260 Miscellaneous. 
trout, perch, carp, and barbel may have been well known in the 
fourteenth century; but I have seen none of these fish in my ac- 
counts”’ (p. 608). 
‘The few entries of oysters (some in the earlier part of the inquiry, 
some in the last few years), five of them are taken from the roll of 
Thorney in Sussex, the rate being uniformly a halfpenny the hun- 
dred. Mussels and oysters are from Sharpness in Kent, each at 7d. 
per bushel” (p. 617). 
‘The manor house possessed a garden and orchard. But the former 
was very deficient in vegetables. The householder of the thirteenth 
and fourteenth centuries grew onions and leeks, mustard, and gar- 
den or green peas. He probably also possessed cabbages, though I 
have never found either seed or plant quoted. Apples and sometimes 
pears are mentioned as part of the orchard produce ; but we read of 
no plums, except once of damsons. A regular part of the produce 
of the orchard was cider, and its low price seems to suggest that it 
was made in considerable quantities. Sometimes, too, wine was 
grown in England, though not, perhaps, so frequently as has been 
imagined, the word vivarium having been, it appears, often read vi- 
narium. Crabs were collected in order to manufacture verjuice—an 
important item in medizval cookery. Bees, though honey was dear 
and wax very high-priced, do not seem to have been commonly kept, 
though some few entries of hives and swarms have been found’’ 
(p. 18). 
Me The people lived on salt meat half the year; and not only were 
they without potatoes, but they do not appear to have had other 
roots which are now in common use, as carrots and parsnips ; onions 
and cabbages appear to have been the only esculent vegetables. It 
will be found that nettles (if we can identify these with Urtice) were 
sold from the garden. Spices (the cheapest of which was pepper) 
were quite out of their reach; sugar was a very costly luxury ; and 
our forefathers do not appear, judging from the rarity of the notices, 
to have been skilful in the management of bees”’ (p. 66). 
‘‘The hay was gathered into ricks, and, as at present, cut into 
trusses. It is hardly needful to observe that the grass was all native ; 
it was long after the period before us that artificial or foreign 
grasses were introduced. Hence the means of supporting winter 
stock depended upon the supply of hay and such straw as was avail- 
able for the animals kept on the farm. The bailiff calculated his 
resources, and killed down for salting at about St. Martin’s Day 
(November 11) as many sheep, oxen, and calves as exceeded his 
means of sustenance”’ (p. 16). 
“Tt will be seen that the largest part of the land under the plough 
was occupied by crops of wheat, barley, and oats. Wheat was the 
customary food of the people of this country from the earliest times. 
Even if the evidence were not abundant on this point, the breadth 
sown annually would be conclusive proof. Barley was sometimes 
mixed with wheat in the allowances made to farm-servants ; but its 
chief use was in the manufacture of beer, which seems to have been 
