I had intended to
examine carefully the entries of crime for this neighbourhood for the
year 1286, and to give you the result this evening, but I have not
had an opportunity of doing so. The work has been done for the
hundred of North Erpingham by my friend Mr. Rye, and what is true for
one part of Norfolk during any single year is not likely to be very
different from what was going on in another.
The picture we get of the utter lawlessness of the whole county,
however, at the beginning of King Edward's reign is quite dreadful
enough. Nobody seems to have resorted to the law to maintain a right
or redress a wrong, till every other method had been tried. Starting
with the squires, if I may use the term, and those well-to-do people
who ought to have been among the most law-abiding members of the
community--we find them setting an example of violence and rapacity,
bad to read of. One of the most common causes of offence was when the
lord of the manor attempted to invade the rights of the tenants of
the manor by setting up a fold on the heath, or _Bruary_ as it
was called. What the lord was inclined to do, that the tenants would
try to do also, as when in 1272 John de Swanton set up a fold in the
common fields at Billingford; whereupon the other tenants pulled it
down, and there was a serious disturbance, and the matter dragged on
in the law courts for four years and more.
Pages:
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102