in that county; so that he may be able to know by this, when he shall receive the summons brought to him, from what persons what they owe is to be demanded. To the sheriff, therefore, pertains the general account, to him alone belongs the coercion of individuals; and he who shall have been sheriff when the account was made, shall be written down in this manner as quit or in debt.
D. I retain in my memory what ought to, happen when any one, summoned concerning any debt, brings a writ of the king which expresses the required amount. But if he bring to the exchequer a charter of quittance for things of the same kind, so that it reads thus: " I will, therefore, that he hold all of these free and quit of pleas and murder fines," and of this and that and the like, will he not be pardoned?
M. He will be, as a matter of fact; but it will not read: "remitted by charter of the king," or "by liberty of a charter" this or that; but rather, "by writ of the king": but if the charter, not specifying, contains this:
"he shall possess the foregoing free and quit of all exaction and secular service," he is not then quit through this of those things which are required of him, nor will it be written down among the pardons: for those who sit there are not willing that a special debt should be done away with by a general absolution.
D. That subtlety is pernicious enough; for he who is free from the whole of the parts, deserves also to be absolved from the parts of the whole.
M. It is true what thou sayest, nor do we disagree; but, nevertheless, we are explaining what takes place, not what perhaps ought to take place. When, therefore, for all these things which are contained in the summons, satisfaction shall have been rendered either in cash or by writs of the king, this rule of writing which is explained above is always to be employed: but when any one has not paid the whole of what is required,of him, but a part of it, or perhaps none of it, the cause is straightway to be inquired from the sheriff as to why he was not solvent. But if the sheriff" shall reply that he have diligently sought the chattels of the man in question, and could not find them, the treasurer shall say: " be on thy guard, for by person-
