MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 19 



poultry are almost universally found. Sheep are not always 

 kept. They are not found, for instance, on the Holywell, 

 Cambridge, and Elham estates. On the first named estate it 

 was found advantageous to sell the standing grass: on the 

 last, Merton College bred horses, or at least trafficked largely 

 in them. A singular example of the latter transactions will 

 be found in vol. ii. p. 203. ii. 



Annexed to this chapter will be found a table of the pro- 

 duce of corn sown, and of the average under cultivation in 

 the years 1333-1336 inclusive, in particular localities. The 

 eleven estates specified, though not the whole endowment of 

 Merton College, constitute the whole of that which they held 

 in hand and farmed on their own account. A second table 

 supplies information as to the amount of stock kept on each 

 estate during the same years, and the losses by disease under 

 the generic name c murrain.' The first three in the list are 

 situated in Surrey, the fourth in Kent, the fifth and sixth in 

 Cambridgeshire, the seventh in Bucks, the eighth in Warwick, 

 the ninth and tenth in Oxfordshire, the last in Hants. The 

 inferences are, therefore, derived from a wide area, namely, 

 the south-eastern and southern counties, and the facts may 

 be taken as fairly typical. 



Hedging and ditching, the latter operation with a view 

 to draining the soil, were frequent expedients in medieval 

 agriculture. Where stone was available and easily laminated, 

 trenches were dug, and a rude drain was formed by laying 

 large stones in the course. Marling too was common, of 

 course, on stiff soils, more frequent .indeed than the few 

 notices given of the practice in vol. ii. pp. 454, 455, might 

 suggest. Lime was also used for dressing land. It is hardly 

 necessary to say, that the only manure commonly employed 

 was that of the stable and farm-yard. Stiff lands, on which 

 water was apt to lie, were ridged. 



In order to carry on the necessary business of the estate, 

 the lord was obliged to leave considerable sums in the custody 

 of his bailiff. The aggregate amount of the liabilities debited 



c 2 



