A Short History of English Agriculture | Page 8

shared with his live stock, as in parts of
Ireland to-day. Indeed, in some parts of Yorkshire at the beginning of
the nineteenth century this primitive simplicity still prevailed, live
stock were still kept in the house, the floors were of clay, and the
family slept in boxes round the solitary room. Examples of farmhouses
clustered together at some distance from their respective holdings still
survive, though generally built of stone. Next the village, though not
always, for they were sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream,
were the meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable
fields, beyond which was the common pasture and wood,[46] and,
encircling all, heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor
from the rest of the world.

The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the
hide, usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed
by a team of 8 oxen in a year; a quarter of this was the virgate, an
eighth the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common
team. These teams, however, varied; on the manors of S. Paul's
Cathedral in 1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen,
or of 6 horses only, sometimes 10 oxen.[47]
The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing
of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on hay
and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was
threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the
ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was one,
was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage then
known, cleansed. In May it was time to set up the temporary fences
round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the third
field.
A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many
interesting details of eleventh-century farming:--
'In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set up sheep
hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood, weed, and make
folds. In harvest one may reap; in August, September, and in October
one may mow, set woad with a dibble, gather home many crops, thatch
them and cover them over, cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and
shelters ere too severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently
prepare the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts cleave
timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors, thresh, cleave
wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in pigstyes, and provide a
hen roost. In spring one should plough and graft, sow beans, set a
vineyard, make ditches, hew wood for a wild deer fence; and soon after
that, if the weather permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed,
plant a garden and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that
a good steward ought to provide.'[48]
The methods of cultivation were simple. The plough, if we may judge
by contemporary illustrations, had in the eleventh century a large wheel

and very short handles.[49] In the twelfth century Neckham describes
its parts: a beam, handles, tongue, mouldboard, coulter, and share.[50]
Breaking up the clods was done by the mattock or beetle, and
harrowing was done by hand with what looks like a large rake; the
scythes of the haymakers and the sickles of the reapers were very like
those that still linger on in some districts to-day.
Here is a list of tools and implements for the homestead: an axe, adze,
bill, awl, plane, saw, spokeshave, tie hook, auger, mattock, lever, share,
coulter, goad-iron, scythe, sickle, weed-hook, spade, shovel, woad
dibble, barrow, besom, beetle, rake, fork, ladder, horse comb, shears,
fire tongs, weighing scales, and a long list of spinning implements
necessary when farmers made their own clothes. The author wisely
remarks that one ought to have coverings for wains, plough gear,
harrowing tackle, &c.; and adds another list of instruments and utensils:
a caldron, kettle, ladle, pan, crock, firedog, dishes, bowls with handles,
tubs, buckets, a churn, cheese vat, baskets, crates, bushels, sieves, seed
basket, wire sieve, hair sieve, winnowing fans, troughs, ashwood pails,
hives, honey bins, beer barrels, bathing tub, dishes, cups, strainers,
candlesticks, salt cellar, spoon case, pepper horn, footstools, chairs,
basins, lamp, lantern, leathern bottles, comb, iron bin, fodder rack,
meal ark or box, oil flask, oven rake, dung shovel; altogether a very
complete list, the compiler of which ends by saying that the reeve
ought to neglect nothing that should prove useful, not even a mousetrap,
nor even, what is less, a peg for a hasp.
Manors in 1086 were of all sizes, from one virgate to enormous
organizations like Taunton or Leominster,