ON THE PRICE OF LABOUR. 255 



generally together, which seems to imply that they had mutual 

 arrangements in hiring. When they are remunerated separately, 

 it is generally the case that the top sawyer in the pit is paid at 

 higher rates than the lower one. 



Equally migratory with the tiler and slater must have been 

 the mason. Few buildings were built of stone other than the 

 manor-house, and sometimes the grange. Even in towns, it 

 is probable, unless stone were abundant and near, that wood 

 was much more frequently used as the framework of the build- 

 ing, the outer wall being made of laths nailed to the wooden 

 frame, and protected from the weather by mortar. The 

 chimney, however, which was indeed the most important part 

 of the medieval home, must have been built of stone, except 

 in the very rudest huts. 



In many cases the labourer or artizan was fed. In this 

 case, of course, he received lower wages. He took his seat, 

 when such an arrangement formed part of his bargain, with 

 the servants of the house. At Southampton, the various arti- 

 sans employed are almost invariably fed, and as the estate 

 of GOD'S House consisted in great degree of tenements in that 

 town, which the landlord kept in repair, the evidence as to 

 prices of materials and labour in this town is generally very 

 copious. The same practice prevails at Basingstoke. In the 

 same way artificers hired at New College were often paid 

 in part by maintenance, and were fed at the servants' table. 

 Once we read, 1385, of an allowance instead of food. As a 

 rule, however, the wages paid are irrespective of any other 

 arrangement. Sometimes, but very rarely, and only in the 

 earlier part of the period, the labourer is paid in kind. Thus 

 at Halvergate, in the year 1268, the thresher receives for his 

 pains one quarter in thirty of wheat, one in forty of barley 

 and peas, one in sixty of oats. The bushels and quarters were 

 not, it seems, generally heaped, but struck the cases in which 

 the former bargain was made being described as heaped, as 

 being quarters of nine bushels, or as twenty-one for twenty, or 

 as thirty-two for thirty, or as being (C majoris mensurae." 



