208 THE DOMESDAY INQUEST 



farmer ? Walter of Henley tells us that unless the yield was 

 more than 6 bushels to the acre, the farmer would lose 

 \\d. and the rent of his land. The anonymous writer on 

 Husbandry, whose treatise is published in the same volume 

 as that of Walter of Henley, tells us that barley should 

 yield to the eighth grain, wheat to the fifth, and oats to the 

 fourth, and that the seed for an acre should be, of wheat 

 ij bushel, and of barley and oats 4 bushels. 1 The bailiffs' 

 accounts show that this estimate of the seed for the barley 

 and oats was correct, but tell very different tales as to the 

 produce. Professor Thorold Rogers has printed tables show- 

 ing the seed sown and the crops harvested on eleven estates 

 belonging to Merton College, Oxford, in the three years 

 1334-5-6. They may be summarized as follows: 



The best crop of wheat was that at Wolford, in 1335, of 

 1 51 bushels an acre ; and the worst was about 3 \ bushels 

 at Leatherhead, in 1336. For the five years 1243-8, the 

 average return at Combe (Oxon.) was, for wheat 5 bushels 

 per acre, for barley a little over 5 bushels, and for oats about 

 7 bushels per acre. Professor Maitland, in his calculations, 

 has reckoned that in the eleventh century the average yield 

 of grain was about 6 bushels per acre, leaving, after the de- 

 duction of the seed for next year, a balance of 4 bushels an 

 acre available for food ; 2 and although these figures have 

 been criticized by Mr. Inman, the bailiffs' accounts that I 

 have quoted and others that I have seen lead me to think 



Walter of Henley, 71 



D. B. and B., 438. 



