Byways in British Archaeology

ox, is slain and buried under the foundations of the pagan temple. By and by, the skull, representing the most mysterious and sacred part of the animal, is considered to be sufficient by itself. Instead of being uniformly hidden under the building, it is built into the wall or placed in a specially constructed recess. The depositories are not confined to one part of the building. At a later date, a purely practical interpretation is assigned to the skulls. Secular architects, or architects not versed in the mystic lore of their heathen fathers, become prone to substitute an urn or a jar for the skull. The early Christians, adapting, it may be, the old pagan site, and actuated either by necessity or diplomacy, at times prudently permit the old rite and custom. The two practices run side by side, but the motive is weak, and ultimately becomes debatable. Then springs up the explanation that skulls and jars alike are used to produce sonorous beauty, and on this our modern theory is based. Nevertheless, these perversions of the original purpose have not been everywhere co-eval; we have seen, for example, that the architects of the Coliseum had reached the structural stage of the idea, and evidently turned the principle to good account.

Folk-memory weakens according to the degree of civilization and in response to outside influences. As, on the one hand, the imperfectly hollow horse skull is supplanted by jars, vases, and urns; so, on the other, an ox-skull becomes a mere ornament on the frieze of a Roman Doric building. Again, certain builders, apparently misled by the earthenware vessels, and connecting them with traditions or actual experiences of urn-burial, employ a modification of such vessels as pure ornament. The story has several parts. The mingling of the symbolic and the utilitarian idea is difficult to unravel, hence there is room for much speculation, and need for some suspension of final judgement.

CHAPTER XI

“THE LABOUR’D OX”

Commencing with the “county of broad acres,” we find that Arthur Young speaks of having seen many oxen in harness between York and Beverley in the year 1768. Waggons were drawn by two oxen and two horses; for tillage, oxen alone were deemed more serviceable[1244]. A little later, in 1788, Marshall gives a somewhat different testimony. Oxen were still preferred for drawing farm carriages and timber waggons along the roads in the Vale of Pickering, but not a single ox was left at field work[1245]. Near Whitby, however, bullocks were attached to the plough so late as 1826[1246], and for hauling stones from the quarry, in 1858[1247]. A single team was still engaged in quarry work in 1895[1248].

Coming to the neighbouring county of Lincoln, draught oxen were still employed near Brigg in 1853[1249], and five years later the writer’s father saw a plough-team in regular work at North (or Nun) Ormsby, near Louth. The particulars from the Midlands touch more recent times. For Stratford-on-Avon the last recorded year is 1895[1250]. A friend noticed a team at work near Oxford, in 1881, and I have a record from Helmdon (Northants), for 1902. At Hockliffe, near Luton, in Bedfordshire, oxen were constantly employed by an eccentric farmer who died so recently as 1909. The feature was, however, admittedly an anachronism: the farmer in question would not use machinery, and was, in other respects, a follower of old-world customs.

The West Country supplies records for the year 1895; in the Vale of Pewsey it is asserted that more ox-teams than horse-teams were seen at the plough in that year, though the ox was not used for road-work. In 1909 I could not find a single team; inquiries showed that the year 1897 or 1898 must have marked the change over, so that either there must have been an abrupt reversal of custom, or, more probably, the statement with respect to the year 1895 was incorrect. There, as in Dorset, red and white Herefords represented the breed most in favour[1251]. An eye-witness reports a team from East Ilsley (Berks.), for 1906. During the years 1887-8, I occasionally saw oxen ploughing on the Cotswolds, and, a few years previously, Devonshire farmers still chose bullocks for heavy land.

