Econ. Dept. Ccon. L\. ;,,'ajii Libran INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND HISTORICAL OUTLINES BY H. DE B. GIBBINS, LiTT.D., M.A. SOMETIME UNIVERSITY (COBDEN) PRIZEMAN IN POLITICAL ECONOMY, OXKOKD AUTHOR OF "THE INDUSTRIAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND" AMD *" " THE HISTORY OF COMMERCE IN EUROPB " WITH MAPS, TABLES, AND A PIAN NINTH EDITION NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 1916 Si* PREFACE IN 1890 the author published a small book, entitled The Industrial History of England, which met with a some- what undeserved success, and has rapidly gone through several large editions. It was described in the first preface as " an attempt to relate in a short, concise, and simple form the main outlines of England's economic and industrial history," meant " to serve as an introduction to a fuller study of the subject, and as a preliminary sketch which the reader can afterwards, if he wishes, fill in for himself from larger volumes ; " and it seems to have attained its object of awakening popular interest, to some extent, in a very important branch of national history. But it had all the faults of a brief outline, and contained errors of fact and of expression which no one has regretted more sincerely than the author. It has therefore been my endeavour, in this larger work, to produce a History of Industry of a more satisfactory character, while at the same time retaining the essential features that characterised the earlier effort. As before, I have attempted, as far as possible, in the brief limits of a work like this, to connect economic and industrial questions with social, political, and military movements, since only in some such mutual relation can historical events obtain their full significance. The Industrial History of England has been taken, on the whole, as the basis of this book, and the arrangement b v > viii INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND of periods and chapters has been but slightly altered ; but the original book has been entirely re-written, and so much new matter has been added that the present volume is quite three times the size of the first essay. Fresh maps have been drawn, new tables of statistics added, and foot- notes have been given for every statement of any im- portance. The first period also, up to the Norman conquest, contains entirely new matter, involving a certain amount of original work. For some time it has appeared to me that the results of archaeological and antiquarian research into the pre-historic period have not been sufficiently utilised in dealing with our industrial history, and that the origin of the manor, in especial, derives added light from these investigations. It has therefore been my endeavour to weave into the story of industrial progress several of the results arrived at by investigators of pre-historic conditions, believing, as I do, that the many centuries of industrial human life which elapsed before our written history began must have left upon our nation some traces of their course. At the same time, I have not wished to emphasise the pre-historic period unduly, and have therefore confined the remarks upon it to a very limited space. But I hope that the " survey of the origin of the manor," in 32, may be some contribution to the discussion of the subject. Throughout the book I have tried to review the in- dustrial life of England as a whole, and to present a general survey of it throughout its gradual development. In this respect Industry in England differs from most works of the kind, for they have generally been devoted either to some special period or some special aspect, or have dealt PREFACE ix with industry only as a branch of the national commerce. I have endeavoured to give full weight to the views of other writers, especially on disputed points, 1 but have also indi- cated my own (though with considerable diffidence) where there seemed reason to differ from them. I do not suppose that I have succeeded in being impartial, for, though impartiality is the ideal, it is also the will o' the wisp of the historian, and generally deserts him when he needs it most ; but I have at least endeavoured to give reasons for my conclusions. And while in some points I differ, no one admires more than myself the work of such historians as Dr Cunningham and Professor Ashley, whose names I venture specially to mention, because I wish gratefully to acknowledge the magnitude of the help rendered to me, as to all students, by their recent contributions to industrial history. My obligations to them are, I trust, acknowledged as often as possible in the footnotes, but mere references of that kind cannot convey by any means adequately the extent to which a student like myself has benefited from their researches. As regards the footnotes generally, every endeavour has been made to acknowledge all the sources which have been consulted, and any omission in this respect the author sincerely regrets. Considerable difficulty was occasioned by my change of residence during the completion of the book, and a consequent compulsory recourse to different libraries; and the indulgence of readers and critics is therefore asked for any omission or error thereby caused It might also be added that this book has been written in 1 As, e.g., The Peasants' Revolt, the condition of the Labourer in the fifteenth century, the Poor Law of Elizabeth, the Assessment of Wages, &c., &c. x INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND the intervals of a very busy life, and out of reach of any special collection of works on industrial subjects or of any of the greater libraries of the kingdom. I cannot conclude without paying a tribute to the memory of the late Professor J. E. Thorold Rogers, to whom I showed, as a mere beginner in his special subject, the proofs of the first few chapters of the little book (The Industrial History of England) from which this larger volume has developed. To his kindly encouragement and to the inspiring teaching of his economic works, I owe what- ever knowledge I possess of that side of our national history which is of such vast importance to a citizen of modern England. EL DE B. GIBBINS PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION THE very favourable reception and rapid sale of this book have necessitated the issue of a second edition within a few months of the publication of the first. Only a few verbal corrections ha,ve been made, but I should like to quote the following explanation from the preface to the fifth edition of my earlier work, the Industrial History of England : " It has been said that I write with a prejudice against the owners of land : but this is not the case. The landed gentry of England happen, for some centuries, to have held the predominant power in the State and in society, and used it, not unnaturally, in many cases to further their own interests. It is the duty of an historian to point this out, but it need not, therefore, be thought that he has any special bias against the class. Any other class would have certainly done the same, as, for instance, mill-owners did among their own employes at the beginning of this century, and as, in all probability, the working-classes will do, when a further extension of democratic government shall have given them the opportunity. It is a fault of human nature that it can rarely be trusted with irresponsible power, and unless the influence of one class of society is counterbalanced xii INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND more or less by that of another, there will always be a tendency to some injustice. I trust that my readers will bear this in mind when reading the following pages, and will believe that I intend no unfairness to the landed gentry of England, who have done much to promote the glory and stability of their country." H. DE B. GIBBINS CONTENTS PERIOD I EARLY HISTORY, FROM PRE-HISTORIC TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST CHAPTER I PBE-ROMAN BRITAIN SECTION PAQB 1. Industrial History ....... 3 2. The English Nation and Country ..... 3 3. The Aboriginal Inhabitants of Britain . 5 4. Their Social and Economic Condition , . 7 5. The Bronze Age and the Celtic Immigration ... 8 6. Resume" : The Peoples of Early Britain .... 10 7. Their Social and Economic Condition . . . .10 8. The Celts in the time of Pytheas . . . . .11 9. Foreign Trade of Britain . . . . . ' . 14 10. Internal Trade : Roads and Rivers , . . .16 11. Physical Aspect of Pre-Roman Britain . 17 CHAPTER II ROMAN BRITAIN 12. The Roman Occupation ...... 21 13. Roman Roads ....... 22 14. Roman Towns in Britain ...... 23 15. The Romans and Agriculture ..... 25 16. Celtic and Non-Roman Influence in Agriculture ... 27 17. Commerce and Industry in Roman Britain . , 31 CHAPTER III THE SAXON PERIOD 18. The Saxon Invasions ...., 34 19. The Saxon Village and its Inhabitants , , . 37 20. Village Life 38 21. Methods of Cultivation ...... 40 xiii xiv INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND BBCTION PAGE 22. Isolation of Villages. Crafts and Trades. Markets . . 41 23. Foreign Commerce and the Danes . . 48 24. Summary of Trade and Industry in the Saxon Period 46 CHAPTER IV THE MANOR AND THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 25. The Interest of the Question as to the Origin of the Manor 47 26. The Mark Theory and the Manor ..... 48 27. Criticisms of the Mark Theory ..... 49 28. VinogradofTs Evidence on the Manorial System ... 52 29. Evidence from Manorial Courts and Customs . . . 55 30. The "Customary" Tenants ..... 56 31. The Evidence of Village Communities ... 57 82. A Survey of the Origin of the Manor . . 58 83. The Feudal System ...... 60 PERIOD II FROM THE NORMAN CONQUEST TO THE REIGN OF HENRY III (1066-1216 A.D.) CHAPTER V DOMESDAY BOOK AND THE MANORS 34. The Survey ordered by William I. .... 65 35. The Population given by Domesday . . . . 66 36. The Wealth of various Districts ..... 68 37. The Manors and Lords of the Manors .... 70 38. The Inhabitants of the Manor . . . . 71 39. The Condition of these Inhabitants .... 73 40. Services due to the Lord from his Tenants in Villeinage . . 74^ 41. Money Payments and Rents . . . . . 74 42. Free Tenants. Soke-men ...... 75 43. The Distinction between Free and Unfree Tenants . . 76 44. Illustrations of Manors from Domesday .... 78 45. Cuxham Manor in the Eleventh and Thirteenth Centuries . 79 46. Description of an Eleventh Century Village ... 80 47. The Decay of the Manorial System . 84 CHAPTER VI THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 48. The Origin of the Towns .... .86 49. Rise of Towns in England . . . . 87 50. Towns in Domesday ...... 88 CONTENTS xv SECTION FAGB 51. Special Privileges of Towns ... .89 52. How the Towns obtained their Charters . .90 53. The Gilds and the Towns. Various kinds of Gilds . 91 54. How the Merchant Gilds helped the Growth of Towns , 93 55. How the Craft Gilds helped Industry . .94 56. Life in the Towns of this time ... .96 CHAPTER VII MANUFACTURES AND TRADE : ELEVENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES 57. Economic Effects of the Feudal System .... 98 58. Foreign Trade. The Crusades ..... 100 59. The Trading Clauses in the Great Charter . . .101 60. The Jews in England ...... 103 61. Manufactures in this Period : Flemish Weavers . . . 104 62. Economic Appearance of England in this Period. Population. The North and South ...... 106 63. General Condition of the Period . . 108 PERIOD III FROM THE THIRTEENTH TO THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, INCLUDING THE GREAT PLAGUE (1216-1500) CHAPTER VIII AGRICULTURE IN MEDLfflTVAL ENGLAND 64. Introductory. Rise of a Wage-ermiig Class . . . Ill 65. Agriculture the Chief Occupation of the People . . .112 66. Methods of Cultivation. The Capitalist Landlord and his Bailiff. The " Stock and Land " Lease ..... 113 67. The Tenants' Communal Land and Closes . . . 115 68. Ploughing ........ 116 69. Stock, Pigs, and Poultry ...... 116 70. Sheep ..... 117 71. Increase of Sheep-farming . . . , .118 72. Consequent Increase of Enclosures . . 119 CHAPTER IX THE WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 73. England's Monopoly of Wool . . . , .120 74. Wool and Politics ....... 121 75. Prices and Brands of English Wool , . , .124 76. English Manufactures . * . 125 xvi INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND nscriow PAOI 77. Foreign Manufacture of Fine Goods . . . 126 78. Flemish Settlers teach the English Weavers. Norwich 127 79. The Worsted Industry ...... 129 80. Gilds in the Cloth Trade . . . . . .130 81. The Dyeing of Cloth ...... 131 82. The Great Transition in English Industry . . .131 83. The Manufacturing Class and Politics . . . .132 CHAPTER X THE TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, AND FAIRS 84. The Chief Manufacturing Towns , 134 85. Staple Towns and the Merchants . . . .135 86. Markets ........ 138 87. The Great Fairs ....... 140 88. The Fairs of Winchester and Stourbridge . . .142 89. English Mediaeval Ports 144 90. The Temporary Decay of Manufacturing Towns . . .145 91. Growth of Industrial Villages. The Germs of the Modern Fac- tory System ....... 146 CHAPTER XI THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS ECONOMIC EFFECTS 92. Material Progress of the Country. . . . .149 93. Social Changes. The Villeins and the Wage-paid Labourers . 150 94. The Famine and the Plague ..... 151 95. The Effects of the Plague on Wages . . . .152 96. Prices of Provisions ...... 155 97. Effects of the Plague upon the Landowners . . , 156 98. Large and Small Holdings : the Yeomen , , . 157 99. The Statute of Quia Empiores ..... 158 100. The Emancipation of the Villeins . . . .159 CHAPTER XII THE PEASANTS' REVOLT OF 1381, AND THE SUBSEQUENT CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES 101. The Place of the Revolt in English History . . .161 102. New Social Doctrines . . . . . .162 103. The Coming of the Friars. Wiklif . . . .163 104. The Renewed Exactions of the Landowners . , . 164 105. Social and Political Questions ..... 165 106. The Mutteriags of a Storm . . . . .167 107. The Storm Breaks Out ...... 168 108. The Result of the Revolt ..... 170 109. The Condition of the English Labourer . . . .172 110. Purchasing Power of Wages ..... 175 111. Drawbacks . . .177 CONTENTS xvii CHAPTER XIII THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES SECTION FACE 112. The Nobility 180 113. The Country Gentry ...... 182 114. The Yeomen ..... 183 115. Agriculture and Sheep-farming ..... 184 116. The Stock and Land Lease . . . . .186 117. The Towns and Town Constitutions . . . .187 118. The Gilds and Municipal Institutions . . . .189 119. The Decay of Certain Towns ..... 190 120. The Commercial and Industrial Changes of the Fifteenth Century ....... 192 121. The Close of the Middle Ages 194 PERIOD IV FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY TO THE EVE OF THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1509-1716) CHAPTER XIV THE REIGN OF HENEY VIII., AND ECONOMIC CHANGES IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY 122. Henry VIII. 'a Wastefulness 123. The Dissolution of the Monasteries 124. Results of the Suppression 125. Pauperism 126. The Issuing of Base Coin . 127. The Confiscation of the Gild Lands 199 202 203 205 206 207 128. Bankruptcy and Rapacity of Edward VI. 's Government . 209 129. The Agrarian Situation ...... 211 130. The Enclosures of the Sixteenth Century . . .213 131. Evidence of the Results of Enclosing .... 215 132. Other Economic Changes. The Finances . . . 218 133. Summary of the Changes of the Sixteenth Century . . 220 CHAPTER XV THE GROWTH OF FOREIGN TRADE 134. The Expansion of Commerce. The New Spirit . . .223 135. Foreign Trade in the Fifteenth Century . . . .224 136. The Venetian Fleet ...... 225 137. The Hanseatic League's Station in London . . . 227 xviii INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND SECTION PAOM 138. Trade with Flanders. Antwerp in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries ....... 228 139. The Decay of Antwerp and Rise of London as the Western Emporium ....... 230 140. The Merchants and Sea-Captains of the Elizabethan Age in the New World .231 141. Remarks on the Signs and Causes of the Expansion of Trade . 232 CHAPTER XVI ELIZABETHAN ENGLAND 142. Prosperity and Pauperism . . 234 143. The Restoration of the Currency ..... 235 144. The Growth of Manufactures ..... 236 145. Monopolies of Manufacturing Towns . . 239 146. Exports of Manufactures and Foreign Trade . . . 240 147. The Flemish Immigration ..... 241 148. Monopolies 242 149. The Revival of the Craft Gilds ..... 246 150. Agriculture 247 151. Social Comforts ....... 250 152. The Condition of the Labourers ..... 251 153. Assessment of Wages by Justices. The First Poor Law 253 154. The Working of the Assessment System . . . 255 155. The Law of Apprenticeship ..... 259 156. The Elizabethan Poor Law 260 157. Population 263 CHAPTER XVII PROGRESS OF AGRICULTURE IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 158. Resume" of Progress since Thirteenth Century . . . 265 159. Progress in James L's Reign. Influence of Landlords . . 266 160. Writers on Agriculture. Improvements. Game . . 267 161. Drainage of the Fens ...... 268 162. Rise of Price of Corn and of Rent .... 269 163. Special Features of the Eighteenth Century. Popularity of Agric7ilture ....... 270 164. Improvements of Cattle, and in the Productiveness of Land. Statistics ....... 271 165. Survivals of Primitive Culture. Common Fields . . 273 166. Great Increase of Enclosures ..... 274 167. Benefits of Enclosures as Compared with the Old Common Fields 275 168. The Decay of the Yeomanry ..... 276 169. Causes of the Decay of the Yeomanry .... 278 170. The Rise in Rent . ...... 279 171. The Fall in Wages 280 CONTENTS xix CHAPTER XVIII COMMERCE AND WAR IN THE SEVENTEENTH AND EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES SECTION PAGE 172. England a Commercial Power .... 284 173. The Beginnings of the Struggle with Spain . . . 285 174. Cromwell's Commercial Wars and the Navigation Acts . . 286 175. The Wars of William III. and of Anne . . . .288 176. English Colonies ....... 290 177. Further Wars with France and Spain . 291 178. The Struggle for India . 293 179. The Conquest of Canada . ... 295 180. Survey of Commercial Progress during these Wars . . 296 181. Commercial Events of the Seventeenth Century (Banking the Bank of England, National Debt, Restoration of the Currency) 299 182. Other Important Commercial Events (Darien Scheme, Union of England and Scotland, Methuen Treaty, Speculation and the South Sea Bubble) 801 < CHAPTER XIX MANUFACTURES AND MINING 183. Circumstances Favourable to English Manufactures . . 305 184. Wool Trade. Home Manufactures. Dyeing . . . 305 185. Other Influences Favourable to England. The Huguenot Im- migration ....... 307 186. Distribution of the Cloth Trade ..... 308 187. Coal Mines 310 188. Development of Coal Trade: Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries ....... 311 189. The Iron Trade ....... 812 190. Pottery ........ 314 191. Other Mining Industries ...... 315 192. The Close of the Period of Manual Industries 316 PERIOD V THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION AND MODERN ENGLAND CHAPTER XX THE EVE OF THE REVOLUTION 193. Industry and Politics. Landowners and Merchant Princes . 821 194. The Coming of the Capitalists ..... 324 195. The Class of Small Manufacturers . . . .326 196. The Condition of the Manufacturing Population . . 327 xx INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND MM 197. Two Examples of Village Life ... . 328 198. Condition of the Agricultural Population . . 331 332 334 199. Growth of Population 200. England still mainly Agricultural 201. The Domestic System of Manufacture CHAPTER XXI THE EPOCH OF THE GREAT INVENTIONS 202. The Suddenness of the Revolution and its Importance . , 341 203. The Great Inventors ...... 343 204. The Revolution in Manufactures and the Factories . . 347 205. The Growth of Population and the Development of the Northern Districts ....... 349 206. The Revolution in the Mining Industries . . .352 207. The Improvements in Communications . . 354 208. The Nation's Wealth and its Wars . . , .356 CHAPTER XXII WARS, POLITICS, AND INDUSTRY 209. England's Industrial Advantages in 1763 . . , 358 210. The Mercantile Theory ...... 359 211. The Mercantile Theory in Practice . . . .361 212. English Policy towards the Colonies . . . .364 213. Attempts to raise a Revenue from America . . . 367 214. Outbreak of War . ...... 368 215. The Great Continental War ..... 370 216. Its Effects upon Industry and the Working Classes . . 372 217. Politics among the Working Classes . . . .376 218. Political Results of the Industrial Revolution . . . 378 CHAPTER XXIII THE FACTORY SYSTEM AND ITS RESULTS 219. The Results of the Introduction of the Factory System . . 381 220. Machinery and Ha'nd Labour . . . 383 221. Loss of Rural Life and of Bye-Industries . . . 385 222. Contemporary Evidence of the New Order of Things . . 387 ; 22J& English Slavery. The Apprentice System . . . 388 "224. The Beginning of the Factory Agitation . . . .391 225. Efforts towards Factory Reform ..... 392 22(L Richard Oastler . 393 227. Factory Agitation in Yorkshire. For and Against . . 395 228. Ten Hours' Day and Mr Sadler ..... 397 229. The Evidence of Facts ...... 398 23Q. English Slavery ....... 400 23 The Various Factory Act? ..... 403 232. How these Acts were Passed ..... 404 CONTENTS xxi CHAPTER XXIV THE CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES SECTION 233. Disastrous Effects of the New Industrial System 234. The Allowance System of Relief . 235. The Growth of Pauperism and the Old Poor Law 236. The Poor Law and the Allowance System f Restrictions upon Labour . The Combination Acts . Growth of Trades Unions . 240. The Working Classes Fifty Years Ago , 241. Wages ...... ?AG1 407 408 410 412 415 416 419 421 424 CHAPTER XXV THE RISE AND DEPRESSION OF MODERN AGRICULTURE 242. Services Rendered by the Great Landowners . . 427 243. The Agricultural Revolution ..... 430 244. The Stimulus caused by the Bounties . . 433 245. Agriculture under Protection 435 246. Improvements in Agriculture ..... 436 247. The Depression in Modern Agriculture .... 439 248. The Causes of the Depression (lack of capital, reuts, lack of adaptability, lack of education and scientific methods) . 441 249. The Labourer and the Land ..... 445 250. The Condition of the Labourer ..... 447 251. The Present Condition of British Agriculture . . 450 CHAPTER XXVI MODERN INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND 252. The Growth of our Industry ..... 454 253. State of Trade in 1820 455 254. The Beginnings of Free Trade . . . . .456 255. Revolution in the Means of Transit .... 458 256. Modern Developments ...... 459 257. Our Colonies ....... 461 258. England and other Nations' Wars .... 463 259. Present Difficulties. Commercial Crises . . . .464 260. Commercial Crises since 1865 ..... 466 261. The Recent Depression in Trade ..... 467 262. The Present Mercantile System. Foreign Markets . . 469 263. Over-production and Wages ..... 470 264. The Power of Labour. Trades Unions and Co-operation. Labour Politics ........ 471 265. The Necessity of Studying Economic Factors in History % 473 LIST OF MAPS 1. PHYSICAL ASPECT OF ENGLAND IN SAXON AND NORMAN TIMES . ... To face page 65 2. PLAN OF A TYPICAL VILLAGE . . . On page 84 3. THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND IN 1503 To face page 196 4. THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IN ENGLAND IN 1636 n 263 5. INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND, 1700-1750 (SHOWING POPU- LATION AND MANUFACTURES) 350 6. INDUSTRIAL ENGLAND IN 1895 (SHOWING POPULATION AND MANUFACTURES) . w 454 PERIOD I EARLY HISTORY, FROM PRE-HISTORIC TIMES TO THE NORMAN CONQUEST INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND CHAPTER I PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 1. Industrial History. THE history of a nation's industry must necessarily date back to pre-historic times and to the earliest stages of national life. For the history of industry is the history of civilisation, and a nation's economic development must, to a large extent, underlie and influence the course of its social and political progress. Hence it has been aptly remarked x that there is no fact in a nation's history but has some traceable bearing on the industry of the time, and no fact that can be altogether ignored as if it were unconnected with industrial life. " The progress of mankind is written in the history of its tools ; " 2 and to the economic historian the transition from the axehead of stone to that of bronze is quite as important as a change of dynasty ; and certainly, in its way, it is as serious an industrial revolution as the change from the hand-loom to machinery. There are, indeed, few studies more interesting than that in which we watch how a nation developes in economic progress, passing from one stage of industrial activity to another, till at length it reaches the varied and multitudinous complexity of toil that forms our present system *of . industry and commerce. During this progress the necessities of its trade and manufactures bring it into contact with the politics of other nations in a manifold and often a curious variety of ways, and thus political history gains fresh interest and a clearer light from causes which, in themselves, are often neglected as obscure or insignificant. 2. The English Nation and Country. Now, in dealing with the history of England, or indeed 1 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, I. p. 7. 2 Walpole, Land of Home Rule, p. 15. 4 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND with that of any other nation, there are two fixed data which must always be considered first, namely, the people and their country. So much has been said about the special fitness of the people and country of England for the pursuits of industry and commerce that we are apt to forget that this fitness has only been discovered in very recent times, and that, till the days of Elizabeth, the English were far behind several other European nations, if not in economic develop- ment, at any rate in economic supremacy. It is, in fact, useful to remind ourselves that England is not inhabited by a naturally inventive nation, 1 and that we owe most of our pro- gress in the arts and manufactures to foreign influences. The causes, moreover, of English supremacy and commerce in the nineteenth century are almost as recent as that supremacy it- self, and, with one great exception the application of steam- power to industry reside more in the natural advantages of the country than in the natural ingenuity of the nation. But since the dawn of history both people and country have undergone many and remarkable changes, and, indeed, few things are more essential to an adequate understanding of the English people and their economic progress than a recognition of the fact that they consist of an- exceedingly mixed population. Like a palimpsest which has been used over and over again, the general surface of English char- acteristics presents to the historical inquirer, in a more or less blurred condition, the traces of Teutonic, Roman, Celtic, and even pre-historic races, who have each contributed their quota to the economic progress of the nation and to the physical peculiarities of the individual To take but one instance, the agricultural development of this country was for centuries profoundly affected by the manorial system, and in the village community upon which this was based we can see survivals of each of the waves of conquest which passed over the land, while beneath and below them all remain, as crystallised relics of a pre-historic age, strange customs and habits of a primitive race that lead us back in thought to the earliest dawn of civilised institutions. It will not, therefore, be altogether out of place if we attempt to obtain some slight idea of those early races who 1 Rogers, Econ. Interp. of History, ch. xiii. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 5 inhabited England long before it had gained its present name, or had even received its Eomanised- Celtic appellation of Britannia. For whole races of mankind are rarely, if ever, entirely annihilated ; " the blood of the conquerors must in time become mixed with that of the conquered ; and the preservation of men for slaves and women for wives will always insure the continued existence of the inferior race, however much it may lose of its original appearance, manners, or language." 1 The pre-historic populations of the British Isles left traces for centuries upon our agricul- tural industry and village customs, so that the more detailed study and wider recognition of their survivals into modern times are not merely the idle interest of an unscientific curiosity. The strange persistence of early or inferior races and institutions^amid the most devastating wars and most overwhelming invasions is one of the most remarkable features of history ; 2 and the intelligent recognition of this fact in recent times has done much to enlarge and correct our conceptions of human progress. Many an agricultural labourer of to-day shows in the cast of his features and shape of his head a continuity of descent from the pre-historic inhabi- tants of his native land beside which the pedigree traced from a Norman noble fades into the insignificance of modernity. 3. The Aboriginal Inhabitants of Britain. Now, at the earliest period to which the written records of classical writers take us back, there seems to have been living in Britain a population originating from no less than three stocks. "The civilised Gauls had settled on the eastern coasts before the Eoman invasions began, and were to spread across the island before the Roman conquest was " complete. The Celts of an older migration were established towards the north and west, and ruled from the Gaulish settlements as far as the Irish Sea ; and here and there we find traces of still older peoples who are best known as the tomb-builders and the constructors of the pre-historic monuments." 3 Of these three stocks the aboriginal was 1 Elton, Origins, oh. i. 2 Cf. Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, p. 331, 8 Elton, Origins, p. 93. 6 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND that of the Iberians or Ivernians, the oldest Neolithic race known in Europe, a small, dark-haired, dolichocephalic people. These were already retreating before an immigration of Celtic peoples, but seem to have also amalgamated with the immigrating race to a considerable extent, and, being thus preserved from absolute extinction, have survived to our own day. 1 These aborigines were known to the Eomans under the name of Silures, 2 and, like the Goidels of the first Celtic immigration, 3 were in the Neolithic stage of culture. Their industry and mode of life has been recon- structed for us with marvellous care and fidelity by the labours of Professor Boyd Dawkins. 4 He concludes that the population was probably large, and divided into tribal com- munities, who certainly possessed fixed habitations not only caves, but log-huts and wooden houses and, though living principally on their flocks and herds and the game of the vast forests, they were by no means unacquainted with the arts of agriculture. The implements by which their building and agricultural operations were carried on were only of stone, but they seemed to have been used very skilfully. Indeed, the use of the stone axe marks a distinct epoch in the histcry of industry, for by it man was enabled " to win his greatest victory over nature," by cut- ting down the trees of the vast primeval forests in order to make a clearing for tilling the ground and building his house. The arts of spinning and weaving 5 were also intro- duced into Europe and Britain in the Neolithic age, and were preserved, in the more remote districts, with but little variation until the quite modern introduction of more complicated machinery. Flint-mining and pottery-making were also carried on, and the art of boat-building 6 had ro- ceeded sufficiently to allow of voyages being made ^B* canoes] from France to Britain and from Britain to Ireland. It is also eviden 4 " that the Neolithic tribes of Britain had 1 Of. Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 275. "Skulls are harder than consonants, and races lurk behind when languages slink away. The lineal descendants of the Neolithic aborigines are ever among us, possibly even those of a still earlier race." Tac. , Agric. , c. xi. 8 Cf. Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 213. * Early Man in Britain, ch. viii. p. 290. * Ib. , p. 275. Ib. , p. 290. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 7 commercial intercourse one with another, though of course only in the rude and primitive form of barter ; x for stone axes and other implements are found distributed over dis- tricts very far removed from the places in which they were made. That this sort of traffic was carried on over consider- able distances is also proved from the fact that axes of jade 2 are found in Britain where that material was quite unknown, 4. Their Social and Economic Condition. The social condition of the people in this period seems to have been very much like that of the tribes of Central Africa at the present time. They were divided into tribal communi- ties, generally at war one with another, though each tribe probably obeyed its own chief, " whose dominion was limited to the pasturesuand cultivated lands protected by his fort, and extended but a little way into the depths of the forests, which were the hunting ground common to him and his neighbours." Each community inhabited a sort of clearing in the forests that overspread the land, and grew a few patches of flax for spinning or small-eared wheat for food ; 3 but the flocks and herds must have constituted their chief property. From the possession of such property social differences must very early have arisen ; and the variation in the size and shape of their burial places goes to show that even in those pre-historic times property was by no means equally distributed. The flocks and herds here mentioned consisted of pigs, sheep, goats, and oxen, all of which were domesticated in the Neolithic period. Of oxen, two or three breeds were known in Europe, though in Britain " the small, delicately- shaped Celtic shorthorn " 4 was the sole domestic ox as late as the English conquest. In the fields there were no less than eight kinds of cereals (including varieties of wheat, barley, and millet) and "several of our most familiar seeds and fruits [e.g., peas, apples, pears, plums] grew in the Neolithic gardens and orchards," 5 though all were 1 C/. Solinus, c. 24, speaking of the Silures of Wales in Roman times : "They will have^jio markets or money, but give and take in kind, getting what they want by barter and not by sale." * Early Man, p. 281. /&., p. 272. 4 Ib., p 297. c Ib., p. 301. 8 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND smaller and nearer to their wild forms than those now known. Since this Neolithic age we have done little but progress on lines which the primitive workers of Britain and Europe began. " To the Neolithic peoples we owe the rudiments of the culture which we ourselves enjoy. The arts which they introduced have sever been forgotten, and all subsequent progress has been built upon their foundation. Their cereals are still cultivated by the farmer, their domestic animals still minister to us, and the arts of which they possessed only the rudiments have developed into the in- dustries spinning, weaving, pottery-making, mining with- out which we can scarcely recognise what our lives would be." 1 5. The Bronze Age and the Celtic Immigration. The Neolithic age survived in remote parts of Britain almost unchanged into Roman times, for the Silures who fought so desperately against the Romans in Wales were still in this stage of culture. 2 But, disregarding these exceptional tribes, it is clear that culture, civilisation, and industry all made vast and rapid strides when the Bronze age succeeded that of stone, and the little stone axes were superseded by those of metal. Whether the Celts of the first Celtic immigration brought implements and weapons of bronze with them, as Professor Boyd Dawkins seems to think, 8 or whether these Celts were, like the Iberians, still, in the stone age of culture when they first came to Britain, 4 it is certain that, before the second Celtic immigration took place the bronze age had long since begun. And the bronze axe marked a new epoch. The forest trees were now more easily cujjipwn, and further clearings were made for agricultural operations. Wild animals became scarcer with the invasion of the forests, and men had to rely less upon the chase and more upon agriculture for their food. With the progress of agriculture came a step upward in civilisation. Habitations, too, became larger and were better built ; 6 the arts of spinning and weaving both flax and wool were carried on more successfully ; 6 the harvest 1 Early Man, p. 308. 2 Elton, Origins, p. 138. Early Man, p. 342. 4 So Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, p. 128. 6 Early Man, p. 352. 6 Ib., p. 359. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 9 was now gathered with bronze reaping-hooks ; l and the smith became an important craftsman with a comparatively large array of tools. 2 Mining was now more easily carried on, and it is probable that Cornish tin, and Irish and Welsh gold, 3 were worked by the natives of Britain and found their way to the Greek and Phenician traders of the Mediterranean through Gaul to the port of Massilia. As yet these southern merchants had not yet ventured as far as our coasts, and the adventurous voyage of Pytheas (B.C. 330 ?) was yet to come. But the inhabitants of the Britain of this period were possessed of an appreciable degree of civilisation. " It is clear," says Elton, 4 " that they were not mere savages, or a nation of hunters and fishers, or even a people in the pastoral and migratory stage. The tribes had learned the simpler arts of society, and had advanced towards the refinements of civilised life. . . . They were, for instance, the owners of flocks and herds ; they knew enough of weaving to make clothes of linen and wool ; and without the potter's wheel they could mould a plain and useful kind of earthenware. The stone querns or hand-mills, and the seed-beds in terraces on the hills of Wales and Yorkshire, show their acquaintance with the growth of some kind of grain, while their pits and hut- circles prove that they were sufficiently civilised to live in regular villages." The Bronze age was succeeded by that of Iron, but the pre-historic Iron Age in Britain was probably of much shorter duration than that of bronze. 6 " It is represented principally by the contents of an insignificant number of tombs, and by numerous isolated articles." But ^ow the small isolated communities of the Neolithic age are becoming welded together into larger bodies, obedient to one rule ; 6 civilisation becomes much higher, and commerce 1 Early Man, p. 360. 2 lb., p. 385. 8 Ib., p. 421. 4 Origins, p. 145. 8 Dr Evans places the beginning of the bronze age in Britain between 1400 and 1200 B.C., and thinks that iron swords were used in the south of Britain soon after the fourth or fifth century B.C. In the third or second century B.C. bronze had practically fallen into disuse for cutting imple- ments. Evans, Ancient Bronze Implements, pp. 471, 472. 6 Early Man, p. 426.' io INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND increases, till at length we come out of the mists of antiquity into the clearer dawn of history, and the pre-historic period is at an end. 6. Resume : The Peoples of Early Britain. We have thus seen that originally, during the greater part of the stone age, Britain was inhabited by the short, dark, Iberian race, and that towards the end of that period it was invaded by a tall and fair Celtic people, who either brought with them, or before long acquired, implements and weapons of metal. 