DISPOSITION OF THE PENALTIES 105 



to accounting and, finally, the determination of the crown 

 to insist on the differentiation in the money penalties, are 

 striking elements of weakness in the measure, and show that 

 the second ordinance, like the first, was inadequate on the 

 administrative side. 



The re-enactment of the substance of the council's scheme 

 by the statute of February, 1351, when there was only one 

 more payment of the grant to be made, represents a belated 

 attempt to remedy these administrative defects and also 

 embodies, at the urgent petition of the commons, a further 

 concession of revenue by the crown : it is now specified that 

 fines as well as " excess " shall go in aid of the sub- 

 sidy; that all the penalties are to be assessed by justices to 

 be appointed under the act, that the estreats shall be de- 

 livered by them to the collectors by a system of indentures, 

 so that the latter may be called to account at the exchequer ; 

 the penalties are to be levied by the collectors and are to go 

 in aid of the districts in which they were imposed, but if in 

 any place the total exceeds the tax, the surplus is to go to 

 the next poorest district; with the cessation of this sub- 

 sidy, the penalties are to go to the king and be accounted for 

 by the sheriff/ At the eleventh hour of the grant, it is 

 not surprising that the more carefully worked out schem.e 

 failed to have much result; the subsidy accounts are still 

 silent, but on the Memoranda Rolls there are two important 

 actions brought against the collectors of Surrey,^ and of 

 Gloucester,^ on the ground of failure to distribute the 



' App., 16. The form of the commission in the full list issued as a 

 result of the statute (app., 23) still includes the same clause as to the 

 relations between justices and collectors that had appeared in the com- 

 missions of the first period; one would have expected some modifica- 

 tion of it. 



^App., 262-264. 



^Mem. L. T. R., 2^, Mich., Fines, rot. 2, Gloucester; on 30 March 