Labouring oxen were not uncommon in Hampshire and Dorsetshire about twenty years ago. Two oxen were yoked to the plough, while, to increase the speed, a horse was attached as leader. The case of Essex is peculiar. One is bound to believe that bullock labour was formerly as common in that county as elsewhere, nevertheless Arthur Young informs us that the Essex farmers of the eighteenth century ridiculed Lord Clare’s introduction of oxen to his estate at Braintree. It was only when the experiment resulted in a great saving of money as compared with the general expenditure on horse-labour that the example was reluctantly copied. Young says that the importation of the oxen from Gloucestershire, where Lord Clare had purchased them “with all their geers,” was “a stroke of agriculture most unusual in Essex.” On one occasion, a waggon drawn by horses became “sett” in the village. The horses were taken off, “and the oxen clapt too (sic), who to the amazement to the beholders, drew it out in triumph[1252].” One cannot help thinking that the popularity of horse-labour around Braintree was a chronological inversion, applicable only to a limited area. At whatever period introduced, working oxen remained in the Essex districts of Romford and Ilford until the year 1830[1253], and probably later. In the sister county of Kent, bullocks were worked near Tunbridge Wells until the year 1886[1254].

It is to the county of Sussex, however, that we must look for the lingering exploitation of ox-labour. During the summer of 1908, remembering what I had witnessed about twenty years previously, I made careful inquiries about the disuse of working-oxen by Sussex farmers. The result proved that two teams at least were still under the yoke, one at Housedean Farm, Falmer, and the other, which I did not actually see, at Itford Farm, near Rodmell, a few miles North of Newhaven. The latter team has now been disbanded. In February, 1910, Dr W. Heneage Legge, of Ringmer, informed me that teams could still be seen daily near Brighton. Later, in August of that year, I found a single team retained—for sentimental reasons, probably—at Exceat New Barn, near West Dean. The Falmer cattle are black, long-horned animals, apparently of Welsh breed. The old Sussex red cattle are no longer employed. The oxen are not shod at the present day, though it is but a few years since the custom was abandoned. This is a point to which we shall return. At Pyecombe and Pangdean, bullocks were last worked, and shod, about eight years since. “A few years ago,” was the answer given at Saddlescombe, and again at Sompting. At Steyning, the blacksmith had not shod oxen for twenty years, nor had his brother craftsman of Ditchling treated bullocks for a decade or more. Here the details may stop; it is perhaps well that they should be given, as an aid to the future historian.

But what of the past? For it is practically certain that from the earliest historical times onwards to the eighteenth century the ox was pre-eminently, nay, almost entirely, the beast which was yoked to cart, plough, and harrow. There were, it is true, some exceptions, to be noted in a moment. The old illuminated manuscripts show pictures of oxen only, and the famous embroidery known as the Bayeux “tapestry” furnishes similar evidence. The animals there shown as attached to the plough, whether they represent oxen, horses, or asses, are very different from the finely drawn horses exhibited throughout the rest of the tapestry[1255]. Until the eighth century, as was stated in Chapter X., the horse was often used for food, and it was likewise kept for the saddle. Thus we may say that, while the hunter, the warrior, and the pilgrim claimed the horse for riding, the husbandman in the field was content to use the ox for draught.

The language of Domesday Book corroborates the testimony of the early manuscripts. In general, the records of that remarkable survey indicate that a painstaking assessment was taken of farming stock. The terms used in the minute inventories are extremely suggestive. The amount of land which an ox could till is called an “oxgang” or “bovata” (Lat. bos, bovis = an ox + ata). A bovata, originally “one ox’s worth,” was half a “jugum,” “a pair’s worth” (Lat. jugum = a yoke), and a quarter of a carucata (post-classical Latin, car(r)uca = a four-wheeled carriage; cf. root quatuor, whence the word was later applied to a plough, possibly because it was drawn by four oxen, or, by extension, two yoke of oxen, four abreast)[1256]. Recollections of early Mediaeval literature will emphasize the truth of our proposition. In the “Vision of William, concerning Piers the Plowman” (c. A.D. 1377), it was doubtless an ox-team which ploughed the “half-acre.” Again, in the writings of Bartholomew Anglicus (cir. A.D. 1260), there is a description of the duties of Bubulcus, the ox-herd. “He feedeth and nourisheth oxen, and bringeth them to leas and home again; and bindeth their feet with a langhaldes [M. E. langelen = to bind together; langel, lanzel = a rope or hopple] and spanells [= fetters; cf. Germ. Spannseil = a tether] and nigheth and cloggeth them while they be in pasture and leas, and yoketh and maketh them draw at the plough: and pricketh the slow with a goad, and maketh them draw even. And pleaseth them with whistling and with song, to make them bear the yoke with the better will for liking of melody of the voice.” The oxen not only “ear” (= plough) the ground, but thresh the corn by treading: Bartholomew also speaks of their use in “treading the flour[1257].” The trivial round of the ox-herd’s labours may be completed from an Old English dialogue of the eleventh century, in which the garthman is made to say: “I stand over [the oxen], waking against thieves: and then again in the early morning I betake them, well filled and watered, to the plowman[1258].” A like story is told in the anonymous “Seneschaucie,” or “The Office of Seneschal” (temp. Edw. I.), wherein it is stated that ox-herds must sleep with their oxen to guard them[1259]. If we pass by a few centuries, we get, in a passage from Shakespeare, an allusion to the traffic in draught oxen at the great fairs of England. Shallow inquires of Silence, “How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford fair[1260]?” And moving forward again, we have Robert Burns singing thus:

