THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY.--DECLINE OF AGRICULTURE.--THE BLACK DEATH.--
STATUTE OF LABOURERS
After the death of Edward I in 1307 the progress of English
agriculture came to a standstill, and little advance was made till
after the battle of Bosworth in 1485. The weak government of Edward
II, the long French War commenced by Edward III and lasting over a
hundred years, and the Wars of the Roses, all combined to impoverish
the country. England, too, was repeatedly afflicted during the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries by pestilences, sometimes caused by
famines, sometimes coming with no apparent cause; all probably
aggravated, if not caused, by the insanitary habits of the people. The
mention of plagues, indeed, at this time is so frequent that we may
call them chronic.
At this period corn and wool were the two main products of the farmer;
corn to feed his household and labourers, and wool to put money in his
pocket, a somewhat rare thing.
English wool, which came to be called 'the flower and strength and
revenue and blood of England', was famous in very early times, and was
exported long before the Conquest. In Edgar's reign the price was
fixed by law, to prevent it getting into the hands of the foreigner
too cheaply; a wey, or weigh, was to be sold for 120d.[101] Patriotic
Englishmen asserted it was the best in the world, and Henry II, Edward
III, and Edward IV are said to have improved the Spanish breed by
presents of English sheep. Spanish wool, however, was considered the
best from the earliest times until the Peninsular War, when the Saxon
and Silesian wools deposed it from its pride of place. Smith, in his
_Memoirs of Wool_,[102] is of the opinion that England 'borrowed some
parts of its breed from thence, as it certainly did the whole from one
place or another.' Spanish wool, too, was imported into England at an
early date, the manufacture of it being carried on at Andover in
1262.[103] Yet until the fourteenth century it was not produced in
sufficient quantities to compete seriously with English wool in the
markets of the Continent; and it appears to have been the long wools,
such as those of the modern Leicester and Lincoln, from which England
chiefly derived its fame as a wool-producing country.
Our early exports went to Flanders, where weaving had been introduced
a century before the Conquest, and, in spite of the growth of the
weaving industry in England, to that country the bulk of it continued
to go, all through the Middle Ages, though in the thirteenth century a
determined effort was made to divert a larger share of English wool to
Italy.[104] During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the export
of wool was frequently forbidden,[105] sometimes for political
objects, but also to gain the manufacture of cloth for England by
keeping our wool from the foreigner; but these measures did not stop
the export, they only hampered it and encouraged much smuggling. It
commanded what seems to us an astonishing price, for 3d. a lb. in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries is probably equal to nearly 4s. in
our money. Its value, and the ease with which it could be packed and
carried, made it an object of great importance to the farmer. In
1337[106] we have a schedule of the price of wool in the various
counties of England, for in that year 30,000 sacks of the best wool
was ordered to be bought in various districts by merchants for Edward
III, to provide the sinews of war against France. The price for the
best wool was to be fixed by the king, his council, and the merchants;
the 'gross' wool being bought by agreement between buyer and seller.
Of the former the highest price fixed was for the wool of Hereford,
then and for long afterwards famous for its excellent quality, 12
marks the sack of 364 lb.; and the lowest for that of the northern
counties, 5 marks the sack.
Somewhat more than a century afterwards we have another similar list
of wool prices, when in 1454 the Commons petitioned the king that 'as
the wools growing within this realm have hitherto been the great
commodity, enriching, and welfare of this land, and how of late the
price is greatly decayed so that the Commons were not able to pay
their rents to their lords', the king would fix certain prices under
which wools should not be bought. The highest price fixed was for the
wool of 'Hereford, in Leominster', £13 a sack; the lowest for that of
Suffolk, £2 12s.[107]; the average being about £4 10s.
The manorial accounts of the Knights' Hospitallers, who then held land
all over England, afford valuable information as to agriculture in
1338.[108] From these we gather that the rent of arable land varied
from 2d. to 2s. an acre; but the latter sum was very exceptional, and
there are only two instances of it given, in Lincolnshire and Kent.
