AGRICULTURE IN THE MIDDLE AGES 155 



None of the branches of industry which I have mentioned 

 neither cattle nor bees, nor the dairy comes very directly into 

 the field of agriculture in the strict sense of the word, that is, the 

 tilling of the soil. When we turn to this, bearing in mind that we 

 have under consideration an industry which produces neither for 

 manufacture nor for commerce, but simply to supply its own 

 wants, we are still struck by the meagerness of the objects of 

 cultivation. They were the cereals and scarcely anything else ; 

 no maize or buckwheat, no roots, clover, or artificial grasses (these 

 came in in the seventeenth century), scarcely any fruits but apples 

 and pears, although I find plums and cherries also mentioned. 



First, a few words upon the crops produced for the food of 

 animals. The cattle grazed for the most part upon the natural 

 pastures and the stubble, and this pasturage was, like everything 

 else in medieval husbandry, managed and superintended with 

 great care and precision. The number of animals which each 

 person was entitled to keep upon the common pasture and the 

 stubble was regulated generally in accordance with his share in 

 the arable land ; tenure of arable land carried with it, usually, a 

 specific and definite right of common. The custom was to allow 

 each person to pasture as many animals as he had means to keep 

 over winter. The preservation of the common for pasturage was 

 an important matter, and I find it distinctly provided, in a docu- 

 ment defining the rights of common, that no tree shall be planted 

 upon the land, unless to take the place of one which should 

 perish by decay. After the crops were harvested, the fences were 

 removed and the stubble thrown open to pasture. In regard to 

 this, I find a by-law laid down in one manor, for which I cannot 

 understand the reason, that from Ascension Day to Christmas 

 no mares with foals or cows with calves should feed upon these 

 stubbles, under the penalty of a fine. 



In the mild winters of Europe, especially in southern England, 

 pasturage is hardly suspended altogether during any part of the 

 winter ; nevertheless, there must have been more or less stall- 

 feeding at this season, even here, and the hay crop was an impor- 

 tant one. As I have already said, there was no clover or artificial 

 grass ; all the more valuable were the natural meadows, which, in 



