Appendix 7 - Speculations on the origin of the institution

Summary

The study is concerned with early modern England, a time and place where the institution of service in husbandry had already come into existence. Positing the existence of an institution, and then explaining its extinction (Chapter 7), invites us to consider why the institution had come into being by the sixteenth century. What follows is no more than a speculation on that question, and a suggestion as to why speculation may be the only possible approach to an answer.

The institution existed in medieval England, although it does not seem to have been as dominant as it was to become in early modern England. The first speculative step is to explain why the institution gained in popularity from medieval to early modern times. The explanation is to be found, I would suggest, in the sharp drop in population caused by plague. The rapid change in man–land ratios elicited several responses. Land, especially marginal land, was deserted, but no estimate has suggested that the desertion was in proportion to the decrease in population. Miskimin suggested that landlords adjusted to the new relative shortage of labour by shifting to pastoral agriculture (given the higher income-elasticity of demand for meat and dairy products relative to that of grain), by enforcing labour services from tenants and by forcing labourers to work for low regulated wages, and by letting the demesne to tenants for low rents, exchanging direct exploitation for indirect.