The Italians of the fourteenth century seem to have paid some attention to an art, of which, both as related to cultivation and to architecture, our own forefathers were almost entirely ignorant. Crescentius dilates upon horticulture, and gives a pretty long list of herbs both esculent and medicinal.[] His notions about the ornamental department are rather beyond what we should expect, and I do not know that his scheme of a flower-garden could be much amended. His general arrangements, which are minutely detailed with evident fondness for the subject, would of course appear too formal at present; yet less so than those of subsequent times; and though acquainted with what is called the topiary art, that of training or cutting trees into regular figures, he does not seem to run into its extravagance. Regular gardens, according to Paulmy, were not made in France till the sixteenth or even seventeenth century;[k] yet one is said to have existed at the Louvre, of much older construction.[m] England, I believe, had nothing of the ornamental kind, unless it were some trees regularly disposed in the orchard of a monastery. Even the common horticultural art for culinary purposes, though not entirely neglected, since the produce of gardens is sometimes mentioned in ancient deeds, had not been cultivated with much attention.[n] The esculent vegetables now most in use were introduced in the reign of Elizabeth, and some sorts a great deal later.
Changes in value of money.
I should leave this slight survey of economical history still more imperfect, were I to make no observation on the relative values of money. Without something like precision in our notions upon this subject, every statistical inquiry becomes a source of confusion and error. But considerable difficulties attend the discussion. These arise principally from two causes; the inaccuracy or partial representations of historical writers, on whom we are accustomed too implicitly to rely, and the change of manners, which renders a certain command over articles of purchase less adequate to our wants than it was in former ages.
The first of these difficulties is capable of being removed by a circumspect use of authorities. When this part of statistical history began to excite attention, which was hardly perhaps before the publication of Bishop Fleetwood's Chronicon Preciosum, so few authentic documents had been published with respect to prices, that inquirers were glad to have recourse to historians, even when not contemporary, for such facts as they had thought fit to record. But these historians were sometimes too distant from the times concerning which they wrote, and too careless in their general character, to merit much regard; and even when contemporary, were often credulous, remote from the concerns of the world, and, at the best, more apt to register some extraordinary phenomenon of scarcity or cheapness, than the average rate of pecuniary dealings. The one ought, in my opinion, to be absolutely rejected as testimonies, the other to be sparingly and diffidently admitted.[o] For it is no longer necessary to lean upon such uncertain witnesses. During the last century a very laudable industry has been shown by antiquaries in the publication of account-books belonging to private persons, registers of expenses in convents, returns of markets, valuations of goods, tavern-bills, and in short every document, however trifling in itself, by which this important subject can be illustrated. A sufficient number of such authorities, proving the ordinary tenor of prices rather than any remarkable deviations from it, are the true basis of a table, by which all changes in the value of money should be measured. I have little doubt but that such a table might be constructed from the data we possess with tolerable exactness, sufficient at least to supersede one often quoted by political economists, but which appears to be founded upon very superficial and erroneous inquiries.[p]
It is by no means required that I should here offer such a table of values, which, as to every country except England, I have no means of constructing, and which, even as to England, would be subject to many difficulties.[q] But a reader unaccustomed to these investigations ought to have some assistance in comparing the prices of ancient times with those of his own. I will therefore, without attempting to ascend very high, for we have really no sufficient data as to the period immediately subsequent to the Conquest, much less that which preceded, endeavour at a sort of approximation for the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. In the reigns of Henry III. and Edward I., previously to the first debasement of the coin by the latter in 1301, the ordinary price of a quarter of wheat appears to have been about four shillings, and that of barley and oats in proportion. A sheep was rather sold high at a shilling, and an ox might be reckoned at ten or twelve.[r] The value of cattle is, of course, dependent upon their breed and condition, and we have unluckily no early account of butcher's meat; but we can hardly take a less multiple than about thirty for animal food and eighteen or twenty for corn, in order to bring the prices of the thirteenth century to a level with those of the present day.[] Combining the two, and setting the comparative dearness of cloth against the cheapness of fuel and many other articles, we may perhaps consider any given sum under Henry III. and Edward I. as equivalent in general command over commodities to about twenty-four or twenty-five times their nominal value at present. Under Henry VI. the coin had lost one-third of its weight in silver, which caused a proportional increase of money prices;[t] but, so far as I can perceive, there had been no diminution in the value of that metal. We have not much information as to the fertility of the mines which supplied Europe during the middle ages; but it is probable that the drain of silver towards the East, joined to the ostentatious splendour of courts, might fully absorb the usual produce. By the statute 15 H. VI., c. 2, the price up to which wheat might be exported is fixed at 6s. 8d., a point no doubt above the average; and the private documents of that period, which are sufficiently numerous, lead to a similar result.[] Sixteen will be a proper multiple when we would bring the general value of money in this reign to our present standard.[x] [1816.]
