1 30 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



town, and, in order that none of these penalties should be 

 distributed elsewhere in the county, forbids any interference 

 from the justices or collectors of the rest of Yorkshire.^ The 

 case of Colchester is one of the most striking that has come 

 to my notice; the loth amounts to £26 2s. gd., but the sub- 

 collectors are ordered to collect £84 7s. yd. in penalties, 

 the difference evidently to go in accordance with the statute 

 to the next poorest town ; the subcollectors, however, raise 

 the third of the total penalties, sufficient to cover their own 

 tax and then refuse to concern themselves with the re- 

 mainder which would, of course, not benefit Colchester.^ 

 Such a combination of circumstances must have occurred 

 fairly often; for, in the spring of 1354, when there was 

 only one more collection of the subsidy, the commons peti- 

 tion that a surplus of penalties over the tax in a given dis- 

 trict be distributed at large throughout the county instead 

 of going to the next poorest town.'' This request is re- 

 fused, but the fact that it was made is in itself indicative 

 of the importance attaching to the penalties. That in a 

 given county the labourers can be made to pay half or a 

 third of the total tax, even though this is true but rarely, 



' Pat., 27, pt. I, m. 18, 10 March; " Pro hominibus ville de Kyngeston- 

 super-Hull." Cf. Cal., ix, 417. Gasquet, The Great Pestiletice, 155, 

 gives a full summary but fails to make clear that the point of the issue 

 of these letters patent was merely to prevent the possibility of a com- 

 mittee of apportionment deciding that some other district in Yorkshire 

 had even a better claim to the penalties imposed in Kingston than had 

 Kingston. 



^Mem. K. R., 27, Mich., Recorda, Essex, " De balliuis Colecestr' 

 occasionatis." The bailiffs are accused of having let out of prison the 

 disobedient subcollectors, contrary to the orders of the collectors. The 

 two sets of figures, that of the tax and that of the penalties, given in 

 this most interesting process, are corroborated with only slight difTer- 

 ences, by the subsidy account and by the justices' estreats; see app., 

 337-339. 



''Rot. Pari., ii, 2s8a. 



