Estate Management. 183 



whicli is now occupied by a dozen or more separate bedrooms. A 

 glance directed through any of its mica-glazed diamond-shaped 

 lattices would have disclosed wider differences still. Instead 

 of costly Sir Joshuas and Gainsboroughs which deck the walls 

 of a modern hall, sacks, scythes and reaping hooks would be 

 the chief mural decoration of an ancient manor house ; instead 

 of the warm yielding pile of Turkey and Indian carpets, its 

 floor would be strewn with rushes ; and instead of the luxurious 

 plush-covered lounges of a modern reception room, the solar 

 furniture would be rude stools and benches stuffed with wool 

 or covered with beehive-fashioned straw cushions. Closer 

 scrutiny, too, will show strong dissimilarities between the 

 various classes of the landed interest and their occupations 

 then and now ; between Norman tenants in chief and modern 

 noblemen, subfeudarii and 19tli century squires, free tenants 

 and tenant farmers, villeins and day labourers, servi and (be it 

 written with shame) the live stock of a modern farm. 



But let us examine in detail the various branches of estate 

 management, for we have arrived at a period when the manu- 

 scripts of Walter of Henley,^ of an anonymous writer on 

 husbandry, of another anonymous writer on the duties of the 

 Seneschal, and Richard Grossteste's laws, afford us ample 

 information on the subject. In times of bad roads, distant 

 and unfrequent markets, and dangerous travelling, it was the 

 policy of an owner to make his estate as self-supporting as 

 possible. Sales of produce were therefore rare, and his stock 

 of money small — circumstances which induced him to employ 

 the predial rather than the money-paid services of his 

 labouring dependants. The available amount of vigorous 

 muscle was an important consideration, and compelled him to 

 place strong restrictions on its exodus from the Manor. Any- 

 thing that tended to diminish the numbers of his workpeople 

 tended to diminish his income and the market value of his 

 property. Therefore, even their education, much more their 

 choice of a profession, were subject to his consent. Depletion 

 of his labour supply, by recruits enlisted in the ranks of 

 the clergy or apprenticed to town trades, was never permitted 

 1 AValter of Henley, pub. by Eoyal Hist. Soc. Introduction, p. xiii. 



