one's teeth with a knife.

Fishing and hunting were reserved for the nobility rather than
just the King.

As many lords became less wealthy because of the cost of war, some
peasants, villein and free, became prosperous, especially those
who also worked at a craft, e.g. butchers, bakers, smiths,
shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, and cloth workers.

An agricultural slump caused poorer soils to fall back into waste.
The better soils were leased by peasants, who, with their
families, were in a better position to farm it than a great lord,
who found it hard to hire laborers at a reasonable cost. Further,
peasants' sheep, hens, pigs, ducks, goats, cattle, bees, and crop
made them almost self-sufficient in foodstuffs. They lived in a
huddle of cottages, pastured their animals on common land, and
used common meadows for haymaking. They subsisted mainly on
boiled bacon, an occasional chicken, worts and beans grown in the
cottage garden, and cereals. They wore fine wool cloth in all
their apparel. Brimless hats were replacing hoods. They had an
abundance of bed coverings in their houses. And they had more free
time. Village entertainment included traveling jesters, acrobats,
musicians, and bear-baiters. Playing games and gambling were
popular pastimes.

Most villeins were now being called "customary tenants" or "copy-
holders" of land because they held their acres by a copy of the
court-roll of the manor, which listed the number of teams, the
fines, the reliefs, and the services due to the lord for each
landholder. The Chancery court interpreted many of these documents
to include rights of inheritance. The common law courts followed
the lead of the Chancery and held that copyhold land could be
inherited as was land at common law. Evictions by lords decreased.

The difference between villein and freeman lessened but landlords
usually still had profits of villein bondage, such as heriot,
merchet, and chevage.

A class of laborers was arising who depended entirely on the wages
of industry for their subsistence. The cloth workers in rural
areas were isolated and weak and often at the mercy of middlemen
for employment and the amount of their wages. When rural laborers
went to towns to seek employment in the new industries, they would
work at first for any rate. This deepened the cleavage of the
classes in the towns. The artificers in the town and the cottagers
and laborers in the country lived from hand to mouth, on the edge