Читать книгу The Industrial History of England - Henry de Beltgens Gibbins - Страница 13

—Under the manorial system rent was paid in a very different manner from that in which it is paid to-day, for it was a rent not so much of money, though that was employed, as of services. The services thus rendered by tenants in villeinage, whether villeins or cottars, may be divided into week-work, and boon-days or work on special days. The week-work consisted of ploughing or reaping, or doing some other agricultural work for the lord of the manor for two or three days in the week, or at fixed times, such as at harvest; while boon-day work was rendered at times not fixed, but whenever the lord of the manor might require it, though the number of boon-days in a year was limited. When, however, the villein or cottar had performed these liabilities, he was quite free to do work on his own land, or for that matter on any one else’s land, as indeed the cottars frequently did, for they had not much land of their own, and so often had time and labour to spare. It was from this cottar class with time to spare that a distinct wage-earning class, like our modern labourers, arose, who lived almost entirely by wages. We shall hear more of them later on; but at the time of the Conquest they hardly existed.