1540-1600
PROGRESS AT LAST.--HOP-GROWING.--PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE.--HARRISON'S
'DESCRIPTION'
The period we have now reached was one of steady growth in the value
of land and its products. In 1543 Henry VIII, who had given away or
squandered, in addition to the great treasure left him by his thrifty
father, all the wealth obtained from the dissolution of the
monasteries, debased the coinage in order to get more money into his
insatiable hands, and prices went up in consequence. But there were
other causes: the influx of precious metals from newly discovered
America into Europe had commenced to make itself felt, and the
population of the country began to grow steadily. Also, it must not be
forgotten that the seasons, which in the early part of the century had
been normal, were for the next sixty years frequently rainy and bad.
It is unnecessary to say that this must have largely helped to raise
the price of corn. The average price of wheat from 1540-1583 was 13s.
10-1/2d. a quarter; from 1583-1702, 39s. 0-1/2d. Corn was still
subject to extraordinary fluctuations: in 1557, Holinshed says before
harvest wheat was 53s. 4d. a quarter, malt 44s. After harvest wheat
was 5s., malt 6s. 8d., the former prices being due to a terrible
drought in England. Oxen in the period 1583-1703 were worth 75s.
instead of under £1 in the period 1400-1540. Wool was from 9d. to 1s.
a lb. instead of about 3-1/2d., and all other farm products increased
with these.[215] Hops were from 1540-1582 about 26s. 8d. a cwt., and
from 1583-1700, 82s. 9-1/2d. In 1574 Reynold Scott published the first
English treatise on hops,[216] in which he says, 'one man may well
keep 2,000 hils, upon every hil well ordered you shall have 3 lb. of
hoppes at the least, one hundred pounds of these hoppes are commonly
worth 26s. 8d., one acre of ground and the third part of one man's
labour with small cost beside, shall yield unto him that ordereth the
same well, fortie marks yearly and that for ever,' an optimistic
estimate that many growers to-day would like to see realized. 'In the
preparation of a hop garden', says the same writer, 'if your ground be
grasse, it should be first sowen with hempe or beanes which maketh the
ground melowe, destroyeth weedes, and leaveth the same in good season
for this purpose.[217] At the end of Marche, repayre to some good
garden to compound with the owner for choice rootes, which in some
places will cost 5d. an hundredth. And now you must choose the biggest
rootes you can find, such as are three or four inches about, and let
every root be nine or ten inches long, and contain three joints.'
Holes were then to be dug at least 8 feet apart, one foot square, and
one foot deep, and in each two or three roots planted and well hilled
up. Tusser, however, recommended them much closer:
'Five foot from another each hillock should stand,
As straight as a levelled line with the hand.
Let every hillock be four foot wide.
Three poles to a hillock, I pas not how long,
Shall yield the more profit set deeplie and strong.'
Three or four poles were to be set to each hill 15 or 16 feet long,
unless the ground was very rich, the poles 9 or 10 inches in
circumference at the butt, so as to last longer and stand the wind
well. After they were put up, the ground round the poles was to be
well rammed. Rushes or grass were used for tieing the hops. During
the growth of the hops, not more than two or three bines were to be
allowed to each pole; and after the first year the hills were to be
gradually raised from the alleys between the rows until, according to
the illustrations in Scott's book, they were 3 or 4 feet high, the
'greater you make your hylles the more hoppes you shall have upon
your poals'. When the time for picking came, the bines when cut were
carried to a 'floore prepared for the purpose', apparently of
hardened earth, where they were stripped into baskets, and Scott
thought that 'it is not hurtfull greatly though the smaller leaves be
mingled with the hoppes'. In wet weather the hops were to be stripped
in the house. The fire for drying hops was of wood, and some dried
their hops in the sun, both processes to us appearing very risky; as
the first would be too quick, and the latter next to impossible in
September in England. They were sometimes packed in barrels, as
Tusser tells us, 'Some close them up drie in a hogshead or vat, yet
canvas or sontage (coarse cloth) is better than that.'
