754 ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



have referred above. It is probable that during the land hunger 

 of the fifteenth century, the less provident and helpful labourers 

 might have lost those curtilages of their cottages, which we see 

 were the characteristics of the serfs in the court rolls of the 

 fourteenth century, and Elizabeth wished to restore to them, 

 and it is certain that they would be the principal losers by the 

 enclosures, even though these enclosures were made by the rule 

 of distributing the land so appropriated in proportion to the 

 extent which each commoner had, at the date of the transaction, 

 in severalty. But such was not the rule in Elizabeth's time, as 

 we may infer from the complaints and the abortive law of 1589. 



Now the artisans undoubtedly benefited by the prosperity of 

 the fifteenth century. I discover this fact in the infrequency 

 with which raw materials of certain kinds are purchased, in 

 order to be made up, as iron and steel, by the local smith, 

 for though I have fairly full prices of raw iron, those of wrought 

 are far more numerous. Besides, some articles, such as clouts 

 and clouts nails, iron plough shoes and horse-shoes, become 

 infrequent and finally disappear. The work is done by the 

 village smith or wheelwright as part of his ordinary employment, 

 and he must therefore have had capital sufficient for buying iron 

 and steel and fashioning the material into such articles and 

 tools as were in constant demand. The same fact is not visible 

 in the case of building materials, where the outlay on stone, 

 brick, lime, timber, roof and ridge tiles, and slates is still 

 made by the parties who construct buildings, the trade of a 

 master-builder not being yet developed, though there are a 

 few examples of contracts to be found, especially for timber 

 work and lime burning. As a rule, however, the workmen or 

 the master workman seem to have supplied the plans l , and at 

 least to have supervised the structure. 



I do not then infer, that, after the statute of apprenticeship 

 was enforced in the beginning of Elizabeth's reign, the higher 

 class of artisan, though his real wages were greatly diminished, 

 suffered so severely as other labourers did, for he had the 



1 See the free-masons' wages, p. 122. 



