494 ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 



On some occasions this item does not count or even at all 

 exalt the price. Sometimes it raises it from $d. to ^d. an acre. 

 The entry in all probability refers simply to the labour incurred 

 in carrying the corn by the landowner's cart to the barn or 

 stack. Cheap as carriage was in the middle ages, it is impos- 

 sible to doubt that the cost incurred over any distance would 

 have been in excess of that entered. But in the medieval 

 homestead the arable land lay close to the farmer's home. 



The average cost of mowing an acre of hay is %\d. This 

 rate seems to imply the mere labour of cutting. When it is 

 made as well as cut the payment ranges from is. to is. 6d. the 

 acre. When it is also carried the price of the service in the 

 solitary entry which I have found rises to is- 8d. These prices 

 of reaping and mowing will be found to closely correspond with 

 those of 1351-1400 in Vol. I, p. 321. 



In twenty-four years between 1546-1582 inclusive, Corpus 

 Christi College, Oxford, rented Magdalen mead from that 

 College, for the purpose of supplying its own stables, which lay 

 at the rear of what is now called Biham Hall. Sometimes 

 the College pays for mowing, making, and carrying the sixteen 

 acres which are contained in the mead. An average taken 

 from twelve such entries gives 85^. i\d. for the service, the 

 highest price between 1551 and 1577 being iozs. lod. in 1562, 

 and the lowest 6os. in 1551. At the earlier of these dates the 

 rise in the price of labour had taken full effect, and therefore it 

 may be concluded that the rates paid were on the new standard. 

 It is clear, then, that so wide a range of payment must have 

 been based on a bargain in which an estimate of the hay crop 

 was calculated by both the parties, and the payment made was 

 according to a valuation of the labour to be expended in 

 cutting, making, and carrying it about half a mile from mead 

 to stable or yard. In seven years the cost of mowing and 

 making only is given, when the average is 46.$-. y\d. In 1546 

 it is lowest, 33 s. ^d. ; in 1574 it is highest, 6os. In one of 

 these years, 1572, the cost of mowing and making is 47 s. 8^/., 

 that of carrying 37 loads at $d. is i$s. $d., giving, if 37 loads 



