60 THE RATE OF PRODUCTION IN THE 



of this tendency is alluded to by Mr. Hallam b . Parliament, 

 towards the conclusion of Edward the Third's reign, granted an 

 aid of fifty thousand pounds to be assessed at the rate of 

 twenty-two shillings and three pence on every parish, on the 

 presumption that there were forty thousand such divisions, 

 whereas in fact there existed only about one fifth- of that 

 number. A similar error lies in the parliamentary calculation 

 as to the resources for public purposes, which might be secured 

 by the suppression of the monasteries, if indeed the statement 

 rests on any higher authority than the chronicler, Walsingham c . 

 I should extend this incredulity to the conte 

 given of the deaths consequent on the Black D 

 believe that it really destroyed not much less nalf the 



population, and am certain that it effected a complete revolu- 

 tion in the relation of labour and land, a revolution very 

 different from that which has been lately suggested 3 . I rely 

 for my inference on the rise of the price of labour, and the 

 rapid abandonment of the bailiff culture for the system of 

 farmers' rents, and the increase of freeholders. 



After its first appearance in 1348, the Plague became en- 

 demic. This disease, known as the Black Death, from the 

 petechix which appeared on the bodies of the sufferers, due 

 to the disintegration of the tissues, reached this country about 

 ten yeaia* after its first appearance in the remotest parts of 

 Eastern Asia. As is well known, it forms the background 

 to Boccacio's Decameron. It remained in England, breaking 

 out with occasional violence, till after the Restoration, when 

 its latest severity wasted all the great towns in the kingdom. 

 No European country escaped it, but its social and econo- 



* Middle Ages, III. 8. 1. 



* Hume, chap, xviii. 1412. 



d For instance, there is a document in duplicate preserved in the Public Record 

 Office, containing a statement of the mortuaries receivable in the archdeaconry of Rich- 

 mond, from the effects of persons who had died by this visitation up to the year 1350. 

 A cursory inspection, however, shews that even these statements, in so far as they 

 give evidence of numerical loss, are untrustworthy. All the numbers are round, and 

 are the same in several towns in the north part of Lancashire. 



