A HISTORY OF RUTLAND appears that for threshing a quarter of wheat or rye a man was paid 2d. a quarter, rather more that* a day's pay, and for the same amount of barley or peas ihd. and of oats d. In 1 36 1, at Market Overton, wheat was still below the average, 4^. a quarter ; barley had gone up to 3$. 4^., and oats were said to be scarce and sold at y. 6d., quite a high price. The increase in the wages of the labourer after the Black Death was not so great apparently in Rutland as in many counties, where they were doubled, and in some more than doubled. For instance, at Market Overton in 1361, the price of threshing a quarter of wheat had now advanced to 2d., of barley and peas to 2d., and of oats and drage (an inferior kind of barley) ihd. However, this is a considerable increase on the wages of 1344, and seems to prove that the Statute of Labourers insisting on the same rate of wages as before the plague was inoperative. Mowing an acre of rye cost 6d., and a pair of millstones at Market Overton was sold at the same date for lOj. 6d., a very low price even in those days. Little advance took place in agriculture during the 15 th century; perhaps the labourer, owing to stationary prices and increased wages, was better off; but in the 1 6th century there was a considerable increase in the number of inclosures, and much laying down of land to grass, and this represented progress, for inclosed land was always better cultivated than that in the open fields, and the laying down to grass gave the land, much exhausted by wasteful farming, a badly-needed rest. An assessment made in 1453 ^°^ granting 13,000 archers to Henry VI, for the recovery of the lost French provinces, shows the comparative wealth of the English counties at the time, as it was made on an estimate of their supposed capacity to contribute according to the levy made on them.' In I 341 Rutland had come seventh, now the county comes sixth, a position also held by it in the assessment of 1503 for granting feudal aids to Henry VII. As the wealth of the county was purely agricultural, we may conclude that at this period farming in it was comparatively very flourishing. Yet for the quality of its wool, which was now even more than formerly the chief source of the farmers' wealth, Rutland was not distinguished. In 1454 the Commons prayed the kin2 that ' where the wolles growing within this reaume here before have been the grete comodite enrichyng and welfare of this land, and how now late the price of the said wolles ys so gretly decayed,'* that wool should not be exported except at certain prices named in the schedule annexed. Therein ' Rutlond woUe' is valued at six marks and a half, or ^4 6s. 8d. a sack of 364 lb., whereas Cotswold wool was put at ^8 6s. 8d., and Leominster (Herefordshire) at the exceptional price of ;^ 1 3. A tithe dispute at North Luffenham between the villagers and their rector throws some light on the financial position of farmers and labourers in the 1 6th century.' One Thomas Hunte was accused of not paying tithe on wool in 1576, which he denied, saying that every pound was worth 6d., whereas the rector had valued it at 35. ^.d. If the rector had done so he was certainly grasping, as Hunte's estimate was a little under the average market price. Hunte also stated that from his bee- hives, which were much more generally kept than to-day, he sold honey at 3^1'. or ^.d. a quart and wax at ^d. a lb. Several witnesses were examined at the trial, mostly ' husbandmen,' and all made statements as to their worldly wealth, and it is remarkable that all, however humble, had saved some- thing. Thomas Blackburne, a husbandman, who had served his master as 'chiete baylie of his hus- bandrie,' had, at the end of a long life, saved ;^40, perhaps equal to ;^300 to-day. He also stated that he had Ijought a lamb as cheap as ^d., a ridiculously low price however. Another husbandman, William Walker, eighty years of age, during forty-eight years' service to Mr. John Wymarke, had accumulated jT 10. Robert Sculthorp, who had at one time been a farmer, was worth ^^26 6s. 8d., but we are unfortunately not told the size of his farm. Roland Wymarke, a 'gentleman ' who had farmed for forty years at North Luffenham, was little better ofFthan Blackburne the 'baylie,' for he estimated his worldly possessions at £so. From the judgement delivered at this trial it appears a load of firewood was worth 2od., a lamb 3^., and a fleece of wool iSd., a great increase in price since 1361, for we know that the fleece did not become heavier till long after this. In the composition in lieu of purveyance of 1593 Rutland was assessed at ^^95 or 200 fat muttons at 95. 6d. each,° rather a low price for fat sheep, as the average price for sheep in that year was gs. ^d. This was a high assessment compared with that of many of the counties, though it seems to have been somewhat arbitrary. In the 17th century there were many signs of coming improvements, though they were not generally put in force until the end of the 1 8th century ; from the Low Countries came the turnip and artificial grasses, yet it was many years before they spread over England. Inclosures, however much injustice they sometimes wrought, certainly led to better farming, and liming and marling, almost discontinued since the 14th century, were revived. Unfortunately the Civil War and the ' Thorold Rogers, Hist, of Agrk. and Pries, iv, 75 et seq. ; Pari. R. v, 232.
- Ibid. V, 274. The lowest price in the schedule was for Sussex wool, 50/. a sack. The Rutland price
was about the average. ' Rut. Mag. i, 64. * Eden, State of the Poor, iii, p. cxv. 240
