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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 October 2011
Servants and labourers are of two sorts, Domestick and such as live by the year, or such as we commonly call Day-Labourers, whether carpenters, masons, etc., or other poor men which we employ about our husbandry.
Despite the wide generic and the variant uses of ‘servant’ and the very occasional variant uses of ‘labourer’, farm servants were normally differentiated from day-labourers by the words ‘servant’ and ‘labourer’. The words connoted two clusters of attributes. A ‘servant’ was hired by the year, lived with his or her master, and was unmarried; a ‘labourer’ was hired by the day, week, or by the task, had his or her own residence, and was either married or still living with his or her parents.
It will be simplest to present the evidence for this contention in the form of a table. The date and place of each usage will be given, and an indication of its consistency with four standard meanings will be given:
Term: servants are hired for the year and/or labourers are hired for the day, week, harvest month, or by the task.
Master: a servant, and only a servant, has one master.
Residency: a servant, and only a servant, resides with the master.
Marital status: servants are unmarried.
The exceptions to these standards are noted, and the sources of the usages are given at the foot of the table.
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