CHAPTER IV. 



SOCIAL DISTINCTIONS, AND THE GENERAL 

 DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH. 



SOCIETY was composed of very few elements in the period 

 before us. Owing to the scanty rate of production com- 

 mented on above, the greater part of the population was 

 engaged more or less continuously in agricultural pursuits. 

 During the harvest-time, the inhabitants of the neighbouring 

 towns were occupied in field-labour; and occasionally the 

 people who lived in distant places migrated in search of 

 employment. Hence, after the great plague, when the policy 

 of the government sought to secure low labour-prices by for- 

 bidding any payments higher than certain specified rates, 

 and by insisting on a rigorous law of settlement, permission 

 was given that the inhabitants of certain counties should 

 travel, as they had hitherto been wont, in search of harvest- 

 work. It is said that the long vacation of the universities 

 and law courts, extending from the beginning of July to the 

 morrow of S. Dennis' day, Oct. 10, was expressly intended 

 to cover the time in which harvest operations might be com- 

 pleted, and so to liberate all persons for the purpose of this 

 necessary labour. 



A small number of wealthy persons, the great barons, pre- 

 lates, and abbots, possessed large revenues, derived in some 

 degree from the profits of lands farmed by their bailiffs, but 

 much more from the fines, quit-rents, and compositions levied 



