e 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.

CHAPTER X

1540-1600

LIVE STOCK.--FLAX.--SAFFRON.--THE POTATO. THE ASSESSMENT OF WAGES

The cattle and sheep of this period have generally been described as
poor animals, and no doubt they would seem small to us. To Jacob
Rathgib, a traveller, writing in 1592, they seemed worthy of praise:
'England has beautiful oxen and cows, with very large horns, low and
heavy and for the most part black; there is abundance of sheep and
wethers, which graze by themselves winter and summer without
shepherds.' The heaviest wethers, according to him, weighed 60 lb. and
had at the most 6 lb. of wool, a much heavier fleece than is generally
ascribed to them; others had 4 or 5 lb. Horses were abundant, and,
though low and small, were very fleet; the riding horses being
geldings and generally excellent. Immense numbers of swine were in the
country, 'larger than in any other.' Six years later another
traveller, Hentzner, noticed that the soil abounded with cattle, and
the inhabitants were more inclined to feeding than ploughing. He saw,
too, a Berkshire harvest-home: 'As we were returning to our inn (at
Windsor) we happened to meet some country people celebrating their
harvest-home, their last load of corn they crown with flowers, having
besides an image richly dressed by which