PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE JUSTICES 



63 



worse than careless and, in league with corrupt justices 

 to aid in their extortion, are found substituting the 

 name of an innocent for that of a guilty man.' It is not 

 unnatural that by the next reign it was deemed advisable 

 to administer an oath to the clerk as well as to the jus- 

 tices, especially as by this date he had become responsi- 

 ble for the custody of the records.^ 



This brings up a difficult problem ; how and where were 

 the sessional records kept? A distinction must at once be 

 made between the piadia and the estreats of the penalties ; 

 in examining the whole question of the disposition of the 

 penalties it will appear that there was a carefully worked- 

 out system in accordance with which the estreats were 

 regularly delivered into the exchequer.^ Innumerable pro- 

 cesses show that eventually the estreats were received in 

 safety, and that the action of the exchequer was regular 

 and persistent in insisting on securing them ; but it also 

 appears that the justices used exceedingly haphazard 

 methods in the care of the estreats ; apparently any one 

 of the "working" justices who chanced to have them 

 penes se kept them merely in his own dwelling,'* and 

 from what has already been said as to the possibility of 

 practical exemption on the part of some of the commis- 

 sion, there is no certainty as to who the " working jus- 

 tices " would prove to be. In the case of the placita, it 



' App., 241-242. 



^The oath of the justices of the peace who were now responsible for 

 the labour legislation includes the following: " et que vous ne prendrez 

 ne resceiverez nul Clerc devers vous pur faire escrire ou garder les 

 Recordes et Proces avantdictes, s'il ne soit primerement jurez devant 

 vous de celer le conseil le Roi, & de faire et perfournir bien et loialment 

 de sa part qant a son office & degree apent en celle partie . . . "; Rot. 

 Pari., iii, 85b. Cf. pp. 42-43. 



^See pt. I, ch. iii, passim. 



^E. g. app., 283; cf. also "in partibus suis; " pt. i, ch. iii, s. i, B, b. 



