26 MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 



more prosperous and independent. The habits of the land- 

 owners in the reign of Richard the Second were expensive, 

 for the nobles emulated the court. The rent of land was 

 very low, for the produce was worth very little more than 

 the cost of production. 



By far the most important source of revenue possessed by 

 the landlords of these days were the quit-rents levied on free 

 tenants, and the compositions for services enacted from the 

 villenage. Actual servitude had long passed away, and pre- 

 carious possession with it. The option of taking labour for 

 land, instead of the pecuniary equivalent, still belonged to 

 the landowner, and was, no doubt, leased to the farmer with 

 the domain. It is clear that an attempt to enforce the 

 alternative of labour was one of the most powerful stimu- 

 lants to the great uprising of the serfs. The victory remained 

 nominally in the hands of the king and nobles : it was actu- 

 ally and very rapidly appropriated by the serfs. 



It is very probable that grants of domain were made at 

 new quit-rents. Such an alienation was not an invasion of 

 the statute Quia emptores, and we know how general fee- 

 farm rents became. These fixed rents representing, at their 

 first creation, high rates for the use of land, were easily 

 borne when, in the fifteenth century, agriculture improved, 

 and the condition of the yeomanry became more prosperous. 

 But the enquiry into these changes cannot be anticipated 

 in these volumes. It is sufficient to shew that the causes 

 which led to that general prosperity among the mass of the 

 people, which is commented on by Fortescue, had their be- 

 ginnings in the close of the fourteenth century. 



It will be seen that the largest part of the land under 

 the plough was occupied by crops of wheat, barley, and oats. 

 Wheat was the customary food of the people of this country 

 from the earliest times. Even if the evidence were not 

 abundant on this point, the breadth sown annually would be 

 conclusive proof. Barley was sometimes mixed with wheat 

 in the allowances made to farm servants, but its chief use 



