«Промышленная история Англии»

§ 4. Великие ярмарки —Now, besides the weekly markets there were held annually in various parts of the kingdom large fairs, which often lasted many days, and which form a most important and interesting economic feature of the time. They were necessary for two reasons: (1) because the ordinary trader could not and did not exist in the small villages, in which it must be remembered most of the population lived, nor could he even find sufficient customers in a town of that time, for very few contained over 5000 inhabitants; (2) because the inhabitants of the villages and towns could find in the fairs a wider market for their goods, and more variety for their purchases. The result was that these fairs were frequented by all classes of the population, from noble and prelate to the villein, and hardly a family in England did not at one time of the year or another send a representative, or at least give a commission to a friend, to get goods at some celebrated fair. They afforded an opportunity for commercial intercourse between inhabitants of all parts of England, and with traders from all parts of Europe. They were, moreover, a necessity arising from the economic conditions of a time when transit of goods was comparatively slow, and when ordinary people disliked travelling frequently or far beyond the limits of their own district. The spirit of isolation which is so marked a feature of the mediæval town or village encouraged this feeling, and except the trading class few people travelled about, and those who did so were regarded with suspicion. Till the epoch of modern railways, in fact, fairs were a {62} necessity, though now the rapidity of locomotion and the facility with which goods can be ordered and despatched, have annihilated their utility and rendered their relics a nuisance. But even in the present day there are plenty of people to be found in rural districts who have rarely, and sometimes never, been a dozen miles from their native village.

20 См. примечание 9, стр. 245, об ассизе хлеба и эля.

§ 5. Ярмарки в Винчестере и Стурбридже —Fairs were held in every part of the country at various parts of the year. Thus there was a fair at Leeds, which for several centuries served as a centre where the wool-growers of Yorkshire and Lancashire met English and foreign merchants from Hull and other eastern ports, and sold them the raw material that was to be worked up in the looms of Flanders. But there were a few great fairs that eclipsed all others in magnitude and importance, and of these two deserve special mention, those at Winchester and Stourbridge. (1) That at Winchester was founded in the reign of William the Norman, who granted the Bishop of Winchester leave to hold a fair on St Giles’ Hill, for one day in the year. Henry II., however, granted a charter for a fair of sixteen days. During this time the great common was covered with booths and tents, and divided into streets called after the name of the goods sold therein, as, e.g., “The Drapery,” “The Pottery,” “The Spicery.” Tolls were levied on every bridge and roadway to the fair, and brought in a large revenue. The fair was of importance till the fourteenth century, for in the Vision of Peres the Plowman, Covetousness tells how

“To Wye and to Winchester I went to the fair.”

Но она пришла в упадок со времен Эдуарда III, главным образом из-за того, что шерстяная торговля Нориджа и других восточных городов стала гораздо важнее, в то время как, с другой стороны, Саутгемптон оказался более удобным местом для ведения дел флотом венецианских купцов (стр. 93).

(2) Стурбриджская ярмарка — Но самой великой из всех английских ярмарок, дольше всех сохранявшей свою репутацию и значение, была ярмарка в Стурбридже, близ Кембриджа. Она была известна в Европе и длилась целый месяц, с конца августа до конца сентября. Ее важность объяснялась тем, что она находилась в пределах легкой досягаемости от портов восточного побережья, которые в то время были очень доступны и часто посещаемы. Сюда приходили венецианские и генуэзские купцы с запасами восточных товаров — шелками и бархатом, хлопком и драгоценными камнями. Фламандские купцы привозили тонкое полотно и сукна из Брюгге, Льежа, Гента и других промышленных городов. Французы и испанцы присутствовали со своими винами; норвежские моряки — со смолой и дегтем; а могущественные торговцы ганзейских городов выставляли на продажу меха и янтарь для богатых, железо и медь для фермеров, лен для их жен; в то время как домотканый фустиан, букирам, воск, сельдь и парусина странным образом смешивались в их палатках с диковинными, далекими восточными пряностями и украшениями. А взамен английские фермеры — или торговцы от их имени — привозили на ярмарку сотни огромных тюков шерсти, чтобы одеть народы Европы; или ячмень для фламандских пивоварен, а также зерно, лошадей и скот. Свинец привозили с рудников Дербишира, а олово — из Корнуолла; даже немного железа из Сассекса, но оно считалось уступающим импортному металлу. Все эти товары, как и в Винчестере, выставлялись в лавках и палатках на длинных улицах, некоторые из которых были названы в честь различных народов, стекавшихся туда, а другие — в честь вида товаров, выставленных на продажу. Эта огромная ярмарка просуществовала до XVIII века с прежней силой и в то время была описана Даниэлем Дефо в работе, ныне легко доступной для всех, которая содержит интереснейшее описание всех событий этого оживленного месяца. Прошло не многим более ста лет с тех пор, как одни только ланкаширские купцы отправляли свои товары в Стурбридж на тысяче вьючных лошадей, но теперь вьючные лошади и ярмарки ушли, а их место заняли телеграф и железная дорога.

21 См. примечание 10, стр. 246, о Стурбриджской ярмарке.

22 Tour through the Eastern Counties (Cassell’s National Library, 3d.).

§ 6. Английские средневековые порты —In the last paragraph mention was made of the east coast having ports of great prominence in this period. It will be convenient here to notice what were the chief ports of England, and to remark how few of them have retained their old importance. The chief port was of course London, which has always held an exceptional position, and the other principal ports were on the east and south coast. Southampton was from early times the chief southern harbour, and next to it Dartmouth, Plymouth, Sandwich, and Winchelsea, Weymouth, Shoreham, Dover, and Margate. They were connected with the trade in French and Spanish goods. On the western coast Bristol was almost the only port much frequented, and was the centre and harbour for the western fisheries, and also a place of export for hides and the cloth manufactures of the western towns. In the fifteenth century Bristol fishermen penetrated through the Hebrides to the Shetland and Orkney Islands and the northern fisheries, where they found that the Scarborough men had long preceded them. On the eastern coast, indeed, Scarborough was one of the most enterprising ports. Boston, Hull, Lynn, Harwich, {65} Yarmouth, and Colchester were also very flourishing, and were concerned in the Flemish and Baltic trade. Farther north Newcastle was the centre for the coasting trade in coal, and Berwick was a fisherman’s harbour. But the southern and eastern ports were the most frequented, as being suitable to the light and shallow craft that did a coasting trade, or ran across to the Continent in smooth weather.

