World History

11.

Distraint of Knighthood.

1224. (Latin text in Rotuli Litterarum Clausarum, II, 69. Translation by the editor.)

The king to the sheriff of Norfolk and Suffolk, greeting. We command you that without delay you cause it to be proclaimed throughout your whole bailiwick that every layman of full age who holds the fief of one knight or more in your bailiwick and is not a knight shall, before the Sunday following Easter in the ninth year [of our reign], assume arms and have himself made knight, as he loves the fief or fiefs which he holds. Witness as above. [The king at Westminster, 16th November.]

In the same way it is written to all the sheriffs.