280 THE EEGULATION OF NUMBEES 



We may find for all these suppositions some supporting quotations 

 in the records. But still it would be hard to believe that the 

 entire increase of population found an exit by these by-paths. 

 If no exit was found, the brothers had to remain on their father's 

 plot, and the fact that they did so can be proved, if it needs 

 proof, from the documents. The unity of the holding was not 

 disturbed in this case ; there was no division.' ^ Here we see the 

 pressure at work. The tenement would in general be of the size 

 which could well support a family, and a tenement might not be 

 divided, thus ensuring that there was no overcrowding of families 

 until life could only just be supported. 



8. Far more important than any particular disabilities regarding 

 marriage which attach to serfs are the conditions making very 

 difficult any increase in population which are always found 

 among cultivators. When a village has as many hands as it 

 requires, the number of houses is not increased. Speaking 

 generally of the Middle Ages Pollard says that ' the number of 

 holdings was almost stationary and the number of families fixed '.^ 

 The number of hands in a village found to be required would be 

 about that which experience has shown to produce the largest 

 average income. Any further increase is made very difficult, if 

 not impossible. ' Country life was as elsewhere rigid in its habits ; 

 young people found it difficult to establish themselves till some 

 married pair had passed from the scene and made a vacancy in 

 their own parish ; for migration to another parish was seldom 

 thought of by an agricultural labourer under ordinary circum- 

 stances. Consequently whenever a plague or famine thinned the 

 population, there were always many waiting to be married, who 

 filled the vacant places.' ^ 



Such always are the conditions among cultivators in a settled 

 country ; it is forced to the notice of every one that not more 

 than a certain number of hands are required and postponement of 

 marriage is thus imposed upon the younger people. Neither land 

 nor houses are available for them at an early age. ' Before the 

 Eeformation, not only were early marriages determinately dis- 

 couraged, but the opportunity for them did not exist. A labourer 

 living in a cottage by himself was a rare exception to the rule ; 

 and the work of the fields was performed generally ... by servants 



1 VinogradofE, Villeinage in England, p. 246. ^ Pollard, Factors in Modern 



History, p. 135. ^ Marshall, Principles of Economics, p. 186. 



