THE JUSTICES OF LABOURERS 



51 



joint as compared with that of the separate commissions ; ' 

 the former include a large proportion of men of law and 

 of magnates, appointed at the same date, for a great 

 number of counties ; e. g., John de Moubray and William 

 de Skipwith for nine counties, William de Shareshull for 

 seven, and similarly in many other cases. "^ Lambard's 

 description, therefore, of the justices assigned to execute 

 the statute of labourers as " not resiant in the countrey, 

 but sent downe for the time of that seruice " is well justi- 

 fied.^ While occasionally the payment of wages in a 

 given district proves to be to one of these well-known 

 men, e. g., to Skipwith in Lincolnshire,'' showing that he 

 was performing actual service, usually it is the less 

 famous names that appear on the salaried list, even in the 

 case of the joint commissions. On the separate com- 

 missions for labourers there is a much smaller proportion 

 of distinguished men and very few instances where the 

 same men were appointed to a plurality of districts. 

 Perhaps the petitions of the commons had effect ; at any 

 rate, on the whole, it is fair to characterize the lists of 

 justices of labourers as composed of residents of the dis- 

 tricts for which they were acting. 



Further, while the joint commissioners, having power 

 to hear and determine cases of felony and of homicide, 



' Cf. p. 22. 



'The list in app., 6,3, shows the extent of this practice, an evil a little 

 different in nature from that of which Lambard had complained; cf. 

 p. 38. 



'^Eirenarcha, 562; erroneously described as justices of labourers only. 

 Cf. p. 9, note I, 



*Claus., 26, m. 16, 20 June, in the district of Lindsey; Cal., ix, 437. 

 Ibid., Cavendish in Essex and Suffolk. The latter' s murder by the in- 

 surgents has even been attributed to his relation to the statutes of labour- 

 ers; Trevelyan's Wycliffe, 217 and 219. 