But after ascertaining the proportional values of money at different periods by a comparison of the prices in several of the chief articles of expenditure, which is the only fair process, we shall sometimes be surprised at incidental facts of this class which seem irreducible to any rule. These difficulties arise not so much from the relative scarcity of particular commodities, which it is for the most part easy to explain, as from the change in manners and in the usual mode of living. We have reached in this age so high a pitch of luxury that we can hardly believe or comprehend the frugality of ancient times; and have in general formed mistaken notions as to the habits of expenditure which then prevailed. Accustomed to judge of feudal and chivalrous ages by works of fiction, or by historians who embellished their writings with accounts of occasional festivals and tournaments, and sometimes inattentive enough to transfer the manners of the seventeenth to the fourteenth century, we are not at all aware of the usual simplicity with which the gentry lived under Edward I. or even Henry VI. They drank little wine; they had no foreign luxuries; they rarely or never kept male servants except for husbandry; their horses, as we may guess by the price, were indifferent; they seldom travelled beyond their county. And even their hospitality must have been greatly limited, if the value of manors were really no greater than we find it in many surveys. Twenty-four seems a sufficient multiple when we would raise a sum mentioned by a writer under Edward I. to the same real value expressed in our present money, but an income of 10l. or 20l. was reckoned a competent estate for a gentleman; at least the lord of a single manor would seldom have enjoyed more. A knight who possessed 150l. per annum passed for extremely rich.[y] Yet this was not equal in command over commodities to 4000l. at present. But this income was comparatively free from taxation, and its expenditure lightened by the services of his villeins. Such a person, however, must have been among the most opulent of country gentlemen. Sir John Fortescue speaks of five pounds a year as "a fair living for a yeoman," a class of whom he is not at all inclined to diminish the importance.[z] So, when Sir William Drury, one of the richest men in Suffolk, bequeaths in 1493 fifty marks to each of his daughters, we must not imagine that this was of greater value than four or five hundred pounds at this day, but remark the family pride and want of ready money which induced country gentlemen to leave their younger children in poverty.[a] Or, if we read that the expense of a scholar at the university in 1514 was but five pounds annually, we should err in supposing that he had the liberal accommodation which the present age deems indispensable, but consider how much could be afforded for about sixty pounds, which will be not far from the proportion. And what would a modern lawyer say to the following entry in the churchwarden's accounts of St. Margaret, Westminster, for 1476: "Also paid to Roger Fylpott, learned in the law, for his counsel giving, 3s. 8d., with four-pence for his dinner"?[] Though fifteen times the fee might not seem altogether inadequate at present, five shillings would hardly furnish the table of a barrister, even if the fastidiousness of our manners would admit of his accepting such a dole. But this fastidiousness, which considers certain kinds of remuneration degrading to a man of liberal condition, did not prevail in those simple ages. It would seem rather strange that a young lady should learn needlework and good breeding in a family of superior rank, paying for her board; yet such was the laudable custom of the fifteenth and even sixteenth centuries, as we perceive by the Paston Letters, and even later authorities.[c]
Labourers better paid than at present.
