53 AGRICULTURAL IMPLEMENTS, TOOLS, ETC. 



put on the ten years at 8-r., instead of being, as I am con- 

 strained to return them, at the great price of 13*. 6\d. 



The causes to which the deficient information of the later 

 part of the period must be ascribed are; the change which takes 

 place in the method of agriculture, and the change which the 

 course of events had induced upon the condition of the smith. 



The reader will anticipate that the former cause, (since it has 

 been so often stated,) consists in the fact that the system of 

 bailiff farming was gradually relinquished after the event of the 

 Plague. But accounts are not kept in so careful a manner. The 

 dearth of hands had produced its effect on the inferior clergy, 

 the scribes and accountants of the Middle Ages. Items which 

 used to be carefully distinguished are lumped in one general 

 sum, credited, for instance, to the bailiff as the year's charge 

 for shoeing. Services which used to be cheap and effectual 

 had now become dear and negligent, and such symptoms were 

 apparent in the economy of agriculture, as designated that 

 a radical alteration in the method of tenure was impending. 

 And there are also indications that oxen, according to Walter 

 de Henley's advice, were superseding horses in farm-work. 

 They were kept more cheaply, worked nearly as well, and, 

 within limits, were worth more as they grew older. 



The other cause is the change which comes over the con- 

 dition of the artizan. Hitherto it has very seldom been the 

 case that such persons dealt in finished goods. As a rule they 

 were hired to do work on materials purchased by their em- 

 ployer, and in some occupations, as in the building trades, 

 this purchase of materials continues for centuries after the 

 time before us. Thus, although at a very early time, horse- 

 shoes were bought by the hundred at fairs and market-towns, 

 they were also fashioned out of the bar-iron bought annually by 

 the bailiff for the uses of the farm. But as time goes on the 

 smith supplies shoes, and finally contracts by the year for 

 shoeing the horses on the farm. This revolution in the re- 

 lations of employer and artizan was effected, of course, not 

 only by the fact that the latter obtained better terms for his 