1 ' It is also probable 2 that there were two Celtic invasions of Britain, the first that of the Goidels, who spread into Scotland and Ireland, often amal- gamating with the aborigines, and the second that of the Brythones, who seized the more fertile portions of the island, in the south and south-east, and drove the others before them into the west and north. These Brythones included the Gaulish tribes mentioned by Caesar 3 as having crossed over from Belgic territories into Britain not very long before his own invasion of that country, " though there are signs that an immigration from Belgium had been pro- ceeding for several generations " previously. 4 There were thus, for some time before the Roman invasion of Caesar (B.C. 55), peoples of three different stocks living together in Britain. There were the more or less civilised Gauls in the eastern, portions, who had come over long before the Roman period, and gradually, both before and during the Roman occupation, spread across the island in a northerly and southerly direction. ^4 Then there were, in the north and west of the island, the civilised Celts of an older migration, whose territories stretched from the Gaulish settlements to the Irish Sea, and included both Goidels and Brythones.^^jid, lastly, here and there in many localities, among the other tribes, we constantly come upon survivors of the older and pre-historic tribes of a much remoter period. 7. Their Social and Economic Condition. It must not, however, be imagined that any uniform 1 Taylor, Origin oj Aryans, p. 80. * Rhys, Celtic Britain, p. 213, and map. B. G., ii. 4, and v. 14. * Elton, Origins, p. 102. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN n description will apply to the industrial or social develop- ment of these different races. They were all in various stages of civilisation, and though commercial, and possibly social, intercourse between them was not uncommon, they remained for centuries with their distinguishing features unobliterated. The oldest races were in the pre-metallic stage ; l the British Celts were in the later Bronze period on their first arrival, and possibly became acquainted with the use of iron later, while the more recent Gaulish arrivals were certainly familiar with iron implements and weapons. We are prepared, therefore, to find great dissimilarity of culture among the varied population of Britain in the pre- Roman period. The oldest races were really little other than savages in their mode of life at any rate, in those remote region* to which they had retreated before the successive Celtic invasions. Where they had come in con- tact with their more civilised neighbours they were, however, probably not so wild or degraded as the descriptions of Greek and Roman writers of that day seem to imply. 2 But they do not seem to have had regular towns, houses, or fields, though they kept flocks and herds. They depended very largely on hunting for their subsistence, and also on the natural products of the woods, such as wild fruits and nuts. Dion Cassius mentions their strange refusal to eat the fish with which British rivers were at that time swarm- ing, and it is curious to notice, as showing how pre-historic customs have persisted into our own time, that in certain Irish and Highland localities this prejudice still exists. 3 8. The Celts in the time of Pytheas. The condition of the Celtic invaders has already been alluded to in the remarks made above 4 on the industries of the Bronze Age, but we may here briefly add the informa- tion derived from the observations of the Greek explorer Pytheas, who started from the Greek colony of Massalia (Marseilles) about 330 B.C. to explore "the Celtic countries" of the north. He was commissioned by a committee of the 1 Elton, Origins, p. 122. a Gf. Dion Cassius (Xiphiline), Ixxvi. 12 ; Claudian, B. Oetic, 417 j Solinus, c. 4. 3 Elton, j 165. 4 Above, p. 8. 12 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND Massalian merchants to discover the sources of the lucrative tin trade, the secret of which had hitherto been jealously guarded by the Carthaginians, who monopolised it. The nar- rative of his voyage is for us of peculiar interest, for its frag- ments contain the first notices of what was then an almost unknown land ; l while the fact that the Massaiians thought the tin trade of such importance as to warrant the expense of an exploring expedition is a proof of the activity of the foreign commerce of pre-historic Britain. Pytheas, on reaching Britain, which he first touched on the shores of Kent, not only landed there, but travelled over part of the country on foot to collect information about the tin trade. He almost certainly went westward, passing through what is now Wiltshire and South Hampshire then a great forest district to Cornwall. " Here he found the country of the tin, which was dug out of the ground in mines with shafts and galleries. The people were very hospitable, their commerce with foreign merchants having civilised them and softened their manners." 2 The tin thus mined was carried six days' journey to an island called Ictis, 3 whence the traders from Gaul conveyed it across the Channel into Gaul, and finally down the Rhone in barges to Massalia. Besides tin-mining, Pytheas found a fairly considerable agriculture, observing " an abundance of. wheat in the fields," though, owing to the moist nature of the climate and lack of regular sunshine, the sheaves had to , 1 The statements of Pytheas, recorded as they are only by his critics, have been received both in ancient and modern times with considerable scepticism, but there seems, after a careful review of them, little reason to doubt their substantial accuracy. See especially C. R. Markham's paper on Pytheas, the discoverer of Britain, in The Geographical Journal, Vol. I. No. 6, where his observations are vindicated from a geographical stand- point. 2 Of. Diodorus Siculus, c. 22. This account was almost certainly taken from Timaeus, who derived it from Pytheas. "Where "Ictis" was situated is still a subject of controversy. Elton thinks it was Thanet (p. 35-37), Sir E. Bunbury and Captain Markham think it was St Michael's Mount. Professor Rhys (Celtic Britain, 46, 47) inclines to Thanet. This latter vie\\ certainly explains Caesar's story that the tin " nascitur in mediterraneis regionibus," and also explains why Pytheas on touching the coast at Kent had to travel westwards, seeing on his way the temple of Stonehenge, very early reports of which reached the Greek. But Elton doubts his being in those parts. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 13 be thrashed in " great barns." l The natives possessed also " cultivated fruits, a great abundance of some domesticated animals but a scarcity of others, and made a beverage from wheat and honey," 2 the ft metheglin " of some country dis- tricts in the present day. That the state of agriculture was, however, very backward in some districts (probably those occupied by the older inhabitants), we gather from Posi- donius, 3 who visited Britain in the first ceutury B.C., and related that the " people have mean habitations made chiefly of rushes or sticks, and their harvest consists in cutting off the ears of corn and storing them in pits underground/ 1 using it from day to day. But, on the other hand, agricul- ture was well advanced in the Gaulish settlements of the South and East. "The British Gauls," says Elton, 4 "appear to have been excellent farmers, skilled as well in the pro- duction of cereals as in stock-raising and the management of the dairy. Their farms were laid out in large fields without enclosures or fences, and they learned to make a permanent separation of the pasture and arable, and to apply the manures which were appropriate to each kind of field. The plough was of the wheeled kind, an invention that superseded the old ' overtreading plough ' held down by the driver's foot." A remarkable proof of their advanced knowledge was shown in the practice of marling. " They relied greatly on marling and chalking the land. The same soil, however, was never twice chalked, as the effects were visible after standing the experience of fifty years. The effect of the ordinary marl was of even longer duration, the benefit being visible in some instances for a period of eighty years." Many varieties of marl were used the lime-marl, chalk-marl, the red, dove-coloured, sandy, and pumice varieties being all mentioned by Pliny. They had two varieties of cattle the small Welsh breed or " Celtic short- horn " and the Kyloe or Argyllshire variety as well as sheep, pigs, and fowls. 5 It is worthy of notice, in view of landed customs which we shall have to note in later times, that there is no trace among them of co-operative husbandry. 1 Strabo, iv., v. 5. (Cos. 201). 2 Ib. 8 See Diodorus, v. 21. Elton, pp. 115-116. 6 Ib., pp. 116-117. I 4 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND The Gauls were likewise expert not only in agricultural but also in textile manufactures of a simple kind in cloth and linen.. " They wove their stuffs for summer, and rough felts or druggets for winter wear, 1 which are said to have been prepared with vinegar, and to have been so tough as to resist the stroke of a sword. They had learned the art of using alternate colours for the warp and woof, so as to bring out a pattern of stripes and squares," and obviously of dyeing the materials. We see, then, from a survey of the various inhabitants of Britain in pre-Roman times, that they had reached in some parts a very fair degree of industrial development, especially in agriculture, though in other districts they were equally backward. Manufactures and mining 2 were in progress, and the latter had given rise to what must have been for those times a considerable foreign commerce, though this was confined to the southern coasts. It is not easy, perhaps, to gain a general survey of the country, because the conditions of culture in the various districts and among the different races were so diverse, and tins diversity was at once a consequence and a cause of the difficulties of com- munication. But though we cannot in this period make any industrial generalisations, we may be certain that its industrial conditions left some marks on future ages, and that any consideration of post-Roman civilisation and customs especially in the permanent and abiding influences of agriculture must necessarily be imperfect if it fails to take into account the survivals of the pre-historic period. 9. Foreign Trade of Britain. It was the conquest of Gaul that brought the Romans of Julius Caesar's day close to the shores of Britain, and it was mainly from the reports of Gaulish traders that Caesar derived not only his knowledge of that country but also his 1 Elton, pp. 110, 111. 2 The tin districts of the time of Pytheas and Posidonius, i.e. in the third and first centuries B.C., are given by Elton, p. 33, as Dartmoor, the country round Tavistock and round St Austell, the southern coast of Cornwall, the district round St Agnes on the north coast, and between Cape Cornwall and St Ivei. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 15 desire to conquer it. The Romans evidently thought the conquest worth making for the sake of the possible wealth that might accrue from it, for the inhabitants of Britain were hardly formidable enough politically to threaten the Roman frontiers in Gaul. Probably they expected more from the island than they actually obtained, 1 and, as Elton remarks, 2 " the ultimate conquest was doubtless hastened by the dream of winning a land of gold and a rich reward of victory. " But although we may admit that the Romans entertained exaggerated hopes, we may glance for a moment at the actual state of trade in Britain in the days before their arrival. It is obvious, in the first place, that the Phenicians and Carthaginians, and after the voyage of Pytheas also the Greeks, would not have made their long and dangerous voyages to Britain for tin unless the supplies of that metal had been sufficiently large to make it well worth their while, especially as it was procurable also in Spain. Hence the British tin trade must have been of considerable dimensions for those times. It is equally obvious that the foreign traders must have brought other goods to exchange for tin, since the British were in that stage of civilisation when barter comes naturally to the uncommercial mind, and the use of coined money was little understood. 3 Besides tin, it is certain that the gold which is found with tin in Cornwall, and the silver which is also mingled with the lead, formed articles of export. Iron was also exported, 4 especially when the Gauls of the later immigration began to work the mines of the Weald of Kent. Besides metals, we find mention of agricultural and pastoral produce, corn and barley, cattle and hides ; and the trade in the special British breed of hunting dogs, 5 both with Gaul and Rome, was of some importance. The pearl fishery, of which we hear so much from Bede, was probably greatly exaggerated, since Tacitus mentions British pearls only to slight them, and it is improbable that it should not have continued till 1 Tao., Agric., 12. 2 Origins, p. 293. * For these imports, see p. 16. 4 Cassar, B. G., v. 12. 6 Martial, Epigram, xiv. 200; Claudian, StiL, iii. 301. 1 6 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND much later times if it had been lucrative. On the other hand, the slave trade was an important feature, especially after the Koman conquest. Among the most ancient articles of commerce was almost certainly amber, of ^yhich small quantities were found on certain portions of the British coast ; but the British supply is too small to account for the great quantity found in the tumulij- and hence it must have formed an important article of import fron^the North Sea and Baltic shores. Very probably the Phenician and other traders found it a useful medium of exchange, and under the Roman Empire the import from the Ostians 2 was sufficient to bear a tax which yielded a small revenue. 8 Ivory, bracelets (and certainly other ornaments), glass, ajjii " such-like petty merchandise," are all mentioned by Strabo 4 as being imported, and his statements indicate the kind of trade that must have gone on for centuries before his time. Weapons of all kinds would find a ready sale in the island, while furs and the skins of wild animals, of which there were very large numbers in Britain, were exported. Speaking generally we may say that, although the Britains were able to manufacture implements, weapons, pottery, and clothing for themselves, yet the foreign trade was necessar- ily an exchange of foreign manufactured articles for raw pro- duce, and continued for many centuries to be of this nature. 10. Internal Trade: Roads and Rivers. The means of communication by which trade was carried on internally were the rivers, the " ridge ways " 6 or roads on the open ground at the top of ridges of hills of which the High Street in the Lake district, afterwards a Roman road, is a very good example and other rough tracks. The first road-makers were the wild animals migrating to early pastures and the savages who followed them. 6 But the place of rivers in the commercial history of the early and middle ages was most important, since, till good roads were made, 1 Of, Elton, p. 63. 2 They occupied the district near the mouth of the Elbe, though Dr Latham places them further east. * Strabo, iv. 278. 4 75. 5 Social England, vol. i. p. 88. Thorold Rogers, Econ. Int. of History, p. 490. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN 17 carriage by water was far less troublesome and expensive than by land, 1 and it has been well remarked 2 that the rivers Thames and Severn were of prime importance to the development of early British trade. 8 Down these rivers the British trader floated in his frail coracle or " curragh " of hides, and even ventured to cross over from the western coasts to Ireland. 4 The people of the southern and Cornish shore had, however, ships of oak of a much more seaworthy character, and evidently, from Caesar's account, 5 were skilful and daring navigators. They traded chiefly with Northern and Western Gaul. 11. Physical Aspect of Pre-Roman Britain. Having gained some idea of the industry and com- merce of early Britain, it is now time to glance briefly at the physical condition of the country which the Romans were about to conquer. We are struck at once by the fact that its appearance was vastly different from the aspect which it wears to-day. The typical English landscape of the present, with its smiling pasturage, neat hedges, and well- tilled fields, simply did not then exist, or, at any rate, was to be seen only in a few favoured spots. Whereas to-day the cultivable and cultivated area includes the greater part of the surface, it was at that time only a small fraction of it. Forests and scrub, fen, moor, and marsh occupied most of the land. " A cold and watery desert " is Elton's description of it, 6 and though his expression is exaggerated, it is nearer the truth than another writer's fanciful epithet 7 of a " land of sunshine and peaxl Britain was certainly far more rainy then than now, owing 1 So, too, in Europe the main commercial routes followed in France the Rhine, and in Germany the Rhone and Danube; see my Commerce in Europe, 68, 69. 2 Social England, vol. i. p. 89. 3 In this commerce coins were probably not much used, and it is supposed that no British coins were struck before 200 B.C., though some are said to appear to be " centuries older than Caesar's first expedition." Later on the various chiefs seem to have struck silver and other coins for their own tribes in imitation of Gallic and Roman money. Cf. Evans, Coins of the Ancient Britons, for a subject which we cannot discuss properly here. 4 Elton, p. 232. 6 Caesar, B. G., iii. 9, 13. Origins, p. 218. 7 In Social England, vol. i. p. 89. B 1 8 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND to the influence of the vast forests which covered the land, and consequently also it was more foggy. " The ground and atmosphere were alike overloaded with moisture. The fallen timber obstructed the streams ; the rivers were squandered in the reedy morasses, and only the downs and hill-tops rose above the perpetual tracts of wood." 1 It was these downs and hill-tops on which the earliest inhabitants, unable to clear the forests effectually with their feeble axes, necessarily practised the first elements of agriculture, 2 and it is here that their traces are most abundant The gradual clearing away of the woodland in later, and especially in Roman, times drew the agriculturist down into the river valleys. The extent of forest was immense. In the South there were more than a hundred miles of the " Andreds- weald " between Hampshire and the Medway, and many miles more in the opposite direction into Dorset and Wilt- shire. In the Severn valley was the forest of the Wyre, around the modern Worcester, extending right over Cheshire, and the forest of Arden nearly covered all Warwickshire. Another huge wood lay between London and the Wash ; the Midlands from Lincoln to Leicester and from the Peak to the Trent were occupied by miles of forest, of which Sherwood and Charnwood are only fractional and fragmentary remains. Yorkshire and Lancashire were wild wastes of moorland and scrub, and most of the country was regarded as a desert that lay between Derby Peak and the Roman Wall. 3 The marshes and swamps were also of considerable extent in many low-lying parts that have since been drained and re- claimed. Notably this was the case with the Romney Marsh on the coast of Kent, which, when Caesar came to Britain, was a morass invaded every day by the tide as far as Roberts- bridge in Sussex. 4 The low-lying parts of Essex, Surrey, and 1 Elton, p. 218. 2 Green, Making of England, p. 8 ; and Gomme, Village Community, pp. 75-95, who deals fully with the " terrace cultivation " on the hills. The above description is based on Green's vivid picture in the Making of England, pp. 10-12. 4 Elton, p. 103. PRE-ROMAN BRITAIN tg Kent below London were then "extensive flats covered with water at every tide," 1 and the Thames estuary invaded a district almost as large as the Wash. The valley of the Stour 1 was also covered by the sea for many miles above the present tidal limit, while the Wash extended north- wards nearly to Lincoln and westwards to Huntingdon and Cambridge. The lower reaches of the Trent formed another huge marsh, and its basin generally was one of the wildest and least frequented parts of the island. 2 In this comparatively wild and uncultivated condition of the country, it is easy to believe that wild animals were exceedingly numerous. In fact, they existed till far into the period of modern history. Wolves and bears were met in the vast forests for centuries after the Roman and Saxon invasions, and only gradually became extinct. 3 The wild boar was very common, and so late as Henry II. 's reign was hunted on Hampstead Heath, where also were chased the wild cattle whose descendants are now regarded as curiosi- ties in the famous herd at Chillingham Park. A sign of the infrequency of human habitation in certain districts is seen in the numbers of beavers that built their colonies on the streams, remaining in remote parts till the twelfth century. 4 Indeed, it is evident that the Britain of pre- Roman days must have been, on the whole, a very wild and savage country, many parts of which had scarcely even been trodden by the foot of man. Yet, as we have seen, there were already in some places, especially in the South-East, many marks of civilisation and progress in industrial arts, and when the Romans came to the island they found many tribes and settlements that were considerably advanced in agricultural and domestic industries, though, on the other 1 Airy, in Athenaeum, 1683, on the Claudian Invasion of Britain. 2 Making of England, p. 75. 'Martial (Epigr., vii. 34), mentions the Scotch bear, and Boyd Dawkins (Cave Hunting, p. 75), thinks the native British bear was not extinct till the tenth century A.D. Frequent mention of wolves is found in mediaeval docu ments e.g., in the account rolls of Whitby Abbey, temp. Ric. II., and they probably were not extinct in England till the end of the fifteenth century. (Newton, Zoology of Ancient Europe, p. 24), and in Scotland much later. *Girald. Cambrensis, Itin. Wall, ii. 3. to INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND hand, there were others but little removed from savagery, We shall probably be right in supposing that the divergences of culture were very strongly marked, and that a considerable distinction was to be found between the skilled Gaulish farmer of Kent and the wild pre- Aryan inhabitants of the North and West. CHAPTER II ^.. ROMAN BRITAIN 12. The Roman Occupation. THE two expeditions of Julius Csesar in the years 55 and 54 B.C. the first of which was certainly a failure and the second very nearly so were followed by almost a century of repose from foreign invasion. It was not till ninety years after Caesar's earlier attempts that the Romans, led on this occasion by Aulus Plautius, and aided by German; auxiliaries, again invaded Britain (A.D. 44). But this time! they came to stay, and although the conquest proved j perhaps more difficult than they had anticipated, it was' under successive generals accomplished at last. The year 70 A.D. may be taken, for convenience, as the date when the power of the most stubborn of the natives was effec- tually broken, and though much fighting remained to be/ done, the conquest was practically complete. For seventy/ years after the victories of Julius Agricola (A.D. 70-841 there was peace, and had it not been for the incursions or\ the Picts and Scots by land, and of the Saxon pirates by sea, the peace would have been almost uninterrupted. The Romans remained as the rulers of Britain for three centuries and a half, and then the exigencies of self-defence in other regions of the Empire compelled them to retire. The last legions left the island in 407 A.D. 1 It is difficult to estimate the exact effect of their occu- pation. While some very able writers 2 have found reason to believe that it had lasting effects both on the political, municipal, industrial, and especially on the agricultural development of the country, others have regarded it merely as a military administration, similar (as we are told with a rather wearisome paucity of example) to that of the French 1 Green, Making of England, p. 24. The date 410 A.D. is that of the letter bidding Britain provide for its own defence. 2 As e.y. Coote, in his Romans in Britain, 22 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND in Algeria. 1 It would probably be nearer the truth to compare the Roman position with that of the English in India, making due allowance for differences of civilisation and of policy. The Romans could no more settle in Britain on account of the cold than we can settle in India on account of the heat. So, too, if the English were to withdraw from India after three hundred years of occupancy (and they will probably retire before that period), the net effect of their presence would be much the same as that of the Romans here. The influence in both cases has been only skin deep, and though it touches the upper classes of the natives very effectually, it hardly affects the lower. Well- to-do British youths went to study and " see life " in Rome, just as well-to-do Hindu and Mahbinmedan youths come to London, and with much the same result. Prominent natives were occasionally entrusted in Britain with Roman administration, as they are similarly entrusted by us in India. After all, it is mainly the efforts of industry which survive. The customs, laws, and language disappear, and the roads and bridges remain. These, with a number of ruined fortresses, lighthouses, 2 drainage works, and towns which had sprung from camps, are the most important relics of the Roman occupation in Britain. 13. Roman Hoods. We will speak of the roads first, because, especially now, in an age of railways, their importance cannot be over- estimated. They were not all by any means first built by the Romans, but represent in many cases adaptations of and improvements upon Celtic, or even still more ancient, 8 roadways. The roadway over High Street, near Winder- mere, is such an one. But the main function of the Roman roads was, after all, military, and therefore we find them made sometimes more with a view to the military import- ance of certain strategic connections than to the require- ments of commerce. At the same time, after these roads 1 Green, Making of England, p. 7, and Pearson, History of England t i. 55. 8 As at Dover, and the Richborough beacon. 1 Cf. Thorold Rogers, Econ. Interpr. of History, p. 490, ROMAN BRITAIN 23 had been once made, whatever their original purpose may have been, they were eagerly used by traders, who were also thankful for the military protection which the roads enjoyed. " The Roman plan," says Elton, 1 " was based on the requirements of the provincial government, and on the need for constant communication between the Kentish ports and the outlying fortresses on the frontiers." Hence several of the routes fell into comparative desuetude when the strategic need for 'them was gone, and only those which afforded the greatest facilities for commerce were kept up. The needs of industry frequently outlive those of war. In mediaeval times we find four great highways traversing the kingdom of England, and representing " a combination of tho^e portions of the Roman roads which the English adopted and kept in repair, as communications between their prin- cipal cities." These four great highways were 2 : (1.) Waiting Street (to use its later name), from Kent to London, and then vid St Albans and Northampton to Chester and on to York, bifurcating then northwards to Carlisle and to near Newcastle. (2.) The Fosse Way, from the Cornish tin-mines through Bath and Cirencester to Lincoln, crossing Watling Street at High Cross between Coventry and Leicester. (3.)vErmin Street, a direct route from London to Lincoln through Colchester and Cambridge, and sending out branches to Doncaster and York. (4.) Ikenild or Ickenield Street, whose course is some- what obscure, and is often confused with Ryknild Street, which latter led from the Severn valley and Gloucester to Doncaster. The Ikenild Street came from Norwich and Bury St Edmunds to Dunstable, thence to Southampton, with branches to Sarum and the western districts. 14. Roman Towns in Britain. Of these, which are commonly called the four Roman ways, the Ikenild Street was almost certainly an ancient 1 Origins, p. 327, where the military system of roads is fully explained. 8 Of. Elton, Origins, p. 326, and Guest, The Four Roman Ways, Archceol. Journ., xiv. p. 99, and also Cooper King in Social, England, voL i. pp. 49-51, who adds others. 24 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND British pathway, possibly adapted and used by the Romans, while Ermin Street is thought not to have been Roman south of Huntingdon. There was, however, an important Roman road from London to Richborough (Rutupiae) on the Kentish coast, then the chief military and commercial port for intercourse with Gaul, and strongly fortified, where on dark nights a beacon always shone to guide ships across the channel. Along all the roads there were frequent fortresses and stationary camps, and it is in many cases from these camps that our English towns have grown up. 1 The towns were divided (constitutionally) into four classes, and the division helps us to understand their relative im- portance. First came the colonies, inhabited by Roman veterans, and enjoying the same laws and customs as Rome itself. There were nine of these Richborough and Reculver, guarding the now filled-up channel of Thanet to the Thames ; London, an important trading centre from Celtic times ; Colchester ; Bath, then as now a noted sanatorium ; and Gloucester, Caerleon-on-Usk, Chester, Lincoln, and Chesterfield, all of military importance. Next came the municipia, where the inhabitants had the rights of Roman citizens, making their own laws and electing their own magistrates. There were only two of these York, the northern capital, quite as important in those times as London ; and Verulamium (St Albans), which guarded the entrances to the Midlands. Third in order came those towns, ten in number, which had the Latin right and elected their own magistrates, and lastly came the stipendiary towns, which were governed by Roman officials, and had to pay tribute. This class included all towns not mentioned above that is to say, nearly the whole population of Britain. 2 It has been truly said that " the type of every Roman city was the camp," 3 but it is equally true that " a Roman camp was a city in arms," 4 in which the soldiers corresponded to the colonists and settlers of more modern times. " The 1 About 218 Roman stations are known in Britain. Soc. England, vol. i. p. 62. 2 Lingard, Hist, of Eng., i. p. 50; Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon. 9 Pearson, Hist, oj Eng., i. 43. 4 Elton, Origins, p. 310. ROMAN BRITAIN 25 ramparts and pathways of the camps developed into walls and streets, the square of the tribunal into the market- place, and every gateway was the beginning of a suburb, where straggling rows of shops, temples, rose-gardens, and cemeteries were delivered from all danger by the presence of a permanent garrison. In the centre of the town stood a group of public buildings, containing the court-house, baths, and barracks, and it seems likely that every important place had a theatre or a circus for races and shows." 1 There were fifty-nine towns 2 that might be called Roman, but the bulk of the population was engaged in agriculture and re- sided in the country districts, and therefore it is to rural industry that we must now turn our attention. 15, The fiomans and Agriculture. It seems doubtful whether the Romans ever settled in sufficient numbers to alter permanently the conditions of agricultural industry, except in a few very favourable neigh- bourhoods. In the first place the climate was against them, just as it is against the English in India, though from a totally different reason. Just as no Englishman could tolerate life in India without the ever-moving punkah, so no Roman could reside in his English villa unless it was carefully heated by hot-water pipes. 3 Nor did the land offer a chance of making great wealth. "The great number of villas whose remains can still be traced is a proof that the lords of the soil were in easy circumstances, while the fact that the structures were commonly of wood, raised upon a brick or stone foundation, is an argument against large fortunes. " * The surface of the country, too, was still wild and unreclaimed in many parts^, and not suitable for advanced agriculture. The river-valleys, which contain a richer and more fertile soil, were only gradually being cleared of the primeval forest that encumbered them, for it is a significant fact that it is mainly in the natural clearings of the uplands that the population concentrated itself at the close of the Roman rule, and it is over these districts that the ruins of the 1 Elton, Origins, p. 311. 2 Marcianus, Heracleota, ii. 14. 3 Green, Making of England, pp. 7 and 45. 4 Pearson, History of England, i. 52 26 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND villas or country houses of the Roman landowners are most thickly planted. 1 Besides all this, the distance of Britain from the centre of the Roman world was sufficient to pre- vent a large influx of Roman settlers, and hence it is not at all surprising to find that most of the Roman monuments and inscriptions in our island refer mainly to matters of a military and official character. At the same time there can be no doubt that those dis- tricts where the few Roman settlers did build their villas must have enjoyed many industrial advantages over the more barbarous portions of the island. Traces of those villas, 2 with their Italian inner courts, colonnades, and tesselated pavements are still found, the household buildings being surrounded by an outer wall, against which were pro- bably built the rude huts of the British peasantry or serfs who tilled the foreigner's land. But it is not certain that these Roman farmers were responsible for the peculiar features that afterwards distinguished English agricultural and manorial life, and very possibly too much importance has been attached to Roman influence in this respect. It is going too far to say that, during the Roman period, " Eng- land became an agricultural country," and that " the agri- cultural system then established remained during and after the barbarian invasions." 3 We know that even before the arrival of Caesar the Gallic Britons of the south-east were comparatively good farmers (p. 13), and it is sufficient to admit that their agriculture was further developed after the Roman conquest, without assuming the introduction of the Roman agricultural system. The majority of the remains of Roman villas are found in the southern counties, 4 and, however great their influence undoubtedly was here, it did not extend very far into the interior. The fact that Britain became celebrated for its export of corn 6 may be taken in more than one way. Some have regarded it as a proof of good agriculture under Roman influence, others as merely showing that the population was 1 Green, Making of England, p. 9. 1 Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 243 and pp. 227 sq. * Ashley, Introduction to Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. xxiv. * Professor Ashley mentions this himself, p. xxvi. 6 Cf. ib. , p. xxv. ROMAN BRITAIN 37 so small that it could not consume all the corn it grew. In any case, " the great private estates surrounding the villas of wealthy landowners, and cultivated by dependants of various grades coloni, freed men, and slaves " l cannot have been numerous enough to influence the agricultural development of the country as a whole. Had this been the case, we should almost certainly find more traces than we do of the Roman implements of husbandry, 2 which are well- known and continue in use at the present day, with very little difference in their structure, in those countries where Roman influence was most deeply felt. But, as a matter of fact, as Mr Seebohm shows, 3 though he draws a different conclusion therefrom, one of the main features of English husbandry was the plough-team of eight oxen, common to the agriculture of England, Wales and Scotland, but certainly not Roman in origin. Moreover, the remains of the home- steads and houses of early English villages show us that Roman influence never extended very markedly into agri- cultural buildings. " The villager in his wattle and daub, and the lord in his oak-rooted hall, carry us back to primi- tive economics within which there is no room for the great commercialism of the Roman world," * and it is a significant fact in this connection that the art of making bricks, and building in brick, introduced by the Romans, was never taken up by the agricultural population as a whole, but became extinct after the Roman occupation till its revival in the fifteenth century. 6 16. Celtic and Non-Eorrtan Influence in Agriculture. The same conclusion that the Roman occupation had little practical influence with the agricultural industry of the country, except in a few favoured districts 6 is forced upon 1 Ashley, as above, p. xxv. 2 Kg. the wheel-plough ; cf. Gomme, Village Community, p. 277. 8 Seebohm, Village Community, p. 388. 4 Gomme, Village Community, p. 46. 6 Thorold Rogers, Econ. Interp. oj Hist., p. 279. ' The extent of the Romanised area is often exaggerated. The North and West were almost untouched by Romans, and no villas are found north of Aldborough in Yorks. See F. T f Richards in Social England i. p. 24. 28 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND us again by a review of the philological and ethnological evidence, which has hitherto been almost disregarded by economic historians. Where Eoman power was greatest in Britain was in the creation of a national government. It hardly so much as entered the life of the agricultural village communities, 1 in which, in spite of the influence of the Romanised towns, the mass of the population of Britain continued to dwell from the first dawn of civilisation till the advent of the factory system and its concomitants. Rome had probably no more effect on the agricultural life of the people of Britain than England has on the methods of the peasant population of India, and when we hear that Britain exported large quantities of corn in the Roman era, we merely note that India exports equally large quantities to England at the present day, without inferring therefrom that the Hindu ryot has adopted English agricultural methods. The agricultural history of our country begins, not with the Roman invasion, but with the pre-historic efforts of those ancient hill- tribes, 2 whose industrial relics still remain for our investigation, and who cultivated their hill-sides in ten-aces, because these were the only clearings that emerged from the all-pervading primeval forest This is the reason why the population, even at the close of the Roman period, was most numerous in the uplands. 3 The hillmen gave way to the Celts, though their traces are still among us, and the Celts, with their superior culture, developed agriculture probably almost up to the level at which it was found at the Saxon conquest, and at which it remained for many centuries afterwards. The philological evidence on this point is of considerable interest. An extraordinary number of words in our present language referring to agricultural implements and industry are of Celtic origin, and those are said to be " not a twentieth of what might be alleged." 4 A few instances 1 Cf. Gomme, ut supra, p. 133. a For a careful investigation of this evidence see Gomme, Village Com- munity, pp. 71, 83-95. 3 Green, Making of England, p. 8. 