Moreover, they shall be given, to take home with them, a great loaf of bread and so much of flesh as two at one meal may eat." Again, in a bill of fare of the household of Count Joachim von Oettingen in Bavaria, the journeymen and villeins are accorded in the morning, soup and vegetables; at midday, soup and meat, with vegetables, and a bowl of broth or a plate of salted or pickled meat; at night, soup and meat, carrots, and preserved meat.

Even the women who brought fowls or eggs from the neighbouring villages to the castle were given for their trouble--if from the immediate vicinity, a plate of soup with two pieces of bread; if from a greater distance, a complete meal and a cruse of wine.

In Saxony, similarly, the agricultural journeymen received two meals a day, of four courses each, besides frequently cheese and bread at other times should they require it.

Not to have eaten meat for a week was the sign of the direst famine in any district.

Warnings are not wanting against the evils accruing to the common man from his excessive indulgence in eating and drinking.
Such was the condition of the proletariat in its first inception, that is, when the mediaeval system of villeinage had begun to loosen and to allow a proportion of free labourers to insinuate themselves into its working.