having land "of the clear yearly value of 40s., nor being worth of his own Goods the clear value of ten Pound," and not retained (lawfully) in any other work, could be required to work for anyone who wanted him or her. This applied to all unmarried persons, and to everyone under thirty years of age. There was a £$ fine for a master who took a servant without a "testimonial" under the seal of the city or town, or constable or head officer. The 5 Elizabeth gives the form of this testimonial:
Memorandum. That A. B. late Servant to C. D. of E. husbandman, or Taylor, etc., in the Counter, etc., is licenced to depart from his said Master, and is at his Liberty to serve elsewhere, according to the Statute in that Case made and provided. In Witness whereof, etc. Dated the Day, Month, Year, and Place, etc., of the Making thereof."
Anyone departing without such a testimonial is to be imprisoned till he gets one, and if he cannot do this within twenty-one days next after the first day of his imprisonment, is "to be whipped and used as a Vagrant."
It is but too evident, from the Statute Book itself, that the dispossessed class never held up its head again. It had lost its lands, and with its lands the work it was wickedly accused of not doing. Its wages were rigidly fixed, from year to year, by the justices, in conjunction with the masters who would have to pay. Its gild moneys had been stolen by a Government which dared not rob the rich Corporations of London.[1]
It is dreadful to find that at the very beginning of Elizabeth's reign there was even some thought of reviving the repealed clauses of the 1 Edward VI. c. 3. As it was, the labouring class were more of serfs than they had been since the beginning of the reign of Richard II.—200 years before. By the 14 Elizabeth,[2] a vagabond above the age of
- ↑ "The gilds which existed in the towns were also found in the country villages. Gilds are traceable to the period before the Conquest, and Hickes long ago printed some of the rules under which they were constructed and governed in the towns of Cambridge and Exeter. Blomefield finds some in the Norfolk villages. Vestiges of their halls remained long in small villages."—Rogers.
- ↑ The 14 Elizabeth c. 5 was the re-enactment of the 27 Henry VIII. c. 25. See p. 63.
