Fiue hundred pointes of good husbandrie
Lincolnshire for a cloth used for sifting meal in mills. See Peacock's
Glossary, _s.v._ There was a term "boultings" or "boltings," used of
private arguings of cases in some of the Inns of Court. "Boulter, a
sifter."--Coles' Dict. 1676.
[E414] "Could the way to thriue." _Could_ is here used in its old sense
of _knew_, or _understood_. A.S. _cunnan_, to know; _ic can_, I know;
_ic cuðe_, I knew.
[E415] "To stay himselfe in some good plot," etc.; compare 10. 8.
[E416] "Of this and that;" cf. 62. 10.
[E417] "The blacke oxe neare trod on thy fut:" a proverbial expression,
meaning, you have experienced misfortune close at home.
In Peacock's Glossary of Manley, etc. (E. D. Soc. 1877), we have:
"The _Black Bull's_ trodden on him;" that is, he is in a very bad
temper. And the following passage from Bernard's Terence is quoted:
"Prosperitie hangs on his sleeue; the _black oxe_ cannot tread on his
foot."
"Venus waxeth old; and then she was a pretie wench, when Juno was a
young wife; now crowes foote is on her eye, and the _black oxe_ hath
trod on her foot."--Lyly's Sapho and Phao, 1584, ed. 1858, i. 199.
Mr. George Vere Irving (Notes and Queries, 3rd Ser. xii. 488) remarks
that this expression is at this day frequently used in Scotland in
reference to a person who has experienced misfortune. See Hazlitt's
Eng. Proverbs, p. 359.
[E418] "It is too much we dailie heare," etc. This proverbial
expression occurs in the _Townley Mysteries_, p. 86, as--
"A man may not wive,
And also thrive,
And all in one year."
[E419] "As _mo_ have bin;" compare note E391.
[E420] "The good wiues husband weares no breech." So in a song in the
MS. of the 15th cent. quoted above, the heading of which is
"_Nova, Nova,_ sawe yow ever such,
The moste mayster of the hows weryth no brych."
The burden of the song being
"Lest the most mayster wer no brych."
[E421] The same reply is attributed to Thales. See his life in Diogenes
Laertius, Bk. i. 26.
[E422]
"Yyng men, I red that ye be war,
That ye cum not in the snar;
For he is browt in meche car,
That have a shrow onto his wyfe.
"In a panter I am caute,
My fot his pennyd, I may not owt;
In sorow and car he his put,
That have, etc.
"With a qwene yif that thou run,
Anon it is told into the town;
Sorow he hath both up and down,
That have, etc."
--Song in MS. of 15th century quoted above.
"Feareth me," that is, it frightens me, I fear, as in "me liketh" = it
pleases me, I like.
[E423] "As good a shrew is as a sheepe," etc. This proverb appears in
_Epistolæ Hoelianæ_, ed. 1754, p. 177, in a letter dated 5th February,
1625-6, as "It is better to marry a shrew than a sheep." In Taylor's
Pastorall, 1624, we have "A shrew is better than a sheep."
[E424] William, the first Lord Paget, and the patron of Tusser, married
Anne, daughter of Mr. Prestin, of the County of Lancaster; and to her
it is most probable the Book of Huswifery was dedicated, and not to
Margaret, the daughter of Sir H. Newton, and lady of Thomas, Lord Paget.
[E425] "By their fruits ye shall know them, do men gather grapes of
thorns or figs of thistles?"
[E426] The rime in the last two lines is most remarkable; apparently
_thriue_ is pronounced _threev_, as Mr. Ellis contends.
[E427] From the last two lines of this stanza it would appear that
Tusser was a widower at the time when he wrote this Address to the
Reader, or at least when he first wrote on the subject of Huswifery.
[E428] "A description of Huswife," etc. This antithetical description
seems to have been introduced, in order that it might correspond with
the description of Husbandry, chapter 8, p. 16.--M.
