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ourselves, or in our absence abroad our chief justice, will send two |
justices to each county four times a year, and these justices, with |
four knights of the county elected by the county itself, shall hold the |
assizes in the county court, on the day and in the place where the |
court meets. |
(19) If any assizes cannot be taken on the day of the county court, as |
many knights and freeholders shall afterwards remain behind, of those |
who have attended the court, as will suffice for the administration of |
justice, having regard to the volume of business to be done. |
(20) For a trivial offence, a free man shall be fined only in |
proportion to the degree of his offence, and for a serious offence |
correspondingly, but not so heavily as to deprive him of his |
livelihood. In the same way, a merchant shall be spared his |
merchandise, and a husbandman the implements of his husbandry, if they |
fall upon the mercy of a royal court. None of these fines shall be |
imposed except by the assessment on oath of reputable men of the |
neighbourhood. |
(21) Earls and barons shall be fined only by their equals, and in |
proportion to the gravity of their offence. |
(22) A fine imposed upon the lay property of a clerk in holy orders |
shall be assessed upon the same principles, without reference to the |
value of his ecclesiastical benefice. |
(23) No town or person shall be forced to build bridges over rivers |
except those with an ancient obligation to do so. |
(24) No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other royal officials are to |
hold lawsuits that should be held by the royal justices. |
(25) Every county, hundred, wapentake, and tithing shall remain at its |
ancient rent, without increase, except the royal demesne manors. |
(26) If at the death of a man who holds a lay ‘fee’ of the Crown, a |
sheriff or royal official produces royal letters patent of summons for |
a debt due to the Crown, it shall be lawful for them to seize and list |
movable goods found in the lay ‘fee’ of the dead man to the value of |
the debt, as assessed by worthy men. Nothing shall be removed until the |
whole debt is paid, when the residue shall be given over to the |
executors to carry out the dead man’s will. If no debt is due to the |
Crown, all the movable goods shall be regarded as the property of the |
dead man, except the reasonable shares of his wife and children. |
(27) If a free man dies intestate, his movable goods are to be |
distributed by his next-of-kin and friends, under the supervision of |
the Church. The rights of his debtors are to be preserved. |
(28) No constable or other royal official shall take corn or other |
movable goods from any man without immediate payment, unless the seller |
voluntarily offers postponement of this. |
(29) No constable may compel a knight to pay money for castle-guard if |
the knight is willing to undertake the guard in person, or with |
reasonable excuse to supply some other fit man to do it. A knight taken |
or sent on military service shall be excused from castle-guard for the |
period of this service. |
(30) No sheriff, royal official, or other person shall take horses or |
carts for transport from any free man, without his consent. |
(31) Neither we nor any royal official will take wood for our castle, |
or for any other purpose, without the consent of the owner. |
(32) We will not keep the lands of people convicted of felony in our |
hand for longer than a year and a day, after which they shall be |
returned to the lords of the ‘fees’ concerned. |
(33) All fish-weirs shall be removed from the Thames, the Medway, and |
throughout the whole of England, except on the sea coast. |
(34) The writ called precipe shall not in future be issued to anyone in |
respect of any holding of land, if a free man could thereby be deprived |
of the right of trial in his own lord’s court. |
(35) There shall be standard measures of wine, ale, and corn (the |
London quarter), throughout the kingdom. There shall also be a standard |
width of dyed cloth, russett, and haberject, namely two ells within the |
selvedges. Weights are to be standardised similarly. |
(36) In future nothing shall be paid or accepted for the issue of a |
writ of inquisition of life or limbs. It shall be given gratis, and not |
refused. |
(37) If a man holds land of the Crown by ‘fee-farm’, ‘socage’, or |
‘burgage’, and also holds land of someone else for knight’s service, we |
will not have guardianship of his heir, nor of the land that belongs to |
the other person’s ‘fee’, by virtue of the ‘fee-farm’, ‘socage’, or |
‘burgage’, unless the ‘fee-farm’ owes knight’s service. We will not |
have the guardianship of a man’s heir, or of land that he holds of |
someone else, by reason of any small property that he may hold of the |
Crown for a service of knives, arrows, or the like. |
(38) In future no official shall place a man on trial upon his own |
unsupported statement, without producing credible witnesses to the |
truth of it. |
(39) No free man shall be seized or imprisoned, or stripped of his |
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