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take in which he dwelt must carry a letter patent containing the cause of his going and the time, if he is to return," on pain of being put in the stocks. The Commons petitioned in 1391 that the sons of villains should not be allowed to frequent the universities; and from time to time the Legislature interposed with various measures to prevent the rural population from apprenticing their children to trades in cities and boroughs, and so reducing the number of husbandmen (y). Labourers were bound to take an oath annually at the leet to observe the laws relating to wages and service (7 Hen. IV. c. 17 (1405)). The free labourers could not bargain as to their hire; if they were not bound to take the old rates, they must accept the wages which the Justices proclaimed at Easter and Michaelmas (2). Meanwhile villenage had all but died out. It is a significant fact that the rebels who were led by Jack Cade in 1450 did not complain of the exactions of their lords; in the interval of sixty-nine years between this popular rising and the earlier peasants' revolt, the institution had lost its importance. Sir Thomas Smith, who wrote in the reign of Edward VI., says that he had never known a villain in gross; and villains regardant had apparently been almost entirely merged in copyholders (a). Yet villenage existed in the reign of Elizabeth. This is shown by the case of Butler v. Crouch, in Dyer's Reports, (b) which decided that a villain and his issue not having been claimed for sixty years could not be seized by the lord, and also by the fact that in 1574 Elizabeth issued a commission to compound with her bondmen in Cornwall for their manumission. The last case of villenage recorded in the law books is an action of trespass, Pigg v. Caley, in which a plea of villenage was set up (c).

(y) 7 Hen. IV., c. 17. See as to exemptions enjoyed by London and Norwich, 8 Hen. VI., c. 11; 11 Hen. VII., c. 11; 12 Hen. VII., c. 1. See 9 Richard II. c. 2, as to villains flying into cities and suing their lords.

(*) 13 Rich. II., c. 8. This Act

did away with the rate of wages as fixed by statute of Ed. III.

(a) Commonwealth, b. 2, c. 10. See Scriven on Copyhold Tenure, p. 46, 3rd ed., as to origin of copyholders. (b) 266a.

(c) Noy's Reports (1618), 27.

Centuries before this, a large class of free artisans, craftsmen, and labourers had sprung up, especially in towns. Though nominally free, they did not in fact buy or contract as each thought fit. They were for most part members of guilds or trade companies, by the rules and ordinances of which they were bound. The principle of the Common Law was that each man was free to trade as he thought fit (d); that he might bind himself apprentice as he liked; that he might practise his trade anywhere, even if he had not been apprenticed to it—a principle often invoked against guilds or corporations which made ordinances creating monopolies (e). Nevertheless the guilds obtained enormous power. In London, for example, no one could be a freeman of the city until he was free of one of those fraternities, and only freemen might trade within the city or its liberties (ƒ). Originally not incorporated, but mere voluntary associations, these guilds received grants of incorporation, and acquired a distinct political and legal existence. They made bye-laws regulating the use of tools, the quality of wares, the settlement of disputes, the hours of work and the number of servants or apprentices whom a master might employ. They rigorously enforced the rule that no artificers who were not free might be employed within the city. Parliament occasionally interposed to lighten the burden of monopolies which were, as the statutes said, "against the common profit of the people,” (g) and the validity of such bye-laws was sometimes questioned with success in Courts of law. A series of deci

(d) Case of Tailors of Ipswich (1615), 11 Reports, 55; Bacon's Abridg., v. 353. Kyd on Corporations, i. 125. The principle was not adhered to very rigorously; see 2 Rol. Rep. 392.

(e) As to these guilds, see Report of Municipal Commissioners of 1835; Mr. Black's History of the Leathersellers' Company; Brand's History of Newcastle. Contrast Mr. Froude's roseate account of the guilds (History of Eng., vol. i. 48), with Wicklif's

attack upon them, vol. iii. p. 333, of English Works.

(f) Pulling on the Customs of London, 62, 66, referring to Wannel's Case (1739), 1 Str. 675. Compare the clause in the charter of Hereford, "We have granted that no one who is not of the guild shall buy or sell in the city or its suburbs without the consent of the citizens." Pike's History of Crime, i. 184, 378.

(g) 15 Hen. VI., c. 5, and 19 Hen.

sions, extending from the time of Elizabeth to the end of last century, bears testimony to the efforts made to upset byelaws excluding from the practice of their trade persons who had not been apprenticed in a certain town or were not free of a particular city (h). The validity of such ordinances, when founded on prescription or custom, was recognised (i). This condition could generally be shown to exist, and hence in most towns "foreigners," that is to say all Englishmen not belonging to particular towns, were prevented practising their art or trade. This state of things was not entirely destroyed until the Municipal Corporation Act of 1835 was passed (k).

Here may be mentioned one of the momentous events in the history of legislation with respect to labourers-the passing of the 5 Eliz., c. 4; a statute which repealed all the former laws on the subject, and which for some centuries formed the principal part of the English law of master and servant. The circumstances in which the Act was passed are thus described by the Royal Commissioners who reported upon the working of the Masters and Servants' Act of 1867 (1).

