Boom L AGRICULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 53 



Sect. VII. Of the Extent to uhich Agriculture was carried in the Roman Provinces ^ 

 and of its Decline. 



174. The art of agriculture itas not only familiar to, but held in estimation by every Roman 

 soldier. It was practised by him in every foreign country wliere he was stationary ; and 

 taught to the inhabitants of such as were uncultivated. In some countries, as in 

 Carthaginia, great part of Spain, and a part of the south-east of France, agriculture 

 was as far advanced as in Italy ; because at Carthage and Marseilles, the Greeks had 

 planted colonies, who flourished anterior to the Romans, or at least long before they 

 extended their conquests to these countries : but in Helvetia, Germany, and Britain, it 

 was in a very rude state or unknown. 



175. In Germany, excepting on the borders of the Rhine, agriculture was never 

 generally practised. The greater part of the country was covered with forests; and 

 hunting and pasturage were the chief occupations of the people when not engaged in 

 war. The decline of the Roman power in that country, therefore, could make very 

 little difference as to its agriculture. 



176. In Britain, according to Caesar, agriculture was introduced by colonies from 

 Belgium, which took shelter there from the encrdachments of the Belgae from Germany, 

 about B.C. 150. These colonies began to cultivate the sea coasts; but the natives of the 

 inland parts lived on roots, berries, flesh, and milk. It appears from Dio Niceus, that 

 they never tasted fish, though, in Ossian's time, they were acquainted with catching 

 birds with hawks trained for that purpose. Pliny mentions the use of marl as being 

 known to the Britons ; and Diodorus Siculus describes their method of preserving corn, 

 by laying it up in the ear in caves or granaries. 



177. But the general spread of agriculture in ^ritom was no doubt effected by the Romans. 

 The tribute of a certain quantity of corn, which they imposed on every part of the 

 country, as it fell under their dominion, obliged the inhabitants to practise tillage ; and 

 from the example of the conquerors, and the richness of the soil, they soon not only 

 produced a sufficient quantity of corn for their own use and that of the Roman troops, 

 but afforded every year a very great surplus for exportation. The emperor Julian, in 

 the fourth century, built granaries to receive this corn, and on one occasion sent a fleet 

 of eight hundred ships^ " larger than common barks," to convey it to the mouth of the 

 Rhine, where it was sent up the country for the support of the plundered inhabitants. 



178. Agriculture among the Romans themselves had begun to decline in Varro^s time, and 

 was at a low ebb in the days of Pliny. Many of the great men of Rome, trusting 

 to their revenues from the provinces, neglected the culture of their estates in Italy ; 

 others, in want of money to answer the demands of luxury, raised all they could upon 

 credit or mortgage, and raised the rents of their tenants to an oppressive height to 

 enable them to pay the interest. The farmer was in this manner deprived of his capital ; 

 his spirits were broken, and he ceased to exert himself, or became idle and rapacious like 

 his landlord. The civil wars in the end of the second century ; the tyrannic conduct of 

 the emperors in the third ; the removal of the seat of empire to Constantinople in the 

 middle of that which followed ; prepared the way for the entrance of the Goths in the 

 beginning of the fifth century, which completed the downfal of agriculture and every 

 peaceful art. It declined at the same time in all the western provinces : in Africa, 

 and Spain, by the incursions of the Moors ; in France, from the inroads of the Germans ; 

 in Germany and Helvetia, from the inhabitants leaving their country and preferring 

 a predatory life in other states ; and in Britain, from the invasion of the Saxons, and 

 the inroads of the Scots and Picts. 



Chap. IIL 



I 



History of Agriculture during the Middle Ages, or from the Fifth to the Seventeenth 



Century. 



179. In the ages of anarchy and barbarism which succeeded the fall of the Roman power 

 in Europe, agriculture appears to have been abandoned, or at least extremely neglected. 

 Pasturage, in troublesome times, is always preferred to tillage, because sheep or cattle 

 may be concealed from, or driven away on the approach of an enemy ; but who would 

 sow without a certainty of being able to reap ? Happily, the weaknesses of mankind 

 sometimes serve to mitigate the effects of their vices. Thus, the credulity of the bar- 

 barians of these times led them to respect the religious establishments, and in these were 

 preserved such remains of letters and of arts as had escaped from utter destruction. 

 These institutions were at first very limited, both in their buildings and possessions, and 

 the inhabitants frugal and virtuous in their habits ; but in a very few years, by the grants 

 of the rich warriors, they acquired extensive possessions ; erected the most magnificent 



D 



