Sayfa 488 / 2651

In 1350, being the 25th of Edward III. was enacted what is called

the Statute of Labourers. In the preamble, it complains much of

the insolence of servants, who endeavoured to raise their wages

upon their masters. It therefore ordains, that all servants and

labourers should, for the future, be contented with the same

wages and liveries (liveries in those times signified not only

clothes, but provisions) which they had been accustomed to

receive in the 20th year of the king, and the four preceding

years; that, upon this account, their livery-wheat should nowhere

be estimated higher than tenpence a-bushel, and that it should

always be in the option of the master to deliver them either the

wheat or the money. Tenpence: a-bushel, therefore, had, in the

25th of Edward III.