4 Garnett, in the Journal of the Philological Society, i. 171. Among others he instances : bran (skin of wheat), cabin, gusset (cf. Welsh, cwysed, ridge or furrow), threave (a bundle of sheaves, W., drefa), bill, fleam (W., flaim, a cattle lancet), wain, wall, trace, stock (of corn), gavelock (a fork), park ( = a field), filly, fog ( = fog-grass), basket, &c., &c. Measures of ROMAN BRITAIN 29 are given in the footnote, and it should also be noticed, as showing the permanence of ancient populations in the rural districts, that many rural or " provincial " terms 1 are Celtic in origin. The survivals of curious customs connected with land, and the evidence of folk-lore generally, must be left to the archaeologist ; 2 but the student of industrial history cannot fail to notice the persistence of ancient populations, even in a subject condition, and their influence upon indus- trial life. Very possibly it is to this persistence that the backwardness of English agriculture for so many centuries is largely due. Learning little from the Roman, the native inhabitants of Britain had little to teach the Saxon. Even now, at the close of the nineteenth century, in the remoter districts of Ireland the heir of centuries of Celtic civilisation may^be seen ploughing with his rude plough fastened to his horse's tail, 3 while in the Isle of Man a farmer of the present generation sacrificed one of his cattle at the cross roads to cure a plague which was destroying the others. 4 The ethnological evidence has of late been carefully studied, and distinct traces of an earlier (non- Aryan) population have been found in many places, the distin- guishing characteristics of this early race being their dark hair, dark eyes, dark skin, and small stature. Such traces are seen in such varying localities as the counties compris- ing the ancient Siluria Glamorgan, Brecknock, Mon- mouth, Radnor, and Hereford in Cornwall and Devon, and in Gloucester, Wiltshire, and Somerset. 5 We may grain show Celtic origin e.g., windle (Lanes, dialect for a measure, from W., gwyntell, a basket) hoop (Yorks. for a quarter peck), hattock (Yorks. for a shock of corn), peck (cf. W., peg). Also flannen (Hereford for flannel), frieze, brat (Yorks. for "pinafore," cf. W., brat = clout ; rag), mesh (cf. W., masg, a stitch), borel (O.E. for coarse cloth, cf. bureler), lath, &c., may be instanced for textile industry. Probably a careful investigation of rural dialects would furnish many more. 1 Besides provincialisms given above, cf. Yorks. toppin, a crest or ridge ; sile, & strainer ; Northern stook, a shock of corn ; Somerset, soc, a plough- share, on which last cf. Schrader, Sprachvergleichung (Eng. trans.), p. 288. a Cf. Gromme, ut supra, chs. v. and vi. 8 The author heard this stated publicly by a Notts farmer who was an eye-witness during a visit to Ireland. 4 Walpole, Land of Home Rule, p. 190 n. This farmer was alive in 1893. 6 Elton, Origins, p. 137, with which cf. the note on p. 57 of Cunning- ham's English Industry and Commerce, vol. i. 30 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND expect to find survivals in the west, but it is more surprising to discover them still existing in the eastern fen country and in the Midlands especially round about Derby, Stamford, Leicester, and Loughborough 1 for here we know, from place names and other evidence, that the Saxon and Danish conquerors settled in over- whelming numbers. But this merely proves how hard it is to destroy a subject population, 2 and if the non- Aryan, pre-Celtic inhabitants of early Britain have thus sur- vived, a fortiori must we make allowance for the survival of the Celtic races who succeeded and conquered them, only to be in turn conquered themselves. The Celtic race, in spite of some modern appearances to the contrary, possesses, under certain circumstances, 3 a considerable power of amal- gamation with other races without entirely losing its dis- tinctive characteristics. They amalgamated as conquerors with the Iberians, 4 and as conquered with the Saxon and Scandinavian, 5 and the most recent historian of the Isle of Man, where their influence is so strongly marked, has called attention to their place in the history of culture. "We live in a time when the Celtic race is gradually disappearing. Those parts of Europe where Celtic blood is predominant are those where population is decreasing (as in Ireland) or with difficulty maintained (as in France). Yet we ought not, in consequence, to forget the great part which the Celt has played in history, or the influence which the Celt has exercised in the civilisation of the world." 6 Hitherto, certainly, the economic historian has neglected to note his influence 17 upon English agriculture, an influence which, though at first in favour of progress up to a certain point, was probably afterwards rather conservative 1 Elton, u. 8. 8 Cf. also S. Walpole, Land of Home Rule, p. 14, and also p. 21, for de- scription of the Celtic and Iberian population as existing in the undisturbed isolation of the Isle of Man in Roman times. 8 As now in the United States. 4 Walpole, &., p. 14. 8 Strikingly so in the Isle of Man, which affords a very favourable field for ethnological study; cf. Walpole, '&., p. 76. 6 Ib., p. 41. 7 Though some admit the survival of many of the Celtic and pre-Celtic population (cf. Ashley, preface to F. de Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. 36), they forget the influence which these must have exercised. ROMAN BRITAIN 31 or even retrogressive. If it is true, as Professor Ashley puts it, 1 that " under the Celtic, and therefore under the Roman, rule, the cultivating class was largely composed of the pre-Celtic race," and that " the agricultural population was but little disturbed," 2 it seems clear that the economic influence of such a population must have been very marked. Such indeed we shall find afterwards to be the case, when we come to investigate more closely the manorial system as it appeared in Anglo-Saxon and Norman times. 17. Commerce and Industry in Roman Britain. But before proceeding to the Saxon period we must in conclusion give a short glance at trade and industry under the Romans. The pax Romana allowed both to develop as far as they *were at that time likely to do, and, though never a rich country, in this early time* Britain was cer- tainly not a land of poverty. Agriculture went on, as it had done before the. Romans ^ame, 4 and as it was sure to do under a~peaceful regime, while mining seems to have been even more vigorously carried on than~"oi olcT Lead was mined ln"the~MenSip ^ Hiirs,~DeFbyshire, and elsewhere, and became so abundant that its output was limited by law; copper in Anglesey and Shropshire ; iron in the Forest of Dean, Hereford, and Monmouth ; coal, though only for home use, in Northumberland ; and in some parts a little silver. 5 The roads also threw those parts of the country through which they passed open to trade and intercourse, though on the other hand in later periods nothing is more striking than the self-contained character of the villages, and their comparative isolation one from the other. 6 The harbours of the south and south-east coast did a busy trade with Gaul, whose merchants acted as intermediaries between Britain and the outer world. The chief British exports seem to have been, besides corn and the minerals already 1 Ashley, preface to F. de Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. 37. 2 CJ. also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxviii. ' Of. F. T. Richards in Soc. England, vol. i. p. 93. 4 Of. 0. M. Edwards in Social England, vol. i. p. 87. 6 F. T. Richards in Social England, vol. i. p. 92. 6 Cf. the case of Bampton, quoted by Gomme, V. G., p. 160. 32 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND referred to, cattle and sheep, the skins and furs of wild animals, wild beasts themselves for the Eoman games, hunting dogs, and a large number of slaves. Kentish oysters were also known in Rome. Most of tfie ordinary clothing and textile fabrics for domestic use were made in the island itself, 1 and so too were the coarser kinds of pottery, and great quantities of bricks and tiles. The imports consisted of a limited supply of the finer kinds of cloth and pottery for the use of the upper classes, of wine, and ivory, amber, and all kinds of metallic ornaments. 2 Exports were almost certainly in excess of imports, since, like all provinces sub- ject to the Roman rule, Britain had to pay heavy taxes to its conquerors. These included the tributum, or property and income-tax ; the annona, a fixed quantity of corn for the Roman armies in Britain and on the Continent ; and portoria, or import duties. 8 The collection of the last- named was made at the harbours with which our coasts abounded, 4 though the fact that these harbours were so numerous, and the ships of that time so light that they could run in almost anywhere, probably caused a large amount of smuggling. In this connection it should be noticed that many towns standing on rivers, now inac- cessible to our large ships, were used as ports for sea-going vessels, both in Roman and in mediaeval times. Such were Exeter, Lincoln, Nottingham, York, and a host of others. 6 The rivers themselves also formed natural highways into the interior, which were used far more then than now 6 in proportion to the amount of trade carried on. As regards the population, it is impossible to form an exact estimate. Caesar 7 speaks of " an infinite number of people" as living 1 They also knew how to dye these in purple, scarlet, and other colours. Pliny, Hist. Nat., xvi. 8 ; xxii. 26. 2 The Britons were very fond of these, using brass and iron, if they could not get gold. Social England, vol. i. p. 103. * F. T. Richards in Social England, vol. i. p. 21. A five per cent, legacy duty was also levied on those who had the Roman franchise. 4 Euminius, Pan. Constant., c. 11. and cf. "Innumerable ports, some since silted up and forgotten, some perhaps buried in the German Ocean." Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 153. 6 Social England, vol. i. p. 205. Of. examples of their use in Continental traffic in my Commerce in Europe, 68, 69, and cf. 26. 7 Caesar, B. G., vi. 12. ROMAN BRITAIN 33 in the south-east, and the story of the sack of Verulamium, when 70,000 Romans are said to have been massacred, 1 although the number is probably exaggerated, yet shows that the towns at least were populous. The condition of agriculture and trade also, which was more flourishing than it became for some time after the Saxon conquests, would lead us to suppose a fairly numerous population, though the unreclaimed and wooded nature of much of the country prevented it fn,m being by any means dense. But, on the whole, it was a fairly flourishing province and people on which the Saxons descended, 1 Tacitus, Ann., xiv. 33. CHAPTER III THE SAXON PERIOD 18. The Saxon Invasions. THE development of Roman Britain, after proceeding for three and a half centuries, was gradually checked by the weakness of the Roman power. As everyone knows, Rome had in the fifth century enough to do in defending the Continental portions of her empire without troubling about an outlying province like Britain. The Romans were compelled to leave Britain to its fate, and their legions had to quit its shores. But years before they went the Eastern and South- Eastern coast of the island had been harried by pirates of Teutonic race, " the second wave ot the Aryans," and a special officer had to be appointed to keep them in check. He was known as the Count (Conies) of the Saxon shore, 1 and had command of a squadron and a line of nine forts extending from Brancaster on the Wash to Pevensey on the coast of Sussex. Besides these Saxon pirates, the Picts and Scots raided the country, venturing on one occasion (368 A.D.) as far south as the banks of the Thames, and, thus harassed both by sea and land, the un- fortunate Britons might well cry out, " The barbarians drive us to the sea ; the sea to the barbarians ; we are massacred or must be drowned." In course of time the barbarians conquered the country, The conquest was the result not of one but of a series of invasions and expeditions, which, beginning at first as mere piratical raids, assumed by the middle of the fifth century the more serious aspect of victorious colonisation and mi- gration. 2 Into the details of that conquest we have not time to go, but it has been picturesquely and minutely 1 I.e., the shore infested by the Saxon pirates, not that colonised by the Saxons, as some think. Cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. , I. c. iv. p. 19, and Free- man, Norman Conquest, I. p. 11. 2 Stubbs, Count. Hist., I. iv. p. 59. THE SAXON PERIOD 35 described by the graphic author of the Making of England, It is, however, interesting to note that the expeditions of the Saxon invaders were, as much perhaps from the nature of the country as from the manner of their inception, inde- pendent and separate one from the other. When the " East Saxons " landed in Essex, proceeding as they did up the valleys of the Colne and Stour, they found a junction with the invaders of Kent (even had they wished one) blocked by a gigantic forest, which prevented further progress south- ward. 1 But, leaving the manner and details of the con- quest to others, it is of prime importance to the economic historian to discover how far the Saxons destroyed or left undisturbed the inhabitants of the conquered country. Here we come at once to disputed ground. Some have thought that they practically made a clean sweep of all the institu- tions, both Roman and British, which they found, and began history afresh with Teutonic customs and manners both in political and industrial life. 2 " The Britons fled from their homes; 8 whom the sword spared famine and pestilence devoured : the few that remained either refused or failed altogether to civilise the conquerors." This view is based upon the exaggerated statements of mere ecclesi- astical historians like Bede and Gildas, who had a natural prejudice against the heathen Saxons, and wished to draw a dark picture of the sufferings of their church. It is adopted also by those who like to make picturesque generalisations from striking but insufficient data, and who take the utter devastation of places like Andredes-Ceaster as typical of '^hat happened to the whole country. 4 A truer view is that which, while admitting the disappearance of many of the upper class, the Romans and Romanised Britons, infers from a number of very different facts the survival 'of the great mass of the British population. " The common belief that the Celtic population of Britain was exterminated or driven into Wales and Brittany by the Saxons has absolutely no 1 Epping and Hainault forests are its relics now. Cf. Airy, Hist, oj Eng.y p. 9. 2 So Stubbs, I. iv. p. 61, who heads one paragraph "general desolation." * 76. 4 So Green, whose judgment seems here at fault, Short History, pp. 10, 11 ; and his numerous followers e.g., Airy, Hist. ofEng., p. 10. 36 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND foundation in history " ; l and the great Gibbon, fully as he describes the havoc wrought by the Saxons in art, religion, and political institutions, carefully points out that this does not imply the extirpation of the subject population itself. " Neither reason nor facts/' he says, " can justify the un- natural supposition that the Saxons of Britain remained alone in the desert which they had subdued. After the sanguinary barbarians had secured their dominion, it was their interest to preserve the peasants as well as the cattle of the unresisting country. In each successive revolution the patient herd becomes the property of its new masters, and the salutary compact of food and labour is silently ratified by their mutual necessities." 2 Or, as a less cele- brated author concisely puts it, the object of the Saxon invaders was not " to settle in a desert, but to live at ease, as an aristocracy of soldiers, drawing rent from a peaceful population of tenants." s and we may add, as time went on, assisting in the calm pursuits of peace themselves. The facts of archaeology, ethnology, and language, to some of which we have already referred, and the curious survivals and customs of the manorial system, to which we shall come presently, bear out this supposition. It is certain, for instance, that there is a large proportion of Celtic and pre- Celtic blood in the population even of the east of England as well as of the west, and the English language itself, which has been called " the tongue of one people spoken by another," is regarded by some as further confirmatory evidence. 4 Women and slaves were sure to have been kept alive rather 1 Pearson, Hist, of Eng., I. p. 99. 2 Decline and Fall, ch. xxxviii. ' Pearson, Hist, of Eng., I. p. 101. Cf. also Ashley (preface to F. de Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. 32.), "the destruction of Roman or Romanised landowwers is not inconsistent with the undisturbed residence upon the rural estates of the great body of actual labourers." 4 F. York Powell in Social England, Vol. I. p. 132. On the other hand, Prof. Cunningham, Growth of Industry, etc., Vol. I. p. 60, thinks there must have been "a general displacement of population to allow of the introduction of a new speech " ; but there are plenty of historical cases to prove the contrary. There is no general law regulating the survival of languages ; sometimes that of the conqueror, sometimes that of the con- quered prevails. Cf. Walpole, Land of Howe Rule, p. 76, and Taylor, Origin of the Aryans, p. 209. The Celtic language did not prevail in France, though the Celtic race has remained. The destruction of the THE SAXON PERIOD 37 than uselessly massacred ; and, in fact, we may readily believe that the land was continuously tilled " in the same fashion and chiefly by people of the same stock " from the time when the Romans came, or before it, till the close of the middle ages and the more modern changes in agriculture. 1 It has been well observed that whereas the Roman settler always remained outside the life of the British village com- munity, the Saxon forced his way into it, 2 and the whole development of English social and industrial history is dominated by this fact the intrusion of a conquering element into a conquered community. 3 Thus the manor, as we shall see, presents to us two main elements, the seigneurial and communal, the relations of tenants to their lord and to each other. The only difficulty is to distinguish the origin of each. 19. The Saxon Village and its Inhabitants. For the present, let us glance at the inhabitants of the ordinary English village as we find them much later when the struggles of invader and invaded have ceased, and both are living peacefully together. It is at the village that we must look, not at the town, for the Saxon disliked urban life and was essentially a dweller in villages. The divisions of its inhabitants have been admirably summarised by Mr York Powell * in the following manner : First came the gentry, including the thegen (landlord or " squire ") and parish priest. The thegen lived on his own land and paid for it by special duties to the king, to whose following (comitatus) he belonged ; the priest also lived on the land i.e., the glebe with which his patron (probably the thegen) had endowed the village church. Next came the farmer-class of yeomen or geneats, corresponding to Christian religion, on which, with others, Freeman and Cunningham also rely to prove the disappearance of the pre-Saxon population, means very little. Nothing is more frequent than change of religion by half-civilised peoples, as witness the triumphs of Islam, while, on the other hand, the Christian Church in Roman Britain was only the religion of the few, and the extent of its influence has been greatly exaggerated by the interested statements of ecclesiastical historians. 1 York Powell, ut supra. 2 Gomme, Village Community, pp. 41, 60, 147. 3 Cf. Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 303, who implies this, though not in so many wordi. 4 Social England, Vol. I. p. 124. 38 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND tenant-farmers, freemen who farmed their own land, or perhaps farmed their lord's, working for the landlord as wel) as paying rent to him. Thirdly came the peasant class of cotsetlas, or cottagers, and geburs or copyholders, the former being labourers with five acres of land to support them instead of receiving wages, and the latter copyholders bound to heavy services or " task- work " for their lord. The fourth class were the labourers, -such as herdsmen, barnkeepers, and woodwards, who were serfs, and were paid partly in food and clothes, and partly, if they were village officials, by certain perquisites and dues. Distinct from them were the free village tradesmen, such as the hunter, fowler, smith, carpenter, potter, pedlar, and travelling merchants, 1 who either took service under a lord or pur- sued their occupation independently. We have, therefore, here several classes whom we may classify as follow : I. Gentry (" of gentle rank "), including (1) the thegen, (2) the priest. II. Freemen, including (1) the geneat, and (2) the tradesmen. III. Unfree men, including (1) the cotsetla, (2) the gebur, (3) the labourers and serfs. To which we should add, as quite distinct from the others, the small class of slaves (not serfs), such as the women-servants and menials about the house of the squire or yeoman. These formed a small, and, as time went on, a diminishing class, though for centuries the export trade in slaves was a dismal feature of English commerce. 20. Village Life. The life of the villages was very much the same in Anglo-Saxon times as it has always been in agricultural districts, and must, in its broad features, always continue to be. We need only make allowances for differences of degree in agricultural progress. It is very fully pictured to us in the illuminated manuscripts of the period, and in 1 Those, of course, had their houses in some town, but travelled from village to village selling their wares. THE SAXON PERIOD 39 the Bayeux tapestry. The early part of the year was taken up with ploughing, digging, and sowing, and the approach of the lamhing season ; then came the hay and grain harvest and sheep-shearing ; while the autumn brought with it extensive preparations for winter in the way of killing and salting cattle for food in the winter months and storing wood for fires. During the winter itself threshing and winnowing went on, and most of the smith's and carpenter's work was postponed till then, while in the houses the women were busy weaving and making rough and homely garments for their men. The most noticeable features in rural life from these early times right up to the sixteenth century, and even later, were the absence of ^vinter roots for cattle, and of coal for their masters. Roots, and even carrots and parsnips, were then unknown to the farmer, 1 and it was consequently impos- sible for him to keep his cattle through the cold weather. Hence they had to be killed and salted, and could never attain to the excellence of our modern breeds. The absence of coal involved the use of large quantities of firewood in our cold climate, and hence there was a continual and in- creasing encroachment upon the forests. Fish and game were fortunately plentiful, and helped to relieve the monotony of salt meat, and eels were a very favourite food, 2 being found in greater numbers then than now owing to the numerous fens and marshes that occupied so many districts. Though it was impossible to keep cattle in any great numbers through the winter, oxen were used for ploughing, and also for food, and sheep were valued for their wool, which, " from the earliest records," formed an article of export to Flanders, 3 and was afterw^jfe much more largely produced. Large numbers of swine were kept, 4 since the rearing and maintenance of these was far more economical than that of cattle, as they could feed on 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 78. 2 So much so that rent was often paid by a stipulated quantity of eels. Social England, Vol. I. p. 207. *Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 78, and see also Macpherson, i. 288. * P. H. Newman in Social England, Vol. I. p. 213, and see the illumina- tion in the Cottonian MSS. 40 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND the acorns and beech-mast found in unlimited quantities in the forests. " Pannage^" or food for swine, is frequently mentioned in Domesday, being given as for over thirty thousand hogs in Hertfordshire and over ninety thousand in Essex. Beekeeping was an important industry, the honey being used both for mead and flavouring. 1 21. Methods of Cultivation. As regards agriculture, it is noticeable that at one time extensive culture was common, 2 as at Lauder, 3 but it gradually was given up in favour of the intensive system. Special fields were set apart for cultivation in common as permanent arable land on the open field system, and numerous survivals thereof are found in England even to the present day, as at Laxton in Notts, in Cambridgeshire, and elsewhere. 4 Both the two-field and the three-field system were employed, one field lying fallow and the other being under crop according to the former method, while, under the latter, two out of three fields were under crops and the third lay fallow. 5 Though the two-field system, or a modified form of it, 6 was not uncommon, the three- field one became eventually more usual. The crops grown included wheat, rye, oats, and barley, with beans and pease. The fields were not enclosed, except by temporary fences, which were removed after harvest so that the cattle might feed, and strips of land belonging to various owners and tenants lay intermingled 7 with those occupied by the others, being only marked off by " balks " of untilled land. A villein generally possessed a pair of oxen along with his holding, but probably the various small tenants combined their teams in order to do their ploughing more effectively, 8 the normal team being, as we saw, of eight oxen, 9 Most of the operations of agriculture were performed in common, 1 York Powell, Soc. Eng., Vol. I. p. 124 ; for swine, c/. ib., p. 213. 2 Cunningham, i. p. 20. 3 So Cunningham, butc/. Gomme, V. C., p. 150. 4 Seebohm, Village Community, 1-13. 5 See the diagram and explanation in Cunningham, i. 71. At least in Germany, c/. Hanssen, Agrarhist. Abh., i. 178. In some districts of England also both systems existed side by side. 7 Laws oflne, 42 (Thorpe, i. 129). 8 Cunningham, i. 73. 'Seebohm, V. C., p. 388. THE SAXON PERIOD 41 or by men whom the village community as a whole paid, or rather supported, and who did certain work, such as thatching, swine-herding, or ploughing, in return for their keep. 1 This common system of agriculture naturally pro- duced only poor results, and prevented improvement by individual enterprise, but it sufficed for the simple re- quirements of those days, and was in harmony with the economic ideas of the age. 22. Isolation of Villages. Crafts and Trades. Each of the separate communities living in these villages, or in the small towns that were now growing up, 2 was on the whole very much cut off from its neighbours. Partly because of the disunion and conflicts that for many years prevailed among^the various Saxon conquerors, and partly owing to the difficulties of intercommunication when the Roman roads were no longer kept up, and from many other causes, the villages were very much disinclined for mutual intercourse, and endeavoured to be, as far as possible, each a self-sufficing economic unit, obtaining their food and clothing, coarse and rough though it generally was, from their own flocks and herds and from their own land. Hence only the simplest arts and domestic manufactures were carried on by the people at large, such as the crafts of the iron and coppersmith, the shoemaker, and the carpenter. It is, however, proper to notice the important part which the monasteries played as centres of industrial life. The larger monasteries, such as those of St Edmunds or Glastonbury, were great industrial centres, 3 and it was the monks, or the foreign workmen introduced by them, who brought to a high degree of perfection the arts of embroidery and weaving, and of glass and metal work for ornamental purposes. 4 St. Dunstan, 6 among others, is said to have encouraged metal work. But the great mass of the people cared little for such arts. 1 Cunningham quotes instances from Saxon and Welsh sources on p. 74 of vol i., Growth of English Industry. 2 On the growth of towns, see later, p. 86 et seq. 3 A. L. Smith in Social England, Vol. I. p. 207. 4 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 78. 5 Will, of Malm., Vita S. Dumtani, ch. ix. p. 262 ; Stubba' Memorial* of St Dunstan (ed. 1874). 42 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND But however strongly a community may desire or feel it necessary to be self-sufficing, it can never be so entirely. Differences of soil, of mineral wealth, and of other advantages cause one community to lack that which another has in abundance. Salt, for instance, was very largely in request (as we have seen) for salting meat for winter use, and some idea of the importance of the salt manufacture of that period may be obtained from the fact that in six shires no less than 727 salt works are named in Domesday as paying rent to their lords. But it cannot be universally procured in England, any more than iron and other necessaries of life. Hence internal trade, however limited, was still sure to arise, and we find evidence of its recognised existence in the laws of Ine, 1 which require that "chapmen" should trade before witnesses. This proves the existence of a dis- tinct class of traders, and it is also certain that local markets likewise existed. At first these were always held on the neutral boundaries between the territories of two or more villages or communities, 2 the place of the market being marked by a boundary stone, the origin of the later " market cross." Sunday seems to have been the usual market day, till the influence of the church altered it to Saturday. 3 Sometimes also, besides these local markets, larger ones were held at stated times during the year in well- known localities, and the shrines of saints were among the most frequented spots for this purpose. These fixed markets often developed into towns. Thus the origin of Glasgow may be traced to the fair held at the shrine of St Ninian (570 A.D.), 4 and many other instances of the religious origin, not only of fairs but also of towns themselves, might thus be quoted. These markets were productive of great revenue to the lord of the manor in which they were held ; that at Taunton 6 brought in 1 Lawt> oj Ine, 25 ; Thorpe, i. 118. 2 A good example of this is Moretoa-in -Marsh, an ancient market town situated on the boundaries of the four counties of Oxford, Gloucester, Worcester, and Warwick. The fact is recorded by a stone, known as the "four shires' stone," and situated about a mile from the present town along the London road. * Craik, British Commerce, i. 74. 4 Cunningham, i. 90. For Taunton market dues, c/. Thorpe, Dip. Ang. t 235; and Social England, i. 208- THE SAXON PERIOD 43 2, 10s. a year in fees, and that at Bedford 7, and we shall have occasion to mention them as factors in the growth ot towns in another chapter (pp. 87, 89). It seems that in the early days of the Saxon settlement, trade at the markets and fairs was largely carried on by simple bartering of commodities. Mere barter, however, is tedious and cumbersome ; and although up to a late period of the Saxon settlement a large proportion, though not the whole, of English trade proceeded in this fashion, 1 the use of coined money for the purposes of exchange became common jn- the ainth ee^fctiry, while in 900 A.D. regular money payments are recorded as being made by tenants to their landlords. 2 And when we come to the levy of Danegeld (9&1 A.D.), it is clear from the very imposition 'of such a tax that metallic money must have been widelj diffused and in general circulation./ 23. Foreign Commerce and the Danes. **\ Trade of all kinds had suffered a severe blow when the Romans quitted Britain, but even during the Saxon period English merchants still carried on a certain, though limited, amount of foreign commerce. This commerce was greatly stimulated by the Danish invasions and settlements. It is a curious fact that so many of the names of towns and places on our coast have Scandinavian forms, as e.g., those terminating in -ness, -vick, and -by, and it is said to show that our maritime trade, not only in the Danish dis- tricts, but even outside them, was mainly in the hands of northern traders. 3 But this is not surprising when we remember that the Danes, before ever they came to England, were most enterprising navigators, as is shown by their very early commerce with Russia and the East, 4 their colonisation of Iceland (874 A.D.), and their discoveries of Greenland (985 A.D.) and the east coast of North America. 6 1 Of. Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 83, 84. Slaves and cattle were used as media of exchange. 2 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 112. * The point is noted by A. L. Smith in Social England, i. p. 201. 4 Cunningham, i. 84. *Cf. fully Mallet's Northern Antiquities, ch. ix., and the supplementary chapter in Bohn'a edition, p. 244. 44 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND Though they were cruel and savage pirates, they were traders also, and, when they had settled down, as they did in such large numbers in the North and East of England, 1 they formed an active industrial and mercantile population, and often became merchants of great importance. To the Danes also we may trace the beginnings of some of our towns, 2 since their merchants required fixed centres for their commerce. " The Danes and Northmen," says Professor Cunningham, 8 "were the leading merchants, and hence it was under Danish and Norse influences that the villages [which afterwards became towns] were planted at centres suitable for com- merce, or that well-placed villages received a new develop- ment." Besides this they were instrumental in causing English trade to develope with the North of Europe, and, generally speaking, gave a needed stimulus to navigation, which the Saxons for some unaccountable reason neglected as soon as they settled down in England. A sign of their influence is seen in the " doom " or decree, probably of the tenth century, which provided that " if a merchant thrived so that he fared thrice over the sea by his own means, then was he of thegen-right worthy " 4 and this thegen-right gave him a comparatively high rank. The settlement of German 1 Their presence is still so clearly perceptible in the place-names, pro- vincial words, and the physique of the population of these districts, that we need not further enlarge upon the abiding nature of their influence. It will be sufficient to note briefly the extent of the ' ' Danelagh " (ac given by F. York Powell, Soc. Eng., i. p. 145). Middlesex and Essex, Saxon land chiefly settled by Danes. Norfolk and Suffolk, East English land do. do. Bucks, Northants, \ Land of the English of the March, Herts, Beds, > settled chiefly by Danes, but also by Cambs, Hunts, ) Northmen. ' ' Derby ' Notts' \. ^ an( ^ * the English of the March, settled Stamford district,' j chiefly by Northmen. Yorks and part of Durham, North English land settled chiefly by Northmen. 2 The five Danish boroughs of Derby, Nottingham, Lincoln Leicester, and Stamford had a most complete municipal constitution. 8 English Industry and Commerce, i. 88. 4 Ranks, 6 ; Thorpe, i. 193. It was probably passed in Athehtan's reign, Craik, i. 66. THE SAXON PERIOD 45 merchants in London, 1 pointing to an increasing continental traffic, also dates from the time of Ethelred the Unready (about 1000 A.D.). Much of this foreign trade, such as it was, and it certainly was not very great, lay in the quantities of precious metals and stuff for embroideries which were imported for use in the monasteries (p. 41). A good list of such imports is given by the merchant who is supposed to speak in ^Elfric's Saxon Dialogues. 2 He mentions purple, silk, gems, ivory, gold, dyed stuffs, dyes, wine, oil, brass, tin, glass, and sulphur ; while the dangers of the foreign traders calling are pithily expressed in his remark, that "sometimes I suffer shipwreck with the loss of all my goods, scarcely escaping myself/' Besides the imports mentioned here we may add furs and skins (which came gradually to be im- ported instead of exported, as wild animals died out in England), weapons of war, and iron -work. The exports which were exchanged for these were chiefly raw products, including wool which afterwards became more and more important cattle, and horses, 8 with tin, lead, and possibly iron. There was a very large export trade in slaves, and their prices are recorded in the laws of the period. 4 Bristol was a great centre of this sad traffic, 5 and remained so till the twelfth century, and English and Danish slaves formed an important merchandise in the markets of Germany. The devout Gytha, Earl Godwin's wife, is said to have shipped whole gangs, especially of young and pretty women, for sale in Denmark. 6 As in many modern instances, her piety was not allowed to prejudice her pocket. As regards the travels of English merchants, we know that they went as far as Marseilles, and frequented the great French fairs of Rouen and St Denis 7 in the ninth century ; while, rather earlier, we have a most interesting document, our 1 Craik, Hist. Brit. Comm., i. 68. 2 See Thorpe, Analecta Anglo-Saxonica, p. 101. 3 These are mentioned in a law of Athelstan, Craik, i. 71. 4 Leges Wallice, II. xvii. 30, 31, and II. xxii. 13. The price was one pound of silver, or a pound and a half " if brought from across the sea." B William of Malmesbury, Vita Wlfstani, ii. 20, and Craik, i. 71. Pearson, Hist, of Eng., i. 287. 7 Cunningham, i. 80. 46 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND first treaty of commerce in fact, 1 dated 796 A.D., by which Karl the Great, or Charlemagne, as he is sometimes called, grants protection to certain English traders from Mercia, In King Alfred's days, one English bishop is said to have "penetrated prosperously" as far as India, 2 bearing the King's gifts to the shrine of St Thomas, on the Malabar coast, but this is an isolated case, and though Alfred tried to encourage navigation by his care for the navy, 3 and by his interest in the adventurous voyages of Othere and Wulfstan, 4 the fact remains that foreign merchants, includ- ing Jews, 5 came to England in greater numbers than the English ventured abroad. 24. Summary of Trade and Industry in the Saxon Period. Taking a general survey of the period between the Saxon and the Norman conquests, we see that crafts and manu- factures were few and simple, being limited as far as possible to separate and isolated communities. The fine arts, and works in metal and embroideries, were confined to the monasteries, which also imported them. The immense mineral wealth of the island in iron and coal was practically untouched. Trade, both internal and foreign, was small, though it developed as the country became more peaceful and united. The great mass of the population was engaged in agriculture, and every man had, so to speak, a stake in the land and belonged to a manor or an overlord. A landless man was altogether outside the pale of social life. Land, in fact, was the basis of everything, 6 and it is for this reason that it is so important to understand the conditions of tenure and the whole land system of that age. Hence we must occupy a short time in the discussion of the origin of the manorial system, which at the close of the Saxon period we find in force throughout the country. 1 Haddan and Stubbs, Councils, iii. 496. 2 So William of Malmesbury, Gesta Pontif., ii. 80. Cf. Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 65. * In his Orosiut. 6 Craik, British Commerce, i. 63, 64. