The Book of Husbandry. Anthony Fitzherbert
noticed in the Catalogue of the Huth Library.
7. By Thomas Marshe; (1560). This edition is said to be “newly corrected and amended by the author, Fitzherbarde;” but is, of course, a mere reprint. See remarks upon this above. (Lowndes; Dibdin, iv. 534.) In Arber’s Transcript of the Stationers’ Registers, i. 128, we find—“Recevyd of Thomas Marshe for his lycense for pryntinge of a boke Called the boke of husbondry, graunted the xx of June [1560] … iiij. d.” Hence the date, which is not given, may be inferred.
8. By John Awdeley; 16mo. 1562; “wyth diuers addicions put ther-vnto.” (Dibdin, iv. 566.)
9. By John Awdeley; 8vo. 1576; “with diuers additions put therunto.” (Dibdin, iv. 568.)
10. Fitzharbert’s | Booke of | Husbandrie. | Devided Into foure seuerall Bookes, very ne | cessary and profitable for all sorts | of people. And now newlie corrected, amended, and reduced into a more pleasing forme of English then before. Ecclesiast. 10. ver. 28. Better is he that laboureth, and hath plentiousnesse of all thinges, then hee that is gorgious | and wanteth bread. At London, | Printed by J. R. for Edward White, and are | to be sold at his shoppe, at the little North doore of Paules Church, at the signe of the Gunne. | Anno Dom. 1598. Dedicated “To the Worshipfull Maister Henrie Iackman Esquire” … by “Your Worships in affection I. R.” Of this book I shall say more below. I have used the copy in the Douce Collection in the Bodleian Library.[15]
11. etc. There are numerous other editions. Hazlitt mentions one by R. Kele (no date), “newlye corrected and amended by the auctor Fitzherbarde, with dyuers additions put therunto.” Lowndes says: “London, by Richard Kele, 16mo. There are two editions, one containing H, the other I, in eights.” Dibdin (iii. 533) mentions one by John Wayland, 8vo. (no date), Lowndes mentions an edition printed at London “in the Hovs of Tho. Berthelet,” 16mo.; eighty leaves; also—another edition, slightly differing in orthography, and having at the end “Cum privilegio;” also another “in the House of Thomas Berthelet,” 16mo. A, 6 leaves, B—M, in eights, N, 2 leaves, with the date of 1534 on the title-page; but this can be nothing else than the very book here reprinted, and it is not clear why he mentions it again. Lowndes also notices undated editions by John Walley, Robert Toye, Jugge, and Myddylton.
It hence appears that the book was frequently reprinted between 1523 and 1598, but the last of these editions was such as to destroy its popularity, and I am not aware that it was ever again reprinted except in 1767, when the Books on Husbandry and Surveying were reprinted together[16] in a form strongly resembling the edition of 1534.[17] The title of this book is—“Certain Ancient Tracts concerning the management of Landed Property reprinted. London, printed for C. Bathurst and J. Newbery; 1767.” This is a fairly good reprint, with the old spelling carefully preserved; but has neither note nor comment of any kind. A copy of it kindly lent me by Mr. Furnivall has proved very useful.
The editions of the Book on Surveying are almost as numerous as those of the Book on Husbandry, though this was hardly to be expected, considering its more learned and technical character. It is not necessary to speak here particularly of Sir Anthony Fitzherbert’s acknowledged works. The most important are the Grand Abridgment of the Common Law (1514, folio), Office of Justices of the Peace (1538), Diversity of Courts (1539), and the New Natura Brevium, of which the ninth edition, with a commentary by Lord Hale, appeared in 1794. The first edition of the Grand Abridgment was printed by Pynson, who was also the printer of the first edition of the Book of Husbandry. The New Natura Brevium was printed in 1534 by Berthelet, who reprinted the Book of Husbandry in the same year. In a bookseller’s catalogue, March, 1880, I chanced to see the following. “Early English Printing; Black Letter; Law Books in Latin and Norman-French (1543–51). Natura Brevium; newely and most trewely corrected with diverse additions of statutes bokes cases plees in abatements, etc.; London, Wyllyam Powel, 1551.—Articuli ad Narrationes novas; London, W. Powel, 1547.—Diuersite de courtz et lour jurisdiccions, et alia necessaria et utilia, London, W. Myddylton, 1543. The three works in 1 vol., sm. 8vo., old calf neat, quite perfect and very rare, 21s.”
