

 a bull 2S., a swine wroting 4d. Twenty cordes (of twenty- 

 one feet) seems to have been a usual length of dike for a 

 tenant to keep in order ; to neglect this might cost him ten 

 shillings. But often the fines were so trivial, that the jury- 

 men must have considered the chance of their own turn 

 coming next. The Pinders, who had to impound stray cattle, 

 were ordered not to take for their " punsalls " more than 2d. 

 for a horse, or id. for a beast or five sheep. This confirms 

 the ordinary estimate of five sheep to one beast-gate. 



Many tenants who had made encroachments on the 

 Common or Summergangs had to pay from two pence to 

 eight pence a year annually therefor, there being, it seems, 

 no absolute prohibition. 



To let rights of pasturage to strangers was an offence 

 for which fines of eight pence to six and eight pence satisfied 

 the Court, but a tenant might let grazing rights to another 



