Agricultural Wages 95 



Book of Surveying (1523), condemning 

 serfdom as it then existed as contrary to 

 Christianity. There had arisen also the 

 class of free labourers who had taken the 

 place of the old cottagers or bordars, who 

 correspond more nearly to the modern 

 agricultural labourer. 



This differentiation of classes, it must be 

 remarked, is itself one of the best signs of 

 economic progress. At the end of the 

 fifteenth century there was still a class 

 who were economically little better than 

 serfs, but a considerable part of the old 

 servile population had now been replaced 

 by substantial yeomen. There was also a 

 good demand for agricultural labour, and 

 wages were relatively high. Rogers has 

 made an interesting comparison of the 

 wages obtained by an agricultural family 

 at the end of the eighteenth century (in 

 the time of Arthur Young) with the wages 



