sometimes at a distance by the banks of a stream, were the
meadows, and right round stretched the three open arable fields,
beyond which was the common pasture and wood,[46] and, encircling all,
heath, forest, and swamp, often cutting off the manor from the rest of
the world.

The basis of the whole scheme of measurement in Domesday was the hide,
usually of 120 acres, the amount of land that could be ploughed by a
team of 8 oxen in a year; a quarter of this was the virgate, an eighth
the bovate, which would therefore supply one ox to the common team.
These teams, however, varied; on the manors of S. Paul's Cathedral in
1222 they were sometimes composed of horses and oxen, or of 6 horses
only, sometimes 10 oxen.[47]

The farming year began at Michaelmas when, in addition to the sowing
of wheat and rye, the cattle were carefully stalled and fed only on
hay and straw, for roots were in the distant future, and the corn was
threshed with the flail and winnowed by hand. In the spring, after the
ploughing of the second arable field, the vineyard, where there was
one, was set out, and the open ditches, apparently the only drainage
then known, cleansed. In May it was time to set up the temporary
fences round the meadows and arable fields, and to begin fallowing the
third field.

A valuable document, describing the duties of a reeve, gives many
interesting details of eleventh-century farming:--

'In May, June, and July one may harrow, carry out manure, set
up sheep hurdles, shear sheep, do repairs, hedge, cut wood,
weed, and make folds. In harvest one may reap; in August,
September, and in October one may mow, set woad with a dibble,
gather home many crops, thatch them and cover them over,
cleanse the folds, prepare cattle sheds and shelters ere too
severe a winter come to the farm, and also diligently prepare
the soil. In winter one should plough and in severe frosts
cleave timber, make an orchard, and do many affairs indoors,
thresh, cleave wood, put the cattle in stalls and the swine in
pigstyes, and provide a hen roost. In spring one should plough
and graft, sow beans, set a vineyard, make ditches, hew wood
for a wild deer fence; and soon after that, if the weather
permit, set madder, sow flax seed and woad seed, plant a garden
and do many things which I cannot fully enumerate that a good
steward ought to provide.'[48]

The methods of culti