CENTRAL COURTS 175 



writs printed in the Registrum ^ cover all the essential 

 clauses of both ordinance and statute, except the price 

 clause; namely, departure of a servant, retention of an- 

 other's servant, compulsory service, excess wages, rights 

 of lords, service by the usual terms and the summer and 

 winter clause. One is therefore led to expect to find on the 

 Plea Rolls records of suits brought under these various 

 forms of writs, especially suits on the wages clause, so 

 frequent in Ancient Indictments. 



The result of an analysis of the 312 cases occurring on 

 the 59 rolls examined does not fulfil this expectation. In 

 the court of common pleas there are 277 cases on the con- 

 tract clause, either for departure or for retention, or for 

 both ; - 2 cases on the compulsory service clause,^ and 2 on 

 the statute of the 35th year.'* There are also 7 cases in- 



^ Reg. Brev. Orig., 119, 189-191; -Reg. Brev. Jud., 27-28. See app., 

 411-413. Most of these writs appear in the middle of the Registrum in 

 that section described by Maitland as an appendix, since it includes 

 " Brevia de Statute," /. e., writs on comparatively new statutes; " Reg- 

 ister of Original Writs," in Harvard Law Review, iii, 100. I exam- 

 ined in the Harvard Law library nine editions of the NaUira Brevium, 

 printed between 1525 and 1584, but did not find a single instance of 

 writs on the statutes of labourers. 



^The references to all these cases would take too much space, but in 

 the course of this chapter many of them will be referred to specifically. 



The Registrum includes three forms of writs on the contract clause: 

 first, against a servant for departure before the end of his term ; 

 second, against an employer for the retention of a servant who had thus 

 illegally departed ; and third, against both servant and employer 

 for departure and retention respectively; 189. 



^De Banco, 38, Trin., 86, Camb.; 46, Hill., 102, York and 46, Pasch., 

 221 d, York. 



^Ibid., 41, Trin., 248 d, Line; 45, Trin., 247, Camb. and 46, Trin,, 

 361, Camb. 



For the discussion of the date of this statute, cf. p. 25, note i. 

 Only 35 De Banco and 8 Coram Rege Rolls were examined for the 

 period subsequent to its enactment. 



