CHAPTER XI. 



THE PRICE OF LIVE STOCK. 



IN so far as agricultural operations are concerned, there is no 

 change during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries from the 

 treatment and breeding of animals in the thirteenth and four- 

 teenth. The facts which are contained in these volumes are, 

 as I have often stated, rather those of consumption than of pro- 

 duction, and of consumption by fairly opulent corporations. In 

 the earlier part of the period farm accounts are indeed inter- 

 mixed with monastic and college accounts ; in the latter the 

 record is almost entirely of consumption. The stock is, there- 

 fore, lean and fattened in the earlier part, of animals ready for 

 the table in the latter. The principal objects of the farmer's 

 care and art are corn and wool, the former for domestic use, 

 the latter for foreign trade. Pigs and poultry were universally 

 reared, and formed the staple meat diet of our ancestors, the 

 latter being cheap and abundant, and, as in earlier times, being 

 constantly paid as rent for holdings. I have not, indeed, 

 during the later part of my period, found continuous prices of 

 pigs, but there are only a few interruptions to a regular series 

 of the price of boars, fatted for great feasts. Capons and geese 

 are common. Ducks are seldom found. Swans and cygnets 

 are occasionally entered in the accounts. Pigeons are frequent, 

 especially in the eastern counties, and rabbits, especially to- 

 wards the termination of the period, are frequently quoted. 

 Some entries of the price of winged game are also found, 

 though it is probable that game was seldom bought and sold. 



