PKOCEEDINGS OF THE SCIENTIFIC SOCIETIES OF LONDON. 433 



inents of national wealth. Swine were bequeathed expressly by 

 wills, when other animals were not, were paid as coin to ministers 

 for masses for the dead, and often constituted the marriage portion 

 of the noblest ladies. An increased value was given to swine by 

 being home-bred, as appears by the compensation to be paid for 

 stealing them. A pig reared at home was worth 15J., but the 

 same pig when turned into the woods to feed might be stolen for 

 Gd. Although a large proportion of swine were at the time of 

 Alfred home-bred, it is probable that a larger number were not so, 

 but roamed the boundary forests of districts or shires. These 

 animals were a constant cause of bloodshed, for, being but semi- 

 domesticated, they were not absolutely private property, but only 

 so in a limited sense. The clearance of the forests and the forma- 

 tion of hunting parks, which took place in the time of Canute, 

 tended to increase domestication. 



The Anglo-Saxons were later than the "Welsh in training horses. 

 They had no saddle horses till the middle of the seventh century, 

 when the foreign bishops introduced the use of palfreys. But this 

 example was very slowly followed. In the ninth century Alfred 

 the Great tells us that no man ever rode on horseback for pleasure, 

 though some did so for exercise or expedition. Persons entitled 

 to fines or rent payable in produce refused to accept horses in 

 payment, and the clergy, who tithed everything domesticated, did 

 not tithe them. They were sometimes, but not generally, eaten ; but 

 a considerable export trade was done in them. 



The domestication of bees was early attempted. The clergy 

 earnestly encouraged it, teaching that bees " had been sent from 

 heaven, because the mass of God could not be celebrated without 

 wax." They probably desired an increase of produce from economic 

 reasons. About the middle of the tenth century, slaves whose duty 

 it was exclusively to attend to bees, and were called beesherds, were 

 ordinarily attached to wealthy establishments; and from the position 

 of slaves they soon became servile tenants, whom their lords provided 

 with a stock of bees, for which they paid a fixed amount of produce for 

 life, the swarms continuing the property of the lord. "We also find 

 about this time the Anglo-Saxon word hee-cest (bee-chest) and the 

 Latin alvearia (beehives) usually substituted for " rusca^^ from which 

 it may be inferred that these rough constructions were superseded 

 by regular hives. Not long afterwards the clergy induced Edward 

 the Confessor to tithe beehives — an evidence that they had become 



N.H.R.— 1865. 2 G 



