SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



worth of merchandise ; but these, too, lived by agriculture and sheep-farming. 

 At Newark there were sixteen and in Retford about thirty-one, and no others 

 are mentioned. 82 Similarly in the Subsidy Roll of 1 327-8 63 the distribution 

 of the tax-payers suggests rather a scattered agricultural population than one 

 engaged in either commerce or industry. Exclusive of Nottingham itself 

 there are only two places Newark and Gedling out of two hundred and 

 forty mentioned, in which more than fifty persons contributed the twentieth 

 of their goods ; in other words, were possessed of property above the value 

 of los. 



The rarity of trade names may also be indicative of the same state of 

 things. At Newark, indeed, the names taverner, ' pistor,' saddler, shearman, 

 cordwainer, and ' fleshour ' occur. In Retford there were two bakers, a 

 butcher, tanner, and candlemaker ; and scattered throughout the roll there are 

 mentioned glovers, linen-drapers, shoemakers, tanners, brewers, bakers, and so 

 forth ; besides the names of various artisans such as masons, plasterers, and 

 thatchers ; but the rarity of these names is such that they occur only in 

 eighty-four villages out of the two-hundred-and-forty of which the details 

 can be deciphered. Wherever such tradesmen as butchers and bakers did 

 exist they must have been subject to strict inspection, if the rules which 

 prevailed at Mansfield are any guide. 64 The bakers were instructed to graduate 

 the size of their loaves according to the price of corn. When corn was at 

 u. a quarter the loaf was to weigh ' six pounds sixteen shillings ;' 85 when corn 

 was is. 6d. the loaf must weigh 4 IQJ. 8*/., and similarly through succeed- 

 ing variations in the price of corn. In the same way the price of ale was 

 regulated by that of malt : and though no rules are given as to the price of 

 butchers' meat, yet the butchers were under strict regulation, being prohibited 

 from selling meat that is tainted ; or from buying meat of the Jews, 

 of whom there was a colony in Nottingham and the neighbourhood. The 

 penalty for an infraction of these regulations was fine and pillory or im- 

 prisonment for early offences, and banishment from the community if the 

 fault was repeated. This punishment was of course inflicted by the local 

 court ; which, in the case of the ' free tenants ' of Mansfield, decided small 

 cases by six chosen men charged on their fealty ; and in pleas involving 

 questions of land or questions of life and death, referred the matter to twelve 

 men sworn ' on a book.' 



As throughout the rest of England, summary justice in Nottingham was 

 mainly administered in these local courts, to which the tenants almost always 

 made suit. The majority of the lords possessed the rights of the gallows, the 

 pillory, the tumbril, and infangenthef, together with the assize of bread and 

 ale. 68 This jurisdiction as a general rule may have been satisfactory ; but the 

 disturbances of the reign of Henry III, in which many Nottinghamshire men 

 took part, seem to have interrupted the administration of justice within the 

 county. Thus, complaints were made that the bailiffs of various lords made 

 unjust arrests for the purposes of extortions, or fixed arbitrary prices at 

 markets, or exacted undue tolls. The sheriffs and under-officers after ' the 

 Evesham battle ' were accused of taking bribes ; cases which should have been 



6> Inj. Nonarum. " Lay Subs. I Edw. Ill, bdle. 159, no. 4. M Harrod, Hist, of Mansfield, 53-60. 

 65 By Mansfield weight a shilling equalled three-fifths of an ounce ; and a penny therefore one-twentieth. 

 Harrod, Hist, of Mansfield, 59-60. <* Rot. Hund. (Rec. Com.), ii. 



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