See also the limits set even on barter—
“For it is simony to sell what sent is of grace
That is wit and water, wind, and fire the forth:
These four should be free to all folk that it needeth.”
Ibid. Pass. x. 55-7. Here, however, he has doubtless in his mind the lord’s mill on the hill or by the stream, the rights of turbary and of gathering wood in the forest, and the great need of the people—protection in the law-courts.
[152] Von Ochenkowski, 165, 167, 245-9.
[153] Piers Ploughman. Passus x. 26.
“And though they wend by the way the two together,
Though the messenger make his way amid the wheat
Will no wise man wroth be, nor his wed take;
Is not hayward yhote [ordered] his wed for to take;
But if the merchant make his way over men’s corn,
And the hayward happen with him for to meet,
Either his hat or his hood, or else his gloves
The merchant must forego, or the money of his purse.”
—Piers Ploughman. Pass. xiv. 42-50.
[155] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 443. For merchants’ marks in S. George’s Church, Doncaster, see Hunter’s Deanery of Doncaster, i. 14.
[156] Plummer’s Fortescue, 235.