ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 2,6$ 



We shall find all these anticipations verified when we ex- 

 amine the accounts given of payments for labour, and especially 

 when taking averages and then collecting decennial inferences ; 

 and lastly, contrasting the two well-marked periods before and 

 after the year 1350, we interpret the effects of the Great 

 Plague. 



I will attempt to illustrate these hypotheses, and shew how 

 they are verified, in dealing first with the chief kinds of per- 

 manent and necessary agricultural labour, and first of all in the 

 rate paid for threshing corn. 



In the table given below the evidence stated is of the 

 following character. In the first place, the highest prices paid 

 are taken, as indicating the demand more fully than an average 

 from all the work done. In the next place, the evidence 

 divided into districts, roughly indeed, but, as is hoped, 

 sufficient for the purposes of contrast, and these districts are 

 distinguished as eastern, midland, south, west, and north. 

 Three prices of threshing only are taken for wheat, rye, beans, 

 peas, and vetches are generally threshed at one rate, barley 

 and drage at another, while oats stand by themselves. 



Now it will be seen that the rate is considerably higher on 

 the eastern side of England than in any other district, and this, 

 as far as evidence is supplied, is discernible throughout the 

 whole period before us, and, as a rule, the largest prices are 

 found in Norfolk, then the great seat of the woollen manufac- 

 ture. Next to this is the northern district, then the southern, 

 the region namely which lies below the Thames, then the mid- 

 land, and lastly the western region. The payment made for 

 the same service in Ireland, during the few years for which 

 evidence is supplied, is not very different from the average of 

 that in England. With the exception, however, of the eastern 

 counties, the variation is a small fraction only, the several 



distress of the year 1316 some meeting was held in All Saints' Church by the Castle, and a 

 tax levied on the owners of property for the relief of the prevailing distress, for this is 

 the meaning of ' agistatio.' But the entry is scored through with a pen, perhaps because 

 the precedent was considered dangerous. It seems like a Poor Rate. 



