AGRICULTURAL OPERATIONS 81
with a rhythmic movement of the body: "when as thou walkest
thy left foot be up, let thy right hand cast abroad—and when thy
right foot be up then fling from thy left hand."1 At other times
a kind of apron was worn instead of the seed-lip, and the seed
scattered from this. Peas and beans, on the other hand, were
"dibbled": a small hole was made with a pointed stick, and the
seeds at once dropped in2—a task which, as it seems, was usually
performed by women.
After the sowing came the harrow—" or els crowes, doves, and
other byrdes wyll eate and beare away the cornes"; else, as
Walter of Henley says,' * to pull the corn into the hollow'' which is
between the two ridges.3 The harrow was much as we know it
to-day, if we follow the illustration in the Luttrell Psalter. There
is pictured a solid cross-barred wooden frame with teeth pro-
jecting on its under side.4 It is drawn by a horse, and a boy
follows, scaring off the birds by the use of a sling and stones.5 No
doubt many peasant farmers could not afford so expensive a
thing, and made use of a rude bush-harrow, formed of black-
thorn or whitethorn which was dragged across the ground at the
tail of a horse, and served its purpose reasonably well.6 Some-
1 "But howe to sowe? Put thy pees in-to thy hopper, and take a brode
thonge of ledder, or of garthe-webbe of an elle longe, and fasten it to both
endes of the hopper, and put it over thy heed, lyke a leysshe; and stande in the
myddes of the lande, where the sacke lyethe, the whiche is mooste con-
veniente for the fyllynge of thy hopper, and set tify lefte foote before, and
take an handefull of pees: and whan thou takeste up thy ryghte foote, than
caste thy pees fro the all abrode; and whan thy lefte foot ryseth, than cast
them fro the." This extract from Fitzherbert's Book of Husbandry (1534 ed.),
§ 10, although some two centuries later than our period, no doubt embodies
long-standing country custom.
2 For illustrations see D. Hartley's Thomas Tusser, 57, 97, 130 and her
Life and Work of the People of England, Fourteenth Century, 24 e; Luttrell
Psaltery PL 93.
3 Walter of Henley, 15. 4 Ibid., Plate 94.
5 Cf. Rogers, Prices, I, 540: "In 1334 a sling is bought, to drive away the
birds, with which a boy is armed." In Joan Evans* Medieval France, 28,
is reproduced an illumination of the late fourteenth century, showing the
wooden harrow, and a man with bow and arrow dealing with the birds. For
other pictures see Hartley, Thomas Tusser (1931), 57, 95.
6 A. Neckham, De Utensilibus, 113; Rogers, Prices, I, 540. Thorold
Rogers was quite mistaken in saying (p. 16) "I find no trace of harrowing or
rolling," and again on p. 540: "We cannot conceive that an article like a
harrow could have escaped entry in the accounts had it been in use." There is,
for example, a hersiarius on the Glastonbury Manor of Longbridge (p. 139)
and harrowing is one of the most common of duties. See pp. 81, 87, 91, 96,
100, etc. Cf. Battle Customals, 53.