§ 7. Временный упадок промышленных городов —We have now noticed the chief markets, fairs, ports, and manufacturing towns of mediæval England, and it will be seen that commercial prosperity was certainly developing. So too were home manufacturing industries, but their growth brought about a curious effect in the decay of certain towns, and the rise of industrial villages in rural districts. To the decay of towns we find frequent reference in the Statutes of Henry VII. and his successor—i.e. from 1490 or 1500 onwards. This decay was due to two causes: (1) to the growth of sheep farming, mentioned above (p. 45), and (2) to the fact that the industrial disabilities imposed upon dwellers in towns, in consequence of the corporate privileges of the gilds, now far exceeded the advantages of residence there. The days of usefulness for the gilds had gone past; their restrictions were now only felt to cramp the rising manufacturing industries. Hence we find the manufacturers of the Tudor period were leaving the towns and seeking open villages instead, where they could develop their trade free from the vexatious restrictions of old-fashioned corporations. Of course laws were passed to check this tendency, and to confine particular industries to particular towns. Thus, in Norfolk, no one was to “dye, shear, or calendar cloth” anywhere but in the town of Norwich (Act of 14 and 15 Henry VIII.); no one in the {66} northern counties was to make “worsted coverlets” except in York (Act of 33 and 34 Henry VIII.).

§ 8. Рост промышленных деревень. Зародыши современной фабричной системы —Such protective enactments were, however, as protective enactments must generally be, utterly in vain. Henry VII. tried to remedy the supposed evil by limiting the privileges of interference of the gilds, but even this step was useless. Manufactures were slowly and surely transferred to various villages, and in several industries a kind of modern factory system can be traced at this time. Master manufacturers, weary of municipal and gild-made restrictions, organized in country places little communities solely for industrial purposes, and so arranged as to afford greater scope for the combination and division of labour. The system of apprenticeship was a powerful element in this scheme, and supplied ready labour for these small factories. The goods were made not as formerly only for local use, but for the purposes of trade and profit throughout the kingdom. The master was bound to his workmen rather more closely than the mill-owner of the present day to his “hands,” for the spirit of personal sympathy and obligation still survived in these small labour communities. But the germs of the modern system were there; for this new system was not that of domestic or cottage industry, as had been the rule in previous periods, but a system of congregated labour organized upon a capitalistic basis by one man—the organizer, head, and owner of the industrial village—the master clothier. Among the famous master clothiers of the woollen industry, we read of Cuthbert of Kendal, Hodgkins of Halifax, Brian of Manchester, each of whom “kept a great number of servants at work—carders, spinners, weavers, dyers, shearers, and others.” {67} Perhaps the greatest of them was John Winchcombe, or “Jack of Newbury,” as he was called, of whom it is recorded that a hundred looms always worked in his house, and he was rich enough to send a hundred of his journeymen to Flodden Field, in 1513. His kerseys were famous all over Europe. It was from communities such as these that the villages of Manchester, Bolton, Leeds, Halifax, and Bury took their rise, and afterwards developed into the great factory towns of to-day. But these workshops, large though they seemed then, were utterly insignificant compared with the huge factories of to-day, where the workmen are numbered in thousands, and are, to the capitalist-employer or joint-stock company that owns the mill, merely a mass of human machines, more intelligent though not so durable as other machines, and possessed of an unpleasant tendency to go out “on strike,” for reasons that naturally appear to their employer insufficient and subversive of the whole industrial system. However, the industrial system is not subverted, though the workmen can hardly be said to be upon the same pleasant footing with their employers as they used to be in the old industrial village.

ГЛАВА IV ВЕЛИКАЯ ЧУМА И ЕЕ ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ПОСЛЕДСТВИЯ

§ 1. Материальный прогресс страны —In the preceding chapters we have attempted to give an idea of the state of industry and commerce in England in the Middle Ages. We now come to a most important landmark in the history of the social and industrial condition of the {68} people—viz. the Great Plague of 1348 and subsequent years. Almost two centuries had elapsed since the death of Stephen (1154), and the cessation of those great civil conflicts which harried England in his reign. These two centuries had witnessed on the whole a continuous growth of material prosperity. The wealth of the country had increased; the towns had developed and had aided the growth of a prosperous mercantile and industrial middle class, who regulated their own affairs in their gilds, and also had a voice in municipal management. The country at large was mainly devoted to agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and the mass of the people were engaged in tilling the ground or feeding cattle. The mass of the people too were now better fed and better clothed than those of a similar class on the Continent, and a great proof of their general prosperity is to be found in the nature of their food. It is a significant economic fact that wheaten bread was then, and has generally since been, the staple food of the English labourer. In most other lands, bread made from rye and other cereals was generally good enough for the working classes. If rye failed they had nothing to fall back upon, and thus famines were frequent. But the English labourer always had some other cereal besides wheat in reserve.

§ 2. Социальные изменения. Вилланы и наемные рабочие —Besides the growth of material prosperity in these two centuries, we find that the commutation of villeinage services into money payments to the lord of the manor—a tendency frequently commented upon—had been growing apace. This commutation had been going on for a long time, in fact ever since the Conquest, if not before, and the villeins in general had freed themselves not only from labour-dues, but from the vexatious customary fines or “amercements” which they had to {69} pay to the lord of the manor on certain social occasions—such as the marriage of a daughter, or the education of a son for the Church. But of course this freedom was not complete, though it is important to notice its growth, for we shall see that it formed the occasion of a great class struggle some years after the Great Plague.

