BEFORE AND AFTER THE PLAGUE. 673 



moderate charges, not indeed excessively low, as we have 

 seen already, but still such as allowed a considerable profit 

 over and above the charges of cultivation the bailiff system, 

 (instituted it appears, or at least elaborated, just before the last 

 forty years of the thirteenth century,) with its exact accounts 

 and formal audit, was natural and advantageous. 



The year which I have taken is one in which corn prices 

 were a little below the average, but so little as not to indicate 

 any exceptional plenty. The outlay of the year, though high 

 in some particulars, is on the whole very much that which 

 would be gathered from an average. For instance, those charges 

 which lie under the generic name of c necessary expenses' are 

 higher than is usual, the bad debts from tenants are much 

 lower, and the charge for servants is so small as to suggest 

 that some part of the regular cost of farm-labour is omitted 

 from the schedule. But in other years we should find, as for 

 instance in the year 1330-1, a very large cost incurred in 

 new fittings for the mill ; in others, a large bill for incidentals, 

 or a considerable deficiency in the customary or other rents, 

 or heavy losses of stock, and the consequent necessity of large 

 purchases. It is clear from the enormous quantity of cider 

 produced from the orchard, that the spring must have been 

 mild and the summer genial. But in other particulars there 

 is, I think, nothing in the course of the year which would give 

 any exceptional character to it, or imply that the rate of profit 

 derived from agricultural avocations was either exalted or 

 depressed. 



On turning to the record of the same manor for the year 

 1350-1, we shall see the full effects of the loss of life and the 

 scarcity of hands induced by the Plague. The Oldmans, for 

 so many years bailiffs of the manor, had perished, it seems, 

 with all their family, for the goods of the deceased official are 

 become the property of the lords of the manor. The rents 

 of assize have sunk to one-third of their former amount. The 

 fulling-mill is abandoned. No one will take the corn-mill, 

 so the account informs us, at a higher rent than ^i is. ; and 



x x 



