CHAPTER III - ENGLISH VILLENAGE

Summary

It would be presumptuous in one who is not a specialist to attempt any new reading of English history. Happily, in the subject now under consideration, there is a very general agreement as to facts. The difficulty lies in the interpretation of these facts. Some consensus of opinion has described the fifteenth century as the golden age of the English labourer. One is naturally inclined to distrust the glowing pictures of a prosperous past, which are too often drawn by pessimists as a ground for the disparagement of their own times. The golden age of such writers is too often found to be a mere ignis fatuus, which vanishes when we attempt to examine it at close quarters. Indeed, there is nothing about which men differ more than in an attempt to estimate the amount of prosperity which exists in any given community. This is a subject about which contemporaries cannot agree. Everyone who has considered the question must feel that, when attempting to gauge the happiness of bygone generations, he is dealing with facts which are very ill ascertained and very liable to error.

There is no need to dispute the characteristics which have been ascribed to the position of the labourer in the fifteenth century. The statement must, however, be considered relatively to the position of the rest of the population. It is very possible that the condition of the labourer approached nearer to the condition of the higher classes than at any other period of history.