Enclosure for Sheep Pasture

Enclosure made by the tenants themselves by common agreement aroused no opposition or apprehension. No diminution of the area under tillage beyond that which had already of necessity taken place occurred, and the grass land already present in the fields was made available for more profitable use. The Doctor in Hales' dialogue carefully excepts this sort of enclosure from condemnation:

I meane not all Inclosures, nor yet all commons, but only of such Inclosures as turneth commonly arable feildes into pastures; and violent Inclosures, without Recompense of them that haue the right to comen therein: for if the land weare seuerallie inclosed to the intent to continue husbandrie theron, and euerie man, that had Right to commen, had for his portion a pece of the same to him selfe Inclosed, I thincke no harm but rather good should come therof, yf euerie man did agre theirto.[[112]]

In this passage Hales recognizes the theoretical possibility of a beneficial sort of enclosure, but the conditional form in which his remarks are thrown indicates that, so far as he knew, there was little systematic division of the land among the tenants by common consent.

Orderly rearrangement of holdings into compact plots suitable for enclosure was difficult unless the small holders had all disappeared, leaving in the community only men of some means, who were able to undertake the expenses of the readjustment. In most villages, however, holdings of all sizes were the rule. Some tenants had almost no land under cultivation, but picked up a living by working for others, and by keeping a few sheep on the commons and on the fallow lands of the town. There was thus always a fringe of peasant families on the verge of destitution. They were being gradually eliminated, but the process was extremely slow. A few of them in each generation, feeling as a realized fact the increasing misery which has been predicted for the modern industrial laborer, were forced to give up the struggle. Their land passed into the hands of the more prosperous men, who were thus gradually accumulating most of the land. In some cases, no doubt, all of the poorer tenantry were drained off in this fashion, making it possible for those who remained to consolidate their holdings and enclose them in the fashion advocated by Fitzherbert, keeping a part under tillage until it needed a rest, and pasturing sheep and cattle in the closes which were under grass.

It is impossible to estimate the number of these cases. What we do know is that in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries no such stage had been reached in hundreds of English townships. The enclosures which had been made by the tenants were of a few acres here and there. The fields for the most part were still open and subject to common, and consisted in part of poor pasture land. We do know also that many landlords took matters into their own hands, dispossessed the tenants, and enclosed a part or all of the land for sheep pastures. The date at which this step was made, and the thoroughness with which it was carried out, depended very much upon the character and needs of the landlord, as well as upon local circumstances affecting the condition of the soil and the degree of poverty suffered by the tenants. The tendency for landlords to lose patience with the process which was gradually eliminating the poorer men and concentrating their land in the hands of the more prosperous is not characteristic of any one century. It began as early as the middle of the fourteenth century, and it extended well into the seventeenth. By 1402 clergy were being indicted as depopulatores agrorum.[[113]] In the fifteenth century statutes against enclosure and depopulation were beginning to be passed, and Rous gives a list of fifty-four places near Warwick which had been wholly or partially depopulated before about 1486.[[114]] For the sixteenth century, we have the evidence of numerous statutes, the returns of the commissions, doggerel verse, popular insurrections, sermons, etc. Miss Leonard's study of the seventeenth-century enclosures is confirmed by additional evidence presented by Gonner that the movement was unchecked in this period. In 1692, for instance, Houghton was attacking the "common notion that enclosure always leads to grass," by pointing out a few exceptions.[[115]] In 1695 Gibson spoke of the change from tillage to pasture, which had been largely within living memory.[[116]]

There is no reason to believe that the landowners who carried out this process were unusually mercenary and heartless. The need for putting their land to some remunerative use was imperative, and it is surprising that the enclosure movement was of such a piece-meal character and extended over so many years, rather than that it took place at all.

There was little rent to be had from land which lay for the most part in open fields, tilled by men who had no capital at their command for improving the condition of the soil, or for utilizing profitably the portion of the land which was so impoverished that it could not be cultivated.

Poor tenants are unprofitable tenants; it is difficult to collect rent from them and impossible to raise their rent, and they attempt to save by exploiting the land, leaving it in worse condition than when they received it. Contemporary references to the poverty of these open-field tenants all confirm the impression given by Hales:

They that be husbandmen now haue but a scant lyvinge therby.[[117]] I that haue enclosed litle or nothinge of my grond could (never be able) to make vp my lordes rent weare it not for a little brede of neate, shepe, swine, gese and hens that I doe rere vpon my ground: whereof, because the price is sumwhat round, I make more cleare proffitt than I doe of all my corne and yet I haue but a bare liuinge.[[118]]

Harrison, at the end of the century, writes of the open-field tenants:

They were scarce able to liue and paie their rents at their daies without selling of a cow or an horsse, or more, although they paid but foure poundes at the vttermost by the yeare.[[119]]

The tenant who could not pay this rent without selling stock was, of course, one of those who would soon have to give up his land altogether, if the landlord continued to demand rent. If he sold his horses and oxen to raise the rent one year, he was less able to work his land properly the next year, and the crop, too small in the first place to enable him to cover expenses, diminished still more. When the current income was ordinarily too small to cover current expenses, no relief was to be found by reducing the capital. A time came when these men must be either turned away, and their land leased to others, or else allowed to stay and make what poor living they could from the soil, without paying even the nominal rent which was to be expected of them.

