96 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



the shepe so that the poore are not able to keepe a cowe, but 

 are like to starve. And yet when was beef ever so dere or 

 mutton, wool now 8^. a stone.' 



' Now ', says another, later in the century, ' I can never 

 get a horse shoed under lod. or 1 2^., when I have also seen 

 the common pryce was 6d. And cannot your neighbour 

 remember that within these thirty years I could bye the best 

 pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for four pence 

 which now costeth 1 2^., a good capon for 3^. or 4^., a hen for 

 Old., which now costeth me double and triple.' ^ 



Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food ; an 

 Act of 1532, 24 Hen. VHI, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork 

 should be \d. a lb. and mutton and veal ^d. a lb. The 

 decrease in the number of cows also received its attention ; 

 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3, states that forasmuch of late 

 years a great number of persons have fed in their pastures 

 sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that there was 

 great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept one 

 milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf 

 shall be bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be 

 kept one milk cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf 

 shall be bred. The Act was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. 

 c. 25 made it perpetual. 



In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the 

 last attempt of the English labourer to obtain redress of his 

 wrongs by force of arms, though Kett himself belonged to the 

 landlord class and took the side of the people probably by 

 accident. The petition of grievances drawn up by his fol- 

 lowers aimed at diminishing the power of lords of manors as 

 regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal 

 wrongs. ' We pray ', said the insurgents, ' that all bondmen 

 may be made free, for God made all free with His precious 

 blood-shedding.' The rebellion came to nothing, and some of 



* 'A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary complaints ', 

 quoted by Eden, State 0/ the Poor, i. 119. 



