200 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



relation to his tenants causes the second limitation on the 

 right of employers to compel work from vagrants/ The 

 ordinance had provided that lords should receive prefer- 

 ence both as to their bondmen and as to their free tenants ; " 

 accordingly in an action against a labourer for refusal to 

 serve, the plea is urged that the defendant was holding land 

 of a lord for whom he had services to perform, and is up- 

 held by the court on the ground that if the labourer had 

 made a contract witli another master, he could not legally 

 have left him to perform the necessary services for his lord. 

 It is added that the statute had been made for the advant- 

 age of the lords.'' In a case summoned to Westminster 

 from quarter sessions the justices of labourers had decided 

 that a labourer is justified in refusing to serve an employer 

 when required, if he can prove that he is a villein of an- 

 other man; the result is the peculiar situation in which a 

 villein is himself interested in proving the fact of his vil- 

 leinage/ The lords were not slow to perceive their ad- 

 vantage; as early as 1351 the bishop of Winchester suc- 

 ceeded in obtaining a commission of oyer and terminer to 

 punish a bondman who had refused to serve him in pur- 

 suance of the ordinance of labourers/ It has already been 

 shown how some years later the abbot of Pippewell was able 

 through special orders issued by the king to compel the 

 justices of labourers in Warwickshire to furnish him with 

 the necessary supply of labourers/ 



'Page 181 and p. 199. 'App., 9. 'Case 20, app., F, 4. 



*App., 248 250, and pt. i, ch. ii, s. 7. O". Vinogradofif, Villainage in 

 England, 53-55. In discussing the case printed in his app. (case 7 in 

 my list) he writes: "The peculiarity of the case is that a third person 

 has an interest to prove that the man claimed as villain had been as a 

 free man." 



^Pat., 25, pt. 2, m. ID d: 16 Aug. CaL, ix, 161. 



*App., 217-218, and pt. i, ch. i, s. 7. 



