Touching the Yeomanarie of Cornwall, I can say little, worth the
observing, for any difference from that of other shires, and therefore
I will step downe the next staire to husbandmen.
These in times not past the remembrance of some yet liuing, rubbed
forth their estate in the poorest plight, their grounds lay all in
common, or onely diuided by stitch-meale: little bread-corne: their
drinke, water, or at best, but whey: for the richest Farmour in a
parish brewed not aboue twyce a yeere, and then, God wotte what
liquor: their meat, Whitsull, as they call it, namely, milke, sowre
milke, cheese, curds, [67] butter, and such like as came from the cow
and ewe, who were tyed by the one legge at pasture: their apparell,
course in matter, ill shapen in maner: their legges and feet naked
and bare, to which sundrie old folke had so accustomed their youth,
that they could hardly abide to weare any shooes; complayning how it
kept them ouer hote. Their horses shod onlie before, and for all
furniture a pad and halter, on which the meaner countrie wenches of
the westerne parts doe yet ride astride, as all other English folke
vsed before R.
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