44 



ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



(6) The atnount of their salaries. — Both the ordinance 

 and the more carefully framed statute are silent as 

 to the compensation of the justices, but within a few 

 months after the enactment of the statute, there ap- 

 pears on the Close Rolls a series of writs directed to 

 the sheriffs, bidding them at a fixed rate per day 

 pay wages to the justices out of the issues of the 

 latters' sessions.' Since the payments are always to 

 be made out of the money penalties imposed as a result 

 of proceedings held before the justices, through the 

 agency either of the sheriffs or of the subsidy collectors, 

 it is necessary to reserve the account of the method of 

 payment for the section on the disposition of the penal- 

 ties/ Here it must suffice to say that owing to some 

 hitch in the administrative machinery, these first writs 

 were never executed, and that the failure of the justices 

 in these early months of their work to receive their 

 salaries explains the two petitions of the commons in the 

 parliament of January, 1352, the first of which requests for 

 the justices responsible for the statutes of labourers, ^«^^'^ 

 covenables? and the second, gagez reso7iables, chescun 

 solonq son estate,"- — in the latter case to be determined by 

 the committee of apportionment which will be described 

 later. '" At the time of these petitions no separate com- 

 missions for labourers were in force, and during the rest 

 of the decade the printed parliament rolls contain no 

 petitions as to wages. Strictly speaking, therefore, there 

 is no parliamentary reference to the salaries of the 



'For the references, see p. 18, note 1; for the fate of these writs, cf. 

 pt. I, ch. iii, s. I, B, a and s. 2, A. 

 " Cf. ibid. 



^Rot. Pari., ii, 238b; for this petition, cf. p. 27. 

 *In " Statutum de Forma," etc., D, 2. 

 ^See pt. I, ch. iii, s. i, B. a. 



