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diff --git a/40336-0.txt b/40336-0.txt index fc9a5de..037cb32 100644 --- a/40336-0.txt +++ b/40336-0.txt @@ -1,34 +1,4 @@ -The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth -Century, by Richard Henry Tawney - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with -almost no restrictions whatsoever. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century - -Author: Richard Henry Tawney - -Release Date: July 26, 2012 [EBook #40336] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN 16TH CENTURY *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, KD Weeks, Joseph Cooper and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - Transcriber's Note: - - Superscripted characters in abbreviations are shown using curly - braces, e.g. "Maj{tie}" or "Y{r}". Any italicized text in the - original is shown as _italics_. - - This e-text includes six color maps that will only be viewable - in the HTML version. Their position in the text is indicated in - the List of Maps, with reference to the page numbers of the - printed edition. There is also a graph, referred to here by its - position in the printed edition, which can also only be viewed - in the HTML version. - - In Appendix II, there are a number of letters (m, n, u, v, r, - t) that are printed with a backward curl, usually at the end of - a word, but sometimes in mid-word. These are rendered here with - as [x@], e.g. [m@], [u@], etc. This is intended to provide a - visual indication of a letter's form, but is not intended to - convey phonetic value. - - Letters that are printed with a tilde (~), but for which there - is no latin-1 font are represented as [~x]. - - There are letter combinations (nn, co, & on) that are sometimes - combined with a single tilde (~) over both letters. These are - rendered as [n~n], [o~n] and [c~o]. - - - - - - - - - - - BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13 - - - - - THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN THE - SIXTEENTH CENTURY - - - - - THE - AGRARIAN PROBLEM - IN THE SIXTEENTH - CENTURY - - BY - - R.H. TAWNEY - - "_And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the Lands so - divided among them, that no one Man, or number of Men, - within the Compass of the Few or Aristocracy, overbalance - them, the Empire (without the interposition of force) is a - Commonwealth._"--HARRINGTON, _Oceana_. - - - _WITH 6 MAPS_ - - BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13 - - [Illustration] - - BURT FRANKLIN - - New York 25, N.Y. - - - - _Published by_ - - BURT FRANKLIN - - 514 West 113th Street - - New York 25, N.Y. - - - ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN - - LONDON--1912 - - - - _Printed in U.S.A. by_ - SENTRY PRESS, INC. - New York 19, N.Y. - - - - - TO - - WILLIAM TEMPLE and ALBERT MANSBRIDGE - - PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY - - OF THE - - WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION - - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book is an attempt to trace one strand in the economic life of -England from the close of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the -Civil War. As originally planned, it included an account of the -relations of the State to trade and manufacturing industry, the growth -of which is the most pregnant economic phenomenon of the period. But I -soon found that the material was too abundant to be treated -satisfactorily in a single work, and I have therefore confined myself -in the following pages to a study of agrarian conditions, whose -transformation created so much distress, and aroused such searchings -of heart among contemporaries. The subject is one upon which much -light has been thrown by the researches of eminent scholars, notably -Mr. Leadam, Professor Gay, Dr. Savine, and Professor Ashley, and its -mediæval background has been firmly drawn in the great works of -Maitland, Seebohm, and Professor Vinogradoff. The reader will see that -I have availed myself freely of the results of their investigations. -But I have tried, as far as the time at my disposal allowed, to base -my picture on original authorities, both printed and manuscript. - -The supreme interest of economic history lies, it seems to me, in the -clue which it offers to the development of those dimly conceived -presuppositions as to social expediency which influence the actions -not only of statesmen, but of humble individuals and classes, and -influence, perhaps, most decisively those who are least conscious of -any theoretical bias. On the economic ideas of the sixteenth century -in their relation to agrarian conditions I have touched shortly in -Part III. of the book, and I hope to treat the whole subject more -fully on some future occasion. If in the present work I have given, as -I am conscious that I have, undue space to the detailed illustration -of particular changes, I must plead that one cannot have the dessert -without the dinner, and that a firm foundation of fact, even though as -tedious to read as to arrange, is a necessary preliminary to the -higher and more philosophical task of analysing economic conceptions. -The reader who desires to start with a bird's-eye view of the subject -is advised to turn first to the concluding chapter of Part III. - -One word may be allowed in extenuation of the statistical tables, -which will be found scattered at intervals through the following -pages. In dealing with modern economic conditions it is increasingly -recognised that analysis, to be effective, must be quantitative, and -one of the disadvantages under which the student of all periods before -the eighteenth century labours is that for large departments of life, -such as population, foreign trade, and the occupations of the people, -anything approaching satisfactory quantitative description is out of -the question. The difficulty in the treatment of agrarian history is -different. Certain classes of manorial documents offer material which -can easily be reduced to a statistical shape. Indeed one difficulty is -its very abundance. The first feeling of a person who sees a -manuscript collection such as that at Holkham must be "If fifty maids -with fifty mops--," and a sad consciousness that the mop which he -wields is a very feeble one. But historical statistics should be -regarded with more than ordinary scepticism, inasmuch as they cannot -easily be checked by comparison with other sources of information, and -it may reasonably be asked whether it is possible to obtain figures -that are sufficiently reliable to be used with any confidence. Often, -no doubt, it is not possible. The strong point of surveyors was not -always arithmetic. The forms in which their information has been cast -are sometimes too various to permit of it being used for the purpose -of a summary or a comparison. Even when figures are both accurate and -comparable the student who works over considerable masses of material -will be fortunate if he does not introduce some errors of his own. The -tables printed below are marred by all these defects, and I have -included them only after considerable hesitation. I have tried to -prevent the reader from being misled by pointing out in an appendix -what I consider to be their principal faults and ambiguities. But no -doubt there are others which have escaped my notice. - -It remains for me to express my gratitude to those whose kind -assistance has made this work somewhat less imperfect than it would -otherwise have been. I have to thank the Warden and Fellows of All -Souls College, the Senior Bursar of Merton College, the Clerk of the -Peace for the County of Warwick, and the Earl of Leicester for -permission to examine the manuscripts in their possession. The maps -illustrating enclosure are taken from the beautiful maps of the All -Souls estates; my thanks are due to the College for allowing me to use -them, and to Mr. W. Tomlinson, of the Oxford Tutorial Class at -Longton, for helping me to prepare them for reproduction. -Circumstances preventing me from working in the Record Office, I was -so fortunate as to secure the co-operation of Miss Niemeyer and Miss -L. Drucker, who have transcribed for me a large number of surveys and -rentals. How much I owe to their help will be apparent to any one who -consults my footnotes and references. Among those who have aided me -with advice and information I must mention Professor Vinogradoff, -Professor Unwin, and Professor Powicke, the late Miss Toulmin Smith, -Mr. Kenneth Leys, Mr. F.W. Kolthammer, Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick, Dr. -G.H. Fowler, and the Hon. Gerard Collier. Especially great are my -obligations to Mr. R.V. Lennard and Mr. H. Clay, who have read through -the whole of the following pages in manuscript or in proof, and who -have helped me with numberless criticisms and improvements. - -In conclusion I owe two debts which are beyond acknowledgment. The -first is to my wife, who has collaborated with me throughout, and -without whose constant assistance this book could not have been -completed. The second is to the members of the Tutorial Classes -conducted by Oxford University, with whom for the last four years it -has been my privilege to be a fellow-worker. The friendly smitings of -weavers, potters, miners, and engineers, have taught me much about -problems of political and economic science which cannot easily be -learned from books. - -R.H.T. -MANCHESTER, _April 1912_. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -PART I.--THE SMALL LANDHOLDER - -CHAP. - -I. THE RURAL POPULATION-- - - (_a_) THE CLASSES OF LANDHOLDERS 19 - - (_b_) THE FREEHOLDERS 27 - - (_c_) THE CUSTOMARY TENANTS 40 - -II. THE PEASANTRY-- - - (_a_) THE VARIETY OF CONDITIONS 55 - - (_b_) THE CONSOLIDATION OF PEASANT HOLDINGS 57 - - (_c_) THE GROWTH OF THE LAND MARKET AMONG THE - PEASANTS 72 - -III. THE PEASANTRY (_continued_)-- - - (_d_) THE ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT OF THE SMALL - CULTIVATOR 98 - -IV. THE PEASANTRY (_continued_)-- - - (_e_) SIGNS OF CHANGE 136 - - (_f_) THE GROWTH OF COMPETITIVE RENTS ON NEW - ALLOTMENTS 139 - - (_g_) THE PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE AMONT THE - PEASANTRY 147 - - -PART II.--THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE - -I. THE NEW RURAL ECONOMY-- - - (_a_) MOTIVES AND CAUSES 177 - - (_b_) THE GROWTH OF THE LARGE LEASEHOLD FARM 200 - - (_c_) ENCLOSURE AND CONVERSION BY THE MANORIAL - AUTHORITIES 213 - -II. THE PEASANTRY-- - - (_a_) THE REMOVING OF LANDMARKS 231 - - (_b_) THE STRUGGLE FOR THE COMMONS 237 - - (_c_) THE ENGROSSING OF HOLDINGS AND DISPLACEMENT - OF TENANTS 253 - - (_d_) THE AGRARIAN CHANGES AND THE POOR LAW 266 - -III. THE QUESTION OF TENANT RIGHT-- - - (_a_) THE TENANTS AT WILL AND THE LEASEHOLDERS 281 - - (_b_) THE COPYHOLDERS 287 - - (_c_) THE UNDERMINING OF CUSTOMARY TENURES 301 - - -PART III.--THE OUTCOME OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION - -I. THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM AND THE STATE-- - - (_a_) THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE - PEASANTRY 313 - - (_b_) LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 351 - - (_c_) SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF STATE INTERVENTION 377 - -II. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 401 - -APPENDIX I 410 - -APPENDIX II 422 - -INDEX 437 - - -LIST OF MAPS - -I. PART OF THE MANOR OF SALFORD, IN - BEDFORDSHIRE (1590) _To face page_ 163 - -II. PART OF THE MANOR OF EDGEWARE, IN - MIDDLESEX (1597) " " 172 - -III. PART OF THE MANOR OF MAIDS MORTON, - IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (1590) " " 221 - -IV. PART OF THE MANOR OF CRENDON IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE - (about 1590) " " 221 - -V. PART OF THE MANOR OF WEEDON WESTON, - IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1590) " " 222 - -VI. PART OF THE MANOR OF WHADBOROUGH IN - LEICESTERSHIRE (1620) " " 223 - - - - -THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN -THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY - -INTRODUCTION - - -Any one who turns over the Statutes and State Papers of the sixteenth -century will be aware that statesmen were much exercised with an -agrarian problem, which they thought to be comparatively new, and any -one who follows the matter further will find the problem to have an -importance at once economic, legal, and political. The economist can -watch the reaction of growing markets on the methods of subsistence -farming, the development of competitive rents, the building up of the -great estate, and the appearance, or at any rate the extension, of the -tripartite division into landlord, capitalist farmer, and landless -agricultural labourer, the peculiar feature of English rural society -which has been given so much eulogy in the eighteenth century and so -much criticism in our own. From a legal point of view the great feature -of the period is the struggle between copyhold and leasehold, and the -ground gained by the latter. Before the century begins, leases for -years, though common enough on the demesne lands and on land taken from -the waste, are the exception so far as concerns the land of the -customary tenants. When the century closes, leasehold has won many -obstinately resisted triumphs; much land that was formerly held by copy -of court roll is held by lease; and copyhold tenure itself, through the -weakening of manorial custom, has partially changed its character. The -copyholders, though still a very numerous and important class, are -already one against which the course of events has visibly begun to -turn, and economic rent, long intercepted and shared, through the fixity -of customary tenure, between tenant and landlord under the more elastic -adjustments of leasehold and competitive fines, begins to drain itself -into the pockets of the latter. Politically, one can see different views -of the basis of wealth in conflict, that which measures it by the number -of tenants "able to do service" contending with that which tests it by -the maximum pecuniary returns to be got from an estate, and which treats -the number of tenants as quite a subordinate consideration. The former -is the ideal of philosophical conservatives, is supported, for military -and social reasons, by the Government, and survives long in the North; -the latter is that of the new landed proprietors, and wins in the South. - -And its victory results in much more than a mere displacement of -tenants. It means ultimately a change in the whole attitude towards -landholding, in the doctrine of the place which it should occupy in the -State, and in the standards by which the prosperity of agriculture is -measured, drawing a line between modern English conceptions and those of -the sixteenth century as distinct as that which exists between those of -the Irish peasantry and Irish landlords, or between the standpoint of a -French peasant and that of the agent of a great English estate. The -decline of important classes alters the balance of rural society, though -the Crown for a long time tries to maintain it, and the way is prepared -both for the economic and political omnipotence which the great landed -aristocracy will exercise over England as soon as the power of the Crown -is broken, and for the triumph of the modern English conception of -landownership, a conception so repugnant both to our ancestors and to -the younger English communities,[1] as in the main a luxury of the -richer classes. If it had not been for the undermining of the small -farmer's position in the sixteenth century, would the proposal[2] to -enfranchise copyholders have been thrown out in 1654, and would the -enclosures[3] of the eighteenth century have been carried out with such -obstinate indifference to the vested interests of the weaker rural -classes? Would England have been unique among European countries in the -concentration of its landed property, and in the divorce of its -peasantry from the soil? - - [1] See the land legislation of the Australasian Colonies. - - [2] The Instrument of Government (December 1653) established a - franchise qualification of rent or personal estate to the value - of £200. This certainly would have enfranchised a large number - of copyholders and leaseholders, some of whom were much better - off than the small freeholders. For an estate of £299, 15s. 4d. - left at death by a tenant "Husbandman" see _Nottingham Borough - Records_ under the year 1599 (vol. iv. pp. 249-252). It was made - up as follows: "Money in purse and his clothes, £15; value of - beasts, £74; corn sowne in fields, £35; value of furniture in - hall, £2, 13s.; in parlour, £5, 14s., and other miscellaneous - possessions." For wills of husbandmen and yeomen see _Surtees - Society_, vol. lxxix., pp. 181-182, 263-264, 294, 310. For the - restoration of the franchise to the freeholders, see Gardiner, - _The Commonwealth_, iii. 78. - - [3] Hammond, _The Village Labourer_, 1760-1832. One may add--if - English statesmen had studied the history of customary tenures - in England, would they have deferred until 1870 legislation - protecting tenant right in Ireland? See Lord Morley's - description of the Irish cultivator "as a kind of copyholder or - customary freeholder" (_Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii. p. 281). - -From a wider point of view the agrarian changes of the sixteenth century -may be regarded as a long step in the commercialising of English life. -The growth of the textile industries is closely connected with the -development of pasture farming, and it was the export of woollen cloth, -that "prodigy of trade," which first brought England conspicuously into -world-commerce, and was the motive for more than one of those early -expeditions to discover new markets, out of which grew plantations, -colonies, and empire. Dr. Cunningham[4] has shown that the system of -fostering the corn trade, which was embodied in the Corn Bounty Act of -1689, and which was a principle of English policy long after the reason -for it had disappeared, was adopted in a milder form in the reign of -Elizabeth with the object of checking the decline in the rural -population. Again, new agricultural methods were a powerful factor in -the struggle between custom and competition, which colours so much of -the economic life of the period, and, owing to this fact, they produced -reactions which spread far beyond their immediate effect on the classes -most closely concerned with them. The displacement of a considerable -number of families from the soil accelerated, if it did not initiate, -the transition from the mediæval wage problem, which consisted in the -scarcity of labour, to the modern wage problem, which consists in its -abundance. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -municipal[5] authorities were engaged in a prolonged struggle to -enforce their exclusive economic privileges against the rural immigrant -who had lost his customary means of livelihood and who overcrowded town -dwellings and violated professional byelaws; while the Government -prevented him from moving without a licence, and when he moved, -straitened[6] his path between the Statute of Inmates on the one hand -and the House of Correction on the other. Observers were agreed that the -increase in pauperism[7] had one capital cause in the vagrancy produced -by the new agrarian régime; and the English Poor Law system, or the -peculiar part of it providing for relief of the able-bodied, which -England was the first of European countries to adopt, came into -existence partly as a form of social insurance against the effect of the -rack rents and evictions, which England was the first of European -countries to experience. Whatever uncertainty attaches to the causes and -effects of the agrarian problem, there can be no doubt that those who -were in the best position to judge thought it highly important. If it is -not a watershed separating periods, it is at least a high range from -which both events and ideas descend with added velocity and -definiteness. To the economic historian the ideas are as important as -the events. For though conceptions of social expediency are largely the -product of economic conditions, they acquire a momentum which persists -long after the circumstances which gave them birth have disappeared, and -act as over-ruling forces to which, in the interval between one great -change and another, events themselves tend to conform. - - [4] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern - Times_, Part i. pp. 85-88, 101-107, 540-543. - - [5] See _e.g. Records of the Borough of Reading_, vol ii. pp. - 36, 94, 156; vol. iii., 131, and those of Leicester, Norwich, - Nottingham, and Southampton, _passim_; also below, pp. 275-277. - - [6] "Mr. Secretary Cecil said, ... If we debar tillage, we give - scope to the Depopulator, and then, if the poor being thrust out - of their houses go to dwell with others, straight we catch them - with the Statute of Inmates; if they wander abroad, they are - within the danger of the Statute of the Poor to be whipt" - (D'Ewes' _Journal of the House of Commons_, 1601, pp. 674-675). - - [7] See below, pp. 273-275. - -A consideration of these great movements naturally begins with those -contemporary writers who described them. Though the books and pamphlets -of the age contain much that is of interest in the development of -economic theory, their writers rarely attempted to separate economic -from other issues, and economic speculation usually took the form of -discussions upon particular points of public policy, or of a casuistry -prescribing rules for personal conduct in difficult cases. Such a -difficult case, such a problem of public policy, was offered by the -growth of competitive methods of agriculture. The moral objections felt -to the new conditions caused them to be a favourite subject with writers -of sermons and pamphlets, and made the sins of the encloser, like those -of the usurer, one of the standbys of the sixteenth century preacher. -There is, therefore, a considerable volume of writings dealing with the -question from the point of view of the teacher of morality. At the same -time the political significance of the movement, and the fact that the -classes concerned were important enough to elicit attempts at protection -on the part of the Government, called forth a crop of suggestions and -comments like those of More, Starkey,[8] Forest,[9] the author of the -Commonwealth[10] of England, and, at a later date, Powell[11] and -Moore.[12] Further, the new agricultural methods were explained by -persons interested in the economics of agriculture, such as -Fitzherbert,[13] Tusser,[14] Clarkson,[15] who surveyed the manors of -the Earl of Northumberland in 1567, Humberstone[16] who did the same for -those of the Earl of Devonshire, and Norden.[17] The accounts of -surveyors, a dull but indispensable tribe, are reliable, as they are -usually statements of facts which have occurred within their own -experience, or at any rate, generalised descriptions of such facts. The -same may be said of the evidence of John Hales, who was employed by the -Government in investigating the question, and who had to explain it in -such a way as to convince opponents, and to get legislation on this -subject through a bitterly hostile Parliament. The description given by -writers like Latimer,[18] Crowley,[19] and Becon[20] are valuable as -showing the way in which the movement was regarded by contemporaries; -but they are mainly somewhat vague denunciations launched in an age when -the pulpit was the best political platform, and their very positiveness -warns one that they are one-sided and must be received with caution. -Still, they mark out a field for inquiry, and one may begin by setting -out the main characteristics of the agrarian changes as pictured in -their writings. - - [8] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry the - Eighth_, Part II.: "A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas - Lupset, Lecturer in Rhetoric at Oxford, by Thomas Starkey, - Chaplain to the King," edited by J.M. Cowper (date of - composition about 1538). - - [9] E. E. T. S., as above, Part I. (Appendix). _The Pleasant - Poesye of Princelie Practise_, by Sir William Forest (date of - composition 1548). - - [10] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, edited by - Elizabeth Lamond (date of composition 1549; the author was - almost certainly John Hales). - - [11] Powell, _Depopulation Arraigned_, 1636. - - [12] _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the Poor, - wherein Enclosure such as doth unpeople Towns and Common Fields - is Arraigned, Convicted, and Condemned by the Word of God_, by - John Moore, Minister of Knaptoft, in Leicestershire, 1653. - - [13] Fitzherbert, _Boke of Husbandry_, 1534. _Surveyinge_, 1539. - - [14] Tusser, _Five Hundred Points of Husbandry_. - - [15] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350 and passim. - - [16] Surveys _temp._ Philip and Mary of various estates - belonging to the Earl Devon (_Topographer and Genealogist_, i. - p. 43). - - [17] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_ (1607). - - [18] Sermons by Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester - (Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Co.). - - [19] Crowley, Select Works (E. E. T. S., 1872). - - [20] Becon, _Jewel of Joy_. Extract quoted in England in the - reign of King Henry the Eighth (Part I., p. lxxvi.). - -The movement originates, they agree, through the covetousness[21] of -lords of manors and large farmers, who have acquired capital in the -shape of flocks of sheep, and who, by insisting on putting the land to -the use most profitable to themselves, break through the customary -methods of cultivation. The outward sign of this is enclosing, the -cutting adrift of a piece of land from the common course of cultivation -in use, by placing a hedge or paling round it, and utilising it -according to the discretion of the individual encloser, usually with the -object of pasturing sheep. This is accompanied by land speculation and -rack-renting, which is intensified by the land-hunger which causes -successful capitalists,[22] who have made money in trade, to buy up -land as a profitable investment for their savings, and by the sale of -corporate property which took place on the dissolution[23] of the -monasteries and the confiscation of part of the gild estates. The -consequence is, first, that there is a scarcity of agricultural produce -and a rise[24] in prices, which is partly (it is supposed) attributable -to the operations of the great graziers who control the supplies of -wool, grain, and dairy produce, and secondly and more important that the -small cultivator suffers in three ways. Agricultural employment is -lessened. Small holdings are thrown[25] together and are managed by -large capitalists, with the result that he is driven off the land, -either by direct eviction, or by a rise in rents and fines, or by mere -intimidation. At the same time the commonable[26] area, consisting of -the common waste, meadow, and pasture of the manor is diminished, with -the result that the tenants who are not evicted suffer through loss of -the facilities which they had previously had for grazing beasts without -payment. There is, in consequence, a drift into the towns and a general -lowering in the standard of rural life, due to the decay of the class -which formerly sent recruits to the learned professions, which was an -important counterpoise to the power of the great landed proprietors, and -which was the backbone of the military forces of the country.[27] - - [21] "For looke in what partes of the realm doth growe the - fynest and therefore dearest woll, there noblemen and gentlemen, - yea, and certeyn abbotes, holy men no doubt, not contenting them - selfes with the yearely revenues and profytes, that were wont to - grow to their forefathers and predecessours of their landes, nor - being content that they live in rest and pleasure nothinge - profitting, yea much noyinge, the weal publique, leave no - grounde for tillage, thei inclose al into pasture; thei throw - doune houses; they plucke downe townes, and leave nothing - standynge, but only the churche to be made a shepehouse" (More's - _Utopia_, Book I., p. 32, Pitt Press Series). - - [22] "The Grazier, the Farmer, the Merchants become landed men, - and call themselves gentlemen, though they be churls; yea, the - farmer will have ten farms, some twenty, and will be a - Pedlar-merchant" (_King Edward's Remains: A Discourse about the - Reformation of many Abuses_). "Look at the merchants of London, - and ye shall see, when by their honest vocation God hath endowed - them with great riches, then can they not be content, but their - riches must be abrode in the country, to bie fermes out the - handes of worshipful gentlemen, honest yeomen, and poor - laborynge husbands" (_Lever's Sermons_, Arber's Reprints, p. - 29). - - [23] "Do not these ryche worldlynges defraude the pore man of - his bread, ... and suffer townes so to decay that the pore hath - not what to eat, nor yet where to dwell? What other are they, - then, but very manslears? They abhorre the names of Monkes, - Friars, Chanons, Nounes, etc., but their goods they gredely - gripe. And yet where the cloysters kept hospitality, let out - their fermes at a reasonable pryce, noryshed scholes, brought up - youths in good letters, they doe none of all these thinges" - (Becon, _Works_, 1564, vol. ii. fols. xvi., xvii.). - - [24] "A proclamation set fourthe by the King's Majestie with the - assent and consent of his dear uncle Edward, Duke of Somerset - ... and the said cattell also by all lyklyhode of truth should - be more cheape beynge in many men's handes as they be nowe in - fewe, who may holde them deare and tarye the avantage of the - market" (Brit. Mus. _Lansdown_, 238, p. 205). See also E. E. T. - S.: "Certayne causes gathered together, wherein is showed the - decaye of England only by the great multitude of shepe" (date - 1550-1553), and _The Commonweal of this Realm of England, - passim_, especially pp. xlv.-lxvii. It is worth noting that - Hales, who was quite conversant with the effect on general - prices of an increase in the supply of money, thought that the - rise which took place in his day was in some measure due to - monopolists. He describes his third Bill as ensuring that "ther - wolde have byn within fyve yeares after the execution therof - suche plentie of vitteyll and so good cheape as never was in - England" (_Commonweal_, p. lxiii.). - - [25] Proclamation as before: "Of late by thynclosinge of landes - and erable grounds, many have byn drevyn to extreme povertie, - insomuche that wheareas in tyme past, tenne, twentie, yea in - some places C. or CC. Chrysten people hathe byn inhabytynge ... - nowe ther is nothynge kept but sheepe and bullocks. All that - lande, whiche heretofore was tilled and occupied by so many men, - is nowe gotten by insaciable gredyness of mynde into one or two - men's handes, and scarcely dwelled upon with one poore - shepherd." - - [26] "There be a manie a M cottagers in England, which, havinge - no land to live of theire owne but their handie labours, and - some refreshinge upon the said commons, yf they were sodenly - thrust out from that commoditie might make a great tumult and - discorde in the commonwealth" (_Commonweal of England_, pp. - 49-50). - - [27] See below, pp. 341-344. - -The picture drawn by the literary authorities suggests questions, some -of which have been satisfactorily cleared up and some of which are still -obscure. Dissertations as to method are usually more controversial than -profitable, and we do not propose at this point to give any detailed -account of the order in which these problems have been taken up by -previous scholars, to pass any judgment upon the different kinds of -evidence which they have used, or to offer any estimate of the value of -their conclusions. If we are at all successful in our presentation of -the subject, the reader will discover for himself the nature of the -evidence upon which we have relied, and where we differ from and agree -with the treatment of other writers. All we can attempt here is to give -a short statement of some of the principal issues which demand -attention, a statement which does not pretend to be exhaustive, but -which may serve to indicate the more salient features of the ground over -which we shall travel. - -As to the counties mainly affected by the agrarian changes there is now -substantial agreement. The work of Mr. Leadam[28] and Professor Gay[29] -seems to have put the geographical distribution of the movement towards -enclosure, or at least of those enclosures which produced hardships, -upon a fairly firm basis. We can say with some confidence that it mainly -affected the Midlands and eastern counties, from Berkshire and -Oxfordshire in the south to Lincoln and Norfolk in the north-east, and -that it was least important in the south-western counties of Cornwall -and Devon, and in the south-eastern counties of Kent and Essex, much of -which had been enclosed before the sixteenth century began, and in the -northern counties of Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, -Northumberland, and Durham, though, by the end of the sixteenth century, -parts of the two latter counties, at any rate, were considerably -affected by it. Again, the same authors have offered a statistical -estimate of the extent of the movement which, while it is manifestly -defective, and while it can only be used with great caution to support -arguments as to the practical effect of enclosures, does offer some -guide to the imagination, and is, at least, a valuable check on the -conjectures made by contemporaries without any statistics at all and on -a basis merely of their personal impressions. Finally, the difficult -question of the security of copyhold tenants as against the landlords -who desired to evict them seems to have been put in the right -perspective by the evidence which Dr. Savine[30] has adduced to prove -that, in the case of copyholds of inheritance, a plaintiff who could -show a clear title could get legal redress. - - [28] Leadam, _Domesday of Enclosures_. - - [29] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xiv. and vol. xvii.; - _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. See also Gonner, - _Common Land and Inclosure_, pp. 132-152. - - [30] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. See below, pp. - 287-297. - -On the other hand, certain points must still be pronounced highly -obscure. The first is a simple one. The agrarian changes are usually -summed up under the name of "Enclosure." But what exactly did enclosing -mean? Contemporary writers represent it as almost always being carried -out by lords and large farmers against the interests of the smaller -tenantry. But there is abundant proof that the tenants themselves -enclosed; and as they can hardly be supposed to have been forward in -initiating changes which damaged their own prospects, ought we not to -begin by drawing a distinction between the piecemeal enclosures made by -the peasantry, often after agreement between neighbours, from which they -hoped to gain, and the great enclosures made by lords of manors from -which the peasants obviously lost? Further, different authorities assign -different degrees of importance to different aspects of the movement. -Mr. Johnson[31] holds, for example, that the enclosure of the common -waste, as distinct from the enclosure of the arable fields, was -relatively unimportant. Such a view, however, is not easily reconciled -with the constant complaints which relate clearly to the enclosing of -common wastes and pastures and with the state of things depicted in the -surveys.[32] Again, the writings of the period speak as though the -movement were mainly one from arable to pasture farming. But this was -questioned as long ago as the first thorough study of the question--that -of Nasse[33]--and the doubts which he threw on their view of the problem -are supported by Mr. Leadam by means of the statistics which he has -drawn from the returns of the Commission of 1517, though his conclusions -are in their turn disputed by Professor Gay. In fact no one who examines -the picture given by the Commissions and by surveys and field maps can -help feeling that the word "enclosing," used by contemporaries as though -it bore its explanation on its face, covered many different kinds of -action and has a somewhat delusive appearance of simplicity. - - [31] Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, p. 40. - - [32] See below, pp. 218-221 and 237-253. - - [33] Nasse, _The Land Community of the Middle Ages_ (translated - for the Cobden Club by Colonel Ouvry, 1871), pp. 81-91: "With - regard to the proper agricultural character of these movements - they are represented commonly as having been caused by an - exclusively pure pasture husbandry, which expelled the tillage - husbandman. Different circumstances, however, and witnesses show - us closely that this, for the most part, was not the case." The - discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay is contained in - the _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xiv. See also - Miss Davenport, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xi., and - below, pp. 223-228. - -Moreover, who gained and who suffered by the enclosures, and to what -extent? If the movement deserves to be called an agrarian revolution, it -was certainly one which left a great many holders of small landed -property intact, and perhaps even improved their position. Otherwise we -can hardly account for the optimistic description of them, or of some of -them, which is given in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth -centuries by writers like Harrison,[34] Norden,[35] and Fuller,[36] or -for the part which this class played in the Civil War. Nor can we say -with confidence how the statistical evidence derived by Mr. Leadam and -Professor Gay from the reports of Royal Commissions should be -interpreted. The comparative smallness of the percentage of land which -the Commissioners returned as enclosed has led to the view[37] that the -importance of the whole movement was grossly exaggerated by the writers -of the period, who created a storm in a tea-cup over changes which -really affected only an inconsiderable proportion of the whole country. -If this is so, it is not easy to explain either the continuous attention -which was paid to the question by the Government, or the revolts of the -peasantry, or the strong views of reasonable and fair-minded men with -first-hand knowledge, such as John Hales. - - [34] _Elizabethan England_, edited by Lothrop Withington, with - introduction by F.J. Furnivall, p. 119. - - [35] J. Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - - [36] Thomas Fuller, _Holy and Profane State_. - - [37] Gay, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii., p. 587: - "Hysterical and rhetorical complaint ... condemned by its very - exaggeration." - -There is obscurity not only as to the details, but as to the outlines of -the movement. Different views have been expressed as to its origin, -duration, and points of maximum intensity. Professor Ashley[38] puts the -period of most rapid change from about 1470 to 1530. But these dates -cannot be taken as in any way fixed. The greatest popular outcry[39] -against enclosing occurred about the middle of the sixteenth century, in -the years 1548 to 1550. As Miss Leonard[40] has shown, there was much -enclosing in the seventeenth century, and about 1650[41] there was a -crop of pamphlets against it similar in tone to the protests which -occurred almost exactly a century before. It is especially difficult to -determine how far back the movement should be carried. The first -statute[42] against it, that of 1489, is an obvious landmark. But has it -not been too readily accepted as an earlier limit? Hales[43] said that -most of the "destruction of towns" had taken place before the beginning -of the reign of Henry VII. The allusion to enclosing in the -Chancellor's[44] speech to Parliament in 1483 shows that the movement -must have already obtained considerable dimensions. Rous[45] had -petitioned Parliament on the subject of depopulation in 1459, and in his -History, which was published sometime between that date and 1486, he -returned to the charge with a detailed account of the destruction of -villages in his own county of Warwickshire. More convincing than either, -the records of Manorial Courts[46] prove that the consolidation of -holdings and collisions between the interests of commoners and -sheep-farmers were quite common early in the fifteenth century. One may -perhaps pause to remark that the question of the antecedent conditions, -out of which the rapid agricultural changes of the sixteenth century -arose, is a very important one, and the more important the more -far-reaching those changes are thought to have been. It is surely -incredible that the conversion of land to pasture, the growth of large -pasture estates, and the eviction of customary tenants, should have -occurred to the extent described, unless considerable minor changes -preceded them, and without some premonitory rumblings to suggest the -coming storm. In economic affairs new lines of organisation usually -start on a small scale before they attain dimensions sufficiently -striking to attract attention; and one would expect to be able to trace -the leading motives of the agrarian changes of the Tudor period far back -in the fifteenth century and even earlier, and that they would throw -light on the nature of the subsequent movements. There is, further, some -difference of opinion as to the causes which forced the agrarian problem -to the front. Some contemporary authorities attribute it mainly to the -growth of the woollen industry,[47] and in this they have been followed -by most subsequent writers. On the other hand, the direct evidence -supplied by price statistics seems to be not altogether reliable,[48] -and in any case the woollen industry had been steadily growing for a -hundred years before the complaints as to enclosure become general. This -has led Dr. Hasbach[49] to argue that the change in agricultural methods -was due less to the high price of wool than to the low price of grain, -which was artificially reduced by the restrictions imposed on export -under the Tudors, and which he holds to have produced such a fall in -rent as to result in the adoption of pasture-farming. Other writers have -emphasised the revolutionary effect of the general depreciation in the -value of money[50] and the consequent growth of commercialism in the -relations between landlord and tenant. - - [38] Ashley, _Economic History_, vol. i. Part II., p. 286: - "There were two periods of rapid change ... namely from c. 1470 - to c. 1530, and again from about 1760 to 1830. After about 1530 - the movement somewhat slackened." - - [39] See below, Part III., chap. i. - - [40] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. See also Gonner, - _Common Land and Inclosure_, pp. 153-186. Professor Gonner is no - doubt right in saying that "the view which regards inclosure ... - as taking place mainly at two epochs, in the sixteenth and - eighteenth centuries respectively ... gives an almost entirely - false presentation of what occurred." - - [41] Moore. _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the - Poor_, 1653, and _A Scripture Word against Enclosure_, 1656. - Moore's pamphlets provoked rejoinders, viz., _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_, by Joseph Lee, 1656, _Considerations - concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_ (1654, Pseudonismus), - and _A Vindication, of the Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures, or a Rejoynder unto that Reply which Mr. - Moore hath pretended to make unto those Considerations_ (1656, - Pseudonismus). - - [42] 4 Henry VII. c. 19. - - [43] "For the chief destruccion of Townes and decaye of houses - was before the begynnynge of the reign of King Henry the - Seventh" (The defence of John Hales, quoted p. lxiii. of Miss - Lamond's edition of _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_). - - [44] Camden Society, 1854, lii. - - [45] J. Rossus, _Historia Regum Angliæ_ (T. Hearne). - - [46] See below, pp. 161-162. - - [47] See _e.g._ More's _Utopia_ quoted above, and Pauli, _Drei - volkswirthschaftliche Denkscriften aus der Zeit Heinrichs VIII. - von England_. It is suggested that if the council will only fix - the price which stappellers and clothmakers are to pay for raw - wool, "it shall cause the pasturers of sheep to open their - enclosures and suffer the more earth to be wrought by works of - husbandry." - - [48] See the discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay on - the wool prices of Thorold Roger in _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, - New Series, vol. xiv. The best account of the price movements of - the sixteenth century is contained in _Studien zur Geschichte - der Englischen Lohnarbeiter_, Band I., by Gustaf F. Steffen. - - [49] Hasbach, _A History of the English Agricultural Labourer_, - pp. 31-33. - - [50] See below, pp. 197-200 and 304-310. - -Finally, one may ask what was the effect of legislation against -pasture-farming and evictions, and of the frequent administrative -interference by which the Governments of the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries tried to check them. On a first view, at any rate, the whole -history of the policy pursued in this matter, with one short interval -from the autumn of 1549 to 1553, constitutes surely one of the most -remarkable attempts to control changing economic conditions by -Government action which has ever been made. Whether successful or -unsuccessful, it throws much light on the ideas of the period with -regard to the place in the State which should be occupied by the -landholding classes, on the relative advantages from a political -standpoint of large and small farming, and on the administrative -machinery of Government. The opinion generally[51] adopted seems to be -that the Acts forbidding conversion were entirely ineffective, and that -the Government, if sincere, was outmanoeuvred by the Local -Authorities, whose duty it was to administer the laws, and whose -interest lay in preventing their administration. Much evidence may be -cited in support of this view. On the other hand, we have clear proof of -the Council interfering on some occasions with apparent success; and -further, it seems necessary to discriminate between the policies of -different periods. One cannot argue, for example, that because the -statutes protecting the poorer classes were not carried out by the -rapacious oligarchy of adventurers which governed England from the fall -of Somerset to 1553, therefore they were never used effectively in the -reigns of Henry VIII., of Elizabeth, or of the first two Stuarts. Nor -would one be right in assuming the existence in the sixteenth century of -the identity of interest and policy between the great landlords and the -Government which characterised the period from 1688 to 1832. One's -conclusion on the whole question must depend less on direct evidence as -to the success of the particular measures, which, in the nature of -things, is not easily obtainable, than on the opinion which one forms of -the degree of importance which the statesmen of the period assigned to -the class of small cultivators, and of the ability of the Central -Government to get its policy executed. - - [51] _e.g._ by Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 37. Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xviii. Contrast Miss Leonard, Trans. _Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xix. On the subject of the policy of the State - towards the agrarian problem, see below, Part III., chap. i. - -Such are some of the questions which are suggested by even a cursory -survey of the agrarian problem. There are others which are less -susceptible of summary statement, but which involve issues that are of -some importance for the interpretation of economic history. Granted that -it was inevitable that the subsistence husbandry of the mediæval village -should give way to capitalist agriculture, in what light are we to -regard the changes by which that great transformation was brought about? -Ought we to think of the open field system as altogether incompatible -with any improvement in agricultural technique, as the miracle of -squalid perversity which it has appeared to some writers both of our own -and of earlier ages, and as requiring the bitter discipline of pasture -farming and evictions to shake it out of its deep rut of custom, and to -make room for more progressive methods? Or are we to view it as -permitting a good deal of mobility, and as already slowly developing a -less rigid and cumbrous organisation when it was partially overwhelmed -by rapid, and for the mass of the peasantry disastrous, changes? What -place ought the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century to be given -in that transition from mediæval to modern conditions of agriculture -which, starting in England, has spread eastwards through almost every -European country, and which is beginning to-day even in India. How far -does it compare and contrast with the enclosures of the period -succeeding the fall of the Stuarts, and with the analogous developments -which have taken place on the continent, and how far does it present -special features peculiar to itself? What were the relations between it -and other aspects of national life? Have the economic changes which took -place in the world of agriculture any reflex in the social and political -changes occurring in the century which divides the Reformation from the -Civil War? How far did the redistribution of property which they -effected contribute to the decline in the condition of the poorer -classes which, according to most writers, took place in the sixteenth -century, and to the creation of the commercial aristocracy whose -influence becomes so pronounced after the Restoration? What was the -result of these material developments in the realm of legal and economic -ideas? Ought we to minimise the communalism of the mediæval village? Or -should we think of the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century as -really a new and decided movement in the direction of economic -individualism, a long step towards the growth of modern ideas of land -ownership and of the right of the individual to follow unfettered his -own discretion in matters of economic enterprise, which gather weight at -the end of the seventeenth, and come to their own at the end of the -eighteenth, century? - -We cannot pretend to answer these questions. We leave them as riddles -for the reader, with the words which a sixteenth century economist -prettily prefaces to his analysis of the chief economic problems of his -age:--"And albeit ye might well saye that there be men of greater witte -then I; yet fools (as the proverb is) speake some times to the purpose, -and as many headdes, so many wittes ... and though eche of theise by -them selves doe not make perfitte the thing, yet when every man bringeth -in his guifte, a meane witted man maye of the whole (the best of everie -mans devise beinge gathered together) make as it were a pleasant garland -and perfitte."[52] - - [52] Preface to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (ed. - Lamond). - -In the following pages we shall deal with our subject in the following -order: Chapter I. of Part I. will describe the chief classes of tenants -as they are set out in rentals and surveys, and in particular the -freeholders and customary tenants who formed the bulk of the -landholders. Chapters II., III. and IV. will discuss in some detail the -economic positions of the customary tenants both before and during the -sixteenth century, the reasons for supposing that there had been a -considerable growth in the prosperity of many of them before our period -begins, and the gradual modification in the customary conditions of -rural life, as illustrated both by the growth of competitive payments on -those parts of the manor which were least controlled by custom, and by -the attempts made by the peasantry themselves to overcome by enclosure -the difficulties attaching to the methods of open field cultivation. -Chapter I. of Part II. will examine the reason which led to more rapid -changes in agricultural methods in the sixteenth century, and the growth -of the large leasehold farms upon which these changes can be most easily -traced. Chapters II. and III. will discuss the reaction of these changes -upon the peasantry and the question of the nature and security of their -tenure. Chapter I. of Part III. will explain their political and social -importance and the policy of the State towards them. In Chapter II. we -shall endeavour to offer a summary of our main conclusions. - - - - -PART I - -THE SMALL LANDHOLDER - - "What comyn folke in all this world may compare with the comyns - of England in riches, freedom, liberty, welfare, and all - prosperity? What comyn folke is so mighty, so strong in the - felde as the comyns of England?"--_State Papers, Henry VIII._, - vol. ii. p. 10. - - "My thynketh that as the wise husbandman makethe and maynteyneth - his nursery of yonge trees to plante in the steede of the olde, - when he seeth them begynne to fail, because he will be sure at - all tymes of fruyte: so shulde politique governours (as the - kynges maiestie and his councell mynde) provide for thencrease - and mayntenance of people, so that at no tyme they maye lacke to - serve his highnes and the commenwelthe."--_The defence of John - Hales agenst certeyn sclaundres and false reaportes made of - hym._ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE RURAL POPULATION - - -(a) _The Classes of Landholders_ - -If an Englishman of ordinary intelligence had been asked in the reign of -Henry VIII. to explain the foundations of national prosperity, he would -probably have answered that the whole wealth[53] of the country arises -out of the labours of the common people, and that, of all who labour, it -is by the work of those engaged in tillage that the State most certainly -stands. True, it cannot dispense with handicraftsmen and merchants, for -ours is an age of new buildings, new manufactures, new markets. The -traders of Europe are already beginning to look west and east after the -explorers; there are signs of an oceanic commerce arising out of the -coastwise traffic of the Middle Ages; and Governments are increasingly -exercised with keeping foreign ports open and English ports closed. But -whether any particular artisan or trader is a profitable member of the -commonwealth is an open question. Too many of the manufactures which men -buy are luxurious[54] trifles brought from abroad and paid for with good -English cloth or wool or corn or tin, if not with gold itself--articles -whose use sumptuary legislation would do well to repress. As for -merchants,[55] if like honest men they give their minds to navigation, -well and good. But theirs is an occupation in which there is much room -for "unlawful subtlety and sleight," for eking out the legitimate -profits earned by the labour of transport, with underhand gains filched -from the necessitous by buying cheap and selling dear, for speculations -perilously near the sin of the usurers who traffic in time itself. -Outside the circle of a few statesmen and financiers, the men of the -sixteenth century have not mastered the secret by which modern societies -feed and clothe (with partial success) dense millions who have never -seen wheat or wool, though London and Bristol and Southampton are -beginning to grope towards it. Looking at the cornfields which are -visible from the centre of even the largest cities, they see that a -small harvest means poverty and a good harvest prosperity, and that a -decrease of a few hundred acres in the area sown may make all the -difference between scarcity and abundance. A shortage in grain, which -would cause a modern State to throw open its ports and to revise its -railway tariff, sets a sixteenth century town[56] breaking up its -pastures and extending the area under tillage. No man is so clearly a -"productive labourer" as the husbandman, because no man so unmistakably -adds to the most obvious and indispensable forms of wealth; and though, -in the system of classes which makes up the State, there are some whose -function is more honourable, there is none whose function is more -necessary. In most ages there is some body of men to whom their -countrymen look with pride as representing in a special degree the -strength and virtues of the nation. In the sixteenth century that class -consisted of the substantial yeoman. Men speak of them with the same -swaggering affection as is given by later generations to the sea-dogs. -The genius of England is a rural divinity and does not yet rule the -waves; but the English yeomen have "in time past made all France -afraid."[57] They absorb most of the attention of writers, both on the -technique and on the social relations of agriculture. They are the -feet[58] upon which the body politic stands--the hands which, by -ministering to its wants, leave the brain free to act and plan. Let us -begin by trying to see how the landholding classes were composed. - - [53] Pauli, _Drei volkswirthschaftliche Denkschriften aus der - Zeit Heinrichs VIII. von England_: How to reform the Realme in - setting them to work, and to restore tillage. "The whole welth - of the body of the realm riseth out of labours and workes of the - common people." - - [54] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. 63: - "And I marvell no man taketh heade unto it, what nombre first of - trifles cometh hether from beyonde the seas, that we might - either clene spare, or els make them within oure owne Realme, - for the which we paie inestimable treasure every yeare, or els - exchange substanciall wares and necessaries for them." E. E. T. - S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, Part II., p. 84: - "Craftys men and makers of tryfullys are too many." Harrison in - _Elizebethan England_ (Withington), p. 15: "O how many trades - and handicrafts are now in England whereof the Commonwealth hath - no need!" &c. - - [55] _e.g._ the prayer for merchants in Edward VI.'s _Book of - Private Prayer_: "So occupy their merchandise without fraud, - guile, or deceit." - - [56] _Coventry Leet Book_, Part III., pp. 679-680. - - [57] See Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I. c. 23: "These - are they which in the old world got that honour to Englande ... - because they be so manie in number, so obedient at the Lorde's - call, so strong of bodie, so hard to endure paine, so courageous - to adventure ... these were the good archers in times past, and - the stable troops of footmen that affaide all France that would - rather die all, than once abandon the knight or gentleman their - captaine," and Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), - pp. 11-13. - - [58] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, - Starkey's Dialogue, Part II., p. 49: "To the handes are - resemblyd both craftysmen and warryarys.... To the fete the - plowmen and tyllarys of the ground, beycause they, by theyr - labour, susteyne and support the rest of the body." - -The manorial documents supply us with much information about the -landholders, and though we cannot say what proportion[59] they formed of -the population, we ought to be able to say with some certainty the -relative numbers of different classes among them. In the surveys and -rentals of the period persons holding land may usually be divided -roughly according to the nature of their tenure into three -groups--freeholders, customary tenants, and leaseholders. This -classification[60] of course is an elastic and tentative one, which -raises almost as many questions as it settles. The customary tenure of -one part of the country differs very much from the customary tenure of -another part. Customary tenants include copyholders and the vast -majority of tenants at will, who are holding customary land, and who are -often entered under the latter heading merely because the surveyor did -not trouble to set out their full description. But tenancy at will is -sometimes used to describe the condition, not only of the holder of -customary land, but also of men who are mere squatters on the waste or -on the demesne, and who are not protected in their holdings by any -manorial custom. Again, it is not always easy to draw a line between -copyhold and leasehold. On a manor where the custom is least favourable -to the tenants' interests the former shades into the latter. There is -not much difference, for example, between a lease for thirty-three years -and a copyhold for life. Again, the classification is one of tenures not -of tenants. In parts of England, it is true, it does divide individual -tenants with almost complete exhaustiveness and precision. In most -districts, for example, the free tenant usually holds freehold land and -nothing else, the customary tenant customary land and no other. But in -East Anglia there is no such simplicity of arrangement, no such -permanence of tenurial compartments. Many free tenants hold land which -is said to be bond or villein or customary land; many customary tenants -hold free land; many of both have added to their holdings by leasing -parts of the demesne or of the waste, and though in this respect the -Eastern counties are exceptional, it is in them often impossible to say -in what class any individual should be placed. - - [59] In this essay we are concerned only with the landholders, - not with the wage workers. The relative number of persons - holding land and of agricultural labourers without land is an - important question on which it is not easy to get light. The - surveys and rentals, a species of private census invaluable in - giving information about the holders of property, tell us only - the number of householders, and as the labourers employed in - agriculture (like many of those employed in manufacturing - industry) usually lived on the premises of their masters, they - do not enable us to calculate the number of those living - entirely by their labour. Still, since they include all tenants, - whether holders of a cottage only or holders of land in - addition, they enable us to say what proportion of heads of - families held land, and what proportion had none, or none except - a garden. This is of some importance. A tenant holding even as - much as fifty acres can hardly have employed more than two or - three agricultural labourers, and most tenants held less than - this; so that in those places where the cottagers form a small - proportion of the whole population we may conclude that a large - proportion of the villagers were landholders (for the figures on - this point see the tables given below). - - Unfortunately, we do not possess for the sixteenth century even - such a loose estimate as was made by Gregory King at the end of - the seventeenth. In 1688 he calculated that there were 16,560 - families of nobles and gentlemen, 60,000 families of yeomen, - 150,000 of farmers--presumably on lease--400,000 cottagers and - poor, 364,000 labouring people and out-servants, obviously a - very rough calculation, the most remarkable feature of which is - the large number of yeomen. Poll Tax returns might give us the - kind of information we require, since they included, or were - meant to include, the whole population above a certain age, - irrespective of whether they held land or not, and sometimes - divided them roughly into classes. Thus on sixteen manors in the - Norfolk Hundred of Thingoe the return to the Poll Tax of 1381 - showed a population of 870 male and female inhabitants over - fifteen years of age, of whom 9 were set down as knights, 53 as - farmers, 102 as artificers, 344 as "labourers" (laboratores), - 362 as "servants" (servientes). If, as is not improbable, the - first four classes held land (the labourers being serfs working - on the demesne), and the last consisted of farm and household - employees who did not, this would put the landholding classes on - these manors at a little more than half the total population - over the age of fifteen. But this return was probably falsified - to escape the tax; see Powell, _The East Anglian Rising_, App. - I., and Oman, _The Great Revolt of 1381_. The figures published - by Dr. Savine (_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, - vol. i., pp. 223-226) of the monastic population show that on - the eve of the dissolution there were residing in 22 houses in - Leicester, Warwick, and Sussex, 255 "hinds" and 76 "women - servants," presumably employed on the demesne farm, which gives - an average to each farm of about 11 hinds and about 3 women - servants. In the Kentish Nunnery of St. Sexburge, Sheppey, the - demesne farm employed a carter, a carpenter, two cowherds, a - thatcher, a horse keeper, a malter, three shepherds. Best, - describing his farming arrangements in Yorkshire in 1641 - (_Surtees Society_, vol. xxxiii.), states: "Wee kept constantly - five plowes goinge, and milked fowerteene kine, wherefore wee - had always fower men, two boyes to go with the oxeploughe, and - two good lusty mayde-servants." These were in each case only the - permanent staff, and their comparatively small numbers suggest - that much work must have been done by men who worked on their - own land and only occasionally helped on the demesne, _i.e._ - that the proportion of landholders to non-landholders was high. - This conclusion agrees with the evidence of the surveys, which - show that, especially in the East of England, many of both the - free and the customary tenants' holdings were so small that they - could hardly have made a living out of them without working as - wage-labourers as well, and also with other indications as to - the classes in rural society; _e.g._ out of 3780 persons - mentioned in Worcestershire recognizances, 1591-1643, as either - "labourers," "husbandmen," or "yeomen," 667 are entered as - labourers, 1303 as husbandmen, 1810 as yeomen, the latter - designation always, and the second usually, implying a holder of - land (J.W. Willis Bund, _Kalendar of the Sessions Rolls_, - 1591-1643, Part II.) On the other hand, conditions varied - enormously from place to place. Where there was a considerable - body of small landowners the number of hired labourers tended to - be small, the work of cultivation being done by the holder and - his family; _e.g._ we read of a manor in the seventeenth century - where thirteen freeholders farmed 580 acres with the aid of only - ten men-servants and shepherds before enclosure, and six or - seven afterwards (Joseph Lee, _A Vindication of a Regulated - Enclosure_). - - Some of the surveys supply us with extreme cases of the opposite - kind, where the whole manor consists of two or three holdings or - of even one great estate, and where almost the whole of the - population must have been working for wages; these illustrate - Harrison's complaint that in many places "The land of the parish - is gotten up into a few men's hands; yea, sometimes, into the - tenure of one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled - betimes to be hired servants unto the others, or else to beg - their bread in misery from door to door" (Withington's edition - of _Elizabethan England_, p. 21). A protest made to the Council - from Norfolk in 1631 against its policy of trying to keep down - prices by insisting that all corn should be sold in the open - market points out that in "the woodland and pasture part" of the - country there are "a great many handicraftsmen which live by - dressinge and combinge of wool, carding, spinning and weaving, - etc., and the Townes there commonly very great consisting of - such like people and other artificers with many poor, and none - of them all ordinarilye having any corn but from the market." As - to the "champion part" of the county, the document divides the - rural population into three classes: "1. Tilth masters that have - corn of their own growing and sell it to others. 2. Labourers - that buy it at an under-price of them unto whom they worke. 3. - Poore people that are relieved by good orders in every towne" - (_Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907). But the case of Norfolk was exceptional, owing - to its position as the chief seat of the textile industries. - - On the whole I am inclined to think that though the process of - commutation which went on from 1350 onwards can hardly be - explained except on the supposition that there was a - considerable population of persons who held little land and were - ready to eke out a living by working for wages, yet in the - sixteenth century even the wage-working heads of families - usually held a certain amount of land (even if only a garden) as - well. This agrees with what we are told by contemporaries of the - scarcity of wage-earners (see below, pp. 99-102). One may add, - that in view of this, the fixing of maximum wages bears a - somewhat different colour from that often given it. It was only - practicable, one is inclined to say, because so few persons - depended entirely on wages for a living. The social problem in - the sixteenth century was not a problem of wages, but of rents - and fines, prices and usury, matters which concern the - small-holder or the small master craftsman as much as the - wage-earner. The "working classes" were largely small property - holders and small traders. - - [60] The summary statement given above is liable to be - misleading. The reader will find a fuller discussion of the - questions arising in connection with it below in Part II., chap. - iii. - -Nevertheless, in spite of many marginal cases, we may perhaps find in -the surveyors' classification a map of the broader features of the -country through which we are to travel. Property holders, profit makers, -and wage-earners are to-day inextricably confused, but to the economist -who writes on our social problems 200 years hence it will not be -altogether useless to know that his predecessors did in practice draw -rough distinctions between these classes, and formed estimates of the -numbers of each. Much of the agrarian problem of the sixteenth century -turns on the question of the legal interest in their holdings enjoyed by -different classes of tenants, and though we cannot hope to escape the -pitfalls which await compilers of even the humblest census, a -preliminary survey of their distribution in a few counties may not be -altogether without value. The following figures are taken from the -surveys and rentals of 118 manors.[61] The majority were made in the -reign of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth. There are included, -however, three from the latter half of the fifteenth century and three -from the years between 1630 and 1650. Under the heading of customary -tenants are grouped copyholders and tenants at will, as well as those -who are called customary tenants in the rentals and surveys. - - [61] They include also tenants on the lands belonging to - Cockersand Abbey, lying in many different parts of Lancashire, - in 1503. For the sources from which this table is constructed - and its defects, see Appendix II. - -Scanty as they are, these figures show that there is the very greatest -variety in the distribution of different classes of tenants in different -parts of the country, and remind us that we must be careful how we -generalise from the conditions of one district to those of another. When -all localities are handled together, customary tenants form nearly -two-thirds of the whole landholding population, freeholders about -one-fifth, leaseholders between one-eighth and one-ninth. But in parts -of the Midlands and in parts of the West the leaseholders are much more -numerous than they are elsewhere; in Leicestershire they form over -one-fifth, and are almost as numerous as the freeholders, while if we -isolate the five Somersetshire and Devonshire manors which above are -combined with those of Wiltshire, we find that in them the leaseholders -exceed the freeholders by nearly two to one. Again, in Northumberland -the preponderance of customary tenants (where they form 91 per cent. of -the landholding population) over the two other classes is much more -marked than it is in Wiltshire, and in Wiltshire it is greater than it -is in the three Midland counties and in East Anglia. That customary -tenants should overwhelmingly preponderate in Northumberland is -intelligible enough. If the single great manor of Rochdale be removed, -they preponderate almost as much in Lancashire. In those two wild -counties mediæval conditions survive long after they have begun -elsewhere to disappear. There has been no growth of trade to bring -mobile leasehold tenures in its train, or to accumulate the wealth which -the peasants need to enfranchise their servile tenancies. But why should -they be so much more numerous in the southern counties than they are in -the twenty-two Midland villages, where one would suppose the conditions -to be much the same? Here, as often hereafter, we raise a question only -to leave it unanswered. - -TABLE I - ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - | Total. | Free- |Customary|Lease- |Uncertain.| - | |holders.| Tenants.|holders.| | ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ -Northumberland, | 474 | 26 | 436 | 12 | | - six manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Lancashire, | | | | | | - seven manors, and lands | | | | | | - belonging to Cockersand | | | | | | - Abbey | 1280 | 217 | 451 | 334[62]| 278 | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1754 | 243 | 887 | 346 | 278 | - | |(13.8%) | (50.5%) |(19.04%)| (15%) | - | | | | | | -Staffordshire, | 356 | 44 | 272 | 23 | 17 | - six manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Leicestershire, | 618 | 134 | 311 | 124 | 49 | - nine manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Northamptonshire, | 531 | 100 | 355 | 66 | 10 | - seven manors | | | | | | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1505 | 278 | 938 | 213 | 76 | - | |(18.1%) | (62.3%) |(14.2%) | (5%) | - | | | | | | -Norfolk, |1011[63]| 316 | 596 | 53 | 50 | - twenty-five manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Suffolk, | 353 | 176 | 146 | 25 | 6 | - fourteen manors | | | | | | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total |1364[63]| 492 | 742 | 78 | 56 | - | | (36%) | (54.3%) | (5.7%) | (4.1%) | - | | | | | | -Wiltshire, Somerset, | | | | | | - and Devonshire, | | | | | | - thirty-two manors | 1102 | 149 | 817 | 136 | | - | | | | | | -Hampshire, | 259 | 8 | 251 | | | - two manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Ten other manors | | | | | | - in the south of | | | | | | - of England | 219 | 43 | 158 | 12 | 6 | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1580 | 200 | 1226 | 148 | 6 | - | |(12.6%) | (77.2%) | (9.3%) | (0.3%) | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Grand total |6203[63]| 1213 | 3793 | 785 | 416 | - | |(19.5%) | (61.1%) |(12.6%) | (6.7%) | ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - - [62] The Lancashire figures are unduly weighted by those of the - single large manor of Rochdale, where, in 1626, there were 612 - tenants. If this manor be omitted, there remain only 19 - leaseholders on the other Lancashire manors. Like - Northumberland, Lancashire seems to be (as one would expect) a - county of customary tenants. - - [63] There is an error of 4 in the Norfolk figures which I have - been unable to trace and correct. - -Yet there is one point emerging from these figures of which the -explanation can hardly be in doubt. It will be noticed that in Norfolk -and Suffolk combined the proportion of freeholders is about double what -it is in the country as a whole. In the former county they form more -than one-third of all the landholders, and in the latter they are almost -equal to the other two classes together. The number of peasant -proprietors in Suffolk is indeed quite exceptional, and is one of the -most remarkable facts revealed by the surveys, drawing an unmistakable -line between the land tenure of the east and that of the south-west and -the northern border. In Wiltshire and Northumberland it is not uncommon -to find villages where no freeholders at all are recorded. In Norfolk -and Lancashire it is the exception for them to be in a majority. But on -half the Suffolk manors summarised above they are the largest class -represented, and on some they stand to the other landholders in a -proportion of two, three, and even four to one. Is it fanciful, one may -ask, to turn from the sixteenth century to the dim beginnings of things, -to that first and greatest survey in which the land of England was -described so that not an ox or an acre escaped valuation, and in which, -before freehold tenure had been hammered into any precise legal shape, -Suffolk and Norfolk abounded more than all other counties in _liberi -homines_ and _sochemanni_? Though a longer time separates these -documents from Domesday[64] than separates them from us, perhaps it is -not altogether fanciful. Rural life, except for one great catastrophe, -has been very permanent. Unlike rural life to-day, it has been most -permanent in its lower ranges. How ever often manors may have changed -hands, there has been little to break the connection with the soil of -peasants whose title is good, no change at all comparable to the buying -out of small freeholders which took place in the eighteenth and -nineteenth centuries. It may well be that the main outlines of the -social system which the Domesday commissioners found already laid in the -east of England crop out again after the lapse of between four and five -hundred years. It may well be that Suffolk is a county of small -freeholders in the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, because it was a -county of free men and socmen in the days of William I. - - [64] In Domesday Book 35 per cent. of all the tenants in Suffolk - are _liberi homines_, 32 per cent. of all those in Norfolk are - either _liberi homines_ or _sochemanni_. See Vinogradoff, _The - Growth of the Manor_, note 24 to chap. iii. Book III. (p. 376); - Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, p. 23; Seebohm, _The - English Village Community_, map opposite p. 85. Domesday also - gives a large number of _liberi homines_ and _sochemanni_ in - Leicestershire. In the table given above the Leicestershire - manors come after Suffolk and Norfolk as having the third - largest proportion of freeholders, viz., 21.6 per cent. The - return of freeholders supplied to the Government in 1561 - (Lansdowne MSS. V., 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) appear to be - considerably understated, probably because only the more - substantial men were thought worth mentioning. They are as - follows: Beds 282, Berks 166, Essex 880, Notts 189, Oxon. 198, - Herts 363, York 787, Lincoln 444. The large number in Essex is - noteworthy. - - -(b) _The Freeholders_ - -In spite of the constant complaints of the sixteenth century writers -that one effect of the agrarian changes was the decay of the yeomanry, -we shall not in the following pages be much concerned with the -freeholders. In our period the word "yeomen" was ceasing to be given the -narrow semi-technical sense which it possessed in Acts of Parliament and -legal documents, and was beginning to acquire the wide significance -which it possesses at the present day. To the lawyer the yeoman meant a -freeholder,[65] "a man who may dispend of his own free lande in yerely -revenue to the summe of 40s. sterling," and if the word yeoman was used -in its strict legal sense, the decay of the yeomanry ought to have meant -a decline in the numbers of freeholders, such as occurred on a very -large scale two and a half centuries later. But in this matter it seems -that popular usage was more elastic than legal definition, and, except -when the significance to be given it is defined by the context, the word -itself is not an accurate guide to the legal position of those to whom -it is applied. Writers on constitutional questions were careful to -observe the stricter usage, because the 40s. freeholder occupied a -position in the State, both as a voter and in serving on juries, from -which persons who, though much wealthier, were not freeholders, were -excluded. But the word yeoman was used, in speaking of agricultural -conditions, to describe any well-to-do farmer beneath the rank of -gentleman, even though he was not a freeholder. Thus Bacon[66] writes -quite vaguely of "the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between -gentlemen and cottagers or peasants." Those who insisted that the -military power of England depended on the yeomanry can hardly have meant -to exclude well-to-do copyholders;[67] not only copyholders but even -villeins[68] by blood were sometimes described as yeomen; and, in fact, -even writers who, like Sir Thomas Smith,[69] use the word most clearly -in its strict legal sense on one page, allow themselves to slip into -using it in its wider and more popular sense on the next, when the -social importance of the class and not its legal status is uppermost in -their minds. - - [65] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib I., c. 23. - - [66] _History of King Henry VII._ (Lumley), pp. 70-72. He makes - his meaning quite clear by saying "tenancies for years, lives, - and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry lived, were turned - into demesnes." - - [67] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. (Savine, "Bondmen - under the Tudors"). - - [68] _Ibid._ - - [69] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum, loc. cit._ - -Nor is there much evidence that the freeholders suffered generally from -the agrarian changes of the sixteenth century. It is true that there are -some complaints from freeholders as to the loss of rights of pasture -through the encroachments of large farmers upon the commonable area, -some cases of litigation between them and enclosing landlords. But, -since their payments were fixed, there was no way of getting rid of them -except by buying them out, and though this method, which was so -important a cause of the decline of the small freeholder in the -eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was occasionally employed to -round off a great estate, it seems to have played a comparatively -unimportant part in our period. There is no sign of any large diminution -in their numbers, such as would have been expected if the movement had -affected them in the same way as it did the customary tenants. - -Indeed, if the accounts of contemporary writers may be trusted, it would -appear that their position was actually improved in the course of the -century. Though even among quite small men one occasionally finds a -tenant by knight[70] service, the vast majority of freeholders held in -free socage, owing fealty and suit of court, and paying a money rent, -sometimes combined with the old recognitions[71] of dependent tenure, -such as a gillyflower, a red rose, a pound of pepper, or a pound of -cummin. But while on some manors some outward form of feudalism, such as -homage and fealty, were still maintained, the decay of feudal relations -in the middle order of society had combined with economic causes to -better their condition, and the time was already not far distant when -those who held by the more honourable tenure of knight service would -insist on its being assimilated to the humbler and less onerous tenure -of the socager. The agricultural services of the socage tenants had long -disappeared. There are many instances of work on the demesne being done -in the sixteenth century by copyholders; but there is in our records -only one manor where it was exacted from the freeholders, and other -obligations were tending to go the way of the vanished predial labour. -Suits of court might be owing, and set down as owing in the surveys, but -one may doubt very much whether they were often enforced. Owing to the -fall in the value of money the fixed rent of the socager often yielded -only a small income to the lord of the manor, and in a good many cases -these payments had disappeared altogether before the end of the century, -or were so unimportant as to be hardly worth the trouble of collecting. -Surveyors for this reason were often little interested in them, and, -while recording the acreage held by the customary tenants and -leaseholders with scrupulous accuracy, did not always trouble to set out -in detail the holdings of a class which was financially so -insignificant, with the result that sometimes the freeholders shook -themselves loose from all payments and services altogether. Nor, had the -surveyors been as careful as the heads of the profession would have had -them be, would they always have been successful in dealing with this -very independent class. They may protest that "next[72] under the king" -the freeholders "may be said to be the lord's," but freehold lands have -a way of getting mislaid[73] to the despair of manorial officials, as -copyhold lands do to-day. When escheats occur, the holding cannot be -found; when rents are overdue, distraint is impossible, because the -bailiff does not know on whom to distrain. The suggestion that, as long -as rents are paid and services discharged, the lord has any interest in -the property of his freehold tenants, rouses instant resentment, and it -would seem that by our period, at any rate in the south of England, the -connection of the freeholders with the manor was a matter rather of form -and sentiment than of substance. In fact freehold has almost assumed its -modern shape. - - [70] MSS. of Earl of Leicester at Holkham. Billingford and - Bintry MSS. No. 9 (Manor of Foxley, 1568). - - [71] _e.g. ibid._, Sparham MSS. No. 5, a freeholder pays "a - pounde of cumming seede and a gillyflower" (_c._ 1590). R.O. - Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancaster, Portf. 