CHAPTER XXVII. 



ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



I HAVE now nearly completed the task which I set before 

 myself in commenting on the large array of facts which are 

 contained in my third volume. I have attempted to analyse 

 and formulate those prices of articles in use and in demand, 

 which the Englishman of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries 

 produced by labour, or exchanged by trade and commerce. 

 The course of prices has been followed through a long period, 

 and the reader will be able to see and distinguish those fluctua- 

 tions which arise from purely natural causes, as the course of 

 the seasons and their attendant plenty and dearth ; those 

 which were derived from the action of government, as the 

 extravagance and misconduct of the last king of the house of 

 Lancaster, and the second of the house of Tudor, and the 

 difficulty which there was in any recuperation when such evils 

 were long dominant ; and lastly, the effects which were induced 

 upon society by a universal but variable rise in prices. He will 

 have also seen that in the end the king and the labourer 

 were impoverished, that the landowner had to make strong and 

 continuous efforts in order to recover his share in the products 

 of the soil, and that the yeoman or franklin, who cultivated his 

 own land with his own capital, and by his own labour and 

 superintendence, prospered in the dear times, as did also, 

 though perhaps to a less extent, the occupier of a yearly 

 holding or the lessee for a short term. I have attempted to 

 point out what were the consequences of these altered times to 

 all those members of the social system. There is one class, 

 however, over whose condition more lasting effects were in- 

 duced than were felt by any other. The king recovered his 



