PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE JUSTICES 83 



provided ; it is also added that the breaking of the oath 

 of obedience shall for the first offence be punished by 

 prison for forty days, and for the second, for a quarter of 

 a year. In the same clause it is likewise specified that 

 the penalty now regularly known as "excess" shall go to 

 the plaintiff if any sue and otherwise to the current sub- 

 sidy as long as it runs and after its cessation to the king.' 

 In order to analyze the different clauses of the legisla- 

 tion and to describe somewhat in detail the status of the 

 individuals who were infringing them, it proved necessary 

 to interrupt the account of the procedure in sessions, 

 leaving the justices face to face with groups of labourers 

 convicted of their guilt." How, out of the apparent con- 

 fusion of penalties, do they proceed to deal with the de- 

 linquents? The rolls show that occasionally they employ 

 imprisonment as an actual punishment : for example, an 

 offender guilty for a second time of the receipt of excess 

 wages is adjudged to prison for forty days ; ^ in one in- 

 stance they use the equitable device of delivering to a 

 master to finish out her term a maid-servant who had 

 broken her contract/ There are also frequent references 

 to the use of stocks, a punishment that is often inflicted 

 at the discretion of the constables without the interven- 

 tion of the justices.'^ The system employed by the latter 



*App., 14-16. Cf. Rot. Pari., ii, 227 b for a petition that corporal 

 punishment shall be inflicted on delinquents instead of the hitherto in- 

 effectual fines and redemptions; the statute is said to be in response to 

 this petition, presumably the stocks fulfilling the requirement for cor- 

 poral punishment. 



-S. 2. ''App., 184-185. *App., 214. 



'■' E. g., app., 169; see also the numerous references in the De Banco 

 rolls; pt. ii, ch. ii, s. 3 and s. 4. The Patent Rolls furnish further evi- 

 dence as to the use of stocks; e. g., a certain Richard de Buckeden of 

 Leighton has been indicted before the justices of labourers in Hunts. 

 " de eo quod ipse noctanter apud Leighton cum aliis ignotis cippos qui 



