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(5 Eliz. c. 4.) There are some inconsistencies in the address of the document, as it has been preserved, but in the form here adopted it seems to have been issued to all the sheriffs and the officials of large towns, with instructions for its immediate proclamation.

I. WALSINGHAM'S ACCOUNT.

Historia Anglicana, I, 273, Rolls Series. Latin.

In the year of grace 1349, which was the twenty-third year of king Edward, the third since the Conquest, a great mortality of mankind advanced over the world; beginning in the regions of the north and east, and ending with so great a destruction that scarcely half of the people remained. Then towns once full of men became destitute of inhabitants; and so violently did the pestilence increase that the living were scarce able to bury the dead. Indeed, in certain houses of men of religion, scarcely two out of twenty men survived. It was estimated by many that hardly a tenth part of mankind had been left alive. A murrain among animals followed immediately upon this pestilence; then rents ceased; then the land, because of the lack of tenants, who where nowhere to be found, remained uncultivated. So great misery followed from these evils that the world was never afterward able to return to its former state.

2. ROBERT OF AVESBURY'S ACCOUNT.

Chronicle, A. D. 1348-9, pp. 406, 407, Rolls Series. Latin.

The pestilence which had first broken out in the land occupied by the Saracens became so much stronger that, sparing no dominion, it visited with the scourge of sudden death the various parts of all the kingdoms, extending from that land to the northward, including even Scotland, destroying the greater part of the people. For it began in England in Dorsetshire, about the feast of St. Peter, called ad vincula, in the year of the Lord 1348, and immediately advancing from place to place it attacked men without warning and for the most part those who were healthy. Very many of those who were attacked in the morning it car ried out of human affairs before noon. And no one whom it willed to die did it permit to live longer than three or four days. There was moreover no choice of persons, with the exception, at least, of a few rich people. In the same day twenty, forty or sixty corpses, and indeed many times as many more bodies of those who had died, were delivered to church burial in the same pit at the same time. And about the feast

of All Saints, reaching London, it deprived many of their life daily, and increased to so great an extent that from the feast of the Purification till after Easter there were more than two hundred bodies of those who had died buried daily in the cemetery which had been then recently made near Smithfield, besides the bodies which were in other graveyards of the same city. The grace of the Holy Spirit finally intervening, that is to say about the feast of Whitsunday, it ceased at London, proceeding continuously northward. In these parts also it ceased about the feast of St. Michael, in the year of the Lord 1349.

3. THE KING'S PROCLAMATION CONCERNING LABORERS.

Statutes of the Realm, I, 307, 308. Latin.

The king to the sheriff of Kent, greeting. Because a great part of the people, and especially of workmen and servants, have lately died in the pestilence, many seeing the necessities of masters and great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they may receive excessive wages, and others preferring to beg in idleness rather than by labor to get their living; we, considering the grievous incommodities which of the lack especially of ploughmen and such laborers may hereafter come, have upon deliberation and treaty with the prelates and the nobles and learned men assisting us, with their unanimous counsel ordained:

That every man and woman of our realm of England, of what condition he be, free or bond, able in body, and within the age of sixty years, not living in merchandize, nor exercising any craft, nor having of his own whereof he may live, nor land of his own about whose tillage he may occupy himself, and not serving any other; if he be required to serve in suitable service, his estate considered, he shall be bound to serve him which shall so require him; and take only the wages, livery, meed, or salary which were accustomed to be given in the places where he oweth to serve, the twentieth year of our reign of England, or five or six other common years next before. Provided always, that the lords be preferred before others in their bondmen or their land tenants, so in their service to be retained; so that, nevertheless, the said lords shall retain no more than be necessary for them. And if any such man or woman being so required to serve will not do the same, and that be proved by two true men before the sheriff, bailiff, lord, or constable of the town where the same shall happen to be done, he shall immediately be taken by them or any of them, and committed to the next gaol, there to

remain under strait keeping, till he find surety to serve in the form aforesaid If any reaper, mower, other workman or servant, of what estate or condition he be, retained in any man's service, do depart from the said service without reasonable cause or license, before the term agreed, he shall have pain of imprisonment; and no one, under the same penalty, shall presume to receive or retain such a one in his service.

No one, moreover, shall pay or promise to pay to any one more wages, liveries, meed, or salary than was accustomed, as is before said; nor shall any one in any other manner demand or receive them, upon pain of doubling of that which shall have been so paid, promised, required or received, to him who thereof shall feel hmself aggrieved; and if none such will sue, then the same shall be applied to any of the people that will sue; and such suit shall be in the court of the lord of the place where such case shall happen.

And if lords of towns or manors presume in any point to come against this present ordinance, either by them or by their servants, then suit shall be made against them in the form aforesaid, in the counties, wapentakes, and trithings, or such other courts of ours, for the penalty of treble that so paid or promised by them or their servants. And if any before this present ordinance hath covenanted with any so to serve for more wages, he shall not be bound, by reason of the said covenant, to pay more than at another time was wont to be paid to such a person; nor, under the same penalty, shall presume to pay more.

