Page:Select historical documents of the Middle Ages.djvu/155

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LAWS OF RICHARD I.
135

VI.

LAWS OF RICHARD I. (COEUR DE LION) CONCERNING CRUSADERS WHO WERE TO GO BY SEA. 1189 a.d.

("Roger of Hoveden," III. p. 36 [Rolls Series].)

Richard by the grace of God king of England, and duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, and count of Anjou, to all his subjects who are about to go by sea to Jerusalem, greeting. Know that we, by the common counsel of upright men, have made the laws here given. Whoever slays a man on ship-board shall be bound to the dead man and thrown into the sea. But if he shall slay him on land, he shall be bound to the dead man and buried in the earth. If any one, moreover, shall be convicted through lawful witnesses of having drawn a knife to strike another, or of having struck him so as to draw blood, he shall lose his hand. But if he shall strike him with his fist without drawing blood, he shall be dipped three times in the sea. But if any one shall taunt or insult a comrade or charge him with hatred of God: as many times as he shall have insulted him, so many ounces of silver shall he pay. A robber, moreover, convicted of theft, shall be shorn like a hired fighter, and boiling tar shall be poured over his head, and feathers from a cushion shall be shaken out over his head, — so that he may be publicly known; and at the first land where the ships put in he shall be cast on shore. Under my own witness at Chinon.


VII.

MAGNA CARTA.

(Stubbs' " Charters," pp. 296 ff.)

John, by the grace of God king of England, lord of Ireland, duke of Normandy and Aquitaine, count of Anjou: to the archbishops, bishops, abbots, earls, barons, justices,