38 Rents, Wages, and Profits in Agriculture 



rental of some i^ii,ooo has entirely 

 vanished, and the deficit on the estate, as 

 a going concern, has to be made up out 

 of other sources of income. 



And now a few words by way of a 

 general conclusion. Recall the typical 

 estate with which we began in the early 

 Middle Ages, and I may add one or two 

 touches of further details to the picture. 

 The lord of the manor exacted through 

 his steward the utmost the estate could 

 bear; he took all the labour he needed 

 and all the produce, besides a bare mini- 

 mum. And apart from these onerous 

 payments in labour and in produce, the 

 villein had scarcely any of the elements 

 which we consider essential to personal 

 freedom. 



Mainly through the accident of the Black 

 Death many of the villeins obtained their 

 freedom and became either tenant farmers 



