A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE 



The industrial development of the county was no more rapid at this time 

 than its commercial progress. Staffordshire played no part in the early 

 history of the woollen industry in England ; the Flemish weavers could not 

 come 'so far inland as this to teach their craft; but some simple form of cloth- 

 making there was here as in all parts of the country, and it is said that the wool 

 trade was the staple trade of Wolverhampton until its decline in the sixteenth 

 century. 



The returns of the Poll Tax of 1379-81 show that there must have 

 been a considerable manufacture of cutlery at Rugeley, 63 and reference has 

 already been made to the coal-pits of Sedgeley, which, however, only brought 

 in 4 ioj. a year, so could not have been very extensively worked (between 

 40 and 50 of modern money). 6 * Iron mines are also mentioned at Tunstall 

 in 1361," but we know that until the eighteenth century there was no 

 important industrial development in North or South Staffordshire. It is 

 believed that iron smelting was carried on at Uttoxeter in the thirteenth 

 century and wool stapling in the fourteenth. The smelting of iron went on 

 to some extent in other parts of the country, but it was as yet effected by 

 means of charcoal, easily procurable in a county so well wooded. For the 

 rest the return of the Poll Tax of i 379-8 i for the hundreds of Offlow and 

 Cuttlestone 66 shows us a miscellaneous population, shoemakers, smiths, 

 carpenters, skinners, fullers, tailors, butchers, and a few weavers, with a very 

 large proportion of agricultural labourers or husbandmen, about eighty-eight 

 per cent, of the whole number, compared with twelve per cent, employed in 

 trade and industry other than agriculture. 



The records of the administration of justice in the manorial and other 

 courts, including those of the forest, throw a good deal of light upon the life 

 and customs of the people in mediaeval times. They show us a community 

 mainly agricultural whose misdemeanours are chiefly connected with field and 

 forest. There are innumerable fines for depasturing sheep and cattle, inclosing 

 parts of the forest for purposes of cultivation, and throwing down fences on 

 the lord's land, and so on. 



In 1 129 the men of Arley are amerced ten marks for lands of the forest 

 taken by them unwarrantably into cultivation, but the king releases them 

 from the penalty ' for that the debtors were poor.' " 



After the passing of the Statute of Merton in 1235, which gave the 

 freeholders the right to protest against encroachments of the lord on their 

 pasture land, the Assize Rolls of Staffordshire are full of cases in which the 

 tenant brings an action against the lord for this offence. The following case 

 is only one of many of the kind : ' An assize if John Golde had unjustly 

 disseised Milicent Basset of her common of pasture in five acres in Finchespath 

 appurtenant to her free tenement. Verdict for Milicent.' 68 The fact that 

 in most cases the tenants seem to have got favourable verdicts points to a 

 rather general attempt on the part of the Staffordshire lords to ignore the 

 rights of the freeholders in this respect. It is worth noting in passing that 

 the Statute of Merton, which was really the first inclosure act, gave no 



a i 



' The mil. Salt Arch. Sac. Coll. xvii, 1 86. M Ibid. pt. ii, ix, 29. 



54 De Banco R. 405, Hil. 35 Edw. Ill, m. 299^. 



* The If ill. Salt Arch. Sue. Coll. xvii, 61-205. " Ibid, i, 8 ; Pipe R. 31 Hen. I. 



M The Will. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. vi (i), 50 ; Misc. Assize R. 55 Hen. Ill, Lichfield ; also headed Plea 

 Rolls of reign of Edw. I, No. 121 7. (The Rolls are not numbered in Salt.) 



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