6, No. 15: "nyne - golden threads of vi.d." (1568). R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., 182, - fol. 1: a tenant "holds freely a cottage paying a red rose." - - [72] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book I., pp. 4-5, to - which the farmer answers: "Fie upon you. Will you bring us to be - slaves? Neither lawe, nor reason, nor least of all religion, can - allowe what you affirme." - - [73] _Op. cit._, Book III. Here is a bitter cry from the bailiff - of a manor (Merton Documents, No. 4381). "Good sir let me - entreat you yf the Colledge determyne to make survey this spring - of the lands at Kibworth and Barkly to send Mr. Kay or me word a - month or 3 weeks before your coming that we may have Beare and - other necessaries, and I desire you to gather up all evidences - that may be needful for the Lordshipp, for all testimony will be - little enough, the Colledge land is so mingled with Mr. Pochin's - freehold and others in our towne. There ys an awarde for - keepinge in of the old wol (?) close in our fields for (from ?) - Mr. Pochin's occupation, very needfulle for the ynhabitannts yf - that awarde can be founde at the colledge where yt was loste." - (For the remainder of this letter see Appendix I.) The Crown - suffered especially, see Norden, _Speculum Britanniae_, Part I., - pp. xl.-xliii. of introduction (Camden Society): "In many of his - Majesty's manors, free holders, their rents, services, tenures - and landes ... become strange and unknown ... and when escheates - happen the lande that should redound to his Majesty cannot be - found." In the common entry in manorial surveys under the - heading of freeholders of "certain lands" we should probably - take the word "certain" to mean "uncertain." - -In assuming its modern shape it has made this particular strand in rural -life harder to unravel. By escaping from the supervision of the manorial -authorities the freeholders escape at the same time from the economic -historian, and since the facts of their position go so often -unrecorded, we can speak of it with much less confidence than we can -about that of the leaseholders and customary tenants. Out of over one -hundred manors which we have examined, there are only twenty-two where -it is possible to ascertain with any accuracy the acreage held by the -freeholders, and, even on these, one too often meets cases in which the -extent of the holding is either unknown to the surveyor, or in which he -does not think it worth while to record it. Our results, such as they -are, are set out in the table on pages 32 and 33.[74] - - [74] For the sources and defects of this table see Appendix II. - -Combining the information supplied by these figures with that obtained -from other sources, we can form a rough idea of the agrarian conditions -under which the freeholders live. They are, in the first place, a most -heterogeneous class, including on the one hand men of considerable -wealth and position, and on the other mere cottagers. If we could trust -the statistics given above we should have to say that the latter -enormously outnumbered the former. But our impression is that, though, -no doubt, a large number of freeholders were extremely small men, the -preponderance of the latter was not nearly so marked as is suggested by -the table. For one thing, it is difficult to reconcile it with the -accounts given us of the substantial yeomen by the writers of the -sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For another thing, it is in dealing -with the larger freeholders that the inclination of surveyors to omit -any estimate of the extent of the land is strongest, because it is -naturally in their case that an estimate is most difficult to form. -Probably, therefore, if we could obtain for the freehold tenancies -figures even as full as we can for those of the customary tenants, we -should find that the proportion holding between twenty and forty acres -was considerably larger than these partial statistics would suggest. - -In the second place, though we very rarely have direct information as to -the proportion of their holdings used as arable, meadow, and pasture, -such as is often supplied for other classes of tenants, we may say with -some confidence that it is extremely improbable that their agricultural -economy differed from that of the neighbouring copyholders,[75] and that -the backbone of their living, except when the plots were so small as -merely to supply them with garden produce, was therefore in almost every -case tillage. If in any way they departed from the practice of their -neighbours who were not freeholders, they did so probably only in being -somewhat more alert and enterprising, somewhat more ready to use their -security to break with custom and to introduce innovations. It is clear -that many of them were very far from being tied down to the stagnant -routine which some writers would have us believe is inseparable from all -small scale farming. Often, indeed, they had enough initiative to -realise the advantages of improved methods of cultivation, and on -several manors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the -freeholders agreed with each other to survey their lands and separate -them, so that they could be cultivated in severalty.[76] In many cases, -again, they extended their holdings, which were sometimes large and -sometimes mere patches of a few acres, by acting as farmers for the lord -of the manor and leasing[77] the demesne or part of it. Above all they -had nothing to fear from the agrarian changes which disturbed the -copyholder and the small tenant farmer, and a good deal to gain; for the -rise in prices increased their incomes; while, unlike many copyholders -and the tenant farmers, they could not be forced to pay more for their -lands. - -TABLE II - - ---------------------------------------------------------------+ - 15 and under 20 Acres. | - 10 and under 15 Acres. | . | - 5 and under 10 Acres. | . | . | - 2-1/2 and under 5 Acres. | . | . | . | - Under 2-1/2 Acres. | . | . | . | . | - Houses or Cottages only. | . | . | . | . | . | - Total Number of Tenants. | . | . | . | . | . | . | - ----------------------------+ | | | | | | + - Norfolk, six manors | 139| 25| 33| 12| 17| 9 | 10 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Suffolk, four manors | 85| 27| 18| 10| 11| 2 | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Staffordshire, three manors | 24| 7| 4| 2| 3| 1 | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Lancashire, three manors | 9| | 1| 3| 1| 1 | 1 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Northants, four manors | 116| 10| 11| 4| 13| 9 | 5 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Wiltshire, one manor | 6| | | | 2 | | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Leicestershire, one manor | 11| 1| 2| 2| 1| | 1 | - ----------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ - Total, twenty-two manors| 390| 70| 69| 33| 48| 22 | 17 | - ----------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ - -TABLE II (CONT'D) - ---------------------------------------------------------------+ - Uncertain.| - 120 and over.| .| - 115 and under Acres.|.| .| - 110 and under Acres.|.|.| .| - 105 and under Acres.|.|.|.| .| - 100 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.| .| - 95 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 90 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 85 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 80 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 75 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 70 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 65 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 60 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 55 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 50 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 45 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 40 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 35 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 30 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 25 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 20 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Norfolk |2| |2|1|2| | | | | | | | | | |1|2| | | | |23| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Suffolk |1|1|3| | | |2|1| | | | |1| | | | | | | | | 8| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Staffordshire |1|2| |1|1| | | | | | | | | | | |2| | | | | | - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Lancashire | | | | | | |1| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Northants |1|1|4|2|3|2| | |3| | | | | | | | | | | |3|45| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Wiltshire | | | | |1| |1| |1| | | | | | | | | | | |1| | - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Leicestershire |1| | | | |1| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2| - --------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+ - Total |6|4|9|4|7|3|4|1|4| | | |1| | |1|4| | | |4|79| - --------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+ - - [75] See below, pp. 105-115. - - [76] See _e.g. Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. p. 327, - below, pp. 157-158, and _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery, - temp. Eliz._ B, b. 1, 58, Ll. 10, 62. - - [77] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., c. 23: "These be - for the most part fermors unto gentlemen." _Elizabethan England_ - (Withington), p. 120. "Yeomen" frequently occur in the sixteenth - and seventeenth centuries as lessees of the Merton Manors. - -The apparent immunity of the freeholders in the face of movements which -overwhelmed other groups of tenants suggests indeed that economic -causes alone, which all classes, whatever the legal nature of their -tenure, would have experienced equally, are not sufficient to explain -the sufferings of the latter. The situation in our period is not like -that which arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when -widening markets throw all the advantages of increasing returns on the -side of the large wheat farmer, and the yeomanry sell their holdings to -try their fortunes in the rapidly growing towns. The struggle is not so -much between the large scale and small scale production of corn as -between corn growing and grazing. The small corn grower, provided he has -security of tenure, can still make a very good living.[78] From the -point of view of the economist all the smaller men, whether freeholders, -leaseholders, or customary tenants, are in much the same position. The -decisive factor, which causes the fortunes of the former class to wax, -and those of the two latter to wane, is to be found in the realm not of -economics but of law. Leaseholders and many copyholders suffer, because -they can be rack-rented and evicted. The freeholders stand firm, because -their legal position is unassailable. Here, as so often elsewhere, not -only in the investigation of the past but in the analysis of the -present, the trail followed by the economist leads across a country -whose boundaries and contours and lines of least resistance have been -fashioned by the labour of lawyers. It is his wisdom to recognise that -economic forces operate in a framework created by legal institutions, -that to neglect those institutions in examining the causes of economic -development or the distribution of wealth is as though a geographer -should discuss the river system of a country without reference to its -mountain ranges, and that, if lawyers have wrought in ignorance of -economics, he must nevertheless consult their own art in order to -unravel the effect of their operations. - - [78] See below, pp. 105-115. - -From the larger standpoint of social and political organisation the -freeholders constituted an element in society the very nature of which -we can hardly understand, because our modern life offers no analogy to -it. We tend to draw our social lines not between small properties and -great, but between those who have property and those who have not, and -to think of the men who stand between the very rich and the very poor, -the men of whom our ancestors boasted as the "Commons of England," as -men who do not own but are employed by owners. Independence and the -virtues which go with independence, energy, a sober, self-respecting -forethought, public spirit, are apt to become identified in our minds -with the possession of wealth, because so few except the comparatively -wealthy have the means of climbing beyond the reach of the stream of -impersonal economic pressure which whirls the mass of mankind this way -and that with the violence of an irresponsible Titan. - -The sixteenth century was poor with a poverty which no industrial -community can understand, the poverty of the colonist and the peasant. -It lived in terror of floods and bad harvests and disease, of plague, -pestilence, and famine. If one may judge by its churchyards, it had an -infantile mortality which might make even Lancashire blush under its -soot. Yet (and we do not forget the black page of the early Poor Law) it -was possible for men who by our standards would be called poor to -exercise that control over the conditions of their lives which is of the -essence of freedom, and which in most modern communities is too -expensive a privilege to be enjoyed by more than comparatively few. Such -men were the freeholders. They formed a class which had security and -independence without having affluence, which spanned the gulf between -the wealthy and the humble with a chain of estates ranging from the few -acres of the peasant proprietor to the many manors of the noble, which -was not too poor to be below public duties nor too rich to be above -them, which could feel that "it is a quietness to a man's mind to dwell -upon his owne and to know his heire certaine."[79] Look for a moment at -the jolly picture drawn by Fuller,[80] who wrote at the very end of the -period with which we are dealing:-- - -"The good yeoman is a gentleman in ore whom the next age may see -refined, and is the most capable of genteel impressions when the Prince -shall stamp.... France and Italy are like a die which has no points -between cinque and ace, nobility and peasantry.... Indeed, Germany hath -her boors like our yeomen; but by a tyrannical appropriation of nobility -to some few ancient families their yeomen are excluded from ever rising -higher to clarify their blood. In England the temple of honour is closed -to none who have passed through the temple of virtue. - -"He wears russet clothes, but makes golden payment, having tin in his -buttons and silver in his pocket. He is the surest landmark whence -foreigners may take aim of the ancient English customs, the gentry more -floating after foreign fashions. - -"In his house he is bountiful both to strangers and poor people. Some -hold, when hospitality died, she gave her last groan among the yeomen of -Kent. And still at our yeoman's table you shall have as many joints as -dishes; no meat disguised with strange sauce; no straggling joint of a -sheep in the midst of a pasture of grass, but solid, substantial food. - -"He hath a great stroke in the making of a knight of the Shire. Good -reason, for he makes a whole line in the subsidy book, where, whatsoever -he is rated, he payeth without regret, not caring how much his purse be -let blood, so it be done by the advice of the physicians of the state. - -"In his own country he is a main man on juries; where, if the Judge open -his eyes on a matter of law, he needs not to be led by the nose in -matters of fact.... Otherwise (though not mutinous in a jury) he cares -not whom he displeaseth, so he pleaseth his own conscience. - -"In a time of famine he is the Joseph of the country and keeps the poor -from starving ... and to his poor neighbour abateth somewhat of the high -price of the market. The neighbour gentry court him for his -acquaintance, which either he modestly waveth, or thankfully accepteth, -but in no way greedily desireth. - -"In war, though he serveth on foot, he is ever mounted on a high spirit, -as being a slave to none, and subject only to his own Prince. Innocence -and independence make a brave spirit, whereas otherwise one must ask his -leave to be valiant on whom one depends. Therefore if a state run up all -to noblemen and gentlemen, so that the husbandmen be only mere -labourers or cottagers (which one calls but 'housed beggars'), it may -have good cavalry, but never good bands of foot.... Wherefore to make -good infantry it requireth men bred not in a servile or indigent -fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner." - - [79] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - - [80] Fuller, _Holy and Profane State_. The concluding paragraph - is obviously copied from Bacon's _History of King Henry VII._ - -The ancestors of the yeomanry had suffered much in the anarchy of the -fifteenth century, when the violent ejection of freeholders seems to -have become almost as common[81] as it had been in the evil days before -the reforms of Henry II. But the Tudor monarchy had put an end to that -nightmare of lawlessness, and in any society governed by law this body -of small property-owners was bound to be a powerful element, even though -they had no occasion for making any concerted use of their power, as -during the greater part of our period they had not. One must not, of -course, exaggerate their importance, or forget that, though a special -dignity was attached by opinion to all freeholders, they included in -reality men of various economic positions. Many of them must have been -quite poor. In the eastern counties, where they are most numerous, they -frequently own not more than three or four acres apiece, and can hardly, -one would suppose, have supported themselves without working for wages -in addition to tilling their holdings. Nevertheless the part which they -played in the routine of rural life was an indispensable one, and the -very diversity of the elements which they included made them a link -between different ends of the social scale. It was from the more -substantial among them that the government was most anxious to recruit -the military forces. The obligation of serving the State as voters and -upon juries fell upon the 40s. freeholders. The security of their tenure -caused them to be the natural leaders of the peasantry in resisting -pressure from above. No efforts of Elizabeth's Government could induce -the yeomanry of the North[82] Riding to abandon the old religion; and -when tenants and lords fall out over common rights and enclosures, it is -often the freeholders--though on occasion they enclose themselves--who -speak[83] for the less independent classes and take the initiative in -instituting legal proceedings. The upward movement which went on among -this class in many parts of England meant a change in the distribution -of material wealth which necessarily involved a corresponding change in -the balance of social forces and in the control of political power. To -Harrington,[84] who sought in the seventeenth century to find in -economic causes an explanation of the revolution through which the -country had passed, it seemed that the seeds of the civil war had been -sown by the Tudor kings themselves in the care which they showed for the -small proprietor. In destroying feudalism to establish the monarchy, -they had raised a power which was more dangerous to the monarchy than -feudalism itself. They had snapped the bond between landlord and tenant -by the Statute of Retainers. They had given the tenant security by -forbidding depopulation. Most important of all, by encouraging -alienation they had caused an enormous transference of property from the -upper to the middle and lower middle classes. "The lands in possession -of the Nobility and Clergy of England till Henry VII. cannot be -estimated to have over-balanced those held by the People less than four -to one. Whereas, in our days, the Clergy being destroyed, the Lands in -possession of the People over-balance those held by the Nobility at -least nine in ten." But property is political power individualised and -made visible. The destruction of the monarchy was only the political -expression of an economic change which had begun in the reign of Henry -VII. "He suffered the balance to fall into the power of the people.... -But the balance being in the People, the Commonwealth (though they do -not see it) is already in the nature of them." We need not accept -Harrington's view in its entirety in order to appreciate the -significance of the change which he describes. Certainly the yeomanry -were growing in political power, and were strong in that spirit of -self-respect and pride in their order, which, when, as too often, it is -confined to a single class, means social oppression, but which, when -widely diffused throughout society, is the mother of public spirit and -political virtue. The long discipline of tiresome public duties which -they had borne throughout the Middle Ages had formed them into a body -which was alive to political issues and conscious of political -influence, and which, when participation in public affairs became not -only a duty but a right, would use their power to press urgent petitions -from one county after another upon the King and upon the Parliament, or -by riding up from Buckinghamshire to protect Hampden at Westminster in -1642, or by fighting behind Cromwell in Cambridgeshire, or by fighting -for the King in the West. Compared with the bulk of the population, they -were a privileged class and stood by their own; it was they who restored -the franchise to the 40s. freeholders in 1654 and refused to extend it -to the copyholders. But the tenure of much of the land of England by men -with whom, however poor, no landlord or employer could interfere, set a -limit to the power of wealth, and made rural society at once more alert -and more stubborn, a field where great ideas could grow and great causes -find adherents. Political and religious idealism flourish bravely in a -stony soil. What makes them droop is not poverty, but the withering -shadow cast by complete economic dependence. - - [81] Paston Letters, I. 12, II. 248. Plummer's edition of - Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, Intro., p. 21. - - [82] Atkinson's _Quarter Sessions of the North Riding of - Yorkshire_, lists of recusants. - - [83] _e.g. Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii. (quoted - below, pp. 251-253), and Selden Society, _Select Cases in - the Court of Star Chamber_, vol. ii., _Inhabitants of Thingden_ - v. _Mulsho_; also Holkham MSS., Burnham Documents, Bdle. 5, No. - 94 (quoted below, p. 245 _n_.). - - [84] Harrington's works, 1700 edition, p. 69 (_Oceana_), pp. - 388-389 (_The Art of Law-giving_). See also Firth, _The House - of Lords during the Civil War_, pp. 28-32. - -From such degrading subservience the freeholders, "slaves to none," were -secure. As it was, they often left substantial fortunes to their -children, and by the middle of the sixteenth century were already -following the examples of their social superiors in entailing[85] their -lands. One can quite understand therefore that there is nothing -inconsistent between the glowing accounts of their prosperity at the end -of the century given by Harrison and his lamentation over the decline -of the rural population, or between the well-attested sufferings of the -small cultivator in the sixteenth century and his equally well-attested -importance in the seventeenth and early eighteenth. The explanation is -that the freeholders, though most important politically, did not form -the larger proportion of those substantial yeomen whose decay was -lamented. The day of their ruin was to come. But for the next two -centuries they were safe enough, and, if anything, gained on the class -immediately above them, whose lands they bought or leased, into whose -families they married, and with whose children their own competed in the -learned professions, laying, as the historian of Suffolk[86] said, "such -strong, sure and deep foundations that from thence in time are derived -many noble and worthy families." Nothing in the life of the period -caused more pride than the prosperity of this solid body of small -property-owners, and the contrast which it offered to the downtrodden -peasantry of the Continent. No loss has been sustained by the modern -world greater than their disappearance. - - [85] It is stated by good authorities that between 12 Ed. IV., - when the collusive action known as a common recovery used to - evade the Statute _de donis conditionalibus_ was confirmed by a - judicial decision (Taltarum's case), and the introduction into - settlements of "Trustees to preserve contingent remainders" by - Sir Orlando Bridgeman and Sir Geoffrey Palmer under the - Commonwealth, the tieing up of lands in one family was - impossible (_e.g._ Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small - Landowner_, pp. 11-13). But in 1538 Starkey's Dialogue speaks - strongly of the practice of entailing lands. "This faute sprange - of a certayn arrogancy, whereby, wyth the entaylyng of landys, - every Jake would be a gentylman, and every gentylman a knight or - a lord" (E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of Henry VIII._, - Part II. pp. 112-113, and pp. 195-196.) - - [86] Reyce, _Breviary of Suffolk_, p. 58, quoted _Victoria - County History, Suffolk_. - - -(c) _The Customary Tenants_ - -Important, however, as the freeholders were from a social and political -standpoint, they were in most parts of England far inferior in point of -numbers to those described as "customary tenants." It is with the latter -class that we are mainly concerned, and leaving the leaseholders on one -side for examination later,[87] we may summarise shortly certain -features in their position. The number of customary tenants varied from -one manor to another, according to the extent to which in different -districts farmers holding by lease had been substituted for them, and on -some by the middle of the sixteenth century there were none at all. But -there are many indications that, down to the end of that century at any -rate, and probably much longer, they formed over the great part of -England the bulk of the landholding population. Of the revenues of 74 -manors held by monastic[88] houses in 1535, £116 came from free, and -£1310 from customary, tenants. On 81 of the 118 manors analysed above -they are the most numerous class. When all the different districts are -grouped together, they amount to about 61 per cent. of all landholders, -and even this figure does not give an adequate idea of their numerical -importance. As we have seen, Norfolk and Suffolk are quite peculiar in -the multitude of freeholders they embrace, while the large number of -leaseholders on one extensive Lancashire manor unduly weights the -figures for that county. On the Midland manors 62 per cent., in -Wiltshire, Devonshire, and Somerset 77 per cent., in Northumberland 91 -per cent. of all those holding land are customary tenants. No doubt the -area of land held under lease was growing in the course of the -sixteenth, and still more in the course of the seventeenth, century, and -its growth is an extremely important movement, of which something will -be said later. But it seems true to say that, down to the end of the -sixteenth century, both in numbers and payments, though not in prestige -and influence, the customary tenants, as distinct from the freeholders -and leaseholders, were by far the most important class in the -agricultural life of the country. - - [87] See below, pp. 200-213 and 283-287. - - [88] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. - Savine, _English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution_, pp. - 156-159. - -Among the customary tenants, however, there are certain important -subdivisions. There are in the first place, differences of legal status. -Though villeinage by blood had been disappearing rapidly for several -generations, partly through manumission on payment of a fine to the -lord, partly through the absorption of migrating villeins into the -growing industries of the towns, a certain number of villeins by blood -lingered on into the sixteenth century. Dr. Savine[89] has estimated -that there were at least as many as 500 villein families in 1485, and as -many as 250 in the reign of Elizabeth; and the fact that they occur -occasionally on our Norfolk[90] manors, and rather more often on those -in Wiltshire[91] and Somersetshire, suggests that his list could be -considerably extended on further investigation. Even in 1561 a borough -surrenders an apprentice on the ground that he is a runaway villein.[92] -Even in 1568 it is worth while in leasing[93] a manor to a farmer for -the lord to reserve to himself the villeins upon it, together with other -forms of property like quarries and advowsons. - - [89] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. - - [90] R.O. _Misc. Bks. Land Rev._, vol. 220, fol. 220, Brisingham - (Norfolk) 1589: "Alice Bartram, the widow of W. Bartram, the - lord's villain by blood, took by surrender of said William for - term of life on 4 Feby., remainder to Roger Bartram, lord's - villain by blood." Holkham MSS., Titleshall Documents, Terrier - of Godwick, 1508: "Also five roods of the Prior in the hands of - Thomas Frend, native." - - [91] Among the 742 customary tenants on the manors belonging to - the Earl of Pembroke surveyed in 1568 there appears to be 7 - _nativi domini, i.e._ villeins by blood, viz., 1 at Washerne - (Wilts), 2 at Stooke Trister and Cucklington (Somerset), 4 at - Chedeseye (Somerset), of whom one has been manumitted. - - [92] _Selected Records of Norwich_ (Tingey), vol. vi. p. 180: - "Robert Ryngwoode brought in a certain indenture wherein Lewis - Lowth was [bound] to hym to serve as a prentys for seven years. - And Mr. John Holdiche cam before the Mayor and other Justices - and declared that the said Lewis is a bondman to my lord of - Norfolk's Grace, and further that he was brought up in husbandry - untyl he was xx year old. Whereupon he was discharged of his - service." - - Note the way in which Statute law is used to compel the - agricultural labour which the vanishing jurisdiction of lord - over serf is ceasing to be able to enforce. - - [93] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_, Manor of Chilmerke: "Johannes Reve tenet per - indenturam totum illud capitale messuagium excepta et omnino - reservata omnia wardas, maritagia fines ... nativos," &c. - -One cannot, therefore, take the almost sanctimonious abhorrence of -bondage expressed by the writers of the period quite at its face value. -On the other hand, though villeinage by blood was still worth recording, -since it offered an impecunious lord an opportunity for arbitrary -taxation, and still sufficiently irksome for the rebels under Ket[94] -(influenced perhaps by some dim memory of the German peasants' -programme) to set its abolition among their demands, its practical -importance was slight, and it was quite compatible with a good deal of -prosperity on the part of those who were legally bondmen. How completely -out of date it was by the middle of the sixteenth century is best shown -by some of the cases in which attempts were made to enforce it. When the -Earl of Bath[95] seizes £400 from a family on the ground that the -members are his villeins, and is pursued by them for nine years from -one court to another, or when a lord[96] of a manor is compelled by a -royal commission appointed for the purpose of investigating the matter, -to repay the value of the beast taken from a man who is proved by the -court rolls to be his villein, and the latter, having received it back, -declines to stop proceedings unless he be paid heavy compensation in -addition, one must see rather a proof of the practical disappearance of -villeinage than of its survival. Its occasional enforcement is clearly -regarded as something outrageous; it is a freak of arbitrary despotism, -which has hardly more historical significance than the seizure of the -Derby winner as a copyhold heriot would have at the present day. Public -opinion, even the opinion of those engaged in estate management, -condemns such attempts unreservedly, and when they come to the ears of -the authorities they strain the law on the side of the bondmen. - - [94] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 49: "We pray that - all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his - precious blood shedding." The German peasants in the articles - drawn up at Memmingen in 1525 demanded the abolition of serfdom - "since Christ hath purchased and redeemed us all with his - precious blood." The Christian appeal is a common one; see - below. - - [95] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, - John Burde and another v. The Earl of Bath. The quarrel dragged - on from 1535 to 1544, when the plaintiff's goods were restored. - (In 1551, however, when all bad landlords were raising their - heads, his house and cattle were again seized.) - - [96] _Ibid._, Netheway _v._ George, 1534. For other cases see - Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star Chamber_. - Carter _v._ Abbot of Malmesbury (vol. i., 1500), and Selby _v._ - Middlemore (vol. ii., 1516-1522). Mr. Leadam's remarks (int. - cxxix.) show that a man who was legally a villein might be - economically very prosperous: "Thomas Carter ... was charged 40 - marks for his enfranchisement. He kept a man-servant. He rode on - horseback. He gave a feast to celebrate his freedom. He was even - on friendly terms with the gentlemen of the Abbot's household." - See also Savine, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. Lord - Stafford actually tried to seize the Mayor of Bristol and his - brother as bondmen! - -This change from servile to free labour, begun some two centuries -before, and virtually completed in the reign of Elizabeth, is a high -landmark in the development both of economic and political society. It -is a long step towards modern industrialism on the one hand and the -modern all-inclusive state on the other. By sapping the organisation of -society on the basis of tenure, and thus making room for the more -elastic relationships of the wage-contract, it prepared the way for new -methods of production and for the growth of new centres of economic -power. The refusal of the courts to allow that the lord of a manor had, -_qua_ lord, a theoretical right to dispose of the persons and chattels -of his unfree tenants, meant the final triumph of the common law in -regions with which for four centuries after the Norman Conquest it had -not dared to interfere. Henceforward, while the German peasant is driven -afield to gather snails and wild strawberries for his lord, is plundered -and harried and tortured without hope of redress, his English brother -is a member of a society in which there is, nominally at least, one law -for all men. His liberty may be more in shadow than in substance, yet -the shadow is itself an earnest of greater things. To us who know the -misery of many of the poorer classes in the sixteenth century the boast -that "if any slaves or bondmen come here from other realms, so soon as -they set foot on land they became so free of condition as their -masters," may read like a bitter mockery. But it is something that the -boast should be made, and when England is confronted with the greatest -moral issue of the modern world, that boast will stand her in good -stead.[97] She owes some acknowledgment to the nameless serfs who fled -from farm and homestead, till villeinage, in spite of the law, bled -gradually to death. - - [97] Hargreave's speech in Somersett's case (1771-1772, Howell, - _State Trials_, xx.) is based largely on precedents drawn from - villeinage: "Though villeinage itself is obsolete ... those - rules, by which the claim of it was regulated, are not yet - buried in oblivion.... By a strange progress of human affairs - the memory of slavery expired now furnishes one of the chief - obstacles to slavery attempted to be revived.... The law of - England, then, excludes every slavery not commencing in England, - every slavery, though commencing there, not being ancient and - immemorial. Villeinage is the only slavery which can possibly - answer to such a description, and that has long expired by the - death or emancipation of all those who were once the objects of - it. Consequently there is now no slavery which can be lawful in - England." - -Having said so much we must hasten to guard ourselves, by adding that -the final disappearance of serfdom in this country neither involved any -radical conversion of opinion, nor prevented the classes who depended -solely on their labour from being, on occasion, cruelly oppressed. It -would be a mistake to see in the attitude of the governing classes -towards villeinage a symptom of humanitarian feeling for the rights of a -helpless class, such as prompted the emancipation movement of the last -century. How little humanitarianism influenced economic policy in -relation to those who were too powerless to be dangerous, is shown by -the sanguinary statutes relating to the destitute, and in particular by -the extraordinary legalisation of slavery in the Act[98] of 1547, by -which a confirmed vagrant might, when captured, be made a bondman for -life. Nor must we think of the disappearance of legalised serfdom as -effecting a great improvement in the lot of the ordinary wage-worker. -Those who benefited by it were not so much the workers for wages, as the -landholding peasants. The wage-labourer, who was tied to his parish by -the Statute of Artificers almost as completely as the serf had been by -the custom of the manor, can hardly have seen much difference between -the restrictions on his movement imposed by the Justices of the Peace -and those laid on him by the manorial authorities, except indeed that -the latter, being limited to the area of a single village, had been more -easy to evade. - - [98] 1 Ed. VI., c. 3. Possibly, however, the penalty of bondage - was regarded as a step towards greater leniency, as the - punishment of "incorrigible rogues" had hitherto been death. - -Even if we confine our attention to the landholding peasants, to whom -the advantage (for they were quick to seize it) was certainly real -enough, we may doubt whether they did not lose almost as much by the -intrusion into agriculture of competitive commercial forces as they -gained by the final disappearance of a claim which had always been held -in check by the custom of the manor, and which, since the ravages of the -Great Plague, had been steadily circumscribed by commutation. The truth -is that the sharp antithesis drawn by modern commercial societies -between serfs and the free labourers on whose slowly straightening backs -our civilisation is uneasily poised, and emphasised as though it marked -a line between hopeless oppression and unqualified liberty, requires to -be supplemented by categories derived from a wider and more tragic range -of experience than was open to our forefathers. There are more ways of -living "at the will of a lord" than were known to Glanvill and Bracton, -and the utility of the contrast in the sphere of legal analysis does not -save it from being but a thin abstraction of the countless forms of -tyranny which spring from the world-old power of one human being to use -another as his tool. That dependence on the uncontrolled caprice of a -master whom one hates to obey and dare not abandon, which, by whatever -draperies it may be veiled, is still the bitter core of serfdom,[99] is -compatible with the most diverse legal arrangements; with wage labour -as with forced services, with tenure by a competitive money rent as well -as with tenure by personal obligations, with freedom of contract as well -as with inherited status, with protection by the national courts as well -as with its absence. - - [99] More's remarks on the lot of the wage-workers of his day - have a refreshing note of reality. The Utopians are "not to be - wearied from earlie in the morning to late in the evenninge with - continuall worke, like labouringe and toylinge beastes. For this - is worse then the miserable and wretched condition of bondemen. - Whiche nevertheless is almooste everywhere the lyfe of workemen - and artificers, saving in Utopia" (More, _Utopia_, Pitt Press - Edition, pp. 79-80). - -When we turn over the pages in which the writers of the sixteenth -century declare that bondage is contrary to "the Christian religion -which maketh us all in Christ breathren, and in respect of God and -Christ _conservos_,"[100] and congratulate themselves on its -disappearance, we must not doubt their sincerity, but we may envy their -inexperience. We must remember that a condemnation of villeinage was -quite compatible with a policy of great severity towards the -wage-labourer, and was in fact not unconnected with it, since the latter -had almost everywhere stepped into places and functions formally held by -the bondman. Villeinage disappeared in England earlier than on the -continent of Europe, not for the ethical reasons given by Fitzherbert -and Smith and Norden, but because the growth of a commercial -organisation of agriculture had made its maintenance both useless and -impossible. The intellectual conversion did little more than follow on -the economic change to make a virtue of necessity. The personal -rightlessness of the villein and the hateful incidents of villeinage, -such as chevage, merchet, and leyrwite, had had their utility in the -fact that they kept him at the disposal of the manorial authorities as -an instrument of agriculture. With the substitution of hired labour for -the cultivation of the demesne by the services of bond tenants, their -maintenance lost its attractiveness. No employer wants to retain a -permanent staff, if there are "hands" whom he can take on and put off at -pleasure. Villeinage ceases but the Poor Laws begin. - - [100] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. III., ch. 8. See also - Fitzherbert, _Surveying_ (1539): "How be it, in some places the - bondmen continue as yet, the which me seemeth is the greatest - inconvenience that now is suffered by the law." Norden, _The - Surveyor's Dialogue_ (1608): "Which kinde of service and - slavery, thanks be to God, is in most places of this Realme - quite abolished and worne out of memory.... Truly I think it is - a Christian parte so to do [_i.e._ manumit bondsmen], for seeing - we be nowe all as the children of one father, the servants of - one God, and the subjects of one king, it is very uncharitable - to retain our brethren in bondage, sith, when we were all bond, - Christ did make us free." - -Much more important than this difference of legal status are -differences in the tenure by which customary tenants hold their lands. -Under the name of customary tenants are grouped together all holders of -lands which pass by surrender and admission in the court of the manor, -and which are subject to the custom of the manor as evidenced by the -records of the court. But not all these lands are held by exactly the -same title. Some are held by copy of court roll according to the custom -of the manor, on the terms set out on a copy of the entry of admission. -Others are held without a documentary title, and are often said to be -occupied at the will of the lord, or at the pleasure of the lord, or by -grant or permission of the lord or of the court, their essential feature -being that the tenant does not possess any instrument recording the -transaction, but has, if necessary, to appeal to the records of the -court or even to its mere memory. - -One must hasten to add, however, that these classes are not mutually -exclusive. A copyholder is a tenant at will, though qualified by the -addition of the words "by copy of court roll according to the custom of -the manor." It not seldom happens that in rentals and surveys he is -simply described as a tenant at will, and that the fact that he has a -copy is not recorded. A tenant at will is usually (though not always) a -customary tenant, and, when he is, he can appeal to the custom with as -good a right as a copyholder, though of course the fact that his title -is not in his own keeping may prejudice him if the manorial authorities -want to get rid of him. "All[101] copyhold land," it was said, "is -commonly customary, but all customary land is not copyhold," and one may -accept the statement with the reservation that "commonly" must not be -taken to mean "always," for it is quite usual in parts of England for -land which by no stretch of imagination can be called customary land, -for example, part of the lord's demesne, to be let by copy of court -roll. The fact that "tenant at will" was sometimes used as a compendious -phrase for "copyholder," and that both are sometimes described simply as -"customary tenants" without further definitions, makes it impossible to -offer any accurate estimate of the relative number of those holding by -copy and those holding at will. It may, however, be of interest to give -an analysis of the entries as they appear in a group of manorial -documents. It is as follows[102]:-- - -TABLE III - - - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | |Total| "Copy- |"Customary|"Tenants | - | | |holders."| Tenants."| at Will."| - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | | | | | | - |Northumberland | 436 | 362 | 45 | 29 | - |Lancashire | 451 | 295 | 156 | ... | - |Staffordshire | 272 | 170 | ... | 102 | - |Leicestershire | 311 | 157 | ... | 154 | - |Northamptonshire | 355 | 253 | 931 | 91 | - |Norfolk | 596 | 536 | 45 | 15 | - |Suffolk | 146 | 53 | 82 | 11 | - |Wilts and Somerset | 817 | 786 | ... | 31 | - |Hampshire | 251 | 251 | ... | ... | - |Ten other manors in the south | | | | | - | of England | 158 | 87 | 45 | 26 | - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | Total |3793 | 2950 | 466 | 377 | - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - - - [101] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. He continues: "For in - some places of this Realme Tennants have no copies at all of - their lands or tenements, or anything to show for that they - hold, but there is an entry made in the Court Books, and that is - their evidence." - - [102] See Appendix II. - -These figures, one must repeat, are merely a summary of the entries in -surveys and rentals. Probably they underestimate the number of -copyholders, as we know that copyholders were sometimes entered as -tenants at will or as customary tenants for the sake of brevity, while -it is not probable that tenants at will who had not got copies were -often written down as copyholders. One may suspect that this, rather -than any difference of custom, is the explanation of the relatively -small number of those who are returned as copyholders in Lancashire, -Staffordshire, Leicestershire, and Suffolk. Still, these figures do show -the enormous preponderance of copyholders among the customary tenants, -and show it all the more certainly if the number of copyholders is to be -taken, as is probable, as the minimum. And this agrees with what we know -from the incidental references of the writers of the time. Of 1000 -tenants on the great ecclesiastical manor of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire -"the most part" were said by Archbishop[103] Sandys in 1582 to be -copyholders. Harrison[104] in 1587 spoke of copyholders as those "by -whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained." At -the beginning of the seventeenth century Coke[105] could say that the -third part of England consisted of copyhold. Copyholders, it is true, -are far from being all of one type; for the essence of their tenure is -that it depends on the custom of the manor which varies from place to -place, and when we come to consider how far they have security against -eviction these differences are of crucial importance. Still, in spite of -the varieties of copyhold tenure, it is useful to know that to the bulk -of the population in the sixteenth century landholding meant holding by -copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor. No account of -the agrarian changes can stand for a moment which does not give full -weight to the fact that, in most parts of England, the copyholders -greatly outnumber all other classes of tenants. - - [103] Archbishop Sandys to Queen Elizabeth, Saturday 24 November - to 4 December, 1582 (quoted by E. Arber, _The Story of the - Pilgrim Fathers_, pp. 61-64). - - [104] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), p. 120. - - [105] Quoted by Nasse, _The Land Community of the Middle Ages_ - (Ouvry's trans.). I have not been able to trace the reference. - -The numerical predominance of the customary tenants and among those of -the copyholders, together with the disastrous effects upon them which -are ascribed by most of our authorities to the agrarian changes of the -sixteenth century, makes a somewhat detailed examination of their -position essential. In particular it is important to try to bridge the -gap between the agricultural system of the sixteenth and that of the -thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, out of which it emerged, and of -which it continued to bear unmistakable traces. The problem is really a -twofold one, partly legal and partly economic. First, what was the legal -nature of copyhold tenure, and how did it arise out of mediæval -villeinage? Secondly, there is the question, which for us is more -important, of the type of agriculture which prevailed among the mass of -the people. The economist wants to know whether the customary tenants -were large cultivators or small, whether they included considerable -capitalists and mere cottagers or whether their holdings were of a -fairly uniform pattern, whether they farmed mainly for subsistence or -for the market, whether they lived entirely by tillage or were pasture -farmers as well, whether they were tied down by custom or showed any -signs of being influenced by the agricultural innovations of our period. - -Of these two questions the first has been investigated much more -thoroughly than the second. We shall return to it later in considering -how far the copyholder had security of tenure, and enjoyed legal -protection against the lord who wished to evict him. But we may say at -once that we accept in substance the argument of those who hold that -most copyholders are the descendants of villeins holding villein land, -that copyhold tenure is, in fact, villein tenure to which the courts -from the end of the fourteenth century have gradually extended their -protection, and that the puzzling differences between the position of -one group of copyholders and another are due to differences in manorial -custom which were followed and upheld by the courts. This not only is -the traditional view, in the sense of being that which is implied in the -insistence of contemporaries that copyhold originated in base tenure, -and that copyholders were tenants "whom the favourable hand of time hath -much enfranchised,"[106] but also seems to be that which best fits the -situation of the copyholder as we find it in the sixteenth century. - - [106] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - -This line of development is suggested, though it is not proved, by the -mere preponderance of copyholders. In looking for the antecedents of so -numerous and widely spread a class we can only find them in the tenure -of the mass of the people in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, -that is in villein tenure. Further, we do not find in villein tenure any -such fundamental distinction between customary tenure which was -protected and base tenure which was not, as has been sometimes -postulated as an explanation of the qualified legal security possessed -by copyholders 200 years later. On the contrary, the tenure of the -villeins is marked by the same variety of customary conditions as -appears in that of the copyholders, with the difference that, when once -copyhold has taken root, these customs are enforced by the courts. The -same conclusion is borne out by the survival of ancient formulæ among -the terms by which the conditions of the copyholders are recorded in -the surveys. It is quite common for copyholders in the sixteenth century -to be described as occupying "bond"[107] or "native" land; sometimes one -finds a whole list of them set down under the rubric "holding[108] -native lands by copy of court roll." The last thing, of course, which -occurred to the writer of these entries was any legal theory as to the -origin of copyhold tenure. All he was concerned to do was to describe -the holdings in the way which was most precise and left least room for -possible disputes. Clearly, he must have had it in his mind that lands -which in his day were let by copy of court roll were lands which were -known generally in the village as bond lands, and which in earlier -documents were described as being occupied in villeinage. - - [107] _E.g._, R.O. Rentals and Surveys Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. - 32, Dunstall (Suffolk): "Bond land held by copy of court roll, - 13s. 4d. Of holders of 3 bond pightells, 5s. 4d." MSS. of Earl - of Leicester at Holkham, Tittleshall Books, No. 62, Langham Hall - (Norfolk): "Redditus assissæ native tenentium. ... John Rose per - copiam, 4d." R.O. Rentals and Surveys Gen. Ser. Portf. 14, No. - 70, Barton (Staffs.): "T. Collinson 1 messuage 1/4 virgate land - de bond ... by copy 2 Hen. viii." - - [108] MSS. of Earl of Leicester at Holkham, Billingford and - Bintry MSS., No. 9, Foxley: "Native tenentium per copiam rotuli - curiæ." - -One may approach the question in another way, by looking at the -circumstances of those exceptional manors on which the tenants at will -are more numerous than the copyholders, and which are instructive just -because they represent a variation from the general type. A case in -point is the Manor of Knyghton in Wiltshire. On the majority of the -manors held in that county by the Earl of Pembroke the copyholders are -far the most numerous class, and on some they are the only class, among -the customary tenants. At Knyghton,[109] however, there are no -copyholders; all the customary tenants hold at the will of the lord, and -when one examines the position and methods of agriculture more closely, -one finds that they display several signs of being in other respects -more antiquated and conservative than is the case in other parts of the -same country; for example, all the holdings are either virgates of -twenty-four acres or some fraction and multiple of a virgate, which is -not at all common on other Wiltshire manors, and implies an unusual -approximation to the conditions of the peasantry two centuries before. -Is it unreasonable to conclude that this is a case of arrested -development, and that Knyghton is a manor on which the tenants at will -have never turned into copyholders, because for one reason or another it -has lain outside the main stream of agricultural development? - - [109] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - -The connection with copyhold tenure of some of the characteristic -obligations and disabilities of villeinage points in the same direction. -In spite of the general commutation of services into money payments, -which Mr. Page's statistics show to have taken place before the middle -of the fifteenth century, one still finds the attenuated records of -labour rents surviving for many generations after the direct management -of the demesne by manorial officials has been abandoned, and passing -with the rest of the farm equipment to the farmer who takes it on lease. -In Norfolk and Suffolk they seem indeed to have disappeared almost -altogether, which is what one would expect in view of the fact that -those counties were the Lancashire and West Riding of the period, and no -doubt, even when labour services were still exacted, the farmer relied -mainly upon hired labour. But it would be a mistake to regard the -tenants' works as everywhere so trifling as to be of no economic -importance. Often, it is true, they are inconsiderable. At South -Newton,[110] for example, though the uncertainty which had been one of -the marks of villeinage still survived among the copyholders in the -shape of the duty of "gift carriage," the transport of such timber as -was wanted to the lord's house at Wilton, the purely agricultural -services were unimportant, and the tenants of every yardland had only to -mow the farmer's meadow and to carry his hay. At Cuxham,[111] in -Oxfordshire, on the other hand, the authorities were still getting -twenty-eight boonworks in autumn from the copyholders at the end of the -fifteenth century. On a Northumbrian[112] manor belonging to Tynemouth -Priory down to the dissolution of the monasteries "every tenant did lead -to the castle in the prior's time one load of hay, mow three several -dayworks of hay, rake one daywork and sheare three severall dayworks in -the corn in harvest every year." At Washerne,[113] in Wiltshire, the -copyhold tenants' labours were in 1568 still quite an important affair: -each holder of one virgate of twenty acres "shall plough three half -acres for the lord's winter seed and shall harrow them, and also the -aforesaid tenants shall wash and shear the lord's sheep ... and further -each of them shall mow one acre of meadow ... and gather hay thence and -prepare it.... Each of the said tenants shall reap one acre of wheat and -he must bind the crop and carry it. Also each of them shall reap one -acre of barley." On a Lancashire[114] manor in 1628 every plough hand is -obliged to do two days' work in the year with a team on the demesne, and -two days with a labourer. Such elaborate obligations as appears at -Washerne are, it is true, the exception. But they show that in the -middle of the sixteenth century there were still backwaters where the -remnants of agricultural services were a not inconsiderable burden; and -if their comparative lightness marks the progress from villeinage to a -wage system, their survival as clearly shows that villeinage was the pit -from which copyhold tenure was digged. - - [110] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [111] Merton Documents, 5902. - - [112] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 220 (one - may add that in parts of Northumberland the labourers are still - called "bondagers"; Mr. Clay tells me that in the Calder valley - farmers still use "daywork" as a unit for measuring fields). See - also _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery, temp. Eliz._, D. d. - 2, 44, for a suit by a farmer to recover services due from - tenants. - - [113] Pembroke Surveys. - - [114] _Chetham Society Miscellanies_, vol. iii. - -More striking still, perhaps, is the persistence of disabilities of -another kind. The old marks of personal bondage, chevage, merchet, -leyrwite, liability to tallage, and the rest have almost disappeared. -But traces of them are still found clinging to the copyhold tenants. -Copyholders pay a fixed sum to be free of tallages.[115] They pay salt -silver instead of the salt with which they had once been obliged to toil -to the lord's manor-house; they are forced to act as the lord's reeve, -and collect his rents, heriots, and strays. In one curious instance one -finds something very like a tallage[116] being taken at the beginning -of the seventeenth century, though of course that is not what it is -called. The tenants are simply collected and told that they must help -the lord to pay for an estate which he has bought, by giving him three -years' rent apiece, that, if they do, no more gifts will be demanded -during his lifetime, and that, if they do not, he will refuse to renew -holdings as they fall in. Even merchet, the most hateful of all the -incidents of villeinage, is something more than a mere memory. As late -as 1620 the tenants of Holt[117] in Denbighshire thought it worth while -to point out to the crown surveyor that "they are freed from payment of -any sum of money upon the marriage of their daughters," and even in 1654 -Leyrwite and childwite were still being paid by the heiresses of -copyhold tenants on some of the Warwickshire[118] manors. - - [115] Pembroke Surveys, Estoverton and Phipheld: "Tenentes de - Estoverton reddunt annuatim pro pannagio et tallagio ... ivs." - For salt silver, _ibid._, South Newton. For liability to serve - as Reeve, _ibid._, Paynton. - - [116] _Chetham Society Miscellanies_, vol. iii.: "I would wish - you to call the tenants first all together and to signify unto - them that my father and I have gone through with Mr. Ireland for - Warrington, and the summe we are to give is above £7000; and - this was done making no doubt that towards it every one of them - being tenants would by their assistance enable us to finish - it.... If they faile in this, they may provoke us to sharp - courses, especially mee, who have had a purpose to take the - third part of every living as it falls." - - [117] Wrexham Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, vol. ii. - MS. transcript by A.N. Palmer, "Survey of the Town and Liberty - of Holt." - - [118] Savine, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. - -It will not, therefore, be surprising to find that the humble origin of -copyhold tenure has left marks upon it in other ways as well, and, in -particular, that though the copyholder is not without legal protection -when the lord tries to get rid of him, that protection is often of a -somewhat shadowy and ineffective kind. His title is a customary one, and -mighty as custom still is, it has for centuries been growing gradually -weaker. Its weakening is at once an advantage and a disadvantage to the -peasantry. It relieves them of odious obligations and leaves them -greater room to push their fortunes. It lowers a protecting barrier and -exposes them to the dissolving forces of competition. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE PEASANTRY - - -(a) _The Variety of Conditions_ - -When one turns from what legal historians have said on the origin and -development of copyhold tenure to consider the economic position of this -class of tenants, one finds oneself in a region of much greater -uncertainty. The legal historian may speak of the copyholders as -constituting, in spite of minor differences, a fairly well-defined -class. The economic historian cannot. He finds, on the contrary, the -widest difference between the economic conditions of tenants holding -their land by copy of court roll, not only, as would be expected, in -different parts of the country, but on the same manor. In the thirteenth -century to say that a man is a villein tells us something at least about -his economic position, at any rate when the general features of the -manor on which he is a villein are known. He will probably have a -standard holding of a virgate or half-virgate; he will have rights in -the common meadow land and in the common waste; he will do work on the -lord's demesne. In the sixteenth century tenure is no clue to economic -status, and to say that a man is a copyhold tenant tells us nothing at -all about the extent of his holding or the sort of husbandry which he -pursues. The vast majority of copyhold tenants are peasants, men who -make a toilsome living from their land with the help of their families -and a few hired servants. But in England by our period the line between -class and class has ceased to coincide with differences of title; if -copyhold tenure is born of a humble stock, yet it has risen so much in -the world that the upper classes are not ashamed to hold out a hand to -welcome it; and among copyholders are found the names not only of many -small freeholders, but also of gentlemen and knights.[119] - - [119] _Crondal Records_, edited by Baigent, Part I., p. 159; the - Crondal customary of 1567. Among the copyholders appears a - knight and four gentlemen. - -Among the peasants who form the bulk of the population there is, again, -the greatest diversity. Sometimes the copyholders are simply emancipated -villeins, who have commuted most of their services, and who hold by copy -instead of at the will of the lord, but whose economic condition has -hardly changed at all. Thus in Northumberland[120] the holdings of the -copyholders on several manors reflect very accurately the distribution -of land between the bondage tenants in the thirteenth and fourteenth -centuries; the holdings have grown slightly in size, but they have -apparently a more or less continuous individual existence from the -earliest times. In parts of Wiltshire,[121] on the other hand, though -not in all parts, there is no possibility of establishing any connection -between the virgate and semi-virgate of the fourteenth century villeins -and the acreage held by the copyholders two hundred and fifty years -later; both in size and number the holdings are markedly different. In -Norfolk and Suffolk ancient class divisions have often been obliterated -altogether, and bond and free lands are interlaced in the holdings of -the customary tenants in quite inextricable confusion. - - [120] _Northumberland County History, e.g._ Surveys of High - Buston (vol. v. p. 208); Acklington (vol. v. p. 372); Birling - (vol. v. p. 201), and figures of eight townships in - Tynemouthshire, vol. viii. p. 230. - - [121] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of the Lands of William, First - Earl of Pembroke_. - -Again, there is the greatest variety in the methods of agriculture.[122] -Everywhere among the copyhold tenancies arable land predominates to an -extent which is in marked contrast to the frequent preponderance of -pasture land on many of the demesne farms. But to some tillage seems to -be their sole livelihood, while others are very considerable -sheep-farmers. Some are cultivators on quite a big scale, well outside -the Board of Agriculture's interpretation of a "small-holder" to-day, -with 80, 90, 100, or even 200 acres of land. Often they are better off -economically than many freeholders, and when Harrison and Sir Thomas -Smith classify[123] copyholders in general with "day labourers and poor -husbandmen," they must surely have been either speaking loosely, or else -thinking not of their economic but of their legal position. But others -hold only 5, 10, 15, or 20 acres, so that arithmetical averages of the -size of their holdings are very little guide to the real distribution of -land. Yet it would not be true to say that such inequality is universal, -for in the same county one finds some manors on which the holdings seem -all to be cut to a regular standard pattern, and others where the -variety of size is almost infinite, while in the North striking -divergences of area seem to be as much the exception as they are the -rule in the South and the East. On some manors, again, the copyhold -tenants have enclosed land and hold much in severalty; on others nearly -all of it lies in the open fields. Some have extensive rights of common, -while on other manors such rights are non-existent, or are too -insignificant to be recorded by surveyors. - - [122] See below, pp. 105-115. - - [123] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., c. 24. Harrison, - _Elizabethan England_ (edited by Withington), p. 13. - -In fact the impression given by the surveys is that of a condition of -things which is very far from being stationary, but in which, on the -contrary, much shifting of property and many changes in the methods of -cultivation have been going on, and in which the legal position of the -peasants is no guide at all to their economic characteristics. The task -of finding a manor to serve as a pattern and standard for the rest, -which is hard enough in the thirteenth century, is a sheer impossibility -in the sixteenth, and the student works with a deep sense of the danger -of sacrificing fidelity to simplicity of statement. - - -(b) _The Consolidation of Peasant Holdings_ - -But difficult as it is to reduce to any order the very diverse economic -conditions of the customary tenants at the beginning of the sixteenth -century, the task, at any rate in outline, has got to be faced. And this -involves a short account of movements which take us some way back into -the Middle Ages. No one can understand the contrast between the -conditions of the Irish peasantry in 1850 and their condition to-day -without knowing something of the agencies which have been at work in the -interval, of the Fair Rent Courts, the Congested Districts Board, and -the Land Purchase Acts; no one can appreciate the changes which are -taking place in rural France without having taken at any rate a glance -at the position of the peasantry before the Revolution, and at the Code -Napoleon. Certainly the substantial alteration which overtook agrarian -relationships in many parts of England between 1500 and 1640 is -unintelligible if it is regarded as a wave suddenly appearing in a calm -sea, a revolution by means of which commercial relationships of -sometimes an almost modern elasticity developed quite rapidly in village -communities of an almost mediæval immobility. To understand the agrarian -problem of the sixteenth century we must know the sort of framework on -which the new forces worked, and the sort of tendencies of which they -were the continuation. - -Moreover, the history with which we are concerned is primarily the -history of the peasants as landholders, and only secondarily the history -of their personal condition. Generalisations about the disappearance of -villeinage and the substitution of hired labour for the working out of -rents in labour services do not help us much here. Speaking broadly, it -is no doubt true that, in spite of the survival of many vestiges of the -old order, wage-labourers are as normally the means of cultivating the -demesne at the end of the fifteenth century as servile tenants are at -the end of the thirteenth. But significant as this change is for the -history of the wage-earning classes, it does not by itself seem to throw -much light on the characteristic features of the sixteenth century -problem, the substitution of large tenancies for small, the displacement -of small holders, and the undermining of the customary routine of the -open field village. Certainly the two movements are connected; equally -certainly that connection is not a direct or obvious one. The change in -the personal condition of the peasantry is not by itself the key to -changes in the use and distribution of property. Why should it be? In -Prussia the abolition[124] of villein services in 1807 was carried out -by a decree which had as its object not a diminution, but an increase, -in the number of small tenants; and it is not self-evident that an -alteration in the method of cultivating the lord's demesne must have -produced changes in the disposition of the customary holdings in -fifteenth and sixteenth century England. - - [124] Edict of October 9, 1807, Clauses 10, 11, 12. See Cobden - Club, _Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries_: Morier's - Essay on Germany. - -The very variety in the economic conditions of the peasantry which makes -generalisation so difficult is, however, itself a significant feature, -because it is in marked contrast with the comparative uniformity which -existed among great masses of them in the thirteenth and fourteenth -centuries. It suggests that even in agriculture custom has to some -extent been broken down by commercial enterprise, and that commercial -enterprise has had the natural result of accentuating inequality in the -possession of property. It warns a student of the agrarian changes of -the sixteenth century that he has not only to explain the way in which -the small cultivator lost ground then before the large estate, but also -how it was that his economic position differed in many cases so much -from that of the villein of two hundred years before, and that it may -very well be that the answer to the latter question will throw light -upon the former. - -Let us put ourselves in the position of a jury catechising some "aged -man" about the year 1500, catechising him not about boundaries, or -rights of common, or manorial customs, but about the general changes in -the distribution of property in his village. If surveys and court rolls -may be trusted, there is one thing that he could hardly fail to tell us, -and that is that for as long as he can remember there has been a great -deal of buying and selling of land by the customary tenants, a great -many changes in occupancy, and on the whole a tendency for those changes -to result in the concentration of several holdings in fewer and larger -tenancies. "Virgates which in grandfather's time," he would say, "used -to belong to A., B., C., and D. now belong to A. alone. Men who used to -occupy one holding each, now occupy two or three; when they cannot buy -they lease, and some have bought so much that they sublet part of their -holdings to others. Indeed there is not much sense in talking about -virgates or half-virgates at all. Once each of them had a separate -holder; once Durrant's shottes belonged to Durrant, Gunter's mead to -Gunter, Parry's croft to Parry, Hawkins' meade to Hawkins, Woolmer's -lande to Woolmer, Blake's tenement to Blake. To-day, though the old -names remain, they are no guide to the families holding the land. -Frankling has bought Durrant's and Gunter's and Blake's, Vites has -bought Parry's, while Pynnole's and Pope's and Hawkins' and the rest of -Blake's holdings have all passed into the hands of Blackwell."[125] - - [125] The instance is taken from a map of the manor of Edgeware - now in the All Souls muniment room. The map was made in 1597. - But many earlier examples can be found of land being known by - the name of one of its early holders, long after it had passed - into the possession of some one else. - -One thing at any rate is clear. If frequent changes of occupancy point -to a free land-market, then such a free land-market has existed for a -long time among the customary tenants; and if a keen demand for land -among the peasantry is a proof that small men are thriving, and see -their way to thriving still more by adding to their properties, then -there is a good deal of this healthy land hunger in English villages -before the age of the Tudors. We read to-day of how the French peasant -will pinch himself and his family to add a few acres to his little -estate, and we take it as an indication that small cultivation has a -firm root in France, and that rural life is on the whole enterprising -and prosperous. Certainly such a state of things is in marked contrast -with the stagnation prevailing in the lower ranges of village society in -countries where great estates pass almost intact from generation to -generation between the tall palings of family settlements, with the -small man, who would get land if he could, staring helplessly through -the bars. Now, at any rate in the fifteenth century, England belonged -very markedly to the first type, not to the second; to the type where -there is much buying and selling of land in small plots by small -cultivators, not to the type where land is locked up and rarely comes -into the market, rarely at any rate into a market where it can be bought -by the small peasantry. This mobility of land is of much significance -when we come to consider the breaking down of customary rules before the -forces of competition, and the formation of great estates out of the -holdings of the customary tenants. Let us consider it in more detail, -first from the point of view of the changes in the economic basis of -rural life which it produces, and secondly from the point of view of the -process by which those changes were brought about. We will for the -present leave on one side the demesne farm and the land held on lease, -and look only at the customary land which forms the backbone of the -copyholders' estates. - -The first source of information to which we turn consists of the surveys -and rentals, in which the holdings of the tenants are set out in detail. -To those accustomed to the picture of village life contained in the -records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the surveys of the -fifteenth and sixteenth centuries present certain features which at once -arrest attention. For one thing, there is a much greater inequality -between the holdings of different customary tenants on the same manors -than is usually found among the holdings of virgators and semi-virgators -two centuries before. For another thing, some of their holdings are very -much larger than anything we find belonging to the same class of tenants -at an earlier date; occasionally, indeed, they can only be described as -enormous, running into 150 or 200 acres of land; often they amount to 80 -or 90. In the third place, the number of customary tenants is, on the -whole, much smaller than it was 200 years before, and that even on -manors where there has been an increase in the area cultivated by them. -The latter fact is significant, and we shall return to it later. But -before doing so, let us ask the meaning of the growing inequality in the -holdings of the customary tenants and of the great increase in the size -of some among them. - -Great as is the variety of conditions visible on a thirteenth century -manor, it is on the whole true to say that this variety usually conforms -to a rough rule or principle. One can find on the same manor families -whose holdings differ very largely in size, from the 25 to 40 acres -occupied by the holder of a virgate, the 12 to 16 acres of a -semi-virgator, to the 2 or 3 acres or less occupied by a cottar. But -normally each individual holds much the same amount of land as other -individuals of the same class; one holder of a virgate has about as much -as another holder of a virgate, one holder of half a virgate about as -much as his fellow, one cottager about as much as another cottager. -There are in fact different grades, but for each grade there is what may -be called a standard area of land, a unit of agrarian organisation, and -though that standard area varies a good deal in different parts of the -country it is usually fairly easy to discover what it is on any one -manor. Outwardly, at any rate, village life is organised, and the -distribution of property is settled in the main by the authority of -custom, rather than by commercial forces acting directly upon the -tenants. - -Now after the middle of the fifteenth century it is common to find quite -a different condition of things from this. There are, it is true, manors -where holdings preserve their primitive equality down to the very end of -the sixteenth century, especially manors in backward parts of the -country, where the influence of commerce has been little felt; -especially also manors where the demesne farm, instead of being leased, -has been retained in the hands of the lord. But in the South of England -these are the exception. The rule is that with regard to the area held -by the customary tenants there is no rule at all. On the same manor -copyholders may be cultivating anything from a quarter of a virgate to -two, three, four, or even more virgates; if their holdings are expressed -in acres they may be holding anything from 1 acre to 100 or 150. -Economically, indeed, customary tenants are often not a class at all, if -the essence of a class is common characteristics and a similarity of -economic status, though in the face of certain dangers they will act as -one. On many manors the nature of their tenure is the only common link -between them, and the nature of their tenure is compatible with the -greatest economic variety. - -This variety is most noticeable when we examine a large number of manors -one by one, since, when the figures of many different manors are added -together, their distinctive features are liable to be concealed in the -aggregate. Still, to get some idea of the scale on which the peasants -carried on their agriculture, it is perhaps worth examining the -following table[126] of the holdings of 1600 odd customary[127] tenants -on fifty-two manors. - - [126] For the sources from which this table is constructed, and - its defects, see Appendix II. - - [127] On three small manors I have included some tenants who may - possibly be freeholders or leaseholders. - -This table enables us, in the first place, to make a comparison between -the economic positions of groups of tenants in different parts of -England. It will be seen that the "predominant rate"--what we may call -the predominant acreage--varies considerably. In Wiltshire it is between -20 and 25 acres, and, including the next two columns, 36 per cent. of -all the tenants hold something between 20 and 35 acres. In -Northumberland the predominant acreage is between 30 and 35, and nearly -one half the tenants, 41 per cent., hold between 30 and 40 acres. -Elsewhere the most common holding is a good deal smaller. In Lancashire -(if we omit the cottagers, nearly all of whom come from one manor) the -predominant acreage is between 10 and 15 acres, though a great many -persons hold between 5 to 10 acres. In Staffordshire the largest group -of tenants is that holding under 2-1/2 acres, and more than one-half of -them hold less than 10 acres. In Norfolk and Suffolk the same state of -things obtains, but in a more pronounced form. Little emphasis need be -laid on the large number of cottagers there, nearly all of whom are -found on a single semi-urban manor, that of Aylsham. But it is clear -that the mass of the peasantry in those counties are very small holders -indeed. When the cottagers are left on one side, 22 per cent., about -one-fifth, of the landholders have under 2-1/2 acres; 54 per cent., more -than one-half, have under 10 acres. It is fortunate for them that -Norfolk and Suffolk are the home of the woollen industry. - -In the second place, let us notice a fact which is more relevant to our -immediate purpose. That fact is the great variety in the scale of -landholding obtaining between different tenants in the same part of the -country. In this matter, again, some counties present a marked contrast -to others. In Northumberland the uniformity in the size of the holdings -of the tenants is much more marked than the variety. About two-thirds -of them appear in the four columns representing holdings from 30 to 50 -acres. Only six hold more than 50, and though on one manor there are ten -tenants holding less than 2-1/2 acres, there are, apart from these, -comparatively few holding under 25 acres. On all the manors which have -been examined in this county there is, in fact, a regular standard -holding in the sixteenth century, which varies from 30 to 45 acres on -different manors, but which on the same manor varies hardly at all. But -Northumbrian agriculture is always several generations behind that of -the South and East, and when we turn to Wiltshire, or to East Anglia, or -to the nine manors given at the bottom of the table, we find a condition -of things in which there is much greater irregularity. The line extends -farther at both ends than it does in Northumberland. There are more -individuals and fewer clusters. The grouping of holdings round certain -standard patterns is much less marked. If we look at all the manors -together, we find that the four most populous columns contain almost -exactly one-half (49.1 per cent.) of the whole population, exclusive of -cottagers without land. In Northumberland the corresponding columns -contain two-thirds, in East Anglia, Lancashire, and Staffordshire rather -less, on the nine manors in the South and Midlands about one-half, in -Wiltshire a little over one-third. Again there are more large holders -and more very small holders in the South and East, than there are in -Lancashire and on the Northumbrian border. In Lancashire and -Northumberland 4.4 per cent. of the tenants, exclusive of cottagers, -have holdings of more than 50 acres. In Suffolk and Norfolk the -corresponding figure is 8.5 per cent., in Wiltshire 16.9 per cent., on -the nine other manors 14 per cent. - -TABLE IV - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - 30 and under 35 Acres. | - 25 and under 30 Acres. | . | - 20 and under 25 Acres. | . | . | - 15 and under 20 Acres. | . | . | . | - 10 and under 15 Acres. | . | . | . | . | - 5 and under 10 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | - 2-1/2 and under 5 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Under 2-1/2 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Cottages or Houses with or without . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Gardens . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Total Number of Tenants. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | -|--------------------------------| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Ten manors in Northumberland | 96| | 10| 1| 2| 1| 3| 1| 12| 27| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Four manors in Lancashire | 168| 38| 14| 19| 29| 35| 7| 4| 7| 7| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Three manors in Staffordshire | 103| 8| 21| 16| 14| 6| 10| 11| 3| 1| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Two manors in Northamptonshire | 255| 30| 53| 24| 22| 22| 13| 22| 5| 10| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Three manors in Leicestershire | 129| 13| 17| 6| 6| 8 | 3| 3| 5| 1| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Five manors in Suffolk and | | | | | | | | | | | -| eight manors in Norfolk | 391| 52| 77| 40| 69| 28| 26| 19| 14| 5 | -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Seven manors in Wiltshire and | | | | | | | | | | | -| one manor in Somersetshire | 156| 3| 5| 7| 12| 8| 7| 27| 16| 14| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Nine other manors in the South | | | | | | | | | | | -| of England | 366| 23| 58| 27| 52| 29| 31| 16| 22| 12| -+--------------------------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ -| Total |1664|167|255|140|206|137|100|103| 84| 77| -+--------------------------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ - - - TABLE IV _(cont'd)_ - - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - Uncertain.| - 120 and over.| .| - 115 and under 120 Acres.| .| .| - 110 and under 115 Acres.| .| .| .| - 105 and under 110 Acres.| .| .| .| .| - 100 and under 105 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| - 95 and under 100 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 90 and under 95 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 85 and under 90 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 80 and under 85 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 75 and under 80 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 70 and under 75 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 65 and under 70 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 60 and under 65 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 55 and under 60 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 50 and under 55 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 45 and under 50 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 40 and under 45 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 35 and under .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 40 Acres .