Существует еще одна особенность, которая также имеет значение и которая становилась все более заметной в течение последних двух столетий. Я имею в виду увеличение числа тех, кто жил трудом своих рук и был нанят и получал заработную плату, подобно рабочим сегодняшнего дня. Ранее уже упоминалось, что они вышли из класса коттаров, у которых не было достаточно земли, чтобы занять все свое время, и которые поэтому были готовы продать свой труд работодателю. Эти две особенности — замена трудовых повинностей денежными платежами и возникновение класса наемных рабочих — тесно связаны, ибо было естественно, что когда лорд манора соглашался получать деньги от своих арендаторов в вилланидже вместо труда, он должен был получать другой труд извне и оплачивать его деньгами, полученными таким образом при замене. Тенденция этих социальных изменений была в значительной степени в пользу вилланов, чье социальное положение неуклонно улучшалось, и чья аренда в вилланидже все больше становилась «свободной» арендой. Вилланы, будь то сравнительно зажиточные йомены или сельскохозяйственные рабочие, также не были так привязаны к манору, как раньше, ибо по мере того, как их трудовые повинности переставали быть необходимыми, их лорд позволял им покидать манор и искать работу или заниматься каким-либо промышленным производством в другом месте. Вилланы (или крепостные) всегда могли сделать это при уплате небольшого штрафа (capitagium), и несомненно, что по мере того, как денежные платежи становились все более модными, лорд не возражал против получения этого дополнительного платежа, если только, быть может, ему не требовалось выполнить много работы на своей собственной земле.

§ 3. Голод и чума —The position of the labouring class had been further improved by the effects of the famines which occurred in A.D. 1315–16. Of course they suffered great hardships and their numbers were considerably thinned, but at the same time this loss of life and diminution in their numbers caused their services to become more valuable in proportion to their scarcity, and they gained a rise of some 20 per cent. in wages. From this date till the coming of the Great Plague, some thirty years later, they and the rest of the English people enjoyed a period of great prosperity. It was on the whole a “merry England” on which the Great Plague suddenly broke. The prosperity of the people was reflected in the splendour and brilliancy of the court and aristocracy, and the national pride had been increased by the recent victory of Crecy, and by the other successes in the French war, which brought not only glory but occasionally wealth, in the shape of heavy ransoms. But in 1348 the prosperity and pride of the nation was overwhelmed with gloom. The Great Plague came with sudden and mysterious steps from Asia to Italy, and thence to Western Europe and England, carried some say by travelling merchants, or borne with its infection on the wings of the wind. It arrived in England at the two great ports of Bristol and Southampton in August 1348, and thence spread all over the land. Its ravages were frightful. Whole districts were depopulated, and about one-third of the people perished. Norwich and London, being busy and crowded towns, suffered especially from the pestilence, and though the {71} numbers of the dead have been grossly exaggerated by the panic of contemporaries and the credulity of modern historians, 23 there can be no doubt that the loss of life was enormous.

§ 4. Влияние чумы на заработную плату —The most immediate consequence of the Plague was a marked scarcity in the number of labourers available. For being of the poorest class they naturally succumbed more readily to famine and sickness. This scarcity of labour naturally resulted in higher wages. The land-owners began to fear that their lands would not be cultivated properly, and were content to buy labour at higher prices than would have been given at a time when the necessity of the labourer to the capitalist was more obscured. Hence the wages of labourers rose far above the customary rates. In harvest-work, for example, the rise was nearly 60 per cent., and what is more it remained so for a long period; the rise in agricultural wages generally was 50 per cent. So it was also in the case of artisans’ wages, in the case of carpenters, masons, and others. It seems the upper classes and the capitalists of that day very strongly objected to paying high wages, as they naturally do. The king himself felt deeply upon the point. Without waiting for Parliament to meet, Edward III. issued a proclamation ordering that no man should either demand or pay the higher rates of wages, but should abide by the old rate. He forbade labourers to leave the land to which they were attached, and assigned heavy penalties to the runaways. Parliament assembled in 1349 and eagerly ratified this proclamation, {72} in the laws known as the Statutes of Labourers. But the demand for labour was so great that such legislative endeavours to prevent its proper payment were fortunately ineffective. Runaways not only found shelter, but also good employment and high wages. Parliament fulminated its threats in vain; and in vain increased its penalties, by a later Statute of 1360 ordering those who asked more than the old wages to be imprisoned, and, if they were fugitives, to be branded with hot irons. For once the labourer was able to meet the capitalist on equal terms.

23 Хронисты XIV века утверждали, и с тех пор это часто повторялось, что только в Норидже умерло почти 60 000 человек. На самом деле, все графство Норфолк, включая этот город, едва ли насчитывало 30 000 человек.

§ 5. Цены на продовольствие —Now, although there was a great rise in the price of labour, the price of the labourers’ food did not rise in proportion. The price of provisions, indeed, was but little affected, for food did not require much manual labour in its production, and hence the rise of wages would not be much felt here. What did rise was the price of all articles that required much labour in their production, or the cost of which depended entirely upon human labour. The price of fish, for instance, is determined almost entirely by the cost of the fisherman’s labour, and the cost of transit. Consequently we should under these circumstances expect a great rise in the price of fish, and such indeed was the case. So, too, there was an enormous increase in the prices of tiles, wheels, canvas, lead, ironwork, and all agricultural materials, these being articles whose value depends chiefly upon the amount of labour spent over them, and upon the cost of that labour. Hence, both peasant and artisan gained higher wages, while the cost of living remained for them much the same; and those who suffered most were the owners of large estates, who had to pay more for the labour which worked these estates, and more too for the implements used in working them.

