Many prepared herb
medicines and treated injuries, such as dressing wounds, binding
arteries, and setting broken bones. Wives also ploughed and sowed,
weeded the crops, and sheared sheep. They sometimes cared for the
poor and sold produce at the market. Some yeomen were also
tanners, painters, carpenters, or blacksmiths; and as such they
were frequently brought before the Justices of the Peace for
exercising a craft without having served an apprenticeship. The
third class also included the freemen of the towns, who could
engage independently in trade and had political rights. These were
about one-third of the male population of the town.
The fourth class included the ordinary farmer leasing by copyhold,
for usually 21 years, five to fifty acres. From this class were
drawn sidesmen [assistants to churchwardens] and constables. They
had neither voice nor authority in government. Their daily diet
was bacon, beer, bread, and cheese. Also in this class were the
independent urban craftsmen who were not town freemen. Their only
voice in government was at the parish level.
The fifth and lowest class included the laborers and cottagers,
who were usually tenants at will. They were dependent on day
labor. They started work at dawn, had breakfast for half an hour
at six, worked until dinner, and then until supper at about six;
in the summer they would then do chores around the barns until
eight or nine.
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