CHARGES INCURRED FOR SHEEP. 523 



during a considerable portion of the year. The author of the 

 ec Le dite de Hosbanderye," quoted above, p. 334, advises that 

 this should be the practice of the prudent farmer during the 

 whole of the winter months, and also that every precaution 

 should be taken to keep the ground firm and dry. There can 

 be no doubt that a portion of the fold was sheltered from the 

 weather, either by a permanent or a temporary structure. The 

 enclosure was made by means of mov cable hurdles, in just the 

 same way as it is in our day, the hurdles being kept in place 

 by poles and hazel withes. Similarly, in summer or autumn, 

 sheep were folded on fallows and stubbles in order to improve 

 the soil by their compost. In many cases these hurdles were 

 manufactured from the wood of the farm, such manors as pos- 

 sessed wood generally containing an expert at hurdle-making, 

 and occasionally trading in the manufactured produce. Still, 

 hurdles were so frequently purchased, that I am able to supply 

 my readers with an almost unbroken account of the price of 

 these articles from the year 1268, the only considerable gap 

 occurring in the three years 1306-1309. 



I have reckoned hurdles by the small hundred. It is of 

 course to be expected that annual averages will present consi- 

 derable variations in price, due to accidental circumstances only, 

 as nearness or distance from wood available for hurdle-making. 

 It is possible, too, that some differences arise from superiority 

 in the material or the manufacture. Thus, for instance, hurdles 

 made of hazel would not as a rule be so costly as those made of 

 split poles nailed to a cross frame. Again, hurdles may be 

 large or small, and a third difference of price may be consti- 

 tuted. It may be observed that hurdles were used not only 

 for penning sheep, but for fastening in harvest-time to the sides 

 of carts or wagons, in order to give a larger area on which to 

 pile corn in its carriage from the field to the rick. Such a 

 use still prevails in some places, and it may be expected that 

 such hurdles as were needed for this purpose would be of extra 

 size and strength. But though these differences may, and do, 

 affect annual averages, and though the effect will be discerned 



