trations. To-day
oxen can be still seen ploughing in teams of two only. However, about
a hundred years ago, when oxen were in common use, we find teams of 8,
as in Shropshire, for a single-furrow plough, 'so as to work them
easily.' Six hours a day was the usual day's work, and when more was
required one team was worked in the morning, another in the
afternoon.--_Victoria County History: Shropshire, Agriculture_. Walter
of Henley says the team stopped work at three.

[48] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 570.

[49] See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the Cott. MSS.
in Green's _Short History of the English People_, illustrated edition,
i. 155.

[50] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Series, p, 280.

[51] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 307.

[52] Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the
smaller manors is that they were constantly being swallowed up by the
larger.

[53] As some of the common pasture was held in severalty, this may
perhaps have been mown in scarce years. Walter of Henley mentions
mowing the waste, see below, p. 34.

[54] Maitland, _Domesday Book_, 436; _Board of Agriculture Returns_,
1907.

[55] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 310;
Birch, _Domesday_, p. 183.

[56] Maitland, _Domesday Book_. 44; Cunningham, _Growth of Industry
and Commerce_, i. 171; _Domesday of S. Paul_, pp. xliii. and xci.

[57] Cullum, _History of Hawsted_, p. 181.

[58] Rolls Series, ii. 220. According to this, the price of a bushel
of wheat reckoned in modern money was L3 in that year

[59] Ibid. iii. 220.

[60] Holinshed, who is supported by William of Malmesbury in the
assertion that in time of scarcity England imported corn. Matthew
Paris, _Chron. Maj._, v. 673.

[61] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 79.

[62] Jusserand, _English Wayfaring Life_, p. 89.

[63] Gilbert Slater, _The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of
Common Fields_, p. 8.

CHAPTER II

THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY.--THE MANOR AT ITS ZENITH, WITH SEEDS OF DECAY
ALREADY VISIBLE.--WALTER OF HENLEY

In the thirteenth century the manorial system may be said to have been
in its zenith; the description therefore of Cuxham Manor in
Oxfordshire at that date is of special interest. According to
Professor Thorold Rogers[64] there were two principal tenants, each
holding the fourth part of a military fee. The prior of Holy Trinity,
Wa