In May a shepherd is sitting; his flocks are about, and one man has a lamb in his arms; other persons are looking on. In June some are reaping with a sickle, and some putting the corn into a cart. A man is blowing a horn while they are working. In July they are felling trees. In August they are mowing. In November a smithery is shown. In December two men are thrashing, others are carrying the grain in a basket; one has a measure, as if to ascertain the quantity; and another on a notched stick, seems to be marking what is measured and taken away. In the Saxon dialogues already quoted, the ploughman gives this account of his duty: 66 "I labour much. I go out at daybreak, urging the oxen to the field, and I yoke them to the plough (the ryl). It is not yet so stark winter that I dare keep close at home, for fear of my lord; but the oxen being yoked, and the share and cultro fastened on, I ought to plough every day one entire field, or more. I have a boy to threaten the oxen with a goad, who is now hoarse through cold and bawling. I ought also to fill the binns of the oxen with hay, and water them, and carry out their soil." He adds, "It is a great labour, because I am not free." In the same MSS. we have this statement of a shepherd's and a cowherd's duty. "In the first part of the morning I drive my sheep to their pasture, and stand over them in heat and in cold with dogs, lest the wolves destroy them. I lead them back to their folds, and milk them twice a day; and I move their folds, and make cheese and butter; and I am faithful to my lord." The other says, "When the ploughman separates the oxen, I lead them to the meadows; and all night I stand watching over them, on account of thieves; and again, in the morning, I take them to the plough, well fed and watered." Some circumstances may be selected from their grants, which illustrate the customs and produce of an Anglo-Saxon farm. "I give food for seventy swine in that woody allotment which the countrymen call Wulferdinleh, and five wagons full of good twigs, and every year an oak for building, and others for necessary fires, and sufficient wood for burning." A noble lady ordered out of her lands a yearly donation of forty ambra of malt, an old ram, four wethers, two hundred and forty loaves, and one weight of bacon and cheese, and four fother of wood, and twenty hen-fowls.' In Ina's laws, ten hides were to furnish ten vessels of honey, * Bede, App. 770. 1 Hickes's Diss. Ep. 10. three hundred loaves, twelve ambra of Welsh ale, thirty of clear ale, two old rams, ten wethers, ten geese, twenty hens, ten cheeses, an ambra full of butter, five salmon, twenty pounds weight of fodder, and an hundred eels." Another gives ten mittas of malt, five of grits, ten mittas of the flour of wheat, eight gammons, sixteen cheeses, and two fat cows; and in Lent eight salmon." Offa, in 785, grants some land, with permission to feed swine in the wood of Andreda; and another district to cut wood for building or for burning; and also wood sufficient to boil salt; and the fishing of one man; with one hundred loaded wagons, and two walking carts, every year." We frequently find salt pans, or places to boil salt in, conveyed, as, "with four vessels for the boiling of salt," and "with all the utensils and wells of salt."P Fisheries were frequently given with land. To three plough lands in Kent a fishery on the Thames is added. Ethelstan gives a piece of land for the use of taking fish. So forty acres, with fishing, were given on the condition of receiving every year fifteen salmon. So half of a fishery is given to a monastery, with the buildings and tofts of the fishermen. A vineyard is not unfrequently mentioned in various documents. Edgar gives the vineyard situate at Wecet, with the vine-dressers." In Domesday-book, vineyards are noticed in several counties. A wolf-pit is mentioned in one of the boundaries of an estate. In Domesday we frequently meet with parks. Thus, speaking of Rislepe, in Middlesex, it adds, "There is a park (paɲcur) of beasts of the wood."w At St. Albans and Ware, in Herts, similar parks are mentioned, and in other places. Gardens also occur several times in Domesday. Eight cotarii and their gardens are stated in the manor of Fuleham in Middlesex. And we may remark that Fulham still abounds with market gardeners. A house with its garden is mentioned in the burg of Hertford. Two or three intimations occur in Domesday of the increasing conversion of pasture into arable land. Thus at Borne in Kent, "a pasture from which strangers have ploughed six acres of land." We have many contracts extant of the purchases of land by Wilk. Leg. Sax. p. 25. • Astle's MS. Charters, No. 4. Thorpe Regist. 20. • Ibid. p. 171. MS. Claud. C. 9, p. 116. Domesday. 129, b. y Ibid. p. 132. n 3 Gale, Hist. R. 410. P Heming. Chart. Wig. p. 144. 3 Gale x. Script. p. 405. * Ibid. p. 127, b. * Ibid. p. 9. the Anglo-Saxons, from which we may expect to gain some knowledge of the price of land. But this source of information is by no means sufficient to form an accurate criterion, because we cannot tell the degree of cultivation, or the quality of the land transferred; and also because many of the grants seem to have been rather gifts than sales, in which the consideration bears little proportion to the obvious value. A few of the prices given may however be stated: 1 hyde and a field for 100 shillings. 10 hydes and two mills for 100 aureos. 2 mansiones for 20 manecusis auri probatissimi. 15 manentes for 1500 solidis argenti. 5 manentium for 10 libras inter aurum et argentum. 