§ 6. Влияние чумы на землевладельцев —The fact that the larger land-owners found the cost of working their land doubled or even trebled caused important economic changes. Before the Plague the cost of harvesting upon an ordinary estate, quoted by Professor Rogers, was £3, 13s. 9d.: afterwards it rose to £12, 19s. 10d. Moreover, the landlord had to consent to receive lower rents, for many tenants could not work their farms profitably with the old rents, and the new prices for labour and implements. And, as rent is paid out of the profits of agriculture, it was obvious even to the landlord that smaller profits meant lower rents. Now, in this state of things, the landlord had two courses open to him. He could turn off the tenant and cultivate all his land himself; or he could try and exist upon the smaller income gained from lower rents. It was obviously impossible for him to cultivate all his land himself, for he would have to employ a large number of bailiffs for his various manors, and trust to their honesty to do their best for him. Moreover, he would have to pay his bailiffs, while after all his tenants paid him something, though less than formerly. So he decided to allow his tenants to pay him a smaller rent. What is more, he decided under the circumstances to give up farming altogether, and let even the lands which he had reserved for his own cultivation. The landlords, in fact, had not apparently either the ability or the inclination to superintend agriculture under these changed conditions, and gave up trying to work their land themselves. So that one great result of the Plague was that landlords to a large extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil, and also pay them for continuing to do so.

§ 7. Возвышение класса арендаторов-фермеров или йоменов —The {74} natural effect of this change on the part of the land-owners was that the small peasant farmers greatly increased in numbers. The circumstances of the time favoured them, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by them, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. Then, when they had tided over the immediate results of the Plague, they took larger holdings as they grew richer. They were helped in this by the stock and land lease system already referred to (p. 42), which gave them the use of a larger quantity of agricultural capital than they could otherwise have commanded. But when the tenant farmer’s wealth increased he found himself able, as a rule, to keep his own stock.

§ 8. Эмансипация вилланов —The gradual amelioration of the conditions of villeinage or serfage received a forcible impetus from the Great Plague. Those villeins who had not already become free tenants, and especially those who lived on wages, shared in the advantages now gained by all who had labour to sell. Their labour was more valuable, and they were able with their higher wages to buy from their lord a commutation of those exactions which interfered with their personal freedom of action, with their right to sell their labour to other employers, or with their endeavours to reach a better social position. Serfage or villeinage gradually became practically extinct after the Plague, 24 though the landowners, backed up by the lawyers, interposed many obstacles in the path of emancipation, and a great Revolt was necessary to enable the villeins to show their power. This Revolt and its success must now engage our attention.

24 См. примечание 11, стр. 246, о пережитках.

ГЛАВА V. КРЕСТЬЯНСКОЕ ВОССТАНИЕ 1381 ГОДА И ПОСЛЕДУЮЩЕЕ ПРОЦВЕТАНИЕ РАБОЧЕГО КЛАССА

§ 1. Новые социальные доктрины —By no means the least important among the effects of the Great Plague was the spirit of independence which it helped to raise in the breasts of the villeins and labourers, more especially as they now gained some consciousness of the power of labour, and of its value as a prime necessity in the economic life of the nation. There was indeed a revolutionary spirit in the air in the last quarter of the fourteenth century, and the villeins could not help breathing it. The social teaching of the author of Peres the Plowman, with his outspoken denunciation of those who are called the upper classes; the bold religious teaching of Wiklif and the wandering friars, and the marked political assertion of the rights of Parliament by the “Good Parliament” of 1376, were all manifestations of this spirit. It was natural, too, that, feeling their power as they did, the villeins should become restive when they heard from the followers of Wiklif that, as it was lawful to withdraw tithes from priests who lived in sin, so “servants and tenants may withdraw their services and rents from their lords that live openly a cursed life.”

§ 2. Приход нищенствующих орденов. Уиклиф —Such indeed was the teaching that Wiklif promulgated, and it was carried throughout all England by that great association of wandering friars which he founded under the title of the “poor priests.” These men were like the {76} mendicant friars who had come to England a century before 25 to work in the poorer parts of the English towns; only Wiklif’s priests generally wandered out into the isolated and remote country villages, and spread abroad the independent doctrines and the revolutionary spirit of the times. Spending their lives in moving about among the “upland folk,” as the country people were called, clad in coarse, undyed brown woollen garments, they won the confidence of the peasants, and what is more, helped them to combine in very effectual trade unions. They acted as treasurers for the common funds of these peasants’ unions, and served as messengers between those in different parts of the country, having passwords and a secret language of their own. Their preaching was similar to that of the celebrated priest of Kent, John Ball, who for twenty years before the great rising (1360–80) openly spoke words like these: “Good people, things will never be well in England so long as there be villeins and gentlemen. By what right are they whom we call lords greater than we? On what grounds have they deserved it? Why do they hold us in serfage? They have leisure and fine houses: we have pain and labour, and the wind and rain in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil that these men hold their estate.” These searching questions as to the rights of the lords, and the bold but true statement that it was the villeins and labouring classes who supported—and paid for—their high estate, came closely home to the peasants. They were encouraged too by the independent religious views of the Lollards, and it is said that half England held their views. And this independence of social and religious tenets was hardly calculated to make the villeins bear {77} with equanimity the exactions of their lords after the Great Plague.

25. Черные монахи (доминиканцы) прибыли в 1221 году, а серые монахи (францисканцы) — в 1224 году.

§ 3. Возобновление поборов со стороны землевладельцев —For it must be remembered that the Great Plague did not immediately emancipate the villeins, or cause the land-owners to give up farming on their own account. The process, of course, took a few years, and in these few years the land-owners made desperate efforts to avoid paying higher wages than formerly for labour. As it had now become costly, they insisted more severely upon the performance by their tenants of such labour-dues as were not yet commuted for money payments. They even tried to make those tenants who had emerged from a condition of villeinage to a free tenancy, return back to villeinage again, with all its old labour-dues and casual services. If a man could not prove by legal documentary evidence that he held his land in a free tenancy, the land-owner might pretend he was a villein tenant, and subject to all a villein’s services, although these services might long ago have been commuted for a money rent without any legal formality. There is much reason to believe, moreover, that they abused their power of inflicting “amercements,” or fines, upon their tenants in the manor courts for trivial breaches of duty. So at least Wiklif and the author of Peres the Plowman tell us. The villeins naturally resisted this attempt to make a retrograde movement, which would force them back into the old bondage from which they had redeemed themselves; the free tenants supported them, for they knew their turn would come next if the serfs failed; and the labouring classes eagerly joined the movement also, in hopes of getting rid of the vexatious Statutes of Labourers.

