| In | 1400 | the servile | families who had land | numbered | 16 |
| " | 1500 | " | " | " | 8 |
| " | 1525 | " | " | " | 5 |
| " | 1550 | " | " | " | 3 |
| " | 1575 | " | " | " | 0 |
There is no event of greater importance in the agrarian history of England, or which has led to more important consequences, than the dissolution of this community in the cultivation of the land, which had been in use so long, and the establishment of the complete independence and separation of one property from another.[125] As soon as the manorial system began to give way, and men to have a free hand, the substitution of large for small holdings set in with fresh vigour, for we have already seen that it had begun. It was one of the chief causes of the stagnation of agriculture in the Middle Ages that it lay under the heavy hand of feudalism, by which individualism was checked and hindered. Every one had his allotted position on the land, and it was hard to get out of it, though some exceptional men did so; as a rule there was no chance of striking out a new line for oneself. The villein was bound to the lord, and no lord would willingly surrender his services. There could be little improvement in farming when the custom of the manor and the collective ownership of the teams bound all to the same system of farming.[126] In fact, agriculture under feudalism suffered from many of the evils of socialism.
But, though hard hit, the old system was to endure for many generations, and the modern triumvirate of landlord, tenant, and labourer was not completely established in England until the era of the first Reform Bill.
FOOTNOTES:
[101] Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, i. 130. A weigh in the Middle Ages was 182 lbs., or half a sack.
[102] Second edition, i. 50 n. See also Burnley, History of Wool, p. 17.
[103] Gross, Gild Merchant, ii. 4. It is from the Spanish merino, crossed with Leicesters and Southdowns, that the vast Australian flocks of to-day are descended.
[104] Cunningham, op. cit. i. 628.
[105] Ashley, Early History of English Woollen Industry, p. 34.
[106] Calendar of Close Rolls, 1337-9, pp. 148-9.