20 
O X. Crass I. 
the chieftain, whofe power and fafety depended on 
the promptnefs of his vafials to execute his com- 
mands, found it his intereft to encourage thofe 
employments that favoured that difpofition; that 
vafial, who made it his glory to fly at the firft call 
to the ftandard of his chieftain, was fure to prefer 
that employ, which might be tranfaéted by his 
family with equal fuccefs during his abfence. ‘Fil- 
lage would require an attendance incompatible with 
the fervices he owed the baron, while the former 
occupation not only gave leifure for thofe duties, 
but furnifhed the hofpitable board of his lord 
with ample provifion, of which the vaflal was 
equal partaker. The reliques of the larder of the 
elder Spencer are evident proofs of the plenty of cat- 
tle in his days; for after his winter provifions 
may have been fuppofed to have been moftly con- 
fumed, there were found, fo late as the month of 
May, in falt, the carcafes of not fewer than 80 
beeves, 600 bacons, and 600 muttons*. The ac- 
counts of the feveral great feafts in after times, af- 
ford amazing inftances of the quantity of cattle 
that were confumed in them. This was owing 
partly to the continued attachment of the people 
to grazing + ; partly to the preference that the Ez- 
glifh at all times gave to animal food. The quan- 
* Hume's hiftory of England ii. 153. 
$+ Polyd. Virgil Hif}. Angl. vol. i. 5. who wrote in ee time 
of Henry the VII. fays Angli plures pecuarii quam aratores. 
~ tity 