In short, through all the centuries down to the middle of the eighteenth, it might have been affirmed, in the words which Richard Carew used of his own county of Cornwall: “For meate, draught, and plowing, Oxen; for carriage and riding, horses[1262].”

But there must have been exceptions, perhaps even a little more numerous than the foregoing paragraph would seem to imply. Fitzstephen, who, about the year A.D. 1174, wrote a short account of the city of London, describes a market at which one could buy all kinds of commodities, and he remarks, incidentally, “Stant ibi aptae aratris, trahis, et bigis equae” (There stand the mares, fit for the plough, the sledge, and the cart)[1263]. Letters written in A.D. 1222 to Ralph de Nevil, Bishop of Winchester, contain repeated requests for “mares to draw the carts” which were to convey marl to the fields[1264]. The employment of mares for draught is directly at variance with their early heathen allocation to the priestly body, one instance of which was given on p. 436 supra. This old usage does not, of course, imply that all mares were reserved for the priests: moreover, traditions respecting such animals were doubtless fading away. But to return to our subject: the evidence adduced is sufficient to prove that horses were partly employed in agriculture during the Norman and Plantagenet periods. Moreover, Walter de Henley, writing not later than A.D. 1250, advised the farmers of his day to plough with two oxen and two horses, “if the ground is not so stony that the oxen cannot help themselves with their feet” (si la tere ne seyt si perouse ke buefs ne se pussent eyder des pes)[1265]. As already noted, this plan was followed in Yorkshire, Hampshire, and Dorsetshire until modern times. When all exceptions are allowed for, however, the broad fact remains, that the bullock was the main beast of draught during the earlier periods of English history. Even in the Yorkist and Lancastrian periods, horses, we are assured, were hardly ever used for field-work[1266]. They carried corn to the mill or the market on their backs[1267], and they served the packman on his journeys through the country. In the fields the ox was master.

Concerning the number of oxen which were grouped to form a team, usage has varied. The Domesday terms bearing on the subject have caused much controversy. Canon Isaac Taylor argued that eight oxen made up the team[1268]. This view is supported by Dr J. H. Round, and, to some extent, by Professor Vinogradoff and Professor Seebohm. The last-named authority believes that eight oxen, yoked four abreast, made up the full manorial plough-team at the time of Domesday, as well as in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. He admits, however, that the villains had apparently smaller ploughs, with about four oxen to the team (Fig. 89). He also cites records to show that, occasionally, the plough-team consisted of ten or twelve oxen. Mr W. de Gray Birch contends that the number was four, and that four bullocks were the equivalent of two horses[1269].

