rights of lords (from whom the lands are held). it be done with debts due to others than Jews.

In like manner let

12. No scutage nor aid shall be imposed in our kingdom excepting for the ransom of our person, to make our eldest son a knight, and once to marry our eldest daughter; and for these none but a reasonable aid shall be demanded. So, likewise, let it be concerning the aid of the city of London.

13. And the city of London shall have all its ancient liberties and free customs, as well by land as by water. Furthermore, we will and grant that all other cities, burghs, towns, and ports, have all their liberties and free customs.

14. And for the holding of the common council of the kingdom to assess aids other than in the three aforesaid cases, and for the assessing of scutages, we will cause the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, and greater barons to be summoned individually by our letters; moreover, we will cause all others in general who hold of us in capite to be summoned by our sheriffs and bailiffs on a certain day, to wit: forty days at least (before the meeting), and to a certain place; and in all letters of summons. we will declare the cause of the summons. And the summons being thus made, the business shall proceed on the day appointed, according to the advice of those who shall be present, although all that shall be summoned may not come.

15. We will not, for the future, give leave to any one to take an aid from his own free tenants, unless to redeem his own body, to make his eldest son a knight, and once to marry his eldest daughter; and for these none but a reasonable aid shall be paid.

16. No man shall be distrained to do more service for a knight's fee or other free tenement, than what is justly due therefrom.

17. Common pleas shall not follow our court, but shall be holden in some certain place.

18. Trials upon the writs of novel disseisin, mort d'ancestre, and darrein presentment, shall be taken only in their proper counties, and after this manner: We, or, if we shall be out of the realm, our chief justiciary, will send through every county, four times in

the year, two justiciaries, who, with four knights of the county, elected by the county, shall hold the aforesaid assizes in the county, on the county day, and at the county place.

19. And if the aforesaid assizes cannot be held on the county day, let as many of the knights and freeholders, who have been present at the county court, remain behind, as shall be sufficient to conduct the trials, according as the business shall be, more or less.

20. A freeman shall not be amerced for a slight offence, but in proportion to the degree of the offence; and for a great offence he shall be amerced according to its magnitude, saving to him his contenement; likewise, a merchant shall be amerced, saving to him his merchandise; and a villain in the same way, saving his wainage if he falls under our mercy; and none of the aforesaid amerciaments shall be assessed, but by the cath of honest men of the neighborhood.

21. Earls and barons shall not be amerced but by their peers and according to the degree of their offence.

22. No clerk shall be amerced for his lay tenement but in the manner of the others aforesaid, and not according to the quantity of his ecclesiastical benefice.

23. Neither town nor man shall be distrained to build bridges over rivers, save those who anciently and rightfully are bound to do it.

24. No sheriff, constable, coroners, or other our bailiffs shall hold pleas of our crown.

25. All counties, hundreds, trethings, and wapentakes shall stand at their old rents without increase, except in our demense manors.

26. If any one, holding of us a lay fee, dies, and the sheriff or our bailiff shall show our letters patent of summons concerning a debt due to us from the deceased, it shall be lawful for the sheriff or our bailiff to attach and register the chattels of the deceased found upon his lay fee, to the amount of that debt, by the view of lawful men, so that nothing be removed until our whole debt be paid and the rest shall be paid to the executors to fulfil the will

of the deceased; and if there be nothing due from the deceased to us, the chattels shall remain to the deceased, saving to his wife and children their reasonable shares.

27. If a freeman shall die intestate, his chattels shall be distributed by the hands of his nearest relations and friends, by view of the church, saving to every one the debts which the deceased owed.

28. No constable or other our bailiff shall take the corn or other goods of any man unless he instantly pay money for it, or obtain a respite of payment by the free will of the seller.

29. No constable (of a castle) shall distrain any knight to give money for castle guard, if he be willing to do guard in his own person, or by another able man, if he himself, for reasonable cause, cannot perform it. And if we shall have led or sent him to the army, he shall be excused from castle guard according to the time he shall be in the army by our order.

