The Economics of Horses and Oxen in Medieval England By JOHN LANGDON I This state of affairs was reflected in the ESPITE some argument to the con- agricultural treatises of the time, which were btrary,2 it has generally been assumed firm in their preference for the ox, particularly D that the ox was the dominant draught as a plough-beast. The case was put most animal in medieval English farming. 3 This clearly in Walter of Henley's Husbandry, opinion is based mainly on demesne accounts, written towards the end of the thirteenth which show oxen as almost always out- century. 7 Walter admitted a possible ad- numbering horses.4 This is particularly the vantage for the horse in ploughing stony case in the key matter of ploughing, where ground where oxen would tend to slip, but the horse seldom made much impression countered the advantage of speed by saying beyond its inclusion in the mixed plough- that the 'malice' of the ploughmen would not teams of horses and oxen popular on demesnes allow the horse plough to go any faster than if in the south-eastern part of the country, s As it were pulled by oxen. He also pointed out expected, the horse was commonly used for that when ploughing hard or heavy ground hauling and harrowing, but, despite its the horse was almost useless, repeatedly theoretical advantages of speed, stamina, and coming to a standstill while the slower ox longer life, total conversion to the animal for managed to pull through. all facets of demesne farming was com- But the keystone to Walter's argument paratively rare. 6 was economic: horses were simply more 11 am indebted to Dr C C Dyer and Professors IK H Hilton expensive to keep than oxen. They consumed and P D A Harvey for kindly reading over and commenting more of the expensive fodder, oats, and cost on various drafts of this paper. more to maintain, particularly in shoeing. To ZNotably Lynn White, Jr, Medieval Technology and Social Change, Oxford, 1962, pp 57-69. prove his point, Walter drew up a crude 3j Z Titow, English Rural Society I200-1350, 1969, p 38; comparison of costs, itemized in Table 1. E Miller and J Hatcher, Medieval England -- Rural society and economic change I086-1348, 1978, p 227; H S Bennett, Life on the English Manor, Cambridge, 1937, p 90; Lord TABLE 1 Ernle, English Farming: Past and Present, 6th edn, 1961, p 13; Walter of Henley's Horse/Ox J H Moore, 'The Ox in the Middle Ages', Agriculture, Cost Comparison (per animal) XXXV, 1961, pp 91-2; G E Fussell, Farms, Farmcrs, and Society, Lawrence, Kansas, 1976, p 111. 4For example, of the 77 manors used to construct Table 2 Horses Oxen below, the ratio of oxen to adult horses approached 3 to 1 (1342 oxen as against 532 horses), ranging from 9 to 1 in Oats (in winter) 8s 2d 2s 4d the north to about 6 to 4 in the south and east. Only 5 of Pasture (in summer) ls ls the manors had gone completely to horses. SFor specific examples of mixed plough-teams, see R Shoeing 4s 4d -- Lennard, 'The Composition of Demesne Plough-teams in Twelfth-Century England', Eng Hist Rev, LXXV, 1960, Total (per year) 13s 6d 3s 4d pp 201-2. e See note 4. For the various merits of the horse, see White, op cit, p 62; IK J Forbes, Studies in Ancient Technology, II, Much is missing from this list of costs. Leiden, 1955, pp 83-5; N Harvey, 'Walter of Henley and the Old Farming', Agriculture, LIX, 1953, p 49l; Dorothea Although he mentions hay, straw and chaff Oschinsky, Walter of Henley, Oxford, 1971, p 162. 70schinsky, op cit, particularly p 319, cc 36-41. 31 32 THE AGRICULTURALHISTORY REVIEW as part of the feeding regime, Walter chronological line with Walter's remarks. obviously considers them as being of a minor Second, through the use of a suitable manorial nature and does not assign a value to them. example, I shall attempt to explore how much Nor does he try to assess depreciation, influence this economic consideration had in although he was dearly aware of it since he shaping peasant and demesne policy as regards I'I!: does mention that when a horse gets old he the medieval use of the two animals. loses all but the worth of his hide, while the ox, with 10d of summer grass for fattening, .!11 can be sold for as much as he originally cost. II Nevertheless, Waiter's figures, incomplete Proceeding with the first stage, the cost of as they are, carry considerable weight. If the keeping horses and oxen falls into three main 4 to 1 ratio in costs represented anything categories: (a) feeding; (b) general mainte- :[:i close to reality, they must have given