[161] Hist. Angl., Rolls Series, i. 455. The other political and social causes of the revolt do not concern us here. The attempt to minimize its agrarian importance is strange in the light of the words and acts above mentioned.
[162] Page, op. cit. p. 77.
[163] Cunningham, Industry and Commerce, i. 402, 534; Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, New Series, xvii. 235. Fitzherbert probably referred more to villein status, which continued longer than villein tenure.
[164] Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 278, 288.
[165] Harrison, Description of Britain, p. 233, says the produce of an acre of saffron was usually worth £20.
[166] Exportation of corn is mentioned in 1181, when a fine was paid to the king for licence to ship corn from Norfolk and Suffolk to Norway.—McPherson, Annals of Commerce, i. 345. As early as the reign of Henry II, Henry of Huntingdon says, German silver came to buy our most precious wool, our milk (no doubt converted into butter and cheese), and our innumerable cattle.—Rolls Series, p. 5. In 1400, the Chronicle of London says the country was saved from dearth by the importation of rye from Prussia.
[167] Hasbach, op. cit.. p. 32.
[168] Lord Berkeley, about 1360, had a ship of his own for exporting wool and corn and bringing back foreign wine and wares.—Smyth, Lives of the Berkeleys, i. 365.
[169] Nasse, Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages, p. 66.
[170] Customs in some Surrey manors in the time of Richard II, Archaeologia, xviii. 281.