WAGES OF HUSBANDMEN. 757 



amount for the same space of time to 8 4s. But while the 

 price of wheat in the fifteenth century was about $s. 4<f. the 

 quarter, it is at an average of nearly i$s. in the last thirty-two 

 years, and other provisions have risen in an almost equal pro- 

 portion. The rise in wages is from i to 1*72, of corn from 

 nearly one to three. 



I am taking a favourable case, when I assume that the 

 artisan and the day-labourer in husbandry would look forward 

 to regular employment for forty-seven weeks in the year during 

 the latter part of the sixteenth century. Elizabeth's proclama- 

 tion for Rutland (sup. p. 120) reckons the maximum money 

 wages of an expert or first-class servant in husbandry at 40^. 

 in money and 6s. for clothing, and the food of men at ^d. a 

 day, of women at %d., and the wages of a labourer who keeps 

 himself, at yd. in the summer, and 6d. a day in the winter. 

 The rate prescribed (1563) for summer wages, is that which I 

 have inferred from my accounts as the earnings of an un- 

 skilled labourer. The proclamation, therefore, reckons the 

 wages of a first-class hind, hired by the year, clothing and 

 board included, at 8 Js. 8d., and those of a carpenter and 

 other artisans, for a year of the same duration, at 11. But 

 the wages of the carpenter are considerably less than those 

 which I have taken above, being by the proclamation 4^. 6d. 

 a week for half the year, and 4^. for the other half. It is most 

 unlikely, however, that the wages earned by the artisan would 

 amount in the aggregate to nearly this sum, and that he would 

 be very fairly employed if they reached 10. 



I reckoned that the cost of a peasant's family of four per- 

 sons in the early part of the fourteenth century was 3 4^. gd. t 

 and I put down i $s. 6d. for wheat, >js. >]d. for beer, i6s. Sd. 

 for meat, and 17.?. for clothing. There is no material change 

 in the money values of these articles up to the time in which 

 prices permanently rose, but during the last forty-two years of 

 the period the same quantity of wheat would cost 2 iSs. 6d,, 

 of malt, ijs. 6d.\ of meat, 2, los. ; of clothing, i 14.$-.; 

 8 in all. But, as we see, the wages and allowances of a first- 



