142 



* APPENDIX 



C. Local Courts under Crown-Appointed Justices. (C/. 

 pt. I, ch. ii.) 



1. Quarter sessions records. 



2. Records illustrating the supervision of the justices in 

 session. 



/. Quarter sessiotis records. (Cf. pt. i, ch. ii, 1-6.) 



INTRODUCTORY NOTE. 



The commonly accepted opinion has been that, with the ex- 

 ception of one wages assessment for 1431, no quarter sessions 

 records of earlier date than the i6th century are in existence; ^ 

 at any rate none have been discovered by the author of the 

 latest treatise on the justice of the peace.- Further, there is 

 no reference to this class of records in Gross' summaries (cf. 

 app., 4), in Scargill-Bird's Guide, or in the preface and table of 

 contents of the List of Plea Rolls of various courts preserved in 

 the Public Record Office, prepared by the latter. My suspicions 

 were, however, aroused by Palgrave's statement, made as re- 

 cently as 1836. that rolls of justices of the peace and of justices 

 of labourers were included among the Treasury records.^ With 

 the thought of a possible mis-classification in my mind, I ex- 

 amined the List of Plea Rolls, under the heading "Eyre Rolls, 

 Assize Rolls," etc., and there found seven rolls for the decade 

 1349-1359 described as containing proceedings before justices 

 of labourers. Moreover, a roll for Rutland clearly noted in an 

 old list of Assize Rolls * as consisting of proceedings before 

 the justices of labourers, re-appears in the List of Plea Rolls, 

 listed in such a fashion that its nature cannot be inferred. 

 This incident convinced me that there were more such rolls 

 that had similarly escaped identification, and that an exam- 



^ A brief account of these records has already appeared in my article 

 mE. H. R., 530-536. 



*See preface to Beard's Justice of the Peace. 



^Ancient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury, i, introduction, 

 lii. 



*■ General Report on Public Records, 1837, app-> 53- 



