Of land tenure in England before the 11th century we do not know very much[167]. [[363]]
The first detailed account of the economic condition of the country is contained in Domesday Book, in which William of Normandy embodied the results of an inquiry into the state of the kingdom he had secured.
“When Domesday Survey was compiled” says Cunningham, “every yard of English soil was as really, if not as definitely, subject to proprietary rights as it is now”[168]. We do not, however, think that much importance has to be attached to this statement; for there was still much uncultivated land and, though the king claimed a right of property over this land, it was not yet held as property in the strict sense of the word, which means that all except the owner are excluded from its use. This appears from what took place in 1305, under Edward I. “By an adjustment of boundaries considerable portions of the Crown forest were given over to certain barons, who gained personally; but the position of the tenants was so much altered for the worse that their case obtained special attention in the Ordinance of the Forest, by which their rights of pasture and common were secured”[169]. We see that these Crown forests had been open to the use of the peasants, so that practically there was still free land. And in this time of extensive tillage the common pasture played a great part in the rural economy[170].
Accordingly, rent in the modern sense did not yet exist. The landlords had abundance of land; but the land was worth little if it was not provided with people to cultivate it. “The rent of the proprietor now is directly connected with the physical character of his estate, its productiveness and its situation. The income of the lord of a Domesday Manor depended on the tolls he received, and the payments of his dependents: and thus was based on the way in which his estates were stocked with meat and men, rather than on the physical condition of the land. His income was a very different thing from modern rent”[171]. Even in later centuries “a fertile estate would have yielded but little annual income, unless the necessary labour was attached to it”[172].
In this time the whole of Central England was covered with [[364]]manors, and the mass of the rural population consisted of two classes: landlords and villeins; the latter were not all of the same condition, but none of them enjoyed entire personal freedom[173]. Of those cultivators who are described as freemen and socmen some could “sell their lands without leave asked or given, but others could only do so on obtaining licence from the lord”[174]. Finally there were some slaves[175]. Every freeman was a landholder, therefore there was no class of free labourers. “The labourer, as a man who depended on some employer for the opportunity and means of doing his work, seems to have been almost unknown in the eleventh century”[176].
All this agrees with our theory. All land had not yet practically been appropriated; therefore people could not be got to cultivate the land for the benefit of the landlords, unless they were deprived of personal freedom.
During the two following centuries population increased and land became more scarce. In the 13th century some lords already began to inclose portions of the waste, which had always been used for common pasturage, and “it was necessary to limit by the statute of Merton, in 1236, the lord’s “right of approver” or improvement, by the condition that he should not take away so much as not to leave enough for the purpose of pasture”[177]. Forests were often fenced off and the rights of common pasture restricted[178]. We have already mentioned an instance in which the condition of the peasants was much altered for the worse by such measures.
The changes which, during the same period, took place in the condition of the rural classes, are grouped by Ashley under four heads: “1. the growth of a large class of free tenants; 2. the commutation of the week work for money or corn payments; 3. the commutation of the boon-days and other special services; and 4. the appearance of a class of men dependent wholly or in part on the wages they received for agricultural labour”[179].
In a passage quoted in the last paragraph Ashley states that [[365]]most of the “free tenants” were villeins who had commuted their labour services for a money or corn payment, and had been freed from the more servile “incidents” of their position, such as inability to sell a horse without the lord’s consent[180]. Hence it follows that personal freedom, i.e. the right to leave the manor, was not regarded as characteristic of free tenure. Yet at the end of the 13th century every tenant was already permitted to sell his lands or parts of them[181]. This transition from personal to territorial obligations was certainly due to the increase of population and consequent enhanced value of land. In early times labour was scarce and therefore the landlord could not let a cultivator leave the manor. But now land, or at least some pieces of land, had already acquired so much value that there were always people to be found ready to cultivate them on condition of paying certain dues to the lord.
The principal cause of the commutation of labour dues for money was that the lord let portions of the demesne instead of cultivating it through his bailiff or reeve. He had now less need for the services of the villeins; for these services had consisted mainly in working on the demesne[182]. This change in the mode of cultivation was perhaps due partly to political circumstances (absence of the lord at court or in war), as in Germany it certainly was. But we think there were economic causes also at work. In early times, when land was abundant, it was necessary for the lord to keep the cultivators he wanted in personal subjection; he therefore made them work in his presence and under the supervision of his bailiff. But now the villeins had come to attach value to their holdings, they were no longer inclined to run away, for it would have been difficult for them to find land to live upon. The villein claimed an hereditary right to the land he cultivated, and the question as to whether he had any such right already began to be discussed by the lawyers[183].