144 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



sertion of their claims to a portion of them, they prevented 

 a third grant to the communities. 



The procedure is now as follows: a given claimant 

 obtains from the king a writ to the treasurer and 

 barons ordering them, in view of a royal charter and 

 in accordance with the new statute, to make from 

 time to time such allowances as are due. The claim- 

 ant, having previously received from the justices of 

 labourers the estreats of the penalties imposed on his 

 tenants, sends into the exchequer the schedule of names and 

 amounts, and appears 3^early in person or through his bailiff 

 or attorney at the timie that the sheriff is rendering his ac- 

 count,^ and claims that he has a right to levy for his own use 

 and through his own agents the sums noted in the schedules.^ 

 When the claimant has demanded a specific amount, three 

 points must now be proved to the satisfaction of the ex- 

 chequer before it can make the due allowance in the sheriff's 

 account: i. the delinquents named must be shown to be 

 tenants of the claimant; 2. the penalties must be shown to 

 have been imposed subsequently to the opening of the par- 

 liament in which the new statute had been made; 3. the 

 penalties must be shown to be fines, issues, and amerce- 

 ments but not " excess ;" for it is asserted by the barons that 

 " excess," not being mentioned in the charters, goes to the 

 crown direct." It is worth remembering that on a previous 



'App., 378-:? 79; 382-383. 



^Cf. Mem. K. R., 2,Z< Pasch., Breu. Baron., rot. 6 d, 11 May, Pro 

 comite Richemund', for an order to the barons to bid the justices of 

 labourers deliver to the bailiff of the earl the estreats of certain penal- 

 ties under the statutes; also ibid., 33, Mich., Recorda, Anglia, 20 Oct., 

 for a similar order to the barons. Later it appears that both the barons 

 and the earl's bailiff had begun to levy these penalties; therefore a writ 

 of supersedeas stops the proceedings of the former; Mem. K. R., 35, 

 Mich., Breu. Baron., rot. 20, 13 Nov. Cf. p. 147, note 5. 



^Mem. L. T. R., 33, Mich., Precepta, rot. 2; an examination of the 