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| -+----------------| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| -|Northumberland |13|10|10| | | 1| 1| 2| 1| | 1| | | | | | | | | -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Lancashire | 2| | | | 2| | | 1| | | | | | | | | | 1| 2| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Staffordshire | 2| 2| 2| 2| | 1| 1| | | | | | | | | | | 1| 2| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Northamptonshire| 3| 7| 2| 5| 2| 7| 2| 2| 2| 2| | | | | 2| | | 4|14| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Leicestershire |10| 7| 8| 7| 7| 6| 2| 4| 1| 2| 1| 1| 2| | | | 1| 1| 7| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Suffolk/Norfolk | 9| 4| 2| 4| 7| 3| 3| 1| 1| 1| 1| | 1| | 2| 1| | 4|17| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Wiltshire/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -| Somersetshire |10|12| 5| 7| 2| 4| 3| 4| 1| 2| 1| | 2| | | | | | 4| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|South of England|11|10|13| 3| 6| 7| 6| 3| 5| 4| 4| 1| 2| 4| | 1| 1| 7| 9| -+----------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ -| |60|52|42|28|26|29|18|17|11|11| 8| 2| 7| 4| 4| 2| 1|18|55| -+----------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ - -In the non-commercial, non-industrial North there is something like -economic equality, something like the fixed equipment of each group of -tenants with a standard area of land which is one of the first things to -strike us in a mediæval survey, and, as we shall see later, manorial -authorities for a long time insist on that rough equality being -maintained, because any weakening of it would disorganise the -old-fashioned economy which characterises the northern border. In the -industrial East and South this uniformity existed once, but it exists -now no longer. Wiltshire is humming with looms; Norfolk and Suffolk are -linked to the Continent by a thousand commercial ties, and will starve -if the clothiers lose their market. The mighty forces of capital and -competitive industry and foreign trade are beginning to heave in their -sleep--forces that will one day fuse and sunder, exalt and put down, -enrich and impoverish, unpeople populous counties and pour Elizabethan -England into a smoking caldron between the Irish Sea and the Pennines; -forces that at present are so weak that a Clerk of the Market can lead -them and a Justice of the Peace put a hook in their jaws. It is natural -that mediæval conditions of agriculture should survive longest in the -North. It is natural that they should survive least where trade and -industry are most developed, and where men are being linked by other -bonds than those of land tenure. But we must not comment until we have -examined the text more closely. We would only draw attention to the -contrast between the South and the North, to the contrast also between -the great diversity in the size of the peasants' holdings in the -sixteenth century, and the much greater uniformity two or three hundred -years before. - -This contrast gives a clue to certain features of village life which are -distinctive of our period, and at the risk of wearying the reader one -may illustrate it from the circumstances of particular manors. At -Cuxham,[128] in 1483, there are, in addition to tiny holdings of a few -acres or of fractions of acres, holdings of one-quarter of a virgate, -of half a virgate, of one virgate, of four virgates. At Ibstone[129] in -the same year there are two tenants at will holding one virgate each, -one tenant holding five tofts and three crofts, while the rest hold -little except cottages and gardens. At Warton[130] in Lancashire, there -are in the reign of Henry VIII., in addition to various holdings -expressed in terms of acres, four holdings of half a bovate, two of -three-quarters of a bovate, seven of one bovate, two of one and a -quarter bovates, four of one and a half bovates, four of two bovates, -one of two and a quarter bovates, one of three bovates. At Barton[131] -in Staffordshire, in 1556, the typical holding is one virgate of 24 -acres. But though this forms the nucleus of the copyholders' properties -a good many of them have acquired so much extra land, and a good many -apparently have parted with so much of the land which they once held, -that though 24 acres is still the predominant holding, the majority of -the tenants hold something more or something less than this. At -Byshopeston,[132] in 1567, there are men holding half a virgate, two -virgates, three virgates, four virgates, six virgates. At Knyghton[133] -there are holders of anything from a half to two and a half virgates. - - [128] Merton Documents, Rentale de Cuxham (Nos. 5902 and 5905). - - [129] Merton Documents, Rentale de Ibston (No. 5902). - - [130] R.O. Rental and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 19, No. 7, f. - 79-87. - - [131] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, No. 70. - - [132] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [133] _Ibid._ - -Looking at this grouping of holdings, one is tempted at first sight to -say that the virgate has ceased to be a unit of open field tillage, and -has become merely a common form, an idea which is laid up in the minds -of surveyors, and which is produced automatically, even when it -corresponds to nothing in the fluid world of agriculture. This, however, -would be an error. On the contrary, the conservatism[134] of rural -arrangements is such that yardlands, bovates, virgates, and oxgangs, -continue to do duty in circumstances which seem quite incongruous, and -to be used, not only in theory, but in practice, to apportion rights -over arable, meadow, and pasture, long after holdings have been -redistributed in such a way as altogether to destroy the former equality -of shares. On the Leicestershire manors of Barkby[135] and Kibworth[136] -holdings were set down in terms of yardlands in 1636, though the -condition of things in which a yardland or half yardland formed one -tenant's holding had long since given way to one in which the smaller -holders occupied a few acres and the wealthier 2-1/2, 3, and 3-1/2 -yardlands. Still, though the continuance of these measures even into the -eighteenth century should be noted, there is no reason why we should use -them, and the modern reader will perhaps get a better idea of the -growing heterogeneity in the economic conditions of the customary -tenants if the distribution of their property is expressed in terms of -acres. - - [134] The inconvenience of reckoning in yardlands is noticed by - a writer in the seventeenth century: "The tax of land is after - the yardland; a name very deceitful by the disproportion and - inequality thereof, the quantity of some one yardland being as - much as one and a halfe or two in the same field, and yet there - is an equality of taxes" (Joseph Lee, _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_, 1656). - - [135] Merton Documents, MS. book labelled Kibworth and Barkby, - 1636. - - [136] _Ibid._ - -Our first example comes from Malden[137] in Surrey. It shows on a small -scale the tendency towards concentration of property in larger parcels. -In 1452 there were on that manor one holder of 24 acres, three holders -of 16 acres, two holders of 15 acres, and families holding 10, 8, 6, 5, -2 acres respectively. That 16 acres had been the normal holding is -fairly obvious; it is obvious also that though this normal holding is -still traceable, it is on the way to being obliterated. Later specimens -of a similar kind come from Ashfield[138] in Suffolk and Ormesby[139] in -Norfolk. In 1513 there were on the former manor tenants holding 7, 10, -15, 21, 22, 36, 37, 45, 107, 121 acres, and all intermediate sizes. On -the latter, in 1516, the holdings were much smaller, but they were still -more various in area, ranging from 2 to 31 acres. One or two of the -Wiltshire and Somersetshire manors surveyed for the Earl of Pembroke in -1567 offer examples of the reverse state of things in which the tenants' -holdings were all cut out to a standard pattern. At Washerne,[140] for -example, a manor where the demesnes were not leased but retained "in -the hand of the lord," nearly all the copyholders had exactly 20 acres -each. But this is an exception which proves the rule. At Estoverton[141] -there were some tenants holding 69, 48, 38 acres of arable, and others -with 12, 10, 9, 3, and 2 acres. At Donnington[142] there were holders of -63 and 52 acres in the fields and holders with only 8 or 9 acres. At -South Brent[143] the divergence between large and small customary -tenants is more striking still. One occupies about 90 acres, several -others over 50, while the vast majority hold less than 30 acres in -holdings which are hardly ever of the same size. At Crondal[144] we find -in 1567 exactly the same inequality in the area cultivated by different -tenants, exactly the same combination of very large with very small -holdings. Taking one tithing only of that manor--that of Swanthrop--we -are met by tenants holding 112, 104, 66, 58, 47, 44, 30, 27, 25, and 3 -acres. Finally, let us take two extreme instances. They are drawn from -the closing years of the sixteenth century; but their inclusion may be -justified by the fact that they reveal in a pronounced form the -tendencies which we have seen at work elsewhere a century and a half -before, and that they offer a peculiarly clear example of larger -customary holdings formed out of the aggregation of several smaller -ones, since the names of the previous tenants are stated by the -surveyor. On the two Middlesex manors of Edgeware[145] and -Kingsbury[146] all relics of the state of things which had presumably -existed there, as on other manors, two or three centuries before, the -state of things in which there were groups of men holding virgates or -half virgates, has disappeared so entirely as to leave no traces behind. -On the former the thirty-eight copyholders occupy holdings of almost any -size between 1 rood and 130 acres; out of the 722 acres of copyhold land -as much as 254, a little over one-third, are in the hands of two large -tenants. On the latter there is, _mutatis mutandis_, the same story; out -of the twenty-seven copyholders thirteen hold less than 15 acres, eight -hold more than 30, and of those eight two hold more than 100 acres -apiece. - - [137] Merton Documents, Rental of Malden. - - [138] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, No. 85. - - [139] _Ibid._, Portf. 22, No. 18. - - [140] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [141] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [142] _Ibid._ - - [143] _Ibid._ - - [144] _Crondal Record_, Part I. (Baigent), pp. 210-221. - Customary of 1567. - - [145] All Souls Documents, Map and Description of the Manor of - Edgeware (1597). - - [146] _Ibid._, Map and Description of the Manor of Kingsbury - (1597). - -These examples are drawn from 12 different counties.[147] Let us see -more exactly what they suggest. They suggest that, quite apart[148] from -any movement on the part of lords of manors to throw the holdings of the -customary tenants into large farms and to evict their holders, quite -apart from any external shock such as was given to the organisation of -village life by the change from tillage to pasture on the part of lords -and their farmers, there has been going on an internal change in the -relation of the customary tenants to each other. So far we have been -concerned only with the result of that change, not with the process by -which it is brought about. The result, as evidenced by the surveys, is -the consolidation of several holdings, or parts of holdings, into fewer -and larger tenancies, the appearance of a class of well-to-do peasants -by whom such larger tenancies are held, and a widening of the gap -between the most prosperous and least prosperous. Customary tenants hold -3 or 4 virgates, 80 or 90 or 100 acres, and their holdings are composed -of holdings and parts of holdings which formerly belonged to several -different tenants. Customary tenants even become the landlords of other -customary tenants. At Yateleigh[149] one copyholder has as many as -twenty sub-tenants, and it is not at all uncommon for the surveyors of -the sixteenth century to record the names both of owners and occupiers -in estate and field maps. There can hardly be a clearer proof of the -re-arrangement of property which has been going on among them than the -fact that some of them hold more land than they can cultivate themselves -and sub-let it to smaller men, who become their sub-tenants. - - [147] Similar examples could be adduced from Northamptonshire - and Leicestershire, were it worth while, _e.g._ at Duston in - Northants in 1561 there were tenants holding 2 virgates, 1-3/4 - virgates, 1-1/2 virgates, 1/2 virgate, 1/4 virgate (R.O. Rentals - and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 23). At Desford in Leicestershire, - _temp._ Hen. VIII., one finds the same division and aggregation - of virgates (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancs., Bdle. 6, - No. 7). - - [148] See below, pp. 72-75. - - [149] _Crondal Records, loc. cit._ - -May one not say, in fact, that by the beginning of the sixteenth century -the rough equality which had once existed between the holdings of -different groups of customary tenants is fast disappearing, and that by -the middle of that century it has, in some parts of the country, -disappeared altogether? The village community is often no longer made up -of compact groups of holders with more or less equal holdings, more or -less equal rents and services, more or less similar economic positions. -Even as early as the time when the great agrarian changes which -contemporaries summed up under the name of "enclosing" begin to produce -legislation on the part of governments and riots among the peasantry, -its appearance of a systematic adjustment of property and obligation is -already far on the way to disappearance. Its members still hold shares -in the open fields, and are still bound by a common routine of -cultivation, save in so far as that routine has been undermined in the -ways to be described below. But it is easy to be deceived by the -external shell of organisation into thinking of village life at the end -of the fifteenth century as being much more homogeneous than it really -was. After all there are shareholders and shareholders. There is very -little similarity in economic interest or social position between the -artisan who buys a £5 share in a Bolton spinning-mill and a capitalist -who invests £5000 in the same concern. There was hardly more, one may -suspect, between the copyholder who cultivated a few acres and the -copyholder who held 100 or 200 acres and sublet part of his holding to a -poorer neighbour, though the lands of both were intermixed, though both -held of the same manor, though both were nominally bound by the same -custom. This comparison says more than we mean; for, with few -exceptions, the inequality in the holdings of the peasantry revealed by -the manorial documents is not so great that it cannot be spanned by -enterprise and good fortune. Looking back from a world in which the mass -of mankind have no legal interest in the land which they cultivate or -the tools which they use, what strikes the modern reader most in the -sixteenth century is not the concentration of property, but its wide -distribution. Nevertheless, even in these petty rearrangements of -holdings there is a meaning. They are the beginning of greater things. -To appreciate their importance we must obliterate from our minds our -knowledge of later developments, and regard them as the innovation which -they are. We must remember that they are the economic foundation of a -prosperous rural middle class. - - -(c) _The Growth of a Land Market among the Peasants_ - -If the surveys were our sole source of information it would not be easy -to say how this regrouping of holdings has been brought about. Even the -surveys, however, do not leave us quite in the dark. They suggest that -it has taken place very largely through the play of commercial forces -within the ranks of the customary tenants themselves, through the eager -purchasing of land which we noticed as one feature of rural life at the -close of the Middle Ages, and through the growth of a cash nexus between -individuals side by side with the rule of custom. This is a factor in -the break up of the mediæval condition of landholding upon which -sufficient emphasis has perhaps not always been laid. The pre-occupation -of the writers of the sixteenth century with the special problem of -their own day, when the existence of a class of well-to-do copyholders -was taken as something needing no explanation, and their decay before -the growth of the great leasehold estate occupied the attention of all -interested in agricultural problems, caused the significance of the -development of these thriving peasants to be forgotten in the agitation -and regrets which accompanied their depression, and naturally -concentrated interest on the changes introduced by lords and great -farmers, through which that depression was mainly caused. In every age -prosperity is taken as a matter of course, and, in defiance of all -experience, mankind reserves its surprise for distress. - -But the special phenomenon of the growth of large customary tenancies -which we have been considering can hardly be explained except as a -result of enterprise among the tenants themselves. The piling up of -customary holdings in the hands of one individual is quite a different -thing from the adding of customary holdings to the demesne which the -lord retained or leased to a farmer. It means a transference of -property, but a transference not from a customary tenant to the lord or -the lord's farmer, but from one customary tenant to another. It suggests -that before the "enclosing movement" of the sixteenth century brought -its crop of evictions, economic forces had long been at work to break up -the village community into large holders and small. When in 1452 John -Blackman, copyhold tenant of Maiden,[150] holds Keyser's, Key's, and -Skinner's tenements, it can only mean that Keyser, Key, and Skinner have -parted with their tenements to John Blackman. The lord may have put -pressure upon them to sell, but the customary land is not diminished, it -is simply rearranged; the result is not an addition to the manorial -demesne, but the appearance of a copyhold tenant with a great deal more -land than his neighbours. The cases in which the existence of more than -one survey of the same manor enables us to contrast the condition of the -customary tenants at different dates make it quite clear that this -aggregation of holdings was a well-marked movement which went on quite -apart from any encroachment by manorial authorities on the customary -land. Some time between 1340 and 1454 two virgates at Castle Combe,[151] -which at the earlier date were in separate hands, have been formed into -one holding. And naturally, the later we come, the more marked the -change which we find. At Aspley Guise[152] in 1275 the forty customary -tenants each held almost exactly half a virgate. In 1542 one finds among -the tenants at will and copyholders three occupants of the original half -virgate, one tenant with 30 acres, two tenants with 60 acres each, three -tenants with 75 acres each. These large holdings have plainly been -formed by the aggregation of half virgates in fewer hands and into -parcels of two, three, four, and five half virgates apiece. This case is -a very clear one, because nearly all the holdings are multiples of the -original standard, even the rent being calculated from this basis. - - [150] Merton Documents, Rental of Maiden, 1496. - - [151] _History of Castle Combe_ (Scrope). - - [152] For information as to Aspley Guise I am indebted to the - kindness of Dr. H.G. Fowler of Aspley Guise, who has allowed me - to see the material which he has collected for a history of the - manor. - -Elsewhere the aggregation of small customary holdings into large is -equally marked, but it has not been carried out with such a nice regard -to the maintenance of the original units. In the tithing of South[153] -Newton, part of the Manor of South Newton in Wiltshire, there were in -1315 seven holders of a virgate, each of whom occupied 23 acres, -seventeen holders of half a virgate with 12 acres each, and eight -cottagers. When the manor was surveyed in 1567 the customary tenants, -though fewer in number, cultivated a good deal more land than they had -two and a half centuries before, so that there is no question of their -holdings having been merged in the demesne. But the land was very -differently distributed between them. Of the ten copyholders then -remaining only one held the original virgate. Of the rest there were -holders of 59, 65, 80, and 96 acres, of 7, 13, and 15 acres, and of -various acreages between these wide limits. The symmetry of the earlier -arrangement has entirely vanished. Instead of a cluster of small -cultivators organised in three well-defined layers, we have a chain -stretching from a mere cottager up to a petty capitalist. A very similar -change has taken place on the Manor of Crondal.[154] If one compares, -for example, the arrangement of holdings on the tithing of Swanthrop in -1287 and 1567, one finds that the rough symmetry which existed at the -former date has altogether disappeared by the latter. In 1287 there were -eight persons holding virgates, seven holding half virgates, two holding -quarter-virgates, and four whose holdings are not expressed in virgates. -By 1567 all this has been altered. There are tenants holding 100, 66, -58, 47 acres; there are three with less than 10 acres, and there are -five with holdings of various sizes between these limits, but in no case -reducible to any common measure. How could such a transformation come -about, unless, as was suggested above, there was much buying and selling -of land, much rudimentary commercialism inside and behind the decent -cloak of routine which seems to be spread over our villages? Is not this -explanation forced upon us when we examine the holdings of the larger -peasants and find them made up of pieces bought from one and leased -from another, pieces taken from the waste or from the lord's demesne or -from the common pasture? And if it is correct, does it not point, on the -one hand, to a good deal of enterprise among the small holders, and -since enterprise can hardly exist without a certain level of prosperity, -to a good deal of prosperity; and, on the other hand, to movements which -in time are likely to dethrone custom altogether and put competition in -its place? - - [153] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_ (Straton). - - [154] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 111-116, and 210-222. - -To these questions we shall return later. But happily we are not -restricted to inferential argument for our knowledge of these internal -changes in the economy of village life before the sixteenth century. We -have the court rolls of manors, and the court rolls are full, from a -very early date, of transactions which show how the state of things -which has been described was being brought about. In examining the -evidence which they offer of the shifting of property among the -peasantry we shall have to go some way back, and we shall do well to -begin with a distinction and a warning--a distinction between the legal -framework of rural life and its economic tendencies, and a warning that -we shall have to deal with a somewhat tiresome mass of detail, which the -general reader can avoid by turning to the summary at the end of this -chapter. - -In the picture of the mediæval manor which is usually offered us the -features which receive most emphasis are its systematic apportionment of -works and services, its regulation by binding customary rules, its -immobility and imperviousness to competitive and commercial influences; -in short, its character as an organisation in which even the details are -settled by custom. In the "typical manor," as it appears in some -accounts, the main lines are drawn with almost photographic sharpness. -There are the free holders on the free land, the bond tenants each with -his virgate or half virgate of bond land, and the officers and servants -of the lord, a system the parts of which are knit together by the lord's -need of extracting labour services to cultivate his demesne. Now that -the internal economy of a thirteenth century manor displays to a very -remarkable degree the authority of custom in all its arrangements is -not, of course, denied; and it is specially proper to emphasise it when -we are contrasting it with modern agriculture, or when we are regarding -it from the standpoint of law. But this is only one aspect of it, and if -we assume that the economic relationships between the different members -of it always followed the same grouping and ran on the same lines as the -legal ones, we are likely to ascribe to them a simplicity and a hard and -fast character which, we may be quite sure, they never possessed in real -life, and to miss those very innovations which throw most light on -economic development. - -True of such development early rentals and surveys show little trace. -But let us remember the purpose for which they were prepared. The -manorial officials were concerned with getting in an income, not with -supplying information about the methods of agriculture or the -cross-relations between one tenant and another, except in so far as they -affected the manorial revenue. The source of the income was the holding, -not the holder; or, rather, it did not matter to them who the landholder -was, whether he was one individual or another, or whether he was a -partnership of half-a-dozen individuals, provided that the land, however -held, yielded the customary services and payments. The nearest analogy -would be an apportioned tax which a Government divides between different -localities, each locality having to raise a certain sum, but making its -own arrangements as to what individuals shall pay. It is the virgate -which pays rents, which mows the lord's meadow, reaps the lord's fields, -carries the lord's messages, pays a stoup of honey and a churchshot of -white corn; and as long as the meadow is mowed and the message carried, -the question what individual holds the virgate is quite a subsidiary one -for the bailiff, and one which the tenants can arrange among themselves -much as they please. Each half virgate at Cuxham[155] has got to do two -boonworks or pay 4d. But the manorial economy is not at all disturbed by -the fact of one tenant holding not half a virgate, but a virgate and a -half; for he has to do, or pay some one else to do, six boonworks and -pay 2s. if he does not. A half-hide at Bramshot[156] has to make -half-a-dozen different payments in money and kind; but there is another -to prevent John, Stephen, Roger, and William clubbing together to work -it and arranging the payments among themselves as they please. - - [155] Merton Documents, No. 5902, Rental of Cuxham, 1483: - "Johannes ... pro uno messuagio et una virgata terræ et dimidia - xxiiis. et 6 precaria in autumno vel 2s.... Thomas Lee, Rector - ecclesiæ ibidem pro uno tofto ... et una virgata terræ 18s. et 4 - precaria in autumno vel 16d." - - [156] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 96, Rental of 1287: - "Johannes filius Fabri, Stephanus Draghebreck, Rogerus de - Hallie, et Willelmus le Hart ... tenent j dimidiam hidatam - terræ. Reddendo inde per annum 5s. ad festum S. Mich. et xixd. - de Pondpany et ad festum Beati Martini viii gallinas de - chersetto, et ii gallinas contra Natale, et x ova contra Pascha, - et facient in omnibus omnia sicut Willelmus de Haillie." P. 125: - "William, son of Gonnilda, and Galfrid Levesone, John, son of - Matilda, and Emma, a widow, hold one virgate of land containing - 27-1/2 acres on paying and doing as the said Robert of - Estfelde." There are many similar entries. - -Clearly in these circumstances a rigid classification of holdings by the -manorial authorities is quite compatible with a great deal of diversity -in the arrangements made with each other by the holders, and we are -likely to miss a good many innovations if we look at the manor only -through the eyes of officials and as a revenue-producing concern.[157] -We must no more expect to get from them an exhaustive account of the -exact individuals at any one time using the land, or of the scale on -which farming is carried on by the peasants, than we expect the -shareholders' list of a limited company to tell us who has the spending -of the dividends. The shares stand in A.'s name, but the interest may go -to A.'s married daughter. The holding stands in the name of Thomas in -the books of the manor, but it may be that part or all of it is worked -by Walter. To put the case in another way, to the lord and his steward a -manor is primarily a business, a business on which various obligations -can be imposed and from which various profits can be extracted. But it -is also a village community consisting of peasants whose economic -relations are by no means exhausted in the interest which the lord takes -in them as part of its stock, and who have economic dealings which are -important when we begin to inquire into changes in the distribution of -peasant property. The number of the holdings and the amount of payments -and services may remain quite unaltered, and yet at the same time if one -individual begins to acquire several shares his property will grow at -the expense of other persons. Precisely because it is new, the -appearance of such small capitalists is not readily traceable in the -stereotyped forms used by the manorial officials. Precisely because it -is new, it is of the greatest economic significance. It shows what may -be called, by contrast with later developments, the old agrarian régime, -producing the new type of well-to-do peasant who is one of the -protagonists in the class struggles of the sixteenth century. - - [157] Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, pp. 250-251: "The - general arrangement admitted a certain subdivision under the - cover of an artificial unity, which found its expression in the - settlement of the services and of the relations with the lord." - -And this upward movement is no mere matter of conjecture. That behind -the stiff legal framework of the manorial organisation there was a -tendency for property to pass into the hands of the more prosperous -tenants, and that there was a sort of primitive commercialism even at a -time when commercial ideas had little influence over the methods of -agriculture, becomes evident if we examine the elements out of which the -small properties of the fourteenth century are composed. The gradual -formation of a class of wealthy peasants took place in three ways, -through the buying up by well-to-do men of parts of their neighbours' -properties, through the colonising by villages of the unoccupied land -surrounding them, and through the addition to the customary holdings of -plots which had at one time been in the occupation of the lord, but -which, for one reason or another, he found it more profitable to sell or -lease to his tenants. Even before the end of the thirteenth century it -is by no means unusual to find land changing holders pretty rapidly both -by transfer and by lease. The customary land passes in the manorial -court; the outgoing tenant surrenders it, and the incoming tenant is -formally admitted by the steward. When a peasant leaves the manor or -dies without heirs, the other tenants offer a sort of small land-market, -and bid for his land or part of it to add to their own. Hence holdings -or fractions of holdings change hands with some frequency at the court -customary, the well-to-do, who can afford to take more land, offering -the lord an increased rent to obtain a share in a holding the possession -of which has for some reason lapsed. In the court rolls of the -Lincolnshire manor of Ingoldmells,[158] for example, there are many such -transfers, six sales occurring in successive courts held in 1315 and -1316. At Crondal,[159] in 1282, a tenant has for some reason given up -his holding; the rest of the community dart on it like minnows on a -piece of bread; and it is at once split up among as many as ten other -tenants, who find sureties for the continuance of the normal services. -At Hadleigh,[160] in 1305, a tenant sells part of his land to be built -upon. At Castle[161] Combe, in 1367, a villein enters by licence of the -lord on two virgates of land and a separate pasture. - - [158] _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_ (Massingberd), October 1315 to - June 1316. - - [159] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 152-153. Court Roll of - 1282. "Hugh Sweyn gives to the lord 15d. that he may be able to - hold 2-1/2 acres of arable land of the tenement formerly Richard - Wisdom's, paying therefor yearly 15d. of rent: sureties for the - services being Gilbert Swein and Roger Carter." Nine other - tenants take fractions of Richard Wisdom's holding in the same - way. - - [160] _Victoria County History of Suffolk_, "Social and Economic - History" (Unwin). Professor Unwin has some suggestive remarks on - similar developments in other parts of the county. - - [161] _History of Castle Combe_ (Scrope), p. 162: "Johannes - Pleyslede, nativus domini, cepit de domino unum messuagium et - duas virgatas terrae tenendas in bondagio, secundum - consuetudinem manerii ... Reddit etiam annuatim sex denarios pro - quadam pastura vocata le Hatche, et pro via ad eandem." - -Such examples of what may be called petty land speculation could be -multiplied almost indefinitely, and point to a good deal of mobility in -rural society even in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. At -the same time one can see signs of relationships of a more complicated -character tending to establish themselves between the tenants, and -breaking up the symmetry of the manorial arrangements. There is a marked -tendency for holdings not to remain intact but to be split up among -different holders. Sometimes this takes place in the ordinary course of -transference from father to son. The virgate held by the former is -divided, for example, into two cotlands, each of which is held by one -child,[162] or the heir to a holding divides it with his mother.[163] -More frequently one is left to infer the actual process of division -from the way in which the Rentals describe holdings as being occupied by -groups or partnerships[164] of tenants, who share the land between them, -each being responsible for a part of the rents and services owing from -the virgate. Such an arrangement does not imply that there is any -partnership in actual cultivation, any partnership in the modern sense -of the word. It means, on the contrary, that the different parts of the -holding are divided among several different cultivators, and that its -apparent unity is quite artificial, simply a fiscal expression to enable -the authorities to see that it renders its share of payments and -services. - - [162] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 129, Rental of Dupehale - (Dippenhall) 1287: "Edmunde de Bosco and William de Bosco hold 2 - cotlands which were formed out of one virgate of land which Adam - de Bosco formerly held." - - [163] _Ibid._, p. 153: "Margery Palmer comes and surrenders into - the hands of the lord a virgate of land with a house in Crondal, - and Galfrid her son comes and gives to the lord 6s. 8d. to have - seizin thereof, upon this condition, that the said Margery have - the third part, and two pieces more, of the aforesaid tenement, - for the term of her life." - - [164] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 117, Rental of Yateleigh, - 1287: "John de la Perke and Thomas Squel hold one virgate of - land containing 22 acres, on payment therefor of 2s. 10d. on the - Feast of St. Michael and 7-1/2 for Pondpany, and one stoup of - honey, and 75 eggs, and shall perform all services like Thomas - Kach.... Walter le White and Osbert de la Knelle hold one - virgate of land containing 29-1/2 acres.... Roys de Pothulle and - John le White hold one virgate of land containing 29 acres." - -Again there is much leasing and sub-letting of land by the more -prosperous of the customary tenants. Like labourers who hold allotments -to-day, they often find it convenient to hire extra land and at the same -time to let out parts of their own holdings, which may be inconveniently -situated, or hard to work, or for some other reason not worth retaining. -Thus in Lancashire the Clitheroe[165] court rolls show many fines being -paid in the early fourteenth century for permission to "tavern," that is -simply to lease, land. In 1351 there are several tenants on the manor of -Sutton[166] in Hampshire who have leased cotlands from the larger -customary tenants. At Crokeham on the neighbouring manor of Crondal[167] -we hear as early as 1287 of one tenant paying 12d. for his holding -"through the rents of" another customary tenant, who stands as an -intermediate landlord between him and the manorial authorities. On this -manor, indeed, sub-letting of land proceeded very far, and had created -by the middle of the sixteenth century exactly the result which one -would have expected, the existence, namely, of a considerable number of -subtenants holding land from the copyholders and known by the name of -Hallmote[168] tenants. Nor is mere subtenancy the most elaborate of the -arrangements which arise among these Lilliputian capitalists. The -peasants deal in land, and naturally they employ land agents to act as -brokers for their bargains. When "Robert Bagges surrenders one bovate of -villein land into the hands of the lord for the use of Symon Clerk, and -the same Symon forthwith surrenders the aforesaid bovate to the lord for -the use of William Flaxman, and William Flaxman pays 12d. to enter -thereupon,"[169] may we not say that we have the whole machinery of land -speculation, seller, middleman, and client, complete? - - [165] _Court Rolls of the Lordships, Wapentakes, and Demesne - Manors of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster_ (edited by W. Farrer). - Halmote of Colne, 1323: "Thomas le Harper for taverning 3 acres - of land, 6d. Roger ... for the same of 2 acres of land, 4d.," - and _passim_. - - [166] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 140: "John Thomas holds a - messuage and a 'ferdell' of land, excepting one cotland and a - perch.... Thomas le Freyn holds of the above a cotland and a - perch." - - [167] _Ibid._, p. 134: "William de Suche gives to the lord 12d. - yearly, to be allowed to hold 6 acres through the rents of Hugh - of Wyggeworthale." - - [168] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 159-383. Customary of - 1567. The name does not necessarily imply subtenancy in any way, - the Hallmoot being simply the court of the manor. At Yateleigh - one copyholder, Richard Allen, held about 263 acres, of which - about 126 were held from him by 21 subtenants (pp. 258-265 and - 378-379). - - [169] Footnote in _The Rebellion of Wat Tyler_, by Petruschevsky - (Russian), p. 210: "Ricardus Flaxman qui de domino tenuit in - bondagio unum messuagium et II. bovatas terræ et xvi acras terræ - de Forland quæ quondam fuerunt Johannis Colyn ad terminum xx. - annorum ex dimissione prædicti Johannis per licenciam curiæ, - venit hic et reddidit in manus domini prædictas duas bovatas - terræ et acras di' terræ et prati ad opus Willelmi Dolynes - deduct' prædicto messuagio." Duchy of Lancaster Court Rolls, - Bdle. 32, No. 307, and _ibid._, p. 211: "Robertus Bagges redd' - in manus domini l bovatam terræ in bondagio ad opus Symonis - Clerk Tenend 'sibi et suis, etc. Et idem Symon instanter redd' - in manus domini prædictam bovatam terræ ad opus Willelmi Flaxman - sibi et heredibus suis secundum consuetudinem manerii, et dat ad - ingressum xiid." Duchy of Lancaster Court Rolls, Bdle. 33, No. - 324: "Instanter" is remarkable. - -So far we are on safe ground. But it is not easy to describe the sort of -conditions in which this petty commercialism, this emergence of peasants -richer and more prosperous than their fellows, takes place. Clearly it -implies the existence of small stores of capital, of some surplus over -the consumption of the current year, which its fortunate possessors can -use as a starting-point for further acquisitions; nor ought this to -surprise us, for the usurer who traffics in his neighbours' misfortunes -by lending money or corn at exorbitant rates, is by no means an -unfamiliar bugbear in the mediæval village. Clearly, again, we must not -look for some single _primum mobile_ to explain how such small capitals -could be brought into existence. With all its apparent homogeneity the -manorial population had, from the beginning of things, included people -some of whom were in so much better a position than others for building -up considerable properties as to make it no matter for astonishment -that, as time went on, they should improve their advantage and attract -more than their share of any increase in wealth which might take place. -The appearance in the fourteenth century of a rural middle class is, -indeed, much less remarkable than the extreme slowness of its -development in the more backward parts of the country. For one thing, -even the strictest equalisation of shares could not prevent the holder -of exceptionally fertile land from being better off than his less -fortunate fellow. Since services and rents were based on the -requirements of the demesne, with a view to their rough apportionment -among all the peasants, and were not adjusted, like modern competitive -rents, so as to sweep away the surplus arising on superior sites, the -occupants of the latter could build up, under the ægis of custom, the -nucleus of a very considerable property.[170] For another thing, the -mere fact that the village was subordinated to a lord, who exploited it -by means of officers and servants, supplied village society with an -upper layer of people who had larger opportunities than the mass of the -peasantry for improving their position. Stewards, bailiffs, and greaves -were frequently rewarded for their services with grants of land for -which only a nominal rent was asked, and of course the most obvious way -of using their advantage was further to increase it by adding to their -properties. In a somewhat similar position to these were the peasants -who were let off easily because their labour was not needed for the -lord's estate. It is quite a mistake to think of the mediæval villager -as a man pinned down to subsistence level by the economic pressure which -grinds, as in a mortar, the poorest classes in modern society. Of course -individuals were cruelly oppressed, and when the harvest failed whole -communities, as in India to-day, must sometimes have been blotted out at -a blow. But the whole story of the extraordinary upward movement which -took place among the peasantry in the fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries is unintelligible, unless we admit that the legal -rightlessness of the villein was, in fact, quite compatible with a good -deal of economic prosperity. His liability to the manorial authorities, -though in law unqualified, was in reality a liability limited, on the -one hand, by the rule of custom, and, on the other, by the fact that he -worked, not for an ever hungry world-market, but for a by no means -insatiable local demand. Since services were adjusted to holdings, not -to holders, a family of five or six persons usually did not send more -than one or two to work on the lord's estate, and the remainder had -opportunities for economic advancement, which necessarily became greater -as the growth of population made the weight of the lord's requirements -less exacting.[171] Moreover, the rudimentary specialisation of -industrial employments, which can plainly be seen going on in the -villages of the fourteenth century, brought into existence the man who -was half peasant, half artisan or tradesman, and who could employ the -money which he made in trade to carry on his husbandry on a larger scale -than his neighbours. Such, for example, were the smiths, carpenters, -turners, shoemakers, tailors, butchers, walkers, websters, and shearmen, -who appear so constantly in Poll Tax returns.[172] When a weaver is -able, though a villein, to leave 3000 marks to his heirs,[173] the -village capitalist has plainly come upon the scenes. Nor must we forget -that, however self-contained some manors may have been, there were -others whose proximity to a chartered town or to a seaport acted as a -magnet to draw rural conditions out of the rut of custom. Among the -serfs who bought permission to emigrate, there were some who, having -made money as town craftsmen, strayed back to their "villein nest," and -acquired considerable properties with their hardly amassed wealth, like -the Italian or Austrian peasant of to-day, who, after years spent in the -sunless tenements and restaurants of New York, returns at last to be the -envy of Calabrian and Tyrolese villages. From several sides at once, -therefore, from those who socially rank above the mass of the -population, from the peasant who combines trade and husbandry, from the -enterprising serf who sets out to make his fortune at a distance, forces -are at work to build up the considerable holdings that are the basis of -the well-to-do peasantry of the future. - - [170] See below, pp. 115-121. - - [171] See _E.H.R._, vol. xv. pp. 774-813; Vinogradoff's review - of Page's _The End of Villeinage in England_. - - [172] Powell, _The Revolt in East Anglia_, Appendix I.; and - Putnam, _The Enforcement of the Statute of Labourers_, pp. - 80-81. - - [173] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_. - p. 233. - -But while these causes were always operating on individuals, the most -potent influence in forming a class of prosperous peasants was, no -doubt, the spread of commerce and its reaction on agriculture. Its -effect is shown by the fact that it is just in those parts of the -country where trade is most highly developed, and where, therefore, the -use of money and the growth of wealth encourage speculation of all -kinds, that the commercialising of landed relationships, and the -appearance of a middle class, arises earliest and spreads furthest. The -change is specially noticeable in the Eastern counties, which, from an -early date, are the home of industry. Examples of the extreme variety -and irregularity in the holdings of the customary tenants on the manors -of Suffolk in the sixteenth century, which we have already contrasted -with the arrangements in the backward parts of the country such as -Northumberland, begin to make their appearance at a very early date in -that county of fisheries and manufactures. At Hadleigh,[174] where the -woollen industry has set money in circulation, the processes both of -splitting up the customary holdings, and of letting two or three of them -to a single tenant, is conspicuous at the beginning of the fourteenth -century, and has completely altered the distribution of property which -existed a century before. At the little fishing village of -Gorleston[175] at the end of the thirteenth century each of the former -tenancies was divided up among several tenants, sometimes three or four, -sometimes eight or ten, and once as many as twenty. At Hawstead, in the -same county, the free tenants have let off part of their holdings and -added to them by leasing additional land in its place. In short, -whenever trade becomes a serious factor in rural life, one finds a very -general tendency for new arrangements of land to grow up side by side -with the customary holdings, which are the backbone of the manor, -because it is from them that the lord extracts his services for the -cultivation of the desmesne. As long as the necessity for labour -services continues, the number of holdings does not undergo any -appreciable alteration, but the number of holdings ceases to be a guide -to the number of holders. - - [174] _Victoria County History of Suffolk_, Unwin's article on - Social and Economic History. - - [175] _Ibid._ - -It is clear that the organisation of the manor is compatible with a good -deal of shifting of property among the customary tenants, and that an -alteration in its arrangements begins at a comparatively early date, -without any external shock and through the desire of such tenants as can -afford it to buy and lease land from other tenants who are less well -off. If such a tendency were at all general, it would explain the -gradual aggregation of larger holdings into fewer hands, and the -appearance of considerable inequality in economic status among members -of the village community whose legal position was the same. Sometimes, -indeed, the authorities of the manor think that the process is going on -too fast, that tenants have forgotten that, though they deal in land as -though it were their own, it is really the lord's, and that they must -not jeopardise the rents and services which he expects from it by -alienating it without his permission. Sometimes a day of reckoning -comes, when "tenants having more than one customary tenement" are "to -show cause why they should not be excluded from the other tenements but -one, unless license be granted them."[176] But in view of the multitude -of transactions which come before us, we can hardly doubt that licence -was nearly always granted if the purchaser or lessee was thought by the -steward to be substantial enough to make the land do its duty,[177] and -that tenants who wanted to buy and sell, lease and let, had very little -opposition to expect from the lord or his steward. - - [176] _Merton Documents_, "A table of the Matters, Orders, and - Customs Conteyned in Severall Courts of the Manor, 1563": "Daye - given to all ye tenants of ye manor to remove and expell their - undertenants by Michaelmas that shall be in ye yeare 1563, upon - paine of every delinquent forfeiting 20s." "Daye given to the - aforesaid tenants having above one customary tenement to be here - at ye next court to shew," etc., as above. See the Customary of - High Furness quoted below, p. 101; also Hone, _The Manor and - Manorial Records_, pp. 177-178, Court Rolls of Payton, Oxon.: - "And the aforesaid Laurence Pemerton, in his life time, - substituted Walter Milleward as his subtenant ... contrary to - the custom of the Manor without license; therefore let him have - a talk thereon with the King's officer before the next court." - - [177] This is the meaning of entries of two names as "sureties" - when land changes hands. See _Crondal Records_, Court Rolls of - 1281 and 1282, _passim_. - -After all the picture is one which we ought not to have any difficulty -in understanding, if once we get rid of the idea, born of our melancholy -modern experience, that the buying of land in small parcels is for the -small man the road to ruin, a luxury in which none but the well-to-do -can afford to indulge. We have all heard much of the iniquities of the -English system of land transfer, and have contrasted its cumbersomeness, -its expense, its uncertainty, with the facilities for buying small plots -offered by methods like those of France, where sales and mortgages are -entered in a public registry, which any one has the right to inspect. -But we need not look to the Continent or the British Dominions to see a -market for real property working freely and smoothly. In our period by -far the most general form of tenure was one customary tenure or another, -and whatever the disadvantages of customary tenure may have been--and -they were many--they had one great compensating advantage. Customary -holdings could be transferred easily, cheaply, and with certainty, by -surrender and admission in the court of the manor. Since there was no -doubt that the freehold was in the lord, there was no expensive -investigation of titles to eat up the prospective profits of the -purchaser, and the Court Rolls offered a record, one is tempted to say a -register, of the nature of the interest which a tenant had had in any -holding from time immemorial. Of course the adjustment of the respective -claims of lords and tenants raised very knotty problems, and these will -be examined later. But, as long as they were in abeyance, the fact that -peasant holdings could be transferred so readily contributed to the -breaking up in the regularity of manorial arrangements, to the passage -of land from one family to another, and to the formation of larger -properties out of small.[178] - - [178] Since writing the above I have seen that the same view of - the advantages of copyhold (the descendant of villein) tenure is - taken by Dr. Hasbach, who quotes an eighteenth century writer to - the effect that copyhold as compared with freehold land had the - advantage of "the greater certainty of its title and the - cheapness of its conveyance" (Hasbach, _A History of the English - Agricultural Labourer_, pp. 72-73). - -Such petty transactions among the peasantry were not, however, the only -way in which substantial peasant properties came into existence. In -addition to the transference of land from one tenant to another there -were other causes working to produce much the same results. The first -was the continuous taking in of plots of waste land by tenants who got -permission from the manorial authorities to make encroachments upon it. -The second was the abandonment of the system of cultivating the demesne -by the labour rents of the tenants. Long before the enclosing of the -common waste by lords of manors and farmers had become a very serious -grievance--that it was a grievance at an early date is proved by the -Statute of Merton[179]--one finds arrangements being made for bringing -unused land under cultivation. Sometimes this movement goes on on a very -large scale indeed; the Abbey of St. Albans gets a licence from the King -in 1347 to "improve its wastes aforesaid and to grant and let them for -their true value to whomsoever of their tenants comes to take -them;"[180] and about the same time 500 acres of waste in the forest of -High Peak[181] are let by the Crown to three tenants, much to the -disgust of the neighbouring commoners. Usually the encroachments on the -waste take place piecemeal. The process by which piece after piece was -clipped off it and added to the tenants' holdings is shown very clearly -in Rentals and Court Rolls. Occasionally it goes on without sanction; a -tenant surreptitiously draws into his holding an extra piece of land for -which he pays nothing, and is only found out when he has occupied it for -some time. But this is rare, for such encroachments are a source of -profit to the lord, both in the payment made for the original permission -to make them and in the rent coming from them, and the steward is -therefore careful that they should be made through the court and entered -in detail on the rolls of the manor. Thus at Ashton-under-Lyne,[182] in -1422, both freeholders and customary tenants had made large intakes of -wood and waste and were paying for some of them as much as 13s. 4d. and -10s. The Halmote Court of Colne[183] in 1324 shows many tenants paying a -few pence for acres and half acres of waste. At Yateleigh,[184] in 1287, -almost every one of the fifty-three customary tenants held, in addition -to his land in the open fields, land taken from the waste amounting in -the aggregate to 37 acres, while some possessed no land at all except -that which they had thus reclaimed. In the tithing of Aldershot,[185] on -the same manor, one tenant held 52 acres in encroachments. At -Crokeham[186] another held 63-1/2 acres in addition to the standard half -virgate of customary land; another, at Southwood,[187] 16 acres. - - [179] 1235, c. 4. One may remark, however, that the power which - a single freeholder had had before 1235 to prevent the breaking - up or enclosure of common pastures, even when he had more than - was sufficient for his own beasts, was a genuine hardship for - the lord, for other freeholders, and for the customary tenants; - see the remarks in Pollock and Maitland (_History of English - Law_, vol. i. p. 612). - - [180] _Gesta Abbatum Monasterii St. Albani_, vol. iii. pp. - 120-121, quoted by Petruschevsky, _op. cit._, pp. 179-180. - - [181] _Victoria County History_, Derbyshire, vol. ii. p. 170. - - [182] Glover, _History of Ashton_, p. 355. "Richard the Hunte - ... for an intake 3d. ... Thomas of the Leghes for the one half - of the intake in Palden Wood 13s. 4d. The same Thomas of the - Leghes for an intake besyde Alt Hey 10s." - - [183] _Court Rolls of the Lordships, etc., of Thomas, Earl of - Lancaster_ (Farrer). Halmote of Ightenhill, 1324, January 18: - "John de Briddeswail for entry to half an acre of waste in - Habrincham, 6d., for the same yearly, 2d." Same court, May 7, - 1324.: "Richard le Skinner for entry to 4 acres of waste in - Sommerfordrod, 6d., for the same yearly, 6d.," and _passim_. In - the north of England there seems to have been very much - colonising of the waste, perhaps because original settlements - were small. See Turner, _History of Brighouse, Rastrick, and - Hipperholme_, pp. 66-67, and _Trans. Rochdale Literary and - Philosophical Society_, vol. vii., Rochdale Manor Inquisition. - - [184] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 116-120, _e.g._ "Robert, - son of Peter de la Pierke, holds one acre of encroachment land - on paying 4d." - - [185] _Ibid._, pp. 123-127. - - [186] _Ibid._, pp. 131-134. "Richard Wysdon holds half a - virgate of land containing 16 acres.... The same holds 63-1/2 - acres, which were in his ancient occupation, and were found to - be over and above his said virgate, and (included) in many - encroachments." - - [187] _Ibid._, pp. 122-123: "William of Southwoode holds 16 - acres of encroachments and other detached pieces." - -The process of nibbling away the waste was, in fact, very general, and -was a natural and inevitable one. The lord gained by leasing part of it -to be broken up and cultivated, while, so long as sufficient land was -left for grazing, the tenants gained by getting land which they could -add to their holdings, and on which the growing population could settle. -It must be remembered that the area under cultivation was everywhere an -island in an ocean of unreclaimed barrenness which cried out for -colonists.[188] In the Middle Ages land was abundant and men were -scarce; the land wanted the people much more than the people wanted the -land. Moreover, with the simple methods of cultivation prevailing, the -number of persons which a villein's holding could maintain was strictly -limited, and the tendency to "diminishing returns," with the consequent -difficulty of maintaining a growing population on the same area, must -have come into play very soon and very sharply. Surveyors[189] -appreciated this, and pointed out on some manors that unless the -tenants' holdings were enlarged they could not make a decent living and, -what was more important to the authorities, could not perform the -customary services. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that at a -comparatively early date the manorial population began to overflow the -boundaries of the customary land and to occupy the waste, with the -result that the area under cultivation grew, in some cases, -enormously.[190] We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that this was -the chief cause of the remarkable difference in the amount of land which -strikes one when one compares some of the surveys of later and earlier -dates. In any case the result was to increase the opportunities -possessed by the more prosperous tenants, who could afford to rent -additional land, of adding to their holdings, and thus to produce a -growing inequality in the distribution of property among them. - - [188] Thorold Rogers _(Agriculture and Prices_, vol. i. p. 34: - "Not much less land was regularly under the plough than at - present") thinks otherwise. But (i.) modern agriculture has many - ways of using land besides keeping it "under the plough"; (ii.) - we know that in the eighteenth century large tracts now - cultivated were barren heaths, and it is difficult to believe - that these had been cultivated in the Middle Ages. - - [189] See below, p. 189. The instances there quoted are later - than the period with which we are now dealing, but as they - mostly come from Northumberland, a very conservative county, - they are perhaps to the point. - - [190] _e.g._ at South Newton in Wiltshire (see p. 74), tithing - of Swanthrop in Crondal, where the area of the tenants' holdings - was in 1287 about 360 acres, and in 1567 about 607 acres, and - tithing of Crondal, where the area of the tenants' holdings was - in 1287 about 181, and in 1567 about 284. But these figures are - not altogether satisfactory; and sometimes one finds a - reduction, _e.g._ at Dippenhall (from about 287 acres at the - earlier date to about 275 at the later date). The plague - relieved the pressure of population, and thus removed one - incentive for breaking up the waste; on the other hand, it left - the survivors much better off, and thus more able to increase - the scale of their husbandry. But until we know much more about - the growth of population we shall not make much of general - comparisons of this kind. - -If the instances which have been given above are at all typical of the -state of things on many manors, the economic rigidity of rural life in -the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries must have been a good -deal less than is often suggested. The legal forms are stiff and -unchanging, but the life behind them is fluid, and produces all sorts of -new combinations and arrangements which make legal forms a better index -of what was a hundred years before than of what at any moment is. In -particular one finds considerable movement going on before the Great -Plague. The more fully manorial records are explored, the more difficult -does it seem to generalise about the effects of that great catastrophe. -One cannot say that it was the beginning of the commutation of labour -services into rents, for on some manors they were partially commuted -before it, and on some they were not entirely commuted till nearly two -centuries later. One cannot say that the leasing of the demesne was due -to the Plague; for where the labour supply was small, parts of it were -leased already,[191] and after the Plague the authorities of different -manors met the crisis in different ways, sometimes beginning by letting -the demesne only to return later to the older system. It may be -suggested, however, that its influence has been somewhat exaggerated by -those authorities who would have us regard it as the watershed of -economic history. No doubt the Great Plague was the single most -important event in the economic history of the fourteenth century, just -as the Irish famine of 1846 was the single most important event in the -economic history of Ireland in the nineteenth century. But neither the -Irish famine nor the Plague had the effect of sweeping economic -development on to wholly new lines. What they both did was enormously to -accelerate tendencies already at work. The customary tenants were buying -and leasing land from each other before the Plague, and before the -Plague some lords were leasing out their demesnes, but on a small scale. -After the Plague the death of many holders and the poverty of many -survivors caused land to come into the market on a vastly greater scale -and at a cheaper rate, with the result that the aggregation of holdings, -the beginnings of which have been described as above, proceeded with -vastly increased rapidity. That this was the case immediately after the -Plague is shown by the familiar entries[192] as to the transference of -holdings which have lost their cultivators in the Court Rolls. The -movement seems to have continued, however, long after the immediate -effects of the Plague had passed away, and to have resulted on some -manors in the fifteenth century in something which might almost be -called free trade in land. One finds a readiness to buy and sell -customary holdings which belies the idea of the manor as a rigid -organisation in which little room was left for changing contractual -arrangements, and one finds also the natural result of the rising -commercialisation of land tenure in the grouping of several holdings -under one tenant, in the appearance of the practice of some tenants -sub-letting lands to others, and in general in the passing of property -from the economically weak to the economically strong, which naturally -does not go on rapidly till there is a market in which they both can -meet. - - [191] _e.g._ at Hadleigh in 1305 (_Victoria County History_, - Suffolk, Unwin's article); at Crondal in 1287 (_Crondal - Records_, p. 110); at Ormsby in 1324 (Massingberd, _History of - Ormsby_). - - [192] _e.g._ Scrope, _Castle Combe_, p. 164. Court Rolls of - 1357: "Johannis filius Johannis Payn venit et finem fecit cum - domino per 12d. pro ingressu habendo in illo messuagio et - virgata terræ quæ Johannis le Parkare quondam tenuit.... Et - dictum tenementum concessum est ei ad tam parvam finem eo quod - dictum tenementum est ruinosum et decassum; et existebat in manu - domini a tempore pestilentiæ pro defectu emptorum." Massingberd, - Ingoldmells Court Rolls for years 1349-1352. Gasquet, _The - Great Pestilence_. Page, _The End of Villeinage in England_. - -At the same time by the beginning of the fifteenth century another force -of great importance was beginning to operate. The increase in the size -of the customary tenants' holdings, and the growth of a class occupying -much more land than the ordinary villein tenancy, was brought about not -only by encroachment on the waste and the aggregation of holdings, but -also by the transference to the tenants of that part of the manorial -land which has been the lord's demesne. The process by which the demesne -ceased to be cultivated by villein labour, and became frequently an area -subject to the more elastic arrangements of leasehold tenure, has been -often described, and we shall have to return to it later in speaking of -the development of the large capitalist farm. Here it is sufficient to -point out that, the abandonment of the primitive system, by which the -tenants worked out their rents in labour on the demesne, had two -consequences which are of great significance in the development of the -villein into the prosperous peasantry of the fifteenth and early -sixteenth centuries. - -In the first place, it meant that one great force making for equality -between the holdings of different tenants was removed. The system which -gave each customary tenant on a manor what may be called a standard -holding was surely an artificial one, in the sense that it bears the -mark of deliberate arrangement, and is not one which would tend to be -established by the play of economic forces. As we have seen, economic -forces did begin to impair it at an early date. Its persistence is more -remarkable than its disappearance, and why had it persisted? Partly, no -doubt, because the idea that each full household should be equipped with -a standard holding was part of the original organisation of the village -community, upon which the feudal superstructure had been imposed, and -which it used as a machine for grinding out its revenue. Partly also -through the needs of that superstructure itself. As the tenants were the -instruments by which the demesne was cultivated, and as the demesne -could not be cultivated unless the tenants were adequately equipped with -the means of livelihood, the rough equality which existed between their -holdings, though arising from the communal arrangement of village life, -and not deliberately imposed from above, had, nevertheless, been, in -fact, a quite necessary condition for the working of the lord's private -estate. A settled relation between holdings and services was a -convenience to the manorial authorities, and in this sense the work done -on the demesne was a force tending to keep the tenants' holdings fixed, -as it were, on a scale which did not easily allow of much -variation.[193] When the demesne ceased to be cultivated by labour -services, what had been from the point of view of the manorial officers, -though not from that of the villagers, the chief practical reason for -maintaining equality between the different holdings disappeared, and the -inequality which economic forces were tending to produce developed more -rapidly. - - [193] The view that the equality of holdings was the creation - not of the communal needs of the peasantry but of deliberate - arrangement by the authorities, seems to be untenable in face of - the evidence of early records showing that freeholders as well - as the servile peasantry held roughly equal shares (see - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II., chap. iv. and - chap. vi). On the other hand, the apportionment of services to - holdings tended to stereotype the existing arrangement. A late - example which displays both elements, that of authoritative - pressure and that of communal organisation, is supplied by the - Customary of High Furness (R.O. Duchy of Lancs. Special - Commissions, No. 398): "As heretofore dividing and portioning of - tenements hath caused great decay, chiefly of the service due to - her Highness for horses, and of her woods, and has been the - cause of making a great number of poor people in the lordship, - it is now ordered that no one shall divide his Tenement or - Tenements among his children, but that the least part shall be - of the ancient yearly rent to her Highness of 6s. 8d." See - below, p. 101. - -In the second place, when labour rents were commuted into money, the -demesne was often added to the tenants' holdings, with the result of -still further destroying their symmetry, by the opportunity which was -given to men with money to buy up parcels of land. This movement went on -so unobtrusively that its significance is liable to be overlooked. In -reality, however, it was a change of very great importance, scarcely -less important than the decay of villein services and disabilities which -was the other side, the personal as contrasted with the agrarian side, -of the same break up of the old system of cultivation. One must remember -that the lord's demesne formed a very large part of a great many manors, -often no doubt the most fertile and desirable part. One may recall again -that there are other European countries in which the sharp distinction -between the demesne and the holdings of the peasants was maintained in -full mediæval vigour almost to our own day. In Prussia,[194] for -example, a Royal Decree, the Decree of 1807, was needed to break it -down, and to allow the land held by lords of manors to be bought by the -small cultivator. What the partial obliteration of this line meant in -fourteenth and fifteenth century England was that a great deal of land, -land on which the peasantry, one would suppose, had often turned -covetous eyes, was thrown into the market for families who could afford -it to buy and lease, that for a century or so after the Plague great -estates were being broken up into small, instead of small being -consolidated into great, that for a century or so the land market turned -in favour of the small man as much as it afterwards turned against -him.[195] - - [194] Edict of October 9, 1807, Clause 1. - - [195] Compare a document, _temp._ Hen. VIII., quoted by Gonner, - _Common Land and Enclosure_, p. 155 n., which states that - whereas landlords at one time could not find tenants, now the - case is altered and tenants want landlords. - -Of course the leasing of the demesne was not universal; nor, when it -was leased, was it always divided up among the tenants. Often it was -transferred _en bloc_ to a single farmer, and became the nucleus of the -large leasehold farm whose management we shall examine later. Sometimes -it was first divided up and later consolidated again, with results -disastrous to the interests which had grown up upon it. But the -existence in the sixteenth century[196] of many small demesne tenancies -is a proof that a common way of treating it was to divide it up among -the peasants; and if we cast our eyes back over the records of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can find many examples to show how -such a state of things was brought about. Sometimes small plots of the -demesne are leased for terms of years. At Tykeford, in 1325,[197] the -surveyor found that 48 acres of demesne which were then in the hands of -the lords used to be leased to the tenants. The bailiff's accounts of -the manor of Amble[198] in Northumberland show that in 1328 "the -forlands" were let out to the bondage tenants, and in 1337 four of the -latter got leases of from 2 to 4 acres of demesne at Acklington.[199] In -1436 at Ambresbury[200] 2 carucates were leased to various tenants for a -term of years, as well as 8 acres of meadow and 400 acres of pasture; -and at Winterborne[201] 2 carucates, 6 acres of meadow, and 300 acres of -pasture were leased in the same year. But in the fifteenth century the -leasing of the demesne was constant, and there is no need to multiply -examples which can be found in almost every survey of the period. Where -the land was not leased it was quite usual for it to be held by copy. -This was a common practice in the fifteenth century in the south-west of -England. The surveyor[202] who, in 1568, gave an account of six manors -in the Western counties, found that in all of them the Barton or demesne -had been split up among the customary tenants for very many years and -was held by them as copyholders. The same thing happened on the manors -of the Earl of Northumberland, where the tenants' holdings were -increased by pieces taken from the lord's demesne and divided equally -among them. It happened at South[203] Newton in Wiltshire, where in 1567 -a good deal of the Barton land was held by the tenants, who were -copyholders, on the same terms as the rest of their customary holdings; -at Stovard,[204] and Childhampton,[205] and Estoverton,[206] where the -customary tenants held "Bordland." Very probably those pieces of the -demesne which on some manors were held by copy of Court Roll, had -originally been let on lease in the way described above. The difficulty -of distinguishing them was very great, since normally they would lie in -the open fields scattered among the strips which formed the customary -holdings, in such a way that the movement of a balk obliterated the -difference. It is not surprising, therefore, that in spite of the -efforts of the lord's officials, they should constantly have lost their -identity. The remarkable thing is that they retained it so often, and -that surveyors were able to pin down a couple of acres among 30 or 40 -others as not being, like the rest, customary land, but as having at one -time, perhaps several generations before, been parts of the lord's -demesne which it is "good to revyve and keep in memory that it should -not hereafter decay, but that at all tymes it may be devyded from the -customarye."[207] - - [196] For the use of the demesne in the sixteenth century see - below, pp. 200-213. - - [197] Dugdale,_Monasticon_, vol. v., Survey of Tykeford. - - [198] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v., Amble: "4s. 8d. - de forlands dimissis diversis tenentibus." "4 acres leased by - the Prior for 8 years to Roger at 8d. per acre." - - [199] _Ibid._, vol. v., Acklington. - - [200] Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of Ambresbury. - - [201] _Ibid._ - - [202] Humberstone, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. p. 43. - See below, pp. 208-209. - - [203] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_ (Straton). - - [204] _Ibid._ - - [205] _Ibid._ - - [206] _Ibid._ - - [207] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of the - Manor of Whitforde in the County of Devon. - -With these words, so suggestive of the blurring of lines which in -previous ages were sharply drawn, we may pause to consider where we -stand. Our argument has aimed at showing the large changes which have -taken place in the position of the peasantry as landholders before the -agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century begins. We have not been -able to give any quantitative measurements of the developments. But we -have seen enough to understand the direction in which economic forces -are setting. The substitution of hired labour for villein services, and -the formation of a middle class of considerable landholders out of the -occupiers of virgates and semi-virgates who formed the bulk of the -population on most mediæval manors, are changes which have taken place -quietly and which have nothing sensational about them. But the growth of -relationships based on a cash nexus between individuals, which they both -imply, has effected a very real alteration in rural conditions, an -alteration which is in a small way like that occurring to-day when the -discovery that a quiet village possesses mineral wealth or is a -convenient holiday resort puts money into circulation there, causes -farming lands to be cut up into plots which are bought by the savings of -speculative tradesmen, and adds a new tangle of commercial relationships -to the slowly moving economy of village life. Speculation in land on a -small scale begins among the more prosperous villeins at an early date, -as the inevitable result of an increase in prosperity and of the land -hunger of a growing population. It is immensely accelerated through the -impetus which the plague, by emptying holdings of their occupants, gives -to the formation of something like a land market, and the result is that -the holdings of the more fortunate grow and the holdings of the less -fortunate diminish. As a consequence, there is in many fifteenth century -villages the greatest variety in the economic conditions of the -peasantry. Except where commercial forces have been held in check by the -remoteness of the township from centres of trade, or where the needs of -the manorial authorities oblige them to resist any subdivision of -holdings for fear it should lead to the loss of services, the -comparative uniformity characteristic of their holdings in the -thirteenth century has disappeared, and the equality in poverty of the -modern agricultural labourer has not yet taken its place. Though the old -Adam of economic enterprise seems to be banished by the insistence of -stewards and bailiffs that holdings which are responsible for certain -works shall be treated as an indivisible unity, he sneaks back, even in -the mediæval manor, in the shape of agreements among the peasantry, -agreements which break that unity up by way of exchange, of sale, of -leasing, and sub-letting. By the end of the fifteenth century the -different elements in rural society are spread, as it were, along a more -extended scale, and there is a much wider gap between those who are -most, and those who are least, successful. - -Taken together these changes mean, on the whole, an upward movement, an -increase in the opportunities possessed by the peasantry of advancing -themselves by purchasing and leasing land, more mobility, more -enterprise, greater scope for the man who has saved money and wishes to -invest it. They mean that custom and authority have less influence and -that class distinctions based upon tenure are weakened. But the upward -curve may turn and descend; for they imply also a tendency towards the -dissolution of fixed customary arrangements and of the protection which -they offer against revolutionary changes, a tendency which in the -future, when great landowners and capitalists turn their attentions to -discovering the most profitable methods of farming, may damage the very -men who have gained by it in the past. In the next two chapters we shall -glance at the first point, and pause at greater length upon the second: -first, the economic condition of the mass of the peasantry before the -great agrarian movements of the sixteenth century begin; secondly, the -signs of coming change which may react to their disadvantage. We shall -try to maintain the standpoint of an observer in the early years of the -sixteenth century. But economic periods overlap, and Northumberland is -still in the Middle Ages when Middlesex is in the eighteenth century. So -we shall not hesitate to use evidence drawn from sources that are in -point of time far apart. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PEASANTRY (_continued_) - - -(d) _The Economic Environment of the Small Cultivator_ - -It was the argument of the previous chapter that the fourteenth and -fifteenth centuries saw the emergence from the mass of manorial tenants -of a class of wealthy peasants who bought and leased their neighbours' -lands, added to their property parcels taken from the waste and demesne, -and by these means built up estates far exceeding in size the normal -villein holding. The change from labour services to money rents left the -peasantry with time for the management of larger holdings, and the -spread of a money economy increased their means of acquiring them. Cheap -land and easy transfer favour the movement of property from one man to -another. In the manorial courts transfer was easy, and, especially after -the Great Plague, land was cheap. It is not necessary to take sides in -the much debated question of the economic conditions of the fifteenth -century, in order to hold that, on the whole, such changes made the -greater part of it a period of increasing prosperity among the small -cultivators. To support this view one could quote Fortescue's[208] proud -description of the well-being of the common people. One could point out -that in the dark days in the middle of the sixteenth century the -peasants themselves looked back to the social conditions of the reign of -Henry VII.