3

cows to dairy farmers.1 In medieval times the person to whom cows were leased for dairy purposes was the deye, i.e., dairyman or dairymaid. The stock and land lease plan was favourable to the tenant, for it supplied his preliminary want of capital, and if he was fortunate, allowed him often to make considerable profits, and even eventually to purchase an estate for himself.

§ 67. The Tenant's Communal Land and Closes.

It must always be remembered, however, that most of the arable land in a manor was "communal," i.e., each tenant held a certain number of furrows or strips in a common field, the separate divisions being merely marked by a piece of unploughed land, where the grass was allowed to grow. The ownership of these several strips was limited to certain months of the year, generally from Lady Day to Michaelmas, and for the remainder of the year the land was common pasture. This simple and rudimentary system was utterly unsuited to any advanced agriculture. The tenants, however, also possessed "closes," some for corn, others for pasture and hay. The rent of a close was always higher than that of communal land, being eightpence instead of sixpence per acre, which seems to have been the usual annual charge.* Besides the communal arable land and his close, the husbandman also had access to two or three kinds of common of pasture-(1) a common close for oxen, kine, or other stock, pasture in which is stinted both for landlord and tenant; (2) the open ("champaign" or champion ") country, where the cattle go daily before the herdsmen; (3) the lord's outwoods, moors, and heaths, where the tenants are stinted but the lord is not.5 Thus the tenant had valuable pasture rights, besides the land he actually rented. But the system of holding arable land in strips must have been very cumbrous and have caused many disputes, since often a tenant would hold a short lease on one strip and a longer lease on another, or 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 330.

2 The rent charged for cows was 5s, per annum. Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 25. 3 For an example, see below, p. 186.

confusion of ownership would arise, while in many ways tenure was made insecure, and no encouragement was given to advanced agriculture.

§ 68. Ploughing.

As regards the cultivation of the land, it was generally ploughed three times a year.1 Ordinary ploughing took place in the autumn, the second ploughing in April, the third at midsummer. The furrows were, according to Walter de Henley, a foot apart, and the plough was not to go more than two fingers deep. The ploughing and much other work was done by oxen, which are recommended both by Walter de Henley and by Fitzherbert as being cheaper than horses, and because they could also be used for food when dead. The hoeing was undertaken by women, who also worked at harvest time in the fields. In Piers the Plowman's Crede (about 1394 A.D.) we have a description of a small farmer ploughing while his wife leads the oxen: "His wife walked by him with a long goad, in a cutted cote cutted full high." 3

An average yield of something more than six bushels per acre is what Walter de Henley thinks necessary to secure profitable farming. The chief crops seem to have been wheat, barley, and oats.5

§ 69. Stock, Pigs, and Poultry.

As to stock, the amount kept was generally rather large, and the agriculturist of the thirteenth century was fully alive to the importance of keeping it, since most of his profit came therefrom. Oxen, as we saw, were kept for the plough and draft, but not much stock was fatted for the table, especially as it could not be kept in the winter. There was no attempt to improve breeds of cattle, for the scarcity of winter food (winter roots being unknown till much later) and the general want of means for resisting 1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 270 n., and 329.

2 Walter de Henley, quoted in Hist. Agric., i. 328; and Fitzherbert, quoted ib., iv. 41.

4 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 270, note.
7 Ib., i. 52.

Ib., i. 36, and 46-59, and p. 21.

the severities of the winter helped to keep all breeds much upon the same level.1 On the other hand, swine were kept in large numbers,2 for every peasant had his pig in his sty, and, indeed, probably lived on salt pork most of the winter. Care was taken with the different breeds. The whole of the parish swine were generally put in summer under the charge of one swineherd, who was paid both by the tenants and the lord of the manor. The keeping of poultry, too, was at the time universal, so much so that they were very rarely bought by anyone, and, when sold, were almost absurdly cheap. This habit of keeping fowls, ducks, and geese must have materially helped the peasant in ekeing out his wages, or in paying that portion of his rent which was paid in kind; as, e.g., in the case of the Cuxham tenant (p. 75) who had to pay his lord six fowls in all during the year. " Indeed, "poultry rents were almost universal."

§ 70. Sheep.

This animal is so important in English agriculture that we must devote a special paragraph to it alone. For the sheep was, in the earlier periods of English industrial history, the mainstay of the British farmer, chiefly, of course, owing to the quantity of wool required for export. England had, up to a comparatively recent period, almost a monopoly of the raw wool trade, her only rival being Spain. There were, as mentioned before, a great number of breeds of sheep, and much care was taken to improve them." The fleece, however, was light, being only as an average about two lbs., according to Professor Rogers, and the animal was small. The reason of this was that the attempts of the husbandman to improve his breeds were baffled by 2 Ib., i. 335.

