of the times, for before the Black Death the
harvest work on the demesne was the special work of the latter.

In the fourteenth century the long series of corn laws was commenced
which was to agitate Englishmen for centuries, and after an apparently
final settlement in 1846 to reappear in our day.[166] It was the
policy of Edward III to make food plentiful and cheap for the whole
nation, without special regard to the agricultural interest: and by 34
Edw. III, c. 20, the export of corn to any foreign part except Calais
and Gascony, then British possessions, or to certain places which the
king might permit, was forbidden. Richard II, however, reversed this
policy in answer to the complaints of agriculturists whose rents were
falling,[167] and endeavoured to encourage the farmer and especially
the corn-grower; for he saw the landlords turning their attention to
sheep instead of corn, owing to the high price of labour. Accordingly,
to give the corn-growers a wider market, he allowed his subjects by
the statute 17 Ric. II, c. 7, to carry corn, on paying the duties due,
to what parts they pleased, except to his enemies, subject however to
an order of the Council; and owing to the interference of the Council
the law probably became a dead letter, at all events we find it
confirmed and amended by 4 Hen. VI, c. 5.

The prohibition of export must have been a serious blow to those
counties near the sea, for it was much easier to send corn by ship to
foreign parts than over the bad roads of England to some distant
market.[168] Indeed, judging by the great and frequent discrepancy of
prices in different places at the same date, the dispatch of corn from
one inland locality to another was not very frequent. Richard also
attempted to stop the movement, which had even then set in, of the
countrymen to the growing towns, forbidding by 12 Ric. II, c. 5, those
who had served in agriculture until 12 years of age to be apprenticed
in the towns, but to 'abide in husbandry'.

One of the most unjust customs of the Middle Ages was that which bade
the tenants of manors, except those who held the _jus faldae_, fold
their sheep on the land of the lord, thus losing both the manure and
the valuable treading.[169] However, sometimes, as in Surrey, the
sheepfold was in a fixed place and the manure from it was from time to
time taken out and spread on the land.[170]

In the same district horses had been hitherto used for farm work, as
it was consi