PAST CRIMESthe crown would pass to another head on Ascension Day in 1213. John sent
the hermit to be imprisoned at Corfe until after the fateful date. Having
survived the day, John ordered Peter to be dragged by horses to Wareham
where he and his son were hanged. The Treason Act of 1351 tightened up the
definitions of treason, and regarded petty treason as aggravated murder in
cases such as a wife killing her husband, a servant killing his employer, or a
priest or clerk killing a senior clergyman. These offences were seen as worse
than murder, because they threatened the hierarchical structure of society,
something which was seen at the time as divinely ordered. Treasonable
criminals forfeited all their property to the crown, and it was thus in royal
interests to expand the definition of the crime, something the lords, who
would otherwise profit from land and goods seized in felonious judgments,
opposed. Another form of petty treason had been counterfeiting, but under the
1351 Act, this became high treason instead. For both petty and high treason,
the penalty for the guilty was death–men were hanged and women burned.
Many different types of other crimes are recorded; a study of fourteenth
century Paris gives us a general picture of the medieval criminal city. Paris
was affected by the Hundred Years’War, leading to influxes of migrants and
refugees, and former soldiers. Most of the criminals were servants, farm
labourers, and journeymen craftworkers. Many of the accused had several
occupations, often unrelated to each other. Most were not originally from the
city. The list of crimes committed included treason, moral crimes, arson,
fraud, forgery, adultery, rape, assault, sorcery, slander, robbery, breaking and
entering, receiving stolen property or the selling of it, and murder. Many
murders were committed in the process of robbery, while others occurred
during quarrels or feuds.
There were many thieves–persons suspected of theft made up over half of
those arrested. Many seem to have been habitual offenders, confessing to
multiple crimes. A large number of thieves specialized in robbing travellers at
inns and taverns, taking their belongings while they slept. Most stolen items
had a fairly low value, as were things stolen in the workplace or in market
thefts. These were things easily sold on and hard to identify once they had
passed through other hands. This also applies, of course, to thefts of money.^5
Until the middle of the fifteenth century, housebreaking, or burglary, was
not treated as a separate offence, but as an aggravated theft. After the 1450s,
burglary was treated as an offence in its own right, and carried a penalty even
if nothing was taken, because the intent to steal existed.
On the local level, many crimes were associated with standards and rules of
craft production. Particular laws related to the production and sale of food and