[209] as a kind of golden age, and clamoured for their -restoration. One could cite a good many examples pointing to an upward -movement. Large estates are left at death by men who are legally -villeins. Villeins, especially in the eastern counties, buy up freehold -land and found considerable properties. A bond tenant in Lincolnshire -marries into a knight's family. Bond tenants are found leasing the -manorial demesne in one block and farming estates of several hundred -acres. Nor must we forget that the peasants of the sixteenth century are -often very substantial people, and that even when the taint of personal -villeinage is still upon them. - - [208] Fortescue on the Governance of England (Plummer), chapter - xii.: "But oure commons be riche, and therefore thai give to - thair kynge, at somme times quinsimes and dessimes, and ofte - tymes other grate subsidies." - - [209] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 48 foll.; see - passage quoted below, pp. 335-337. For the sentences - immediately following, see Scrope, _History of the Manor and - Barony of Castle Combe_, p. 233: "A serf ... is said to have - left at his death in 1435 chattels estimated at 3000 marks or - £2000." Massingberd, Ingoldmells Court Rolls, int. xxix.; - Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 53. - -But isolated instances of this kind, suggestive though they are, are not -likely to carry conviction unless they agree with what we know of the -general economic situation. Economists who live after the days of Samuel -Smiles will hesitate before they base optimistic conclusions as to the -conditions of any class on cases of good fortune among individual -members of it. We should be false to the spirit of our period if we did -not recognise that the economic ideal of most men, an ideal often -implied though not often formulated, was less the opening of avenues to -enterprise than the maintenance of groups and communities at their -customary level of prosperity. We shall have hereafter to speak of the -changes which overtook the English social system in the course of the -sixteenth century, in so far as they were connected with changes in the -methods of agriculture and of land tenure. Before we do so we may pause -for a moment to look at the village of the later Middle Ages as a social -and economic unit. - -The foundation of its whole life is the possession by the majority of -households of holdings of land. Land is so widely distributed that the -household, all of whose members are entirely dependent for their living -upon work for wages, is the exception. Though this cannot be -statistically proved, it is rendered almost certain by several -converging lines of evidence. Turn first to the table on pp. 64 and 65, -which sets out the acreage of the customary tenants' holdings. It will -be seen that, when all the counties represented are grouped together, -the tenants who have only cottages form less than one-tenth of the total -number. In East Anglia and in Lancashire the proportion, it is true, is -considerably higher; but these counties are exceptions to the general -rule, and the cottagers usually have gardens, which, if they do not -amount to the minimum of four acres laid down by the Act of 1589, are -nevertheless not infrequently of one or two acres in extent. If we may -trust these figures, the typical family has a small holding of from two -and a half to fifteen acres. Our second line of evidence quite falls in -with this conclusion. It is clear from the tone of legislation that the -class of workers who depend solely on a contract of service is in -sixteenth century England not very large. Elizabethan[210] legislation -provides expressly for the needs of farmers by empowering Justices of -the Peace to apprentice unoccupied youths to husbandry, and to set the -unemployed to work in the fields. Even in the middle of the -seventeenth[211] century, when a strong movement has been at work for -one hundred and fifty years in the opposite direction, there are -complaints from pamphleteers that men who should work as wage-labourers -cling to the soil, and in the naughtiness of their hearts prefer -independence as squatters to employment by a master. Such comments throw -a flash of light on the way in which the peasants regard the -alternatives of wage labour and landholding. Sometimes they themselves -give us a glimpse into their mind on the matter. They tell us how they -face that most fundamental of economic problems, the Achilles' heel of -modern civilisation, the problem of so arranging their little societies -that as many persons as possible may enter life with some material -equipment for self-maintenance in addition to their personal strength -and skill. Here is an extract from a customary of the Lancashire manor -of High Furness[212] drawn up in the reign of Elizabeth:-- - -"As heretofore deviding and porcioning of tenements hath caused great -decay, chiefly of the service due to her Highness for horses and of her -woods, and has been the cause of making a great number of poor people in -the lordship, it is now ordered that no one shall devide his tenement or -tenements among his children, but that the least part shall be of -ancient yearly rent to her Highness of 6s. 8d., and that before every -such division there shall be several houses and ousettes for every part -of such tenement." - -This seems a hard rule. Will it not result in the creation of a body of -propertyless labourers employed by a small village aristocracy? That -danger is appreciated, and is dealt with in the clauses which follow:-- - -"If any customary tenant die seized of a customary tenement, having no -son but a daughter, or daughters, then the eldest daughter being -preferred in marriage shall have the tenement as his next heir, and she -shall pay to her younger sister, if she have but one sister, 20 years -ancient rent, as is answered to her Majesty; and if she have more than -one sister she shall pay 40 years ancient rent to be equally divided -among them.... - -"For the avoiding of great trouble in the agreement with younger -brothers, it is now ordered that the eldest son shall pay to his -brothers in the form following:--If there is but one brother, 12 years -ancient rent; if there are two brothers, 16 years ancient rent to be -equally divided. - -"If there be three or more, 20 years ancient rent to be equally divided. - -"Whereas great inconvenience has grown by certain persons that at the -marriage of son or daughter have promised their tenement to the same son -or daughter and their heirs, according to the custom of the manor, and -afterwards put the tenement away to another person; it is ordered that -whatever tenements a tenant shall promise to the son or daughter being -his sole heir apparent at the time of his or her marriage, the same -ought to come to them according to the same covenant, which ought to be -showed at the next court." - - [210] Statute of Artificers, 5 Eliz. c. 4. - - [211] See below, pp. 277-279, and _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 784, - pp. 322-323. Presentment by the grand jury, Worcestershire, - 1661, April 23: "We desire that servants' wages may be rated - according to the statute, for we find the unreasonableness of - servants' wages a great grievance, so that the servants are - grown so proud and idle that the master cannot be known from the - servant except it be because the servant wears better clothes - than his master. We desire that the statute for setting poor - men's children to apprenticeship be more duly observed, for we - find the usual course is that if any are apprenticed it is to - some paltry trade, and when they have served their - apprenticeship they are not able to live by their trades, - whereby not being bred to labour they are not fit for husbandry. - We therefore desire that such children may be set to husbandry - for the benefit of tillage and the good of the Commonwealth." - See also Britannia Languens (1680) for remarks on the scarcity - of labour even at the end of the seventeenth century. - - [212] R.O. Duchy of Lancaster, Special Commissions, No. 398. - -The motive of the first rule is a mixed one. Its object is partly to -obviate the risk that the Crown, which is lord, of the manor, may lose -its services if holdings are too much subdivided, partly to prevent the -appearance of a class which has too little land for a living. The motive -of the other rules is to ensure that the custom of primogeniture, which -obtains among the customary tenants on this manor, shall not result in -the creation of a propertyless proletariat. Holdings are not to be -divided. But the payment to other members of the family of a sum ranging -from about one-half to more than the whole of their capital value is -made a charge upon them, and with that money they can purchase land -elsewhere, or take, like the French peasant girl, a considerable _dot_ -to their husbands. Sue,[213] the daughter of Old Carter, the rich -yeoman, whose security for the marriage-portion "shall be present -payment, because Bonds and Bills are but Tarriers to catch fools, and -keep lazy knaves busy," was a match for whom gentlemen's sons were -willing enough to compete. - - [213] See Dekker's _The Witch of Edmonton_. I have ventured to - assume that in this play "yeoman" is used in its wide - non-technical sense. - -These groups of from ten to a hundred households which constitute the -ordinary village of southern and middle England, form small democracies -of property holders, who are of course under the authority of a lord, -but whose subjection does not prevent them from exercising considerable -control over the management of their own economic affairs, nor impose -any effective bar on those individuals who have the means and capacity -to advance themselves. We can watch them arranging[214] the course of -agriculture, deciding when the pastures at Wolsyke and Willoughbybroke -are to be "broken," imposing fines on those who encroach on the several -pasture land, throwing open the Pesefield on Holy Thursday to the -village horses, shutting them out of Street headlands for fear of the -"stroyinge of Korn," making charitable provision for gleaners who cannot -work, punishing those who ought to work but in their depravity would -rather glean. We can observe how the wide distribution of land gives an -opportunity to a humble family to better itself by judicious husbandry -and well-calculated purchases. True, the peasant's land is no longer -held in approximately equal shares as generally as it had been in the -thirteenth century. The growth of a money economy, the withdrawal of the -levelling pressure of villeinage, the growth of population, has in the -more progressive parts of the country left a gap into which -individualising commercial forces wind themselves in the way which has -already been described. But these changes are important mainly as -precursors of more extensive innovations. As yet they have done little -more than make tiny breaches in the wall of custom. They have enabled -individuals to rise from the general level into positions of comparative -affluence. They have not proceeded so far as to enable the successful to -exercise a decisive direction over the economic affairs of their -fellows. Though Northumberland is exceptional in the way in which down -to the very end of the sixteenth century it preserves its system of -standardised holdings, it is none the less true that all the petty land -speculation, whose operations we have traced above, has not the effect -of producing any very large changes in the distribution of property. If, -when compared with its condition two hundred years before, the village -of our period shows remarkable irregularity, it offers precisely an -opposite aspect to the observer who compares it as it is then with its -condition two hundred years later. The gaps which have appeared between -the holdings mark the disintegrating influence of economic enterprise; -but they are gaps which enterprise can span, and the graduation of -holdings from the two or three acres of the humblest to the fifty or -sixty acres of the most prosperous, together with the abundance of -unoccupied land, supplies a kind of staircase along which in the country -the younger son can travel from the position of a labourer to that of a -small holder, as he does in the towns from apprentice to -master-craftsman. From this point of view the characteristic -_morcellement_ of holdings, so bitterly denounced by economists who, -like Arthur Young, approached the problem from the point of view of the -large farmer, was a positive advantage. It meant that land could be -bought and sold, as it were, retail. It meant that the labourer could -begin with one strip of land of half an acre, and add other strips to it -as he worked his way up. It meant that even the humblest peasant usually -had some live-stock of his own; for even the smallest customary holding -usually carried with it rights of common. Such conditions are, of -course, no safeguard against poverty. No doubt there were plenty of -people like Widow Quin, whose "leaky thatch is growing more pasture for -her buck goat than her square of fields."[215] But they are a safeguard -against destitution, and indeed against any complete loss of -independence. - - [214] See _e.g. Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567, pp. 106-107, and - below, pp. 159-162. - - [215] Synge, _The Playboy of the Western World_. - -Let us turn to a part of England where something like the open field -system survives to this day, and ask the inhabitants what they think of -it. In the so-called Isle of Axholme there are still common fields with -intermixed strips. Here is the evidence[216] which a body of labourers -there sent into a Select Committee of Parliament in 1899: "We, the -undersigned, being agricultural labourers at Epworth, are in occupation -of allotments or small holdings, varying from two roods to three acres, -and willingly testify to the great benefit we find from our holdings. -Where we have sufficient quantity of land to grow two roods each of -wheat, barley, and potatoes, we have bread, beans, and potatoes for a -great part of the year, enabling us to face a long winter without the -dread of hunger or pauperism staring us in the face." One of the tests -by which the economic prosperity of a community may be measured is its -success in preventing the appearance of a residual population, which -cannot fit itself into the moving mechanism of industry without -ceaseless friction and maladjustments. In most villages before extensive -evictions begin that mechanism moves very slowly; property is widely -diffused, and the residuum must have been small. That there was often -distress through bad harvests and pestilence is certain. But was there -much of the economic helplessness, more terrible than physical distress -itself, which is the normal lot of most of the propertyless wage-earners -of the modern world? We hesitate to say. Hesitation on such a point may -perhaps be counted to our peasants for righteousness.[217] - - [216] Quoted by Slater, _The English Peasantry and the Enclosure - of Common Fields_, pp. 58-59. He remarks "a labourer ... begins - with one 'land,' then takes a second, a third, and so on," and - quotes Mr. Haggard's statement that the "Isle of Axholme ... is - one of the few places ... in England ... truly prosperous in an - agricultural sense." - - [217] Customs like those of High Furness, together with the - complaints as to the scarcity of agricultural labour, make one - reflect on a fundamental question of economics, viz., the - average age of marriage and its relation to the distribution of - property and organisation of industry. It is well known that the - age of marriage is influenced by (among other things) the age at - which maximum earning power begins, _e.g._ to-day it is lower - for the unskilled labourer than for the artisan, for the former - reaches his prime earlier than the latter; lower for the artisan - than for the professional man, because the latter takes longer - than the former in getting together a practice or rising from a - low initial salary. The difference is not primarily due to - differences of thrift or foresight as between different classes, - but to the fact that the deferring of marriage, which is prudent - in (say) a lawyer, who does not reach his full earning power - till thirty-five or later, is imprudent in (say) an engineer who - has all the experience he needs at twenty-six or twenty-seven, - and still more imprudent in the labourer, who reaches his full - earning power at twenty-one or twenty-two, and in whom it falls - off rapidly after he has passed the prime of life. When a large - number of agricultural and industrial workers (in the sixteenth - century probably a majority) were small landholders or small - masters, did the fact that they had to wait for the death of a - parent to succeed to their holding, or (in towns) for the - permission of a guild to set up shop (_i.e._ to reach their - maximum earning powers) tend to defer the age of marriage? If - the possibility of this being the case is conceded, ought we to - connect the slow growth of population between 1377 and 1500 (on - which all historians seem to be agreed) with the wide - distribution of property, and ought we to think of the - considerable increase in the landless proletariate which took - place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as tending in - the opposite direction? In the absence of statistics we cannot - answer these questions. But I am inclined to argue that they are - at any rate worth investigation. (i) Contemporary opinion shows - that in the eyes of sixteenth century writers the problem of - population was a problem of underpopulation. The prevalent fear - is "lack of men" for military purposes. Starkey's Dialogue - speaks of it as "a consumption of the body politic," and - suggests as remedies to allow priests to marry, to forbid - gentlemen to employ more serving men than they are able to "set - forward" to matrimony (on the ground that "men whych in service - spend theyr lyfe never fynd means to marry"), to endow with a - house and a portion of waste land at a nominal rent persons who - marry, to exempt from taxation all persons who have five - children and less than a hundred marks in goods, to tax - bachelors 1s. in the pound, and give the proceeds to "them which - have more children than they be wel abul to nurysch, and partely - to the dote of poor damosellys and vyrgins" (Part II. p. 8). - Hales (p. lv. of Miss Lamond's introduction to _Commonweal of - England_) speaks of depopulation in a similar strain, as also - does Harrison forty years later. There are some complaints as to - excess of population in 1620 (see below, pp. 278-279), but - these do not become general till the very end of the seventeenth - century (see Defoe, _Giving alms no charity_). (ii) The position - of a son who acquires a holding when his parent dies is - analogous to that of an apprentice who cannot set up as a master - till given permission by the proper authorities. It is quite - plain that in the eyes of the ordinary man in the sixteenth - century one of the advantages of a system of compulsory - apprenticeship was that it prevented youths marrying at a very - early age. _E.g._ an Act (2 & 3 Philip and Mary) forbids the - admitting of any one to the freedom of the city of London before - the age of twenty-four, and enacts that apprentices are not to - be taken so young that they will come out of their time before - they are twenty-four. The reason alleged for this rule is the - distress in the city of which "one of the chief occasions is by - reason of the overhasty marriages and over soon setting up of - householdes by the young folke of the city ... be they never so - young and unskilful." A petition of weavers states (_Hist. MSS. - Com._, C.D. 784, p. 114): "Whereas by the former good laws of - their trade no one could exercise the same until he had served - an apprenticeship for seven years and attained the age of - twenty-four, now in these disordered times many apprentices - having forsaken parents and masters ... refuse to serve out - their time, but before they are eighteen or twenty years old - betake themselves to marriage." One may contrast the - extraordinary reduction in the age of marriage of the people of - Lancashire brought about by the early factory system, with its - armies of operatives who had nothing to look forward to but the - wages earned immediately on reaching maturity (Gaskell, - _Artisans and Machinery_, 1836, and _The Manufacturing - Population of Great Britain_, 1833), and compare the results - usually ascribed to the wide distribution of landed property in - France. See also the remarks of Slater on the effect of the - eighteenth century enclosing (_The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of the Common Fields_, p. 256), and Hasbach, _History - of the English Agricultural Labourer_, pp. 120 n. 138-139, 178. - Young ascribed "a great multiplication of births" to the fact - that "the labourer has no advancement to hope" (_Suffolk_, 1797, - p. 260); Duncombe, "The practice of consolidating farms ... - tends to licentiousness of manners" (_Herefordshire_, p. 33). A - witness before the Select Committee on Emigration, 1827, stated, - "The labourers no longer live in farm houses as they used to do, - where they were better fed and had more comforts than they now - get in a cottage, in consequence there was not the same - inducement to early marriage" (_qu._ 3882). In the absence of - direct statistical evidence all we can say is (i) that when - persons look forward to entering on property or setting up as - small masters their point of maximum earning power is later than - it is when they can earn the standard rate of the trade at - twenty-two or twenty-three; therefore (ii) that the average age - of marriage is likely to be higher in a society composed largely - of small property owners than in one composed largely of a - propertyless proletariate. - -In the second place, let us examine the use which the peasants make of -their holdings. Modern writers tell us that among the conditions -necessary to the prosperity of a class of small holders the most -important are a wise choice of the kind of farming to be pursued, a -sound organisation of credit, cheap marketing, and rural bye-employments -to back agriculture. Modern writers who are not English would probably -add a tariff on imported agricultural produce. In our period the type of -cultivation pursued by the large farmer was undergoing rapid changes. -That of the peasantry was hardly a matter of choice. It was dictated by -the necessity, under which most villages still lay, of being largely -self-supporting in the matter of corn supplies, a necessity recognised -and crystallised in the customary routine of village husbandry. The -preponderance of arable farming among the peasantry is illustrated by -the table[218] on page 107, which should be contrasted with that given -on pages 225-226. - -The figures in this table do not pretend to complete accuracy. But they -indicate the distribution of land between different uses with sufficient -correctness to show the sort of agriculture followed by the small holder -of our period. They prove unmistakably that his standby was the grain -crops grown on the open fields.[219] Students of rural conditions will -be quick to recognise the contrast which the picture offers to the -economy of the modern small holder. In our own day the breaking up of -large farms into smaller tenancies has proceeded furthest in those parts -of the country which are most suitable for pasture. The occupier of a -holding of less than 70 or 80 acres usually relies mainly on stock -farming in one form or another, and on the growing of vegetables and -fruit. Corn-growing he leaves to much larger men, and, when he does grow -grain, he does so mainly to provide fodder and straw for his beasts. In -the sixteenth century almost exactly the opposite was the case. In so -far as the large farmer with 200 or 300 acres can be said to have had a -specialty, it was not corn-growing but sheep and cattle grazing. The -small man relied mainly, though not entirely, upon tillage, and though, -even in his case, pasture farming assumed increased importance as the -century went on, grazing was chiefly a supplement to arable farming. To -this statement there are of course certain exceptions. Though villages -where the customary tenants hold more pasture than arable are rare, they -are not unknown, and occasionally one finds one where large numbers of -tenants of the most diverse economic conditions, with pasture holdings -ranging from 6 to 100 acres, have no arable at all. Sometimes such an -arrangement is to be accounted for by the fact that a part of the -demesne lands of the manor, which happens not to be suitable for -tillage, has been divided up among the population of younger sons and -labourers who have no holdings in the open fields. In the neighbourhood -of considerable towns, again, there was a market[220] for vegetables and -dairy produce which gave an impetus to this side of agriculture, and the -home counties poured butter and cheese, fowls, eggs, and fruit into -London, as France and the Channel Islands do at the present day. Still, -to speak broadly, the small holder of the sixteenth century, unlike the -small holder of the twentieth, was before all things interested in -arable farming, and interested in rights of pasture chiefly as a -necessary adjunct to it. - -TABLE V - - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - |Manors | | | | | - |(excluding | | | | | - |houses, | | | | | - |orchards, | Total Area. | Arable. | Meadow. | Pasture. | - |garths, | | | | | - |_&c._). | | | | | - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - | | ac. ro. po. | ac. ro. po. |ac. ro. po. |ac. ro. po. | - |Four in | | | | | - |Northumber-| | | | | - |land and | | | | | - |one in | | | | | - |Lancashire |1730 3 13-1/4|1533 2 32-3/4| 98 1 6-1/8| 98 3 14 | - | | | | | | - |Seven in | | | | | - |Wiltshire | | | | | - |and one | | | | | - |in Dorset |3963 2 0 |3636 3 0 |124 3 0 |202 (in close | - | | | | | plus | - | | | | | consid- | - | | | | | erable | - | | | | | rights of | - | | | | | pasture | - | | | | | not | - | | | | | expressed | - | | | | | in acres).| - |Four in | | | | | - |Midlands | | | | | - |(Bedford, | | | | | - |Leicester, | | | | | - |Northants, | | | |ac. ro. po. | - |Stafford) |2092 3 2 |1670 2 17 | 167 3 32 |254 0 33 | - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - - [218] See Appendix II. - - [219] It must be remembered, however, that there was pasture on - the one field which every year lay fallow, and that the amount - of this does not appear in the figures given below. - - [220] Camden Society, Norden, Speculum Britanniæ, Part I., - Intro.: "And these commonly are so furnished with kyne that - their wives twice or thrice a week conveyeth to London mylke and - butter, cheese, apples, pears, frutmentye, hens and chickens, - baken, and other country drugs ... and this yieldeth them a - large comfort and relief." - -Corn-growing in England has been for the last hundred years a branch of -farming so completely surrendered to the large capitalist, that it is -not easy to realise a state of things in which the typical corn-grower -was a man with less than 60 acres, and a man who could make a good -living from a holding of that size. To understand the economics of his -position we must think away the conditions which have in the last -century made it intolerable. Or rather we must think away all except -one. That one was the perennial problem of agricultural credit. In this -matter, certainly, the poorer among the peasantry suffered as their -successors all over the world suffer to-day. They were apt to be in the -grip of the moneylender. Cheap land, as the modern colonist knows, is of -little avail to the man who has not the capital needed to stock it, and -to carry over the interval between harvest and harvest, when his -receipts fall off but his expenses continue. In the endless arguments -which took place on the ethics of moneylending at a later date, it was a -common complaint that village financiers drove a hard bargain with the -peasants whom misfortune compelled to resort to them. In a backward -village the only man with capital to lend might be the local -corn-dealer, brewer, or maltster, the large farmer who held the lord's -demesne, or the lord of the manor himself and his agent. Like an -American farmer in the grip of an "elevator," the peasant who wanted -money for his crops had often to sell them to a dealer[221] who gave a -ridiculously low price for them, and then made an enormous profit by -holding them till the price of corn rose, or by sending them to a market -where there was a scarcity. Lords[222] of manors, it was said, helped -their tenants out of temporary difficulties by advancing them small -sums, and then used their advantage to screw extra labour on the demesne -out of them. Manor courts[223] in the Middle Ages had fined villagers -for usury, but one may suspect that these were capitalists too potent -for them to control, and one does not wonder at the headshakings of the -prudent Fitzherbert over the man whose method of farming compels him to -be a borrower. The form which charity and co-operative effort took -points in the same direction. Hospitals[224] and monasteries advance -money to buy seed. Well-to-do men aid their relatives by stocking their -farms for them. Gilds[225] make loans of cattle and sheep, and the last -legacy of a philanthropic parson to his parishioners is money with which -to buy a cow for the poor. How far the charitable and corporate -organisation of loans succeeded in keeping the small cultivator out of -the clutches of the usurer, and how far the dissolution of the -monasteries and the confiscation of part of the Gild lands deteriorated -their condition by placing them more at his mercy, are questions which -deserve consideration but which we have not sufficient evidence to -answer.[226] In forming any estimate, however, of rural conditions, the -hand to mouth economy of the poorer peasants, and their consequent -helplessness in the face of any unexpected catastrophe, such as an -unusually bad harvest, a cattle plague, and (in the fifteenth century) -the destruction of crops by civil disturbances, must not be forgotten. -In that age less capital was needed to stock a holding than in our own, -but it was scraped together with even greater difficulty. On the very -eve of the dissolution of the monasteries there were some remote manors -where "Money was so scantie that coigned leather went bargaining between -man and man,"[227] and where corn rents were substituted for money -because the tenants had no money in which rent could be paid. - - [221] See _The Death of Usury or the Disgrace of Usurers_, 1594: - "It is a common practice in this country, if a poore man come to - borrow money of a maltster, he will not lend any, but tells him, - if he will sell some barley, he will give him after the order of - fore-hand buyers; the man being driven by distresse sells his - corn far under foote, that when it comes to be delivered he - loses halfe in halfe, oftentimes double the value. I have heard - many of these fore-hand sellers say that they had rather allow - after 20 pounds in the hundred for money, than to sell their - fore-hand bargaines of corn. These are most extreme usurers." - - [222] _A Discourse upon Usurie_, by Thomas Wilson, 1584: "A lord - doth lend his tenants money, with this condition that they shall - plough his land, whether doth he commit usurie or no? I do - answer that if he does not pay them for their labour, but will - take the benefit of their labour for the use of his money, he is - an usurer." - - [223] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 2319, p. 27: "Juetta ... is a - usuress, and sells at a dearer rate for accommodation." - - [224] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 7881, p. 129, St. Saviour's - Hospital gives "20d to a poor man to buy seed for his land." - - [225] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, "Social and Economic - History": "The gild let out in one year 8 cows and 4 neats at - 19d. each." For the parson's cow, see _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. - 784, p. 46. - - [226] On the subject of the monasteries see Gasquet, _Henry - VIII. and the English Monasteries_, chap. xxii., and _passim_. - - [227] For reference see below, p. 198, n. 2. - -On the other hand, before the great agrarian changes of the sixteenth -century began, and in those parts of the country which were least -affected by them, the economic environment was in other respects -favourable to the class of which we have been speaking. As far as -corn-growing is concerned, _petite culture_ flourishes most readily when -the methods of production are primitive and trade little developed. It -is not necessary to point out that, in the sphere of production, the -conditions which have given its present tremendous advantage to -large-scale corn-growing are the fruit of the last century, and that in -our period there were neither machinery nor expensive manures to require -the outlay of large capital, and to make arable farming almost a branch -of factory industry. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the -growth of prosperity among the peasants had been accompanied by an -improvement in the technique of cultivation. Not to mention the part -which they took in enclosures, of which we shall speak later, there -were, at any rate by the beginning of the seventeenth century, certain -exceptional parts of the country where it was said[228] that in good -years from thirty-two to eighty bushels of grain were raised to an -acre, instead of the ten which Walter of Henley had thought a fair -return in the thirteenth. We may believe this or not as we like; -probably we should discount it by at least one-half. But even the -average peasant, who could not possibly make his land perform these -prodigies, was buttressed by the natural protection of unpassable roads, -which tended to make every village, even almost every landholding -family, more or less self-sufficing in the matter of food supplies. A -highly organised corn trade is as unfavourable to the existence of small -corn-growers as a wide market is to the small master-craftsman, because -it sets a premium upon the qualities needed for business -management--qualities often quite different from those needed for -effective farming--and thus (in the absence of co-operation) plays into -the hands of the capitalist, who buys and sells in bulk and can pick his -market. To the mass of the peasantry in our period the commercial side -of agriculture offered no problem, because for the mass of the peasantry -it did not exist. The wealthier among them, it is true, did grow corn -for the market, and sent their supplies far afield through the hands of -middlemen, much further sometimes, if we may believe contemporaries, -than Customs Officials should have allowed. In certain parts of England -rudimentary industrial specialisation had made a regular corn trade a -necessity. In Norfolk,[229] for example, where manufactures and -agriculture had drawn apart to an extent unknown elsewhere, a rough -local division of labour was concentrating the woollen industry in that -part of the country most suitable for grazing, and was bringing together -a huge population of wage-earners, who depended for their food supplies -on the grain produced by the "tilth masters" in "the champion part of -the country," and whose needs baffled the traditional policy of trying -to prevent corners by checking the transport of corn. But down to the -very end of the eighteenth century, and still more under the Tudors, -there was a large body of small landholders who pursued their way -undisturbed by market fluctuations because they grew wheat almost -entirely for subsistence. To a foreign observer[230] English agriculture -in the reign of Henry VII. seemed "not to be practised beyond what is -required for the consumption of the people." Between the two extremes of -capitalist farmer and hired labourer, the poles between which the needle -of the Government's policy as to prices uneasily oscillates, there -stands the man whose family consumes the product of his land, and who -rarely puts his small supplies on the market, because, if he tries to do -so, "he loseth[231] the labours of himself, his horse and carte, and -husbandry at home," and "is in hazard to pay deare for a place to -chamber it till the next market day." Such a man, if entirely occupied -in tillage, did little more than supply the wants of his own household; -if a sheep farmer as well, he worked up the wool in his own home in the -manner enjoined on thrifty housewives by Fitzherbert. From the point of -view of national welfare his security was purchased by the distress in -which the difficulty of moving corn supplies involved the wage-earner. -The constant local famines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -should remind us that the more self-sufficing a country's agricultural -economy, the narrower the margin there is likely to be between the -landless classes and starvation. But with them for the present we are -not concerned, and if we confine our attention to the landholding -peasantry we can see that to them the backwardness of trade was a -positive advantage. The risk of spoiling good farming by ineffective -marketing was not one which faced the small holders of our period. - - [228] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. He is speaking of parts - of Somersetshire. "Now I say if this sweet country of Tandeane - and the western part of Somersetshire be not degenerated, - surely, as their land is fruitful by nature, so doe they their - best by art and industrie ... they take extraordinary pains in - soyling, plowing, and dressing their land.... After the plough - there goeth some 3 or 4 with mattocks to break the clods ... - they have sometimes and in some places foure, five, six, eight, - yea tenne quarters in an ordinary acre." For Walter of Henley's - figures see Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 437-438. - Gregory King at the end of the seventeenth century estimated the - average yield "in a year of moderate plenty" at a little more - than 11 bushels (Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, - vol. v. pp. 92 and 783). I quote Norden not as giving what was - general, but to show what it was thought could be done. - - [229] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907. - - [230] Camden Society, 1857, _An Italian Narration of England_. - - [231] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907. - -Moreover, in estimating the causes which in the fifteenth century -favoured a growth in their prosperity, we should not overlook that it -was a period in which commercial policy encouraged the corn-grower. In -the series of compromises which were struck between the interests of the -farmer and those of the consumer the scale during the greater part of -it was tilted in the direction of the former, and when success had -caused his holding to grow to a size which made trade in grain -inevitable, he dealt in a market which the Government tried to turn in -his favour. That section of the industry which supplied the market -obviously gained by freedom of export and by import duties upon foreign -wheat, though the fact that England was largely a corn exporting country -made the latter less important than the former. From 1437 to 1491 free -export of wheat was permitted, subject to the obligation to obtain an -export licence when prices in the home market rose above a certain -point. In 1463 the same policy was carried furthur, and an Act was -passed restricting its importation. Such a commercial[232] policy was no -doubt adopted mainly in the interests of the great landed proprietors. -But that the prosperity of the small cultivators was to some extent -bound up with the Government's encouragement of corn-growing can hardly -be doubted. Competent observers in the sixteenth century gave its -abandonment by the Tudors as one cause of the subsequent decline in the -condition of the peasantry, and a return to it as one remedy for their -distress. - - [232] See below, p. 197. - -If the peasantry were favoured in the fifteenth century by a state of -things in which the small corn-grower's position was still unshaken, did -they not also gain by the beginnings of industrial expansion and by the -pasture farming that accompanied it? That a man who was mainly dependent -upon tillage might also be a grazier upon a considerable scale, is shown -by the following table of the animals kept by the customary tenants on -six[233] manors in the south of England. - - I. II. III. IV. - - Manors. Customary Tenants. Sheep kept by Customary Other Beasts - Tenants. (minimum). - - 6 112 7440 793 - - [233] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_; _cf._ R.O. _Land Rev. Misc. Bks._, 182, fol. 1, - Rental of the late Priory of Launde (Leicestershire, 1539), - where there are tenants paying for common pasture for about 430 - sheep. - -One must not, of course, forget that a certain number of beasts were -indispensable to arable farming. Perhaps one-third or one-half the -cattle in column IV. should be written off as simply part of the -corn-grower's necessary equipment. The sixteenth century small holder, -who keeps plough beasts, is no more a grazier on that account than his -twentieth century successor, who uses his grain for fodder, is a -corn-grower. But, when this has been remembered, we may perhaps allow -these figures to remind us that in the agriculture even of the small man -there was room for considerable diversity, and that in the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries it was probably much more diversified than it had -been two centuries before. So much is said in the writings of our period -of the harm done by the great grazier, that we perhaps do not always -sufficiently realise that the customary tenants both then and long -before were often themselves graziers on a considerable scale. They -raise stock, and are interested in the woollen trade as well as in the -corn-growing. Ultimately, when time enough had elapsed for the -profitableness of sheep farming to supply lords of manors with a motive -for clearing away interests which interfered with the formation of sheep -runs, the movement for laying down land to pasture did result in -evictions and rack-renting. But, looking at the fifteenth century as a -whole, may we not say with some confidence that the growth of the -woollen industry must have brought increasing prosperity to many -villages? Though it is not till almost the last decade that complaints -of enclosing become sufficiently clamorous to attract the attention of -the Government, the spread of woollen manufacturers into rural districts -was going quietly on throughout the whole century, and benefited the -peasants both by the lucrative bye-employment which they offered to both -sexes, and by the alternative to arable farming which the demand for -wool supplied in the shape of sheep-grazing. The large number of sheep -kept by the customary tenants of many manors in the south of England, -and the increase in the complaints as to the over-stocking of commons -contained in the Court Rolls of the fifteenth century, show that they -were not slow to seize the opportunity, and that the great pasture -farms, which aroused the indignation of More and Latimer, had their -precedent in the small flocks of thirty or forty sheep which had long -been run by the peasantry upon the common wastes or pastures. It would -seem that, as so often happens, the new departure was first made on a -small scale by small men, and chat it was not until some time had -elapsed that its wholesale adoption by large capitalists plunged them in -distress. The movement towards pasture-farming as a special branch of -agriculture is one that proceeds gradually for a hundred years, before -the demand for wool becomes sufficient to produce the body of capitalist -graziers whose interests come into sharp collision with those of the -peasantry. - -But after all, the profits arising from favourable economic -circumstances may be of very little advantage to the mass of -cultivators. They may simply be handed on to the landlord in the shape -of increased rents. At a time when, both in Ireland and Scotland, rents -are being fixed by public tribunals, we are not likely to forget that -the profitableness of agriculture has no necessary connection with the -prosperity of tenants. Trade may be increasing, and the return from the -land may be growing, and yet those things may profit the farmers and -peasants very little, unless they have some security that they will not -see them drained away in increased payments for their land. It is -important, therefore, to consider how far rents were competitive and how -far they were customary, how far the tenants held the surplus due to -economic progress, and how far it passed to the landlord. - -Some light is thrown on the general situation by the following -table[234]:-- - -TABLE VI - - - - +---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+ - | Manor. | Rents. | - +--------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ - | | | - | | 1295-1308 1568 | - |1. South Newton | £13 19 3-1/2 £14 4 8 | - | | | - | | 1347 1421 1485 1628 | - |2. Ingoldmells | £61 9 4 £71 10 3 £72 6 8 £73 17 2 | - | | | - | | 1287 1567 | - |3. Crondal | £53 7 0 £103 2 8-3/4 | - | | | - |4. Sutton Warbling- | | - | ton | 1351 1567 | - | | £5 17 4-3/4 £8 10 4 | - | | | - | | 1295 1542 | - |5. Aspley Guise | £7 8 4 £10 5 10 | - | | | - | | 1248 1567 1585 | - |6. Birling | £9 2 6-1/2 £14 9 4 £14 9 4 | - | | | - | | 1352 1478 1567 1580 | - |7. Acklington | £18 13 2 £19 13 11 £19 13 5 £20 0 5 | - | | | - | | 1483 1505 | - |8. Cuxham | £9 9 3 £8 9 3 | - | | | - | | 1483 1600 | - |9. Ibstone | £4 8 10 £3 15 0-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1498 1567 1585 1702 | - |10. High Buston | £3 12 0 £3 12 0 £3 12 0 £12 0 0 | - | | | - | | 1539 1608 | - |11. Amble | £22 14 6 £16 0 5 | - | | | - | | "The reign of King Henry VII." 1529 | - |12. Malden | £4 9 10 £4 6 7 | - | | | - | | 1527 1588 1607 | - |13. Kibworth | £23 6 7 £26 15 1 £19 14 5 | - | | | - | | 1304-5 1348-9 1373-4 1461 | - |14. Standon | £21 17 3 £23 8 0 £23 2 2-1/2 £33 3 3-1/2| - | | | - | | 1317-8 1445-6 Henry VIII. | - |15. Feering | £29 10 9-1/2 £32 14 10 £16 2 6-1/2 | - | | | - | | 38-39 Henry VI. | - | | 1321 Henry VI. (1460) | - |16. Appledrum | £7 0 11 £10 11 6 £13 14 10-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1357 1501 | - |17. Minchinhampton | £41 14 4 £41 19 9 | - | (works) | £4 18 0 | - | | | - | | 1280 1441 1547 | - |18. Langley Marish | £20 16 5-1/2 £24 0 0 £45 3 5-3/4 | - | | | - | | Henry VI. 1521 James I. | - |19. Lewisham | £8 11 7 £23 1 6-1/2 £90 3 3 | - | | | - |20. Cuddington. For | Edward III.(?) 15th century(?) James I. | - | terms of Easter | £6 4 2-3/4 | - | and Michaelmas | | - | (for whole year) | £12 8 5-1/2(?) £15 16 7 £9 19 8-3/4 | - | | | - |21. Isleworth | 1314-15 1386-7 1484-5 | - | (Michaelmas) | £21 16 10 £23 3 10-1/4 £18 18 0 | - | | | - |22. Wootton (free | | - | and customary | 1207 1607 | - | tenants) | £9 11 2 £13 19 0-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1271-2 1547 | - |23. Speen | £6 13 9-3/4 £17 4 2 | - | | | - | | 1303-4 1314-15 1478-9 | - |24. Schitlington | £29 13 0-1/2 £30 4 10 £58 11 9 (exclusive of| - | | ferm of land| - | | and ferm of | - | | manor). | - | | | - |25. Cranfield (rent | | - | of vill including | 1383-4 1474-5 1519-20 | - | ferm of lands) | £68 15 2 £63 19 10-1/4 £72 2 1-3/4 | - | | | - | | 1325-6 1482-3 | - |26. Holywell | £12 18 2 £22 7 8 | - | | | - | | 1536 1803 | - |27. Farleigh | £4 9 9 £4 15 5 | - +--------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ - - [234] For the sources and defects of this table see Appendix II. - -It will be seen that, in spite of some considerable increases, many -rents were comparatively stationary during long periods of time. -Moreover, in all probability, they were more stationary than is -suggested by the statistics given above. For at the earlier dates there -were works the value of which usually does not appear among the money -rents. As time went on, more land was brought under cultivation and the -demesne was leased; and though an attempt has been made to exclude the -latter factor, it is not always possible to do so with certainty. The -later figures, therefore, are, if anything, a more exhaustive account of -the tenants' burdens than the earlier, and the small difference which -exists between them on several manors is for this reason all the more -remarkable. - -These figures, it will be said, if they prove anything, prove too much. -Do we not know that one of the grievances of the peasantry in the -sixteenth century was the rack-renting of their holdings? Have we not -the evidence of Fitzherbert, Latimer, and Hales to prove it? To these -questions one must answer that it is certainly true that lords of manors -did make a strenuous effort to get from their tenants increased payments -for their holdings, and that the success which in many cases they -achieved was one great cause of the decline in the condition of the -peasantry. The matter, however, is not so simple as it appears. In -respect of their liability to be competitively rented, some parts of the -lands of a manor stood on a different footing from others; and again, -fixed rents of customary lands were quite compatible with movable fines. -An attempt will be made in subsequent chapters[235] to illustrate both -the rack-renting of those parts of a manor where the rent was least -controlled by custom, and the upward movement of the fines charged on -the admission of tenants to their holdings. These figures of stationary -or almost stationary rents must not, therefore, be taken as giving a -full account of the relations between the customary tenants and the -manorial authorities, as though there was no other way in which the -latter could compensate themselves. Subject to this qualification, -however, they do indicate that, at any rate on the customary holdings -which formed the kernel of the manor, there is for a very long period -little rack-renting. They suggest that the tenants' payments have a -fixity which would make Arthur Young tear his hair. They fall in line -with the statements of authorities like Fitzherbert and Norden as to the -difficulty experienced by the manorial officials in forcing up rents of -assize, that "are as in the beginning, neither risen nor fallen, but doe -continue always one and the same." And this fixity of rents is a factor -in the prosperity of the peasantry which can hardly be over-estimated. -When not neutralised by exorbitant fines, it means that any surplus -arising on the customary tenements as the result of growing trade, or of -the fall in the value of money, or of improved methods of agriculture, -anything in fact which is in the nature of economic rent, is retained by -the tenants. Secured by the custom of the manor, as by a dyke, against -the competitive pressure which under modern conditions transfers so much -of the fruits of progress into the hands of the owners of land and -capital, they enjoy an unearned increment which grows with every growth -in economic prosperity, and have an interest in their holdings almost -similar to that of a landlord who is burdened only with a fixed -rent-charge like the English land tax. One of the best established -generalisations of economics, ground into the English people by thirty -years of misery, is that the effect of agrarian protection is to make a -present to landlords. But agrarian protection itself wears a different -complexion when the rise in rents which it produces is not transferred -to a small and wealthy class of absentee owners, but retained by -thousands of men who are themselves cultivating the soil. - - [235] See below, pp. 139-147 and 304-310. - -Lest such a picture should seem to be drawn too much in the spirit of -the economic theorist, let us make its meaning more precise by pointing -out that the retention of the unearned increment by copyhold tenants was -a fact of which the manorial authorities were perfectly well aware, and -the results of which they were sometimes at pains to estimate -arithmetically by setting side by side with the actual rent paid the -rent which the holdings would fetch if put up to competition. Four -examples may be given. At Amble,[236] in 1608, the surveyor gives the -rent of the customary tenants as £16, 0s. 5d., and "the annual value -beyond rent" as £93, 4s. 4d. On the great manor of Hexham[237] in the -same year the rents of the 314 copyhold tenants amounted to £126, 4s. -8-1/4d.; the "value above the oulde Rentes" was £624, 4s. 1d. In the -various townships of the manor of Rochdale[238] part of the land was -rack-rented. But a great deal of it was held at payments which left the -tenant a substantial margin between the rent which he paid to the king -and the letting value of the land, a margin which varied from 2d. an -acre in parts of Wardleworth, to 6d. an acre in parts of Wardle, 8d. an -acre in Walsden, and 10d. an acre in Castleton. On the manor of -Barkby[239] in Leicestershire the difference was still more striking. -The rents paid by free and customary tenants together amounted in 1636 -to £11, 8s. 7-1/2d.; the value of their holdings was put by the -surveyor at £215, 1s. 6d. And, of course, the fact that these rentals -come from the very end of the sixteenth, and the beginning of the -seventeenth, centuries, makes the evidence which they offer of the -inability of manorial authorities to insist on copyhold rents keeping -pace with the rising value of land, when they had every motive to -enforce such correspondence if they could, all the more significant. For -a century they have been screwing up rents wherever they can, and here -are tenants, who, as far as rents go, put 6d. in their own pockets for -every 1d. they give to the landlord. Let us repeat that these figures, -striking as they are, would, if taken by themselves, give a misleading -impression of the position of the copyhold tenants. Even when the lord -of a manor cannot break the barrier opposed by manorial custom to a rise -in rents, he may be able to dip his fingers in the surplus by raising -the fines charged on admission; he may be all the more exacting in -screwing the last penny out of those holdings where the rent is not -fixed by custom. But though we must not forget the other side of the -shield, though the very fixity of rents on many manors should make us -scrutinise other conditions very carefully, we must not forget either -that a tenant whose rent is unaltered for 200 or 250 years, a tenant -who, after a period of sweeping agrarian changes in which a bitter cry -has gone up against the exactions of landlords, is paying a fifth, or a -sixth, or even an eighteenth of what could be got for his holding in the -open market, is a tenant whom most modern English farmers would envy. -Whatever his other disadvantages he has at any rate one condition of -prosperity. He will not be eaten up by rack-renting. No wonder that such -a man can accumulate capital and buy up land to add to his holding. No -wonder that he can sublet parts of it at a profit. No wonder that in the -day of agrarian oppression the wealthier peasantry stands stubbornly -against it, that they can carry cases from one court to another, and -that there are manors where they boast that "20[240] of them would -spend 20 score pounds" in fighting an unpopular landlord. On the whole, -the individual cases of enterprise and prosperity among the customary -tenants of the fifteenth century do fit into the view that the economic -environment was favourable to the peasantry. They may be regarded as -symptoms, not exceptions. - - [236] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ii. - - [237] _Ibid._, vol. iii. pp. 86-94. On this manor at the time - of the survey, though the distinction between the old rent and - the "cleare yearly value above the old rent" was noted, the - latter seems to have been tapped by a rise in rents ("cleere - improved rent above the ould rent"). - - [238] _Rochdale Manor Inquisition_, 1610, by H. Fishwick - (_Trans. of the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society_, vol. - vii.). - - [239] Merton Documents, MSS. Book labelled "Kibworth and Barkby, - 1636." For another illustration of fixed copyhold rents, see - Maitland, _English Hist. Review_, vol. ix.: The History of a - Cambridgeshire Manor. - - [240] Quoted, Leadam, "The Security of Copyholders in the - Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" (_English Historical Review_, - vol. viii. pp. 684-696). The case in question was that of the - inhabitants of Thingden _v._ John Mulsho. - -Here, perhaps, we should stop. What manner of men these were in that -personal life of which economics is but the squalid scaffolding; what -stars threw for them their beams on that tremendous whirlpool of -religion and politics into which Europe was plunging, we cannot say. Of -the hopes and fears and aspirations of the men who tilled the fields -which still give us in due season their kindly fruit, we know hardly -more than of the Roman plebs, far less than of the democracy of Athens. -Yet these men too had their visions. Their silence is the taciturnity of -men, not the speechlessness of dumb beasts. - -That the peasantry as a class were no politicians was a natural -consequence of the position which they had occupied throughout the -Middle Ages. On a small number among them, in the Eastern counties a -large number, the State had for centuries showered duties and -obligations with a lavish hand, and the freeholders, though they must -often have cursed the tediousness of suit of court, and jury service, -and Parliamentary elections, turned that tiresome discipline to good -account in the days when the Stuarts had contrived to make politics to -thousands of heavy-handed obstinate people throughout England a matter -not only of money but of conscience. The non-participation of the bulk -of the peasantry in the same large interests was not due to poverty, for -often the copyholders were wealthier than the freeholders who listened -to Pym and Hampden on that first great election campaign in 1640, and -left their farms to fight for King or Parliament. Nor was it due to -timidity or lack of spirit, for, as we shall see later, they frequently -asserted themselves in the course of the sixteenth century in their own -characteristic way of agrarian strikes.[241] It was rather that the -centre of their interests and their social horizon were different. The -freeholders from an early date had been brought into contact with the -chief institutions of the organised political state. Since the twelfth -century they had been protected in their holdings by the courts, and had -learned through that cunning procedure which was the fruit of Henry -II.'s[242] sleepless nights, that though often one cannot do much with -the law, one can do even less without it. Since the thirteenth century -they, along with their social superiors, had returned members to -Parliament, and had acquired that facility in grumbling at taxation -which is the beginning, though not, as is so commonly supposed, the end, -of political wisdom. Thus they became a body in whose eyes the Law, -Parliament, the State, loomed up, though for ages dimly enough, as a big -something which it is well to have on your side, something which -requires, like the new fangled arquebuses, to be carefully handled, -something which, if neglected, may give you a surprising shock, but if -treated with proper respect may teach manners even to your landlord. Of -course your first duty is to him. You ride and fight for him readily -enough as your fathers did. But still, you do it because you have said -you will, not because he has said you shall, and though London lawyers -are a pack of knaves, it is good to know that the law will, if -necessary, make him see the difference. - - [241] See below, pp. 329-331. - - [242] Bracton, f. 164 b.: "Succuritur ei per recognitionem - Assisæ novæ dissesinæ multis vigiliis excogitatam et inventam" - (quoted Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. i. - p. 125 n.). - -But the freeholders have been for centuries a privileged class, and -those of the peasants who are copyholders, a far more numerous body, are -in a very different position. Your fathers were villeins, who hung on -the words of the upstart manorial officials, who "had no right to know -at night what they should do on the morrow,"[243] who never had the -bitter satisfaction of grumbling that they got no return for the wages -paid to the knights of the shire, who had no redress from the King's -Courts if threatened with eviction. Of course you are not in the same -position now. Your blood has been purged of the servile taint for -generations. The lawyers have been competing for your business, and so -the Court of Chancery has invented a new procedure to protect you in -your holding. "When thieves fall out...." Still, it is better to run no -risk of offending your superiors, for the law is a chancy thing, and -your title (you keep the copy under lock and key and refuse to show it -to the new surveyor lest he should twist it into meaning what it -doesn't) is none too clear.[244] Deep down in your mind, beneath the -prosperity of to-day, there are dim memories of old, unhappy, far-off -things, and your shoulders slouch at their recollection. _Weh dir dass -du ein Enkel bist!_ The bailiff has invented a pedigree as long as your -arm to prove that your great-grandfather was a villein, and had no -business to have bought his freedom for the preposterous reason that the -money with which he bought it was the lord's all along. The toadying -beast is even trying to curry favour by saying that your copyhold is for -life only, and that your fine is uncertain. True, there are plenty of -ancient inhabitants who will swear in the manor court that your family -has lived in the village before the present lord was ever heard of. But -it is easy to bully and cajole them into silence. Were not Walter and -Hugh turned adrift, "weeping bitterly," because money had to be found to -pay the young lord's debts? As a copyholder, then, you are much less -conscious of the State than if you are a freeholder, because in the -matter which interests you most, the security of your holding, you have -for centuries had no dealings with the State at all. Your idea of -Government is a vague reverence for a King who sits far away in -Westminster with a crown on his head and his judges about him, and who -governs his kingdom as a good lord--not like yours--governs his manor. -For the rest you are a non-political animal, who take little interest in -affairs of State, because in the past the State has taken so little -interest in you. When your fathers made London tremble in the great days -of 1381 (you can see from your hay-stack the hill where they were -hanged, hanged "like dogs"[245]) what they demanded was fair rents and -freedom from villein services. When you went out with Ket in 1549 you -asked the same, and, untaught by their experience, you begged that the -King would see that you had the fair play which his Justices of the -Peace, who are your landlords, will never allow you.[246] When King and -Parliament come to blows, you curse both impartially, remain neutral as -long as you can, and only turn out when they begin driving the village -beasts. Your sentiments are pithily expressed in the motto which a local -wit has devised for the village banner: "If you take our cattle, we will -give you battle."[247] - - [243] Bracton, Lib. iv. cap. 28, f. 208. - - [244] _Northumberland County History_, vol. iii., Pt. V., pp. - 86-104, Survey of Hexham (1608): "Their fines they pretend to - be certain, viz. one year's rent at everye change of tenant, but - not herritable. They have there, for certaine, very ancient - evidences and Court Rolls, but they woulde not show them unto - us, nor any of their coppies." See also Appendix I. No. IV. - - [245] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Part VII., pp. 49-50 (1596): Some - information concerning those intending the rebellion in - Oxford.... "And Steer said that there was once a rising at - Enscombe Hill by the commons, and they were persuaded to go down - and were after hanged like dogs. 'But,' said he, 'we will never - yield, but will go through with it!'" - - [246] See below, pp. 334-337. - - [247] Warburton's _Rupert_, iii., 118 (quoted Gooch, _English - Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_, p. 112). - -If, however, the peasantry are on the whole uninterested in the larger -problems of government to which the world has agreed to confine the word -politics, this is not because they are incapable of self-help, or -destitute of any conception of public expediency. It is because the -framework of their lives has for ages been different from that of the -freeholders, because the centre round which their social interests -revolve is even more localised than it is to the freeholders, because -what matters to them most is not the law of the land but the custom of -the manor. We shall have hereafter[248] to discuss the vexed question of -the legal position occupied by the copyholders in the sixteenth century. -But we may pause for a moment to point out here the decisive part which -custom had played, and still played in our period, in moulding the lives -of the mass of the peasantry, because unless this is firmly grasped we -cannot understand their mental horizon. It is the custom of the manor -which gives them their social environment and their conception of public -order. The commonest name for all those who hold neither freely nor by -lease is "customary tenants," men whose title is rooted in custom. When -the courts begin to interfere to protect copyholders, they introduce -that sweeping innovation under the guise of enforcing customary -conditions. They do not say "copyholders can be evicted." Nor do they -say "copyholders cannot be evicted." They say, "Tell us what the custom -of your manor is, and if it is one which does not seem to a plain man -too unreasonable, we will enforce it." When tenants and landlords fall -out, it is always to custom that the tenants appeal. When the peasants -ask the Government for assistance, they do so by demanding the -observance of their "old customs." - - [248] See below, pp. 287-310. - -Let us look at the custom of the manor more closely. The phrase has, of -course, misleading suggestions for modern ears. We tend to think of -custom as something indefinite and inconclusive; something which is not, -like the law (we speak of what should be), the embodiment of reason; -something which fetters progress and is the opposite of freedom; -something which is mere habit, and very likely a "bad habit" at that. -All this is true in a sense. It is the way in which in the sixteenth -century an enterprising landlord looks at the custom which ties his -hands. But it is not the way in which it is regarded by the peasants. -The custom of the manor does not mean to them a mere feeble acquiescence -in existing conditions, mere inertia. It is not a negative, but a -positive thing. It is no more inconsistent with progress to observe the -custom, than it is inconsistent with progress to keep out of gaol by -observing the law. For the custom is simply the law of the village. Like -the main rules of the common law, it comes down from a dim age that is -beyond the memory of man. Like law it is enforced by a court, the court -of the manor. Like law it can be altered (and in some respects and on -some manors often is altered to meet the new conditions of our period) -by the proper authority, which again is the court of the manor. Of -course it is not law in the fullest sense. From one standpoint it is the -antithesis of law, the law of the King's Courts, which, till the end of -the fourteenth century, has taken no cognizance of the customary -tenures, though since that time the Court of Chancery, by intervening to -enforce the custom of the manor in respect of copyholds, has been -breaking down the opposition. Still, for the mass of the peasantry, even -in the sixteenth century, custom is a bigger, more important, thing than -the law of the national courts. It is with custom that the first -decision will lie. - -Again, the custom of the manor is not at all a vague or indefinite -thing. That it reposed partly on the Court Rolls, partly on the memory -of ancient inhabitants, we can see from the frequent appeals which are -made to both of them. But it certainly is no mere nebulous tradition. On -the contrary, it is often most rigorous in its precision. It lays down -boundaries and numbers stocks and stones. It adjusts and readjusts -agricultural arrangements. It enters into the details of social life -with a bold hand. Let us reflect, to take an example, on the customs of -High Furness, parts of which have been quoted above. Here we have a -whole village agreeing about matters which do not at first sight seem, -like the use of pastures or the fixing of boundaries, of a specially -public character. The term on which a man's property is to be -distributed among his descendants, this, if anything, one might expect -to be left to his own discretion, once the succession of an heir to -maintain the rents and services due from the holding had been provided -for. The rules quoted above go much further than this. They settle -exactly what proportion of a man's property is to go to his different -children, male and female, from the eldest down to the youngest. Imagine -a Parish Council to-day distributing the wealth of deceased parishioners -with the object of seeing that the whole of the younger generation shall -obtain some kind of start in life, and you will have an analogy to what -is done by the prudent men of High Furness. - -Or take another example, where the points handled are of a somewhat -different kind. Here are the customs of the manor of Bushey,[249] as set -out in 1563 by twenty customary tenants in response to an inquiry by the -lord:-- - -"In primis to the fyrste article we saye that no copyholder at the tyme -of his death dying seased of twoo copyholdes hathe paid any more than -one quycke heriott by the tyme of any remembrance, or before, to our -knowledge. - -"Item to the seconde we saye that the lorde oughtte to have the second -beste for hys herryott and the heyer the beste. - -"Item to the thyrde we saye that the copyholder that doth surrender his -copyholde ought not to paye any herryott upon the surrender of his -copyholde except yt be in extreme of deathe. - -"Item to the fourth we saye that lords of the mannor have never demanded -nor any copyholder payde any more for their ffyne than one yere's rente -of the lande. - -"Item to the fyfth we saye that the widdowe upon the deathe of her -husbande shall have the thyrde parte of the rente of the lande, but not -the thyrde part of the lande except yt be surrendered to her by her -husbande. - -"Item to the syxth we saye that the copyholder may sell hys underwoode -and stocke upp by the roote the same wytheout lycense of the lorde. - -"Item to the seventh we saye that the copyholder may fell tymber for -reparacion or otherwyse to sell the same to hys use and profyt; so hathe -yt byn used by our tymes and by all tyme beyond the memory of man. - -"Item to the eytthe we saye that the copyholder may make a grante of hys -copyholde for three yeres wythoute the lord's lycense, and the lorde to -take nothing for the same. - -"Item to the nineth we saye that the tenants maye take surrender bothe -within the manor and without the manor. - -"Item to the tenth we saye that we cannot answer for that we knowe not -every man's lande. - -"Item to the eleventh we saye that every copyholde is not heryottable. - -"Item to the xiith we knowe not where the Courte Rolles, Rentals, or -customaryes of the manor are remayning or in whose custodye. - -"Item to the xiiith we saye that we knowe not of any deutyes or rentys -withdrawn from the lordshippe. - -"Item to the xiiiith we saye that we never knewe nor hearde any heryott -payde for freeholde at the dethe of the freholder. - -"Item to the fyfteneth we say that the freholder hathe never payde -relief at alienacion, but at deathe only. - -"Item to the xvith we saye that a copyholder dying his heir being wythin -the age of xiiii yeres the custody of the body and lande oughte to be -comytted by the lorde to the nexte of the kyn to whom the inheritance -may not dyscende." - - [249] I take them from the MSS. Court Rolls of the Manor of Bushey, - kindly lent me by the late Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith. - -In themselves these customs are not in any way remarkable, except -perhaps for the uniform favour which they show to the interests of the -tenants. They might be paralleled from those of scores of other manors. -What is worth noticing is the precision of the rules laid down. The -relations between the lord and the tenants are settled with the -definiteness of a sort of great collective bargain. - -It would be going beyond the scope of this essay to enter upon the large -question, on which so much learning has been expended, of the respective -parts played in manorial origins by the communal organisation of -villagers for the purpose of self-government in their agrarian affairs, -and by the authoritative pressure of superior authorities for the -purpose of using the village as the basis of a financial and political -system. But one may point out that facts such as have been quoted above -in illustration of the rule of custom cannot easily be fitted into any -theory which regards the economic arrangements of the manor as the -result simply of a system imposed from above, and which treats the -customary rights of the peasants as the outcome of concessions made by -lords from time to time in their own interests, the revocation of which -involved no larger difficulties than necessarily surround the alteration -of practices sanctioned by long use. However much the organisation of -village life may have been stereotyped by the pressure directed upon it -by the desire of the manorial authorities to extract rents and services -on an unvarying plan, one cannot trace it altogether to its -subordination to such external forces, because the custom of the manor -acts as a restriction which impedes the free action of lords themselves -and their agents, even when they are most anxious to break through its -meshes. This is seen more clearly perhaps in the sixteenth century than -in earlier periods, for the very reason that the sharp collision of -interests between lords and tenants makes it more possible to -distinguish those parts of manorial custom which represent the economic -interests of the tenants, from those which represent the power of the -manorial authorities imposed upon them. Under the latter heading would -fall the rules as to heriots and reliefs, rules forbidding waste, rules -requiring tenants to pay "for the rushes which they gather on the lord's -common,"[250] or to perform the surviving remnants of labour services, -while a rule such as that of High Furness, forbidding the division of -holdings to such an extent as to prevent the discharge of services or -the obtaining of an adequate living by the occupier, may be regarded as -a compromise in which the interests of both lord and tenant receive -consideration. Under the former may be placed the custom which fixes -rents, and, on some fortunate manors like Bushey, fixes fines to be paid -on admission, sanctions the sub-letting of copyholds and the felling of -timber, and allots rights of pasture to each arable holding. Not all of -these, of course, stand upon the same footing of importance. The right -to cut wood is much less essential than the right to graze cattle. But -some of them, at any rate, like rights of common pasture, seem to be -bound up with the very existence of the village as an agricultural -community, and all of them are dictated by the interests of the peasants -in protecting themselves against encroachments, as clearly as are those -of the first type by the desire of lords to make the manor a source of -profit to themselves. It is scarcely possible to account for the -obstacles put by manorial customs in the way of changes which would -benefit the lord and be detrimental to the tenant, except on the -supposition that they are rooted in something more indestructible than -the mere concession of privileges which long use has solidified and -hardened; something which can only be found in the fact that they are an -essential part of the life of the village, to which the lord himself, as -a condition of extracting revenue from it, is almost bound to conform. - - [250] Aldeburgh, _temp._ Henry VIII., R.O. _Misc. Bks. Treas. of - Receipts_, vol. clxiii. See Appendix I., No. II. - -This brings us to our original point, the way in which the whole social -environment of all the tenants, except the freeholders, who do not need -the protection of custom, and the leaseholders,[251] who cannot get it, -is dependent upon the custom of the manor. Fraught with modern -associations as it is, the phrase "collective[252] bargain" is perhaps -the nearest we can get to expressing what the custom of the manor means -to the peasants themselves. Of course it is much more than this. The -custom has the sanction of immemorial antiquity. The phrase "time out of -mind" is no mere piece of idle rhetoric. The stable self-perpetuating -conditions of economic life create a sort of communal memory, in which -centuries are focussed. There were villages where, in the reign of -Elizabeth, the effects of the Great Plague[253] were still dimly -remembered. But regarding the matter from the point of view of the -practical working of village life, we shall not be far wrong if we think -of the peasants as a body of men who are more or less organised, and of -the custom as a system of common rules which regulates the relations -between them and the lord. And it is evident that the custom of the -manor, at any rate in our period, is a safeguard of the tenants' -interests rather than of those of the manorial authorities. It is not -only that the changes which followed the Great Plague have set the -peasants free from the most irksome customary restrictions, but, -further, that, in the sixteenth century, it is the lord who wants to -make innovations and the tenants who resist them, and that it is -therefore the latter who stand to gain most by clinging to custom. The -custom sets up a standard by which encroachments can be opposed, by -which the village as a whole can put a solid barrier in the way of -change, by which blacklegging (in the shape of one man taking a holding -over the head of another) can be prevented. Competitive forces have, it -is true, been gradually undermining custom, and by the sixteenth century -an increasing number of tenants have the terms on which they take their -holdings settled by the higgling of the market without reference to any -authoritative rule. Nevertheless, as far as the copyholders, who are the -kernel of the manor, are concerned, competition is held in check by the -fact that, on certain fundamental matters, there is a common -understanding between the peasants, which is recognised by the lord -himself. The manorial authorities cannot bargain with the tenants one by -one. They have to deal with the villagers as men who are "organised," -who are members of a society, who know what they have to expect in the -way of heriots and rents and fines, and who will be supported by village -opinion in resisting innovations. On occasion the peasants will strike. -On occasion they will force their landlord to arbitration.[254] One -might almost say that the customary tenants are trade unionists to a -man. Again, who shall determine what the custom is? The court rolls will -throw light on certain points, and occasionally we find lords appealing -to them successfully in order to upset the tenants' claims. But on many -matters there is no guide but tradition; the exponents of tradition are -the ancient inhabitants; the lord has to ask them to expound it, as he -does the tenants of Bushey. Can we doubt that this was a powerful check -on autocratic action on his part? Lords come and go. But the custom of -the manor endures, and probably loses nothing in the telling. - - [251] Some copyholders, who held land which was not "customary - land" but part of the demesne or the waste, were not protected - by custom either: for a discussion of this point see below, pp. - 293-294. - - [252] See below for an example from Crondal, p. 295. - - [253] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of "The Presentment and - Verdict of the Jury for the Manor of Hewlington," 1620 (Wrexham - Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, vol. ii.): "Which decay - (as by the ancient records appeareth) did growe by reason of the - great mortalitie and plague which in former tymes had been in - the reign of Edward III., and also of the rebellion of Owen - Glendower and trouble that thereupon ensued." - - [254] _Victoria County History of Gloucestershire_, Social and - Economic History, p. 146. For agrarian strikes see below, pp. - 329-331. - -If, then, we ask what the custom means to the peasantry, we must think -not of the "forbidding, stale, and meagre ways," which is what the word -custom too often suggests in the twentieth century, but of the phrase -"ancient customs and liberties," which is so common in the charters of -Boroughs. The custom of the manor is a body of rules which regulates the -rights and obligations of the peasants in their daily life. It is a kind -of law. It is a kind of freedom. And since it is the custom which most -concerns the mass of the peasantry, it is not the state, or the law, but -the custom of the manor which forms their political environment and from -which they draw their political ideas. They cannot conceive the state -except as a very great manor. Their idea of good government is the -enforcement of an idealised customary.[255] - - [255] See below, pp. 338-340. - -Having said this we can say little more. There is no standard by which -we can measure civilisation, and if we knew more than we do, the village -life of the sixteenth century--and England is all villages--would still -be a mystery to us. Yet, before returning to the humbler task of -examining economic conditions, we may perhaps summarise the sort of -impressions formed of the peasants by those who knew them in their own -day, impressions no doubt as misleading as a traveller's sketches of -modern England, yet, like a traveller's sketches, possessing a certain -value, because they show the points which an intelligent outside opinion -selects for emphasis. - -One is encouraged in one's belief in the comparative prosperity of a -large number of the peasantry in the earlier sixteenth century by the -comments which the writers of the periods pass upon it, even after a -decline has already begun. The picture we get is of an open-handed, -turbulent, large-eating and deep-drinking people, much given to -hospitality and to merriment both coarse and refined; according to -modern standards very ignorant, yet capable of swift enthusiasm, -litigious, great sticklers for their rights, quick to use force in -defence of them, proud of their independence, and free from the grosser -forms of poverty which crush the spirit. The latter feature strikes -everybody. Foreign visitors[256] notice with amazement the outward signs -of wealth among the humbler classes. English writers, though their tone -becomes sadder and sadder as the century proceeds, are never tired of -boasting of it. Even in the eighties of the sixteenth century, when many -of the peasants are much worse off than they had been a hundred years -before, Harrison, though he paints in dark colours the ruinous effects -of the agrarian changes, describes their hearty life with good-humoured -gusto. "Both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficiently liberal -and very friendly at their tables, and when they meet they are so merry -without malice, and plain without inward Italian or French craft and -sublety, that it would do a man good to be in company among them.... -Their food consisteth principally of beef and such meat as the butcher -selleth. That is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork. In feasting also the -latter sort, I mean the husbandmen, do exceed after their manner, -especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such odd meetings, -where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, each one -bringing such a dish, or so many with him, as his wife and he consult -upon, but always with this consideration that the lesser friend shall -have the better provision." The peasants themselves have a good conceit -of their position, and all unmindful of the whirligig of time and its -revenges, contrast it with that of their class in France, where women -labour like beasts in the fields, where men go in wooden shoes or no -shoes at all, where the people drink water instead of ale, eat rye bread -and little meat, and have not even the heart, like honest Englishmen, to -rob the rich who oppress them, and that in the most fertile realm in all -the world;[257] "Caytives and wretches, lyvyng in lyke thraldome as they -dyd to the Romaynes, and gevynge tribute for theyr meat, drinke, brede, -and salte, which for theyr wayke personayges and tymorous hartes I may -compare to the pigmies who waged battayle against the Cranes, so that I -dare let slip a hundred good yeomen of England against five hundred of -such ribaldry."[258] Apart from the utterances of these good Jingoes, -stray glimpses show us a people which not only is materially prosperous, -but is also bold in action, and can produce men of high moral ardour. In -the twentieth century the rural population is a bye-word for its -docility. Its ancestors in the sixteenth were notorious for their -restiveness. Hales, who knew and loved them, makes one of the characters -in his dialogue[259] suggest that men at arms should be used to put down -the disturbances made by them and by the unemployed weavers, only to -answer, through the lips of another, that to call in the military will -be the best way to make them riot all the more:--"Marie, I think that -waye wold be rather occasion of commotions to be stirred than to be -quenched, for the stomakes of Englishmen would never beare that, to -suffer such injuries and reproaches as I knowe suche (_i.e._ the men at -arms) use to do to the subjects of France." - - [256] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), p. 114, - quoting one of "the Spaniards in Queen Mary's days." "These - English have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare - commonly so well as the king." - - [257] Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, chaps. iii. and - xiii. The Scots, he thinks, are only one degree less - faint-hearted than the French. "Thai ben often tymes hanged for - larceny, and stelynge off good in the absence off the owner - theroff. But ther hartes serve them not to take a manys gode, - while he is present, and woll defende it." - - [258] Coke, _Debate of Heralds_. See also the quotation, - Froude's _Henry VIII._, vol. i. chap, i., from a State Paper of - 1515: "What comyn folke in all this world may compare with the - comyns of England, in riches, freedom, liberty, welfare, and all - prosperity? What comyn folke is so mighty, so stronge in the - felde, as the comyns of England?" - - [259] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. 94. - -These humble people have their idealisms. They produce martyrs for the -new religion and for the old, Lollards who suffer persecution for -upholding the Wycliffite tradition in the quiet villages of -Buckinghamshire, Catholics who follow Aske in that wonderful movement of -northern England, the last of the crusades, in 1536, or fall in -Devonshire thirteen years later before the artillery of Herbert. Nor are -they altogether cut off from the springs of learning. For at the -beginning of the sixteenth century the upper classes have not yet begun -to covet education for themselves sufficiently to withhold it from the -poor. Bequests[260] show that the sons of well-to-do peasants may have -been among those godly yeomanry whom Latimer[261] described as once, in -happier social conditions than those amid which he preached, -frequenting the older universities, and the records of some sixteenth -century grammar-schools tell a similar story. Among the first twenty-two -names on the register of Repton[262] there are five gentlemen, four -husbandmen, nine yeomen, two websters or weavers, a carpenter, and a -tanner. - - [260] _Victoria County History_, Berkshire, ii., 208. In 1558 a - yeoman leaves his son a portion of land worth £10 a year "for - his keepinge and learninge in Oxford for five years nexte." On - the same page there is a case of a man described as a "yeoman" - who is tenant by copy of Court Roll. - - [261] Latimer's _Sermons_. The first sermon preached before King - Edward, March 8, 1549 (Everyman Series, p. 86): "We have good - statutes made for the commonwealth, as touching commoners and - enclosures; many meetings and sessions; but in the end of the - matter there cometh nothing forth. Well, well, this is one thing - I will say unto you; from whence it cometh I know, even from the - devil. I know his intent in it. For if ye bring it to pass that - the yeomanry be not able to put their sons to school (as indeed - universities do wondrously decay already); I say ye pluck - salvation from the people and utterly destroy the realm. For by - yeomen's sons the faith of Christ is and hath been maintained - chiefly." See also _A Supplication of the Poor Commons_ (E. E. - T. S.): "This thing causeth that suche possessioners as - heretofore were able and used to maintain their own children ... - to lernynge and suche other qualities as are necessary to be had - in this Your Highness Royalme, are now of necessitie compelled - to set theyr own children to labour, and al is lytle enough to - pay the lorde's rent, and to take the house anew at the end of - the yere." The children of yeomen had no doubt been educated - mainly for the Church, and some attained high position (_Surtees - Society_, vol. lxxix. pp. 263-264, for the son of a yeoman - becoming a Bishop, and vol. li. No. 53, the son of a yeoman - becoming subdeacon of York, vol. lxxix. pp. 176-177, for a - yeoman's son sent to school for fifteen years). But in the - fifteenth century this was not always so, v. Leach, _Educational - Charters_, p. 41, for a school founded in Yorkshire, a county - which "produced many youths endowed with light and sharpness of - ability, who do not all want to attain the dignity and elevation - of the priesthood, that these may be better fitted for the - mechanical arts and other concerns of this world." A case of - hostility to the education of the poorer classes based on the - idea that education should be reserved for "gentlemen" is given - _ibid._ p. 470, where the notorious Lord Rich and other - gentlemen argue "as for husbandsmen's children, they were more - meet ... for the plough and to be artificers than to occupy the - place of the learned sort. So that they wished none else to be - put to school, but only gentlemen's children." Cranmer retorted, - "Poor men's children ... are commonly more apt to apply their - study than is the gentleman's son delicately educated ... the - poor man's son by painstaking will be learned, when the - gentleman's son will not take the pains to get it, ... wherefore - if the gentleman's son be apt to learning let him be admitted; - if not apt, let the poor man's child being apt enter in his - room." - - [262] _Repton School Register_, 1564-1910. One of the - husbandmen kept his boy at school for ten years. The average - school life of the sons of seven yeomen was between six and - seven years; one stays for twelve years, going to school at five - and staying till seventeen. If one may judge by the attitude of - most modern parents ("I went to the mill when I was ten, and why - shouldn't Tommie?"), these men must have been pretty comfortably - off. - -But by that time much had changed, and for seventy years before these -documents begin the peasantry in many parts of England had had sterner -things to think of than the schooling of their children. