FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH CENTURIES. 55 



serve his cattle better in a pasture, than four times as much 

 will do in a house. Quicksets then should be got in the wood, 

 of whitethorn and crab, which are the best, though holly 

 and hazel are good. Blackthorn is bad, it spreads into the 

 pastures, and tears the sheep's wool. They should be set 

 between the fall of the leaf and Lady-day. Ditching and 

 hedging of which descriptions are given are thus part of the 

 husbandman's work. The hedges must be plashed, the roads 

 must be mended, the writer gives a very unfavourable account 

 of the London roads, trees are to be set, orchards to be 

 formed, trees to be felled or cropped, fruit-trees to be grafted, 

 and all sorts of fruit-trees to be planted. 



Fitzherbert concludes his work with divers kinds of advice ; 

 to a young gentleman who intends to thrive, to gentlemen's 

 servants, for whose benefit he gives a list of what they always 

 should have about them, and should constantly repeat, in order 

 to aid their memory and satisfy their duties ; to wives, to hus- 

 bands, and in fine, lays down many moral and religious 

 maxims for conduct, inculcating thrift, order, forethought, and 

 moral duty. Of these maxims, his favourite is one which he 

 says he learnt at school : Sanat, sanctificat, et ditat surgere 

 mane. And to illustrate the wisdom of thrift and honour, he 

 says, ' If I had a thousand sheep to sell, and divers men came to 

 me, and bought every man fifty, all at one price, to pay me 

 at divers days ; I am agreed, and grant them their days. Some 

 of the men are fair, and keep their promise, and pay me at 

 their days, and some of them do not pay me. Wherefore 

 I sue them at the law, and by course of the common law 

 I recover my duty of them, and have their bodies in prison 

 for execution till they have made me payment. Now these 

 men that have broken me promise and paid not their duty, 

 buy their sheep dearer than the good men bought theirs. 

 For they have imprisonment of their bodies, and yet they 

 must pay their duties nevertheless, or else lie and die there 

 in prison/ 



I have quoted largely from this work, because it supplies me 



