comparatively little labour. This would be a great consideration, for labour had now become so dear, and the services of villeins so irregularly and rarely paid1 since the great Revolt, that landowners were only too ready to turn to any industry where villein labour was not required. Hence we shall not be surprised to find a large increase of sheep-farming in the fifteenth century, an increase which caused foreigners to jest and English rhymers to lament, because (it was said) we cared more for sheep than for the ships of our navy. "Where are our ships, what are our swords become? Our enemies bid us for a ship set a sheep," 2 "2 was the cry, though, like most political cries, it was doubtless only partially true. Other complaints were uttered as time went on, especially as the enclosures of land made by landowners caused widespread distress in many districts, and the wheat-growing interest of that day was sufficiently strong to induce the government to frame enactments which anticipated the Corn Laws of a later date. The wheat-growers, as opposed to the sheep-farmers, declared that their industry required encouragement, and complained that the price of wheat was too low. Whether there was very much truth in this outcry may be doubted, since at no time of our history has cheap bread roused anything but complaint in the British farmer's breast; but, at any rate, the export of British corn was encouraged, in contradiction of a still earlier policy, while the import of foreign corn was prohibited unless the price of homegrown wheat was 6s. 8d. a quarter. In justice to the government, however, it should be added that mere protection was not the only object of these Corn Laws, though, 5 1 We find tenants in villeinage quitting the manor without leave, and tallages refused to the lords (Denton, Fifteenth Century, p. 113), nor were manorial dues paid: "now they pay nothing" is the complaint; cf. Blomfield's History of Launton, MS., quoted by Denton, u. 8., p. 114. 2 From the political poem (of about 1435) called The Libelle of English Policie, 36, 37. 3 See below, p. 213. 4 By the 17 Richard II., c. 7; the 4 Henry VI., c. 5; and the 15 Henry VI., c. 2. Previously to this the 34 Edward III., c. 20, had prohibited the export. "By the 3 Edward IV., c. 2. of course, they were passed by a Parliament at that time composed almost exclusively of landowners; but that legislators sought to encourage thereby the growth of tillage as opposed to pasture in order that the rural population might not be compelled to leave the land. Not only for agricultural, but also for military reasons, it was important to prevent the depopulation of rural districts, which, in some cases, sheepfarming seemed to imply; and therefore it is interesting to notice how "servants and labourers were directed to practice with the bow and arrow on Sundays and holidays instead of playing football, dice, and skittles, and other unprofitable games.1 § 116. The Stock and Land Lease. Apart from sheep-farming, however, and the consequent change from tillage to pasturage, things went on much as before in agriculture, and very few changes were made. The "stock and land" lease system was still in operation, and we have a very good example of its working in the middle of the fifteenth century. The example is from a farm at Alton Barnes in Wiltshire, in the year 1455 A.D. The rental was £14, and the "stock" includes corn, and both live and dead stock. The corn was valued at the price of the local market when the tenant took the farm over, being altogether £11, 8s. 61d.; the live stock consisted of 5 horses, 11 oxen, 3 cows and a bull, 2 heifers and 2 yearlings, 571 sheep, and was valued at £64, 15s. 4td.; and the dead stock came to £3, 15s. 2d., including farm implements and some household utensils. By the terms of the lease the tenant has to restore every article and animal enumerated (or its value) in good condition, though the landlord guarantees his tenant against any loss of sheep amounting to over 10 per cent. of their number. Sometimes this guarantee involved a severe loss to the landlord, who also was responsible for repairs, trade losses, and "poor years," 5 so that perhaps it is not surprising that land 11 Richard II., c. 7. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xxi. p. 611. 3 Rogers, Hist. Agric., iii. 705-708. 'Ib., p. 286. owners were not eager to give such leases if they could do better, and as time went on they fell into disuse. The value of land rose rapidly in the fifteenth century,' and people of good means and position were anxious to buy it for the sake of the social and other advantages it entailed,2 as well as for the profits derivable from wool growing. Rent, too, rose rapidly, and the smaller tenants and yeomen began to feel the competition of large farmers and sheep breeders. But still the great mass of land was held in the old common fields, with their curiously intermixed strips belonging to different tenants, and the great majority of the rural labourers had a piece of land,5 either of their own or as a holding, wherefrom to supplement their wages. A landless labourer was not yet the rule, while most men could still feel themselves, in some measure at least, active and real sharers in the life of their village community. The old institutions of primitive days were not yet dead, though enclosures and legislation were soon to do their best to kill them. They were giving way to more modern requirements, but still they retained many relics of the past; and though, undoubtedly, it is owing to their persistence that the slow progress of agricultural methods is due, and though it was necessary they should go, one cannot help regretting that the disintegration of the old village community took much of value and interest from the social side of the labourer's life. § 117. The Towns and Town Constitutions. When we turn now from the country to the towns we find that here again the fifteenth century is marked by 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 288. 