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE PEASANTRY (_continued_) - - -(e) _Signs of Change_ - -So far attention has been concentrated upon those phenomena which -suggest that, before the great agrarian changes of the sixteenth century -begin, there has been a period--one may date it roughly from 1381 to -1489--of increasing prosperity for the small cultivator. We have -emphasised the evidence of this upward movement which is given by the -growth among the peasantry of a freer and more elastic economy. We have -watched them shake off many of the restrictions imposed by villeinage -and build up considerable properties. We have seen how the custom of the -manor still acts as a dyke to defend them against encroachments, and to -concentrate in their hands a large part of the fruits of economic -progress. In the century from the Peasants' Revolt to the first Statute -against Depopulation, in spite of the political anarchy which disfigures -it, there is, as it seems to us an interval between one oppressive -régime and another, between the leaden weight of villeinage and the -stress and strain of the gathering power of competition. In that happy -balance between the forces of custom and the forces of economic -enterprise, custom is powerful, yet not so powerful that men cannot -evade it when evasion is desired; enterprise is growing, yet it has not -grown to such lengths as to undermine the security which the small man -finds in the established relationships and immemorial routine of -communal agriculture. - -There is, however, we need hardly say, another side to the picture, and -to that other side we must now turn. We must examine again from another -point of view some of the ground over which we have already travelled, -and we must modify the opinions which we have formed by bringing a fresh -range of facts into perspective. The piecemeal changes which have been -going on in the internal organisation of so many manors look forward as -well as back, and are of significance as throwing light on the larger -innovations of the later period. For one thing, they mean the appearance -among the customary tenantry of persons who are in a small way -capitalists, and who supply a link between the great farmer of the -sixteenth century and the agricultural organisation of earlier periods. -The emergence out of the mediæval peasantry of prosperous cultivators, -occupying two or three times as much land as their grandfathers, is a -proof that holdings of a considerable size can be managed successfully, -and the farmers of the demesne are often drawn from among them. For -another thing, the inequality which has appeared among the holdings of -different tenants implies the growth of a state of things in which -innovations in the customary methods of agriculture are much more likely -to be made than they were when all the tenants were organised in fairly -well-defined classes. The smaller among them are still practising -subsistence farming when the larger are producing on a considerable -scale for the market, are acquiring capital, are extending their -holdings, are even becoming landlords themselves. There arises therefore -a divergence of agricultural methods and economic interests between -them, which is quite compatible with the fact that both large and small -tenants stand in the same legal relationship to the lord of whom they -hold. The enterprise which the former show in their dealings with land -and in encroaching on the routine of manorial cultivation cannot fail to -have a powerful influence in preparing the way for the individualistic -movement which sweeps over agriculture in the sixteenth century, and -from which the peasants, as a class, suffer so severely. The freedom -with which parcels of land change hands must inevitably weaken the -connection between the family and the holding, and result in leaving the -least successful without any land at all. The difficulty of maintaining -a peasant proprietary without restricting the alienation of land is one -which is familiar to modern Governments, and there is clear -evidence[263] that, even before the evictions of the sixteenth century -began to attract attention, a decline in the number of customary tenants -was brought about on a good many manors by the mere process of the -well-to-do buying up the poorer men's holdings. - - [263] I am inclined to think that an investigation of the - manorial records of the fifteenth century would show a - considerable decrease in the number of customary tenants, not as - a result of evictions, but simply as a consequence of one man - buying out another and forming one larger holding out of two or - more smaller ones. The evidence for this is as follows: (1) When - several holdings pass to one man there must be a diminution - unless more land is brought under cultivation. Such an - agglomeration of holdings has been shown to be very frequent. - (2) A comparison of fifteenth and sixteenth century surveys with - those of an earlier date shows a marked diminution in the number - of customary tenants (a) before complaints as to enclosure - become loud, and on manors where there is no trace of enclosing - by lords or large farmers; (b) on manors where more land is - cultivated by the customary tenants than at an earlier date. - Thus at Haversham there were 52 tenants of all kinds in 1305, 35 - in 1458, 14 in 1497 (_Victoria County History_, Gloucestershire, - vol. ii. pp. 61-62). On six Northumbrian manors, where there is - no sign of evictions on a large scale, there were 82 customary - tenants in 1294, and 37 in 1567, and where intermediate surveys - enable one to narrow the limiting points, one finds that there - has been a considerable diminution before the end of the - fifteenth century. On the four tithings, of South Newton, - Childhampton, Stovord, and Little Wishford, which made up the - manor of South Newton, customary tenants numbered at the - beginning of the fourteenth century 32, 7, 13, 13, and in 1567 - 10, 3, 7, 1, the average holding having grown from 10-1/2 to - about 43 acres (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke Surveys_). At Sutton - Warblington there were in 1351, 28 customary tenants, and in - 1568 there were 7, while the average acreage of each tenant's - holding had increased enormously (_Crondal Records_, Baigent). - At Dippenhall and Swanthrop, two tithings of the manor of - Crondal, the customary tenants numbered 40 in 1287, 24 in 1568, - while the average size of their holdings had risen from between - 18 and 19 to just under 35 acres. At Aldershot the number of - customary tenants during the same period fell from 48 to 37 - (_ibid._). Such figures are of course full of pitfalls. In the - North border warfare reduced the population, and the effects of - the Great Plague have to be considered. The great growth in the - size of holdings does, however, suggest that a diminution in the - number of customary tenants may have occurred without any - encroachments being made by lords on the customary land, and - merely through one tenant buying up the land of another. - -Such movements prepare the way for greater changes: petty capitalism is -naturally followed by capitalism on a larger scale. It is surely at -first sight somewhat surprising that the noticeable upward movement in -the condition of the rural population, which coincides with the -disappearance of villeinage and the growth of copyhold tenure, should -have been followed by the marked depression which all observers agree to -have occurred in the following century. Why should a class which has -displayed such remarkable signs of vigour and enterprise find such -difficulty in holding its own? An answer to this question cannot be -given till after a consideration of the new causes at work in the -sixteenth century. But may it not be that their position had to some -extent been undermined by the very changes which at first improved it, -and that the enterprise of the larger customary tenants, while it added -to their prosperity as long as they led the way in it, tended to weaken -the customary relations and the customary methods of agriculture which -had protected the small man, and to leave him at the mercy of -competitive forces which he could not control? Such an undulating line -of development, in which the small producer gains temporarily from the -expansion of markets and improved technical methods which ultimately rob -him of his independence, can be paralleled from the later history both -of agriculture[264] and of manufacturing industry. It seems to us to -offer a thread which connects the capitalist farmer of the sixteenth -century with the prosperous peasantry of the fifteenth. When there is -much buying and selling of land among the peasantry, much colonising of -new plots taken from the waste and the demesne, we should expect to see -the influence of competition beginning to override that of custom; we -should expect to see the paring away of communal restrictions to make -room for individual arrangements of a more elastic nature. In the -remainder of this chapter we shall approach this problem by considering -two movements--the growth at an early date of competitive rents on those -parts of manors where custom was weakest, and the enclosing of land by -customary tenants themselves. The former offers a precedent for the -rack-rents and excessive fines of which so much is heard in the -sixteenth century, the latter at once an analogy and a contrast with the -enclosures carried out by lords of manors and capitalist farmers, which -we shall discuss in Part II. - - [264] Thus the yeomen seem to have increased in prosperity at - the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century - (though at the same time large classes of agrarian workers were - suffering terribly), because the rise in prices made - corn-growing a gold-mine. The collapse came probably after 1815 - (see Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, chap. - vii.). - - -(f) _The Growth of Competitive Rents on New Allotments_ - -The development of competitive rents is a subject which must always -possess a peculiar fascination for the historical economist, inasmuch -as the distribution of wealth depends to no small degree upon the manner -in which the surplus gains wrung from nature are shared between -different classes. The wealth which, under a régime of great estates and -leasehold tenure, accrues to a tiny body of landlords, is, in a -community of small freeholders, retained by the cultivating tenant, and, -when the tenure of land is such that custom sets a barrier to a rise in -rents, is divided between owner and occupier in a way which prevents the -former from absorbing the whole advantage of superior sites, or the -latter from being reduced to working for bare wages of management. The -causes which determine the allocation of rents must always be of crucial -importance for an understanding of economic conditions, and any change -which augments them, diminishes them, or varies the degree to which -different classes participate in them, is likely in time to produce a -substantial alteration both in the economic configuration of society and -in the possession of social privileges and political power. In modern -times, it is true, the enormous area from which food-stuffs are drawn, -and the relatively small space upon which manufacturing industry can be -concentrated, has made the differential payments accruing to the -landowner from varieties of soil and situation almost trifling compared -with the surpluses drawn from finance and manufacturing industry by the -infra-marginal capitalist and entrepreneur. Such "quasi-rents" are, -however, a comparatively modern phenomenon. In our period the basis of -wealth was land, and a crucial question is that of the manner in which -incomes drawn from land were determined. We have seen that in the -sixteenth century custom still ruled the payments made by most of the -copyhold tenants. But at that time there were many complaints of -rack-renting, and though we must leave till later an inquiry into their -justification, it will help us if we take a glance at the new forces, -which, even in the Middle Ages, were beginning to operate on the margin -of cultivation. - -The gradual extension of cultivation over the waste lands surrounding -the village fields, and the not infrequent addition of parts of the -lord's demesne to the tenants' holdings, was obviously the occasion, as -it took place, of a number of new agreements between the payer and -receiver of rents, which might or might not repeat the conditions of -existing contracts. When new land was broken up for tillage an attempt -seems in some cases to have been made by the manorial authorities to -assimilate its treatment, as far as payment was concerned, to that of -the existing customary holdings. The basis of the rent paid was a -comparison between the areas of the encroachments and the ordinary -holding of a customary tenant; the payment was so many ploughlands'[265] -worth, and sometimes the corresponding services were extracted from -them. On the other hand, the mere fact that the land was new land, which -did not come into the original scheme of manorial finance and -organisation, tended to make it the point from which new relationships -could spring. For one thing, it was the natural starting-point for the -process of substituting money rents for labour. When the customary -holdings offered a sufficient supply of labour for the cultivation of -the demesne, the manorial authorities naturally preferred to take the -payments for additional land in the shape of money rather than in -services of which they already had sufficient. Services are sometimes -exacted for the new encroachments, but they are the exception; and the -assimilation of the payments for these new holdings to those made for -the customary holdings was either not seriously attempted or was -unsuccessful. One can quite understand that, even if the lord wanted -labour services from those parts of the waste which were broken up and -added to the cultivated area, he might not be able to get the -improvements made on the old terms. Quite apart, therefore, from the -process of commutation, the growth of money rents developed as a natural -accompaniment of the growth of population. - - [265] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 132-133, Rental of 1287: - "The same Hugh holds certain encroachments on payment of 3 - ploughlands' worth, 3 hens, and 3d. at the said term." "Emma of - Wyggeworthhall ... holds certain encroachments on payment - therefor 11s. 6d. and one ploughland's worth." These documents - throw much light on the whole process of the extension of - cultivation over the waste. - -The second point is more important. It is that the rents paid for the -new holdings taken from the waste differed from such money payments as -were made for the customary holdings, in that they were not to the same -extent dominated by custom, but were to a much greater extent influenced -by competition. This contrast is the tiny seed of great changes, and may -be illustrated by an example drawn from the south of England at a -comparatively early date. At Yateleigh,[266] one of the tithings of the -manor of Crondal, the absorption of the waste by the customary tenants -went on with great rapidity even in the thirteenth century, and in the -rental drawn up by the steward in 1287 we find the rents and services -paid for the customary holdings and the rents paid for the encroachments -set down side by side. The latter fall into a definite scheme which can -be picked out at a glance. With a very few exceptions the rent charged -for an acre of land taken from the waste is always 4d., and this is the -basis for all other payments for the varying portions of waste occupied -by the tenants. A two acre piece pays 8d. For a piece of 9-1/2 acres the -payment is still about 4-1/4d. per acre, the awkward sum of 3s. 4-1/2d. -The rents and services of the customary holdings, however, cannot be -reduced to any such simple and uniform plan of adjusting rent to -acreage. In the first place all of them, whatever their size, are liable -to an initial charge of 9-1/2d., called "Pondpany." In the second place -there is only the roughest correspondence between the amount of land -held by a tenant and the payment which he makes. A holding of 22 acres -pays 2s. 10d., but so does a holding of 32 acres, while one of 29 acres -pays 2s. 2d. Holdings of 12-1/2, of 16, and of 18-1/2 acres all make -exactly the same payment of 2s. In short, though it would not be quite -true to say that the payment made bears no relation to the size of the -holding, the relation which it bears is not at all definite and precise. -It is a general relation applying rather to groups of holdings roughly -marked off from others by broad differences in extent, not to individual -holdings. There is no standard price per acre at all, such as appears in -a modern land market, and such as exists for the land taken from the -waste. - - [266] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 116-120. - -What is the reason of this remarkable contrast between the rents of -pieces of land lying quite near to each other and held by the same -tenants, which causes the payment for one set of holdings, the -encroachments, to be adjusted uniformly to the area held, and the other, -the customary holdings, to be rented apparently without any economic -plan at all? The answer is that the payments for the encroachments and -the payments for the customary holdings, if they are both to be called -rents, are rents of very different kinds. The payments made for the -customary holdings are not based directly on the economic value of the -land, but on the value of commuted services, and all the holdings, -though of unequal size, are liable to much the same services. All make a -general payment of 9-1/2d., because that sum is the value of some -payment in kind or service which they had made before the money payment -took its place. Holdings of 32 acres and 22 acres, just as holdings of -12-1/2 and 18-1/2 acres, make the same payments, because the labour -rents had been only very roughly adjusted to the size of the holdings, -and these payments are commuted labour rents, not rents fixed by putting -up an acre for leasing and taking what can be got for it. It is of -course quite true that services and the size of holdings were connected, -and that therefore the money rents which took the place of services and -the size of holdings were connected also. But the connection is rough, -arrived at by apportioning between holdings the labour services needed -to cultivate the demesne, without distinguishing precisely differences -of a few acres in the size of different holdings, and the subsequent -money rents are not adjusted to the acreage because they express the -roughness of the original apportionment. - -Now clearly these considerations did not apply to the rents paid for the -encroachments which were taken from the waste. The greater part of them -had never been liable to labour services at all. Each acre stood by -itself, as it were, as simply a piece of cultivatable land of a certain -area, not part of a complex on which certain obligations had been -imposed. Each, therefore, gets a market value, based on what will be -given for it, much sooner than does the land making up the customary -holdings, which are not exposed to the levelling influence of the market -because they are bound together by their place in the social -organisation of the manor. Hence it is on this land, the land leased -piecemeal from the waste by tenants who were prosperous enough to afford -the extra outlay, that one gets the appearance of something like true -competitive rents, because it is here that commercial influences have -freest play and are least checked by their subordination to custom. In -the same way, when the tenants at Brightwalton[267] do the full quota of -work demanded, the rent of their customary holdings is abated -accordingly. But not so the rent of the new land which was once part of -the waste: in fixing its rent the lord is not checked by any collective -sense on the part of the village community; he has a free hand and will -make the best bargain he can. - - [267] Camden Society, 1857. Rental and Custumal of the Manor of - Brightwalton. Under the heading virgators it is said, "If they - do the full day's work set out above each of them ought to have - his rent reduced 12d." Under the heading of villeins holding - assarted land it is said, "Be it known that no customary tenant - shall have any reduction of rent of the lands which he holds by - way of assart or in the common of Greeneholt for any office or - work to be done for the lord." - -Thus, at a very early date, a fringe of leasehold land forms itself -round the manor in addition to the ordinary customary holdings. Because -it is on the margin of cultivation the initial rent is low, and because -the land is leased the rent can be raised. Exactly the same thing -applies to the leasing of the demesne, and sometimes even to the land -which one tenant hires from another, because here also the element of -competition enters to adjust rents in accordance with supply and demand -and with little regard to the influence of custom. When the greater part -of the demesne is still cultivated by the labour of villeins, and only -small plots are leased to the tenants by way of experiment, the bailiff -balances one method against the other, and recommends the resumption of -the land which "would pay better in the hands of the lord."[268] On some -manors, it is true, demesne land seems to have been merged inextricably -in the customary holdings, and to have been held later, like them, by -copy of court roll.[269] But the manorial authorities were anxious to -keep it separate precisely because it was recognised that if kept -separate it could be let at a competitive rent. Thus the charter which -was granted to the little borough of Holt[270] in Denbighshire, in 1413, -provided that the tenants should pay for "every burgage 12d., for every -curtilage 12d., for every acre of land belonging to their free burgages -12d., and for every acre of land which was wont to be of the lord's -demesne two shillings." And though, during the confusion of the -following century, much of the rent appears not to have been collected, -the Crown, of whom the burgesses hold, does not forget that a high rent -was due from the demesne, and one hundred and fifty years later requires -them to bring up their payments for it to the level fixed in 1413. At -Castle Combe, in the middle of the fifteenth century, one finds the -steward of the manor watching the land market with a view to getting the -best price that he can for the demesne, and speculating whether "any man -will ferme the parkis and the conyes at any better price above X marks -than yt ys now."[271] The same tendency towards competitive rents can be -seen equally well in the case of the land leased by one tenant from the -holdings of others, which for one reason or another have been -surrendered to the lord. Thus at Mildenhall,[272] in 1381, a villein -pays for his land nearly 1s. 6d. an acre, a very high rent, which is at -once explained when it is seen that his holding consists of pieces of -land held on a ten years' lease from the holdings of five or more other -tenants. Elsewhere one can almost see the bidding up of rents going on. -For what else can happen when the demesne lands of a manor are leased -to four tenants who, in turn, make their profit by leasing them again to -the other tenants,[273] or when a villein pays £6 to enter on two acres -of arable land,[274] or when land is worth 3s. 6d. an acre after the -rents and services have been discharged from it to the lord,[275] so -that the holder who cares to sublet can reap a substantial profit on the -difference? - - [268] Camden Society, _Inquisition of the Manors of Glastonbury - Abbey_, Brentmarsh, 1189. A tenant holds "1 acre de terra - arabili in dominico, utilius esset quod esset in manu domini." - - [269] _e.g._, on the Devonshire, Somerset, and Cornwall manors - surveyed by Humberstone _temp._ Phil, and Mary (_Topographer and - Genealogist_, vol. i.). - - [270] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of the Survey of the Manor - of Holt, 1620 (Wrexham Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, - vol. ii.). - - [271] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 258 (1440-1550). - - [272] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk. I quote the writer's - remarks in full. "The bailiff's accounts for the manor begin in - that very year [1381], and the one striking feature in them is - the system of leases which appears to have gradually displaced - other kinds of tenure since the time of the pestilence. A few - are for forty years, but most are for ten or six years.... The - land so leased is not mainly demesne land. It belongs largely to - villein tenements that have fallen into the lord's hands, and - the process of consolidation described had already taken place - at Mildenhall. The land held by John Kelsynd on a ten years' - lease includes, for example, '3 acres of Frere's, Hayward's and - Willway's tenement in Bradinhawfield, 1 acre of Holmes' tenement - in Suttonfield, 5 acres of Zabulo's tenement in one piece at - Lambwash,' and the rent of the whole 22 acres is 31s. 1d., or - nearly 1s. 5d. an acre, an extremely high rent for land not - stated to be meadow or pasture." - - [273] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 203. - - [274] Massingberd, _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_, Introduction, p. - xxx. - - [275] _Ibid._ - -The truth is that, at any rate by the middle of the fifteenth century, -the rents of different parts of a manor are being settled on quite -different principles. They are not all customary rents, as they tended -to be at an earlier date, nor are they all competitive rents, as they -tend to be to-day. The latter are growing because of the improved -economic position of the tenants, which enables them to hire or purchase -land over and above their customary holdings, and their growth has been -greatly accelerated by the enormously increased opportunities for land -speculation which were offered when the Great Plague brought thousands -of acres into the land market. It is in the demand put forward by the -men of Essex in 1381,[276] "that no acre of land, which is held in -villeinage or serfdom, may be had at a higher rent than 4d.," rather -than in the reference to the already decaying labour services, that -there is a warning of troubles to come. But long after that, as we have -already seen, a great deal of land is still held by rents which are -customary and little influenced as yet by the play of competition. We -have, in fact, what is almost an illustration of modern theories of -rent, with this difference, that though the condition of competitive -rents being charged appears as the margin of cultivation is lowered, -custom at first prevents the owners of land from taking advantage of -their position and asking the full competitive rents from the holders of -the superior sites, so that part of the surplus is for a long time -enjoyed by the tenants. Such a state of things is clearly a precarious -one. When the tenements of Hugh and Thomas are being rack-rented there -will obviously be a strong temptation to cause Walter's to follow suit, -and if the custom is a barrier to a rise in rents, but not to a rise in -fines, to make heavy fines do on the latter what high rents do on the -former. If it had been given to our peasants to happen on some monstrous -mediæval Ricardo, would they not have wondered how long such an -intermingling of payments fixed by custom and payments fixed by -competition was likely to continue, and have foreseen, what actually -occurred in the sixteenth century, an attempt, though not always a -successful attempt, to force up the payments for customary holdings to -something like the maximum which the condition of agriculture would -allow? They would have said:--"This fellow fears not God, neither -regards he man. He is a usurer, a great taker of advantages, an -oppressor of his neighbour. We will beat him, and put him in our stocks, -and maim his cattle. Nevertheless in the bottom of his foul mind there -is some glimmering of sense, and we will give heed to his warning. The -devil brings it, but it may be that God sent it. The Court shall recite -our good customs once more, and our young men shall look to their bows. -Weapon bodeth peace."[277] - - [276] Stubbs, _Constl. Hist._, vol. ii. p. 479, n. 5. - - [277] The word "usury" denoted in the Middle Ages and in the - sixteenth century not merely exorbitant interest on a loan, but - any oppressive bargain, including the raising of prices, the - beating down of wages, and the rack-renting of land (see _e.g. A - Discourse on Usurie_, by Thomas Wilson, 1584). The phrase "a - great taker of advantages" comes from a complaint by the people - of Hereford against an unpopular divine who lent money at - interest and rack-rented land (_S. P. D. Eliz._, cclxxxvi. Nos. - 19 and 20), and the phrase "weapon bodeth peace" from an account - of an agrarian dispute in Lancashire--it is the sort of grim - joke that stubborn and humorous people would appreciate--in _L. - and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xiii., Pt. II., p. 535. "On Sunday - night Wheateley sent his daughter to bid him to come to Parson's - Close to mow Mr. Tempest's meadow there. Had heard that whoever - should mow the meadow should be beaten off the ground, and sent - to ask if he should bring a weapon. Wheateley sent word again - 'howe weapon boded peace, therefore bring his weapon with him.' - Brought his bow and shafts." - - -(g) _The Progress of Enclosure among the Peasantry_ - -While competitive conditions are creeping forward on those parts of the -village lands which have been most recently taken in, even more -momentous changes are occurring on the customary holdings themselves. By -the end of the fifteenth century we are walking through fields that are -being cut up with the hedges which give the dullest English landscape -the trim beauty of a garden. For a century and a half, while in the -great world the new state rises on the ruins of the Middle Ages, while -Tudors give way to Stuarts, and Stuarts browbeat and are browbeaten by -ever more impatient Parliaments, in courts customary and sometimes in -noisier assemblies not without arms, we shall be discussing whether -those hedges are to stand or fall. The great enclosing movement has -begun. - -Like most great economic changes it has begun quietly and for a long -time men are doubtful whether it is a great change at all, and, if it is -mischievous, in what exactly the mischief consists. Nor indeed does the -mass of the population, who feel the new conditions most, ever become -quite clear on this point. Events are too various and move too swiftly -for them. They see that great men enclose with little regard to the -interests of their poorer neighbours. They curse them for their -enclosures,[278] and believe with the faith of an age which has -re-discovered the Bible, that they, like greedy Ahab, the father of -enclosers, will be cursed. When the encloser should call on God to -witness his deed the devil's name starts to his lips. His cattle are -struck by lightning, and his children do not live to reap the fruits of -his iniquity. But the peasants enclose themselves, and though they feel -the difference between one sort of enclosing and another, they are -simple men who cannot make the matter plain to lawyers and -commissioners, and when things reach a certain point they will fight it -out. - - [278] For the popular attitude towards enclosures see below, pp. - 313-340, and Leland (quoted Hone, _The Manor and Manorial - Records_, p. 117): "The Duke of Buckingham made a fair park by - the Castle of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, and took very much - fair land in, very fruitful of corn, now fair lands for - coursing. The inhabitants cursed the Duke for those lands so - enclosed." I cannot refrain from quoting the following passage - (_Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii): "To the Right Honble. - House of Parliament now assembled, the Humble Petition of the - Mayor and Free Tenants of the Borough of Wootton Basset in the - Countie of Wilts, Humble sheweth to this Honourable House" [that - their common has been seized and enclosed by the lord of the - manor, who] "did divers times attempt to gaine the possession - thereof by putting in of divers sorts of cattle, in so much that - at length, when his servants did put in cowes by force into the - said common, many times and present upon the putting of them in, - the Lord in his mercy did send thunder and lightning from - heaven, which did make the cattle of the said Francis Englefield - [the lord of the Manor] to run so violent out of the said - ground, that at one time one of the beasts was killed therewith; - and it was so often that people that were not there in presence - to see it, when it thundered would say, Sir Francis Englefield's - men were putting in their cattle into the land, and so it was, - and as soon as those cattle were gone forth, it would presently - be very calm and fair, and the cattle of the towne would never - stir, but follow their feeding as at other times, and never - offer to move out of the way." For the allusion to invoking the - devil, see Moore, _The Crying Sin of England_, &c. It was said - that the grantees of monastic estates died out in three - generations (Erdeswick, _Survey of Stafford_, ed. Harwood, p. - 55). The same was said of enclosers (Moore, _op. cit._). - -In every age there are words which are sufficiently definite to become a -battle-cry, and yet which contain so many shades of meaning and are -susceptible of such varying interpretations, that those who seem to -differ most profoundly really differ because they are using the same -word to express quite different ideas. Such a word was enclosing. For -many years it was a burning question--with statesmen, with preachers, -with the mass of the peasantry. But those who tell us exactly what it -meant are few, and they tell us hardly more than is sufficient to show -that it meant several different things in different connections. The -picture of enclosure which carried Ket's followers against the walls of -Norwich was that immortalised two centuries later in Goldsmith's -"Deserted Village"; a vision of village cornfields turned into dreary -expanses of pasture, where sheep grazed amid ruined homesteads and -cattle were stalled in the mouldering churches.[279] When the scientific -agriculturists of the age eulogised enclosures, they thought of a more -orderly and productive cultivation arising in place of the intolerable -"mingle mangle" of the open fields. The Levellers, who in the -seventeenth century carried on the agitation against enclosure, had no -objection to such as took place "only or chiefly for the benefit of the -poor."[280] The panegyrists of enclosing like Fitzherbert and Norden -denounced[281] lords who made enclosure an occasion to rack-rent and -depopulate. The Justices of Nottinghamshire[282] complain to the -Government that enclosure drives people into the already overburdened -towns, but they are careful to explain that enclosures of less than five -acres in size improve agriculture without depopulating the country. The -Government itself under Elizabeth sets its face against the enclosures -which produce evictions, but nevertheless expressly sanctions the -exchanging of strips, which is desired chiefly in order that small -enclosures may be made.[283] In this phase of the eternal quarrel -between the plain man and the technical expert both the technical expert -and the plain man were right, and needed only a definition to unite -against the avarice and oppression which snatched a golden harvest from -their confusion. It is the tragedy of a world where man must walk by -sight that the discovery of the reconciling formula is always left to -future generations, in which passion has cooled into curiosity, and the -agonies of peoples have become the exercise of the schools. The devil -who builds bridges does not span such chasms till much that is precious -to mankind has vanished down them for ever. - - [279] See the ballad of Nowadays (1520): - - "Envy waxeth wonders strong, - The Riche doth the poore wrong, - God of his mercy sufferith long - The Devil his workes to worke. - The Townes go downe, the land decayes; - Of cornefeldes playne layes, - Gret men makithe now a dayes - A shepecote in the Church. - - The places that we Right holy call - Ordeyned ffor Christyan buriall - Off them to make an ox-stall - These men be wonders wyse; - Commons to close and kepe, - Poor folk for bred to cry and wepe; - Towns pulled down to pastur shepe, - This ys the newe gyse." - - [280] "The Leveller's Petition" (Bodleian Pamphlets, 1648, c. - 15, 3, Linc.). - - [281] Fitzherbert, _Surveying_: "I advertise and exhort in God's - behalf all manner of persons, that ... the lords do not heighten - the rents of their tenants or cause them to pay more rent or a - greater fine. A greater bribery and extortion a man cannot do - than upon his own tenants, for they dare not say him naye, nor - yet complain." Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book III.: - "Lords should not depopulate by usurping enclosures, a thing - hateful to God and offensive to man." - - [282] _Victoria County History, Nottinghamshire_, vol. ii. p. - 282. - - [283] 39 Eliz. c. i. - -One such distinction, however, we must draw at once. Enclosure is -usually thought of in connection with the encroachments made by lords of -manors or their farmers upon the land over which the manorial population -had common rights or which lay in the open arable fields. And this is on -the whole correct. This is what the word would have suggested to nine -men out of ten in our period: this aspect of the movement was the most -rapid in its development and the most far-reaching in its effects. But -there was another side to it which was at once earlier in point of time -and productive of quite dissimilar results. There is abundant evidence -to show that the open field system of agriculture, with its intermingled -strips and its collective, as opposed to individual, rules of -cultivation, was undergoing a gradual dissolution from within even -before the larger innovations of great capitalists gave it a shock from -without. At the very time when the peasantry agitated most bitterly they -were often hedging and ditching their own little holdings and nibbling -away fragments of the waste to be cultivated in severalty. It is, of -course, true that the effect of enclosure by the lord of a manor or -large farmer was usually very different from that of enclosure by the -customary tenants. The latter was a slow process of attrition, which -went on quietly from one generation to another, often no doubt after -discussions in the manorial court. The former was frequently an -invasion. But though their social effects were dissimilar, from a -technical point of view they were both part of the process through which -cultivation at the discretion of the individual was substituted for -cultivation in accordance with common customary rules. Enclosing by -lords and large farmers was not so much a movement running counter to -existing tendencies, as a continuation on a larger scale and with -different results of developments which in parts of England were already -at work. Great changes are best interpreted in the light of small, and -it will therefore be worth our while to look shortly at the sort of -enclosing which was being carried out by the peasantry themselves. - -First, one may review briefly what is told us by those who wrote on the -technique of agriculture. Fitzherbert[284] and Hales in the sixteenth -century, Norden and Lee in the seventeenth, make it quite plain that, -apart from enclosures carried out by lords of manors, a movement is -going on among the tenants which is also known by the name of enclosure. -It has as its object the formation of compact fields out of the -scattered strips, and the substitution of closes surrounded by hedges -for rights of grazing over the common pasture, meadow, and waste. It -has as its effects a great increase in the output of wheat, -opportunities for better grazing and stock-breeding, and a consequent -rise in the value of land; the improvement being partly due to -psychological[285] reasons, to the fact that a man who has a free hand -will put more labour into the land than one who is fettered by customary -rules, partly to technical causes such as the better draining and -cleaning of land which the enclosure of arable ground makes possible, -the greater security offered against damage done by straying cattle, the -improvement in the quality of pasture when it is no longer liable to be -eaten bare by the beasts of a whole township. The method by which such a -change takes place is re-allotment. The construction of -hedges--enclosing--is simply the machinery by which the new lines of -demarcation between one man's land and another's are drawn and kept -firmly in their place; and though the word _enclosure_ gives a vivid -picture of the alteration which is produced in the appearance of the -country, _re-allotment_ or _redivision_ of land describes much better -the process by which it is brought about. The ideal form of it is -described by Fitzherbert.[286] All the landlords in a village must come -to an agreement that their tenants should exchange their holdings with -each other. An exact statement of the area of land in tillage and -pasture held by each tenant must then be made. When this has been done, -every man is "to change with his neighbour, and to leye them (_i.e._ the -acres, which were formerly scattered) together, and to make him one -several close in every field, to leye them together in one field and to -make one several close for them all; and also another several close for -his portion of his common pasture, and also his portion of his meadow in -a several close by itself, and all kept in several both winter and -summer. And every cottager to have his portion assigned to him according -to his rent." Such enclosure does not, it is contended, interfere -unfairly with any one's vested interests. It makes a spatial -rearrangement of property, but it does not alter its economic -distribution. It does not result in evictions or depopulation. It simply -converts rights exercised jointly over a larger area into rights -exercised individually over a smaller one. The map is dissolved into -scattered pieces, but it is put together again; and when it is put -together all the pieces are still there. The tenants part with shares in -the common fields, meadows, and pastures, to get smaller fields, -meadows, and pastures to themselves. The latter are more valuable than -the former. What is lost in extension is gained in intension. - - [284] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. Norden, _op. cit._: "One - acre enclosed is worth one and halfe in common." _Commonweal of - this Realm of England_, p. 56. Lee, _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_. - - [285] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49: "That which - is possessed of many in common is neglected of all." - - [286] Fitzherbert, _Surveying_, chap. xl. - -But this account is an ideal one, a description of the most excellent -way, not necessarily a description of what is being actually done. For -that we must turn to the surveys. In the picture of agriculture which is -given by the surveyors one can see the open field system of cultivation -at almost every stage of completeness and disintegration at different -places. On many manors there is hardly any sign of the scattered strips, -which make up the individual tenant's holding, coalescing into -compactness, hardly any sign of encroachments upon either the common -pasture or the meadow or the waste. Elsewhere one finds that though the -bulk of the land still lies in the open fields, and though the greater -part of the meadow and pasture is undivided, a considerable proportion -has been enclosed by the tenants and is held in severalty. Elsewhere one -finds the common meadow split up and the arable enclosed, the arable -enclosed and the waste unenclosed, or all of them enclosed more or less -completely. It would be of great interest and importance to determine -the relative preponderance of enclosure by the tenants in different -parts of the country, and to see how far the districts where this type -of enclosure by consent had been commonest were identical with those -where the reports of the Royal Commissions of the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries show that depopulating enclosures made least way. -Very probably it would be found that the latter movement went on least -rapidly where the former had proceeded furthest, and that where the -tenants themselves had from an early date substituted enclosed for open -field husbandry, as apparently they had in Kent, Essex, Cornwall, and -parts of Devonshire[287] they had least to fear from that kind of -enclosure which was accompanied by encroachments on the part of manorial -authorities, and which seems to have produced most dislocation in the -Midlands and Eastern counties. But this is a suggestion which our -material is too scanty either to confirm or disprove. Enclosure by -consent did not cause popular disorder; and therefore we cannot say, -taking the country as a whole, how far enclosure on the part of the bulk -of the smaller tenants had proceeded. We can only give cases which show -that on some manors it had advanced very far, and which bear out the -evidence of the writers on agriculture as to there being a well-defined -movement away from open field husbandry on the part of the peasants -themselves, without attempting to determine its extent or its -geographical distribution. - - [287] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49. _Victoria - County History_, Essex. I am inclined to say "almost certainly" - rather than "very probably" (see below, pp. 167 and 262-263). - -Look, first, for example, at the picture given by the Commission of -1517. Thanks to Mr. Leadam,[288] we are able to say what the average -acreage of the enclosures in each county represented was, what -proportion of the enclosures was due to lords of manors, lay or -ecclesiastical, and what proportion was due to the tenants. Now it is -generally, though not universally, true that the enclosures reported to -this Commission fall into two main types. The first consists of -considerable enclosures carried out mainly by lords of manors. The -second consists of smaller enclosures carried out mainly by other -classes. Thus the five districts where the average size of the -enclosures made is largest are Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, -Yorkshire North Riding, Yorkshire West Riding, Yorkshire East Riding, -where it is 129, 96, 84, 77, 62 acres respectively, and in these the -proportion of the enclosures which is due to the lords of manors is high -also--72 per cent., 52 per cent., 79 per cent., 92 per cent., 64 per -cent. Contrast with the position in these counties that obtaining in -Berkshire, in Salop, and in London and its suburbs. In Berkshire the -average size of an enclosure is 32 acres, in Salop 18, in London 10, and -in these districts the lords play a much smaller part in enclosing. -They are responsible for 42 per cent. of the acreage enclosed in -Berkshire, 12 per cent. of that enclosed in Salop, 3 per cent. of that -enclosed in the vicinity of London. Does not this suggest that in parts -of the country--we cannot yet say what parts--there is much small -enclosing by small men? - - [288] _Trans. R. H. S._, New Series, vol. vi., and _The Domesday - of Enclosures_. - -Turn next to the story told by the surveys. Though Wiltshire is on the -whole a country of recent enclosure, there was a certain amount of -several farming on the part of the customary tenants on the Wiltshire -manors in the middle of the sixteenth century. Out of 4128-1/4 acres -held by them on eight manors the surveys show that 202-1/4 acres lie in -closes.[289] This is a very small proportion, only 5 per cent., and -suggests that on most of them the holdings lay in the open fields, and -that, as a general rule, the common utilisation of meadows and pastures -still obtained. On one, however, as much as 132 acres out of 1103, or -just under 12 per cent. were enclosed, and at best these are minimum -figures which do not accurately represent how far the movement had gone; -for, though a surveyor would not describe unenclosed land as enclosed, -he might very well class enclosed land with other land of the same -description, for example as meadow or pasture, and omit to state that it -was occupied in severalty. On some Staffordshire[290] manors again there -are similar tentative beginnings of enclosure, and a similar -impossibility of determining its actual extent. Then, too, there are -manors where the greater part of the land still lies in the open fields, -but where enclosure has proceeded a little further. At Salford,[291] in -Bedfordshire, eight of the tenants have enclosed about 51 acres, which -they hold separate from, and in addition to, their holdings in the open -fields, in amounts varying from 2 to 17 acres. At Weeden Weston,[292] -in Northamptonshire, the three largest tenants (apart from the farmer of -the demesne) hold "in several ground enclosed" 28 acres. In addition to -this, part of the manor called "the mere land," the exact nature of -which is obscure, has been broken off and split up among all the -fourteen tenants, some holding only 2 or 3 acres, others holding 15 or -20 acres. Finally, as examples of manors where enclosure by the -customary tenants was carried furthest, we may take those of -Edgeware[293] and Kingsbury in Middlesex. From the admirable maps of -these two manors, which were made in 1597, no one could even guess that -the open field method of cultivation had ever existed there. The land of -each of the numerous tenants lies in fields, often quite small fields, -which are separated from each other by hedges. Instead of the "spider's -web" of the older method we have the irregular chessboard of modern -agriculture. - - [289] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of the Manors of William, First - Earl of Pembroke_. The manors are South Newton, Washerne, - Donnington, Knyghton Estoverton and Phiphelde, Wynterbourne - Basset, Byschopeston, and South Brent and Huish (the last in - Somersetshire.) The manor where most is enclosed by the - customary tenants is Donnington. - - [290] _e.g._, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, - No. 70, Barton (3 & 4 Ph. and Mary): "J. Whiting ... 1 close of - 7 acres by copy ... J. Whiting ... 1/2 virgate ... 1 intake of 2 - acres by copy." - - [291] All Souls' Maps (survey on back of map of Salford). - - [292] _Ibid._, Weedon Weston. - - [293] _Ibid._, Edgeware and Kingbury. All these four instances - come from the last decade of the sixteenth century. - -These instances tell us nothing of the origin, extent, or distribution -of the movement which they represent. They are useful merely as offering -concrete specimens of enclosure on the parts of free and customary -tenants, which confirm what is told us by the surveyors. There was -certainly a well-defined trend away from the methods of common field -agriculture taking place in the course of the sixteenth century and -before it on the part of the peasantry. We can, however, go further than -this; and premising that in the infinite variety of rural conditions in -different parts of the country any classification must be somewhat -arbitrary, we can distinguish two main elements in the movement. - -In the first place there is among the tenants on some manors something -like a deliberate movement towards the substitution of "several" for -open field husbandry. This was a change which occurred almost -spontaneously when the economic interests of the majority of tenants -were pushing in the same direction, and can be seen affecting both -pasture, meadow, and arable holdings. The Commission[294] of 1517 found -that in certain places land had been enclosed neither by individual -landlords, nor by individual tenants, but by "the village," and the -manorial documents give us a clue to what such entries mean. In the -surveys of the sixteenth century we not infrequently find that meadows -and pastures which were originally occupied in common have been split up -among the tenants, so that each has the exclusive occupation of a few -acres, the share which each tenant takes being proportioned more or less -exactly to his holding of arable in a manner which precludes the idea -that the change can have taken place by piecemeal individual -encroachments, or in any way except by an intentional redistribution of -land, in which the interests of all the tenants received -consideration.[295] Such a division of meadow and pasture is paralleled -by cases in which the re-allotment of arable holdings is carried out -both by freeholders and by copyholders almost exactly in the manner -prescribed by Fitzherbert. Thus at Ewerne,[296] in Dorsetshire, the -customary tenants got permission from the lord to make enclosure on the -open fields; appointed persons to "extend and tread them out," and then -united the dispersed strips into compact holdings, so that "the more -part of the manor was enclosed, and every tenant and farmer occupied his -land several to himself." At Mudford, in Somersetshire, the tenants were -found by the surveyor in 1568 to be contemplating the same step. A -similar course was taken in the early seventeenth century on several -Northumbrian manors, of which Cowpen[297] may be taken as a typical -example. - - [294] _e.g._ Whitecote (Salop) 40 acres, and at Wyndeferthing - (Norf.) 25 acres are enclosed by the _villata_ (see Leadam, - _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi.). - - [295] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. At Washerne - nineteen out of twenty-one customary tenants held separate - pieces of meadow and pasture, the largest 7-1/2 and the smallest - 3-1/2 acres, but usually almost equal. At Donnyngton, twelve out - of thirty-two customary tenants had pieces of land "extractum de - communia." R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancaster, Bdle. - 3, No. 29, Agarsley (Staffs., 1611).; here the pasture appears - to have been divided up among the copyholders, but there are - considerable inequalities in their shares. - - [296] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - - [297] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. In this case - enclosure was carried out by the freeholders. But the procedure - is similar to that at Ewerne. The allusion to "justice and - right" shows what the reason for the intermixing of strips had - been. - -The procedure followed by the freeholders of that township was to get -their land surveyed by an expert, to divide it into two great portions, -and to agree that each man should have an allotment in one or other of -the two divisions proportionate to the holding which he had occupied in -the open fields, due regard being had to the quality as well as the -acreage of each holding, "so that some have not all the best ground and -others all the worst, but that each man have justice and right." Such -instances may prove to be exceptional in the sixteenth century; it is -our impression that they were, and that the attempts which the peasantry -made to overcome the difficulties associated with the open field system -of cultivation more often took the form of individual exchanging of -strips, than of a formal agreement to abandon one method of cultivation -and to adopt another. But, even though exceptional, they are of some -interest as offering complete examples of changes which have been going -on more generally on a smaller scale and in a less systematic manner. -They afford a striking contrast to the enclosing by the manorial -authorities which we shall examine in a future chapter, and offer an -analogy to the enclosures which were carried out in the eighteenth and -nineteenth centuries. They resemble the latter in being a deliberate -attempt to make a clean sweep of the old system of open field -agriculture. They differ from them in being the outcome of voluntary -agreement among the tenants, not of legislation.[298] - - [298] We know why lords wanted to enclose much better than we - know why tenants wanted to enclose. Here is a petition from a - freeholder (_Northumberland County History_, vol. v. undated): - "To the Right Honourable Earl of Northumberland, William Bednell - ... gent., humbly prayeth: That where the said village of Over - Buston is held in common ... it would please your good lordship - to consent that partition may be made of the same, and that also - there may be convenient exchange of the arable lands lyinge in - the common fields there to be rateable reduced into severall by - the same partition for the reasons under-written. - - "First, for that the common and pasture of the said village - lying open, unfenced upon the common and fields of Wordon and - Bilton, wherein are many tenants and great number of cattle, the - profits of the same are continually by them surcharged, and your - lordship's tenants prevented. - - "By reason hereof divers quarrels and variances have happened, - and daily like to ensue between the tenants of both towns, by - chasing, rechasing, and impounding of their cattle damage - fezant, which cannot be kept out but by perpetual staffherding, - to the great charge of your honour's poor tenants. - - "Your lordship's tenants being four in number, unprovided to - keep able horses by reason of the want of convenient pastures - and meadow, may be enabled by this particion for that purpose. - - "Inclosure would greatly strengthen the said village, and your - lordship's tenants, against the incursions of Scotts and foren - ryders, which otherwyse, lying open, cannot be defended by the - number there, who are forced to watch generally together every - night, to their great charge and endurable toil. - - "This breeding betterment to the soil and ease to your - lordship's tenants will augment your honour's revenue there, - avoid forren commoners, prevent contentions, enable your - lordship's tenants to do your honour their requisite service, - and bind your orator to pray that your lordship live long in - happy state." - -Much more general, however, than enclosure by agreement of the whole -township, is the enclosure which takes place through the initiative of -individual tenants, who, without any common agreement as to a policy of -enclosure being reached by the village community as a whole, make -sporadic encroachments on the common pasture or waste, and consolidate -their arable holdings by exchanging strips with their neighbours. Our -best information on the first point is obtained from the manorial court -rolls. The court was the guardian of the customary methods of -cultivation. How far it could maintain them against a lord or his farmer -who wished to break them down, and how far it was merely his mouthpiece, -is a difficult question, which we need not at present discuss. Certainly -it did occasionally uphold the common rule of the township even against -the lord; certainly the mere fact that when that rule is uncertain the -lord refers the matter to the court in the form of a series of questions -which it is to answer, gave the tenants the opportunity of building up a -kind of case law which can hardly have failed to act as a brake upon -arbitrary action by the manorial authorities. But however impotent it -may often have been when confronted by an enclosing lord of the manor, -its rules set very effective limits to the discretion exercised by -tenants in their agricultural arrangements, and it checked enclosing by -individuals for several reasons. It was of the essence of the open field -system of tillage, and of the joint use of common meadows and pastures, -that unauthorised encroachments by a single tenant should be an -inconvenience to his neighbours. If made on the arable, they might -interfere with the customary rotation of crops, and would certainly -diminish the area of land available for the village cattle on the -fallows and after harvest. If made on the common waste, they threw the -village economy into confusion by upsetting the arrangements under -which each holding could place so many beasts to be grazed there. "It -is both law and reason," wrote a surveyor grieved by such aggression on -the part of a large tenant, "that every tenant of like land and like -rent have like portion in all things upon the common pasture."[299] The -court, as the upholder of manorial custom, was occupied with discovering -and checking breaches of it. On manors where there was not sufficient -grazing land to allow of each tenant pasturing as many beasts as he -pleased, it fixed "the stint" which each was allowed to turn out on the -common. It decided whether rights of pasture were confined to old -tenements or whether they could be extended to cottages recently -erected. It made rules as to what fields should be sown with what crops. -It would fine a man "for refusing to consult his neighbours touching the -common affairs of the township."[300] - - [299] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. The Surveyor of - Buston (1569). - - [300] _Ibid._ - -Such action does not, of course, necessarily imply any highly developed -communal organisation of village life. When four householders to-day -bring an action against a fifth who has interfered with "ancient -lights," they act simply as individuals who are temporarily united in -defence of a common interest, and when a court customary fines a man for -over-stocking the common pasture, it is possible to argue that there is -no more in its action than the temporary alliance of individuals to -suppress a nuisance. Yet such a view of the matter is incomplete. The -common interest is there in both cases; but in the case of the village -community it is a permanent, not merely a passing, ground for -co-operation; and if we must take to heart the warnings given by some -legal historians not to see communism where there is only joint action, -we must also insist that common action, which is in effect communal -action, is quite possible without those who act either possessing, or -feeling the need of possessing, any definite status.[301] It is perhaps -not too presumptuous to suggest that the very precision with which the -lawyer applies his keen analysis of juristic conceptions to remove the -misconceptions of the lay mind, is sometimes an obstacle to the -understanding of forms of organisation created by the daily routine of -men quite unversed in the law. An employers' association or a trade -union to-day in an industry which is not highly organised is, during -two-thirds of its life, a mere collection of individuals. But in an -emergency it can show very effectively that it is the organ of a common -will. It is surely rather hard to deny the peasantry some measure of -corporate management of common interests because they cannot answer -questions as to the legal nature of a corporation, because they do not -express their communal arrangements by the use of terms of art which -they would not have understood. The economist, at any rate, will look at -practice rather than theory. He will be inclined to doubt whether the -villagers were any clearer as to the basis of their associated action -than the mass of trade unionists were between 1875 and 1906. But he will -see that, like trade unionists, they do in fact habitually act together -and act effectively for the regulation of their common interests. No -doubt such action was often mere adherence to a customary rule. But it -is possible again to draw the antithesis between custom and organisation -too sharply. After all custom does not work by itself. Especially in -times of change, like the sixteenth century, it only works in so far as -men make it work. On some manors it is frequently changed by the court, -and clearly, when it is changed, we have not automatism but deliberate -action. - - [301] For references to the discussion on this point, see below, - p. 244. - -But the power of a rule is not recognised till it is broken, and it is -just these collisions between the plan of cultivation upheld by the -court and the interests of individual tenants, which show how prevalent -are the small enclosures made by the latter. They begin very early and -are increasingly frequent throughout the fifteenth century. Let us make -the picture more precise by giving one or two instances. In 1405 some -customary tenants at Forncett[302] are fined 2s. 2d. because "they have -made enclosures of their lands within the manor against the custom of -the manor, on account of which action the tenants of the manor are not -able to have their common there." In 1418 the court at Castle[303] Combe -presents that three tenants "have sown the common fields and kept them -several without the licence of the lord, when they ought to be common, -to the common damage." At Ingoldmells,[304] in 1437, the court impounds -the sheep of some tenants who have "entered upon the fields of Burgh and -occupied the common there, where they have no common." At Coventry[305] -from the middle of the fifteenth century, and at Southampton[306] -throughout almost the whole of the century and a half following, -continuous war was waged by the Court Leet against those who "oppressed -the common" by over-stocking it with more than their authorised quota of -beasts. Yet, in spite of elaborate and ever-changing regulations which -were made as to the number which any person might place upon it, in -spite of bye-laws requiring them to be delivered personally or through a -servant into the charge of the town herdsman, ruling off aged animals -which were past work, and imposing heavy fines on offenders, the -constant references in the documents of the sixteenth century to pieces -of land which are held by customary tenants in severalty show that this -sporadic individualising of part of the manorial area had to a great -extent broken down the customary routine of cultivation, even on manors -where no extensive enclosures were carried out by the manorial -authorities. - - [302] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 80. - - [303] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 236. - - [304] Massingberd, _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_, p. 276. - - [305] M.D. Harris, _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii., pp. 445, 456, - 510, and elsewhere. - - [306] Hearnshaw, _Court Leet Records of Southampton, passim, - e.g._ 1551: "Thomas Betts and Thomas Fuller continue to oppress - the common with sheep, therefore they are fined 8s. each" (p. - 21). - -So far we have spoken of the encroachments by tenants on the common -pasture. The growth of several occupation could occur there with less -disturbance than on the arable holdings, because, if the pasture was a -large one, the clipping off of a corner might leave the other tenants -with more than was sufficient for their cattle. But enclosure made by -one tenant on the open arable fields created a disturbance which was -immediate and obvious. Indeed, if his holding lay in scattered strips, -separated from each other by the strips of his neighbours, how could he -enclose at all? He would at once come into collision with their demand -that his holding should lie open for grazing purposes after harvest. -Moreover, even from his own point of view, enclosure could hardly -pay, for he would have to put hedges round each of 30 or 40 or 50 acre -and half acre plots. One would expect, therefore, that individual -tenants would be slow to undertake the hedging and ditching of their -arable holdings; and this expectation is on the whole confirmed by the -impression which one gets from the surveys and from the accounts of -contemporaries.[307] On the tenants' arable land enclosure has not -proceeded by the middle of the sixteenth century as far as on their -pasture and meadow. Yet, even in this matter, the tendency is perhaps to -exaggerate the stability of agricultural conditions. Even on the arable -fields themselves individual tenants set themselves to overcome the -obstacles in the way of enclosure, and they do so in the only way they -can, by attempting first of all to consolidate their strips into larger -holdings. This tendency is revealed most clearly by the open field maps. -The picture of mediæval agriculture, to which Mr. Seebohm has accustomed -us, is one in which holdings were made up of strips which lay scattered -over the open fields at a considerable distance from each other. In the -sixteenth century this condition of things survived in its entirety on -many manors and partially on most. But, side by side with it, there is -going on a process by which the strips coalesce into larger bundles, so -that one tenant's pieces of land, instead of being far apart, very often -lie next to each other, forming blocks of several acres. Those who make -maps show the change by putting brackets round the contiguous -strips.[308] Written surveys, instead of describing parts of holdings -with the words "lying between the land of A and the land of B," call -attention to the new condition of things, which is still sufficiently -unusual to deserve remark, with the words "lying together."[309] -Sometimes in the maps one finds twelve or twenty strips bracketed as -belonging to one man; sometimes the surveys state that 16 or 20 acres -lie together. But even 10 acres is a big field, quite big enough to -repay the cost of hedging and ditching. When sufficient strips have -become contiguous to form a close of this size one great obstacle to -enclosure has been removed. Unity of cultivation has been added to unity -of ownership. The difficulty that enclosure will probably, though not -necessarily, mean the exclusion of the other tenants' beasts after -harvest still remains. But an individual tenant will no longer find -enclosure impossible if he can persuade his neighbours to acquiesce in -it. In fact he does sometimes persuade them, and in the midst of fields -which are still open one finds here and there blocks which have been -enclosed. - - [307] _e.g. The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 56: - "And weare it not that oure grounde lieth in the common fieldes, - intermingled one with another, I thincke also oure fieldes had - been inclosed, of a common agreement of all the townshippe, - longe ere this time." - - [308] See opposite, the map of part of Salford. - - [309] Merton Documents, No. 5209, Rental of Ibstone (about - 1600): "Item, Thomas Skott holdeth ix acres as it is estymed - lieinge together in Tillage." "John ... holdeth 16 acres of - Lande lieinge together in Redfield." - -[Illustration: I. PART OF THE MANOR OF SALFORD, IN BEDFORDSHIRE (1590.)] - -[Illustration: II. PART OF THE MANOR OF EDGEWARE, IN MIDDLESEX (1597.)] - -[Illustration: III. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF MAIDS MORTON IN -BUCKSHIRE (1580.)] - -[Illustration: IV. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF CRENDON IN -BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (ABOUT 1590.) ] - -[Illustration: V. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF WEEDON WESTON IN -NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1590.)] - -[Illustration: VI. MAP OF THE MANOR OF WHADBOROUGH IN LEICESTERSHIRE -(1620.)] - - -Nor can we doubt that this process of forming strips into blocks took -place through deliberate action on the part of tenants, though we need -not assume that the probability of its leading to enclosure was always -foreseen. The amalgamation of the scattered parts of a single holding -had sufficient advantages to commend it without any further change, and -enclosure may often have been an afterthought. How could this -amalgamation come about? It would naturally take place by a process of -exchange[310] between tenants. As we have seen, the tenants were from an -early date buying and selling, leasing and sub-letting, parts of their -holdings. What could be more reasonable than that in doing so they -should have regard to the situation of the plots which they acquired, -and so arrange their bargains as gradually to substitute a few larger -blocks for many scattered strips? This hypothesis (for it is only a -hypothesis) receives a certain amount of confirmation from a curious -fact to which attention was called for the first time by Professor -Unwin.[311] It occasionally happens that we find the very tenants who -sell and let part of their holdings are buying and leasing parts of -other holdings from their neighbours. Thus, at Gorleston,[312] in -Suffolk, a customary tenant sublets about half his holding of 12 acres -to as many as eight other persons, and at the same time acquires plots -of land from another eight holdings himself. At Crondal[313] Richard -Wysdon adds enormously to his half-virgate by encroachments, and at the -same time sublets 2-1/2 acres to Hugh Sweyn. Henry Simmond enters on -land belonging to the same Richard Wysdon, and in turn transfers 8 acres -of his holding to Matilda Huthe. What is relevant to the question in -these transactions is not the mere sub-letting and selling of land. -That, as we have seen, was common enough. The noticeable thing is that -the same tenant who surrenders part of his holding acquires part of the -holdings of other people. After the transactions are completed he holds -about as much land as before, only it is differently arranged. May it -not be that the desire that it should be differently arranged was one of -the motives of the double transaction, and that in this way he sought to -substitute for his dispersed strips a compacter and more manageable -holding? Is he not like a shareholder who sells out Canadian Pacifics -and invests in Consols, in order to have his property more directly -under his own eye? At any rate such an explanation would account for the -undoubted fact that in the sixteenth century holdings are much more -compact than they are in the thirteenth century. But whether it is -correct or not the growth towards compactness is a fact, and a fact -which makes possible the enclosure of holdings in the open fields. - - [310] Exchanges are not uncommon, _e.g._ Roxburghe Club, - _Pembroke Surveys_, Manor of South Brent and Huish: "Note that - the same Thomas with leave of the Court has exchanged the said - acre lying near Appleworth with John Moore, customary tenant of - the lord, for one acre lyinge in Holmefield." Mr. Kolthammer has - called my attention to a case (Ashford Court Rolls, 1605), in - which a tenant gives up a number of half acre strips lying - between the lands of another, and receives in exchange some - strips of the latter which lie between his own. - - [311] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, Social and Economic - History. - - [312] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, Social and Economic - History. - - [313] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 134, 149, 152, 154-155. - -It is plain from these and similar instances that there was a -well-defined movement from the fourteenth century onwards which made for -the gradual modification or dissolution of the open field system of -cultivation, and that it originated not on the side of the lord or the -great farmer, but on the side of the peasants themselves, who tried to -overcome the inconvenience of that system by a spontaneous process of -re-allotment, sometimes, but not always, in conjunction with actual -enclosure. On one manor it proceeded by the piecemeal encroachments of -individuals, on another by the deliberate division of the common meadow -or pasture, on a third by the voluntary exchanging by tenants of their -strips so as to build up compact holdings, on a fourth by the -redistribution of the arable land. It was a spontaneous movement in the -sense of being initiated by the tenants and not merely forced upon them. -The economic, as distinct from the legal, arrangements of the village -community were much less rigid than some of the books about it would -suggest. The open field system of cultivation was, in fact, already in -slow motion in several parts of England, when the impact of the large -grazier struck it, enormously accelerated the speed of the movement, and -diverted it on to lines which were new and disastrous to the bulk of the -rural population. - -This aspect of the enclosures, though not overlooked by contemporaries, -has perhaps hardly received the emphasis which it deserves from modern -writers. For one thing, a recollection of it explains certain apparent -contradictions, the difference in the views expressed by different -writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the social -effect of enclosures, the disagreement between Mr. Leadam and Professor -Gay as to whether enclosing was or was not usually followed by -conversion to pasture, the strange statement of Hales[314] that "the -chief destruccion of Townes and decaye of houses was before the -beginning of the reigne of Kynge Henry the Seventh." The latter remark -can hardly have been true of the great and sudden evictions which caused -rioting and depopulation, and evoked the long series of statutes which -begin in 1489. It may well have been a curt summary of the impression -produced by a century of gradual consolidation and piecemeal enclosures -carried out by the smaller cultivators. It would seem, again, to be the -case that while landlords usually enclosed with the object of putting -sheep where men had been, the tenants of customary holdings enclosed -simply for the sake of better arable farming, or for the more convenient -employment of meadow and pasture land. That is why Hales could make -himself detested by landlords as the chairman of the only effective -committee of Somerset's ill-starred Enclosure Commission, and at the -same time say that certain kinds of enclosure are "very beneficiall to -the commonweal." That is why Fuller and Moore a century later could damn -enclosure in one sentence and qualify their verdict in the next. That is -why Moore's numerous critics could repudiate his aspersions with some -acrimony, and nevertheless admit that "when townes are in the hands of -one or few men ... enclosure doth produce depopulation."[315] - - [314] "The defence of John Hales agenst certyn sclaundres and - false reaportes made of hym" (Appendix to Miss Lamond's - introduction to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. - liii.). Two things make the effect of the fifteenth century - enclosures obscure. First, the pamphlets on popular grievances - which begin in the sixteenth century were hardly possible before - the general use of the printing press. Second, in the sixteenth - century people appealed to the Tudor government for protection - because it was strong enough to give it. In the fifteenth - century there was no Government to preserve order, let alone - protect the poorer classes. Even if there were, therefore, - extensive enclosures producing depopulation, we might very well - hear little of them. But, while confessing ignorance, I think - Hales' statement compatible with the view expressed above and on - page 138, note 1, that the fifteenth century was a time when the - consolidation of holdings was going forward slowly through the - small speculations of the peasants. - - [315] _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures_ (Pseudonismus). - -For another thing, the prevalence of small enclosures suggests that the -view of those who represent the agriculture of the period as needing a -violent shock to rouse it from a state of intolerable inefficiency can -only be accepted with considerable qualification. We know that by the -middle of the sixteenth century in certain counties, notably Kent, -Essex, and Devonshire, the common field system of cultivation was -already the exception and not the rule. We know, too, that though in -parts of these counties its absence may have been due to differences in -the original forms of settlement and clearance, it had elsewhere -disappeared within historical times. We may conjecture that the reason -why it decayed sooner in Kent and Essex than elsewhere was the fact that -the neighbourhood of those counties to London and the sea, and to the -commercial routes from the Continent, caused the influence of commerce -and of a money economy to be felt there sooner than in the Midlands, -with the natural result of accelerating economic and agrarian changes, -and that in the examples quoted above we have the same process of -individualisation in the method of agriculture going on quietly -elsewhere in a way which would sooner or later have brought about a -similar result to that which had already occurred in those two -progressive districts. At any rate these rearrangements suggest a good -deal of adaptability among the tenants who carried them out, and not the -condition of organised torpor which some writers profess to find in the -unenclosed village. That communal cultivation was incompatible with -swift change may be granted. Of that fact its survival into almost our -own day is a sufficient proof. That it prevented improvements altogether -must be denied; and though no doubt to large farmers and impatient -surveyors the petty operations of the smaller tenants seemed intolerably -dilatory and wasteful, the student who looks at them in an age which has -some experience of economic revolutions may well doubt whether rapid -technical progress cannot be bought too dear, and regret that the -gradual movement towards more rational methods of farming on the part of -the small man was so soon overtaken by one over which the small man -could exercise no effective control. Now, as then, land agents shake -grave heads at the wastefulness of sacrificing the well-ordered dignity -of a great estate to the encouragement of undercapitalised, untidy, -higgledy-piggledy small holdings, and prove by arithmetic that the -labourer has more comforts for less work. Now, as then, in those -countries where the peasant tradition has not died altogether away, the -unreasonable creature prefers starving on land which is his own, though -it be but a tiny patch where he sweats from dawn to dark. - -If it be objected to the view which we have taken of the slow spread of -enclosure among the peasantry that they were notoriously opposed to -enclosing, we must answer by repeating that there was nothing -inconsistent in approving one kind and detesting another. After all -there is no curse attached to landmarks, but only to the man who removes -his neighbour's. Even in an open field village no one had a -conscientious objection to fences in general; it all depended on where -the fences were put. The object of enclosure was to shut in, or to shut -out, or to do both. The villagers were not unwilling that an agreement -should be reached whereby each man should shut his own beasts in a close -of pasture, and shut out the beasts of other people from his arable -after harvest. On the contrary, it was sometimes a grievance[316] that -enclosure was not allowed. What they objected to was that one man should -exclude others without compensation from rights of pasture or from their -arable holdings. Moreover, provided that enclosure took place by -consent, the advantages of it were overwhelming. When the superior[317] -value of enclosed over unenclosed land was so marked that the former was -sometimes assessed to subsidies at a higher rate than the latter, a man -who, like many of our tenants, had money to spend on timber, would -naturally wish to enclose. The growth of pasture farming by large -graziers turned the minds of the smaller tenants in the direction of -enclosing for themselves, because this, paradoxical though it may seem -when the outcry against enclosure is remembered, was the most obvious -way in which they could protect themselves. The explanation is that the -system of open field cultivation and of common pasturage made it -peculiarly easy for one large shareholder to ruin the rest by letting -his cattle stray at large over the common, and even by encroachments on -his neighbour's strips. Its underlying principle had been the -apportionment of rights on a basis which was settled by the custom of -the manor, as opposed to the acquisition by individuals for themselves -of such rights as they could obtain by economic power, or by the -accumulation of capital. This was the meaning of the strict allotment of -grazing privileges by the establishment of a stint which each tenant, or -rather each tenement, was not to exceed. The limitation to the capital -which a man could acquire in the shape of stock--cattle and sheep--was -practicable as long as that capital was small. When it became large, as -in the sixteenth century it did, it was too powerful to be dammed up by -the rules as to cultivation enforced in the manorial court, and the -outward sign of this was the failure of the latter to prevent the -"overcharging" both of the common waste, and of the common pasture -formed by the field after harvest, with the beasts of the large grazier. -Hence in some places the enclosing of pasture or arable was used by the -tenants as a way of protecting themselves: at Mudford the tenants, at -Newham and Tughall the surveyor in the interests of the tenants, at -Southampton the Leet jury, were anxious[318] for enclosing, in order -that the weak barriers which the custom of the manor offered to the -farmers' or to neighbouring villagers' depredations might be -supplemented by a strong quickset hedge. What damaged the smaller -tenants, and produced the popular revolts against enclosure, was not -merely enclosing, but enclosing accompanied either by eviction and -conversion to pasture, or by the monopolising of common rights. When -some of the tenants became large capitalists, what the rest lost by -surrendering common rights might be more than compensated by the -security which they thus obtained of grazing their own beasts -undisturbed on a smaller area. - - [316] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of - Whitford: "I woulde wish that the same [the common] were divided - among the tenants yielding some small rente ... the poore men - with dyligence and labour woulde soon convert yt to amendement, - and alter the nature thereof, but the ritche men will not - consent to that, for yt is as good to them as theire several - grounde or pasture. The poore are not able to store yt with - cattle, nor to use the commodytie as they might do if welth - woulde serve them. But the rytche do consume their own parts and - their neighbouris also: and that is the cause they will not - consent to the enclosure and partition thereof." - - [317] There is interesting documentary proof of the statements - of surveyors. Warwickshire MSS. Quarter Sessions Records, - Michaelmas, 1636: "Fforasmuche as this Courte is informed that - Overhinton (?) in this countie consists of 30 yardlands, of - which 22 are enclosed and 8 yardlands thereof residue in the - possession of Thomas [surname illegible] do lie in the common - fields, and whereas the same 8 yardlands lyinge in the comon - fields have been heretofore rated equally and proportionablie in - all levies with thother yardlands, the said 22 yard of inclosed - land being worth xx [pounds], for every yardland and the seid - other 8 yardlands being worth but after the rate of x the - yardland, it is ordered that the said 8 yardlands shall from - henceforth pay in all levies but after the rate of x pounds for - every yardland and the said 22 yardlands after the rate of xx - pounds for every yardland, unless the owners of the said 22 - yardlands shall att the next sessions uppon convenient notice - hereof to them given shewe cause to the contrarie." The Justices - do not understand the taxation of unimproved land. - - [318] See _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., for Mudford; - for Newham and Tughall, _Northumberland County History_, vol. - i.; for Southampton, Hearnshaw, _Court Leet Records of - Southampton_. - -At the same time, though voluntary enclosing by the peasants was partly -a symptom of the overshadowing of small property by large, it was much -more than this, and was due partly to a change in their methods of -agriculture, and partly, perhaps, to a genuine progress in the technique -of cultivation. This is indicated by the enthusiasm of the expert -opinion of the period for "several" holdings, and by the qualified -praise of discriminating critics like Hales.