Page:History of england froude.djvu/49

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ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY.

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his position. By the 3rd of the 6th of Henry VIII. it was enacted that master carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tylers, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, and other employers of such skilled workmen, should give to each of their journeymen, if no meat or drink was allowed, sixpence a day for the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-halfpenny for the yearly average. The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for half the year; for the remaining half, threepence.^[1]

↑ The wages were fixed at a maximum, showing that labour was scarce, and that its natural tendency was towards a higher rate of remuneration. Persons not possessed of other means of subsistence were punishable if they refused to work at the statutable rate of payment; and a clause in the Act of Hen. VIII. directed that where the practice had been to give lower wages, lower wages should be taken. This provision was owing to a difference in the value of money in different parts of England. The price of bread at Stratford, for instance, was permanently twenty-five per cent, below the price in London. (Assize of Bread in England: Balliol MS.) The statute, therefore, may be taken as a guide sufficiently conclusive as to the practical scale. It is of course uncertain how far work was constant. The ascending tendency of wages is an evidence, so far as it goes, in the labourer's favour; and the proportion between the wages of the household farm servant and those of the day labourer, which furnishes a further guide, was much the same as at present. By the same statute of Henry VIII. the common servant of husbandry, who was boarded and lodged at his master's house, received 16s. 8d. a year in money, with 4s. for his clothes; while the wages of the outdoor labourer, supposing his work constant, would have been 5l. a year. Among ourselves, on an average of different counties, the labourer's wages are 25l. to 30l. a year, supposing his work constant. The farm servant, unless in the neighbourhood of large towns, receives about 6l., or from that to 8l.
Where meat and drink was allowed it was calculated at 2d. a day, or 1s. 2d. a week. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland the allowance was 2½d. Here, again, we observe an approach to modern proportions. The estimated cost of the board and lodging of a man servant in an English gentleman's family is now about 25l. a year.

[1] The wages were fixed at a maximum, showing that labour was scarce, and that its natural tendency was towards a higher rate of remuneration. Persons not possessed of other means of subsistence were punishable if they refused to work at the statutable rate of payment; and a clause in the Act of Hen. VIII. directed that where the practice had been to give lower wages, lower wages should be taken. This provision was owing to a difference in the value of money in different parts of England. The price of bread at Stratford, for instance, was permanently twenty-five per cent, below the price in London. (Assize of Bread in England: Balliol MS.) The statute, therefore, may be taken as a guide sufficiently conclusive as to the practical scale. It is of course uncertain how far work was constant. The ascending tendency of wages is an evidence, so far as it goes, in the labourer's favour; and the proportion between the wages of the household farm servant and those of the day labourer, which furnishes a further guide, was much the same as at present. By the same statute of Henry VIII. the common servant of husbandry, who was boarded and lodged at his master's house, received 16s. 8d. a year in money, with 4s. for his clothes; while the wages of the outdoor labourer, supposing his work constant, would have been 5l. a year. Among ourselves, on an average of different counties, the labourer's wages are 25l. to 30l. a year, supposing his work constant. The farm servant, unless in the neighbourhood of large towns, receives about 6l., or from that to 8l.
Where meat and drink was allowed it was calculated at 2d. a day, or 1s. 2d. a week. In the household of the Earl of Northumberland the allowance was 2½d. Here, again, we observe an approach to modern proportions. The estimated cost of the board and lodging of a man servant in an English gentleman's family is now about 25l. a year.

[1]