A Short History of English Agriculture | Page 8

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, containing villages by the score and hundreds of dependent holdings.[51] The ordinary size, however, of the Domesday manor was from four to ten hides of 120 acres each, or say from 500 to 1,200 acres,[52] and the Manor of Segenehou in Bedfordshire may be regarded as typical. Held by Walter brother of Seiher it had as much land as ten ploughs could work, four plough lands belonging to the demesne and six to the villeins, of whom there were twenty-four, with four bordarii and three serfs; thus the villeins had 30 acres each, the normal holding. The manorial system was in fact a combination of large farming by the lords, and small farming by the tenants. Nor must we compare it to an ordinary estate; for it was a dominion within which the lord had authority over subjects of various ranks; he was not only a proprietor but a