A HISTORY OF BEDFORDSHIRE 



again the purchase of five dolia of wine, which we are again told multum 

 prqficit nobis. 



In the following year the convent had to buy both corn and oats. Ale 

 failed again in 1279, and the wine cost iooj. Moreover, the scarcity com- 

 pelled the diminution of the daily alms in the refectory by three loaves and 

 three gallons of ale ; and one quarter of wheat per week from the granary. 

 When it is remembered that the canons were skilled agriculturists, and would 

 be the last to suffer from bad seasons, it is easy to imagine how heavily these 

 times of scarcity would press upon the people generally. But in 1286 we 

 come upon a year of plenty, when wheat falls to twenty pence a quarter, and 

 oats and beans to twelve pence. Bad times came again in 1291, severe 

 drought and prolonged frost, with unheard-of [inauditd) deficiency of hay and 

 forage and other provisions. In 1294 there was a late hay-time and harvest, 

 and little hope for the next year. In the Peak (where the priory had a 

 grange) wheat rose to 21 J. and at Dunstable to i6j. 'id. A quarter of salt 

 cost i6j. 



The scarcity continuing in 1295, the bakers raised their prices so enor- 

 mously that both prior and town interfered, inflicting severe punishment, 

 ' according to the custom of the town ' (' puniens pistores rigidissime, secundum 

 consuetudinem burgi usitatam'). 



A society entirely agricultural, and lacking the scientific training and 

 implements of modern times, was naturally very much at the mercy of the 

 weather. Even in an ordinary year the losses among the stock were heavy ; 

 at Cranfield in one year out of 81 sheep 19 died before shearing, and 6 after, 

 of 61 ewes 21 died, and 2 out of 6 lambs," while a few years later 25 ewes 

 out of 36 were lost.*^ A dry summer not only entailed unusual expense for 

 repairs to the ploughs injured by the hardness of the ground,*" but also meant 

 a partial failure of the crops. What misery was caused by such a summer 

 following upon an excessively severe winter can be seen from an examination 

 of the Nonae returns for 1341." At Eaton the sheep, and especially the 

 ewes before and during lambing, had died off owing to the severity of the 

 winter. At Totternhoe so many sheep and lambs had perished from cold and 

 lack of food that the vicar had received as tithes only one lamb, and barely 

 three stone of wool. The abbot of the Cistercian house of Warden usually 

 kept 200 sheep at Millbrook, but this year he had none there. Finally, at 

 Potton the sheep and lambs had for the most part perished on account of the 

 frost, cold, and snow, which lasted for two months. From parish after 

 parish comes the report that the bean crop had failed entirely owing to the 

 dryness of the summer. Segenhoe and other parishes near it were unfortu- 

 nate in having a sandy soil, which would grow little besides rye, which grain 

 at this time fetched a very bad price. These misfortunes, bad enough in 

 themselves, were aggravated by the state of distress prevailing in the county 

 at that date. At Eaton 100 acres lay untilled because the peasants were too 

 poor to cultivate them, and similar reports come from other parishes, 

 140 acres lying waste at Eversholt, 200 at Segenhoe, and 3 carucates at 

 Studham. At Toddington only 2 out of 9 carucates had been sown, and at 

 Millbrook, where the soil was poor and sandy, only half the arable. 



" Mins. Accts. bdle. 740, no. 13. " Ibid. no. 15. 



^ Ibid. bdle. 741, no. 4. " Inq. Non. (Rec. Com.), Beds. 



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