GENERAL BACKGROUND

The middle years of the fourteenth century, the years covered by the extant records of the Bedfordshire justices of the peace, were years of great activity and, to the historian of medieval England, they are years of great interest. The Treaty of Calais (1361) marked the end of a phase of the Hundred Years’ War during which the English had won the battles of Crecy and Sluys. Edward III was at the height of his powers, having not yet relaxed to others the control of the kingdom. The Black Death and the social and economic discontent which produced, on the one hand, the Statute of Labourers of 1351 and, on the other, the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381 were helping to change the face of rural England. John Wyclif with his radical religious ideas was about to make his appearance. But interesting and important as these developments were, this is not the place to discuss them. The Bedfordshire peace rolls contain no specific references to the effect of the French war or to the Black Death, nor is it apparent that the crimes recorded on these rolls were the result of special circumstances existing in the county or in the country. This absence of timeliness is not surprising. The rolls are the records of a single county for a brief period. During the years covered by the earlier roll, c. 1355-1359, violations of the Statute of Labourers were handled by especially appointed justices of labourers, so that offences of an economic nature did not come before the justices of the peace as they did after the justices of labourers were discontinued in 1359. But probably more important is the fact that the justices of the peace were concerned with everyday law enforcement, with the type of offence which was committed whatever conditions at home or abroad. Undoubtedly the whole country was affected by the events mentioned above, but there was no occasion for juries reporting local crimes or trying those accused of such crimes to speculate about the causes or to comment on general conditions.