THIRTEENTH AND FOURTEENTH CENTURIES. $] 



But though, subject to the deduction made above, it seems 

 likely that the area of land under the plough was not less 

 than at present, it does not follow that wheat crops were as 

 frequent; on the contrary, it is certain that by the system of 

 fallows they must have been rarer. If under these circum- 

 stances one-fifth less wheat land was annually cultivated, the 

 estimate of the population would be diminished by another 

 half million; and when we take into account the absence of 

 the most familiar among our present vegetables, and consider 

 how important a part they fulfil in the subsistence of the 

 people, we may perhaps be justified in a further reduction of 

 another half million, and may set the population at no more 

 than one and a half millions, even at its fullest time, that is, 

 before the pestilence. But whether the number of the English 

 and Welch people in the fourteenth century was one and a 

 half, or two, or even two and a half millions, it is certain that 

 the rate of production precludes the possibility of its being 

 more than the highest estimate. 



Meat was certainly cheap. We can hardly imagine that the 

 carcase of a sheep could have weighed less than forty-eight 

 pounds. His skin at Martinmas, if he were in condition, was 

 worth, on an average, threepence in money of the time. But, 

 deducting this threepence, sheep could have been purchased in 

 plenty at a shilling a-piece, and the meat could not have been 

 worth more than a farthing a pound, the head and offal being 

 thrown into the bargain. Beef may have been a little dearer, 

 but the carcase of an ox, less the hide, could be readily ob- 

 tained for ten shillings, and if it weighed, according to the 

 average of the oxen purchased for the navy in 1547, about 

 four hundred and thirty pounds, it was not much dearer than 

 mutton. But even if meat was worth no more than a farthing 

 a pound, it was still a dearer diet than wheat, for, on the 

 average, about six pounds of wheat could be bought for the 

 penny sterling in the period before us. Butter and cheese were 

 at least double the price of meat. 



In the midst of a scanty population, the general prevalence 



