A cottager had one to five acres of land and depended on others for his living.
More subdivided land holdings in the country made holdings of cottagers minuscule.
The fifth and lowest class included the laborers and cottagers, who were usually tenants at will.
The majority of the cottagers are away in the fields at work, and the place is elsewhere almost quiet.
To every cottager in the parish he was a bounteous benefactor.
Even smallholders, crofters and cottagers in freehold parishes were better off in old age than former tenant farmers on the estates.
The next most prevalent occupational category among male criminals (group 6b) includes farmhands (drangar) and cottagers (torpare).
It has increasingly concentrated on the fate of the smallholder and cottager and more recently on the interplay of landownership and common rights.
