![]() ![]() The business of detecting and fining hempless agriculturalists was a profitable one. Nor was it easy to avoid the compulsory cannabis law. ![]() ![]() The Tudor penalty for not growing hemp, first imposed by Henry VIII in 1533, was at least as high by the standards of the time as the penalty exacted by the present Queen Elizabeth for the opposite crime of cultivating the stuff - a stiff £5 or five golden sovereigns. So important was this crop that the last Queen Elizabeth in 1563 decreed that every farm of 60 acres or over must have at least one acre devoted to hemp growing. The word 'canvas' is a corruption of cannabis or hemp from which it was formerly made, as also were such nautical gear as ropes, sails and fishing nets. By John Michell ), this article was first published in The Ecologist - The Journal of the Post Industrial Age. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |