422 A GRICUL TURE. 



more of a gardener than a farmer. It is to be regretted that 

 the histories of the arts in the northern countries, during the 

 middle ages, are very few, and so little known or accessible that 

 we cannot derive much advantage from them. 



Agriculture in Britain, from the Fifth to the Seventeenth 

 Century. Britain, on being evacuated by the Romans, was 

 invaded by the Saxons, a ferocious and ignorant people, by 

 whom agriculture and all other civilized arts were neglected. 

 In the eleventh century, when the Saxons had amalgamated 

 with the natives, and constituted the main body of the English 

 nation, the country was again invaded by the Normans, a much 

 more civilized race, who introduced considerable improvement. 

 These two events form distinct periods in the history of British 

 agriculture, and two others will bring it down to the seventeenth 

 century. 



Agriculture in Britain during the Anglo-Saxon Dynasty, 

 or from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century. At the arrival 

 of the Anglo-Saxons, this island, according to Fleury, abounded 

 in numerous flocks and herds, which these conquerors seized 

 and pastured for their own use ; and, after their settlement, they 

 still continued to follow pasturage as one of the chief means of 

 subsistence. This is evident from the great number of laws 

 that were made, in the Anglo-Saxon times, for regulating the 

 price of all kinds of tame cattle, for directing the manner in 

 which they should be pastured, and for preserving them from 

 thieves, robbers, and beasts of prey. The Welsh, in this period, 

 from the nature of their country and other circumstances, 

 depended still more upon their flocks and herds for their sup- 

 port ; hence their laws respecting pasturage were more numer- 

 ous and minute than those of the Saxons. 



From these laws we karn, among many other particulars, 

 that all the cattle of a village, though belonging to different 

 owners, were to be pastured together in one herd, under the 

 direction of one person, with proper assistants, whose oath in 

 all disputes about the cattle under his care was decisive. By one 

 of these laws they were prohibited from plowing with horses, 

 mares, or cows, and restricted to oxen. . Their plows seem to 

 have been very light and inartificial ; for it was enacted that no 

 man should undertake to guide a plow who could not make one, 



