Assize matters: Regulation of the price of bread in medieval London
2006; Routledge; Volume: 27; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/01440360600601862
ISSN1744-0564
Autores Tópico(s)Medieval and Early Modern Justice
ResumoThis article deals with the regulation of the price and weight of bread in medieval London, drawing mainly on the manuscript Liber de Assisa Panis. It concludes that, at least in the fourteenth century, and particularly in the reign of Edward II, there is evidence of determined and robust attempts to make the regulations work, with a variety of different tactics and techniques, and with important participation by high-status individuals in the city in the setting and enforcing of the regulations and the punishment of offenders. Acknowledgments I am grateful to the anonymous reviewers for their helpful and sensible comments on an earlier version of this article. Notes 2LAP, fo.129a. 1Corporation of London Record Office MS CUST 4 Liber de Assisa Panis (hereafter LAP). See H.T. Riley, ed., Liber Albus, Translation of the Anglo-Norman passages with Glossary, Appendices and Index, London, 1862, x. One of the appendices to this volume contains extracts from the Liber de Assisa Panis, mostly reports of offences. See P.E. Jones and R. Smith, A Guide to the Records in the Corporation of London Record Office and the Guildhall Library Muniment Room, 1951, 23. 3See, in particular, C.M. Barron, London in the Later Middle Ages: Government and People 1200–1500, Oxford, 2004; P. Tucker, ‘London's Courts of Law in the Fifteenth Century, the Litigants' Perspective’, in C.W. Brooks and M. Lobban, eds., Communities and Courts in Britain 1150–1900, London, 1997, 25–41; P. Tucker, ‘The Early History of Chancery: a Comparative Study’, 115 English Historical Review (2000), 791; D.E.S. Dunn, ed., Courts, Counties and the Capital in the Later Middle Ages, Far Thrupp, 1996. 4G. Seabourne, Royal Regulation of Loans and Sales in Medieval England, Woodbridge, 2003, especially ch.2. On the victualling industry and artisans and the civic authorities, see, e.g., H. Swanson, Medieval Artisans: an Urban Class in Late-Medieval England, Oxford, 1989, chs.2 and 9. 5The Liber de Assisa Panis mentions similar exercises set in 1264–65: LAP, fo.2a. London continued to produce records of calculations of the assize of bread in the sixteenth century, and long afterwards, though those records are of a rather different nature: F. Nicholas, ‘The Assize of Bread in London during the Sixteenth Century’, 2 Economic History (1932), 323–347, 323. Also relevant are a few scattered entries in fourteenth-century compilations Letter-Books A, B and D, in the Corporation of London Record Office. These collections appear to have been part of the same recording initiative. They will be cited in the form LBA, LBB, etc., and the calendars (R.R. Sharpe, ed., Calendars of Letter Books Preserved Among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London: Calendars of Letter-Books A–L, London, 1885–1912) will be cited in the form CLBA, CLBB, etc. A.H. Thomas, ed., Calendar of Early Mayor's Court Rolls preserved among the Archives of the Corporation of the City of London at the Guildhall A.D. 1298–1307, Cambridge, 1924, will be cited as CEMCR. The relevant sections in the Letter-Books are: CLBA, 207, 215, 216; LBA, fos.110–129 (assize for 5–20 Edw. I); LBB, fos.85–89 (26–29 Edw. I); CLBD, 311, fos.170–190 (3–10 Edw. II). Both the Letter-Books and the Liber de Assisa Panis itself used earlier sources of information which do not, apparently, survive. Reference is made to records made by chamberlains of London: LBA, fo.53a; LBD, fo.176a. The Liber de Assisa Panis and associated material record events from the return to England of Edward I in 