on the King's courts for the safety of their
lives and land. Local men involved in court functions usually owed
allegiance to a lord which compromised the exercise of justice.
Men serving in an assize often lied to please their lord instead
of telling the truth. Lords maintained, supported, or promoted
litigation with money or aid supplied to one party to the
detriment of justice. It was not unusual for lords to attend court
with a great force of retainers behind them. Many justices of the
peace wore liveries of magnates and accepted money from them.
Royal justices were flouted or bribed. The King's writ was denied
or perverted. For 6-8s., a lord could have the king instruct his
sheriff to impanel a jury which would find in his favor. A statute
against riots, forcible entries, and, excepting the King,
magnates' liveries of uniform, food, and badges to their
retainers, except in war outside the nation, was passed, but was
difficult to enforce because the offenders were lords, who
dominated the Parliament and the council.

With men so often gone to fight, their wives managed the household
alone. The typical wife had maidens of equal class to whom she
taught household management, spinning, weaving, carding wool with
iron wool-combs, heckling flax, embroidery, and making garments.
There were foot-treadles for spinning wheels. She taught the
children. Each day she scheduled the activities of the household
including music, conversation, dancing, chess, reading, playing
ball, and gathering flowers. She organized picnics, rode horseback
and went hunting, hawking to get birds, and hare-ferreting. She
was nurse to all around her. If her husband died, she usually
continued in this role because most men named their wife as
executor of their will with full power to act as she thought best.
The wives of barons shared their right of immunity from arrest by
the processes of common law and to be tried by their peers.

For ladies, close-fitting jackets came to be worn over close-
fitting long gowns with low, square-cut necklines and flowing
sleeves, under which was worn a girdle or corset of stout linen
reinforced by stiff leather or even iron. Her skirt was
provocatively slit from knee to ankle. All her hair was confined
by a hair net. Headdresses were very elaborate and heavy, trailing
streamers of linen. Some were in the shape of hearts, butterflies,
crescents, double horns, steeples, or long cones. Men also wore
hats rather than