extent gave up capitalist farming upon their own account, and let their tenants cultivate the soil, and also pay them for continuing to do so. § 7. RISE OF THE TENANT FARMER OR YEOMAN CLASS—The {74} natural effect of this change on the part of the land-owners was that the small peasant farmers greatly increased in numbers. The circumstances of the time favoured them, for the rise in the price of labour was not so severely felt by them, since they could and did use the unpaid labour of their families upon their holdings. Then, when they had tided over the immediate results of the Plague, they took larger holdings as they grew richer. They were helped in this by the stock and land lease system already referred to (p. 42), which gave them the use of a larger quantity of agricultural capital than they could otherwise have commanded. But when the tenant farmer’s wealth increased he found himself able, as a rule, to keep his own stock. § 8. THE EMANCIPATION OF THE VILLEINS—The gradual amelioration of the conditions of villeinage or serfage received a forcible impetus from the Great Plague. Those villeins who had not already become free tenants, and especially those who lived on wages, shared in the advantages now gained by all who had labour to sell. Their labour was more valuable, and they were able with their higher wages to buy from their lord a commutation of those exactions which interfered with their personal freedom of action, with their right to sell their labour to other employers, or with their endeavours to reach a better social position. Serfage or villeinage gradually became practically extinct after the Plague,[24] though the landowners, backed up by the lawyers, interposed many obstacles in the path of emancipation, and a great Revolt was necessary to enable the villeins to show their power. This Revolt and its success must now engage our attention. [24. See note 11, p. 246, on Survivals.] {75} CHAPTER V THE PEASANTS’ REVOLT OF 1381, AND THE SUBSEQUENT PROSPERITY OF THE WORKING CLASSES