After recording his arrival at Dunster, he says: “From Combane to the Sterte most part of the Shore is Hilly Ground, and nere the Shore is no Store of wood; that that is ys al in Hegge rowes of Enclosures” (Vol. II., fol. 63). There was enclosed ground between Bideford and Torrington (fol. 68); from Torrington to Launceston was either “hilly and much enclosid,” or “hilly and much morisch” (fol. 69), and also from Launceston to Boscastle (fol. 72).
Entering South Devon, he remarks simply on the fertility of the soil, but remarks: “The hole Ground bytwixt Torrebay and Exmouth booth sumwhat to the shore and especially inward is wel inclosed” (Vol. III., fol. 31).
In the year of Leland’s visit, probably either 1537 or 1538, the cultivated lands of Devon and Cornwall and Somerset were largely, but not entirely, enclosed. In East Somerset alone did Leland find any land which he could describe as “champaine”; we may infer therefore that though no doubt there was a good deal of open field arable, probably still cultivated by co-aration, it existed in the form of comparatively small areas round villages and hamlets; nowhere, in Leland’s route, extending over a considerable tract of country.
Carew, in his book on Cornwall, dated 1600, gives an account of the enclosure of that county. Of the manorial tenants, he says: “They fal everywhere from Commons to Inclosure and partake not of some Eastern Tenants envious dispositions, who will sooner prejudice their owne present thrift, by continuing this mingle mangle, than advance the Lordes expectant benefit, after their terme expired” (p. 30).
This pregnant passage tells us—
(1) That the Enclosure of tilled land in Cornwall had been proceeding rapidly up to 1600 and was then nearly complete;
(2) That previous to enclosure the system of cultivation, whether it most resembled the English common field system or Scotch run-rig, had for one of its features the intermixture of holdings; and for another some elements of collective ownership or management entitling it to the name “Commons”;
(3) That Carew’s conception of a manorial tenant is not that of a freeholder, nor of a copyholder, but that of a leaseholder, whose term expires, the lord of the manor reaping the fruit, on the expiration of the lease, of any improvements the tenant may have made. He further on explains that the system of leases for three lives was practically universal in Cornwall, not in the modern form in which any three lives may be named in the lease, but depending for its continuance on the lives of the lessee, his widow and his son. It is obvious that this condition of land tenure would be more favourable to early enclosure than copyhold.
Another passage in Carew bears witness to the practical completion of enclosure. Writing of the legal conditions under which the miners pursued their enterprise, he says: “Their workes, both streame and Load, lie either in severall or in waistrell,” that is, either in enclosed land under separate exclusive ownership and occupation, or in waste. One cannot draw the inference that there was absolutely no open field land; but merely that its extent was in comparison so small as to appear negligible in this connection to Carew.
Though it is not improbable that the enclosure of Cornwall took place at an earlier stage of agricultural evolution than that of Devonshire, it is somewhat improbable that it took place at an earlier date. It is a reasonable inference from the evidence that by the end of the sixteenth century the enclosure of Devon and Cornwall was practically complete. When it began is a different question.