The name is absent

almost ludicrous understatement of the probable
amount¹, we give each householder forty quarters
of cereals, at the very lowest, and deducting his
seed-corn and the public taxes, we still leave him a
very large amount. The average annual consump-
tion of wheat per head in England is now computed
at one quarter : let us add one half to compensate
for the less nutritious qualities of barley, and we
shall yet be under the mark if we allow our house-
holder at the close of the year, a net receipt of thirty
quarters, or food for at least twenty persons. Add
to this the cattle, and especially swine fed in the
forests,—which paid well for their own keςp, and
gave a net surplus—and the ceorl or owner of one
hide of land, independently of his political rights,
becomes a person of some consideration from his
property² : in short he is fully able to maintain
himself, his wife and child, the ox that ploughs,
and the slave that tends his land,—owning much
more indeed, than, in Hesiod’s eyes, would have
sufficed for these purposes ³. It may be admitted

¹ The fertility of England was always celebrated, and under the
Romans it exported cereals largely. See Gibbon’s calculation of an
export under Julian. Dec. F. cap. xix. Our present average yield of
wheat exceeds 30 bushels or 3∙75 qrs.

² If he had a market for his surplus, he might accumulate wealth.
Even if he had not this, he insured a comfortable, though rude subsist-
ence, for his household. The spur to exertion, urging him to acquire
luxuries, might be wanting, and the national advancement in refine-
ment thus retarded : but he had a sufficiency of the necessaries of life, ’
and an independent existence in the body of the family and the Mark.
Such a state necessarily precedes the more cultivated stages of society.

³        OIKOV pèv πpωτιστa, γvvalκa те, βoiιv τ' apoτηpa.

Cited in Aristot. Polit, bk. i. cap. 1.
The land of a fullborn Spartan may have been somewhat less than the

that the skies of Greece and Italy showered kind-
lier rays upon the Ionian or the Latin than visited
the rough denizen of our Thule ; that less food of
any kind, and especially less meat, was required for
their support¹, and that they felt no necessity to
withdraw large amounts of barley from the annual
yield, for the purpose of producing fermented
liquors ² ; still, as far as the amount of land is con-
cerned, the advantage is incontestably on the side
of the Anglosaxon ; and in this one element of
wealth, our ceorl was comparatively richer than the
comrade of Romulus or the worshipper of Athene.

Saxon hide : but let those who think these amounts too small, remem-
ber the two jugera (ιmder two acres) which formed the Uaeredium of
a Roman patrician.

¹ Hecataeus says the Arcadians fed upon barley-bread and pork,
^,Apκα8<κ0v Se δe⅛vov. .. .'Eκaτau>s. .. .μaζas φησιv tivaι κaι Vfia κpta,
Athen. iv. 148. But the Arcadians, both in blood and manners, pro-
bably resembled the Saxons more than any other Greeks did ; and what
Hecataeus says of them would not apply to the inhabitants of Attica.

² After the Persian wars at least, when the Greeks prided themselves
on drinking wine, not beer :

αλλ" Spatvas τoι τησSt γηs olκητopas
tvpηatτ∖ oυ πIvovras tκ κpιθωv piθv.

Æsch. Supp. 929.

<<   <   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   >   >>