Lord North's comment on the enclosure movement as he saw it in the seventeenth century is suggestive of the state of affairs which led to the eviction of these husbandmen:

Gentlemen of late years have taken up an humor of destroying their tenements and cottages, whereby they make it impossible that mankind should inhabit their estates. This is done sometimes barefaced because they harbour poor that are a charge to the parish, and sometimes because the charge of repairing is great, and if an house be ruinous they will not be at the cost of rebuilding and repairing it, and cast their lands into very great farms which are managed with less housing: and oftimes for improvement as it is called which is done by buying in all freeholds, copyholds, and tenements that have common and which harboured very many husbandry and labouring families and then enclosing the commons and fields, turning the managry from tillage to grasing.[[120]]

Not only were these men able to pay little rent for the land they held, but, as has been suggested, they were unable to maintain the land in proper condition by the use of manure and marl. These expenses were beyond the means of the farmer who was falling behind; they neglected the soil because they were poor, and they were poor because the yield of the land was so low; but their neglect caused it to decline even more. Fitzherbert, who deplores the fact that marl is no longer used in his time, points out that not only the leaseholder, who is averse to making improvements on account of the insecurity of his tenure, but the freeholder, also, is neglecting his land; although

He knoweth well, he shall take the profits while he liueth, & his heyres after him, a corrage to improw his owne, the which is as good as and he purchased as much as the improwment cometh to.[[121]]

But if he spent money on marling the soil, he would have nothing to live on while waiting for the crop. The very poverty of the small holders made it necessary for them to sink in still greater poverty, until the lord deprived them of the land, or until they became so discouraged that they gave it up of their own volition. They might easily understand the force of Fitzherbert's arguments without being able to follow his advice. "Marle mendeth all manor of grounde, but it is costly."[[122]] The same thing is true of manure. According to Denton, the expense of composting land was almost equivalent to the value of the fee simple of the ground. He refers to a record of the early fourteenth century of the payment of more than twice the ordinary rent for composted land.[[123]] With manure at high prices, the man in difficulty might be tempted to sell what he had; it was certainly out of the question for him to buy more. Or, what amounted to the same thing, he might sell hay or straw, and so reduce the forage for his cattle, and return less to the soil by means of their dung.

Dr. Simkhovitch points out the difference between the farmer who is unable to meet expenses in a particular year because of an exceptionally bad season, and one who is suffering because of progressive deterioration of his farm. The first may borrow and make good the difference the following year; the latter will be unable to extricate himself. He neither has means to increase his holding by renting or buying more land, nor to improve the land which he has already. His distress is cumulative:

Only one with sufficient resources can improve his land. By improving land we add to our capital, while by robbing land we immediately add to our income; in doing so, however, we diminish out of all proportion our capital as farmers, the productive value of our farm land. The individual farmer can therefore improve his land only when in an economically strong position. A farmer who is failing to make a living on his farm is more likely to exploit his farm to the utmost; and when there is no room for further exploitation he is likely to meet the deficit by borrowing, and thus pledging the future productivity of his farm.[[124]]

While small holders in the open fields were in no position to pay higher rents, the land owners were suffering. Prices were rising, and while the higher price of farm produce in the market was of little help to the tenant whose own family used nearly everything he could raise, the landlords felt the pressure of an increasing cost of living.

Many of us [says the Gentleman, in Hales' dialogue] haue bene driuen to giue over oure houshold, and to kepe either a chambere in london, or to waight on the courte Vncalled, with a man and a lacky after him, wheare he was wonte to kepe halfe a score cleane men in his house, and xxtie or xxxtie other persons besides, everie day in the weke.... We are forced either to minyshe the thirde parte of our houshold, or to raise the thirde parte of our Revenues.[[125]]

It was difficult for the landowners to make economic use of even those portions of the land which were not in the hands of customary tenants. If they were willing to invest capital in enclosing demesne land and stocking it with sheep, without disturbing their small tenants, they found it impossible to do so. Not only did the poorer tenants have to cultivate land which was barely productive of more than the seed used, because they could not afford to allow it to lie idle as long as it would produce anything; not only did they allow the land which was under grass to remain practically waste, because they could not afford to enclose it and stock it with sheep; not only did they neglect manuring and marling the land because these improvements were beyond their means, so that the land was constantly growing poorer in their hands, and so that they could pay very little rent; but they were also tenacious of their rights of common over the rest of the land, and resisted all attempts at enclosure of the holdings of the more prosperous tenants, because they had to depend for their living largely upon the "little brede of neate, shepe, swine, gese and hens" which were maintained partly by the gleanings from other men's land when it lay common.

They undoubtedly suffered when the lord himself or one of the large leaseholders insisted on enclosing some of the land. If the commonable area was reduced, or if the land enclosed was converted from arable to pasture (as it usually was), the means by which they made their living was diminished. The occasional day's wages for labor spent on the land converted was now withdrawn, and the pasturage for the little flock was cut down. The practical effect of even the most innocent-looking enclosures, then, must have been to deprive the poorer families of the means of livelihood, even though they were not evicted from their worthless holdings. Enclosures and depopulation were inseparably linked in the minds of contemporaries, even when the greatest care was taken by the enclosing authorities to safeguard the rights of the tenants.

