306 An E-iiglish Manor in the time of Elizabeth. 



of a Celtic people, and their settlements are still traceable on the 

 sides of Grovely. They were a pastoral people with only a rude 

 form of agriculture. They grew rye or oats in half-acre strips, 

 called in this survey " rudges," but there was no rotation of crops 

 and after two or three years a new set of rudges was ploughed and 

 the old one allowed to go back to grass. Their houses were only 

 huts of mud and boughs, and all their wealth consisted of cattle. 

 When a conquering chief captured the herds of his foe he farmed 

 them out among his dependants, going round and collecting a share 

 of their increase as rent. There was no rent then, as we understand 

 it, for land ijer se had no value. The word " farm " means a feast 

 or purveyance, and when the chief came to collect his cattle rents 

 he was entitled to one night's entertainment for himself, his fol- 

 lowers, and horses, often called " coign and livery." In this survey 

 we find the vestiges of this custom. At Stockton Nicholas Maten 

 had to entertain the officials of the court twice a year at the 

 sheriffs tourn and find them convenient bed and board with 

 sufficient provender for tlieir horses. At Warminster, too, so late 

 as 1786, the Queen claimed her "one night's entertainment" at 

 Longleat. It was this practice of farming out their wealth that 

 gave Cctsar the impression that kings in Britain had nothing of 

 their own, but lived upon their subjects. 



Then we come to the time when agriculture flourished and people 

 were no longer content to live in huts on the hills, but cultivated 

 the richer lands of the valleys as they were reclaimed from the 

 marshes. Yet they did not wholly give up their old hill pastures. 

 When May came round they still moved up with their flocks and 

 herds " for the four months," repairing their old bough huts as a 

 summer shealing. The ceremonies of the shealing feast go on to 

 this day in Norway and in Scotland and are graphically described 

 in " Feats on the Fjords," and in the third volume of Skene's Celtic 

 Scotland. When in May the villagers of Wishford still cut down 

 young oaks and hold their feast on " Bough Day," it is the repairing 

 of the summer shealings that they commemorate. 



At length Eoman civilization changed the simple husbandry of 

 the Britons into one of a much more profitable kind. Where the 



