52 THE BREAK-UP OF THE MANOR 



borrowed money, became a distinguished lawyer, a sergeant -at-law, 

 in 1429 a Judge of the Common Pleas, and the founder of the 

 Paston famity. At the close of the same century, Hugh Latimer 

 the father of the Bishop of Worcester, was a farmer in Leicester- 

 shire. Preaching before Edward VI., 1 the son describes his father's 

 circumstances. The elder Latimer rented some 200 acres of arable 

 land with rights of common of pasture, employed half a dozen men 

 on his farm besides women servants, ran 100 sheep, milked 30 cows, 

 owned oxen for ploughing, and a horse for riding or for the king's 

 service. He portioned his daughters with 50 or 60 apiece ; and, 

 besides teaching his son to " lay his body in the bow," sent him to 

 school and college. He was hospitable to his neighbours and 

 charitable to the needy. And this he did out of the profits of his 

 farm. 



For wage-earning landless labourers, the last 130 years of the 

 period from 1200 to 1485 were probably, in some respects, unpros- 

 perous. They now were exposed to the fluctuations, not only of 

 the price of necessaries, but of the labour market. Yet agricultural 

 change had not affected them wholly for the worse. The bright 

 side was the bondman's passage towards personal freedom ; the 

 darkest feature was his divorce from the soil. To some extent his 

 severance from the land was the means and the price of his personal 

 emancipation. 



The surrender of the hold on the land was, at this period, mainly 

 due to voluntary action by the villeins themselves ; it was not 

 caused by clearances for sheep farming. A landlord had no desire 

 to lose them either as tenants or as labourers. Their flight threw 

 more land on his hands, and at the same time increased the scarcity 

 of labour for its cultivation. But villeins, whose holdings were 

 small, had little inducement to retain them, and much to gain by 

 escape. The sentimental objection to the tenure had been deepened 

 and embittered by the teaching of wandering friars and " poor 

 preachers." Freedom meant the rise out of a condition, the degra- 

 dation of which they had begun to feel with a new acuteness. It 

 meant also new possibilities. Beyond the limits of their own 

 manor, they might, as freemen, acquire other holdings, or join the 

 ranks of free labourers, or settle behind a city wall and practise 

 some handicraft. After the " Black Death " the prospect of employ- 

 ment in towns was good. Hands were at a premium. The great 

 1 Sermons (Parker Society), p. 101. 