By this time England had largely changed from a corn-growing to a
stock-raising country; Harrison, writing in the middle of Queen
Elizabeth's reign, says, 'the soile of Britaine is more inclined
to feeding and grazing than profitable for tillage and bearing of
corne ... and such store is there of cattle in everie place that the
fourth part of the land is scarcely manured for the provision of
graine.' But this statement seems exaggerated. We know that by
Harrison's time enclosures had affected but a small area, and the
greater part of the cultivated land was in open arable fields. The
yield of corn was now much greater than in the Middle Ages; rye or
wheat well tilled and dressed now produced 15 to 20 bushels to the
acre instead of 6 or 8, barley 36 bushels, oats 4 or 5 quarters[218],
though in the north, which was still greatly behind the rest of
England, crops were smaller. No doubt this was partly due to the
much-abused enclosures: the industrious farmer could now do what he
liked with his own, without hindrance from his lazy or unskilful
neighbour. Tusser's preference for the 'several' field is very
decided; comparing it with the 'champion' or common field he says:--
The countrie inclosed I praise
the tother delighteth me not,
There swineherd that keepeth the hog
there neetherd with cur and his horne,
There shepherd with whistle and dog
be fence to the medowe and corne,
There horse being tide on a balke
is readie with theefe for to walke,
Where all things in common doth reste
corne field with the pasture and meade,
Tho' common ye do for the best
yet what doth it stand ye in steade?
More plentie of mutton and beefe
corne butter and cheese of the best
More wealth any where (to be briefe)
more people, more handsome and prest (neat.)
Where find ye? (go search any coaste)
than there where enclosure is most.
More work for the labouring man
as well in the towne as the fielde.
For commons these commoners crie
inclosing they may not abide,
Yet some be not able to bie
a cow with her calf by her side.
Nor laie (intend) not to live by their wurke,
But thievishly loiter and lurke.
What footpaths are made and how brode
Annoiance too much to be borne,
With horse and with cattle what rode
is made thorowe erie man's come.
But the rich graziers boasted that they did not grow corn because
they could buy it cheaper in the market; and they are said to have
traded on the necessity of the poor farmer to sell at Michaelmas in
order to pay his rent, and when they had got the corn into their
hands they raised the price. The corn-dealers of the time were looked
upon with dislike by every one; many of the dearths then so frequent,
and nearly always caused by bad seasons, were ascribed to 'engrossers
buying of corn and witholding it for sale'. By a statute of 1552 the
freedom of internal corn trade was entirely suppressed, and no one
could carry corn from one part of England to another without a
licence, and any one who bought corn to sell it again was liable to
two months' imprisonment and forfeited his corn. Although we shall
see that this policy was reversed in the next century, the feeling
against corn-dealers survived for many years and was loudly
expressed during the Napoleonic war; indeed, we may doubt if it
is extinct to-day.
Many of the fruits and garden produce, which had been neglected since
the first Edward, had by now come into use again, 'not onlie among the
poor commons, I meane of melons, pompions, gourds, cucumbers,
radishes, skirets (probably a sort of carrot), parsneps, carrots,
cabbages, navewes (turnip radishes (?)), turnips,[219] and all kinds
of salad herbes, but also at the tables of delicate merchants,
gentlemen, and the nobilitie.'[220]
'Also we have most delicate apples, plummes, pears, walnuts, filberts,
&c., and those of sundrie sorts, planted within fortie years past, in
comparison of which most of the old trees are nothing worth: so have
we no less store of strange fruite, as abricotes, almonds, peaches,
figges, cornetrees (probably cornels) in noblemen's orchards. I have
seen capers, orenges, and lemmons, and heard of wild olives growing
here, besides other strange trees.'[221]
As a proof of the growth of grass in proportion to tillage between
the fourteenth and sixteenth centuries, Eden gives several
examples,[222] of which the following are significant:--
Arable. Grass.
acres. acres.
1339. 18 messuages in Norfolk had 160 60
1354. a Norfolk manor 300 59
1395. 2 messuages in Warwickshire 400 60
1560. 2 messuages in Warwickshire 600 660
1567. a Norfolk estate 200 400
1569. " manor 60 60
'Our sheepe are very excellent for sweetness of flesh, and our woolles
are preferred before those of Milesia and other places.'[223] So
thought Harrison and many English landowners and farmers too, so that
legislation was powerless to stop the spread of sheep farming. In 1517
a commission of inquiry instigated by Wolsey held inquisition on
enclosures and the decay of tillage, and it seems to have been the
only honest effort to stop the evil. It was to inquire what decays,
conversions, and park enclosures had been made since 1489, but the
result even of this attempt was small. In 1535 a fresh statute, 27
Hen. VIII, c. 22, stated that the Act limiting the number of sheep to
be kept had only been observed on lands held of the king, whereon many
houses had been rebuilt and much pasture reconverted to tillage; but
on lands holden of other lords this was not the case, therefore the
king was to have the moiety of the profits of such lands as had been
converted from tillage to pasture since 4 Hen. VII until a proper
house was built and the land returned to tillage; but the Act only
applied to fourteen counties therein enumerated. The enclosing for
sheep-runs still went on, however, often with ruthless selfishness;
houses and townships were levelled, says Sir Thomas More, and nothing
left standing except the church, which was turned into a sheep-house:
'The towns go down, the land decays,
Of corn-fields plain lays,
Great men maketh nowadays
A sheepcot of the church',
said a contemporary ballad.
