Christopher Dyer

More recent work has turned that view on its head.

Historians such as Christopher Dyer and the buildings expert Nat Alcock have shown that from the 13th century onwards, many peasant houses in England were substantial timber-framed buildings, put up by skilled carpenters, and that a great number of them were built to last.

Hundreds of late medieval peasant houses still stand in England today, many of them now lived in by people who would never guess how old their homes really are.

Some have been dated precisely by tree ring analysis, which can tell us the year in which the timbers were felled.

Both descriptions are in the literature and they're not compatible.

Christopher Dyer's Reconstruction is the one I find most convincing.

He says a plausible reading of workers' attitudes between 1349 and 1520 is is that they set themselves goals in cash or consumption needs and worked until they'd achieved their aims.

Then they ceased to work.