These rights, however, seriously interfered with the most advantageous use of land, and often were disregarded. Not only did the small holders have rights of common over the rest of the land, but their own strips were intermingled with those of the lord and the large holders. The typical problem confronting the enclosing landlord is shown below:

Holdings in Open Field, West Lexham, Norfolk, 1575[[126]]

Strips in Furlong AStrips in Furlong A
1. Will Yelverton, freeholder.1. Robert Clemente, freeholder.
2. Demesne.2. Demesne.
3. Demesne.3. Demesne.
4. Will Yelverton.4. Demesne.
5. Demesne.5. Demesne.
6. Demesne.6. Demesne.
7. Demesne.7. Demesne.
8. Demesne.8. Demesne.
9. Demesne.9. Will Lee, freeholder.
10. Glebe.10. Will Gell, copyholder.
11. Demesne.11. Demesne.
12. Demesne.12. Demesne.
13. Glebe.13. Demesne.

If, as was probably the case, the product from these demesne strips was so small that the land was fit only for conversion to pasture, the pecuniary interest of the lord was to be served best by enclosing it and converting it. But should he make three enclosures in furlong A, and two in furlong B, besides taking pains to leave a way clear for Will Yelverton and Lee and Gell to reach their land? Or should he be content merely with enclosing the larger plots of land, because of the expense of hedging and ditching the smaller plots separately from the rest? If he did this, the unenclosed portions would be of little value, as the grass which grew on them could not be properly utilized for pasture. The final alternative was to get possession of the strips which did not form part of the demesne, so that the whole could be made into one compact enclosure. In order to do this it might be necessary to dispossess Will Lee, Will Gell, etc. The intermingling of holdings, in such a way that small holders (whose own land was in such bad condition that they could not pay their rents) blocked the way for improvements on the rest of the land, was probably responsible for many evictions which would not otherwise have taken place.

But not all evictions were due to this cause alone. The income to the owner from land which was left in the hands of customary tenants was much lower than if it was managed by large holders with sufficient capital to carry out necessary changes. Where it is possible to compare the rents paid by large and small holders on the same manor, this fact is apparent:

Average Rent Per Acre of Land on Five Manors in Wiltshire, 1568[[127]]

I II III IV V
s.d. s.d. s.d. s.d. s.d.
Lands held by farmers16 7¾ 15¾ 11¾ 15½
Lands held by customary tenants 7½ 5 10¾ 5¾ 5¾

The differences in these rents are sufficient to be tempting to the lord who was seeking his own interest. The large holders were able to expend the capital necessary for enclosing and converting the part of the land which could not be profitably cultivated because of its bad condition. The capital necessary for this process itself was considerable, and besides, it was necessary to wait several years before there was a return on the investment, while the sod was forming, to say nothing of the large expenditure necessary for the purchase of the sheep. The land when so treated, however, enabled the investor to pay higher rents than the open-field husbandmen who "rubbed forth their estate in the poorest plight."[[128]]

A lord who was willing to consider only pecuniary advantage had everything to gain by clearing the land entirely of small holders, and putting it in the hands of men with capital. It is, therefore, to the credit of these landowners that there are so few authentic cases of the depopulation of entire villages and the conversion of all of the arable land into sheep runs. These cases made the lords who were responsible notorious and were, no doubt, exceptional. Nearly fifteen hundred places were covered by the reports of the commissions of 1517 and 1607, and Professor Gay has found among these "but a round dozen villages or hamlets which were all enclosed and emptied of their inhabitants, the full half of them in Northamptonshire."[[129]] For the most part, the enclosures reported under the inquisitions as well as those indicated on the maps and surveys of the period involved only small areas, and point to a process of piece-meal enclosure. The landowners seem to have been reluctant to cause hardship and to have left the open-field tenants undisturbed as far as possible, contenting themselves with the enclosure and conversion of small plots of land.

The social consequences of so-called depopulating enclosure were serious, but they are not seen in their proper perspective when one imagines the condition of the evicted tenants to have been fairly good before they were dispossessed. The cause lying back of the enclosure movement was bringing about the gradual sinking of family after family, even when no evictions were made. To attribute the poverty and misery of the rural population to the enclosure movement is to overlook the unhappy condition of the peasants, even where no enclosures had been made. Enclosures had been forbidden in the fields of royal manors in Northamptonshire, but this did not protect the peasantry from destitution. The manor of Grafton, for instance, was surveyed in 1526 and a note was made at the end of the survey that the revenue drawn from the lordship had lately been increased, but "there can no ferther enprovemente there be made and to kepe the tenantries standyng. Item the tenauntriez there be in sore decaye." The surveyor of Hartwell also notes that the "tenements there be in decay."[[130]]

