and the amount of their contributions. Each contributor may be taken as the head of a family, so that the population must have been at least five times as large as the number of names, and there were probably others besides these, who were too poor to pay taxes.

Others

If we may take the numbers as in any way indicative of the population, we find several curious results from a comparison of the lists of names. Some places which are now mere hamlets seem to have been at that time populous townships. which are now important towns were then small villages. Speaking generally, we find that, as might have been expected in an agricultural age, the population was much more evenly distributed than it is at present. We should, perhaps, have expected Gainsburgh to have been quite the most important of those nineteen ancient parishes which now form the Deanery of Corringham, but the Subsidy does not give this result. Corringham with its hamlets has the longest list of names, and Lea gave the largest contribution. The following list, to which, for the sake of comparison, we have added the names of certain other parishes in Lindsey, is an interesting commentary upon the changes that have taken place in the last 575 years.

GAINSBURGH.

It was not much less than three Centuries before the social effects of the Norman Conquest ceased to be apparent in England; but at length the natural progress of events led to a complete amalgamation of races, and by the middle of the 14th century there were no longer Normans, Danes, or Angles in the Parts of Lindsey, but only English men, speaking one language, obeying one law, and worshipping together as members of one Church.

The chronicles and other documents that have come down to us from the 14th century have enabled those modern writers who have patiently investigated the conditions and surroundings of our mediaeval forefathers to form a tolerably clear picture of what life was like in Gainsburgh during that short period early in the reign of Edward III, when Queen Philippa was Lady of the Manor. We can allow ourselves but a transitory glance at the Gainsburgh of 1837, but that will be quite sufficient to show us how far we have advanced since those times,

Stepping backwards, therefore, through seventeen eventful generations, we find ourselves in the ancient Market Place, but there is scarcely anything that we can recognize, until the distant roar of Oegir the Terrible, the wail of the Nixies, and the familiar cry of "Ware Ægir!" resound along the banks of the brimming river.

"Men may come, and men may go,
But I go on for ever!"

There are no red roofs to be seen, and there is no brickwork of any kind in the houses. With the departure of the Romans the art of making bricks and tiles was lost to England for a thousand years. The Church is of stone, roofed with lead, the Hall is perhaps partly built of stone, but it is more than likely that all its upper portion is of timber work, something like that which may still be seen in the West Wing; although whatever existed, both of Church and Hall, in the first half of the 14th century, has long since disappeared from sight.

The Market Place seems larger than we are accustomed to, but that is partly because the houses are low, many of them only a single storey. They are built of timber, thatched with reeds, and floored with earth. The furniture is rude and primitive, and we must not expect to find glass in the windows. There are no regular shops, but careful search will discover certain articles of necessary consumption for sale, produced chiefly upon market days.

The men of 1337 are great beer drinkers, but they have not yet learnt to add hops to their malt, and every man brews his own ale. There is an Inn, the Fleur de Lys or S. George and the Dragon, which in half a century, out of compliment to Richard II, will become the White Hart. Travellers are however expected to provide themselves with food and drink, and mine host will find beds, and litter for horses.

Whether we stay at the Inn or dwell in our own houses we must not expect luxuries, unless our purses are deep. For breakfast we shall have bread and ale, for dinner bread and ale, and in the evening bread and ale shall be our supper. Sometimes, as

for instance on Fridays, we shall add fish from the Trent, and it is always possible to vary our diet with bacon from the sty, eggs from the poultry yard, or onions from the garden. The bailiff of the Manor will sell us pigeons at a farthing apiece, and we may now and then exercise our teeth upon tough and stringy mutton and beef. But let no man be so unwise as to expect potatoes, turnips, tea, or coffee. He might just as well call for tobacco! Nevertheless there is abundance of good wheaten bread.

The Gainsburgh man of 1337 is an agriculturalist. From the greatest to the least, all are more or less closely connected with the land. They have, at any rate for half the year, and some of them perpetually, their own strips of land in the open fields, and their own closes and meadows. One third of the land is always fallow; not for three centuries will the Dutch teach us to cultivate winter roots, and bring in the four-course system. We find at Gainsburgh, as elsewhere in the 14th century, wheat grown in the first year, oats, barley, beans, peas, or vetches in the second, and a bare fallow in the third. The absence of winter roots makes it necessary to kill and salt a very large proportion of the beasts in October, and the salt meat, eaten with few vegetables, will give us scurvy, the bane of the Middle Ages; but this we cannot avoid, and we may think ourselves fortunate if we escape the leprosy !

There have been but few periods of great scarcity in England; but the Gainsburgh man of 1837 can remember seven terrible years in succession, seven years of famine, almost like that of Egypt in Joseph's time. From 1815 to 1321 the harvests almost uniformly failed. Long continued rains prevented the corn from ripening, and men died of starvation all over the country. But some at least in Gainsburgh will have a yet more awful remembrance, for twelve years after 1337 the Great Pestilence cut down men in England as the sycle cuts the corn, and that Harvest of Death can never be forgotton, until History itself shall pass into oblivion.

There are excitements in Gainsburgh now and then. The Church Festivals, sometimes accompanied by Miracle Plays in the Parish Church, and always by Processions, in which the people join, are a welcome break in the somewhat monotonous round of 14th century existence. But these are tame in comparison with the