A Sixteenth-Century Farm. 315 



always produced mutton and malt whose excellence is as 

 widely celebrated as that of the best Kentish hops, or the 

 choicest Bordeaux vintages. 



We must again remind the reader before commencing a 

 description of Tudor farm life, that the Julian calendar was 

 in force during these times ; and that therefore the dates iu 

 the following account were really twelve days later than they 

 appear. The feast of the Annunciation, in other words April 

 Oth, commenced the 3'ear in the Julian calendar, a fact v/hich 

 accounts for that date being still fixed on farms in certain of 

 the Midland counties for a fresh tenant's entry. It explains 

 also the dates of May 12th and November 12th, on which 

 Lancashire farmers are required to pay their rents, and for 

 that of August 12th on which sportsmen commence grouse 

 shooting. There are also several other instances where the 

 Gregorian calendar has not affected the fixtures made under 

 the old system. Though Scotchmen adopted the latter method 

 as early as 1600, Englishmen resisted its innovation a century 

 or more longer. Religious prejudices were at the bottom of 

 the latter's opposition. The Protestants of the Reformation 

 times were too incensed against Romanism to accept even 

 a benefit, however secular, from such a source. Thus an 

 attempt in 1585 to introduce the Gregorian calendar, though 

 twice consented to by the House of Lords, failed to become 

 law. Even when re-introduced and sanctioned by both Houses 

 in the middle of the eighteenth centur}-, the cry, " Give us 

 back our eleven days," continued to be election catchwords 

 with the uneducated some years after the better classes had 

 made up their minds that the Gregorian was preferable to the 

 Julian system. 



In Tudor, as in Victorian days, the usual time of entry was 

 Michaelmas Eve ; but since a portion of the farm was in the 

 fallowed division of the infield it was of course important for 

 the incomer to get on these lands earlier in the summer so as 

 to keep them clean from weeds. Hence Tusser's remark, — 



"New farmer may enter (as cliampions say), 

 On al that is fallow at Lent lady day; 



