Note 11 — Chapter I · MEDIÆVAL NEWGATE.

The indictment charged John Brid for having sought to falsely and maliciously obtain his own private advantage “by skilfully and artfully causing a certain hole to be made upon a table of his, called a moldingborde, pertaining to his bakehouse after the manner of a mouse-trap in which mice are caught, there being a certain wicket, warily provided for closing and opening such a hole.” When neighbours brought dough to make into bread and bake at his oven, John Brid got them to put it on his moldingborde table, having “one of his household ready provided for the same sitting in secret beneath such table; which servant of his, so seated beneath the hole, and carefully opening it, piecemeal and bit by bit craftily withdrew some of the dough aforesaid, frequently collecting great quantities from such dough, falsely, wickedly, and maliciously.” It was proved that the hole was made of aforethought, that large quantities of dough were drawn through the table and found beneath, and that the neighbours suffered grievous loss. Numerous other cases of similar fraud were brought forward at the same time, and all were equally proved, after “due inquisition as to the truth of the matter had been made.” Whereupon at a full court of aldermen, and in the presidency of Richard de Botoigne, Mayor, it was ordered that all male offenders against whom the charge was proved should be out upon the pillory with a certain quantity of the dough round their necks, in the cases where dough had been found; where it had not, the sentence was one of simple exposure. Two female bakers sought to escape by laying the crime upon their husbands, but “it was agreed and ordained that they should be sent back to the prison of Newgate, there to remain until as to them it should be otherwise ordained,” and there, according to the same document, they should linger sine die. To wipe out the disgrace, it was further ordered that all the moldingborde tables “should be thrown down and utterly destroyed,” and that any baker in future guilty of such an offence “should stand upon the pillory for a whole day, and afterwards abjure the city, so as at no time to return thereto.”