Abbot of Ramsey, and the northern army lay there so long that they impoverished the country and the tenants had to give up their copyholds through poverty.[183] The loss of life, too, must have told heavily on a country already suffering from frequent pestilence.  It is calculated that about one-tenth of the whole population of the country were killed in battle or died of wounds and disease during the war; and as these must have been nearly all men in the prime of life, it is difficult to understand how the effect on the labour market was not more marked.  The enclosing of land for pasture farms, which we shall next have to consider, was probably in many cases an absolute necessity, for the number of men left to till the soil must have been seriously diminished.

FOOTNOTES: 

[171] See table at end of volume.  The shrinkage of prices which occurred in the fifteenth century was due to the scarcity of precious metals.

[172] Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, iv. 128.  The rent of arable land on Lord Derby’s estate in Wirral in 1522 was a little under 6d. a statute acre; of meadow, about 1s. 6d.—­Cheshire Sheaf (Ser. 3), iv. 23.

[173] Thorold Rogers, op. cit. iv. 3.

[174] Thorold Rogers, op. cit. iv. 39.

[175] Cullum, Hawsted, p. 187.  The amount of seed for the various crops was, wheat 2 bushels per acre, barley 4, oats 2-1/2.

[176] By 4 Hen.  IV, c. 14, labourers were to receive no hire for holy days, or on the eves of feasts for more than half a day; but the statute was largely disregarded.

[177] See England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 105:  ’The undrained neglected soil, the shallow stagnant waters which lay on the surface of the ground, the unhealthy homes of all classes, insufficient and unwholesome food, the abundance of stale fish eaten, and the scanty supply of vegetables predisposed rural and town population to disease.’

[178] Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 448.

[179] McCulloch, Commercial Dictionary (1852), p. 412.  In 1449 Parliament had decided that all foreign merchants importing corn should spend the money so obtained on English goods to prevent it leaving the country.—­McPherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 655.

[180] Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 191.

[181] Much of the weaving, however, was done in rural districts.

[182] See 3 Edw.  IV, c. 5; Rot.  Parl. v. 105; 22 Edw.  IV, c. 1.

[183] Cunningham, op. cit. i. 456.

CHAPTER VII

ENCLOSURE

We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of paramount importance,[184] and began to cause constant anxiety to legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it.  Enclosure was of four kinds: