SECTION III. The Regulation of Industry by the State

THE REGULATION OF INDUSTRY BY THE STATE

1. Proposals for the Regulation of the Cloth Manufacture (temp Henry VIII)--2. Administrative Difficulties in the Regulation of the Manufacture of Cloth, 1537--3. An Act Touching Weavers, 1555--4. Enactment of Common Council of London as to Age of Ending Apprenticeship, 1556--5. William Cecil's Industrial Programme, 1559--6. The Statute of Artificers, 1563--7. Proposals for the Better Administration of the Statute of Artificers, 1572--8. Draft of a Bill Fixing Minimum Rates for Spinners and Weavers, 1593--9. Draft Piece-list Submitted for Ratification to the Wiltshire Justices by Clothiers and Weavers, 1602--10. An Act Empowering Justices to fix Minimum Rates of Payment, 1603-04--11. Administration of Acts Regulating the Manufacture of Cloth, 1603--12. Assessment made by the Justices of Wiltshire, dealing mainly with other than Textile Workers, 1604--13. Assessment made by the Justices of Wiltshire dealing mainly with Textile Workers, 1605--14. Administration of Wage Clauses of Statute of Artificers, 1605-08--15. Administration of Apprenticeship Clause of the Statute of Artificers, 1607-08--16. The Organisation of the Woollen Industry, 1615--17. Proceedings on the Apprenticeship Clauses of the Statute of Artificers, 1615--18. A Petition to Fix Wages Addressed to the Justices by the Textile Workers of Wiltshire, 1623--19. Appointment by Privy Council of Commissioners to Investigate Grievances of Textile Workers in East Anglia, 1630--20. Report to Privy Council of Commissioners appointed above, 1630--21. High Wages in the New World, 1645--22. Young Men and Maids Ordered to Enter Service, 1655--23. Request to Justices of Grand Jury of Worcestershire to Assess Wages, 1661--24. Proceedings on the Apprenticeship Clauses of the Statute of Artificers, 1669.

The documents in this section illustrate the regulation of industrial relationships by the government of the Tudors and of the first two Stuarts. The principal aims of their policy were to check the movement of the textile industries from the town to country districts (Nos. 3 and 6), to prevent the concentration of industry in the hands of capitalists (Nos. 3 and 11), or the creation of a necessitous proletariat (No. 4), to exercise a police supervision over the movement of labour (Nos. 6, 7 and 14), to maintain the quality of English goods (No. 2), to prevent class encroaching on class (Nos. 5 and 6) either through the wage earner demanding excessive wages (No. 5) or through the employer beating them down unduly (Nos. 8, 10, 19, 20), in short to crystallize existing relationships with such changes only as the economic developments of recent years, particularly the fall in the value of money (No. 6), and the spread of the textile industries into rural districts (No. 3) made inevitable.

The system was developed in numerous Acts, of which the most important are given below (Nos. 3, 6 and 10). The most comprehensive measure was the Statute of Artificers of 1563 (No. 6). There was little original in this Act. Just as the Statutes forbidding depopulation (Part II, section I) really only developed manorial customaries into a national system, and the Poor Law Statutes (Part II, section IV) were based on the experiments of municipal authorities, so the Statute of Artificers was based partly on the practices of gilds (Part II, section II), partly on the mediæval Statutes of Labourers (see Part I, section VI, Nos. 12--19). Indeed, Cecil's original proposal (No. 5) seems to have been to re-enact 12 Richard II, cap. 3, which the rise in prices had made out of date. If seriously entertained, this idea must have been discarded. The most important innovation introduced by the statute in its final form was the substitution of a system of industrial regulation applying to almost the whole country for regulations applying to particular localities and particular trades.

The most important parts of the Statute of Artificers were those relating to apprenticeship and to the assessment of wages. The former, if we may judge by the proceedings of the County Justices (Nos. 11 & 15) and of municipal authorities (Part II, section II, Nos. 9, 10, 11, 15), seem to have been administered with considerable strictness, which was only to be expected in view of the interest which gilds, boroughs, traders and craftsmen generally had in seeing that they were carried out. Judicial interpretations seem, however, to have begun at an early date to whittle them away to some extent (No. 17), for the Judges disliked rules "in restraint of trade" (No. 24 and section II, No. 18).

