one hand, or the mitred churchman on the other, to pursue the even tenor of his way, and with calm steadiness and perseverance to carry on that process of extraction for which he had been appointed to his office.
In different countries this system must of course have varied; still the leading features of the operation were undoubtedly the same in all. We are fortunate in being able to form a very accurate notion of what this was from a report drawn up in the year 1338 by the then grand-prior of England, Philip de Thame, to the Grand-Master Elyon de Vilanova.[1] The picture which this document affords of the stewardship of landed property in England in the fourteenth century is most valuable, and a careful study of its contents will give the reader an accurate representation of the position of agriculture in its various branches at that period.
The document is practically a balance sheet of income and expenditure. Let us begin with the income side. In each manor the first item recorded is the mansion, with its kitchen garden and orchard. The house itself was not a source of actual revenue; still, in so far as it obviated the necessity of any payment of rent, it was valuable property. The garden and orchard appear in every instance to have produced somewhat more than was required for the consumption of the household. The amount realized for the excess varied from a few shillings up to nearly a pound, but rarely approaching the latter sum. A further source of profit was the colurnbarium, or dovecote, which in some cases produced as much as thirty shillings, the usual average being from five shillings to half a mark.[2]
Next on the list stands the rent received from amble, meadow, and pasture land. The first varied much iii the different counties. In Lincoln and Kent it ran as high as two shillings
- ↑ This report, which exists in MSS. in the Record Office at Malta, was printed by the Camden Society in the year 1857, under the title of “The Hospitallers in England.” The report was prefaced by a most admirable digest from the pen of the Rev. L. B. Larking, to whose essay the author is indebted for much of the matter contained in the remainder of this chapter. The original MS. is in perfect preservation, and although somewhat difficult to decipher, from its crabbed and contracted Latin, still the writmg is as distinct and clear as on the day when it was first penned.
- ↑ The mark was thirteen shillings and fourpence.