30. No sheriff nor bailiff of ours, nor any other person, shall take the horses or carts of any freeman, for carriage, without the free consent of the said freeman.

31. Neither we nor our bailiffs, will take another man's timber for our castles or other uses, unless by the consent of the owner of the timber.

32. We will not retain the lands of those who have been convicted of felony, but for one year and a day, and then they shall be delivered to the lord of the fee.

33. All wears shall, for the future, be wholly removed from the Thames and Medway, and throughout all England except on the

seacoast.

34. The writ which is called præcipe shall not for the future be granted to any one of any tenement whereby a freeman may lose

his court.

35. Throughout our whole kingdom there shall be one measure of wine; and one measure of ale; and one measure of corn; namely, the quarter of London; and one width of dyed cloths, and russets,

and halberjects, namely, two ells within the lists. And it shall be with weights as with measures.

36. From henceforth nothing shall be given or taken for the writ of inquest of life or limb; but it shall be given without charge and not denied.

37. If any man hold of us by fee-farm, socage, or burgage, and hold land of another by military service, we shall not have the wardship of the heir or of the land which belongs to another man's fee on account of the aforesaid fee-farm, socage, or burgage; nor shall we have the wardship of the free-farm, socage, or burgage, unless the fee-farm owe military service. We shall not have the wardship of any man's heir, or of the land he holds of another on account of any petty serjeantry he holds of us by the service of giving us daggers, arrows, or the like.

38. No bailiff shall henceforth put any man to his law upon his own single accusation without credible witnesses produced for that purpose.

39. No freeman shall be taken, or imprisoned, or dispossessed, or outlawed, or banished, or in any way destroyed; nor will we pass upon him, nor commit him, but by the lawful judgment of his peers, or by the law of the land.

40. To no man will we sell, to none will we delay, to none will we deny right or justice.

41. All merchants shall have safety and security in coming into England and departing out of England, and in tarrying and travelling through England, as well by land as by water, to buy and sell without any evil tolls, according to the ancient and just customs; except in time of war, when they shall be of any nation at war with us. And if any such be found in our land at the beginning of a war, they shall be apprehended without injury of their bodies or their goods, until it shall be known to us or our chief justiciary how the merchants of our country are treated who are found in the country at war with us. And if ours be safe there, the others shall be safe in our land.

42. Henceforth it shall be lawful to any person to go out of our

kingdom and to return safely and securely, by land or by water, saving his allegiance to us, unless for some short space in time of war, for the common good of the kingdom; except prisoners and outlaws by the law of the land, people of a country at war with us, and merchants who shall be treated as aforesaid.

43. If any man hold of any escheat, as of the honor of Wallingford, Nottingham, Boulogne, Lancaster, or any other escheats which are in our hand and are baronies, and shall die, his heir shall not give any other relief, nor do any other service to us, than he would to the baron if the barony were in a baron's hand; and we will hold it in the same way in which the baron held it.

44. Men who dwell without the forest shall not hereafter come before our justiciaries of the forest on a common summons, unless they are parties to a plea or sureties for any who have been apprehended for something concerning the forest.

45. We will not make justiciaries, sheriffs, or bailiffs except of such as know the law of the land, and are disposed duly to observe it.

46. All barons who have founded abbeys which they hold by charter of the kings of England, or by ancient tenure, shall have the custody thereof when they fall vacant, as they ought to have.

47. All forests which have been made in our time shall be immediately disforested; and it shall be so done with the embankments which have been erected as obstructions to the rivers in our reign.

48. All evil customs of forests and warrens, foresters and warreners, sheriffs and their officers, embankments and their keepers, shall forthwith be inquired into in every county by twelve sworn knights of the same county, who must be elected by the good men of the county; and within forty days after the holding of the inquisition they shall, by the said knights, be utterly abolished so as never to be restored; provided that we be first notified thereof, or if we be not in England, our chief justiciary.

49. We will forthwith restore all hostages and charters which