[E429] According to Fitzherbert, the farmers' wives must have been
patterns of diligence and industry, and a variety of duties devolved
upon them which have since ceased to be required, or have fallen
with more propriety upon the other sex. They had to measure out
the quantity of corn to be ground, and see that it was sent to the
miller. The poultry, swine, and cows were under their charge; and they
superintended the brewing and baking. The garden was peculiarly the
care of the farmer's wife. She had to depend upon it for various herbs
which are no longer in use, but which could not be dispensed with when
spices were rare and costly. Besides pot-herbs, strewing-herbs were
required for the chambers, and herbs possessing medical virtues. The
list of fruits at this date was confined to a few of indigenous growth,
which were but little improved by skill and management. Tusser directs
his housewife to transplant into her garden wild strawberries from the
woods. All the writers on rural economy during this period recommend
the farmer's wife carefully to attend to her crop of flax and hemp.
When, however, Fitzherbert asserts that it is a wife's duty "to winnow
all manner of corn, to make malt, to wash, and to make hay, shear
corn, and, in time of need, help her husband to fill the muck-wain or
dung-cart, drive the plough, to load hay, corn, and such other, to go
to market and sell butter or pigs, fowls or corn," it is to be presumed
that he had in his view the smallest class of yeomen, who had no hired
servants.
[E430] "Reason their cace," that is, gossip and argue over their
circumstances.
[E431] "Home is home, be it never so ill." Ballad licensed in 1569-70.
Clarke (Paræm. 1639, p. 101) has with us, "home is home, be it never so
homely." On the other hand, Heywood, in his Epigrams, 1562, says:
"Home is homely, yea, and to homely sometyme,
Where wives' footestooles to their husbandes' heads clime."
[E432] "Familie" = household. Compare chap. 9, st. 12.
[E433] "Maides, three a clock," etc. Compare Romeo and Juliet, Act iv.
sc. 4, 3--
"The second cock hath crow'd,
The curfew bell hath rung, 'tis three o'clock."
[E434] "Lay your bucks," _i.e._ get ready the washing tubs.
Compare: "Throw foul linen upon him as if it were going to
_bucking_."--Shakspere, Merry Wives of Wind., Act iii. sc. 3.
Buck-basket, the basket in which linen is carried to the wash.
"Bouck-fatt, a washing tub."--Upton Inventories, p. 28. Cf. "And
for I can so wele wasche and so wele _bowke_, Godde has made me
his chaumberere."--The Pilgrimage of the Life of the Manhode, f.
21_b._, MS. in Libr. of St. John's Coll. Camb. "'I _bucke_ lynen
clothes to scoure of their fylthe and make them whyte, _Ie bue_.
Bucke these shyrtes, for they be to foule to be wasshed by hande,
_buez ces chemises, car elles sont trop sallies de les lauer a
sauon._'--Palsgrave. 'Buée, lie wherwith clothes are scowred; also
a _buck_ of clothes; _Buer_, to wash a _buck_, to scowre with lie;
_Buandiere_ f., a laundresse, or buck-washer.'--Cotgrave. To _buck_
is to cleanse clothes by steeping them in lye: see _Buck_ in Webster,
Nares, Wedgwood, etc."--Rev. W. W. Skeat, note to P. Plowman, B. Text,
xiv. 19.
[E435] The hours of meals varied at different dates. In the Myrour
of Our Lady, ed. Blunt, p. 15, we read: "At houre of tyerse [9 a.m.]
labourers desyre to haue theyr dyner."
In Chambers's Book of Days, i. 96, we read that Gervase Markham, in
1653, makes the ploughman have three meals, viz. breakfast at 6 a.m.,
dinner at half-past 3 p.m., and supper at 6 p.m. See also note E444.
[E436] In the Library of Caius Coll. Camb. is a volume of Tracts, No.
286, one of which, published in 1555, An Account of the Cruelties of
the King of Spain, has as its motto: "Beware of Had I wiste." This is
also the title of a poem in the Paradyce of Daynty Deuyses, 1578. It is
quoted by Sir Simon D'Ewes (Diary, etc., ii. 366):
"Telle neuere the more thoug thou myche heere,
And euere be waare of _had-y-wist_."
