All this was managed with one more new idea: summary punishment, no need to prove a case in court or even hold a trial. There had to be two witnesses to a refusal to serve, but once they had told their story anyone refusing work could be put in the stocks or taken off to jail, where they stayed until they agreed to labour. The new justices of labourers who made these laws work were kept quite furiously busy; those in Essex in 1352 handled thousands of cases, involving perhaps one in