Latimer wrote, 'where there were a great many householders and
inhabitants there is now but a shepherd and his dog.' 'I am sorie to
report it,' says Harrison,[224] 'but most sorrowful of all to
understand that men of great port and countenance are so far from
suffering their farmers to have anie gaine at all that they themselves
become graziers, butchers, tanners, sheepmasters, and woodmen, thereby
to enrich themselves.' The Act against pulling down farmhouses was
evaded by repairing one room for the use of a shepherd; a single
furrow was driven across a field to prove it was still under the
plough; to avoid holding illegal numbers of sheep flocks were held in
the names of sons and servants.[225] The country swarmed with heaps of
miserable paupers, 'sturdy and valiant' beggars, and thieves who,
though hanged twenty at a time on a single gallows, still infested all
the countryside, their numbers being swollen by the dissolution of the
monasteries and the breaking up of the bands of retainers kept by the
great nobles.
Rents also were rising rapidly. Latimer's account of his father's farm
is too well known to be again quoted; his opinions were shared by all
the writers of the day. Sir William Forrest, about 1540, says that
landlords now demand fourfold rents, so that the farmer has to raise
his prices in proportion, and beef and mutton were so dear that a poor
man could not 'bye a morsell'. 'Howe joyne they lordshyp to
lordshyppe, manner to manner, ferme to ferme. How do the rych men, and
especially such as be shepemongers, oppresse the king's people by
devourynge their common pastures with the shepe so that the poore are
not able to keepe a cowe, but are like to starve. And yet when was
beef ever so dere or mutton, wool now 8s. a stone.
'Now', says another, later in the century, 'I can never get a horse
shoed under 10d. or 12d., when I have also seen the common pryce was
6d. And cannot your neighbour remember that within these thirty years
I could bye the best pigge or goose that I could lay my hand on for
four pence which now costeth 12d., a good capon for 3d. or 4d., a hen
for 2d., which now costeth me double and triple.'[226]
Parliament, of course, tried to regulate the price of food; an Act of
1532, 24 Hen. VIII, c. 3, ordained that beef and pork should be 1/2d.
a lb. and mutton and veal 5/8d. a lb. The decrease in the number of
cows also received its attention; 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 3,
states that forasmuch of late years a great number of persons have fed
in their pastures sheep and cattle with no regard to breeding, so that
there was great scarcity of stock, therefore for every 60 sheep kept
one milk cow shall be kept, and for every 120 sheep one calf shall be
bred, and for every 10 head of horned cattle shall be kept one milk
cow, and for every two cows so kept one calf shall be bred. The Act
was to last seven years, but 13 Eliz. c. 25 made it perpetual.
In 1549 came the rising of Robert Kett in Norfolk, the last attempt of
the English labourer to obtain redress of his wrongs by force of arms,
though Kett himself belonged to the landlord class and took the side
of the people probably by accident. The petition of grievances drawn
up by his followers aimed at diminishing the power of lords of manors
as regards enclosures, the keeping of dove-cots, and other feudal
wrongs. 'We pray', said the insurgents, 'that all bondmen may be made
free, for God made all free with His precious blood-shedding.' The
rebellion came to nothing, and some of the abuses at which it was
aimed were dying a natural death, though enclosure often acted hardly
on the poor man.
The manorial system went on steadily decaying, and by this time the
demesne lands had much diminished in area on most manors. Many parcels
had been sold to the new landlord class, who had made their fortunes
in the towns and, like most Englishmen, desired to become country
gentlemen.
