condition of the squire of the parish.[48] By the 2nd of the 2nd of Henry
V., "the wages" of a parish priest were limited to £5 6s. 8d., except in
cases where there was special licence from the bishop, when they might be
raised as high as £6. Priests were probably something better off under
Henry VIII., but the statute remained in force, and marks an approach at
least to their ordinary salary.[49] The priest had enough, being unmarried,
to supply him in comfort with the necessaries of life. The squire had
enough to provide moderate abundance for himself and his family. Neither
priest nor squire was able to establish any steep difference in outward
advantages between himself and the commons among whom he lived.

The habits of all classes were open, free, and liberal. There are two
expressions corresponding one to the other, which we frequently meet with
in old writings, and which are used as a kind of index, marking whether the
condition of things was or was not what it ought to be. We read of "merry
England;"--when England was not merry, things were not going well with it.
We hear of "the glory of hospitality," England's pre-eminent boast,-by the
rules of which all tables, from the table of the twenty-shilling freeholder
to the table in the baron's hall and abbey refectory, were open at the
dinner hour to all comers, without stint or reserve, or question asked:[50]
to every man, according to his degree, who chose to ask for it there was
free fee and free lodging; bread, beef, and beer for his dinner; for his
lodging, perhaps, only a mat of rushes in a spare corner of the hall, with
a billet of wood for a pillow,[51] but freely offered and freely taken, the
guest probably faring much as his host fared, neither worse nor better.
There was little fear of an abuse of such licence, for suspicious
characters had no leave to wander at pleasure; and for any man found at
large and unable to give a sufficient account of himself, there were the
ever-ready parish stocks or town gaol. The "glory of hospitality" lasted
far down into Elizabeth's time; and then, as Camden says, "came in great