The Chancellor
addressed issues of loss of wool, dead lambs, and damaged sheep,
as well as dead sheep. He imposed a legal duty on innkeepers to
prevent injury or damage to a patron or his goods from third
parties. A dog bite or other damage by a dog known by its owner to
be vicious was made a more serious offense than general damage by
any dog. A person starting a fire was given a duty to prevent the
fire from damaging property of others.
The king will fine instead of seize the land of his tenants who
sell or alienate their land, such fine to be determined by the
Chancellor by due process.
Only barons who were peers of the House of Lords were entitled to
trial in the House of Lords. In practice, however, this pertained
only to major crimes.
Treason was tried by the lords in Parliament, by bill of
"attainder". It was often used for political purposes. Most
attainders were reversed as a term of peace made between competing
factions.
The King's coroner and a murderer who had taken sanctuary in a
church often agreed to the penalty of confession and perpetual
banishment from the nation as follows: "Memorandum that on July 6,
[1347], Henry de Roseye abjured the realm of England before John
Bernard, the King's coroner, at the church of Tendale in the
County of Kent in form following: 'Hear this, O lord the coroner,
that I, Henry de Roseye, have stolen an ox and a cow of the widow
of John Welsshe of Retherfeld; and I have stolen eighteen beasts
from divers men in the said county.
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