LABOUR AND WAGES. 619 



Under the 1591 assessment (for I am assuming the inter- 

 pretation which I suggest), the best artisan was to get, finding 

 himself, from %d. to 6d. a day. The Chester authorities (it is 

 for the city, not the county, that they are framing the scale) say 

 very little about agricultural labour, but it seems obvious 

 that they intend for the best conceivable labourer in hus- 

 bandry, the bailiff, the same wages as the artisan, and for 

 ordinary labourers 4^., the employer of course having the 

 discretion of taking men by the year or the day as it suited 

 him. The ordinary artisan would therefore get 6d. a day for 

 his work, the ordinary peasant ^d. For 300 days then the 

 former would earn 7 ioj., the latter 5. The Chester 

 magistrates offer for the year in such cases, the man finding 

 himself, .5 and 3 ics. The difference perhaps indicates the 

 precariousness of day-work. But in order to put the fairest 

 construction on the situation, I will assume that the higher 

 rate represents the married, the lower the unmarried peasant, 

 and that the day-labourer may reasonably expect work for 

 300 days in the year. 



Now on turning to the schedule of prices, it will be seen 

 that the quantity of provisions which in 1495 an artisan 

 could procure with ten, and the peasant with fifteen weeks' 

 labour, would be secured by the Chester labourers at a 

 cost of 9 4s. icd. It would therefore cost the artisan, at 

 3J. a week (in the judgment of those who 'respected the 

 plenty or scarcity of the time '), sixty-four weeks and more, 

 under the Cheshire scale, to get what a century before he 

 could have got for ten weeks' labour. The labourer in hus- 

 bandry would have had to give over one hundred and two 

 weeks. 



Under the Yorkshire scale of 1593, tne artisan gets an 

 average of gd. t the peasant of 6d. These county justices are 

 more generous than the Chester citizens. Under their scale 

 the peasant gets j IQS. for 300 days' labour, the artisan 

 11 5*. The provisions, for at Lady Day they arc all a 

 good deal cheaper, now cost 6 6s. &/. In this year the 



