lived on beer, bread, meat and dairy products, with few vegetables beyond cabbages and leeks. The laws show how much value was put on different parts of Welsh life at the time, for example that wealth was measured in cattle; they also show that the court included hunters, who would be restricted to seasonal hunting. Food would be cooked in a single cauldron over an open fire on the floor; it would likely be reheated and topped up with fresh ingredients over a number of days. Some dishes could be cooked on a bakestone, a flat stone placed above a fire to heat it evenly. Gerald of Wales, chaplain to Henry II, wrote after an 1188 tour of Wales, "The whole population lives almost entirely on oats and the produce of their herds, milk, cheese and butter. You must not expect a variety of dishes from a Welsh kitchen, and there are no highly-seasoned titbits to whet your appetite." The medieval Welsh used thyme, savory, and mint in the kitchen, but in general herbs were much more likely to be used for medicinal purposes than culinary ones. Towards the end of the 18th century, Welsh land owners divided up the land to allow for tenant-based farming. Each small holding would include vegetable crops, as well as a cow, pigs and a few chickens. The 18th and 19th centuries were a time of unrest for the Welsh people. The Welsh food riots began in 1740, when colliers blamed the lack of food on problems in the supply, and continued throughout Wales as a whole. The worst riots happened in the 1790s after a grain shortage, which coincided with political upheaval in the form of forced military service and high taxes on the roads, leaving farmers unable to make a profit. As a result of riots by colliers in the mid-1790s, magistrates in Glamorgan sold the rioters corn at a reduced price. At the same time they also requested military assistance from the government to stop further rioting. Due to the close-knit nature of the poor communities, and the slightly higher status of the farmers above the labourers, the rioters generally blamed the farmers and corn merchants, rather than the gentry. The majority of food riots had ended by 1801, and there were certain political undertones to the actions, though lack of leadership meant that little came of it. By the 1870s,