AGRICULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES i6i 



think, or to fancy that our fathers, five hundred years ago, lived 

 like the beasts of the field. Hard as was their lot, even the serfs 

 of that period lived in a condition of comfort on the whole greater 

 than that of their descendants of the last century. And the free 

 agricultural laborers, who lived upon their daily earnings, had a 

 better prospect before them than those of the present day ; it was 

 easier for them to lay up money and become the owners of 

 land, and thus rise in the social scale. 



It is a difficult thing to compare the condition of people at 

 widely distant periods of time. The standard of living changes 

 the poorest of us demand comforts now which the richest could 

 not afford five hundred years ago. The objects of consumption 

 change cotton, coffee, potatoes, and numerous other indispensa- 

 bles of the present day, were then utterly unknown. The value of 

 money changes, the English shilling of 1 300 had three times 

 the amount of silver in it that the present one has ; and, what is 

 of still more importance, silver has fallen enormously in value, 

 through the discovery of the American mines. The quality of 

 things changes how can we compare the coarse wool, mixed 

 with hair, of the fourteenth century, with the fine merino which 

 we wear .? Add to this that the laborers of the Middle Ages, from 

 their relation to the manor, enjoyed a great many perquisites in 

 the way of wood, pasture, rent, extra food, etc. just like the 

 freed slaves upon the Southern plantations, which are hard to 

 take into account with any definiteness and which yet complicate 

 the account materially. Nevertheless a few statistics in compar- 

 ing the mode of life at the two periods may be of interest if we 

 are careful to bear in mind that the comparison is only approxi- 

 mately accurate. I take the year 1 300, because it was before any 

 depreciation of the currency, and before the social revolution 

 caused by the great plague of 1348. 



A day laborer at the close of the thirteenth century received 

 on an average about 3 d. a day, which, in American silver, is equal 

 to about 1 8 cents ; the laborer of the present day in England 

 receives, I believe, on an average about 2 s. a day (equal to 50 cents 

 of our money), nearly three times the amount of the earlier wages. 

 Taking, now, a few of the principal objects of consumption, we 



