A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE The industrial development of the county was no more rapid at this time than its commercial progress. Staffordshire played no part in the early history of the woollen industry in England ; the Flemish weavers could not come 'so far inland as this to teach their craft; but some simple form of cloth- making there was here as in all parts of the country, and it is said that the wool trade was the staple trade of Wolverhampton until its decline in the sixteenth century. The returns of the Poll Tax of 1379-81 show that there must have been a considerable manufacture of cutlery at Rugeley, 63 and reference has already been made to the coal-pits of Sedgeley, which, however, only brought in 4 ioj. a year, so could not have been very extensively worked (between 40 and 50 of modern money). 6 * Iron mines are also mentioned at Tunstall in 1361," but we know that until the eighteenth century there was no important industrial development in North or South Staffordshire. It is believed that iron smelting was carried on at Uttoxeter in the thirteenth century and wool stapling in the fourteenth. The smelting of iron went on to some extent in other parts of the country, but it was as yet effected by means of charcoal, easily procurable in a county so well wooded. For the rest the return of the Poll Tax of i 379-8 i for the hundreds of Offlow and Cuttlestone 66 shows us a miscellaneous population, shoemakers, smiths, carpenters, skinners, fullers, tailors, butchers, and a few weavers, with a very large proportion of agricultural labourers or husbandmen, about eighty-eight per cent, of the whole number, compared with twelve per cent, employed in trade and industry other than agriculture. The records of the administration of justice in the manorial and other courts, including those of the forest, throw a good deal of light upon the life and customs of the people in mediaeval times. They show us a community mainly agricultural whose misdemeanours are chiefly connected with field and forest. There are innumerable fines for depasturing sheep and cattle, inclosing parts of the forest for purposes of cultivation, and throwing down fences on the lord's land, and so on. In 1 129 the men of Arley are amerced ten marks for lands of the forest taken by them unwarrantably into cultivation, but the king releases them from the penalty ' for that the debtors were poor.' " After the passing of the Statute of Merton in 1235, which gave the freeholders the right to protest against encroachments of the lord on their pasture land, the Assize Rolls of Staffordshire are full of cases in which the tenant brings an action against the lord for this offence. The following case is only one of many of the kind : ' An assize if John Golde had unjustly disseised Milicent Basset of her common of pasture in five acres in Finchespath appurtenant to her free tenement. Verdict for Milicent.' 68 The fact that in most cases the tenants seem to have got favourable verdicts points to a rather general attempt on the part of the Staffordshire lords to ignore the rights of the freeholders in this respect. It is worth noting in passing that the Statute of Merton, which was really the first inclosure act, gave no a i ' The mil. Salt Arch. Sac. Coll. xvii, 1 86. M Ibid. pt. ii, ix, 29. 54 De Banco R. 405, Hil. 35 Edw. Ill, m. 299^.
- The If ill. Salt Arch. Sue. Coll. xvii, 61-205. " Ibid, i, 8 ; Pipe R. 31 Hen. I.
M The Will. Salt Arch. Soc. Coll. vi (i), 50 ; Misc. Assize R. 55 Hen. Ill, Lichfield ; also headed Plea Rolls of reign of Edw. I, No. 121 7. (The Rolls are not numbered in Salt.) 284
