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Table of Contents

Possessions of the different classes in England—Condition of Colchester in 1301—Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.—Supply of food—Comparative duration of human life—Want of facilities for commerce—Plenty and civilization not productive of effeminacy—Colchester in the present day.

It will be desirable to exhibit something like an average view of the extent of the possessions of all classes of society, and especially of the middling and labouring classes, in this country, at a period when the mutual rights of capitalists and labourers were so little understood as in the fourteenth century. We have shown how, at that time, there was a general round of oppression, resulting from ignorance of the proper interests of the productive classes; and it would be well also to show that during this period of disunion and contest between capital and labour, each plundering the other, and both plundered by arbitrary power, whether of the nobles or the crown, production went on very slowly and imperfectly, and that there was little to plunder and less to exchange. It is difficult to find the materials for such an inquiry. There is no very accurate record of the condition of the various classes of society before the invention of printing; and even after that invention we must be content to form our conclusions from a few scattered facts not recorded for any such purpose as we have in view, but to be gathered incidentally from slight observations which have come down to us. Yet enough remains to enable us to form a picture of tolerable accuracy; and in some points to establish conclusions which cannot be disputed. It is in the same way that our knowledge of the former state of the physical world must be derived from relics of that former state, to which the inquiries and comparisons of the present times have given an historical value. We know, for instance, that the animals of the southern countries once abounded in these islands, because we occasionally find their bones in quantities which could not have been accumulated unless such animals had been once native to these parts; and the remains of sea-shells upon the tops of hills now under the plough show us that even these heights have been heaved up from the bosom of the ocean. In the same way, although we have no complete picture of the state of property at the period to which we allude, we have evidence enough to describe that state from records which may be applied to this end, although preserved for a very different object.

In the reign of Edward III., Colchester, in Essex, was considered the tenth city in England in point of population. It then paid a poll-tax for 2955 lay persons. In 1301, about half a century before, the number of inhabitant housekeepers was 390; and the whole household furniture, utensils, clothes, money, cattle, corn, and every other property found in the town, was valued at 518l. 16s. 0–¾d. This valuation took place on occasion of a subsidy or tax to the crown, to carry on a war against France; and the particulars, which are preserved in the Rolls of Parliament, exhibit with great minuteness the classes of persons then inhabiting that town, and the sort of property which each respectively possessed. The trades exercised in Colchester were the following:—baker, barber, blacksmith, bowyer, brewer, butcher, carpenter, carter, cobbler, cook, dyer, fisherman, fuller, furrier, girdler, glass-seller, glover, linen-draper, mercer and spice-seller, miller, mustard and vinegar seller, old clothes seller, saddler, tailor, tanner, tiler, weaver, wood-cutter, and wool-comber. If we look at a small town of the present day, where such a variety of occupations are carried on, we shall find that each tradesman has a considerable stock of commodities, abundance of furniture and utensils, clothes in plenty, some plate, books, and many articles of convenience and luxury to which the most wealthy dealers and mechanics of Colchester of the fourteenth century were utter strangers. That many places at that time were much poorer than Colchester there can be no doubt: for here we see the division of labour was pretty extensive, and that is always a proof that production is going forward, however imperfectly. We see, too, that the tradesmen were connected with manufactures in the ordinary use of the term; or there would not have been the dyer, the glover, the linen-draper, the tanner, the weaver, and the wool-comber. There must have been a demand for articles of foreign commerce, too, in this town, or we should not have had the spice-seller. Yet, with all these various occupations, indicating considerable profitable industry when compared with earlier stages in the history of this country, the whole stock of the town was valued at little more than 500l. Nor let it be supposed that this smallness of capital can be accounted for by the difference in the standard of money; although that difference is considerable. We may indeed satisfy ourselves of the small extent of the capital of individuals at that day, by referring to the inventory of the articles upon which the tax we have mentioned was laid at Colchester.

The whole stock of a carpenter's tools was valued at one shilling. They altogether consisted of two broad axes, an adze, a square, and a navegor or spoke-shave. Rough work must the carpenter have been able to perform with these humble instruments; but then let it be remembered that there was little capital to pay him for finer work, and that very little fine work was consequently required. The three hundred and ninety housekeepers of Colchester then lived in mud huts, with a rough door and no chimney. Harrison, speaking of the manners of a century later than the period we are describing, says, "There were very few chimneys even in capital towns: the fire was laid to the wall, and the smoke issued out at the roof, or door, or window. The houses were wattled, and plastered over with clay; and all the furniture and utensils were of wood. The people slept on straw pallets, with a log of wood for a pillow." When this old historian wrote, he mentions the erection of chimneys as a modern luxury. We had improved little upon our Anglo-Saxon ancestors in the article of chimneys. In their time Alcuin, an abbot who had ten thousand vassals, writes to the emperor at Rome that he preferred living in his smoky house to visiting the palaces of Italy. This was in the ninth century. Five hundred years had made little difference in the chimneys of Colchester. The nobility had hangings against the walls to keep out the wind, which crept in through the crevices which the builder's bungling art had left: the middle orders had no hangings. Shakspere alludes to this rough building of houses even in his time:—