26 FARMING FOR PROFIT 



debased by Mary, and again restored by Elizabeth . As. 

 gold and silver poured into Europe from America prices 

 rose throughout Europe. The rise was in England at- 

 tributed to every cause but the true one, which was the 

 lowering of the value of the precious metals. From 1459 

 to 1560 wheat averaged 9s. 2d. per quarter ; from 1561 to 

 1601 it averaged 47s. hd. But while the purchasing power 

 of money was thus diminished, legislation prevented wages 

 from following the rise in prices. Only human life was 

 cheapened. The labour market was glutted; guild jea- 

 lousies excluded peasants from trade. The poor-laws were 

 passing from voluntary almsgiving to the compulsory sup- 

 port of the poor. There was no substitute for monastic 

 bounty. Shakespeare drew no fancy picture, but one of 

 which ' the country gave him proof and precedent,' of the 

 ' bedlam beggars ' who 



from low farms, 

 Poor pelting villages, sheepcotes, and mills, 

 Sometime with lunatic bans, sometime with prayers, 

 Enforce their charity. 



Meanwhile large farmers profited by the low wages of 

 agricultural labour and the high prices of agricultural 

 produce. While Latimer laments the degradation of 

 small yeomen, who, like his father, had farms of ' three to 

 four pounds a year at the uttermost,' Harrison describes 

 the rise of substantial farmers and the middle classes, and 

 the chimneys, beds, sheets, pillows, pewter, tin, and silver, 

 which for the first time appeared in their houses. 



The process by which the commons were enclosed was 

 often high-handed and oppressive. From the comparative 

 silence of English records it cannot be concluded that a 

 parliament of English landlords had no occasion to protect 

 the interests of the cultivators of the soil. Sir Thomas 



