and chestnut, but goats and horned cattle grazed on the grassy
portions.

[47] The illustrations of contemporary MSS. usually show teams in the
plough of 2 or 4 oxen, and 4 was probably the team generally used,
according to Vinogradoff, _op. cit._ p. 253. It must, of course, have
varied according to the soil. Birch, in his _Domesday_, p. 219, says
he has never found a team of 8 in contemporary illustrations. To-day
oxen can be still seen ploughing in teams of two only. However, about
a hundred years ago, when oxen were in common use, we find teams of 8,
as in Shropshire, for a single-furrow plough, 'so as to work them
easily.' Six hours a day was the usual day's work, and when more was
required one team was worked in the morning, another in the
afternoon.--_Victoria County History: Shropshire, Agriculture_. Walter
of Henley says the team stopped work at three.

[48] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, i. 570.

[49] See the excellent reproductions of the Calendar of the Cott. MSS.
in Green's _Short History of the English People_, illustrated edition,
i. 155.

[50] _De Natura Rerum_, Rolls Series, p, 280.

[51] Vinogradoff, _English Society in the Eleventh Century_, p. 307.

[52] Ibid. p. 312. Perhaps one of the most interesting features of the
smaller manors is that they were constantly being swallowed up by the
larger.