The wage clauses of the Statute present a more difficult problem. There is no doubt that their object was to fix a maximum (not a minimum) wage for agricultural labour (Nos. 6 and 14), which, however, should move with movements in prices. This policy was not so oppressive as it appears to us, because of the wide distribution of landed property, the consequent fact that comparatively few rural workers depended entirely upon wages for their living, and the relatively small difference between the social position of the small farmer or master craftsman and the hired persons whom they employed. In a colony like Massachusetts, where the policy of fixing maximum wages was adopted, its motive was seen in the simplest form (No. 21). Even in England, however, the same motives were at work to a less degree (Nos. 5, 22 and 23). The policy of fixing a maximum wage was, in fact, on a par with that of fixing prices, and probably popular with the small masters and small landholders, who formed a large proportion of the urban and rural population. It did not come to an end with the destruction of the absolute monarchy, but continued, with fair regularity, down to 1688, and, after that, with much less regularity, at any rate to 1762.

The regulation of wages did not, however, only aim at fixing a maximum. It also aimed on some, perhaps rare, occasions at fixing a minimum, at any rate for workers in the textile industries. These latter were treated in a special way, because the development of capitalism in the textile industries (Nos. 2, 3, 8, 16 and 19) had created a wage problem of a modern kind, at any rate in the south and east of England, such as did not yet exist in agriculture. Municipal authorities had in the past fixed minimum rates for textile workers (section II, No. 5). In 1593 four Bills were drafted which proposed to do the same by legislation, of which one is printed below (No. 8), and in 1603-04 an Act (No. 10) was passed to this effect. Two examples of the establishment of minimum rates are given from the proceedings of the Wiltshire Quarter Sessions, in 1602 and 1623. In the former case (No. 9) a piece list was drafted by a committee of clothiers and weavers, which was subsequently issued without alteration by the Justices (No. 13). In the latter case (No. 18) the textile workers of Wiltshire asked the Justices to enforce the assessment of wages on their employers, and the Justices complied by ordering the rates to be published at Devizes. This shows that the regulation of wages did in some cases protect the workers. Naturally, however, the Justices required stimulating in this part of their duties, and during the period of Charles I's personal government the Privy Council intervened to compel them to fix rates, as it did to compel them to administer the Poor Laws. In 1630 it received a petition from the textile workers of Suffolk and Essex complaining that their wages had been reduced, and appointed commissioners to investigate the matter (No. 19), who compelled the employers to raise wages (No. 20). The policy of fixing minimum rates seems to have come to an end with the fall of the absolute monarchy in 1640, though it was occasionally revived by Parliament in the sixteenth century. (Part III, section III, Nos. 3, 4 and 15).

AUTHORITIES

The more accessible of the modern writers dealing with the subject of this section are:--Cunningham, English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times, Part I; Ashley, Economic History, Vol. I, Part II, Chap, iii; Unwin, Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries; Abram, Social England in the Fifteenth Century; Dunlop and Denman, English Apprenticeship and Child Labour; Rogers, Six Centuries of Work and Wages; Hewins, English Trade and Finance in the Seventeenth Century; Schanz, Englische Handelspolitik Gegen Ende des Mittelalters; Tawney in Die Vierteljahrschrift für Sozial und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Band XI and XII, Heft 8 and 9; Macarthur, in E.H.R., Vols. IX, XIII and XV; Hewins in Economic Journal, Vol. VIII; Hutchins, ibid., Vol. X.

Bibliographies are given by Cunningham, op. cit., pp. 943-998; Unwin, op. cit., pp. 263-270; Ashley, op. cit., pp. 190-1, 243-8; Abram, op. cit., pp. 229-238; Dunlop & Denman, op. cit., pp. 355-63; the student may also consult the following:--

(1) Documentary authorities, 1485-1660:--The most important printed sources of information for the administration of the industrial legislation of the 16th century are Town Records (see bibliographies, especially those of Unwin and of Dunlop & Denman), and the Proceedings of the County Justices contained in the following works:--Hamilton, Devonshire Quarter Sessions from Queen Elizabeth to Queen Anne; Atkinson, Quarter Session Records of the North Riding of Yorkshire; Willis Bund, Worcester County Records, division I; Cox, Three Centuries of Derbyshire Annals; Hardy, Hertford Quarter Session Records; Hardy & Page, Bedfordshire County Quarter Sessions; volumes published by the Historical MSS. Commission, especially Vol. I; Victoria County History, passim.

(2) Literary authorities.--The law is explained by numerous writers of legal text books, e.g., Fitzherbert, The Book Belonging to a Justice of the Peace; Lambard, Eirenarcha; Sheppard, Whole Office of the County Justice of the Peace. Cases before the courts concerning apprenticeship are quoted in the Reports of Coke and Croke. Sidelights on contemporary opinion may be obtained from Rotuli Parliamentorum III, 269, 330, 352; IV, 330-331, 352; V, 110; More, Utopia; Starkey, A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset (Early English Text Society, England in the Reign of King Henry VIII); Forest, The Pleasant Poesy of Princely Practice (ibid.); The Commonweal of this Realm of England (edited by E.R. Lamond); King Edward's Remains, a Discourse about the Reformation of many abuses (printed in Burnet's History of the Reformation); Winthrop's Journal; Petty, A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions, Chapter I, Section 4.

1. PROPOSALS FOR THE REGULATION OF THE CLOTH MANUFACTURE [Brit. Mus. Cotton MSS., Titus B. I, fol. 189], temp. Hen. VIII.

Articles to be certified to my lord privy seal according to his letter for the complaint of the weavers in the seven hundreds in the country of Kent.

First, that no clothier, that hath not had exercise in his youth by the space of two years at the least in the craft of weaving, use or have in his house or at his commandment any loom.

Item, that no clothier weaver using to make coloured clothes shall use, have, or occupy in his house or at his assignment any more than one loom.

Item, that if the cloth-maker have cause to complain upon the weaver for not duly and truly working of their clothes or the weaver cause to complain upon the clothier for not paying him his duty for the said weaving, that then the party grieved shall complain to the next justice of peace, and he shall assign one indifferent weaver and one indifferent clothier to examine the cause of variance and to assess what amends the party grieved shall have. And the party to stand and abide the order so made.

Item, where it is ordered by the statute of anno 4 E. 4 capitulo primo, that the clothier shall pay ready money to the weavers and spinners and other their artificers, that the said statute shall be put in due execution.

Item, if any clothier, tailor, cordwainer or other artificer, by what name or names soever he or they be called, that hereafter shall fortune to come out of any shire other than out of the said shire of Kent into any of the 7 hundreds there to seek service and to have work, that then he or they that will or shall happen to take him or them into his or their service or services, shall before one of the justices of the peace be bound unto the king by way of recognisance in such sum as by the discretion of the said justice shall be appointed; that the said person so by him taken into service shall be of good behaviour during the time that he shall be in his service, and that the said justice be not compellable to certify the same recognisance, unless the same recognisance be forfeited. And this to be done from time to time, as often as the justice of the peace shall think convenient. And if any man retain any man in his service without putting in surety, as is above said, that then the justice of the peace to have authority to commit such person or persons to ward, there to remain by his discretion.

EDWARD WOTTON. THOMAS WYLFFORD.

2. ADMINISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES IN THE REGULATION OF THE MANUFACTURE OF CLOTH [Brit. Mus. Cotton MSS. Titus B. V, fol. 187], 1537.

Before my right hearty commendations to your good lordship. It may please the same to understand, that divers of the clothmakers in these parts have been with me, declaring unto me, that in case they shall be compelled to make cloth from Michaelmas forwards according to the king's act, it shall cause them and other of their occupation to cease and forbear clothmaking, saying, that it is impossible to keep the breadth of the cloth limited by the act, and also that the weavers, being very poor men, have not nor be able to provide looms and sleys to weave clothes according to the act. Whereunto I answered them, that there is much slander in outward parts for false clothmaking, and for remedy thereof this act was provided; and or ever the act was made, there were divers clothmakers spoken with, who affirmed, that it was reasonable; wherefore I told them that I thought that they did rather seek occasion to continue still false clothmaking, than put their good endeavour to make true cloth according to the act; and also I shewed to them, that the King's Highness had suspended the same act by a long time by his proclamation, to the intent that they might provide looms and other necessaries for the making of true cloth according to the act, wherefore I marvelled much that they had been so negligent in the provision thereof, declaring unto them, that I thought that the King's Highness would not defer the execution of the act any longer; which it seemed to me they lamented very sorely, saying that they would leave their occupying for the time; for they could not by no possible means make cloth according to the act, and specially for their breadth; and I bade them take heed and beware, for I thought, they might perform the act, if they had good will and good zeal to the common weal; and if they by obstinacy or wilfulness would leave clothmaking, whereby percase might grow murmur and sedition among the people for lack of work, that then it would be laid to their charges, to their perils and utter undoings. Whereunto they said obediently, that they would do that lay in their possible powers, but more they could not, beseeching me, that I would be a means to the King's Highness once again to suspend the act, which I would not promise them to do, and so left them for this time in despair of this matter; and so now advertise your good lordship thereof, to the intent that, if it seem by your wisdom convenient, ye may move the King's Majesty hereof to the intent, his Grace's pleasure may be known, whether his Highness of his goodness would yet suspend the act for one other year, which in my poor opinion, if so may stand with his Grace's pleasure, shall not be much amiss, beseeching your good lordship, that I may be advertised hereof as soon as you conveniently may; for Michaelmas is the last day of the old proclamation for this matter; and thus fare your good lordship as heartily well as I would myself. Written at Terlyng the 23rd day of September.