There is one very unpleasing remark which every one who attends to the subject of prices will be induced to make, that the labouring classes, especially those engaged in agriculture, were better provided with the means of subsistence in the reign of Edward III. or of Henry VI. than they are at present. In the fourteenth century Sir John Cullum observes a harvest man had fourpence a day, which enabled him in a week to buy a comb of wheat; but to buy a comb of wheat a man must now (1784) work ten or twelve days.[d] So, under Henry VI., if meat was at a farthing and a half the pound, which I suppose was about the truth, a labourer earning threepence a day, or eighteen pence in the week, could buy a bushel of wheat at six shillings the quarter, and twenty-four pounds of meat for his family. A labourer at present, earning twelve shillings a week, can only buy half a bushel of wheat at eighty shillings the quarter, and twelve pounds of meat at seven-pence.[e] Several acts of parliament regulate the wages that might be paid to labourers of different kinds. Thus the statute of labourers in 1350 fixed the wages of reapers during harvest at threepence a-day without diet, equal to five shillings at present; that of 23 H. VI., c. 12, in 1444, fixed the reapers' wages at five-pence and those of common workmen in building at 3-1/2d., equal to 6s. 8d. and 4s. 8d.; that of 11 H. VII., c. 22, in 1496, leaves the wages of labourers in harvest as before, but rather increases those of ordinary workmen. The yearly wages of a chief hind or shepherd by the act of 1444 were 1l. 4s., equivalent to about 20l., those of a common servant in husbandry 18s. 4d., with meat and drink; they were somewhat augmented by the statute of 1496.[f] Yet, although these wages are regulated as a maximum by acts of parliament, which may naturally be supposed to have had a view rather towards diminishing than enhancing the current rate, I am not fully convinced that they were not rather beyond it; private accounts at least do not always correspond with these statutable prices.[g] And it is necessary to remember that the uncertainty of employment, natural to so imperfect a state of husbandry, must have diminished the labourers' means of subsistence. Extreme dearth, not more owing to adverse seasons than to improvident consumption, was frequently endured.[h] But after every allowance of this kind I should find it difficult to resist the conclusion that, however the labourer has derived benefit from the cheapness of manufactured commodities and from many inventions of common utility, he is much inferior in ability to support a family to his ancestors three or four centuries ago. I know not why some have supposed that meat was a luxury seldom obtained by the labourer. Doubtless he could not have procured as much as he pleased. But, from the greater cheapness of cattle, as compared with corn, it seems to follow that a more considerable portion of his ordinary diet consisted of animal food than at present. It was remarked by Sir John Fortescue that the English lived far more upon animal diet than their rivals the French; and it was natural to ascribe their superior strength and courage to this cause.[] I should feel much satisfaction in being convinced that no deterioration in the state of the labouring classes has really taken place; yet it cannot, I think, appear extraordinary to those who reflect, that the whole population of England in the year 1377 did not much exceed 2,300,000 souls, about one-fifth of the results upon the last enumeration, an increase with which that of the fruits of the earth cannot be supposed to have kept an even pace.[k]
Improvement in the moral character of Europe.
The second head to which I referred, the improvements of European society in the latter period of the middle ages, comprehends several changes, not always connected, with each other, which contributed to inspire a more elevated tone of moral sentiment, or at least to restrain the commission of crimes. But the general effect of these upon the human character is neither so distinctly to be traced, nor can it be arranged with so much attention to chronology, as the progress of commercial wealth or of the arts that depend upon it. We cannot from any past experience indulge the pleasing vision of a constant and parallel relation between the moral and intellectual energies, the virtues and the civilization of mankind. Nor is any problem connected with philosophical history more difficult than to compare the relative characters of different generations, especially if we include a large geographical surface in our estimate. Refinement has its evils as well as barbarism; the virtues that elevate a nation in one century pass in the next to a different region; vice changes its form without losing its essence; the marked features of individual character stand out in relief from the surface of history, and mislead our judgment as to the general course of manners; while political revolutions and a bad constitution of government may always undermine or subvert the improvements to which more favourable circumstances have contributed. In comparing, therefore, the fifteenth with the twelfth century, no one would deny the vast increase of navigation and manufactures, the superior refinement of manners, the greater diffusion of literature. But should I assert that man had raised himself in the latter period above the moral degradation of a more barbarous age, I might be met by the question whether history bears witness to any greater excesses of rapine and inhumanity than in the wars of France and England under Charles VII., or whether the rough patriotism and fervid passions of the Lombards in the twelfth century were not better than the systematic treachery of their servile descendants three hundred years afterwards. The proposition must therefore be greatly limited; yet we can scarcely hesitate to admit, upon a comprehensive view, that there were several changes during the last four of the middle ages, which must naturally have tended to produce, and some of which did unequivocally produce, a meliorating effect, within the sphere of their operation, upon the moral character of society.