--Babees Book, ed. Furnivall, p. 264, l. 72.
[E437] See note E52.
[E438]
"Beware that ye geue no persone palled drynke, for feere
Hit mygtt brynge many a man in disese durynge many a yere."
--John Russell's Boke of Norture, in Babees Book, p. 13.
"Sowre ale, and dead ale, and ale the whiche doth stande a tylte is
good for no man."--Andrew Boorde, Regimen of Health.
"Of ale and beer, as well as of wine, we find various kinds mentioned.
There were single beer, or small ale, which could do little more than
quench thirst,--and double beer, which was recommended as containing a
double quantity of malt and hops,--and double-double beer, which was
twice as strong as that,--and dagger-ale, which, as the name implies,
was reckoned particularly sharp and dangerous,--and bracket, a kind
of ale which we are unable distinctly to describe. But the favourite
drink, as well as the chief article of vulgar debauch, was a kind of
ale commonly called huffcap, but which was also termed 'mad dog,'
'angel's food,' 'dragon's milk,' and other such ridiculous names, by
the frequenters of ale-houses: 'and never,' says Harrison, 'did Romulus
and Remus suck their she-wolf with such eager and sharp devotion as
these men hale at huffcap, till they be as red as cocks, and little
wiser than their combs.' The higher classes, who were able to afford
such a luxury, brewed a generous liquor for their own consumption,
which they did not bring to the table till it was two years old. This
was called March ale, from the month in which it was brewed. But the
servants had to content themselves with a more simple beverage that
was seldom more than a month old. A cup of choice ale was often as
richly compounded with dainties as the finest wines. Sometimes it was
warmed, and qualified with sugar and spices; sometimes with a toast;
often with a roasted crab or apple, making the beverage still known
under the name of Lambs'-wool; while to stir the whole composition with
a sprig of rosemary, was supposed to give it an additional flavour.
The drinks made from fruit were chiefly cider, perry, and mum. Those
that had formerly been made from honey seem to have fallen into disuse
in consequence of the general taste for stronger potations; metheglin
being now chiefly confined to the Welsh. A simple liquor, however,
was still used in Essex, called by Harrison, somewhat contemptuously,
'a swish-swash,' made of water with a little honey and spice, but
'as differing,' he says, 'from true metheglin as chalk doth from
cheese.' He informs us, moreover, that already the tapsters of
England had learned to adulterate their ale and beer with pernicious
compounds."--Pict. Hist. of England, ii. 883.
"In the parish of Hawsted, Suffolk, the allowance of food to the
labourer in harvest was, two herrings per day, milk from the manor
dairy to make cheese, and a loaf of bread, of which fifteen were made
from a bushel of wheat. Messes of potage made their frequent appearance
at the rustic board."--Knight, Pict. Hist. of England, i. 839.
[E439] Harrison gives an account (pp. 153-4) of the following kinds of
bread made in England: 1. Mainchet, "commonlie called white bread, in
Latine _Primarius panis_." 2. Cheat "or wheaton bread, so named bicause
the colour therof resembleth the graie [or yellowish] wheat [being
cleane and well dressed,] and out of this is the coursest of the bran
(vsuallie called gurgeons or pollard) taken. The raueled is a kind of
cheat bread also, but it reteineth more of the grosse, and lesse of
the pure substance of the wheat." 3. Brown bread, of which there were
two kinds, viz. (_a_) of whole meal unsifted, (_b_) pollard bread,
with a little rye meal, and called Miscelin or Meslin. "In champeigne
countries much rie and barleie bread is eaten, but especiallie where
wheat is scant and geson."
[E440] "Baies." Halliwell prints this word as _baics_ in his
Dictionary, defining it as "chidings, reproofs," and giving as his
authority Hunter's Additions to Boucher.
[E441] "Droie." See Note in Prompt. Parv., s.v. _Dryvylle_ and _Deye_.