The bonder, or yeomen, were prosperous and independent, with well-defined rights.
In a few weeks he collected thousands of so-called Kuruczok (a corruption of Cruciati), consisting for the most part of small yeomen, peasants, wandering students, friars and parish priests, the humblest and most oppressed portion of the community, to whom alone a crusade against the Turk could have the slightest attraction.
Provision was thus made for 600,000 yeomen, assigning (according to different calculations) from sixteen to twenty-five acres of land to each.
In the 14th century the journeymen or yeomen began to set up fraternities in defence of their rights.
On the ground that the aim of every prosperous community should be to have a large proportion of hardy country yeomen, and that horticulture and agriculture demand such a high ratio of labour, as compared with feeding and breeding cattle, that the country population would be greatly increased by the substitution of a fruit and vegetable for an animal dietary.