1274, a similar point to that at which other records series begin, see, e.g., G.A. Williams, Medieval London: From Commune to Capital, London, 1963, ch.9, ‘The Intervention of Edward I 1270–99’; Barron, London, 9. This homecoming may have signalled a fresh start in London's enforcement of the assize of bread, and new initiatives in record keeping, after the apparent lack of proper enforcement of assizes at the end of the reign of Henry III: T. Stapleton, ed., De Antiquis Legibus Liber. Cronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum (Camden Society, first series, vol.34), London, 1846, 123, 159, 167; Williams, Medieval London, ch.8, ‘The Crisis of 1263–70’, and ch.9. 6As is necessarily the case with an article on a topic touching a number of different areas of historical study, there are matters which cannot be covered here for reasons of length. In particular, little will be said about the interesting questions of price regulation as an aspect of gender and ‘class’ relations in the period, the detailed interplay of law and economics in medieval England, and the relationship between prices and wages. It would, for example, be of interest to economic historians to compare bread weights set in London with the various possible interpretations of the ‘paper’ formulae. There is also a mass of information in the Liber de Assisa Panis about the actual size of loaves examined. The use of such records to prove anything definitive about the economic utility of price regulation is, however, neither straightforward nor particularly reliable: Seabourne, Royal Regulation, 15–18; 106–117. The records could also be useful in a study of the activities of women workers in medieval England, particularly given the recurrent appearances of the women of Stratford and other women regratresses as sellers of deficient bread, and intriguing cases such as that of Margery de Jernemuthe, who, in 1305, was banned from ‘meddling in the office’ [of baker] because she was a (married?) woman: LAP, fo.22a. On medieval women, see, e.g., P.J.P. Goldberg, Women in England c.1275–1525, Manchester, 1995, and, on London women, C.M. Barron, ‘The “Golden Age” of Women in Medieval London’, 15 Reading Medieval Studies (1989), 35–58; C.M. Barron and A.F. Sutton, eds., Medieval London Widows 1300–1500, London, 1994. 7For this term, see A. Hunt, Governance of the Consuming Passions: a History of Sumptuary Law, Basingstoke, 1996. A considerable amount of work has been done on pricing laws and their enforcement, particularly on the assize of ale: for references, see Seabourne, Royal Regulation, ch.2 and pp.12–18. For the European context, see L. Zylbergeld, ‘Les régulations du marché du pain au XIIIe siècle en occident et l'“Assize of Bread” de 1266–1267 pour l'Angleterre’, in J.-M. Duvosquel and A. Dierkens, eds., Villes et campagnes au moyen âge: mélanges Georges Despy, Liege, 1991, 791–814. 8R.H. Britnell, The Commercialization of English Society 1000–1500, 2nd ed., Manchester, 1996, 26, 94–95; J.M. Bennett, Ale, Beer and Brewsters in England: Women's Work in a Changing World 1300–1600, New York and Oxford, 1996, 99–100; Seabourne, Royal Regulation, ch.2; F. Sargeant, ‘The Wine Trade with Gascony’, in G. Unwin, ed., Finance and Trade under Edward III, Manchester, 1918. 