§ 4. Крестьянское восстание 26—The crisis came in 1381, and was perhaps precipitated by the oppressive manner in which the poll-tax was collected. But the poll-tax itself was not the real cause of the revolt. The rising had long been foreseen, and arrangements had been duly made among the peasants’ unions by the poor priests, their agents and messengers, who formed the connecting links between all the labour organizations of the land. A sudden rising took place, as unanimous as it was unanticipated, throughout all England, from Scarborough to Kent and Devon. Almost simultaneously the peasants showed their combined strength, and a large body of them under Wat Tyler marched upon London. It is well known how they met the young King Richard II. at Mile-end, and demanded of him the petition which shows the real meaning of the movement: “We will that you free us for ever, us and our lands,” they asked; “and that we be never named or held as villeins.” “I grant it,” said the king, with regal diplomacy, and the peasants believed him. But they very soon learned how vain a thing it is to put one’s trust in princes, for after the peasant armies in the various parts of England had quieted down, and the Essex men, among others, claimed the fulfilment of his royal promise, Richard openly broke faith. “Villeins you were,” said the king, “and villeins you are. In bondage shall you abide, and that not your old bondage, but a worse!” Fortunately this never happened. Although suppressed, the rising was practically successful, for it had shown the power of the combination of labour, in the great strife between labour and capital. A few of the ringleaders were imprisoned and executed, among them being several priests. The {79} authorities of course blustered, and swore they would never give in. Equally of course they did give in; no further attempts were made to exact labour-dues or corvées; and within a generation or so villeinage or serfage became practically extinct 27; and the villeins became known as copyholders or tenants by custom.

26. О других взглядах на это восстание см. в моей книге «Промышленность в Англии», гл. XII.

27. О пережитках см. примечание 11, стр. 246.

§ 5. Положение английского рабочего —After this great insurrection came what has been termed the golden age of the English labourer, and it lasted all through the fifteenth century. Food was cheap and abundant; wages were amply sufficient. True, the employers of labour still tried, by various petitions and Acts (e.g. 7 Henry IV., 4 Henry V., 23 Henry VI., 11 Henry VII.), to enforce the Statute of Labourers, but they were practically unsuccessful, and prosperity was progressive and continuous till the evil days of Henry VIII. The wages of a good agricultural labourer, before the Plague, had been £2, 7s. 10d. per year as an average, including the labour of his wife and child; after the Plague his wages would be £3, 15s., and the cost of his living certainly not more than £3, 4s. 9d. An artisan, working 300 days a year, would get, say, £3, 18s. 1⁠½d. before 1348, and after that date £5, 15s. 7d., which was so far above the cost of maintenance as to give him a very comfortable position. His working day, too, was not excessive, while the fixed rents of the time were very low. These low rents were also one great cause of the prosperity of the new yeoman, or tenant farmer class (p. 73) that had arisen after the collapse of the capitalist land-owners in consequence of the Plague. This class remained for at least two centuries the backbone of English agriculture.

§ 6. Недостатки —There were, however, a few drawbacks in this “golden age,” as various critics have told {80} us. The ordinary hardships of human life were in many respects greater than they are now—disease was more deadly, and the risks of life more numerous 28; but from this very fact the extremes of poverty and wealth were less widely distinguished and less acutely felt; and, although it cannot be asserted that people did not occasionally die of want in very bad times, yet the grinding and hopeless poverty just above the verge of actual starvation, so often prevalent in the present time, did not belong to mediæval life. The chief hardships to be encountered were in the winter, for, owing to the absence of winter roots, stock could only be kept in limited quantities, and the only meat procurable was that which had been previously salted. It is certain that much of mediæval disease is traceable to the excessive use of salted provisions. The houses, also, were rudely built of mud, clay, or even wattled material, for brickmaking was a lost art, and stone was only used for the manor-houses and the dwellings of the wealthy. But food was abundant and cheap. The cost of living was not more than one-tenth of what it is at the present day. Three pounds of beef could be bought for a penny; a pig cost about fourpence; beer was only a halfpenny a gallon. Employment was fairly constant and regular, and in addition to their wages, labourers still possessed the valuable old manorial common rights of common pasture and forest.

28. Этот вопрос более подробно рассматривается в книге «Промышленность в Англии», гл. XII (конец).

§ 7. Закат Средневековья —So things went on happily after the Great Revolt, and in the days of the fourth and fifth Henries. The brilliant, but useless, French victories of the latter monarch were paid for partly by the prosperous middle and lower classes, and {81} partly by the French themselves; and very costly they were. England was still mainly agricultural, but manufactures were growing. Though wool was still exported, much was being worked up in the towns and villages. Artisans earned about 3s. a week, which would certainly be worth more than 30s. a week at present. Industry, as will be remembered, was organized in the craft gilds, and apparently the gild system was a success till its restrictions in towns began to cramp the growing manufactures. The fifteenth century was a period of prosperity and content, in spite of both civil and foreign wars; and even the wasteful reign of Henry VI., with its unsuccessful war with France, and huge subsidies to Rome, though it made the Government unpopular and caused widespread national discontent and occasional insurrections in Kent and Wiltshire, did not materially injure the general prosperity. The king himself, however, was nearly bankrupt. The Wars of the Roses which followed (1455–86) did not affect the country at large, being fought in a series of much exaggerated skirmishes by small bodies of nobles and their followers. They ended in the very desirable consummation of the ruin of the remnants of the feudal aristocracy, and at the same time opened a further path for the influence of the industrial classes, whose favour Henry VII. had the wisdom to court, and in return was supported by them in his policy of weakening the power of the great barons. He encouraged commerce, 29 and aided the prosperity of his kingdom, thereby amassing for his own treasury considerable wealth. In his reign the feudal system was dying out, the nation prospered, and the Middle Ages came to a close in a wealthy and industrious England (A.D. 1500). {82}

29. Ср. примечание 7, стр. 244.

