18 THE MANORIAL SYSTEM 



source of profit to the lord and of loss to the tenant. Prodigious 

 numbers of pigeons were kept ; not only were they eaten, but 

 their dung was prized as the most valuable of all manures. The 

 privilege of keeping a pigeon-house was confined to manorial lords 

 and jealously guarded, and every manor had its dove-cote. The 

 story of the French Revolution shows how bitterly the peasants 

 resented the plunder of their hard-earned crops by the lord's 

 pigeons. Doubtless many a British peasant in mediaeval times 

 was stirred to the same hostihty by the same nuisance. 



To the produce of the crops and the five-stock of the demesne 

 must be added game, jailbits from the " conygarth " or warren, 

 ^der from the a^ppies, ^1 from the imts, honey and wax from the 

 bee-hives, and sometimes gjcajies from the vineyards. Bee-keeping 

 was an important feature of agricultural industry. The ancient 

 proverb says : " He that hath sheep, swine, and bees, sleep he, 

 wake he, he may thrive." Honey , besides being the only sugar, 

 was invaluable in the still-room, and in the arts of the apothecary, 

 physician, and " chirurgeon." It was an ingredient in mead and 

 methegl}^!. It was used in embalming, in medicines, and in such 

 decoctions as mulse water, oenomel, honey water, rodomel, or 

 quintessence. Wax w as not only necessary for the cand les of the 

 wealthy, but, fike honey, was largely used in mediaeval medicine. 

 Mixed with violets, it was a salve : it was also one of the ingredients 

 of " playsters, oyntementes, suppositories, and such fike." In 

 some districts of England, vineyards formed part of the equipment 

 of manors ; one was made by Lord Berkeley towards the close of 

 the reign of Edward III., and his biographer suggests that he 

 learned the " husbandry . . . whfist hee was prisoner in ffrance or 

 a TraveUer in Spaine." Ee3K_great monasteries were without vine- 

 yard^, which are mentioned thirty^eight~times in Domesday Book. 

 It is not necessary to explain the disappearance of the vine by a 

 change of climate. Wine was then often sweetened with honey 

 and flavoured with blackberries and spices. Unless it came from 

 abroad, it was rarely drunk in its pure state. It would, therefore, 

 be unsafe to found any theory of cfimatic change upon the pro- 

 duction of a fiquid which, in its natural state, may frequently have 

 resembled vinegar. 



! ^esides the produ ce of the five-stock and crops of his demesne, 

 t he lord of the man or had other sources"©! revenue. There were 

 the fixed money or produce rents for their land paid by free tenan ts 