9Seabourne, Royal Regulation, ch.3 and pp.73–82; 122–124; B.H. Putnam, The Enforcement of the Statute of Labourers during the First Decade after the Black Death, New York, 1908, S.A.C. Penn and C. Dyer, ‘Wages and Earnings in Late Medieval England: Evidence from the Enforcement of the Labour Laws’, 43 Economic History Review 2nd series (1990), 356–376; A.J. Frantzen and D. Moffat, eds., The Work of Work, Servitude, Slavery and Labor in Medieval England, Glasgow, 1994, 206–228; E. Clark, ‘Medieval Labor Law in English Local Courts’, 27 American Journal of Legal History (1983), 330–333; S.A. Epstein, ‘The Theory and Practice of the Just Wage’, 17 Journal of Medieval History (1991), 53–70; L.R. Poos, ‘The Social Context of Statute of Labourers Enforcement’, 1 Law and History Review (1983), 30; S.A. Epstein, Wage Labor and Guilds in Medieval Europe, Chapel Hill and London, 1991; J. Bothwell, P.J.P. Goldberg and W.M. Ormrod, eds., The Problem of Labour in Fourteenth Century England, York, 2000; A. Musson, ‘New Labour Laws, New Remedies? Legal Reaction to the Black Death “Crisis”’, in N. Saul, ed., Fourteenth Century England I, Woodbridge, 2000, 73–88. 10Bread: S.L. Thrupp, A Short History of the Worshipful Company of Bakers, Croydon, 1933, 12–39; CLBG, 174 fo.135, CLBH, 106 fo.96b; CLBG, 225 fo.261b. Wine, e.g. CLBI, 151 fo.166; T.H. Riley, ed., Memorials of London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth and XVth Centuries, London, 1868, 180, LBE, fo.221; CLBG, 4; CLBG, 5 fo.3b; CLBG, 129 fo.92b; CLBG, 148 fo.107; CLBG, 255 fo.238b; CLBG, 311 fo.306b; CLBG, 318 fo.312b; CLBG, 311 fo.306b; CLBH, 27 fo.35; CLBH, 214 fo.164; CLBH, 323 fo.224b; CLBH, 365 fo.260; CLBI, 35 fo.33b; CLBK, 16 fo.10b; CLBI, 71 fo.76b; CLBG, 145 fo.103b; CLBG, 260 fo.244b; CLBG, 318 fo.312b; CLBH, 108 fo.97; CLBI, 151 fo.166. Ale: CLBA, 215 fos.129b–130 (1276–78); LBC, fo.86 (1305); LBD, fos.155b–159b (1312?) printed Liber Custumarum, 280–282, again recorded in Riley, ed., Liber Albus, 260–280; CLBF, 189 fo.161b (1337); CLBG 4 (1352–53); CLBG, 52 fo.41b (?date); CLBG, 148 fo.107 (1362–63); CLBG, 197 fo.164b (1364); CLBG, 255 fo.238b (1369); CLBG, 260 fo.244b (1369–70); CLBG, 270–271, fos.259b–260 (1370); CLBG, 311 fo.306b (1373); CLBH 3 fos.14–16 (1375); CLBH, 121 fo.107b (1379); CLBL, 178 fo.160b (1481). Ale and wine, see, e.g. CLBE, 219 fo.175b. 11The civic authorities had regulated the way in which the price of grain was arrived at from the time of Edward I: Barron, London, 58; R.H. Britnell, ‘Price Setting in English Borough Markets 1349–1500’, 31 Canadian Journal of History (1996), 1–15; B.M.S. Campbell, J.A. Galloway, D. Keene and M. Murphy, A Medieval Capital and its Grain Supply: Agrarian Production and Distribution in the London Region c. 1300, London, 1993. See also CLBH, 3 fos.14–16 (1375). 12CLBG, 242 (no date); CLBH, 69 fo.68b (1377). 13CLBH, 108 fo.97 (1378). 14CLBI, 44 fo.47 (1405). 15CEMCR, 60, 61; Meat prices: (1360–61) CLBG, 139 fo.100b; CLBH, 61 fo.59 (1377); CLBH, 257 fo.187 (1384–85). London had laws regulating the price of poultry from at least 1345: CLBF, 123 fo.101b; CLBG, 148 fo.107. Some had some royal inspiration, such as an ordinance made ‘on the king's behalf’, regulating the price of poultry, rabbits and eggs: CLBG, 273 fo.262. Municipal proclamations and ordinances on poultry and meat prices: CLBH, 110 fos.98–99 (1378), CLBI, 35 fo.33b, 43 fo.42 (1403–04), (also lamb prices), CLBI, 151 fo.166 (1370), CLBG, 270–271 fos.259b–260, CLBI, 35 fo.33b. There are examples of these laws being enforced in CLBH, 326 fo.226b (1388); (1416), RM 643. Hostelers: CLBG, 300 fo.295 (1372); CLBH, 27 fo.35 (1376); LBG, fo.255 (1371). Examples of laws being enforced: (1382), RM, 460, LBH, fo.113; CLBH, 257 fo.187 (1384–85). 16On problems with ‘national’ and ‘local’ as categories, see Seabourne, Royal Regulation, 6–7. 17Williams, Medieval London, 76, M.E. Basile, J.F. Bestor, D.R. Coquillette and C. Donahue, eds., Lex Mercatoria and Legal Pluralism: A Late Thirteenth-Century Treatise and its Afterlife, Cambridge, MA, 1998, 112. This area has recently seen an important study: Barron, London. 18Barron, London, 26–27, 47. 