iff's accounts must have taken a
considerable portion of the landlord's time, for those of each manor
were kept most minutely, and set forth, among other items, 'in what
sort he husbanded' the demesne farms, 'what sorts of cattle he kept in
them, and what kinds of graine he yearly sowed according to the
quality and condition of the ground, and how those kinds of graine
each second or third yeare were exchanged or brought from one manor to
another as the vale corne into an upland soyle, and contrarily'. And
we are told incidentally he 'set with hand, not sowed his beanes'. He
was also accustomed to move his live stock from one manor to another,
as they needed it.

The accounts also stated what days' works were due from each tenant
according to the season of the year, and at the end of each year there
was a careful valuation of live and dead stock.[129]

The difference
between the smaller gentry and the more important yeomen[130] who
farmed their own land must have been very slight. No doubt both of
them were very rough and ignorant men, who knew a great deal about the
cultivation of their land and very little about anything else. We may
be sure that the ordinary house of both was generally of wood; as
there is no stone in many parts of England, and bricks were not
reintroduced till the fourteenth century and spread slowly. Even in
Elizabeth's reign, Harrison[131] tells us that 'the ancient houses of
our gentry are yet for the most part of strong timber', and he even
thinks that houses made of oak were luxurious, for in times past men
had been contented with houses of willow, plum, and elm, but now
nothing but oak was good enough; and he quaintly says that the men who
lived in the willow houses were as tough as oak, and those who lived
in the oak as soft as willow. There are very few mansions left of the
time before Edward III, for being of timber they naturally decayed.

In a lease, dated 1152, of a manor house belonging to S. Paul's
Cathedral,[132] is a description of a manor house which contained a
hall 35 feet long, 30 feet broad, and 22 feet high; that is, 11 feet
to the tie beam and 11 feet from that to the ridge board; showing that
the roof was open and that there were no upper rooms. There was a
chamber between the hall and the thalamus or inner room which was 12
feet long, 17 feet broad, and 17 feet high, the roof being open as in
the hall; and the thalamus was 22 feet long, 16 feet broad, and 18
feet high. A