62 HISTORY OF AGRICULTURE 



herrings.^ His wife also, at a time when women did the 

 same work as the men, could earn id. a day, and his boy 

 perhaps ^d. If his wages were wholly paid in money, we may 

 say that in the last half of the fourteenth century the ordinary 

 labourer earned ^d. a day, so that as corn and pork, his chief 

 food, had not risen at all, he was much better off than in the 

 preceding loo years. 



Cullum, in his invaluable History of Haivsted, gives us a 

 picture of harvesting on the demesne lands in 1389 which 

 shows an extraordinarily busy scene. There were 300 acres 

 of all kinds of corn to be gathered in, and over 300 people 

 took part ; though apparently such a crowd was only collected 

 for the two principal days of the harvest, and it must be 

 remembered that the towns were emptied into the country 

 at this important season. The number of people for one day 

 comprised a carter, ploughman, head reaper, cook, baker, 

 brewer, shepherd, daya (dairymaid); 221 hired reapers; 

 44 pitchers, stackers, and reapers (not hired, evidently villeins 

 paying their rents by work) ; 22 other reapers, hired for 

 goodwill {de amove) ; and 20 customary tenants. This small 

 army of men consumed 22 bushels of wheat, 8 pennyworth of 

 beer, and 41 bushels of malt, worth iSj-. ()\d. ; meat to the 

 value of f)s. ii\d.\ fish and herrings, ^s. id.; cheese, butter, 

 milk, and eggs, Ss. o^^d. ; oatmeal, 5^. ; salt, 3<s?. ; pepper and 

 saffron, lod., the latter apparently introduced into England in 

 the time of Edward III, and much used for cooking and 

 medicine, but it gradually went out of fashion, and by the end 

 of the eighteenth century was only cultivated in one or two 

 counties, notably Essex where Saffron Walden recalls its use ; 

 candles, 6d. ; and 5 pairs of gloves lod.^ 



The presentation of gloves was a common custom in Eng- 

 land ; and these would be presented as a sign of good hus- 



^ Thorold Rogers, History of Agriculture and Prices, i. 278, 288. 

 ^ Harrison, Description of Britain, p. 233, says the produce of an acre 

 of saffron was usually worth ^20. 



