566 A. D. 1362. 



were * pleaded, fliewed, and judged in the French tongue,' which was 

 little known in the kingdom, fo that the parties were ignorant of what 

 was faid in their own caufes by the lawyers in the courts ; and that the 

 laws ought in reafon to be exprelled in the language of the country, 

 agreeable to the pradlice of other nations, in order to enable the people 

 to know how to conduct themfelves. — It was ordained, that all pleadings 

 in courts fhould be in Englilh, but that they Jhoidd be inroUed in Latin; 

 and that the laws fliould be kept as they were before *. \_Stat. i , 36 

 Edw. Ill, c. 15.] 



The parliament fixed the duty upon wool exported at ;^i : 6 : 8 per 

 fack, and fo to continue for three years. At the fame time duties were 

 alfo granted on wool-fells and hides. [Cotton's Abridgement, p. 94. — 

 Walfmgham, p. 179.] 



Oftober 26"' — As if the enormous ranfom for the king and the ex- 

 penfe of the hoflages, all going out of Scotland without any return, had 

 not been fufficient to impoverilh that country, the bifhop of S'. Andrews, 

 feven earls and barons, one countefs, and nine burgefles and merchants 

 of Linlithgow, S". Andrews, Edinburgh, and Tinedale (one of whom, 

 however, is faid to be on the bufmefs of merchandizing) were all ftruck 

 with the frenzy of paying their devotions at the tomb of S'. Thomas at 

 Canterbury, for which purpofe each of them obtained a paflport from 

 King Edward. Some of them, whofe devotion to the martyr flill con- 

 tinued ardent, returned foon after with a new {hole of devotees to Can- 

 terbury ; and it is obfervable, that then, and afterwards, they were re- 

 llrained by the terms of their pafFports from carrying any Englifti horfes 

 to Scotland with them. So far was the king of Scotland from endea- 

 vouring to alleviate the mifery, his ranfom brought upon his fubjeds, 

 by a wife public economy, and the difcouragement of this ruinous 

 folly, that he himfelf, as long as he lived, was the mofl frequent vilitor 

 to S'. Thomas ; and, by his example, the people of all ranks in Scotland 

 continued many years infedted with the fame fuperftition. IFirdera, V. 



vi, pp- 395. 4^7' 576. &c. 8cc,] 



1363, March "i — The parliament having ordained * for the profit of 



• the realm and eafe of merchants of England, that the ftaple of wool, 



* wool-fells, and hides, fhould be held at Calais,' it now began to be 

 held there accordingly f . [A£is, 43 Ediv. HI, preamble.'] The king ap- 

 pointed twenty-fix principal merchants to have the cuflody of that town, 



• By this law we learn that Englidi had been f In the parliament held in Oiloher 1 362 ' the 



for a coiifidL-iablc time the predominant languajrc, * lords being required to fpeak what they thought 



even among the higher clafles, in England. But ' of the repair of merchants to Callis, thought it 



this law was as little within the comprchenfion of * good to have the fame done. But the com- 



the great bulk of the people as all thofe which ' raons referred their anfwcr untill conference with 



preceded it ; for it, and alfo all thofe after it, willi • the merchants.' \_Collon''s Ahr'ulgcmrvt of records, 



very few exceptions, for above a century, were /). 92.] Tliis is a good inllance ot the ottcntioii 



written in unknown language, generally French, of the reprefentatives to the commercial intercft* 



cnly a very few being in Latin. of their conllitucnts. 



