Nooks and Corners of English Life, Past and Present

by John Timbs

OLDEN HARVEST.

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.