The comfort of the worker rose with his wages.

Men who had "no land to live on but their hands disdained to live on penny ale or bacon, and called for fresh flesh or fish, fried or bake, and that hot and hotter for chilling of their maw." But there were dark shades in this general prosperity of the labour class.
There were seasons of the year during which employment for the floating mass of labour was hard to find.

In the long interval between harvest-tide and harvest-tide work and food were alike scarce in every homestead of the time.

Some lines of William Langland give us the picture of a farm of the day.

"I have no penny pullets for to buy, nor neither geese nor pigs, but two green cheeses, a few curds and cream, and an oaten cake, and two loaves of beans and bran baken for my children.