156 ENFORCEMENT OF THE STATUTES OF LABOURERS 



wages in many crafts, the givers as well as the takers of 

 excess rates being liable for penalties. The point to be 

 emphasized is the striking similarity between the phrase- 

 ology of these local regulations and that of the national en- 

 actments. It is especially noticeable in the regulations for 

 glovers of January, 1349, which refer in general terms to 

 the rates prevailing a few years ago, and were, as the date 

 shows, issued but five months before the great ordinance.* 

 Similarly, the specifications of 1350 of rates of wages for 

 carpenters, masons etc.,- might easily be inferred to have 

 served as models for the corresponding specifications in the 

 statute of labourers. Although the prices of victuals seem 

 to have been constantly supervised in the leets, both borough 

 and seignorial, and in the sheriffs' turns, specific rates of 

 wages were established and enforced only by the gilds and 

 by the town authorities, and therefore concerned artisans 

 alone. Previous to the ordinance, wages of agricultural 

 labourers were apparently regulated by custom only, and 

 no instance has come to my notice of the promulgation of 

 a definite rate.^ 



The interference with the mobility of the labourer result- 

 ing from the new legislation consists partly in the actual 



ordinance as to wages issued as early as 1212. Toward the end of the 

 same century a royal writ orders the observance of the prices and wages 

 ordained by the common council of the city; Lid. Albus. in iMufi. Gild- 

 hallae. i, 251. 289 and 334; CaL Letter-Book A, xi. 



' Cat. Letter-Book F, 200; translated and printed in Memorials of 

 Land., 245-247. Denton, Eng. in Fifteenth Cetitury, 311, refers to an 

 ordinance of Fitz Ailwine, mayor of London, as the origin of the ordi- 

 nance of labourers of 1349. He may have meant the regulations of 1212, 

 given in Lib. Cast. {cf. sjipra, note 8). but I see no evidence for Den- 

 ton's theory. 



'Cat. Letter-Book F, 212; printed in Memorials of Lotid., 253-258. 



*The wording of the ordinance of 1349 shows clearly, however, that 

 previous to the plague certain customarj' rates had been generally ac- 

 cepted as normal. 



