WALTER OF HENLEY 37 



1283.^ Cider was also drunk, and was sold at Exminster in 



Devonshire in 12S6 at ^d. a gallon, and apples fetched 2d. 



a bushel. Thorold Rogers ^ says that wheat was the chief 



)d of the English labourer from the earliest times until 



jrhaps the seventeenth century, when the enormous prices 



^ere prohibitive ; but this statement must be taken with 



serve, as must that of Mr. Prothero^ that rye was the 



read-stuff of the peasantry. Where the labourer's food is 



lentioned as part of his wages, wheat, barley, and rye all occur, 



^heat and rye being often mixed together as * mixtil '; and it 



most probable that in one district wheat, in another one of 



le other cereals, formed his chief bread-stuff, according to 



le crop best adapted to the soil of the locality. 



Walter of Henley mentions wheat as if it was the chief crop, 



)r he selects it as best illustrating the cost of corn-growing ^ ; 



id from the enormous number of entries enumerated by 



phorold Rogers in his mediaeval statistics it was apparently 



lore grown than other cereals. The chief meat of the lower 



classes then, as to-day, was bacon from the innumerable herds 



of swine who roamed in the woods and wastes, but in bad 



years, when food was scarce, the poor ate nuts, acorns, fern 



roots, bark, and vetches.^ 



As the cattle of the Middle Ages were like the mountain 



cattle of to-day, so were the sheep like many of the sheep to 



be seen in the Welsh mountains; yet, unlike the cattle, an 



attempt seems to have been made, judging by the high price 



of rams, to improve the breed ; but they were probably poor 



animals worth from is. to i.f. 6d. each, with a small fleece 



weighing about a pound and a half, worth 3^. a lb. or a little 



more. 



^ Doviesday of S.Paul^ Camden Society, p. li. 



' History ofAgrictilhire and Prices^ i. 26. 



' Pioneers of Agriculture, "p. 1 3. 



* Ed. Lamond, Royal Historical Society, p. 19. 



' Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century y p. 93. 



