[CHARLES I].

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Rare first edition of this important set of ‘Orders’ by Charles I to regulate the grain market. during a period of famine. 1629 and 1630 were years of dearth; there was much un employment in the cloth trade, rioting in London and the South East and the West Country. The 1629 harvest was uninspiring, and 1630 terrible; the price of wheat rose from 38 shillings in 1629 to 54 shillings in 1630. This work is a collection of orders to the justices of the peace dictating how they were to respond to food scarcity in their communities. As the proclamation itself notes, this was largely an expansion of similar orders and reforms to the poor laws made by Elizabeth I and James I. Among other requirements, the orders mandated that corn be sold in an open market and that justices of the peace be present to ensure fair prices and prevent hoarding. “Under Elizabeth I and the early Stuarts the central government through the Privy Council increased its intervention in nearly every aspect of the English economy. The distribution of grain, which had always been subject to local restriction and control, became governed by an increasingly elaborate centralized machinery. Marking what N. S. B. Gras called “the apogee of paternalism” in the history of the English grain trade, the first Book of Orders for the relief of dearth was issued in early 1587 It attributed the high price of grain to hoarding and outlined detailed instructions regarding the disposition of private stocks in crisis periods. As in other areas of royal regulation much was expected of local justices of the peace, who were responsible for particular county divisions. They were to organize juries consisting of “honest and substantial” citizens who were preferably not also large grain stockholders. The juries were to discover and report the stores of grain of each stockholder, the number of persons living in each house, and the number of acres to be sown that year. Justices were then to estimate the individual stocks held in excess of household use and seed requirements and bind the owners to bring the excess to local markets for sale at “convenient and charitable” prices. Market transactions were to be carefully observed, and justices were required to submit monthly reports informing the council of measures take in accordance with the orders and relating the current state of affairs. The dearth orders were issued in each subsequent crisis period until the revolution of the 1640… Recent work by Robert Fogel provides strong support for the view that the Tudor policy was both a necessary and effective method of famine relief. Fogel argues that the dearth orders eliminated famine during the period they were effectively enforced and that continuation of the program would have prevented two centuries of unnecessary famine episodes.” Randall Nielsen. ‘Storage and English Government Intervention in Early Modern Grain Markets’. A very good copy of this important work of great social and economic interest. Show more