An Ordinance concerning the Customs of North Wales.
This ordinance, and the preceding ordinance for West Wales and South Wales are identical from "The King" down to the words "was accustomed to be done." After which it proceeds, but not treating of Blodwyte and the other customs referred to in the West Wales and South Wales ordinance printed above, as follows:—
And that a freeman having two or more sons may freely and without obtaining a license from us or our Justiciary, be able to prefer in the first tonsure one of them whichever he shall have chosen. And that the freemen of Wales may be able for three years immediately following to sell and give lands, tenements and their rents to other free Welshmen, so, however, that sales and gifts of this sort be not made to prelates, religious persons, or to our secular officers or those of others, or to ecclesiastics, who, under pretence of their office, shall be able to coerce others of the people to sell or give lands, tenements, or rents, while in their offices, and that our Justice of those parts for the time being ... that sales or gifts of this kind shall not be brought about by the coercion of any secular or ecclesiastical persons against the will of the sellers or donors, and that all services and penny-moneys of lands, tenements, and rents, whether to be sold or given, be made to us by the buyers or givers of them as fully as they ought to be made to us by the hands of sellers or donors of such lands, and that our damage in sales and gifts of this kind be not involved, and that the ordinances lately made in the time of our father Edward of illustrious memory, formerly King of England, and in our time at Kenyngton (upon certain petitions then presented by the men of the community of North Wales), be sent to our Justice of those parts, and in all and singular their articles be kept and observed by the Justice aforesaid and that all persons wishing to have remedy from the said Justice shall pursue their remedy according to the said ordinances, and that in defect of the same our Chancellor for the time being shall make such remedy as is proper by our writ of Chancery according to the form of the ordinances aforesaid, which we will to be enrolled in our Chancery. We desire and firmly ordain (conclusion as in previous ordinance).
