Note 478 — Chapter VIII
Reading edition
The landowner of the fifteenth century was usually a mere landlord subsisting on his rents and not interested in the produce of the soil except as a consumer. He was only occasionally a trader. (Rogers’ Agriculture and Prices, iv. 2; see Berkeleys, i. 365-6; ii. 23; Paston, i., lxxxviii-ix., 416, 430, 431, 454; ii. 70, 106; iii. 430; Hist. MSS. Com. viii. 263; iv. 1, 464.) The really important classes were the new proprietors who rented land for trading purposes.