By November the fall planting was finished and the time had come
for the killing of cattle and hanging up their salted carcasses
for winter meat. Straw would be laid down with dung, to be spread
next spring on the fields. Stock that could not live outdoors in
winter were brought into barns.
Government regulated the economy. In times of dearth, it ordered
Justices of the Peace to buy grain and sell it below cost. It
forbade employers to lay off workers whose products they could not
sell. It used the Star Chamber Court to enforce economic
regulations.
There were food riots usually during years of harvest failure, in
which organized groups seized foodstuffs being transported or in
markets, and enclosure riots, in which organized groups destroyed
hedges and fences erected in agrarian reorganization to restrict
access to or to subdivide former common pasture land. These self-
help riots were last resorts to appeals and were orderly. The
rioters were seldom punished more than a fining or whipping of the
leaders and action was taken to satisfy the legitimate grievances
of the rioters.
The poor came to resent the rich and there was a rise in crime
among the poor. Penal laws were frequently updated in an effort to
bring more order.
Enclosures of land were made to carry on improved methods of
tillage, which yielded more grain and more sheep fleece. Drainage
of extensive marsh land created more land for agriculture.
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