I 70 History of the English Landed Interest. 



the Deeping fen. The monks, too, were carrying out their 

 traditional work of industry, and draining or clearing the 

 worthless wastes which pious and superstitious souls from time 

 to time handed over to them as conscience-mone3^ 



Protected by the Church, which by a canon of the Third 

 Council of Lateran threatened excommunication against all 

 who molested her servants engaged in this pursuit, the 

 peaceful monks hewed down trees and hacked up roots, drained 

 fens and banked up rivers, marled and manured corn lands, 

 oblivious and indifferent to the harrying of farmsteads and 

 cutting of throats which went on all round them. How the 

 lands of great estates were cultivated we can only surmise. 



The same processes, no doubt, went on as have been de- 

 scribed in the Saxon period. There was the in-field and the 

 out-field cultivation. There were cowherds, neatherds, swine- 

 herds, and keepers of bees. Humfred of Hertfordshire, we 

 gather, possessed 68 animales, 350 sheep, 150 hogs, one mare, 

 and 59 goats. The last mentioned, no doubt, like the vineyards 

 of Middlesex (though termed in the Survey " newly planted "), 

 and those in the Vale of Gloucester, were survivals of the 

 Roman era. 



Then as now, there were market gardens at Fulham ; then 

 as now, rabbit farming was practised in parts of the countr3^ 

 Owners of beech or oak woods let the pannage for every hog 

 in ten that fed thereon. The Lords of Manors converted the 

 waters of their streams into sources of profit by erecting mills 

 and restricting their tenants to grind their corn there, and 

 even baked the flour at the common fourne before they gave 

 it back in exchange for a money payment. Portions of these 

 old customs still exist under the form of multures in the North 

 of Scotland, and are considered as safe a source of income as 

 the tithe. 



Then, as now, there were ash groves, osier beds, young plan- 

 tations, and hedgerow woods. ^ Such are a few of the statistics 



' Compare the phrases in the Survey : — 



Silva CXL j)orc' de paNucifj^ et de hcrbagio xliii j^orc. 



/S/'lva Tninuta. Silra tnodica. 



iiilva misma est in defendo. Silvula j^arvida, etc., etc. 



