[475] See Lynn and Southampton.
[476] Ricart’s Kalendar, 72, etc. The Mayor in Nottingham was bound “to give his brethren knowledge for to see the game of the fishing” ... and “in likewise to give them knowledge of every bear-baiting and bull-baiting within the town, to see the sport of the game after the old custom and usage.” (Rec. iii. 449.)
[477] Hythe, Hist. MSS. Com. iv. i. 432, 434.
[478] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 542. Ibid. vi. 572-580. Any man thrice convicted of “cursing the mayor and slandering him with good and grave people,” was to be deprived of his freedom by sound of the bell of the Guild Hall.
[479] See ch. viii. Freeman’s Exeter, 90.
[480] In Bristol the town clerk, the steward, and the attorney, had forty-two rays, and their under clerks thirty-two rays. (Ricart, xii. 81.)
[481] In 1476 Lydd paid 13s. 4d. for the writing out of its “Customall.” The custumal of Sandwich written in 1301 was copied about 1465 by the Town Clerk, John Serles. The Black Book of Hythe was copied in the same way. For Southampton see Hist. MSS. Com. xi. 3, p. 8. Instances are too numerous to give.
[482] See the Translation of Crouchback’s Charter at Leicester (Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 404); a translation from the French in 1491 of the old book of laws and customs of Yarmouth (Ibid. ix. 305); a translation in 1473 of the ancient rules of the Guild of Southampton known as the Pax Bread. (Davies’ Southampton, 133.)
[483] Hist. MSS. Com. v. 606-7. The clerk was also responsible for deeds which were constantly given into the keeping of the Mayor and Council.
[484] The Domesday Book of Dorchester compiled in the XV. century (Journ. Arch. Ass. xxviii. 29); the Liber Albus of Norwich in 1426 (Blomefield, iii. 141; Arch. Journ. xlvi. 302). Ordinances were drawn up at Rye in 1397 (Hist. MSS. Com. v. 489); the Fordwich Kalendar in the fifteenth century (Ibid. v. 606-607). The oldest Year Book of Sandwich is the Old Black Book in which entries are made in 1432 and end in 1487. Entries in its White Book begin in 1488 and end in 1526. The fact that the laws of the Scotch Marches were codified at this time shews the prevailing tendency.