^8 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



would at its maximum, equal £3 6s. 8d., exactly the 

 same amount as that which he received according to the 

 later method.' Occasionally, it appears that justices 

 especially zealous in the performance of their duties, 

 /. e. successful in an unusually large number of convic- 

 tions, are rewarded by additional payments beyond the 

 amount of their regular salaries.^ It is always to be 

 emphasized that if the justices failed altogether in mak- 

 ing any convictions, they would be entirely without com- 

 pensation for their labours ; a fact plainly of the greatest 

 possible efficacy in encouraging a thorough enforcement 

 of the statutes entrusted to their care. 



'In the earliest enactment on the subject (12 R. II, c. 10) the clerk's 

 salary was increased to 2 s. per day, while the rate prescribed for the 

 justices (by this date serving on joint commissions) was only 4 s. per 

 day, midway between the two previous rates; and the sessions were 

 now only expected to last three days four times a year. It is worth 

 while to compare with the amounts received bj' the justices the rate of 

 payment to members of parliament al this date; 4 s. a day for a knight 

 and 2 s. for a citizen or burgher. Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 247. 



"The writ to Edmund de Clyvedon {supra^. 47, note) had ordered £\o 

 beyond his regular wages on account of his great expenses and con- 

 tinuous labours, " necnon profictumi magnum, quod nobis per dili- 

 genciam et laborem suum fecit." Likewise, an additional payment of 

 ^5 had been ordered by writ of the great seal for Peverel and Halsam 

 in Sussex because tliey had shown " diligenciam et solicitudinem .... 

 in sessionibus suis inde pro nostro et populi nostri commodo; " Mem. 

 K. R., 34, Trin., Breu. Baron., rot. 14, " Pro vicecomite Sussex'." 

 The sheriff had such difficulty in obtaining his allowance from the ex- 

 chequer for this payment that he petitioned the crown, and nearly three 

 years later, a second writ was issued by the king and council to the 

 barons ordering them to make the proper allowance. For an account 

 of the episode, cf. Mem. L. T. R., 34, Trin., Precepta, rot. 6 d, Surr' 

 Sussex.' (Another portion of the same process is given in app., D, 6.) 

 As the ordinary writs for wages make no provision for extra sessions 

 held according to the statute (app., 16) at the "discretion" of the jus- 

 tices, it is possible that these additional payments represent the reward 

 for such sessions. 