Most of the tillage rented for less than 1s. an acre, more than half
being at 6d. or under, and the average about 6d. On the other hand,
meadow land is seldom of less value than 2s. an acre, and in
Warwickshire, Oxfordshire, and Norfolk rose to 3s. This is one of the
numerous proofs of the great value of meadow land at a time when hay
was almost the sole winter food of stock; in some places it was eight
or ten times as valuable as the arable.[109] The pasture on the
Hospitallers' estates was divided into several and common pasture, the
former often reaching 1s. an acre and sometimes 2s., the latter rarely
exceeding 4d. The most usual way, however, of stating the value of
pasture was by reckoning the annual cost of feeding stock per head,
cows being valued at 2s., oxen at 1s., a horse at a little less than
an ox, a sheep at 1d. The reign of Edward III was a great era for
wool-growers, and the Hospitallers at Hampton in Middlesex had a flock
of 2,000 sheep whose annual produce was six sacks of wool of 364 lb.
each, worth £4 a sack, which would make the fleeces weigh a little
more than 1 lb. each. The profit of cows on one of their manors was
reckoned at 2s. per head, on another at 3s.; and the profit of 100
sheep at 20s.[110] The wages paid to the labourers for day work were
2d. a day, and we must remember that when he was paid by the day his
wages were rightly higher than when regularly employed, for day labour
was irregular and casual. The tenants about the same date obtained the
following prices[111] for some of their stock:--
£ s. d.
A good ox, alive, fatted on corn 1 4 0
" " " not on corn 16 0
A fatted cow 12 0
A two-year-old hog 3 4
A sheep and its fleece 1 8
A fatted sheep, shorn 1 2
" goose 0 3
Hens, each[112] 0 2
20 eggs 0 1
In the middle of the fourteenth century occurred the famous Black
Death, the worst infliction that has ever visited England. Its story
is too well known for repetition, and it suffices to say that it was
like the bubonic plague in the East of to-day: it raged in 1348-9, and
killed from one-third to one-half of the people.[113] It is said to
have effected more important economic results than any other event in
English history. It is probable that the prices of labour were rising
before this terrible calamity; the dreadful famine of 1315-6,[114]
followed by pestilence, when wheat went up to 26s. a quarter, and
according to the contemporary chroniclers, in some cases much higher,
destroyed a large number of the population, and other plagues had done
their share to make labour scarce, but after the Black Death the
advance was strongly marked. It also accelerated the break-up of the
manorial system. A large number of the free labourers were swept away,
and their labour lost to the lord of the manor; the services of the
villeins were largely diminished from the same cause; many of the
tenants, both free and unfree, were dead, and the land thrown on the
lord's hands. Flocks and herds were wandering about over the country
because there was no one to tend them. In short, most manors were in a
state of anarchy, and their lords on the verge of ruin. It is not to
be wondered at, therefore, that they immediately adopted strong
measures to save themselves and their property and, no doubt they
thought, the whole country. Englishmen had by this time learnt to turn
to Parliament to remedy their ills, but as the plague was still raging
a proclamation was issued of which the preamble states that wages had
already gone up greatly. 'Many, seeing the necessity of masters and
great scarcity of servants, will not serve unless they get excessive
wages', and it is, therefore, hard to till the land. Every one under
the age of 60, it was ordered, free or villein, who can work, and has
no other means of livelihood, is not to refuse to work for any one who
offers the accustomed wages; no labourer is to receive more wages than
he did before the plague, and none are to give more wages under severe
penalties. But besides regulating wages, the proclamation also insists
on reasonable prices for food and the necessaries of life: it was a
fair attempt not only to protect the landlords but the labourers also,
by keeping both wages and prices at their former rate, so that its
object was not tyrannous as has been stated.[115] It was at once
disregarded, a fate which met many of the proclamations and statutes
of the Middle Ages, which often seem to have been regarded as mere
pious aspirations.
