12 SELF-SUFFICING FARMINa 



1270 ate their own children when wheat rose to 33G.s. a 

 quarter at the present value of money. Except in monastic 

 granges, no quantity of grain was stored : a corn dealer 

 was the ' caput lupinum ' of the Legislature. Few remem- 

 bered to eat within their tether, or to spare at the brink 

 and not at the bottom. In August 1317 wheat was 80s. 

 a quarter ; in September following it fell to 6s. 8d. In 

 1-557 the price of wheat was bos. 4:d. ; after harvest it 

 fell to 5s. Equally variable were the employments ot 

 agriculture. Months of indolence passed suddenly into 

 intense labour. Harvestings in the Middle Ages were 

 picturesque scenes of bustle and of merriment among the 

 thousands to whom they meant the return of plenty. On 

 250 acres in SuflFolk, towards the close of the fourteenth 

 century, were grown wheat, oats, peas, barley, and boly- 

 mong, a mixture of peas or tares, and oats. The crops 

 were cut and housed in two days. On the first day appeared 

 thirty tenants to perfonn their ' bederepes,' and 244 

 reapers. On the second, the thirty tenants, and 239 reapers, 

 pitchers, and stackers. Many of this assembly were the 

 smaller peasantry on the manor ; the rest were wander- 

 ing bands of ' cockers ' or harvesters, who had already 

 begun to parade the country. A cook, brewer, and baker 

 were hired to supply dinner at nine, and supper at five. 

 Barley and oats, as well as peas and beans, were generally 

 mown ; rye and wheat were reaped. But the harvest, as 

 in Roman times, consisted of two operations : the first was 

 to cut the ears, the second to remove part of the straw for 

 thatching. But the value of the straw of thin short corn 

 hardly paid for the expense of removal, and the rest of the 

 stubble was either grazed, or burned, or ploughed in. 



The proportion of arable land was greatly in excess of 

 grass land. The crops of the former were wheat, rye, oats, 



