1 08 ENFORCEMENT OF THE ST A TUTES OF LABO URERS 



(a) System of collection and distribution of the penal- 

 ties. — Not only have the commons been explicit in their de- 

 mands that all possible penalties under the statutes should 

 be granted to them, — in contradistinction to the council's 

 former limitation to the " excess," — but they are resolved 

 that the officials concerned in carrying out the measure shall 

 have specific instructions as to ways and means. There- 

 fore, during the same session of parliament, the commons 

 drew up, in the guise of a petition to the king and the mag- 

 nates, comprehensive and detailed directions for the actual 

 collection and distribution of the penalties/ This petition 

 is granted and a copy - is sent to the collectors in each 

 county, together with their commission; the latter now in- 

 cludes a reference to the concession as to the penalties and 

 states that they are to be levied iuxta formam nobis in dicta 

 parliamento per dictam communitatem liberatam et per nos 

 acceptatani quam vobis mittimus} The method prescribed 



'Including a request for the appointment in parliament of separate 

 commissions for labourers; cf. p. 27. 



'The petition is not given in Rot. Pari., but appears in Statutes of 

 the Realm as a statute of the 2Sth year printed from a British Museum 

 manuscript. A copy or perhaps the original draft, exists on a detached 

 membrane among Miscellanea of the Exchequer. 4/39, and the docu- 

 ment is likewise enrolled on the Memoranda Rolls, L. T. R., imme- 

 diately following the enrollment of the commission to the collectors; 

 app., 271. In the Colchester case referred to, p. 130, it is spoken of as 

 " ordinacionem . . . per consilium Regis factam." 



*For the commission of the first year, see app., 268-271, and also 

 Orig., 26, m. 27, 25 Feb.; Anglia, " De decima et quintadecima per 

 laicos concessis." For the second and third years, cf. ibid., 27, m. 25, 

 26 Jan., and 28, m. 29, 26 Jan. 



Gasquet, The Great Pestilence, 197, referring to the Originalia enroll- 

 ment of the 26th j'-ear, conveys the impression that this document is the 

 grant of the penalties instead of making clear that it is merely the com- 

 mission issued as a result of the grant. His two other references to 

 the Originalia, on the disregard of the ordinance, 26, m. 25 (on p. ig8), 

 and the inability of the justices to levy the penalties, 27, m. 19 (on p. 



