306 



An English Manor in tin Cum of Elizabeth. 



of a Celtic people, and their settlements are still traceable on the 

 sides of Grovely. They were a pastoral people with only a rude 

 form of agriculture. They grew rye or oats in halt-acre strips, 

 called in this survey "radges," but there was no rotation of crops 

 and after two or three years a new Bel of nidges was ploughed and 

 the old one allowed to go hack to grass. Their houses were only 

 huts of mud and houghs, and all their wealth consisted of tattle. 

 When a conquering chief captured the herds of his foe he farmed 

 them out among his dependants, going round and collecting a share 

 of their increase as rent. There was no rent then, as we understand 

 it, for land per sr had no value. The word " farm " means a feast 

 or purveyance, and when the chief came to collect his cattle rents 

 he was entitled to one night's entertainment for himself, his fol- 

 lowers, and horses, often called " coign and livery." In this survey 

 we find the vestiges of this custom. At Stockton Nicholas Maten 

 had to entertain the officials of the court twice a year at the 

 sheriffs tourn and find them convenient bed and hoard with 

 sufficient provender for their horses. At Warminster, too, bo Late 

 as 1786, the Queen claimed her •"one night "s entertainment " at 

 Longleat. It was this practice of farming out their wealth that 

 gave Caesar the impression that kings in Britain had nothing of 

 their own, hut lived upon their Bubjects. 



Then we come to the time when agriculture flourished and people 

 were no Longer content to live in huts on the bills, but cultivated 

 the richer lands of the valleys as they were reclaimed from the 

 marshes. Yet they did not wholly give up their old hill pastures. 

 When May Came round they still moved up with their [locks and 

 herds "for the four months," repairing their old hough huts as a 

 summer shealing. The ceremonies of the shoaling feast go on to 

 this day in Norway and in Scotland and are graphically descrihed 

 in " Feats on tin Fjords," and in the third volume of Skene's Celtic 

 Scotland. When in May the villagers of Wishford still cut down 

 young oaks ami hold their feast on " Hough Day," it is the repairing 

 of the summer shealings that they commemorate. 



At length Ivoman civilization changed the simple husbandry of 

 the hritons into one of a much more profitable kind. Where the 



