In short, through all the centuries down to the middle of the eighteenth, it might have been affirmed, in the words which Richard Carew used of his own county of Cornwall: “For meate, draught, and plowing, Oxen; for carriage and riding, horses[1262].”
But there must have been exceptions, perhaps even a little more numerous than the foregoing paragraph would seem to imply. Fitzstephen, who, about the year A.D. 1174, wrote a short account of the city of London, describes a market at which one could buy all kinds of commodities, and he remarks, incidentally, “Stant ibi aptae aratris, trahis, et bigis equae” (There stand the mares, fit for the plough, the sledge, and the cart)[1263]. Letters written in A.D. 1222 to Ralph de Nevil, Bishop of Winchester, contain repeated requests for “mares to draw the carts” which were to convey marl to the fields[1264]. The employment of mares for draught is directly at variance with their early heathen allocation to the priestly body, one instance of which was given on p. 436 supra. This old usage does not, of course, imply that all mares were reserved for the priests: moreover, traditions respecting such animals were doubtless fading away. But to return to our subject: the evidence adduced is sufficient to prove that horses were partly employed in agriculture during the Norman and Plantagenet periods. Moreover, Walter de Henley, writing not later than A.D. 1250, advised the farmers of his day to plough with two oxen and two horses, “if the ground is not so stony that the oxen cannot help themselves with their feet” (si la tere ne seyt si perouse ke buefs ne se pussent eyder des pes)[1265]. As already noted, this plan was followed in Yorkshire, Hampshire, and Dorsetshire until modern times. When all exceptions are allowed for, however, the broad fact remains, that the bullock was the main beast of draught during the earlier periods of English history. Even in the Yorkist and Lancastrian periods, horses, we are assured, were hardly ever used for field-work[1266]. They carried corn to the mill or the market on their backs[1267], and they served the packman on his journeys through the country. In the fields the ox was master.
Concerning the number of oxen which were grouped to form a team, usage has varied. The Domesday terms bearing on the subject have caused much controversy. Canon Isaac Taylor argued that eight oxen made up the team[1268]. This view is supported by Dr J. H. Round, and, to some extent, by Professor Vinogradoff and Professor Seebohm. The last-named authority believes that eight oxen, yoked four abreast, made up the full manorial plough-team at the time of Domesday, as well as in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He admits, however, that the villains had apparently smaller ploughs, with about four oxen to the team ([Fig. 89]). He also cites records to show that, occasionally, the plough-team consisted of ten or twelve oxen. Mr W. de Gray Birch contends that the number was four, and that four bullocks were the equivalent of two horses[1269].
Fig. 89. Ploughing in the eleventh century. From MS. Anglo-Saxon Calendar, early eleventh century. (Strutt.) It will be observed that the team consists of four animals. Other illuminated manuscripts also tend to support Mr de Gray Birch’s theory.
Fortunately, there are precise statements extant respecting the Mediaeval practice. In the Cartulary of Rievaulx Abbey (founded A.D. 1132) eight is given as the number of the full team or “draught”: “Idem etiam monachi habebunt in eadem pastura quatuor carrucatas boum, unamquamque de viii bobus[1270].” A team of eight was also known on the high road, as we learn from the rhyming Life of St Cuthbert (c. A.D. 1450). We find the following description of the conveyance of a huge beam to Durham Abbey:
“It was of eight oxen draght (= draught),
It was in a wayne wraght[1271]” (= worked, put).
This quota was, however, often exceeded. A great bell, cast in London, was brought to Durham on a truck:
“Oxen twenty and twa
War drawand this bell full thra[1272]” (= vigorously).