The economic basis of the unfortunate social changes which were associated with the process of enclosure came gradually to be recognized. It was evidently futile to enact laws requiring the cultivation of land "wasted and worn with continual plowing and thereby made bare, barren and very unfruitfull."[[131]] Merely restrictive and prohibitory legislation was followed by the suggestion of constructive measures. Until the middle of the sixteenth century, laws were made in the attempt to put a stop to the conversion of arable land to pasture under any conditions, and required that land which had been under cultivation should be plowed in the future. In the act of 1552, however, an attitude somewhat more reasonable is to be seen. It was provided that land which had been under cultivation within a certain number of years preceding the act should be tilled, "or so much in quantity."[[132]] Public men were also urging that less time be devoted to the futile attempt to force men to cultivate land unfit for tillage, and that encouragement be given instead to measures for improving the waste, and bringing fresh land under the plow.[[133]]

After a time, moreover, another fact became apparent: there was a marked tendency to break up and again cultivate the land which in former generations had been converted to pasture. The statute of 1597 not only contained a proviso permitting the conversion of arable fields to pasture on condition that other land be tilled instead,[[134]] thus tacitly admitting that the reason for withdrawing land from cultivation was not the low price of grain, but the barrenness of the land, but also explicitly referred to this fact in another proviso permitting the conversion of arable land to pasture temporarily, for the purpose of recovering its strength:

Provided, nevertheless, That if anie Pson or Body Pollitique or Corporate hath ... laide or hereafter shall lay anie grownde to graze, or hathe used or shall use the same grownde with shepe or anie other cattell, which Grownde hath bene or shall be dryven or worne owte with Tillage, onely upon good Husbandrie, and with intente bona fide withowt Fraude or Covyne the same Grownde shall recover Harte and Strengthe, an not with intent to continue the same otherwise in shepe Pasture or for fattinge or grazinge of Cattell, that no such Pson or Body Politike or Corporate shall be intended for that Grownde a Converter within the meaning of this Lawe.[[135]]

A speaker in the House of Commons commends these provisions:

For it fareth with the earth as with other creatures that through continual labour grow faint and feeble-hearted, and therefore, if it be so far driven as to be out of breath, we may now by this law resort to a more lusty and proud piece of ground while the first gathers strength, which will be a means that the earth yearly shall be surcharged with burden of her own excess. And this did the former lawmakers overslip, tyeing the land once tilled to a perpetual bondage and servitude of being ever tilled.[[136]]

Several years before the passage of this statute, Bacon had remarked that men were breaking up pasture land and planting it voluntarily.[[137]] In 1619, a commission was appointed to consider the granting of licenses "for arable lands converted from tillage to pasture." The proclamation creating this commission, after referring to the laws formerly made against such conversions, continues:

As there is much arable land of that nature become pasture, so is there by reason thereof, much more other lands of old pasture and waste, and wood lands where the plough neuer entred, as well as of the same pasture lands so heretofore conuerted, become errable, and by husbandrie made fruitfull with corne ... the quantitie and qualitie of errable and Corne lands at this day doth much exceed the quantitie that was at the making of the saide Lawe.... As the want thereof [of corn] shall appeare, or the price thereof increase, all or a great part of those lands which were heretofore converted from errable to pasture and have sithence gotten heart, strength and fruitfulness, will be reduced to Corne lands againe, to the great increase of graine to the Commonwealth and profite to each man in his private.[[138]]

John Hales had protested against depopulating enclosures, in 1549, by appealing to the public spirit of landowners. They increased their profits by converting arable land to pasture, but, he argued,

It may not be liefull for euery man to vse his owne as hym lysteth, but eueyre man must vse that he hath to the most benefyte of his countrie. Ther must be somethynge deuysed to quenche this insatiable thirst of greedynes of men.[[139]]

But now it was no longer necessary to persuade the owners of this same land to forgo their own interests for the sake of the public good. Those whose land had been used as pasture for a great number of years were finding it valuable arable, because of its long period of rest and regeneration. Land which had been converted to pasture was being put under the plow because of the greater profit of tillage.

So great was the profit of cultivating these pastures that landlords who were opposed to having pastures broken up by leaseholders had difficulty in preventing it. Towards the end of the sixteenth century at Hawsted, and in the beginning of the seventeenth, a number of leases contained the express provision that no pastures were to be broken up. In 1620 and the years following, some of the leases permitted cultivation of pasture, on the condition that the land was to be laid to grass again five years before the expiration of the lease.[[140]]

There is no doubt of the fact that much land was being converted from pasture to arable in this period. Evidence of this tendency multiplies as the century advances. In 1656 Joseph Lee gave a list of fifteen towns where arable land hitherto converted to pasture had been plowed up again within thirty years.[[141]]

Barren and insufficiently manured land did not produce good crops merely because other land had been given an opportunity to recover its strength. The conversion of open-field arable to pasture went on unchecked in the seventeenth century because it had not yet had the benefit of the prolonged rest which made agriculture profitable, and without which it had become impossible to make a living from the soil. The lands which have been "heretofore converted from errable to pasture.... have sithence gotten heart, strength and fruitfulnesse," and are therefore being plowed again; but the land which has escaped conversion, and has been tied to the "perpetual bondage and servitude of being ever tilled," is "faint and feeble-hearted," and is being laid to grass, for pasture is the only use for which it is suited. The cause of the conversion of arable fields to pasture is the same as that which caused the same change on other lands at an earlier date—so low a level of productivity that the land was not worth cultivating. Lands whose fertility had been restored were put under cultivation and plowed until they were again in need of rest.