1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. p. 52.

• Walter De Henley, quoted in Hist. Agric., i. 336.

The same custom has been observed by the author in Swiss mountain villages, where a common goatherd takes care of the goats of the peasants, being paid so much per goat by each villager, and receiving also board and lodging for a night in turn from each.

5 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 339; iv. 58.

6

Ib., i. 339.

7 lb., i. 333.

8 Ib., i. 53.

T

the hardships of the medieval winter, and by the prevalence of disease, especially the rot and scab.1 It is probable that the average loss on the flocks was 20 per cent. a year. They were generally kept under cover from November to April, and fed on coarse hay, wheat, and oat straw, or pea and vetch haulm; 2 but no winter roots were available.

§ 71. Increase of Sheep-farming.

A great increase of sheep-farming took place after the Great Plague (1348), and this from two causes.3 The rapid increase of woollen manufactures, promoted by Edward III., rendered wool-growing more profitable, while at the same time the scarcity of labour, occasioned by the ravages of the Black Death, and the consequently higher wages demanded, naturally attracted the farmer to an industry which was at once very profitable, and required but little paid labour. So, after the Plague, we find a tendency among large agriculturists to turn ploughed fields into permanent pasture, or, at any rate, to use the same land for pasture and for crops, instead of turning portions of the "waste" into arable land. Consequently, from the beginning of the fifteenth century we notice that the agricultural population decreases in proportion as sheep farming increases, and the steady change may be traced in numerous preventive statutes till we come to those of Henry VIII. about decayed towns, especially in the Midlands, the south, and the Isle of Wight. The author of a political song of Henry VI.'s reign declared that our enemies sneered at English sheepfarming and thought it lessened our naval power. Another cause that, in Henry VIII.'s time, had a distinct influence in promoting sheep-farming was probably the lack of capital which made itself felt, owing to the general impoverishment of England in his wasteful reign, and which naturally turned

1 Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 31, 334.

2 Walter de Henley, in Rogers, Hist. Agric., i. 334.

3 Cf. Cunningham, English Industry, i. 361.

4 Cf. 6 Henry VIII., c. 6; 7 Henry VIII., c. 1; 27 Henry VIII., c. 22; and 32 Henry VIII., cc 18 and 19.

"From Ye Libelle of Englishe Policie, vv. 36, 37.

farmers to an industry that required little capital, but gave quick returns.1 We should also add as another cause the rise in prices caused by the discoveries of silver in the New World.

3

§ 72. Consequent Increase of Enclosures.

4.

One consequence of this more extensive sheep-farming was the great increase in enclosures made by the landlords in the sixteenth century. So great were these encroachments and enclosures in north-east Norfolk, that they led, in 1549, to a rebellion against the enclosing system, headed by Ket; but though more marked perhaps in Henry VIII.'s reign, the practice of sheep-farming had been growing steadily in the previous century. Fortescue, the Lord Chancellor of Henry VI. (about the middle of the fifteenth century), refers to its growth and the prosperity it caused in rural districts a prosperity, however, that must have been confined only to the great landowners. We receive other confirmation of this from various statutes designed to prevent the rural population from flowing into the towns, as, for example, the Acts of 1 and 9 Richard II. (1377 and 1385), of 17 Richard II. (1394), promoting the export of corn in hopes of making arable land more valuable.5 Another Act was passed in 1489 (4 Henry VII., c. 16) to keep the rural population from the towns. In fact, it is very clear that at this time a great change was passing over English agriculture, and the old agricultural system was was becoming seriously disorganised. But the growth of sheep-farming is also connected with a great economic and industrial development in England-the rise and progress of cloth manufactures and of the weaving industry generally, and to this we must now devote our next chapter.

1 Cf. Rogers, Six Centuries, 445.

2

Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 109; and Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 362.

3 Rogers, Hist. Agric., iv. 124; Cunningham, Growth of Industry, i. 428. Sir John Fortescue wrote a treatise called The Comodytes of England before 1451; and his works were edited by Lord Clement; cf. i. 551.

5 At the request of the Commons, Richard "granted licence to all his liege people of the realm of England to carry corn out of the same realm to what parts they please them, except to his enemies;" 17 R. II., c. 7.