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. v. pp. 74, 79. CHAPTER IV THE MANOR AND THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 25. The Interest of the Question as to the Origin of the Manor. THE question of the origin of the English manor, however abstract and academic it may at first appear, is in reality one of the most interesting of all social topics. When the manor is clearly distinguished as a social factor in the historical period, it always involves two elements the seigneurial and tlie communal, the lord on the one hand, and on the other his dependants, who do their work and hold their land in common. The question, therefore, at once arises as to which of these two elements is the older ? Is the manor the result of the subjection of an originally free community to an overlord, or was there always, even in the beginnings of social life, a dependent and servile population who tilled the land for the benefit of others ? According as history decides one way or the other, it will influence our views on the land question in general, including the discussions even of the present day. From one point of view we shall be inclined to think that the present system of private property in land is the system which, in one form or another, has existed from the beginning, and is the outcome of social forces which have their justification in the earliest pages of history. From another point of view we may hold that property in land did not exist at all in early times, but that the land was held in common for the good of all, while the ownership of it was vested only in the nation, so that the present system of private owner- ship is the degenerate outcome of centuries of appropriation of common property by individuals, whose title to it was in many cases more or less doubtful. Hence reformers like Henry George maintain that we ought to revert to common ownership of land as being the only natural condition and 47 48 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND basis of social and economic life, though, on the other hand, so great an authority as Sir Henry Maine has declared that the change from common to private ownership is the sign of an advancing civilisation. Whatever view we hold, it is obvious that the question of the origin of the manor and of property in land is of more than usual interest. 26. The Mark Theory and the Manor. During the present century, owing to the valuable labours of a number of German and English historians, 1 some writers have come to the conclusion (though it is much disputed) that in very early times, before the Germanic tribes, after- wards called English, had crossed over to England, or per- haps even before they had settled down in Europe, all land was held in common by various communities. Each com- munity contained a few families, or possibly a whole tribe. The land occupied by this community had been cleared away from the original forests or wastes where they had settled, 2 and was separated from that of other communities by a boundary or mark, a name which in course of time came to be applied not to the boundary but to the land itself thus portioned off. 2 Within this mark was the primitive village or township, where each member of the community had his house, and where each had a common share in the land. This land was of three kinds : (1) The forest and waste land, from which the mark had been originally cleared, useful for rough natural pasture, but quite uncultivated ; (2) The pasture land, including, per- haps, meadows, 3 sometimes enclosed and sometimes open, in which each mark -man looked after his own hay, and stacked it for the winter. This land was sometimes divided into allot- ments for each member ; (3) The arable land, which also was divided into allotments for each mark-man. But a man's rights, whether in the allotments or in the common pastures and forests, were of the nature of usufruct only, his title to absolute ownership being merged in the general title of the 1 Including Kemble, K. Maurer, Stubbs, Freeman, Gneist, Maine, and especially G. F. von Maurer and Hanssen. For a careful summary of the views of each see VinogradofFs able Introduction in his Villeinage in England. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. p. 49, ch. iii., who gives a good summary of the mark system, 3 Stubbs, Const. Hist. , i. 49. THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 49 tribe, which, however, he of course shared with the rest. 1 To settle any question relating to the division or use of the land, such as the choice of the meadow, the rotation of crops, or the allotment of the shares of land, or to decide any other business of common importance, the members of the mark, or mark-men, met in a common council called the mark-moot 2 an institution of which relics are said to have survived for many centuries. 3 This council, and the mark generally, formed, it was said, the political, social, and economic unit of the early English tribes, but now this view is not supported by scholars, except as regards agri- cultural arrangements. The mark probably did not exist in the form just sketched out when these tribes first occupied England, though^there may have been some modification of it introduced. It had probably already undergone consider- able transformation towards what is called the manorial system and private ownership. 4 But those who hold the mark theory maintain that many traces of it still remain even now. Our commons, 5 still numerous in spite of hundreds of enclosures, the manorial courts, 6 and the names of places ending in -ing a termination which implies a family settlement 7 are evidences which remain among us even at the close of the nineteenth century. And, of course, it is to the mark system that the communal element in our early and mediaeval English agriculture is supposed to be due. 27. Criticisms of the Mark Theory. Leaving for the moment the consideration of the truth or inaccuracy of the mark theory, we find, at any rate at the time when the Saxon settlement in England had been com- pleted, that a very different system prevailed, namely, the manorial system. The word " manor " is a Norman word for the Saxon " township " or community, 8 and it differs 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. p. 49. 2 Stubbs, i. p. 51. The word mearemot (found A.D. 971) was instanced by Kemble, but Anglo-Saxon scholars do not think that mark in this con- nexion means more than a "boundary." Cf. Earle, Land Charters, p. 45. 3 Stubbs, p. 84. * /&., p. 75. 5 Ib., p. 84. Ib. 7 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. v. p. 81 ; Taylor, Words and Places, 132. 8 So Ordericus Vitalis, iv. 7: see Stubbs, Const. Hi&t., I. ch. v. p. 89, and ch. ix. p. 273. 50 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND from the mark in that the mark was a group of house- holds or persons organised and governed on a communal and democratic basis, while in the manor we find an auto- cratic organisation and government, whereby a group of tenants (not independent " markmen ") acknowledge the superior position and authority of a " lord of the manor." The great feature of the manor is, in fact, this subjection to a lord, who owned absolutely a certain portion of the land therein and had rights of rent (paid in services, food, or money, or in all three) over the remainder. On the other hand the tenants had certain rights as against the lord, 1 but these and the questions connected with these we must leave till later. Such are the distinctive features of the mark and the manor. The point to be now considered is : how did the one result from the other ? It seems very probable that the manorial system must have been the result of conquest, but if so, who were the conquerors that imposed it upon their subjects ? Were they the Anglo-Saxons, or the Romans, or the pre-Roman invaders of Britain ? If the conquerors were the Saxons, then it follows that they them- selves had already developed beyond the mark system before they came to these islands. It was at one time thought that the manorial system grew up in the later periods of the Saxon conquest, but received the form, with which mediaeval documents make us familiar, only shortly before the Norman rule, and assumed many of its features under Norman influence. But it is now more generally accepted that the manorial system was in existence as the prevailing form of social organisation very soon after the Saxon invasion. 2 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, pp. 174, 176. 3 This is the net result of Mr Seebohm's valuable labours. He thinks that the Roman villa presents all the essential features of an English manor, and thus implies that the Saxon lords of the manors merely stepped into the shoes of their Roman predecessors. In an essay more recent than his book on the Village Community, he seems inclined to ante-date the feudal side of the manorial system still further. "The British village community was already a good deal feudalised " before the Saxon conquest ; possibly (under the influence of Belgic Gauls of the S.E.) even before the Roman conquest. See his valuable critique of VinogradofT in the English Historical Review, Vol. VII. , No. 27 (July 1892). THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 51 Certainly we have hardly any satisfactory evidence of the mark itself in England, though, as we noted just above, survivals of its influence are found. And, indeed, many authorities of great weight have gone so far as to deny that the mark ever had any existence, whether in England or Europe, except in the mistaken theories of Teutonic historians. Those who reject the mark theory do so largely because they argue that the servile and depen- dent cultivators of the manorial system lead / us back, not to an originally free, but to an originally servile population. They deny that the communal element is ever seen where it can be proved that the cultivating group are proprietors ; it is only found among dependants or tenants, not among free men. "-'Where the cultivating group are in any real sense proprietors they have no corporate character, and where they have a corporate character they are not pro- prietors." l They combat, moreover, the very facts and quotations from ancient writers upon which advocates of the mark theory base their inferences. Apart from the powerful work of Mr F. Seebohm in his Village Community, perhaps the most concise and certainly the most violent attack upon the holders of the mark theory is that made by Fustel de Coulanges in his essay on the Origin of Property in Land? He first challenges the meaning given to certain passages of Caesar and Tacitus 8 by G. F. von Maurer, and then tries to show that in early German law mark means " a boundary " primarily, and secondly a piece of private property, and that private property in land 1 W. J. Ashley, criticising Maine in Note A to hia own Introduction to F. de Coulanges' Origin of Property in Land, p. xlvii. 2 It first appeared in Revue des Questions Historiquts, April 1889, and is published separately in English in Mr Ashley's translation above referred to. 3 The main passages are Csesar, B, G., vi. 21-23, and Tacitus, Germ., c. 26, upon which e.g. our English authority Stubbs bases his remarks in Const. Hist., I. c. ii. But it seems to me that de Coulanges, although he makes out a good case against von Maurer on some points, emphasises unduly Caesar's words cogunt, compel, and principes, chiefs, in saying they mean "chiefs arbitrarily disposing of the soil of which alone they are owners." But in their natural sense the words merely imply that the people fall in with the arrangements made by their "chief men," and for all we know, the people may merely have deputed certain chief men to carry out the customary division of land desired by the community. 52 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND was the assumption upon which all early German law is based. But M. de Coulanges' criticisms, valuable as they are, do not disprove altogether the existence of some form of common ownership of land in the remoter periods of Teutonic or of British history ; for the proof of this common owner- ship lies more in survivals and customs 1 than in stray references in legal documents. And Professor Lamprecht, a follower of von Maurer, was quite right in pointing out s that nothing depends on the word " mark " itself. It matters very little after all whether we find the word in documents or not ; it even matters very little whether the mark ever existed as it is depicted by von Maurer or Stubbs. The fact remains that there are extensive evidences of communal ownership (as well as tenancy) in English manors, and these evidences point back to a state of things which the theory of private property in land and a dependent body of cultivators in the earliest times cannot satisfactorily explain. 28. Vinogradofs Evidence on the Manorial System. The most recent, and certainly one of the most learned, investigators of this difficult question has concluded, as the result of his researches, that " the communal organisa- tion of the peasantry is more ancient and more deeply laid than the manorial order. Even the feudal period shows everywhere traces of a peasant class living and working in economically self-dependent communities under the loose authority of a lord, whose claims may proceed from political sources, and affect the semblance of ownership, but do not give rise to the manorial connection between estate and village." 8 The so-called manorial system con- sists in the peculiar connection of two entirely distinct agrarian bodies or parties 4 the community of villagers cultivating their own fields, and the home-estate (some- times loosely called the demesne) of the lord " tacked on to " this settlement. This expression " tacked on " gives the key to the solution of the question. The manorial 1 As shown e.g., in Gomme's Village Community. 3 In Le Moyen Age, June 1889, p. 131. 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, pp. 408, 409. * Ib. t p. 404. THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 53 system, as we find in late Saxon and Norman times, contains a seigneurial element which has evidently been superimposed upon an originally communal element. Originally there was an independent village community (whether living exactly according to the " mark " system or not does not matter), but in later times we find a dependent community working for a home-farm, which is the lord's. How did the independent community become subject to this lord ? The holders of the older " mark " theory seem to have supposed that the subjection was due to political and social causes gradually enhancing the power of some local man of note or authority. " The relation of dependence on a lord may have been entered into by a free landowner for the sake of honour or pro- tection " ; x and there are abundant evidences of this "commendation "*- of weaker men to those who were politically and socially more powerful 2 though, as a matter of fact, the practice was generally the result of the police organisation, not of the land system. 3 " The man who had land judged the man who had not," 4 and there was a constant assimilation going on between the really servile dependents of a lord and the smaller landowners. But however the practice of commendation arose, it undoubtedly had great effect in reducing the originally free status of many of the smaller landowners. At the same time, the main features of the manorial subjection to a lord are probably due more to the influence of conquest than to that of social or judicial requirements, though these latter cannot be neglected or minimised. The number of servile dependents is too large to be accounted for by peaceful influences. Moreover, it has been till recently overlooked that in many cases the services rendered by dependants were rendered not to a lord living on a home farm, but to one living at some considerable distance. 6 This is specially 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. , vol. I. ch. v. p. 79 ; cf. also p. 273. 2 Especially in Domesday ; see Ellis, Introd. to Domesday, i. 64-66. 8 Stubbs, ut ante, p. 79, note, and p. 189. 4 76., p. 189. The landless man was compelled to choose a lord for his surety and protector, ib. . p. 153. 6 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 405. 54 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND the case in the furnishing of provisions for the lord's table and other wants, for we constantly find that provisions were sent by the dependents to a castle a long way off. There is also the matter of the firma unius noctis, 1 as it is called, the payment of " provisions for one night " made to the king's household by a borough or village, which seems to point to a community " standing entirely by itself and taxed to a certain tribute, without any superior land-estate necessarily engrafted upon it." Vinogradoff thinks this implies an over-lordship exacting tribute, but not the close manorial relationships which we see under a later system. Again, the fact that the lord's demesne land is often found in strips, mixed up with the strips of the peasantry (p. 8 2), seems also to imply a time when the tenants or subject class did not collect to work for the lord upon a separate home farm, as we find them doing later, but merely devoted one part of their labour upon their own ground in the common fields to the use and payment of the lord. 2 This shows an intermediate stage between the tribute paid by a practically self-dependent community (as in the case of the firma unius noctis) and the services rendered when the village was linked more closely with a manorial estate. 8 Once again, we note the existence of a special class of servants 4 " who collect and supervise the dues and services of the peasants " in early times, but who are not to be found so frequently in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, when the number of " home farms " was becoming greater. Besides these special servants (radmen, rodknights or riding- bailiffs), we also note that in many cases the " free " tenants or socmen (see p. 75) have a kind of supervision over the rest while they are doing some of the services for the lord, and their position indicates that, though the village is already set to work for the lord, it manages this work as much as possible by itself as a self-dependent community. 5 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 405, and see Pearson, Hist, of Eng., vol. I., Appx. D. Thus the community of Bad wen in Essex rendered a pay- ment of eight nights, Soham and Fordham in Cambs. gave three nights, and many other instances are found in Domesday. 2 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 406. lb., p. 406. 4 76., p. 407, 6 76., p. 407. THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 55 29. Evidence from Manorial Courts and Customs. All this seems to imply the subjection of originally free communities to an overlord, a subjection that proceeded first by reducing them to a more or less loose and tribute- paying relationship, and later by the introduction of a resident lord on a home farm (the demesne), or at least of a home farm superintended by a bailiff representing a lord. The internal constitution of the manor gives the strongest evidence for this original freedom. In the manorial courts (p. 80) the tenants were the jurors and suitors, while the lord or his steward was not the judge, but merely the recorder of their decisions. It was the suitors and jurors, the tenants in fact, who constituted the court and pro- nounced the judgments. 1 It was not till much later, under Norman influence, that the status of the tenants in their own courts became debased, and the lord or his bailiff was regarded as the judge. 2 Another very important piece of evidence, showing that ceremonies, which have been erroneously regarded as prov- ing the original servility of tenants prove in reality their original freedom, is the manorial form of surrender and admittance. When a tenant was admitted into his holding " in base tenure," the steward handed to him a rod. This was till lately thought to symbolise the lord's authority, but Vinogradoff shows 3 that, on the contrary, it was a survival of the old custom, requiring that important transactions should be performed before witnesses and a middleman, and that the steward had taken the place of the middleman and did not really represent the lord at all. 4 A case like this shows us at once how archaic are the constitutions and customs of the village community, and how easily, when these customs are no longer understood, they may be erroneously construed as evidences of seigneurial power. 1 Vinogradoff, Villeinage, p. 370. 3 It may be added that the village as a body frequently acts as an or- ganised community in disposing of rights connected with the soil. Of, the case of Brightwaltham, Vinogradoff, p. 359. s Villeinage, pp. 372, 373. 4 Of. Gomme, Vill. Comm., p. 191, who quotes a similar transference of a rod, or twig, in the Malmesbury village community. The twig here (as in the other cases mentioned by Vinogradoff) represents the land itself, certainly not a lord's authority. 56 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND 30. The " Customary " Tenants. The position of " free " tenants (p. 75) in the later manors is, again, a matter of some difficulty. It is as erroneous to imagine that at (say) the time of Domesday there was no intermediate grade between the lord and his serfs or villeins, as it is to hold that all the Saxons and those who came over with them were entirely free. In Domes- day we find traces of a large number of tenants of various degrees of freedom, and it is these traces, together with those derived from the legal procedure of the Norman period, that Vinogradoff has explained with masterly insight. It is now pretty evident that the classification of society into villeins and freedholders is comparatively late and artificial, 1 and that between these two distinct classes there was a third class, and a very large one, of " customary " 2 freeholders, who had originally formed the great mass of the peasantry. 3 The Anglo-Saxon world was ordered and governed by custom to an extent quite unappreciated by the Norman lawyer and surveyor, and hardly to be realised at all by Englishmen of the present day. But this " cus- tomary " life, and all that it implied, was perfectly well understood by the inhabitants of the village who lived under it. The villagers cared nothing for abstract legal definitions of tenure and status, though they all knew the conditions under which they and their forefathers held their land. But the Normans, with their fixed ideas of " free " and " unfree " tenancies, tried to reduce everyone into one of these two sharply-defined categories, 4 and hence it comes that " villeinage " must not be taken too literally as a clear definition of a tenant's status or tenure, but we must remember that it was really " a complex mould into which several heterogeneous elements had been fused." 6 Hence 1 Villeinage, pp. 132, 177. 1 The word custumarius is found in Rot. Hundred., ii. 422, 507a. * Vinogradoff, p. 220. 4 The fact that free men in Kent and on the Danish manors of Essex were all classed by Domesday as villani shows what mistakes the Normans made. Vinogradoff, p. 208. 6 Vinogradoff, p. 177 ; cf. also "The life of the villein is chiefly dependent on custom, which is the great characteristic ofmedicsval relations and which stands in sharp contrast with slavery on the one hand and freedom on the other." THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 5; it is certain that many men who in Domesday are classed as " villeins " were for all intents and purposes " free " men, who either merely rendered services, not always necessarily servile, as a condition of holding land, or who, in addition to holding perfectly free land, held also some other land in villeinage, and thus became confused altogether with villeins. There is little doubt that the free holdings in the manors represent, in many cases, free shares in a village community, upon which the manorial structure has been superimposed. 1 31. The Evidence of Village Communities, We have, therefore, many reasons for believing that the original condition of the subject manorial villages had been at an earlier period that of free communities. But if so, can we not find traces of such communities in England ? Were they all extinct at the time of Domesday ? Recent writers certainly incline to the belief that individually and collec- tively villeins were more free in Saxon than in Norman times, 2 but it has been stoutly denied 3 that there are any free village communities to be found later than the Norman conquest, or, indeed, previous to it. Only communities peopled by villeins are mentioned. But we have already seen that Domesday is an unsatisfactory guide in questions of status, 4 and there is good reason to doubt whether these villein communities were quite so devoid of freedom as the Norman surveyors described them. In the cases of Chippenham and Malmesbury, at least, Mr Gomme & gives very remarkable evidence of their being free communities in the time of Domesday, and much later also, and the various other instances which he quotes in his valuable work 6 certainly tend to prove very clearly, by their relics 1 Vinogradoff, p. 353. Cf. Bracton, De Leg., ch. xi. /. 7 (i. p. 53, ed. Twiss). Of course there were also other causes of free tenements, as e.g., commutation, but this is one cause which cannot be overlooked. 2 Vinogradoff, p. 135. 8 Seebohm, Village Comm., p. 103; Ashley, Econ. Hist., i. 18, and in his introd. to F. de Coulanges. 4 Vinogradoff, p. 208. 6 Village Comm., pp. 173-200, and see p. 195 specially for the quotation from Domesday. 6 See especially ch. vi. on " Tribal Communities in Britain," ch. vii. 58 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND and survivals, that, as Vinogradoff also concludes the free village community existed in these islands, as it did else- where, before the manorial system was superimposed or " tacked on to" it. 32. A Survey of the Origin of the Manor. Having come to this conclusion, which must necessarily influence any view which we take of the manorial system, we may now venture to set forth a comprehensive though brief survey of the origin of the village community, with its seigneurial and communal elements, which we find in historic times. This I do with considerable diffidence for I am well aware of the conflicting theories already pro- pounded but a review of the facts, placed in due per- spective and exhibiting an orderly development, may have its advantages. To begin with, we see, \, on looking back into the mists of prehistoric antiquity, that a large l oon- Ary^n population existed in these islands in the Neolithic stage of culture. They had already made some small advances in agriculture, and had passed, 2 or were rapidly passing, from the tribal 3 to the village community a transition 4 which is natural as the development of agri- culture necessitates a closer connection with the soil than the more or less unsettled tribal stage allows. Upon the state of society thus formed, or forming, descended succes- sive waves of Aryan invaders in the shape of the Celtic immigrants to Britain. At first, no doubt, the Aryan tribes, with the pride so characteristic of the earlier Aryan races, took but little jDart in. .the cultivation of the land, but jrjreferred to leave it to the conquered and subject IberiajQS^exercising only a loose overlordship over the more remote village_communities. 5 (This accounts for the sur- vival, centuries later, of the customs already mentioned, that Transitional types of the village community in Britain, ch. viii. The Final type ; also ch. iii. Methods of dealing with British evidence. 1 Boyd Dawkins, Early Man, pp. 290, 306. 2 Elton, Origins, p. 145. 8 Boyd Dawkins, Early Man, p. 272. * Cf. the similar transition from tribe to village in India ; Tupper, Punjab Customary Law, ii. p. 28. The tribal community persisted longer in Wales ; c/. Gomme, V. C., p. 63. 6 Gomme, V. C., p. 71. THE MANOR AND MANORIAL SYSTEM 59 suggest, even in the later manors, a much looser tie between lord and dependants than afterwards existed.) But as time went on we know that the Celtic invaders, especially the most recent of them (p. 13), themselves made very considerable progress in agriculture, and thus the agrarian bond between the subject and the conquering races became closer and closer. Then came the Roman occupation, but we have already seen that, after making full allowance for the undoubted extent of Roman influence in other direc- tions, its effect upon the village community and its agricul- ture can only have been on a level with our own influence upon the villages of India. W^enjhe Romans look. away their military and administrative forces, the Celtic and non- Aryan communities remained much as they had been before the Romans came. 1 Jhe Roman did not enter into the life of the village community as did Celt or Saxon. He was above it and not of it.:- But when_ the Saxons came, their influence was felt at once. Terrible as they were in their destruction of the upper classes, especially those of the towns, they did not seek to destroy the peasantry of the rural districts, 2 any more than the successive conquerors of India (who could be to the full as cruel as the Saxons ever were) have obliterated the villagers of the Punjab. 8 On the contrary, their own agrarian development (p. 39) was much the same as that of the land they invaded. The , therefore, certainly no check from this fresh invasion. What happened was that the Celt and Iberian were debased in status in some cases, where the conquerors made their first settlements, but were left in the remoter parts of the country pretty much as before, though with a continual tendency to fresh debase- ment as time went on and the conquest proceeded. They helped to form the large and mixed class of servile de- pendants whom we find later. The Saxons themselves brought slaves and dependants with them, for it is absurd to suppose them all free and equal* And no doubt the 1 Cf. Gomme, F. (7., pp. 60, 63. a Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxviii. Lord Metcalfe, quoted by Gomme, V. munity, pp. 194, 166 ; Cunningham, Eng. Industry and Commerce, I 70, 71. 4 "A single farmer might have to cut his portion of grass from twenty different places, though the tenants frequently accommodated one another by exchanging allotments when it was convenient to do so." Gomme, ViU. Cojnm., p. 166. DOMESDAY BOOK AND THE MANORS 83 (c/. diagram, where the tenants are marked A, B, C, &c.). The lord 1 and the parson might also have a few strips in these fields. There were at least three fields, in order to allow the rotation of crops mentioned before (p. 40). Each tenant held his strip only till harvest, after which all fences and divisions were taken away, and the cattle turned out to feed on the stubble. (3) Thirdly came the common pasture, for all the tenants. But each tenant was restricted or stinted in the number of cattle that he might pasture, 2 lest he should put on too many, and thus not leave enough food for his neighbours' cattle. Sometimes, however, we find pasture without stint, as in Port Meadow at Oxford to this day. 3 (4) -Then comes the forest or woodland, as in Estone, which belonged to the lord, who owned all the timber. But the tenants had rights, such as the right of lopping and topping certain trees, collecting fallen branches for fuel, and the right of " pannage " i.e., of turning cattle, especially swine, into the woods to pick up what food they could. (5) There was also in most manors what is called the waste i.e., uncultivated land, affording rough pasture, and on which the tenants had the right of cutting turf and bracken for fuel and fodder. Then near the stream there would perhaps be some (6) Meadow land, as at Cuxham, but this generally belonged to the lord, who, if he let it out, always charged an extra rent (and often a very high one), 4 for it was very valuable as affording a good supply of hay for the winter. Lastly, if the tenant could afford it, and wanted to have other land besides the common fields, where he could let his cattle lie, or to cultivate the ground more carefully, he could occupy (7) a close, or a portion of land specially marked off and let separately. 6 The lord always had a close on his demesne, and the chief tenants would generally have one or two as well. The close land was of course rented more highly than land in the common fields. The accompanying diagram shows a typical manor, held by a sub-tenant from a tenant-in-chief, who holds it of the king. It contains all the different kinds of land, though, 1 Vinogradoff, V. in E., p. 406. 2 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 90. /6.,p. 74. 4 /6.,. 73. 5 /6., 89. 8 4 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND of course, they did not always all exist in one manor. It also shows the manor-house, church, mill, and village. THE KING (supreme landlord). I TENANT-IN-CHIEF, owning various manors. I A SUB-TENANT, or tenant-in-mesne, the lord of the manor below. O ( ? < 2? 5l **c>' : 2 < * > ,^ ^-QQ&CbQfzQ O O w- * &mW*^^tJ$$$%*$ Wuu Wqsi* Common paaturs Common Fields with tenants* strips A /So |*2* /r*i2 47. The Decay of the Manorial System. Such, then, was the manorial village and the manorial system generally in the eleventh century, and thus it lasted DOMESDAY BOOK AND THE MANORS 85 for two or three centuries more. But in course of time it died out, though survivals of it last even to our own day. The decay of this social and economic system begins most clearly and markedly with the changes made by the Black Death (1348), and by the social revolution which followed it, of which the Peasants' Revolt was the first and most startling symptom (cf. ch. xii.). The legisla- tion of Edward I. forms, again, another epoch from which to date the decay of manorial institutions. He laid the foundations of a system of national instead of local regu- lations for industry, and from that time forward the essentially local arrangements of the manors began to lose both their necessity and their utility. 1 As Dr Cunningham says " In regard to commerce, manufactures, and to agri- culture alike, the local authorities were gradually overtaken and superseded by the increasing activity of Parliament, till, in the time of Elizabeth, the work was practically finished." 2 The essentially local and personal relations of the manor gave way to the more general and impersonal relations of national government and national economy. 1 Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. pp. 241-245. 2 /&., p. 243. CHAPTER VI THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 48. The Origin of the Toivns. As in the case of the visage, so also the town, in the modern sense of the word, had its origin in the primitive settlements of the people. The only differ- ence between a town and a village lay, originally, in the number of inhabitants, and in the fact that the town was a more defensible place than the rural settlement, since it probably had a rampart or a moat surrounding it instead of the mere hedges which ran round the villages. 1 It was simply in the Anglo-Saxon period a more strictly organised form of the village community. 2 In itself it was merely a manor or group of manors ; as Professor Freeman puts it, one part of the district where men lived closer together than elsewhere. 8 The town had at first a constitution like that of the primitive village, but its inhabitants had gradually gained certain rights and functions of a special nature. 4 These rights and privileges had sometimes been received from the lord of the manor on which the town had grown up 5 ; for towns, especially provincial towns, were often at first only dependent manors, which gained safety and solidity under the protection of some great noble, prelate, or the king himself ; 6 who finally would grant the town thus formed a charter. 7 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., L v. 92. The Anglo-Saxons called them " burh" i.e., "boroughs." 2 76. 3 Norman Conquest, v. p. 470. 4 Thus Lincoln, Stamford, and other towns had certain rights of juris- diction, sac and soc ; Domesday (Lincoln). 5 In other cases they were probably the inherited rights of a free com- munity. 6 Stubbs, Const. Hist. , I. v. p. 93, who quotes examples of the eorles tun, cyninges burh, cyninges tun. 7 This charter would give rights of jurisdiction over the citizens, of taking toll, &c. ; cf. Stubbs, Const. Hist. , I. v. 106. Such rights were also granted to private individuals. THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 87 49. Rise of Towns in England. Towns first became important in England towards the end of the Saxon period. Saxon England had never been a settlement of towns, but of villages or manors. But gradually towns developed, though differing widely in the circumstances and manner of their growth. Some grew up in the fortified camps of the invaders themselves, 1 as being in a secure position ; some arose from a later occupa- tion of the once sacked and deserted Roman towns. 2 Many grew silently in the shadow of a great abbey or monastery. 8 Of this class was Oxford, which first came into being round the monasteries of Osney and S. Frideswide. Others clustered round- the country houses of some Saxon king or earl. 4 Several important boroughs owed their rise to the convenience of their site as a port or a trading centre. This was the origin of the growth of Bristol, whose rise resulted directly from trade ; 5 and London of course had always been a port of high commercial rank. 6 A few other towns, like Scarborough and Grimsby, 7 were at first only small havens for fishermen. But all the English towns were far less flourishing before the arrival of the Normans than they afterwards became. The influence of the Danes, however, should be noted as 1 Especially in the case of the Danes ; Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 91 ; Green, Hist, of Eng. People, i. 207. 2 Some of the Roman towns never quite lost their continuity of life ; cf. Jessop, Studies by a Recluse, p. 120, who instances London, Chester, Lincoln, and Exeter ; cf. also Green, History, i. 207. 3 Stubbs, I. v. 93 ; Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 471 ; Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 103. 4 Green (History, i. 207) evidently follows Stubbs, u.s. 3 From very early times it had an active trade with Ireland ; cf. Cun- ningham, Growth of Industry, i. 89, note ; and Craik, British Commerce, i. 72. 6 Probably it was originally a hill-fort ; and its name is said to mean the ' ' hill fort by the water. " Its importance in Roman times was very great ; Green, Making of England, p. 3. In Saxon times it was left much to itself, but hedged in with a ring of Saxon agricultural settlements. Gomme, Village Comm. , p. 52. 7 A fair attended by foreign merchants was held in Saxon times on Scarborough beach ; Cunningham, i. 82, n. Grimsby merchants are men- tioned in Rymer, Foedera, II. i. 110, 133. See also Rogers, Six Centuries^ 104. 88 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND promoting the growth of towns. Though undoubtedly pirates, the Danish invaders were often also merchants, and often planted villages at centres suitable for commerce, or stimulated by their trade the growth of places which but for their coming might have remained undeveloped. 1 More- over, it is the towns of Danish origin that frequently show the most ancient municipal organisation ; as the records of the five " Danish boroughs " Nottingham, Derby, Lin- coln, Stamford, and Leicester go to prove. 2 Even to-day near the heart of modern London the Church of St Clement Danes reminds us of those rough seafaring men, half pirates half traders, whose patron saint was Clement with his anchor. 8 50. Towns in Domesday. If now we once more go back to our great authority, the survey made by William the Norman, we find that the status of the towns or boroughs is clearly recognised, though they are now regarded as held by the lord of the manor "in demesne," or, in default of a lord, as part of the king's demesne. 4 Thus Northampton at that time was a town in the king's demesne ; Beverley was held in demesne by the Archbishop of York. 5 It was possible, too, that one town might belong to several lords, because it spread over, or was an aggregate of, several manors or townships. Thus Leicester 6 seems to have included four manors, which were thus held in demesne by four lords one by the king, another by the Bishop of Lincoln, another by a noble, Simon de Senlis, and the fourth by Ivo of Grantmesnil, the sheriff. In later times it was held under one lord, Count Robert of Meulan, who had acquired the four portions for himself. Now, in the Domesday Book there is mention made of forty-one provincial cities or boroughs, most of them being 1 Cunningham, i 88. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. v. p. 93. For many years these five towns held together in a confederation which was the backbone of Danish power in the Midlands ; cf. Jessop, Studies, p. 126. * For Danish influence see York Powell, Eng. Hist. Review, No. XVII. p. 134. * Stubbs, Const, Hist., I. xi. 408. '" Ib., p. 409. 76. THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 89 the county towns of the present day. 1 There are also ten fortified towns of greater importance than the others. They are Canterbury, York, Nottingham, Oxford, Hereford, Leicester, Lincoln, Stafford, Chester, and Colchester. 1 London was a town apart, as it had always been, and was the only town which had an advanced civic constitution, being regulated by a port-reeve and a bishop, 2 and having a kind of charter, though afterwards the privileges of this charter were much increased. London was of course a great port and trading centre, and had many foreign merchants in it. It was then, as well as in subsequenl centuries, the centre of English national life, and the voice of its citizens counted for something in national affairs. 3 The other great^ports of England at that time were Bristol, Southampton, 4 and Norwich, 5 and as trade grew and pros- pered, many other ports rose into prominence (see p. 144). There were also other towns which grew up merely as aggregates of traders, and had not acquired as yet any other cohesion than as organised communities. These formed the large class of mere market towns, which of course still exist in large numbers, still serving the purpose to which they originally owed their existence without growing much beyond their old proportions. 51. Special Privileges of Towns. It is not till the twelfth century that the towns begin to have an independent municipal history as self-governing boroughs, 6 nor is it till the fifteenth century that we come to advanced municipal life and organisation. But, even at the time of the Norman Conquest, most towns, though small, were of sufficient importance to have a certain status of their own, with definite privileges. 7 The privilege they strove for first of all was generally an immunity from appear- ing before the Court of Appeal where the king's officer 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 403. 2 76., p. 404. 3 Of. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 109. 4 It was the chief port of Southern England ; Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 104. 6 /&., p. 106. It was famed for its harbour; and, like many another disused port of the east coast, did a large trade with the Netherlands. 6 Mrs Green, Town Life, i. p. 11. J Stubbs, I. xi. 408. 90 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND presided and levied his fees ; l but perhaps the most im- portant privilege was the second one the immunity from the personal taxation exacted by the officers of the Royal Exchequer, and collected by the sheriff. 2 To gain their points they asked, first, the rights of choosing their own * justiciar, 3 or official who should preside in the town court and relieve them from the necessity of appearing at othei courts ; and then they requested the liberty of taxing them- selves, and of composition for taxation i.e., the right of paying a fixed sum or rent to the Crown, instead of the various tallages, taxes, and imposts that might be required of other places. 4 This fixed sum, 5 or composition, was called the jvrnia burgi, and by the time of the Conquest was nearly always paid in money. Previously it had been paid both in money and kind, for we find Oxford paying to Edward the Confessor six sectaries of honey as well as 20 in coin ; while to William the Norman it paid 60 as an inclusive lump sum. 6 By the end of the Norman period 7 all the towns had secured the firma burgi, and the right of assessing it themselves, instead of being assessed by the sheriff; they had the right also of choosing an officer of their own, instead of the king's bailiff or reeve. They had thus their own tribunals, a charter for their customs, and special rules of local administration, and, generally speaking, had gained entire judicial and commercial freedom. 52. How the Towns obtained their Charters. It is interesting to see what circumstances helped forward this emancipation of the towns from the rights possessed by the nobles and the abbeys, 8 or by the king. The chief cause of the readiness of the nobles and kings to grant 1 Jessop, Studies of a Recluse, p. 130. 2 Ib. 8 As in the Charter to London given by Henry I. , quoted by Stubbs, ut ante, p. 405. 4 Stubbs, u. s. , p. 410. 5 Ellis, Introd. to Domesday, i. 190, gives many examples. Ellis, Introd., i. 193. 7 Stubbs, u. s., p. 424. 8 A noble, bishop, or abbot on whose demesne a town existed of course had the judicial and other rights of a lord of the manor over such a town, and could part with them by giving a charter. Thus Beverley gained its charter, not from the crown, but from Archbishop Thurstan. Cf. Stubbs, Omul. Hist., L xi. 411. Manchester remained under its feudal lord till 1846. THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 91 charters during this period (from the Conquest to Henry III.) was their lack of ready money/- Everyone knows how fiercely the nobles fought against each other in Stephen's reign, and how enthusiastically they rushed off to the Crusades under Richard I. They could not indulge their love of fighting, which in their eyes was their main duty, without money to pay for their fatal extravagances in this direction, and to get money they frequently parted with their manorial rights over the towns which had grown up on their estates. 1 Especially was this the case when a noble or king was taken prisoner, and wanted the means of his ransom. 2 In this way Portsmouth and Norwich gained their charters by paying part of Richard I.'s ransom (1194). Again, Rye and' Winchelsea gained theirs by supplying the same king (in 1191) with two ships to aid his Eastern crusade. 3 Many other instances might be quoted from the cases of nobles who also gave charters when setting out upon these extraordinary expeditions. Indeed, the Crusades had a very marked influence in this way upon the growth of English towns. Some one had to pay for the wars in which the aristocracy delighted, and it is well to remember the fact that the expenses of all our wars and they have been both numerous and costly have been defrayed by the industrial portion of the com- munity. Even the glories and cruelties of that often savage age of so-called knightly chivalry, 4 which has been idealised and gilded by romancers and history-mongers, with its tournaments and torture-chambers, were paid for by that de- spised industrial population of the towns and villages which contained the real life and wealth of medieval England. 53. The Gilds and the Towns. Various kinds of Gilds. But besides the indirect effect of the Crusades, there was another powerful factor in the growth and emancipa- tion of the towns after the Conquest. I refer to the merchant gilds, which were becoming more and more pro- 1 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. p. 198. 2 Green, History, i. 212. 8 See Rymer, Foedera, I. 63, 63. 4 Of. the state of things instanced by Green, History, i. 156. 92 INDUSTRY IN. ENGLAND minent all through this period, though the height of their power was not reached till the fourteenth century. These merchant gilds were one of four other kinds of gilds, all of which seem to have been similar in origin. The earliest gilds are found in Saxon times, 1 and were very much what we understand by clubs at the present day. At first they were associations for more or less religious and charitable purposes, 2 and formed a sort of artificial family, whose members were bound by the bond not of kinship but of an oath, while the gild-feast, held once a month in the common hall, replaced the family gatherings of kinsfolk. These gilds were found both in towns and villages, but chiefly in the former, where men were brought more closely together. Besides (1) the religious gilds, we find in Saxon times (2) the frith gilds, 3 formed for mutual assist- ance in case of violence, wrong, or false accusation, or in any legal affairs. But this class of gilds died out after the Conquest. The most important were (3) the merchant gilds mentioned above, which existed certainly in Edward the Confessor's time, being called in Saxon ceapemanne gilds, and they were recognised at the time of the Conquest, for they are recorded in Domesday here and there as possessing lands. 4 The merchant members of these gilds had various privileges, such as a virtual monopoly of the local trade of a town, which even outsiders were not allowed to infringe, and freedom from certain imposts. 5 They had, at any rate at first, a higher rank than the members of the (4) craft gilds. 8 These last were associations of handicraftsmen, or artisans, and were separate from the merchant gilds, though also of great importance. If a town were large enough, each craft or manufacture had a gild of its own, though perhaps in smaller towns members of various crafts would form only one gild. Such gilds were found, too, not only in towns but in country villages, as is known, e.g., in the case of 1 Stiibbs, Const. Hist, I. xi. p. 411, who gives an excellent summary. Cf. also Brentano, History and Development of Gilds, and Gross, Gild Merchant, for further information. 2 Stubbs, ut ante, p. 412. 9 They were possibly earlier than the religious associations. Cf. &tubbs, ut ante, p. 414, 4 Ib. , p. 416. s Gross, Qttd Merchant, i. 44. 6 Stubbs, v,t ante, p. 417. THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 93 some Norfolk villages, where remains of their halls have been found. 1 Their gild feasts are probably represented to this day in the parish feasts, survivals of ancient custom. 54. How the Merchant Gilds helped the Growth of Towns. Now it was only natural that the existence of these powerful associations in the growing boroughs should secure an increasing development of cohesion and unity among the townsmen. Moreover, the merchant gilds had a very important privilege, which would make many outsiders anxious to join their ranks namely, that membership in a gild for a year and a day made a villein a free man. 2 Thus the gilds included all the free tenants in a town, and very often the body of free citizens, who, of course, as free men, formed the only really influential class in a town, found themselves; by thus uniting together in a gild, " craft," or " mistery," in a position to gain even greater influence than before. In fact, only those who were members of some gild or " mistery " were allowed to take part in the muni- cipal government of their town. 3 As time went on, and their influence grew, it became the special endeavour of the gildmen to obtain from the Crown or from their lord of the manor wider commercial privileges, such as grants of coinage, the right of holding fairs, and of exemption from tolls. 4 Then they asked for freedom of justice, and for the right of self-government ; and it is supposed also that it was possibly the gilds also, as representing practically the town itself, who bought up the firma burgif and thus became their own assessors of taxes. Finally, no doubt, they helped largely in buying a charter, as we have seen, from a king or noble in need of ready money. And so, gradually, and by other steps which cannot now be clearly traced, the eman- cipation of the towns was won by the gilds ; the boroughs became free from their lords' restrictions and dues ; till by the end of the twelfth century chartered towns, which were 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 417. * Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. p. 417. * Ashley, Economic Hist., II. i. 26. 4 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ix. p. 425. /&., p. 416. 94 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND very few at the time of the Conquest, became the general rule. In later times, again, the power of the gilds passed to the town corporations. 1 Yet at no time can we say that the governing body of the town was identical in idea with the merchant gild. 2 It is true that in time member- ship of some gild became indispensable to the status of a burgher, 8 but still the gild was theoretically distinct from the municipal body, though practically it was generally one and the same. The chief result of the gilds and of gild- life was to produce greater unity and cohesion among the townsmen, 4 and thus to awake in them the idea of the cor- porate unity of municipal life. 55. How the Craft Gilds helped Industry. So far we have specially noted the work of the merchant gilds, which, as it were, built up the constitution and free- dom of the towns. But the craft gilds did similar work also. Originally, it is true, the merchant gilds reckoned themselves above the craft gilds ; but in later times the two classes came, so to speak, to stand more side by side 5 ; and each class of gild occupied the same relation to the municipal government, though very often the members of each might vary greatly in wealth or position 6 from the poor cobbler, who was yet a member of the shoemakers' gild, to the rich merchant of drapery, who might have held the highest municipal honours. We must now look for a moment at the work of the artisans' gilds, or craft gilds, which afterwards became very important. 7 These are found not only in London but in provincial towns. The London weavers are mentioned as a craft gild in the time of Henry I. (1100 A.D.), 8 and most of these gilds seemed to have existed already for a long period. The Goldsmiths' Gild claimed to have possessed land before the Norman Conquest, and it was fairly power- ful in the days of Henry II. (1180 A.D.), for he found it 1 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. i., p. 13. Stubbs, ut supra, p. 418. 8 76. , p. 425. 76. , p. 425. Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. i. p. 24. /&., p. 25. 7 They were, perhaps, more often known as "crafts," " misteries." or ' companies." 8 Cunningham, English Industry (1882), 132, THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 95 convenient to try and suppress it. 1 But it did not receive the public recognition of a charter till the fourteenth cen- tury. They arose, of course, first in the towns, and origin- ally seem to have consisted of a small body of the leading men of a particular craft, to whom was confided the regula- tion of a particular industry, probably as soon as that industry was thought of sufficient importance to be regulated. In the fifteenth century they became so universal that every trade which occupied as many as twenty men in a town had a gild of its own. 2 The gild tried to secure good work on the part of its members, 3 and attempted to suppress the production of wares by irresponsible persons who were not members of the craft. 4 Their fundamental principle was, that a member should work not only for his own private advantage but for the reputation and good of his trade " for the honour of the good folks of such misteries." 6 Hence bad work was punished, and it is curious to note that night-work was prohibited as leading to poor work. 6 The gild also took care to secure a supply of competent workmen for the future (and at the same time to restrain competition) by training a limited number of young people in its particular industry. Hence arose the system of each " master " having apprentices ; and though in earlier times it does not seem to have been necessary that a person must pass through an apprenticeship before being admitted a member of a craft or mistery, in later days this rule was rigidly enforced. 7 The gild, moreover, exercised some kind of moral control over its members, and secured their good behaviour, thus forming an effective branch of the social police. 8 On the other hand, it had many of the character- istics of a benefit society, providing against sickness and death among those belonging to it, as indeed all gilds did. 9 At the end of the fourteenth century it is noticeable that 1 Ashley, Econ. Hist., I. ii. 81. 2 Ashley, ut supra, II. ii. p. 74. 3 Ashley, Econ. Hist. , II. ii. p. 72. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 107. 5 See the Royal Order of Edward III. , quoted by Bain, Merchant and Craft Gilds, p. 40. Cunningham, i. p. 314. 7 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. ii. p. 84. 8 Ochenkowaki, England's Wirthschaftl. Entwickelung, p. 66. 9 Rogers, Six Centuries, pp. 110, 347. 96 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND the custom was growing of erecting special " houses " or rt halls " for the gilds, these buildings being duly provided with the social and religious appurtenances of kitchen,, chapel, and often also almshouses. 1 These institutions, however, did not apparently only belong to the towns, but were found in country districts also ; thus we hear of the carpenters' and masons' rural gilds in the reign of Edward III. 2 Even the peasant labourers, according to Professor Thorold Rogers, 3 possessed these associations, which in all cases served many of the functions of the modern trade unions. Later on (1381) we shall come to a very remarkable instance of the power of these peasants' unions in the matter of Tyler's rebellion. 56. Life in the Towns of this time. The inhabitants of the towns were of all classes of society. There was the noble who held the castle, or the abbot and monks in the monastery, with their retainers and personal dependants ; there were the busy merchants, active both in the management of their trade and of civic affairs ; and there were artisans and master workmen in different crafts. There were free tenants, or tenants in socage, including all the burgesses, or burgage-tenants, as they were called ; and there was the lower class of villeins, who, however, always tended to rise into free men as they were admitted into the gilds. To and fro went our forefathers in the quiet, quaint, narrow streets, or worked at some handicraft in their houses, or exposed their goods round the market cross. And in those old streets and houses, in the town-mead and market- place, as a picturesque historian says, 4 amid the murmur of the mill beside the stream, and the notes of the bell that sounded its summons to the crowded assembly of the town- mote, in merchant-gild and craft-gild was growing up that 1 Ashley, Econ. Hist. , II. ii. 82. It is also worth noting, as illustrating the close connection between the gilds and municipal life, that at Notting- ham the Town Hall is stiU called the "Guild Hall." 2 This may be inferred from Rogers, ut supra, pp. 236 and 237. * /&., p. 252. See also his Econ. Interpret, of History, p. 306, on Village Guilds. 4 Green, History, i. 212. THE TOWNS AND THE GILDS 97 sturdy industrial life, unheeded and unnoticed by knight or baron, that silently and surely was building up the slow structure of England's wealth and freedom. This life was fostered by the idea of unity which possessed the townspeople of that day quite as much as it does those of our own time ; and this unity was promoted not only by the gilds but by the possession of town property in common by the towns- men, 1 in the shape of those common fields and pastures that were the relics of the time when the town was merely a village settlement. 2 In later times we find the townsmen undertaking common enterprises, such as the proper pro- vision of corn or water for the citizens. 3 The decay of municipal life, however, begins to date from the sixteenth century (or abouf that period), when commerce and trade were becoming more and more national and less local in character, and consequently national regulations of a more far-reaching character were required. But, long before municipal or even gild life began to decay, it had done a very important work. It had caused a radical change in social and political relationships, by its recognition of persons as standing for themselves and not tied to the land or depending on a superior lord. The association of persons as persons had taken the place of the feudal association which was based only on land. 4 Land was now no longer the basis of everything : a new social and economic force had appeared, and slowly but surely feudalism began to give way before it. 1 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. i. 36. 2 Above, p. 86, and cf. p. 48. 8 More frequently in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Ashley, ut supra, p. 36. 4 Cf. Maurer, Stddteverfassung, iii. 725. CHAPTER VII MANUFACTURES AND TRADE : ELEVENTH TO THIRTEENTH CENTURIES 57. Economic Effects of the Feudal System. WE shall find that, for some time after the Norman Con- quest, English industry does not develope very rapidly, and that for obvious reasons. The feud that existed between Norman and Saxon although, perhaps, partially allayed by Henry I.'s marriage to an English wife l and the social disorder that accompanied this feeling, hardly tended to that quiet and security that are necessary for a healthy industrial life. The frightful disorders that occurred during the tierce struggle for the kingdom between Stephen of Blois and the Empress Maud, and the equally frightful ravages and extortions of their contending barons, must have been serious drawbacks to any progress. As the old annalist remarks " They fought among themselves with deadly hatred ; they spoiled the fairest lands with fire and rapine ; in what had been the most fertile of counties they destroyed almost all the provision of bread." 2 But this ter- rible struggle fortunately ended in ruining many of the barons who took part in it, and in the desirable destruction of most of their abodes of plunder. The accession of Henry II. (1154) marks a period of amalgamation between Englishmen and Normans, not only in social life, but in commercial traffic and intercourse. 8 But even when we come to look at the feudal system in a time of peace, we see that it did not tend to any great growth of industry. It certainly gave, under a strong ruler* (but only then) some security for person and pro- 1 The reign of Henry L, however, was on the whole peaceful. " He was a good man, and great was the awe of him : he made peace for man and deer. "English Chron. (Bohn), 1135. 2 Quoted by Green, History, i. 155. Green, History, i. 161 4 Cunningham, i. 131. 98 MANUFACTURES AND TRADE 99 perty, but it encouraged rather than diminished that spirit of isolation and self-sufficiency which was so marked a feature 1 of the earlier manors and townships. In these communities, again, little scope was afforded to individual enterprise, from the fact that the consent of the lord of a manor or town was often necessary for the most ordinary purposes of industrial life. 2 It is true, as we have seen, that when the noble owner was in pecuniary difficulties the towns profited thereby to obtain their charters ; and perhaps we may not find it altogether a matter for regret that the barons, through their internecine struggles, thus unwittingly helped on the industry of the land. It may be admitted also, that though the isolation of com- munities consequent upon the prevalent manorial system did not encourage trade and traffic between separate com- munities, it yet tended to diffuse a knowledge of domestic manufactures throughout the land generally, because each place had largely to provide for itself. The constant taxation, 3 however, entailed by the feudal system, in the shape of tallages, aids, and fines, both to king and nobles, made it difficult for the lower classes to accumu- late capital, more especially as in the civil wars they were constantly plundered of it openly. The upper classes merely squandered it in fighting. Agriculture suffered similarly, for the villeins, however well off, were bound to the land, 4 especially in the earlier period soon after the Conquest, and before commutation of services for money rents became so common as it did subsequently ; nor could they leave their manor 6 without incurring a distinct loss, both of social status, and, what is more important, of the means of livelihood. The systems of constant services to the lord of the manor, and of the collective methods of cultivation, were also drawbacks to good agriculture. 6 Again, in trade, prices 1 Rogers, Econ. Interp. History, p. 283. 2 Cf. the Court Leet Records of Manchester (pub. 1884), and Pearson, Hist, of England, i. 594. 8 On taxation, see Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. xiii. pp. 576-586. 4 On the other hand this had its advantages as giving the agriculturist security of tenure (cf. Bracton, De Leg., ch. viii./. 246; Vol. I. p. 198-209 (ed. Twiss). 6 Except on payment of a fine ; cf. p. 151, below. 6 Cunningham, i. 132 ioo INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND were settled by authority, competition was checked, 1 while merchants had to pay heavy duties to the king, and were very much at the mercy of the royal officials.* 58. Foreign Trade. The Crusades. But, on the other hand, the Norman Conquest, which combined the Kingdom of England with the Duchy of Normandy in close political relations, gave abundant oppor- tunities for commerce, both with France and the Continent, and foreign trade certainly received a stimulus from this fact. It was further developed by the Crusades. The most obvious effect of these remarkable expeditions for a visionary success was the opening up of trade routes throughout Europe to the shores of the Mediterranean Sea, and to the East in general. 8 They produced also a con- siderable redistribution of wealth in England itself, for the knights and nobles that set out for the Holy Land often mortgaged their lands and never redeemed them, or they perished, and their lands lapsed to the crown or to some mon- astery that took the place of a trustee for the absent owner. 4 As to foreign trade, our chief authority at this time is the old chronicler, Henry of Huntingdon, whose history was published about 1155 A.D. 5 Like most historians, even of the present day, he says very little about so insignificant a matter as trade, but the single sentence which he devotes to it is probably of as great value as any other part of his book. From it we gather that our trade with Germany was extensive, and that we exported lead and tin among the metals ; 6 fish and meat and fat cattle (which seems to point to some improvement in our pastoral economy) ; and, most important of all, " most precious wool," though at that time the English could not weave it properly for themselves. Our 1 Cunningham, i. p. 230. a Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. p. 522. 1 The Crusades opened up routes rather than followed those already existing: e/. Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. Iviii. 4 Cf. Gibbon, ut nupra. 5 Quoted by Craik, Hist, of Brit. Commerce, i. 105. 6 It appears from other authorities also that the export of these two metals must have been large. " The roofs of the principal churches, palaces, and castles in all parts of Europe are said to have been covered with English lead." Craik, ut supra, i. 105. MANUFACTURES AND TRADE 101 imports, however, were very limited, comprising none Oi tiie necessaries of life, and few of its luxuries beyond silver and foreign furs. Other imports were fine woven cloths, used for the dresses of the nobility ; and, after the Crusades began, of rich Eastern stuffs and spices, which were in great demand, and commanded a high price. So, too, did iron, which was necessary for agricultural purposes, as Englishmen had not yet discovered their rich stores of this metal, but had to get it from Spain and the lands on the Baltic shore. 1 Generally speaking, we may say that our imports consisted of articles of greater intrinsic value and scarcity than our exports, and thus were fewer in number, though there must have been some balance to be paid in coin or bullion. But this balance must have been comparatively small, as coined money, though, of course, no longer a rarity, was by no means plentiful, and was very precious. The German merchants certainly paid for English wool in silver. 2 59. The Trading Clauses in the Great Charter. One great proof of the existence of a fair amount of foreign trade is seen in the clauses which were inserted in the Great Charter (1215), by the influence of the trading class. One enactment secures to foreign merchants free- dom of journeying and of trade throughout the realm, 3 and another orders an uniformity of weights and measures 4 to be enforced over the whole kingdom. The growth of town life is seen in the enactment which secures to the towns the enjoyment of their municipal privileges, their free- dom from arbitrary taxation, and the regulation of their own trade. 5 The amercement of a freeman, even upon con- viction of felony, was never to include his contenement ; nor his wares, if he were a merchant, nor his wainage if a villein. 6 The exaction of forced labour or of provisions and 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, pp. 88 and 151. a Henry of Huntingdon, ut supra. 8 John had already promised this at the commencement of his reign. Maitland, Hist, of London, i. 73-75. It was again laid down in Clause 41 of the Charter. 4 Magna Carta, 35. This had already been enjoined in an Assize of Richard I., and again by that King in 1194 (Hoveden, iii. 263 ; iv. 33). 6 Magna Carta, 13. 6 Magna Carta, 20. 102 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND chattels without payment by the royal officers was also for- bidden, 1 and this must have been a great boon to the agricul- tural population. On the other hand, it is very noticeable that the royal officers are not to take money in lieu of military service from those who are willing to perform the service in person, 2 a regulation which shows that commutation for services, military and otherwise, was now very common. The general tone of those clauses of the Great Charter which deal with merchants, or with commerce and industry, is certainly remarkable in an age when, on the Continent of Europe at least, the merchant and his calling were generally despised by the " upper classes " ; and it is not a little to the credit of the English nobility of that day that they recognised the value of commerce and industry to the nation, and gave them special attention in the agreement which they forced upon King John. Their conduct showed both breadth and liberality, as compared with that of their Continental fellow- peers, who throughout Europe were accustomed to oppress and pillage the trader ; 3 nor is it the less creditable because it was actuated by a spirit of enlightened self-interest. The merchant class was now becoming a power in the land, and as such was worth recognising, even by the nobility ; and probably some indi- vidual merchants of influence took care that the interests of their class were not neglected in the Charter of the nation. 1 Magna Carta, 28, 30, 31, 23. These clauses raise the whole question of " purveyance," i.e., the prerogative enjoyed by the crown of buying up provisions and other necessaries for the use of the royal household at an appraised valuation, and even without the consent of the owner ; also of forcibly impressing the carriages and horses of a subject to do the King's business upon a public road on paying a fixed price. The abuses to which this prerogative gave rise were, of course, many and various, nor was the evil completely suppressed till the prerogative was formally re- signed by Charles II. The prerogative was extended to men's labour as well as their goods. Thus Edward III. granted a commission to William of Walsingham to impress painters for the works *t St Stephen's Chapel, Westminster, " to be at our wages as long as shall be necessary," and all such as refused were to be imprisoned by the Sheriff. Edward IV. granted a similar impressment of workers in gold for the royal household. Rymer, t. vi. 417 ; t. xi. 852; Hallam, Middle Ages, iii. 149 ; Taswell-Langmead, Const. Hist., p. 132. 1 Magna Carta, 29. 3 Taswell-Langmead, Con*. Hi*., p. 132. MANUFACTURES AND TRADE 103 60. The Jews in, England. Among the mercantile community, moreover, there was a distinct class which also has special recognition in the Charter, for we find clauses i which endeavour to restrict usury as exacted by the Jews a fact which, while point- ing to a not unfamiliar aspect of the Hebrew race, also shows their growing importance as an economic factor in mediaeval England. We will, therefore, briefly mention the facts concerning them at this period. The first appearance of the Jews in England may practi- cally be reckoned as occurring at the time of the Norman Conquest, for immediately after 1066 they came in large numbers from Rouen, Caen, and other Norman towns. 2 They stood in the peculiar position of being the personal property, or " chattels," of the King, 3 and a special officer governed their settlements in various towns. These settle- ments were called Jewries, of which those at London, Lin- coln, Bury St Edmunds, and Oxford were at one time fairly considerable. 4 They were protected by the King (for, being royal " chattels," no one dared interfere with them), and, of course, paid him for their protection. Their general financial skill was acknowledged by all, and William II. employed them to farm the revenues of vacant sees, while barons often employed them as stewards of their estates. They were also the leading, if not the only, capitalists of that time, 5 and must have assisted merchants considerably in their enterprises, though only upon a heavy commission. 6 After the death of Henry I., the security which they had enjoyed was much weakened, in proportion as the royal power declined in the civil wars, and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries they were in a precarious position. Stephen and Matilda openly robbed them, Henry II. (in 1187) demanded one-fourth of their chattels, and Richard I. 1 Magna Carta, 10 and 11. 2 Craik, Hist. British Commerce, i. p. 94 ; Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 9. 3 Cunningham, i. p. 145. 4 Romance of Trade, p. 10. 8 Craik, British Commerce, i. 95. 6 The rate seems to have been 40 per cent. Cf. Anglo-Jewish Exhibition Papers, 207. 104 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND obtained large sums from them for his crusading extrava- gances. From 1144 to 1 189 riots directed against them became common, and the Jewries of many towns were pillaged. In 1194 Richard I. placed their commercial transactions more thoroughly under local officers of the crown. John exploited them to great advantage, and levied heavy tallages upon them, and Henry III. did very much the same. They were expelled 1 from the kingdom in 1290, and before this had greatly sunk from their previous position as the financiers of the crown to that of petty money-lenders to the poor at gross usury. What concerns us more im- mediately to notice in this early period of English history is their temporary usefulness as capitalists in trading trans- actions at a time when capital was not easily accumulated or kept in safety, and as a body from whom the crown could obtain money in times of need without appealing to the nation at large. Their expulsion seems to have been due to an outbreak of fanaticism of more than usual virulencei, 61. Manufactures in this Period: 'Flemish Weavers. We now turn from the subject of trade and finance to that of manufacturing industry. On doing so, we find that the chief industry is that of weaving coarse woollen cloth. An industry so necessary as this, and one, too, that can be carried on in a simple state of society with such ease as a domestic manufacture, would naturally always exist, even from the most uncivilised times. This, as we saw above, 2 had been the case in England. But it is noticeable that, although Henry of Huntingdon mentions the export of " tine 1 It appears that this expulsion of the Jews was not absolutely com- plete, and Jewish tradition gives the year 1358 as the date of final expul- sion ; but in 1410 a Jewish physician, Elias Sabot, was certainly allowed to practise in England. There seems to have been a certain immigra- tion of Jews to England when they were expelled from Spain by Ferdi- nand and Isabella (1492), for there are notices of them recovering debts in English law courts. Their presence in this country was, however, only first publicly sanctioned by Cromwell ; and during the Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II. they came back here in considerable numbers. Cf. Wolf's Anglo- Jewish Exhibition Papers, p. 57 ; and my own Hixtory of Commerce in Europe, p. 99 ; Craik, British Commerce, i. p. 129 ; Cunning- ham, Eng. 2nd., i. pp. 266, 267. 8 Pp. 6 and 8, above. MANUFACTURES AND TRADE 105 wool" as one of the chief English exports, and although England had always been in a specially favourable position for growing wool, her manufacture of it had not developed to any great extent. Nevertheless it was practised as a domestic industry in every rural and urban community, and at this period already had its gilds a sure sign of growth. Indeed, one of the oldest craft gilds was that of the London weavers, 1 of which we find mention in the time of Henry I. In this reign, too, we first hear of the arrival of Flemish immigrants in this country, who helped largely both then and subsequently in the development of the woollen manufacture. Some Flemings had come over indeed in the days of William the Norman, having been driven from Flanders by an incursion of the sea, and had settled at Carlisle. But Henry L, as we read in Higden's Chronicle, transferred them to Pembrokeshire in 1111 A.D. : " Flandrenses, tempore regis Henrici primi, ad occidentalem Wallise partem, apud Haverford, sunt translati." 2 Traces of them remained till a comparatively recent period, 3 and the names of the village of Flemingston, and of the road called the Via Flandrica, running over the crest of the Precelly mountains, afford striking evidence of their settle- ment there, as also does the name Tucking Mill (i.e., cloth- making mill, from German and Flemish tuch, " a cloth "). 4 Norfolk also had from early times been the seat of the woollen industry, and had had similar influxes of Flemish weavers. Their immigration does not, however, become im- portant till the reign of Edward III., when we shall find that English cloth manufacture begins to develop considerably. 6 In this period, all we can say is that England was more famed for the wool that it grew than for the cloth which it manufactured therefrom, and it had yet to learn most of its improvements from lessons taught by foreigners. Indeed, some have gone so far as to state that weaving as a regular craft was first introduced into England by 1 Cunningham, i. p. 181. 2 Higden, in Gale, Scriptores, Vol. III. p. 210. 8 Of. Holinshed's Chronicle, 1107. 4 Taylor, Words and Places, p. 186. B Burnley (Hist, of Wool and WoolcomUng, p. 50) says the distinction between woollen and worsted industry cannot be traced with certainty before the Flemish immigration, though it probably existed in Saxon times. io6 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND foreigners at the time of the Norman Conquest, 1 and that the origin of craft gilds is to be found in the need for com- bination to protect each other that was felt by these foreign artisans when they first settled here. 2 But while certain points, in the history of weavers especially, tend to confirm this view, it seems unlikely that there were no gilds formed by Englishmen themselves prior to foreign settlement, although we may readily admit that it is largely to foreigners, and especially to the Flemish, that England owes its early progress in the making of cloth. It is noticeable also that Domesday Book gives evidence of a considerable number of artisans of French or other foreign extraction living in England at the time of the Conquest. 3 62. Economic Appearance of England in this Period. Population. The England of the Domesday Book was very different from anything which we can now conceive, nor did its industrial condition change much during the next century or two. The population was probably under 2,000,000 in all; for we saw that in Domesday Book only 283,242 able-bodied men are enumerated. These, multiplied by five, to include women and children, give 1,400,000 of general population, and allowing for omissions, we shall find two millions rather over than under the mark. 4 Nor, indeed, could the agricultural and industrial state of the country have supported more. 6 This population was chiefly located in the southern and eastern counties, 6 which were also politically and socially by far the most important, for the north of England, and especially Yorkshire, had been laid waste by the Conqueror in consequence of its revolt in 1068. The whole country between York and the Tees was ravaged, and the famine which ensued is said to have 1 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 179, 180 (but cf. Ashley, Econ. Hist., i. 83). 