l88 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



are several cases where issue is taken on questions of fact, — 

 denial of retention or reasonable cause for departure; ^ but 

 at the very end of the reign a successful attempt is made to 

 take chaplains out of the category of those against whom 

 an action on the ordinance could be brought. In the first 

 case in which the change is noted the report is exceedingly 

 condensed ; - to the plaintiff's count that the defendant had 

 broken a covenant to be seneschal and to celebrate divine 

 services, the plea is urged that he had merely been retained 

 to chant masses — which does not come under the statute ; no 

 argument is g"iven either in report or record. The report and 

 record of the second case, a year later, are more explicit ;'* the 



'De Banco, 30, Pasch., 217 d, Warwick; 41 d, Devon; in the latter 

 the defendant's contract with " parsona ecclesie " had been "quod de- 

 seruiret ei in officio capellani parochialis ecclesie sue de Beworth et 

 haberet curam rectorie sue ibidem." Ibid., 39, Pasch., 392, Midd., 

 contains a record of a case in which the contract had been "in officio 

 capellani parochialis," and the defendant's plea is reasonable cause for 

 departure: "quod tempore conuencionis predicte facte inter eos, con- 

 cordatum fuit quod idem Walterus inter alia inueniret ipsi Thome per 

 totum tempus predictum tabulam suam, videlicet, victum vt in cibis et 

 potubus et eciam vnam cameram pro huiusmodi seruicio et dicit quod 

 ad prefatum festum Pasche predictus Walterus tabulam suam ipsi Thome 

 subtraxit . . . camera sua expulsit et eas ei vlterius inuenire noluit." 



■■'Case 34, list in app. In the record the plaintifif claims that the de- 

 fendant's contract had been "in officio balliui et colectoris firmarum et 

 reddituum ad capellam . . . spectantium." To which the defendant 

 replied that his contract had been not " in officio balliui " but " in officio 

 capellani ad celebrandum missas et alia diuina facienda que ad officium 

 sacerdotis in ecclesia Dei spectant." Although there is a difference in 

 the dates of the report and the record, as well as a slight discrepancy 

 between the counts, my belief is that they refer to the same action. 

 With the exception of two, I have examined all the De Banco Rolls 

 until the end of the reign and have found no other chaplain case except 

 the record of case 42, app., F, 4. Moreover out of 312 cases, there are 

 in all only four cases besides this one that deal with chaplains, and as 

 errors in the dates of the reports are frequent, the chances are in favour 

 of the correctness of my hypothesis. 



*Case 42, app., F, 4. 



