to wife; Roger, son of Nicholas,
promised all the lampreys he could get, to have the king's
request to Earl William Mareschal, that he would grant him
the manor of Langeford at Ferm. The burgesses of Glocester
promised three hundred lampreys, that they might not be
distrained to find the prisoners of Poictou with
necessaries, unless they pleased. Madox, p. 352. Jordan, sen
of Reginald, paid twenty marks, to have the king's request
to William Panier, that he would grant him the land of Mill
Nierenuit, and the custody of his heirs; and if Jordan
obtained the same, he was to pay the twenty marks, otherwise
not. Madox, p. 333,]

[** Madox, Hist. of the Exch. p, 359.]

[*** Benedict. Abbas, p. 180, 181.]

[**** Petri Bless. Epist. 95, apud Bibl. Patrum,
tom. 24, p. 2014.]

We may judge what the case would be under the government of worse
princes. The articles of inquiry concerning the conduct of sheriffs,
which Henry promulgated in 1170, show the great power as well as the
licentiousness of these officers.[**]

Amerciaments or fines for crimes and trespasses were an ether
considerable branch of the royal revenue.[***] Most crimes were atoned
for by money; the fines imposed were not limited by any rule or statute;
and frequently occasioned the total ruin of the person, even for the
slightest trespasses. The forest laws, particularly, were a great source
of oppression The king possessed sixty-eight forests, thirteen
chases, and seven hundred and eighty-one parks, in different parts of
England;[****] and, considering the extreme passion of the English and
Normans for hunting, these were so many snares laid for the people, by
which they were allured into trespasses and brought within the reach of
arbitrary and rigorous laws, which the king had thought proper to enact
by his own authority.

But the most barefaced acts of tyranny and oppression were practised
against the Jews, who were entirely out of the protection of law, were
extremely odious from the bigotry of the people, and were abandoned to
the immeasurable rapacity of the king and his ministers. Besides many
other indignities to which they were continually exposed, it appears
that they were once all thrown into prison, and the sum of sixty-six
thousand marks exacted for their liberty:[*****] at another time, Isaac
the Jew paid, alone, five thousand one hundred marks[******] Brim, three
th