The feudal system, though practically modified, was still the organising principle of the nation, and the owner of land was bound to military service at home whenever occasion required.  All land was held upon a strictly military principle.  The state of the working classes can best be determined by a comparison of their wages with the price of food.  Both were as far as possible regulated by Act of Parliament.  Wheat in the fourteenth century averaged 10d. the bushel; beef and pork were 1/2d. a pound; mutton was 3/4d.  The best pig or goose could be bought for 4d.; a good capon for 3d.; a chicken for 1d.; a hen for 2d.  Strong-beer, which now costs 1s. 6d. a gallon, was then a 1d. a gallon, and table beer was less than 1/2d.

A penny at the time of which we write must have been nearly equal in the reign of Henry VIII. to the present shilling.  For a penny the labourer could buy as much bread, beef, beer, and wine as the labourer of to-day can for a shilling.  Turning then to the question of wages, by the 3d of the 6th of Henry VIII., it was enacted that the master, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, tilers, plumbers, glaziers, joiners, and others, employers of skilled workmen should give to each of their journeymen, if no meat and drink was allowed, sixpence a day for the half year, fivepence a day for the other half; or fivepence-half penny for the yearly average.  The common labourers were to receive fourpence a day for the half year; for the remaining half, threepence.

The day labourer received what was equivalent to something near twenty shillings a week, the wages at present paid in English colonies; and this is far from being a full account of his advantages.  The agricultural labourer held land in connection with his house, while in most parishes there were large ranges of common and unenclosed forest land, which furnished fuel to him gratis, where pigs might range, and ducks and geese, and where, if he could afford a cow, he was in no danger of being unable to feed it; and so important was this privilege considered, that when the commons began to be largely enclosed, Parliament insisted that the working man should not be without some piece of ground on which he could employ his own and his family’s industry.

By the 7th of the 31st of Elizabeth it was ordered that no cottage should be built for residence without four acres of land at lowest being attached to it for the sole use of the occupants of such cottage.

The incomes of the great nobles cannot be determined for they varied probably as much as they do now.  Under Henry IV. the average income of an earl was estimated at L2,000 a year.  Under Henry VIII. the great Duke of Buckingham, the wealthiest English peer, had L6,000.  And the income of the Archbishop of Canterbury was rated at the same amount.  But the establishments of such men were enormous.  Their retinues in time of peace consisted of several hundred persons, and in time of war a large share of the expenses was paid often out of private purses.