[1451] Calculations are difficult and may be misleading, not only because of the variability of medieval measures, but also because of the varying strength of beer. Mr Steele, the Chief Inspector of Excise, has been good enough to inform me that a bushel of unmalted barley weighing 42 lbs. would yield about 19·5 gallons of beer at 58°. The figures from St. Paul’s seem to point to a strong brew, since they apparently derive but 8 gallons from the bushel of mixed grain. The ordinances of cent. xiii. (Statutes, i. 200, 202) seem to suppose that, outside the cities, the brewer, after deducting expenses and profit, could sell 8 to 12 gallons of beer for the price of a bushel of barley. If we suppose that the bushel of barley gives 18 gallons, the man who drinks his gallon a day consumes 20 bushels a year, and when the acre yields but 6 bushels of wheat, it will hardly yield more than 7 of barley. There is valuable learning in J. Bickerdyke, The Curiosities of Ale, pp. 54, 106, 154.
[1452] As to both meat and drink see Ine 70, § 1; T. 460, 468, 471, 473, 474; E. 118; Æthelstan, II. 1. § 1; D. B. i. 169, rents of the shrievalty of Wiltshire. Attempts to measure the flood of beer break down before the uncertain content of the amber, modius, sextarius, etc. In particular I can not believe that the amber of ale contained (Schmid, p. 530; Robertson, Hist. Essays, 68) 4 of our bushels; but, do all we can to reduce it, the allowance of beer seems large.
[1453] D. B. ii. 162 b: Cheltenham and King’s Barton.
[1454] D. B. i. 205. The abbot of Peterborough is bound to find pasture for 120 pigs for the abbot of Thorney. If he can not do this, he must feed and fatten 60 pigs with corn (de annona pascit et impinguat 60 porcos).
[1455] Walter of Henley, 13. Every week each ox is to have 31⁄2 garbs of oats, and 10 garbs would yield a bushel.
[1456] Now-a-days the average acre in England will produce about 29 bushels of wheat or 40 of oats. Agricultural Returns, 1895, pp. 66, 70.
[1458] Rogers, op. cit. i. 51.
[1459] Clearly so in some cases. See e. g. the first entry in Inq. Com. Cant. The teams of lord and villeins having been mentioned, we then read that the ‘pecunia in dominio’ consists of so many pigs, sheep, etc. Moreover, if all the cattle not of the plough were enumerated under the title animalia, there would not be nearly enough to renew the number of beasts of the plough. Again, when the capacity of the wood is stated in terms of the pigs that it will maintain, the number thus given will in general vastly exceed the number of pigs whose existence is recorded. Lastly, we see that at Crediton (iv. 107) where the lord has but 57 pigs, he receives every year 150 pigs from certain porcarii, whose herds are not counted. Throughout Sussex the lord takes one pig from every villein who has seven (i. 16 b). See also Morgan, op. cit. 56.