Но еще до завершения следующего столетия часть нации обнищала, рабочие были унижены и ограблены, а расточительность и экстравагантность Генриха VIII оставили стране долгое наследие пауперизма и нищеты.

ПЕРИОД IV. ОТ ШЕСТНАДЦАТОГО ВЕКА ДО НАКАНУНЕ ПРОМЫШЛЕННОЙ РЕВОЛЮЦИИ (1509–1760)

ГЛАВА I. БЕЗОБРАЗИЯ ГЕНРИХА VIII И ЭКОНОМИЧЕСКИЕ ПЕРЕМЕНЫ В ШЕСТНАДЦАТОМ ВЕКЕ

§ 1. Расточительность Генриха VIII —Henry VIII. came to the throne in 1509. He succeeded to a full treasury left by his thrifty father, and replenished by contributions from the general prosperity of the country at the close of the fifteenth century. But he soon dissipated the whole of these accumulations. He spent a great deal of money in subsidizing the needy Emperor of Germany, Maximilian, and in interfering in foreign affairs which were better left alone, in the hope of winning for himself a military reputation. His Continental wars and alliances cost him dear, or rather they cost the English people dear, for they gave him liberal grants of money (as e.g. in 1513) before he set out on his fruitless expeditions. But even in time of peace his expenditure was equally extravagant. The cost of his household establishments, and those of his children, was simply enormous; for the establishments of Mary, Edward, and even Elizabeth were each more costly than the whole annual charge of his father’s household. His extravagance was monumental, though where his money went he could not himself discover. Wolsey {84} said of him, “Rather than miss any part of his will, he will endanger one-half of his kingdom.” As a matter of fact he succeeded in impoverishing the whole of it.

§ 2. Роспуск монастырей —He soon wasted the carefully accumulated treasures of his father, and sought for further supplies. They were gained at first by increased taxation, but as this money was spent in the French wars, Henry was soon in difficulties again. Then he tried another expedient. The monasteries suggested themselves to him as an easy prey, and he knew that an attack upon them would not displease the growing Protestant party in the country. These institutions were in many cases not fulfilling their ancient functions properly, and were often far from being the homes of religious virtue. So excuses were easily found, and in 1536 the smaller monasteries with an income below £200 a year were suppressed, and in 1539 the larger ones were similarly treated. About 1000 houses were suppressed, the annual income of which was £161,000, equivalent to more than two millions sterling of our present money. Half-a-dozen bishoprics and a few grammar schools were founded out of the proceeds of this spoliation, in order to blind the eyes of the people at large. But with these paltry exceptions the whole of that vast capital and revenue was granted to courtiers and favourites, sold at nominal prices, or gambled away by the king and his satellites.

§ 3. Результаты подавления —Although the mass of the people did not protest very vigorously against this piece of royal robbery, many of them witnessed with silent dismay the destruction of ancient institutions that had formed so integral a part of the national life. A few even expressed their discontent in open insurrection, and risings took place in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, 30 but these {85} were put down. The economic disturbances which resulted were not so clearly seen, but were far more severe. They were acute enough from the mere fact of so much wealth having suddenly changed hands and being spent with reckless prodigality. It is said that one-fifth, or even one-third, of the land in the kingdom was held by the monasteries, and it was now transferred from the holding of the Church into the hands of a new set of nobles and landed gentry, created from the dependants and time-servers of Henry’s court. These were enriched, but the former tenants of the monasteries and the poorer class of labourers suffered greatly. Hence serious results followed. Nearly all monastic lands were held by tenants upon the “stock and land lease” system, spoken of before; but, when these monastic lands were suddenly transferred into the clutches of Henry’s new and needy nobility, the stock was confiscated and sold off, while the money rent was raised. The new owners did not care for the slow, though really lucrative, system of providing the tenant with a certain amount of stock for his land, but simply wished to get all the money they could without delay. The result was that the poorer tenants were almost ruined, and it seems probable that pauperism was greatly increased. What small amount of pauperism had previously existed had been sufficiently relieved by the monasteries, who, owing their wealth to charitable offerings, could not well refuse charity to those that needed it; but on their dissolution pauperism had no longer such relief, and very soon we shall see it became necessary to provide that relief by law. With the dissolution the history of English legal pauperism may be said to begin, although of course other causes contributed to its growth. But among these causes the spoliation of the monasteries had no unimportant place.

30. Например, «Благодатное паломничество», 1536 г.

§ 4. Выпуск неполноценной монеты —Four years after the dissolution, Henry was in difficulties again. He dared not ask his Parliament for further supplies so soon after his last piece of plunder, so he betook himself to a still more wicked kind of robbery. In 1543 he began to debase the currency, and repeated this criminal action in 1545 and 1546. This debasement forms a landmark in English industrial history as disastrous as the other landmark of the Great Plague. Its effect was not felt immediately, but it was none the less real. The chief point that concerned the labourer was that prices rapidly rose, but that, as is always the case, the rise of wages did not coincide with this inflation, and when they did rise they did not do so in a fair proportion. The necessaries of life rose in proportion of one to two and one-half; wages, when they finally rose, only in the proportion of one to one and one-half. When too late it was recognized that the issue of base money was the cause of dearth in the realm, and Latimer lamented the fact in his sermons. Meanwhile, the mischief had been done.

