30 MEDIEVAL AGRICULTURE. 



allusion to the seasons. Droughts are said to have occurred 

 in the spring and summer of 1284, 1325, 1331, 1344, 1362, 

 1374, 1377. The most serious of these must have been that 

 of 1325, for it is alluded to at once in the east, the midland, 

 and the western counties. Whenever a note is taken of such 

 an occurrence, it is generally done in order to explain the 

 fact that more than ordinary cost has been incurred for 

 iron. Similarly, when a wet harvest is noted, it serves to 

 account for the duration of the time occupied by this opera- 

 tion, or the increased charge incurred for threshing. And in 

 the same way, the prevalence of disease among sheep or cattle 

 is commented on, because it created a greater demand and a 

 higher price for medicaments, or explained losses of stock. 



The period comprised in these volumes is too scanty to 

 enable me to hazard any opinion as to what may constitute 

 a cycle of the seasons. Hereafter, perhaps, when the evi- 

 dence of the whole time for which I purpose to collect facts 

 is supplied, it may be possible to discover some signs of re- 

 currence, and similar sequence. It cannot be doubted, that 

 even though no record of the seasons be supplied, the rise 

 and fall in the money price of the chief necessary of life, 

 wheat, will suffice to indicate, with sufficient exactness, the 

 plentiful or scanty produce of any year. It would be of 

 greater moment if such an enquiry could enable us to form 

 inductions for the future from the history of the past. 



The live stock kept on the several farms comprised, as 

 has been observed, horses, cattle, sheep, pigs, and poultry. 

 Both horses and oxen were used for draught and for plough- 

 ing. Cows were kept for butter, cheese, and milk ; the dates 

 at which cheese was manufactured being frequently men- 

 tioned in the accounts. The calves were generally sold, but 

 sometimes kept for stock. 



The various losses of stock suffered by the agriculturist 

 were called by the generic name of c murrain.' From the 

 foot notes appended to the catalogues of stock printed below, 

 it will be seen that this name was not only given to fatal 



