684 ON THE PURCHASING POWER OF WAGES. 



malt may be allowed for the home manufacture of beer, an 

 operation which, as nothing was added to the beer to flavour 

 and preserve it, was probably performed weekly or even more 

 often. This allowance, nearly a bushel of malt every three 

 weeks among the members of a small family, though liberal, 

 is not perhaps excessive, being only four gallons of tolerably 

 good beer a week among the whole number. The cost of the 

 malt will, on the average given in the table above, amount 

 to js. yd. Next, we may allow 800 Ibs. of meat to such a 

 family at the price of about a J. the pound, for, as we have 

 seen above, taking the ox at 4 cwts. and the sheep at about 

 40 Ibs., the price of meat would certainly not be in excess 

 of this rate. If such a quantity of meat were consumed at 

 such a price it would be worth i6s. %d. To these sums we 

 may add clothing : a pair of boots, worth at the most 3* . ; 

 a pair of leathern gaskins, worth at the outside is. 64. ; and 

 a gown or frock of russet, worth 5*. or less. Altogether, if 

 we consider that much clothing, both linen and hemp, was 

 homespun, we shall probably be allowing a liberal amount to 

 this head of expenditure if we reckon it at 17*. the year. 

 This will give the total cost of maintenance at ; and 

 thus the small proprietor might be maintained abundantly 

 from the produce of his farm, and be able to accumulate or 

 expend i a year from the wages of such labour as he was 

 enabled to give when the necessary duties of his own little 

 farm were completed. 



Such might be fairly taken to represent the receipts and ex- 

 penditure of those small farmers who were, as I have frequently 

 stated, so numerous in the fourteenth century. I have, the 

 reader will observe, taken first the schedule of profit and loss 

 given in the preceding chapter as the basis on which to esti- 

 mate the capital and the income of such a tenant as possessed 

 half a virgate j of which about 20 acres of land (a little more 

 or a little less) would be cultivated; for it will be seen that 

 though the two carucates held by the lord certainly contained 

 more than 200 acres, considerably less than this amount is 



