SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Another cause of distress appeared in the sickness which was rife in 

 Nottinghamshire during the i6th century. In 1518 there was a report of a 

 an epidemic. 17 * In 1559 it was stated that sickness was causing great distress 

 in Nottinghamshire. 175 For the next seventy years there are reiterated com- 

 plaints on the subject ; and in 16301 the plague was so bad as to prevent 

 the musters from being taken. 176 Such a state of things must have accentuated 

 the difficulties under which Nottinghamshire laboured at this time. 



One of the most obvious results of the impoverishment of the poorer 

 classes appears in the complaints of vagrants which occur continually at this 

 time. As early as 1487 complaints were made of vagrants in Nottingham 

 itself, 177 and the dissolution of the monasteries increased the evil. The 

 Pilgrimage of Grace probably had the usual effect of a disturbance in bringing 

 together a host of vagabonds ; but shortly after its suppression there is a con- 

 gratulatory statement that the ' vagrant beggars ' in Nottinghamshire had 

 disappeared. 178 Their disappearance was of short duration. Complaints of 

 vagrants and foreigners occur in 1545, 1552, and I556. 179 At first the 

 Nottinghamshire authorities were inclined to treat them as a simple nuisance, 

 and dispatched them to their native places with all convenient speed. A 

 report of 1571 states that in Bassetlaw twenty-seven vagrants were taken in 

 one day, punished and sent to their own homes, either in other parishes in 

 Nottinghamshire or in Yorkshire or Lincolnshire. 180 



The vagabonds were evidently considered as outside the community ; 

 and their summary treatment contrasts with the careful endeavour of the 

 magistrates to find palliatives for the general distress in 15867. These 

 latter efforts took the form of attempts to ensure a supply of corn, and to 

 prevent its being wasted or engrossed by a few. The rates at which bakers 

 and brewers were to sell were carefully regulated ; and there was a vigorous 

 effort to check the conversion of barley into beer. 181 For this last effort there 

 may have been real need, to judge from the fact that ten years earlier ale- 

 houses in Nottinghamshire numbered 588, 182 and that in 1587 i 15 traders in 

 Nottingham town combined the manufacture or sale of ale or aqua vitae with 

 other occupations. 183 



The measures taken by the magistrates however seem to have had no 

 permanent result. Complaints of vagabonds and beggars continue to occur for 

 the next thirty years ; and the irritation caused by the distress of 1622-3 was 

 such that the county forces were held in readiness to put down a disturbance. 18 * 



The insufficient increase of wages also led to trade combinations, such 

 as that among the shoemakers' servants in 1619, which was sharply put 

 down. 185 In the period of distress, 161923, Nottinghamshire suffered 

 severely. The corn in the threshing was said to yield only one-third its usual 

 quantity, and the price rose accordingly. At one time wheat was $os. the 

 quarter, rye 441., barley 38^., malt 40.?., peas 32^., and oats i8j. Luckily 

 these prices did not last long: in 1623 wheat and rye had gone down to 48^, 

 and 30J. respectively, barley was 33^., malt 34^., pease 2.6s. 8</., and oats i 2s. 

 It is, however, not only of the high prices that complaint is made, but of the 



174 C. Creighton, Epidemics in Britain, \, 291. " b Cal. S.P. Dom. 1547-80, p. 122. 



174 Ibid. 1638-9, p. 514; ibid. 1631-3, p. 163. '" Rec. of Borough o/Nott. iii, 11. 



178 L. and P. Hen. Vlll, xiv (i), 295. " Rec. of Borough o/Nott. iii, 400 ; iv, i 12. 



180 S.P. Dom. Eliz. Ixxxi, 23. "' Ibid, cxcviii, 57. m Ibid, cxviii, 5. 



185 Ibid, cxcviii, 57. "* W. A. Shaw, Hist, of Currency, 142. I8S Rec. of Borough o/Nc/t. iv, 362. 



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