76 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, 



and cities to contribute according to the levy made on 

 them. 



The tax is levied on thirty-eight counties and ten cities. 

 The table contains five columns. The" first is the number of 

 archers with which each county or city was charged. The 

 second is the amount of the charge so levied at 91 shillings 

 for each archer. The third is the assessment of the wool tax 

 in 1341, extracted from vol. i. p. no. The fourth represents 

 the proportion of each archer to the acreage of each county, 

 and the fifth is similarly the proportion of each sack of wool 

 to the acreage of each county in 1341. The table therefore 

 gives an account of the distribution of wealth in England at 

 two periods 122 years apart, and makes a comparison between 

 each feasible. 



The first thing which strikes one is the extraordinary growth 

 of opulence in the city of London. In 1341, its contribution 

 is less than half that made by the county of Norwich. In 

 1453, ^ finds a hundred and twenty five more soldiers than 

 that county does, and is charged with little less than a tenth 

 of the whole cost incurred. But I have not been* able to 

 discover any information bearing on the growth or even on 

 the commerce of the city, except that, in 1443, the water which 

 supplied the city from Tyburn brook, and which was first 

 conveyed to London in 1236, was found to be insufficient, 

 and a new supply was obtained by the city authorities from 

 Paddington 1 , an indication of the great growth of the city. 

 But it should be remembered that the fifteenth century was the 

 period at which the rule of apprenticeship, originally designed 

 to disarm the jealousy of such landowners as feared the migra- 

 tion of the country folk to towns, and the consequent dearness 

 of farm labour, became the entrance into a number of lucrative 

 monopolies, which were protected by the wariness of the town 

 representatives in the Commons, and guaranteed by the eager- 

 ness with which the territorial magnates, before and during the 

 great feud of the war of succession, caressed the burghers. For 



1 See Rymer's Foedera under each date. 



