[555] Leet Book, 666. All people dwelling outside the town liberties were called "foreign."
[556] For regulations concerning "foreign" bakers, ib., 717, 799.
[557] Leet Book, 646.
[558] Rogers, Six Cent., 340.
[559] Rogers, op. cit. 152. In Leicester there were no pleas held when the great merchants were absent at fairs (Green, ii. 25).
[560] Merchants from Dublin, Drogheda, London, and Kingston-on-Hull, were members of the Corpus Christi guild; so were many local country gentlemen and yeomen.
[561] Devon and Ireland supplied coarse cloth sold in the Drapery (Burton MS. f. 98-103).
[562] Gasquet, Monasteries, ii. 285. This took place shortly before the dissolution.
[563] The "Marprelate" printing press was for some time at Coventry (Morley, Sketch of Literature, 431). Rogers thinks unlicensed books were sold at fairs. "I cannot conceive how the writings of such an author as Prynne could have been disposed of except at the places which were at once so open and so secret" (Six Cent., 149).
[564] Corp. MS. E. 6. This court was kept in accordance with the Statute of Merchants of 1283. A merchant had the power of bringing a debtor before the mayor, when the debtor bound himself to pay the debt by a certain day; if he failed to do so, the mayor caused all his movables to be seized to the amount of the debt and sold. If, however, he had no movables within the mayor's jurisdiction, application was made to the chancellor, who caused a writ to be sent to the sheriff within whose county the debtor had movables, ordering these to be seized. If the debtor had no movables, he was detained in prison until terms were made, the creditor meanwhile providing him with bread and water, the cost of which was added to the amount of the debt (Ashley, Econ. Hist. pt. I. 204).