Page:Landholding in England.djvu/41

 "And those that deserve less to have less." A "free mason or master carpenter," 4d. a day with meat and drink or 5d. without. A master tiler or slater, a "rough" mason, and carpenter, and other workmen for building, 3d. a day with meat and 4d. without. Other labourers 2d. or 3d. Wages were higher from Easter to Michaelmas than from Michaelmas to Easter. We hear no more of fines till the 23 Henry VI., and then they are to be no more than 3s. 4d. (a quarter of a mark).

The best proof of the comparative comfort of English labourers is found in the sumptuary clauses of these statutes, and in the directions as to what "meat and drink" is to mean. The 36 Edward III. c. 8 orders that "garsons" as well servants to lords as servants of "mysteries," and artificers, shall be served once a day with meat and drink — flesh or fish ; and the rest with other victuals, as in summer, cheese, butter, and other such victuals fit for their degree. The cloth of their clothes is not to cost more than 2 marks in all (this includes their cloth shoes); and they may not use dearer cloth of their own buying, nor gold and silver embroidery, nor silk, "nor anything belonging to these things. And let their wives, daughters and children be the same, and use nothing costing more than 'the old twelve pence.' Handicraftsmen are not to wear silk cloth, or cloth of silver, nor ribbons, chains, seals, or other things of gold and silver; and their wives are not to wear silk veils, but only thread; nor fur, but only lambskin or rabbitskin." So the Act climbs up the ladder; and its perfectly futile ordinances only serve to show that everybody, from the labourer to the burgess and the knight, was aping his betters. Wives of knights with only 200 marks a year in lands are not to wear gowns trimmed with miniver, nor ermine sleeves, and their womenkind may not wear "revers" of ermine, or any jewellery, except on their heads. Garsons, yeomen, and servants of merchant-artificers, or tradesmen, are to dress as the garsons and yeomen of the lords paramount. Waggoners, carters, oxherds, shepherds, swineherds, and all others who have not 40 solidi (40d.) of goods and chattels, to wear no cloth but "blanket and russet," at i2d. the ell.

But the villeins had gained their freedom dearly—they