Thus the final result was about the same whether an enclosing landlord cut across the gradual process of readjustment of land-holding among the tenants, and converted the whole into pasture, or whether the process was allowed to go on until none but large holders remained in the village. In both cases the tendency was towards a system of husbandry in which the fertility of the soil was maintained by periodically withdrawing portions of it from cultivation and laying it to grass. In the one case, cultivation was completely suspended for a number of years, but was gradually reintroduced as it became evident that the land had recovered its strength while used as pasture. In the other, the grazing of sheep and cattle was introduced as a by-industry, for the sake of utilizing the land which had been set aside to recover its strength, while the better land was kept under the plow. Whether enclosures were made for better agriculture, then, as Mr. Leadam contends, or for pasture, as is argued by Professor Gay,[[142]] the arable enclosures were used as pasture for a part of the time and the enclosed pastures came later to be used for tillage part of the time, and the two things amount to the same thing in the end.

This end, however, had still not been reached in a great number of open-field villages by the beginning of the eighteenth century, and we should expect to find that the history of the land in this century was but a repetition of what had gone before, in so far as the fields which had not hitherto been enclosed are concerned.

But, during the seventeenth century, an agricultural revolution was taking place. Experiments were being made with new forage crops. For one thing, it was found that turnips could be grown in the fields and that they made excellent winter forage; and grass seeding was introduced. The grasses and clovers which were brought from Holland not only made excellent hay, but improved the soil rapidly. The possibility of increasing the amount of hay at will put an end to the absolute scarcity of manure—the limiting factor in English agriculture from the beginning. And the comparative ease with which the artificial grasses could be made to grow did away with the need of waiting ten or fifteen years, or perhaps half a century, for natural grass to cover the fields and restore their productiveness.

Only with the introduction of grass seeding did it become possible to keep a sufficient amount of stock, not only to maintain the fertility of the soil, but to improve it steadily. The soil instead of being taxed year after year under the heavy strain of grain crops was being renovated by the legumes that gathered nitrogen from the air and stored it on tubercles attached to their roots. The deep roots of the clover penetrated the soil, that no plow ever touched. Legumes like alfalfa, producing pound by pound more nutritious fodder than meadow grass, produced acre by acre two and three times the amount, and when such a field was turned under to make place for a grain crop, the deep and heavy sod, the mass of decaying roots, offered the farmer "virgin" soil, where previously even five bushels of wheat could not be gathered.[[143]]

As the value of these new crops became generally recognized, some effort was made to introduce them into the regular rotation of crops in the fields which were still held in common, but, for the most part, these efforts were unsuccessful, and new vigor was given to the enclosure movement. Frequently persons having no arable land of their own had right of common over the stubble and fallow which could not be exercised when turnips and clover were planted; for reasons of this sort, it was difficult to change the ancient course of crops in the open fields. For example, late in the eighteenth century (1793) at Stiffkey and Morston, the improvements due to enclosure are said to have been great, for:

being half-year land before, they could raise no turnips except by agreement, nor cultivate their land to the best advantage.[[144]]

At Heacham the common fields were enclosed by act in 1780, and Young notes:

Before the enclosure they were in no regular shifts and the field badly managed; now in regular five-shift Norfolk management.[[145]]

At Northwald, about 3,000 acres of open-field land were enclosed in 1796 and clover was introduced. The comment made is that "the crops bear quite a new face." The common field of Brancaster before enclosure in 1755 "was in an open, rude bad state; now in five or six regular shifts."[[146]]

Hitherto there had been only one way of restoring fertility to land; converting it to pasture and leaving it under grass for a prolonged period. Now it could be speedily improved and used intensively. Arthur Young describes the modern method of improvement in his account of the changes made in Norfolk husbandry before 1771:

From forty to fifty years ago, all the northern and western and a great part of the eastern tracts of the county were sheep walks, let so low as from 6 d. to 1s. 6 d. and 2 s. an acre. Much of it was in this condition only thirty years ago. The improvements have been made by the following circumstances.

First. By enclosing without the assistance of Parliament.

Second. By a spirited use of marl and clay.

Third. By the introduction of an excellent course of crops.

Fourth. By the introduction of turnips well hand-hoed.

Fifth. By the culture of clover and ray-grass.

Sixth. By the lords granting long leases.

Seventh. By the country being divided chiefly into large farms.[[147]]

