16 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



symptoms of the disease. White veins under the eyelids, wool 

 that can be easily pulled away from the ribs, a skin that will not 

 redden when rubbed, are signs of unsoundness. Another sign is 

 when the November hoar-frost melts rapidly on the fleece, for the 

 animal is then suffering from an unnatural heat. The losses of the 

 flockmasters from the " murrain," to use the generic term for 

 diseases employed by mediaeval writers, were so severe as to create 

 another danger. The minute instructions against fraud given to 

 the official staff show that shepherds not infrequently produced 

 the skin, and explained the disappearance of the carcase by death 

 from disease. " Let no sheep," says the author of Seneschaucie, 

 " be flayn before it be seen and known for what fault it died." The 

 value of the flock made the shepherd one of the most important of 

 farm servants. He was required to be a patient man, " not over- 

 hastj^" never to be absent without leave at " fairs, markets, 

 wrestling-matches, wakes, or in the tavern," and always to sleep 

 in the fold together with his dog. Later wTiters insist on the value 

 of lameness in the shepherd, as a lame man v/as unlikely to over- 

 drive his sheep. 



Swine were the almost universal Hve-stock of rich and poor. As 

 consumers of refuse and scavengers of the village, they would, on 

 sanitary grounds, have repaid their keepers. But mediaeval pigs 

 profitfid jbheir owners much, and cost them little . It was a Glouces- 

 tershire saying : 



" A swine doth sooner than a cowe 

 Bring an ox to the plough." 



In other words, a pig was more profitable than a cow. For the 

 greater part of the year pigs were expected to pick up their own 

 living. When the wastes and woodlands of a manor were extensive, 

 they were, except during three months of the year, self-supporting. 

 They developed the qualities necessary for taking care of themselves. 

 The ordina ry pigs of the Middle Ages were long, flat-sided, coarse- 

 b_oned^^lop-eared, omnivorous animals, whose agilit}^ was_more 

 valuable than their early maturit^^ Growth and flesh were the 

 work of time : so also were thickened skin, developed muscles, and 

 increased weight of bone. The styes were often built in the woods, 

 whence the pigs were only brought to feed on the arable land after 

 the crops were cleared, or, at times of exceptional frost, to subsist 

 on the leavings of the threshing-floor. During most m onths of the 

 year^ theyj-anged the woods for roots, wild pears, wild plums, crab 



