Part 8 (1/2)

A mower, with meat and drink, 4d.; without, 6d.

A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3d.; without, 5d.

A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2d.; without, 4d.

In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him, and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price, nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen at all which cost more than 14d.[182] Yeomen and those below them were forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes.

In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a mere faction fight between n.o.bles and their retainers, while the rest of the country went about their business, is somewhat exaggerated. No doubt, the ma.s.s of Englishmen, as in the civil war of the seventeenth century, preferred to 'sit still', as Clarendon said, but the business of many must have been very much upset. The various armies were compelled to obtain their supplies from the country, and with the lawless habits of the times plundered friend and foe alike, as Cavalier and Roundhead did afterwards; and many a farmer must have seen all his stock driven off and his grain seized to feed the combatants. For instance, it was said before the battle called Easter Day Field that all the tenants of Abbot's Ripton in Huntingdons.h.i.+re were copyholders of the Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had to give up their copyholds through poverty.[183] The loss of life, too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from frequent pestilence. It is calculated that about one-tenth of the whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the effect on the labour market was not more marked. The enclosing of land for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to till the soil must have been seriously diminished.

FOOTNOTES:

[171] See table at end of volume. The shrinkage of prices which occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious metals.

[172] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 128.

The rent of arable land on Lord Derby's estate in Wirral in 1522 was a little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about 1s. 6d.--_Ches.h.i.+re Sheaf_ (Ser. 3), iv. 23.

[173] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 3.

[174] Thorold Rogers, _op. cit._ iv. 39.

[175] Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 187. The amount of seed for the various crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2-1/2.

[176] By 4 Hen. IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but the statute was largely disregarded.

[177] See _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 105: 'The undrained neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all cla.s.ses, insufficient and unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population to disease.'

[178] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 448.

[179] McCulloch, _Commercial Dictionary_ (1852), p. 412. In 1449 Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it leaving the country.--McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 655.

[180] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 191.

[181] Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural districts.

[182] See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5; _Rot. Parl._ v. 105; 22 Edw. IV, c. 1.

[183] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 456.

CHAPTER VII

ENCLOSURE

We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of paramount importance,[184] and began to cause constant anxiety to legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure was of four kinds:

1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally in large tracts.

2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields, generally of arable.

3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage.