A _bedrip_, _reaping boon_, or _autumnal precation_, was a more pompous
festival than an _arable precation_. In old times, as in our own, the
Harvest was made a season of merriment, if not of thanksgiving:
"In tyme of harvest mery it is ynough;
The hayward bloweth mery his horn,
In eueryche felde ripe is corn."
_Romance of King Alexander._
In the illustrations of an old Saxon Calendar, in the Cotton Library,
the hayward is shown standing on a hillock, cheering the reapers with
his horn. Slumbering reapers were roused by the sound of a horn in
Tusser's time; and the custom of blowing horns at harvest-time endured
until the end of the last century, for it is noticed by John Scott, of
Amwell. In the thirteenth century, when the rentals were mostly
compiled, the lord was aided in harvest, as in seed-time, by tenants of
all ranks. A superior tenant rarely sent more than two men to the
bedrip, or two men and an _overman_, that is a foreman.
The kindly services rendered to the lord in seed-time and harvest were
otherwise called precations, gifel-works, and love-boons. The days on
which they were rendered used to be called boon-days, and occasionally
love-days: a love-day more commonly meant a law-day, a day set apart for
a leet or manorial court, a day of final concord and reconciliation; as
we read in the _Coventry Mysteries_:
"Now is the love-day mad of us foure fynially
Now may we leve in pes as we were wonte."
Love-boons are described by the Law authorities as "the voluntary labour
of the inhabitants of the neighbouring townships."
The memorable truce between the Yorkists and Lancastrians, in 1458, was
called a love-day.
A customary tenant, in some places, was bound to appear on the grandest
day with his whole family, except the housewife, who stayed at home and
spun; sometimes excepting the nurse as well the mistress. In the
neighbourhood of Oxford, in the year 1279, all the men who held
yard-lands, and all who held half-yard-lands, came to two autumnal
precations, each of them with one man; and to the third precation each
of them with his whole family, excepting his wife and shepherd, and was
regaled by the lord on this third day,--not on the two former days; and
all the customary tenants were obliged to ride beyond the lord's crops,
to see that they were reaped safe and well. They rode in saddles, with
bridles and spurs; if they failed in any part of this equipment, they
were fined. These mounted overseers were called reap-reeves. In the time
of Edward the Third, the tenant of an estate called Fawkner Field was
bound to ride among the reapers in the lord's demesnes, at Isleworth, on
the bederepe day, in autumn, with a sparrow-hawk upon his wrist. The
officers of the court were entitled to a share of the crop. In some
places, the sicklemen received a worksheaf each; each man was expected
to reap half an acre, called a deywine (day-win), or day's labour. In
the accounts of the tenures at Booking, in Essex, there is a curious
estimate of the cost of these autumnal precations. The expense of the
food provided for the reapers is weighed against the value of their
work, and the balance is found to be fivepence and three-farthings.
A yard-lander at Chalgrave, in Oxfordshire, reaped at the two precations
in autumn with all his household but his wife and shepherd; if he
brought three labourers, he walked with his rod, or rode, in front of
the reapers; if he brought no labourers, he worked in person; for two
repasts, at nones, a wheaten loaf, pottage, meat, and salt; at supper,
bread and cheese and beer, and enough of it, with a candle while the
guests were inclined to sit. The last day was always the grand day,
when, at Piddington, the tenants and their wives came with napkins,
dishes, platters, cups, and other necessary things.
In the reign of Henry III., the ploughmen and other officers, at East
Monkton, near Warminster and Shaftesbury, were allowed a ram for a feast
on the Eve of St. John the Baptist, when they used to _carry fire round
the lord's corn_. This form of the Beltane superstition was observed in
the north of England, and in Scotland, about fifty years ago. The
Beltane flourishes at the uttermost ends of Europe, in the Scilly
Islands, and in Russia; and even the main of Madagascar, who holds his
head to other stars, is accustomed to kindle bonfires on the day which
we have dedicated to St. John. We learn from the _Popular Antiquities_
that in our time, in Gloucestershire and Herefordshire, on the eve of
Twelfth Day, fires used to be lit at the ends of the lands, in fields
just sown with wheat.
Tenants in old times were required to cut and clear the lord's
hay-field. A tenant at Bradbury, for one day's mowing, received a meal
of bread and cheese twice in the course of the day; and for carrying the
same meadow, a bundle of hay, for his pains. The mowers also received
among them twelvepence or a sheep, which they were to choose out of the
lord's fold by sight, not by touch. In other places the mower was
allowed as much grass as he could raise up on his scythe, without
breaking its handle; and a haymaker received as much hay as he could
grasp with both arms. At Sturminster, a tenant, after mowing and
carrying, received a knitch of hay,--that is, as much hay as the hayward
could raise with one finger to the height of his knees.
In the year 1308, it was the rule at Borley that the mowers and
haymakers should have two bushels of wheat for bread, a wether worth
eighteenpence, a gallon of butter, the second-best cheese out of the
lord's dairy, salt and oatmeal for their pottage, and the morning's milk
of all the cows; and a mower as much grass as he could lift upon the
point of his scythe. In 1222 they had in common a cheese and a good ram.
A sheep was commonly the reward of work in the hay-field. Old English
husbandmen were very fond of mutton, and the hay-harvest fell about St.
John's Day, when mutton was considered in season.