Thus the Chancellor encroaches on the franchises of the
town, to the damage of the King's profits on writs and issues on pleas
of debts, &c., pleadable before the Justices, or before the Mayor and
bailiffs of the town. And with such proceedings taken before the
Chancellor concerning merchants and other strangers passing through, as
well as residents, the merchants will not repair thither on account of
such evil doings, and the town is thereby greatly impoverished."
II
"To the King and Council: Walter de Harewell, burgess and inheritor in
Oxford, showing that whereas the Chancellor of the University has
cognizance of offences and contracts between clerk and clerk, and clerk
and lay, in the town, but nowhere else, one William de Wyneye, clerk,
impleaded him before the Chancellor for offences done out of his
jurisdiction in a foreign county; the said Walter justified himself
before the Chancellor, but the said Chancellor, notwithstanding,
condemned him to prison and kept him in prison in Oxford till he
contented the said William with a large sum of money, and made an
obligation of L20 to be at the will of the said University, and still he
had to find mainprise before he could be set free. And because when he
was taken and led to prison by the bedels of the University, he entered
his house and shut his coffers and chests and the door of his room for
the safety of his goods and chattels, the said Chancellor banished him
out of the town, and had it proclaimed everywhere, as though he were an
outlaw, and sequestered all his goods and chattels, threatening if he
entered the town to imprison him again for six days.
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