SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC HISTORY 



Italian trading company by the farmer of the manor." The crop of these 

 6 acres is subsequently entered at the value of 6oj. On the same manor 50 acres 

 of land yielded 100 quarters of oats." But this high yield of two quarters 

 to the acre was exceptional, and not Hkely to be generally obtained from even 

 the most fertile of Lancashire lands. The average return, as calculated from 

 Professor T. Rogers' tables, was about one quarter to the acre.^' Wheat was 

 very dear in this year" (1322), and thus at the usual average of return per 

 acre its price even at Hale would be at the rate of loj. per quarter.^^ Com- 

 pared with the sherifFs purchasing price of more than one hundred years 

 before (12 13-15) the price of wheat had risen to nearly treble its earlier 

 standard, largely due of course to the great famine of 1 3 1 5, from which the 

 lands had not yet fully recovered. 



The priory of Lytham in the year 1 3 1 1 raised 200 quarters of oats in 

 proportion to 28 quarters of wheat, 24 of barley, and 18 quarters of beans 

 and peas. Thirty-four years later, while the stock of animals had increased 

 the harvest returns were even less, the famine years having evidently caused a 

 dearth of seed." It may be, however, that the greater attention given to 

 sheep grazing had caused a transference to pasture of certain lands formerly 

 laid down in crop. In the rental of Furness the same preponderance of oats 

 over wheat is noteworthy, 372 quarters of the former being grown as against 

 52 quarters of wheat and 64 of barley." 



Owing to the sparseness of its labouring population it is probable that 

 the manor sufficed for the feeding of its working establishment, but with the 

 monasteries this was not always the case. The abbot of Furness continually 

 imported ' victuals ' from Ireland, sending his own ship for the purpose,'* as 

 did the other abbots whose houses were similarly situated in the wild parts of 

 the country." 



As it was essential in those times of slow and difficult transport that 

 grain should not have to be carried far to be ground into flour, mills were 

 from very early times erected at a convenient spot on the lord's manor, and 

 thither the tenants were compelled to bring their grain to be milled, the 

 miller taking a toll. At first this arrangement was probably of some con- 

 venience to the tenant, but as lands were more widely cultivated and rented, 

 the lord's mill was not always the nearest or the most convenient for the 

 tenant's purpose. The profits of milling, however, had begun to prove so 

 remunerative that the lord found it one of his most considerable sources of 

 income, and would on no account relinquish his power of compelling his 

 tenants to grind at his mill. No manorial obligation was more rigorously 

 enforced or more jealously guarded by the overlord than this ; ^^ free or unfree, 

 his tenants must all bring their ' grist ' to his mill. 



" L.T.R. Misc. Enr. Accts. 14. Account of John de Lancaster, in charge of the honour and wapen- 

 take of Lancaster, including the manor of Hale and the wapentake of Salford, castle and town of Liver- 

 pool, &c. " Ibid. 



" T. Rogers, Agric. and Prices, i, 5 1 . The mediaeval farmer usually ' gets no more than one (quarter) to 

 the acre ' and ' sometimes less than this.' 



'* Ibid, ii, 81. Prices of wheat at Addridale varied from 13/. to 16/. a quarter ; at Appuldrum between 

 10/. and zos. a quarter and so on. 



" Sixty shillings was paid for the produce of 6 acres. '* Status de Lytham, 1345. 



" Beck, Annales Furnesienses, 335. " Cal. Pat. 1272-81, p. 250 ; 1307-13, p. 203, &c. 



" Cf. Abbot of Holmcoltram, Cal. Pat. 1292-1301, p. 579. 



*° Cf. Prof. Tail, Mediaeval Manchester, 98, et seq. 



2 273 35 



