[159] “English Gilds” (E. Eng. Text. Soc., 1870).

[160] Bernard Gilpin, op. cit.

[161] Statute 1 Edward VI. c. 3.

[162] “Rogeri Aschami Epistolarum libri quatuor, Oxoniæ,” 1703 p. 294. The date is about 1547. The comment is that of Mr Jamieson in Barclay’s “Ship of Fools.”

[163] “The Four Supplications” (E. Eng. Text Soc., 1871), p. 98.

[164] Ibid., pp. xvii-xviii.

[165] Ibid., p. 102. It is true that the “decay of husbandry” existed in a less intense form before the Dissolution. There were several Acts against pulling down “towns,” and for keeping up houses for husbandry, the first being 4 Henry VII. (1488-9), c. 19.

[166] Latimer’s, Seven Sermons, p. 120.

[167] Holinshed, i. 186.

[168] Opera Omnia, 1663, v. p., 508.