The connection between nobility and peasants was predominantly through economic stability. The nobility, whose job it was to fight and govern the peasants, depended on the rents paid to them by the peasants to support their way of life. In return, peasants depended on the nobility for social order and justice, as well as for their homes, agricultural land and, depending on the size of the property, tools. Although the nobility had substantial control over the lives of their peasants in almost every respect, the nobility were more dependent on the peasants for the maintenance of their way of life than the peasants were on the nobility who, through generations, had acquired the skills to keep your own. In a primitive agrarian and feudal society, such as that of the Middle Ages, practically all wealth consisted of the land and its immediate products. Power was entrusted to the nobles who could command and exploit those resources for profit. However, society was largely dependent on the lowest class, the peasants. Peasants were the fundamental support of the feudal social structure of medieval Europe. There were different types of peasants who made up their class and who filled slightly different roles within it. Slaves, who could be bought and sold, made up a very small part of the peasantry as their numbers declined after the early Middle Ages. Free men, also a small part of society, owned small plots of land and could move freely. The serfs constituted the majority of the peasants, they were "tied to the land"; they were the labor that came with it and could neither leave the manor nor be forced to leave. Almost all peasants lived in feudal manors where a noble lord owned the land and lent portions of it to cultivate for a fee.P...... middle of document ......ted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, A Source Book for Medieval Economic History. New York: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965, p. 28.Frederic Austin Ogg, ed., A book of medieval history: illustrative documents of European life and institutions from the German invasions to the Renaissance. New York: 1907, reprinted by Cooper Square Publishers, New York: 1972, pp. 127-129. Gustave Fagniez, ed., Documents Relatifs à l'Histoire de l'Industrie et du Commerce en France. Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1898, vol. I, pp. 107-108; reprinted in Roy C. Cave & Herbert H. Coulson, eds., A Source Book for Medieval Economic History. Milwaukee: The Bruce Publishing Co., 1936; reprint ed., New York: Biblo & Tannen, 1965, pp. 235-236. Charles Oman, The Great Revolt of 1381. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1906, pp. 200-203, 205