12 The Progress of British Agriculture 



our economic history, and the Great Plague which 

 first broke out in 1348, is the starting point for a new 

 outlook for the peasantry of our country. 



We have to remember then that it is not so much 

 the improvement of agriculture in this period that is 

 noteworthy as the betterment of the condition of the 

 people. The landowners abandoned cultivation of the 

 land on their own account and let their land and stock 

 to tenant-farmers, who, in their turn, employed free 

 labourers. But it is certain that, from the reign of 

 Henry III to that of Elizabeth, no material alteration 

 was made in English agriculture, except in sheep 

 farming, and certainly no appreciable progress. 



During the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries the 

 vast majority of the people were continuously engaged 

 in farming. Even the people of the towns, though 

 rising in wealth and importance, still remained to some 

 extent agriculturists, and in any case went out into the 

 fields during the harvest time. It is also thought that 

 the students at the Universities were expressly given 

 the long summer vacation in order that they might 

 return home at this season and share in the labour 

 of reaping and carrying with their other relations. 

 Perhaps the same is also true of the lawyers, whose 

 vacation was equally long. 



Nearly as much land was cultivated in the Middle 

 Ages as is now the case in England. Then of course 

 the towns were much smaller and the space occupied 

 by houses was much less than at present. It was 

 necessary to cultivate every available acre for each 

 man wanted a quarter of wheat for his consumption; 

 and at this time wheaten bread was an almost universal 

 article of diet, even among the poorer classes. 



