CENTRAL COURTS 



187 



whom is a school-teacher, dccanus decannatus,^ hospiciar- 

 his,'- incrcator,^ a man who had been retained in officio ad 

 colligendiun elemosinas Sancti Antonii et Sancti Spirittis,* 

 sencscallns.^ The pleas are all perfectly commonplace, issue 

 being taken on mere questions of fact, — permission to depart, 

 difference of dates of contract, lack of payment, denial of 

 retention or of departure. It is true that a plea to the ef- 

 fect that the statute was not applicable to this class of em- 

 ployees, if not allowed by the court, would not have found 

 its way on to the records; it would, however, almost surely 

 have been noted by some reporters and therefore appeared 

 in the Year Books ; ** the silence of the latter for the reign 

 of Edw. Ill, confirmed by the evidence of the above cases, 

 certainly proves that at this time the contract clause was 

 applied very generally. 



Chaplains. Objections were made only in the case of 

 chaplains. In this instance also it is important to use the 

 records of cases not reported as well as the reports; the 

 former afford conclusive proof that for a time writs based 

 on the contract clause were upheld by the courts against 

 chaplains just as against bailiffs and school-teachers. There 



the defendant had been retained by the plaintiff: "ad deserviendum ei 

 in arte sua, videUcet, ad adiscendum scolares suos in scolis suis grama- 

 tice." Cf. in Gasquet's Greai Pestilence, 48, a quotation from Contin- 

 uatio Chronici Guillelmi di Nangiaco: "And few were found who 

 could or would teach children the rudiments of grammar in houses, cities 

 or villages." 



' De Banco, 42, Hill., 381 d, Norfolk. 



"-Ibid., 49. Mich., "]■] d, Suffolk. 



^ Ibid., 46, Mich., 644, Lend. 



*Ibid., 50, Mich., 471, Wilts. ^Ibid., 49, Trin., 250 d, Leic. 



*In case 33, list in app., an action for departure, the defendant had 

 merely denied the retention; the reporter quotes the case for a point on 

 the law of contract, and it only appears from the record that the defend- 

 ant's occupation was that of a bailiff. 