19For example, the ‘basic commercial law’ of London had elements both of civic and royal impetus. City customs were codified by Mayor Gregory de Rokesle 1274–80, and amended after scrutiny by the royal officers who took over the city in 1285: Williams, Medieval London, 76, 232–255, ch.9; C. Walford, ‘Early Laws and Customs of Great Britain regarding Food’, 8 Transactions of the Royal Historical Society new series (1880), 70, 71. Note that London was not alone in being ‘taken into the King's hand’: see Swanson, Medieval Artisans, 120. 20Barron, London, 2, 161 and ch.7. 21See further below. 22 Statutes of the Realm, vol.1, 199; A. Ross, ‘The Assize of Bread’, 9 Economic History Review 2nd series (1956–57), 332–342; Britnell, Commercialization, 94 ff. Later versions: Fleta, Book 2 c.9, c.12; Liber Horn, fo.121b; 13 Ric. II, st.1 c.8 (1389–90), Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 63. See J. Davis, ‘Baking for the Common Good: a Reassessment of the Assize of Bread in Medieval England’, 57 Economic History Review (2004), 465–502, 465. Regulations for the weight of bread were made in London – though by whom is unclear – from the reign of John: M. Bateson, ‘A London Municipal Collection of the Reign of John’, 17 English Historical Review (1902), 480–509, 707–730. 23 Statutes of the Realm, vol.1, 199. It seems that there was a published, ‘royal national’ assize of ale from at least 1256: R.D. Connor, The Weights and Measures of England, London, 1987, 194. 24Bennett, Ale, 100; Britnell, Commercialization, 26. See LAP, fo.3a and Calendar of the Patent Rolls 1377–81, 335 (1379). 25 Statutes of the Realm, vol.1, 201. R.H. Britnell, ‘Forstall, Forestalling and the Statute of Forestallers’, 102 English Historical Review (1987), 89–102, 94–96. 26H.G. Richardson and G.O. Sayles, eds., Fleta, vol.2 (Selden Society vol.72), London, 1955, Book 2 c.9, c.12; H.E. Salter, Medieval Archives of the University of Oxford, Oxford, 1920 and 1921, 129; F.B. Bickley, ed., The Little Red Book of Bristol, vol.1, Bristol, 1900, 217 fos.187b–191b, 236–237 fo.206b, and inside back cover; for discussion of this collection, see Basile et al., Lex Mercatoria, 118, 189–203; 13 Ric. II, st.1 c.8, Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 63; Statutes of the Realm, vol.1, 202; Liber Horn fo.121b. N.R. Ker, Medieval Manuscripts in British Libraries, Oxford, 1969, vol.1, 17–34. Some variations in the ‘royal assizes’ during the reign of Henry III have been noted: Zylbergeld, ‘Les régulations’, 794; Britnell, Commercialization, 95; P.R. Coss, The Early Records of Medieval Coventry, London, 1986, 41–42. 27Ross, ‘Assize’, 332; R. de Roover, ‘The Concept of the Just Price: Theory and Economic Policy’, 18 Journal of Economic History (1958), 418–438, 429; Davis, ‘Baking for the Common Good’. 28Method of calculating the relevant price of wheat: 13 Ric. II, c.8, Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 63. 29Arithmetical slips noted in calculations of the assize: Ross, ‘Assize’, 339–341. Criticism of strategy of varying weight rather than price: De Roover, ‘Just Price’, 429; Nicholas, ‘Assize of Bread’, 325–326. J. Davis, The Representation, Regulation and Behaviour of Petty Traders in Late Medieval Europe, thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, 2000, 185–194, interprets the assize scheme and its rationale in a different manner. Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, App. II. The best treatment of these issues is to be found in Davis, ‘Baking for the Common Good’. 