(1) Documentary authorities, 1485-1660:—The most important printed sources of information for the administration of the industrial legislation of the 16th century are Town Records (see bibliographies, especially those of Unwin and of Dunlop & Denman), and the Proceedings of the County Justices contained in the following works:—Hamilton, Devonshire Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne; Atkinson, Quarter Session Records of the North Riding of Yorkshire; Willis Bund, Worcester County Records, division I; Cox, Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals; Hardy, Hertford Quarter Session Records; Hardy & Page, Bedfordshire County Quarter Sessions; volumes published by the Historical MSS. Commission, especially Vol. I; Victoria County History, passim.
(2) Literary authorities.—The law is explained by numerous writers of legal text books, e.g., Fitzherbert, The Book Belonging to a Justice of the Peace; Lambard, Eirenarcha; Sheppard, Whole Office of the County Justice of the Peace. Cases before the courts concerning apprenticeship are quoted in the Reports of Coke and Croke. Sidelights on contemporary opinion may be obtained from Rotuli Parliamentorum III, 269, 330, 352; IV, 330-331, 352; V, 110; More, Utopia; Starkey, A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset (Early English Text Society, England in the Reign of King Henry VIII); Forest, The Pleasant Poesy of Princely Practice (ibid.); The Commonweal of this Realm of England (edited by E.R. Lamond); King Edward's Remains, a Discourse about the Reformation of many abuses (printed in Burnet's History of the Reformation); Winthrop's Journal; Petty, A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions, Chapter I, Section 4.
1. Proposals for the Regulation of the Cloth Manufacture[274] [Brit. Mus. Cotton MSS., Titus B. I, fol. 189], temp. Hen. VIII.
Articles to be certified to my lord privy seal according to his letter for the complaint of the weavers in the seven hundreds in the country of Kent.
First, that no clothier, that hath not had exercise in his youth by the space of two years at the least in the craft of weaving, use or have in his house or at his commandment any loom.
Item, that no clothier weaver using to make coloured clothes shall use, have, or occupy in his house or at his assignment any more than one loom.
Item, that if the cloth-maker have cause to complain upon the weaver for not duly and truly working of their clothes or the weaver cause to complain upon the clothier for not paying him his duty for the said weaving, that then the party grieved shall complain to the next justice of peace, and he shall assign one indifferent weaver and one indifferent clothier to examine the cause of variance and to assess what amends the party grieved shall have. And the party to stand and abide the order so made.
Item, where it is ordered by the statute of anno 4 E. 4 capitulo primo, that the clothier shall pay ready money to the weavers and spinners and other their artificers, that the said statute shall be put in due execution.
Item, if any clothier, tailor, cordwainer or other artificer, by what name or names soever he or they be called, that hereafter shall fortune to come out of any shire other than out of the said shire of Kent into any of the 7 hundreds there to seek service and to have work, that then he or they that will or shall happen to take him or them into his or their service or services, shall before one of the justices of the peace be bound unto the king by way of recognisance in such sum as by the discretion of the said justice shall be appointed; that the said person so by him taken into service shall be of good behaviour during the time that he shall be in his service, and that the said justice be not compellable to certify the same recognisance, unless the same recognisance be forfeited. And this to be done from time to time, as often as the justice of the peace shall think convenient. And if any man retain any man in his service without putting in surety, as is above said, that then the justice of the peace to have authority to commit such person or persons to ward, there to remain by his discretion.
Edward Wotton.
Thomas Wylfford.