d the latter from
the brewer or brewster (female brewer). But the City, if it defended
what was esteemed the legitimate claim of the baker to a proper
livelihood, was equally solicitous for the welfare of his customers, and
woe betide the baker who sold bread deficient in weight or quality! For
the first offence he was drawn on a hurdle from the Guildhall through
the principal streets, which would be thronged with people and foul with
traffic, and hanging from his neck was the guilty loaf. In the
Record-room at the Guildhall is an Assisa Panis containing a
pen-and-ink sketch of the ceremony, from which it appears that the
unhappy tradesman wore neither shoes nor stockings and had his arms
strapped to his sides. It seems also that the hurdle was drawn by two
horses, which suggests that it was rattled along at an inconsiderate
pace. For the second offence the baker was again conveyed on a hurdle
"through the great streets of Chepe," and he further underwent an hour's
exposure in the pillory, probably erected in Cheapside, with what
consequences may be imagined. If he proved so incorrigible as to commit
the offence a third time, the hurdle was again requisitioned, but,
public patience being exhausted, his oven was demolished and he was
forced to abjure his trade of baker in the City for ever. From the reign
of Edward II. the penalty of the hurdle was no longer imposed for the
first offence, the pillory being employed instead.

Exposure in the pillory was a favourite prescription, a kind of judicial
panacea, to which all sorts of the morally infirm were introduced in
turn. Mr. Riley has compiled a list of the sins atoned for by such
involuntary penance, which, if we were guided by that alone, would
testify to a shocking state of depravity in the Metropolis. Culling from
this catalogue, we find that the pillory was considered a fitting reward
for various impostures: pretending to be a holy hermit; pretending to be
the son of the Earl of Ormond; pretending to be a physician; pretending
to be the summoner of the Archbishop of Canterbury and so summoning the
Prioress of Clerkenwell; pretending to be one of the Sheriff's sergeants
and meeting the bakers of Stratford and arresting them with a view to
fradulently extorting a fine, etc., etc. _Scandalum magnatum_ also
merited the pillory--a fact brought home to an idle gossip who occupied
that uneasy elevation for "telling lies" about the famous Mayor, William
Walworth. "Telling li