Much of the demesne had been sold in small lots to well-off tradesmen,
and as the villeins had become copyholders a large part of the land
was owned or occupied by yeomen or tenant farmers, who cultivated from
20 to 150 acres. Many of the labourers also owned or rented cottages
with 4 or 5 acres attached to them. Such was the rural society at the
end of the Tudor period. The progress of enclosures helped to destroy
this, for the labourers gradually ceased to own or occupy land, farms
increased in size, the ownership of land came to be more and more the
privilege of the rich, and people flocked in increasing numbers to the
towns.[227a] In five Norfolk manors in Elizabeth's time only from
one-seventh to one-tenth was in demesne, and little of what was left
was farmed by the lord, but let to farmers on leases.[227b] On some
manors the demesne land lay in compact blocks near the manor house; on
others it was in scattered strips of various size; in others it lay in
blocks and strips. The following particulars of a manor in Norfolk
give a good picture of an estate in 1586-8, the tenants on it, their
rank, and the size of their holdings:--
Horstead with Staninghall, 2,746 acres.
The tenants with messuages in the village were:--
Acres.
1. J. Topliffe, gentleman 280
2. F. Woodhouse, Esquire 270
3. R. Ward, gentleman 265
4. H. Shreve 180
5. A. Pightling, widow 120
6. W. Rose's heirs 110
7. G. Berde 60
8. A. Thetford, gentleman 60
9. T. Pightling 60
10. R. Pightling 60
11. J. Rose 40
12. R. Lincoln 40
13. W. Jeckell 20
14. W. Bulwer 20
15. E. Newerby, gentleman 15
16. T. Barnard 12
17. E. Sparke 10
There were also 12 tenants without houses, holding from 1 to 20
acres; the demesne was 230 acres; there were two glebes containing 84
acres, and town lands of 7 acres. The waste amounted to 350 acres,
which by 1599 had all disappeared.
On this manor the houses were not collected together in a village as
usual in most parts of England, but scattered about the estate. In
two other manors the amount of waste remaining at this period was
very small, but in three others little had been 'approved' and much
consequently remained; most of the 'approvements', where made, seem
to have been of long standing, and all the enclosures made were for
tillage, not for grass as we should expect. The 350 acres of waste
that remained at Horstead in 1586-8 was enclosed in 1599 by agreement
between the lords of the manor and the tenants on the following
terms:--
1. Lords to take 80 acres in severalty.
2. Lords to reserve all rights to treasure trove, minerals,
waifs, &c., with right of entry to take the same.
3. All rights of pasture, shack, and foldage were to be
extinguished on all lands in the village.
4. The tenants were to pay an annual quit rent of £7 14s. 5d.
for their shares of the common.
Before a man enclosed he consolidated his holding by exchange, so as
to bring it into a compact parcel instead of scattered strips, a very
lengthy process; then he ploughed up the bounds between the strips;
after which he changed the direction of the ploughing, ploughing the
land crossways, a very necessary change, as it had all been ploughed
lengthways for centuries; and lastly he erected his fences: the
bounds of the strips, however, were sometimes left to show which were
freehold and which copyhold. On the other hand, there were exceptions
to the curtailment of the demesne: on an Oxfordshire manor of the
sixteenth century the greater part of the 64 yard-lands of which it
consisted had by then passed from the possession of the peasants to
the private use of the lord of the manor.[228] To each yard-land
belonged a house and farmyard, 24 to 28-3/4 acres of arable land, a
share in the commonable meadows which for each occupier came to some 8
acres, also the right to turn out 8 oxen or cows, or 6 horses and 40
sheep on to the common pasture. Probably, as in other manors in
ancient times, each occupier had a right to as much firewood as was
necessary, and timber for building purposes and fences. The arable
land lay in numerous small plots of half an acre each and less,
mingled together in a state of great confusion, and was farmed on the
four-field system--wheat, beans, oats, fallow--though 200 years before
the three-field system had been most common in the district. Many of
the common arable fields evidently often contained, in those days of
poor cultivation and inefficient drainage, patches of boggy and poor
land which were left uncultivated.[229] In the rolls of the Manor of
Scotter in Lincolnshire, in the early part of the sixteenth century,
no one was to allow his horses to depasture in the arable fields
unless they were tethered on these bad spots to prevent them wandering
into the growing corn.[230] Many of the other regulations of this
manor throw a flood of light on the farming of the day. In 1557 it was
ordered that no man should drive his cattle unyoked through the
corn-field under a penalty of 3s. 4d. Every man shall keep a
sufficient fence against his neighbour under the same penalty. No man
shall make a footpath over the corn-field, the penalty for so doing
being 4d. Every one shall both ring and yoke their swine before S.
