SICKLES AND SCYTHES. 541 



at a cost of about $%d. Sometimes the wooden frame is pur- 

 chased at one price, and the iron to fit it at another. 



SICKLES AND SCYTHES. Though it is probable that the labourer 

 was generally understood to find his own cutting tools for the 

 hay and corn harvest b , some few entries occur of the price of 

 these articles. It may be, too, that sickles and scythes were 

 manufactured at home by the smith of the village. 



It does not seem that the scythe was used for harvest-work, 

 except occasionally for hacking peas. The price of this article 

 in the first half of the fourteenth century (I have not found it 

 in the thirteenth) is very various. I cannot explain the great 

 cost of the scythe at Cheddington in 1311 and 1313, where the 

 rate is excessive. It is true, as the reader will find on con- 

 sulting the tables, that iron manufactures were generally dear 

 in these two years, but their price is not so considerable as to 

 explain so high a rate. If these two Cheddington scythes are 

 omitted from a calculation, an average of six entries up to 

 1348 will give a little more than ic/. as the cost of this 

 article; if, however, they be included, the average will be 

 u. 3</. Six entries after the year 1348 give an average of a 

 little more than is. id. It may be observed that it is not 

 easy to distinguish a scythe from a sickle, the distinguishing 

 adjective of the latter, manualts, not being always added to the 

 generic falx , and that on many occasions 1 have been obliged 

 to rely for my distinction on marked differences in price. 



Entries of the price of sickles are rather more numerous. 

 Nine of these given before the Plague are bought at an average 

 of 2^., the price rising considerably after the beginning of the 

 fourteenth century. Eleven entries after the Plague give an 

 average of 5^., there being very little variation in the price. 



These tools were sharpened by whetstones. Very little in- 

 formation is found as to the price of these articles, but six 



b It seems, from a custom of Cuxham (vol. ii. p. 655), that the labourer generally 

 found his own tools. Each of the customary tenants who were held to the service of 

 reaping were allowed at evening to take up as much of the cut corn as they could lift 

 with their sickle. 



