ABSTRACT
Kosminsky also found that small manors characteristically had few labour services so that small landowners depended even more heavily than large ones upon wage labour. At Langenhoe in 1338/9 and 1342/3 the labour services account records only 100 winter services owed by two customary tenants. In 1338/9 these labour services were used mostly for manuring the fields, weeding and collecting thatch. The characteristics, according to Kosminsky’s hypothesis, made such small landlords uncommonly dependent upon manorial trade. The commodity nature of production was developed on manors such as theirs earlier and more strongly than on large manors. This was reflected in the structure of a small landlord’s expenditure as well as in the sources of his income. Kosminsky’s emphasis on the importance of production for the market in the incomes of the small estates is shown to have considerable support.
