ELEVENTH-CENTURY FARMING 205 



" annona "), barley (" ordeum "), rye (" siligo "), oats (" avenae "), 

 and peas (" pisse ") ; malt (" braseum ") is also frequently 

 mentioned, but the grain from which the malt was made is 

 never specified. Of the work of the farm nothing is naturally 

 said. Our record merely mentions the operations of ploughing 



("arare"), harrowing (" herciare "), reaping (" sarclare "), and 

 mowing (" falcare "). If further information is desired, it 

 must be sought from the text-books of a later age, but their 

 teaching must always be qualified by the actual experience of 

 bailiffs' accounts and manorial extents. Of the writers of 

 these agricultural text-books, Walter of Henley is the best 

 known, and his book was written in the thirteenth century, 

 almost two centuries after Domesday Book. From his 

 description of the usual work we can conjure up the scene 

 before our eyes. If the manor was cultivated on the three- 

 field system, a three-year rotation of crops would be followed 

 wheat, barley or oats, and fallow. After the wheat crop 

 had been reaped, the land would lie fallow till the next 

 spring, and would then be ploughed once and sown with 

 barley or oats. After this crop had been harvested, the land 

 would lie fallow till the following April, when it would be 

 ploughed once. A second ploughing would follow about 

 St. John's Day (May 6) ; and the field would be ploughed 

 a third time after the crops on the other fields had been 

 harvested, and sown with wheat before the winter began. 

 All three fields would lie open for pasture between harvest 

 and the next seed-time. The farmer's calendar in the 

 thirteenth century would therefore be as follows : 



