SO AGRICULTURAL ECONOMICS 



reeds into baskets and " weeles " for catching fish. They fixed handles 

 to the scythes, rakes, and other tools; cut the flails from holly or 

 thorn, and fastened them with thongs to the staves; shaped the teeth 

 for rakes and harrows from ash or willow, and hardened them in the 

 fire; cut out the wooden shovels for casting the corn in the granary; 

 fashioned ox yokes and bows, forks, racks, and rack-staves; twisted 

 willows into scythe-cradles, or into traces and other harness gear. 

 The village "general shop" had not yet come into existence; in many 

 places it did not appear until the present century, partly because 

 many of the wants which it meets were not yet felt, partly because 

 such wants as 'were felt were supplied either by journeys at long 

 intervals to some distant fair or market, or by the labov.r of the 

 family itself. 



Thus the inhabitants of an average English village went on 

 year in, year out with the same customary methods of cultivation, 

 living on what they produced, and scarcely coming in contact with 

 the outside world. The immediate neighbourhood of large towns 

 created markets for the surplus produce that remained after satisfy- 

 ing the needs of the cultivators of the soil. But remoter villages con- 

 tained neither buyers of produce nor pioneers of improvements. The 

 very existence of towns, indeed, implied that the purely agricultural 

 districts produced more than they required for their own consump- 

 tion; and corn and cattle were regularly sent, even to distant markets, 

 by lords of manors and their bailiffs, in increasing quantities as the 

 great lords or corporations came to desire money payments instead 

 of payments in kind. But the other dealings of the villagers with 

 the outside world were few. 



It may be well to notice the non-existence in the village group of 

 certain elements which modern abstract economics is apt to take for 

 granted. Individual liberty, in the sense in which we understand it, 

 did not exist; consequently, there could be no such complete compe- 

 tition as we are wont to postulate. The payments made by the 

 villeins are not rents in the abstract economist's sense: for the econo- 

 mist assumes competition assumes that landlord and farmer are 

 guided only by commercial principles; that there is an average rate 

 of profit, which the farmer knows; that he will not take- less and can- 

 not get more. However the labour services came to be fixed, they 

 were fixed in the eleventh century; they remained unchanged till they 

 were commuted for money; and, once commuted, no increase took 

 place in the money rent. The chief thought of lord and tenant was, 



