SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



peace and robbery/' The vills were responsible for the pursuit of malefactors, 

 and were constantly amerced for default in this duty." When a suspected 

 criminal was captured and placed in custody, pending the institution of 

 proceedings against him before the sheriff, it was again the vill that was fined 

 if he escaped** from the prison to which he had been assigned. Thus when 

 Nicholas Bird was imprisoned in Kingston Lacy prison on suspicion of theft, 

 and escaped, the men of the vill of Barnsley [Bernardsleigh] were charged 

 with his flight, because he was in their custody. Moreover, if a prisoner 

 escaped, and the jurors attempted to conceal the fact, they were liable to 

 another fine.*^ 



Returned outlaws were the cause of considerable trouble both to the 

 vills collectively and to individuals. It happened occasionally that after a 

 man had been outlawed he returned to the county, either with a view to 

 revenge, as apparently in the case of one John Furet who, after having been 

 outlawed on account of a murder which he had committed, returned to 

 Swyre, and was about to burn the parson's house, when he was fortunately 

 discovered by Reginald Dylle, the parson's servant,^" or because he had 

 found someone who was willing to harbour him," or apparently from sheer 

 bravado, as did William le Curt, who returned to Milton and Blandford and 

 wandered begging from town to town without molestation." When this was 

 the case it was the duty of the first person who discovered the returned criminal 

 to raise the hue and cry and to pursue and kill him summarily.''^ As a 

 matter of fact this seems generally to have been accomplished fairly speedily, 

 but in one case an outlaw returned to Wareham by night, and betook himself 

 to sanctuary in the church of St. Mary, whence he subsequently escaped, for 

 which escape the borough was fined by the justices at the next eyre.''* 



On more than one occasion, however, such pursuit ended disastrously for 

 the pursuer. In one instance an outlaw, who had been harboured for three 

 weeks by the bailiff of Hyde, attempted to return to his house at ' Whit- 

 clyve ' (in Rowbarrow Hundred) and was met by William son of Thomas, 

 who raised the hue and cry, and in company with Helyas le Bercher pur- 

 sued him and cut off his head. Thereupon Helyas, for some reason un- 

 specified — possibly for fear of the bailiff, who had befriended his victim — took 

 fright and iied. It was probably well for him that he did so, for the coroner 

 came and viewed the body of the dead man and gave William son of Thomas 

 over to the sheriff as a felon, whereupon he was detained in prison nearly a 

 year," and it was not until the justices in eyre visited the county again that 

 full justice was done upon the bailiff, and Helyas was given leave to return 

 from his voluntary exile if he chose. On another occasion several men lay in 

 wait for an outlaw whom they knew to be concealed in the house of a 

 certain Robert le Melliere of Stafford, but their victim showed fight and 

 slew one of his would-be captors. Subsequently he was captured elsewhere 

 and hanged, and Robert fled because he had concealed him." 



The presentment of crimes and accidents at the county court lay with 

 the vills," but before the justices presentments were made by the jurors of the 



'* Assize R. 201, m. 4. " Ibid. 201, m. i, &c. 



^ Ibid. 206, m. 3, 4. " Ibid. 201, m. I. 



™ Ibid. 212 m. 7. " Ibid. m. I. " Ibid. m. 10 d-. " Ibid. m. 7. 



■* Ibid. 201, m. 5 </.; cf. R. 206, m. 7, where the vill of Shaftesbury was fined for receiving outlaws. 



" Ibid. 212, m. I. " Ibid. 206, m. 14. " Ibid. 201, m. i, 5. 



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