This Act recites 4 Henry VII., c. 19, the first of the Depopulation Acts; and states that it had been enforced only in lands held immediately of the King. Now “the King shall have the Moiety of the Profits of those lands already converted for Tillage to Pasture sithence three years before Ann. 4 H. 7 until the Owner hath builded up a convenient House to inhabit, and converted the same Pasture to Tillage again; and also take the Moiety of the issues of those lands hereafter to be converted, if the immediate Lord do it not within one year,” until the owners have built a Tenement for every 50, 40 or 30 acres, and have reconverted the pasture to tillage. Again it is stipulated that the land shall be tilled “according to the nature of the soil and the course of Husbandry used in the country where any such lands do lie.”
27 Henry VIII. (1536), c. 28.
Persons to whom monastic lands had been granted by Henry VIII. are required to maintain yearly as much of the land in tillage and husbandry as had commonly been so used within the preceding 20 years, under a penalty of 6l. 13s. 4d. per month.
CONFIRMATION OF STATUTE OF MERTON.
3 & 4 Edward VI. (1550), c. 3.
This Act cites and confirms the Statutes of Merton and Westminster and facilitates the recovery of damages for breaking down the hedges erected to enclose wastes.
DEPOPULATION ACTS.
5 & 6 Edward VI. (1552), c. 5.
This Act requires that so much land be tilled yearly in any parish as had been tilled at any time since the accession of Henry VIII., under a penalty of 5s. per acre per annum.
Four Commissioners were to be appointed to enquire into the conversion of arable into pasture.