The evidence which has been examined in this monograph reveals the far-reaching influence of soil exhaustion in English agrarian history in the centuries before the introduction of these new crops. As the yield of the soil declined, the ancient arable holdings proved incapable of supporting their cultivators, and a readjustment had to be made. The pressure upon subsistence was felt while villainage was still in force, and the terms upon which serfdom dissolved were influenced by this fact to an extent which has hitherto not been recognized. The economic crisis involved in the spread of the money economy threw into relief the destitution of the villains; and the easy terms of the cash payments which were substituted for services formerly due, the difficulty with which holders for land could be obtained on any terms, the explicit references to the poverty of whole communities at the time of the commutation of their customary services, necessitate the abandonment of the commonly accepted view that growing prosperity and the desire for better social status explain the substitution of money payments for labor services in the fourteenth century. The spread of the money economy was due to the gradual integration of the economic system, the establishment of local markets where small land holders could sell their produce for money. Until this condition was present, it was impossible to offer money instead of labor in payment of the customary dues; as soon as this condition was present, the greater convenience of the use of money made the commutation of services inevitable. In practise money payments came gradually to replace the performance of services through the system of "selling" works long before any formal commutation of the services took place. But, whatever the explanation of the spread of the money economy in England during this period, it is not the prosperity of the villains, for, at the moment when the formal change from payments in labor to money payments was made, the poverty and destitution of the landholders were conspicuous. That this poverty was due to declining fertility of the soil cannot be doubted. Land in demesne as well as virgate land was showing the effects of centuries of cultivation with insufficient manure, and returned so scant a crop that much of it was withdrawn from cultivation, even when serf labor with which to cultivate it was available. Exhaustion of the soil was the cause of the pauperism of the fourteenth century, as it was also of the enclosure and conversion to pasture of arable land in the fifteenth, sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Systematic enclosure for the purpose of sheep-farming on a large scale was but the final step in a process of progressively less intense cultivation which had been going on for centuries. The attention of some historians has been devoted too exclusively to the covetous sheep-master, against whom contemporary invective was directed, and the process which was going on in fields where no encloser was at work has escaped their notice. The three-field system was breaking down as it became necessary to withdraw this or that exhausted plot from cultivation entirely for a number of years. The periodic fallow had proved incapable of keeping the land in proper condition for bearing crops even two years out of three, and everywhere strips of uncultivated land began to appear in the common fields. This lea land—waste land in the midst of the arable—was a common feature of sixteenth and seventeenth century husbandry. The strips kept under cultivation gave a bare return for seed, and the profit of sheep-raising need not have been extraordinarily high to induce landowners to abandon cultivation entirely under these conditions. A great part of the arable fields lay waste, and could be put to no profitable use unless the whole was enclosed and stocked with sheep. The high profit made from sheep-raising cannot be explained by fluctuations in the price of wool. The price of wool fell in the fifteenth century. Sheep-farming was comparatively profitable because the soil of the ancient fields was too barren to repay the costs of tillage. Land which was in part already abandoned, was turned into pasture. The barrenness and low productivity of the common fields is explicitly recognised by contemporaries, and is given as the reason for the conversion of arable to pasture. Its use as pasture for a long period of years gave it the needed rest and restored its fertility, and pasture land which could bear crops was being brought again under cultivation during the centuries in which the enclosure movement was most marked.

Footnotes:

[[112]] Lamond, op. cit., p. 49.

[[113]] 4 H. 4, c. 2. Miss Leonard calls attention to this statute. "Inclosure of Common Land in the Seventeenth Century." Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., New Series, vol. xix, p. 101, note 2.

[[114]] Cf. supra, p. 27.

[[115]] Gonner, Common Land and Inclosure, p. 162.

[[116]] Leonard, op. cit., p. 140, note 2.

[[117]] Lamond, op. cit., p. 90.

[[118]] Ibid., pp. 56-57.

[[119]] Description of Britain (Holinshed Chronicles, London, 1586), p. 189.

[[120]] Leonard, op. cit., vol. xix, p. 120.

[[121]] Surveyinge, ch. 28.

[[122]] Ibid., ch. 32.

[[123]] Denton, England in the Fifteenth Century, p. 150.

[[124]] "Rome's Fall Reconsidered," Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxxi, pp. 217, 220.

[[125]] Lamond, Common Weal of this Realm of England, pp. 19-20.

[[126]] Tawney, Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century, pp. 254-255.

[[127]] Tawney, op. cit., p. 256.

[[128]] Carew, as quoted by Leonard, op. cit., vol. xix, p. 137.

[[129]] "Enclosures in England," Quarterly Journal of Ec., vol. xvii, p. 595.

[[130]] Lennard, Rural Northamptonshire, pp. 73-4.

[[131]] The reason stated in the preamble of many of the Durham decrees granting enclosure permits (Leonard, op. cit., p. 117).

[[132]] 5 & 6 Ed. 6, c. 5. Re-enacted by 5 El., c. 2.

[[133]] Memorandum addressed by Alderman Box to Lord Burleigh in 1576, Gonner, op. cit., p. 157.

[[134]] 39 El., ch. 2, proviso iii.

[[135]] Ibid., proviso iv.

[[136]] Bland, Brown & Tawney: Select Documents, p. 272.

[[137]] Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern Times, part ii, p. 99.

[[138]] Ibid., p. 99.

[[139]] Lamond, op. cit., p. lxiii.

[[140]] Cullum, Hawsted, pp. 235-243.

[[141]] Leonard, "Inclosure of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century," Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., N. S., vol. xix, p. 141, note.

[[142]] For this controversy see, "The Inquisitions of Depopulation in 1517 and the 'Domesday of Inclosures,'" by Edwin F. Gay and I. S. Leadam, Royal Hist. Soc. Trans., 1900, vol. xiv, pp. 231-303.

[[143]] Simkhovitch, Political Science Quarterly, vol. xxviii, pp. 400, 401.

[[144]] Board of Agriculture Report, Norfolk, ch. vi.

[[145]] Ibid., ch. vi.

