The Book of Husbandry

by Anthony Fitzherbert

Whan he so delyteth / and taketh pleasure

By his busy labour / mens welth to procure.”

This cannot well be mistaken. It is obvious that Berthelet believed the author to be a nobleman, one who “shewed things to husbands” which he had gained by his own “long experience;” one who wrote out of the “good will and mind that he bare unto the public weal,” thereby proving his “high love and zeal,” in that he delighted “to procure men’s wealth,” i.e. the welfare of others, not his own riches, by means of his “busy labour.” We hence conclude that Berthelet knew perfectly well who the author was; and indeed it would have been strange if he did not, since he was writing in 1523 (while the author was still alive), and subsequently printed both the books of which he is here speaking. He plainly tells us that the author was a nobleman, and merely wrote to benefit others out of pure love and zeal.

But this is not Berthelet’s only allusion to these books. In an edition of the Book of Surveying, printed by Berthelet,[5] there are some remarks by him at the back of the title-page to the following effect. “To the reder. Whan I had printed the boke longyng to a Justice of the peace, togither with other small bokes very necessary, I bethought me vpon this boke of Surueyenge, compyled sometyme by master Fitzherbarde, how good and howe profitable it is for all states, that be lordes and possessioners of landes, ... or tenauntes of the same, ... also how well it agreeth with the argument of the other small bokes, as court-baron, court-hundred, and chartuary, I went in hande and printed it in the same volume that the other be, to binde them al-togither. And haue amended it in many places.”

The mention of “the boke longyng to a Justice of the peace” is interesting, as bringing us back again to Sir Anthony Fitzherbert. “In 1538,” says Mr. Wallis,[6] Robert Redman printed “The newe Boke of Justices of the Peas, by A. F. K. [Anthony Fitzherbert, Knight], lately translated out of French into English, In the yere of our Lord God, M.D.xxxviii. The 29 day of December, Cum priuilegio.”[7] Mr. Hobson’s list (Hist. Ashborne, p. 234) mentions this as “the first work on the subject ever printed,” but this is not the case. Wynkyn de Worde and Copland both printed, as early as 1515, “The Boke of Justices of the Peas, the charge, with al the proces of the Cessyons, Warrants, Superseders, wyth al that longyth to ony justice, &c.” It is not pretended that this was our author’s work; but he improved upon it, as he did also upon the Natura Brevium. In his preface to La Novel Natura Brevium (Berthelet, 1534), he says that the original book was written by a learned man, whom he does not name: and that it was esteemed as a fundamental book for understanding the law. In the course of its translations, and of the alteration of the laws, many things had been retained which were unnecessary, and much desirable matter was omitted. This was what induced him to compose the new one.

Upon this I have to remark, that it is incredible that Berthelet should mention a work which he knew to be by Sir Anthony Fitzherbert in one line, and in the next should proceed to speak of “Master Fitzherbarde” without a word of warning that he was speaking of a different person. The obvious inference is that the author of the Book on Surveying was, in his belief, the same person as the “A. F. K.” who wrote “the boke longyng to a Justice of the peace.” As it is, he takes no trouble about the matter; for he could hardly foresee that any difficulty would thence arise. It is remarkable how frequently writers just stop short of being explicit, because they think that, at the moment of writing, a fact is too notorious to be worth mentioning.

Here the direct external evidence ceases. We now come to consider the internal evidence, which is interesting enough.

In the first place, the author of the Book of Husbandry was also the author of the Book of Surveying, as he tells us explicitly in his prologue to the latter book. But whoever wrote the Book of Surveying must have been a considerable lawyer. It is of a far more learned and technical character than the Book on Husbandry, and abounds with quotations from Latin statutes, which the author translates and explains. In Chap. 1 he says of a certain statute, that, in his opinion, it was made soon after the Battle of Evesham, in the time of Henry III.; and he frequently interprets statutes with the air of one whose opinion was worth having. In Chap, xi., he enlarges upon the mistakes made by lords, knights, squires, and gentlemen who know but little of the law. “They come to the court or sende their clerkes, that can [know] as litle law as their maister or lasse, but that he vnderstandeth a lytell latyn.” At the end of the same chapter, he is deep in law-terms, court-roll, fee simple, fee tayle, franke tenement, and all the rest of it. He then gives numerous forms, all in Latin, to be used by owners who wish to lease, grant, or surrender lands; but only a good lawyer would venture to recommend forms suitable for such important purposes.

Some other points of internal evidence have already been incidentally noticed, such as the author’s familiarity with the mode of life of the rich; his lesson made for “a gentylmans seruaunte”; his readiness to try many ways of farming as an experimentalist who could afford to lose money; and his statement that Latin was no trouble to him. I proceed to notice a few more.