SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



peas to the value of ^d. ; they must also harrow with one horse, receiving "id. 

 for bread. They were to weed and get a halfpenny ; to mow a meadow of 

 about thirteen acres and make and carry the hay, they themselves receiving 

 id. for bread per cart-load, while their helpers had a halfpenny. Further, they 

 were to mow 3 acres of the moor meadow. Each tenant also was to reap his 

 lord's corn and provide two helpers for the purpose ; and tenants and helpers 

 alike were each to receive a pennyworth of bread and three herrings. Each 

 tenant was also to carry two cart-loads of corn. At the end of the mowing the 

 lord gave the tenants \d. for drink, and a pair of white pigeons. During the 

 hay harvest the tenants were to feed at the prebend's house on bread, beer, beef, 

 pork, lamb, broth, ducks, &c., and then drink in the hall. A bucket of beer hold- 

 ing 8i flagons was carried by two men through the town to the meadow where 

 the tenants had ' plays,' and the lord gave them two pairs of white gloves. 74 



Under such circumstances a commutation of labour for cash might be to 

 the lord's advantage as well as to that of the tenants. Evidence of such com- 

 mutation appears in the account of the king's manor of Gringley (46 Edw. Ill), 

 in which the tenants are spoken of as paying various sums for ploughing, 

 reaping, weeding and so forth, the value of each individual ' work ' being 

 given. 76 The general absence throughout the 1 5th-century extents of any 

 mention of labour rents confirms the idea of this commutation. Whether 

 it was accompanied by any marked change in the rent per acre there is little 

 evidence to show. 



As before, the rent per acre appears to have followed closely the value of 

 demesne arable. Between 1348 and 1400 a calculation based on the figures 

 given in about nineteen extents shows the value per acre varying from 

 ^\d. to 4</., almost id. less than it had been for 100 years previous. It rose 

 again to \\d. between 1400 and 1450, only to fall to 3!^. during the next 

 fifty years. On the other hand the average of meadow falls steadily from i 348 

 onwards ; prior to that date it had been about 2s. 4^. an acre yearly value ; 

 during the next fifty years it falls to is. 6d, ; from 1400 to 1450 the average 

 was u. id'., and from 1450 to 1500 lod'. 76 



At the same time the proportion of meadow or pasture to arable seems 

 to have been on the increase. Out of ten estates of which surveys exist 

 between 1275 and 1348, and between 1348 and 1400, eight cases show an 

 increase of meadow, accompanied in three instances by a decrease of arable. 

 The same thing occurs between 1400 and 1450 ; out of twelve extents, eight 

 show an increase in meadow and pasture. The increase in quantity, coupled 

 with the decrease in value of meadow-land, suggests the idea that there was a 

 tendency to rural depopulation, which forced the landowners to economize 

 labour by a conversion of so much of the arable left vacant into meadow as to 

 diminish the value of the latter. This idea is confirmed by other details of 

 the extents. In the case of Carlton in Lindrick " 1,400 acres of arable lay 

 waste because there was no occupier, and in various places messuages or 

 buildings which were valuable before 1348 are reported as ruined and worth 

 nothing ; this happens even in the case of manors ot which the value has 



74 Rastall, Hist, cf Southwell, 107. Mins. Accts. Duchy of Lane, belle. J4Z, no. 8619. 



" See Inq. p.m. for Bunny, Warsop, Wheatley, Widmerpool, Gamston, Grassthorpe, Gotham, Granby, 

 Knapthorpe, Knccsall, Langar, Laxton, Orston, Perlethorpe, Tuxford, etc. and Blyth. Harl. MSS. 3759. 

 " Inq. p.m. 3 Hen. VI, no. 27. 



275 



