HENRY HALLAM

1777-1859

HUNTING, TILLAGE AND TRADE IN THE MIDDLE AGES

THE favourite diversions of the Middle Ages, in the intervals of war, were those of hunting and hawking. The former must in all countries be a source of pleasure; but it seems to have been enjoyed in moderation by the Greeks and Romans. With the Northern invaders, however, it was rather a predominant appetite than an amusement; it was their pride and their ornament, the theme of their songs, the object of their laws, and the business of their lives. Falconry, unknown as a diversion to the ancients, became from the fourth century an equally delightful occupation. From the Salic and other barbarous codes of the fifth century to the close of the period under our review, every age would furnish testimony to the ruling passion for these two species of chase, or, as they were sometimes called, the mysteries of woods and rivers. A knight seldom stirred from his house without a falcon on his wrist, or a greyhound that followed him. Thus are Harold and his attendants represented in the famous tapestry of Bayeux. And, in the monuments of those who died anywhere but on the field of battle, it is usual to find the greyhound lying at their feet, or the bird upon their wrists. Nor are the tombs of ladies without their falcon; for this diversion, being of less danger and fatigue than the chase, was shared by the delicate sex.

It was impossible to repress the eagerness with which the clergy, especially after the barbarians were tempted by rich bishoprics to take upon them the sacred functions, rushed into these secular amusements Prohibitions of councils, however frequently repeated

produced little effect. In some instances a particular monastery obtained a dispensation. Thus that of St. Denis, in 774, represented to Charlemagne that the flesh of hunted animals was salutary for sick monks, and that their skins would serve to bind the books in the library. Reasons equally cogent, we may presume, could not be wanting in every other case. As the bishops and abbots were perfectly feudal lords, and often did not scruple to lead their vassals into the field, it was not to be expected that they should debar themselves of an innocent pastime. It was hardly such, indeed, when practised at the expense of others. Alexander III., by a letter to the clergy of Berkshire, dispenses with their keeping the archdeacon in dogs and hawks during his visitation. This season gave jovial ecclesiastics an opportunity of trying different countries. An archbishop of York, in 1321, seems to have carried a train of two hundred persons, who were maintained at the expense of the abbeys on his road, and to have hunted with a pack of hounds from parish to parish. The third council of Lateran, in 1180, had prohibited this amusement on such journeys, and restricted bishops to a train of forty or fifty horses.

Though hunting had ceased to be a necessary means of procuring food, it was a very convenient resource, on which the wholesomeness and comfort, as well as the luxury of the table depended. Before the natural pastures were improved, and new kinds of fodder for cattle discovered, it was impossible to maintain the summer stock during the cold season. Hence a portion of it was regularly slaughtered and salted for winter provision. We may suppose that, when no alternative was offered but these salted meats, even the leanest venison was devoured with relish. There was somewhat more excuse therefore for the severity with which the lords of forests and manors preserved the beasts of chase, than if they had been considered as merely objects of sport. The laws relating to preservation of game were in every country uncommonly rigorous. They formed in England that odious system of forest

laws which distinguished the tyranny of our Norman kings. Capital punishment for killing a stag or wildboar was frequent, and perhaps warranted by law, untilthe charter of John. The French code was less severe, but even Henry IV. enacted the pain of death against the repeated offence of chasing deer in the royal forests. The privilege of hunting was reserved to the nobility till the reign of Louis IX., who extended it in some degree to persons of lower birth.

This excessive passion for the sports of the field pròduced those evils which are apt to result from it; a strenuous idleness, which disdained all useful occupations, and an oppressive spirit toward the peasantry. The devastation committed under the pretence of destroying wild animals, which had been already protected in their depredations, is noticed in serious authors, and has also been the topic of popular ballads. What effect this must have had on agriculture, it is easy to conjecture. The levelling of forests, the draining of morasses, and the extirpation of mischievous animals which inhabit them, are the first object of man's labour in reclaiming the earth to his use; and these were forbidden by a landed aristocracy, whose control over the progress of agricultural improvement was unlimited, and who had not yet learned to sacrifice their pleasures to their avarice.

