MEDUEVAL AGRICULTURE AND COMMERCE IN ENGLAND.*

OICE of the charms of living in an old country like England

is to be found in the wealth of antiquarian interest, often, it is true, of a very humble kind, with which every nook and cranny of the land abounds.. Many persons realise that they are connected with the past,—or, indeed, seem conscious that they have had any ancestors more remote than their grandfathers—only when they visit an ancient battle-field or the scene of some celebrated event, clamber over the rains of hoary castle or abbey, or tread the aisles of one of our lovely cathedrals. But to the thoughtful mind there is always a lively interest in trying to read those records of a less pretentious character which are to be found on every hand, and in endeavouring to recall what were the ways and methods of the "rude forefathers of the hamlet," and what were their labours and pursuits. They, in times long past, frequented in their daily life the scenes of our present homes, their eyes beheld the same general features and outlines of the country that our eyes mark to-day, they saw the sun rise above and watched him set below the horizon which to-day is curs, and they tilled and cultivated the very fields we know. The roads we travel were used by them, they strolled by the same foot-pathways which thread our copses and skirt our fields, bargained at the fairs and markets which are still held among us, and wor- shipped, married, and were given in marriage in the grey old churches yet standing in our midst, and in whose shadow they were laid to rest. It is well for us to grasp the fact that our social life is absolutely continuous with theirs, and to recog- nise that they were, as are we, actual links in the unbroken chain which binds the ages together. As Professor Rogers says, in the preface to his fourth volume,—

" The economical history of England is as important as the study of legal antiquities, of diplomatic intrigues, and of military campaigns. I cannot but recognise that some indications of progress have been made in the acceptance of such a view about the proper functions of history. Nor do I fail to see that, since the date of my earlier volumes, there has been a growing disposition to test economical con- clusions by the evidence of facts, and to avoid the temptation of arriving at general inferences from hypothetical and even imaginative postulates. I do not doubt that at no remote period all history which has neglected the study of the people, and all political economy which has disdained the correction of its conclusions by the evidence which facts supply, will be cast aside as incomplete and even 'valueless"

It is to the history of England from its social and 'economical side that this great and laborious work forms so valuable a con- tribution. An interval of no fewer than sixteen years has passed between the appearance of the first two volumes, which comprised the period from the year 1259 to the end of the fourteenth century, and the publication of the third and fourth, wherein the history is continued during the fifteenth and the greater part of the sixteenth centuries. Following the same lines in the construction of these two volumes as were taken with the first and second, Professor Rogers has given us one volume of pure statistics, and in the other a commentary thereupon. In the third voluble we find, arranged under their respective headings, in yearly tables, the prices of hundreds of articles of produce, manufacture, and com- merce, of carriage, and of many kinds of labour, with the locality where such prices prevailed. These tables have been derived chiefly from the accounts preserved in the Colleges of Oxford

and Cambridge, and from the documents deposited in the Record Office. Their compilation has involved almost incredible labour, "peculiarly wearisome, very costly, and frequently disappoint- • A /Tistory of Agriculture and Prices in England, from the Year after the Oxford Parliament (1259), to the Commencement of the Continenta/ War (1793). By James E. Thorold Rogers, M.P. 'Vols. III. and W. Oatord : Printed at the Clarendon Press. 1882.

ing," the whole of which has been personally undertaken. by Professor Rogers, who, unassisted, has "consulted at least 80,000 documents, some barren, but most supplying a link in the chain of evidence." But the general reader might wander vainly among these enormous masses of figures, were it not for thee guidance of the fourth volume, in whose pages their real signi- ficance is made clear. Here we are treated to a series of chapters, analytical and explanatory, on such subjects as the distribution of wealth in England, agriculture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, the cost of carriage, and the purchasing power of wages; and the masterly way in which Professor Rogers handles his facts, and clothes the dry bones of his statistics with flesh, is well worthy of admiration. He also gives tables of average prices for each year, and for each decade of the period under review, viz., from the year 1400 to 1582; and also for the first 140 and the last 42 years of the term. This is rendered advisable and necessary, owing to the enormous rise in prices consequent on the shameless depreciation of the currency by Henry VIII.