Your assuredly to his preservation (?)

THOMAS AUDELEY, lord chancellor.

3. AN ACT TOUCHING WEAVERS [2 & 3 Phil. & Mary, c. xi. Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV, Part I, p. 286-87], 1555.

Forasmuch as the weavers of this realm have, as well at this present parliament as at divers other times, complained that the rich and wealthy clothiers do many ways oppress them, some by setting up and keeping in their houses divers looms, and keeping and maintaining them by journeymen and persons unskilful, to the decay of a great number of artificers which were brought up in the said science of weaving, their family and household, some by ingrossing of looms into their hands and possession, and letting them out at such unreasonable rents as the poor artificers are not able to maintain themselves, much less their wives, family and children, some also by giving much less wages and hire for the weaving and workmanship of [cloth] than in times past they did, whereby they are enforced utterly to forsake their art and occupation wherein they have been brought up: It is therefore, for remedy of the premises, and for the avoiding of a great number of inconveniences which may grow (if in time it be not foreseen) ordained, established and enacted, by authority of this present parliament, that no person using the feat or mistery of clothmaking and dwelling out of a city, borough, market town or corporate town, shall from the feast of St. Michael the Archangel now next ensuing, keep, retain or have in his or their house or possession any more or above one woollen loom at one time, nor shall by any means directly or indirectly receive or take any manner profit, gain or commodity by letting or setting any loom, or any house wherein any loom is or shall be used and occupied, which shall be together by him set or let, upon pain of forfeiture for every week that any person shall do contrary to the tenour and true meaning hereof 20s.

And be it further ordained and enacted by like authority, that no woollen weaver using or exercising the feat or mistery of weaving, and dwelling out of city, borough, market town or town corporate, shall after the said feast have or keep at any time above the number of two woollen looms, or receive any profit, gain or commodity, directly or indirectly as is aforesaid, by any more than two looms at one time, upon pain to forfeit for every week that any person shall offend or do to the contrary 20s.

And it is further ordained and enacted by like authority, that no person which shall after the said feast, use, exercise or occupy only the feat or mistery of a weaver, and not clothmaking, shall during the time that he shall use the feat or mistery of a weaver, keep or have any tucking mill, or shall use or exercise the feat or mistery of a [tucker] or dyer, upon pain to forfeit for every week that he shall so do 20s.

And it is further enacted by like authority, that no person which after the said feast shall use, exercise or occupy the feat or mistery of a tucker or fuller, shall during the time that he shall so use the said feat or mistery, keep or have any loom in his house or possession, or shall directly or indirectly take any profit or commodity by the same, upon pain to forfeit for every week 20s.

And it is further ordained and enacted by like authority, that no person whatsoever, which heretofore hath not used or exercised the feat, mistery or art of clothmaking, shall after the said feast, make or weave or cause to be made or woven any kind of broad white woollen cloths, but only in a city, borough, town corporate or market town, or else in such place or places where such cloths have been used to be commonly made by the space of ten years next before the making this act; upon pain of forfeiture for every cloth otherwise made five pounds.

Provided always and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, that it shall not be lawful to any person or persons being a weaver, or that doth or shall use the art or mistery of a weaver or weaving, dwelling out of a city, borough, town corporate or market town, to have in his and their service any more or above the number of two apprentices at one time; upon pain to forfeit for every time that he shall offend or do contrary to this branch or article the sum of ten pounds.

