[409] Michael Dalton, _The Countrey Justice_, ed. 1655, p. 115. The resolutions are given in the form of answers to questions submitted to the judges on particular points of law. They decided among other things, that a man must take an apprentice if the justices so ordered whether payment were made or not; that all the lands in the parish must be rated equally, but that an extra sum might be levied from a man "for his visible ability" within the parish; and also various points concerning settlement. One question and answer are as follows:
_Qu._ If one who is under the age of 30 years and brought up in husbandry or a maid servant, or brought up in any of the arts or trades mentioned in the statute, 5 Eliz. cap. 4, and not enabled according to that stat. to live at his or her own hand, shall be warned by two justices of the peace to put him or her self in service by a day prescribed by them, and shall not doe the same accordingly, but shall after continue living at his or her own hand, what course shall be taken with such a person and how punished?
_Resol._ Such persons being out of service, and not having visible means of their own, to maintain themselves without their labour, and refusing to serve as a hired servant, by the yeer, may be bound over to the next Sessions or Assises, and to be of good behaviour in the mean time, or may be sent to the house of correction. These resolutions of the judges are quoted by Dalton as having great authority.
[Sidenote: 4 _b_. Administrative work as the link between the Privy Council and the justices.]
But the duties of the judges of assize under the orders of the Privy Council were much more important. They had to act as the link between the central government and the county and municipal officials. They were particularly ordered to let the Council know which justices did their duty[410], and many of the reports were sent in to them. In March 1630 we hear that in Suffolk malting was prohibited in the interest of the poor by the judges of assize in order to increase the supply of barley[411]; a little earlier the Norwich authorities had great difficulty in controlling the maltsters, but stated that with the approbation of the judges they had arranged that no alehouse should be licensed but such as entered into a recognisance by sureties to sell two "thurdendeles" of beer for a penny[412]. The work done by the judges is indicated by one or two references of this kind[413], and since some of the later orders of the Privy Council were especially directed to them it seems probable that they had a great deal of influence in enforcing the orders of the Council.