THE JUSTICES OF LABOURERS 49 



It has already been pointed out that only those justices 

 were paid who actually sat, and that with the system of 

 practical exemption for a portion of each commission 

 from the necessity of service, only two or three fon rare 

 occasions four or five) received salaries ; ' the figures 

 recorded in exchequer documents show that the maxi- 

 mum was frequently, though not always, reached.^ From 

 these two considerations it is plain that there was a 

 fairly definite limit to the total amount due in wages out 

 of the penalties in a given county. 



Suits brought by the justices to secure the payment of 

 their salaries ^ show the im.portance with which such pay- 

 ment was regarded, and prove beyond doubt that in the 

 fourteenth century the compensation was considered an 

 essential factor in the organization of the office/ 



(7) The personnel of the commissions.^ — During this 

 decade the petitions of the commons as to the keepers of 

 the peace and the justices of labourers, either of the 

 joint or separate commissions, include no requests for a 

 definite property qualification^ but merely mention rather 



' CV. p. 35. -^See pt. I, ch. iii, s. 2, A. 



*In the court of king's bench and in the exchequer; see pt. i, ch. iii, 

 s. I, B, b and s. 2, A. 



*The later petitions already quoted complaining of the neglect of their 

 duties because of the lack of salaries point to the same conclusion; I am 

 inclined, therefore, to disagree with Mr. Beard's view {op. cit., 150), 

 that "no attempt was ever made to provide a regular salary for the 

 justice of the peace." 



^See list of justices in app., B, 3. The calendars of Close and Patent 

 Rolls issued since my monograph was practically completed {cf. app., 

 20-21) will render comparatively easy a really thorough study of the per- 

 sonnel of the justices. I can here emphasize only a few important points. 



® Neither the ordinance or the statute had specified any qualifications. 

 A statute of 18 H. VI, c. 11 {Statutes), enacted that to be eligible to 

 the peace commission a man must have an income of ^20 per annum; 

 with the change in the value of money, this sum soon became merely 

 nominal. Cf. Beard, op. cit., 144. 



