CENTRAL COURTS Iqq 



servant has escaped into another county, cannot re-take him 

 without first serving notice on the new master. In spite 

 of this partial exception in the matter of different counties, 

 it is obvious that on the whole there was under the contract 

 clause a considerable extension of the rights of the first em- 

 ployer as compared with his rights at common law, and that 

 this extension came into conflict with the provisions of the 

 compulsory labour clause, and thus caused one of the two 

 limitations on the power of a given individual to compel 

 service from a vagrant.^ 



In the peculiar stress of circumstances due to the plague, 

 employers almost universally were having serious difficul- 

 ties in keeping employees to their agreements, and since 

 during this period only the local courts were enforcing un- 

 written contracts of the type usual in the relations between 

 employers and employees, the former had no remedies in 

 the upper courts.^ This unsatisfactory status of the law 

 of parol contract is undoubtedly the explanation ^ of the 

 successful attempt made by the lawyers and judges of the 

 king's bench and of common pleas to widen the application 

 of the contract clause, and to bring it about that a bailiff 

 or a school-teacher could be sued for breach of contract un- 

 der the same form of writ as a ploughman or a carter. 



(6) The effect of the compulsory service and contract 

 clauses on the lord's relation to his villeins. — The lord's 



summary certainly proves this. Cf. also Hale's note to Fitzherbert, 

 op. cit., 390: "If it be in the same County, he (the new employer) 

 ought to take Notice of the first Retainer at his Peril, but he is not pun- 

 ishable, if he (the servant) be found Vagrant in another County. ..." 

 Hale refers to a Year Book report, 17 Edw. IV, f. 7, which contains a 

 clear recognition of this distinction between counties by Littleton, and 

 which gives a cross-reference to my case 43. This latter must be dis- 

 cussed again in connection with villeins; see s. 6. 

 ^S. 4, p. 181. 'See pp. 157-158. 'Page 178. 



