OXEN, COWS AND SHEEP 91
family. If they wished they could make butter and cheese of the
milk, or sell it in the neighbouring vill. Each cow was reckoned
to produce seven stone of cheese and one stone of butter between
May and Michaelmas.1 If we take the average price of seven
stone of cheese to have been about 5$. od. from 1260 to 1400, and
that of a stone of butter at g^d., it is clear that the cash value of a
cow in full milk was considerable, and cows were hired out at
from 5$. to 65. 8d. a year.2
But, as Walter of Henley reminds us, both oxen and cows had
their value as food, and the peasant salted down his ox at
Martinmas, and it undoubtedly provided his main store of flesh
for the winter. It was probably tough and stringy, and lacking in
fat, but he had perforce to make the best of it. Then again the
hides were of the greatest importance, and were probably
tanned in the village, and afterwards used for innumerable pur-
poses both domestic and agricultural. Further, these animals
could always be sold for cash at the local market or elsewhere.
Oxen were worth some 13$. orf. as an average price in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, while cows and bulls fetched
about las. per head.3
After his oxen and cows, the sheep probably gave the peasant
most concern, for while they were not so easily managed nor so
productive as the pig, nor so useful on the farm as the ox, they
were almost a necessity. Their wool, their^kins and their car-
cases were obviously all of prime importance to the peasant in
many ways, and even their milk was used to eke out other
supplies. Hence, although as we have seen, the villagers were
not always allowed to get full value from their sheep, since they
were from time to time folded on the lord's land, and also were
not easily kept in some districts, yet, nevertheless, they were of
sufficient value and importance to form part of almost every
peasant's stock. We may, therefore, picture our imaginary
peasant as striving, year by year, to preserve, or even to enlarge
his small flock, despite the terrible incidence of murrain and the
shortage of feed which were continuously warring against him,
since he could provide but little food for them other than that
1 Op. cit. 77. Cf. p. 27, where Walter of Henley says that 3 cows will only
produce 14 stone (i wey) of cheese between Easter and Michaelmas.
a Rogers, Prices, i, 397, 452. * Ibid, r, 361.