A HISTORY OF STAFFORDSHIRE thatcher's wages in Berkeswich did not rise beyond a penny, though a carpenter could earn 3</." By the middle of the fourteenth century in the reign of Edward III wages had risen considerably : a thatcher could earn id. to ^d. per day, and other skilled labourers, such as carpenters and masons, rather more. By the middle of the fifteenth century another rise may be seen, and from a considerable number of individual accounts the wages of an unskilled labourer may be calculated at 4^. per day, whilst masons, sawyers, and carpenters earned $d. or 6</. 70 The average price of wheat for the whole country from 1260 to 1400 is estimated by Thorold Rogers at 5-r. Qd. per quarter; and from 1401 to 1540 one penny more, 71 and in estimating the purchasing power of the wages given above, it is usual to suppose the value of money in the fifteenth century to be twelve times as great as it is at present, 72 and is. per week was an ordinary estimate for the board of a workman. 73 It is now recognized that the sixteenth century, though marked by glorious national achievements, was a period in which the mass of the people suffered considerably, and the inhabitants of Staffordshire were not exempt from the social distress of the time. The influx of silver from the South American mines (15401600), and the systematic debasing of the currency in the reigns of Henry VIII and Edward VI led to a great rise in prices, and the contemporary documents constantly refer to the dearness of provisions, and especially of corn. Unfortunately for the labourer his wages did not rise in proportion, so that his lot was often very hard at this time. The dissolution of the monastic houses, of which there were thirty-six in Staffordshire, 74 meant inevitably, here as elsewhere, serious economic dislo- cation, for with the change of landlords came frequently change in the use to which the land was put, since the growing demand for wool for the expanding cloth industry caused many landowners to inclose for pasture land which had been formerly used for tillage. 75 The tenants and labourers of the old monastic landowners in Staffordshire must inevitably have suffered by the change, even though there is good reason to suppose that inclosures were not nearly so widespread in this county as in many others. The report of the commissioners appointed to inquire into inclosures in 1517 shows that in this county, where the woollen industry had never been very important, there was no serious grievance. The total number of acres inclosed was slightly under five hundred (48 8 acres). Of these i 1 8 acres were in the hundred of Cuttlestone, of which 85 acres only were for purposes of pasture, and none occurred before 1502. In Pirehill Hundred 100 acres had been inclosed, of which 60 were for a park and 40 for pasture, the earliest date of inclosure there being 1486. In Offlow Hundred 80 acres 69 Mins. Accts. Edw. II, bdle. 1132, No. 7. 70 Mins. Accts. Hen. VI, bdle. 369, No. 6179, &c. " See Thorold Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 330. "Ibid. 539. "Ibid. 329. 74 Stebbing Shaw, Hist, of Staff, i, 51. 1 Sir Simon Degge gives us some impressions of the evil results of the monastic dissolution. See, Sir Simon Degge, 'Observations on the Possessors of Monastery Lands in Staffordshire,' printed 1717, in Sampson Erdeswick's Surv. of Staff. He speaks of the ' Sacrilegious purchasers of this Age,' and asserts that the owners become bankrupt and sell, or else die without male issue, whereby their memories perish, and he adds, ' the next thing that hath been a great ruin to the gentry is their living and taking pleasure to spend their estate in London.' 286
