THE OLD LOCAL COURTS 165 



Herefordshire/ whereas in Wiltshire,' where a large part 

 of the work of quarter sessions is concerned with the pun- 

 ishment of offending brewers and bakers, there is no trace 

 of any protest on the part of the franchise-holders. It is 

 more than probable that the solution of what might other- 

 wise have proved a serious difificulty lay in the fact that the 

 profits of jurisdiction were deemed more important than the 

 jurisdiction itself. The owners of franchises had been suc- 

 cessful in their contention that to them belonged the penal- 

 ties imposed in quarter sessions on their tenants for in- 

 fringement of all clauses of the statutes of laljourers ; it was 

 natural, therefore, that they should prefer to leave to the 

 justices of labourers the troublesome task of convicting of- 

 fenders while they themselves with very little effort secured 

 the pecuniary advantage of such convictions.^ 



^Assize Rolls, Hereford, 313; see app., 18Q-192, for a portion of this 

 roll. The entry just quoted is too illegible for transcription. 



'App., 228-234. 



^If my explanation is correct, it is clear that Mr. Savine presents a 

 somewhat exaggerated account of the situation when he writes: "The 

 agents of the King and of the common law, the justices of assize and 

 the justices of peace, entered into the sacred precinct of the manor in 

 order to control the relations between the lord and his villeins." 

 " Bondmen under the Tudors," in Traits. Royal Hist. Soc, xvii, 254. 



