I. ACCOUNT OF SOURCES 



The explanation of the inadequate treatment hitherto ac- 

 corded the statutes of labourers lies in the scarcity of the 

 printed sources. The contemporary writers, chroniclers and 

 others (a convenient bibliography for the period is to be found 

 in Tout's Polit. Hist, of Eng., 1216-1377, app. 451-460) have 

 long been available and have been freely used by later com- 

 mentators. They are important as reflecting the attitude of 

 certain sections of the community, much as do the daily papers 

 of the present ; but for the description of administrative meth- 

 ods, they by no means take the place of the official records 

 on which the preceding study of the enforcement of the stat- 

 utes has been based. These official records fall into three 

 main classes, belonging to, first, the central government ; sec- 

 ond, the old local courts, communal, seignorial, and municipal ; 

 third, the church. 



For the church, the important records for my purpose are 

 the episcopal registers preserved in the diocesan registries. 

 For an account of these, cf. Gross, Sources of Eng. Hist., 402. 

 For a list of those in print or calendared for this decade, cf. 

 ibid., loc. cit.; and Tout, op. cit., app. 449-450. 



With the necessary limitation of the length of my stay in 

 England, I decided to omit altogether a study of the admin- 

 istration in the hands of the church, since the material for 

 such a study is scattered throughout the country. Further, I 

 have not attempted to deal thoroughly with the old local 

 courts, since so small a proportion of their rolls are to be 

 found in the Public Record Office. In the case of the central 

 government, however, the sources, as far as they exist at all 

 for the years 1349- 1359, are preserved in the Record Office. 



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