The present volume contains a careful reprint of Berthelet’s edition of 1534, which is a fairly good one. I have collated it throughout with the curious edition of 1598, which abounds with “corrections,” some of them no improvements, and with additional articles. It is a very curious book, and I have given all the more interesting variations in the notes, with a description of the additions. The author, who only gives his initials “I. R.” (by which initials I have been often obliged to quote him[18]) has the effrontery to tell us that he has reduced Fitzherbert’s work “into a more pleasing forme of English then before;” and says that he has “labored to purge the same from the barbarisme of the former times.” Again he addresses the reader, saying—“Gentle Reader, being vrged by the consideration of the necessitie of this worke, and finding it almost cast into perpetuall obliuion, I haue purged it from the first forme of missounding termes to our daintie eares.” This means, of course, that he has altered terms which he did not understand, and occasionally turns sense into nonsense; yet he seems to have taken considerable pains with his author, and his additions are frequently to the point. Whether his discourses upon the keeping of poultry (p. 145, note to sect. 144) were really due to his “owne experience in byrds and foules,” or whether he copied much of it from some of his predecessors, I have not been curious to discover. His references to Virgil, to the fable of Cynthia and Endymion, the Cinyphian goats, and the rest, are in the worst possible taste, and he was evidently far too staunch a Protestant to be able to accept all Fitzherbert’s religious views, though modestly and unobtrusively introduced. After carefully reading his production, I infinitely prefer Fitzherbert’s “barbarisme” to I. R.’s pedantic mannerism, and I find the patronising tone of his occasionally stupid amendments to be almost insufferable; but he may be forgiven for his zeal. The art of sinking in poetry has rarely been so well exemplified as in the verses which are printed at pp. 145 and 148.
The reader can best understand what I. R. conceives to be elegance of style by comparing the following extract with section 1 at p. 9.
“Chapter 2. ¶ By what a Husbandman cheefely liueth.
The most generall and commonest experienst liuing that the toyle-imbracing Husbandman liueth by, is either by plowing and sowing of his Corne, or by rearing and breeding of Cattell, and not the one without the other, because they be adjuncts, and may not be disceuered. Then sithens that the Plough is the first good instrument, by which the Husband-men rips from the Earths wombe a well-pleasing liuing, I thinke it is most conuenient first to speake of the forme, fashion, and making therof.”
The words italicised (except in the title) are all his own.
The Glossarial Index, a very full one, was almost entirely prepared, in the first instance, by my eldest daughter, though I have since added a few explanations in some cases, and have revised the whole, at the same time verifying the references. As to the meaning of a few terms, I am still uncertain.
Fitzherbert’s general style is plain, simple, and direct, and he evidently has the welfare of his reader at heart, to whom he offers kindly advice in a manner least calculated to give offence. He is in general grave and practical, but there are a few touches of quiet humour in his remarks upon horse-dealing. “Howe be it I saye to my customers, and those that bye any horses of me, and [if] euer they wil trust any hors-master or corser whyle they lyue, truste me.” I would have trusted him implicitly.
The difficulties of his language arise almost entirely from the presence of numerous technical terms; and it is, indeed, this fact that renders his book one of considerable philological interest, and adapts it for publication by the English Dialect Society. By way of a small contribution to English etymology, I beg leave to take a single instance, and to consider what he has to tell us about the word peruse.
The whole difficulty