30The LAP contains four versions of the assize of bread, worked out for varying ranges of wheat prices: fo.3a assize ‘iuxta regale anglie’; fo.4a ‘assayam regale’; fo.37a no label; fo.54a ‘assayum regale’. These are all fairly consistent with the formula of the ‘royal assize’ in Statutes of the Realm. The assaium iuxta regale anglie, LAP fo.3a, notes that the first coket is to weigh wastel + 2s, the second, wastel + 5s; a simnel is to weigh wastel – 2s; a farthing ‘turte integer’ is to weigh 1.5 x cocket; ‘trait’, which is identified with ‘panis bissus’ is to weigh wastel x 2, and ‘bread of any type of grain’ is also to weigh wastel x 2. On weights and measures, see Connor, The Weights and Measures of England. 31LAP, fo.1b (virtually exact copy in Liber Albus Book III Part III, fo.214b, Rolls Series vol.3, 349–351). 32See, e.g., reference to such a scheme in twelfth-century Liege: Zylbergeld, ‘Les régulations’, 798–799. 33LAP, fo.1b. 34The quantity is unspecified, but the evidence of actual assays shows that one quarter of wheat was used for each type of bread. 35Nicholas, ‘Assize of Bread’, 329. See also: Davis, ‘Baking for the Common Good’, 475. 36LBA, fo.111a. 37CLBD, 243 fo.114b. 38The ‘other assize of white bread of the city of London’: LAP, fo.2a, Liber Albus fo.215a, pp.351–353. (Note that the method for dealing with a decrease in the price of wheat is in the Liber de Assisa Panis version, but not the Liber Albus version.) 39More than one assay of white bread was certainly carried out in 1290–91, 1297–98, 1304–05, 1308–09, 1310–11, 1314–15. 40LBA, fo.111a, fo.111b. 41CLBD, 243. fo.114b. 42Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, table 18 shows sharp rise in wheat price from 1289–90 to 1290–91 (on pavement, from 5.93d to 9.62d per quarter). It has also been noted that there may have been an increase in mortality in 1291, J. Röhrkasten, ‘Trends of Mortality in Late Medieval London 1348–1400’, Nottingham Medieval Studies (2001), 172–209, 184. 43CLBD, 243. fo.114b. 44LBD, fo.185b. An entry relating to the assize of white bread in that year has a memorandum that this is the third time there has been an assay this year, and that it is necessary ‘pro utilitate communis populi’ and because the previous assays were not made with ‘competent’ wheat. 45See, e.g., LBD, fo.175b. 46See e.g. the assize of white bread from 1327 on LAP, fo.81b. The assayers were sworn on a Saturday and went to buy the wheat for the assay the following Wednesday. 47See, e.g., LAP, fo.117b. 48 Liber Albus, 349, fo.214b; Riley translates this ‘chosen’. On other civic officials, see Barron, London, chs.7 and 8. 49Henry le Bole and Gilbert de Morden, for example were active as cornmongers: Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, 109; The National Archives: Public Record Office, E 101/368/23. 50Compare Liber de Assisa Panis and Letter-Books with standard reference tools on London officials: A.B. Beaven, The Aldermen of the City of London, 2 vols., London, 1908, vol.1, to 1400, 100, 377–390, Barron, London, appendices, including appendix on mayors and sheriffs by A. Lancashire, 324–361. 51This group includes Andrew Horn, an assayer at several dates from 1312 to 1327. 52E.g. Gilbert de Stayndrop, goldsmith, was an assayer in 1341 and 1350 and a sheriff in 1351–52. 53John de Preston, mayor 1332–33, had been an assayer 1314–15; James Andreu, mayor 1367–68, had been an assayer in 1352; John Hadle, mayor 1375–76, was an assayer in 1369. 54On the importance of bread, and types of bread, see, e.g. H.E. Hallam, ‘The Life of the People’, in J. Thirsk and H.E. Hallam, eds., The Agrarian History of England and Wales, Cambridge, 1988, 818–853, 830–838; W.E. Mead, The English Medieval Feast, London, 1931, 66–69; B.A. Henisch, Fast and Feast: Food in Medieval Society, University Park, 1976, 155–159; C. Anne Wilson, Food and Drink in Britain from the Stone Age to Recent Times, London, 1973, 1997 printing, 241–253; Ross, ‘Assize’, 333. 55Barron, London, 51, 57; Campbell et al., Medieval Capital. 