CHAPTER II. 



MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 



THE accounts from which the prices contained in the se- 

 cond volume are extracted, contain abundant evidence of the 

 state of agriculture in the thirteenth and fourteenth centu- 

 ries; and as nearly all the English counties are represented 

 in the aggregate of the documents, we find that the process 

 of cultivation varied little throughout the country. The same 

 kinds of grain, with hardly any exception, are sown in the 

 north and the south ; the same kind of labour is needed, and 

 the same method of culture is adopted. Similarly the accounts 

 kept of farming and farm produce, the weights and measures, 

 the order of the entries, and the names used to designate 

 stock and implements, are identical, or nearly so, in any two 

 estates, however locally remote they were. Such an identity 

 could not have been effected unless the communication be- 

 tween different parts of England had been far more free and 

 full than it is generally supposed to have been at that time, 

 or than it actually was three centuries afterwards. 



Nor, again, are there any important variations traceable in 

 the method of culture, the kinds of seed sown, the character 

 of stock. In certain districts indeed rye was more freely cul- 

 tivated than in others: in some barley formed the principal 

 crop. There are, however, hardly any farms on which some 

 breadth of wheat, barley, and oats were not sown, or where 

 all kinds of stock were not kept. 



Similarly the distribution of land, and the tenure by which 

 it was occupied, are generally uniform. Local habits, origin- 

 ally perhaps local privileges, caused some differences in tenure 

 in particular places; for instance, in the county of Kent, in 

 which it appears customary service was unknown. I have 



