I 



A PERIOD OF GENERATL DISTRESS 71 



it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II, c. 5, which ordained that no 

 one who had been a servant in husbandry until 12 years old 

 should be bound apprentice, and further enacted that no 

 person with less than 20s. a year in land should be able to 

 apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this 

 seems to have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 

 (1444), enacting that if a servant in husbandry purposed 

 leaving his master he was to give him warning, and was obliged 

 either to engage with a new one or continue with the old. It 

 also regulated the wages anew, those fixed showing a substan- 

 tial increase since the statute of 1388. By the year : — 



A bailiff was to have ^i 3^. 4^/., and 5^. worth of clothes. 

 A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, ^i, and 4^^. worth of clothes. 

 A common servant in husbandry, i^s., and 3^. 4</. worth of clothes. 

 A woman servant, los., and 4^. worth of clothes. 

 All with meat and drink. 



By the day, in harvest, wages were to be : — 



A mower, with meat and drink, 4^. ; without, 6if. 



A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3</. ; without, 5^. 



A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2d. ; without, 4d. 



In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated 

 for him, and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. 

 a yard in price, nor any ' close hosen ', apparently tight long 

 stockings, nor any hosen at all which cost more than I4</. ^ 

 Yeomen and those below them were forbidden to wear any 

 bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or other stuff in their 

 doublets, but only lining ; and somewhat gratuitously it was 

 ordered that no one under the degree of a gentleman should 

 wear pikes to his shoes. 



In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, 

 began, and agriculture received another set back. The view 

 that the war was a mere faction fight between nobles and 

 their retainers, while the rest of the country went about their 



* See 3 Edw. IV, c. 5 ; Ro^. Pari. v. 105 ; 22 Edw. IV, c. i. 



