27# ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



than elm , and either than beech. Again, the evidence for the 

 latter part of the whole period is much more scanty than could 

 be wished. Still the rate of increase is not much less than 

 what we might expect, being 50 per cent. We might have 

 concluded, judging from parallel cases, that it would have been 

 60 or 70, or even more. 



In all these cases, as I have stated previously, the wages 

 paid are irrespective of the maintenance of the labourer. It is 

 true that allowances were made, of beer, for instance, in harvest, 

 of red herrings and occasionally a pig for the harvest feast on 

 some estates, this being in particular the case at Wolrichston, 

 where the rate of wages is perhaps a little lower than the 

 ordinary amount. But, as the reader may discover, in some 

 cases the labourer was regularly fed, as, for instance, at South- 

 ampton, where, as the corporation of GOD'S House possessed 

 many tenements in the town, the obligation of repairs being 

 laid on the landowners, there arose a continual necessity for 

 many of these mechanical occupations. Where the labourer 

 was fed, his wages, as a rule, were one-half of the ordinary rate 

 before the Plague, and two-thirds of it after that visitation. 

 Thus, for instance, at Southampton in 1317, carpenters so 

 maintained are paid at the rate of \d, to \\d. per day, but in 

 1388 at id. and 3^. Again, in 1311 a tiler and man are fed 

 and paid at the rate of \\d. together, but in 1388 at $\d. 

 together, while a tiler alone is paid %\d. The same rate is 

 exemplified in the wages of a carpenter at Oxford in 1385. 



The prices of several other kinds of mechanical work are 

 mentioned in the table of labour prices contained in vol. ii. pp. 

 374-328, most of which, though not abundantly illustrative, 

 bear testimony to the same facts of a rise from 40 to 60 per 

 cent, in the price after the Plague. Thus from several entries I 

 find that a dauber (that is, I suppose, one who laid mud or mortar 

 over wattled walls) was paid at the rate of i\d. a day before 

 1350, and A^d. afterwards. In the same way a plasterer is paid 

 . and 4^., a cooper i\d. and 4!^., a pargetter d. and 



s Entries of the purchase of elms are found, see vol. ii. p 594. 



