Who can tell truly

How cruel sheriffs are?

Of their hardness to poor people

No tale can go too far.

If a man cannot pay

They drag him here and there,

They put him on assizes,

The juror’s oath to swear.

He dares not breathe a murmur,

Or he has to pay again,

And the saltness of the sea

Is less bitter than his pain.

Song Against Sheriffs, c. 1200

‘Iff he goth to the law there is no helpe; for trewly law goys as lorsdship biddeth him.’

Preacher sermonizing to the poor, early fourteenth century