Ellen's Day (probably May 3), under a penalty of 6s. 8d., the custom
of yoking swine to prevent them breaking fences being common until
recent times. It was the custom in some manors to sow peas in a plot
especially set apart for the poor. Another rule was that no one should
bake or brew by night for fear of burning down the flimsy houses and
buildings. The penalty for ploughing up the balks which divided the
strips, or meere (marc) furrows as they were called in Lincolnshire,
was 2d., a very light one for so serious an offence. In 1565 a penalty
of 10s. was imposed on Thomas Dawson for breaking his hemp, i.e.
separating the fibre from the bark in his large open chimney on winter
nights, a habit which the manor courts severely punished owing to the
risk of fire, for hemp refuse is very inflammable. It 1578 it was laid
down that every one was to sow the outside portion of their arable
lands, and not leave it waste for weeds to the damage of his
neighbours; and that those who were too poor to keep sheep should not
gather wool before 8 o'clock in the morning, in reference to the
custom of allowing the poor to pick refuse wool found on bushes and
thorns, and this rule was to prevent them tearing wool from the sheep
at night under that pretext. No man was to keep any beasts apart from
the herdsman, for if the herdsman did not know the animals he could
not tell them from strays. Every one was to sweep their chimney four
times a year, for fear of sparks falling on the thatch. No man was to
suffer the nests of crows or magpies in his ground, but pull them down
before May Day. In the meadows, before each man began to mow his grass
he was to mark the exact limits of his own land with 'wadsticks' or
tall rods, so that there could be no mistake as to boundaries. The
health of the community and of the live stock also received attention:
in 1583 one Pattynson was fined 1s. for allowing a 'scabbed' horse to
go on the common; dead cattle were to be buried the day after death,
and all unwholesome meat was to be buried.
Harrison praises the farmer of his day highly: 'the soyle is even now
in these oure dayes growne to be much more fruitfulle; the cause is
that our country men are grown more skilful and careful throwe
recompense of gayne.' He was also doing well by means of his skill and
care; and in spite of the raising of rents by the much-abused
landlords; for in former times 'for all their frugality they were
scarcely able to live and pay their rents on rent day without selling
a cow or a horse'. Such also used to be their poverty, that if a
farmer went to the alehouse, 'a thing greatly used in those days,' and
there, 'in a braverie to show what store he had, did caste downe his
purse and therein a noble or 6 shillings in silver unto them, it was
very likely that all the rest could not lay downe so much against it.'
And In Henry's time, though rents of £4 had increased to £40, £50, or
£100, yet the farmer generally had at the end of his term saved six or
seven years' rent, besides a 'fair garnish of pewter on his cupboard',
and odd vessels, also 'three or four feather beds, so manie coverlids
and carpets of tapestry, a silver salt, a bowle for wine, and a dozzen
of spoones to furnish up the sute'. His food consisted principally of
beef, and 'such food as the butcher selleth', mutton, veal, lamb,
pork, besides souse, brawn, bacon, fruit, fruit pies, cheese, butter,
and eggs.[231] In feasting, the husbandman or farmer exceeded,
especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such other
meetings, where 'it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and
spent'. But, besides these, there were many poorer farmers who lived
at home 'with hard and pinching diet'. Wheaten bread was at this time
a luxury confined to the gentility, the farmer's loaf, according to
Tusser, was sometimes wheat, sometimes rye, sometimes mastlin, a
mixture of wheat and rye, though the poorer farmer on uninclosed land
ate bread made of beans.
The poor ate bread of rye or barley, and in time of dearth of beans,
peas, and oats, and sometimes acorns.[232] According to Tusser, the
labourer was allowed roast meat twice a week,
'Good plowmen looke weekly of custom and right,
For roast meate on Sundaies, and Thursdaies at night';
and Latimer calls bacon 'the necessary meate' of the labourer, and it
seems to have been his great stand-by then as now. The bread and bacon
were supplemented largely by milk and porridge.[233] The statute, 24
Hen. VIII, c. 3, says that all food, and especially beef, mutton,
pork, and veal, 'which is the common feeding of mean and poor
persons.' was too dear for them to buy, and fixed the price of beef
and pork at 1/2d. a lb. and of mutton and veal at 5/8d. a lb.; but the
statute, like others of the kind, was of little avail, and the price
of beef was in the middle of the sixteenth century about 1d. a lb. or
8d. in our money. As the average price of wheat at the same date was
14s. a quarter, or about 112s. in our money, fresh meat was
comparatively much cheaper, and it is no wonder that even the farmer
could not afford wheaten bread regularly. Moryson, writing in
Elizabeth's reign, says 'Englishmen eate barley and rye brown bread,
and prefer it to white as abiding longer in the stomeck and not so
soon digested'.[234]
A tithe dispute at North Luffenham in Rutlandshire throws considerable
light on the financial position of the various classes interested in
the land about 1576. At the trial several witnesses were examined, who
all made statements as to the amount of their worldly wealth, and it
is a noteworthy fact that even the humblest had saved something;
perhaps because there was no poor law or State pension fund to
discourage thrift.[235] Thomas Blackburne, a husbandman, who had
served his master as 'chief baylie of his husbandrie', had at the end
of a long life saved £40. Another, William Walker, eighty years of
age, during forty years of service to Mr. John Wymarke had put by £10.