Fortunately, there are precise statements extant respecting the Mediaeval practice. In the Cartulary of Rievaulx Abbey (founded A.D. 1132) eight is given as the number of the full team or “draught”: “I[i]dem etiam monachi habebunt in eadem pastura quatuor carrucatas boum, unamquamque de viii bobus[1270].” A team of eight was also known on the high road, as we learn from the rhyming Life of St Cuthbert (c. A.D. 1450). We find the following description of the conveyance of a huge beam to Durham Abbey:

This quota was, however, often exceeded. A great bell, cast in London, was brought to Durham on a truck:

By a curious coincidence, twenty-two was the strength of the ox-teams which formerly drew timber along the proverbially wretched roads of Sussex[1273]. Mr R. E. Prothero tells us that

in the eighteenth century from eight to ten went to a plough. A trace of these large teams may be seen, he asserts, in the old crooked ridges visible on grass lands. The enormous length of the team, together with the use of unwieldy ploughs, necessitated the allowance of a vast width of head-row on which to turn (Fig. 90), hence there was a marked deflection or curvature of the furrow[1274]. The furrow, in fact, took the form of a flat reversed S[1275]. The Lincolnshire tradition says that only the tops of the ridges were cultivated, and that the oxen were attached to each end of a long pole, which stretched across the “land.” Thus yoked the animals walked along the grass in the furrow. How the ridges and furrows were originally formed we are not told. Rham says that the old-fashioned plough was drawn by six oxen, and that barely half an acre was turned in a summer’s

day[1276]. Youatt recommended two pair of oxen to a plough; he considered the ancient method of using four pair unnecessary[1277]. The modern Sussex team commonly, but not always (Fig. 91), consists of six or eight oxen. Eight was also the usual number in Northumberland. Something, of course, depended upon the mode of harnessing the animals. A case is recorded, in which a country clergyman, departing from the common practice of attaching bullocks to the plough by means of a yoke, adopted Arthur Young’s advice and used collars, with the result that five oxen, harnessed according to the latter mode, would do the work of eight in yokes (i.e. paired), with equal ease[1278]. The yoke which was used in Sussex until quite recent years was a curved wooden beam about 5 feet long, 4 inches thick, and 6 inches deep. Near the extremities were light oval hoops made of ash, about 1½ inches in thickness. These hoops passed round the necks of the oxen, and then went through the thickness of the

yoke[1279]. One of these yokes lay outside the blacksmith’s shop at Rodmell, when I visited the village in 1910. Through the kindness of Dr W. Heneage Legge, I am enabled to give an illustration of a Sussex ox-yoke (Fig. 92). A Lincolnshire specimen, over a century old, now in the Museum at Louth, is shown for the sake of comparison (Fig. 93). In Fitzherbert’s time (A.D. 1534) the hoops were known as ox-bows. It would appear, from a casual remark made by Rham, that the yoke was sometimes fixed across the horns[1280]. We may note, by parenthesis, that the team sometimes carried bells; one of these was discovered under the ruins of the tower of Ringmer church (Sussex). The tower fell at some period between the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries, and it is supposed that oxen had been employed to remove the fallen stones[1281].

Of the various kinds of plough which have been in use for ox-labour, a treatise might be written. What surprises the student most, is the persistent crudeness of these implements down to a very late period. In the grounds of Lewes Castle there is to be seen a specimen of the old Sussex plough (Fig. 94). This dilapidated relic, which belongs to the authorities of the County Museum hard by, is probably a century and a half old, and originally came from Northease Farm, near Rodmell. The plough is 12 feet long, and its two wheels are each about 2 feet in diameter. The hubs and spokes are of wood, and are clumsily fixed to a narrow iron tire, which is circular in cross-section. This feature may be observed to-day in some of the ploughs of the neighbourhood, and the method of attachment of the spokes is nearly as primitive in the modern implements. The mouldboard of this cumbrous old plough is a semi-conical iron-plate, and the coulter—a cutting instrument, according to theory—is a heavy bar of wood with one edge a little narrowed. One may be sure that the Mediaeval plough was of still ruder design. The Saxon and Roman ploughs (Fig. 95), drawn by oxen, are of an extremely simple pattern.

