DISPOSITION OF THE PENALTIES 



141 



from the county at large/ — obviously a great gain to the 

 owners of the liberties who could thus levy the penalties 

 with much less effort than if the estreats relating to their 

 own tenants were to be mixed up with those for the county. 

 For 1354, just before the end of the subsidy, there are five 

 such commissions, for 1355, three, and then between March 

 and November of 1356, eighteen, nearly half of the total 

 of forty-two commissions for that year." For the first 

 twelve or eighteen months after the end of the subsidy the 

 exchequer was fully occupied in collecting the arrears of 

 penalties, none of which belonged to the lords, but toward 

 the end of 1356, traces of this new disposition of the penal- 

 ties would naturally appear. The sudden increase during 

 the spring and summer in the number of the special com- 

 missions, is perhaps the result of the crown's acceptance of 

 the rights of the lords ; these rights are certainly implied in 

 the phraseology of the writs for payment of wages to the 

 justices of labourers, issued the previous February, 1356: 

 de Unibns, redempcionihus et exitibiis tarn ad magnates et 

 alios virtiite libertatum eis per nos et progenitores nostras 

 concessarum .... quain ad nos pertinentihits.^ It is note- 

 worthy in view of the later discussions that excessiis is 

 omitted. A few months later, however, just at the time 

 of the greatest increase in the number of special commis- 

 sions, a test case comes up in the exchequer so important in 

 its results that its history must be given.'' 



The archbishop of Canterbury, relying on a royal 

 charter bestowing on his predecessors and their succes- 



' Cf. pp. 37-40. ^ App., 36-41, and p. 20. 



^ App., 368. During this same winter when Edward, duke of Corn- 

 wall, claims the penalties imposed on his tenants before Bray, justice of 

 labourers in Middlesex, the court adjourns for consideration; Mem. L. 

 T. R., 31, Mich., Precepta, rot. i, Lond. and Midd. 



* See app., 272>-27Qj for a complete series of documents relating to 

 this claim. 



