labourer represented the value of six pounds of the best
meat, or one pound of meat, seven eggs, a peck of peas, about a quart
of wine, in addition to such bread as he required, with enough over
for lodging, clothing, and minor expenses. In Bavaria he could earn
daily eighteen pfennige, or one and a half groschen, whilst a pound of
sausage cost one pfennig, and a pound of the best beef two pfennige,
and similarly throughout the whole of the States of Central Europe.

A document of the year 1483, from Ehrbach in the Swabian Odenwald,
describes for us the treatment of servants by their masters. "All
journeymen," it declares, "that are hired, and likewise bondsmen
(serfs), also the serving men and maids, shall each day be given twice
meat and what thereto longith, with half a small measure of wine, save
on fast days, when they shall have fish or other food that nourisheth.
Whoso in the week hath toiled shall also on Sundays and feast days
make merry after mass and preaching. They shall have bread and meat
enough, and half a great measure of wine. On feast days also roasted
meat enough. Moreover, they shall be given, to take home with them, a
great loaf of bread and so much of flesh as two at one meal may eat."

Again, in a bill of fare of the household of Count Joachim von
Oettingen in Bavaria, the journeymen and villeins are accorded in the
morning, soup and vegetables; at midday, soup and meat, with
vegetables, and a bowl of broth or a plate of salted or pickled meat;
at night, soup and meat, carrots, and preserved meat. Even the women
who brought fowls or eggs from the neighbouring villages to the castle
were given for their trouble--if from the immediate vicinity, a plate
of soup with two pieces of bread; if from a greater distance, a
complete meal and a cruse of wine. In Saxony, similarly, the
agricultural journeymen received two meals a day, of four courses
each, besides frequently cheese and bread at other times should they
require it. Not to have eaten meat for a week was the sign of the
direst famine in any district. Warnings are not wanting against the
evils accruing to the common man from his excessive indulgence in
eating and drinking.

Such was the condition of the proletariat in its first inception, that
is, when the mediaeval system of villeinage had begun to loosen and to
allow a proportion of free labourers to insinuate themselves into its
working. How grievous, then, were the complaints when, while wage