2 Cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xxi. pp. 610, 611. Among the advantages of landowners may be mentioned a lower rate of taxation, the county franchise, legal protection from absolute forfeiture. Forfeited lands could be restored to the heirs of the dispossessed, whereas a merchant's property once forfeited was gone for ever. 9 See below, p. 213. 4 The difficulties caused to landlords by this system are shown in mediæval accounts. Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, pp. 286, 287. 5 Above, p. 177. 6 Cf. Gomme, Village Community, ch. viii., where instances of survivals of much later date are given. 3 growth and change. It has been already remarked that it was not till the twelfth century that the towns have any independent municipal life as boroughs at all,1 while even in the fourteenth century this municipal life was on a small scale; but in the fifteenth century wealth was accumulating 3 and the towns growing more important, till, at the close of the period, they emerge in something very like their modern form as corporations. If we take, for example, the period between the reigns of Henry III. (1216-1272) and Henry VII. (1488-1509) we find that the amount of growth is very considerable. In the earlier part of the period 5 the towns had indeed gained their charters, with the rights of holding their own courts under their own officers, the right of compounding for their payments to the crown in the shape of the firma burgi, and collecting this among their citizens, and they had gained the recognition of the merchant and craft gilds that had so important a share in their municipal life. But these rights and privileges were only a commencement of a growth towards a larger freedom. In the later years of the period we find that the typical constitution of the town is the modern one of a close corporation of mayor, aldermen, and council, with more or less clearly defined organisation and precise numbers, and certainly with greater and more independent self-governing powers. The "bailiff" has been replaced by the "mayor," and the town constitution gains by the change a unity hitherto unknown; the merchant and craft gilds have become merged into the corporation and take part in the municipal government; yet exactly how and when these changes took place it is most difficult to say. It is, however, very clear that the growth of towns and of civic constitutions throughout the country was exceeding varied and irregular. There is no marked line of development; sometimes the larger towns received their modern constitution long before the smaller; and altogether there is great diversity of growth. There is not space here to 1 Mrs Green, Town Life, i. p. 11. 2 Ib., i. p. 13. 3 Ib., 5 Ib., i. p. 15. 7 Stubbs, u. s., p. 560. 4 Stubbs, Const. Hist., III. xxi. p. 560. 6 Above, pp. 90, 93. 8 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. i. p. 11. discuss the question fully, nor is it necessary for our purpose. It is sufficient to note the development of the towns, and, consequently, of town life, in the fifteenth century, as the beginning of that tendency towards urban attraction which is, perhaps unfortunately, a necessary characteristic of modern industrial progress. But we may devote a passing mention to the connection of the gilds and municipal life. § 118. The Gilds and Municipal Institutions. The story of the relations of the merchant gilds to the municipal government on the one hand, and to the craft gilds on the other, is exceedingly complex.1 Sometimes merchant gilds regarded the craft gilds as rivals, and attempted to suppress them, while at others they sought a surer means of regulating them by including them in their own body.2 But in the fifteenth century the craft gilds were beginning to decay, at least in the older corporate towns, and were ceasing to be really effective institutions for the wellbeing of the crafts which they professed to regulate.3 Consequently we need not be surprised at their practical destruction by Somerset in the next century (1545). But the merchant gilds had in many cases become identified with the corporation or governing body of the town to which they belonged, and regulated trade in much the same fashion as before, though trade was now assuming so much larger proportions that it was outgrowing the powers of the regulating bodies. In some cases the name of "merchant gild" died out, as at York, but even then the custom of admitting "freemen" as citizens was exercised, as at Leicester, by the corporation in such a way as to show that the admission was a relic of the powers of the ancient gild.5. In other places, however, the name and idea of the gild was still preserved, and furnished ee occasions for city pageants of considerable splendour. But for all practical purposes the merchant gilds had now be 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. III. xxi. p. 562. 3 Cunningham, i. p. 464. 5 Ib. 2 Stubbs, u. s., p. 563. 4 Stubbs, u. s., p. 564. 6 As at Preston; Stubbs, u. s., p. 565. |