HISTORY
History of the Piece Hall
A model of the Halifax Gibbet
Gibbet Law - "That if a Felon be taken within their Liberty, with Goods stoln out or within the Liberty or Precincts of the said Forest [of Hardwick], either Hand-habend, Backberand or Confessand, Cloth or any other commodity of the value of Thirteen Pence half-penny, that they shall after three Markets or Meeting Days, within the Town of Hallifax, next after such his Apprehension, and being condemned, he shall be taken to the Gibbet and there shall have his Head cut off from his Body." (From Halifax Gibbet Law c.1708, reprinted 1886)
Hand-habend - caught in the act of theft. Backberand - caught in possession of the goods. Confessand - confession of guilt.
By the time the Piece Hall was built, the local "Gibbet-Law" had fallen into disuse.
Suggestions that a full-size model of the Gibbet be located in the Piece Hall therefore show a complete disregard for historical accuracy. The Gibbet has never had any connection with the Piece Hall.
There is a belief that Gibbet-Law exists because of the wool trade, and hence a connection between the gibbet and the Piece Hall. There may be some truth in that. However, accounts which attribute the law to some survival of "forest law" and call the Halifax area the "Forest of Hardwick" get little support from some researchers.
John Lister, writing in the Halifax Antiquarian Society Transactions (1910) says "The origin of the Gibbet is to be sought . . . neither in any forest law conected with a legendary Forest of Hardwick, nor in the exigencies of the cloth trade. No! It was but the survival to a late period of the privilege of executing thieves and sometimes other malefactors taken within the bounds of a manor."
This ancient Saxon law is called "Infangtheif."
© Stephanie Marriott
