Book I. 



AGRICULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



59 



these operations were performed. Marl seems to have been the chief manure next to 

 dung, employed by the Anglo-Norman, as it had been by the Anglo-Saxon and British 

 husbandmen. (Jlf. Paris. Hist. p. 181. In Vit. Abbot, p. 101. col. 1.) Summer- 

 fallowing of lands designed for wheat, and ploughing them several times, appears to 

 have been a common practice of the English farmers of this period. For Giraldus 

 Carabrensis, in his description of Wales, takes notice of it as a great singularity in the 

 husbandmen of that country, " that they ploughed their lands only once a-year, in March 

 or April, in order to sow them with oats ; but did not, like other farmers, plough them 

 twice in summer, and once in winter, in order to prepare them for wheat." (Giral. Cam- 

 brens. Descript. Carnbria;, c. viii. p. 887.) On the border of one of the compartments 

 in the famous tapestry of Bayeux, we see the figure of one man sowing with a sheet about 

 his neck, containing the seed under his left arm, and scattering it with his right hand; 

 and of another man harrowing with one harrow, drawn by one horse. (Montfaucony 

 Monumens de Monarchic Francois, tom. i. plate 47. ) In two plates of Strutt's very 

 curious and valuable work {Jigs- 26, 27.), we perceive the figures of several persons en- 



gaged in mowing, reaping, threshing, and winnowing ; in all which operations there 

 appear to be little singular or different from modern practice. (Strutt^s Comj)lete View 

 of the Manners, Customs, ^c. of England, vol. i. plates 11, 12.) 



208. Agriculture in Scotland seems to have been in a very imperfect state towards the 

 end of this period. For in a parliament held at Scone, by king Alexander II. A.D. 



1214., it was enacted, that such farmers as had four oxen or cows, or upwards, should 

 labor their lands, by tilling them with a plough, and should begin to till fifteen days 

 before Candlemas ; and that such farmers as had not so many as four oxen, though they 

 could not labor their lands by tilling, should delve as much with hand and foot as would 

 produce a suflficient quantity of corn to support themselves and their families. (Regiam 

 Majestatum, p. 307.) But this law was probably designed for the highlands, and most 

 uncultivated parts of the kingdom. For in the same parliament a very severe law was 

 made against those farmers who did not extirpate a pernicious weed caWed. guUde {^Chrysan- 

 themum segetum, L. ) out of their lands, which seems to indicate a more advanced state 

 of cultivation. (W. p. 335.) Their agricul- 

 tural operations, as far as can be gathered 

 from old tapestries and illuminated missals, 

 were similar to those of England. Thresh- 

 ing appears to have been performed by women 

 (fig. 28.), and reaping by the men (Jig. 29.), 

 28 W(M\ which is the reverse of the modern practice 



in that and in most countries. Such is the account of Henry. 

 {History of Britain, vol. vi. p. 173.) 

 ;^^-^ 209. Thejield culture of the vine, w hich had been commenced by 



- i^^.^-=^the monks for their own use, was more extensively spread by the 



Normans. William of Malmsbury, who florished in the early part of the twelfth 

 century, says, there were a greater number of vineyards in the vale of Gloucester than 



D 4 



