DISPOSITION OF THE PENALTIES i-- 



The result of the session has been already told; the change 

 in the disposition of the penalties relieved the exchequer and 

 the sheriffs from direct responsibilities for levying the es- 

 treats, and called forth writs of supersedeas stopping the 

 processes against the justices of labourers/ There is no 

 record that during these few months any payments had 

 been made as salaries to the justices.^ With the expiration 

 of the second triennial at Michaelmas, 1354, the crown 

 recovered its rights to all penalties under the statutes of 

 labourers, and although it was forced later to part with 

 a portion of the penalties, it never again completely sur- 

 rendered its rights. These rights have been shown to ex- 

 tend to arrears of penalties not already allowed to the tax- 

 payers. If the estreats have reached the collectors, the ex- 

 chequer brings action against them by a process already de- 

 scribed, but if the estreats are still in the hands of the jus- 

 tices of labourers, up to 1362 the exchequer deals with them 

 exactly as it does with current estreats.' In both cases 

 writs are issued by the treasurer to the justices bidding 

 them deliver their estreats into the exchequer ; * they are 

 then turned over to the sheriff who is responsible for levy- 

 ing them and for accounting for them.""" The system by 



'Page 109 and note 2. 



"See p. 44. As early as 12 July, 1351, the date of the issue of the 

 first series of writs for payment of the justices' salaries, complaints to 

 the council of embezzlement of the penalties by " sherififs, lords of lib- 

 erties and towns, marshalls of justices, keepers of prisons, bailiflfs of 

 liberties, market towns and boroughs and their agents," had resulted 

 in the appointment of a number of commissions of investigation; Pat., 

 25, pt. 2, m. II d.; " De summis ab operatoribus et seruitoribus extorsis 

 ad opus Regis leuandis." Ca/.,ix, 160. It seems probable that in view 

 of the change in the disposition of the penalties, these commissions 

 were allowed to lapse. 



'See p. 119. 'App., 363-365- 



* For the sources that contain the accounts of the penalties both origfi- 



