<ANIMALS TO BE TITHED>
For the time being, these edicts are adequate. Now we must
consider all cattle and their husbandry. But before there is
specific treatment of each kind of herd, we wish to call
attention to this edict governing them all: Of every ten
quadrupeds in any herd, the tenth should be handed over. If
there are nine animals beyond every group of ten, the ninth
should be handed over; likewise, if eight, the eighth; if seven,
the seventh; and so on down to one. If there is only one more
than ten, then that one must be handed over. In this tithing the
Lord's precept[153]
that one animal may not be selected or changed
for another—that is, a poor animal exchanged for a good one or
a better for a worse—must be carefully observed. The tenth
animal to appear after the herd has proceeded single file through
an opening in some fence should be handed over in tithe, no
matter what the quality is. But if there are not ten, then the
ninth, eighth, or even first, if there are no more, as has just been
said.
Now first, the draught animals. All the foals born in one year
must be tithed in that year. Then the herdsman must care for
them, just as diligently as he cares for the rest of the herd, until
they are a year old. If the porter wishes, the herdsman must
care for them until they are two years old. If, however, the
porter should want to take them earlier, that is his right. Since
he cannot leave them in the herdsman's care more than two
years, he should give his attention to converting them for the
benefit of the aforesaid gate by either selling or bartering them
in some way. Therefore, we want them to be tithed soon after
they are born so that if one should accidentally die through
human negligence, the porter may know through whose
negligence it came about. This is the porter's task, not the
agent's or the mayor's.[154]
As for calves, the same procedure
should be observed either in keeping them through a two-year
period or in supervising their care. The milk must also be
tithed to the monastery.
*
The same procedure applies in each detail to the lambs: They
are either tithed or fattened for two years. All their wool,
however, must be paid in to the porter. Then the rest of the
wool, that obtained by shearing the other sheep, whether large
or small, and the other lambs, must be tithed immediately upon
shearing without any selection for quality, color, or weight, and
brought to the porter at the monastery. The milk, like that of
the aforesaid cows, should be tithed to the monastery.
In tithing and caring for goats, too, the same pattern that we
have described for lambs is to be followed in every detail. If the
milk of the she-goats is brought to the monastery, it should be
tithed there; but if not, the agent and the mayor at each villa
having goats should assume the responsibility for supervising in
every detail the collection of the tithe in the form of cheeses.
In this case, whatever tithe accrues each month should be
brought to the gate and should not be allowed to go bad from
over-aging.
The tithing of pigs is difficult because the times at which
they conceive and produce their young are inevitably
unpredictable. It is therefore hard to regulate the tithing in the
same way that the tithing of other animals has been regulated
above. Consequently, in this instance we have thought it good
to center attention on the exigencies of the full year and to set
a fixed number in the light of what we consider adequate for
our needs. Of pigs which are at least moderately fat, this number
should be delivered at the gate, whether or not there is grazing
land for them. However, if there shall have been abundant
grazing land and the swine are fully fattened, then even very fat
swine should be brought to the gate. Therefore, because the
year is based on fifty-two weeks in this as in all matters, it
seems to us that two swine each week could be a sufficient
number under this head, always excepting those which the
porter wishes to care for himself.
With respect to these shoats, since, with the help of God, he
will have adequate grain supply, he should plan ahead and see
to it that from what he can supply from his own husbandry he
will have enough under this head for entertaining guests. . . .
Moreover, when their season arrives, it will be in his power
to take whatever sheep he wants from his tithe.
Also, whenever the time for using rams comes around, he
should take as many as he wants from the ten sheepfolds where
in the summer the brothers manufacture cheese. With these
animals as with all others, the tenth youngling is his. And when
the tithed lambs from the other flocks can live healthily away
from their mothers, they too are in his control. He may want to
transfer some of these out of the flock before the two-year period
is finished because he decides to put them in with the aforesaid
ten flocks which are cared for at the monastery. The purpose
would be to have them at hand and be able to extract them
when, and to the amount that, he might wish. But meanwhile,
up to the time said sheep, which have been tithed in this year,
have become two- or three-year-olds, he may even subtract
from the aforesaid ten flocks according to an agreement between
him and the herd-master[155]
which insures both that the flocks
will not be depopulated beyond measure and that the guests will
not suffer unreasonable deprivation or want.
Then there are the rules for tithing lambs from the joint
flocks: We have said that they are to be organized into the ten
flocks which provide the monastery with cheese in the summer.
The purpose is always to have enough at hand there to be able
to provide abundantly for any guests without constantly needing,
because of the distance to the villas, to tire out the porter or
shepherd[156]
or some other man. The actual delivery of the lambs
should be the mayor's, not the porter's, responsibility.
Consequently, when the porter shall have ordered them
delivered to the aforesaid flocks, the mayor should have it done.
But if the aforesaid tithed sheep, when they become two- or
three-year-olds, should number more than the ten flocks, or
more than the shepherds can manage, the porter should consult
with the herdmaster about the course to follow: whether to sell,
kill, hang, or try to exchange them for swine. This exchange
would serve the purpose of providing suckling pigs at a time
when the sheepfolds were not productive, as we mentioned
before with respect to the other sucklings.[157]
However, if there
is not enough grain to keep them an entire winter, the porter
can kill and hang some of them, keeping the others alive. In
this way he can always have a few suckling-pigs. In the process
he should be sure that everything that needs to be provided and
maintained for the requisite integrity of the gate and the
monastery in its reception of guests will be procured at the
proper time, so that it will be ready at the proper time.
However supererogatory these directions may seem to some
men, we nevertheless choose painfully to employ phrases clear
to the less intelligent and through these writings of ours to
eliminate any possibility for mistake, rather than to have the
porter encounter some occasion that induces error inconsonant
with our religious life. We therefore feel that the aforesaid
master of the ten flocks and porter should work together in this
operation, so that by common agreement they may profitably
arrange whatever is suitable for regulating these tithes. Along
with the porter's lay apprentices, they may take care of
everything. The end result should be that there be no need for
the aforesaid porter or any of the monks to run here and there
outside the monastery to procure some item; but according to
this outline of operations they may arrange everything and
receive the tithes in orderly fashion even while they reside
quietly in the monastery, away from the tumult of the outside
world.
