Part 18 (2/2)

”And they say that this is done with the following end in view, namely, that a general penalty of this kind might make it safe for the pa.s.sers-by, and that each person might hasten to punish so great a crime and to give up to justice him through whom so enormous a loss fell on the whole neighbourhood.”--Henderson's ”Select Doc.u.ments,” p. 66.

[11] In Norman times the prosecutor was compensated _twofold_ out of the chattels of the tried and convicted thief; the rest of his goods went to the King.

[12] Except in the matter of succession. See p. 219.

[13] ”Common town bargains” were the rule also at Dublin.

[14] This and the whole of the following evidence, with few exceptions, was derived from the appendices to the reports of the Munic.i.p.al Corporations Commission of 1835; and it is not likely that the state of things thus revealed continues, in all cases, to exist.

[15] ”Obviously strips in the common arable field” (Cunningham).

[16] It is difficult to estimate the proportion of bond to free; Seebohm holds that the former comprised the bulk of the population.

[17] For the cultivation of the demesne, perhaps a fourth of the entire manor.

[18] It is impossible within our present limits to specify the relative duties of this formidable array of officers and serving-men, although materials for the task are available, notably in ”The Booke of Orders and Rules” of Anthony Viscount Montague, printed in vol. vii. of the ”Suss.e.x Archaeological Collections.” From this we learn that the Steward was expected to keep a ”perfect checkroll” of his lords.h.i.+p's household and retainers in order that he might ”with more certainty make the proportion of liveries and badges for them.” Yeomen waiters attended their master in the streets of London and at his table there in their liveries, with handsome swords or rapiers at their sides; and this was also the rule in the country at the solemn feasts of Christmas, Easter, and Whitsuntide, and on other special occasions. When the Lord and Lady went a journey, the Steward and all the higher members of the household rode immediately in front of them, and the Gentlemen Usher led the cavalcade bareheaded through towns and cities.

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