§ 5. Конфискация земель гильдий —What Henry did with his gains thus obtained by underhand robbery cannot be accurately discovered. But it soon went, for he again required a supply of money.

Оставался еще один способ ограбления промышленных классов, и хотя Генрих умер, его министры не замедлили им воспользоваться. Этим шагом стала конфискация земель гильдий, задуманная Генрихом VIII, но окончательно осуществленная опекуном его сына, Сомерсетом. Эти земли были приобретены ремесленными гильдиями как в городах, так и в сельской местности, частично за счет завещаний членов, а частично путем покупки на средства гильдий. Доходы от этих земель использовались для беспроцентного кредитования беднейших членов гильдий, обучения бедных детей ремеслу, выплаты пенсий вдовам и, прежде всего, для помощи нуждающимся членам цеха. Таким образом, рабочий того времени имел в фондах гильдии своего рода страховой капитал, а сама гильдия выполняла все функции общества взаимопомощи. Генрих VIII добился принятия закона о конфискации этой и другой собственности, но умер до того, как его план был осуществлен. Именно Сомерсет добился принятия акта для совершения этого правонарушения — под предлогом того, что эти земли использовались для суеверных целей. Нетронутой осталась только собственность лондонских гильдий. В Средние века гильдии облегчали пауперизм, способствовали стабилизации цены на труд и формировали центр для ассоциаций, которые удовлетворяли потребности, ныне лишь частично покрываемые современными профсоюзами. Их упразднение стало тяжелым ударом для английского рабочего.

Вопрос о том, почему это упразднение не вызвало более широкого возмущения, представляет определенный интерес. Во-первых, религиозные и ремесленные гильдии были подавлены одновременно под вышеупомянутым предлогом, и таким образом различие между ними было стерто. Затем, лондонские гильдии были пощажены из-за своей силы, и поэтому им стало выгодно не препятствовать уничтожению своих провинциальных собратьев. Дворян подкупили подарками, полученными из фондов гильдий. Более того, ремесленные гильдии в провинциальных городах становились закрытыми корпорациями, преимуществами которых часто пользовались лишь несколько влиятельных членов. Это привело, как мы видели, к распространению суконного производства из городов в промышленные деревни в сельских районах, где, возможно, основная масса населения, не осознавая полного значения этого акта, не возражала против меры, нанесшей удар по городским «цехам». Тем не менее, это вызвало большое недовольство. Сомерсет стал очень непопулярным, и во многих частях страны вспыхнули восстания, наиболее опасные из которых произошли в Корнуолле, Девоншире и на Западе. Они были вызваны не только этим грабежом, но и аграрным недовольством, однако для их подавления были привлечены немецкие и итальянские наемники, и протесты народа были повсюду утоплены в крови.

§ 6. Аграрная ситуация —Such were the acts instigated or actually performed by that miserable monarch, whom nevertheless not a few people who write history seek to glorify. Possibly they do so in ignorance of the facts. This much is certain, that Henry VIII.’s reign witnessed growing pauperism in a country which had been a few years previously in a state of considerable material comfort. But before the close of his reign the labouring classes became impoverished, and tenant farmers were ruined with high rents exacted by the new nobility. The landed gentry and nobility, however, profited by this, and the merchants grew rich by their accumulations in foreign trade. But those who depended directly upon the cultivation of the land for their living suffered severely. There had been for some years past a steady rise in the price of wool for export, partly because the manufacturers of the Netherlands were so flourishing, and partly owing to a general rise of prices on the Continent since the great discoveries of silver in South America. Land-owners saw that it was more immediately profitable to turn their arable land into pasture, and go in for sheep farming on a large scale. They therefore did three things. They evicted as many as possible of their smaller tenants, and as Sir Thomas More tells us: “in this way it comes to pass that these poor wretches, men, women, husbands, orphans, parents with little children—all these emigrate from their native fields without knowing where to go.” Then they raised the rents of the larger tenants, the {89} yeomen and farmers, so that, as Latimer mentions, land for which his father had paid £3 or £4 a year, was in 1549 let at £16, almost to the ruin of the tenant. Thirdly, the large land-owners took from the poor their common lands by an unscrupulous system of enclosures. Wolsey had in vain endeavoured to stop their doing this, for he had sagacity enough to perceive how it would pauperize the labourers and others who had valuable rights in such land. But enclosures and evictions went on in spite of his enactments, with the inevitable result of social disorders.

Самое важное из этих восстаний произошло в Норфолке, где огораживания проводились в огромных масштабах. Кет, богатый дубильщик из Нориджа, возглавил (в 1549 году) большую группу из примерно 16 000 арендаторов и рабочих, которые требовали отмены недавних огораживаний и реформы других местных злоупотреблений. Граф Уорик разбил восставших в сражении, подавил восстание и повесил Кета в Норвичском замке. Фермеры и крестьяне были таким образом запуганы и приведены к покорности.

§ 7. Другие экономические изменения —From these facts it became evident that the old mediæval industrial system was breaking up in England. The new life created by the Renaissance caused a keener and more eager spirit among all classes of men. Competition began to operate as a new force, and men made haste to grow rich. The merchants were becoming bolder and more enterprising in their ventures. The discoveries of America by Columbus (1492) and by Cabot (1497), and of the sea-route to India by Vasco da Gama (1498), had kindled a desire to share largely in the wealth of these newly accessible countries. At home the lords of the manors no longer remained in close personal relationships with their tenants. The tenants were no longer villeins, but were nominally {90} independent, and had certain rights. But the lords of the manors had small respect for rights that were only guarded by custom; and evicted or oppressed their tenants to such an extent that multitudes of dispossessed and impoverished villagers flocked to the towns. In fact Sir Thomas More tells us that the tenants “were got rid of by fraud or force, or tired out by repeated wrongs into parting with their property.”

