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Boox I. AGRICULTURE OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 39 om these operations were performed. Marl seems to have been the chief manure next to i dung, employed by the Anglo-Norman, as it had been by the Anglo-Saxon and British os husbandmen.(M. Paris. Hist. p. 181. In Vit. Abbot. p. 101. col. 1.) Summer- reat fallowing of lands designed for wheat, and ploughing them several times, appears to eS have been a common practice of the English farmers of this period, For Giraldus ally Cambrensis, in his description of Wales, takes notice of it as a great singularity in the is husbandmen of that country,“that they ploughed their lands only once a-year, in March ae or April, in order to sow them with oats; but did not, like other farmers, plough them heir twice in summer, and once in winter, in order to prepare them for wheat.”(Gzral. Cam- act brens. Descript. Cambria, c. viii. p. 887.) On the border of one of the compartments me in the famous tapestry of Bayeux, we see the figure of one man sowing with a sheet about sat his neck, containing the seed under his left arm, and scattering it with his right hand; and and of another man harrowing with one-harrow, drawn by one horse.(Montfaucon, The Monumens de Monarchie Francois, tom. i. plate 47.) In two plates of Strutt’s very cae curious and valuable work(figs. 26, 27.), we perceive the figures of several persons en- ture, at all ed in

gaged in mowing, reaping, threshing, and winnowing; in all which operations there Sa appear to be little singular or different from modern practice.(Strutt’s Complete View <a of the Manners, Customs,&c. of England, vol. i. plates 11, 12.)

fj 208. Agriculture in Scotland seems to have been in a very imperfect state towards the Ay - which end of this period. For in a parliament held at Scone, by king Alexander II. A.D.” > clods.| i) purpose Ei. handles 4 is axe- i's ig the ae without te View k Pi ad two ANT+ AN tl)

WY eae

E Bh: 1214., it was enacted, that such farmers as had four oxen or cows, or upwards, should labor their lands, by tilling them with a plough, and should begin to till fifteen days before Candlemas; and that such farmers as had not so many as four oxen, though they could not labor their lands by tilling, should delve as much with hand and foot as would produce a sufficient quantity of corn to support themselves and their families.(Regiam WS Majestatum, p. 307.) But this law was probably designed for the highlands, and most uncultivated parts of the kingdom. For in the same parliament a very severe law was made against those farmers who did not extirpate a pernicious weed called guide(Chrysan- themum segetum, L.) out of their lands, which seems to indicate a more advanced state of cultivation.(Jd. p. 335.) Their agricul- tural operations, as far as can be gathered 29 from old tapestries and illuminated missals, were similar to those of England.‘Thresh-} ing appears to have been performed by women= /}/~\/ ¢, /) ( fig. 28.), and reaping by the men( fig. 29.), ash lIWy 7, which is the reverse of the modern practice“= AWW in that and in most countries. Such is the account of Henry. (History of Britain, vol. vi. p. 173.): UZ 209. The field culture of the vine, which had been commenced by SS aa the monks for their own use, was more extensively spread by the Normans. William of Malmsbury, who florished in the early part of the twelfth

hem still that are

i04l} Sees j eRe: ; pee century, says, there were a greater number of vineyards in the vale of Gloucester than in woicl D 4 SBR lt ei ce eee a rants—— a== eR