CENTRAL COURTS 



I«I 



action of false imprisonment against the official who had 

 administered the penalty, on the plea that he (the labourer) 

 held enough land to secure exemption from the law.^ Evi- 

 dence that employers frequently succeeded in securing this 

 penalty of stocks for labourers unwilling to work is af- 

 forded by the numerous instances of actions of trespass in 

 which it appears that such delinquents had been rescued 

 vi et arniis from their confinement.^ At this time of great 

 scarcity of labourers of all kinds, there was inevitably much 

 wandering from place to place of both free men and villeins, 

 seeking to take advantage of the situation by demanding 

 the highest possible wages. In the crisis the ordinance 

 tried to provide labour for employers at the old rates by 

 giving them this right of seizing idle vagrants, and putting 

 them to work ; ^ the right is, however, subject to two im- 

 portant limitations which must be analyzed later, the pre- 

 ference given to former masters in the case of free men,* 

 and to lords in the case of villeins.^ 



Contract clause. The 299 cases for breach of contract * 

 fall into three groups: i. 136 actions brought by masters 

 against servants for departure before the end of their term; 

 2. 116 brought by masters against other masters for re- 

 tention of servants out of their service before the end of 

 their term; 3. 47 brought by masters against both servants 

 for departure and other masters for retention. To these 



^ Case 39, list in app. Cf. Reeves, op. cit., ii, 247, for a commentary 

 on this report. 



'See p. 176, note 2, for a reference to one of these cases. In an action 

 for departure it appears that the plaintiff having found the defendant 

 " vagantem " and refusing to work although " potens in corpore " and 

 possessing nothing wherevi^ith to live, had caused the constable to put 

 him in stocks until he agreed to make a contract within the terms of 

 the law; De Banco, 51, Pasch., 206, Surrey. 



*See p. 3, and note i; also. Reeves, op. cit., ii, 247. 



*S. 5. 'S. 6. ^'S. 3. 