2 /6. *E.g., at Shrewsbury, Domesday, i. 252 a, 1, Gretford, i. 268 a, 1, Cambridge, i. 189 a, 1. 4 A calculation three centuries later, based on the assessment for the poll- tax of 1377, gives 2 millions (Topham, in Archceologia, vii. 337). 8 Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 119. 6 See the map in Freeman's Norman Conquest, iv. p. 101. MANUFACTURES AND TRADE 107 carried off 100,000 victims. Indeed, for half a century the land "lay bare of cultivation and of men" for sixty miles northward of York, and for centuries more never fully recovered from this terrible visitation. 1 The Domesday Book records district after district and manor after manor in Yorkshire as "waste." 2 In the North-west of England, now the most densely populated part of the country, and in the East, all was fen, moorland, and forest, peopled only by wild animals and lawless men. 3 Till the seventeenth cen- tury, in fact, Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire were the poorest counties in England; 4 and the fens of East Anglia were only reclaimed in 1634. The main ports were London for general trade ; 6 Southampton, for the French trade in wines ; Norwich, for the export wool trade with Flanders, and for imports from the Baltic ; and on the west coast Bristol, which had always been the centre for the western trade in Severn salmon and hides. 6 At one time, too, it was the great port for the trade of English slaves who were taken to Ireland, but William the Norman checked that traffic, 7 though it lingered till Henry II. conquered Ireland. For internal trade, market towns, or villages, as we should call them, were gradually springing up. They were nearly always held in demesne by the lord of the manor, who claimed the tolls, though in after years the town bought them of him. 8 Some of these markets had existed from Saxon times, as is seen by the prefix "Chipping" ( = chepinge, A.S, a market), as in Chipping Norton, Chippingham, and Chepstowe ; others date from a later period, and are known by the prefix " Market," as, e.g., Market Bosworth. 9 But these market towns were very small, and, indeed, only some half-dozen towns in the king- dom had a population above 5000 inhabitants. These were London (40,000), York and Bristol (12,000), Coventry and Plymouth (9000), while Norwich, Lincoln, Salisbury, 1 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 272. * Ib., v. 42. 8 Sim. Dun., Gest. Regg., 1079, p. 85, Hinde. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 127. ' Ib., pp. 122-124. Ib 7 Freeman, Norman Conquest, iv. 625. 8 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. 408. Taylor, Words and Places, pp. 394, 395 (ed. 1864). io8 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND Lynn, and Colchester had from 5000 to 7000 each. 1 But nevertheless the settlement made by the Norman Conquest had the effect of considerably strengthening the growth of towns, 2 and we shall see more of their importance in the next period. 63. General Condition of the Period. Speaking generally for the whole period after the Con- quest, we may say that, though the economic condition of England was by no means unprosperous, industrial develop- ment was necessarily slow. The disputes between Stephen and Maud, and the civil wars of their partisans, the enor- mous drain upon the resources of the country caused by Richard I.'s expenses in carrying on crusades when he should have been ruling his kingdom, and the equally enormous taxes and bribes paid by the worthless John to the Papal See, could not fail seriously to check national industry. It is no wonder that in John's reign, at the beginning of the thirteenth century, we hear of great discontent throughout all the land, of much misery and poverty, especially in the towns, and of a general feeling of revolt. That miserable monarch was only saved from deposition by his opportune death. Yet with all these evils the economic condition of Eng- land, although depressed, was by no means absolutely unhealthy ; and the following reign (Henry III., 1216-72), with its comparative peace and leisure, afforded, as we shall see, sufficient opportunity to enable the people to regain a position of general opulence and prosperity, An important change was coming over the industrial history of England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, for now we begin to see manufacturing and other industries arising side by side with agriculture as a new phenomenon, 3 and the manufac- turer and artisan was making himself felt as a new power by the side of baron and farmer. This time of quiet pro- gress and industrial growth forms a fitting occasion for the marking out of a new epoch. 1 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. L p. 11. * Freeman, Norman Conquest, v. 472. Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. ii, p. 99. PERIOD III FROM THE THIRTEENTH TO THE END OF THE FIFTEENTH CENTURY, INCLUDING THE GREAT PLAGUE (1216-1600* CHAPTER VIII AGRICULTURE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 64. Introductory. Eise of a Wage-earning Class. THE long reign of Henry III., although occasionally troubled by internal dissensions among the barons, was, upon the whole, a prosperous and peaceful time for the people in general, and more especially for those whom historians are pleased to call the lower classes. For by this time a remarkable change had begun to affect the condition of the serfs or villeins, a change already alluded to, by which the villeins became free tenants, subject to a fixed money rent for their holdings. This rent was rapidly becoming a payment in money and not in labour, 1 for, as we saw, the lords of the manors were frequently in want of cash, and were ready to sell many of their privileges. The change was at first gradual, but by the time of the Great Plague (1348), money rents were becoming the rule rather than the exception, and though labour rents were not at all obsolete, it was an ill-advised attempt to insist upon them unduly that was the prime cause of Wat Tyler's insurrection (1381). Before the Plague, in fact, villeinage in the old sense was becoming almost extinct, and the peasants, both great and small, had achieved a large measure of freedom. The richer villeins had developed into small farmers, while the poorer villeins, and especially the cottars, had formed a separate class of agricultural labourers, not indeed entirely without land, but depending for their livelihood upon wages paid for helping to cultivate the land of others. The rise of this class, which lived by wages and not by tilling their own land, was due to the 1 The entries in the Hundred Rolls show us that at the end of the thir- teenth century the process of substituting money payments for actual ser- vice had gone a long way ; Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 218. H2 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND fact that cottars and others, not having enough land of their own to occupy their whole time, were free to hire themselves to those who had a larger quantity. Especially would they become labourers at a fixed wage for the lord of a manor when he had commuted his rights to the unpaid services of all his tenants for a fixed money rent. Of course this change came gradually, but its effect is seen subsequently in the difficulties as to wages expressed in the Statutes of Labourers, difficulties which first became serious after the Great Plague. At the end of the thirteenth century we can trace three classes of tenants (1) Those who had entirely commuted their services for a fixed money rent ; (2) those who gave services or paid money according as their lord preferred ; and (3) those who still paid entirely, or almost entirely, in services. 1 65. Agriculture the Chief Occupation of the People. Throughout the whole of this period the vast majority of the population were continuously engaged in agricultural pursuits, and this was rendered necessary owing to the very low rate of production consequent upon the primitive methods of agriculture. The production of corn was only about four, 2 or sometimes eight, bushels per acre, and this naturally had the effect of keeping down the population, at this time still only between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000. 3 It is a remarkable fact that even the inhabitants of the towns used at harvest-time to go out into the country to get agricultural work, and people often migrated from one district to another for the same purpose, 4 just as Irish agri- cultural labourers of to-day are accustomed to cross over to England for the harvesting. Some attention was being paid to sheep farming, and noticeable progress in this branch of industry took place later. One order of monks in particular, 1 See the Hundred Soils ; Rot. Hund., ii. 636, ii. 324, and ii. 494. * Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 119. 8 But cf, the discussion between Seebohm and Rogers in Fortnightly Review, II., ILL, IV., where Seebohm seems to think 5,000,000 possible in 1346. 4 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 63. AGRICULTURE IN MEDLEVAL ENGLAND 113 the Cistercians, 1 used to grow large quantities of wool ; and, indeed, England had almost a monopoly of the wool trade with Flanders (p. 120). But the great increase of sheep-farming occurs rather later, at the beginning of the sixteenth century. 2 66. Methods of Cultivation. The Capitalist Landlord and his Bailiff. The " Stock and Land " Lease. The agriculture of the early part of this period is de- scribed to us by various writers, of whom we may specially notice three Walter de Henley, Robert Grossteste of Lincoln, and a third author whose name is unknown. The most noticeable of these is certainly Walter de Henley, whose treatise, called " La Lite de Hosbanderie," and written in French, is still preserved in many manuscripts. 3 There is little doubt that he wrote in the early part of the thir- teenth century, and his treatise remained the standard work on agriculture till the appearance of Fitzherbert's in 1523. The treatise by Grossteste of Lincoln is called Reules Seynt Robert, and was written about 1240 A.D., for the guidance of the Countess of Lincoln in managing her estate and also her household. 4 It consists of twenty-eight practical maxims, but is more concerned with the household than the farm. The anonymous work, called Husbandry, 5 seems to have been specially written for landowners, who at this period were beginning to take care that the accounts of their estates were presented to them in writing, and it lays down the proper methods of drawing up and present- ing the accounts, the receipts and outlay necessary on an estate, and the probable returns from both land and stock. It has a special interest, because it was in the reign of Henry III. that the system of keeping accurate agricultural accounts first came into vogue, 6 and it. is owing to this fact 1 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 196 and 547. 2 More's Utopia, p. 41. 3 E.g., Oxford, Bodleian, Douce, 98 ; Merton, cccxi. ; British Museum, Add. 6159, and several others. 4 Pegge, Life of Grossteste, 95. 5 Several MSS. exist; e.g., Merton, Oxford, cccxxi. ; British Museum, Add. 6159. 6 Cunningham, English Industry, i. 272 ; Rogers, Six Centuries, 48. Of course it is on these accounts that Rogers' unique History of Agriculture and Prices is based. n H4 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND that it has been possible to gain a very clear idea of the agricultural economy of England in the Middle Ages, If we look at a typical manor, we shall find that the arable land in it seems to have been divided fairly equally between the landlord and the manorial tenants, and before the Great Plague the landlord appears to have been not merely a rent-receiver, but a capitalist who cultivated his land by the aid of a bailiff, subject very often to his own personal supervision. Now, the business of a manor was very elaborate, and required a great deal of supervision, and we have an account of the various officers on a large estate given in a small work called Senescalcia. 1 We find three officers specially mentioned the Seneschal, Bailiff, and " Praepositus." The seneschal was employed on large estates, consisting of many manors, to visit the manors in turn and see that the bailiff of each did his duty ; he there- fore had to know the details and customs of each estate, and what it ought to produce, in order that his lord might receive his full dues from it. The bailiff was the repre- sentative of the lord in single manors, and had the responsi- bility of cultivation of the soil of the demesne land and of agricultural operations generally ; while the " praepositus " was the chief man among the villeins, and shared the responsibility of cultivation with the bailiff, as representing the interests of the tenants. The bailiff had to keep accurate accounts to present to his lord or the seneschal, and it is from these accounts, which were kept with wonderful clearness, neatness, and accuracy, that we derive our knowledge of the agriculture of this period. Tenancies were, of course, of various kinds, as we have already seen (pp. 71, 7 5), but there is one which came into vogue about this time that specially deserves our attention. In many cases, especially on lands owned by monasteries, the land was held on the " stock and land lease " system, 2 whereby the landlord let a certain quantity of stock with the land, for which the tenant, at the expiration of his lease, had to account either in money or kind. An instance of this kind of lease was the practice of the landlord letting 1 Cunningham, i. 222. 2 Rogers, Hist. Agric. and Prices, i. 25. AGRICULTURE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 115 cows to dairy farmers. 1 In mediaeval times the person to whom cows were leased for dairy purposes was the deye, i.e., dairyman or dairymaid. 2 The stock and land lease plan 3 was favourable to the tenant, for it supplied his preliminary want of capital, and if he was fortunate, allowed him often to make considerable profits, and even eventually to purchase an estate for himself. 67. The Tenant's Communal Land and Closes. It must always be remembered, however, that most of the arable land in a manor was " communal," i.e., each tenant held a certain number of furrows or strips in a common field, the separate divisions being merely marked by a piece of unploughed land, where the grass was allowed to grow. The ownership of these several strips was limited to certain months of the year, generally from Lady Day to Michaelmas, and for the remainder of the year the land was common pasture. This simple and rudimentary system was utterly unsuited to any advanced agriculture. The tenants, how- ever, also possessed " closes," some for corn, others for pasture and hay. The rent of a close was always higher than that of communal land, being eightpence instead of sixpence per acre, which seems to have been the usual annual charge. 4 Besides the communal arable land and his close, the husbandman also had access to two or three kinds of common of pasture (1) a common close for oxen, kine, or other stock, pasture in which is stinted both for landlord and tenant ; (2) the open (" champaign " or " champion ") country, where the cattle go daily before the herdsmen ; (3) the lord's outwoods, moors, and heaths, where the tenants are stinted but the lord is not. 5 Thus the tenant had valuable pasture rights, besides the land he actually rented. But the system of holding arable land in strips must have been very cumbrous and have caused many disputes, since often a tenant would hold a short lease on one strip and a longer lease on another, or 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 330. 3 The rent charged for cows was 5s. per annum. Rogers, Hist. Agric. , i. 25. 8 For an example, see below, p. 186. 4 Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 96. * /&., iv. 93. u6 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND confusion of ownership would arise, while in many ways tenure was made insecure, and no encouragement was given to advanced agriculture. 68. Ploughing. As regards the cultivation of the land, it was generally ploughed three times a year. 1 Ordinary ploughing took place in the autumn, the second ploughing in April, the third at midsummer. The furrows were, according to Walter de Henley, a foot apart, and the plough was not to go more than two fingers deep. The ploughing and much other work was done by oxen, which are recommended both by Walter de Henley and by Fitzherbert as being cheaper than horses, and because they could also be used for food when dead. 2 The hoeing was undertaken by women, who also worked at harvest time in the fields. In Piers the Plowman's Crede (about 1394- A.D.) we have a description of a small farmer ploughing while his wife leads the oxen : "His wife walked by him with a long goad, in a cutted cote cutted full high." 8 An average yield of something more than six bushels per acre is what Walter de Henley thinks necessary to secure profitable farming. 4 The chief crops seem to have been wheat, barley, and oats. 5 69. Stock, Pigs, and Poultry. As to stock, the amount kept was generally rather large, and the agriculturist of the thirteenth century was fully alive to the importance of keeping it, 6 since most of his profit came therefrom. Oxen, as we saw, were kept for the plough and draft, but not much stock was fatted for the table, especially as it could not be kept in the winter. There was no attempt to improve breeds of cattle, for the scarcity of winter food (winter roots being unknown till much later) 7 and the general want of means for resisting 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 270 n., and 329. * Walter de Henley, quoted in Hist. Agric., i. 328; and Fitzherbert, quoted ib., iv. 41. * Line 433. 4 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 270, note. ' Ib., i. 26. Ib., i. 36, and 46-59, and p. 21. 7 Ib., i. 52. AGRICULTURE IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 117 the severities of the winter helped to keep all breeds much upon the same level. 1 On the other hand, swine were kept in large numbers, 2 for every peasant had his pig in his sty, and, indeed, probably lived on salt pork most of the winter. Care was taken with the different breeds. 3 The whole of the parish swine were generally put in summer under the charge of one swineherd, who was paid both by the tenants and the lord of the manor. 4 The keeping of poultry, too, was at the time universal, so much so that they were very rarely bought by anyone, and, when sold, were almost absurdly cheap. 5 This habit of keeping fowls, ducks, and geese must have materially helped the peasant in ekeing out his^wages, or in paying that portion of his rent which was paid in kind ; as, e.g., in the case of the Cuxham tenant (p. 75) who had to pay his lord six fowls in all during the year. Indeed, " poultry rents " were almost universal. 6 70. Sheep. This animal is so important in English agriculture that we must devote a special paragraph to it alone. For the sheep was, in the earlier periods of English industrial history, the mainstay of the British farmer, chiefly, of course, owing to the quantity of wool required for export. England had, up to a comparatively recent period, almost a monopoly of the raw wool trade, her only rival being Spain. There were, as mentioned before, a great number of breeds of sheep, and much care was taken to improve them. 7 The fleece, however, was light, being only as an average about two Ibs., according to Professor Rogers, 8 and the animal was small. The reason of this was that the attempts of the husbandman to improve his breeds were baffled by 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. p. 52. 2 Ib., i. 335. 3 Walter De Henley, quoted in Hist. Agric., i. 336. 4 The same custom has been observed by the author in Swiss mountain villages, where a common goatherd takes care of the goats of the peasants, being paid so much per goat by each villager, and receiving also board and lodging for a night in turn from each. 5 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 339; iv. 58. Ib., i. 339. 7 76. , i. 333. Ib., i. 53. n8 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND the hardships of the medireval winter, and by the preval- ence of disease, especially the rot and scab. 1 It is probable that the average loss on the flocks was 20 per cent, a year. They were generally kept under cover from November to April, and fed on coarse hay, wheat, and oat straw, or pea and vetch haulm ; 2 but no winter roots were available. 71. Increase of Sheep- farming. A great increase of sheep-farming took place after the Great Plague (1348), and this from two causes. 8 The rapid increase of woollen manufactures, promoted by Edward III., rendered wool-growing more profitable, while at the same time the scarcity of labour, occasioned by the ravages of the Black Death, and the consequently higher wages demanded, naturally attracted the farmer to an industry which was at once very profitable, and required but little paid labour. So, after the Plague, we find a tendency among large agriculturists to turn ploughed fields into permanent pasture, or, at any rate, to use the same land for pasture and for crops, instead of turning portions of the " waste " into arable land. Consequently, from the begin- ning of the fifteenth century we notice that the agricultural population decreases in proportion as sheep farming in- creases, and the steady change may be traced in numerous preventive statutes till we come to those of Henry VIII. about decayed towns, especially in the Midlands, the south, and the Isle of Wight. 4 The author of a political song of Henry VI. 's reign declared that our enemies sneered at English sheep- farming and thought it lessened our naval power. 5 Another cause that, in Henry VIIL's time, had a distinct influence in promoting sheep-farming was probably the lack of capital which made itself felt, owing to the general impoverishment of England in his wasteful reign, and which naturally turned Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 31, 334. a Walter de Henley, in Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 334. 8 Cf. Cunningham, English Industry, i. 361. 4 Cf. 6 Henry VHL, c. 6 ; 7 Henry VIII., c. 1 ; 27 Henry VIII. , o. 22 ; and 32 Henry VIII., cc 18 and 19. From Ye Libelle qf Englishe Politic, w. 36, 37. AGRICULTURE IN MEDIAEVAL ENGLAND 119 farmers to an industry that required little capital, but gave quick returns. 1 We should also add as another cause the rise in prices caused by the discoveries of silver in the New World. 72. Consequent Increase of Enclosures. One consequence of this more extensive sheep-farming was the great increase in enclosures made by the landlords in the sixteenth century. 2 So great were these encroach- ments and enclosures in north-east Norfolk, that they led, in 1549, to a rebellion against the enclosing system, headed by Ket ; 3 but though more marked perhaps in Henry VIIL's reign, the practice of sheep-farming had been growing steadily in the previous century. Fortescue, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VI. (about the middle of the fifteenth century), refers to its growth and the prosperity it caused in rural districts 4 a prosperity, however, that must have been confined only to the great landowners. We receive other confirmation of this from various statutes designed to prevent the rural population from flowing into the towns, as, for example, the Acts of 1 and 9 Richard II. (1377 and 1385), of 17 Richard II. (1394), promoting the export of corn in hopes of making arable land more valuable. 5 Another Act was passed in 1489 (4 Henry VII., c. 16) to keep the rural population from the towns. In fact, it is very clear that at this time a great change was passing over English agriculture, and the old agricultural system was becoming seriously disorganised. But the growth of sheep-farming is also connected with a great economic and industrial develop- ment in England the rise and progress of cloth manu- factures and of the weaving industry generally, and to this we must now devote our next chapter. 1 Of. Rogers, Six Centuries, 445. 2 Rogers. Hist. Agric. , iv. 109 ; and Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 362. 3 Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 124 ; Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 428. 4 Sir John Fortescue wrote a treatise called The Comodytes of England before 1451 ; and his works were edited by Lord Clement ; cf. i. 551. 5 At the request of the Commons, Richard " granted licence to all his liege people of the realm of England to carry corn out of the same realm to what parts they please them, except to his enemies ; " 17 R. II., c. 7. CHAPTER IX THE WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 73. England's Monopoly of Wool. THE development of the woollen industry in England is interesting and important for two reasons. 1 On the one hand it shows us the origin of the peculiar wealth of our country both in the middle ages and later, and on the other it illustrates with great clearness the evolution of our industry generally, an evolution that begins with the rude efforts of prehistoric peoples, passes through the stages of family work and gild work in hand-made industry, till in more recent times it reaches the stage of the machine and the factory. It is also particularly associated with our own country, for in the middle ages England was the chief wool-producing country in the North of Europe. Spain grew wool also, 2 but it could not be used alone for every kind of fabric, 3 and, besides, it was more difficult to trans- port wool from Spain to Flanders, the seat of the manufac- ture of that article, 4 than it was to send it across the narrow German Ocean, where swarms of light craft plied constantly between Flanders and the eastern ports of England. 5 Hence England had a practical monopoly of the wool trade. 6 which was due not only to its favourable climate and soil, but also to the fact that even at the worst periods of civil war and they did not last for long our island was incomparably more peaceful than the countries of Western Europe. From the thirteenth to the seventeenth century the farmers of Western Europe could not possibly have kept sheep, the most defenceless and tender of domestic 1 Ashley, Early History of the English Woollen Industry, p. 1 ; see also Note A. 2 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 59. 3 Bonwick, Romance of the Wool Trade, p. 346. 4 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 58. * Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124. 6 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 35. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 121 animals, amid the wars that were continually devastating their homesteads ; nor, as a matter of fact, did they do so. 1 But in England, especially after the twelfth century, nearly everybody in the realm, from the king to the villein, was concerned in agriculture, and was interested therefore in maintaining peace. Even when the great landlords, after the Plague of 1348, gave up the cultivation of their arable land, they often undertook sheep-farming, and enclosed large tracts of land for that purpose. Hence the export trade in wool became more and more important, and there was always a continual demand for English wool to supply the busy looms of the great manufacturing towns in Flanders, Holland, 2 and even Florence 3 in Italy. 74. Wool and Politics. The most convincing proof of the importance of the wool trade is seen in England's diplomatic relations with Flanders, which, by the way, afford an interesting example of the necessity of taking economic factors into account in dealing with national history. Flanders was the great manufacturing country of Europe at that time. England supplied its raw material in vast quantities, and nine-tenths of English wool went to the looms of Bruges and Ghent. A stoppage of this export from England used to throw half the population of the Flemish towns out of work, and cause great misery. 4 The immense transactions that even then took place are seen from the fact that a single company of Florentine merchants would contract 5 with the Cistercian monks of England for the whole year's supply of the wool produced on their vast sheep-ranges on the Yorkshire moorlands ; for the Cistercian order were among the fore- most wool-growers in the country. 6 Now, it is a curious and significant fact that when Edward I., Edward III., and Henry V. premeditated an attack on France, they generally took care to gain the friendship of Flanders first, 7 so as to 1 Rogers, Econ. Interp. , p. 9. 2 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 60. * /&., p. 58. * Ashley, James and Philip von Astevelde, 84, 91. 6 Cf. Peruzzi, Commercio e Banchieri di Firenze, 70, 71. Burnley, Wool and Woolcotnbing, p. 61. 7 Rogers , Econ. Interp,, p. & 122 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND use that country as a base from which to enter France, or at least as a useful ally ; and secondly, they paid a large proportion of the expenses of their French expeditions by means of a wool-tax in England. Thus, when Edward III. opened his campaign against France in 1340, he did so from Flanders, 1 with special help afforded by a Flemish alliance. This king also received annually 60,000 from the wool-tax alone, 2 and on special occasions even more Again, it was a grant of 6s. 8d. on each sack of wool exported that enabled Edward I. in 1275 to fill his treasury for his subsequent invasion of Wales. 8 The same king in 1297 obtained the means for equipping an expedi- tion against France, via Flanders, from the same source. Similarly Henry V. took care to cultivate the friendship of the Flemish and their rulers before setting out to gain the French crown, and paid for his expedition by raising taxes on wool and hides. 4 We may add to the notices here given the treaty of 1274 between Edward I. and the Countess of Flanders, protecting the export of English wool to Flanders, and the well-known case of Perkin Warbeck. This impostor was supported by the dowager Duchess of Burgundy, and was well received in Flanders, then ruled by the Archduke Philip. As Philip, at the instigation of the Duchess, encouraged Warbeck, Henry VII. took the step of banishing all Flemings from England (1493), and as Philip replied by expelling all the English from Flanders, commercial intercourse between the two countries was almost entirely suspended. The result was that, as Bacon tells us, 5 this interruption " began to pinch the merchants of both nations very sore," and they besought their respective sovereigns " to open the intercourse again." Philip withdrew his support from Warbeck, and the im- postor was left without resources, so that his subsequent appearance in England was a complete failure. The want of English wool thus altered the pdlicy of the Flemish rulers, and before long the "great treaty," or Intercursus 1 Green, Hist, of England, i. 411. 2 Hot. Parl., ii. 200. 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 192, 244. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 304. 8 Bacon's History of King Henry VII. (ed. by Lumby), p. 144, which see for full account of Warbeck. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 123 Magnus, was made between the two nations (1496), by which trade was once more allowed to proceed unchecked, and "the English merchants came again to their mansion at Antwerp, where they were received with procession and great joy." l Henry VII. also made a commercial treaty with Den- mark 2 (1490), and one with the Republic of Florence, securing to that city a stipulated supply of English wool every year. 3 The enormous revenues also, which from the thirteenth to the fifteenth centuries were exacted from England by the Papal Court, and by the Italian ecclesiastics quartered on English benefices, were transmitted in the shape of wool to Flanders, and sold by the Lombard exchangers, who transmitted the money thus realised to Italy. 4 Matthew Paris estimated the amount of ordinary papal taxation for the year 1245 at a sum of no less than 60,000 marks. 6 The extent of these revenues may also be gathered from the fact that the Parliament of 1343, in a petition against Papal appointments to English ecclesiastical vacancies, asserted that " The Pope's revenue from Eng- land alone is larger than that of any Prince in Christen- dom." 6 And at this very time the deaneries of Lichfield, Salisbury, and York, and the archdeaconry of Canterbury, were all held by Italian dignitaries, while the Pope's collec- tor sent from London 20,000 marks a year to his master at Rome. 7 Now, these impositions were paid out of the pro- ceeds of English wool. It is interesting, too, to find that taxes for King Edward III. were calculated, not in money, but in sacks of wool. In one year (1338) the Parliament granted him 20,000 sacks ; 8 in another year (1340) 30,000 sacks. 9 In 1339 the barons had granted him "the tenth sheaf, fleece, and lamb." 10 Early in the fifteenth century 1 Bacon's History of King Henry VII. , p. 147. 3 Rymer, Foedera, xii. 381. Ib., xh. 390. 4 Cf. Cunningham, English Industry, i. 194, 271, 378 ; and Schanz, Engl. Handelspolitik, i. 111. 8 Quoted by Cunningham, Growth of Eng. Industry (1 voL ed. 1882), p. 146. Green, Hist, of English People, i. 408. 7 Ib., p. 408. 8 Foedera, ii. 1022, 1049, 1064. ' Stubbs, Const. Hiat. t ii. 380. 10 Ib. 124 INDUSTRY IN JENGLAND 30,000 out of the 40,000 revenue from customs and taxes came from wool alone. 1 Once more, as in the days of the Crusades, we are able to see how the Hundred Years' War with France and the exactions of Rome were paid for by the industrial portion of the community, while under- neath the glamour of the victories of Edward III. and Henry V. lies the prosaic but powerful wool-sack. 75. Prices and Brands of English Wool. Having now seen the importance of wool as a factor in English industry and in political history, we must proceed to study more closely the facts of the woollen trade, and the manufacture of woollen cloth. The chief growers of wool were the Cistercian monks, 2 who owned huge flocks of sheep. The wool grown near Leominster, in Herefordshire, was the finest of all, and, generally speaking, that grown in Wiltshire, Essex, Sussex, Hampshire, Oxfordshire, Cam- bridge, and Warwickshire was the best. 3 The poorest came from the North of England and from the Southern downs. There were a number of different breeds of sheep, for care was taken to improve the breed, and it would seem that forty-four different brands of English wool, ranging in value from 13 to 2, 10s. the sack (of 364 Ibs.) were recognised both in the home and foreign markets. 4 The average price 5 of wool from 1260-1400 was 2s. Ifd. per clove of 7 Ibs., i.e., a little over threepence a pound, sometimes fourpence. ID the middle of this period (1354) the average annual export, according to Misselden, 6 was about 32,000 sacks, which is equal to 11,648,000 Ibs., representing a value of some 180,683 yearly. 7 At this time the export trade in wool between England and the Low Countries was not carried on by English merchants, but by foreigners, and chiefly those belonging to what was known as the " Hanse of London." 8 This was not the great Teutonic Hansa, but 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 305. 2 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 647. 3 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 383. * Hot. Parl., 32 Hen. VL 5 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 366. Circle of Commerce, 119. 7 Cf. Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 367. 8 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 38. Of course the Teutonic Hansa also was engaged in the wool trade. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 125 was an association of merchants from the towns of Rheiins, Amiens, and others in North France and Flanders, and even from Paris, who traded with England for English wool. 1 Merchants also came for wool from Cologne, and the men of Cologne had a house in London (distinct from the Teutonic Hansa's house) as early as 1157. 2 These merchants would supply the towns on the Rhine, for many of these cities had flourishing cloth manufactures. 8 76. English Manufactures. Now, although Flanders has been mentioned as the chief manufacturing centre for Europe, it must not be sup- posed that England could not manufacture any of the large quantity of wool which it grew. Undoubtedly the people of the Netherlands were at that time the great manufac- turers of the world, and were acquainted with arts and processes to which the English were strangers, while for a long time the English could not weave fine cloths : but, nevertheless, there was a considerable manufacturing in- dustry, chiefly of coarse cloths, 4 an industry very widely spread, and carried on in people's own cottages under the domestic 5 system. This industry was encouraged by the Government in occasional, but of course futile, regulations prohibiting the export of wool, in order that it might be used for home manufactures. 6 The chief kinds of cloth made were hempen, linen, and woollen coverings, such as would be used for sacks, dairy-cloths, woolpacks, sails of windmills, and similar purposes. 7 The great textile centres were Norfolk (Norwich) 8 and Suffolk, where, indeed, manu- facturing industries had existed long before the earliest records. An idea of their importance may be given from the fact that, in the assessment for the wool-tax of 1341, 1 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 36. 2 Lappenberg, Hans. Stalhof zu London, Uric., 2. 8 Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 38. 4 Of. Walter of Hemingburgh, Chronicon, i. 306 (Eng. Hist. Soc., 1848). 6 Cunningham, i. 394. 6 E.g., the Oxford Parliament of 1258 prohibited export of wool Qf. Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 39, and his Econ. Hist., II. ch. iii. p. 194. 7 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 568. 8 Burnley, Wool and WoolcomUng, 866. 126 INDUSTRY IN .ENGLAND Norfolk was counted by far the wealthiest county in Eng- land after Middlesex (including London). 1 There was also a cloth industry of importance in the West of England, the chief centures being Westbury, Sherborne, and Salisbury. 2 The linen of Aylsham were also celebrated. 3 That there was even some export of cloth as well as raw wool is clear from Misselden's statement, 4 that in 1354 A.D. there was exported 4774 J pieces of cloth, valued at 40s. each, and 806 J pieces of worsted stuff, at 16s. 8d. eacL 77. Foreign Manufacture of Fine Goods. But we find rich people used to purchase the fine cloths from abroad 6 e.g., linen from Liege and Flanders gener- ally, and velvet and silk goods from Genoa and Venice although there was certainly a silk industry in London, carried on chiefly by women, and protected by an Act of 14 5 o. 6 Misselden 4 mentions the import of 1831 pieces of fine cloth, valued at no less than 6 each. But in the England of which we are now speaking, the textile in- dustries were prevented from attaining a full development from the fact that, though general, they were strictly local ; and, moreover, those who practised them did not look upon their handicraft as their sole means of livelihood, but even till the eighteenth century were generally engaged in agri- culture as well. The cause of this is connected with the isolation and self - sufficiency of separate communities, previously noted. An evidence of the consequent in- feriority of English to Flemish cloth is given by the fact that an Act of 1261 attempts to prohibit the import of spun stuff and the export of wool. Needless to say it was useless. The prices of cloth at this period are interesting, as showing the great difference between the fine (i.e., foreign) and coarse (home) cloths. The average price of linen is 4d. an ell, being as low as 2d., and as high as 8Jd. Inferior woollens sold at Is. 7Jd. a yard, "russet" at Is. 4d., blanketing at Is. On the other hand, scarlet cloth (foreign) 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, 115, 116. 