Bracton: Thorne Edition: English. Volume 2, Page 350

Harvard Law School Library

Bracton Online -- English

Volume 2, Page 350

Next

Go to Volume: Page:

[001] either to sureties or soldiers but suffer the penalty of imprisonment and confinement,¹⁰
[002] the sheriff ¹¹ought to determine whether he is to be taken into custody or
[003] committed to sureties, after taking into consideration the nature and gravity of
[004] the crime of which he is accused, or his distinguished rank and great wealth or his
[005] integrity or official position.¹² But [if], ¹³when they have been confined to prison
[006] because of the nature of their crime, they conspire to break their chains and break
[007] prison and escape, they are to be punished more severely than the reason for their
[008] consignment to prison demands,¹⁴ that is, by the supreme penalty, ¹⁵even if they
[009] are found innocent of the crime for which they were imprisoned. But if one of them
[010] discloses their conspiracy he shall be absolved from punishment.¹⁶

Of criminals who flee immediately after a felony; and then how pursuit should be made after such men, some of whom are in frankpledge and some in another's mainpast.

[012] We have spoken above of felony committed in public before many bystanders and
[013] onlookers,¹⁷ as in gatherings of some kind, ¹⁸and of those who are present and can
[014] be arrested. [Now we must speak of those] who¹⁹ flee immediately after a felony
[015] and cannot be arrested. Let the hue be raised at once against such men and let
[016] them be pursued from vill to vill until the malefactors are caught, for otherwise the
[017] entire township will be amerced. [Each district has its own procedure with respect
[018] to pursuit.] And let the hue be raised in the same way if one has died by misadventure,
[019] crushed or drowned, [or killed in some other way provided the slayer
[020] cannot be ascertained], but pursuit from estate to estate and from vill to vill is
[021] unnecessary in these cases, provided the hue is raised, since the malefactor is, so
[022] to speak, arrested.²⁰ With respect to one who has thus taken to flight, careful
[023] inquiry must be made as to whether he is in frankpledge and tithing; [if he is], the
[024] tithing will be amerced before the justices for not producing the said malefactor
[025] for trial, even though he has been arrested by others before the eyre and committed
[026] to prison, since he was not arrested or produced by the tithing. If he is not and
[027] has been harboured in any vill without being in frankpledge, it will be amerced,
[028] unless the fugitive is one who ought not to be in tithing and frankpledge, as
[029] magnates or knights and their kinsmen, a clerk, a free man and the like, according
[030] to the custom of the district. Then he to whose household and mainpast the man
[031] belongs will be held responsible and will answer for him,²¹ [unless local custom
[032] provides otherwise, that he ought not to answer for his mainpast, ²²<as in the county
[033] of Hereford, where

Notes

11-12. D. 48.3.1: ‘proconsul aestimare solet utrum in carcerem recipienda sit persona an militi tradenda vel fideiussoribus committenda vel etiam sibi, hoc autem vel pro criminis quod obicitur qualitate vel propter honorem aut propter amplissimas facultates vel pro innocentia personae vel pro dignitate eius qui accusatur facere solet’

13-14. D. 48.3.13: ‘In eos qui cum recepti essent in carcerem conspiraverint, ut ruptis vinculis et effracto carcere evadant, amplius quam causa ex qua recepti sunt reposcit, constituendum est quamvis innocentes inveniantur ex eo crimine propter quod inpacti sunt in carcere, tamen puniendi sunt: eos vero qui conspirationem eorum detexerint, relevandos.’; ‘et’ for ‘aut,’ as D.

15-16. Supra nn. 13-14; ‘carcere,’ as D.

17. Supra 341, infra 356

18-19. ‘et de illis . . . et capi possunt (from line 15). Nunc autem dicendum est de illis qui’

20. Supra 328

21. ‘ei’

22. Supra i, 386