The fifteenth century opened favourably for the labouring and artizan classes, whose numbers had been so thinned by the Black Death that, in spite of all statutes to the contrary, the price of labour was high, whilst the cost of living was very moderate. We read that,—

" Obnoxious and intrusive sectaries were punished with fire and faggot, there was no zeal, hardly any character, no learning at all, no history beyond the battles of the kites and the crows ; but there was solid, substantial, unbroken prosperity. The fifteenth century and the early years of the sixteenth, were the golden age of the English hus- bandman, the artisan, and the labourer The war of succession was as distant in its incidents, and it seemed to be in its effects, as summer lightning. Even those who took part in the broil, when oat of the battle, were safe."

In all his researches among thousands of documents, penned whilst the Wars of the Roses were raging, Professor Rogers says he has only found two allusions to current events. This fully confirms the accounts of Philip de Comities, and other contemporary historians. The Black Death had one indirect effect, which lasted for some sixty years, in bringing in the system of stock and farm leasing; but early in the fifteenth century, land, with the exception of that held by corporations, was usually let "on short leases, and, as a rule, at low and almost fixed rents," to capitalist farmers, who found their own stock, whilst the landowner became simply landlord, living on his rents. To avoid the loss of their estates, except by voluntary alienation, the nobles who fought in the Civil Wars, taking advantage of the statute De Donis, commonly entailed them; and this practice, coupled with primogeniture, was disastrous to younger sons, who, whilst the ancestor bad farmed his own land, had shared his personalty, but now found themselves portionless. But the new class of yeomen gathered wealth, and bought land, the value of which rose greatly, though rents were

inelastic. The art of agriculture was stationary during the whole period of -324 years comprised in Professor Rogers's four volumes. • Most of its operations during the fifteenth and six- teenth centuries are touched upon in the chapter on the "Con- dition of Agriculture ;" and it is not difficult, after reading these

pages, wherein free use is made of Fitzherbert's Book of Hus- bandry, to realise the manner of living, and the daily labours of the yeoman of the time.

Both horses and oxen were used on the land ; wheat, barley, oats, rye, and beans and peas were grown. The media3val farmer was entirely dependent on his hay and straw for the winter-keep of his stock, for there were no winter roots, and the- hay was only the produce of native grasses, artificial grasses being unknown for 300 years longer. Cattle and sheep were fattened in summer, and killed at its close, and their flesh salted for winter use; for few could be kept in condition, save at great expense, through the winter months. The old song of "Summer is y-cumin in," meant much more in those days than it does in ours ; the return of spring and summer meant a return to fresh meat and fresh vegetable diet. Onions, garlic, and mustard were grown, but the profusion of garden produce of the present day was quite unknown, and food, though abundant, was coarse, and wantingin variety. Professor Rogers has noted only one instance of the purchase of a f lb. of " cabeche" seed in 1458, by King's

College, Cambridge, at the enormous rate of 4s. per pound, and this was probably an experiment. The cultivation of the hop was introduced from the Low Countries early in the sixteenth

century, and somewhat later sheep-farming began to take the place of agriculture, and was a subject of complaint and of

legislation. "The practice appears to have arisen from two eauses,—the deficiency of capital, owing to the general im- poverishment of the country, and the high prices of wool." In 1532, some flockmasters had 20,000, 6,000, or 5,000 sheep, and it was enacted that in future no one should have more than 2,000. Wheat and rye from the Baltic were imported in quantity sufficient to attract the notice of the Legislature, so that the English farmer was exposed to competition in corn whilst he had the practical monopoly of the wool market. As a consequence, land was laid down in grass, and vast enclosures were made from the common field; and it was this practice, and the injury done to the poor by depriving

them of their cartilages, that were the chief cause of Ket's rebellion in 1549, which is "remarkable as being the last attempt which English labourers have made to secure what they believed to be justice by force of arms." Poultry and geese were everywhere reared, and must have been very welcome luxuries in winter. The price was low, a capon or a goose averaging 44. during the fifteenth century. It should be noted, though the remark is a trite one, that a low money-value by no means indicates cheapness, which is relative to prices then current, and cannot be compared with the prices of to-day. The purchasing power of money in the fifteenth century was extremely great. The average price of an ox was 18s., of a good saddle- horse, 55s., whilst wheat averagel 5s. 71d., and oats 2s. id. a quarter; but the wages of an ordinary labourer were barely 4d. a day, and the rent of arable land did not exceed 6d. an acre.