5 manentium for 150 mancas de puro auro. 8 mansas for 90 mancusa of purest gold. 10 mansas for 30 mancusas of pure gold. 8 mansas for 300 criseis mancusis. It is obvious from this short specimen of the sums mentioned in their documents, that no regular estimate can be formed of the usual price of their land. By the exorcisms to make fields fertile which remain, we may perceive that our superstitious ancestors thought that they could produce abundant harvests by nonsensical ceremonies and phrases. They who choose may see a long one in Calig. A. 7. It is too long and too absurd to be copied. But we may recollect, in justice to our ancestors, that Cato the censor, has transmitted to us a recipe as ridiculous. The course of nature, in the revolutions of the seasons, has suffered no essential change since the deluge, which human records notice. We may therefore presume that the seasons in the Anglo-Saxon period resembled those which preceded and have followed them. Bede calls October Winterfylleth, because winter begins in this month. And we have a description of Anglo-Saxon winter from a disciple of Bede: "The last winter far and wide afflicted our island horribly, by its cold, its frosts, and storms of rain and wind."d To give some notion of the state of the atmosphere and of the seasons in these times, it may not be uninteresting to mention a 3 Gale, p. 480, 483, 485, 486. c MS. Claud. C. 9. b Heming. Chart. p. 69, 70, 222, 230. some of the years which were more remarkable for the calamities of the weather which attended them. A. D. 763-4. This winter was so severe, for its snow and frost, as to have been thought unparalleled. The frost lasted from the first of October to February. Most of the trees and shrubs perished by the excessive cold.e 793. A great famine and mortality.' 799. Violent tempest, and numerous shipwrecks in the British Ocean. 807-8. A very mild and pestilential winter.h 820. From excessive and continual rains, a great mortality of men and cattle ensued. The harvest was spoilt. Great inundations prevented the autumnal sowing.i 821. A dreadful winter followed. The frost was so long and severe, that not only all the smaller rivers, but even the largest in Europe, as the Seine, the Elbe, the Rhine, and the Danube, were so frozen, that, for above thirty days, wagons passed over them as if over bridges.j 823. The harvests devastated by hail. A terrible pestilence among men and cattle. 824. A dreadful and long winter. Not only animals, but many of the human species, perished by the intenseness of the cold.' 832. This year began with excessive rains. A frost succeeded so sudden and intense, that the iced roads were nearly impassable by horses.m 834. Great storms and excessive falls of rain." 851. Severe famine on the continent." 869. Great famine and mortality in England.P 874. A swarm of locusts laid waste the provinces of France. A famine so dreadful followed, that, in the hyberbolical language of the writers, nearly a third part of the population perished. 875. A long and inclement winter, succeeded with unusual falls of snow. The frost lasted from the first of November to the end of March.¶ 913. A severe winter. 956. A very mortal pestilence." 976. A severe famine in England. A frost from first November to end of March. • Simeon Dunelm, p. 105. Ann. Astron. ap. Ruberi, p. 18. Sigeb. Gembl. p. 551. f Sim. Dun. p. 112. h Adelmi Benedict. p. 409. i Ibid. p. 422. Ann. Astron. p. 46. Adel. B. p. 425. Sigeb. Gemb. p. 561. 1 Ann. Fuld. p. 6. Bouquet's Recueil, p. 208. Annales Ruberi, p. 56. Adel. Bened. p. 463. • Sigeb. Gembl. apud Pistorium, p. 565. g Ibid. p. 115. Annales apud Ruberi, p. 49. 4 Aimoini de gestis Fran. p. 489. Sigeb. Gembl. p. 569. Regino Chron. p. 568, 74, 79, 986. Great mortality amongst cattle in England." 987. A dreadful flux and fever in England. 988. A summer of extreme heat. 989. Great inundations. Very hot summer, unhealthy and unfruitful. Great drought and famine; much snow and rain; and no sowing." 1005. A great and dreadful famine in England. 1006. The same over all Europe. 1014. Great sea flood. 1016. Great hail, thunder, and lightning." 1022. Extreme heat in the summer. 1039. A severe winter. 1041. Inclement seasons all the year, and unproductive; and great mortality amongst the cattle. 1043-4. A dreadful famine in England and the continent. A sester of wheat sold for above sixty pennies." 1047. An uncommon fall of snow. Trees broken by it." 1048. Earthquake at Worcester, Derby, and other places; and a great mortality." Of the Anglo-Saxon husbandry we may remark, that Domesday Survey gives us some indications that the cultivation of the church lands was much superior to that of any other order of society. They have much less wood upon them, and less common of pasture; and what they had appears often in smaller and more irregular pieces; while their meadow was more abundant, and in more numerous distributions. CHAPTER II. Their Proprietorship in Land and Tenures. WHEN the Anglo-Saxons established themselves in Britain, a complete revolution in the possession of landed property must have taken place, so far as it concerned the persons of the pro Sax. Chron. p. 123, 125. Sim. Dun. p. 160. Sig. Gemb. p. 587. t Flor. Wig. and Sim. Dun. 161. Lamb. Schaff. p. 158. Sigeb. Gembl. p. 589. ▾ Sim. Dun. 165. Sig. Gembl. p. 591. Sax. Chron. p. 146. * Sig. Gemb. p. 593. Sax. Chron. p. 157. Lamb. Schaff. p. 158. Sim. Dun. p. 180. Sig. Gembl. p. 596. The MS. Claud. C. 9, mentions that a sextarius of wheat sold for five shillings, p. 129. Henry of Huntingdon says the same, adding, that a sextarius of wheat used to be the burthen of one horse, p. 365. 2 Sim. Dun. p. 180. Sig. Gembl. p. 597. Sax. Chron. p. 183. |