7 8 SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS) AND THE 



as it seems, which the villain entertained., just as the Irish 

 peasant farmer does, was that of sending one son to school, 

 or rather to the University, for the purpose of his taking orders*. 

 Several entries will be found which illustrate this practice. 

 This desire of the villains was looked on apparently with 

 great suspicion. One of the Constitutions of Clarendon is 

 directed against the practice; and two hundred years after 

 the date of these famous ordinances, the parliament of the 

 15 Ric. II. petitioned the king that villains should be pro- 

 hibited from sending their children to school in order to 

 advance them in the Church. 



If therefore the great mass of the labouring classes had 

 achieved comparative freedom before the great Plague began, 

 it is reasonable to conclude on the simplest economical grounds, 

 that their condition was much bettered in the end by that cala- 

 mity. I do not purpose at present to dwell upon the circum- 

 stances of that fearful visitation, but to reserve the account 

 which may be given of it to that portion of this work in which 

 I intend to discuss the price of labour. But the very fact 

 that the legislature strove to depress the high rate of wages 

 consequent upon the scarcity of hands, is evidence that the 

 villenage of the law books was extinct. What possible need 

 would there be of a statute enacting and insisting on low rates 

 of wages, if the great mass of the community were, before 

 their lords, destitute of property and rights, and liable to such 

 labour as the discretion or necessities of their feudal superiors 

 might require? Why pass a law to secure that which is 

 generally supposed to have been still a customary right ? Why 

 say that service should be remunerated at fixed rates, when, 

 according to the law books, the labour might have been 

 demanded without any remuneration at all ? Why descant on 

 the malice of servants in husbandry, who demanded more than 

 the usual wages, if these servants were, as a rule, destitute of 

 civil liberty, or of any discretion in the selection of their 

 masters and the disposal of their services ? 



Mr. Hallam has observed (chap. vii. part iii.) that the "four- 