56See, e.g., Barron, London, 14, 23–24; R. Bird, The Turbulent London of Richard II, London, 1949; Williams, Medieval London, ch.8, 272–276, 295–297. 57S.L. Thrupp, The Merchant Class of Medieval London, London, 1948, 94. The aleconner, ‘may have been an innovation in 1377’: Barron, London, 126; CLBH, 71; CPMR 1364–81, 256. 58A fifteenth century oath for ale-conners in London allowed them some discretion in setting price, but set maximum prices for some categories: CLBD, 201 fo.93b. 59Zylbergeld, ‘Les régulations’; E.H. Freshfield, ed. and trans., Roman Law in the Later Roman Empire: Byzantine Guilds, Professional and Commercial. Ordinances of Leo VI c. 895 from the Book of the Eparch, Cambridge, 1938, introduction and 41–43; H.R. Loyn and J. Percival, eds., The Reign of Charlemagne: Documents on Carolingian Government and Administration (Documents of Medieval History, vol.2), London, 1975, 58 no.4, Synod of Frankfurt 794. 60Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, 26 61LAP, fo.4a. Also in Liber Albus, fo.215, p.353, with a variation in the price of demeyne. ‘Spicebred’ was brought within the assize by the 1480s: CLBL, 175 fo.157. 62Thomas, ed., Calendar of Early Mayor's Court Rolls A.D. 1298–1307, 153, 155. 63LAP, fos.25b–30b. 64CLBE, 56 fo.44b. 65T.H. Riley, ed., Memorials of London Life in the XIIIth, XIVth, and XVth Centuries, London, 1868, 180; LBE, fo.221. 66Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, 80. 67Thrupp, Short History, 56, ch.4. See e.g. LAP, fo.13b, fo.40a. 68Barron, London, 36, Thrupp, Short History, 60. Problems with the Southwark bakers noted from the 1270s: CLBA, 215 fos.129b–130 (1276–78) and the 1390s: CLBH, 373 fo.265b. (?1391–92). 69D.J. Johnson, Southwark and the City, London, 1969, 388–389; M. Carlin, Medieval Southwark, London and Rio Grande, 1996, 119–127. 701321 petition of white-bakers to mayor: LAP, fo.60b; Thrupp, Short History, ch.5, LBG, fo.135, RM, 323. 71CLBF, 242 fo.208b. London was not alone in having powers related to the assize of bread. Enforcement had frequently been franchised out: Seabourne, Royal Regulation, 91–95. As far as the power to set prices is concerned, there is less information, though it is clear that some cities, such as Southampton and Bristol had such a power: See, e.g., P. Studer, ed., The Oak Book of Southampton of A.D. 1300, vol.1, Southampton, 1910, ordinance 29, p.43. 72Barron, London, 32; Stapleton, ed., De Antiquis Legibus Liber. Cronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum, 22–23. In a 1273 incident, the civic authorities were obliged to come and explain at the Exchequer why they had sacked a sheriff who had taken bribes from bakers: Barron, London, 37; Stapleton, ed., Cronica Maiorum et Vicecomitum Londoniarum, 162–163. 73See, e.g., the royal backing for (an) assize of bread in a proclamation of 1305 that no one enhance the price of victuals by reason of the presence of Parliament, or sell wine or bread or ale against the assize, and in a petition to Parliament by the civic authorities at the beginning of the reign of Richard II in 1377, asking for assistance against the mischief of bakers and victuallers breaking rules then fleeing to Southwark: RM, 56; LBC, fo.86; Rolls of Parliament: 19 (the government refused to allow London authorities jurisdiction there, but told the authorities of Southwark to enforce the assizes). There was relatively frequent disagreement about monopolies of Londoners as against foreigners, but general absence of conflict in the substance of bargain rules, with requests for assistance from the London authorities, or use of royal jurisdiction by them: see, e.g., Fitzherbert, La Graunde Abridgement, 1577, fo.9 no.26 (1309); or royal encouragement of London jurisdiction: G. Seabourne, ‘Controlling Commercial Morality: the London Usury Trials of 1421’, 19 Journal of Legal History (1998), 116–142. 