[319] As we have seen -above, there were parts of England--for example, "the sweet country of -Tandeane," described by Norden--where cultivation was quite intensive in -character, and intensive cultivation naturally gave an impetus to the -individualising of arable holdings. Again, the advantage to the cattle -breeder of "several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, the which -would be well quicksetted, hedged, and ditched,"[320] was a commonplace. -It has been already pointed out that on many manors of Southern and -Eastern England the customary tenants were sheep farmers on a -considerable scale. The adjustment of common rights must always have -involved some difficulty: the fixing of so many head of beasts to each -tenement was obviously a rough and ready arrangement based on the idea -that the holding in the arable fields was the backbone of a man's -substance, and that therefore it might properly be taken as a standard -by which his rights of pasture and common could fairly be measured. The -problems which arose could be imagined, even if they were not described -for us at some length: "Where fields lie open and the land is used in -common, he that is rich and fully stocked (up to the limit allowed) -eateth with his cattle not his own part only, but also his neighbour's -who is poor and out of stock. Besides that, it is an ordinary practice -with unconscionable people to keep above their just proportion ... those -who have consciences large enough to do it will lengthen their ropes, or -stake them down so that their horses may reach into other men's -lots."[321] As long as the great bulk of the customary tenants relied -for a livelihood mainly on the subsistence farming of the arable land, -these practical difficulties were probably not felt very keenly, because -the comparatively few beasts which were kept could pick up a living -without overcrowding each other. But when the raising of stock became -almost as important as the cultivation of arable, the demand for more -pasture and for better pasture grew enormously, and in the face of the -competition for it the strict maintenance of the customary stint became -more difficult. On manors where 150 or 200 sheep were kept by almost -every tenant the motive either to enclose surreptitiously and in -defiance of the custom of the manor, or to divide and enclose meadow and -pasture by agreement, must have been extremely strong. Ought we not to -ask why the open field system survived so long, rather than why it -partially disappeared in the sixteenth century? - - [319] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49: "I meane - not all inclosures, nor yet all commons, but only of such - inclosures as turneth commonly arable lands into pastures; and - violent inclosures, without recompence of them that have right - to comen therein; for if land weare severallie inclosed, to the - intent to continue husbandrie thereon, and everie man, that had - Right to Common, had for his portion a pece of the same to - himselfe enclosed, I thincke no harme but rather good should - come thereof, yf everie man did agre theirto." - - [320] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. - - [321] Pseudonismus, 1654, _Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures_. - -We may now summarise the argument of this part of our work. The manor, -as we see it from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, is not -the rigid, motionless organisation which it is sometimes represented as -being. Though it is governed by custom, custom leaves room for the -growth of commercial relationships on the extending fringe of new land -over which the village spreads; for the withdrawal by the villagers of -part of their holdings from the common scheme of open field husbandry, -the division of meadows and pastures, the exchanging of strips, the -formation of closes like those represented in the map on the opposite -page, which a man can use as he pleases and over which the customary -routine of agriculture has no authority. This side of the enclosing -movement, more properly described as redivision and reallotment than as -enclosure, develops earliest in those parts of the country which, owing -to their geographical position, are particularly exposed to the -dissolving forces of trade and of a money economy. But with the -improvement in the condition of the peasantry and the growth of pasture -farming it spreads far afield, and by the middle of the sixteenth -century, quite apart from the large changes introduced by lords of -manors and capitalist farmers, it has effected a considerable alteration -in the methods of agriculture even of the more stationary inland -counties. Such piecemeal alterations are a gradual process; they are not -regarded unfavourably by the peasantry; and a balance between their -tentative individualism and the rule of communal custom is preserved by -the action of the manorial court. They are to be carefully -distinguished from the sweeping innovations of the sixteenth century, -which alone deserve the name of an Agrarian Revolution. But they are -closely connected with that revolution. For by making a breach in the -walls of custom they bring us to the edge of two great problems, the -growth of competitive rents, and the formation of large pasture farms -out of the holdings of evicted tenants. - -We have spoken at length of the prosperity of the peasants, because it -is necessary to appreciate it in order to sympathise with the point of -view from which they and their contemporaries regarded the agrarian -problem. But evil days are coming upon the rural middle classes. Indeed -they have already come. There is by this time much anger against -depopulating landlords, much talk of the good customs of Henry VII., -much murmuring lest men be brought to that slavery the Frenchman be in. -We must leave the light and follow them into the shadow. - - - - -PART II - -THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE - - - "The earth is thine, O Lord, and all that is contained therein; - notwithstanding thou hast given the possession thereof to the - children of men, to pass over the time of their short - pilgrimage in this vale of misery. We heartily pray thee to - send thy holy spirit into the hearts of them that possess the - grounds, pastures, and dwelling places of the earth; that they, - remembering themselves to be thy tenants, may not rack and - stretch out the rents of their houses and lands; nor yet take - unreasonable fines and incomes, after the manner of covetous - worldlings; but so let them out to other, that the inhabitants - thereof may be able to pay their rents, and also honestly to - live, to nourish their families, and to relieve the poor: give - them grace also to consider that they are but strangers and - pilgrims in this world, having here no dwelling place, but - seeking one to come; that they, remembering the short - continuance of their life, may be content with that is - sufficient, and not join house to house and field to field, to - the impoverishment of others, but so behave themselves in - letting out their tenements, lands, and pastures, that after - this life they may be received into everlasting dwelling - places; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."--_A Prayer for - landlords, from a Book of Private Prayer, authorised and set - forth by order of King Edward VI._ - - "Nowe if I should demand of the gredie cormoraunts what they - thinke should be the cause of sedition, they would saie:--'The - paisent knaves be too welthy, provender pricketh them. They - knowe not themselves; they knowe no obedience; they regard no - lawes; they would have no gentlemen; they would have al men - like themselves; they would have all things commune. They would - not have us master of that which is our owne. They will appoint - us what rent we shall take for our grounds.... They will caste - down our parkes, and lay our pastures open.... They will compel - the King to graunt theyr requests.... We wyll tech them to know - theyr betters. And because they would have all in common, we - will leave them nothing,'"--E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to - Wealth._ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE NEW RURAL ECONOMY - - -(a) _Motives and Causes_ - -A common view of social development regards it as the outcome of -irresistible causes working towards results which can be neither -hastened nor averted, and treats the fact that events have followed a -certain course as in itself an indication that no other course was -possible. Whatever is has always been implicit in the past; the -established fact rules by the divine right of being the only possible -dynasty, and no scope is left for pretenders to contest or acts of -settlement to alter its legitimate title. It is not surprising that such -a theory should be peculiarly popular in interpreting economic history. -On their frontiers even the most different forms of social organisation -shade into one another. Each generation naturally sees in a strong light -those regions of the past which reproduce the features with which it is -familiar, and overlooks the existence of wide Hinterlands whose general -features are quite different. Since important classes, like important -individuals, find it difficult to believe in the truthfulness of any -picture where they do not occupy the greater part of the canvas, they -insensibly encourage a conventional interpretation of history, which -lends an air of respectable antiquity to the legal and economic -arrangements which favour them and which they favour, by treating such -arrangements as an essential characteristic of civilisation itself. In -reality, however, it is only by dragging into prominence the forces -which have triumphed, and thrusting into the background those which they -have swallowed up, that an appearance of inevitableness is given to -existing institutions, which satisfies the desire to see them as links -in an orderly chain of unavoidable sequences. Useful as the conception -of a continuous development is, it can easily be carried too far. It is -carried too far when it causes us to forget that a small alteration in -the lie of the land might have caused the stream to take quite a -different channel, and that the smoothly flowing waters of the plain are -the outcome of a series of crises in the higher regions, where the spur -of a mountain or a cleft in the rocks might easily have diverted their -course into other directions. If we must talk of social evolution, we -ought to remember that it takes place through the action of human -beings, that such action is constantly violent, or merely short-sighted, -or deliberately selfish, and that a form of social organisation which -appears to us now to be inevitable, once hung in the balance as one of -several competing possibilities. - -Certainly the possibility that economic changes should have followed a -quite different line from that which they actually have can hardly fail -to strike the student of agrarian history. The facts, as we read them, -do not lend unqualified support to the idea that the growth, at the -expense of the little landholders, of great estates cultivated by hired -labour was the inevitable result of irresistible forces, or that the new -agricultural régime was a necessity on account of the sluggishness of -the old. To an observer of agrarian conditions living about the year -1500, who looked back over the conditions of the last century, all the -possibilities must have seemed to point in the direction of a continuous -improvement in the condition of the peasantry. It is evident that the -growth of prosperity among the small cultivators was leading from the -beginning of the fifteenth century to the gradual consolidation of -holdings, to keen competition for the use of land, and to increasing -individualism in the methods of agriculture. Though the movement caused -a diminution in the number of landholders, the diminution was very -gradual. It was not the result of a sudden revolution affecting large -numbers of tenants simultaneously; and even those who regarded enclosing -with hostility were favourable to the process of gradual redistribution, -which did not violate vested interests or cause any sensational -disturbance. The appearance of the country would have changed, and the -methods of cultivation would have improved. But there would have been no -great cause at work to displace the peasantry from the soil, with the -rapidity which entailed hardship, until a much later period than we are -now considering. Obviously, however, it was not these slow internal -changes in the manorial organisation which impressed observers. On the -contrary, though they are noticed by the writer who took a scientific -interest in agricultural questions, they are hardly mentioned by the -majority of commentators on the life of the period, who were interested -not in the technique of agriculture but in the social results of -changing methods. What aroused their alarm and produced rioting and -legislation was, as every one knows, a movement the distinctive feature -of which was that it was initiated by lords of manors and great farmers, -"the Graziers, the rich buchars, the men of law, the merchants, the -gentlemen, the Knights, the Lords,"[322] in short by the wealthiest and -most powerful classes, and that it was carried out frequently against -the will of the tenants, and in such a way as to prejudice their -interests. - - [322] Crowley, _The Way to Wealth_ (E. E. T. S.). - -As the small capitalist prepared the way for the great, the two -movements were connected, and the simultaneous development of both of -them explains the rather puzzling mixture of approval and criticism -which is to be found in the comments of observers upon enclosing. But -their economic and social results were very different. No doubt the -incipient movement in the direction of reorganising national life on the -basis of industry involved a breach with the customary methods of -agriculture, which must in any case have caused a certain degree of -dislocation. The development of the textile manufactures, which for two -centuries were the chief source of English wealth, could not have taken -place without the production of cheap supplies of raw material, and the -growth of the towns was dependent on the saving of labour from -agriculture. But in such changes the element of time--the speed at which -the transition takes place--is all important, because upon it depends -the feasibility of social readjustments to meet the new situation. The -slow breaking up of the open field system, though it changed the -methods of cultivation, might quite conceivably have effected only such -a gradual diminution in the number of the small farmers, as to make the -absorption into industry of those displaced comparatively easy. In so -far as the changes of the sixteenth century were a social revolution, -and not merely a gradual development, this revolution was the result not -only of technical advances, but of the concentration of landed property -and the development of new relationships between landlord and tenant. It -is to the second of the two movements that we must now turn. - -The new agrarian arrangements which we shall have to consider are called -by the name of enclosure, and we will discuss later what exactly -enclosure means in this connection. But there are enclosures and -enclosures, and we shall do well to begin by drawing some distinctions. -In the first place, then, the enclosing movement that will occupy us in -this chapter has very little resemblance to the enclosure which we have -considered in the last. It is carried out by great men, not by small. It -proceeds wholesale, not piecemeal. It does not consist in many little -cultivators rearranging their holdings by purchase, or sale, or -agreement, but in one great proprietor or his agent consolidating small -holdings into great estates. The new arrangements are imposed rapidly -and with a high hand from without. They do not arise gradually from -within through the spontaneous development of the peasants' needs and -resources. - -Again, the new movement bears very little resemblance to the -rearrangements introduced by lords of manors, which, from an early date, -have gone by the name of enclosing. Such rearrangements have not been -few. People have talked about enclosing long before they have begun to -lament enclosures. Not to mention the encroachments on the waste -evidenced by the Statute of Merton, one finds the word "enclosure" used -in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to describe a variety of -agreements made between lords whose lands were contiguous, or between -lords and their free tenants, by which, instead of the parties concerned -using a given area in common as their pasture, each surrenders his right -of access to part of it, and obtains in return the right to use another -part in severalty. The Abbot of Malmesbury[323] and the men of -Niwentone come to an arrangement with Walter of Asselegge and the men of -that village, whereby the monastery agrees to follow the customary -routine in cultivating the land lying between Niwentone and Asselegge, -and not to common on the marsh at Cheggeberge, getting in return -exclusive rights of pasture over another marsh, and over the east field -of Niwentone. The Abbot and Monastery of St. Peter's[324] of Gloucester -make an agreement with Lord Thomas Berkeley whereby the former are "to -have and hold in severalty and enclose and approve at their will" -certain lands lying in Southfield "so that the said Thomas and his free -tenants may not ... claim or demand common, but be excluded from it for -ever," and in return covenant that the latter may "enclose and approve -their lands in all parts of the summit of the Pike of Coveleigh." -Similar arrangements are made between the Abbot of Glastonbury[325] and -a neighbouring landowner, between the Abbot of Cerne[326] and Robert of -Bloxworth, and between the City of Coventry[327] and the master and -brethren of the Trinity Gild of that town. - - [323] _Registrum Malmesburiense_, vol. ii. pp. 220-221: "Quod - ... dictus abbas de Malmesburia non debet de cetero colere - terram de Niwentone ... nisi antiquitus consueverat coli. Et - quod dictus Walterus de Asselegge habebit mariscum suum de - Cheggeberge quietum a communia hominum de Niwentone. Dicti vero - abbas et conventus Malmesburia habebunt mariscum suum iacentem - ex Orientali parte stratæ publicæ quæ vocatur Fos quietum et - exceptum a communia hominum de Asselegge. Habebunt etiam ... - campum Australem in Niwentone quietum et exceptum a communia - hominum de Asselegge. Omnes vero aliæ terræ ad dictas villas - pertinentes ... erunt in pastura communi." - - [324] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriæ_, i. - 147-149. - - [325] Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of South Domerham. - - [326] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), pp. 61-62. This agreement was made in 1231. - - [327] _Coventry Leet Book_ (edited by Mary Dormer Harris). - -Whether it is a chance that such agreements seem to occur with special -frequency in the records of religious houses we cannot say. It is -possible that the perpetual character of a corporation made exclusive -enjoyment at once more desirable and more feasible; a great abbey, like -St. Peter's of Gloucester, could pursue a continuous and far-sighted -policy, and wait more than a generation to see the results of its -experiments. Nor is it possible to understand the motives for such -arrangements without information as to local conditions which is not -easily obtainable. Sometimes the object was simply to protect land used -for agriculture against the depredations caused by the game of a hunting -landlord. Sometimes it would seem to have been to allow of a variation -in the methods of agriculture, for example the sowing of a piece of land -which could not be sown as long as several persons had right of pasture -over it. Occasionally it was simply to realise an obvious convenience -dictated by the lie of the land, each party gaining more by the -exclusive use of pasture lying near to him, than he would lose by -surrendering rights of common over that part which lay at a distance. -Two points, however, are worth noticing. The first is the use of the -word "enclosure." Arrangements which go by the name "enclosure" are made -at a very early date by the manorial authorities, and the latter would -have been very much surprised to be told that they were inaugurating an -agrarian revolution. The second is the character of these enclosures. -They are in every way different from those which produced discontent in -the sixteenth century. Though they affected the routine of cultivation -they did not imply any abandonment of arable farming. Since they were -carried out mainly by an exchange of rights they did not prejudice the -tenants. Further, the disputes of which they were sometimes the result -were not disputes between the lord of a manor and his tenantry, but -between the lord and tenants of one manor and the lord and tenants of -another, the ground of the disagreement being the difficulty of -adjusting rights of common over the debatable land which must often have -lain between two manors, and the division of interests being, as it -were, a vertical, not a horizontal, division. In fact, these early -examples of enclosure throw light on the later movement only by way of -contrast. What we meet in our period is not isolated innovations of this -character, but a general movement spreading across England from -Berkshire in the South to Norfolk and Lincoln in the North-East, and -affecting especially the corn-growing counties of the Midlands, a -movement which meant a great extension of pasture-farming, a violent -collision of interests between the manorial authorities and the -peasantry, and a considerable displacement of population. Clearly some -new and powerful causes must have been at work to account for it. - -In the third place, the movement which goes by the name of enclosing in -the sixteenth century has little similarity with the changes which -proceeded under the same name from about 1700 to 1850, and which went on -most swiftly in the reign of George III. It differs from them in method. -In the eighteenth century Parliament is supreme. It is simply a -committee of landlords and their hangers-on, and it makes Private Bill -legislation a very easy method of getting enclosure carried out. In our -period the Government, for reasons to be discussed later, sets its face -against most kinds of enclosing, and such enclosures as are made are -made in defiance of the law. It differs from them in motive. We must not -prejudge the question whether the enclosures of our period were made -mainly for pasture or for arable. But leaving this question on one side, -we can point to certain broad contrasts. The ostensible motive of the -eighteenth century enclosures is to improve the productive capacity of -the land by spending capital upon it. This is the reason alleged when -Private Bills are being promoted, and this is the aspect of the movement -which causes it to be eulogised by the agricultural experts. Of course -landlords were not philanthropists. As Mr. and Mrs. Hammond[328] have -demonstrated, there were often very sordid motives behind their -resounding platitudes on the advantage of throwing commons and small -holdings into large compact estates, and, even when these were not too -conspicuous, the interests of the smaller landholders were sometimes -treated with the most outrageous injustice. Still the general nature of -the movement was clearly in the direction of bringing under better -cultivation land which had hitherto not been used to its full economic -capacity. The price of foodstuffs after 1750 rose enormously, and the -rise in prices offered a golden harvest to any one who would prepare -land for producing larger supplies. The landlords of the eighteenth -century did not merely enclose. They improved as well. Part of their -increased rent rolls was interest on capital which they had invested for -the purpose. Now in the sixteenth century there is very little trace of -any movement of this kind. What improving is done, is done by the -peasants themselves. There is no sign of the great proprietors making -large capital outlays in order to render their estates more productive, -except in the way of the trifling expenditure entailed by fencing, -hedging, and ditching. They are by no means pioneers of agricultural -progress. Enclosing is profitable to them not because it enables them to -convert barren heaths into smiling corn-fields in the manner described -by Arthur Young, but because it enables them to use the land as they -please, to let it down to pasture when the price of wool is high, to -employ few labourers on it instead of many, and, possibly, to add to -their own estates part of their neighbours' holdings. They do not bring -under cultivation land which would otherwise lie waste. On the contrary, -very often they turn into a waste land which would otherwise be under -cultivation. Whether the picture which represents the eighteenth century -enclosures as the effort of an energetic and public-spirited class to -overcome old-fashioned prejudices by applying the resources of science -to agriculture is veracious or not, we need not now inquire. As far as -the century and a half from 1485 is concerned it is altogether out of -place. - - [328] In their book, _The Village Labourer from_ 1760 to 1832. - -The changes which we are about to describe have at once a social and an -economic reference. The former is the aspect which receives most -attention from contemporaries. They lament the decay of the peasantry, -the embittered relations between classes, the distress and discontent -caused by the new agrarian régime. They are usually not much concerned -with the economics of the situation. Economic issues are not yet -separated from questions of personal and public morality. To find subtle -reasons why it is unavoidable that a large number of persons should be -impoverished seems to them very like condoning a crime. Some excuses -only aggravate the offence, and if men are cursed with a neighbour who -insists on fulfilling economic laws by raising prices or taking usury, -they are less likely to discuss his conclusions than first to present -him for breaking the statutes and then to break his head for his bad -principles. So they judge the dominant movement by its fruits, and its -fruits seem very evil. But to us the economic problem is the primary -one. The occurrence of rapid changes in the structure of an old and -stable society implies either some radical revolution in the basis of -economic life, or some great change in men's conception of social -expediency, or, what is most likely, an economic and a spiritual change -occurring together. To understand its effect we must understand the sort -of economic environment from which it springs. - -In the first place, then, the age of the Tudors is a commercial age, and -it becomes more commercial as the century goes on. No doubt it is only -of certain classes and in certain relations of life that such a -statement is true. The permanence of economic arrangements, which makes -Froude declare that at the end of the fifteenth century the model of the -upper classes was still the chivalry of the Arthurian legends, is seen -still more strikingly among the artisans and peasants, and it is only -very slowly and painfully that they are drawn into the net woven by the -growth of capitalist trade. But it is with the classes who respond to -the new movement that the power of the future, though not its graces, -lies, and it is through the widening of the influence of commerce and -commercial transactions that the economic developments most typical of -our period take place. The age is a commercial one in the sense that -much attention is given by Governments from the reign of Henry VII. -onwards to fostering the conditions which promote trade and industry. -This is not the place to discuss the meaning of Mercantilism or the -truth of Bacon's[329] epigram that Henry VII. "bowed the ancient policy -of this State from consideration of plenty to consideration of power." -Though in the reign of Henry VIII. the State is almost a religion, one -can easily exaggerate the influence of its interference even in that -much governed age. Nevertheless no one who looks at the Statutes, or the -Acts of the Privy Council, or the Domestic State Papers for the reigns -of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, can fail to realise that much -of the time of Governments is occupied with devising measures which are -intended to hasten industrial and commercial development. There is a -settled habit of mind with regard to these matters which is quite -conscious of its ends, though its means may often be ill-chosen. Every -one is agreed that the encouragement of trade is the duty of the -Prince.[330] There is a real popular demand for the intervention of the -authorities, and they respond to it readily enough. - - [329] Bacon, _History of King Henry VII._ - - [330] See _e.g._ Starkey's _England in the Reign of King Henry - VIII._, p. 173 (E. E. T. S.): "Ye, and though our cloth, at the - fyrst begynnyng, wold not be so gud peradventure, as hyt ys made - in other partys, yet, in processe of tyme, I cannot see why, but - that our men, by dylygence, myght attayne therto ryght wel; - specially yf the Prince wold study thereto, in whose powar hyt - lyeth chefely such thyngys to helpe." Also _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_ (Lamond), and Pauli, _Drei - Denkschriften_, &c. - -The age is a commercial one in the more fundamental sense that large -economic changes are initiated by classes and individuals. Foreign trade -grows enormously in the early years of Henry VIII., though certain -branches of it suffer a temporary set back at the end of the reign.[331] -The use of money, of which during the first quarter of the century there -was a shortage, begins in the middle of it to spread throughout all -classes. The industry which for the next three centuries is to be the -chief manufacture of England becomes firmly established. Under the -influence of widening markets, trade separates from trade.[332] Within -single industries there is an increasing subdivision of labour; many -links intervene between the group supplying the raw material and the -group which hands the finished article to the consumer; a special class -of capitalist entrepreneurs[333] appears to hold the various stages of -production together, to organise supplies, and to find markets. Side by -side with the development of manufacturing industry goes a development -in the organisation of finance. In the woollen industry men buy and sell -on credit. In tin-mining[334] and coal-mining[335] they sink shafts with -borrowed capital. The first joint-stock[336] companies are established -in the middle of the century with capitals of from £5000 to £20,000. -There is a regular money market in London, there are bill brokers, -arbitrage dealings between it and the Continent, adventurers who take -advantage of the increasing fluidity of capital to speculate on the -difference in the rates at which it can be borrowed in the Low Countries -and in England. By the end of the century London has partially ousted -Antwerp as the financial capital of Europe.[337] - - [331] Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende der - Mittelalters_, Band II., "Zoll und Handelstatistik," pp. 1-156. - - [332] Unwin, _Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and - Seventeenth Centuries_. - - [333] See _e.g._ the account of the East Anglian woollen - industry in the _Victoria County History_, Suffolk (Unwin's - article on "Social and Economic History"). - - [334] G.R. Lewis, _The Stanneries_, pp. 214-215, and quotations - from Lansdowne MSS. 76, fol. 34, given there. - - [335] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton). - - [336] W.R. Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_, vol. ii. - - [337] For a description of "The Exchange and What It is," see T. - Wilson, _Discourse upon Usurie_ (1584): his remark, "The second - kind of bill ... may be called sicke and dry exchange, and is - practised where one doth borrowe money abroad ... not meaning to - make any real payment abroad, but compoundeth with the exchange - to have it returned again," illustrates what is said above. See - also Camden Society, _Dialogue or Confabulation of Two - Travellers_ (1580): "The said Hans had provided £10,000 for the - Prince of Condy upon five in the 100 at interest, and if I would - have the like he would help me unto it. Then I ... pondered what - benefit it would be to me to let it out again at ten in the - hundred to some nobleman in England." Down to about 1560 at any - rate the English Government was constantly in the hands of - foreign capitalists. See Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, and - Burgon's _Life of Gresham_. - -In the second place, the social arrangements of England are such as to -make it certain that this increasing activity will react almost -immediately on agriculture and on agrarian relationships. There have -been countries where a sharp line has been drawn between trade and -agriculture, where the landowner could not engage in trade without -degrading himself, where the tradesman could not buy up the noble's -land.[338] But this has never been the case in England. In that -precocious island the Lombards had hardly settled in Lombard Street, -when Mr. Pole's daughters discovered that the fine shades flourished -their finest in country air, and there was a market for heiresses among -the English aristocracy long before Columbus had revealed to Europe the -Eldorado of the New World. From a very early date the successful -merchant has bought dignity and social consideration by investing his -savings in an estate. The impecunious gentleman has restored the falling -fortunes of his house by commercial speculations, of which marriage into -a merchant family, if not the least speculative, is not the least -profitable. At the beginning of the sixteenth century both movements -were going on simultaneously with a rapidity which was before unknown, -and which must be explained as the consequence of the great growth of -all forms of commercial activity. The rise of great incomes drawn from -trade had brought into existence a new order of business men whose -enterprise was not confined to the seaport and privileged town, but -flowed over into the purchase of landed estates, even before the -secularisation of monastic endowments made land speculation the mania of -a whole generation. Great nobles plunged into commerce, were granted -special trading privileges, and intermarried with the rising -middle-class families who were often better off than themselves. In all -ages wealth allies itself with wealth, and power with power. As soon as -the appearance of rich merchant families creates a fresh and powerful -interest in society, the old social system and the new[339] coalesce, -and each learns from the other--the merchant how to make a display as a -landed proprietor and a Justice of the Peace, the old-fashioned landlord -how to cut down expenses and squeeze the utmost farthing out of his -property in the best City manner. Even if the political and economic -environment had remained unchanged, the mere formation of commercial -capital and of a moneyed class could hardly have failed to work a slow -revolution in agrarian relationships. - - [338] _e.g._ Prussia before 1807. - - [339] For examples see A. Abram, _Social England in the - Fifteenth Century_, especially Part II., chap, ii., "The Rise of - the Middle Class," and Plummer's _Fortescue_, p. 17. In the - _Cely Papers_ (Camden Society), p. 153, a correspondent of - George Cely writes, "yowre sallys made withyn lesse than thys - yere amountes above £2000 sterling." - -But the environment did not remain unchanged; and as a consequence, in -economic affairs as in religion, the new order came, not gradually, but -swiftly and with violence, sapping ancient loyalties, confronting with -insoluble problems simple men who desired only to plough the land like -their fathers, holding out to the privileged orders that prospect of -suddenly increasing their wealth which is the most awful temptation from -which any class can pray--if it will pray--to be delivered. On the side -of politics a powerful motive for a change in the relations between -landlords and tenants was supplied by the Tudor peace. In the turbulent -days of the fifteenth century land had still a military and social -significance apart from its economic value; lords had ridden out at the -head of their retainers to convince a bad neighbour with bows and bills; -and a numerous tenantry had been more important than a high pecuniary -return from the soil.[340] The Tudor discipline, with its stern -prohibition of livery and maintenance, its administrative jurisdictions -and tireless bureaucracy, had put down private warfare with a heavy -hand, and, by drawing the teeth of feudalism, had made the command of -money more important than the command of men. It is easy to underrate -the significance of this change, yet it is in a sense more fundamental -than any other; for it marks the transition from the mediæval conception -of land as the basis of political functions and obligations to the -modern view of it as an income-yielding investment. Landholding tends, -in short, to become commercialised. The meaning of this movement is best -understood if one compares with the South and Midlands those parts of -England where to the very end of the sixteenth century the older -conditions survived. The surveys of many Northumbrian[341] manors reveal -throughout this period of rapid agrarian changes the continuance of a -very primitive condition of things. The holdings of the customary -tenants are often almost rigidly equal; there is hardly any change in -their numbers; son succeeds father, and grandson succeeds son, with only -the very slightest disturbance. The manorial officials, who in the South -were cursed as the agents of evictions and rack-renting, were in the -North much concerned with keeping tenants on the soil. At Acklington the -tenants, writes Clarkson, "must be helped and rather cherished for -service sake." At High Buston the holdings of the tenantry have been -increased in order that "they should the better live and do their -dutiful service to their Lord and master," and a freeholder is rebuked -for action which results in curtailing the commonable area on the ground -that "the tenants be but poor men and be not well horsed, as they are -bound by their copies." At Tughall[342] the surveyor complains bitterly -in 1567 that in time past, apparently a long time past, twenty-three -tenants had been reduced to eight by "such as nothing regard his -lordship's service, nor the commonwealth." To what are we to ascribe -this permanence of tenure among the peasants, this exceptional -solicitude for the maintenance of a numerous tenantry on the part of -surveyors? Partly, no doubt, to the fact that Northumberland lay apart -from the main stream of commercial life, and was as yet little affected -by the growth of the woollen industry. Mainly, however, it was the -result of the military importance of a numerous tenantry on the -Northumbrian border. In that wild corner which is neither England nor -Scotland, English and Scots, Scroopes and bold Buccleughs, gnash their -teeth at each other across the wan water of the Eden. In the long -northern evenings about Lammastide moormen win their hay with axes in -their belts and bows piled in the corner of the field, and customary -tenants are bound by their copies to provide horse and armour, and to -ride to the musters in person or by proxy. No wonder that while -elsewhere landlords pore over their accounts of wool or timber, in -Northumberland they should measure their wealth by the men whom they can -bring out when the summons goes, and insist on feudal obligations with a -rigour unknown in the South. When any night Scotch[343] raiders may come -storming over the marches, any night the red cock may crow up to the -very walls of merry Carlisle, a holding means not only a piece of land -that grows wheat and feeds sheep, but a horseman in harness; and the -dropping out of a holding, or its merging in that of some one else, -results in the weakening of the force on which the peace of the border -depends. As a consequence, there is nothing like free trade in land -between the tenants, such as developed in the South under the forms of -surrender and admission, and there is little incentive for the lord or -his officials to get rid of them. Such an exceptional state of things -comes to an end in Northumberland with the union of the two Crowns under -James I., and its termination is the signal for an attempt to break down -customary tenures on the part both of the Crown[344] and of private -landowners.[345] But it survives a century longer on the border than it -does elsewhere, and while it lasts it offers a standard by which may be -measured the extent and significance of the change which is overtaking -agrarian relationships in other parts of England, where commerce is more -developed, and where, since a tenant can no longer serve his lord by -fighting, a sheep may easily be more valuable than a man. With the -development of a strong central Government the military strength of the -great landlords was broken, though it blazed up in the Pilgrimage of -Grace and in the rebellion of 1569, and as a consequence they turned -their attention to getting the maximum economic return from the soil, or -to adding to their social dignity by parks, instead of maintaining a -large body of tenants upon it.[346] - - [340] See the Paston Letters, _passim_; and also the account - given in _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), 142-145, of the marvellous doings of Sir Gylles - Strangways in Dorsetshire as late as 1539; pp. 115-117 contain - a similar case of private warfare from the year 1477. - - [341] _Northumberland County History_, _e.g._ Amble (vol. v.), - Acklington (_ibid._), High Buston (_ibid._), Birling (_ibid._); - vol. viii. p. 230, figures as to eight manors in Tynmouthshire. - At Birling out of ten names which appear in the surveys of 1567, - eight reappear in 1616; at Acklington, out of eighteen names, - nine reappear; at High Buston, out of four names, four reappear - in 1616 and two in 1702. But in parts of the county there were - rapid changes at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the - seventeenth centuries; see below, pp. 257-258 and 260. - - [342] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350: "In the - ancient tyme the fermor of the demaines had the charge of the - tenants of the said lordship as bailiff, with the fee of £3, 0s. - 5d. by year. Then was the town of Tughall planted with xi - husbandmen well horsed and in good order, viii cottagers, iiii - cotterells, one common smith for the relief and better aid of - the said tenants and bailiff, being in number 23 householders, - besides the demains, which are nowe by suche as nothing regard - his lordship's service nor the commonwealthe brought to 8 - farmers only, to the great decay of his lordship's service and - discommodity of the said commonwealth." - - [343] See _e.g._ the ballad of "Kinmont Willie," turning on an - incident which occurred in 1596. - - [344] _Cal. S. P. D. James I._, vol. cxxxii., July 27, 1622. - Letter to the Bishop of Durham to confer with the judges of - Assize for the Northern Counties touching tenant-right or - customary estate of inheritance claimed in those parts, ordering - them to abide strictly by the King's Proclamation against - tenant-right, or the holding of lands by border service, to - countenance no claim founded thereupon, and to acquaint the - tenants of his Majesty's pleasure therein, giving them no hope - to the contrary. Apparently the instructions were not carried - out, as in 1642 the Long Parliament was discussing the subject - of the border tenures (Rushworth _Collections_, Pt. III., vol. - ii. p. 86). - - [345] See below, pp. 257-258. - - [346] The effect of the Tudor policy on the land system is - excellently described by Harrington in _Oceana_, and also in - _The Art of Law-giving_: "Henry VII. being conscious of the - infirmity of his title, yet finding with what strength and - vigour he was brought in by the Nobility, conceived jealousy of - the like power in case of a decay or change of affections. - _Nondum orbis adoraverat Roman._ The lords yet led country - lives; their houses were open to retainers, men experienced in - military affairs and capable of commanding; their hospitality - was the delight of their tenants who by their tenure or - dependence were obliged to follow their lords in arms. So that, - this being the Militia of the nation, a few noblemen - discontented could at any time levy a great army, the effect - whereof both in the Barons Wars and those of York and Lancaster - had been well known to divers kings. This state of things was - that which enabled Henry VII. to make his advantage of - troublesome times and the frequent unruliness of retainers; - while, under pretence of curbing riots, he obtained the passing - of such laws as did cut off these retainers, whereby the - nobility wholly lost their officers. Then, whereas the - dependence of the people on their lords was of a strict ty or - nature, he found means to loosen this also by laws which he - obtained upon a fair pretence, even that of Population. But the - nobility, who by the former law had lost their officers, by this - lost their soldiery. Yet remained to them their estates, till - the same Prince introducing the Statutes for alienations, these - also became loose; and the lords, less taken (for the reasons - shown) with their country lives, where their trains were - clipped, by degrees became more resident at court, where greater - pomp and expense by the Statute of Alienations began to plume - them of their Estates" (Harrington, _Works_, 1700 edition, pp. - 388-389). - -The change meant an advance in civilisation among the upper classes, and -a tightening of economic pressure upon the peasantry. The feudal -seigneur had at his worst been a lawless tyrant, and at his best a -despotic parent. But he had governed his estate as the sovereign, often -the resident sovereign, of a petty kingdom, whose interests were -roughly identical with his own; and though his depredations were a -terror to his neighbours, his own tenants had little to fear from them, -for his tenants were the force on which his very existence depended. In -the new political conditions his occupation was gone, and his place was -taken by two types of landed proprietor who were at once more peaceable -and less popular. On the one hand, there emerges the landlord who is a -laborious and acute man of business, and who sets about exploiting the -material resources of his estate with the instincts of a shopkeeper and -the methods of a land-agent. Of this kind are the Willoughbys[347] in -the Midlands and the Delavales[348] in Northumberland. Often they are -sheep-farmers. When their land is rich in minerals they sink coal-pits -and mine for iron ore. The predecessors of the captains of industry of -two and a half centuries later, they employ labour on a large scale, -they open up trade across country by river, they higgle over port dues, -they experiment with new inventions, they clear away without mercy any -customary rights which conflict with their own. On the other hand, there -are the gentry who buzz about the Court, regard London as the centre of -the universe, and have periodically to be ordered home to look after the -affairs of their country-sides by a peremptory mandate from the -Government. When this type becomes prominent, in the reign of Elizabeth, -it most commonly spends its time in the interminable pursuit of -profitable sinecures, and in endeavouring to induce the City to believe -that thrice-mortgaged estates are a gilt-edged security. At its worst it -produces Sir Petronel Flash,[349] a figure as typical of the sixteenth -century as Squire Western is of the eighteenth. At its best it -patronises the arts, sets sail for a new world of drama and romance, -sighs over Vergil's Eclogues, and goes pricking, almost too graceful a -chivalry, through the fairy kingdoms of Spenser. But the men of -business, and the men of fashion, and the patrons of literature, are -alike in being the symptoms of a new economic and political system, a -system which has shorn landownership of the territorial sovereignty -which had gone with it, broken down the personal relations of landlord -and tenant, and, by turning agriculture into a business, has made it at -once more profitable and less strenuous for the former, more exacting -and less stable for the latter, than it had been when a lordlord was not -only a drawer of rents but a local sovereign, a tenant not only a source -of income but a dependent who was bound by a tie which was almost -sacramental. "It was never a merry world since gentlemen came up"; -"never so many gentlemen and so little gentleness"; "the commons long -since did rise in Spain and kill the gentlemen, and since have lived -merrily there"; such are some of the blessings the new landlords would -hear from men who grumble to their mates between the spells of shearing -sheep and mowing hay. Those who have watched the uncouth, rough-handed -master of a backward industry, who has wrought among his workmen as a -friend or a tyrant, blossom, under the fertilising influence of -expanding markets, into the sedate suburban capitalist who sets up a -country house in the second generation and sends his sons to Oxford in -the third, and who scientifically speeds up his distant operatives -through the mediation of an army of managers and assistant-managers and -foremen, will not need to be reminded that economic changes which bring -civilisation to one class may often be fraught with ruin to another. The -brilliant age which begins with Elizabeth gleams against a background of -social squalor and misery. The descendant of the illiterate, -bloody-minded baron who is muzzled by Henry VII. becomes a courteous -gentleman who rhapsodises in verse at the Court of Gloriana. But all -that the peasants know is that his land-agents[350] are harsher. An -Earl of Pembroke has been given immortality by Shakespeare. But the -first of his name had founded the family on estates which had belonged -to the Abbey of Wilton,[351] and by his exactions had provoked the -Wiltshire peasants into rebellion. The Raleigh family--it was a -Raleigh's chance gibe at the old religion which set the West in a blaze -in 1549--had endowed itself with a manor torn from the see of -Wells,[352] as the Grenvilles had done with the lands of Buckland Abbey. -The gentle Sidney's _Arcadia_ is one of the glories of the age, and it -was composed, if we may trust tradition, in the park at the Herberts' -country-seat at Washerne,[353] which they had made by enclosing a whole -village and evicting the tenants. The dramatists who reflect the high -popular estimation of the freeholder[354] see nothing in the grievances -of Mouldy and Bullcalf except the disposition of an ignorant populace to -cry for the moon. Shakespeare's Cade, with his programme[355] of seven -half-penny loaves for a penny, and the three-hooped pot that shall have -ten hoops, is so far proposing only what an energetic mayor is quite -prepared to carry out before breakfast. His crowning absurdity, which -makes the stalls hiss and the pit cheer, is the promise that "all the -realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to -grass." A few months after these words were printed Cade came to life in -earnest. In the autumn of 1596 some Oxfordshire[356] artisans and -peasants organised a revolt against "the gentlemen who took the -commons," and from that year onwards to 1601 Parliament and the Council -had their hands full of the question of enclosures. Men feel the -contrast, even when it is only just beginning, and with natural -inconsistency sigh for the old order even while they are glorifying the -new. "Princes and Lords," wrote Henry VIII.'s chaplain[357] about 1538, -"seldom look to the good order and wealth of their subjects, only they -look to the receiving of their rents and revenues of their lands with -great study of enhancing thereof, to the further maintaining of their -pompous state; so that if their subjects do their duty therein justly, -paying their rents at time affixed, for the rest they care not (as is -commonly said) 'whether they sink or swim'"! - - [347] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), especially the entries relating to the development - of the coal trade. - - [348] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 238, vol. - ix. (under Cowpen). Robert Delavale apparently began life as an - agent to the Earl of Northumberland, but he owned considerable - property himself; in 1605 the whole of the lands of Cowpen were - in his hands. He was an energetic encloser; see below, p. 260. - - [349] See Marston's _Eastward Ho!_ - - [350] See the following extract (Lodge, _Illustrations of - English History_, iii., 41). William Hammond to the Earl of - Shrewsbury on the subject of raising money on the latter's - estates from Palavicini, a moneylender: "Though his froward - fortune hath made him unable to stand you almost in any steadde, - hee hathe dealt with Mr. Maynard to aide him in the provision of - this £3000 against the second of next month. He finds him very - backwarde to disburse any money upon bond or any other security - but lands; neither will he deal with lands in any way of - mortgage for years or any long time, but only 2 or 3 months.... - Yf, therefore, it stands with your honour's good liking to make - a conveyance of Kingston to Sir Horatio ... after the rate of - £7000 ... and withal to passe it in this absolute sort that iff - the money then laid out by them for your Honour's use bee not - repaid on May day next, that they fully enjoy and possess the - lands as their owne.... Hee saith besides that his surveyors - have certified him £500 will bee the most the lands will ever - yeald yerely rent, without racking and oppressions, which are no - course for suche meane men as they be to take." - - [351] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manor of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_, Straton's introduction. - - [352] _History of the Parish of Wiveliscombe_, by Hancock. For - Walter Raleigh and the revolt of 1549, see the dramatic account - given by Holinshed. The incident is described in Froude's - _Edward VI._ For the Grenvilles and Buckland Abbey see _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. vi. It ultimately came to Francis Drake. - - [353] Straton's introduction to _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [354] _e.g._ Heywood's _A Woman Killed with Kindness_, Act iii. - sc. 1. - - [355] _Henry VI._, Part II., Act iv. scene 2. I am indebted for - the reference to Professor Unwin. Part II. was first printed in - 1595. - - [356] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part - III., pp. 49-50: "The attorney-general to Mr. Robert Cecil. - Some information concerning those that intended the rebellion in - Oxfordshire. Bartholemew Stere, carpenter ... was the first - person of this insurrection. His outward pretence was to - overthrow enclosures, and to help the poor commonalty, that were - like to perish for want of corn, but intended to kill the - gentlemen of that county and take the spoil, affirming that the - commons long since in Spain did rise and kill the gentlemen in - Spain and sithen have lived merrily there. After that he meant - to have gone to London and joined with the prentices ... and it - was but a month's work to overrun England." - - [357] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of Henry VIII._, p. 85. - -While the centralised government of the Tudors gave a new bias to the -interests of landlords by stripping them of part of their political -power, economic changes were hurrying the more enterprising among them -into novel methods of estate management. In the situation which -developed in the first fifty years of the sixteenth century they were -exposed to pressure from two sides at once. They stood to gain much if -they adapted their farming to meet the new commercial conditions. They -stood to lose much if they were so conservative as to adhere to the old -methods. The explanation of the agrarian revolution most generally given -by contemporary observers was that enclosing was due to the increased -profitableness of pasture farming, consequent upon the development of -the textile industries; and though a recent writer[358] has endeavoured -to show that most of the land enclosed was used for tillage, and that -therefore this explanation cannot hold good, there does not seem any -valid reason for disputing it. The testimony of observers is very -strong; they might be mistaken as to the extent of the movement towards -pasture, but hardly as to its tendency; and with scarcely an exception -they point to the growth of the woollen trade as the chief motive for -enclosing. - - [358] See the discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay - in _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xiv., new series. - -Moreover, their evidence is confirmed by the proofs which we possess of -the expansion of the woollen industry at the end of the fifteenth -century. It is true that the figures collected by Thorold Rogers do not -enable any satisfactory correlation to be made between the rise in wool -prices and the progress of pasture farming. But they are statistically -much too unreliable to upset the direct evidence of eyewitnesses, being -based on various measures which are somewhat arbitrarily reduced to a -supposed common standard, relating to many different qualities of wool, -and being weighted in particular years by a preponderance of prices from -particular counties which are sometimes clearly not typical at all. The -figures of Schanz[359] as to the export trade in wool and woollen -cloths, are a sufficient proof of the growth in the output of wool, and -therefore in the growth of sheep-farming. They show that while the -export of unmanufactured wool fell off in the sixteenth century, that of -grey cloth grew enormously. In 1354 the export had been 4774-1/2 pieces, -from 1509 to 1523 it averaged 84,789 pieces a year, from 1524 to 1533, -91,394 pieces, from 1534 to 1539, 102,647 pieces, and from 1540 to 1547, -122,354 pieces, while in 1554 the total manufacture was estimated at -160,000 pieces of cloth and 250,000 pieces of hosiery. This expansion of -the manufactured cloth industry was only the culmination of a growth -which had been going on gradually for a hundred years. In 1464 the -Flemish manufacturers[360] were complaining that their market had been -invaded by English clothiers. Merchants like the Celys shipped enormous -consignments of wool from the Cotswolds to the Continent.[361] The large -number of sheep kept in England at the end of the fifteenth century was -the amazement of foreigners;[362] and English buyers groaned over the -high prices to which wool was driven by the competition of continental -buyers.[363] The revolution in the technique of agriculture when sucked -into the vortex of expanding commerce is, in fact, simply an early, -and, owing to the immobility of sixteenth century conditions, a -peculiarly striking example of that reaction of widening markets on the -methods of production, which is one of the best established of economic -generalisations. - - [359] Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des - Mittelalters_, Band II., p. 18. - - [360] Abram, _Social England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 33. - - [361] _Ibid._, pp. 40-41. - - [362] Camden Society (1847), _Italian Relation of England_. - - [363] Camden Society (third series, vol. i.), _Cely Papers_. In - 1480 the elder Cely writes: "I have not bought this year a loke - of woll, for the woll of Cottyswolde is bought by the - Lombardys;" and in the following year, "Ye avyse me for to buye - woll in Cottyswolde, bot it is at grate prise, 3s. 4d. a tod, - and gret ryding for woll in Cottyswolde as was any yere this vii - yere." - -At the same time, the revolution was probably hastened by a change in -commercial policy, which, while encouraging the export trade in woollen -cloth, was after 1485 less favourable to the corn-grower. During the -greater part of the fifteenth[364] century the Government was forced by -the agrarian interests to allow freedom of export for grain except when -prices reached a certain height, after which point an export licence was -required. But the victory of Henry VII. produced a policy which was less -influenced by the traditional object of helping the corn-growing -landlords, and more favourable to commerce and the middle classes on -which the new monarchy rested. In 1491[365] the export of grain, except -with a special licence, was forbidden altogether, and in 1512 the -prohibition was repeated by Henry VIII. Though the administration of -such a policy must have been difficult, and its exact effect must be a -matter of conjecture, the view taken by some contemporaries,[366] that -it was a subordinate cause which stimulated the abandonment of old -agricultural methods and caused a good deal of land to go out of -cultivation, is at any rate intrinsically probable. - - [364] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, - Early and Middle Ages, pp. 447-448. The statute sanctioning - export without licence when the price was below 6s. 8d. was 15 - Hen. VI., c. 2, which was made perpetual by 23 Hen. VI., c. 5. 3 - Ed. IV., c. 2, forbade the importation of foreign corn except - when the price reached 6s. 8d. - - [365] _Ibid._, Modern Times, Part I., p. 85. - - [366] _e.g. The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, pp. - 54-60. - -If the expansion of the woollen industry offered a fortune to those who -adopted the new methods of estate management, the depreciation in the -value of money threatened with ruin those who did not. The agrarian -changes of the sixteenth century cannot be traced primarily to the -revolution in general prices which all European countries experienced, -because they had already proceeded some way before the full extent of -the movement in prices became apparent. Throughout the fifteenth century -the value of money, as far as can be judged from such statistics as we -possess, was fairly stable, and, if anything, somewhat appreciated. -During the first half of Henry VIII.'s reign there were complaints[367] -of the scarcity of the metallic currency. On the very eve of the -dissolution of the monasteries we find a religious house in -Northumberland reversing the movement which had been going on for two -centuries in most parts of the country, and actually commuting money -rents into payments in kind,[368] on the ground that the tenants could -not command the necessary coin. Such facts should warn us that England -was far from being a single economic community, and that the effects of -the cheap money penetrated into the more backward regions only very -slowly indeed. Nevertheless, in the more advanced parts of the country, -the tide turned soon after the beginning of the new century, though it -was not till the fourth decade of it that it became a mill-race in which -all old economic standards were submerged. The general course of the -movement, so far as it affected commodities in general use, is set forth -below. The figures are re-arranged from those supplied by Steffen,[369] -whose work is mainly based on that of Thorold Rogers. - - [367] See the whole question discussed in Schanz, _Englische - Handelspolitik_, Band II., pp. 481-540. - - [368] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 232. In - 1595 a dispute as to corn rents arose between the Earl of - Northumberland and the Tynemouthshire tenants, the Earl - insisting on payment by the Newcastle measure, the tenants - demanding to pay by the Winchester measure, on the ground that - they are so poor that "they are not able with horse, furniture, - and geare to serve as their ancestors have done, as it appeared - upon the late muster." Evidence given by an ancient yeoman - before the Commission appointed to hear the case showed that the - tenants had formerly paid in money, and that the change from - money to corn had been introduced in the time of the last Prior - for the sake of the tenants, not for the sake of the Priory. - - [369] Steffen, _Studien zur Geschichte der Englischen - Lohnarbeiter_, Band I., pp. 254-255 and 365-366. - -TABLE VII - -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ -| | Wheat | Peas | Oats | Barley | -| | per Qr. | per Qr. | per Qr. | Malt | -| | | | | per Qr .| -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ -| | | | | | -| | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | -|1401-1450| 5 9-1/4| 3 2-3/4| 7 9 | 4 3 | -|1451-1500| 5 6-1/4| 3 4-3/4| 6 6-3/4| 3 8 | -|1501-1540| 6 10-1/4| 5 1-3/4| 9 4-3/4| 4 5 | -|1541-1582| 13 10-1/2| . . . | 20 10-3/4| 10 5 | -| | | | | | -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ - -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ -| | | | | | Eggs | -| | Oxen. | Sheep. | Pigs. | Hens.| per | -| | | | | |Gross.| -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ -| | | | | | | -| | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | d. | d. | -| | | | | | | -|1401-1450| 16 5-1/2| 2 1 | 7 6-3/4| 2 | 5 | -|1451-1500| 15 7-1/2| 1 10-1/4| 8 3-1/4| 2-1/4| 5-1/4| -|1501-1540| 22 9 | 2 10-1/4| 10 0 | 3 | 9 | -|1541-1582| 70 0-1/4| 6 4 | . . . | 4-3/4| . . .| -| | | | | | | -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ - -Though it would not be right, of course, to force these figures too -far, as one cannot be sure that they are in all cases typical, the -indication which they offer of a remarkable rise in prices beginning -soon after 1500 is in all probability substantially correct. The result -of this movement in dragging down the standard of comfort of the people -has often been noticed, and need not be emphasised here. But it is -important to observe that it had a very marked effect upon the -traditional methods of agriculture, because it supplied landowners with -a new incentive to squeeze the utmost possible income out of their -estates. Since they were buying everything dearer, they were under a -strong inducement to turn land to the most profitable use, and to revise -all existing contracts which prevented an advance in tenants' payments. -In the not unnatural confusion which surrounded the question of the -cause of the general rise in prices, this aspect of the agrarian -troubles failed very generally to be appreciated by contemporary -writers, who were inclined to argue that the higher prices were due to -the increased rents, instead of seeing that the increased rents were -themselves the consequence of the increased prices. But it was -emphasised in the middle of the century by the author of the -_Commonwealth of England_,[370] and at the end of it by Gerrard de -Malynes,[371] who puts the case with great power and perspicacity, -though he perhaps may be thought to exaggerate the importance of the -debasement of the currency. "Every man knoweth," he wrote in 1601, "that -by reason of the base money coined in the end of the most victorious -reign of King Henry VIII. all the forrain commodities were sold dearer, -which made afterwards the commodities of the realm to rise at the -farmers' and tenants' hands, and therefore gentlemen did raise the rents -of their lands and take farms themselves and made inclosures of -grounds, and the price of everything being dearer was made dearer though -plenty of money and bullion coming daily from the West Indies.... If we -require gentlemen to abate their rents, give over farms, and break up -enclosures, it may be they would do so if they might have all their -provisions at the price heretofore." Yet such a statement gives but a -faint indication of the revolutionary effect upon agrarian relationships -of the depreciation in the value of money. The modern reader, before -whose eyes all economic standards are fluctuating from day to day, can -hardly grasp the anarchy which it tended to produce in a world where -values, especially land values, were objective realities which had stood -unaltered for centuries together. The landlord sees his income slipping -from him, though his estate pays as much as before. The tenant finds his -landlord pressing for higher rents and fines, though the yield of the -land has not increased. Yet neither desires anything but to remain as -they were, and both are ignorant of the force which sweeps them out of -the ancient ways. For, in the wholesome manner of the age, they ascribe -all economic evils to personal misdemeanours, the unreasonableness of -merchants, the covetousness of gentlemen, the extortions of husbandmen, -and the real cause is an impersonal one, which carries them forward -against their will, like men "thrusting one another in a throng, one -driving on another."[372] It is easy to understand that it must have -been difficult to maintain customary payments and traditional methods of -agriculture against the screw which the rise in prices turned on the -landowning classes. Agricultural experiments were in the air, and with -experts explaining how to double the value of an estate by enclosure -without prejudicing the tenants, it is not surprising that landowners, -who saw their real incomes dwindling with the fall in the value of -money, should have adopted the principle of their advice and neglected -the qualifications. - - [370] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), - especially p. 81: "Knight: What sorte is that which youe said - had greater loss thereby then those men had profitte? Doctor: It - is all noblemen, and gentlemen, and all other that live by a - fixed rent, or stipend, or doe not maner the grounde, or do - occupie no byinge or sellinge.... He that maie spend £300 a - yeare by such revennewes and fees, may kepe no better porte then - his father, or anie before him, that could spend but £200. And - so ye maie perceave, it is a great abatement of a man's - countenance to take awaie the third part of his livinge. And - therefore gentlemen doe so much studie the Increase of theire - landes, enhauncing of their rentes, and so take farmes and - pastures into theire owne hands." - - [371] _A Treatise of the Canker of England's Commonwealth_ - (1601). - - [372] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. - 100. - - -(b) _The Growth of the Large Leasehold Farm_ - -The changed situation created by these causes had the effect of -producing a new policy on the part of landlords, which took different -forms according to the circumstances of different localities, but which -in the counties most deeply affected resulted in an increase in -pasture-farming and in an upward movement in the payments made by -tenants. The new régime seems to have affected first, as was natural, -that part of their estates which was most entirely under their own -control, and the disposal of which was least involved in other -interests, namely, the manorial demesne. It is not altogether easy to -construct a picture of the policy pursued by a typical enclosing -landlord from the accounts of contemporaries, who were more interested -in results than in the steps by which they were reached. According to -some of them, lords in the sixteenth century were resuming into their -own hands those parts of the demesne which had been let out, in order to -supply their establishments with produce without having to rely on the -markets when prices were rapidly rising. On some manors again, when the -demesne was "in the hand of the lord," considerations which were not -purely economic came into play; for example, one finds part of it being -turned into a park, which was at once profitable as a means of grazing -sheep, and prized for those motives of social amenity and ostentation -which have done so much to make the English countryside the admiration -of travellers, and so much to ruin the English peasantry. It was not -seldom that the confiscated estates of monastic houses were converted -into a pleasaunce or a deer-park by their new proprietors. - -On the other hand, the manorial documents suggest that landlords were -usually rather parties to changes in the methods of cultivation than -themselves the agents who carried them out, because, at any rate in the -case of the larger landowners, the demesnes were usually leased. The -actual process of experiment and innovation took place on most manors -through the instrumentality of the lessee.[373] The large farmer, who on -many manors is found managing the demesne, is much the most striking -character in the rural development of the sixteenth century. His -fortunes wax while those of the peasantry wane. Gradually he thrusts -them, first copyholders and then yeomen, into the background, and -becomes in time the parent of a mighty line, which later ages, -forgetting poor Piers Plowman, whose place he has usurped, will look on -as the representative of all that is solid and unchanging in the English -social order. In our period he plays in the economics of agriculture the -part which was played in industry by the capitalist clothier, and his -position as the pivot of agrarian change is so important that it will -repay close attention. - - [373] This may seem inconsistent with the fact that in the - statistics published by Mr. Leadam from the Inquisition of 1517 - most enclosures in most counties are entered as made by lords of - manors. I do not think, however, that this is necessarily so. - When it is stated that a lord of a manor has enclosed and - converted to pasture, it may very well be meant that his agent - did so with his consent. _I.e._ the distinction would appear to - be not between the lord and the lord's farmer, but between the - manorial authorities (lord and farmer) and the rest of the - landholders. The phrase used in the Berkshire returns, "converti - permisit," indicates what I take to have been the most general, - though not, of course, the invariable, course of events. - -In the first place, then, it is clear that the foundation of the large -farm was the practice of leasing the demesne for a term of years, which -was the normal way of disposing of it in the sixteenth century. In the -reign of Elizabeth the distinction between the demesne and the customary -tenancies still survived, and surveyors were at some pains to separate -them in order to prevent the demesne being merged in the customary -holdings. But the original meaning of the distinction had been almost -obliterated; the demesne was no longer the centre of the manorial -economy, as it had been when its produce maintained the lord's -household, and the labour of the customary tenants, in spite of the -survival of many services, no longer supplied the chief means of -cultivating it. On the whole, it would be true to say that on -ninety-nine manors out of a hundred the demesne was leased by the middle -of the sixteenth century, and on the majority of them probably at a much -earlier date. There are, of course, some exceptions. Certain manors the -lord makes his headquarters, and there the home farm is retained in his -hands, because it is required to supply his establishment. On other -manors the demesne or part of it can no longer be distinguished from the -holdings of the customary tenants, and is held by them by copy of Court -Roll in the same way as the "customary land." In certain parts of -England, again, the leasing of the demesne has not proceeded far, -because the demesne has always been relatively unimportant. On several -Northumberland manors, for example, the surveyor[374] could in 1567 find -no demesne at all, either because it had all been divided up among the -tenants, or because it had never existed. Nevertheless, in spite of -these exceptions, a lease for a term of years to a farmer or farmers is -the ordinary method of disposing of the demesne in the sixteenth -century. This is proved in a very satisfactory way by the investigations -of Professor Savine[375] into the disposition of the lands of monastic -houses in 1534. After an exhaustive inquiry relating to several hundred -manors he found that the cases in which the demesne was not leased were -an insignificant proportion of the whole. An examination of smaller -groups of manors tells the same story. Out of thirty-six[376] manors in -Wiltshire, Somersetshire, and Devonshire surveyed for the Earl of -Pembroke in 1568, it is possible to determine the use made of the -demesne on thirty-two, and on twenty-nine of them it was leased. Of -twenty-nine other manors examined at random at different periods in the -sixteenth and early seventeenth century every one was in the same -condition. There is no reason to distrust these instances on the ground -that they may represent a development occurring too late in the century -to be relevant to movements found in existence at the beginning of it, -because in several cases where the history of a manor can be traced -backwards, it is clear, as has been shown above, that the leasing of the -demesne was quite common at least from the middle of the fifteenth -century, and in parts of the country much earlier. - - [374] _e.g._ at Acklington (_Northumberland County History_, - vol. v.), of which Clarkson the surveyor writes: "Neither is - there any demaine lands or demaine meadows, but all is occupied - together in husbandry"; at Birling (_ibid._): "There is no - demaine land or meadow, with all their husbandlands and meadows - appertaining to the same"; apparently also at High Buston. - Compare Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, p. 316: "Villages - without a manorial demesne ... are found ... where the power of - the lord was more a political than an economical one" (Norfolk - and Suffolk, Lincoln, Northumberland, Westmoreland, &c.). For a - manor where the demesne is kept in the hand of the lord in 1568 - for the reason given above, see Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of - Pembroke Manors_, Manor of Washerne. - - [375] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, pp. 153-154. - - [376] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - -From the allusions made by contemporaries to the large farmer as one of -the mainsprings of the changes of the period, one is disposed to look -first at the demesne for the beginning of capitalist agriculture. -Whether, however, the method of cultivating the demesne differed much -from the cultivation of the customary holdings depended to a -considerable extent upon the terms on which it was leased, and, in -particular, upon whether it passed into the control of a single -considerable tenant. It would be a mistake to think that the economic -relationships which were established when the demesne ceased to be -cultivated by villein labour were all of one type, or in particular that -the demesne invariably passed into the hands of one holder. Mention has -already been made of the practice of adding the demesne lands, or part -of them, to the customary land held by copy of Court Roll, a practice -which obviously resulted in maintaining in the hands of small -cultivators land which might have gone to build up large properties. - -Even when the demesne is leased it is not always leased to a single -large farmer. In reality the surveys of the sixteenth century reveal two -well-defined types of leasehold property subsisting on the lord's -demesne, sometimes on neighbouring manors. The first type has as its -distinctive feature that the lessees are a number, sometimes a very -large number, of small farmers, who have been given allotments on the -demesne and who hold them for various periods of years, sometimes for -life only, sometimes for eighty, sometimes for ninety-two or -ninety-nine, years. Many examples of this type of small leaseholder come -from the west of England. Thus at Ablode,[377] in Somersetshire, before -the demesne was leased out by St. Peter's to a large farmer in 1515, it -had already been leased to seventeen of the customary tenants. At -Paynton,[378] in 1568, the Barton land was held in small plots by -fifty-one leaseholders, at South Brent[379] by eighteen. But examples of -this arrangement are found all over England. At Higham Ferrers,[380] in -Northamptonshire, the demesne has been divided among nine tenants; at -Stondelf,[381] in Staffordshire, among thirty-one. At Shape[382] in -Suffolk and Northendale[383] in Norfolk the demesnes are added to the -holdings of the customary tenants. At Forncett,[384] in Norfolk, parts -of the demesne are in the same way leased out in small parcels in the -fifteenth century for gradually lengthening periods of years, though by -the beginning of our period they seem to have been held by copy in the -same way as the customary land. Elsewhere we get what appear to be -variations of the same system, in the form of sub-letting or of -joint-cultivation. At Castle Combe,[385] for example, the demesne lands -were leased in 1454 to four tenants, "with the intention that they -themselves should let to farm to all the tenants of the lord some -portion of those lands." On other manors groups of tenants seem to make -themselves jointly responsible for the rent required. It was not an -unknown[386] thing even at quite an early date for a whole village to -come forward and make a kind of collective bargain with the lord as to -the terms upon which they would take over the demesne lands, and when -the leasing of the demesne became the regular practice townships -sometimes stepped into the shoes of the bailiffs, and averted the entry -of the large farmer by leasing the lands themselves, and making their -own arrangements as to the way in which they should be utilised. One may -suspect, indeed, that such action took place in a good many cases when -the land was leased to many small tenants, as at Paynton and South -Brent, even though the intervention of the township is not expressly -stated. Sometimes, however, the communal character of the bargain is -quite beyond doubt. For example, at Cucklington,[387] on the manor of -Stooke Trister in Somersetshire, twelve tenants leased together at a -rent of £8 for forty years a sheep house with 250 acres of land. At -Chedsey,[388] in the same county, the whole of the demesne, which lay -mainly in small parcels of one or two acres, was held in 1568 on a -twenty-one years' lease by the tenants of the manor. At Caston,[389] in -Norfolk, we find an entry of rent which is paid by "the inhabitants of -the town of Scratby for certain lands occupied for their benefit." The -phrase "town lands," which appears not infrequently[390] in the surveys -and estate maps of the sixteenth century may perhaps be taken as -indicating the same conclusion. In what way exactly we ought to -interpret these arrangements--whether we should regard them as nothing -more than a summary expression of the fact that all the tenants have -severally rights over part of the estate, or whether we should conceive -of them as implying some higher degree of corporate action than this, -and as the outcome of a bargain struck with the lord by the village as a -village, is an interesting and difficult question,[391] to which we -shall recur later in speaking of rights of common. But we may mention -two points which suggest that there is in them a certain element of -practical communism to which legal historians sometimes do less than -justice. The first is that we occasionally find certain tenants acting -on behalf[392] of, one might almost say, representing, others. The -second is that in some cases the demesne lands are divided among them in -exactly equal[393] shares, so that, though every one has more land than -before, the relative sizes of their holdings are unaltered. The last -fact is a very striking one. It means, in the first place, that the new -land has been allotted on some common principle and by some formal -agreement. Clearly, if each tenant had bought as much land as he -pleased, we should have had not equality but inequality. It points, in -the second place, to the enduring strength of the ideas and interests -underlying the system of agricultural shareholding which is -characteristic of the mediæval village. We can understand a very -primitive system of agriculture designed to secure each household the -standard equipment needed to support it. But one would naturally suppose -that at the end of the Middle Ages, when new land which had hitherto -belonged to the lord was offered to the villagers, each would buy up as -much as he could without regard to the interests of his neighbours. It -is probable that in most cases, as in those quoted in Chapter III., this -is what happened. But in some instances it is not. The old economic -ideas which had governed the disposition of the ancient customary -holdings are applied to the new land which the cessation of demesne -cultivation by the lord throws into the market, and the villagers -re-allot it on the old plan. Even in its decay the mediæval land system -shows its vitality by meeting new situations with the ancient methods. - - [377] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriæ_, vol. - iii. App., pp. 291-295. - - [378] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [379] _Ibid._ - - [380] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 34. - - [381] R.O. _Land Rev. Misc. Bks._, vol. clxxxv., ff. 70-74. - - [382] R.O. _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipts_, vol. clxiii., ff. - 187. - - [383] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Roll 478, No. 3. - - [384] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_. - - [385] Scrope, _History of Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, p. - 208. - - [386] Vinogradoff, _The Growth of the Manor_, note to chap. ii., - Book III., p. 370, and his quotations from Maitland: "The - villains of Bright Waltham ... constituted a community which - held land, which was capable of receiving a grant of land, which - could contract with the lord, which could make exchange with the - lord." - - [387] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [388] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [389] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52, p. - 10 d. - - [390] See the map of part of Salford, p. 163, and compare R.O. - Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32 (Lavenham in - Suffolk): "Of Township of Tuddenham Free land foldcourse, 6s. - 9d." _Ibid._, Portf. 