[[146]] Ibid.

[[147]] Bland, Brown and Tawney, op. cit., pp. 530-531.

INDEX

Abbot's Ripton, [61]
Arable, [11];
area reduced, [22], [24], [27], [54-56], [70], [80];
barren, [12], [16-17], [23], [47], [49], [55-56], [58], [62], [70], [72], [79], [81], [97-99], [101], [106];
fertility restored, [13], [41-42], [46-47], [81-82], [98-99], [101], [103];
converted to pasture, [11-12], [14], [18-19], [23], [27-28], [30], [32], [35-36], [58], [71], [84], [88], [90], [99];
cultivation resumed, [12], [15-16], [31], [33], [84], [99-101];
lea strips, [41], [79-84], [87], [106];
enclosed, [83-84], [102]
Ashley, [33]
Bacon, [99]
Bailiff-farming, [50], [70], [73-74]
Ballard, [20], [50], [59-60], [63], [70], [77]
Barley, [37], [56]
Beggars, [70]
Berkeley estates, [23], [27], [58], [63], [83]
Black Death, [16], [18-23], [38], [41], [56-57], [60], [67]
Bolam, [80]
Bond land deserted, [16], [21], [56-57], [60-61], [66], [70], [72];
refused, [59];
no competition for, [21];
vacant, [22-23], [57-58], [62], [66], [72];
compulsory holding of, [21], [57], [59-60], [62], [72];
leased, [23], [57], [62], [75-76];
rents of, [16], [20-21], [57-58], [63], [66-68]
Brightwell, [68]
Burwell, [61]
Cattle, [48-49], [69], [91], [102]
Carew, Survey of Cornwell, [33]
Chatteris, [70]
Clover, [102], [104]
Combe, [51]
Commissions on enclosure, engrossing, etc., [15], [30], [84]
Common-field system, [11], [48], [85];
stability of, [82], [85], [87], [103];
disintegration of, [Chapter III]
Commutation of villain services, [19], [56-57], [64-69], [73], [105]
Concessions to villains, [57], [59], [62-64], [66], [69];
see [villain services], [rents]
Conversion, arable to pasture, [11-12], [14], [18-19], [23], [27-28], [30], [32], [35-36], [39-43], [58], [71], [84], [88], [90], [99];
pasture to arable, [19], [31], [34-36], [39-43], [84];
both, [19], [35-36], [39-43], [84];
reconversion of open-field land formerly laid to grass, [13], [15-16], [31], [33], [84], [99-101]
Convertible husbandry, [41-42], [81-82], [84], [102]
Corbett, [78]
Corn-laws, [33-34]
Cornwall, [33]
Cost of living, [92]
Crawley, [59]
Crops, [48], [102-104]
Cross-plowing, [78]
Cunningham, [32]
Curtler, [13]
Demesne, leased, [19-20], [57], [73];
intermixed with tenant land, [94-95]
Denton, [13], [27], [91]
Depopulation, [27-30], [94], [96]
Desertion, [16], [21], [56-57], [60-61], [66], [70], [72]
Downton, [50], [68]
East Brandon, [79]
Emparking, [27]
Enclosed land, pasture, [33], [87];
tilled, [83-84], [102];
convertible husbandry, [41-42], [81], [84], [101-102]
Enclosure, defined, [11-12];
progress of, [27-43], [87-88];
early, [16], [18-19], [22-23], [27], [58];
seventeenth century, [12], [17], [31], [35-37], [39], [88];
eighteenth century, [31], [103-104];
causes, see [productivity], [soil-exhaustion], [prices];
social consequences, [15], [29-30], [97], see [depopulation], [unemployment], [eviction];
literature of, [14-15];
opposition to, [82], [93];
effect on quality of wool, [33];
for sheep-farming, [12], [19], [22], [24], [28], [37], [42-44], [83-84], [87-88], [90], [96], [98];
enclosed land cultivated, [83-84], [102]
Engrossing, [75];
see [holdings, amalgamation of]
Eviction of tenants, [12], [15], [27], [30], [38], [90], [94], [96]
Fallow, [11], [47], [85], [87], [106];
see [pasture], [lea land]
Fertility, see [productivity], [soil-exhaustion];
fertility restored, [13], [41-42], [46-47], [81-82], [98-99], [101], [103]
Fines, [59]
Fitzherbert, [41], [77-79], [81-82], [91]
Forage, [49], [91], [102]
Forncett, [51], [61], [63], [84]
Gay, Professor E. F., [15], [96], [102]
Gonner, E. C. K., [13], [88]
Gorleston, [77]
Grafton Park, [34]
Gras, Norman, [51]
Gray, H. L., [79]
Grazing, [11], [18], [46];
profits from, [80];
see [sheep-farming], [pasture]
Hales, John, [86], [89], [92], [100]
Harrison, Description of Britain, [89]
Hasbach, [13]
Hawsted, [100]
Hay, [48-49], [91], [102]
Heriots, [69]
Holdings, deserted, [16], [21], [56-57], [60-61], [66], [70], [72];
refused by heir, [59];
vacant, [22-23], [57-58], [62], [66], [72];
intermixed, [11], [77-78], [85], [94-95];
amalgamated, [12], [56], [74-75];
divided, [76]
Holway, [41]
Houses, destruction of, [90]
Husbandry, Anonymous, [51]
Innes, [32]
Isle of Wight, [28], [76]
Labor, supply of, [18], [22-23], [38], [41];
see [wages], [unemployment]
Landlords, enclosure by, [12], [96], [100], [106]
Leadam, [102]
Lea-land, [41], [79], [80-84], [87], [106]
Lee, Joseph, [101]
Leicestershire, [15]
Leonard, E. M., [15], [27], [35-36], [40], [88]
Levett, A. E., [20], [50], [59-60], [63], [70], [77]
Manorial system, readjustments in fourteenth century, [19] et seq.
Manure, [41-42], [46-50], [78], [90], [102];
see [sheep-fold], [marl]

