Let us try to imagine the ordinary life and appearance of a mediaeval English village in the "piping times of peace." Of course, no two villages are quite alike; each has many distinguishing features; but a strong family likeness is observable. In the Middle Ages a village was much more independent than it is now. Then there were no Acts of Parliament to control its affairs, and it regulated its own conduct much to its own satisfaction, without any outside interference. Of course, sometimes things were managed badly; but the village knew it had only itself to blame, and therefore could not grumble at the Government, or the fickleness of members of Parliament, or the unreasonable conduct of Local Government Boards. Was not the lord of the manor quite capable of trying all criminals? and did not the rector and the vestry settle everything to the satisfaction of everyone, without any "foreigners" asking questions, or interfering? The position of the villeins and _cottiers_ has changed considerably since the days of William the Norman. The former were now free tenants, who paid rent for their land to the lord of the manor, and were not bound to work for him, while the latter worked for wages like our modern agricultural labourer. There was thus in the twelfth century a gradual approximation to modern conditions on many estates; the home farm was worked by hired labourers who received wages; while the villeins had bought themselves off from the obligation of doing customary work by paying a quit-rent. We should like to know something of the way in which our ancestors farmed their land, and fortunately several bailiffs have left us their account books very carefully kept, and one Walter de Henley in 1250 wrote a book on the _Art of Husbandry_, which gives us much information. The rent of land was about sixpence per acre. They ploughed three times a year, in autumn, April, and at midsummer, and used oxen for their plough-teams. Women helped their husbands in ploughing and harvest work. An old writer describes the farmer's wife "walking by him with a long goad, in a cutted cote cutted full high." Pigs and poultry were numerous on a mediaeval farm, but sheep were the source of the farmer's wealth. Large flocks of divers breeds roamed the hills and vales of rural England, and their rich fleeces were sent to Antwerp, Bruges, and Ghent for the manufacture of cloth by the Flemish weavers. After the Black Death, a great plague which ravaged the country in 1348, the labourers were fewer in number, and their wages higher; hence the farmers paid increased attention to their sheep, which yielded rich profits, and required few labourers to look after them.