Item. Saddlers, skinners, white tawyers, cordwainers, tailors, smiths, carpenters, masons, tilers, shipwrights, carters, and all other artificers and workmen, shall not take for their labor and workmanship above the same that was wont to be paid to such persons the said twentieth year, and other common years next preceding, as before is said, in the place where they shall happen to work; and if any man take more he shall be committed to the next gaol, in manner as before is said.

Item. That butchers, fishmongers, hostelers, brewers, bakers, poulterers, and all other sellers of all manner of victuals, shall be bound to sell the same victuals for a reasonable price, having respect to the price that such victuals be sold at in the places adjoining, so that the same sellers have moderate gains, and not excessive, reasonably to be required according to the distance of the place from which the said victuals be carried; and if any sell such victuals in any other manner, and thereof be convicted, in the manner and form aforesaid, he shall pay the double of the same that he so received to the party injured, or in default of him,

to any other that will sue in this behalf. And the mayors and bailiffs of cities, boroughs, merchant towns, and others, and of the ports and maritime places, shall have power to inquire of all and singular, which shall in any thing offend against this, and to levy the said penalty to the use of them at whose suit such offenders shall be convicted. And

in case the same mayors and bailiffs be negligent in doing execution of the premises, and thereof be convicted before our justices, by us to be assigned, then the same mayors and bailiffs shall be compelled by the same justices to pay the treble of the thing so sold to the party injured, or in default of him, to any other that will sue; and nevertheless they shall be grievously punished on our part.

And because many strong beggars, as long as they may live by begging, do refuse to labor, giving themselves to idleness and vice, and sometimes to theft and other abominations; none upon the said pain of imprisonment, shall, under the color of pity or alms, give anything to such, who are able to labor, or presume to favor them in their idleness, so that thereby they may be compelled to labor for their necessary living.

II. STATUTES OF PROVISORS AND PRÆMUNIRE.

A consistent effort was made by the Popes, from the latter part of the thirteenth century to the middle of the fifteenth, to gain an increased control over ecclesiastical patronage in England. Not only was the old right of appointment in various irregular cases extended, but the system of papal reservations was developed. The Pope formally reserved to himself the future appointment to certain benefices when they should become vacant. In the meantime he appointed some one to the future vacancy by giving him letters which were made public only when the actual incumbent died. Provision was thus made for an occupant of the benefice, and, by a curious misuse of the termination, such persons, appointed beforehand by the Pope, were called "provisors of benefices." Suits in regard to such appointments seem to have brought up the question of the limits of papal jurisdiction in England, which was the subject of the Statutes of Præmunire, as that of patronage was the subject of the Statutes of Provisors. It is not possible to dissociate entirely in the laws the limitation of papal patronage and the restriction of papal jurisdiction, the two terms mentioned above being often used almost interchangeably. The Statutes of Provisors and of Præmunire are as follows: 35 Ed. I; 25 Ed. III, Stat. 4; 25 Ed. III, Stat. 5. c. 22; 27 Ed. III, c. 1; 38 Ed. III, Stat. 2; 3 Rich. II, c. 3; 7 Rich. II, c. 12; 12 Rich. 11, c. 15; and 16 Rich. II, c. 5. The following are given as typical. The second document, the Statute of Præmunire of 1393, was the first to become really effective.

I. STATUTE OF PROVISORS OF 1352.

25 Ed. III, Stat. 5, c. 22. Statutes of the Realm, I, 323, 324. Latin.

Because that some do purchase in the court of Rome provisions to have abbeys and priories in England, in destruction of the realm, and of holy religion; it is accorded, that every man that purchaseth such provisions of abbeys or priories, that he and his executors and procurators which do sue and make execution of such provisions, shall be out of the king's protection; and that a man may do with them as of enemies of our sovereign lord the king and his realm; and he that offendeth against such provisors in body or in goods, or in other possessions, shall be excused against all people, and shall never be impeached nor grieved for the same at any man's suit.

2. STATUTE OF PRÆMUNIRE OF 1393.

16 Rich. II, c. 5, Statutes of the Realm, II, 84. Latin.

Whereas, the Commons of the realm in this present Parliament have showed to our redoubted lord the king, grievously complaining, that whereas the said our lord the king and all his liege people ought of right and of old time were wont to sue in the king's court, to recover their presentments to churches, prebends, and other benefices of holy church to the which they had right to present, the cognisance of plea of which suit belongeth only to the king's court of the old right of his crown, used and approved in the time of all his progenitors, kings of England; and when judgment shall be given in the same court upon such a plea and suit, the archbishops, bishops, and other spiritual persons which have institution of such benefices within their jurisdiction be bound, and have made execution of such judgments by the king's commandments, for all the time aforesaid without interruption, (for another, a lay person, is not able to make such execution), and also be bound of right to make execution of many other of the king's commandments, of which right the crown of England hath been peaceably seized, as well in the time of our said lord the king that now is, as in the time of all his progenitors till this day.

But now of late divers processes be made by the holy father the Pope, and censures of excommunication upon certain bishops of England, because they had made execution of such commandments, to the open disherison of the same crown and destruction of the regalty of our said

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