I  believe,  indeed,  that  imder  ordinary  circumstances  the  means
of  life  were  more  abundant  during  the  Middle  Ages  than  they  are
under  our  modern  experience.  There  was,  I  am  convinced,  no
extreme  poverty.  His  dues  paid,  the  small  farmer's  property  and
profits  were  as  secure  as  the  landlord's  domain.  In  this  the  condi-
tion of  the  English  peasant  was  in  marked  contrast  to  the  lot  of  the
French  roturier  and  the  Teutonic  bauer.  There  was  but  a  small
surplus  population  quartered  6n  the  products  of  the  soil.  The
labour  of  the  husbandman  was  not  constrained,  as  in  later  times,
to  support  a  mass  of  idlers  and  consumers.  But  in  other  respects
his  condition  was  far  less  satisfactory.  His  diet,  owing  to  the  lack
of  winter  food  and  nearly  all  vegetables,  was  unwholesome  during
half  the  year,  when  he  was  constrained  to  live  on  salt  provisions.
Leprosy  and  scurvy  were  common  diseases  in  medieval  England.
In  the  fourteenth  centuiy  it  is  probable  that  life  was  healthier  in
the  towns  than  it  was  in  the  country.  In  the  seventeenth  these
conditions  were  reversed.  In  healthy  seasons  the  death  rate  in
London  was  il^  per  thousand,  in  unhealthy  times  the  deaths  were
double  the  births.  In  this  same  century,  the  deaths  in  country
places  were  calculated  at  29  in  the  thousand.