Opinions have always differed as to the age when a bullock’s services are most valuable. A Sussex steward informed me that the age for commencing work was 4 years, and that the ox would continue to be of use for seven or eight years afterwards. Another account gave the starting age as 2½ years, and the working period from three to five years. Youatt cautiously remarks that the working life varies with the breed[1282]. The Yorkshire plan was to “break in” the animal at the age of 2 or 3 years, and work it till it was rising 6 years; but Marshall, while agreeing with the “harness age” just given, contends that the beast might be worked until it was from 15 to 20 years old, when it would be in its prime[1283]. He adduces this instance: “An ox which I worked several years in Surrey, might at 17 or 18 years old, have challenged, for strength, agility, and sagacity, the best bred cart-horse in the kingdom.”

It will prevent confusion if we pause to note that the terms “ox” and “bullock” are properly applied to castrated males of the species after the age of 4 years; up to that age the animals are known as “steers[1284],” or “stirks.” The distinction, however, need not be made in the present survey.

When the ox was no longer of service in the field, it was fattened, and, wherever the food was of a generous kind, the beef, we are assured, was not especially tough. “Besides,” as an old Sussex peasant once remarked to the writer, “we a’nt all on us got bad teeth, zur.” A more decided opinion was that of a Newhaven butcher, who averred that he always used to consider the beef of ploughing oxen a special dainty for the consumption of himself and friends[1285]. And in general, the countryfolk of old acted on the advice of the Hebrew proverb: “If the ox fall, whet your knife.” Worn-out oxen were doubtless a great boon. In Mediaeval England, fresh beef was consumed chiefly by the nobles and the wealthy corporations, and by them only during a few months of the year. Many bullocks were, indeed, killed and salted in November, when provender had become scarce, but these represented grass-fed cattle. It is estimated that only a very small proportion of the whole herd was fattened for the table[1286]. Sir Anthony, or as he was termed Maister Fitzherbert, who has already been cited, describes the position of the husbandman very ingenuously: “And if any sorance (= injury, sore, disease) come to an oxe, [and he] waxe old, broysed (= bruised) or blinde, for ii. s. he may be fedde, and thanne he is mannes meate, and as good or better then euer he was. And the horse, whan he dyethe, is but caryin[1287].” Horseflesh, in Fitzherbert’s day, had long been discarded as human food. (See supra, pp. 437-8.)

Among the reasons which led to the selection of the ox, rather than the horse, for dragging the plough or hauling sledges laden with farm produce, was the comparative cheapness of the keep of the former animal. During summer, the ox was mainly fed on grass, which was supplied by the common pasture. Winter found the poor beast living on a scanty diet of straw, with occasional meals of chaff. Therefore the yeoman who had only a few acres of land, with access to a waste or common, or the squire who possessed sufficient pasture to supplement his arable fields, discovered that bullocks formed the more economical team[1288]. Rogers estimates that the cost of keeping a horse between October 18th and May 3rd, during which term it could not graze, was nearly four times that of an ox[1289]. Again, beast for beast, the bullock was deemed to have proportionately a greater capacity for draught, that is, the strength of an ox was utilized to better advantage when the animal was put in traces, though for carrying burdens the horse was superior. The assumption seems always to have been that two oxen could, in the mean, drag as much as a good cart-horse. Though slow, the ox was surefooted, and on the old, undrained fallows it was invaluable, because its hoofs spread out as it tramped along. Not indeed that all breeds of this creature are invariably sluggish. The trotting bullocks of India are familiar to most folk, and Youatt relates that a British ox ran four miles on Lewes racecourse in sixteen minutes[1290]. Walter de Henley actually asserts that the ox is as quick at its work as the horse, but the context shows that this statement must be interpreted in a peculiar manner—he is comparing oxen with horses which are “pulled” by sullen, prejudiced workpeople. “Besides,” so runs the comment, “a plough of oxen will go as far in a year as a plough of horses, because the malice of ploughmen (la malyce des charuers) will not allow the plough [of horses] to go beyond their pace, no more [distance] than the plough of oxen (aler hors del pas nent ke la charue des buefs)[1291].”

