SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



twenty-five customary holdings had become free. 1 At Minchinhampton the 

 effort, noticed above, to revise labour-rents was abandoned by 1417, and the 

 sale of labour amounted to 4 i6/. 8</. in the yearly receipts. 1 



Leaving those villeins who after the catastrophe of the Black Death 

 remained on the land and grew to be copyholders, we turn to the lot of 

 those who, convinced that employers would be compelled to offer what 

 wages they chose to demand, joined the ranks of the landless labourer. In 

 spite of the Statutes of Labourers, prescribing a minimum rate, wages did 

 rise as a whole in the latter half of the fourteenth century. [See App. I.] 

 Between 1344 and 1389 at Cheltenham the wages of a thatcher and his boy 

 rose from zd. and id. to ^d. and zd. respectively. 8 Prices paid for grinding 

 corn rose in the following proportions : 



'344 >379 



Wheat, per quarter . . id. 

 Barley . ij</. 



Oats id. 



ti 



Wheat, per quarter . . 3<f. 

 Barley . id. 



Oats 



A carpenter's wages at Cheltenham rose from \d. to $d. a day between 

 1394 and 1448 ;' and a tiler's from ^d. to \d. between 1389 and 1396, and 

 to 5</. by 1448.* In 1422 a special session of the peace had to be held at 

 Cheltenham to check the demands of the wage-earners. John Russell, a 

 labourer, was fined for taking \\d. a day for winter hoeing. 7 The shoe- 

 makers, too, were pulled up for the high prices which they had charged 

 for shoes ; some of them had taken as much as jd. per pair, whereas at 

 Bristol in 1403 the cobblers were only charging ' 



For sewing yarking and finishing shoes called Quarterschone . . it. a dozen 



Courseware . . -jd. 



For making a pair of boots entirely . . . . . . 3^. a pair 



Galoges (i.e. clogs) id. 



Weavers were fined for charging 2d. per ell for weaving cloth ; while 

 butchers and bakers were also at fault for their excessive prices.* 



While wages thus rose, the cost of most articles of food altered little. 

 Corn, according to Thorold Rogers, varied hardly at all between the years 

 1 20 1 and 1540, the average price being about 6s. per quarter. 10 Poultry 

 remained extraordinarily steady, varying only from id. to i\d. a cock, and 

 from i \d. to "id. a hen, between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. Eggs 

 were usually about forty a penny." Nor did the cost of farm animals differ 

 much during the same period. Sheep rose from is. to is. 6d. apiece between 

 the reigns of Henry III and Edward III, and for the subsequent century 

 remained steady. Pigs were is. ()d. each in 1280 at Tidenham, and at 

 Cheltenham 90 years later were still from is. 4^. to 2s. The cost of ' affers,' 

 or plough horses (of which a certain number were used in Gloucestershire 

 instead of the ox), u sank slightly, being js. 6d. in 1289 and 6s. Sd. in 1369, 



1 Rentals and SUIT. R. 226, 227. ' Ibid. R. 240. 



Mins. Accts. bdle. 85 1, Nos. 22, 24. ' Ibid. No. 22 ; bdle. 850, No. 22. 



Ibid. bdle. 852, Nos. 2, 23. ' Ibid. bdle. 851, No. 24 ; bdle. 852, Nos. I, 23. 



Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 26, m. 7. 



Little Rid Book if Brutal, cd. F. B. Bickley, ii, 101, et icq. 



Ct. R. portf. 175, No. 26, m. 7. 



" S/AT Centuriti of Work anJ Wogei, 215. " Mins. Accti. Glouc. passim. 



" See Glouc. Cart, where six hones were considered able to pull an eight-ox plough. 



'47 



