HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 13 



Meat in one form or another remained the staple diet 

 for centuries, presumably salted meat for N\inter use ; 

 for, with a complete absence of cultivated foodstuffs, 

 live stock in winter must have been too thin to be worth 

 killing — and it could only have been the breeding stock 

 which would be left to face the winter as best they could. 

 In the eleventh century agriculture began to revive 

 in Spain under the influence of the Saracens, who were 

 decidedly good cultivators, and who set about building 

 up the great primary industry that the inroads of the 

 Goths and Vandals had so completely wiped out. But 

 this revival did not reach the British Isles until many 

 centuries had elapsed. Even at the end of the reign of 

 Henry VIH salads and edible roots were not grown, and 

 on one occasion when Queen Catherine had set her heart 

 upon a salad she had to send to Holland for it ! Wheat 

 was a luxury ; the poorer classes had to content them- 

 selves with oats, barley, or rye, of which gradually 

 increasing quantities were grown. 



SHEEP versus cattle 



Up to nearly the end of the sixteenth century it may 

 be said that cattle and sheep grazing were the mainstay 

 of the landowner and farmer. As English wool was in 

 great demand on the Continent, and sheep were more 

 profitable than cattle, the landowners endeavoured to 

 own as large flocks as possible ; at various periods they 

 pushed this policy so far that a serious shortage of beet 

 resulted. In the fourteenth century we find the Govern- 

 ment so much perturbed at the situation that legislation 

 was introduced to encourage cattle-breeding and lessen 

 the predominance of sheep ; this took the somewhat 

 quaint form of giving cattle the precedence over sheep. 



