14 SELF-SUFFICING FAEMING 



cost less, are shod only ou the forefeet, do more on liilly 

 ground ; their gear and winter keep is less expensive : 

 they are ' mannes meat when dead, while the horse is 

 carrion.' 



In the Middle Ages the monks both of England and of 

 France were the pioneers of agriculture, and it was through 

 their influence that marshes were drained, foi^ests cleared, 

 wastes reclaimed, and barren land reduced to cultivation. 

 The ' strenuous idleness ' of a baronial aristocracy revolted 

 from farming. This contempt for bucolic life is illustrated 

 by heraldry. Sport, war, religion, supply its emblems : 

 agricultural implements and products are disdained till, 

 like the garb of the Washbournes, the haywains of the 

 Hays, the scythe of the Sneyds, the}' have been ennobled 

 by martial use. The monks studied agriculture by the 

 light of Varro and Columella. But their influence was 

 sometimes opposed to progress. Corn was indispensable to 

 monasteries, and its growth was often compulsory on 

 monastic tenants. As the natural pastures of La Brenne 

 in Berri were sacrificed to the desire of grain, so the ' fat 

 vale ' of Evesham was cut up into arable parcels, so small 

 and scattered that no tenant could lay his holding down 

 to grass. That their love of ale induced monks to compel 

 the cultivation of barley where oats were more profitable 

 is probably a slander. From looO onwards the relations 

 of owner and occupier assume a modern aspect ; leases be- 

 come common ; villenage and serfdom disappear : out of the 

 Black Death and the French wars arise tenant farmers, 

 copyholders, free wage-earning labourers. The first half 

 of the fifteenth century most nearly realised the peasant's 

 dream of Arcadia. Rural life in the preceding period 

 must be studied, not in the holiday scenes of Chaucer, but 

 in the realistic pictures of Laugland. Between 1389 and 