Generalizations respecting such a subject as ox-labour must obviously, however, be accepted under reserve. The problem is not really simple. Arthur Young prepared elaborate tables to show the relative values of ox-labour and horse-labour, as applied to different soils under varying conditions[1292]. The balance of opinion, as expressed by Young’s calculations, is in favour of the ox[1293], but there are some important conclusions in a contrary sense. Fitzherbert anticipated Young’s verdict, though his assigned reason seems to indicate that he was parrying a difficult question. “For in some places an oxen-ploughe is better than a horse-plough, and in somme places a horse-plough is better[1294].” Oxen are preferable, he tells us, where there exist pastures into which the animals can be put on their return from work. Horses are better when the team has to be “teddered” on leas and balks (= unploughed, grassy strips), though, in practice, strange to say, they were not usually so tethered. A more cogent plea for the bullock is appended to this somewhat weak reason: “And oxen wyl plowe in tough cley, and upon hylly grounde, where-as horses wyll stande st[i]ll[1295].” This explanation carries weight, for it is on a steep hill slope that the superiority of the ox-team was always best seen. After the teachings of Jethro Tull, Lord Coke, and James Smith of Deanston, had borne fruit, and farmers had begun to drain their land, the horse came into serious competition with the ox. Even then, however, a cause which had, all along, operated against the horse, continued for some time to exercise a partial influence. This cause lay in the fact that too little attention had been paid to horse-breeding, but so soon as this art began to be practised, and powerful draught horses were, in consequence, developed, the change of system began in earnest. An illuminating piece of evidence was afforded when the transition was taking place in Italy. The husbandmen in the neighbourhood of Rome, copying French and English customs, abandoned ox-labour, but they had not learnt how to rear horses strong enough for heavy field-work, and much cruelty resulted from the change[1296].

Another reason for the preference given to cattle requires careful examination. Mr W. J. Corbett, relying apparently on Walter de Henley and Fitzherbert, states that the ox did not require shoeing[1297], and that thus expense was saved. It may be doubted whether this cause was ever generally active. The custom of shoeing oxen seems to be very ancient. There is no obvious reason for disbelieving that the iron object found by General Pitt-Rivers at Rushmore, in Cranborne Chase, was, as the discoverer supposed, a Romano-British ox-shoe (Fig. 96 C). It was of crescentic shape, widened at one extremity, slightly concave on the upper side, and measured 3⅖ × 1⅛ inches[1298]. There is the possibility, of course, that it was part of a horseshoe, but that alternative is not so likely. The question of the existence of horseshoes in Roman times has been dealt with in the preceding chapter. It must be noted, on the one hand, that other objects of about the same age as the Rushmore example, found in association with Roman remains in ash-pits at Dorchester and Silchester, and in the Cam valley, have been considered

horseshoes[1299]. (Cf. details given on p. 424 supra.) Against this may be set a few scraps of evidence which support the correctness of Pitt-Rivers’s determination—assuming that the two opinions clash—an assumption which must not be made unless one has the opportunity of comparing the various objects. First, we learn from ancient writers like Pliny that the ancients shod, or at least bandaged, the hoofs of injured camels with woven or plaited hemp[1300]. They were also often shod with strong ox-leather[1301]. (Cf. Information about horseshoes, p. 423 supra.) Roman mules, and therefore, presumably, horses and oxen, were shod with iron when they had to cross miry places, or when pomp and display required some ornamentation of the team. The shoes were, indeed, ill-fastened, and were often lost in the stiff clay[1302]. If, in view of facts like these, we feel disposed to allow that the Rushmore plate was really an ox-shoe, then there follows a strong presumption that the custom of shoeing bullocks was never altogether given up. That “vis inertia” of social habit, which so impressed Palgrave[1303], and the continuity which arose from that condition, are nowhere more noticeable than in the history of agriculture.

