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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
Hitherto we have generally considered the peasant in his relation to someone else. Let us try, in this chapter, to see him rather in himself and in his own home; to travel over the past centuries as Defoe takes us over the South Seas, and to visit this Robinson Crusoe in his hut with his man Friday and his dog. We have tried to sound his spiritual poverty; let us now estimate his material destitution.
We may start from Aelfric's Colloquy, written in 1005 by a monk of Canterbury as a text-book of conversational Latin for his pupils. In this little book, men of different occupations describe their daily manner of life, each in turn; the form is that of a dialogue between a master and his several pupils.
M. What do you say, ploughman, how do you do your work?
P. Oh, sir, I work very hard. I go out at dawn, driving the oxen to the field, and I yoke them to the plough; however hard the winter I dare not stay at home for fear of my master; but, having yoked the oxen and made the plough-share and coulter fast to the plough, every day I have to plough a whole acre or more.
M. Have you any companion?
P. I have a boy who drives the oxen with the goad, and he is even now hoarse with cold and shouting. […]
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