SCA Life

I found this in one of my medieval studies texts, and thought you all would enjoy it. The source is “Readings in Western Civilization 4: Medieval Europe,” edited by Julius Kirshner and Karl F. Morrison.

Customal of the Village of Chapelaude (ca. 1150)

8. . . [The prior] will have credit in the village for bread, meat and other merchandises up to fourteen days. For wine which is sold he shall have credit for the fourteen days following the sale of the wine.

9. If a man of importance is lodging with the monks, and if there is no meat to be found in the village, the sergeants shall take pigs and chickens and on the judgement of two or three men, the prior shall pay the price to those to whom they belong at the end of fourteen days.

10. Whenever he shall so wish, the prior shall sell his wine under privilege (ban), save at fairtimes. No inhabitant of the village shall then be allowed to sell his, so long as there shall remain anything to sell of the monks’ wine, save if he has put it up to auction before the ban. But at fairtime whoever wishes may sell, from one Sunday to the next, even if there is a ban; after this Sunday, no one, save those who shall have begun to sell the wine put up for auction before the ban. If anyone does otherwise and dares violate the ban, he shall pay sixty sous. The monks shall not sell wine under the ban dearer than any other.

11. No one shall dare to increase or decrease the size of the measure of wine or grain which the prior has established. If he does so, he shall pay a fine and the measure of the wrong size shall be broken. If he wishes to make a second one and hold it as customary, he shall pay sixty sous.

12. If anyone sells bread, wine or meat, to a traveller more dearly than to his neighbor, and is convicted of doing so, he shall first of all indemnify the man he shall have cheated, and then shall pay a fine according to his condition. If it is habitual, as mentioned before.

13. If anyone dares to raise the sale price of wine, such as has been fixed, he must not do so and shall be liable to a fine.

14. If the bakers, save at the fairs, make loaves for sale smaller than they ought to in relation to the price of wheat, either they shall lose the loaves or else they shall pay a fine.

15. If anyone, living between the four crosses, bakes bread elsewhere than in the oven of St. Denis, and this is proved, he shall first pay the charge for baking, and then a fine.

16. If anyone has a damper and habitually bakes his bread below it, the damper shall be broken and he shall pay a fine.

17. Similarly, if it is proved that someone has ground grain elsewhere than in the saint’s mill, he shall pay the right of multure and a fine.

18. It is laid down that every inhabitant of la Chapelle who shall expose wine to sell shall give the monks one setier per cask.

19. If anyone kills an ox or a pig for sale, he shall give one pennyworth of pork, two of beef.

20. If anyone exports from the village wine on an ass or in a cart to trade, he shall pay a halfpenny per ass, and for deniers per cart.

21. The prior shall impose in the village, with the council of monks and the sergeants, a currency which shall be useful to him and to the burgesses and which shall be accepted around la Chapelle, at Huriel, at St. Desire and
other neighboring places. . . .

29. It shall be added that no one, either villager or stranger may seize a pledge inside the crosses without having carried a complaint before the prior or the provost; if he does so, he shall pay a fine and give back the pledge that he has seized, unless he can prove that he was ignorant of the prohibition. But he may seize a pledge if a promise of payment has been made in the village; nevertheless, he shall not carry the pledge outside the village, he shall not provoke a brawl with the debtor if the latter takes back the pledge and he shall not seize the pledge a second time. He shall first carry a complaint to the prior who shall enquire into his right and that of the other party.