10 Jan., 1918,] Farming in England in Early Times. 29 



the market to sell butter, chese, mylke, egges, chekyns, capons, hennes, 

 pygges, gese and all maner of comes." 



For hay-making additional labour was often obtained from a dis- 

 tance if possible. The means of supporting winter stock depended 

 upon the supply of hay, so the bailiff, after calculating his resources, 

 killed down for salting, about St. Martin's Day (11th November), as 

 many sheep, oxen and calves as exceeded his means of sustenance. 



It is obvious that this system of farming involved an intricate 

 mesh of mutual privileges and obligations, and it must have required 

 a very tactful bailiff to get anything like a moderate amount of work 

 out of the parties concerned, because we must remember that tenants 

 could not be dismissed as can the modern labourer, and besides it 

 would have been impossible to find others to fill up the vacant places 

 even if it were desirable to do so. 



The small freeholder on a manor, where such existed, was really 

 better off than the lord, as the former was liable to no wardship and 

 could dispose of his property as he desired, whereas the lord was re- 

 sponsible to his overlord for all feudal dues. The wealth of the lord 

 was derived less from the profit of the demesne land than from the 

 fines, quit rents, compositions, tolls on fairs, markets and ferries, profits 

 from manor courts, and similar incomings, which though trivial indi- 

 vidually amounted in the aggregate to a considerable sum. 



One naturally asks how it was that a system which from our point 

 of view was so very inconvenient prevailed for such a lengthy period. 

 The answer &eems to be that when once in working order the method 

 formed a complex system hard to alter, especially as the art of land- 

 surveying was unknown; that custom, which is difficult to break even 

 at the present time, was in olden times an impassable barrier to experi- 

 ment and progress; that it insured an equitable distribution as far as 

 the quality of the land was concerned; that it showed up any very 

 bad husbandry or extreme negligence, and, if it did not facilitate the 

 improvement of the land, it at any rate kept it from becoming wor&e. 



Before proceeding I must draw your attention to the two-field 

 system at work on some estates. In one of these fields there would 

 be a crop growing, and in the other there would be three ploughings 

 in the course of the year. We find an interesting modification of 

 this method when each field was divided into half fields and then each 

 was " cropped " every alternate year, but the half which bore wheat 

 one year would be sown with barley next time it was " cropped." Thus 

 a four-field system was introduced, and this was very easily changed 

 into four-course husbandry in the eighteenth century with the intro- 

 duction of turnips, making a rotation of wheat, turnips, barley and 

 clover, and thus avoiding the necessity of keeping one field fallow, 

 as in the old system. 



And now before we go on to describe the changes brought about 

 by the Black Death in the reign of Edward III., let me give you a few 

 details about what was produced on the manor, and the expenses 

 entailed in cultivating it. 



In 1340 beef or mutton cost about ^d. a lb." In London 

 in 1533 beef cost ^d. and mutton fd. a Ib.f But the meat 

 must have been stringy and tough, and diseased meat was cooked 

 and eaten. "Walter of Henley writes (about 1270) : "If one of your 

 sheep dies, put the flesh at once into water and keep it there from 



* Multiply by twelve to get the approximate value now. 

 t Multiply by four to get the approximate value now. 



