and they, handing to the president the letters of excuse, and alleging the necessary causes of their master's absence, shall confirm the same, even by an oath taken in their own persons, if it shall please the president. But if the sheriff or any servant who has been summoned, detained by infirmity, can not be present, he shall add in his letters of excuse which are sent to the exchequer: "and since I am unable to come, I send to you these my servants N. and N., that they may take my place and do what pertains to me; I being ready to ratify what they shall do."
He who excuses himself, moreover, shall provide that one or the other of those sent shall be a knight or other layman, joined to him by reason of blood or otherwise; that is, one to whose faith and discretion he may not hesitate to commit himself and his interests: for clergy alone should not be taken for this purpose; because, if they act wrongly, it will not be fitting to seize them for money or for the rendering of accounts. But if a sheriff who has been summoned shall happen to be absent, being hindered, not indeed through sickness, but for some other cause, he can, perhaps, even then be freed from the punishment established: but no one shall be received for him to render his account except his first-born son; not his general steward, even though he himself have sent his writ saying that he would ratify what such and such a one should do for him. But solely by the authority of a mandate of the king, or indeed of the president if the king be absent, can another be substituted to render his account. If, however, he shall be doing other business assigned to him by the lord king, he himself shall name some one present in his own person at the exchequer, who, according to what has been said above, can and ought to transact the business of the absent sheriff. That writ, moreover, of the king or the president or of the sheriff sending an excuse shall be kept in the box of the marshall, of which we spoke above, in testimony of this matter. But if the sheriff, being needed elsewhere by the king, shall have been called by him outside of the kingdom; or, having received permission for family affairs, shall have arranged to leave the country,—he shall first go to the president, and with his own lips shall delegate his functions
