[2] The only person who is known to have declined to sit on this account is Southey.
[3] Outline of English Local Government, p. 152.
[4] A clear and concise account of these developments is given by Lord Hobhouse, Contemporary Review, February and March 1886.
[5] Holdsworth’s History of English Law.
[6] Gregory King and Davenant estimated that the whole of the cultivated land in England in 1685 did not amount to much more than half the total area, and of this cultivated portion three-fifths was still farmed on the old common-field system.
[7] For a full discussion, in which the ordinary view is vigorously combated in an interesting analysis, see Hasbach, History of the Agricultural Labourer: on the other side, Levy, Large and Small Holdings.
[8] This was the general structure of the village that was dissolved in the eighteenth century. It is distinguished from the Keltic type of communal agriculture, known as run-rig, in two important respects. In the run-rig village the soil is periodically redivided, and the tenant’s holding is compact. Dr. Slater (Geographical Journal, Jan. 1907) has shown that in those parts of England where the Keltic type predominated, e.g. in Devon and Cornwall, enclosure took place early, and he argues with good reason that it was easier to enclose by voluntary agreement where the holdings were compact than it was where they were scattered in strips. But gradual enclosure by voluntary agreement had a different effect from the cataclysm-like enclosure of the eighteenth century, as is evident from the large number of small farmers in Devonshire.
[9] See Webb, Manor and Borough, vol. i. p. 66 seq.
[10] Slater, The English Peasantry and the Enclosure of Common Fields, p. 77.
[11] 13 George III. c. 81.