A Short History of English AgricultureCurtler, W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts)
History
A Short History of English Agriculture
Curtler, W. H. R. (William Henry Ricketts)
Agriculture -- England -- History
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.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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