l6o ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



the employment of a servant who is bound by agreement to 

 another master.^ The frequency with which in actual prac- 

 tice unwritten contracts between master and servant were 

 enforced in the local courts can be determined only by a 

 thorough examination of the manuscript sources," but the 

 fact that such contracts could be enforced in these courts is 

 proved beyond doubt. 



The conclusion, therefore, in regard to the first of the 

 two points under discussion is that except for the specific 

 limitation of agricultural wages, and for the interference 

 with the mobility of the free labourer, provisions similar in 

 character to the new legislation were already being carried 

 out in the local courts ; but with a marked difference. Un- 

 der the old scheme, a few of the regulations, notably the 

 assizes of bread and ale, were framed by the central govern- 

 ment, and were put into effect by the existing local authori- 

 ties, but by far the greater number of the provisions were 

 devised as well as enforced by the local authorities and 

 thus varied in different localities ; whereas the enactments of 

 1349 and 1 35 1, as has long been recognized, emanated from 

 the central government, applied uniformly to the whole 

 country, and were administered chiefly by officials both ap- 

 pointed and supervised directly by the crown. This dis- 

 tinction between the old method and the new at once brings 

 up the second point. Did these national enactments come 

 within the competence of the old local courts? 



The ordinance, so strangely neglectful of assigning duties 



^Page 155. note 8, supra. An entry in Lid. Aldus, in Mnn. Gild- 

 hallae, i, 214, is to the point: "Item, accouns de dette sount mayn- 

 tenables par usages des simples grauntz, et dassignementz, et de 

 plegiage, et de covenaunt, simplement sauncz especialtee. " 



' Professor Maitland told me that it was his impression that the en- 

 forcement of the contract betv/een master and servant was not very 

 common in the courts of the manor and of the hundred. 



