The method of setting the watch was by house-row, that is to say, a list of the dwellings in every parish and township was prepared, and as his turn came round each householder or some one lodging under his roof was required to keep a watch: if any such "contemptuously refused" to obey the summons of the constable, that officer might set him in the stocks for his contempt. The liability to watch by roster attached equally to all the male inhabitants; when, however, it happened that it came to a woman's turn, she was allowed to find a substitute, but there is no evidence to show whether the substituted service was rendered gratuitously or whether she had to pay for the accommodation. Watchmen were expected to be able-bodied and sufficiently armed, a pitchfork was not held to be an adequate weapon,[75] but within reasonable limits a man might arm and accoutre himself as he pleased, and it was not until comparatively recent times that the watch were provided with arms at the parish expense.
Generally speaking, the house-row arrangement worked smoothly enough, but that friction occasionally arose, when the constables came to call upon unwilling citizens to perform the police duties incumbent on them, the following extract from "Town Life in the Fifteenth Century" bears witness: "In Aylesbury" according to the constables' report, "one Reygg kept a house all the year until the watch time came, and when he was summoned to the watch there came Edward Chalkyll 'fasesying' and said he would not watch for no man and thus bare him up, and that caused the other to be bolder for to bar the King's watch.... He said and threatened us with his master," add the constables, "and thus we be over crakyd' that we dare not go, for when they be 'mayten' they be the bolder. John Bossey said the same wise that he would not watch for us, and three others lacked each of them a night."[76]
The police regulations for the government of London, as introduced in 1285, had become very minute and exacting by the latter half of the fifteenth century, many restrictions being placed on the enjoyment of personal liberty. The use of coal was prohibited, Sunday trading was forbidden, and, amongst other rules for the control of the wheeled traffic, a maximum width between wheels for vehicles was laid down which might on no account be exceeded. Ordinances also were promulgated against tradesmen who should attempt to advertise their callings in an objectionable manner, such as, for instance, the display of a basin of blood by barbers anxious to let people know that phlebotomy was included in the list of their accomplishments. The provisions of the before-quoted Statuta Civitatis (London), touching the control of leprous persons continued in force, and about this time special officers were appointed to prevent such as were infected with the plague from associating with those who were whole.
The employment of a "police des mœurs" was a novel feature of the administration. A register containing the names of all women of ill-fame was kept by the police, and such women were not allowed to reside within the city walls; a certain promenade, known as the "Stews of Southwark," was assigned to them, where they were kept under the vigilant eyes of the City Sergeants, who, in consideration of the extra work thus thrown upon them, might confiscate and retain as a perquisite any "minever fur or cendale silk" that a courtesan might presume to wear. The inhabitants of the Surrey suburb were probably not consulted as to the desirability or otherwise of this arrangement, Edward III. having granted the town and borough of Southwark in perpetuo to the citizens of London. This he did in answer to their complaint that the peace of the city was continually being placed in jeopardy by the facility with which thieves and felons could make good their escape over the river and take refuge in Southwark, a place with no recognised privilege of sheltering runaways. The official sanctuaries were of course on a different footing, and in the fifteenth century were rendered less dangerous to society, than had formerly been the case, by an ordinance which required those who lived hard by the sanctuary to watch all avenues of escape by day and night until the refugee surrendered himself, a fine of five pounds being levied against the responsible ward if he succeeded in getting away.