74CLBH, 337 fo.236; Barron, London, 123. Few relevant records survive. CPMR 1364–81, 156–157; CPMR 1413–37, 115–141, 150–159. 75Thrupp, Short History, especially ch.2 and ch.3. 76Barron, London, 200. 77Thrupp, Short History, 41. Articles of the halimote: LAP, fo.2b. 78LAP, fo.10b. 79LAP, fo.114b. 80LAP, fo.114b. 81Thrupp, Short History, 44; Williams, Medieval London, 172. 82Barron, London, 5, 57, 58. 83CLBH, 337 fo.236. This was made at a time when the assizes were again being considered in the ‘national’ sphere: action against those selling at excessive prices was requested by the commons in the Cambridge Parliament of 1388. Although this request was not granted in its entirety, there was a reassertion of the place of corporal punishment for assize offenders (bread and ale) in a statute of 1389–90: L.C. Hector and B.F. Harvey, eds., The Westminster Chronicle 1381–94, Oxford, 1982, 357–369; 13 Ric. II, st.1 c.8, Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 63. For the political background to this period, see, e.g. M. McKisack, The Fourteenth Century 1307–99, Oxford, 1959, 281, 339, J.A. Tuck, ‘The Cambridge Parliament, 1388’, 84 English Historical Review (1969), 225–243. 84LBK, fo.111b. 85LBL, fo.122. 86CLBL, 143 fo.122. This request was granted: CLBL, 170 fo.152. 87CLBL, 175 fo.157. 88CLBL, 185 fo.167. 89See, e.g., LBD, fo.176a. 90Later records continue to note that the judgment was made before the mayor and aldermen. 91Economic historians may wish to compare these figures with the standard grain price indices: E.H. Phelps Brown and S.V. Hopkins, ‘Seven Centuries of the Prices of Consumables, compared with Builders’ Wage Rates', 1956, reprinted in E.H. Phelps Brown and S.V. Hopkins, A Perspective of Wages and Prices, London, 1981, 13–59. For reasons of length, it is impossible to consider this important matter here. 92J.L. Bolton, The Medieval English Economy, London, 1980, 181–182. There has been extensive discussion of this crisis by economic historians. See, e.g., C. Dyer, Standards of Living in the Later Middle Ages, Cambridge, 1989, 265–267; B.M.S. Campbell, ed., Before the Black Death: Studies in the ‘Crisis’ of the Early Fourteenth Century, Manchester, 1991. 93Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, 69 and table 18. 94Campbell et al., Medieval Capital, table 18. Note also the suggestion that there might have been an increase in mortality in 1308: Röhrkasten, ‘Trends of Mortality’, 184. 95Bolton, Medieval English Economy, 181. 96Williams, Medieval London, 5–6, 272–176, ch.11, 297–299. 97LAP, fo.39b (1316). 98See, e.g., LAP, fo.12b. The mayor, Henry le Waleys, is mentioned taking the bread of foreign bakers for inspection in 1298: LAP, fo.14a. 99Barron, London, 155; CEMCR vii, 57, 67, 133, 155. See Corporation of London Record Office MC 1/1–3A (these last manuscripts have not been examined for this article). 100Barron, London, 194. 101For the lack of records of sheriffs' work, see Barron, London, 161. 102Thrupp, Short History, 9, 48. 103Thrupp, Short History, 57. 104CLBH, 322 fo.124b. Note also that it was discovered. 105LAP, fo.118a. This omission may, however, be attributable to the aftermath of the plague of 1369: see Röhrkasten, ‘Trends of Mortality’, 194. 106E.g. LAP, fo.65a, in an examination of bread of city bakers in 1323, of fourteen entries concerning loaves of turte bread, all but one are marked ‘bonus’. 