We turn to re-examine the Mediaeval authors already mentioned. On their writings, partly, one supposes, Thorold Rogers based his statement that “Oxen were shod, though the shoe is [was] far cheaper than that of the horse[1304].” Unless, however, Rogers is basing his assertion on writers other than De Henley and Fitzherbert, whom he frequently quotes, it is obvious that he has misread his authorities. De Henley, in explaining his preference for ox-teams, says that “if the horse must be shod” it will cost “each week more or less a penny in shoeing[1305].” We may fairly infer, then, that De Henley does not sanction the shoeing of bullocks, and is a little doubtful about horses. Fitzherbert’s objection, again, to horse-labour is that the animal must be “well shodde on all foure feete[1306].” This assertion, standing by itself, might be taken to imply that cattle were shod on two feet only—the fore ones. All dispute, however, is removed by Fitzherbert himself, a little later; speaking of oxen, he definitely tells us, “And they haue no shoes, as horses haue[1307].” Neither can I find any allusion to the shoeing of oxen in “Grosseteste’s Rules” (c. A.D. 1240), nor in the “Seneschaucie,” which was probably written about half a century later.

In spite of this negative evidence, one may be bold enough to suppose that such a careful writer as Thorold Rogers did not go seriously astray in this matter, and that he had somewhere met with references to the custom in Mediaeval works. There exists, in fact, some corroborative testimony, because it is asserted by one who speaks from personal investigation, that in a fifteenth century will, made in the city of York, a certain man is described as an “ox-shoer[1308].” This takes us back beyond Fitzherbert’s days. Two centuries later than the York evidence, in the years 1666 and 1667, there are clear records of payments for shoeing oxen in the Northern counties[1309]. Thus there is a fair case to be put for the prevalence of the custom locally for the last four or five centuries. Evidently not all oxen were shod. Without doubt, too, the practice differed according to the county or district. Recalling, then, the conservatism of agricultural methods, there is a possibility that the custom has never been altogether in abeyance since the Roman period. The evidence against the former shoeing of cattle might be advanced equally to show that horses were not shod, at least, universally. De Henley’s “if” indicates that the custom was not without its exceptions, just as some modern equestrians like Mr W. S. Blunt are exceptional in their opposition to the shoeing. Nor is Mr Blunt’s doctrine without ancient precedent and parallel among modern primitive folk. The Jews of Palestine, in the time of Isaiah, did not shoe their horses, believing that this breach of custom—if it were indeed a breach—would ensure hoofs “like flint[1310].” This was a great advantage in warfare, comparable, in the opinion of the prophet, to the strong man’s possession of sharp arrows and chariot wheels swift as the whirlwind. As to present practice, the Arabs, the Tartars, the Gauchos of the Pampas, allow their horses to go barefooted.

Whatever decision we may reach respecting the Mediaeval custom, more recent records, till within the last few years, afford sufficient testimony of the shoeing of cattle which worked on the farm. The animals were also shod when taken long distances to fairs[1311]. The Sussex tradition is sound on this point, for old drovers still talk of the former usage. Within the last decade the custom of shoeing has been abandoned, at the time when “the labour’d ox” is itself about to disappear. A Sussex farmer told me (1908) that shoeing is unnecessary, save for bullocks working on the “hard road”: if the creature’s feet become tender, it should simply be allowed to rest for a day or two. A second authority puts the matter tersely: “Once begin to shoe, and you have to keep on doing it.” The operation needed some skill. A rope (“girt” or girth) was placed around the neck of the animal, while another cord embraced one fore and one hind leg. Then, by passing the ropes over a beam—evidently by the aid of a pulley block—the beast was thrown on its back. To prevent struggling, a man sat on the bullock’s head and neck. Not unfrequently the long horns would be snapped off by the impact, in such a way that the horn cores and skull were injured. If this were followed by excessive bleeding, the ox had to be slaughtered. Each foot was supplied with two shoes, or, as the Sussex folk term them, “kews,” or “cues”: “You can’t call them shoes, zur; they are like a q,” and the shape of this letter doubtless originated the nickname. The word “cue,” as proved by the English Dialect Dictionary, is common in the Southern and Western counties. Sometimes only the outer toe of each foot was shod, since the exterior edge was believed to get the greatest strain and pressure. The shoes, as we will continue to designate them, are in the form of a rough crescent, or a comma much widened at the head (Fig. 96 A). The nails look like tiny hammers (Fig. 96 B). One relic of folk-custom is curious. Before being driven in, each nail was thrust into “a piece of fat pork,” the belief being that this made the nail enter the hoof more easily; moreover, if the “quick” were accidentally pierced, the hurt would be speedily healed. One blacksmith declared that he was glad when the shoeing of oxen was given up: he did “not want to shoe any more of the vicious creatures.” On the contrary, the aged blacksmith of Ditchling, now long past work, averred that he would rather shoe two bullocks than one horse, although each bullock required eight “cues” with five nails in each (40 nails), as against four horseshoes with 28 nails[1312]. But perhaps this worthy, in his retirement, looked back on his bygone labours through the pleasant haze of years, and remembered only the happy occasions.

