A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



Nottingham were paid \d. a day. Hedging throughout the century is paid 

 at so varying a rate as to suggest some difference in the work done ; other- 

 wise such fluctuations as 8d. in 1501, ^\d. in 1558, and 6d. in 1593 seem 

 unaccountable. About I 570 6d. a day seems to have been the ordinary wage 

 for such odd jobs as brushwood-cutting, digging, or road or dyke-making. 

 The wages of the master craftsmen also increased towards the end of the 

 century. Carpenters and masons received 8</. a day in 1558, while a tiler 

 got 4-r. 6d. a week. But in 1590 a carpenter received iod., a rate shared by 

 coal-diggers 1 " (1595), and assistant builders (1599), while master builders 

 appear to have got is. On the whole, the average wage for inferior work- 

 men seems to have risen from ^d. to Kd. during the century, 155 * and this is 

 confirmed by 8</. being the pay usually given to a private soldier. 156 



Apparently therefore, wages in Nottinghamshire were slightly above 

 the average in the first half of the i6th century : but at its conclusion they 

 were rather below it. Labourers, hedgers, ditchers, and the like received 

 only Sd. a day between 1619 and 1640. The wages of workmen employed 

 in bridge-building presumably masons, carpenters and builders varied 

 from lod. to u. or is. id. a day. 157 Considering that these wages are almost 

 all paid in Nottingham itself, and are therefore probably the highest given, 

 the slightness of the rise is remarkable, and compared with the cost of living, 

 the amounts seem small indeed. As early as 151011 is. iod. was con- 

 sidered the equivalent for board for five and a half days (a working week) 

 of a shipwright and his man ; i.e. 2.d. a day was apparently the value of a 

 man's food ; 158 and this must have greatly increased with the increased prices 

 during the century. Clothes, too, were expensive. In 1512 a man's boots 

 cost 2J. \d. and shoes ^d. to Sd. ; 159 while in i 542 a coat cost 3^. 4*/. 160 



Hence, it is clear that the rise in wages, such as it was, by no means 

 corresponded to the increased cost of living, nor can the state of Nottingham 

 during the i6th century have been really satisfactory. Expanding trade 

 there was, but it could not have been of great extent. The population still 

 appears to have been scanty and scattered in small groups. In the muster 

 roll of 1 542 the able-bodied men between sixteen and sixty number only 

 about 2,300 men in the four wapentakes of Bassetlaw, Bingham, Thurgarton 

 and Newark. These were drawn from about a hundred places ; and parishes 

 sending only four or six men are common. 161 On such a population one 

 of small holders on a not too fertile soil low wages, increased prices and 

 high rents would fall heavily. The result was, as might have been expected, 

 the growth of the power of the greater landholders. 



The inclosures, the fall of the abbeys, and the enhanced rents had by 

 the end of the I 6th century resulted in the creation of a class of large estates. 

 The Willoughby lands in Nottinghamshire were reckoned at 600 a 

 year, 161 * those of the Earl of Shrewsbury at 1,500 ; Lord Scroop's lands 



155 This amount was to be paid to a man hired to search for coal in 1595. Rec. of Borough of Nott. 

 iv, 239. 



53 Ibid, iii, 314-325, 328 et seq ; iv, 119, IZI, 129, 135, 136, 149, 182, 196. 

 * L. and P. Hen. fill, xvii, 880, fol. 29^. 

 IW Rec. of Borough of Nott. iv, 359, 381 ; v, 115, 180. 

 148 Rec. of Borough of Nott. iii, 331. '*> Ibid. 121. 



160 L. and P. Hen. nil, xvii, 922. 161 L. and P. Hen. nil, xvii, 505-6. 



""" S. P. Dom. Eliz. cclxv, 8 1 ; cclxxxviii, 34. 



286 







