260 Miscellaneous. 



trout, perch, carp, and barbel may have been well known in the 

 fourteenth century ; but I have seen none of these fish in my ac- 

 counts" (p. 608). 



" The few entries of oysters (some in the earlier part of the inquiry, 

 some in the last few years), five of them . are taken from the roll of 

 Thorney in Sussex, the rate being uniformly a halfpenny the hun- 

 dred. Mussels and oysters are from Sharpness in Kent, each at 7d. 

 per bushel" (p. ()17). 



"The manor house possessed a garden and orchard. But the former 

 was very deficient in vegetables. The householder of the thirteenth 

 and fourteenth centuries grew onions and leeks, mustard, and gar- 

 den or green peas. He probably also possessed cabbages, though I 

 have never found either seed or plant quoted. Apples and sometimes 

 pears are mentioned as part of the orchard produce ; but we read of 

 no plums, except once of damsons. A regular part of the produce 

 of the orchard was cider, and its low price seems to suggest that it 

 was made in considerable quantities. Sometimes, too, wine was 

 grown in England, though not, perhaps, so frequently as has been 

 imagined, the word vivarium having been, it appears, often read vi- 

 narium. Crabs were collected in order to manufacture verjuice — an 

 important item in mediaeval cookery. Bees, though honey was dear 

 and wax very high-priced, do not seem to have been commonly kept, 

 though some few entries of hives and swarms have been found" 

 (p. 18). 



" The people lived on salt meat half the year ; and not only were 

 they without potatoes, but they do not appear to have had other 

 roots which are now in common use, as carrots and parsnips ; onions 

 and cabbages appear to have been the only esculent vegetables. It 

 will be found that nettles (if we can identify these with UrticcB) were 

 sold from the garden. Spices (the cheapest of which was pepper) 

 were quite out of their reach ; sugar was a very costly luxury ; and 

 our forefathers do not appear, judging from the rarity of the notices, 

 to have been skilful in the management of bees" (p. 66). 



" The hay was gathered into ricks, and, as at present, cut into 

 trusses. It is hardly needful to observe that the grass was all native ; 

 it was long after the period before us that artificial or foreign 

 grasses were introduced. Hence the means of supporting winter 

 stock depended upon the supply of hay and such straw as was avail- 

 able for the animals kept on the farm. The bailiff calculated his 

 resources, and killed down for salting at about St. Martin's Day 

 (November 11) as many sheep, oxen, and calves as exceeded his 

 means of sustenance " (p. 16). 



*• It will be seen that the largest part of the land under the plough 

 was occupied by crops of wheat, barley, and oats. Wheat was the 

 customary food of the people of this country from the earliest times. 

 Even if the evidence were not abundant on this point, the breadth 

 sown annually would be conclusive proof. Barley was sometimes 

 mixed with wheat in the allowances made to farm-servants ; but its 

 chief use was in the manufacture of beer, which seems to have been 



