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66 HISTORY OF CORN MILLING-. VOL. IV.
III.
DEE MILLS,
CHESTER.
4. Customs
and Court,
1356.
Karl. MSS.
2084. 4.
Ibid., 2081.
The custodian of the mills of the lord, whether a farmer or other,
used to hold his Court respecting all transgressions done against the
said mills or the adjacent fishery; and no attachment might be served
cause in the said mills.
for any
If any one carry his corn to grind at any other mill, the first time
the said corn shall be forfeited, and the farmer of the mills shall have
it if he ; carry it away a second time, the farmer shall have it and
;
the third time the corn with the horse upon which it is carried shall
be forfeited to the lord the earl.
No one in the city shall have hand-mills in prejudice of the lord's
mills.
With some other particular customs for fees and vailes to the
milners.*
To the foregoing citation
giving further details :—
may be added another
In order that the city and county might be well served the kings
maintained a clerk of the said mills, who was always present and had
allowance of vj* per diem : and also appointed the Chamberlain of
Chester to take the accounts of the said mills and fishings and the
;
Justice of Chester to keep courts yearly
better ordering and government
in the said mills for the
thereof.
Under these customs the mills
A writ for the holding of a
were long
court at
conducted.
Dee Mills,
issued 3 Henry IV. (1402), requisitions the assembling
of twenty-four jurors, who were to attend under
pain of a fine of 6s. 8d. Another writ of about the
same period, under the seal of the County Palatine of
Chester, directs the mayor and sheriffs of the city
to warn a court to be holden at the mills of Dee
before the king's justiciary and chamberlain ; and to
return a jury to enquire as to an alleged offence of a
tenant in withdrawing custom from the said mills.
The procedure, therefore, was for the city officers,
who themselves had no authority within the mills,
to issue a notice through the city that a court was to
be holden at the mills ; and to summon a sufficient
number of reputable and worthy citizens to constitute
a jury. In this particular case, one, William Dowell, of
Chester, was found guilty of carrying forty-one bushels
* These extras, which it would have been interesting to know, probably gave
rise to some of the allegations of extortion leviedga ainst the Chester millers at the
beginning of the next century : (j.v.