SHEEP 15 



number of live-stock, including horses but not including sheep, sold 

 from the manor of Forncett in thirteen years, between 1272 and 

 1306, was 152. 1 Out of this total 99 were calves. The cows 

 of the demesne were under the care of a cowherd, who was required 

 to sleep every night with his charges in the sheds. 



Sheep were the sheet anchor of farming. But it was not for 

 their mutton, or for their milk, or even for their skins, that they 

 were chiefly valued. Already the mediaeval agriculturist took his 

 seat on the wool-sack. As a marketable commodity, both at home 

 and abroad, English long wool always commanded a price. It 

 was less perishable than corn, and more easily transported even on 

 the worst of roads. To the Flemish weavers it was indispensable, 

 for Spanish wool could not be used alone, and the supply from 

 Saxony was not as yet developed. The washing and shearing of 

 sheep were among the labour services of the tenantry. Certain 

 districts, especially Shropshire, Leominster, and the Cotswolds, 

 were from very early times famous for the excellence of their wool. 

 So far as its quality depended on breed rather than on soil, some 

 care, as evidenced by the higher prices paid for rams, was taken 

 to improve the flocks. From Martinmas to Easter sheep were kept 

 in houses, or in moveable folds of wooden hurdles, thatched at the 

 sides and tops. During these months they were fed on coarse hay 

 or peas-haulm, mixed with wheaten or oaten straw. For the rest 

 of the year they browsed on the land for fallows, in woodland 

 pastures, or on the sheep commons. But in the autumn they were 

 not allowed to go on the ground, till the sun had purified the land 

 from the " gelly or matty rime," which was supposed to engender 

 scab. So also they were driven from the damp, low-lying grounds 

 lest they should eat the white water-snails which our ancestors, 

 suspected of breeding the rot. These two diseases made sheep- 

 farming, in spite of its profits, a risky venture. The scab does not 

 seem to have attacked sheep before the latter end of the thirteenth 

 century ; but, from that time forward, the tar-box was essential 

 to every shepherd. The rot is carefully treated by Walter of 

 Henley, if he is the real author of the passage interpolated in the 

 Bodleian manuscript of his work. 2 The writer discusses the 



* The Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor (1086-1566). By Frances 

 Gardiner Davenport, pp. 33-35. 



2 Walter of Henley, 1890, ed. E. Lamond. The passage is given on pages 

 37-8, and its genuineness is disputed in the Introduction, p. xxu. 