13, No 21 (Colly Weston in Northants): "The - inhabitants for bushy ground paying two years 11s. Item, in - every third year they pay nothing." At Wymondham (R.O. _Aug. - Off. Misc. Bks._, vol. ccclx., f. 91) one finds under the - heading "Towne lands" 38 acres held by copy by the "feoffees of - the Vill of Wymondham" (37 Eliz.) in Trust for the school. - - [391] See references quoted below, pp. 244-253. - - [392] _e.g._ Scrope, _History of Manor and Barony of Castle - Combe_, p. 203. Extent of Manor, 1454: "Et notandum quod - prædictae terræ dominicates cum pratis et pasturis supra - specificatis dimittebantur ad firmam Ricardo Hallewey, Edwardo - Yonge, Johanni Costyn, Willelmo Gaudeby, et Edwardo Noorth, ea - intentione quod ipsi dimitterent ad firmam omnibus tenentibus - domini aliquas portiones dictorum terrarum secundum magis et - minus pro earum cultura, et reddunt pro firma inter se cxiiis. - viiid." - - [393] R.O. _Land Revenue Misc. Bks._, vol. ccxxi., fol. 1. - Survey of Manor of Brigstock (Northants) 4, James I. Here the - demesne is held by twenty-two tenants, each having 8 acres, 3 - roods, and 1 acre of meadow. Mickleholme meadow (also demesne - land) is held by five tenants, each having 1 acre. One finds on - some Northumberland manors a growth in the size of customary - holdings combined with the preservation of almost exact equality - between them, which surely must be taken as proving that the - increase in the area held grew, not by sporadic encroachments on - the part of individuals, but by definite allotment on some - communal plan. Thus at Birling there were in 1248 ten "bondi," - each holding 30 acres or one husbandland; in 1498 nine holding - 30 acres or one husbandland, and four holding one husbandland of - 30 acres between them; in 1567 ten customary tenants, each - holding 33 acres; in 1616 the average holding has risen from 33 - to 42-1/2 acres, but there is still substantial equality, the - largest holding amounting to 44 acres, 3 roods, 3-1/2 poles, and - the smallest to 40 acres, 0 roods, 33 poles (I omit the facts as - to the cottagers). In spite of two considerable additions to the - land of the village, there is little change in the relative - proportions of the tenancies. At Acklington there were in 1352 - thirty-five bondage holdings of 16 acres each, of which nine - were vacant (presumably on account of the plague). In 1368 these - nine vacant holdings were let to the other tenants for herbage. - In 1498 there were eighteen tenants, of whom seventeen held two - husbandlands apiece (_i.e._ 32 acres) and one, one husbandland - (_i.e._ 16 acres). _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - -These small tenants were described as "farming the demesne," and their -existence may perhaps mark a sort of half-way house in the evolution of -the manorial demesne into the large leasehold farm. One may suspect -that that development was not at all likely to take place rapidly in the -circumstances of the fifteenth century. According to the generally -accepted view the practice of leasing part of the demesne, though -occurring at a very early date on manors where the labour supply was too -small for it to be cultivated by the villeins, received a great impetus -from the scarcity of labour which was produced by the Great Plague, and -went on side by side with the gradual commutation of labour services -into money rents. Of course one must not dogmatise about changes which -took centuries to accomplish, and which developed at very different -degrees of speed in different parts of the country. But the accounts of -particular manors supplied us by surveyors bear out the view that the -development of a class of small leaseholders took place as the result of -the abandonment of the old system of cultivating the demesne by means of -the works of the tenants organised under the supervision of the manorial -officials. "The lorde departed his habitation and caused his officers to -grant out parte of his landes to his tenants at will." "The medowes -lying in Hinton were the lordes' severall meadowes, which nowe are -divided among the tenants." "When the lorde departed his habitation, and -granted out the demesnes, the part was delivered and letten to the use -of the tenants." "One Sir John Taverney, Knight, dyd inhabit within the -said mannor, and kept great hospitalitie, and occupied the demesnes in -his own possession, which are large and greate, and now of late years -granted out by copye for terms of lyves among the tenants." Such -information, collected by a curious investigator[394] in the middle of -the sixteenth century from the lips of aged peasants in the west of -England, takes us back to a time when the leasing of the demesne was a -comparative novelty. Is it surprising that the landlord who leased for -the first time should prefer to do so on this small scale, should choose -to grant plots of land piecemeal for short terms of years rather than to -form a single farm? The practice was at first an experiment, an alarming -departure from accepted methods undertaken only through dire necessity. -A great catastrophe like the plague might make it profitable, but time -would naturally elapse before it was done systematically and on a large -scale. At the same time a class of farmers with sufficient capital to -manage several hundred acres of land could not come into existence at -once. The ordinary villein tenants, who were the first lessees on many -manors, could hardly jump immediately from farming twenty or thirty -acres to farming a whole estate, though those of them who as bailiffs -had previously been responsible for managing the demesne, and who seem -sometimes to have managed it as farmers for the lord, rather than as -hired servants, were certainly in a better position to do so. - - [394] Humberstone, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - (surveys _temp._ Phil. and Mary of various manors belonging to - the Earl of Devon). - -It would seem indeed that the question whether, when the sixteenth -century began, the demesne lands of a manor were leased to many small -tenants or to one or two large farmers, was decided largely by local and -personal conditions, and may fairly be described as a matter of chance. -When they lay in many scattered strips unified culture was impossible -till they had been consolidated, and therefore there was no particular -reason for leasing them to one tenant rather than to many; whereas, when -they were from the start in two or three great blocks, it was obviously -very improbable that they would be sub-divided. In those parts of the -country where sheep-farming was less profitable than elsewhere one -motive for introducing a single large farm was absent, while where the -demesne had already been leased in small plots the manorial authorities -might dislike to make an abrupt change affecting many households -disadvantageously. The general movement would appear, however, to have -been in the direction of longer leases and larger tenancies. Thus Miss -Davenport has shown that at Forncett the leasing of the demesne -began[395] in small parcels and for short periods from the end of the -fourteenth century, and gradually took place on a larger scale and for -longer periods as the practice became more familiar. The earlier leases -of the Oxfordshire manor of Cuxham[396] alternate between six and seven -years in length, and it is not till 1472 that the College owning it -appears to have granted a lease of as much as twenty years. Sometimes -one can see the system of leasing small parcels to many little farmers, -and that of leasing the whole demesne to one large farmer, coming into -competition with each other. A case in point comes from Ablode[397] in -Somersetshire. In 1515 the Abbot and Convent of St. Peter's, Gloucester, -leased the whole manor of Ablode to a farmer for eighty years. But at -the time when the lease was made the demesne lands and demesne meadows -were already occupied by the customary tenants. Accordingly the covenant -with the farmer provides that as soon as the other tenants' agreements -terminate, he shall have the reversion of their lands to use as he -pleases. Here the two types of demesne cultivation are seen merging into -one another, with the result that the large farm is consolidated out of -the small tenancies which preceded it. - - [395] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 57. When first - leased in 1373 the demesne was leased as a whole, but this plan - was abandoned. Early in the fifteenth century it was leased in - small plots, at first for six or seven years, and then for - twelve, twenty, or forty years. Finally parts of the demesne - were granted to be held at fee farm. - - [396] Merton Documents, Nos. 3100 (lease of 1361 for seven - years), 3002 (lease of 1420 for seven years); 2856 (lease of - 1424 for one year); 1874 (lease of 1472 for twenty years). - - [397] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriæ_, vol. - iii. App., pp. 291-295. The words are "Sed bene licebit præfatis - ... substituere tenentes ad eorum bene placitum in omnibus illis - terris dominicalibus supradictis modo in manibus tenentium - ibidem existentibus, cum reversio prædicta inde acciderit." - -At the beginning of our period these small demesne tenancies had already -disappeared from many manors, if they had ever existed on them, and the -normal method of using the demesne was to lease it to a single[398] -large farmer, or at any rate to not more than three or four. In spite of -the instances given above, in which the home farm and its lands were -split up among numerous small tenants, most of the evidence suggests -that the leasing of the demesne to a single farmer was as regular a way -of disposing of it in the sixteenth century as its cultivation by -manorial officials with the labour of villeins had been in the -thirteenth. The very slow development of the large farm in certain -parts of the country was due rather to the insignificance or absence of -the demesne on some northern manors than to the prevalence of any -alternative methods of utilising it. The terms on which the farmer took -over the land varied naturally in detail, but these differences are -unimportant. In a few cases he holds it by copy. Normally he is a -leaseholder, sometimes for life, more usually for a period of years -ranging from twenty-one to eighty. Again the lessee's interest may be -more or less inclusive. Sometimes only the demesne, including any -customary works upon it of the tenants which may survive, is leased. -Sometimes the lease includes the live-stock of the manor, which, or the -equivalent of which, the farmer must replace at the end of his term. -Sometimes the profits of the court are leased as well, though more -usually they are reserved, together with any income from fines, to the -lord. Sometimes there is an arrangement of great interest and importance -by which the whole body of manorial rights, including the income from -the courts, confiscation of straying beasts, and the rents of the -customary tenants, are leased to the farmer, who thus becomes the -immediate landlord of the other tenants.[399] The greater part of the -farmer's rent is by the middle of the sixteenth century paid in money. -But certain payments in kind[400] survive, and supply a link between the -vanishing subsistence cultivation, and the growing commercial economy. -Where money was scarce, tenants were sometimes allowed to pay in kind as -a concession to their interests, and some landlords still found it -convenient to receive part of their rent in grain, fowls, pigeons, fish, -or a fat bull, a practice which on college estates lasted down to the -very end of the seventeenth century. But the value of such payments was -carefully calculated in terms of money, and they were the exception. - - [398] Thus in 1535, on nineteen out of twenty-two manors owned - by Battle Abbey, the demesne was farmed by a single tenant, on - one by two, on one by three, while on one it was retained in the - hands of the monks (_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal - History_, vol. i.; _English Monasteries on the Eve of the - Dissolution_, by A. Savine). On twenty-five manors out of - thirty-two held by the Earl of Pembroke in 1568, the same - unified management obtained (Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of - Pembroke Manors_). Savine's remarks are to the point: "The lord - of the manor seldom divided up the demesne into separate plots - of land to be let to local tenants. Usually the demesne and its - buildings, sometimes even together with the live and dead stock, - passed into the hands of one farmer" (_ibid._). - - [399] As at Knyghton in Wilts in 1568 (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke - Surveys_), where the holdings and rents of the customary tenants - appear in the farmer's lease, _e.g._ "Walter Savage ad - voluntatem tenet ut parcellam dicti manerii l close etc. ... et - reddit 56s. ad manus dicti firmarii." - - [400] Here is an example from a lease of 1562. The farmer pays - "yearly to the lord for the aforesaid farm-- - - 10 quarters of corn, per bushel, 12d. £4 - 20 quarters of barley, per bushel, 8d. 106s. 8d. - 10 quarters of oats, per bushel, 3d. 26s. 8d. - 20 capons, per caput, 4d. 6s. 8d. - 20 pigeons, per caput, 4d. 6s. 8d. - 12 great fish called trouts, per caput, 3d. 3s." - - (Survey of South Newton, _ibid._). - -The growth of large farms had proceeded so far by the middle of the -sixteenth century that in parts of the country the area held by the -farmer was about equal to that held by all the other tenants. On some -manors it was less; on others it was a great deal more. The average area -of the large farmer's land in Wiltshire seems to have been about 352 -acres, and it is not unusual to find manors where there are only two or -three customary tenants, while on some there were none at all. Wiltshire -no doubt must not be taken as typical of all other counties, as the -acreage of the leasehold farms held by men who had capital to spend -could so easily be increased by drawing in great tracts from the rolling -stretches of Chalk Down. But elsewhere, though the acreage held by the -farmer of the demesne is less, 170 or 150 acres, and though one or two -of the larger copyholders control a great deal of land themselves, he is -still, compared with the bulk of the customary tenants, a Triton among -minnows. Arithmetical averages are, however, unsatisfactory, and a -better idea of the scale on which the large farmer carried on business -may be obtained from the following table:-- - - TABLE VIII - - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - | 850-900 Acres.| - | 800-849 Acres.|.| - | 750-799 Acres.|.|.| - | 700-749 Acres.|.|.|.| - | 650-699 Acres.|.|.|.|.| - | 600-649 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 550-599 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 500-549 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 450-499 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 400-449 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 350-399 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 300-349 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 250-299 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 200-249 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 150-199 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 100-149 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 50-99 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | Under 50 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - +-----------------------------------|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | Eighteen farms on sixteen | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | manors in Norfolk | |2|2|3|1| |3|1| |2|3| | | |1| | | | - | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | Thirty-one farms on twenty- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | three manors in Wiltshire |4|2|4|4|3|4|3| |2|1|1| | | | | |1|2| - | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | Eighteen farms on thirteen | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | manors in several counties |2|3|3|1|3|2|1| | |3| | | | | | | | | - | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - | Total, sixty-seven farms | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | on fifty-two manors |6|7|9|8|7|6|7|1|2|6|4| | | |1| |1|2| - +-----------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - -It will be seen that if all the farms are grouped together, rather more -than one half, thirty-seven out of sixty-seven, have an area exceeding -200 acres, and that the area of rather more than a quarter exceeds 350 -acres. The figures must be read with the caution that they in some cases -certainly underestimate the real extent of the land used by the farmer, -as rights of common often cannot be expressed in terms of acres. - - -(c) _Enclosure and Conversion by the Manorial Authorities_ - -When we turn from the agricultural arrangements described in previous -chapters to examine these large farms, we enter a new world, a world -where economic power is being slowly organised for the exploitation of -the soil, and where the methods of cultivation and the standards of -success are quite different from those obtaining on the small holdings -of the peasantry. The advantage to the lord of the system of large -farms, compared either with the retention of the demesne in his own -hands, or with the leasing of it in allotments to small tenants, was -obvious enough for its extension to be no matter for surprise. The -utilisation of the produce of the demesne by the lord's household was -unnecessary when markets were sufficiently reliable to offer a regular -supply, and inconvenient when the landlord was an absentee. The division -of the estate among small tenants meant the creation or maintenance of -interests opposed to agricultural changes, and made it impracticable to -vary the methods of agriculture to meet varying demands, except by the -rather cumbrous process of a common agreement ratified in the manorial -court. The leasing of the demesne to a large farmer got rid of those -disadvantages. The lord was secured a regular money income, which was -considerably higher per acre than that got from the customary tenants; -and since the land was under the management of a single individual, who -was sometimes equipped with a good deal of capital, it was much easier -to try experiments and to initiate changes. When not only the demesne, -but the whole body of manorial rights, was included in the lease, the -property became of that most desirable kind, in which ownership is -attenuated to a pecuniary lien on the product of industry, without -administrative responsibility for its management. - -Opportunities for new methods of cultivation were afforded by the -leasing of the demesne to a single farmer, which would lead us to look -at his holding as the place where agrarian changes were most likely to -begin, and to start from that in order to trace the effect of these -large properties on the small properties of the customary tenants. On -the one hand, any wide development of leasehold tenure involves a -certain mobility in rural society and a disposition to break with -routine. There must be a market for land, which again implies that some -class has accumulated sufficient capital to invest and has got beyond -mere subsistence farming. It naturally arises either when new[401] land -is brought into cultivation, or when the development of trade makes -farming for the market profitable, or when changes are being introduced -into the methods of agriculture, or when the value of land is uncertain -(for example, when it is thought that it may contain minerals),[402] -because in all these cases leasehold, being a terminable interest, -enables the owner of land to adjust his rent to the tenant's returns. On -the other hand, the landowner does not get the full advantage of the -elasticity in rent and management that leasehold tenure makes possible, -unless the tenant is a man of some substance, who can spend capital in -cultivating land on a large scale, in stocking a farm with sheep and -cattle, in carrying crops until the best market is found, and in making -experiments in new directions. - - [401] See pp. 139-147. - - [402] See _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix., account of - Cowpen, and _Victoria County History_, Lancashire, article on - Social and Economic History. For the same reasons mills and - fisheries were naturally the first parts of a mediæval manor to - be leased for terms of years. - -One can easily understand the reasons which favoured the large farm, if -one reflects on the change in economic environment, the outlines of -which have been already described. The most important economic cause -determining the unit of landholding is the nature of the crop to be -raised and the methods used in producing it; and the nature of the crop -depends mainly on the conditions of the market. Now in the sixteenth -century the market conditions were such as to leave room for a large -number of small corn-growers, because trade was so backward that a great -number of households farmed simply for subsistence. On the other hand, -even in the case of corn-growing, the size of the most profitable unit -of agriculture was increasing with the development of an internal corn -trade--a development which is proved by the strenuous attempts which the -Government made to regulate it through the Justices of the Peace; while -in the case of sheep and cattle grazing on the large scale practised by -the graziers of the period, there was obviously no question but that an -extensive ranch, which could be stocked with several thousand beasts, -was the type of holding which would pay best. That a class of capitalist -farmers of this kind was coming into existence in the sixteenth century -is indicated both by the complaints of contemporaries that small men -find farms taken over their heads by great graziers, who have made money -in trade; by the fact that the stock and land lease, a form of metayage -under which the working capital was supplied by the landowner, had given -way on many manors to the modern type of lease under which it is -provided by the lessee;[403] and by the way in which one farmer would -become the lessee of two[404] or more manors, a clear indication of the -existence of wealthy men who had money to invest in agriculture. It was -the substitution of such a class for the small leaseholders among whom -the demesne had often been divided, and their appearance for the first -time on manors where the demesne had been kept in the hands of the lord -until it was leased to one large farmer, which gave a rapid and almost -catastrophic speed to the tendency to enclosure which, as we have seen, -was already going on quietly among the small tenants, because it meant -the control of a growing proportion of the land by persons who had -capital to spend, and who, since they held their farms by lease, not by -copy, were under the pressure of competitive rents to adopt the methods -of agriculture which were financially most profitable. This in itself -was a new phenomenon, at least on the large scale on which it appeared -in the sixteenth century. In modern agriculture one is accustomed to -seeing the area sown with any crop varying according to movements in the -market price of the produce, so that on the margin of cultivation land -is constantly changing its use in response to changes in the world's -markets. But such adaptability implies a very high degree of -organisation, and when farming was carried on mainly by small producers -for their own households, the reaction of changing commercial conditions -on the supply was much slower, and cultivation was to a much greater -extent a matter of routine. It was the development of the large -capitalist farmer which supplied the link binding agriculture to the -market and causing changes in prices to be reflected in changes in the -use to which land was put. - - [403] Owing to the advantages which the small holding has for - dairy purposes (personal attention to cattle, &c.), it is still - the custom in parts of the country, _e.g._ Devonshire, for the - large farmers to sublet small dairy farms out of their holdings, - and to supply the lessee with all the stock, including the cows - and the cottage. See Levy, _Large and Small Holdings_, chap. ix. - - [404] Several examples of this are to be found in the _Pembroke - Surveys_. Contemporaries called it "the engrossing of farms." - -The tendency which we should expect to find represented most -conspicuously upon the demesne farms is of course that enclosing of land -and laying of it down to pasture, which is lamented by contemporaries. -The word "enclosing," under which contemporaries summed up the agrarian -changes of the period, has become the recognised name for the process by -which the village community was broken up, but it is perhaps not a very -happy one. Quite apart from the difficulties which it raises when we -come to compare the enclosures of the eighteenth century, which were -made under Act of Parliament, with those of the sixteenth century, which -were made in defiance of legislation, it is at once too broad and too -narrow to be an adequate description even of the innovations of the -earlier period, too broad if it implies that all enclosures entailed the -hardships which were produced by some, too narrow if it implies that the -only hardships caused were due to enclosure. It selects one feature of -the movement towards capitalist agriculture for special emphasis, and -suggests that the hedging and ditching of land always produced similar -results. That, however, was by no means the case. Enclosure might take -place, as has been shown above, without producing the social -disturbances usually associated with it, provided that it was carried -out by the tenants themselves, and with the consent of those affected. -The concentration of holdings and the displacement of tenants might take -place without enclosure. On a desert island there is no need of palings -to keep out trespassers; and a manor which was entirely in the hands of -one great farmer was a manor where the maintenance of enclosures was -almost unnecessary. At the same time the word does describe one of the -external features which usually accompanied the agrarian changes. The -general note of the movement was the emancipation from the rules of -communal cultivation of part or all of the land used for purposes of -tillage or pasture. The surface of a manor was covered with a kind of -elaborate network of rules apportioning, on a common customary plan, the -rights and duties of every one who had an interest in it. A man must let -his land lie open after harvest; he must not keep more than a certain -number of each kind of beasts on the common; he must plough when his -neighbours plough, and sow when his neighbours sow. The effect of the -growing influence of the capitalist farmer was to clear away these -organised restrictions from parts of the manor altogether, and violently -to shake the whole system. Enclosing was normally the external symptom -of the change, for the practical reason that the simplest way of cutting -a piece of land adrift from the common course of cultivation, or from -the rules laid down for the use of the commonable area, was to put a -hedge round it, partly to keep one's own beasts in, partly to keep other -people's beasts out. The essential feature of the change was that land -which was formerly subject to a rule prescribing the methods of -cultivation became land which was used at the individual's discretion. - -The agent through whom enclosing was carried out was usually the large -farmer. When the farmer leased only the demesne lands, and the demesne -lands lay in large compact blocks, not in scattered strips, he could -naturally practise the new economy of enclosure upon them without -colliding with any other interest, except in the cases where they were -divided into several tenancies; while if steps were taken to get rid of -the interests which the customary tenants had either in the open fields, -in the meadows, or in the common, the land lost by them was normally -added to the area which the farmer leased, and enclosed by him. In the -surveys of the period one finds manors in every stage of the transition -from open field cultivation to enclosure, and though such individual -instances tell us nothing of the extent of the movement, they offer a -vivid picture of what enclosing meant, and give the impression that -enclosure had usually proceeded further on those manors where the farmer -held the largest proportion of the land. The slowness of the movement -towards enclosure on the holdings of the customary tenants has already -been described. As a contrast to it one may look at the following table, -which sets out the condition of things on some demesne farms:-- - - TABLE IX - - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | | | | 5 | - | Number of | No signs | Under | per Cent. | - | Demesne | of | 5 per Cent. | to 24 | - | Farms | Enclosure. | Enclosed. | per Cent. | - | Examined. | | | Enclosed. | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 47 | 12 | 9 | 7 | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 25 | 50 | 75 | | - | per Cent. | per Cent. | per Cent. | 100 | - | to 49 | to 74 | to 99 | per Cent. | - | per Cent. | per Cent. | per Cent. | Enclosed. | - | Enclosed. | Enclosed. | Enclosed. | | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 7 | ... | 4 | 8 | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - -These figures are not offered as any evidence of the absolute area -enclosed in the counties represented. They may, however, perhaps be -taken as an indication that the demesne farm was usually that part of -the manor on which enclosure was carried out most thoroughly. Thirty-one -of the manors included in the table are in Wiltshire and Norfolk, and -where the conditions of things on the tenants' holdings can be compared -with that obtaining on the demesne, it is almost always the case that -the new economy has spread furthest on the latter. Neither in Wiltshire -nor in Norfolk had enclosure by the peasants themselves proceeded very -far in the latter half of the sixteenth century. - -The conditions, however, on different manors varied so enormously that -much weight cannot be laid on these figures, and it is both more -important and more practicable to examine particular examples of the -ways in which the large enclosed estate was built up. In the first -place, then, one may say with some confidence that those parts of a -manor which lent themselves most readily to enclosing were the waste, -the common pasture, and the common meadow, while the enclosing of the -farmer's holdings of arable land took place more gradually, less -thoroughly, and with greater difficulty. Thus selecting from the manors -tabulated above those in which the quality of the land enclosed is -distinguished, and omitting those where it is merely stated to lie "in -closes," one finds that partial or complete enclosure of the arable has -been made on nine, of the meadow on eleven, and of the pasture on -twenty, manors. The explanation of this is to be found by recollecting -the characteristics of the organisation into which the farmer stepped. -The arable land which formed the lord's demesne was often scattered, -like the tenant's, in comparatively small plots over the three fields; -unity of ownership did not by any means necessarily imply unified -culture, and before these could be enclosed they had to be consolidated -into fewer and larger blocks. Moreover, if the object of enclosure was -conversion to pasture, it must be remembered that the enclosure of the -arable implied a very great revolution in the manorial economy. A farm -which was well equipped for tillage had barns, granges, agricultural -implements, which would stand idle if the arable land was enclosed for -pasture, and it was therefore natural that, as long as other land was -available in sufficient quantities for sheep-farming, such land should -be enclosed for the purpose, before the ordinary course of cultivation -on the arable land was abandoned. The common meadows and the common -wastes did not offer these obstacles to enclosure. Since the -individualising tendencies of personal cultivation did not operate upon -these parts of the village land, the method of securing equal enjoyment -of them had not been, as in the case of arable, to give each household a -holding consisting of separate strips scattered over good and bad land -alike, but to give each holder of an arable share access to the whole of -the pasture land. They were, therefore, usually not divided and -scattered to anything like the same extent, and it was thus much easier -for the rights of different parties over them to be disentangled, and -for the land to be cut up and enclosed "in severalty." Hence, where the -tenants are most numerous, and where there are fewest signs of change, -the effect of the large farmer is often seen in the withdrawal of part -of the common waste from communal use. If the growth of sheep farming -made the small tenants anxious, as in many cases it did, to acquire -separate pastures for their flocks, it can readily be understood that -the large farmer, who had more to lose and more to gain, was likely to -pursue the same policy unless checked by organised opposition. Normally -the change seems to have taken place by converting the right to pasture -a certain number of beasts in common with other tenants into the right -to the exclusive use of a certain number of acres. Instead of the whole -commonable area lying open to a number of animals "stinted" in a certain -proportion among the commoners, the stint is abandoned, and the basis of -allocation is found not in a fixed number of animals, but in a fixed -area of land, which forms the separate common of the individual farmer, -and which is naturally enclosed. Many examples of this division of -commonable land are found in the surveys, especially in connection with -the common waste of the manor, which enable us to trace the change from -collective to individual administration. Thus, to give a few instances, -at Winterbourne Basset[405] the farmer has all the meadow land except -one half-acre, and a separate close of 140 acres on the downs, where he -can graze nearly three times as many sheep as all the customary tenants. -At Knyghton[406] he has enclosed with a hedge part of the sheep's -common, no sheep at all being kept by the customary tenants. At -Massingham,[407] in Norfolk, where much of the demesne arable lies "in -the fields," there is an enclosed pasture containing 123-1/2 acres; and -on another farm of 203 acres, which has apparently been formed out of -the demesne, one finds 28 acres of arable "in the fields" and 65 acres -of "pasture enclosed," the remaining 80 acres lying "in the sheep -courses." The best picture of what the change meant is given by the two -maps[408] printed opposite. In No. III. the meadow, save for a small -piece used exclusively by All Souls, is common, each tenant presumably -being allowed to place so many beasts upon it. In No. IV. the meadow has -been divided up among the tenants, and instead of pasturing a limited -number of beasts on the whole of it, each can pasture as many beasts as -he pleases on part of it. It is not necessary to point out the -significance of this change from the point of view of the social -organisation of rural life. It means that communal administration of -part of the land has been abandoned and its place taken by use at the -discretion of the individual tenant. - - [405] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. The farmer has four closes of meadow amounting to - 9 acres, one meadow of 2-1/2 acres, one meadow of 7 acres, one - meadow of 8-1/2 acres. In addition to that and the hilly - pasture, there is in his possession "unus campus noviter - inclusus, qui aliquando seminatur, aliquando iacet ad pasturam," - and which "olim sustentare potuit 900 oves et catalla non - extenta." - - [406] _Ibid._, "De terra montanea unde pars includitur cum sepe - iuxta Crowcheston continens per estimationem 100 acres, et - custodire potest supra prædictam 900 oves." Sometimes it is - expressly stated that the farmer alone is to have a certain - pasture, _e.g._ at Chalke (_ibid_): "Et etiam dictus firmarius - habet ibidem unum montem vocatum a Doune et bene cognitum est - quia circumcinctum est per sepem et bundas, et custodire potest - 600 multones quia nullus habet communiam in eo nisi firmarius - solus, et continet per estimacionem 200 acres." - - [407] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 24, No. 4, f. - 46 (_temp._ Hen. VIII.). "The fold course will carry 1800 sheep - at £8 a hundred." - - [408] In All Souls' Muniment Room. - -But while the pasture ground and meadow offered special facilities for -enclosure, there is abundant evidence that the farmer's arable land was -also in many cases enclosed. On some manors the whole of the arable -demesne lay together, and in that case there was no obstacle in the way -of enclosing it. More usually it lay in three pieces, one block in each -of the three great fields, and here again, when there was sufficient -motive for enclosure, enclosure was easily practicable. The only -arrangement which offered a really difficult problem was that in which -it was divided into acre and a half strips scattered about the manor at -a distance from each other. One finds cases in which such strips -numbered several hundred, but the impression given by surveys is that, -at any rate by the middle of the sixteenth century, such extreme -subdivision was exceptional, and that the consolidation of holdings by -means of exchange and purchase, which we have seen at work from an early -date on the holdings of the customary tenants, had often proceeded so -far on the demesne as to have rounded off the farmer's property into -comparatively few large holdings. As an illustration of the first steps -towards unification and enclosure we may take the manor of Sparham,[409] -in Norfolk, which was surveyed about 1590. Here the 189 acres which -compose the demesne, and which are leased to a farmer, are still much -scattered. They lie in seventy different pieces, most of which are quite -small, acres, half-acres, and roods. But even here there has been a -considerable amount of consolidation, and it has been followed by the -beginnings of enclosure. The 37-1/2 acres of pasture lie in five pieces -of 11, 9, 7, 5, 5-1/2 acres, all of which have been enclosed. The arable -is still intermixed with the strips of the other tenants in the open -fields. But on the arable itself consolidation and enclosure are -creeping forward. There are four strips lying together which comprise -6-3/4 acres. There is one enclosure, consisting of arable, wood, and -meadow, and containing 17 acres. The neighbouring manor of -Fulmordeston[410] offers an example of a state of things in which the -same tendency has worked itself out to completion. The 742 acres leased -by the farmer of the demesne are entirely enclosed. There are two woods -comprising 50 acres. There is an enclosure of 250 acres, 35 perches, -consisting of "Corne severall and Broome severall." There is a "great -close" of 130 acres, 1 rood, "longe close" of 57 acres, 3 roods, "Brick -kyll close" of 40 acres, 1 rood, "Brakehill close" of 24 acres, 1 rood, -a field of 106 acres called Hestell, and another of 83 acres, 2 roods. -But these different stages are best illustrated by maps[411] Nos. I., -III., IV., V., and VI. - -On No. III. it will be seen that there is a good deal of subdivision. On -Nos. IV. and V. the tenants whose strips separated parts of the demesne -from each other, have in many cases dropped out, so that the process of -aggregation is facilitated: on No. I. the concentration of the demesne -into a single large block is complete; though it is still unenclosed, it -offers no obstacle to enclosure: on No. VI. consolidation has -been followed by enclosure, conversion to pasture and depopulation. -Between the state of things on map No. III. and that on map No. VI. -there is the greatest possible difference. Yet there is no reason to -doubt that Whadborough had once been an open field village with tenants -who were mainly engaged in tillage. Map Nos. IV., V., and I. are, as it -were, the intervening chapters which join the preface to the conclusion. -Occasionally one can see the process of consolidation, which was the -necessary preliminary of enclosure, actually taking place. At -Harriesham,[412] in Kent, the parson held 3 acres of glebe land in two -pieces, one of them lying in the middle of a field belonging to another -tenant, who ploughed up its boundaries and added it to his own land. -Accordingly, to prevent uncertainty in the future, the owner of the -field and the parson executed a deed by which the latter surrendered his -claim to the detached pieces of land, and in return got three acres laid -out in a single plot. In view of the large blocks which are often held -by the farmer of the demesne, one cannot doubt that such consolidation -by way of exchange must have been a common arrangement. - - [409] MSS. of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham, Sparham - Documents, Bdle. No. 5. - - [410] _Ibid._, Fulmordestone Documents, No. 59. Description of - manor at bottom of map (1614). - - [411] In All Souls' Muniment Room. - - [412] Maps in All Souls' Muniment Room: "The description of the - parsonage of Harriesham in the countie of Kent, with the glebe - lands thereunto belonging." Note on back of map: "Memorandum - that whereas there are and always have been 4 parcelles of land - in Mr. Steed his fielde called Harriesham field belonging unto - the parsonage of Harriesham, conteyninge by estimation three - acres, whereof the one did lye along by the landes of Sir Edward - Wootton, called the Cowe doune, the other ... abutteth on the - said Cowe doune toward the east, the other boundes thereof not - being certainly known by reason that they were plowed up by one - Robert Brinkley, tenant of the whole field, and were laid out by - Robert Brinkley as in the Platte doth appeare under the Redd - colour; It is now covenanted by the said Mr. Steede and Mr. - George Hovenden, incumbent there, by deed bearing date the 20th - of July in the 17th year of the Queen's Majestie's reign, that - nowe all that the said three acres shall from henceforth be - possessed by the parson and his successors for ever in manner - and form as it is nowe laid out in the platte in the yellow - colour after the maner of a square" [here follow the - boundaries]. - -It remains to ask how far the type of economy pursued by the large -farmer differed from that of the smaller tenants, and in particular -whether there are signs of his specialising upon the grazing of sheep. -The most complete picture of the agricultural changes of the early -sixteenth century, not on the demesne farms alone, but on the holdings -of all classes of tenants as well, is given in the well-known -returns[413] made by the Commissioners who were appointed by Wolsey in -1517 to investigate enclosures, and these are supplemented by the -figures published by Miss Davenport[414] as to the relative proportions -or arable and pasture land on certain Staffordshire estates. The -interpretation of both of these sets of statistics is ambiguous. Mr. -Leadam uses them to show that much enclosing took place for arable, and -that therefore the statutes and writers of the period exaggerated the -movement towards pasture farming. Professor Gay thinks his conclusions -untenable, and that a proper interpretation of the Commissioners' -returns corroborates the view of contemporary writers that pasture was -substituted for tillage on a large scale. Two points emerge pretty -clearly from the controversy. The first is that there was a good deal of -redistribution of land with the object of better tillage, of the kind -which has been described above, and that probably the fact that the word -"enclosure" was used to describe this, as well as the conversion of -arable to pasture, was responsible for some confusion. The second is -that the predominant tendency was towards sheep-farming. To suppose that -contemporaries were mistaken as to the general nature of the movement is -to accuse them of an imbecility which is really incredible. Governments -do not go out of their way to offend powerful classes out of mere -lightheartedness, nor do large bodies of men revolt because they have -mistaken a ploughed field for a sheep pasture. Even if we accept Mr. -Leadam's statistical analysis of the report of the Commission of 1517, -his figures still reveal a great deal of conversion to pasture; and it -is clear that many cases on which his totals rest are open to more than -one interpretation. - - [413] Leadam, _Domesday of Enclosures_. For a discussion as to - whether they suggest that enclosing took place for arable or - pasture, see _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xiv. - - [414] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xi. - -If the general correctness of the view of the sixteenth century -observers that there was a wide movement towards sheep-farming is -accepted, it ought to be represented more fully on the demesne farms -than elsewhere, because changes could be applied to them with much less -friction than to the lands in which the interests of other tenants were -involved. With a view to showing to what extent this is the case two -sets of figures are given below; the first is a table taken from Dr. -Savine's[415] work on _The English Monasteries on the Eve of the -Reformation_, and relates to the demesne lands of forty-one monasteries -which were surveyed for the Crown on the occasion of their surrender; -some were apparently in the hands of the monastery and some apparently -were leased. The second gives the approximate use to which land was put -by the farmers of the demesnes on forty-nine manors in the sixteenth and -early seventeenth centuries. They are subdivided in three groups, (_a_) -manors in Norfolk and Suffolk, (_b_) manors in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire -(one), and (_c_) manors in other southern and eastern counties, but -including one in Staffordshire and one in Lancashire. For purposes of -comparison the table given in Part I. Chapter III., illustrating the use -made of the customary holdings, is repeated here:-- - - TABLE X - - I - - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - |Total Demesne Land of Forty-one| Arable. | Pasture. | Meadow. | - |Monasteries. | | | | - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | - | 16780 | 6235-3/4 | 8691-1/2 | 1852-3/4 | - | | (37.1%) | (51.7%) | (11.0%) | - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - - II - - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - |Total Acreage of | | | | | | - |Sixty-five Farms on| | | | | | - |Fifty Manors. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.| Indeterminate.| - |(Fractions of | | | | | | - |Acres omitted.) | | | | | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. |Acres. |Acres. | Acres. | - | 16866 | 8302 | 6172 | 1528 | 624 | 240 | - | |(49.2%)| (36.5%)| (9%) |(3.6%) | (1.3%) | - +-------------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | COMPOSED OF (_a_) THIRTY-TWO FARMS ON | - | TWENTY-THREE MANORS IN WILTS AND ONE MANOR IN DORSET | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Thirty-two Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 8812 | 4390 | 2928 | 754 | 500 | 240 | - | |(49.8%)|(33.2%) | (8.3%)| (5.6%)| (2.7%) | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | (_b_) SIXTEEN FARMS ON THIRTEEN MANORS IN | - | NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Sixteen Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 4361 | 2393 | 1707 | 261 | ... | ... | - | | (52%) | (39%) | (5.9%)| | | - +-------------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | (_c_) SEVENTEEN FARMS ON THIRTEEN OTHER MANORS | - | MAINLY IN SOUTH AND MIDLANDS | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Seventeen Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 3691 | 1519 | 1536 | 512 | 124 | ... | - | |(41.1%)|(41.1%) |(13.8%)| (3.3%)| | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - - III - - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Customary Holdings|Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - | on Sixteen Manors.| | | | | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 7786 | 6841 | 555 | 390 | ... | ... | - | |(87.7%)| (7.1%) | (5.1%)| | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - - [415] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. pp. - 171-173. - -The figures in this table do not pretend to complete accuracy, but their -classification of the distribution of land between different uses is not -far wrong. Of the customary tenants' land about 87 per cent. is arable, -and 12 per cent. meadow and pasture. Of the farmers' land about 49 per -cent. is arable, 36 per cent. pasture, 9 per cent. meadow. The -proportion of pasture to arable is somewhat higher in the southern and -midland counties than it is in East Anglia; but the cases examined are -too few to allow of any conclusion being drawn from this fact. Without -pushing the figures in either table further than they will go, one may -suggest that they seem to imply, in the first place, that the large -farmer was by no means always a grazier, and that the writers of the -period who spoke as though all large-scale farming meant the conversion -of arable to pasture were guilty of some exaggeration. In a good many -cases the methods of cultivation pursued by the farmer of the demesne -differed from those of the customary tenants only in the fact that his -holding was larger; as a matter of fact the customary tenants on some -manors deserve the name of grazier better than the farmer of the demesne -upon others. - -But they suggest, in the second place, that these cases were -exceptional, and that, on the whole, arable farming played a much more -important part on the holdings of the customary tenants than it did on -those of the farmers. The former subsisted mainly on the tillage of the -land in the open fields. The latter, though they had often much arable, -sometimes had none, or next to none at all, and relied to a far greater -extent on the opportunities for stock-breeding offered by pasture and -meadow land. These figures, however, include some derived from manors -where tillage was virtually the only sort of farming carried on, and -they do not give any idea of the arrangements prevailing on an estate -where pasture-farming had been pushed far. Taking from the fifty manors -dealt with above, the twelve which are most typical of the new régime, -one gets a very different picture-- - - TABLE XI - - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - | | | | | | Other | - | Land Held. | Arable. | Meadow. | Pasture. | Closes. |(Wood, &c.)| - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | - | 4474 | 922 | 403 | 3065 | 71 | 13 | - | | (20.6%) | (8.9%) | (68.3%) | (1.5%) | | - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - -Here arable forms only 23 per cent. of the whole area, while pasture and -meadow together form over 77 per cent. This swing of the pendulum from -arable husbandry to pasture-farming will not surprise us, if we remember -that at the time of the Domesday Survey, and, indeed, throughout the -Middle Ages, the area of land under the plough had been, when considered -in relation to the population, extraordinarily large. The economic -justification of ploughing land which no modern farmer would touch had -lain in the fact that the impossibility of moving food supplies had made -it necessary for each village to be virtually self-supporting, and had -thus prevented the specialisation of districts in different types of -agriculture. When the development of trade under the Tudors had combined -with the keen demand for wool to introduce a geographical division of -labour, the change was naturally all the more violent, because there -was, so to speak, so much lee-way to be made up, because so much land -was in tillage which had no special suitability for the production of -grain. Even so, between 1815 and 1846, the rich water meadows of -Oxfordshire were being ploughed up for corn. Even so, after 1879, the -collapse of corn-growing was all the more disastrous, because it had -been so long delayed. - -One would expect the growth of large farms side by side with the -customary holdings, especially when the methods of agriculture employed -were so different, to result in a powerful reaction of the new interests -upon the old, and perhaps in a collision between them, even when no -deliberate attempt was made to alter the position of the tenants. And -this is what we are told in fact occurred. The customary tenants' -holdings and the demesne both formed part of one area, subject to -certain rights and privileges defined by the custom of the manor. Both, -for example, would lie open to the village cattle after harvest; both -were subject to the customary rotation of crops, and necessarily so when -the demesne was not separate but mixed with the customary holdings in -the open field; both had rights of common on the pasture or waste of the -manor. Moreover, the whole organisation of the economic side of manorial -life was based on the assumption that tillage was the most important -element in it. For example, the apportionment of rights over the waste, -the "stint" of animals to be grazed, assumed that no one partner would -require to graze more than a certain number, and broke down if he gave -himself up to cattle-breeding or sheep-farming, and multiplied his -beasts by five or ten. It would be natural, therefore, to look for a -straining and shifting of those rights as a probable consequence of the -existence side by side of two such different agricultural stages, and of -such different types of property. Formerly the respective interests of -the lord and the customary tenants had been harmonised by the fact that -the labour of the latter supplied the chief means of cultivating the -demesne, and that the demesne could hardly be a profitable concern if -the number of tenants or their standard of living declined very largely, -any more than a gold-mine can pay without gold-miners. But when the -demesne was largely used for pasture this consideration of course did -not apply, and in any case by the sixteenth century, although the -services of the tenants were still part of the means by which the -farmers found labour, they were probably an unimportant one. As is shown -by the smallness of the holdings on many manors, which were quite -insufficient by themselves to support a family, and by the evidence of -contemporaries, the farmer had a growing, though still small, labour -market into which to dip, and the rough agreement which had existed -between the interests of the manorial estate and those of the tenants -was therefore no longer existent. Thus a collision of interests, a -weakening of communal restrictions before the enterprise of the -capitalist farmer, the strengthening of some kinds of property and the -weakening of others, and the growth of new sorts of social relations in -the villages, were consequences to be expected from the increasing -predominance of the large farm, and especially of the large pasture -farm. - -To sum up the arguments of the chapter. At the beginning of the -sixteenth century forces both political--the restriction of the -territorial sovereignty of the landlords--and economic--the growth in -the demand for wool--were working to produce a change in the methods of -agriculture; and at any rate by the middle of the century another -powerful motive was added by the fall in the value of money. The result -was that there was a movement in the direction of converting arable land -to pasture, and of enclosure, which affected all classes of landholders, -but which was carried furthest by the large farmers who leased the -demesne lands of manors, who could afford to make experiments, and who -were under a strong incentive to turn the land to its most profitable -use. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE REACTION OF THE AGRARIAN CHANGES ON THE PEASANTRY - - -(a) _The Removing of Landmarks_ - -The history of the agrarian problem in the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries--indeed its history ever since--is largely the story of the -small cultivator's struggle to protect his interests against the changes -caused by the growth of the great estate. In that struggle there is much -that is detailed, tiresome, and obscure. The student hears very little -about general principles, very much of technicalities about the nature -of common appendant and common appurtenant, of stinted and unstinted -pastures, of gressums and fines, of copyholds for years, for lives, or -of inheritance, of land which is old enclosure that ought to stand, or -new enclosure that ought to fall. But at the centre of this maze of dry -and infinitely diverse details there is a real regrouping of social -forces going on, and a rearrangement, at once rapid and profound, of -economic and political ideas. We must no more picture the changes of our -period as mere matters of the technique of agriculture, than we must -think of the industrial revolution of two centuries later in terms of -spinning-jennies and steam-power. On the contrary, these very details -are the channel along which rural life is beginning to slip from one -form of economic organisation to another, the seed-plot in which new -conceptions of social expediency are being brought to maturity. In -numberless English villages between 1500 and 1600 large issues are being -decided which will profoundly modify the course of social development. -Is the communal administration of meadow and wastes to survive (as it -has survived in France and Belgium) or is it to disappear? Is England -to be a country of large cultivators working with many hired labourers, -or of small cultivators working with few? Is leasehold or copyhold to be -the predominant form of land tenure? When the final transition to modern -agriculture takes place, will England face the change with a population -the bulk of which has been rooted in the soil since the Middle Ages, or -will the middle classes in rural society have been already so far -undermined that opinion turns spontaneously to the great landlord as the -sole representative of agricultural progress? Of course the answer to -these questions was not given by 1600 or even by 1700; we must not -forget Arthur Young and the far more extensive enclosures of the -eighteenth century. But in our period development certainly took a -distinct bias away from one set of arrangements and in the direction of -another. The best standpoint from which to examine its course is found -by watching the reaction upon the tenants of the agricultural changes -which we have tried to summarise in the preceding sections. - -The economic effect of the policy pursued by the large farmer depended -upon what proportion of the land he controlled, and in particular upon -the part of the manor upon which enclosure was made. He might enclose -only the land actually belonging to the demesne farm when he took it -over; or he might enclose parts of the waste or meadow over which other -tenants had rights of pasture; or he might enclose the holdings in the -open arable fields belonging to other tenants, for this purpose -evicting, or inducing the lord to evict, them. When only the demesne -lands were enclosed the other interests were sometimes little disturbed, -unless indeed the demesne had already been parcelled out among some of -the smaller tenants, a contingency to be considered later. But, even -when that was not the case, the conversion of the demesne to pasture and -its enclosure had two consequences which were not unimportant. On the -one hand, the wage-earning population of cottagers and younger sons, who -had found employment as hired labourers when the demesne was used for -tillage, were thrown out of work, and with the limited demand for labour -offered by a sixteenth century village, were obliged, one would -suppose, to join the armies of tramps who figure so largely in the pages -of the writers of the period. As the bailiffs accounts of some manors -show, the demesne farm had sometimes employed a quite considerable staff -of workmen of different kinds, and though no clear instance of a -reduction of the number of employees, consequent on the transition to -pasture farming, has come to light, one can occasionally compare the -demand for labour under the old régime and under the new in a way which -does something to substantiate the lamentations of contemporaries.[416] -It is this which gives point to their complaints as to the decay of -"hospitality." Hospitality in the sixteenth century does not merely mean -a general attitude of open-handed friendliness. When the Government -intervenes to enjoin hospitality, we are not to think that, even in that -age of grandmotherly legislation, it is going out of its way to insist -that every man shall provide his neighbour with a glass of beer and a -bed for the night. Hospitality has a quite precise meaning and a quite -definite social importance. It is, in the most literal sense, -housekeeping, and the household does not merely imply what we mean by -"the family," a group of persons connected by blood but pursuing often -quite separate occupations, and, except in the small number of cases -where property owned by the head of the family supplies a financial -basis for unity, possessing quite separate economic interests. It is, on -the contrary, a miniature co-operative society, housed under one roof, -dependent upon one industry, and including not only man and wife and -children, but servants and labourers, ploughmen and threshers, cowherds -and milkmaids, who live together, work together, and play together, just -as one can see them doing in parts of Norway and Switzerland at the -present day. When the economic foundations of this small organism are -swept away by a change in the method of farming, the effect is not -merely to ruin a family, it is to break up a business. It is analogous -not to the unemployment of an individual householder, but to the -bankruptcy of a firm. - - [416] The Shepe Book of Tittleshall Manor (Holkham MSS., - Tittleshall Books, No. 19), shows flocks of 500 to 1000 sheep - being managed by a single shepherd, 1543-1549. - -On the other hand, even when they lost nothing else, the rest of the -landholding population was deprived of some of the rights of grazing -which they had exercised on the enclosed arable after harvest. If the -demesne formed a large proportion of the whole area of the village, or -if there was little other pasture, their loss, as the frequent -complaints of interference with "shack"[417] prove, might be a very -considerable one; for it meant that there might be no means of feeding -some proportion of the village beasts. Moreover, the mere presence of a -large capitalist who controlled a great part of the land, and converted -it to pasture or retained it as arable according to the price of wool -and wheat, prejudiced them in various indirect ways. The farmer of the -demesne seems at an early date to have had a bad name for hard dealings. -He was often a stranger, and therefore indifferent to the influence of -local customs and personal relationships. Where the manoral officials -had offered direct employment, he was a middleman with a high rent to -pay, and, like most middlemen, a channel for pressure without -responsibility. As the largest shareholder in the small agricultural -community, he could disturb its arrangements by altering his course of -cultivation, and, since he was the representative of the lord, he could -not easily be checked. Sometimes, indeed, a clause was inserted in his -lease expressly providing that he should not disturb the neighbouring -peasants.[418] But there are many cases in which there is no mention of -formal enclosing, and in which, nevertheless, it is complained that the -farmer persistently molests and harries the customary tenants. It was -the essence of the open field system of agriculture--at once its -strength and its weakness--that its maintenance reposed upon a common -custom and tradition, not upon documentary records capable of precise -construction. Its boundaries were often rather a question of the degree -of conviction with which ancient inhabitants could be induced to affirm -them, than visible to the mere eye of sense, and their indefiniteness -made the way of the transgressor extremely easy. Even the lord of the -manor sometimes found the large farmer too much for his vigilance. "John -Langford and his ancesters," the College of All Souls petitioned in -Chancery in 1637, "have for many yeares by vertue of several demises -farmed and rented of your oratours their said messuage and lands, and -used and occupied the same with their own lands, and during the time of -such occupation have pulled up, destroyed and removed, the metes, mere -londs, and boundaries of your oratours their said lands, and confounded -the same so that the same cannot be set forth.... Mr. Langford's lands -and grounds lying next adjoining unto the said oratours their -grounds, ... the said John Langford hath extended his said cottages, -orchards, gardens, and curtilages thereunto belonging, to your oratours -their said grounds, and hath made hedges, ditches, fences and mounds -wherein and whereby he hath enclosed your oratours their said grounds -unto his own cottages and land, ... and intendeth so ... to keep from -your orators all the said land so encroached and enclosed."[419] When a -farmer would thus calmly expropriate the lord of the manor, it is not -surprising to find constant small disputes between him and the other -tenants, on the ground of his entering upon their holdings, or -"surcharging the fieldes by waye of intercommon and destroying the corn -of greane by drifte of cattle over the common of fieldes and suche -other."[420] Often, no doubt, the sporadic encroachments which provoked -quarrels with the other tenants appeared to the great grazier a natural -exercise of his obvious rights. Who should say where one man's land -began and another's ended? But it can hardly be doubted that such -irregularities were sometimes a deliberate attempt to worry the weaker -members of the village community into throwing up their lands, by making -profitable cultivation impossible. "If any man do sow any ground," ran -the direction given by a lord to the shepherd who looked after the -demesne farm on a Suffolk manor, "and the stifts of the field are -broken, and may not duly be taken and fed as heretofore they have been -used, then the said Tillot to feed off the said corn and drive his sheep -on that part of the ploughed land, and to forbid any particular man to -sow his ground or any part thereof whereby the sheep-walks may be -hindered."[421] Such an order points to the difficulty of adjusting the -different methods of cultivation pursued by the smaller tenants and on -the demesne. Though the complaints of the former were often indefinite -enough, it is probable that the very difficulty of defining what a large -capitalist might or might not do was in itself a substantial grievance. -The truth is that it was not easy for the great pasture farm, with its -flocks of sheep, to subsist side by side with the smaller arable -holdings of the other tenants, without a good deal of friction arising, -even in those cases in which no deliberate attempt was made to evict the -latter or to deprive them of their rights of common. The traditional -organisation of agriculture was based on the assumption that much the -same methods of utilising the land would be followed by all the tenants. -When that assumption broke down with the growth of large-scale -sheep-farming, there was naturally a collision of interests between the -great men who made innovations and the small men who adhered to the -customary rule. - - [417] _e.g._ Holkham MSS., Fulmordeston, Bdle. 6: "To the Right - Honourable Sir Edward Cooke, Knight, Attorney General unto the - King's Ma{tie}. Humblie sheweth unto your lordship yo{r} poore - and dayley orators ... yo{r} worshippes tenants of the Manor of - Fulmordeston cum Croxton in the Duchie of Lancaster, and the - moste parte of the tenants of the same manor that whereas your - said orators in the Hillary Terme last commenced suite in the - Duchie Courte against Thomas Odbert and Roger Salisbury, gent., - who have enclosed their grounds contrary to the custom of the - manor, wherby your wor. loseth your shack due out of the - grounds, common lane or way for passengers is stopped up, and - your worshipps' poore orators lose their accustomed shack in - those grounds, and the said Roger Salisbury taketh also the - whole benefit of theire common from them, keepinge there his - sheepe in grazinge, and debarring them of their libertie there - which for comon right belongeth unto them." For the rest of this - document see Appendix I., and compare the following defence to a - charge of breaking open an enclosure: "The owners of the said - tenements, from time whereof there is no memory to the contrary, - have had a common of pasture for themselves and their tenants in - one close commonly called 'the new leasue,' in the lordship of - Weston in the manner following; that is to say, when the field - where the said 'leasue' doth lie, called Radnor field, lieth - fallow, then through the whole year; and when the said field is - sown with corn, then from the reaping and carrying away of the - corn until the same be sown again ... and the said Thomas Dodd - further said that he did break open the said close ... being - fenced in such time as he ought to have common in the same, to - the end that his cattle might take their pasture therein" - (_William Salt Collection_, New Series, vol. ix., Chancery - Proceedings, Bdle. 8, No. 9). - - [418] For complaints of tenants against the exactions, of - farmers as early as 1413, see _Victoria County History_, Essex, - vol. ii. p. 318. For a stipulation in the farmer's covenant, see - the following: "Item a covenant conteyned in this lease that the - said Thomas shall permit and suffer the customary Tenants - peaceably to have and enjoy their estates, rights, grants, - interests, and premises, without any lette, interruption, or - contradiction of the said Thomas" (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke - Surveys_, Knyghton); and _Northumberland County History_, vol. - v. p. 208, Buston: "The tenants of this town at the beginning of - summer have their oxen allway grazed in Shilbottel wood, or else - they were not able to maintain their tenements. It is therefore - requisite that his lordship or his heire should have respect - unto the want of pasture, that in any lease made by his lordship - or his heire to any person of the pasture, the said Shilbottel - wood, there might be a proviso in the said lease that the said - tenants should have their oxen ground there, as they have been - accustomed." Instances of the harrying of the peasants by the - large farmers are to be found, _ibid._, vol. i. p. 350 - (Tughall), and p. 274 (Newham). - - [419] All Souls' Archives, vol. i. p. 203, No. 356. - - [420] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of Mudford - and Hinton. In this case the aggressor was not the farmer of the - demesne, but a freeholder owning a third of the manor. To escape - his depredations the tenants proposed "to enclose their common - fieldes and to assign to Master Lyte and his tenants his third - parte in every field by itself, and to extinguish his right of - common in the rest." - - [421] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, "Social and Economic - History." - - -(b) _The Struggle for the Commons_ - -But sporadic encroachments are not the worst which the small man has to -fear. He may wake to find the path along which he drives his beasts to -pasture blocked by a hedge. When he goes to renew his lease or buy the -reversion of his copy, he may be told that his holding is to be merged -in a pasture farm. The great estate is not always built up by the mere -consolidation of pieces of land which are already united in ownership, -though spatially they may be separate. If it were there would be few -statutes and few riots; for the law looks with a favourable eye on such -attempts at improved cultivation, and the peasants have long been doing -on a small scale what the capitalist farmer does on a large. The great -estate is formed in another and less innocent way, by throwing together -holdings whose possession is separate, though spatially they may be -contiguous. It is the result of addition, not simply of organisation; of -addition in which the cyphers are the holdings of numerous small -tenants. In such a process the opposition between the interests of the -peasantry and those of the manorial authorities is brought to a head. If -one man is to run a hedge round a pasture, the pasture must first be -stripped of the rights of common which enmesh it. If sheep are to be fed -on the sites of ruined cottages, their occupants must first be evicted. -It is over the absorption of commons and the eviction of tenants that -agrarian warfare--the expression is not too modern or too strong--is -waged in the sixteenth century. Let us look at both these movements more -closely. - -The obscurity to one age of the everyday economic arrangements of -another is excellently illustrated by the difficulty of appreciating the -part which common rights played in English husbandry before the -nineteenth century. It is not so long since it became a memory. There -are villages where the old men still remember--how could they forget -it?--the year when the commons finally "went in." Yet there is hardly a -feature in the plain man's view of the nature of a common which -corresponds to the reality as it was used by our ancestors, and as it is -used to-day by communities whose land system has followed a different -course of development from our own. He thinks of a common as land which, -like a municipal park, "belongs to the public," land which any one may -use and any one abuse. In the innocence of his heart he will even move -his local authority to put in a claim for its possession, and is very -much surprised when its solicitors tell him that he is fighting for the -rights of two or three mouldy tenements. Again, he thinks of a common as -a place of fresh air and recreation, not of business; as land for which, -at the moment, no serious economic use can be found; unprofitable -scraps, whose ineligibility has secured them a precarious immunity from -park-loving squires and speculative builders. In connection with -agriculture he thinks of it not at all--is not waste land the opposite -of land which is under cultivation? In one respect he is right. Our -existing commons are remnants--remnants which have survived the deluge -of eighteenth century Private Acts, mainly because they consist of land -too poor to pay counsel's fees. In all other respects he is wrong. In -the earlier period the word common implied common exclusiveness quite as -much as common enjoyment. The value of a common to the commoners -consisted precisely in the guarantee given them by custom that no one -might use it except holders of tenements which time out of mind had a -right thereto, and that no man might use it to a greater extent than the -custom of the manor allowed. And the modern man is especially wrong in -regarding commons as though they fell below the margin of economic -employment. Commons and common rights, so far from being merely a luxury -or a convenience, were really an integral and indispensable part of the -system of agriculture, a linch pin, the removal of which brought the -whole structure of village society tumbling down. - -No one who reads the petitions and the legal proceedings of our period -can doubt that this was what the small cultivator felt. No one who -consults the surveyors can doubt that he was right. Yet, at first sight, -the importance attached to commons is certainly surprising. Is not the -outcry disproportionate to the grievance? To riot and rebel when you -lose grazing rights--is not this, it may be asked, rather like shooting -your landlord because he will not let you keep poultry? The answer is -perhaps a twofold one. The peasants' economy in the sixteenth century -was one in which, in many parts of England, the pastoral side of -agriculture played a very important rôle, and for which, therefore, -abundance of pasture land was very essential. As any one who has lived -in a Swiss châlet knows, a family which has sufficient cattle and goats -on a good mountain can, during half the year, be almost self-sufficing. -It has milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and meat. The only thing it really -misses is bread, and that it has the means of purchasing, even if it -does not, like the sensible people of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and -probably of most parts of England before the industrial revolution, bake -its own supplies at home or in a common public oven. Our sixteenth -century peasants do not keep goats, but they keep a great many horses -and cows, on some manors an average of 6 or 8 per holding; they keep a -great many sheep, sometimes 150 or 200 each; they meet depressions in -the corn trade by falling back on other sides of agriculture, and -sending to market miscellaneous produce which, in a time of rising -prices, sells well. But to do this successfully they must have plenty of -grazing land. A Swiss commune measures its wealth very largely by the -quality of its pasture, and will take pains to buy a good one, even -though it be a long distance from the village.[422] Can we doubt that -the same was true of many parts of England, and that Hales' husbandmen -who "could never be able to make up my lordes rent weare it not for a -little brede of neate, shepe, swine, gese, and hens,"[423] was typical, -not, it is true, of the more substantial men, but of many of the less -well-to-do? - - [422] For an amusing example see Conway, _The Alps from End to - End_, pp. 190-192. - - [423] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 57. - -But there was another and more fundamental reason for the importance -attached to rights of common, and for the disastrous re-action upon the -tenantry involved in their curtailment. It was that the possession of -pasture was not only a source of subsidiary income but also quite -indispensable to the maintenance of the arable holding, which was -everywhere the backbone of the tenants' livelihood. Ask a modern small -holder, and he will tell you that what he wants is a certain proportion -of grass-land to arable, in order that he may feed his horses without -having to resort to the hire of extra land, to the purchase of -foodstuffs, or to turning them out to pick up a living where they can by -the side of the road.[424] In the normal village community this was -secured by the apportionment of rights of pasture to each arable -holding, the tenants grazing their cattle on the common in the summer, -and only feeding them on their separate closes when the approach of -winter made shelter a necessity.[425] It is, therefore, a mistake to -think of the engrossing of commons by large farmers as affecting the -peasant only in so far as he was a shepherd or a grazier. On the -contrary, it struck a blow at an indispensable adjunct of his arable -holding, an adjunct without which the ploughland itself was -unprofitable; for to work the ploughland one must have the wherewithal -to feed the plough beasts. It is this close interdependence of common -rights with tillage which explains both the manner of their organisation -and the distress caused by encroachments upon them. Rights of common of -the most general type go with the tenement, not with the tenant, because -what is considered is the maintenance of a fully equipped arable -holding in the open fields, and for this end it is not necessary to -allow common rights to the population of younger sons, servants, or -others who do not hold one of these primary units of tillage. The -commoners are often "stinted," restricted[426] that is in the number of -beasts which they may put upon the pasture, because rights of grazing -have to be distributed among all the arable holdings, such holdings -being unworkable without them. Rights of common are often apportioned -among the tenants "according to the magnitude of their holdings," for, -of course, a large holding will need more plough beasts, and therefore -more pasture, than a small one. Their boundaries are accurately recorded -from this tree to that stone and such and such a hill, because otherwise -an invasion of foreigners with their cattle from a neighbouring village -may eat them up like locusts. To divide them up among the tenants may do -no harm provided the division is an equitable one, for each man will -still have his equipment of pasture, though in the form of a limited -area instead of in the form of a limited quota of beasts. To appropriate -common pastures without compensation may ruin a whole village; it is to -seize a piece of free capital without which cows and horses cannot be -fed, and thus it is virtually to confiscate the beasts, which are the -peasant's tools. When that is done he must either re-assert his rights, -or throw up his arable holding, or hire pasture for a money rent; -sometimes--a bitter thought--he must hire grass-land from the very man -who has robbed him.[427] - - [424] Ten acres of "turf" to forty acres of arable was the - estimate of his requirements made to me by an Oxfordshire small - holder. - - [425] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.: "The tenants of - Landress have common in a certayne ground called King's Moore - for all kinde of cattle, and every one of them may keep in the - said moore as much of all kind of cattle in somer as their - severall or ingrounde will beare in the wynter, whyche is a - great relief to the poore tenants, for as they confesse they - keep all their cattle there in the somer, and reserve their - ingroundes untouched for the winter." - - [426] _e.g._ _Southampton Court Leet Records_ (Hearnshaw), pp. - 4-5, 1550: "Item we present that no burgers or comyners at one - time comyn above the number of two beasts upon payne of every - such defaulte 2s.; provided that iff any of them have two kyne - or wenlings, he shall have no horse, and yf he have but one cow - he may have one horse." - - [427] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.