England Court Records: Difference between revisions

|Rating=Acceptable

:*''Reeve'' or local manager particularly concerned with weights and measures at the market.  

:*''Hayward ''who looked after hedges, fences and straying cattle.  

:*''Beadle'' who acted as a court summoner, kept order and headed processions.  

:*''Constables ''acted as the policemen, placing offenders in the local lock-up until tried, and had many other duties.  

:*''Aletasters (aleconners)'' determined the quality of beverages.  

:*''Affeerors'' who assessed the value of penalties imposed by the court.

:*Petty theft, especially of farm implements and produce.  

:*Failing to do their allotted duties in respect to communal facilities such as Streams, hedges, paths, bridges, harvest, carting stones for highway etc.  

:*Obstruction of roads and watercourses, like digging a hole in the road or damming a stream to make a mill pond.  

:*Allowing buildings to decay or having dangerous chimneys.  

:*Grazing too many animals.  

:*Letting their animals stray.  

:*Cutting wood to which they were not entitled.  

:*Domestic violence or desertion.  

:*Drunkenness, fighting and quarrels, even youths loitering on street corners in the evenings (so what else is new!)  

:*Building on the manor wastes.  

:*Bawdiness.  

:*Eavesdropping.  

:*Gossiping.  

:*Failing to maintain the watch or the hue-and-cry (to catch offenders).  

:*Breaking the assize of bread by selling underweight loaves.  

:*Breaking the assize of ale be selling weak beer, short measure, adding salt to the liquid to increase the thirst of drinkers, selling on Sundays or by unlicensed people.  

:*Butchers were fined for blowing air into the arteries of venison to give a plumper look.

:*Organization of communal agriculture.  

:*Scouring of ditches.  

:*Use of public wells.  

:*Muzzling of mastiffs (large dogs).<br>