SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of the school. At Lancaster the mayor and burgesses petitioned to be allowed 

 to rebuild a mill on the Lune to support the free school there. ^" 



In 1573 the inhabitants of Hawkshead parish were claiming to grind 

 elsewhere than at the mills of the queen's lessee, alleging them to be ' insuffi- 

 cient.''"" The fight was hottest near the large towns of Liverpool and 

 Manchester. In 1588 the inhabitants of Liverpool opposed the claim of 

 the queen's lessee (Sir R. Molineux) that they should be compelled to grind 

 and pay toll to the queen's mills at Eastham, Townsend, Derby, Ackers, 

 and Wavertree.'"' In 1592 the lord of the manor of Manchester was 

 contending with the burgesses there as to the tolls and multure of various 

 mills at Manchester, Cheetham, Ordsall, Bradford, and Smedley.'"'' In 1594 

 the attorney-general was disputing the claim of a new mill erected at Clitheroe 

 in detriment of the multure owed to the queen's mill there ; '"^ and in 1595 

 a similar claim was entered at Colne for soke and suit to the queen's mill 

 against certain copyholders of the manor.'"* 



The new free spirit that after the Pestilence and the Peasants' Revolt 

 had arisen among the people, showed itself in this challenging of the claims 

 of privilege wherever they arose. The suppression of the monasteries caused 

 a scramble for the rich liberties thus scattered, and the king's farmers and 

 lessees had, as has been shown, considerable difficulty in obtaining the reserva- 

 tions they looked for. The monastic fisheries that went with the lease of the 

 lands were especially the subject of popular plunder. There was a great 

 wrangle of this kind at Penwortham '"' in 1537—8, and upon the Wyre 

 fishery in 1546.'°* 



The farmer of the Mersey fishery had much trouble with certain who 

 disputed his rights over the Thelwall and other Mersey fishings.'"' In 1561 

 the farmers of the Lune salmon fishery, formerly belonging to Furness Abbey, 

 had to go to law with certain who claimed the moiety of the fishery there.'"* 

 Similar disputes occurred about the fishings at Levens Water '"' and Winder- 

 mere, and numerous other places, in 1562. Often the disputers of privilege 

 carried things too far, as when they refused to recognize the sturgeon caught 

 at Penwortham'" and seized by the king's bailiff for the crown, as a royal fish, 

 or disputed the crown's claims to wreck of sea there. 



Although there is little documentary evidence, if any, as to the progress 

 of the woollen-cloth industry in Lancashire during the fifteenth century ,'^"^ we 

 know it had assumed very large proportions before the close of the reign of 

 Henry VII. The industry seems to have been carried on mainly in the 

 north-eastern and south-eastern parts of the county, tending to group itself 



'" Duchy of Lane. Plead. Ixxxiii, N. i. '" Ibid. Ixxxiii, S. 4. 



*" Ibid, cxlvii, M. 2. »" Ibid, clxii, A. 7. 



'" Ibid, clxvi, A. I. ">* Ibid, clxii, A. 7. 



'»' Ibid, x, F. I. "" Ibid, xvi, E. I. '»' Ibid. Dep. xxxiii, C. i. 



'"» Ibid. Plead, xlix, F. 24. '»' Ibid, lii, P. 3. "» Ibid, x, C. 6 (29 Hen. VIII). 



3ic« -pjjg rentals of the honour of Clitheroe supply the following data for a comparison of the rents of 

 fulling mills over the period extending from 1296 to 1440. In the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the 

 whole of the repairs to buildings, works, mill wheels and gear, were made by the lord ; but in the fifteenth 

 century mainly by the farmer. 



1296 1305 1324 134^ '4^3 1440 



Colne . . 33/. 4Ja'. 24/. 13/. 6a'. 18/. 6s. id. lis. 



Burnley . 6s. Sd. 24/. 10;. lO(/. i8j. 13/. 412'. igs. ^d. 



The Burnley Mill had only been at work one year, in 1296. 



295 