a nance, that is, shoeing, harnessing, stabling, sizeable boost to the continued use of oxen on and so on; and (c) depreciation. the demesne. How much faith should we put in Waiter's figures, though? At least one (a) Feeding commentator has suggested that they were Essentially, this involved only four items: probably inaccurate and may in fact have been oats, hay, straw and pasture. Chaff, although made up to suit his argument, s Also, there is mentioned by Walter, is rarely entered in the the curious fact that, although oxen were accounts as a feed and so is ignored here, and dominant on the demesne, in some areas at the same applies to more extravagant fodders, ;i!i least they seem to have been almost com- such as bran and various types of horse-bread, i:ii pletely eliminated from peasant agriculture. ii~i: which were generally fed only to riding This is particularly noticeable in the Suffolk i, horses or privileged household cart-animals, t° !i ~ and Bedfordshire lay subsidy studies of Notably excluded, too, are legumes, that is, E Powell and A T Gaydon, where the peas, beans and vetches, which, although demesnes clearly held the majority of oxen used on occasion, do not figure largely as a and the peasants the majority of horses. 9 In feed for draught animals in the accounts until short, we have not only to investigate the after 1350. precision of Waiter's remarks, but also to Of the commonly employed feeds, how- explain this relative lack of enthusiasm for the ever, the major item was oats, and the reeves, use of the ox by that very sector which bailiffs, or other manorial officials were very seemingly had most to gain from the careful to enter the amounts consumed on the economic advantages that Walter so clearly dorse of each account. Table 2 contains a attributed to the beast. region by region summary of these entries The investigation will be accomplished in for 77 manors, covering the period 1250- two stages. First, I shall attempt a detailed 1320.11 For the purposes of this analysis, cost analysis to determine to what extent Waher's figures were correct. With one 1°As in the c1270 Beaulieu Abbey stable accounts; S F exception, this will be done using demesne Hockey (ed), 'The Account-Book of Beaulieu Abbey', Camden Soc, 4th ser, XVI, 1975, pp 260-3. I would also accounts centred around the late thirteenth like to express my gratitude to Mr Kyle Rae for drawing ;i century, in order to bring the analysis into my attention to this use of high-grade feeds for horses. 11 The manors sampled, in order of region as they appear in the table, were Thornham and Hanworth, Norfolk; e Ibid, p 163. Peasenhall, Cratfield, Framlingham, Stonham, and 9 E Powell, A Suffolk Hundred in the Year 1283, Cambridge, Clopton, Suffolk; Newport, Birdbrook, Kelvenden, and 1910; A T Gaydon, 'The Taxation of 1297', Beds Hist Rec Borley, Essex; Meldreth, Cambs; Houghton and Sundon, Soc, XXXIX, 1959, especially p xxviii. Animal heriots in Beds; Standon, Berkhamsted, Wheathampstead, I the south and east of England often indicate the same trend, Wymondley, Amwell, and Ashwell, Herts; Iver, Cippen- as, for instance, in the case of Cuxham discussed below. ham, and Turweston, Bucks; Isleworth, Ashford, and j i :i i i l / HORSES AND OXEN IN MEDIEVAL ENGLAND 33 the horses have been subdivided into TABLE ~2 cart-horses (equi carectarii or occasionally just Yearly Oats Consumption by Horses and Oxen equi in the accounts) and plough-horses (affri, stotti and jumenta). Although inevitably there Region Cart-horses Plough-horses Oxen was some overlapping in function -- affers, (No of manors) (qrs/animal) (qrs/animal) (qrs/animal) stotts and jumenta, for instance, often did harrowing and carting as well as ploughing -- East Anglia (12) 7.04 3.03 0.87 this distinction between horses for carting and Home Counties (18) 8.28 2.59 0.46 horses for ploughing is a common convention Kent & Sussex (7) 4.92 3.37 0.06 in the accounts, especially in the south and East Midlands & east .12 Lincs (8) 6.11 1.29 0.25 As expected, horses consumed considerably West Midlands & Oxon (10) 6.64 1.29 0.22 more oats per year than oxen. There is, as Hampshire & well, a very sharp distinction between cart- Wihs (5) 3.63 0.83 0.32 and plough-horses, the former consuming Devon (6) 1.05 0.70 0.01 over three times as much of the grain as the The North (11) 1.42 1.13 0.16 latter, partly because carting was a year-round National average13 6.65 2.02 0.34 occupation compared to the somewhat Average cost seasonal nature of ploughing.