2 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 570. * Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 105. 4 Misselden, Circle of Commerce, 119. 8 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 570. 33 Hen. VI., o. 5. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 127 rises to the enormous price of 15s. a yard. Cloth for liveries varied from 2s. Id. to Is. per yard. Speaking- generally for the period 1260-1400, we may give the average price of the best quality at 3s. 3jd. a yard from 1260-1350, and 3s. 5jd. from 1350-1400; while cloth of the second quality fetched Is. 4Jd. in the first period, and Is. lljd. in the second. 1 78. Flemish Settlers teach the English Weavers. Norwich. It is to Edward III., very largely, that the development of English textile industry is due. It is true that, long before, Henry II. had endeavoured to stimulate English manufacture by establishing a " cloth fair " in the church- yard of St Bartholomew 2 at Smithfield. But English industry had developed slowly till the days of Edward, partly, no doubt, owing to the continual disorder of the preceding reigns. Stimulated, probably, by his wife Philippa's connection with Flanders, he encouraged Flemish weavers to settle in England, and also brought back home some Englishmen who had settled in Flanders and were apparently engaged in the cloth manufacture. Such, at any rate, appears to be the case from a perusal of an anonymous work dealing with this action of Edward III., and entitled The Golden Fleece? The account runs thus " The wools of England have ever been of great honour and reception abroad, as hath been sufficiently witnessed by the constant amity which, for many hundred years, hath been inviolably kept between the Kings of England and the Dukes of Burgundy, only for the benefit of the wool, whose subjects, receiving the English wool at 6d. a pound, returned it (through the manufacture of these industrious people) in cloth at 10s. a yard, to the great enriching of that state, both in revenue to their sovereign and in em- 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 568-593, and ii. 536-542. 2 Ashley, Woollen Industry, 65 ; Bonwick, Romance of the Wool Trade, 339. 3 The extract is found in Burnley's History of Wool and Woolcombing, p. 61. The Golden Fleece was published anonymously in 1599, but treats of an earlier period also. 128 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND ployment to their subjects, which occasioned the merchants of England to transport their whole families in no small numbers into Flanders, from whence they had a constant trade to most parts of the world. " And this intercourse and trade between England and Burgundy endured till King Edward III. made his mighty conquests over France and Scotland, when he projected how to enrich his people and to people his new conquered dominions ; and both these he designed to effect by means of his English commodity, wool ; all which he accomplished, though not without great difficulties and opposition ; for he was not only to bring back his own subjects home, who were and who had been long settled in those parts, with their whole families (many of which had not so certain habitations in England as in Flanders), but he was also to invite clothiers over to convert his wools into clothing (and these were the subjects of another prince), or else the stoppage of the stream would choke the mill, and then not only clothing would everywhere be lost, but the materials resting upon his English subjects' hands would soon ruin the whole gentry and yeomanry for want of vending their wools. Now, to show how King Edward smoothed these rough and uneven passages were too tedious for this short narrative, though otherwise in their contrivance they may be found to be ingenious, pleasing, and of great use." We may note also a statute 1 of the year 1337, which offers protection to all foreign clothworkers who may settle in England, and, at the same time, in order to encourage home manufactures, prohibits, on the one hand, the export of wool, and, on the other, the import of foreign cloth. After this date large numbers of foreigners seem to have come over here, 2 and complaints against them are frequently made by English cloth manufacturers. 8 But, although Englishmen naturally felt some jealousy of this foreign immigration, it resulted in lasting good to the industry and trade of our country, and undoubtedly increased our wealth very greatly. 1 The 11 Ed. TIL, cc. 3, 4. a Ashley, Wof>Uen Industry, 47. * Madox, Firma Burgi, 284 ., col. 2. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 129 The Flemish weavers settled chiefly in the eastern counties, though we hear of two Flemings from Brabant 1 settling in York in 1336 ; and shortly before this time one John Kemp, 2 also a Fleming, removed from Norwich, and founded in Westmoreland (1331) the manufacture of the famous " Kendal green." The chief centre, however, of the foreign weavers was naturally Norwich, 3 the Manchester of those days, with a population of some 6000, 4 and the chief industry was that of worsted cloths, so named from the place of manufacture, Worstead. When we speak of worsted cloths, we mean those, plain, unpretending fabrics that probably never went beyond a plain weave or a four- shaft twill. The jam was very largely spun on the rock or distaff, by means of a primitive whorl or spindle, while the loom was but a small improvement on that in which Penelope wove her famous web. 6 There was a great demand among religious orders for sayes and the like, of good quality ; plain worsteds were generally worn by the ordinary public. 79. The Worsted Industry. Whether the growth of the worsted cloth industry was connected or not with this particular Flemish immigration we cannot determine, but after the Flemings came it seems to have increased. 6 The manufacture was confirmed to the town of Worstead by a patent of 1315; 7 and in 1328, 1 Rymer, Foedera, ii. 954. 76. , ii. 823. 8 Bonwick, Romance of the Wool Trade, 366. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, 117. 5 Compare two interesting pictures, one of weaving (about A.D. 1130-1 174), from M.S. Trin. Coll. Carnb., R. 17, 1 ; and the other of a loom from the Faroe Isles, from Montelius, Civilisation of Sweden, both reproduced in Green's History of the English People, illustrated edition, vol. I. pp. 171 and 172. 6 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing , p. 50. 7 Worsted is first mentioned in official records in the eighth year of Edward II. (1315), when the clothiers of Norwich are accused of making pieces of only 25 yards in length and selling them as being of 30 yards. But, of course, worsted as a material was known long before this period. William Rufus had a pair of stockings of " say," a kind of worsted, which were valued at 3s., a very .high price for those days. See Burnley, ui supra, 51. "X^ i 3 o INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND also, Edward III. issued a letter patent l on behalf of the cloth workers in worsted in the county of Norfolk. The manufacture was already so extensive and important that next year a special " aulnager " 2 (or cloth searcher) was appointed to inspect the worsted stuffs of Norwich and district, who held his office for twenty years. In 1348, however, on the petition of the worsted weavers and mer- chants themselves, the patent was revoked, and the aulnager removed. 3 But in 1410, after Norwich had gained a new charter (1403), the power of "aulnage" was once more given, at its own request, to its mayor and sheriffs, or their deputies. 4 80. Gilds in the Cloth Trade. In the previous period we referred to the origin and growth of the craft-gilds, and it is interesting to note their importance in connection with the woollen industry at this time. As a separate craft, that of the weaver cannot be traced back beyond the early part of the twelfth century ; in the middle of the twelfth century, however, gilds of weavers are found established in several of the larger English towns. 5 At first they were in voluntary association, though acting independently of each other, but it became the policy of the government in the fourteenth century to extend the gild organisation over the whole country, and thus to bring craftsmen together in organised bodies. 6 Elaborate regulations were drawn up for their governance by Parliament, or by municipalities. Now, in London at this date (about 1300), and probably at Norwich and other large towns, the woollen industry was divided into four or five branches the weavers and burellers, the dyers and fullers, and the tailors (cissores). 7 The weavers and burellers were each in a separate gild, the dyers and fullers together in one, while the tailors formed a third gild of Col. Rot. Pat., 103, 2 ^J^Jffflfo ^ol. Rot. Pat., 104. * Ib., 156, 22 Ed., DI. V ^imirCF Rot ' ParL> m ' 637< The Pipe Rolls of the early years^RienBylL show gilds of weavers in Winchester, Huntingdon, Nottingham, and York. Pipe Rolls, 2-4 Hen. II., ed. 1844. Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 17. ^ 7 Ashley, #., 27. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 131 their own. But they were all very conscious that they had interests in common, and they were accustomed to act to- gether in matters affecting the industry as a whole, such as, e.g., ordering cloth made in the city to be dyed and fulled in that city, and not sent out to some other town. 1 81. The Dyeing of Cloth. The dyeing and fulling industry, however, could not have flourished much in England at this time, for English cloths were mostly sent to be fulled and dyed in the Netherlands ; 2 and indeed we cannot consider dyeing as a really English industry till the days of James I., where it will be duly mentioned. At the same time it was not unknown, for it was practised even in early Celtic days ; 3 and we have scarlet, russet, and black cloths of English make in the fourteenth century. 4 Woad, also for dyeing, was imported in John's reign. 6 But the industry was chiefly carried on in the Netherlands, owing to the progress there made in the cultivation of madder, which forms the basis of so many different dyes. This plant has never been at any time largely cultivated in England, and, moreover, the Dutch for several centuries possessed the secret of a process of pul- verising the root in order to prepare it for use. Such being the case, there is no wonder that they far excelled the English in the art of dyeing. 6 82. The Great Transition in English Industry. From the time of this first Flemish immigration in the fourteenth century, we perceive the beginning of an im- portant modification in our home industries. Hitherto England had been almost exclusively a purely agricultural country, growing large quantities of wool, exporting it as raw material, and importing manufactured goods in ex- change. But from this period the export of wool gradually 1 Liber Custumarum, 127-9 (of 1298 A.D.) 2 Yeats, Technical Htitory qfCommerce, p. 147. 8 Page 14 above. 4 Yeats, u. 8., p. 148. * ^Wfc Madox, Hist. Exchequer, 531^32 (in 12 John). Evidently the home supply of woad, the traditional dye of the ancient Briton, was insufficient. 6 Yeats, Tech. Hist., p. 151. 1 32 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND declines, while on the other hand our home manufactures increase, until at length they in turn are exported. Now, the beginnings of this export date from the fourteenth century. 1 In fact, manufactured cloth, and not raw wool becomes the basis of our national wealth, and frequently 2 the export of wool is forbidden altogether, so that we may have the more for the looms at home. A proof of the growing importance of manufacture in this period is the noticeable lack of labourers and the high wages they get, as set forth in an Act of Henry IV. (1406), 3 which points to an increase of weavers in all parts of the kingdom, that takes labourers from other employ- ments. We may also incidentally note from this the growth of a distinct " labour class " living upon wages and not on the land. 4 83. The Manufacturing Class and Politics. The growing importance of the manufacturing and merchant classes which were now rapidly springing up 5 can be clearly traced in the politics of the Tudor period. In spite of two great drawbacks, the cloth manufacture was progressing. It had naturally been severely checked for a generation or so by the awful national disaster of the Great Plague, which occurred so soon after Edward III. had helped to promote it in England, and which for the time utterly paralysed English industry in all its branches. It had been checked again by the^ long and useless wars which Edward III. and his successors carried on against France, at enormous cost and with no practical results, but which of course were paid for out of the proceeds of our national industries. But after these two checks it developed steadily, even during the Wars of the Roses ; for these wars were carried on almost exclusively by the barons and their retainers, in a series of battles hardly any of which were of 1 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 66. 8 By the 4 Hen. VII. , c. 11 ; 22 Hen. VIII. , c. 2; 37 Hen. VTH., c. 15. 7 Hen. IV., c. 17. 4 Ashley, Econ. Hist., vol. II. p. 101. 8 We note now the growth of a class of merchants who were not manu- facturers, but occupied solely in buying and selling cloth. Ashley, Woollen Indwtry, pp. 58-67. WOOLLEN TRADE AND MANUFACTURES 133 any magnitude, exaggerated though they have been both by contemporary and later historians. 1 These wars had the ultimate effect of causing the feudal aristocracy to destroy itself in a suicidal conflict, and thus helped to increase the influence of the middle class, i.e., the merchants and manufacturers, as a factor in political life. And thus it became the policy of the Tudor sovereigns, who were gifted with a certain amount of native shrewdness, to hasten the decaying power of the feudal lords by simultaneously supporting, and being supported by, the middle class, and to the alliance thus made between the crown and the industrial portion of the community we owe a rapid in- crease of commercial prosperity which laid the founda- tions of the greatness of the Elizabethan age, and of the great mercantile enterprises that succeeded it. 1 Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, 332-334. The Wars of the Roses seem to have had no effect upon wages and prices, even though there may have been some disorganisation ; cf, Cunningham, i. 402. CHAPTER X THE TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, AND FAIRS 84. The Chief Manufacturing Towns. DURING the period between the Norman Conquest and the middle of the thirteenth century, the towns, as we saw, had been gradually growing in importance, gaining fresh privileges, and becoming almost, in some cases quite, in- dependent of the lord or king, by the grant of a charter. Moreover, they had grown from the mere trading centres of ancient times into seats of specialised industries, regulated and organised by the craft-gilds. 1 This new feature of the industrial or manufacturing aspect of certain towns is well shown in a compilation, dated about 1250, and quoted by Professor Rogers in Six Centuries of Work and Wages? which gives a list of English towns and their chief products. Hardly any of the manufacturing towns mentioned are in the North of England, but mostly in the East and South. The following table gives the name of the town, and its manufacture or articles of sale : TOWN. PRODUCT. (1) Textile Manufactures. Lincoln Scarlet cloth. Bligh Beverley Colchester Shaftesbury Lewes Aylesbury Blankets. Burnet cloth. Russet cloth. Linen fabrics. Warwick Bridport Cord. Cord and Hempen fabrics. TOWN. PBODU (2) Bakeries. Wycombe Fine bread. Hungerford ' St Albans n (3) Cutlery. Maxtead Knives. Wilton Needles. Leicester Razors. 1 Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 309, &c. 2 Six Centuries, p. 105. I have classified the list there given. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 135 TOWN. PRODUCT. (4) Breweries. Banbury Brewing. Hitchin Ely (5) Markets. Ripon Nottingham Gloucester Bristol Coventry Horses. Oxen. Iron. Leather and Hides. Soap. Northampton Saddlery. Doncaster Horse-girths. Chester Skins and Furs. Shrewsbury TOWN. Corfe Cornwall! towns / PRODUCT. Marble. Tin. (6) Fishing Towns. Grimsby Cod. Eye Whiting. Yarmouth Herrings. Berwick Salmon. (7) Ports. Norwich. Southampton. Dunwich Mills. This list is obviously incomplete, for it omits towns like Sheffield and Winchester, both of which were important as manufacturing towns from very early times, though the woollen manufactures of the latter were soon outstripped by those of Hull, York, Beverley, 1 Lincoln, Boston, 1 and espe- cially Norwich. 1 But such as it is the list is curious, chiefly as showing how manufactures have long since deserted their original abodes, and have been transferred to towns of quite recent origin. 85. Staple Towns and the Merchants. It will have been observed that by the time this list was compiled, most towns were either the seat of a certain manufacture or the market where such manufactures were chiefly sold. Now, in the days of Edward I. and Edward II. (1272-1327) several such towns were specially singled out and granted the privilege of selling a particular product, the staple of the district, and were hence called staple towns. But as the articles of commerce upon which customs were levied were^ wool, woolfells, and leather, these products are generally meant when speaking of staple goods. 2 The singling out of certain towns was adopted to facilitate the collection of the customs. 8 Besides a number of towns in England, staples were fixed at certain foreign ports for the sale of English goods. At onetime Antwerp 4 1 Cunningham, i. 181 n. 2 Craik, Hist, of British Commerce, i. 120. 3 Cunningham, i. 287. 4 Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 121. 136 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND was selected as the staple town for our produce, at another time Bruges, 1 and afterwards St Omer. 2 A staple was also set up at Calais 3 when we took it (1347), but at the loss of that town in 1558 it was transferred to Bruges. 4 The staple system thus begun by the first two Edwards was altered and reorganised by Edward III. His first in- tention seems to have been to abolish the whole system of staples, at least abroad; and this he did 6 in 1828. But such freedom of trade was not maintained for long. After various alterations and changes, it was in 1353 finally decided (by the 27 Ed. III., st. 2, c. 1) to remove the staple from all or any foreign towns, and to hold it only in certain English towns. These were Newcastle, York, Lincoln, Norwich, Westminster, Canterbury, Chichester, Exeter, and Bristol in England ; Caermarthen for Wales ; and Dublin, Waterford, Drogheda, and Cork for Ireland. To compensate for the closing of foreign staples, every inducement was held out to foreign merchants to frequent the towns in England, though (with the exception of the years 1353-76) the staple at Calais was allowed to remain. 6 Now, although regulations like these are opposed to our modern ideas of free competition, they were to a certain extent useful in the Middle Ages, because the existence of staple towns facilitated the collection of custom duties, and also secured in some degree the good quality of the wares " made in, or exported from, a town. For special officers were appointed to mark them if of the proper quality and reject them if inferior. 7 We might add that each staple was, of course, in accord- ance with the ideas of that time, subject to various regula- tions, and each staple town had a "mayor of the staple" distinct from the mayor of the town, though afterwards the two offices became united. 8 There was also an association of " merchants of the staple," who claimed to 1 Rot. Parl, ii. 149 (5), 202 (13). 2 Rot. Hund., i. 406. 8 " From the time of Richard H. till 1558 the staple was fixed at Calais.' 1 Cunningham, i. 372 n. 4 Bonwick, Romance of Wool Trade, 172. 5 2 Ed. III., c. 9. 8 Oraik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 123. 7 Cunningham, L 258. 8 Gross, Gild Merchant, L 145. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 137 date as a separate body from the time of Henry III. 1 Cer- tainly there seems to have been some sort of recognised body of English merchants trading with Flanders as early as 1313 A.D., for their "mayor" is mentioned then. 2 Another association of some importance as a trading com- pany was The Company of Merchant Adventurers, incor- porated in 1407 8 as a kind of branch of the Mercer's Com- pany. They appear to have had depots in Exeter and Newcastle, besides their chief place in London, 4 and were engaged in the export of cloth as distinct from raw wool and woolfells, which, of course, formed the business of the Merchants of the Staple. 5 These associations are very inter- esting as forerunners of those great trading companies, which in later centuries did so much to promote our foreign trade. Now, these regulations of the staple, and the growth of these trading associations, show pretty clearly the growing importance of commerce in national affairs, and also the increasing prominence of merchants as a distinct and influ- ential class in the community. Their influence arose, of course, from their wealth, and was increased no doubt by the custom of those days, which recognised them as a class apart from the landowners, who were still, with the clergy, almost the only people who were supposed to count for any- thing in national life. So much were they a special class, that the sovereign often negotiated with them separately. 6 Thus in 1339, when Edward III. was as usual fighting against France, and also, as usual, in great want of money, he was liberally supplied with loans by Sir William de la Pole, a rich merchant of Hull, who acted on behalf of him- self and many other merchants. 7 On one occasion he lent the King no less than 18,500, a most enormous sum for those days. Sir Richard Whittington performed similar services for Henry IV. and Henry V. 8 1 Cunningham, i. 287. 2 Rymer, Foedera, ii. 102. 8 lb. t viii. 464. * Gross, Gild Merchant, i. 153. 6 Rot. Parl., v. 64 (38), speaks of " their merchandises of wool and woolfell." Stubbs, Const. Hist., ii. 191, 192. 7 Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce, i. 172. 8 Ib. i. 174. 138 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND IT The family of Pole, as is well known, rose by their wealth to great rank and power, being created successively Earls, Marquises, and Dukes of Suffolk, and took an impor- tant place in the history of the nation. The rise of Pole and other great merchants to the ranks of the nobility marks a most noticeable social development in English history, for it shows how the peerage has been from almost the earliest times recruited from commerce, while in many other European countries it was impossible for anyone connected with trade to become one of the noblesse. By avoiding this irrational exclusiveness, our nation has to some extent also avoided the fatal evils which in other countries have befallen an aristocracy of a more rigid type. 86. Markets Besides the staple towns, another class was formed by the country market towns, many of which exist in agricultural districts to-day in much the same fashion as they did six centuries ago. The control and regulation of the town market was at first in the hands of the lord of the manor, 1 but by this period it had mostly been bought 2 by the Corporation or by the merchant gild, or by both, and was now one of the most valued of municipal privileges. The market-place was always some large open space within the city walls, such as, for instance, exists very noticeably in Nottingham to this day. London had several such spaces, of which the names Cornhill, Cheapside, and the Poultry still remain. The capital was indeed a perpetual market, though of course provincial towns only held a market on one or two days of the week. It is curious to notice how these days have persisted to modern times. The Wednes- day and Saturday market of Oxford has existed for at least six centuries, 8 if not more, and so has that of Nottingham. The control of these markets was undertaken by the cor- poration for various purposes.^ The first of these was to 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. p. 426, and Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 141. 2 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. xi. p. 408 sqq. implies this. 8 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 138. 4 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. i. p. 19; also see the Nottingham Borough Records, iii. 62. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 139 prevent frauds and adulteration of goods, and for this purpose special officers were appointed, 1 as in the staple towns, or like the " aulnager " of Norwich mentioned before. This was possible in a time when industry was limited and the competitive idea was as yet unborn, and one cannot help thinkicg that it must have been of great use to purchasers, provided only that these officers were incorruptible, which was not always the case. The second object of the regulators of the market was to keep prices at a " natural level," and to regulate the cost of manufac- tured articles. The price of provisions in especial was a subject of much regulation, but our forefathers were not very successful ia this point, laudable though their object was. The best example of such regulation is found, per- haps, in the Act 13 Rich. II., st. 1, c. 8 (1389-90), which ordains " Forasmuch as a man cannot put the price of corn and other victuals in certain," the justices of the peace shall every year make proclamation " by their discretion, according to the dearth of victuals, how much every mason, carpenter, tiler, and other craftsmen, work- men, and other labourers by the day shall take by the day, with meat and drink or without meat and drink, and that every man shall obey such proclamations from time to time, as a thing done by statute." Finally, provision is made for the correct keeping of the assize, or assessment from time to time, of the prices of bread and ale. The earliest notice of an " assize " in England is found in the Parliament Rolls for 1203, 2 but the practice is probably much older, and the most ancient law upon the subject is the 51st Hen. III. (A.D. 1266), the " Assisa Panis et Cerevisise." The assize of bread was in force till the beginning of the nine- teenth century, and was only then abolished in London. 3 The " assize " arranged by statute was, of course, a national matter, but many local regulations were in force. 1 Gilds usually seem to have appointed their own officers, except the gilds of those who were engaged in providing food and drink. In these cases the officers (such as " ale conners " and "flesh conners ") were appointed by the borough authorities. Of. Ashley, Econ. Hist. , II. i. p. 30. 2 5 John ; c/. Craik, Hist. Brit. Commerce^ i. 137. * 16. , p. 137. 140 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND Strict laws were also made l against the practices of fore- stalling, engrossing, or regrating of provisions, i.e., buying them in such quantities or at such times as to control a future market ; for there seems to have been an idea not perhaps altogether irrational in the minds of our ancestors that it was something unseemly to manipulate the market in the case of commodities of such universal consumption as articles of food. Nor were the laws against these practices finally removed from the Statute Book till towards the end of the eighteenth century. 2 87. The Great Fairs. Now, besides the weekly markets there were held annually in various parts of the kingdom large fairs, which often lasted many days, and which form a most important and interesting economic feature of the time. They were necessary for several reasons, since the ordinary trader could not and did not exist in the small villages, in which it must be remembered most of the population lived, nor could he even find sufficient customers in a town of that time, for very few contained over 5000 inhabitants; and because the inhabitants of the villages and towns could find in the fairs a wider market for their goods, and more variety for their purchases. Moreover, as has been well remarked, 8 since the stream of commerce was too weak in those days to penetrate constantly to all parts of the country, this occasional concentration of trade in fairs was distinctly advantageous for industry. The result was that these fairs were frequented by all classes of the population, from the noble and prelate to the villein, 4 and hardly a family in England did not at one time of the year or another send a representative, or at least give a commission to a friend, to get goods at some celebrated fair. They afforded an oppor- tunity for commercial intercourse between inhabitants of all parts of England, and with traders from all parts of 1 Of. the Statute De Pistoribus, of 51 Hen. HE. (or perhaps 13 Ed. I.) till the 5 and 6 Ed. VI., c. 14 and 15. 2 12 Geo. in., c. 71. s W. Roscher, Engl. Volkswirthschaftlehre, 133. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 148 TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 141 Europe. They were, moreover, a necessity arising from the economic conditions of a time when transit of goods was comparatively slow, and when ordinary people disliked travelling frequently or far beyond the limits of their own district. The spirit of isolation which is so marked a feature of the mediaeval town or village 1 encouraged this feeling, and except the trading class few people travelled about, and those who did so were regarded with suspicion. Till the epoch of modern railways, in fact, fairs were a necessity, though now the rapidity of locomotion and the facility with which goods can be ordered and despatched, have annihilated their utility and rendered their relics a nuis- ance. But even in the present day there are plenty of people to be found in rural districts who have rarely, and some- times never, been a dozen miles from their native village. As late as the eighteenth century several fairs of great importance were still in full vigour, as we may see from a list given by that ingenious compiler, Malachy Postle- thwaite. 2 He mentions " (1) Stourbridge Fair near Cam- bridge, beyond all comparison the greatest in Britain, per- haps in the world ; (2) Bristol, two fairs, very near as great as that of Stourbridge ; (3) Exeter ; (4) West Chester ; (5) Edinburgh : also several marts, as : Lynn, Boston, Beverley, Gainsborough, Howden, &c. ; (6) Weyhill Fair, and (7) Burford Fair, for sheep ; (8) Pancrass Fair in Staffordshire, for saddle horses ; (9) Bartholomew Fair in London, for lean and Welsh black cattle ; (10) St Faith's in Norfolk, for Scots runts; (11) Yarmouth fishing fair for herrings, the only fishing fair in Great Britain, or that I have heard of in the world, except the fishing for pearl oysters near Ceylon in the West Indies; (12) Ipswich butter fair; (13) Wood- borough Hill near Bland ford in Dorset, famous for West country manufactures, Devonshire kersies, Wiltshire druggets, &c. ; (14) two cheese fairs at Atherstone and Chipping Norton ; with innumerable other fairs, besides weekly markets for all sorts of goods, as well our own as of foreign growth." 1 Rogers, Econ. Interp., p. 283. 8 Postlethwaite, Diet, of Trade and Commerce, (ed. 1774), s. v. Fair. I 4 2 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND 88. The Fairs of Winchester and Stourbridge. Fairs were held in every part of the country at various times of the year. Thus there was a fair at Leeds, 1 which for several centuries served as a centre where the wool- growers of Yorkshire and Lancashire met English and foreign merchants from Hull and other eastern ports, and sold them the raw material that was to be worked up in the looms of Flanders. But there were a few great fairs that eclipsed all others in magnitude and importance, and of these two deserve special mention, those at Winchester and Stourbridge. (1.) That at Winchester was founded in the reign of William Rufus, who granted the Bishop of Winchester leave to hold a fair on St Giles' Hill for one day in the year. 2 Henry II., however, granted a charter for a fair of sixteen days. It was mainly, though by no means entirely, for wool and woollen goods. During this time the great common was covered with booths and tents, and divided into streets called after the name of the goods sold therein, as, e.g., " The Drapery," " The Pottery," " The Spicery." Tolls were levied on every bridge and roadway to the fair, and brought in a large revenue to the Bishop. The fair was of importance till the fourteenth century, for in the Vision of Peres the Plowman, Covetousness tells how " To Wye s and to Winchester I went to the fair." * But it declined from the time of Edward III., chiefly owing to the fact that the woollen trade of Norwich and other eastern towns had become far more important, while on the other hand Southampton was found to be a more convenient spot for the Venetian 6 traders' fleet to do business. (2.) Stourbridge Fair. But the greatest of all English fairs, and that which kept its reputation and importance 1 Bourne, Romance of Trade, p. 62. 2 Kitchin, Winchester (Historic Towns), pp. 63, 161, and Ashley, Econ. Hist., I. ii. p. 100. 8 Probably Weyhill in Hampshire. 4 For a very full account of the Fair see Warton's long note on this line in his History of English Poetry, viii. 6 Below, p. 225. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 143 the longest, was the Fair of Stourbridge, near Cambridge. 1 It was of European renown, and lasted three weeks, being opened on the 18th of September. 2 Its importance was due to the fact that it was within easy reach of the ports of the east coast, such as Lynn, Colchester, and Blakeney, which at that time were very accessible and much fre- quented. 8 Hither came the Venetian and Genoese merchants, with stores of Eastern produce silks and velvets, cotton, and precious stones. The Flemish merchants brought the fine linens and cloths of Bruges, Liege, Ghent, and other manufacturing towns. Frenchmen and Spaniards were present with their wines ; Norwegian sailors with tar and pitch ; and the mighty traders of the Hansa towns ex- posed for sale furs and amber for the rich, iron and copper for the farmers, and flax for the housewives, while homely fustian, buckram, wax, herrings, and canvas mingled in- congruously in their booths with strange far-off Eastern spices and ornaments. And in return the English farmers or traders on their behalf carried to the fair hundreds of huge wool-sacks, wherewith to clothe the nations of Europe, or barley for the Flemish breweries, with corn and horses and cattle also. Lead was brought from the mines of Derbyshire, and tin from Cornwall ; even some iron from Sussex, but this was accounted inferior to the imported metal. All these wares were, as at Winchester, exposed in stalls and tents in long streets, some named after the various nations that congregated there, and others after the kind of goods on sale. This vast fair lasted down to the eighteenth century in unabated vigour, and was at that time described by Daniel Defoe, in a work now easily accessible to all, 4 which contains a most interesting descrip- 1 This Stourbridge or Sturbridge is now almost in Cambridge itself, the relics of the fair being held in a field near Barnwell, about a mile and a half from the city. In ancient times it was very easy for merchants to come up the river Ouse in barges or light boats, as water- transport was much more used then than now, and even the sea-going ships were very light craft. Probably a Flemish merchant would find no difficulty in sail- ing all the way from Antwerp to Cambridge in a light ship. 8 The description which follows is based on Rogers, Hist. Agric.^ i. 141-143. 3 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124. 4 In his Tour through the Eastern Counties (1722) ; Tour, i. 91, or p. 164 in CasselFs National Library Edition. 144 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND tion of all the proceedings of this busy month. It is not much more than a hundred years ago that the Lancashire merchants alone used to send their goods to Stourbridge upon a thousand pack horses, 1 but now the pack-horses and fairs have gone and the telegraph and railway have taken their place. 89. English Mediaeval Ports. In the last paragraph mention was made of the east coast having ports of great prominence in this period. It will be convenient here to notice what were the chief ports of Eng- land, and to remark how few of them have retained their old importance. The chief port was of course London, which has always held an exceptional position, and the other principal ports were on the east and south coast. 2 Southampton was from early times the chief southern har- bour, and next to it Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, and Winchelsea, Weymouth, Shoreham, Dover, and Margate. They were connected with the trade in French and Spanish goods. On the western coast Bristol was almost the only port much frequented, being the centre and harbour for the western fisheries, and also a place of export for hides and the cloth manufactures of the western towns. In the fifteenth century Bristol fishermen penetrated through the Hebrides to the Shetland and Orkney Islands and to the northern fisheries, where they found that the Scarborough men had preceded them. 3 On the eastern coast, indeed, Scarborough was one of the most enterprising ports. 4 Boston, Hull, Lynn, Harwich, Yarmouth, and Colchester were also very flourishing, and were concerned in the Flemish and Baltic trade. 5 Further north Newcastle was the centre for the coasting trade in coal, 6 and Berwick was a fisherman's harbour. But the southern and eastern ports were the most frequented, as being suitable to the light and shallow 1 Toynbee, Industrial Revolution, p. 55. 8 Cf. Cunningham, i. 258 ; Rogers, Six Centuries, 122. 8 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124. 4 For the making of a pier there, cf. Statute 37 Hen. VIII. , c. 14. 5 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 124. Ib. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 145 craft that did a coasting trade, or ran across to the Con- tinent in smooth weather. The extent of piracy was, however, a great drawback to the prosecution of trade by sea, and formed a danger which in these days we can only inadequately realise. 1 Organised bands of pirates, called the " Rovers of the Sea/' ravaged our coasts in the reign of Henry VI. 2 It was quite a com- mon occurrence for Scarborough to be attacked by Scotch, French, and Flemish pirates 3 ; and even large towns like London and Norwich made plans of defence against possible attacks from such enemies. 4 Merchant vessels had to sail together in fleets for the sake of security ; both Henry IV. and Henry VI. empowered merchants in the coast towns to organise defensive schemes 5 ; and the protection of mer- chant shipping also occupied the attention of Henry VIII. 6 In fact, for many centuries piracy was the curse of our maritime trade. 9 0. The Temporary Decay of Manufacturing Towns. "We have now noticed the chief markets, fairs, ports, and manufacturing towns of mediaeval England, and it will be seen that commercial prosperity was certainly developing. So, too, were home manufacturing industries, but their growth brought about a curious effect in the decay of certain towns, and the rise of industrial villages in rural districts. To the decay of towns we find frequent reference in the Statutes of Henry VI., Henry VII., and his successor, i.e., from 1490 or 1500 onwards. This decay was due to several causes, among others to the heavy taxation caused by wars with France, 7 to the growth of sheep-farming mentioned above, and also to the fact that the industrial disabilities imposed upon dwellers in towns, in consequence 1 Cf. The, Paston Letters, i. 114. 8 Rot. Parl., iv. 350 (42), 376 (29). * Rot. Parl., iii. 162 (46). * Denton, Fifteenth Century, pp. 87, 89. 6 Rymer, Foedera, viii. 438, 439, 455. Ib., xiii. 326. 