Poetry: A Hundreth Good Points of Husbandry

Overview

Thomas Tusser's "A Hundreth Good Points of Husbandry" (1557) is a compact didactic poem that sets practical household and agricultural advice to verse. Presented as one hundred couplets, it distills seasonal work, economic prudence, food preservation, and domestic management into memorable maxim-like lines. The result is both a pragmatic handbook for Tudor households and a lively piece of vernacular literature that blends instruction with rural wit.

Form and Arrangement

The material is organized seasonally, with headings and couplets guiding readers through the year from January to December. Each short couplet functions as a discrete tip or proverb, allowing quick consultation: plant, prune, sow, reap, cure, cook and account for expenses at the appropriate month. The compact, rhymed form encourages easy memorization and repetition, reflecting a period when literacy was spreading but oral transmission remained important.

Practical Content and Tone

Advice ranges from the large-scale, crop rotation, hedge maintenance, livestock care, to the minute details of household economy: recipe-like directions for bread and ale, methods for storing food, and rules for hiring labor. Tusser's voice is plainspoken and occasionally jocular, combining thrift and common sense with moralized touches about industry and moderation. Much of the humor comes from brusque, homespun realism: thrift is lauded, sloth is lampooned, and the rewards of foresight are emphasized.

Language and Audience

Written in accessible Early Modern English, the poem aims at husbandmen, housewives, and yeoman farmers rather than scholarly readers. Tusser's diction mixes technical terms of husbandry with colloquial phrases, making technical matters approachable for household managers and smallholders. The rhymes and concise formulations make complex seasonal cycles intelligible to a non-specialist audience and suitable for recitation, teaching, or bedside reference.

Practical Examples

Many couplets give procedure-like directions: when to sow barley, how to preserve meats, what to feed pigs, and how to keep accounts and stock. The adages often tie agricultural labor to moral advice about temperance and foresight, so saving grain for winter becomes both a technical tip and a lesson in prudence. The combination of actionable steps and ethical exhortation made the text useful for teaching young servants and inexperienced heads of households.

Historical Significance

Tusser's hundred points capture a snapshot of mid-16th-century rural England on the cusp of agricultural and social change. They reflect contemporary practices before major agricultural innovations transformed the countryside, making the poem valuable to historians of agriculture, material culture, and everyday life. Its popularity led to later expanded editions, cementing Tusser's reputation as a practical poet of country life.

Legacy and Influence

The work influenced subsequent English husbandry manuals and domestic guides by demonstrating how practical knowledge could be taught through verse. Its memorable maxims entered the folk repertoire and informed household behavior for generations. Modern readers find it both a manual of pre-modern subsistence and a cultural document revealing Tudor attitudes toward labor, thrift, and the rhythms of rural life.