SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



of peas, beans, or oats 5^.^ Most of the barley, and perhaps some of the oats, 

 would be used for beer, and the inference is irresistible that the wheat was 

 grown for use as bread. 



We possess an account of the stock of a serf at Billingham and we find 

 that, granting 10 acres of the 30 to fallow, he divided the remaining 20 

 into 5 acres for wheat, 5 for barley, and the remaining 10 for peas and oats.^ 

 The crops were sown as far as possible in the winter, but spring sowing was 

 not unknown/ The ground was ploughed over twice and sometimes thrice,* 

 and some attempt was made at manuring/ If a tenant died leaving his land 

 only partly ploughed, his executor was bound to finish the ploughing and 

 keep the farm in working order, but he could recover the cost from the next 

 holder/ Sometimes another peasant obtained permission to work the land 

 in the interval between the two tenancies, but to do so without the lord's 

 permission incurred a fine/ It is probable that even before the Black Death 

 the villein who held a complete bondage of 30 acres or so required the help 

 of his poorer neighbours the cotmen to work it,* unless, as would be the 

 case very frequently, he had sons or brothers living under his roof. When 

 we find two or more men sharing the same holding in Hatfield's Survey we 

 see a second system of co-operation inside the ordinary community, and the 

 bishop formally licensed a partnership between his tenant and a man who 

 was apparently an outsider, to work a bondage.' 



When harvest came elaborate precautions were taken to prevent any 

 man from reaping his neighbour's crop for his own benefit. Probably the 

 peasantry assisted each other, but the rule was that the field was only to be 

 entered through the gates near the village, where all could see, and the crops, 

 as they were reaped, must be brought back the same road, that nothing 

 might be concealed.^" In another place we read that no one at the time of 

 reaping might have more than one horse among the corn for carrying his 

 food, that at night-time even that one was to be taken away, and no one 

 should carry off the corn of his neighbour." Sometimes no one might begin 

 to reap his crop, especially the pea crop, until the messor had sounded a horn,^^ 

 and when he sounded it the second time every one must leave his crop. 

 Honesty at harvest-time was not always strictly observed in the open fields, 

 and so the rule was that none might gather his neighbour's peas, except the 

 poor, who were presumably allowed to glean." Before leaving the subject it 

 should be mentioned that although rye and various mixtures of wheat and 

 rye were evidently grown by the lord, they were rarely found on peasants' 

 holdings so far as our information goes ; but they cannot have been wholly 

 unknown, as the ' bland-corn ' mentioned among the effects of a Westoe 

 tenant in 1383" seems to represent the mixtil, maslin, or mancorn of the 

 Winchester Compotus Rolls. 



The inmost of the three concentric zones previously referred to was 

 taken up by the village proper. It was surrounded by a quickset hedge, 



' Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii),l33. ' Ibid. 123. 'Ibid. 29. * Ibid. 51. 



' Ibid. 39, 45. Besides dung, m,irl was sometimes used to improve light soils. B/i. Hatfield's Surv. (Surtees 

 Soc. xxxii), 217, 233 ; Dur. Acct. R. (Surtees Soc. xcix et seq.) passim. 



* Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 48, 49. ' Ibid. 3, 4. 



" e.g. Ibid. 26 shows us that the cotmen of ' Fery ' (Ferry Hill) were inclined to seek higher wages outside 

 the vill in 1375. 



' Dur, Curs. No. 12, fol. 63. "" Dur. Halmote R. (Surtees Soc. Ixxxii), 126, 131. 



"Ibid. 155. '-"ibid. 144. "Ibid. 144. "Ibid. 178. 



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