SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



rights of protest to the villein or the inhabitants generally, hence much 

 inclosure must have taken place to the injury of these people. 



An interesting example of the summary method of dealing with 

 'manifest felons ' occurs in the records of the Staffordshire Assizes in 1273. 



The jury of the hundred of Seisdon presented that Roger de Reyneyde was arrested 

 upon suspicion of robbery and delivered to William , Peter, etc. to convey him to Bridg- 

 north, and the said Roger escaped from their custody, and the said William and others 

 followed him and cut off his head and brought it to Stafford. His chattels are worth 22d. t 

 and the jurors say he was a robber and a malefactor. 59 



The first mention of a jury in criminal matters occurs in 1204 at 

 Lichfield, 80 and numerous entries show the corporate responsibility of the 

 hundreds for crime in their midst. 



Thus in 1 1 74 we are told that nine murders in Offlow Hundred had 

 been assessed by the itinerant justices at the rate of one mark each, 61 and next 

 year the ' tithing ' of Newbold was fined half a mark for the sins of one Brun 

 of Newbold, an escaped felon whose chattels the sheriff had sold for five 

 shillings. 63 Many examples might be given of the mediaeval custom of valuing 

 the instrument of death, whether accidental or deliberate, and exacting the 

 money from the owner or the locality implicated, as a payment or ' deodand ' to 

 the king. For instance, the vill of Weston upon Trent is chargeable ' for a 

 sword with which John Gardyner had been feloniously killed by Stephen Benet 

 of Creswalle four shillings.' Likewise the vill of Leek has to pay 2s. 6d., 

 the value of a horse which was the cause of death of a certain Adam, killed 

 by accident. 63 



The number of private individuals who had the right to hang thieves on 

 a private gallows in the fourteenth century seems to have been considerable, 

 and included the priors of Stone, Trentham, and Lapley, as well as the abbot 

 of Burton, whilst the claims of the bishop of Lichfield and Coventry, and of 

 the dean and chapter of Penkridge, were under consideration at the time when 

 Edward I made his famous inquiry into feudal jurisdictions in the interests of 

 national justice. 64 



With regard to wages and prices of provisions in mediaeval Stafford- 

 shire the evidence is rather scanty, but there is enough to enable us to 

 gather some general idea as to the changes in these between the eleventh 

 century and the fifteenth, though not enough to warrant the drawing of any 

 definite conclusions as to the local variations in the county. The rent of 

 land was fairly steady during this time, and may be taken as 6d. per acre, 

 rising to 8</. for specially good land, and falling to 4^. for poor soil. 



At Tutbury in 1257 a q uarter of wheat could be bought for 4^. 4</. 65 

 A little later, in 1294, it was sold at 3^. 4^. per quarter at Stafford; 66 

 at the same time a chicken could be bought for a halfpenny, and two 

 oxen for i5/. at Wolverhampton. 67 In Berkeswich (Baswich) manor wheat 

 varied from 3^. to 4^. per quarter in I3I2. 68 About the same time a 



The Will. Salt Arch. Sac. Coll. iii, 1 8. M Ibid, iii, 98. 



61 Ibid, i, 75 ; Pipe R. 21 Hen. II. " Ibid, i, 76 ; Pipe R. 21 Hen. II. 



88 Ibid, xvii, 1 3 ; quoted in extracts from Plea R. Lichfield, East, z Hen. V. 

 " Ibid, vi (i), 243-9. " Mins. Accts. 40-1 Hen. Ill, bdle. 1094, No. 1 1. 



66 Bailiff's Acct. ; quoted in The Will. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. vi (2), 71. " Ibid. 72. 



48 MSS. pertaining to the D. and C. of Lichfield, N. i. 



285 



