s 



THE FARMER'S MAGAZINE. 



tions of the farms. Thus we find one tenant 

 stating, " I give food to seventy swine in that 

 woody allotment called Wulfeudinleh, and five 

 waggons-full of good twigs ; and every year an 

 oak for building, and others for necessary fires, 

 and sufficient wood for burning" {Bede, Hist. 

 Append., 970). The rent of ten hides of land were 

 even regulated by two of the laws of King Ina. 

 They enacted that the tenant of such extent of 

 land should render to the lord ten vessels of honey, 

 three hundred loaves, twelve casks of Welsh ale, 

 thirty of clear ale, two old rams, ten wethers, ten 

 geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, one cask of butter, 

 five salmon, twenty-pounds' weight of fodder, and 

 one hundred eels ; or else ten mittas of malt, five 

 of grits, ten of wheat flour, eight gammons, six- 

 teen cheeses, two fat cows, and in Lent eight sal- 

 mon {IVilkins, Leges Saxon,25,3; Gale's Hist. R., 

 410). Such grants were usually to the tenant and 

 his heirs for ever, so long as they afforded the 

 accustomed rent; and I am not aware of any 

 grant or lease extending for a shorter period than 

 the life of the tenant. An example of these occurs 

 in the year 832, when the abbot and monks of 

 Medehamsted let some land at Sempingham to a 

 tenant named AVulfred, for his life, on condition 

 that he annually paid them sixty fother of wood, 

 twe\ve iother oi ffrafan (coals), six fother of turf, 

 two tons of clear ale, two killed oxen, six hundred 

 loaves, ten casks of Welsh ale, one horse, thirty 

 shillings, and a night's lodging [Saxon Chronicle, 

 75). 



As this feudal system declined, and was finally 

 extinguished in the twelfth year of Charles II., so 

 proportionally did the landed interest increase in 

 prosperity. Freed from the burden of furnishing 

 a soldier and his armour for every certain number 

 of acres, and all restrictions as to land changing 

 hands being removed, and the numerous imposi- 

 tions being got rid of, with which the lords op- 

 pressed their sub-iijfeudatories, it soon became a 

 marketable species of property; and, as money 

 and merchandise increased, and the proprietor 

 lived less upon his estate, it soon became the most 

 eligible plan for both landlord and tenant, that the 

 whole rent should be paid in money. 



Of the size of these early farms we have no pre- 

 cise information ; but from the laws of Ina we may 

 perhaps conclude that a hide of land, equal to 

 about 100 or 120 acres, was the customary size ; 

 for, in speaking of the produce to be given to the 

 lord for ten hides, the law speaks of the smallest 

 division of each county of which it was particularly 

 cognizant; namely, often families, or a tithing, as 

 they were collectively called. Again, Bede ex- 

 pressly calls a hide of land familia, and says it was 

 sufficient to support a family. It was otherwise 

 called mansum, or maneriura, and was considered 

 to be so much as one could cultivate in a year. 

 {Henry of Huntingdon, vi. 2,066.) 



That in the time of Henry VIII. rents were 

 payable in money, we have the evidence amongst 

 others of Bishop Latimer. He flourished in the 

 early part of the sixteenth century, and his father 

 was amongst the most respectable yeomen of his 

 time, yet his farm probably did not much exceed 

 one hundred acres. He observes in one of his 



sermons, " My father was a yeoman, and had no 

 lands of his own ; he had only a farm of £3 or £4 

 a-year at the utmost, and hereupon he tilled as 

 much as kept half a dozen men. He had a walk 

 for one hundred sheep, and my mother milked 

 thirty kine." — (Sermons p. 30.) 



It is evident, from the constant reference to 

 woods in these husbandry notices, how valuable 

 they must have been in those days for fuel, since 

 pit-coal was not then extensively available. Their 

 value of course increased towards the northern 

 portion of our island, so that we find the Scot- 

 tish Parliament directing the planting of timber 

 trees. 



In 1503 (the 6th of James IV. of Scotland) it 

 was ordered " that everith Lord or Laird make 

 them to have Parkes with Deare, Stankes, Cunin- 

 gares, Dowcattes, Orchards, Hedges, and plant 

 at the least ane Aicker of Wood, quhair there is 

 na greate Wooddes nor Forrestes." 



Other acts of a similar kind, for the promotion 

 of the growth of timber, had been previously 

 made; and again in 1535. 



The clergy and the rural life of those days seem 

 to have had little reverence for God's house or 

 God's acre ; for in the same year it was ordered 

 by the Parliament that "nor Faires be halden 

 upon Halie days, nor zit within Kirkes nor Kirke- 

 zairdes upon Halie dales nor uther daies." 



Such were the primitive habits and modes of 

 cultivation, down to the time of the two old agri- 

 cultural authors, whose works I now propose to 

 describe. 



Sir Anthony Fitzherbert, as I have in another 

 place remarked (Quar. Jour. Ag., vol. ii., p. 49l)j 

 was the youngest son of Ralph Fitzherbert, of 

 Norbury, in Derbyshire. He was educated at 

 Oxford ; and when called to the bar by the Ho- 

 nourable Society of Gray's Inn, " his great parts, 

 penetrating judgment, and incomparable dili- 

 gence," says his biographer, " soon distinguished 

 him in his profession." He was made a serjeant- 

 at-law in 1511, and was knighted five years after- 

 wards. In 1523 he became one of the Justices of 

 the Court of Common Pleas, in which year he 

 published, it is supposed, his "Boke of Hus- 

 bandrie;" for a copy was possessed by the late 

 Mr. Heber, bearing that date, " imprynted by 

 Rycharde Pynson." 



Fitzherbert's biographer adds, truly enough, 

 that " he was held the oracle of law in his time." 

 He evidently possessed the most undoubted cou- 

 rage and the most uncompromising integrity. He 

 was one of the very few who dared to oppose 

 Cardinal Wolsey in the height of his power. On 

 bis death-bed, at a period when almost all were 

 eagerly sci'ambling for the spoils of the Church of 

 Rome, he solemnly warned his children on no ac- 

 count to accept of any of the sequestered property 

 of the abbeys. 



To this injunction his descendants inflexibly 

 adhered. They have often been honourably dis- 

 tinguished in the ranks of literature and in the 

 public service of their country. The family was 

 ennobled in l80l, when Alleyne Fitzherbert was 

 created Lord St. Helens. 



Sir Anthony Fitzherbert died on the 28th of 