Accordingly, the Statute of 1351, 25 Edw. III, Stat. 2, c. 1, states
that the servants had paid no regard to the ordinance regulating
wages, 'but to their ease and singular covetise do withdraw themselves
unless they have livery and wages to the double or treble of that they
were wont to take'. Accordingly, it was again laid down that they were
to take liveries and wages as before the Black Death, and 'where wheat
was wont to be given they shall take for the bushel 10d. (6s. 8d. a
quarter),[116] or wheat at the will of the giver. And that they be
hired to serve by the whole year or by other usual terms, and not by
the day, and that none pay in the time of sarcling (weeding) or
hay-making but a penny a day, and a mower of meadows for the acre 5d.,
or by the day 5d., and reapers of corn in the first week of August
2d., and the second 3d., without meat or drink.' And none were to take
for the threshing of a quarter of wheat or rye more than 2d., and for
the quarter of beans, peas, and oats more than 1d. These prices are
certainly difficult to understand. Hay-making has usually been paid
for at a rate above the ordinary, because of the longer hours; and
here we find the price fixed at half the usual wages, while mowing is
five times as much, and double the price paid for reaping, though they
were normally about the same price.[117]
It is interesting to learn from the statute that there was a
considerable migration of labourers at this date for the harvest, from
Stafford, Lancaster, Derby, Craven, the Marches of Wales and Scotland,
and other places.
Such was the first attempt made to control the labourers' wages by the
legislature, and like other legislation of the kind it failed in its
object, though the attempt was honestly made; and if the rate of wages
fixed was somewhat low, its inequity was far surpassed by the
exorbitance of the labourers' demands.[118] It was an endeavour to set
aside economic laws, and its futility was rendered more certain by the
depreciation of the coinage in 1351, which led to an advance in
prices, and compelled the labourers to persevere in their demands for
higher wages.[119]
Both wages and prices, except those of grain, continued to increase,
and labour services were now largely commuted for money payments,[120]
with the result that the manorial system began to break up rapidly.
Owing to the dearth of labourers for hire, and the loss of many of the
services of their villeins, the lords found it very hard to farm their
demesne lands. It should be remembered, too, that an additional
hardship from which they suffered at this time was that the quit rents
paid to them in lieu of services by tenants who had already become
free were, owing to the rise in prices, very much depreciated. Their
chief remedy was to let their demesne lands. The condition of the
Manor of Forncett in Norfolk well illustrates the changes that were
now going on. There, in the period 1272-1307, there were many free
tenants as well as villeins, and the holdings of the latter were
small, usually only 5 acres. It is also to be noticed that in no year
were all the labour services actually performed, some were always sold
for money. Yet in the period named there was not much progress in the
general commutation of services for money payments, and the same was
the case in the manors, whose records between 1325 and 1350 Mr. Page
examined for his _End of Villeinage in England_.[121] The reaping and
binding of the entire grain crop of the demesne at Forncett was done
by the tenants exclusively, without the aid of any hired labour.[122]
However, in the period 1307-1376 the manor underwent a great change.
The economic position of the villeins, the administration of the
demesne, and the whole organization of the manor were revolutionized.
Much of the tenants' land had reverted to the lord, partly by the
deaths in the great pestilence, partly because tenants had left the
manor; they had run away and left their burdensome holdings in order
to get high wages as free labourers. This of course led to a
diminution of labour rents, so the landlord let most of the demesne
for a term of years,[123] a process which went on all over England;
and thus we have the origin of the modern tenant farmer. A fact of
much importance in connexion with the Peasants' Revolt, soon to take
place, was that the average money rent of land per acre in Forncett in
1378 was 10d., while the labour rents for land, where they were still
paid by villeins who had not commuted or run away, were, owing to the
rise in the value of labour, worth two or three times this. We cannot
wonder that the poor villeins were profoundly discontented.