These habits of the rich, and the miserable servitude of those who cultivated the land, rendered its fertility unavailing. Predial servitude indeed, in some of its modifications, has always been the great bar to improvement. In the agricultural economy of Rome, the labouring husbandman, a menial slave of some wealthy senator, had not even that qualified interest in the soil which the tenure of villenage afforded to the peasant of feudal ages. Italy, therefore, a country presenting many natural impediments, was but imperfectly reduced into cultivation before the irruption of the barbarians. That revolution destroyed agriculture, with every other art, and succeeding calamities during five or six centuries left the finest regions of Europe

unfruitful and desolate. There are but two possible modes in which the produce of the earth can be increased; one by rendering fresh land serviceable; the other by improving the fertility of that which is already cultivated. The last is only attainable by the application of capital and of skill to agriculture; neither of which could be expected in the ruder ages of society. The former is, to a certain extent, always practicable whilst waste lands remain; but it was checked by laws hostile to improvement, such as the manorial and commonable rights in England, and by the general tone of

manners.

Till the reign of Charlemagne there were no towns in Germany, except a few that had been erected on the Rhine and Danube by the Romans. A house with its stables and farm-buildings, surrounded by a hedge or enclosure, was called a court, or, as we find it in our law-books, a curtilage; the toft or homestead of a more genuine English dialect. One of these, with the adjacent domain of arable fields and woods, had the name of villa or manse. Several manses composed a march; and several marches formed a pagus, or district. From these elements, in the progress of population, arose villages and towns. In France undoubtedly there were always cities of some importance. Country parishes contained several manses or farms of arable land around a common pasture, where every one was bound by custom to feed his cattle.

The condition even of internal trade was hardly preferable to that of agriculture. There is not a vestige perhaps to be discovered for several centuries of any considerable manufacture; I mean, of working up articles of common utility to an extent beyond what the necessities of an adjacent district required. Rich men kept domestic artisans among their servants; even kings, in the ninth century, had their clothes made by the women upon their farms; but the peasantry must have been supplied with garments and implements of labour by purchase; and every town, it cannot be doubted, had its weaver, its smith, and its currier. But

there were almost insuperable impediments, to any extended traffic; the insecurity of movable wealth, and difficulty of accumulating it; the ignorance of mutual wants; the peril of robbery in conveying merchandise, and the certainty of extortion. In the domains of every lord a toll was paid in passing his bridge, or along his highway, or at his market. These customs, equitable and necessary in their principle, became in practice oppressive, because they were arbitrary, and renewed in every petty territory, which the road might intersect. Several of Charlemagne's capitularies repeat complaints of these exactions, and endeavour to abolish such tolls as were not founded on prescription. One of them rather amusingly illustrates the modesty and moderation of the landholders. It is enacted that no one shall be compelled to go out of his way in order to pay toll at a particular bridge, when he can cross the river more conveniently at another place. These provisions, like most others of that age, were unlikely to produce much amendment. It was only the milder species, however, of feudal lords who were content with the tribute of merchants. The more ravenous descended from their fortresses to pillage the wealthy traveller, or shared in the spoil of inferior plunderers, whom they both protected and instigated. Proofs occur, even in the later periods of the Middle Ages, when government had regained its energy, and civilisation had made considerable progress, of public robberies systematically perpetrated by men of noble rank. In the more savage times, before the twelfth century, they were probably too frequent to excite much attention. It was a custom in some places to waylay travellers, and not only to plunder, but to sell them as slaves, or compel them to pay ransom. Harold, son of Godwin, having been wrecked on the coast of Ponthieu, was imprisoned by the lord, says an historian, according to the custom of that territory. Germany appears to have been, upon the whole, the country where downright robbery was most unscrupulously practised by the great. Their castles, erected on almost inaccessible heights