(March 28,2006 continued....) There is a similar local Latin text reproduced with a translation by Phillip Benton in his History of the Rochford Hundred (1867-1888). This relates to a ritual which used to take place on the sandy hill on the north side of the cutting of the AL27 road in Rayleigh, which in this earlier period would have been a good site for a King based in Prittlewell to gather defense forces from the hundred against an attack at dawn from the Welsh in London. Later on it was doubtless used to gather work force obligations for the construction of Rayleigh Park pale and other such local projects. The ritual took place on the first Wednesday, or perhaps originally Wooden's Day, after Michealsmas (perhaps once the equinox?) at dawn on this King's Hill at Rayleigh. The Latin text is:

Curia de Domino, Rege,
Dicta Sine Lege,
Tenta est ibidem,
Per ejusdem consuetudinem,
Ante ortum solis,
Luceat nisi polus
Senescallus solus
Nilscribit nisi colis
Toties volucrit
Gallus ut cantaverit
Per cujus soli sonitus (or solum sonitum)
Curia est summonita
Clamat clam pro Reye
In Curia Sine Lege
Est nisi cito venerint
Citius poenituerint
Est nisi clam accedant
Curia non attendat
Qui venerit cum lumine
Errat in regimine
Et dum sunt sine lumine
Capti sunt in crimine
Curia sine cura
Jurati de injuria.

"Apparently this says that a court of the Lord the King termed
Sine Lege, or a court of Baron, was held before dawn and that after the cocks crows the steward writes with charcoal and cries secretly for the King. The people (who presumably were asked to make obligations) at the court were instructed to arrive quickly and without lights or be held in contempt of court. One can imagine that lights on Kings Hill would be seen for miles before dawn, and then with the sunrise the King would see far into the west from there.