"In the meantime a great social evil had arisen, with which it was necessary that the Legislature should grapple, and which it sought to overcome by imposing rigorous restraints on the freedom of labour. The great social revolution caused by the suppression of the monasteries,

VII. c. 7; 3 Hen. VII. c. 9; 12 Hen. VII. c. 6, and 19 Hen. VII. c. 7. See Hallam's Constitutional History, vol. i. 355 and 486, as to the debates on monopolies in the reigns of Elizabeth and James I.

(h) Davenant v. Hurdis (1599), Moore, 576; City of London Case (1609), 8 Rep. 121 b.; Tailors of Ipswich (1615), 11 Rep. 53; Hesketh v. Braddock (1766), 3 Bur. 1846. See also, Kyd on Corporations, i. 131. These monopolies seem to have been relaxed when fairs were going on.

(i) Almost all the authorities are collected in Kyd on Corporations,

vol. i.

131-156. City of London Case (1609), 8 Rep. 121 b.; Warden, &c., of Weavers v. Brown (1609), Cro. Eliz., 803; Rex v. Harrison (1762), 3 Bur. 1323, and 1 Bl. W. 372; Woolley v. Idle (1766), 4 Bur. 1952; Hesketh v. Braddock (1776), 3 Bur. 1846; Mayor of York v. Welbank (1821), 4 B. & Ald. 438; Graves v. Colby (1838), 9 A. & E. 369.

(k) 5 & 6 Will. IV. c. 76, s. 14.

(7) Second and final Report, p. 13. For some excellent remarks on the difference between the two Statutes of Labourers, see Pike's History of Crime, ii. 78.

and by the consequent withdrawal of the support which those institutions afforded to the indigent, and too often to the idle, had led to the dispersion of a multitude of people over the face of the country for the purpose of begging, under the pretence of which many persons of strength and capacity to labour, but preferring a life of vagrancy and idleness to earning their livelihood by industry, too often superadded depredation and robbery. Under these circumstances Parliament set to work to suppress vagrancy by compelling every one wandering without employment to return to their former place of abode, to be there relieved if unable to earn their living by labour, but if capable of labour there to obtain employment. Above all, the strong and ablebodied vagrant, known in the language of the time as the 'sturdy' or 'valiant beggar,' was to be dealt with with a strong hand and restrained by merciless severity. The primary object of this legislation being to suppress vagrancy, it was thought that the best mode of effecting the purpose was to localise poverty with reference to relief, and labour with reference to employment, in the parish or district to which each individual belonged, or, as it was called, the place of his settlement, which was taken to be the place where he was born, or had last resided for a certain period. The misery and want occasioned by the sudden withdrawal of the assistance to the poor, previously supplied by the bounty of the monastic institutions, could not but be sensibly felt, and a sense of a duty of preventing the needy, aged, and infirm, from perishing from want appears to have been awakened. As yet, indeed, the idea of taxing the wealthier portion of the community for the maintenance of the poor-afterwards embodied in the statute of the 43rd of Elizabeth-had not occurred to the Legislature; but Statutes were passed calling upon those in authority to endeavour to induce persons having sufficient means to contribute to a common fund, for the relief of the impotent, and the employment of the ablebodied. To the latter, if he refused to accept employment and to labour honestly, no mercy was to be shewn; the scourge and prison were the alternative of labour. And, while employment was thus to be found at their place of their settlement, for those who had no other means of living, all wandering in search of employment was rigorously interdicted and punishable as vagrancy. Such, under a succession of harsh and cruel Statutes, passed in the reigns of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, continued to be the law to the commencement of the last century."

The statute of Elizabeth admitted the imperfections and failure of previous Acts controlling wages, and stated that they could not be carried into effect without the great grief and burden. of the poor labourers and hired men.

Nevertheless, the Legislature proceeded to regulate the relations of master and servant in their minutest details.

The statute mentions the various sorts of artificers then known, and provides that every person brought up in any of the said arts, crafts, or sciences, or who has exercised any of them for three years, unless he has an estate of the clear yearly value of forty shillings, or has goods of his own to the clear yearly value of ten pounds, or is retained with any person in husbandry, or in any art or science, or lawfully retained in the household, or in any office, with any nobleman, gentleman, and others, or unless he has a farm or holding in tillage whereupon he may employ his labour, shall, if required by any person using the art or mystery wherein he has been exercised, be retained, and shall not refuse to serve under the penalty of imprisonment. Section 5 enacts that "no person which shall retain any servant shall put away his or her servant, and that no person retained according to this statute shall depart from his master, mistress, or dame before the end of his or her term, upon the pain hereafter mentioned, unless it be for some reasonable and sufficient cause or matter, to be allowed before two justices of peace, or one at the least within the said county, or before the mayor or other chief officer of the city, borough or town corporate wherein the said master, mistress, or dame inhabiteth, to whom any of the parties grieved shall complain; which said justices or justice, mayor, or chief officer shall have and take upon them or him the hearing and ordering of the matter betwixt the said master or mistress, or dame and servant, according to the equity of the cause." Section 6 provides for one quarter's warning or notice. Section 7 compels all persons between the ages of twelve and sixty, except certain classes, to serve in husbandry. Section 8 enacts that "if any person after he hath retained any servant, shall put away the same servant before the end of his term, unless it be for some reasonable and sufficient cause to be allowed as is aforesaid; or if any such master, mistress, or dame shall put away any such servant at the end of his term, without one quarter's warning given

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