A HISTORY OF GLOUCESTERSHIRE 



while in 1389 a stray was sold for 2s, 6d. But horses vary so in quality that 

 it is difficult to estimate their relative values ; in 1388 an ordinary horse was 

 sold at Cheltenham for 3, and in 1460 a pair at Bisley were valued at 20 ; 

 while a 'lord's horse' in 1438 cost 7 6s. %d. And the price of oxen is 

 also uncertain, averaging js. 6d. in the thirteenth century and rising to 2os. 

 between 1360 and 1370, after which it gradually fell. By 1460 an ox was 

 13-r. 4</., a heifer 6s. 8d., and a cow about loj. 1 While raw products were 

 little affected by the rise of wages, manufactured articles, the value of which 

 was dependent on the cost of labour, immediately felt its effect ; for in the 

 fourteenth century there were no middlemen, whose profits could be clipped 

 when wages rose, but contracts were made directly between the con- 

 sumer, who bought the material, and the producer, who worked it up under 

 his orders. Neither the small holder nor the labourer were, however, greatly 

 affected by such a rise. Their clothing could be largely manufactured at 

 home ; their stock of farm implements, or of tools, was not extensive. 



It would be interesting to calculate the yearly income and cost of living 

 of a peasant in the fourteenth century. Rogers draws a picture of a 

 small holder, with a wife and two children, whose yearly cost of living 

 he puts at 8 (i.e., four quarters of wheat, i 3-r. 6d. ; malt, to supply four 

 gallons of beer a week, js. jd. ; 800 Ib. of meat, at \d. per lb., i6j. %d ; 

 boots, 3-r. 6d. ; clothing, &c., I3J. 6*/.). s The rent of such a small holder, 

 say for a house and yardland, would be from 5^. to IQJ. ; but then it is 

 hard to calculate the exact yield of such a holding, or to say what amount 

 of their yearly expenses our small holder and his family would nullify by 

 their own labour. 



And the living of the hired labourer is even more difficult to picture, 

 for, when wages were paid by the day, we are not usually told for how many 

 days a week they were given. In Bristol, in the fourteenth century, labourers 

 received no wage for holidays on which they did no work ; 3 but we have 

 no general rule, and saints' days were so many that the question is important. 

 Rogers calculates that the average labourer could earn the quarter of wheat 

 necessary for his own annual consumption by about eighteen days' labour, 

 and the artisan by fourteen days'. 



But the most trustworthy idea of the style of living of the labourer may 

 be derived from the agreements as to board and lodging made by those 

 workmen who were hired by the year. In the thirteenth century a mason 

 binds himself to serve the abbey of Winchcombe for life in return for the 

 ' livelihood of a chief servant.' When well, he feeds at the abbey table ; 

 when sick, he is entitled to have two monks' loaves of 3 lb. each, two 

 noggins of ale, and two dishes from the abbot's kitchen. He is to have a 

 robe like the steward's ; two wax candles every night, and four tallow candles 

 a week. 4 This mason was evidently a skilled artisan. The living of a farm 

 servant of the higher grade may be imagined from a ' corrody ' 6 purchased 

 from the same abbey by a bailiff in 1317. He bargains for three bushels of 

 wheat every eight weeks, and three bushels of such corn as the abbey servants 

 have ; two carcases of wethers on i November ; pottage, and a place at table.* 



1 Mins. Accts. Tidenham and Cheltenham. * Hist, of Agric. and Prices, vol. i, ch. 29. 



3 Little Red Book, \\, 224 et seq. ' Landboc, i, 137-8. 



6 Purchasing a corrody from some great house was the mediaeval equivalent to purchasing an annuity. 

 6 Landboc, i, 279-80. 



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