Life in a Medieval Village - Frances Gies [76]
The last category of assault, in the victim’s own home, was considered a graver offense than similar violence on neutral ground, and was usually designated hamsoken: “Matilda Saladin justly raised the hue-and-cry upon five men of Sir Gilbert de Lyndsey who were committing hamsoken upon Philip Saladin and beat and badly treated him.”31 Similarly, drawing blood was regarded as especially serious.
The hue-and-cry raised by the victim, or by a relative, neighbor, friend, or passerby, obligated everyone within earshot to drop what he was doing and come to the rescue. Failure to do so brought a collective penalty: “And they say that Alexander Prudhomme badly beat Henry son of Henry Smith [who] justly raised the hue-and-cry upon him. Not prosecuted, villata fined two shillings [and] commanded to distrain Alexander to answer.”32
Blood did not have to be actually shed, or even a blow struck, to justify the hue-and-cry. Richard son of Richard Reeve gave clear indication of a desire to beat Richard Blakeman, who “by reason of terror and fear” was justified in the jurors’ eyes in raising the hue-and-cry.33
On the other hand, the hue was not to be raised lightly or wrongfully: “The jurors say that Adam Fot committed hamsoken upon Andrew son of Alkusa and nonetheless the wife of the said Adam unjustly raised the hue-and-cry upon the same Andrew. Fine sixpence.”34 Anyone raising the hue was obliged immediately to find a personal pledge to support his claim of raising it justly.
Sometimes two parties to an altercation raised the hue against each other, in which case the court decided which was justified: “Henry Abovebrook justly raised the hue-and-cry upon Richard Sabyn. Richard fined sixpence…And they say that Richard Sabyn unjustly raised the hue-and-cry upon Henry Abovebrook. Richard fined [an additional] sixpence.”35
When the hue-and-cry posse collared its quarry, he was turned over to the bailiff, the reeve, or the beadle. In Elton in 1312 the beadle was fined three pence “because he did not arrest John son of Matfrid, a bondman, to answer concerning the hue-and-cry.”36
Serious injury in an assault case brought damages along with the fine: “It is found by the jurors that Robert Sabyn assaulted Nicholas Miller and beat him to his damage of sixpence. Fine sixpence.”37 The three men who assaulted Gilbert son of Reginald le Wyse in 1279 were directed to “satisfy him for damages” as well as pay a sixpence fine.38 Similarly in cases of property damage: for the malicious injury to the house of Richard son of Elias done by Thomas of Chausey in 1308, Thomas was directed to pay sixpence damages along with the usual sixpence fine.39
Only rarely do the Elton records reveal a punishment imposed other than a fine. In the case in 1292 in which John ate Lane was convicted of maliciously assaulting his stepmother and breaking her hand, the account concludes, “Therefore the said John is put in the stocks.”40
Moral transgression was a precinct of the law in which the superior competence of the Church courts was conceded, and in which canon law had developed an extensive literature. Adultery was the most conspicuous of moral offenses, and drew the Church’s most severe penalties, typically a whipping for peasants, a heavy fine for their betters. The Church also ruled on the validity of marriage contracts (an active legal issue in the absence of state licensing or requirement of witnesses), separations, and prescribed penances for such delinquencies as departing from the