SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



though 'affeered ' (or apportioned) by the whole body of suitors, came into the 

 lord's pockets, as did the money's worth of any instrument which had been 

 used to ' draw blood ' unlawfully. (A glayfe was worth 4^. ; a stick was ' of 

 no value.') Thus it is easy to understand the strictness with which the 

 lord tried to enforce the duty of ' suit of court ' upon his tenants no easy 

 task when big men like the priors of Gloucester and Llanthony were 

 included among the suitors. 1 Distraints for default of suit were almost as 

 common as distraints to do homage.* Fines, it is true, were more often to 

 be counted by pence than by shillings, but altogether they amounted to a 

 respectable sum, and were by far the most frequent punishment. 'Infangtheof,' 

 or the right to hang offenders, was a special franchise, 8 and even then could 

 only be exercised if the thief were caught ' hand-having ' or the murderer 

 * red-handed ' ; lesser crimes were occasionally dealt with by the pillory or 

 the tumbrel (ducking-stool). According to the returns of the Hundred Rolls 

 and Placita Quo Warranto (1273 and 127 5), a gallows was possessed by some 

 forty-five manors, a pillory by thirteen, and a tumbrel by sixteen.* 



Of these instruments of punishment the gallows, at any rate, became 

 more\and more an article not for use but for adornment, as royal justice 

 gradually extended its scope. For seignorial franchises of this extended kind 

 by no means tended towards the maintenance of law. The Hundred Rolls 

 teem with complaints of the oppressive way in which they were exercised.' 

 'The bailiff of Slaughter has held a court, and, when contradicted by the 

 suitors, shut the gates, and killed three of them.'* 'The liberties of 

 Cheltenham, Slaughter, and Salmonsbury,' say the jurors of Holford and 

 Gretestan, ' hinder common justice and subvert the royal power, because 

 they obey neither the itinerant justices nor the King's servants.' 7 ' The bishop 

 of Worcester holds the Hundred Court of Henbury, where he amerces men, 

 rich or poor, strong or weak, free or serf, not, as is fitting, according to the 

 amount of his crime, the assessment of his neighbours, nor by the form of 

 the Great Charter, but at the will of his bailiff.' 8 



Forest privileges were abused by the earls of Sudleye * and Gloucester, 10 

 and the retainers of the latter magnate were uncontrolled in their misdeeds, to 

 judge by an exciting story in the Hundred Rolls. The earl of Gloucester's 

 men were stopping in Camden, and sent two grooms to get hay for their 

 horses. On their way they met with lads and lasses jumping for doves, and 

 one of the grooms said one of the lasses was a good jumper, and should have 

 doves from him. Two jealous swains, resenting the interference, seized on 

 the doves, called him a liar, and knocked him down. Thereon arose a fray 

 between the earl's retainers and the young men of Camden and Weston, 

 who, infuriated at the death of one of their party by an arrow, drove back 

 the earl's men, and imprisoned two of them till the slayer should be 

 delivered. In the end, however, the villagers got the worst of it, for the 



1 Ct. R. portf. 175, Nos. 25 and 44. ' Ibid. No. 7. 



' Objections raised against the claim of Tewkesbury Abbey to exercise this franchise led to an inter- 

 minable dispute between the abbot and the earl of Gloucester over the hanging of a certain 'John Milksop' 

 in 1249 ; Jinn. Montut. (Rolls Ser.), i, Introd. p. zzii-iii. 



4 These statistics are worked out Mr. J. Latimer, Britt. and GIouc. Arch. Soe. Trans, vol. zii. 



1 The period of which the Hundred Rolls treat was of course exceptional, but they show the extent to 

 which the barons, when uncontrolled, abused their franchises. * Hund. R. Glouc. i, m. I. 



1 Ibid. 4, ra. I. Ibid. , m. i. 



' Ibid. 5. * Ibid. extr. Glouc. 3, m. 19. 



