Source.—Eadmer, Historia Novorum in Anglia, ed. Rule, p. 192. (Rolls Series.)

Meanwhile king Henry, noting that wellnigh the whole of the realm had sunk for many causes into deep misery, began to consider, by the advice of Anselm and the chief men of the realm, how to palliate in some way the evils by which especially the poor were weighed down. He wisely began this good work with his own court. In the time of the king, his brother, a great number of the company that followed his court were in the habit of destroying and plundering indiscriminately, and without any check or restraint, of wasting the whole of the land through which the king passed. Another evil supervened. Most of them, drunk with their own malice, when they could not altogether consume all that they found in the houses into which they forced their way, used to have the residue taken to the market place by the very possessors and sold for their private profit, or to light a fire and destroy it, or, if it were drink, to wash their horses’ feet with it and pour the remainder on the ground, or at any rate make away with it in some other manner.... For these causes all men, on hearing of the king’s coming, used to fly from their dwellings, in their anxiety for themselves and their households, and make for the woods or other places where they hoped to secure protection. King Henry, eager to do away with this curse, published a prohibition, and with stern and steady justice punished all who could be convicted of any of the practices I have spoken of, by causing their eyes to be plucked out, or their hands or feet or other members to be cut off. This justice was suffered by many and proved a visible deterrent to the rest from inflicting injury on others, if they would save whole their own persons.