Robert Sculthorp, who had at one time been a farmer, was worth £26 6s.
8d., but the size of his farm is unfortunately not told us. Roland
Wymarke, a gentleman farmer, who had farmed for forty years at North
Luffenham, was little better off than Thomas Blackburne, the baylie,
for he estimated his capital at £50. £50, however, must not be taken
as representing the average wealth of a 'gentleman', though a few
hundred pounds was then considered a considerable fortune. In 1577
Thomas Corny, a prosperous landlord at Bassingthorpe, Lincolnshire,
had a house with a hall, three parlours, seven chambers, a high
garret, maid's garret, five chambers for yeomen hinds, shepherd, &c.,
two kitchens, two larders, milk-house, brew-house, buttery, and
cellar; and it was furnished with tables, carpets, cushions, pictures,
beds, curtains, chairs, chests, and numerous kitchen and other
utensils, besides a quantity of plate, which was then looked upon not
only as a useful luxury but as a safe form of investment. The small
squire was not nearly so well off as this. In 1527 the house of John
Asfordby, who was of that degree, contained a hall, parlour, small
parlour, low parlour, a chamber over the parlour, gallery chamber,
buttery, and kitchen, and furniture was scanty, but the plate cupboard
was well filled.[236] A prosperous yeoman was often comparatively
better off than the small squire. Richard Cust, of Pinchbeck in the
same county, though his house was small, consisting only of a hall,
parlour with chamber over, kitchen with chamber over, brew-house,
milne-house (mill-house), and milk-house, was richer in furniture,
possessing a folding-table, 4 chairs, 6 cushions, 27 pieces of pewter,
10 candlesticks, 4 basins, 1 laver, 6 beds, and other articles.[237]
FOOTNOTES:
[215] See table at end, and Thorold Rogers's prices in Vol. V. of his
great work.
[216] 'A perfite platforme of a Hoppegarden', in _Arte of Gardening_,
by R. Scott, 1574.
[217] Tusser recommends that the hopyard be dug. Thomas Tusser was
born in Essex, about 1525, and died in 1580. He led a roving life,
which included a good deal of farming; but the statement that he died
poor appears to be inaccurate. Much of his advice is not very
valuable.
[218] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, p. 110.
[219] Usually grown in gardens, until the middle of the seventeenth
century. Tusser also mentions them.
[220] _Description of Britain_, ii. 324 (Furnivall ed.).
[221] Harrison, _Description of Britain_, ii. 329.
[222] _State of the Poor_, i. 48-9. Blomefield's _Norfolk_, iv. 569,
i. 51, i. 649. Dugdale, _Warwickshire_, p. 557.
[223] _Description of Britain_, iii. 5.
[224] _Description of Britain_ (ed. Furnivall), ii. 243.
[225] Froude, _History of England_, v. III.
[226] 'A compendious or brief examination of certain ordinary
complaints', quoted by Eden, _State of the Poor_, 1. 119.
[227a] _Transactions of the Royal Historical Society_ (New Series),
xix. 103.
[227b] Ibid. xi. 74 sq.
[228] Nasse, _Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages_, p. 9.
_Archaeologia_, xxxiii. 270.
[229] In the still surviving open fields at Laxton, mentioned above,
there are certain unploughed portions called 'sicks', or grassy
patches, never cultivated.--Slater, _op. cit._ p. 9.
[230] _Archaeologia_, xlvi. 374.
[231] _Description of Britain_, ii. 150.
[232] In the reign of Mary, 'the plain poor people did make very much
of acorns.' Cullum, _Hawsted_, p. 181.
[233] Eden, _State of the Poor_, i. 116.
[234] _Itinerary_, iii. 140.
[235] _Rutland Magazine_, i. 64.
[236] _Victoria County History: Lincolnshire_, ii. 331.
[237] See _Records of Cust Family_, i. 56.