Corpus of Electronic Texts Edition
A Statute of the Fortieth Year of King Edward III., enacted in a parliament held in Kilkenny, A.D. 1367, before Lionel Duke of Clarence, Lord Lieutenant of Ireland. (Author: [unknown])
article 33
XXXIII. Also, whereas the commons of the said land complain that they are in
divers ways distressed by want of servants, whereof the justices
appointed for
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labourers, are a great cause, by reason that the
common labourers are for the greatest part absent, and fly out of
the said land; it is agreed and assented, that, because living and
victuals are dearer than they were wont to be, each labourer in his
degree, according to the discretion of two of the most substantial and
discreet men of the city, town, borough, village, or hamlet, in
the country where he shall perform his labour, shall receive his
maintenance reasonably, in gross or by the day, and if they will not
do so, nor be obedient, they shall be taken before the mayor,
seneschal, sovereign, provost or baillif of the cities
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or towns where they are, or by the sheriff of the county, and
put in prison, until the coming of the justices assigned, who
will come twice in the year into every county and the justice of
the chief place, who shall award due punishment for the same,
and right to the parties who shall feel themselves aggrieved
thereby. And that no labour shall pass beyond sea; and in
case that he shall
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do so and shall return, he shall be taken and put in prison for a
year, and afterwards make fine at the King's will. And moreover,
writs shall be issued to the sheriffs, mayors, seneschals, sovereigns,
and bailiffs, of counties, cities and towns throughout the land where
the sea reaches, commanding them that they do not suffer any such
passage of labourers. And it is also agreed that the commissions
issued to justices of labourers in every county he repealed, and that
henceforth none such be granted.