Prices and wages

England's population increased from just over two million in 1500 to five million in 1650. The farmers grew more wheat, rye, and barley, but not as much as the people needed. So there was a shortage of bread, and the price rose. All the other prices followed.

Wages also rose, but they did not go up as much as prices. Poor peasants, who could not afford to buy bread for their children, left their villages. They drifted to the towns, but soon found that life there was worse than in the villages they had left. In every town, gangs of men, women, and children begged in the streets.

Things got slightly better after 1650, when prices stopped rising. After 1700 they even fell a little. Wages did not fall, so men who were in work were better off. But the numbers of the poor did not fall much. And when there was a bad harvest, the price of bread shot up again.

Walter Robson: Crown, Parliament and People; Oxford University Press, 1992/2002, page 80 f.