PROCEEDINGS BEFORE THE JUSTICES 



«7 



taken in excess,' so that practically there is no difference 

 between the two forms. It will become apparent later, 

 however, that there was, from the point of view of the 

 income of the exchequer, a motive for sometimes calling 

 a given penalty a fine rather than "excess," and for 

 sometimes doing just the reverse, a motive which can be 

 understood only after a careful study of the disposition 

 of the penalties.^ 



After the money penalties had been named by the 

 justices in session, whether fines, excess or amercements, 

 and had been duly entered on the estreat roll by their 

 clerk, and after the roll had been delivered to the proper 

 person, collector of the subsidy or exchequer official, the 

 responsibilities of the justices were over ; with the levy- 

 ing of the penalties they had nothing to do. While the 

 total sum of the issues of the sessions affords an excellent 

 means of estimating roughly the number of convictions, 

 and therefore the efficiency of the justices in performing 

 their task, this total must be discussed in connection 

 with the whole question of the disposition of the pen- 

 alties ; but in the meantime, in order to appreciate more 

 thoroughly the problems dealt with by the justices, it 

 must be shown how extortionate in their demands were 

 the offenders whom they were punishing. 



(6) Rates of wages and prices. — It is an accepted fact 

 that immediately after the plague there was an extra- 

 ordinary and unprecedented rise in wages and prices ; ^ 

 it is also indisputable that an upward movement had 

 begun during the years just before the plague."* An ac- 



' App., 205, ^i ^^9- 'See pt. i, ch. iii, s. i. A and s. 2, B. 



'Introduction, pp. 4-5. During the actual ravages of the plague 

 prices fell, but only for a few months; Knighton, ii, 62. 



* Cunningham, Growth of Eng. Industry, i, 335-336: Denton, Evg. 

 in Fifteenth Century, 107, 217-218; Petit-Dutaillis, introduction to 

 Reville's Soulhvetnent , xxix-xxx; Rogers, Hist, of Prices, i, 292. 