And further be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that it shall not be lawful to or for any person or persons to set up the art or mistery of weaving, after the said feast of St. Michael, unless the same person or persons so setting up the same art or mistery of weaving, have been apprentice to the same art or mistery, or exercised the same, by the space of 7 years at the least; upon pain of twenty pounds to be forfeited to the King and Queen's Majesties, her Grace's heirs or successors, the one moiety of all which forfeitures shall be to the King and Queen's Highnesses, heirs successors, and the other moiety to him or them that will sue for the same in any court of record by action of debt, bill, plaint or information, wherein no wager of law, essoigne or protection shall be admitted or allowed for the defendant.

... Provided always, and be it enacted by the authority aforesaid, that this act or anything therein contained shall in any way extend or be prejudicial to any person or persons that doth or shall dwell in the counties of York, Cumberland, Northumberland or Westmoreland; but that they and every of them shall and may have and keep looms in their houses, and do and exercise all and every thing and things for or concerning spinning, weaving, cloth working and clothmaking in the said counties, as they or any of them might have done or exercised lawfully before the making of this statute; anything contained in this statute to the contrary in any way notwithstanding.

4. ENACTMENT OF COMMON COUNCIL OF LONDON AS TO AGE OF ENDING APPRENTICESHIP [Arber, Stationers' Records, I, p. xli], 1556.

For as much as great poverty, penury, and lack of living hath of late years followed, ... and one of the chiefest occasions thereof, as it is thought, ... is by reason of the over hasty marriages and over soon setting up of households of and by the youth and young folks of the said city [of London], which hath commonly used, and yet do, to marry themselves as soon as ever they come out of their apprenticehood, be they ever so young and unskilful, yea, and often times many of them so poor that they scantily have of their proper goods wherewith to buy their marriage apparel ... and forasmuch as the chiefest occasion of the said inconveniences, as it is very evident, is by reason that divers and sundry apprentices, as well of the said artificers as also of other citizens of the said city, are commonly bound for so few years that their terms of apprenticeability expireth and endeth oversoon, and that they are there upon incontinently made free of the said city; ... for remedy, stay, and reformation whereof it is ordained ... that no manner of persons ... shall be any manner of ways or means made free of the said city ... until such time as he and they shall severally attain to the age of 24 years.

5. WILLIAM CECIL'S INDUSTRIAL PROGRAMME [Hist. MSS. Com. MSS. of the Marquis of Salisbury, Part I, pp. 162-3], 1559. Considerations delivered to the Parliament, 1559.

1. Vagabonds.--That the statute I Edward VI, Chap, viii., concerning idle persons and vagabonds being made slaves, now repealed, be revived with additions.

2. Labourers and Servants.--That the Statutes 12 Richard II, Chap. iii, "that no servant or labourer at the end of this term depart out of the hundred or place where he dwells," etc., and 13 Richard II, Chap. viii., ordering the Justices at every session to appoint by proclamation the wages of workers, etc., be confirmed with the addition "that no man hereafter receive into service any servant without a testimonial from the master he last dwelt with, sealed with a Parish Seal kept by the constable or churchwarden, witnessing he left with the free license of his master, penalty £10." So, by the hands of the masters, servants may be reduced to obedience, which shall reduce obedience to the Prince and to God also; by the looseness of the time no other remedy is left but by awe of law to acquaint men with virtue again, whereby the Reformation of religion may be brought in credit, with the amendment of manners, the want whereof has been imputed as a thing grown by the liberty of the Gospel, etc.

3. Husbandry.--That the Statutes, 4 Hen VII, Chap. 9, "for re-edifying houses of husbandry, and to avoid the decay of towns and villages," and 5 Edward VI, Chap. 5, "for maintenance of husbandry and tillage," be put in execution.

4. Purchase of Lands.--No husbandman, yeoman or artificer to purchase above 5l. by the year of inheritance, save in cities, towns and boroughs, for their better repair; one mansion house only to be purchased over and above the said yearly value. The common purchasing thereof is the ground of dearth of victuals, raising of rents, etc.

5. Merchants.--No merchant to purchase above £50 a year of inheritance, except aldermen and sheriffs of London, who, because they approach to the degree of knighthood, may purchase to the value of £200.

