This Act applied only to parishes “whereof the more part was or were used and occupied to tillage and husbandry.” In such places “If any person shall decay a Town, a Hamlet, or House of Husbandry, or convert tillage into Pasture” and have not “within j. yeere next after such wylfull decaye reedefyed and made ageyn mete and convenyent for people to dwell and inhabyte the same, and have use, and therein to exercyse husbandry and tyllage” he forfeits one half of his land to the lord of the manor, until the offence is reformed. Land converted to pasture must again be tilled “after the maner and usage of the countrey where the seyd land lyeth.”
This Act was followed by the Inquisition of 1517.
ACT FOR RESTRAINING SHEEP FARMING.
25 Henry VIII. (1534), c. 13.
This is an Act to deal with the economic cause of depopulating enclosures.
“Sundry persons have of late daily studied how to gather into few hands great multitude of Farms and great Plenty of Cattle, and in especial Sheep, putting such land as they can get to Pasture, and not to tillage, whereby they have not only pulled down Churches and Towns and inhanced the old Rates ... so that poor men are not able to meddle with it ... it is thought that the great occasions that moveth and provoketh those greedy and covetous people ... is only the great Profit that cometh of Sheep.”
It is said that “some have 24,000, some 20,000, some 10,000, some 6,000, some 5,000 and some more, some less.”
It is enacted that with certain exceptions no one may keep more than 2,000 sheep under a penalty of 3s. 4d. per sheep per annum, half of the fine going to the crown, half to the informer. No man, further, may take more than two farms, and these must not be in the same parish.