If they, or either of them, took this course after
the weighing process, it would be bringing the Royal Beam into contempt,
and such profanation could not be contemplated; but the sacredness of
contract had been affirmed by local ordinances or customs before this
measure was enacted. A contract was held to be good when God's Penny, or
earnest money, had been given and received by the principals. As God's
Penny, or that which it symbolized, was the basis of all business, and
business was the life of towns, the custom appears worthy of notice in
some detail.
The _arles_, or earnest money, was given to a servant on hiring, as
shown by an entry in the Shuttleworth Accounts (printed by the Chetham
Society) for September, 1590: "4_d._, earnest money, was paid unto a
cook to serve at the next Assizes." Similarly, in February, 1592: "To
John Hay upon earnest to serve for a year as butler and brewster at
Smithhills, 4_d._" Previous entries state that 12_d._ was paid to John
Horebyn "upon erlynges" of a bargain for ditching, and that "3_d._ was
given of erles unto the gardener for his hiring another year."
Mr. Gerald P. Gordon, to whom we are indebted for much valuable
information, quotes as an analogous instance the gift of the "King's
shilling" to a recruit on enlistment. As regards mercantile transactions
he considers that the usage "was not so much a partial or symbolic
payment of the price as a distinct payment for the seller's forbearance
to deliver to somebody else.
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