This chapter considers direct evidence for peasant food, buildings, possessions, clothes and other items of expenditure. As before we must continue to take account of the stratification of the peasants, their differing regional character, and changes in their standards of living over the three centuries of our enquiry.

FOOD

A typical example of a maintenance agreement, the prime source for peasant diet, arose at Alciston (Sussex) in 1348 from the surrender of two wists of land (the wist was the local version of the yardland) by Godfrey Welshe to his son. Godfrey was retiring, and his son promised in return for the holding to provide for him annually, as long as he lived, 4 bushels of wheat and a quarter of barley. Such contracts provide an uncertain guide to the food actually eaten by peasants. Most of them state simply that the recipient should have ‘food and drink’ without details, or promise the retired peasant a share of the family meals. Sometimes the grants of corn are described as an alternative to participation in the common diet of the household, which makes them appear as a realistic description of everyday food. However, they also resemble an annuity in kind, as if the retired peasant might use them for sale or exchange. Some of the grants seem so large as to make this explanation of them very likely and they no doubt were granted by new tenants who were willing to make sacrifices to obtain scarce land.