670 ON THE PROFITS OF AGRICULTURE 



which constituted the political and social creed of Lollard- 

 ism, until their political influence was seriously checked by 

 the limitation of electoral rights to the forty-shilling free- 

 holders during the regency of Bedford and Gloucester. A 

 peasantry which was so capable of acting in concert, and 

 which was so successful in its organization as to call for a 

 statute intended in those early days to exclude them from 

 the suffrage, was not likely to acquiesce in any adverse re- 

 action on that change in the rate of wages which had once 

 taken place, and had once been secured by the operation of 

 such events as caused a scarcity of hands. 



It is plain, I think, that the great mass of farm hands hired 

 by the bailiff must have been the small landowners or their 

 sons. The proprietor of a small estate, say twenty acres, 

 when his own harvest labour (occupying him and his family 

 for a few days only) had been completed, was just the sort of 

 person who would work, and, as a rule, at very good wages; 

 since he was able to sustain himself and his family from the 

 produce of his own land, from his commonable rights over 

 the pasture of the manor, and in some cases probably over 

 the underwood or turbary. If after the Plague the estate of 

 such a small proprietor was raised from twenty to thirty acres 

 by succession to the lands of deceased relatives, his power of 

 making favourable terms with an employer would be con- 

 siderably increased. 



But the practical question, what was the general effect of 

 the Plague on the cost of production, is best illustrated by 

 examining the actual records of facts. For this, a single 

 specimen will perhaps be sufficient, and I will compare the 

 details of two accounts from the same manor before and after 

 this great event, by analyzing a bailiff's roll from Cuxham 

 in the year 1332-3 and comparing it with another of 1350-1. 



In the year 1332-3 the folJk>jin_app,esL{ among the receipts. 

 The rents of assize are ^2 41.^10,!^ these rents being the 

 chief and quit rents paid by the freeholders, as well as such 

 money rents as were contributed according to the terms of 



