Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 328

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Volume 2, Page 328

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[001] join with them, [nor with those who harbour them, and if they know of any such they
[002] will cause them to be attached and show what they have done to the sheriff and his
[003] bailiffs.] And that if they have heard the hue and cry raised against such men, that
[004] immediately on hearing it they and their household, the men of their land being
[005] assembled,¹ will follow the trail through their own land and at its boundary
[006] show it to the lords of the neighbouring lands, that pursuit may thus be made
[007] from estate to estate with all diligence until the wrongdoers are apprehended,²
[008] such pursuit not to end unless some obstacle intervenes, darkness or other reasonable
[009] cause. ³<By which it may be noted that if one has committed a felony and,
[010] after the hue has been raised, is arrested at once, pursuit shall end. And hence if a
[011] man has been crushed, drowned, or has died or been killed in some other way by
[012] misadventure, let the hue be raised at once but pursuit need not be made from
[013] estate to estate [or] from vill to vill since the malefactor has been arrested, to wit,
[014] the ‘bane’.>⁴ and will arrest as best they can those they suspect, without waiting
[015] for an order from justice or sheriff, and inform⁵ the justices or the sheriff of what
[016] they have done. They shall also swear that if anyone comes to a township or
[017] borough or any other place and buys bread, ale or other victuals and is suspected
[018] of doing this for the benefit of wrongdoers, that they will arrest him and deliver
[019] him under arrest to the sheriff or his bailiffs. Also that they will take no guest into
[020] their house by night unless he is well known, and that if they give lodging to a
[021] stranger they will not permit him to depart on the morrow before daylight, and
[022] then only with three or four of the nearer neighbours as witnesses.⁶ ⁷Let the
[023] serjeants and bailiffs of the hundreds then be called together, and the names of
[024] the hundreds or wapentakes and their serjeants enrolled in order, each of whom
[025] shall undertake on oath to choose four knights from each of the hundreds, who
[026] shall at once come before the justices to do the king's bidding. These shall immediately
[027] take an oath that they will choose twelve knights, or free and law-abiding
[028] men if knights may not be found, who are not appealing anyone nor being appealed
[029] themselves and are not under suspicion of breach of the peace, homicide or other
[030] crime, through whom the king's business may best and most profitably be expedited.
[031] And let the knights cause the names of these juries of twelve to be noted down at
[032] once on a schedule and deliver it to the justices. When the jurors arrive they also
[033] shall take an oath, in this form, the first of them as follows:

Notes

1. ‘conductis’ for ‘conducent’

2. Cal. Cl. Rolls 1237-42, 137 (1238)

3. Supra i, 386; transposed from above

4. P. and M., ii, 473; infra 350

5. ‘facient’

6. Assize of Northampton, ca. 2; infra 330, 387

7. New paragraph