No comburgess or any other resident of the city or its suburbs, nor anyone at all, may on any day in the year buy for purposes of resale to others any foodstuffs in the market, on the quay, on the river, in a house, courtyard, street, lane, or at any location in the city, nor make a bargain to buy such items by giving God's penny, until the bell has been rung for the mass of the Blessed Virgin in the church of Holy Trinity. No one may, in any road, street, lane or other place in the city or suburb, nor within one league outside by land or water, intercept such foods being brought to the city for sale, with the purpose of buying them before they reach the public marketplace [and then reselling them in the market], so that goods are sold for a higher price than they ought to be; no one who brings victuals to the city may in any way be impeded from being able to sell them freely in the market to anyone wishing to buy. If the bailiffs find anyone in contravention of this, or if any reputable man makes a complaint about such an offence, and the accused is convicted then he must be heavily amerced by the bailiffs and any complainant is to be awarded damages. If the offender is convicted of the same offence a second time, all his merchandize is to be confiscated and the city court is to sentence him to the pillory, as a deterrent to others and so as to make public his offence; the cause of his punishment is to be publicly proclaimed in the market. Because the offence is against the whole community, the bailiffs are not allowed to commute this punishment [to a fine], nor put off or delay carrying it out, but should execute it immediately after the conviction. If the same offender is again convicted, he shall be punished as before and also abjure the city for a year and a day, as well as paying damages to any complainant. If he thereafter returns to the city to live, he must provide good security for never committing the offence again. No citizen or city sergeant is to encourage, support or protect such men in committing these offences which cause a great scandal in the city and are contrary to its liberties, customs and ordinances. Anyone convicted of such support is to be fined 6s.8d to the profit of the community, which is to be levied immediately after conviction and delivered by the bailiffs to the chamberlains who shall have a record made of it and include those moneys in their annual accounts.

[This chapter eloquently shows the strength of feeling against forestalling and regrating, offences that were fundamentally contrary to the communal principle underlying towns, yet that – as is also evidenced in other towns, such as Maldon, Ipswich, Yarmouth, and Lynn– were ubiquitous and that borough authorities tried in vain to suppress. Today most foodstuffs are sold through middlemen-retailers, even in fruit and vegetable markets, but the medieval marketplace dealing in the necessaries of life was not considered an appropriate venue for entrepreneurial profit-making via price-fixing. The closest modern equivalents to the medieval attitude towards forestalling and regrating might be those towards black marketeering or the recurrent suspicions of concerted price-fixing by the petrol industry. The sale of necessaries at a "fair price" was important to the medieval townsman, and open sale in the marketplace helped provide an assurance of this. As J.C. Tingey noted in his introduction to volume 2 of the Records of the City of Norwich:

"All buying and selling was invariably carried on in the market place, where not only could the authorities keep an eye upon what was going on but the citizens themselves could see that no transactions were made contrary to their general interest."