A HISTORY OF HERTFORDSHIRE 



The cowherd's yearly wage, which had been about 4J.," seems to have 

 risen is. At Pre in 1350 and at Ashwell in 1352 5J. is the sum.'* But 

 this had been given at Little Hormead in 1338. 



The average shepherd's pay, 3J. a year, tended upwards, sometimes to 

 5J. The carter's daily wage rose of necessity after the cattle plague. Instead 

 of SJ. a day,"* the usual rate by 1381 was is. 4^. to 2s. a day.'" The plough- 

 man's wage was most frequently still paid in corn, but 8s. at Pre was paid for 

 the year, or 3J. for the winter half-year and 5J-. for the summer.'" This may 

 also, perhaps, imply a rise of is. 



The wages of the craftsman would be expected to rise as much as those 

 of the labourer. The crafts were so simple and so necessary that the 

 demand was not very elastic, and the decrease of population would only 

 decrease the demands on the crafts proportionately. 



But the rise was apparently less marked in the trades than in farm 

 work. A tiler took 3^. a day,"' a tiler and his boy 5^. a day at Meesden, 

 against 3-^/. in 1346-7, but 3^. had been a not uncommon rate in other 

 parts of the country. In another case the pay is much higher, the man and 

 his helper having SJ. and another pair 10^."* Carpenters were still working 

 in 1350 for 2 J. or 3^. a day," approximately the rates allowed by the Statute 

 of Labourers. But many must have asked more. About thirty years later 

 the almost invariable rate was ^J. or 51^."'' A master carpenter had 6d. a day 

 at Hertford in 1381." In 135 1 the Commons granted three-tenths and 

 three-fifteenths on condition that all fines of the Statute of Labourers should 

 be in aid of it."* The fines paid in the half-hundred of Hitchin show that in 

 I 35 I the statute was being enforced in the little places, where the offenders 

 must have been mostly agricultural labourers. At Meppershall the fines 

 came to 2s., at Stagenhoe to 4J., at Lilley to 17/. and at Ickleford to ioj. 3^. 

 In the larger places many fines must have come from artificers. Kimpton paid 

 19J., King's Walden 25J. i^., OfBey 25/., Dinsley 33J. i/, Pirton 36^. 9^'. 

 and Hitchin with its foreign £/\. ^s. \d. The total is ^13 js. 6d. The 

 towns are so pre-eminent that the artificers must have been pretty general 

 contributors. 



Berkhampstead paid 50^., Rickmansworth 30J., Cheshunt 53J. \d., 

 Baldock ^4 6s. bJ., Ware £c^ and St. Albans >(^io. The total for the county is 

 ^122 6s. idP 



This is enough to show that the labourers were a rising class with a 

 rising wage and one which was fighting the statute law. The manorial 

 courts had threatened them too, in so far as they included the fugitive villeins.'" 

 This was an old trouble ; we cannot tell how far the Plague actually increased 

 it, but the increase of presentments of fugitive villeins at the manorial 

 courts after 1349 is very significant. The stewards registered the present- 

 ments on the rolls, and the same order for the return of the same men occurs 

 year after year for ten or twelve years ; such an order was all the power the lord 

 had. In fact, villeins had for long been allowed to live away if they paid a small 



1' See above. ^' Mins. Accts. bdles. 867, no. 23 ; 862, no. 6. 



^ See above. ^^ Mins. Accts. bdles. 58, no. 1078 ; 873, no. 25. 



-^ Ibid. bdle. 867, no. 23. 23 ibii 24 Ibid. bdle. 873, no. 25. 



*^ Ibid. bdle. S67, no. 23. ^^ Ibid, bdles. 58, no. 1079 ; 873, no. 25. 



" Ibid. bdle. 58, no. 1079. 23 p^^i j^ j;^ 238. 



-•' Lay Subs. R. Herts, bdle. 120, no. 29. '" See above. 



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