[Sca-cooks] Regulations against selling rotten meat

[Laura C. Minnick]

At 05:45 PM 4/13/2005, you wrote:
>Also sprach Pat:
>>By that same reasoning, today's legal obsession with food cleanliness 
>>indicates that modern American's regularly consume massive amounts of 
>>spoiled meat.
>
>Round about 1300 C.E. (I forget the exact date -- 1307?) William Wallace 
>was the first man to be executed under a new law prescribing a very 
>specific penalty for treason.

1305. (Interestingly enough, that was several years before the Princess 
Isabella arrived in England to marry Edward II. But hey, who's gonna let 
something like the facts interfere with a cool screenplay?)

>He was hanged, castrated, drawn, beheaded and quartered, and his various 
>bodily segments were sent to the four corners of the Kingdom to serve as a 
>warning to all who would rebel against the King of England.

Or in the words of Blackadder, "Horribly, horribly" ;-)

>Needless to say, there weren't a whole lot of people interested in 
>repeating William's offense against the English king.

You know, I haven't been able to find the statutes of Forest Law for that 
time period (in a box somewhere, fer sure), but perhaps they were reserving 
a fate like Wallace's for murder, treason, and Egregious Wearing of Woad. ;-)

BTW, the penalties for violating Forest Law in Henry II's reign were a bit 
less. Escalating fines, and after the third offense, imprisonment. Now, if 
you calculate the economic impact on a family of the imprisonment of a 
family member likely to be the primary breadwinner, this could have 
something of a deterrent effect.

Will have more on that shortly.

'Lainie
___________________________________________________________________________
O it is excellent to have a giant's strength; but it is tyrannous To use it 
like a giant--Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act II