Page:History of merchant shipping and ancient commerce (Volume 1).djvu/394

 was allowed to buy anything above the value of twenty pence, except in a town, and in the presence of a magistrate or some other trustworthy and responsible witness. Similar, and even greater restraints were imposed on bartering one commodity for another. In fact, during a considerable period of time, no bargain could be contracted without the personal presence of some principal person or chief magistrate as a witness; a restrictive system, which may have been necessary when few, if any, of the traders could write, and disputes were frequent and inevitable, but which, like some laws of much more recent times, seriously retarded the progress of commerce. It is curious to note that the origin of every protective or restrictive law, even from the infancy of commerce, has proposed for its object the securing individual profits or the supposed safety of the revenue. At this period of English history the king claimed a portion of the price of all goods imported or sold within his dominions above the value of twenty pence; a practice which we learn, from an entry in Domesday, prevailed till after the Norman invasion. It is there stated that a certain per centage of everything bought or sold in the borough of Lewes was to be paid to the Portreeve (royal tax collector), and especially the sum of fourpence for every man sold as a slave within its boundaries.

The limited trade of the Saxons was, however, regulated by some salutary provisions, such as that preventing the execution of bargains and sales on Sundays, on which day the people were, without exception, expected to assemble for the performance