PIERCE THE PLOUGHMAN 185
and an occasional goose1 made the hard day's work bearable.2
Further, they were entitled to a regular issue of corn at intervals
during the year, so that their condition was considerably superior
to that of many of their fellows,3 whose lot, at its worst, no doubt,
is so movingly related to us in the lines of Pierce the Ploughman*s
Crede:
And as I wente be the waie wepynge for sorowe,
(I) seigh a sely man me by opon the plow hongen.
His cote was of a cloute that cary was y-called,
His hod was full of holes and his heer oute,
With his knopped schon clouted full thykke;
His ton toteden out as he the londe treddede,
His hosen overhongen his hokschynes on everiche a side,
Al beslombred in fen as he the plow folwede;
Twey myteynes, as mete maad all of cloutes;
The fyngers weren for-werd and ful of fen honged.
This wight waselede in the fen almost to the ancle,
Foure rotheren hym by-forn that feble were worthen;
Men myghte reknen ich a ryb so reufull they weren.
His wiif walked him with, with a longe gode,
In a cutted cote cutted full heyghe,
Wrapped in a wynwe-schete to weren hire fro weders,
Barfote on the bare iis that the blod folwede.
And at the londes ende lay a litell crom-bolle,
And theron lay a litell childe lapped in cloutes,
Acid tweyne of tweie yeres olde opon a-nother syde,
And alle they songen o songe that sorwe was to heren;
They crieden alle o cry,—a carefull note.
The sely man sighede sore, and seide: "children, beth stille!"
As I went by the way, weeping for sorrow, I saw a poor man hanging
on to the plough. His coat was of a coarse stuff which was called cary;
his hood was full of holes and his hair stuck out of it. As he trod the soil
his toes peered out of his worn shoes with their thick soles; his hose
hung about his hocks on all sides, and he was all bedaubed with mud as
he followed the plough. He had two mittens, made scantily of rough
1 The "rep-goose" appears constantly, as a bonne bouche during the
harvest—probably at the end of the work. See e.g. Cust. Rents, 56;
Cunningham, op. cit. 600; Kettering Compotus, 65, etc.
2 Information kindly supplied by the late W. Hudson and Dr H. W.
Saunders. Cf. Min. Ace. 751/18-21, 843/31, 859/23, 918/3-17, etc.
8 See Rogers, Prices, I, 289, or Six Centuries of Work and Wages, 170, for
his conclusions as to the " income of a first-rate agricultural labourer", which
he takes to be about £i. 15$. 6d. a year inclusive of money payments and
allowances. Compare also with the evidence above, p. 88, concerning the
incomings of a thirty-acre holder.