110 ON THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND, 



was abandoned, and that general dearth was the consequence. 

 The same preamble states that some persons keep 24,000, 

 others 20,000, some 10,000, some 6000, some 5000 sheep, 

 and the statute enacts that for the future no sheep-master 

 shall have more than 2000; that in order to avoid local 

 ambiguity as to the meaning of a hundred, as it sometimes 

 implies six score, the long hundred, as well as five score, 

 the latter shall be the meaning for the future, and that any 

 transgression of the law shall be punished by a fine of 3^. ^d. 

 for every head of sheep above the legal number, to be recovered 

 by any one who may sue for the same, half of the penalty 

 going to the king. I do not find indeed from the record of 

 prices as supplied from the sources which have given me in- 

 formation in 1534 and onwards, that any such market values 

 were reached for sheep, but it is possible that the complaint 

 of the statute refers to London, where prices were always high. 

 But a great rise had occurred in the price of wool, as I find 

 even from the scanty information which I have been able to 

 glean. Of course, the adoption of sheep-farming in lieu of 

 ordinary tillage was due to the greater profit obtained by 

 sheep-raising, especially as the importation of wheat and rye 

 from the Baltic was considerable enough to attract the at- 

 tention of the legislature, and therefore the English hus- 

 bandman was exposed to competition, whilst he had the 

 practical monopoly of the wool market, except for the Spanish 

 supply. 



Attention was doubtlessly directed in the later period of 

 Henry's reign to the rise in the price of provisions. In the 

 Lansdowne MSS. in the British Museum, there is a paper in 

 duplicate in which, under the following heading, a record of 

 prices formerly customary is noted, evidently with a view of 

 contrasting them with later experiences. The writing is of the 

 reign of Henry VIII. 