7 In 1433 Parliament in voting a tenth and fifteenth had to remit 4000 to poor towns, among which Yarmouth and Lincoln are noted. Rot. Parl. , iv. 425. Cf. also R. P., v. 5 and v. 37 for other remissions. For other evidences of decay see Rot. Parl., vi. 390, 438, and 514; Statutes 27 Hen. VIII., c. 1 ; 32 Hen. VIII. , c. 18, and others. K 146 INDUSTRY IN, ENGLAND of the corporate privileges of the gilds, now far exceeded the advantages of residence there. The days of usefulness for the gilds had gone past ; their restrictions, especially as to apprentices and journeymen, 1 were now felt only to cramp the rising manufacturing industries. Hence we find the manufacturers of the Tudor period were leaving the towns and seeking open villages instead, where they could develope their trade free from the vexatious restrictions of old- fashioned corporations. Of course laws were passed to check this tendency, and to confine particular industries to particular towns. Thus, in Norfolk, no one was to " dye, shear, or calendar cloth " anywhere but in the town of Nor- wich 2 ; no one in the northern counties was to make " worsted coverlets " except in York. 8 91. Growth of Industrial Villages. The Germs of the Modern Factory System. Such protective enactments were, however, as protective enactments must generally be, utterly in vain. Henry VII. tried 4 to remedy the supposed evil by limiting the privi- leges of interference of the gilds in causing their ordin- ances to be first approved by the Chancellor or Justices ; but even this step was useless. Manufactures were slowly and surely transferred to country villages, 5 and in several industries a kind of modern factory system can be traced at this time. Master manufacturers, weary of municipal and gild-made restrictions, organised in country places little communities solely for industrial purposes, and so arranged as to afford greater scope for the combination and division of labour. 6 The system of apprenticeship was a powerful element in this scheme, and supplied ready labour for these small factories. The goods were made not as formerly only 1 Cf. Statute 28 Hen. VIII., c. 5. 1 Cf. the 5 Hen. VIII., c. 4 ; 14 and 15 Hen. VIII., c. 3 ; and 26 Hen. vni., c. 16. 34 and 35 Hen. VIII. , c. 10. 19 Hen. VII., c. 7. 6 Mrs Green, Town Life, ii. 88, says that this removal was in search of water-power (e.g., in Yorkshire and Gloucestershire). But a more power- ful reason was the tyranny of the gilds ; Gross, Gild Merchant, L 52. Cf Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 75, and G^oss, u. B. TOWNS, INDUSTRIAL VILLAGES, FAIRS 147 for local use, but for the purposes of trade and profit throughout the kingdom. The master was bound to his workmen rather more closely than the mill-owner of the present day to his " hands," for the spirit of personal sympathy and obligation still survived in these small labour communities, nor was there any wide social gulf fixed between master and man. 1 But the germs of the modern system were there; for this new system was not that of mere cottage industry, as had been the rule in previous periods, but a system of congregated labour organised upon a capitalistic basis by one man the organiser, head, and owner of the industrial village the master clothier. It is, perhaos, interesting to note in this place the exemplification of the four systems or stages through which manufacturing industry usually passes. 2 They may be called (1) The family system, under which each worker produces separately, aided only by his wife and children ; (2) the system of production under the supervision and arrangements of gilds, as we have already seen, and where small " masters " employ a few men to work with them as journeymen and apprentices, while they as manu- facturers sell their own goods to the public ; (3) the domestic system, which is much the same as the one previous, except that the master manufacturer is no longer a merchant to the public, 3 but simply produces, on a large scale, for purchase by dealers ; and lastly (4) we have the factory system of modern times, which is familiar to all. Now the growth of the domestic system and of the great master clothiers may be dated from the middle of the fourteenth century, 4 and it extended through the fifteenth to the eighteenth century. 6 We see now clothiers in a large way of business who buy the wool, cause it to be spun, dyed, and finished, and then sell it to drapers or merchants, who retail it to the public. 6 The great sheep farmers were often clothiers, and made up into cloth the wool they grew. 7 Among these famous "master clothiers" we read of men like 1 Cf. Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 74. * Cf. Held, Zur socialen Geschichte Englands, 541 sq. Ashley, Woollen Industry, p. 73. 4 lb. t 81. 6 7&.,73. /&., 81. ' lb., 80. 148 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND John Winchcombe, or " Jack of Newbury," as he was called, of whom it is recorded that a hundred looms always worked in his house, 1 and who was rich enough to send a hundred of his journeymen to Flodden Field in 1513. 2 His kerseys were famous all over Europe. 8 It was from communities such as these that the villages of Manchester, Bolton, Leeds, Halifax, and Bury took their rise, and afterwards developed into the great factory towns of to-day. But these work- shops, large though they seemed then, were utterly insig- nificant compared with the huge factories of modern times, where the workmen are numbered in thousands, and are to the capitalist-employer, or joint-stock company that owns the mill, merely a mass of human machines, more intelli- gent though not so durable as other machines, and possessed of an unpleasant tendency to go out " on strike," for reasons that usually appear to their employer insufficient and sub- versive of the whole industrial system. However, the in- dustrial system is not subverted, though the workmen can hardly be said to be upon the same pleasant footing with their employers as they used to be in the old industrial village. But even in those days things did not always go smoothly, and there are traces * of the existence of a very badly paid class of workmen in manufacturing towns. 1 Burnley, Wool and Woolcombing, p. 69. In 1549 the English envoy at Antwerp advises the Protector, Somerset, to send to Antwerp for sale a thousand pieces of " Winchcombe's kersies." 2 BischofF, Woollen and Worsted Manufacture, i. 55. 3 Burnley, ut supra, p. 69. 4 Mrs Green, Town Life, ii. 101. The wages were only one penny a day, which was low even for those times. CHAPTER XI THE GREAT PLAGUE AND ITS ECONOMIC EFFECTS 92. Material Progress of the Country. IN the preceding chapters we have attempted to give an idea of the state of industry and commerce in England in the Middle Ages. We now come to a most important landmark in the history of the social and industrial con- dition of the people viz., the Great Plague of 1348 and subsequent years. Almost two centuries had elapsed since the death of Stephen (1154) and the cessation of those great civil conflicts which harried England in his reign. These two centuries had witnessed on the whole a con- tinuous growth of material prosperity. The wealth of the country had increased ; the towns had developed, and their development was partly the effect and partly the cause of the growth of a prosperous mercantile and industrial middle class, who regulated their own affairs in their gilds, and also had a voice in municipal management. No doubt it was true that in the fourteenth century municipal life was still on a small scale, 1 but much progress had been made since the twelfth century. Already it was a great advantage to be a " burgher," for the towns opened up to the artisan and shopkeeper a way to take their place among people of privi- lege. 2 But the country at large was still mainly devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and the mass of the people were engaged in tilling the ground or feeding cattle. The mass of the people, too, were now better fed and better clothed than those of a similar class on the Continent, and though there were social discontents at intervals, there was nothing in England so terrible and so outrageous as the " Jacquerie " revolt in France. The industrial factor, more- over, was making itself more and more felt in national and 'Mrs Green, Town Life, i. 13. 2 /fc., i. 181. 149 ISO INDUSTRY iN ENGLAND political life, for industrial questions assumed a hitherto unsuspected importance when a large proportion of the House of Commons was formed of burghers directly interested in trade and manufactures. 1 93. Social Changes. The Villeins and Wage-paid Labourers. Besides the growth of material prosperity in these two centuries, we find that the commutation of villeinage services into money payments to the lord of the manor a tendency frequently commented upon had been growing apace. 2 This commutation had been going on for a long time, in fact, ever since the Conquest, if not before, and the villeins had in many cases freed themselves not only from labour dues, but from the vexatious customary fines or " amercements " which they had to pay to the lord of the manor on certain social occasions such as the marriage of a daughter, or the education of a son for the Church. 8 But of course this freedom was not complete, though it is im- portant to notice its growth, for we shall see that it formed the occasion of a great class struggle some years after the Great Plague. There is another feature which is also of importance, and which had come more and more into prominence during the past two centuries. I refer to the increase in the numbers of those who lived upon the labour of their hands, and were employed and paid wages like labourers of the present day. It has been mentioned before that they arose from the cottar class, from the small tenants and landless cottagers, 4 who had not enough land to occupy their whole time, and who were therefore ready to sell their labour to an employer. These two features the commutation of labour- dues for money payments and the rise of a wage-paid labouring class are closely connected, for it was natural that, when the lord of a manor had agreed to receive money from his tenants in villeinage instead of labour, he 1 Mrs Green, Town Life, i. 72. 2 Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. ii. 265, 267. 1 The ordination of villeins had become BO common that the constitutions of Clarendon were inclined to restrict it. Of. Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. xi. p. 431 ; and Const. Clar., 16. * Ashley, Earn. Hist., H. ii. p. 267. THE GREAT PLAGUE 151 should have to obtain other labour from elsewhere and pay for it in the money thus received by commutation. The tendency of these social changes was greatly in favour of the villeins, whose social condition had steadily improved, 1 and whose tenancy in villeinage was fast losing its originally servile character. Neither were the villeins, whether com- paratively well-to-do yeomen or agricultural labourers, so much bound to the manor as formerly, for in proportion as their labour services were no longer necessary, their lord would let them leave the manor and seek employment, or take up some manufacturing industry, elsewhere. It had always been possible for the villeins or serfs to do this on payment of a small fine (capitagium), 2 and it is certain that, as money- payments became increasingly the fashion, the lord would not object to receiving this further payment, unless perchance he required a good deal of labour to be done upon his own land. 9 4. The Famine and the Plague. The position of the labouring class had been further im- proved by the effects of the famines which occurred in the early years of the fourteenth century. 8 Of course they suf- fered great hardships, and their numbers were considerably thinned, but at the same time this loss of life and diminu- tion in their numbers caused their services to become more valuable in proportion to their scarcity, and they gained a rise of some 20 per cent, in wages. 4 From this date till the coming of the Great Plague, some thirty years later, they and the rest of the English people enjoyed a period of great prosperity. 6 It was on the whole a " merry England" on which the Great Plague suddenly broke. The prosperity of the people was reflected in the splendour and brilliancy of the court and aristocracy, while the national pride had been increased by the recent capture of Calais (1347), and by the other successes in the French war, 6 which brought 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist. , II. ch. xvi. p. 454. 8 Bracton, De Leg. (ed. Twiss), ch. x. /. 66 p. 49. 3 Cf. Stowe, Annals, for 1314 and 1315 A.D. ; and Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 217. 4 Rogers, ib., p. 218. *Ib., 219 6 Green, History of English People, i. 429. 152 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND not only glory but occasionally wealth, in the shape of heavy ransoms. But in 1348 the prosperity and pride of the nation was overwhelmed with gloom. The Great Plague came with sudden and mysterious steps from Asia to Italy, and thence to Western Europe and England, carried some say by travelling merchants, or borne with its infection on the wings of the wind. It arrived in England at the two great ports of Bristol and Southampton l in August 1348, and thence spread all over the land. Its ravages were frightful. Whole districts were depopulated, and about one-third of the people perished. 2 Norwich and London, being busy and crowded towns, suffered especially from the pestilence, and though the numbers of the dead have been grossly exaggerated by the panic of contem- poraries and the credulity of modern historians, 3 there can be no doubt that the loss of life was enormous. 4 The plague fell alike upon the dwellers in the towns, with their filthy, undrained streets, 5 and upon the labourers working in the open fields amid the fresh air and the sunshine. The same fate came to all. "The fell mortality came upon them, and the sudden and awful cruelty of death winnowed them." 6 95. The Effects of the Plague on Wages. The most immediate consequence of the Plague was a marked scarcity in the number of labourers available ; 7 for 1 Henry of Knighton's Chronicle, ii. p. 61, ed. Lumby. 2 Rogers (Six Centuries, p. 223) thinks one-third died ; Cunningham (English Industry, i. 304) thinks nearly half ; Denton (England in Fifteenth Century, p. 98) more than half. 3 It was asserted by the fourteenth century chroniclers, and has often been repeated since, that nearly 60,000 people died in Norwich alone. Green (i. 429) says ' ' thousands of people " died at Norwich. As a matter of fact, the whole county of Norfolk, including that city, hardly contained 30,000 people. Of. Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 223. 4 Cf. Jessop, Coming oj the Friars, p. 193, who shows that half the parish priests of certain districts died during that year. The Chronicle of St Allan's alone records (ii. 369) the death of more than forty-seven monks. * Cf. Denton, Fifteenth Century, 103. * This wonderfully vivid sentence is from Henry of Knighton's Chronicle, a. ., ii. p. 63. 7 " There was such a want of servants in work of all kinds that one would scarcely believe that in times past there had been such a lack." Henry of Knighton's Chronicle, u. s., ii. p. 64. THE GREAT PLAGUE 153 being of the poorest class they naturally succumbed more readily to famine and sickness. This scarcity of labour naturally resulted in higher wages. The landowners began to fear that their lands would not be cultivated properly, and were compelled to buy labour at higher prices than would have been given at a time when the necessity of the labourer to the capitalist was more obscured. Hence the wages of labourers rose far above the customary rates. In harvest-work, 1 for example, the rise was nearly 60 per cent, and what is more, it remained so for a long period ; while the rise in agricultural wages generally was 50 per cent. 2 So it was also in the case of artisans' wages, in the case of carpenters, masons, and others. 3 It seems that the upper classes and employers of that day very strongly objected to paying high wages, as they naturally do. The king him- self felt deeply upon the point. Without waiting for Parliament to meet, Edward III. issued a proclamation 4 ordering that no man should either demand or pay the higher rate of wages, but should abide by the old rate. He forbade labourers to leave the land to which they were attached, and assigned heavy penalties to the runaways. Parliament assembled in 1350 and eagerly ratified this proclamation, in the laws known as the Statutes of Labourers. 5 But the demand for labour was so great that such legislative endeavours to prevent its proper payment were fortunately ineffective. Eunaways not only found shelter, but also good employment and high wages. 6 Parliament fulminated its threats in vain, and in vain increased its penalties by a later 7 statute of 1360, order- ing those who asked more than the old wages to be im- prisoned, and, if they were fugitives, to be branded with hot irons. For once the labourer was able to meet the capitalist on equal terms. Moreover, the effects of the Plague were not limited to those occasioned by the great 1 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 234. 2 7Z>., p. 237. 8 Ib., 234-237. 4 On the 18th of June 1349 (23 Ed. III.); cf. Eymer, Foedera, HI. i. 198, who apparently places it a year too late. 6 The 25 Ed. III., stat. ii. o. 1, and later 31 Ed. III., stat. i. c. 6, and 34 Ed. in., cc. 9, 10, 11. 6 Knighton's Chronicle, ut supra, p. 64. 7 34 Ed. III., cc. 9, 10, 11. 154 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND visitation of 1348, for there were two or three other outbreaks of pestilence in subsequent years. 1 Thus the scarcity of labourers was felt more and more keenly by their former employers, and the landowners naturally did their best to compel them to work. 2 The class of free labourers and tenants who had commuted their services for money payments was oppressed, and " the ingenuity of the lawyers who were employed as stewards on each manor was exercised in trying to restore to the landowners that cus- tomary labour whose loss was now severely felt." 3 Former exemptions and manumissions were often cancelled, and labour services again demanded from the villeins. 4 The result was inevitably a gradual union of labourers and tenants of all classes against landowners and employers the beginnings, in fact, of a social struggle, in which we recognise the unfortunate modern tendency of "a hostile confrontation of labour and capital." Combinations and confederacies of labourers became frequent, 5 and the strife grew more and more bitter, till the crisis came at last, and open revolt took place. " The difficulties of the manorial lords would be renewed with every subsequent visitation of the Plague, and the pressure on villeins to render actual service would become more severe, until at last it resulted in the general outbreak of the peasants in 138 1." 6 Nor were the social troubles thus caused in any great degree diminished by the successes of Edward III. and the Black Prince in France, or even by the conclusion of peace at Bretigny (1360). Indeed, it must be obvious to anyone who considers how wars are paid for, that military success, unless it is a great deal more productive than was that of Edward III,, really only makes matters worse, owing to the financial burdens which it imposes upon the people. And 1 In 1361 and 1369. Annals of England (Parker), pp. 196, 197. 2 Thus, the penalties are far more severe in the 34 Ed. III., c. 9, 10, 11, than in previous statutes. 3 Green, History, i. 432. 4 Cf. Stubbs, Cont. Hist., II. ch. xvi. 455. 5 The villeins " gather themselves together in great routs, and agree by Buch confederacj- that everyone shall aid other to resist their lords," &c., &c. Stat. 1 Rich. II., c. 6. 6 Cunningham, Growth oj Industry, i. 357. THE GREAT PLAGUE 155 as a matter of fact, misery and discontent continued, even after the Peace of Bretigny, to increase day by day. 1 96. Prices of Provisions. We must stop, however, to note the more economic effects of the Black Death. Now, although there was a great rise in the price of labour, the price of the labourers' food did not rise in proportion. The price of provisions, indeed, was but little affected, 2 for food did not then re- quire much manual labour in its production, and hence the rise of wages would not be much felt here. What did rise was the price of all articles that required much labour in their production, or the cost of which depended entirely upon human labSur. The price of fish, for instance, is determined almost entirely by the cost of the fisherman's labour, and the cost of transit. Consequently we should under these circumstances expect a great rise in the price of fish, 3 and such indeed was the case. So, too, there was an enormous increase in the prices 4 of tiles, wheels, canvas, lead, iron-work, and all agricultural materials, these being articles whose value depends chiefly upon the amount of labour spent over them, and upon the cost of that labour. Hence, both peasant and artisan gained higher wages, while the cost of living remained for them much the same ; while those who suffered most were the owners of large estates, who had to pay more for the labour which worked these estates, and more too for the implements used in working them. It has, however, been pointed out, 5 on the other hand and with some truth that the lords of the manors must have gained a great deal, in the years during and immediately after the Plague, from the fees of "heriots" 6 1 Green, History, i. 438. 2 Grain, meat, poultry, etc., retain much the same prices as before the Plague, or are only a little dearer. Rogers, Six Centuries, 239. 8 76. ,240. 4 76., 238. 5 By Jessop, The Black Death in E. Anglia, in The Coming of the Friars, p. 255, who also thinks that the rise in wages had begun before the Plague, and was merely accelerated by it. 'The " heriot " was a payment from "a dead man to his lord"; the "relief " was paid by tne son before he could succeed to his father's lands. See Stubbs, Const. Hist., i. pp. 261 and 24 note, 157. 156 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND and " reliefs " which they received consequent upon so many tenants' holdings changing hands through death. But any sums of money thus gained came of course only from a transitory condition of affairs, while the rise of wages and (in some cases) of prices was more permanent. We may, however, legitimately suspect, as an inference from modern cases, that the lords of the manors and the employers made the most of their hardships, in the hopes that arrears of taxation might be lightened by Parliament. 1 97. Effects of the Plague upon the Landowners. The fact that the larger landowners found the cost of working their land doubled or even trebled caused im- portant economic changes. Before the Plague the cost of harvesting upon a certain estate, quoted by Professor Rogers, 2 was 3, 13s. 9d. ; afterwards it rose to 12, 19s. lOd. Moreover, the landlord had to consent to receive lower rents, 3 for many tenants could not work their farms profit- ably with the old rents and the new prices for labour and implements. A.nd, as rent is paid out of the profits of agriculture, it became obvious that smaller profits must mean lower rents. Now, in this state of things the land- lord had two courses open to him. He could turn off the tenant and cultivate all his land himself, or he could try to exist upon the smaller income gained from lower rents. It was obviously impossible for him to cultivate all his land himself, for he would have to employ a large number of bailiffs for his various manors, and trust to their honesty to do their best for him. He therefore decided to allow his tenants to pay him a smaller rent. What is more, he in many cases decided under the circumstances to give up farming altogether, and to let even the lands which he had reserved for his own cultivation. 4 The landlords, in fact, 1 Jessop, tit supra, p. 256. 2 Six Centuries, p. 241. 1 In the words of Henry of Knighton's Chronicle (ut supra, ii. p. 65), the lords had ' ' either entirely to free them, or give them an easier tenure at a small rent, so that homes should not be everywhere irrecoverably ruined and the land everywhere remain entirely uncultivated." 4 This became even more frequent in the next century the fifteenth. Stubbs, Const. Hist., iii. 552. The new tenants were known as Jirmarii THE GREAT PLAGUE 157 had not, apparently, either the ability or the inclination tc superintend agriculture under these changed conditions, and ceased trying to work their land themselves. One great result of the Plague, therefore, was that landlords to a large extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil upon the modern tenant-farming method. There was, in fact, a com- plete change introduced into the agricultural system, the foundations of the modern arrangement of comparatively large farms, 1 held by tenants and not by small owners, were laid, and the present distinction between the farmer and the labourer was more clearly established. 2 98. Large and Small Holdings: the Yeomen. This change in the agricultural situation also operated in other ways. Concurrently with the greater development of the modern system of tenant farmers, there is reason to believe 3 that the Plague caused in many places the con- centration of several estates into one, in cases where numer- ous deaths had resulted in the succession of a single heir to the estates of his stricken relatives, and thus the tendency towards the combination of large estates in few lands was strengthened, and the great landowner became more clearly distinguished from his neighbours. " The gentry became richer and their estates larger." But at the same time there was also an undoubted tendency towards the multi- plication of small holdings, both those in the hands of tenants and of owners, so that the class of peasant-farmers and yeomen greatly increased in numbers. 4 The circumstances of the time favoured these, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by this class, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. 6 Then, when they had (i.e., those who paid a frma or fixed rent), "formers," or "farmers." Ashley, Econ. Hist., II. ii. 267. 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., I. ch. xvi. 400; Rogers, Hist. Afjric. and Prices, i. 667. 2 Ib. 3 Jessop, The Black Death in East Anglia, in The Coming of the Friars, p. 251. 4 Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 241. 6 Ib. 158 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND tided over the immediate results of the Plague, they took larger holdings as they grew richer. They were helped in this by the stock and land lease system already referred to (p. 114), which gave them the use of a larger quantity of agricultural capital than they could otherwise have com- manded. But when the tenant-farmer's wealth increased he found himself able, as a rule, to keep his own stock. 99. The Statute of Quia Emptores. It also would appear that, independently of the effects of the Plague, the number of substantial yeomanry (some of whom helped later to swell the numbers of the country gentry) was increasing from another cause. Little more than half a century before the Black Death, the Crown had thought it necessary to introduce the well-known Statute of Quia Emptores. This enactment 1 was intended to prevent the practice of " subinfeudation," whereby the tenants of the greater lords received other and smaller tenants on condition of their rendering to them feudal services similar to those which they themselves rendered to their original lords. The Statute of Quia JEmptores 2 purposed to check this process by providing that in any case of alienation of land to a sub-tenant, this sub-tenant should hold it, not of the other tenant, but of the superior lord or real owner. The intention undoubtedly was to prevent the alienation of land, but, as so often happens with legislative enactments, the actual result was of a directly opposite character. The tenant who, previously, had been compelled to retain in any case at least so much of his holding as enabled him to fulfil his feudal obligations to his overlord, was now able (by a process similar to the modern sale of " tenant right ") to transfer both land and services to new holders. 8 The estates thus transferred, however large or small they might be, were now held directly of the Crown or superior lord ; and the class of 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xv. p. 180; Taswell Langmead, English Const. Hist., pp. 62, 138, 228. a The king (Edward I.) enacted this "by the instance of his magnates only " (ad instantiam magnatwn regni sui) on July 8th, 1290 (18 Ed. I., c. 1). 8 Green, History, i. 336. THE GREAT PLAGUE 159 email gentry and freeholders grew steadily from this time both in numbers and importance. The Plague assisted the tendency of the Statute, and an important social change was thereby wrought. " The facilities thus given to the alienation and subdivision of lands ; the transition of the serf into the copyholder, and of the copyholder by redemp- tion of his services into a freeholder ; the rise of a new class of ' farmers,' as the lords ceased to till their demesne by means of bailiffs, and adopted instead the practice of leasing it at a rent or ' farm ' (firma) to one of the ' cus- tomary ' tenants ; the general increase of wealth which was telling on the social position, even of those who still remained in villeinage all undid more and more the earlier process which had degraded the free ceorl of the English Conquest into the villein of the Norman Conquest, and covered the land with a population of yeomen, some free- holders, some with services that every day became less weighty and already left them virtually free." 1 The yeomanry of England formed henceforth for several cen- turies an important factor in national life, and their decline was a national misfortune. 2 100. The Emancipation of the Villeins. In fact, the gradual amelioration of the conditions of villeinage or serfage received a forcible impetus from the Great Plague. Those villeins who had not already become free tenants, and especially those who lived on wages, 8 shared in the advantages now gained by all who had labour to sell. Their labour was more valuable, and they were able with their higher wages to buy from their lord a com- mutation of those exactions which interfered with their personal freedom of action, 4 with their right to sell their labour to other employers, or with their endeavours to reach a better social position. Serfage or villeinage gradu- 1 The extract, which gives a good summary of the conclusions of other writers, is from Green, History of the, English People, i. 420. 2 For this decline, see below, p. 276. * Rogers, Six Centuries, p. 242. 4 " Money payments were substituted for service." Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xvi. p. 454. 160 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND ally became practically a mere form, 1 though the land- owners, supported by the lawyers, 2 interposed many ob- stacles in the path of emancipation, and a great Revolt was necessary to enable the villeins to show their power. This revolt and its result must now engage our atten- tion. 3 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xvi. p. 254. " It was by a mere legal form that the villein was described as less than free." 2 /Z>., p. 455. The lawyers seem to have been against the freedom of villeins ever since the Norman Conquest. Cf. Vinogradoff, Villeinage in England, pp. 134, 150, &c., Ac. 8 Of course villeinage did not die out all at once ; nor would it be neces- sary for me to say so, were it not for the perversity of certain critics, who imagine that, because I attach great importance to the Plague and the Peasant's Revolt, I maintain that villeinage ceased suddenly. For swr vivali, see later, p. 171. CHAPTER XII THE PEASANTS' REVOLT OF 1381, AND THE SUBSEQUENT CONDITION OF THE WORKING CLASSES 101. The Place of the Revolt in English History. THE Revolt to which allusion has just been made has been described by one of our greatest and most careful his- torians l as " one^of the most portentous phenomena to be found in the whole of our history " ; nor has the criticism 2 of those who have endeavoured to minimise its results suc- ceeded in depriving it of its historical importance. " The extent of the area over which it spread, the extraordinary rapidity with which intelligence and communication passed between the different sections of the revolt, the variety of cries and causes which combined to produce it, the mystery that pervades its organisation, its sudden collapse and its indirect permanent results, give it a singular importance both constitutionally and socially." 8 It is therefore of interest to note the various influences which produced such an uprising, and to examine the various grievances which the villeins of the fourteenth century endeavoured to redress by such revolutionary methods. The revolt was undoubtedly serious, and would certainly have had far more sanguinary consequences, had it occurred later than it actually did. Fortunately the working classes of England were not so utterly ground down beneath the heel of their superiors as was the case across the Channel, and they resented their 1 Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xvi. p. 449. 2 Cf. Ashley's criticism of J. E. Thorold Rogers in The Political Science Quarterly, Vol. IV., No. 3, September 1889. Also Cunningham, Growth of English Industry, Vol. I. p. 360. But these historians practically admit all that Rogers really wished to prove, as my quotations show. See below, p. 172. 3 Stubbs, ut ante, p. 450. r 161 162 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND injuries sooner, otherwise England might have witnessed a few centuries later that volcanic upheaval of a slow peasantry, enraged by ages of seigneurial oppression, which burst with such terrific and long-contained violence over eighteenth century France. Fortunately, also, the upper classes of England seem to have taken warning in time from what happened in 1381, and did not in actual fact, whatever they may have said and thought, proceed to such foolish extremities as would have infallibly endangered both their property and their position. 102. New Social Doctrines. By no means the least important among the effects of the Great Plague was the spirit of independence which it helped to raise in the breasts of the villeins and labourers, more especially as they now gained some consciousness of the power of labour, and of its value as a prime necessity in the economic life of the nation. 1 There was, indeed, a revolutionary spirit in the air in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and the villeins could not help breath- ing it. The social teaching of the author of Piers the Plowman, with his outspoken denunciation of those who are called the upper classes, 2 the bold religious preaching of Wiklif and the wandering friars, and the marked political assertion of the rights of Parliament by the " Good Parlia- ment" 8 of 1376, were all manifestations of this spirit. It was natural, too, that, feeling their power as they did, the villeins should become restive when they heard from the followers of Wiklif that, as it was lawful to withdraw tithes from priests who lived in sin, so " servants and tenants may withdraw their services and rents from their lords that live openly a cursed life." 4 1 Of. Grower, Vox Clamantis, in Stubbs, u. ., ii. p. 454, where he describes hired labourers of the period of the Revolt, and accuses them of wishing to have too much of their own way. * See below, p. 167. I have treated this more at length in English Social Reformers, pp. 5-25. 8 Stubbs, Const. Hist., II. ch. xvi. pp. 428-433. "It marked the climax of a long rising excitement," p. 428. 4 Wiklif, English Works (E.E.T.S.), p. 229, Of Lords and Servants. THE PEASANTS' REVOLT OF 1381 163 103. The Coming of the Friars. WiTdif. Such, indeed, was the teaching that Wiklif promulgated, and it was carried throughout all England by that great association of wandering friars which he founded under the title of the "poor priests." 1 These men were like the mendicant friars who had come to England a century before 2 to work in the poorer parts of the English towns ; though Wiklif's priests generally wandered out 3 into the isolated and remote country villages, and spread abroad the independent doctrines and the revolutionary spirit of the times. Spend- ing their lives in moving about among the " upland folk," as the country people were called, clad in coarse, undyed, brown woollen garments, they won the confidence of the peasants, and what is more, helped them to combine in very effectual unions. 4 They served as messengers between those in different parts of the country, having passwords and a secret language of their own. 5 Their preaching was similar to that of the celebrated priest of Kent, John Ball, who for twenty years before the great rising (1360-80) openly spoke words like these " Good people, things will never be well in England so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater than we ? On what grounds have they deserved it ? Why do they hold us in serfage? They have leisure and fine houses : we have pain and labour, and the wind and rain in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil that these men hold their estate." These searching questions as to the rights of the lords, and the bold but true statement 1 Green, History, i. 474. 2 The Black Friars of Dominic came in 1221, and the Grey Friars of Francis in 1224. Jessop, Coming of the Friars, 32, 34. The Dominicans were "trained men of education addressing themselves mainly to tne educated classes " ; the Franciscans appealed to the lowest and poorest class, and worked in the slums of the towns of those days. Ib., 28, 21. 8 Friars and " poor priests " were found everywhere ; cf. Wylie, England under Henry IV., ch. xvi. 4 These unions or confederacies are complained of and prohibited (uselessly) by the Statute 1 Rich. II., c. 6 (1377). 6 See the message of John Ball (himself, of course, a priest) to the com- mons of Essex, quoted in Skeat's Preface to Piers the Plowman, p. xxvi., and Green's History, i. p. 476. 1 64 INDUSTRY IN ENGLAND that it was the villeins and labouring classes who supported and paid for their high estate, came closely home to the peasants. They were influenced also by the indepen- dent religious views of the Lollards, 1 which encouraged inde- pendent thought in other ways. And this independence of social and religious tenets was hardly calculated to make the villeins bear with equanimity the exactions of their lords after the Great Plague. 104. The Renewed Evictions of the Landlords. For it must be remembered that the Great Plague did not emancipate the villeins, nor cause the landowners to give up farming on their own account immediately. The process, of course, took a few years, and in these few years the landowners made desperate efforts to avoid paying higher wages than formerly for labour. As it had now become costly, they insisted more severely upon the per- formance by their tenants of such labour dues as were not yet commuted for money payments. 2 They even tried to make those tenants who had emerged from a condition of villeinage to a free tenancy return back to villeinage again, 3 with all its old labour dues and casual services. If a man could not prove by legal documentary evidence that he held his land in a free tenancy, the landowner might pre- tend he was a villein tenant, and subject to all a villein's services, although these services might long ago have been commuted for a money rent without any legal formality. 4 1 Note the complaints against Lollard teaching in the Statute 2 Henry V., I. c. 7. 2 As Stubbs puts it " The villeins ignored the Statute [i.e., of labourers], and the lords fell back upon their demesne rights over the villeins" (Const. Hist., II. ch. xvi. p. 455). The point of view of the lords is expressed, plaintively enough, in the Statute 1 Rich. II., c. 6 " The villeins and land-tenants in villeinage who owe services and customs to the said lords have now lately withdrawn and do daily withdraw their services and customs,"