1400-1540
THE SO-CALLED 'GOLDEN AGE OF THE LABOURER' IN A PERIOD OF GENERAL
DISTRESS
In this period the average prices of grain remained almost unchanged
until the last three decades, when they began slowly and steadily to
creep up, this advance being helped to some extent by defective
harvests. In 1527, according to Holinshed it rained from April 12 to
June 3 every day or night; in May thirty hours without ceasing; and
the floods did much damage to the corn. In 1528 incessant deluges of
rain prevented the corn being sown in the spring, and grain had to be
imported from Germany. The price of wheat was a trifle higher than in
the period 1259-1400; barley, oats, and beans lower; rye higher.[171]
Oxen and cows were dearer, horses about the same, sheep a little
higher, pigs the same, poultry and eggs dearer, wool the same, cheese
and butter dearer. The price of wheat was sometimes subject to
astonishing fluctuations: in 1439 it varied from 8s. to 26s. 8d.; in
1440 from 4s. 2d. to 25s. The rent of land continued the same, arable
averaging 6d. an acre,[172] though this was partly due to the fact
that rents, although now generally paid in money, were still fixed and
customary; for the purchase value of land had now risen to twenty
years instead of twelve.[173] The art of farming hardly made any
progress, and the produce of the land was consequently about the same
or a little better than in the preceding period.[174]
At the end of the fourteenth century the ordinary wheat crop at
Hawsted was in favourable years about a quarter to the acre, but it
was often not more than 6 bushels; and this was on demesne land,
usually better tilled than non-demesne land.[175] As for the labourer,
it is well known that Thorold Rogers calls the fifteenth century his
golden age, and seeing that his days' wages, if he 'found himself',
were now 4d. and prices were hardly any higher all round than when he
earned half the money in the thirteenth century, there is much to
support his view. As to whether he was better off than the modern
labourer it is somewhat difficult to determine; as far as wages went
he certainly was, for his 4d. a day was equal to about 4s. now; it is
true that on the innumerable holidays of the Church he sometimes did
not work,[176] but no doubt he then busied himself on his bit of
common. But so many factors enter into the question of the general
material comfort of the labourer in different ages that it is almost
impossible to come to a satisfactory conclusion. Denton paints a very
gloomy picture of him at this time[177]; so does Mr. Jessop, who says,
the agricultural labourers of the fifteenth century were, compared
with those of to-day, 'more wretched in their poverty, incomparably
less prosperous in their prosperity; worse clad, worse fed, worse
housed, worse taught, worse governed; they were sufferers from
loathsome diseases, of which their descendants know nothing; the very
beasts of the field were dwarfed and stunted; the disregard of to
sell their corn at low prices to the detriment of the whole kingdom: a
typical example of the political economy of the time, which considered
the prosperity of agriculture indispensable to the welfare of the
country, even if the consumer suffered. Accordingly, it was enacted
that wheat could be exported without a licence when it was under 6s.
8d. a quarter, except to the king's enemies. On imports of corn there
had been no restriction until 1463, when 3 Edw. IV, c. 2 forbade the
import of corn when under 6s. 8d: a statute due partly to the fear
that the increase of pasture was a danger to tillage land and the
national food supply, and partly to the fact that the landed interest
had become by now fully awake to the importance of protecting
themselves by promoting the gains of the farmer.[178] It may be
doubted, however, if much wheat was imported except in emergencies at
this time, for many countries forbade export. These two statutes were
practically unaltered till 1571,[179] and by that of 1463 was
initiated the policy which held the field for nearly 400 years.
Thorold Rogers denounces the landlords for legislating with the object
of keeping up rents, but, as Mr. Cunningham has pointed out, this
ignores the fact that the land was the great fund of national wealth
from which taxation was paid; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to
the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was
increased.[180]
In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, the movement
towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen.
IV, c. 17, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in
husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of
wages; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people
were becoming weavers,[181] and it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II,
c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry
until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted
that no person with less than 20s. a year in land should be able to
apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to
have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting
that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to
give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or
continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed
showing a substantial increase since the statute of 1388. By the
year:--
A bailiff was to have £1 3s. 4d., and 5s. worth of clothes.
A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, £1, and 4s. worth of clothes.
A common servant in husbandry, 15s., and 3s. 4d. worth of clothes.
A woman servant, 10s., and 4s. worth of clothes.
All with meat and drink.
By the day, in harvest, wages were to be:--
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 nobles and their retainers, while the rest
of the country went about their business, is somewhat exaggerated. No
doubt, the mass 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 Huntingdonshire
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.--_Cheshire
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 classes, 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.