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THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

In 1463, being the 3d of Edward IV . it was enacted, that“ no servant in husbandry, nor common labourer, nor servantto any artificer inhabiting out of a city or burgh shall use orwear in their clothing any cloth above two shillings the broadyard.” In the 3d of Edward IV . two shillings containedvery nearly the same quantity of silver as four of our presentmoney. But the Yorkshire cloth, which is now sold at fourshillings the yard, is probably much superior to any that wasthen made for the wearing of the very poorest order of com-mon servants. Even the money price of their clothing,therefore, may, in proportion to their quality, be somewhatcheaper in the present than it was in those ancient times.The real price is certainly a good deal cheaper. Ten-pencewas then reckoned what is called the moderate and reason-able price of a bushel of wheat. Two shillings, therefore, wasthe price of two bushels and near two pecks of wheat, whichin the present times, at three shillings and sixpence thebushel, would be worth eight shillings and nine-pence. Fora yard of this cloth the poor servant must have parted withthe power of purchasing a quantity of subsistence equal towhat eight shillings and nine-pence would purchase in thepresent times. This is a sumptuary law too, restraining theluxury and extravagance of the poor. Their clothing there-fore had commonly been much more expensive.

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibitedfrom wearing hose, of which the price should exceed four-teen-pence the pair, equal to about eight-aud-twenty-penceof our present money. But fourteen-pence was in thosetimes the price of a bushel and near two pecks of wheat;which, in the present times, at three and sixpence the bushel,would cost five shillings and three-pence. We should in thepresent times consider this as a very high price for a pair olstockings to a servant of the poorest and lowest order. Hemust, however, in those times, have paid what was reallyequivalent to this price for them.

In the time of Edward IV . the art of knitting stockingswas probably not known in any part of Europe . Their hosewere made of common cloth, which may have been one ofthe causes of their dearness. The first person that worestockings in England is said to have been queen Elizabeth.She received them as a present from the Spanish ambassador.

Both in the coarse and in the fine woollen manufacture, themachinery employed was much more imperfect in those an-