204 



ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



cording to the report in the printed Year Book and to Fitz- 

 herbert's version of the case ^ the courts have arrived at the 

 same conclusion in regard to the employment of a vagrant 

 villein as had already been reached in regard to the employ- 

 ment of a vagrant free labourer, bound by a previous con- 

 tract which he was seeking to avoid ; i. c. if a villein is 

 vagrant in another county and there enters into the service 

 of a new employer, his lord can legally re-take him only 

 after serving notice on the new master. Brooke's summary 

 omits the distinction between counties;- while the record, 

 if indeed it be the record of this action,^ shows that the 

 case turned on an issue quite different from that presented 

 in the report. Although the necessity of notice is clearly 

 emphasized in later cases on the contract of a free labourer, 

 I have come across no further reference to it in regard to 

 a villein; * on the other hand there are cases after this date 



' It is strange that Fitzherbert should omit in his commentary t'r.e 

 discussion of this point. 



*App., 460. 



*It is with much hesitation that I print the record as probablj-^ refer- 

 ing to the report under discussion, in view of the fact that Professor 

 Vinogradoff, who was so good as to consider the evidence, is inclined to 

 believe that the report and record do not refer to the same case. That 

 there are striking differences as well as striking similarities must 

 be admitted; but the fact that so very few actions occur that involve 

 both the statutes of labourers and the question of villeinage increases 

 the likelihood that this is the record of the reported case. 



*See p. 198, note 4. It will be seen that I am forced to differ from 

 Mr. Savine in his understanding of case 43; cf. " Bondmen under the 

 Tudors," in Trans. Royal Hist. Soc, xvii, 254: "Though perfectly 

 hostile to liberal tendencies, the labour legislation in the long run cer- 

 tainly assisted to loosen the dependence of the bondman on his lord. 

 . . . The lord retains the preferential right over the working power of 

 his villein; but when the villein does not find employment in his manor 

 and is vagrant everybody can seize and put him to work, and the lord 

 cannot take him back into his manor until the end of the statutory con- 

 tract." 



