Read the excerpt from The Time Traveler’s Guide to Elizabethan England.If you are hungry, you might feel inclined to turn to poaching. But be careful: this is risky. Taking livestock is theft, and theft is a felony which carries the death sentence. Killing wild animals that live on another man’s land is also against the law; even taking a single fish from a river can result in a fine of a shilling or more. It is unlikely that you will be hanged for taking a wild animal such as a rabbit; but, even so, you will get a fine amounting to three times the value of the animal as well as three months in prison, and you will have to enter into a bond to guarantee your good behavior in the future; a second offense will be treated more harshly. If a gamekeeper attacks you and you defend yourself, you can be charged with assault. You may find yourself on the gallows if you injure him.
Read the excerpt from The Canterbury Tales."God’s arms!” exclaimed one of these debauchees,"Is the fellow then so dangerous to meet?In highways and in byways, street by street,I’ll seek him out, I vow it on God’s bones.Now listen, fellows: let us three be one,Each of us hold his hand up to the other,And each of us become the other’s brother,And we will kill this black betrayer, Death,And kill the killer, by God’s holy breath,And that before the sun goes down on us!”
Did you find these answers helpful?