And full of fen hanged.
This wight wallowed in the fen
Almost to the ankle.
Four rotheren[1] him before
That feeble were worthy,
Men might reckon each rib
So rentful[2] they were.
His wife walked him with,
With a long goad,
In a cutted coat,
Cutted full high,
Wrapped in a winnow sheet
To weren her from weathers,
Barefoot on the bare ice
That the blood followed.
And at the land's end layeth
A little crumb-bowl,[3]
And thereon lay a little child
Lapped in clouts,
And twins of two years old
Upon another side.
And all they sungen one song,
That sorrow was to hear;
They crieden all one cry,
A careful note.
The simple man sighed sore,
And said, 'Children, be still!'"
The tenant of land, or small farmer, was in a better condition, and when not cozened of his stores by the monks, or robbed of them by the ruffians in office or out of office, managed to live with some kind of rude comfort. What the ordinary condition of his larder and the extent of his farming stock were, may be learned from a passage in the "Vision."
" 'I have no penny,' quoth Piers,
'Pullets to buy.
Nor neither geese nor grys;
But two green cheeses,
A few curds and cream,
And an haver cake,[4]
And two loaves of beans and bran,
Baked for my fauntes[5];
And yet I say, by my soul!
I have no salt bacon.
Nor no cokeney,[6] by Christ!
Collops for to maken.
"But I have perciles and porettes,[7]
And many cole plants,[8]
And eke a cow and calf.
And a cart-mare
To draw afield my dung,
The while the drought lasteth;
And by this livelihood we must live
Till Lammas time.
And by that I hope to have
Harvest in my croft,
And then may I dight thy dinner
As me dear liketh.'"
We have already described the tenure by which the tenant held his lands, and the protection the knightly landowner was bound to give his tenant. Thus Piers Plowman, when his honest labors are broken in upon by ruffians,
"Plained him to the knight
To help him, as covenant was,
From cursed shrews,
Aud from these wasters, wolves-kind,
That maketh the world dear."
At times this was but a wolf's protection, or a stronger power broke through all guards. The "king's purveyor," or some other licensed despoiler, came in, and the victim was left to make fruitless complaints of his injuries. The women were subjected to gross outrages, and the property stolen or destroyed.
"Both my geese and my grys
His gadelings[9] fetcheth,
I dare not, for fear of them,
Fight nor chide.
He borrowed of me Bayard
And brought him home never,
Nor no farthing therefore
For aught that I could plead.
He maintaineth his men
To murder my hewen,[10]
Forestalleth my fairs,
And fighteth in my chepying.[11]
And breaketh up my barn door,
And beareth away my wheat,
And taketh me but a tally
For ten quarters of oats;
And yet he beateth me thereto."
Then, as now, there were complaints that the privations of the poor were increased by the covetousness of the hucksters, and "regraters" (retailers), who came between the producer and the consumer, and grew rich on the profits made from both.
"Brewers and bakers,
Butchers and cooks,"
were charged with robbing
"the poor people
That parcel-meal[12] buy;
For they empoison the people
Privily and oft.
They grow rich through regratery,
And rents they buy
With what the poor people
Should put in their wamb.[13]
For, took they but truly,
They timbered[14] not so high,
Nor bought no burgages,[15]
Be ye fell certain."
Stringent laws were made against
