villeins did not suffer from starvation. It has been noticed that there were few famines in England in these times, scarcities were of short duration, and we have no record of any terrible distress, or of people dying wholesale of starvation, as has happened in other countries.
In the last quarter of the fourteenth and the first quarter of the fifteenth century, villenage, though not actually abolished, was losing its harsher features; the statutes show that it was impossible to prevent villeins leaving their lords and going elsewhere—usually into some "walled town." Nor could any statutes restore the old rate of wages. In 1425, a man was paid 3½d. for thrashing a quarter of wheat, and 12d. for twelve days' ploughing and harrowing, with wheat at 8s. a quarter, and 1s. 4d. the price of a quarter of an ox for salting down. From 1440 to 1460, wheat was never above 8s. the quarter. The average price was 6s. 8d., and of oats, 2s. In 1441, forty geese sold for 10s.—3d. for a goose. Ale was 1d. a gallon—it was, no doubt, very small. And wages had risen. In the sixth year of Henry VIII. a mower got 4d. a day, "with diet," and 6d. without. A reaper had 3d. or 5d. The lowest wage was 2½d. a day, for men or women working on the land. In 1533, the price of beef and pork was fixed by law at ½d. a lb. veal, and mutton ¾d. Artisans, of course, got much higher wages. The working day was not more than eight hours. With such prices and such wages, Fortescue's picture is quite credible.
But after 1519, the Spanish conquests in South America began to flood Europe with gold and silver, and as soon as money was more plentiful " there appeared more numerous armies, greater magnificence in princes' courts, the dowries of princesses much enlarged, and the price of provisions enhanced" ("Parl. Hist."). And in this greater magnificence and expenditure one of the very foremost was the King of England. The Field of the Cloth of Gold almost emptied Henry VIII. 's treasury of the vast sums (extorted from the nobility) left by Henry VII.; and when kings spend at this rate, their subjects always have to pay.
