92 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, 



Middlesex out of the lands of these alien priories. Cheltenham 

 came to Sion. The tenants of the manor had, like others under 

 a base tenure, been assessed at a money equivalent of the old 

 labour rents, the assessment on the whole manor amounting to 

 the sum of ^10 os. 6%d. The tenants and the abbess were at 

 variance, and after some ' debates and demands,' arbitration 

 was resorted to. Sir Ralph Cottiller and others were appointed 

 to settle the business, and they decided that henceforth the 

 tenants should pay ten marks, i.e. a little less than two-thirds 

 the old commutation, and should at their own expense distri- 

 bute this sum rateably and by a proper instrument over those 

 who were liable. The award is dated on Sept. 27, 1452. It is 

 written on the back of a roll in which, on the obverse, the dis- 

 tribution of the sum originally paid (10 cs. &ld.} is scheduled. 

 Here it will be seen that an arbitrator diminishes by a very 

 large percentage a customary payment which had hitherto been 

 paid. The document has been preserved by accident, but 

 I have little doubt that it is the type of a numerous class of 

 similar awards. 



I shall, when I come to speak of the wages of labour, dwell 

 on the enactments by which, in accordance with the theory of 

 legislation in that age, efforts were made from time to time 

 to obtain a plentiful supply of labour in husbandry. But before 

 I deal with such information as has come before me in relation 

 to the condition of the town folk, I must state what is known 

 about the distribution of land in purely agricultural districts. 

 Fortunately a work is still extant, a second production of Fitzher- 

 bert, from which it is possible to obtain a fairly full account of 

 what was the condition of country places where agriculture was 

 the principal calling of the inhabitants, though the village crafts- 

 men, Smith, Carpenter, and Thatcher, followed their ordinary 

 and indeed necessary callings among the upland folk. 



The work is a treatise on Surveying V and the duties of 

 a Surveyor. The bailiff in husbandry, as he was in the four- 



1 The copy from which I quote was a reprint dated the year after Fitzherbert's 

 death, i.e. 1539, and published by Henry the Eighth's printer, Thomas Berthollet. 



