[379] For the injuries that might be inflicted on a community by a lord’s reeve, see Select Pleas in Manorial Courts, Selden Society.
[380] If the lord of the soil held the town as a market-town, and not as a borough, the inhabitants had to attend the Sheriff’s tourn, where their petty offences were judged by him or his deputy. In all cases which were not specially exempted they had to appear also twice a year at the court of the shire for view of frank pledge and for judgment of their more serious crimes. Manchester Court Leet Records, 14.
[381] The coroner was an officer elected in full county court, and was charged with guarding the interests of the Crown. His intrusion in the towns was much resented.
[382] When a robber from Bridport escaped from the town prison a set of girths or horse-nets was sent by the town to Dorchester to mitigate the sheriff’s anger.
[383] For abuses in appointing tax collectors, see Paston Letters, i. li.
[385] See Round’s Geoffrey de Mandeville, 361-3.
[388] This appears in the records of Gloucester. The scot-ale was a very common method of collecting money for other purposes. See Malmesbury, Gross, ii. 172, Newcastle (183), Wallingford (245), Winchester (253), Cambridge (358). It was an article of inquiry for Justices Itinerant in 1254. (417) Stubbs’ Charters, 258-259.
[389] Hundred Rolls, i. 49, 55. The jurors of Bridgenorth complained in 1221 that the sheriff’s bailiffs and the men of the country had committed to them the duty of following the trail of stolen cattle through their town and fined them if they failed, whereas they could not follow a trail through the middle of the town. Select Pleas of the Crown, Selden Society, 113.
[390] Piers Ploughman, Pass. iii. 59, 177, iv. 172.
[391] For the profits to be made in this business and its opportunities of fraud, see Winchelsea (Rot. Parl. i. 373). Sometimes the escheator divided the fines levied between himself and the King; in other cases the office was farmed out and the King took a fixed sum leaving the escheator a free hand to do what he pleased. In the towns the office was finally given to the mayor at a fixed salary. The Mayor of Norwich received as escheator £10; that is, an equal salary to that which he received as Mayor (Blomefield, iii. 179). As Mayor of the Staple he was given £20. (Ibid. iii. 94.)