The Ditchling blacksmith, however, unconsciously had the support of an authority on cattle, Youatt, who, while of opinion that shoeing was a necessary evil, justifiable only because it increased the speed and endurance of the bullock, declared that the task was not difficult. He alludes, adversely, to a contrivance recommended by Bakewell for aiding the blacksmith. This arrangement, the “trevis” (O. French, traversan = a cross-beam), was apparently some kind of modification of the cross-beam described by the Sussex blacksmith. In the Vale of Pewsey, the ox was placed in a kind of rectangular cage made by fixing horizontal bars in four uprights. The animal’s leg having been fastened to one of the posts, “cueing” was an easy matter—at least, so the Pewsey blacksmith considered. Still another method was to throw the animal on his back, tie his legs, and “hold down his horns with a pitchfork.”

Youatt declares that the trevis is dangerous both to the ox and to the smith. What the bullock suffers from is fear, not natural indocility. Therefore prepare the beast gradually for the ordeal. Often handle him, lift his feet, and strike them gently with the hammer. By and by, as he finds that no harm is done, he will most likely submit meekly to the process of real shoeing. Little skill is required on the part of the artisan, but much patience. There is no weakness of particular parts of the hoof, no “corn,” no tenderness of the frog, no contraction to be studied. One has simply to fit the metal to the sole. The shoe of the hind foot, should be thinner, narrower, and lighter than that of the fore foot; it should also be less curved and more pointed[1313].

If we now inquire why the bullock was, little by little, driven from his old position, we may find it partly in the two improvements already mentioned—the drainage of arable lands, and the evolution of the draught horse. Another reason which has been assigned, was the wild condition of the boundary hedges of fields, which, although now usually trimmed and pleached, had been allowed to straggle wastefully and to increase in height. The consequence was that the horns of the cattle often became entangled when the team turned at the headland; where the branches of hedgerow trees hung low, the risk was still greater. The narrow roads and hollow lanes, too, were frequently so overarched with branches and climbing plants that the Craven breed of cattle, whose horns were a yard in length, were in danger of breaking either their horns or their necks[1314]. During great heat, Mr Stephen Blackmore informs me, the oxen would often fall exhausted in the furrow, while the horses laboured on. Always, too, in hot weather, there was anxiety lest the team, being attacked by flies, should become ungovernable, and, dragging the plough over ridge and furrow, dash madly for the nearest thicket or pond, to the dismay and peril of the ploughman. Such are some of the causes which are supposed to have wrought the revolution, but surely these reasons must have been effective long before the actual change came. Another factor, more operative one would think, was the improvement made in the construction of ploughs, which now became lighter and more manageable. Roads, also, received greater attention. Trackways of soft clay, responsive to the cloven hoof, were superseded by metalled roads and rough causeways of limestone, “in all seasons unfriendly to the feet of oxen[1315].” We thus see that it needed a strong set of forces to break the bond of tradition concerning draught oxen. For some decades, it is true, the horse and the ox continued to be allies in farm work, but the partnership was virtually dissolved about the time when the leas were visited by the