6. Apprentices.--None to be received apprentice except his father may spend 40s. a year of freehold, nor to be apprenticed to a merchant except his father spend £10 a year of freehold, or be descended from a gentleman a merchant. Through the idleness of these professions so many embrace them that they are only a cloak for vagabonds and thieves, and there is such a decay of husbandry that masters cannot get skilful servants to till the ground without unreasonable wages, etc....

6. AN ACT TOUCHING DIVERS ORDERS FOR ARTIFICERS, LABOURERS, SERVANTS OF HUSBANDRY AND APPRENTICES [5 Eliz. c. iv. Statutes of the Realm, Vol. IV, Part I, pp. 414-22], 1563.

I. Although there remain in force presently a great number of statutes concerning ... apprentices, servants and labourers, as well in husbandry as in divers other ... occupations, yet partly for the imperfection and contrariety ... in sundry of the said laws, and for the variety and number of them, and chiefly for that the wages and allowances limited in many of the said statutes are in divers places too small ... respecting the advancement of prices ... the said laws cannot conveniently without the greatest grief and burden of the poor labourer and hired man be put in due execution; and as the said statutes were at the time of the making of them thought to be very good and beneficial ..., as divers of them yet are, so if the substance of as many of the said laws as are meet to be continued shall be digested and reduced into one sole law, and in the same an uniform order prescribed ..., there is good hope that it will come to pass that the same law, being duly executed, should banish idleness, advance husbandry and yield unto the hired person both in the time of scarcity and in the time of plenty a convenient proportion of wages: Be it therefore enacted.... That as much of the statutes heretofore made as concern the hiring, keeping, departing, working, wages or order of servants, workmen, artificers, apprentices and labourers ... shall be from and after the last day of September next ensuing repealed....

II. No person after the aforesaid last day of September ... shall be retained, hired or taken into service to work for any less time than for one whole year in any of the sciences ... or arts of clothiers, woollen cloth weavers, tuckers, fullers, cloth workers, shearmen, dyers, hosiers, tailors, shoemakers, tanners, pewterers, bakers, brewers, glovers, cutlers smiths, farriers, curriers, sadlers, spurriers, turners, cappers, hat-makers or feltmakers, bowyers, fletchers, arrowhead-makers, butchers, cooks, or millers.

III. Every person being unmarried and every other person being under the age of thirty years that after the feast of Easter next shall marry, and having been brought up in any of the said arts [etc.] or that hath exercised any of them by the space of three years or more, and not having lands, tenements [etc.] copyhold or freehold of an estate of inheritance or for term of lives of the clear yearly value of 40s. nor being worth of his own goods the clear value of 10l., ..., not being retained with any person in husbandry or in any of the aforesaid arts ... nor in any other art, nor in household or in any office with any nobleman, gentleman or others, ..., nor having a convenient farm or other holding in tillage whereupon he may employ his labour, shall (during the time that he shall so be unmarried or under the age of 30 years), upon request made by any person using the art or mystery wherein the said person so required hath been exercised as is aforesaid, be retained and shall not refuse to serve according to the tenor of this Statute upon the pain and penalty hereafter mentioned.

IV. No person which shall retain any servant shall put away his said servant, and no person retained according to this Statute shall depart from his master, mistress or dame before the end of his term, upon the pain hereafter mentioned, unless it be for some reasonable cause to be allowed before two Justices of Peace, or one at the least, or before the mayor or other chief officer of the city, borough or town corporate wherein the said master [etc.] inhabiteth, to whom any of the parties grieved shall complain; which said justices or chief officer shall have the hearing and ordering of the matter between the said master [etc.] and servant, according to the equity of the cause; and no such master [etc.] shall put away any such servant at the end of his term, or any such servant depart from his said master [etc.] at the end of his term, without one quarter warning given ... upon the pain hereafter ensuing.

V. Every person between the age of 12 years and the age of 60 years not being lawfully retained nor apprentice with any fisherman or mariner haunting the seas, nor being in service with any carrier of any corn, grain or meal for provision of the city of London, nor with any husbandman in husbandry, nor in any city [etc.] in any of the arts ... appointed by this Statute to have apprentices, nor being retained ... for the digging ... melting ... making of any silver [or other metals, coal, etc.], nor being occupied in the making of any glass, nor being a gentleman born, nor being a student or scholar in any of the universities or in any school, nor having [lands or goods, as above,