CENTRAL COURTS 189 



chaplain is not an ordinary labourer, but a servant of God, 

 and he should be punished by the ecclesiastical courts; re- 

 ferring to a case in a previous term, the chief justice of 

 common pleas says: ''it is our opinion and that of our com- 

 panions of the king's bench that a chaplain is not bound by 

 the statute as other people are." The plea in the record of 

 this action that the ordinance is general, referring to ever>- 

 kind of person of whatever condition or rank, while not 

 maintained in the case of chaplains, certainly shows the 

 attitude at this time toward the contract clause/ In the 

 next century when the question came up again, limitations 

 were made by the courts on this elastic interpretation of the 

 law ; - but it is significant and worthy of emphasis that dur- 

 ing Edward's reign, while quarter sessions were enforcing 

 the wages and price clauses against what are technically 

 called the labouring classes, the upper courts were uphold- 

 ing an extens-on of the contract clause so wide as to make 

 it apply to all who were working for salaries ; an extension 

 undoubtedly never contemplated by the framers of the 

 ordinance. 



(5) The contract— The reason for the application by the 

 courts of the contract clause of the ordinance to employees 

 of all ranks and conditions' and also the nature of this 

 novel form of contract, can best be understood by emphasiz- 



' Fitzherbert, curiously enough, although he summarizes the reports 

 of both these cases in his abridgment, does not refer to them m Netf 

 Nat. Brev.; he there states explicitly that a chaplain is bound by a sta- 

 tutory retainer; see supra, p. 180, note 2. Cf. Reeves, op. cii., n, 247. 

 note- " Of course it was held that such persons (/. e., chaplains) were not 

 within the statute." The change in the practice of the courts becomes 

 apparent only by a study of the Plea Rolls. It seems strange that the 

 instructions to bishops at the end of the first ordinance were not quoted 

 or the regulation of chaplains' wages by 36 Edw. Ill, st. i, c. 8, Statutes. 



-Cf. Reeves, op. cit., ii, 274, note. 



■' See s. 4 for exceptions. 



i 