Многих рабочих также можно было встретить бродящими с места на место, просящими милостыню или грабящими. Старая устойчивая деревенская жизнь с ее изоляцией и прочными семейными узами переживала насильственную трансформацию. Постоянная работа и регулярная заработная плата становились делом прошлого. Заработная плата рабочего не позволяла приобрести прежнее количество провизии при новых высоких ценах, вызванных обесцениванием валюты и открытиями серебра в 1540–1600 годах; ибо заработная плата, хотя в конечном итоге и следует за ценами, делает это очень медленно, и даже тогда не всегда пропорционально.

§ 8. Резюме изменений шестнадцатого века —Such were the events which caused so great an economic transition in this period. They resulted in the pauperization of a large portion of the working classes, and the impoverishment of the small farmers. On the other hand, the nobles and land-owners gained considerable wealth. The merchants also were exceedingly flourishing, and foreign trade was growing. In summing up, then, we may say that the suppression of the monasteries, and the creation of a new nobility from the adventurers of Henry VIII.’s court, who obtained most of the monastic wealth; the debasement of the coinage and the exaltation in prices, aided largely (1540–1600) by the discovery of new silver mines in South America; the rise in the price of wool both for export and home manufacture, coupled {91} with the consequent increase in sheep farming and the practice of enclosure of land—all produced most important economic changes in the history of English labour and industry. To these we must add, towards the end of the sixteenth century, the great immigration of Flemings, chiefly after 1567, owing to the continual persecutions of Alva and other Spanish rulers. This gave a great impetus to English manufactures, its effects, however, being chiefly felt in the seventeenth century, when another immigration took place. Finally, in the sixteenth century were laid the foundations of our present commercial enterprise and maritime trade, by the voyages of Drake and other great sea-captains of Elizabeth’s reign. Their expeditions, it is true, were mainly buccaneering exploits, but they created a spirit of maritime enterprise that bore good fruit in the following reigns. Nor indeed was trade even in the previous centuries entirely insignificant, but had considerably developed, as the following chapter will show.

ГЛАВА II. РОСТ ВНЕШНЕЙ ТОРГОВЛИ

§ 1. Расширение торговли. Новый дух —Just as the beginning of the sixteenth century marks what may be called an economic revolution in the home industries of the country, so too it marks the beginning of international commerce upon the modern scale. The economic revolution, of which the new agricultural system and the practice of enclosures was the most striking feature, was a change from the old dependent, uncompetitive, and regulated industrial system, to one under {92} which Capital and Labour grew up as separate forces in the form in which we recognize them now. Labour had become nominally independent after the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, and at the same time it consciously felt that it was in opposition to capitalist and land-owning interests. In its desire for freedom it had also begun to shake off even its self-imposed restrictions, and the power of the gilds had rapidly waned. A new and eager spirit came with the Renaissance and the Reformation, a spirit which on the economic side showed itself in the development of competition, the shaking off of old restraints, and in more daring and far-seeing enterprises. Especially was this the case among the merchants, fired as they were by the great discoveries of the latter end of the fifteenth century, and hence we notice, throughout the sixteenth century and especially at its close, that our foreign trade becomes more extensive than it had ever been before, and the foundations of our present international commerce were securely laid.

§ 2. Внешняя торговля в пятнадцатом веке —At this point we must look back for a moment at our foreign trade before this new epoch. Although our enterprises were by no means large, there was yet a fairly considerable trade done with the countries in the west of Europe—i.e. France, Spain, and the Baltic lands, and especially with the Low Countries. As England was then almost entirely an agricultural country, our chief export was wool for the Flemish looms to work up; but there was also other agricultural produce exported; and likewise some mineral products. In fact England supplied nearly all Western Europe with two most important metals, tin and lead; the former coming chiefly from Cornwall and the latter from Derbyshire, though in neither case exclusively from those counties. Bodmin was, however, the staple town {93} for the export of tin. Our huge mineral wealth in coal and iron was hardly yet touched, even for home use, and none was exported. Our imports were numerous and varied, their number being balanced, as they must always be, by the greater bulk and value of our exports of wool and lead.

Довольно оживленная торговля велась с Португалией и Испанией, которые поставляли нам железо и боевых коней; Гасконь и другие части Франции присылали свои вина; богатые бархаты, полотна и тонкие ткани импортировались из Гента, Льежа, Брюгге и других фламандских промышленных городов. Корабли ганзейских купцов привозили сельдь, воск, лес, мех и янтарь из стран Балтии; а генуэзские торговцы приезжали с шелками, бархатом и итальянским стеклом. И все они встречались друг с другом, как мы видели ранее, на великих ярмарках, таких как Стурбриджская, или в великом торговом центре западного мира — Лондоне.

§ 3. Венецианский флот —But our most important trade in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries centred round the annual visit of the Venetian fleet to the southern shores of England. This was a great company of trading vessels, which left Venice every year upon a visit to England and Flanders. 31 Our English vessels did not at this time venture into the Mediterranean, and so all the stores of the Southern European countries, and more especially the treasures of the East, came to us through the agency of Venice. Laden with silks, satins, fine damasks and cottons, and other then costly garments, together with rare Eastern spices and precious stones, camphor and saffron, this fleet sailed slowly along the shores of the Mediterranean, trading at the ports of Italy, South France and Spain, till it passed through the Straits of Gibraltar, and at length came up the Channel, and {94} reached our southern ports. When it had reached the Downs, the fleet broke up for a time, some vessels putting in at Sandwich, Rye, and other towns, and a large number stopping at Southampton. Others went on to Flanders. Several days, sometimes weeks, were spent in exchanging their valuable cargoes for English goods, chiefly wool, the balance being paid over in gold, and then the various portions of the great fleet would reunite again, and set sail for Venice, from which they were often absent for nearly a twelvemonth. This annual visit was very convenient for English traders, before our own merchants ventured far away from our coasts. But it is a sign of the increased commercial enterprise of England in the sixteenth century that this visit then became unprofitable, and the last time the Venetian fleet came to our shores was in 1587.