e land was the great fund of national wealth
from which taxation was paid; if rents therefore rose it was a gain to
the whole country, since the fund from which the revenue was drawn was
increased.[180]

In spite of the high wages of agricultural labourers, the movement
towards the towns noticed by Richard II continued. The statute 7 Hen.
IV, c. 17, asserts that there is a great scarcity of labourers in
husbandry and that gentlemen are much impoverished by the rate of
wages; the cause of the scarcity lying in the fact that many people
were becoming weavers,[181] and it therefore re-enacted 12 Ric. II,
c. 5, which ordained that no one who had been a servant in husbandry
until 12 years old should be bound apprentice, and further enacted
that no person with less than 20s. a year in land should be able to
apprentice his son. Like many other statutes of the time this seems to
have been inoperative, for we find 23 Hen. VI, c. 12 (1444), enacting
that if a servant in husbandry purposed leaving his master he was to
give him warning, and was obliged either to engage with a new one or
continue with the old. It also regulated the wages anew, those fixed
showing a substantial increase since the statute of 1388. By the
year:--

A bailiff was to have L1 3s. 4d., and 5s. worth of clothes.
A chief hind, carter, or shepherd, L1, and 4s. worth of clothes.
A common servant in husbandry, 15s., and 3s. 4d. worth of clothes.
A woman servant, 10s., and 4s. worth of clothes.
All with meat and drink.

By the day, in harvest, wages were to be:--

A mower, with meat and drink, 4d.; without, 6d.
A reaper or carter, with meat and drink, 3d.; without, 5d.
A woman or labourer, with meat and drink, 2d.; without, 4d.

In the next reign the labourer's dress was again regulated for him,
and he was forbidden to wear any cloth exceeding 2s. a yard in price,
nor any 'close hosen', apparently tight long stockings, nor any hosen
at all which cost more than 14d.[182] Yeomen and those below them were
forbidden to wear any bolsters or stuff of wool, cotton wadding, or
other stuff in their doublets, but only lining; and somewhat
gratuitously it was ordered that no one under the degree of a
gentleman should wear pikes to his shoes.

In 1455 England's Thirty Years' War, the War of the Roses, began, and
agriculture received another set back. The view that the war was a
mere faction fight between nobles and their retainers, while the rest
of