The yield was very small—not more than a fourth of that of the present day—and it may be put down that the average yield of wheat was not over seven bushels to the acre. When, in 1544, the debasement of the coinage began, a notable but variable rise was effected in every commodity but one, the ex- ception being glass, the manufacture of which had been greatly improved. Taking the average price of the first 140 years as unity, the rise in the price of provisions was 2.71, but the price of labour rose only 1.62, a difference which sufficiently explains the evil times that fell on the peasant. The golden era was past :—

" From the epoch of Henry's death, the degradation of the English labourer begins. For nearly three centuries, the artisan suffered with the peasant ; that is, as long as the combination laws impeded the crea- tion of those labour partnerships which we call Trade Unions. But the condition of the farm labourer has gone on from bad to worse, has become more hopeless. The best and most capable of them have fled from their traditional occupation, and at the time at which I am writing (1881), as I foresaw when I wrote the last words of my first volume, sixteen years ago, the agricultural problem in England is not the adjustment of local burdens, or the arbitration of rent, or the revival of confidence in those who put capital into laud; but it is assuredly the recall of the agricultural labourer to effective and hopeful industry. It is a striking illustration of the fact that economical history has no break in its chain of causes, that we are still engaged with a problem which had its remote bat certain beginnings in the wantonness of Henry VIII., and in the rapacity of that aristooratio camarilla of adventurers which he planted round the throne of his infant son."

'The artisan and the mechanic flourished during the fifteenth

century, and the early part of the sixteenth. Wages were good, and the hours of work short ; indeed, the summum bonum of the British workman, eight hours a day, seems to have been at-

tained. The houses and habits of the people at this period were extremely filthy. Life in the middle-ages must have been full of constant alarm from plague and pestilence, and the only wonder is that the Black Death ever ceased its ravages. In the large towns especially, the want of sanitary arrangements caused fearful mortality, and there can be no doubt that their populations, like that of London in the eighteenth century, were kept up solely by immigration from the country districts. The history of the "Rise and Progress of Personal and Domestic Cleanliness" has yet to be written, but it is suggestive of the

customs of the time that one lotrix does all the washing at New and All Soul's Colleges, Oxford, and "her remuneration at the latter society does not seem to denote very hard work."

Judging from the low rates for carriage, and the long jour- neys performed in one day on horseback and by carte, the roads must have been excellent, for the custom of attending fairs and

markets and going on pilgrimages made it needful that roads should be well maintained, besides which, the corporations and monastic orders held widely-scattered estates, and these had to be visited; nor was it until after the dissolution of the Monasteries that the roads went out of repair. "It was clearly the interest of those who possessed these scattered properties, to have the communications between them as regular and easy as possible. The worst English roads were those of the Georges, such as are commented on by Smollett ; and they were, perhaps, all the worse because the country party had contrived to shift the cost of repairing them from their own rents on to the purse of the traveller."

We have touched but lightly on a very few of the topics dis- cussed by Professor Rogers. Those who find interest in the annals of the daily life of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries will search these volumes for themselves. There is sometimes a tendency to repetition, in most cases excusable, in some advantageous, though it was hardly necessary to tell us three times within as many pages that sand and brass-dust were used by our ancestors for drying their ink. To the student of history, the facts collected in Volume III. will be found invalu- able, even if all Professor Rogers's inferences are not agreed with, whilst the general reader who is so fortunate as to come across them will find a vast amount of entertainment and instruction in the commentative chapters of the fourth volume.