THE OLD LOCAL COURTS 163 



the entry is sometimes de placito conuencionis simply,^ and 

 sometimes notii statuti is added ;- but it seems perfectly pos- 

 sible that this latter phrase is often omitted through care- 

 lessness or that it is not considered essential. The records 

 of the borough court of Nottingham contain for the decade 

 1 349- 1 3 59 several cases dealing with unwritten contracts 

 between master and servant ; ^ but curiously enough it is the 

 master who is being sued for breaking an agreement to em- 

 ploy the servant, not a usual occurrence at this date. Al- 

 though these cases are subsequent to the enactment of the 

 ordinance, there is no indication that they are based on it; 

 it is more than probable that they are examples of the 

 validity of parol contracts in borough law. 



In answering the question as to the competence of the old 

 local courts to deal with the new labour laws it must be 

 confessed that the phrase noui statuti so frequently found 

 may conceivably in contemporary usage refer to the ordin- 

 ance only; so that my inadequate researches do not prove 

 beyond doubt that the measure of 135 1 as well as that of 

 1349 was being enforced. Fortunately, however, a case re- 

 corded a few years later affords conclusive evidence that 

 the statute, not the ordinance, is the enactment on which the 

 action is brought * and, therefore, establishes the fact that 

 the jurisdiction of these courts extended to the national 



> App . , 394-395 • ' App . , 394 • 



"'Records of the Borough of Nottingham, ed. Stevenson, i, 158-159, 

 166-167. Cf. Maitland, introduction to Littleport court roll, Court 

 Baron, 118. For bibliography of material on boroughs, see supra, p. 155, 

 note 6; for parol contracts in borough courts, cf. supra, p. 159, note 6. 



■'An entry on the court roll of Forncett records the withdrawing of a 

 labourer from the vill and from the lord's domain contrary to the statute 

 and to the prohibition of the steward. Davenport, Norfolk Manor, ji, 

 and note 3. Professor Page wrote me in March, 1904, that he had seen 

 many cases in the court records dating both before and after the rising 

 of 1381, in which fines were imposed for violation of the statutes. 