Markets, local, [105]
Marl, [46], [50], [90-91], [104]
Meadow, [48-49]
Meredith, [32]
Merton College, [51]
Money-economy, [105];
see [commutation of services]
Monson, Lord, [34]
More, Sir Thomas, [29-30]
Nailesbourne, [60], [64]
North, Lord, [90]
Northwald, [104]
Open-field land, see [common-field system], [enclosures], [lea-land]
Page, [60-61], [68]
Pasture, waste, [46], [49], [93];
fallow pasture, [11], [49], [82], [85], [93];
lea strips, [41], [79-84], [87], [106];
enclosed, [33], [82], [87];
converted to arable, [19], [31], [34], [36], [39-43], [84];
profits of, [12], [18], [30], [32-33], [107];
leased, [100]
Pauperism, see [poverty]
Pembroke, [41]
Population, [34]
Poverty, villains, [16], [21], [56], [59], [67-69], [72], [106];
small tenants, [87], [90-91], [97]
Prices, sixteenth century, [92];
wool and wheat, [12], [17-19], [24-33], [36-37], [40], [53];
seventeenth century, [36-37]
Productivity, [14], [38], [41], [44-48], [50-56], [90];
see [soil-exhaustion]
Profits, tillage, [22], [34], [39], [41], [58], [70], [72], [89-92];
pasture, [12], [18], [30], [32-33], [96], [107]
Protests against enclosures, [14-15], [38]
Prothero, [13]
Reconversion, pasture to arable, [12], [15-16], [31], [33], [84], [90], [101]
Rents, [16], [20-21], [57-58], [63], [66-68], [73], [89-90], [95]
Rogers, J. T., [17], [26], [31], [39]
Rotation of crops, [11], [103-104]
Rothamsted Experiment Station, [44]
Rous, [27], [88]
Russell, [44], [46-47], [49]
Seager, [17]
Seligman, [17]
Sheep, [12], [29]
Sheep-farming, [12], [19], [22], [24], [28], [37], [42-44], [83-84], [87-88], [90], [96], [98]
Sheep-fold, [49-50]
Simkhovitch, [13], [17], [47-48], [91]
Smyth, John, [23], [58]
Soil-exhaustion, [12], [16-17], [23], [47], [49], [55-56], [58], [62], [70], [72], [79-81], [97-99], [101], [106]
Statutes of husbandry, [28], [30], [39-40], [75-76], [88], [97-99]
Stiffkey, [103]
Stock and land lease, [73]
Strips, [11], [85], [94-95];
exchanged, [77]
Tawney, [77]
Tenants, elimination of, [87];
evicted, [12], [15], [27], [30], [38], [90], [94], [96];
poverty, [87], [90-91], [97];
enclosure by, [15], [82-87];
opposition to enclosure, [82], [93];
rents of, [89-90], [95]
Therfield, [60], [61]
Turf-borders, [11];
plowed under, [78]
Turnips, [102-104]
Tusser, [41], [79], [82]
Twyford, [59]
Unemployment, [28], [30], [38]
Utopia, [29-30]

Villains, poverty, [16], [21], [56], [59], [67-69], [72], [106];
compelled to take land, [21], [57], [59-60], [62], [72];
desertion of, [16], [21], [56-57], [60-61], [66], [70], [72];
social status with relation to commutation, [20], [57], [65], [67-68]
Villain-services, [58-59;]
reduced, [21], [62-64], [72];
commuted, [19-20], [56-57], [62], [64-69], [73], [105];
sold, [64], [66], [105];
excused, [70-71];
leased, [73];
retained, [67]
Vinogradoff, [65-66]
Virgate, [74];
value of services, [62-63]
Wages, [18], [36-39], [72-73]
Walter of Henley, [51], [53]
Waste, [12], [46], [49], [93], [98]
Westmoreland, Countess of, [36]
Weston, [61], [68]
Westwick, [80]
Wheat, yield, [47], [50-56], [90];
prices, [12], [17-19], [24-31], [32-33], [36-37], [40], [53]
Whorlton, [80]
Winchester, Bishopric of, [20], [50], [51-54], [60-61], [63], [70], [77]
Witney, [51-53], [55-56], [67-68]
Wool, demand for, [12], [22], [24-25], [29], [32], [42], [43;]
price of, [12], [17-19], [22], [24-33];
quality, [33]
Woollen industry, expansion of, [12], [22], [24-25]
Woolston, [59]
Young, Arthur, [104]