On this manor, as on others, some of the villeins, in spite of the
many disadvantages under which they lay, managed to accumulate some
little wealth. In 1378 and in 1410 one bond tenant had two messuages
and 78 acres of land; in 1441 another died seized of 5 messuages and
52 acres; some had a number of servants in their households, but the
majority were very poor. There are several instances of bondmen
fleeing from the manor; and the officers of the manor failed to catch
them. This was common in other manors, and the 'withdrawal' of
villeins played a considerable part in the disappearance of serfdom
and the break-up of the system.[124] The following table shows the
gradual disappearance of villeins in the Manor of Forncett:
In 1400 the servile families who had land numbered 16
1500 " " " 8
1525 " " " 5
1550 " " " 3
1575 " " " 0
There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of
England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the
dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which
had been in use so long, and the establishment of the complete
independence and separation of one property from another.[125] As soon
as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand,
the substitution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour,
for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief
causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay
under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked
and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it
was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so; as a
rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The
villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender
his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the
custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound
all to the same system of farming.[126] In fact, agriculture under
feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism.
But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many
generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and
labourer was not completely established in England until the era of
the first Reform Bill.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 130. A
weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack.
[102] Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, _History of Wool_, p.
17.
[103] Gross, _Gild Merchant_, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish merino,
crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast Australian
flocks of to-day are descended.
[104] Cunningham, _op. cit._ i. 628.
[105] Ashley, _Early History of English Woollen Industry_, p. 34.
[106] _Calendar of Close Rolls_, 1337-9, pp. 148-9.
[107] _Rolls of Parliament_, v. 275.
[108] _The Hospitallers in England_, Camden Society.
[109] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 147.
[110] _Hospitallers in England_, p. xxvi.
[111] Ibid. pp. 1, li.
[112] Poultry-keeping was wellnigh universal, judging by the number of
rents paid in fowls and eggs.
[113] 1348 seems also to have been an excessively rainy year. The wet
season was very disastrous to live stock; according to the accounts of
the manors of Christ Church, Canterbury, about this time (_Historical
MSS. Commission, 5th Report_, 444) there died of the murrain on their
estates 257 oxen, 511 cows, 4,585 sheep. Murrain was the name given to
all diseases of stock in the Middle Ages, and is of constant
occurrence in old records.
[114] The cause of this as usual was incessant rain during the greater
part of the summer; the chronicles of the time say that not only were
the crops very short but those that did grow were diseased and yielded
no nourishment. The 'murrain' was so deadly to oxen and sheep that,
according to Walsingham, dogs and ravens eating them dropped down
dead.
[115] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 335. Also in an age
when the idea of Competitive price had not yet been evolved, and when
regulation by authority was the custom, it was natural and right that
the Government in such a crisis should try to check the demands of
both labourers and producers, which went far beyond what employers or
consumers could pay. Putnam, _Enforcement of the Statute of
Labourers_, 220.
[116] The average price of wheat in 1351 was 10s. 2-1/2d., which went
down to 7s. 2d. next year, and 4s. 2-1/2d. the year after; but judging
by the ineffectiveness of the statute to reduce wages, it probably had
little effect in causing this fall.
[117] See Appendix I.
[118] Putnam, _op. cit._, 221. The statute for the first ten years,
however, kept wages from ascending as high as might have been the
case.
[119] McPherson, _Annals of Commerce_, i. 543, says that as the plague
diminished the number of employers as well as labourers, the demand
for labour could not have been much greater than before, and would
have had little effect on the rate of if Edward III had not debased
the coinage. But if the owners did decrease the lands would only
accumulate in fewer hands, and would still require cultivation.
[120] Page, _End of Villeinage_, pp. 59 et seq.
[121] Ibid. p. 44.
[122] _Transactions_, Royal Historical Society, New Series, xiv. 123.
[123] This had been done before, but was now much more frequent.
Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 17.
[124] 'After the Black Death the flight of villeins was extremely
common.'--Page, _op. cit._, p. 40.
[125] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 1.
[126] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 137.