8o ENGLISH RURAL LIFE 



legislation was passed with the object of securing a 

 steady price for barley and rye of 35. and 45. a quarter 

 respectively. Uniformity of price has always been 

 beneficial to agriculture, since it eliminates the element 

 of speculation. Hop growing also extended in this 

 century, since the brewing of beer from malt and hops 

 then introduced, was beginning to oust the Anglo-Saxon 

 ale made of malt only. 



With this prosperity and the weakening of the 

 manorial system, came the occasional taking over by 



the more prosperous peasants of the land 

 Prosperity o f their less successful neighbours. As a 

 social life. result, towards the end of the century, 



instead of the typical old-fashioned village 

 community, consisting of two groups of peasants, one 

 holding perhaps, as a rule, thirty strips of land and 

 the other five, there were to be found not only a class 

 of landless men (who were doing well, for wages were 

 going up rapidly), but also men with holdings of all 

 sizes, from an acre up to a hundred or even more. 

 Thus was created a ladder up which men might climb. 

 Many of the peasants benefited by this change, and 

 some may have become freeholders ; but the bulk of 

 these successful men must have been holders of land 

 on the old manorial terms, copyholders as a rule, 

 paying a customary rent, well below the real value 

 of the land and standing together to maintain the 

 customs of their particular manor. Without being 

 very far from the truth, these peasant farmers may 

 be pictured as a burly, turbulent, good-natured, jovial 

 class, fighting for their old customs and using what re- 

 mained of the old manorial system as a bulwark against 

 the encroachments of the lord and the large farmers. 