The general scope of the responsibilities and powers proper to these old-time city constables is clearly defined in the oath that they were required to take before entering upon the duties of their office. "You shall swear, that you shall keep the Peace of our Lord the King well and lawfully according to your power, and shall arrest all those who shall make any contest, riot, debate or affray, in breaking of the said peace, and shall bring them unto the house or Compter of one of the Sheriffs. And if you shall be withstood by strength of such misdoers, you shall raise upon them hue and cry (and) shall follow them from street to street, and from ward to ward until they are arrested. And also you shall search at all times when you shall be required by Scavenger or Bedel, for the common nuisances of the ward; until they are arrested. And also if there be anything done within your bailiwick contrary to the Ordinances of the City. And the faults you shall find, you shall present them unto the Mayor and to the Officers of the said City. And if you should be withstood by any person, or persons, that you cannot duly do your office, you shall certify unto the Mayor and Council of the said City the name and names of such person or persons who trouble you. And this you shall not fail to do. So God you help and the Saints."[77]
When the decennary societies ceased to exist, the connection between the peace officer and the particular group which he represented underwent a change, but the alteration was one of degree rather than one of kind. The fifteenth century constable was taught to look for the support of his fellow-citizens in case of need, though not to the same extent, perhaps, as the headborough was wont to rely on the members of his tything. The great principle of mutual responsibility remained, and was kept alive by insisting that all freemen should enter into a solemn obligation to keep the peace, a compact which, modified to suit more modern requirements, had its origin in the ancient oath of allegiance. The form of oath varied in different places; in London it was as follows—"You shall swear that you shall be good and true unto the King of England and to his heirs, Kings and the King's Peace you shall keep; and unto the Officers of the city you shall be obedient, and at all times that shall be needful, you shall be ready to aid the officers in arresting misdoers, and those disobedient to the King's Peace, as well denizens as strangers. And you shall be ready, at the warning of the Constables and Bedels, to make the watches and (to bear) the other charges for the safeguard of the peace, and all the points in this wardmote shown, according to your power you shall well and lawfully keep—and if you know any evil covin within the ward or the city, you shall withstand the same, or to your alderman make it known. So help you God and the Saints."[78]
An examination of the oaths administered to constables and freemen respectively reveals to us in a concise form the motives which directed the mediæval machinery for maintaining the peace. We see how a compromise was arrived at between the ancient system of frankpledge and the more modern plan of employing a professional class of peace officers, and how, by means of the combined action of police and public, domestic tranquillity was assured. Had it been possible to have made this co-operation complete and thorough, the resulting security would have left little to be desired; but, as was only to be expected, discord not infrequently took the place of harmony, and freemen sometimes forgot what was due to the oath they had taken. Let the events of a certain night in Canterbury serve as an illustration. Some watchmen, it appears, challenged a man whom they found abroad "out of due time" and inquired his business, but (to continue the story verbatim) "the suspect person gave none answer, but ran from thence into St Austin's liberty, and before the door of one John Short they took him. And the same John Short came out of his house with other misknown persons and took from the said watchmen their weapons, and there menaced them for to beat, contrary to the oath of a true and faithful freeman."[79]
According to the strict letter of the law it was a constable's duty, immediately after making an arrest, to deliver his prisoner to the sheriff; but, as a matter of fact, this was seldom done, and the sheriff had little or nothing to do with accused persons until after their conviction. In the absence of proper lock-ups the village stocks were commonly used by the parish constable to secure his man until he could conveniently bring him before a magistrate but, as time went on, confinement in the stocks became the normal mode of punishment for minor offences, and it was no rare thing for a constable to keep a troublesome parishioner in this uncomfortable custody for a space, on his own initiative and responsibility.
Prisons had existed in some form or other from the earliest times. The first dungeon was doubtless coeval with the first fortress, and London's great jail at Newgate dated back to the twelfth century. But it was not then a penal establishment in our sense of the term, in so far that imprisonment was hardly as yet the recognised punishment for the ordinary run of criminals; such places were rather convenient strongholds in which to confine debtors till they paid their dues, suspected persons till they confessed their crimes, Jews till they disgorged their wealth, and generally for the safe-guarding of political opponents or private enemies whom it was desirable to keep under lock and key. It was not until the fifteenth century that we find a regularly graduated connection between punishment by imprisonment and punishment by fine; the penalty for drawing a sword in the City of London, for example, was then half a mark or fifteen days, for inflicting a wound with the same, twenty shillings or forty days, and so on.