6l6 LABOUR AND WAGES. 



probably meant that the same assessment was constantly re- 

 published. They had only an ephemeral interest, and perhaps 

 it is more strange that any have survived, than it is that so 

 many have been lost. When Ruggles wrote his work on the 

 poor in 1 793, he refers to the ninth of the series of assessments 

 which are printed in the Appendix to the sixth volume of this 

 work, pp. 685700, as probably a solitary specimen of this kind 

 of quarter sessions work. Sir Frederic Eden increased the num- 

 ber to eight, and I have been able to make them up to eleven. 

 Of these, four are of the sixteenth, and the rest of the seven- 

 teenth century. These four are of the Northern counties, 

 Chester (two), York (East Riding), and Lancashire. The 

 others are of Rutland, Gloucestershire (two), Essex (two), Suf- 

 folk, and Warwickshire. The earliest is dated in 1592, the 

 latest in 1684. They have been printed generally in order of 

 time, but in two cases the information from the same place, 

 Chester and Gloucestershire, is conveniently grouped. 



The schedules of the first two are unfortunately mutilated. 

 Eden obtained them from the Harleian MSS., and in each case 

 the scale of wages without food is lost, and in one, the earliest, 

 the later parts of the scale are also missing. But though this 

 part of the scale is unrecoverable, there is no difficulty in 

 suggesting what the figures in the last column on the right 

 hand side should be, for it is plain that the Lancashire scale of 

 1595 was so nearly on the lines of the Chester assessment, 

 that the former was probably almost an exact copy of the 

 latter. This Lancashire assessment, No. IV in the series, has 

 been extracted by me from the great volume of the proclama- 

 tions of Elizabeth, one of the choicest historical treasures of 

 the Bodleian Library. If my reader will add to the wages 

 with meat and drink, ^d. a day for ordinary male labour, $d. 

 for women's labour, and $d. for harvest labour, I am quite 

 confident that he will practically be able to restore the last 

 column. All the documents are printed in vol. vi. 



Generally, but not invariably, these assessments were made 

 on the most convenient day which could be found after Easter. 



