ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 493 



labourer, while that of the ordinary labourer in husbandry repre- 

 sented the average demand for the services which a farm hand 

 might supply. In my present volume, as I have stated above, the 

 price of ordinary farm labour is nearly continuous, and differs so 

 slightly from that of other unskilled labour, hired to assist artisans, 

 that it might be, concurrently with the latter, treated as vir- 

 tually continuous. These facts, together with occasional and 

 supplementary entries of similar or analogous labour, will 

 enable us to interpret, with sufficient accuracy, what was the 

 condition of the agricultural labourer before and after the great 

 rise in prices. It may be observed here, that the custom of 

 hiring labour by the day is more general during the fifteenth 

 and sixteenth centuries than it was in the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth, mainly because the practice of cultivating land was 

 abandoned by the great landowners and wealthy corporations, 

 and the labour which they hired was occasional or casual. 



The price at which the quarter of wheat was threshed and 

 winnowed is on an average ^d. The price, as is stated, varies 

 a little with the locality, standing at $d. in most country places, 

 and at $d. or even more in the neighbourhood of London, as 

 at Hornchurch in Essex, or Sion in Middlesex. In the later 

 part of the period which supplies these entries it is rather 

 dearer, but it appears that such charges as are entered are in- 

 curred for small quantities, when a higher price would naturally 

 be paid. The average price paid for threshing a quarter of barley 

 is 2f </., for peas, beans, and vetches 3<, for oats i\d. Certain 

 entries from Hickling in Norfolk are omitted. The record 

 does not state that the labourers were fed, but the payments 

 made render this inference necessary. It was constantly the 

 case that the labourers employed by corporations were main- 

 tained, while at work, at the lower table, but the cost was small, 

 and sometimes appears to have been given in. When it is 

 separately estimated it is reckoned at from id. to id. the day. 



The average price at which an acre of wheat was reaped, 

 bound, and stacked, was q\d., of barley 9^., of oats $\d. 

 Sometimes the cost of carnage is reckoned in the rate per acre. 





