Britain in the Middle Ages: A History for Beginners

by Florence L. Bowman

When Lammastide came, all the freemen kept holiday for joy that harvest time had come.

Now, there was sure to be one man who had more treasure than the others, and oxen perhaps for the plough. It was very hard work trying to plough the fields with less than eight, so the other freemen were glad to borrow the oxen sometimes. But the chief, the rich man, made a bargain, that those who borrowed his oxen should pay him by doing three days' work a week for him in his fields, for they had no money. So, in time, he became lord over them.

Then he made a mill where all the corn should be ground into flour and every man who brought a sackful must pay so many handfuls of flour to the miller for his trouble. Not every village had a mill, so it sometimes happened that men travelled far to make a bargain with the miller, for they found it slow work to grind their own corn between the grindstones at home.

From an old writing[ [1] that we have still, we can find out many things about the peasants, for they tell how they spend their time. The ploughman says: "I work hard. I go out at daybreak driving the oxen to the field and I yoke them to the plough. Be it never so stark winter I dare not linger at home for awe of my lord, but having yoked my oxen and fastened share and coulter, every day I must plough a full acre or more. I have a boy driving the oxen with a goad-iron, who is hoarse with cold and shouting. And I do more also. I have to fill the bins of the oxen with hay, and water them and take out their litter. Mighty hard work it is, for I am not free." The shepherd says: "In the first morning I drive my sheep to their pasture and stand over them in heat and in cold, with my dogs, lest the wolves swallow them up; and I lead them back to their folds and milk them twice a day, and their folds I move, and I make cheese and butter and I am true to my lord."

The oxherd says: "When the ploughman unyokes the oxen, I lead them to pasture and all night I stand over them waking against thieves; and then again in the early morning I betake them, well-filled and watered, to the ploughman."

The King's hunter says: "I braid me nets and set them in fit places and set my hounds to follow up the wild game, till they come unsuspecting to the net and are caught therein, and I slay them in the net. With swift hounds I hunt down wild game. I take harts and boars and bucks and roes and sometimes wild hares. I give the King what I take because I am his hunter. He clothes me well and feeds me and sometimes gives me a horse or an arm-ring that I may pursue my craft merrily."

The fisherman says: "I go on board my boat and cast my net into the river and cast my angle and baits and what they catch I take. I cast the unclean fish away and take the clean for meat. The citizens buy my fish. I cannot catch as many as I could sell, eels and pike, minnows and trout and lampreys. Sometimes I fish in the sea, but seldom, for it is a far row for me to the sea. I catch there herring and salmon, porpoises and sturgeon and crabs, mussels, periwinkles, sea-cockles, plaice and fluke and lobsters and many of the like. It is a perilous thing to catch a whale. It is pleasanter for me to go to the river with my boat than to go with many boats whale-hunting."

The fowler says: "In many ways I trick the birds—sometimes with nets, with snares, with lime, with whistling, with a hawk, with traps. My hawks feed themselves and me in winter, and in Lent I let them fly off to the woods and I catch me young birds in harvest and tame them. But many feed the tamed ones the summer over, that they have them ready again."

The merchant says: "I go aboard my ships with my goods, and go over sea and sell my things and buy precious things which are not produced in this country and bring them hither to you, brocade and silk, precious gems and gold, various raiment and dye-stuffs, wine and oil, ivory, and brass and bronze, copper and tin, sulphur and glass and the like. And I wish to sell them dearer here than I buy them there, that I may get some profit wherewith I may feed myself and my wife and my sons."

While all the village people were busy at their work in the fields, they must have peace and order in the land. Every week, the lord and the freemen met together under the great oak tree to talk about business. If they heard of any evil deed done near their village, the lord rode out at the head of all the men who could ride or run, to find the evil doer, and they searched for miles, shouting "Hi! Hi!" and if they passed through any village, they summoned every freeman to follow in the chase. When the thief was found, he was brought back to his own village, and if he could not find any who would stand by him as "oath helpers," then none would listen to his tale. They said that only the great god could judge, so they prayed that Odin would send a sign. Sometimes, they bound the prisoner hand and foot and threw him into the village pond; if he floated they said, "He is not guilty." Sometimes, they burned the prisoner with hot irons or made him thrust his hand into boiling water; then the wounds were bound up; and if, after three days, they were healed and there was no scar, they said, "He is not guilty." But this did not happen often.