MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 25 



stock as he received, or their estimated value. The leasing 

 of cattle and sheep on these terms was very common before 

 the plague. One of the most familiar resources of the lord 

 is the firma vaccarum. Cows were let at 5^. a-year. 



For instance, in a lease of the college lands at Farley, 

 granted in 1360, the tenant took two horses and seven affri, 

 valued at ten shillings each ; a bull reckoned at ten shillings ; 

 ten cows, each at eleven shillings ; four oxen, each at eighteen 

 shillings and fivepence ; twenty-four quarters of wheat, at six 

 shillings and eightpence; six and a half of sprig, at four shil- 

 lings; three quarters and a bushel of frumentum vescosum, 

 at four shillings; three quarters three and a half bushels of 

 barley, at four shillings and eightpence; two of peas and 

 two of vetches, at three shillings and fourpence; and forty- 

 nine and a half of oats, at two shillings. 



This kind of tenure, closely analogous to the metairie of 

 South-western Europe, prevailed for a short time in England. 

 It is abandoned about fifty years after its commencement, 

 not indeed simultaneously, but generally, after such an in- 

 terval from its having been adopted on any estate. Thus, 

 with hardly an exception, the Merton estates are let on the 

 ordinary method of lease for years, at or about the be- 

 ginning of the fifteenth century. But New College, which 

 persisted on many of its estates in carrying on the old system 

 of cultivating by bailiff till the end of the first quarter 

 of the fifteenth century, does not get out of the land and 

 stock leasing till a considerable time beyond the middle 

 of that century. The leases are all short, and fin?s are 

 unknown. 



A corporation could not or would not alienate its lands. 

 Hence the estate was preserved intact. But a very different 

 set of causes must have operated upon the lands of the feudal 

 lords. There can be no doubt that these were largely ali- 

 enated in small parcels. Many causes contributed to this 

 result. The price of labour continually rose, the price of 

 food continually fell, and hence the small occupier became 



