Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/365

 AGRICULTURAL LIFE 353 were, besides board and lodging, seven florins and four groschen ; of a kitchen-maid, two florins and ten groschen ; of a swineherd, four florins. Thus the wages of the latter would purchase the finest ox or twenty sheep. In Mosbach, in 1483, a dairymaid could earn thirteen florins thirty kreutzers a year, besides fifty-four kreutzers for her dress. In Constance a cart-driver earned yearly nineteen florins, with board and a pair of shoes, four vards of cloth and six of cotton. Their fare was the same as that of the day-labourers, with whom they generally ate. From the domestic accounts still extant we learn that wine was as gene- rally in use as meat. In hiring a cart-driver at Wein- heim, in 1506, it is expressly contracted, ' No one, unless he wish to do so, is obliged to give wine.' Another notice to a maid reads, ' No wine is promised.' In the domestic regulations for Konigsbrtick it is written that ' Any servant being absent at meal-time shall have neither meat nor wine.' In Openheim and four neigh- bouring villages it was agreed that ' Each labourer in the summer should have not more than one measure of wine, and in spring and winter he should be satisfied with a half or three-quarters of a measure.' At Sieburg wine was looked upon as one of the simple necessaries of life. In 1425 the municipality decreed that wine should not be given to labourers. In the Ehenish Provinces fish was so commonly given that the maid- servants in Spires complained to the city council that they were so often obliged to eat Ehine salmon. The decrease of wages and curtailment of privileges of servants dates from the sixteenth centurv ; so also does forced domestic service, by which the tenants of the VOL. I. A A