107LAP, fo.83b (successful plea that deficient bread was not for sale but for family consumption, 1309); RM, 108; LBD, fo.180 (1313, defendant denies that he made the deficient loaf for sale); Riley, ed., Memorials of London Life, 119; LBD, fo.188 (1316, defendant denies making the loaf); Riley, ed., Memorials of London Life, 122; LBD, fo.190. (1316, defendant attempting to excuse baking for sale at irregular prices by saying that the flour he had used had been damaged by water). Defendants might also attempt to escape liability by claiming to be a mere regrator rather than a baker or partner: Riley, ed., Memorials of London Life, 119; LBD, fo.189 (1316). A defence that ‘the deficient bread was not exposed for sale’ worked for a ‘foreign’ woman in 1319: LAP, fo.49b, and there was a successful defence of ‘not my bread’ in 1320: LAP, fo.51a. 108Pre-Edwardian statutes provide for amercement for lesser offences, with corporal punishment for repeated offending. Corporal punishment continued as the theoretical punishment of serious or recidivist offenders: 13 Ric. II, st.1 c.8, Statutes of the Realm, vol.2, 63, though note the trend away from corporal punishment and towards heavy financial penalties in other royal pricing provisions: see e.g. Ordinance of Labourers: st. 23 Edw. III, Statutes of the Realm, vol.1, 307. Those convicted of price offences in royal tribunals, and in many other jurisdictions, were almost invariably amerced, though corporal punishment was sometimes used for price offenders in Oxford in the first half of the fourteenth century: Salter, Medieval Archives, vol.2, 140–141, and the manor of Pembrokes in Tottenham in 1377: R. Oram and F.H. Fenton, eds., Court Records of the Manors of Bruces, Dawbeneys, Pembrokes (Tottenham), Tottenham, 1961, 179. See also J. Bellamy, Crime and Public Order in England in the Later Middle Ages, London, 1973, 182–185; M.K. McIntosh, Controlling Misbehavior in England 1370–1600, Cambridge and New York, 1998, 63–64, 113–116; J. Masschaele, ‘The Public Space of the Market Place in Medieval England’, 77 Speculum (2002), 383–421, especially 400–412. 109 Liber Custumarum, fo.219, p.284. 110 Liber Custumarum fo.219, p.284. 111LAP contains numerous instances of forfeiture, particularly of the bread of ‘foreign’ bakers. See, e.g., fo.20b. Discounted sales of bread e.g. at fo.67a. Confiscations: RM, 38, LBB, fo.85; RM, 121, LBD, fo.189. 112See, e.g., LAP, fo.80, CLBL, 143 fo.122 (1467). 113LAP, fo.9a; RM 122, LBD, fo.190 (1316). 114LAP, fo.1b. 115LBB, 243 fo.103b (xxxv), citing CLBA, 120–121, 208; Liber Albus, i. 354–355, Liber Custumarum, i. 292, 328, 329. CPMCR 1323–64, 5, citing CLBA, 213 fo.127; B.A. Hanawalt, ‘Of Good and Ill Repute’. Gender and Social Control in Medieval England, New York and Oxford, 1998, 28. 116CLBA, 120 fo.52b. 117A complaint of inappropriate punishment of those breaching the assize in 1258 mentioned the pillory as the appropriate punishment: Unwin, ed., Finance and Trade under Edward III, 25. A report on lack of enforcement in the late 1260s mentions only the pillory: Stapleton, ed., De Antiquis Legibus Liber, 121-122, 145. 118LBA, fo.127a, writ 28 Nov. 1281. This mentions corporal punishment in general. 119CLBB, 243 fo.103b. 120CPR Edw. III 1327–30, 61; Barron, London, 17, 26, 27. Note the involvement of Andrew Horn, chamberlain and assayer, in the deposition. Williams, Medieval London, 5. 121 Liber Ordinacionem, fo.195: ordinances by warden of London, including at fo.199 that the assize of bread is to be kept as previously ordained – including hurdling. A warden was the equivalent of a mayor, during a period in which the city was under direct royal supervision. See, e.g., Williams, Medieval London, 191–192, 255–260. 122The version of hurdling used for traitors was clearly of a different order, being considerably more violent. Examples of drawing of rebels and traitors: E. Maunde Thompson, ed., Chronicles of Adam of Usk AD 1377–1421, Llanerch, 1904, repr. 1990, 9, 61, 68; CLBI, 31 fo.31b; Sir Frederick Pollock and F.W. Maitland,
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