BEGINNING OF THE CORN LAWS 6^ 



bandry, as in the case of the rural bridegroom in the account 

 of Queen Elizabeth's visit to Kenil worth who wore gloves to 

 show he was a good farmer. Tusser bids the farmer give 

 gloves to his reapers. The custom was still observed at Haw- 

 sted in 1784, and in Eden's time, 1797, the bursars of New 

 College, Oxford, presented each of their tenants with two 

 pairs, which the recipients displayed on the following Sunday 

 at church by conspicuously hanging their hands over the 

 pew to show their neighbours they had paid their rent. In 

 this account of the Hawsted harvest the large number of hired 

 men and the few customary tenants is noteworthy as a sign 

 of the times, for before the Black Death the harvest work on 

 the demesne was the special work of the latter. 



In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was 

 commenced which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, 

 and after an apparently final settlement in 1846 to reappear 

 in our day.^ It was the policy of Edward III to make food 

 plentiful and cheap for the whole nation, without special 

 regard to the agricultural interest : and by 34 Edw. Ill, c. 30, 

 the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais and 

 Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which 

 the king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, 

 reversed this policy in answer to the complaints of agricul- 

 turists whose rents were falling,^ and endeavoured to encourage 

 the farmer and especially the corn-grower; for he saw the land- 

 lords turning their attention to sheep instead of corn, owing 

 to the high price of labour. Accordingly, to give the corn- 

 growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by the statute 

 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due, to 



^ Exportation of com is mentioned in 1181, when a fine was paid to 

 the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk to Norway. — 

 M^'Pherson, Annals 0/ Commerce, i. 345. As early as the reign of Henry 1 1 , 

 Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy our most precious 

 wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and cheese), and our 

 innumerable cattle. — Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the Chronicle of London 

 says the country was saved from dearth by the importation of rye from 

 Prussia, ^ Hasbach, op. cit. p. 32. 