--Rolleston - (Stafford): "The said manor is ... well inhabited with divers - honest men, whose trade of lyvinge is onlie by husbandry ... and - have no large pastures or severall closes ... but have been - alwaie accustomed to have their cattle and sometyme their - ploughe beasts pastured in the Queen's Majestie's Park of - Rolleston, for xxd., the stage ... without which aide and help - they were neither able to maintain hospitallitie nor tyllage; - and nowe of late yeares the fermor of the herbage hath advanced - the stage to 6s. 8d., and yet the Quene's Majesties rent nothing - increased." - -One must not, of course, unduly simplify the picture. Different villages -are very differently endowed with grazing land. On some there is a -common waste, and a common pasture in addition of superior quality, so -that the waste can be left to animals which will thrive on rough land. -On others there is not even a common waste, and the tenants have to do -the best they can on the stubble which lies open after harvest. Nor do -they all manage the apportionment of grazing rights in the same way. As -we have seen, there has been a movement towards the formation of -separate closes; and even when all the pasture is administered in -common, it may either be that each villager looks after his own animals, -or that the township, intent on seeing that the common is not -overstocked, appoints a common shepherd and a common cowherd, who drives -them all afield together "under the opening eyelids of the morn." Under -all such diversities, however, which can often be paralleled from the -practice of continental communes to-day, there is the fundamental fact -of the necessity of rights of pasture to successful tillage. -Fitzherbert's remark that "an husband cannot well thrive by his corne -without he have other cattle, nor by his cattle without corne,"[428] is -reiterated in different forms by other surveyors. When they tell us that -a common adjoining a town is a "great relief to the poor tenants," and -recommend that a special clause be inserted in a farmer's lease binding -him not to appropriate the pasture without which the tenants "were not -able to maintain their tenements," they are speaking of matters which -they understand far better than we possibly can, and must be believed. - - [428] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. - -The monopolising of commons by manorial authorities who wished to form a -large sheep-run can be traced through several stages, of which actual -enclosure is only one, and the climax rather than the beginning. It -usually begins with the overstocking of the common pasture by the owner -of great flocks and herds, and the consequent edging out of the small -man, though, of course, when the area is a large one, and when, as in -Wiltshire, there are great downs which are suitable for sheep, it may be -a long time before the latter feels the pinch severely. But the mere -overriding by a capitalist of the customary allotment of pasture rights -is usually only the first step. As long as matters are left in this -transition stage there is endless friction and disturbance, because each -party tries to oust the other, the great man swamping the pasture with -his beasts, and the peasants defiantly insisting that the recognised -stint shall be observed--a guerilla warfare in which the farmer's -servants are matched against the township's cowherd and the common -pound. Enclosing follows as a way of regularising the new arrangements, -by substituting a tangible and prickly boundary for an ideal limit. -Sometimes enclosure is demanded by the peasants and resented by the -well-to-do, who think that in the general squabble they will come off -best. More often it is carried out with a high hand by the farmer and -the lord, who, once they take seriously to cattle-breeding or -sheep-farming, have naturally no desire to have a limit set to their -investment in stock. Occasionally compensation[429] is given to the -dispossessed commoners in the shape of an abatement in their rents, or -of a fresh pasture in another quarter. In most of our documents, -however, there is little trace of any deliberate re-adjustment of -rights. We are simply told that "he holds the whole of the hilly -pasture," or that he has "a heath enclosed with a hedge," or that -grounds have been "enclosed contrary to the custom of the manor." We can -trace the effect in the small number of beasts which other tenants keep, -but we are left to conjecture how this state of things was reached. Our -impression is that in most cases the enclosing of commons was carried -out in the simplest and most arbitrary way, by the lord or the farmer -erecting a hedge round such part of the common pasture as he cared to -appropriate, and leaving the tenants to make good their demand that it -should be removed, if they could. - - [429] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v., Birling: - "Allowed part of 25s. 4d. for focage of Orchard Medow and - Mylneside Bank, because they are now enclosed within the lord's - new Park, and this allowance shall be made yearly until the - tenants of Byrling have and peacefully enjoy another parcel of - pasture to the same value 11s. 8d." (Bailiff's Accounts, 1474). - R.O. _Misc. Books Land Rev._, vol. ccxx., f. 236: "Divers - parcels of land and pasture of the manor of Farfield, now common - of 140 acres, now occupied by the tenants there as commons and - given them in exchange in satisfaction of their old common - imparked in the new Park, £6, 13s. 8d." - -Could they make it good? The question of the degree to which different -classes of tenants could obtain legal redress for disturbance will be -discussed later. But we cannot leave this part of our subject without -considering shortly the standpoints towards disputes arising out of the -loss of rights of common, which were adopted by the peasantry and by -legal opinion. One may point out, in the first place, that their -standpoints were by no means the same. The contrast which we have -already ventured to draw between the considerable elements of practical -communism in the working arrangements of the village community and the -strict and (so we believe) correct interpretation of the law of the -King's Courts, which treats its members simply as holders of individual -rights which they on occasion exercise jointly, comes out very -strikingly in the different attitudes adopted towards rights of pasture. -If we must be careful not to see communism where there are really only -individual rights, we must also be careful not to see only individual -rights where there is in fact a considerable amount of communism. -However much it may be necessary to emphasise the "rough and rude -individualism"[430] latent in these arrangements, we must admit that for -the peasants themselves, who make and depend upon them, they contain -features which are not easily explained without the use of words which -the lawyers are reluctant to allow us--words implying some degree of -practical communism. We must remember that the custom of the manor is -itself a kind of law, and that though the lawyers who sit in the King's -Courts may cast their rules into a feudal mould, which attenuates rights -of common to mere concessions made by the lord to individual tenants, -yet the law of the village, the custom of the manor, to which the first -appeal is made, does treat them as containing a distinctly communal -element. In practice the whole body of customary tenants are found -managing their commons on a co-operative plan. They regulate their use -and re-adjust the regulations, sometimes at almost every meeting of the -court. As a community, they hire additional pasture and administer town -lands. As a community, they make arrangements for enclosure and even -sell part of their common--the common in which only individuals have -proprietary rights--to persons who undertake to invest capital in -improving it.[431] When all regulations fail and the enemy attempts to -evade their vigilance by a strategic appearance of benevolence, a town -sometimes returns to the charge with words glowing with what can only be -called the pride of common property, though the title to that property -may be of a very shadowy kind. "Whereas of late days," proclaimed the -Court Leet of Southampton in 1579, "there hathe ben a peice of our -common and heathe ditched and hedged and enclosed in and planted with -willows under the name of a shadow for our cattle, which have hitherto -many yeares past prospered verie well as the common was -before;--wherefore (therefore) we desire that it may be pulled down -again and levelled as before, for we doubt that in short time yt will be -taken from our common to some particular man's use, which were -lamentable and pitiable and not sufferable. For as our ancestors of -their great care and travail have provided that and like other many -benefits for their successors, so we thinke it our dutie in conscience -to keepe, uphold and maintaine the same as we found yt for our -posteritie to come, without diminishing any part or parcel from yt, but -rather to augment more to yt yf may be." We need not ask in what sense -the Southampton men had inherited the salt marsh from their ancestors, -or whether a lawyer would not have made short work of their claim to -leave it to posterity. It is enough to realise that they feel it to -belong to their town in a quite effective and intimate manner, that they -stint it, turn off intruders, guard it for their descendants, defend it, -if need be, with bows and arrows and pikes, and the other agricultural -implements of that forceful age. We know that people commit many crimes -in the name of posterity. But they do not usually think of bequeathing -to their grandchildren rights which have never had any existence for -themselves. We shall hardly understand all that was meant for a village -by the loss of its common pastures unless we allow for that feeling of -practical proprietorship, unless we confess that a society of -landholders becomes on occasions something very like a landholding -society. - - [430] Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. i. p. - 606. For the questions concerning common rights see _ibid._, pp. - 594-624, and Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 340-356; - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II. chap, ii., and - _The Growth of the Manor_, Book II. chap. iv. I have followed - Vinogradoff's rather than Maitland's view. - - [431] For buying and selling of pasture see below, and for - enclosure pp. 168-170. The following seems a clear case of more - or less corporate action. Holkham MSS., Burnham, Bdle. 5, No. - 94: "Copy of an indenture between [here follows a list of names] - of the same town and county, yeomen, as well on the behalf of - themselves as of the rest of the comoners and freeholders of the - said town of the one part, and Robert Bacon of [illegible] in - the County of Norfolk, and Thomas Coke of Grays Inn in the - County of Middlesex of the other part, that whereas heretofore - Sir Philip [illegible] being lord and owner of the marshes - hereafter mentioned ... did by his indenture of bargain and sale - bearing date ... 1588, grant bargain and sell unto [list of - names as above] all those marsh grounds lying and being in - Burnham, to have and to hold the said premises to the parties - last before mentioned and their heires to the use of them and - their heires for ever, to the intent and purpose notwithstanding - that the said parties last before mentioned there, being - inhabitants in certain ancient messuages in the said Towne, and - all other inhabitants of the said Towne there and afterwards for - the tyme being in any of the ancient messuages and cottages in - the said towne, for so long time as they shall be there - inhabitinge and noe longer, according to the quantity of their - tenures within the said Towne might depasture and feede the land - as by the said deeds referring thereunto being had may more - fully appeare; [it recites that the land] may by wallinge and - embankinge the same be improved to more than a [illegible] - value, and made fitt for arrable, meadowe, and pasture grounde, - whereby tillage may be increased and his Majestie's subjects - receive more employment thereby, and danger of drawing - [drowning?] of their stock for their feedinge prevented [recites - that Robert Bacon and Thomas Coke have undertaken to drain the - land in return for receiving three parts of it and that the - persons above mentioned] being the major parte of the parties - interested in the said salte Marshes, and being enabled by the - lawes and Statutes of this realm to contract and bargaine with - any person or persons for the draining thereof" [now convey 3 - parts of the marshes to the above-mentioned Robert Bacon and - Thomas Coke], June 8, 1637. The motive of this agreement was to - get the low-lying meadows on the sea-coast drained. Drainage - schemes were much in the air about this time, and any one who - has seen the country near Holkham and Burnham will know how - badly protection from the sea was needed. Two points are worth - noticing: (i.) the tenants have no objection to surrendering - part of their common if they get a _quid pro quo_; (ii.) they - act as a single body. They buy land and they sell land and they - can leave it to their heirs. Certain persons in the township act - on their behalf, much as directors might act for a body of - shareholders. Is it possible to speak of such arrangements - simply in terms of individual rights? Are we not driven to think - of the township as almost a landholding corporation? - -But, in the second place, such communal aspirations are a matter of -feeling and custom, not of national law. It is hardly necessary to point -out that these words do not put an aspect of the case which could be -pleaded in court in a dispute as to common of pasture. At the touch of -the law, as has often been pointed out, the communal element, of which -Southampton makes so much, seems to crumble away. If, to the eye of the -peasants, a manor was a more or less self-conscious community with -considerable powers of controlling the administration of its pastures, -it was, to the eye of the common lawyer, a collection of individuals -bound together by their relation to the manorial authorities, but in -other respects able to enforce rights of common only in so far as those -rights could be shown to be enjoyed by one of the four[432] titles which -the law recognised. It is quite true that in practice the use of common -pastures extended to persons who could not plead one of those titles, -and that the economic working of the village often cannot be brought -inside the four corners of a legal formula. But when a right of pasture -is challenged by the lord of the manor, the tenant must show that his -right falls within them or lose his case. Of those four titles residence -in a manor was not one. The occupier who is the unit of English Local -Government to-day had, as such, no standing, because he was not, _qua_ -occupier, a holder of one of the arable shares with which, primarily, -rights of pasture went. Again, a great number of cottagers and day -labourers, who were not holders of arable, but who in practice used the -commons for pigs, geese, poultry, and cows, were likely to be legally in -the same unprotected condition; so that it is obvious that, when -enclosing took place, there might be a considerable number of persons, -perhaps an actual majority of the villagers, who could not even raise -the question whether they could obtain redress or not, and that much -distress could be caused without any infringement of the law. Of those -who could bring their enjoyment of rights of pasture under one of the -categories which the law recognised, the freeholders were, of course, in -the strongest position. They could plead rights of common appendant to -their tenements; probably they could often plead common appurtenant, and -common in gross, common by a special personal grant, as well, and they -could enforce their rights both by self-help, in the way of throwing -down recent enclosures, and by the ordinary remedies of the Assize of -Novel Disseisin or an action of trespass. - - [432] Common appendant, common appurtenant, common in gross, and - common par cause de vicinage. This classification is not found - in Bracton, and appears to date from the late Middle Ages, see - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II., chap, ii., and - the following case: _Coke's Reports_, Part IV., p. 60. Hill, 4 - Jac. I. in Communi Banco: "Robert Smith brought an action of - Trespass against Stephen Gatewood, gent., quare clausum fregit - ... cum quibusdam averiis.... Defendant pleaded a certain - custom, 'quod inhabitantes infra eandem villam de Stixwood - prædictam infra aliquod antiquum messuagium ibidem ratione - commorantiæ et residentiæ suæ in eadem habuerunt et usi fuerunt - et consueverunt habere com. Pastur ... pro omnibus et omnimodis - bobus et equis et aliis grossis animalibus.' Unanimously - resolved that the custom is against law. 1. That there are but - four manners of common, common appendant, appurtenant, in gross, - and by reason of vicinage, and this common _ratione commorantiæ_ - is none of them. 2. What estate shall he have, who is - inhabitant, in the common, when it appears he hath no estate or - interest in the house (but a mere habitation and dwelling) in - respect of which he ought to have his common? For none can have - interest in a common in respect of a house in which he hath no - interest." - -Moreover, the Statute of Merton, which expressly allowed a lord to -enclose commonable land on condition that he left sufficient for the -free tenants, did not mean that a lord could arbitrarily cut down rights -of common to what he was pleased to think sufficient. If it had, there -would have been little enclosing of commons in the sixteenth century, -for by that time there would have been little common left to enclose. -The question "what is sufficient?" had to be answered by a jury, a jury -representing expert knowledge as to local customs and the agrarian -usages of the township. The jury could only answer it by taking account -of the size of the tenements and of the land available for commoning. In -fact, it found itself at once considering the custom of the manor, which -stinted rights of pasture according to the economic needs and resources -of different villages. Of the position of the customary tenants it is, -for reasons which will be given below, less easy to speak. Regarded from -the standpoint of the economic organisation of the manor, their rights -of pasture should have got protection as much as those of the -freeholders, for as holders of ancient tenements they required pasture -to enable them to carry on their tillage; and since they were, in most -parts of the country, by far the most numerous class, the aggregate of -their commonable area was much larger than was that of the free tenants. -According to the canon of interpretation supplied by Coke,[433] the -Statute of Merton would appear, at any rate in the latter part of the -sixteenth century, to have been construed as protecting them; and -Fitzherbert,[434] though he introduces an additional complication by -trying--trying, it seems, quite arbitrarily--to prove that rights of -pasture over the waste and rights of pasture on land which was not -technically part of the waste, ought to be treated differently, places -all tenants on an equal footing in respect of their claim to be left -"sufficient common." - - [433] Coke, Complete Copyholder, Sect. 53: "When an Act of - Parliament altereth the service, tenure, or interest of the - land, or other thing in prejudice of the lord or of the Customs - of the Manor, or in prejudice of the tenant, then the generall - words of such an Act of Parliament extend not to the copyhold; - but when an Act is generally made for the good of the - commonwealth, and no prejudice may accrue by reason of the - alteration of any interest, service, tenure, or Custom, of the - Manor, there usually copyhold lands are within the generall - purview of such Acts." - - [434] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_: "And as for that manner - of common, me seemeth the Lord may improve himself of their - waste grounds, leaving their own tenants sufficient common, - having no regard to the tenants of the other lordship. But as - far as all errable lands, meadows, leises, and pastures, the - lordes may improve themselves by course of the common law, for - the statute speaketh nothing but of waste grounds." - -The treatment by the law of common rights, in the case both of -freeholders and of the customary tenants, seems to fit roughly into this -scheme, though the actual facts are somewhat more complex than it would -suggest. The cases show that the freeholders had a legal remedy if -enclosure deprived them of rights of pasture, and that this remedy was -used. A freeholder could say "these be the pastures ... which should be -my common ... after the tenure of my freehold;"[435] if he proved the -fact he got protection, and on manors where the freeholders were -numerous and the lord wanted to make very large enclosures, he had to -buy them out. It is true also that the freeholders[436] joined with the -farmer on some manors in enclosing commonable land, to the detriment of -the customary tenants, who apparently sometimes had to acquiesce in it. -They show again that a customary tenant could obtain protection for his -rights of common pasture both, at any rate in the sixteenth century, -from the Common Law Courts, and also, at an earlier date, from the Court -of Chancery, provided that he could show that such rights were attached -to his holding by the custom of the manor, a very important -qualification, to which we must return.[437] On the other hand, it is -certainly true that both freeholders and customary tenants suffered in -our period from a curtailment of common rights, in spite of the -qualified protection enjoyed by the latter and the complete protection -enjoyed by the former. We cannot, in fact, be content with a mere -summary of the legal position, for the law is not always strong enough -or elastic enough to cope with shifting economic forces. Or, rather, its -arm is short, and it can only grapple with those conflicts which are -sufficiently violent to force their way to Westminster. - - [435] _e.g._ _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii. p. 510. - - [436] _Genealoger and Archæologist_, vol. i., Manor of West - Coker (Somerset): "The demesnes remayneth in one entier ferm, - and is dymysed to one Sir John Seymour, knight, who being - confederate with the freeholders of the manor, maketh such - inclosers for his owne lucre, and suffreth the freeholders to do - the same, nevertheless surcharge the common with their cattle, - that in process of tyme yt wilbe the destruccion of the - custumarye tenants." - - [437] For a discussion of the legal position of the copyholders - see below, pp. 287-310. - -Some light may be thrown on the kind of trouble of which our period was -full by two accounts which have come down to us of disputes concerning -rights of common pasture. At Coventry[438] there were in the fifteenth -century prolonged quarrels between the City and the Prior and Convent of -the Cathedral Church of St. Mary. In 1485 the Prior was accused by the -city authorities of wrongfully overcharging the common with sheep and -cattle, to the damage of the city. He replied by admitting the legal -rights of the other commoners, but by claiming that whereas they could -only pasture a limited number of beasts, "by the lawe of this lande the -lord of the waste soyle may surcharge and pasture there what nombre hym -lykes," and that therefore in overstocking the common he was only -exercising his rights. To this the city answered by a rather hesitating -appeal to custom, according to which the commoners never had been -stinted to a fixed number of beasts, and by pointing out that, if the -Prior was allowed to put as many beasts on the common as he pleased, he -was virtually confiscating the property of the other commoners. This -case brings out very clearly one weakness in the position even of the -free tenants. It was that, while they were protected by law against -attempts actually to deprive them of rights of common, the protection -might be held to be contingent on the lord or his farmer proceeding so -far as not to leave them sufficient, and was not available if the -encroachments only went so far as to diminish their common pasture. -There was a minimum which they could not lose: but above this minimum -their rights of pasture were elastic and compressible, and when, as in -this case, the pasture was so large as to make any numerical limit to -the number of beasts which they might graze unnecessary, the commoners -might be deprived of some part of their customary pasture without any -infringement of the law.[439] - - [438] _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii. pp. 445-446 and _passim_. - - [439] If the common was so large that it had been unnecessary to - "stint" it, why did the city object to the lord putting - additional beasts on? I take the situation to be that the - Prior--probably tempted by the profitableness of sheep-farming - in the latter part of the fifteenth century--diminished the - pasture which the city could use, by putting on many more beasts - than ever before, which, in the absence of a recognised "stint," - he was able to do without violating any custom, as he would have - done if there had been a customary limit, as on many manors. - Another aspect of the problem is illustrated by a story of a - similar struggle at Wootton Basset,[440] a small borough in - Wiltshire. Early in the seventeenth century the mayor and - freemen of Wootton Basset petition Parliament to "enact - something for us, that we may enjoy our right again." What they - want is a restoration of certain rights of common which a - powerful neighbour has taken from them. Their story--they seem - to rehearse it with tears in their eyes--is a perfect Odyssey of - misfortunes. According to them, the manor of Wootton Basset had - passed in 1555 into the hands of Sir Francis Englefield, who - enclosed a park containing 2000 acres, in which the free tenants - had hitherto had rights of pasture, and had them without stint, - owing to its great size. This wicked man showed them, however, a - sort of contemptuous compassion. He left them 100 acres, with - which they had to be content, and the rights over which they - carefully apportioned, "to the Mayor for the time being two - cowes feeding, and to the constable one cowe feeding, and to - every inhabitant of the said Borough, each and every of them, - one cowe feeding and no more, as well the poore as the riche." - These rights of common were in practice vested in all the - tenements in the town (not only, it would appear, the free - tenements), and property was bought and sold subject to them. - The occasion of the petition was that the grand nephew of the - original grantee, having apparently got, by some means which the - petitioners could not explain, the title deed of the common into - his hands, set out to ruin those whom his ancestor had only - robbed. He began lawsuits against the free tenants, excluded - them from the 100 acres of common which remained to them, and - put his own cattle on it. The suits, according to our story, - were purposely deferred, and dragged on so long that one of the - free tenants was actually made bankrupt by legal charges and the - rest were impoverished, the common being used meantime by the - plaintiff, Sir Francis Englefield. - - [440] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii. These are the - people whom Heaven protected in the way described on p. 148 - note. Observe what this little community endured. (i.) Sir - Francis Englefield, senior, seizes 1900 out of 2000 acres of - their common. (ii.) Sir Francis Englefield, junior, seizes "the - charter of our town ... and the deed of the said common." (iii.) - He tries to seize the remaining 100 acres, and ruins them by - lawsuits "for the space of seven or eight years at the least, - and never suffers any one to come to triall in all that space - ... that the said Free tenants were not able to wage law any - longer, for one John Rous ... was thereby enforced to sell all - his land (to the value of £500) with following the suits in law, - and many were thereby impoverished." (iv.) He turns them out of - their shops in the market-place, and introduces instead "a - stranger that liveth not in the town." (v.) He appoints his own - nominee as mayor, in defiance of the custom which requires him - to appoint one of two men submitted to him by the jury. (vi.) He - prevents his victims from signing this petition by threats of - eviction. ("They are fearful that they shall be put forth of - their bargaines, and then they shall not tell how to live, - otherwise they would have set to their hands.") - -These examples of struggles over rights of common pasture are -instructive in several ways. In the first place, they suggest that the -freeholders were regarded as having a better title than the rest of the -community, and that they led the movement to resist encroachments for -that reason. It is the free tenants who petition Parliament for redress, -and the free tenants who are sued. If they lose their case it is not -worth while, it seems, for the customary tenants to take any action. In -the second place, they show that the classes who have the best legal -title to right of pasture are not at all commensurate with the classes -who will lose if they are taken away. Whatever the legal rights of the -other tenants may be they have as much practical benefit out of the -common, and as great an interest in protecting it against encroachments, -as the freeholders have. When the shearing away of part of it makes it -necessary to limit the number of beasts to be kept there, the limitation -is applied to free and customary tenements alike without distinction, -and both classes of tenements are bought and sold on the understanding -that they carry with them a right of common pasture. In the third place, -the case of Wootton Basset is one of many examples of the way in which -poverty, ignorance of the law, and the practical difficulties of getting -justice against a powerful landlord, prevent humble litigants from -enforcing their legal rights. Finally, it reinforces what has been said -above as to the economic importance of rights of pasture. The -arrangements which are made at Wootton Basset when the first assault -upon the commons takes place show clearly that grazing land is thought -of as a quite indispensable adjunct to every man's holding, and its loss -is so disastrous to the community that they are ready to be slowly bled -to death by lawyer's fees, rather than be beggared at a blow by -submitting tamely without a contest. - - -(c) _The Engrossing of Holdings and Displacement of Tenants._ - -We have dwelt at some length on the loss of rights of common, because -the misleading modern associations of the word seem sometimes to prevent -a proper appreciation of the very important place which they occupied in -the agricultural economy of our period. It must be confessed, however, -that, in dealing with them first, we have reversed the order in which -grievances due to enclosure were set out by the writers of the time. -Though there are many bitter complaints against the enclosure of -commons, it was, notwithstanding this, less the loss of rights of -pasture than the consolidation of small tenancies into great farms, -which aroused public excitement, at any rate, in the southern and -midland counties. In the Statutes the words enclosure and depopulation -are again and again combined as though they were almost synonymous; and -if a contemporary had been asked to explain the special evils most -characteristic of enclosing, he would certainly have given the first -place to the "engrossing of farms" and "depopulation," the throwing -together of peasant holdings and the eviction of their tenants. We must -now examine this side of the movement. Did the displacement of tenants -through the concentration of properties take place on the large scale -suggested by the passionate outbursts of contemporary writers, or were -their complaints as to empty villages and ruined churches mere -rhetorical exaggeration? Again, what was the legal position of the -classes of people who suffered? Were they entirely without the -protection of the law, or did they fail to obtain legal protection -principally in consequence of ignorance and intimidation? - -It is easy to understand the strong motives for throwing together -peasant holdings, if we keep our eyes on the picture of agricultural -arrangements given in the maps. It will be seen that the different -blocks of demesne land are often separated from each other by two or -three strips belonging to the smaller tenantry, and that if such strips -were removed they could be fitted together into a wide and unbroken -expanse of territory. The manorial authorities have often, it is clear, -been for a long time consolidating the demesne by exchange and purchase, -so as to avoid the wastefulness of having land scattered in a hundred -separate pieces, and the only obstacle to its complete unification -consists of strips and patches which are held by tenants who are for one -reason or another unwilling to sell, small spits and islands which stand -out of the surrounding sea. Clearly there is an enormous temptation to -make the tide flow over them as well, to complete the circuit by merging -them in the demesne. Look, for example, at maps Nos. III., IV., and V. -Here it is evident that there has been a good deal of consolidation. -Both the tenants and the lord of the manor have been forming their -strips into compact blocks. To unity of ownership has been added -something like spatial unity. Still the process is by no means complete. -There are awkward little pieces of land which interrupt the smooth -surface of the great estate, pieces which one will have to walk round, -where, if the demesne is used as arable, the demesne plough must stop, -where, if it is used as pasture, a fence must be erected to shut out the -demesne sheep. Or walk down a typical field and mark how the land is -held. Here are the strips which one would pass, if one travelled from -end to end of two parallel furlongs at West Lexham[441] in Norfolk in -the year 1575. They are copied in order from the map-- - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - FURLONG A. | FURLONG B. - ac. ro. po. | ac. ro. po. - 1. Will Yelverton, | 1. Rob. Clemente, - Freeholder. | Freeholder. - 2. Demesne 2 1 31 | 2. Demesne 0 2 4 - 3. Demesne 0 1 7-1/2| 3. Demesne 1 0 3 - 4. Will Yelverton, | 4. Demesne 1 0 39 - Freeholder. | - 5. Demesne 0 2 7 | 5. Demesne 0 1 24 - 6. Demesne 1 3 0 | 6. Demesne 1 0 38 - 7. Demesne 0 1 11 | 7. Demesne 0 1 22 - 8. Demesne 0 2 10 | 8. Demesne 1 2 19 - 9. Demesne 0 2 28 | 9. Will Lee, Freeholder. - 10. Glebe. | 10. Will Gell, Copieholder. - 11. Demesne 1 2 12 | 11. Demesne 1 1 39 - 12. Demesne 3 0 0 | 12. Demesne 2 3 39-1/2 - 13. Glebe. | 13. Demesne 2 1 25 - - -These furlongs, though the predominance of demesne land in them makes -them not quite typical, illustrate sufficiently the awkward way in which -the great farmer's stretch of land is interrupted by the little property -of a freeholder or copyholder. The strips of Will Yelverton, Robert -Clement, Will Lee, and Will Gell must have been a constant eyesore to -the manorial authorities. Buy them out or evict them, and then the two -furlongs will consist of nothing but demesne land and glebe. They will -be two fields of quite a modern pattern and quite ready for enclosure. -Leave these tenants where they are, and they are a permanent obstacle to -unified management, all the more annoying because they are so petty. -They may even insist on the farmer observing the same course of -cultivation as themselves, and on turning their beasts to common on his -land after harvest! Is it not inevitable that, as soon as the lord is -pushed by economic forces into making his estate yield the maximum money -return irrespective of a numerous tenantry or of the ancient methods of -tillage, he should try in any way he can to get rid of what to him are -troublesome excrescences, that he should begin questioning titles, -screwing up rents, turning copyhold to leasehold? - -If our hypothesis is correct we ought to be able to find manors where -the strips formerly held by tenants have been merged in the demesne, so -as to form a continuous expanse, in the hands of the lord or his farmer, -out of what was formerly a collection of fragments of separate holdings. -To see it verified, let us turn to another manor in the same county, -that of Walsingham,[442] which was surveyed in the reign of Henry VIII. -Here is a statement of the land which is "in the hands of the lord" in -the west field-- - - IN THE WEST FELDE - - 1. In manus domine [sic] 1/2 acre of land of the tenement Marre. - 2. " " 1-1/2 roods of the tenement Furell. - 3. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Stanx. - 4. " " 1 acre, 1 rood land of the tenement Gryne. - 5. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Scot. - 6. " " 3-1/2 roods land of the tenement Townsend. - 7. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Byelaugh. - 8. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Wheteloffe. - 9. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Scutt. - 10. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Coyefor. - 11. " " 1 acre with the gravel pit. - 12. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Nedwyn. - 13. " " 1 acre land late of J. Cockerell. - 14. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Gilbert. - 15. " " 1 acre and 1 rood of the tenement Spotell. - 16. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Spotell. - 17. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Husbond. - 18. " " 1 acre of the tenement Rodengh. - 19. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Pymans. - 20. " " 3 roods of the tenement Scutt. - 21. " " 1 acre of decay of the tenement Spotell. - - [441] Holkham MSS., Map of West Lexham. - - [442] R.O. _Aug. Off. Misc. Bks._, vol. cccxcix., f. 201 ff. - -Here one has a field divided into twenty-one strips. Of these strips -eighteen had at one time been in the occupation of separate individuals. -The picture is just what we are accustomed to in mediæval surveys. It is -illustrated sufficiently for our purpose by the map of part of Salford, -on page 163. But some time before this survey of Walsingham was made a -great change had taken place. The separate fragments had been taken out -of the hands of the tenants and combined in the hands of the lord; the -field is ready for conversion to pasture and for enclosure. How -extremely profitable it might be to substitute a single large farm for a -number of small holdings is proved by Manorial Rentals. Taking five -manors in Wiltshire in the year 1568, one finds that the rents paid by -the farmer of the demesne work out at 1s. 6d., 7-3/4d., 1s. 5-3/4d., 1s. -1-3/4d., 1s. 5-1/2d. per acre; those paid by the customary tenants at -7-1/2d., 5d., 1s. 0-3/4d., 5-3/4d., 5-3/4d. per acre.[443] - - [443] The manors are South Newton, Winterbourne Basset, - Knyghton, Donnington, and Estoverton and Phipheld (Roxburghe - Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_). - -The difference is, in itself, enough to explain a decided movement -towards an increase in the size of the unit of agriculture. But of -course a powerful incentive to such procedure was supplied by the -growth of pasture farming. In the days when the cultivation of the -demesne depended on the labour of the tenants there was obviously bound -to be a certain proportion between the land belonging to the former and -the land held by the latter, a proportion which might be expressed by -saying "no tenants, no demesne cultivation; no demesne cultivation, no -income for the lord." But when tillage was replaced by pasture farming -this economic rule of three ceased to work. On the one hand, the limit -of size imposed on the demesne farm by considerations of management was -removed or at any rate enormously extended, for many thousand sheep -could be fed by two or three shepherds. On the other hand, the economic -motive for preventing a decline in the number of small landholders was -weakened, because there was little use for their labour on a pasture -farm; while there was a great deal of use for their land, if only it -could be cleared of existing rights and added to it. We have, in fact, -an ordinary case of the depreciation of particular[444] kinds of human -labour in comparison with capital, of the kind to which the modern world -has become accustomed in the case of machinery--become accustomed and -become callous. - - [444] This, of course, is not inconsistent with a general - appreciation, _i.e._ a general rise in wages and fall in the - rate of interest. - -We shall perhaps best give precision to our ideas of the sort of policy -which landlords were inclined to adopt, by taking a single concrete -instance, though of course conditions varied locally very much from -place to place. It comes from Hartley[445] in Northumberland, where -Robert Delavale was lord of the manor in the reign of Elizabeth. The -narrator is his cousin, Joshua Delavale-- - - "Since which time" (_i.e._ 16 Eliz.), he says, "the said Robert - Delavale purchased all the freeholder's lands and tenements, - displaced the said tenants, defaced their tenements, converted - their tillage to pasture, being 720 acres of arable ground or - thereabouts, and made one demaine, whereon there is but three - plows now kept by hinds and servants, besides the 720 acres. So - that where there was then in Hartley 15 serviceable men - furnished with sufficient horse and furniture, there is now not - any, nor hath been these 20 years last past or thereabouts." - -Here we get a complete example of the various steps which are taken to -build up a great pasture farm. The freeholders are bought out; the other -tenants are (it is to be inferred) evicted summarily; their houses are -pulled down; their land is thrown into the demesne; the whole area is -let down to pasture and managed by hired labourers, while the -land-holding population is turned adrift. It is worth noticing that the -word "enclosing" is not used. All the drastic changes that are usually -ascribed to enclosure can on occasion take place without it. Indeed, the -more drastic they are the less need is there to complete them by the -erection of fences, for the smaller the population left to commit -encroachments. - - [445] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. p. 124. For a - similar case of evictions by Delavale, showing how they were - carried out, _ibid._, pp. 201-202: "There was in Seaton - Delavale township 12 tenements, whereon there dwelt 12 able men - sufficiently furnished with horse and furniture to serve his - Majestie ... who paid 46s. 8d. rent yearlie a piece or - thereabouts. All the said tenants and their successors saving 5 - the said Robert Delavale eyther thrust out of their fermholds or - weried them by taking excessive fines, increasing of their rents - unto £3 a piece, and withdrawing part of their best land and - meadow from their tenements ... by taking their good land from - them and compelling them to winne moorishe and heathe ground, - and after their hedging heth ground to their great charge, and - paying a great fine, and bestowing great reparation on building - their tenements, he quite thrust them off in one yeare, refusing - either to repay the fine or to repay the charge bestowed in - diking or building.... The said seven fermholds displaced had to - every one of them 60 acres of arable land, viz. 20 in every - field at the least, as the tenants affirme, which amounteth to - 480 acres of land yearlie or thereabouts, converted for the most - part from tillage to pasture, and united to the demaine of the - lordship of Seaton Delavale." - -If such a process were general or even common, we should certainly have -the materials of a social revolution. But was it? The much discussed -question of the effect of the agrarian changes on the numbers of the -rural population is one which it is not possible to answer with any -approach to accuracy, owing to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient -number of continuous series of surveys and rentals. Those relating to -single years tell mainly results, when what we want to see is a process. -Nevertheless even single surveys are not altogether without value. They -show the distribution of land between different classes at a given -moment, and sometimes contain indications of the changes by which the -existing distribution was reached. In particular they show us the -relative areas of the demesne farm and of the land in the hands of all -other classes of tenants. And this has a certain interest. For since the -demesne farm on a manor where conditions approximated most closely to -those of the Middle Ages and had been least affected by more recent -changes, rarely contained more than half the whole manorial territory -and generally not so much, there is a _prima facie_ case for surmising -concentration of holdings and evictions when one finds two-thirds, -three-quarters, or even ninety per cent. of it in the hands of one large -farmer. It is, however, a very tedious task calculating the acreage held -by a number of different tenants, and this may perhaps excuse the small -number of instances which are given below. They are as follows:-- - - TABLE XII - - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - | | (I.) | (II.) | | - | Manor. | Whole Area | Area held | Percentage | - | | Ascertainable. | by Farmers | of | - | | [446] | of Demesnes.| (II.) to (I.).| - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - |Donnyngton | 1523-1/2 | 418 | 27.8 | - |Salford | 856 | 295 | 34.4 | - |Estoverton and Phipheld| 1160 | 484-3/4 | 41.0 | - |Weedon Weston | 715 | 301 | 42.0 | - |South Newton | 1365 | 632 | 46.3 | - |Washerne | 1249 | 707 (in | 56.6 | - | | | hands of | | - | | | lord) | | - |Knyghton | 452 | 268 | 59.2 | - |Bishopeston | 1280 | 805 | 62.9 | - |Gamlingay Merton | 283-1/2 | 199-3/4 | 70.3 | - |Winterborne Basset | 708-1/2 | 532 | 75.1 | - |Billingford | 666 | 507 | 76.1 | - |Gamlingay Avenells[447]| 531-3/4 | 420-1/4 | 79.0 | - |Domerham[448] | 960-1/2 | 824-1/2 | 85.8 | - |Ewerne | 473 | 428 | 90.5 | - |Burdonsball | 190 | 190 | 100.0 | - |Whadborough | 469 | 469 | 100.0 | - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - - [446] In several cases the freeholders' lands are not stated in - the survey, and are therefore not included in this table. - - [447] A few acres described as "held without title" are omitted. - - [448] I am not sure that there are not other lands in Domerham - not included in the survey or in the demesne. If this is so, the - proportion of the latter to the rest of the manorial land would - of course be reduced. - -It will be seen that on eight of these sixteen manors more than -two-thirds of the whole area, and on seven more than three-quarters, is -in the hands of one individual, the farmer of the demesnes. These -figures are at any rate not inconsistent with a considerable -consolidation of tenancies and displacement of tenants, though we cannot -say that they prove it. - -Occasionally the surveys take us behind this presumptive evidence and -enable us to trace the building up of large farms out of small holdings. -For example, at Ormesby,[449] in 1516, the lord of the manor held 219 -acres "late in farm" of six tenants. At Domerham,[450] some time before -1568, enclosure of land in the open fields and conversion of arable to -pasture had been carried out by the largest of the three farmers. The -process had been accompanied by depopulation; for in 1568 his farm -included pieces of land which had formerly belonged to four smaller -tenants, and the two large farms which he held had formerly been in -separate hands. It is probable that at Winterbourne Basset[451] somewhat -the same movement had taken place. In 1436 two carucates of land were -held by an unspecified number of tenants; in 1568 three customary -tenants are still found there, but three-quarters of the manor is in the -hands of a single farmer who has recently enclosed a field of 40 acres. -Elsewhere one can fill in the picture in somewhat greater detail. At -Tughall,[452] in Northumberland, the surveyor tells us in 1567, the -demesne lands had been let to a farmer, who acted as the lord's bailiff -and collected the rents and services of the other tenants. He used his -position to partition the manor so as to get rid of the intermingled -holdings, and at the same time so harassed the smaller tenants that they -were reduced from twenty-three to eight. At Cowpen[453] a similar -concentration of land was going on at the end of the sixteenth century; -first five tenancies were thrown into one, and then the whole manor -passed into the hands of one large farmer. At Newham,[454] near Alnwick, -we are told that a hundred and forty men, women, and children were -evicted simultaneously. At Seaton[455] Delavale, the Robert Delavale who -had depopulated Hartly, turned adrift seven families out of twelve. The -map of a Leicestershire manor which is reproduced opposite page 223 is -more eloquent than many lamentations. In "the place where the town of -Whadboroughe once stood" there was by 1620 not a single tenant left. The -whole of it formed one great expanse of pasture. - - [449] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. 18. - - [450] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [451] _Ibid._, and Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of - Ambresbury. - - [452] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350. - - [453] _Ibid._, vol. ix., Cowpen. - - [454] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 275. - - [455] _Ibid._, vol. ix. pp. 201-202. - -But these isolated instances are obviously worthless as a basis for -generalisation. The most that can be said of them is that they prove -that the writers who spoke of whole towns being depopulated were not -romancing. Nor are the statistics offered by contemporaries of any -practical help towards determining the social effects of enclosure. -Those who state, like Moore[456] (writing in the seventeenth century), -that they have seen "in some townes fourteen, sixteen, and twenty -tenants discharged of plowing," or, like the Dean of Durham,[457] that -"500 ploughs have decayed in a few years" and "of 8000 acres lately in -tillage now not 8 score are tilled," may have seen what they say. But -these figures are suspiciously round, and the cases are obviously -extreme ones, not samples. The one[458] writer who makes an estimate for -the whole country, putting the number of persons of all ages displaced -between 1485 and 1550 at 300,000, is rash enough to explain how his -estimate was reached, and his explanation shows that it was not even a -plausible guess. - - [456] Moore, _The Crying Sin of England_, &c. - - [457] Cal. S. P. D. Eliz., 1595-1597 (p. 347), quoted Gay, - _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. - - [458] "Certayne Causes gathered together wherein is shewed the - decaye of England only by the great multitude of shepe" (E. E. - T. S. date 1550-1553). "It is to understande ... that there is - in England townes and villages to the number of fifty thousand - and upward, and for every town and village ... there is one - plough decayed since the fyrst year of the reign of King Henry - VII.... The whiche 50,000 ploughs every plough was able to - maintain 6 persons, and nowe they have nothing, but goeth about - in England from dore to dore." - -The returns collected for the Government seem at first to take us on to -surer ground. Investigations were made by Royal Commissioners[459] in -the years 1517-1519, 1548, 1566, 1607, 1632, 1635, and 1636. The returns -collected for twenty-three counties by the Commission of 1517, for four -counties by those of 1548-1566, and for six counties by that of 1607 -have been printed. According to them, it would appear that between 1485 -and 1517 about one-half per cent. of the total area of the counties -investigated was enclosed, and 6931 persons displaced, the corresponding -figures for the period 1578-1607 being 69,758 acres and 2232 evictions. -Both in the earlier, and in the later, period, the county which was -affected most severely was Northamptonshire, where 2.21 per cent. of the -county was returned as enclosed in the years 1485-1517, and in the years -1578-1607 4.30 per cent., the numbers displaced being respectively 1405 -and 1444. If we like, we may adopt the conjectural estimates of -Professor Gay, and, assuming that the pace of the movement was the same -during the years for which we have not information as during those for -which we have, may say with him that from 1455 to 1607 the agrarian -changes affected about 2.76 of the whole area of twenty-four counties, -and displaced something between 30,000 and 50,000 persons. - - [459] For a discussion of the value of these reports see Leadam, - _Domesday of Enclosures_, and _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. vi.; Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, - vol. xiv. and vol. xviii.; Gay, _Quarterly Journal of - Economics_, vol. xvii. (1902-1903). A useful summary of the - evidence, with a map illustrating the probable geographical - distribution of the movement, is given by Johnson, _The - Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, pp. 42-54 and Map I. - -The statistics which have been worked up by Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay -from the inquiries of the Government are extremely valuable as showing -the geographical distribution of the enclosing movement. It is most -powerful in the Midland counties, which were in the sixteenth century -the chief granary of the country, and its influence is least in the -South-West and South-East. In Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, -Suffolk, Essex and Kent the small enclosures[460] described in Part I. -had probably often been carried out by the peasants themselves at an -early date, with the result that those districts were, compared with the -open field villages of the Midlands, little disturbed. Those parts of -the country, in fact, where the peasantry have been most progressive, -are relatively unaffected by the changes of our period. They have been -inoculated and they are almost immune. On the other hand, one is -inclined to say that the figures are not of much value for other -purposes. In the nature of things they cannot be reliable, and, if they -were reliable, they would not really answer the most important questions -which are asked about the social results of the changes to which they -refer. Let us remember the methods by which they were collected. They -are taken from returns which are in the form of answers delivered to -commissioners by juries of peasants, juries which we know from the most -active of the commissioners to have been occasionally packed by the -local proprietors, and often intimidated,[461] and to have been examined -by the commissioners under the eyes of their landlords. It is hardly -necessary to point out that no evidence of even approximate accuracy -would be derived from an inquiry conducted in such a fashion at the -present day. Is it probable that it was obtained any more satisfactorily -in the sixteenth century? - - [460] It is a question how far there had ever been an open field - system in some of these counties, _e.g._ Cornwall and Kent. - There certainly were some open field villages of the ordinary - pattern in Kent (see Slater, _The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of Common Fields_, p. 230). But Kent from an early - date develops on its own lines, and does not go through the same - stages of manorialism and commutation as other counties. Much of - it seems to start at the point which they reach only in the - sixteenth century. Cornwall again, though in the sixteenth - century there were commons where the villagers pastured their - cattle together (see accounts of Landress and Porpehan, - _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.), was largely a county of - scattered homesteads and very early enclosure (for the - "nucleated village" and "scattered homesteads," see Maitland, - _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 15-16), pointing to a different - system of settlement from that of the counties where the open - field system obtained. For enclosures in Devon and Somerset see - Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, Modern - Times, Part II., App. B: "A consideration of the cause in - question before the lords touchinge depopulation," and Carlyle's - _Cromwell_, Letter XXIV. "Lest we should engage our body of - horse too far into that enclosed country." - - [461] For intimidation see the case of Wootton Basset, quoted - above, pp. 251-253, and below, pp. 302-304. Also Gay, _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii.; and Hales' defence - (appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_). - -Nor, if accurate, could these statistics really be used as a means of -disproving the accounts given by contemporary writers of the dislocation -produced by enclosure. That those accounts were highly coloured, no one -familiar with the methods which the age brought to the discussion of -economic questions will doubt. Professor Gay does well to warn us -against credulity. It is certainly a salutary discipline to turn from -the burning words of Latimer or Crowley to these official calculations, -and then, by a glance at the chapters of Dr. Slater and Professor Gonner -on the enclosures of the eighteenth century, to realise that even in -those parts of England where the cry against depopulation had arisen -most bitterly two centuries before, there were still thousands of acres -to be enclosed by some hundreds of Enclosure Acts. But if we must -discount the protests of authors to whom all large economic changes seem -to smell of the pit, we must not forget either that their views are -formed by the conditions of their age, and that it is just in the -conditions productive of this state of mind that even a moderate change -is likely to work with the most disastrous effects. We who reckon in -millions and count a year lost which does not see some new outburst of -economic energy, must be very careful how we apply our statistics to -measure the movements of an age where economic life differs not only in -quantity but in quality, where most men have never seen more than a -hundred separate individuals in the course of their whole lives, where -most households live by tilling their great-grandfathers' fields with -their great-grandfathers' plough. We must not be too clever--our -ancestors would have said too wicked--for our subject. We must not -accept an estimate of the amount of depopulation as an explanation of -its effects; for the two things are not in _pari materia_. Certainly we -must not argue that, because the returns collected by Royal Commissions -show that in the counties affected most severely less than one-twentieth -of the total area was enclosed, therefore the complaints of observers -must be taken as a hysterical exaggeration of slow and unimportant -changes. For one thing, summary tables are no measure of the distress -caused by eviction, till we know how the tables are made up. The -drifting away of one tenant from each of fifty manors, and the eviction -of fifty tenants from one manor, yield precisely the same statistical -results when the total displacement from a given county is being -calculated. But the former would be scarcely noticeable; the latter -might ruin a village. For another thing, the total area of a county is a -mere spatial expression, which is important to no one except -geographers. What mattered to the peasantry, and what matters to us, is -not the proportion which the land enclosed bore to the whole area of the -county, but the proportion which it bore to the whole area available for -cultivation. This, which is of course not ascertainable, is clearly a -very different thing.[462] It is no consolation to a family which has -been evicted from a prosperous farm to be told that it can settle on a -moor or a marsh, on Blackstone Edge or Deeping Fen. To argue that -enclosing was of little consequence, because so small a proportion of -the total land area was enclosed, is almost precisely similar to arguing -that overcrowding is of little consequence, because the area of Great -Britain divided by the population gives a quotient of about one and a -half acres to every human being in the country. The evidence of a -general trend of opinion during a century and a half--opinion by no -means confined to the peasants, or to the peasants' champions like -Hales, or to idealists like Sir Thomas More, or to the preachers of -social righteousness like Latimer and Crowley, but shared by Wolsey and -Thomas Cromwell in the earlier part of the century, Robert Cecil and -Francis Bacon[463] at the end of it--to the effect that the agrarian -changes caused extensive depopulation, is really a firmer basis for -judging their effects than are statistics which, however carefully -worked up, are necessarily unreliable, and which, when reliable, are not -quite the statistics required. When that opinion is backed by -documentary proof that from one village thirty persons, from another -fifty, from another the whole population, were displaced, though of -course we cannot say that such displacement was general, we can say that -it was not unknown, and that if contemporaries were guilty of -exaggeration (as they probably were), their exaggeration took the form -not of inventing extreme cases, but of suggesting that such extreme -cases were the rule. On the whole, therefore, our conclusions as to the -quantitative measurement of depopulation caused in the sixteenth century -must still, in spite of the researches of Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay, -be a negative one. In the first place, we cannot say, even -approximately, what proportion of the total landholding population was -displaced. In the second place, such figures as we do possess are not of -a kind to outweigh the direct evidence of contemporary observers that -the movement was so extensive as in parts of England to cause serious -suffering and disturbance. - - [462] Professor Pollard has good remarks on this point - (_Political History of England_, 1547-1603, p. 29). - - [463] Wolsey was responsible for the Commission of 1517. For a - letter of Cromwell to Henry VIII. on the subject of enclosure, - and for the views of Cecil and Bacon, see below, pp. 273-274, - 279, 343, 387. - - -(d) _The Agrarian Changes and the Poor Law_ - -The obscurity in which the statistics of depopulation are involved does -not prevent us from seeing that it played an important part in providing -an incentive to the organisation of relief on a national and secular -basis, which was the most enduring achievement of the social legislation -of sixteenth century statesmen. An influential theory of Poor Law -History regards the admission finally made in 1601 that the destitute -person has, not only a moral, but a legal, right to maintenance, as a -last fatal legacy handed to the modern state by the expiring social -order of the Middle Ages, a relic of villeinage which was given a -statutory basis at the very moment when a little more patience would -have shown that a national system of poor relief was not only -unnecessary, but positively harmful, in the new mobile society which the -expansion of commerce and industry was bringing into existence. -"Serfdom," says an eminent exponent of this view, "is itself a system of -Poor Law. The Poor Law is not therefore a new device invented in the -time of Elizabeth to meet a new disease. The very conception of a -society based on status involves the conception of a Poor Law far more -searching and rigid than the celebrated 43 Eng. cap. 2.... The -collective provision is appropriate to the then expiring condition of -status.... A wide diffusion of private property, not collective -property, is the obvious and natural method by which the unable-bodied -periods of life are to be met. With the disappearance of Feudalism we -might have expected that there would have disappeared the custom which -made the poor a charge upon the manor or parish of which they had -formerly been serfs. This, however, did not happen, and a history of -this survival of mediæval custom is the history of the English Poor -Law.... To sum the matter up:--In following the development of Poor Law -legislation, we watch society struggling to free itself from the fetters -of a primitive communism of poverty and subjection, a state of things -possessing many 'plausible advantages.' Legislation for the management -of the Poor often impeded, and only occasionally expedited, this -beneficent process.... It proceeded from ignorance of the true nature of -progress, and from a denial or neglect of the power of absorption -possessed by a free society."[464] It is obvious that in this passage -Mr. Mackay uses his interpretation of Poor Law origins to make a very -trenchant criticism upon the whole principle involved in the public -maintenance of the destitute. That principle was not introduced because -new conditions made its adoption indispensable. It survived from an -older order of things into a world in which the only serious causes of -destitution are personal and not economic, and in which therefore it is -quite inappropriate. To tolerate it is to drag for ever a clanking -chain, one end of which is fastened round the bleeding ankles of modern -society, and the other anchored in the hideous provisions of the Statute -of Labourers. Nor should we be wrong if we said that a similar theory, -though less lucidly expressed, has had a considerable influence upon -Poor Law practice. For the idea of a Poor Law as an anachronism which is -quite out of place in a developed economic society is implied more than -once in the celebrated report drafted by Senior and Chadwick in 1834, -and has passed from that brilliant piece of special pleading into the -minds of three generations of administrators. "A person," they state, -"who attributes pauperism to the inability to procure employment, will -doubt the efficiency of the cause which we propose to remove it," -whereas "whenever inquiries have been made as to the previous condition -of the able-bodied individuals who live in such numbers on the town -parishes, it has been found that the pauperism of the greater number has -originated in indolence, improvidence, and vice, and might have been -avoided by ordinary care and industry. The majority of the Statutes -connected with the administration of public relief have created new -evils, and aggravated those which they were intended to prevent."[465] - - [464] Mackay, _History of the English Poor Law_, 1834-1898, pp. - 10-11, 16-17. - - [465] _Poor Law Commission Report of 1834_, pp. 264-277, 281. - -A discussion of Poor Law theory and history falls outside the limits of -this essay. But in forming an estimate of the effects of the agrarian -changes which have been described above, it is perhaps not out of place -to consider the minor question of the connection between them and the -system of Poor Relief which took its final shape in the reign of -Elizabeth. Since the distress which the relief institutions of an age -exist to meet stands to its general economic conditions in the relation -of reverse to obverse, of effect to cause, of disease to environment, -much light is thrown on the economic difficulties most characteristic of -any period by ascertaining the type of distress with which relieving -authorities are most generally confronted. Equally important, any -student of Poor Law History, who is not the partisan of a theory, finds -himself constantly driven to look for an explanation of Poor Law -developments in regions which, at first sight, appear to lie far outside -his immediate subject, but where, in reality, is grown the grim harvest -which it is the duty of Poor Law authorities, often acting in complete -ignorance of its origin, to reap. Much wild theorising and some tragic -practical blunders might have been avoided, had it been more generally -realised that, of all branches of administration, the treatment of -persons in distress is that which can least bear to be left to the -exclusive attention of Poor Law specialists, because it, most of all -matters, depends for its success on being carefully adapted to the -changing economic conditions, the organisation or disorganisation of -industry, the stability or instability of trade, the diffusion or -concentration of property, by which the nature and extent of the -distress requiring treatment are determined. - -When one turns to the age in which the Poor Law took shape, the first -thing to strike one is that the need for it arises, according to the -views expressed by most writers of the period, from that very -development in commercial relationships, that very increase in economic -mobility, which Mr. Mackay seems to imply should have made it -unnecessary. The special feature of sixteenth century pauperism is -written large over all the documents of the period--in Statutes, in -Privy Council proceedings, in the records of Quarter Sessions. The new -and terrible problem is the increase in vagrancy. The sixteenth century -lives in terror of the tramp. He is denounced by moralists, analysed -into species by the curious or scientific, scourged and buffeted by all -men. The destitution of the aged and impotent, of fatherless children -and widows, is familiar enough. It has been with the world from time -immemorial. It has been for centuries the object of voluntary -charitable effort; and when the dissolution of the monasteries dries up -one great channel of provision, the Government intervenes with special -arrangements[466] to take their place a whole generation before it can -be brought to admit that there is any problem of the unemployed, other -than the problem of the sturdy rogue. The distinction between the -able-bodied unemployed and the impotent is one which is visible to the -eye of sense. The distinction between the man who is unemployed because -he cannot get work and the man who is unemployed because he does not -want work, requires a modicum of knowledge and reflection which even at -the present day is not always forthcoming. The former distinction, -therefore, is not supplemented by the latter until the beginning of the -last quarter of the century.[467] In one respect, that of the Law of -Settlement, the English Poor Law does show traces of a mediæval origin. -In all other respects, so far from being a survival from the Middle -Ages, it comes into existence just at the time when mediæval economic -conditions are disappearing. It is not accepted at once as a matter of -course that the destitute shall be publicly relieved, still less that -the able-bodied destitute deserve anything but punishment. Governments -make desperate efforts for about one hundred years to evade their new -obligations. They whip and brand and bore ears; they offer the vagrant -as a slave to the man who seizes him; they appeal to charity; they -introduce the parish clergy to put pressure on the uncharitable; they -direct the bishops to reason with those who stop their ears against the -parish clergy. When merely repressive measures and voluntary effort are -finally discredited, they levy a compulsory charge rather as a fine for -contumacy than as a rate, and slide reluctantly into obligatory -assessments[468] only when all else has failed. And if we ask why the -obligation of maintaining the destitute should have received national -recognition first in the sixteenth century, we can only answer by -pointing to that trend away from the stationary conditions of -agriculture to the fluctuating conditions of trade, and in particular to -that displacement of the rural population, which we have already seen -was one result of enclosure. The national Poor Law is not a mediæval -anachronism. It is the outcome of conditions which seem to the men of -the sixteenth century new and appalling. Of these conditions the most -important are the agrarian changes. - - [466] 27 Hen. VIII., c. 25. Under this Act city and county - authorities are to relieve impotent beggars "by way of voluntary - and charitable alms." They are also for the first time given - power to apprentice vagrant children. - - [467] 18 Eliz. c. 3 directed that a stock of wool, flax, hemp, - iron, or other stuff should be provided in cities, corporate - towns, and market towns. The important words which show the - change of opinion are, "To the intente also that ... Roges ... - may not have any just excuse in saying they cannot get any - service or work." - - [468] 14 Eliz. c. 5. - -Let us try for a moment to put ourselves in the position of a family -which has been evicted from its holding to make room for sheep. When the -last stick of furniture has been tumbled out by the bailiff, where, poor -houseless wretches, are they to turn? They cannot get work in their old -home, even if they can get lodgings, for the attraction of sheep-farming -is that the wage bill is so low. Will they emigrate from England like -the Scotch crofters? There are people who in the seventeenth century -will advise them to seek a haven with the godly folk who have crossed -the Atlantic, who will argue that England is overstocked, that "there is -such pressing and oppressing in town and country about farms, trades, -traffic, so as a man can hardly anywhere set up a trade but he shall -pull down two of his neighbours," and point out that "the country is -replenished with new farmers, and the almhouses are filled with old -labourers," that "the rent-taker lives on sweet morsels, but the -rent-payer eats a dry crust often with watery eyes."[469] But enclosures -have been going on for a century before the plantations exist to offer a -refuge, and in any case the probability of the country folk hearing of -them is very remote. Can a man migrate to seek work in another part of -the country? Not easily, for, apart from the enormous practical -difficulties, the law puts obstacles in his way, and the law is backed -up with enthusiasm by every parish and town in the country. There are -three possible attitudes which a State may adopt towards the questions -arising from the ebb and flow of population. It may argue, with the -optimists of 1834, that the mobility of labour is a good thing, a -symptom of alertness and energy, and that it will take place of itself -to the extent which is economically desirable, provided that no -impediments are placed in the way of those who desire to better -themselves by looking for work elsewhere. Or, while believing that it is -much to be desired that people should migrate freely from place to place -in search of employment, it may nevertheless reflect that the mere -absence of restrictions does not in fact stimulate such movement, and -therefore take upon itself its encouragement through the publication of -information and the registration of unemployed workers. Or, -subordinating economic to political considerations, it may hold that the -movement of a large number of unemployed persons up and down the country -is not an indication of a praiseworthy spirit of enterprise, but a -menace to public order which must be sternly repressed. We need hardly -say that this last view is the one characteristic of the sixteenth -century. The attitude towards the man on tramp in search of employment -is exactly the opposite of that which is held at the present day. He is -not less, but much more, culpable than he who remains in his own parish -and lives on his neighbours. He is assumed not to be seeking work but to -be avoiding it, and avoiding it in a restless and disorderly manner. -Hear what the worthy Harrison says when the State has already made the -provision for the unemployed a charge upon each parish:--"But if they -refuse to be supported by this benefit of the law, and will rather -endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their idle trades, then are -they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort (_i.e._ wilful vagrants), -and so, instead of courteous refreshing at home, are often corrected -with sharp execution and whip of justice abroad. Many there are which, -notwithstanding the rigour of the laws provided on that behalf, yield -rather with this liberty (as they call it) to be daily under the fear -and terror of the whip, than by abiding where they were born or bred, to -be provided for by the devotion of the parishes."[470] The village is -still thought of as the unit of employment. It is still regarded as -being equipped with the means of finding work for all its inhabitants, -as though there had been no movement towards pasture-farming to prick a -hole in its economic self-sufficiency. The presumption, therefore, is -against the man who leaves the parish where he is known to his -neighbours. He must prove that he is going to take up work for which he -is already engaged. He must get a licence from his last employer. As far -as the able-bodied are concerned the Poor Law is in origin a measure of -social police. Relief is thrown in as a makeweight, because by the end -of the sixteenth century our statesmen have discovered that when -economic pressure reaches a certain point they cannot control men -without it. The whip has no terrors for the man who must look for work -or starve. So every Sunday after church, while Parson's sermon is still -fresh in our minds, we board out our poor by rotation "among such -householders as will maintain them meat and work and such wages as they -shall deserve for the week following."[471] Heaven help us if the next -parish does not do the same! - - [469] Robert Cushman, "Reasons and Considerations touching the - Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the parts of America" - (printed by E. Arber, _The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers_). - - [470] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), chap. x. - - [471] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., pp. - 160-161: "Orders agreed to by the Justices of the Peace for - Cornwall at General Sessions for Bodmin the 5th and Truro the - 8th of April, 39 Eliz." - -And the Poor Law is a police measure for the necessity of which the -agrarian changes are largely responsible. In spite of all the obstacles -in the way of migration, in spite of whip and courteous refreshment, men -do in fact migrate, and not only men, but women and children. By the -latter part of the century, at any rate, statesmen have begun to -understand that pauperism and vagrancy stand to the depopulation caused -by enclosure in the relation of effect to cause. The revolution in the -official attitude to the problem caused by this belated illumination is -as great as that which has taken place in the last ten years with regard -to unemployment. Once the new standpoint has been seized, though -opinion, and the opinion not only of the ruling classes, but of -burgesses and villagers, still treats the vagrant with iron severity, it -never quite relapses into the comfortable doctrine, the grand discovery -of a commercial age, that distress is itself a proof of the demerits of -its victim, and that Heaven, like a Utilitarian philosopher, permits -the existence of destitution only that it may make "less eligible" the -lot of "improvidence and vice." It is saved from this last error not by -the lore of economists, but because it regards economic questions -through the eyes of a sturdy matter-of-fact morality. It is sufficiently -enlightened to recognise that even among vagrants there is a class which -is more sinned against than sinning, a class of whom it can be asked "at -whose hands shall the blood of these men be required?"[472] It is -sufficiently ingenuous to answer by pointing to "some covetous man" who, -"espying a further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures, doth -find such means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn -the same unto his private gains."[473] Occasionally the effect of -enclosures is brought home to the encloser in a practical way, by -compelling him not only to pay a fine to the Crown, but also to make a -contribution towards the relief of the poor whose numbers he has -increased.[474] - - [472] Harrison, _loc. cit._ - - [473] _Ibid._ - - [474] Camden Society, 1886. Cases in Courts of Star Chamber and - High Commission, Michaelmas, 7 Caroli, Case of Archer. (The - allusion in the text is to a precedent cited in this case.) - -To see the way in which the relation between the problems of pauperism -and of agrarian depopulation is regarded, turn to the debates in the -House of Commons. In the year 1597, when both questions are acute (the -preceding year had seen a recrudescence of agrarian rioting), a member -or minister, probably Robert Cecil, is preparing notes for a speech[475] -on the subject in Parliament. What are the points he emphasises? They -are the high price of corn caused by bad harvests and the manipulations -of middlemen, the enclosing of land and the conversion of arable to -pasture, which naturally intensifies the difficulty of securing adequate -food supplies, "the decaying and plucking down of houses, ... and not -only the plucking down of some few houses, but the depopulating of whole -towns ... and keeping of a shepherd only, whereby many subjects are -turned without habitation, and fill the country with rogues and idle -persons." When Parliament meets in October, the House is at once busy -with different aspects of the same question.[476] Bills are introduced -dealing with forestallers, regrators, and engrossers of corn, with -vagrancy and pauperism, and with enclosures, and a committee is -appointed to consider the latter question. In the debates which follow -there is the usual division of opinion between the champions of economic -reform and the advocates of more, and more ruthless, "deterrence," -between those who wish to legislate as to causes and those who are -mainly occupied with symptoms. Bacon, master as ever of the science of -his subject, insists with invincible logic that pauperism is one part of -the general agrarian problem, and he is supported by Robert Cecil. On -the other hand, the experts as to pauperism--we can imagine the county -justices fresh from their whippings and relief committees and houses of -correction, fresh, too, from enclosure and depopulation--complain that -their special subject is being overlooked in a general and dangerous -discussion on the economic causes of distress, and that the committee -"has spent all their travel about the said enclosures and tillage, and -nothing about the said rogues and poor." That this should have been the -popular line to take needs no explanation. A Parliament which dares -discuss not only how to manipulate the lives of the poor, but the -fundamental causes of their misery, is a Parliament which the eye of man -had not yet, has not yet, beheld. Compared with other representative -assemblies, compared with itself at a later date, the Elizabethan House -of Commons, debating in an age when it could be said that government was -"nothing but a certein conspiracy of riche men procuringe theire owne -commodities under the name and title of the Common Wealth," had the -grace to show some stirrings of compunction. If members who had grown -fat on the tragedy which they were discussing spoke of their victims as -members will speak, ministers at least were independent, and could -venture, like Cecil, to tell the House unpalatable truths. Of the two -Acts against enclosure, which were the result of this session's -deliberations, we shall speak later. What is worth noticing here is the -disposition, even in a Parliament composed of country gentlemen, to -emphasise the connection between the problems with which anti-enclosure -and anti-vagrancy legislation have to deal. It is summed up in the -eloquent peroration of a nameless member. "As this bill entered at first -with a short prayer, 'God speed the plough,' so I wish it may end with -such success as the plough shall speed the poor."[477] - - [475] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., Nov. - 1597. "Notes for the present Parliament." - - [476] _D'Ewes' Journal_, pp. 551-555; see also Leonard, _The - Early History of English Poor Relief_, pp. 73-75. - - [477] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., pp. - 541-543. - -What became of the families displaced from the soil between their final -eviction and that subsidence upon the stony breast of the Elizabethan -Poor Law, which, for some of them, was their ultimate fate? There is no -certain information to guide us. The tragedy of the tramp is his -isolation. Every man's hand is against him; and his history is -inevitably written by his enemies. Yet, beneath denunciations hurled -upon him by those who lived warm and slept soft, we can see two -movements going on, two waves in a vast and silent ebbing of population -from its accustomed seats. In the first place there is a steady -immigration into the towns on the part of those "who, being driven out -of their habitations, are forced into the great cities, where, being -very burdensome, men shut their doors against them, suffering them to -die in the streets and highways."[478] The municipal records of the -periods teem with complaints of the disorder, the overcrowding, the -violation of professional bye-laws, caused by rural immigration. The -displaced peasant is the Irishman of the sixteenth century, and, like -the Irishman, he makes his very misery a whip with which to scourge, not -alas! his oppressors, but men who often are not much less wretched than -himself. He turns whole quarters into slums, spreads disease through -congested town dwellings, and disorganises the labour market by crowding -out the native artisan. Gild members find themselves eaten up by -unlawful men who have never served an apprenticeship in the town, and -retort with regulations requiring the deposit of a prohibitive sum as an -entrance fee from all immigrants who want to set up shop, especially -from those wretches who are thought to have a large family of children, -at present snugly concealed in their last place of residence, but soon -to be surreptitiously introduced, a brood of hungry young cuckoos, if -once their parents get a footing in the town.[479] Borough authorities, -who see cottages "made down" into tenements in which pestilence spreads -with fearful rapidity, seek to stamp out the very possibility of -invasion by prohibiting the erection of new cottages or the subdivision -of old. To judge by their behaviour, the notorious Statute of 1662, -which codified the existing customs as to settlement, must have been one -of the most popular pieces of legislation ever passed by Parliament. -Town[480] after town in the course of the sixteenth century tries to -protect itself by a system of stringent inspection worthy of modern -Germany. Sometimes there is a regular expulsion of the aliens. -"Forasmuch as it is found by daily experience," declare the authorities -of Nottingham,[481] "that by the continual building and erecting of new -cottages and poor habitations, and by the transferring of barns and -suchlike buildings into cottages, and also by the great confluence of -many poor people from forrein parts out of this towne to inhabit here, -and lykewise by the usual and frequent taking in of inmates into many -poor habitations here, the poorer sort of people do much increase ... it -is ordered that no burgess or freeman on pain of £5 erect any cottage or -convert any building into a cottage in the town without license of the -Mayor, that no burgess or freeman, without a license, receive any one -from the country as a tenant, that every landlord be bound in the sum of -£10 to remove all foreign tenants who have entered in the last three -years before May 1st next." What most boroughs do for themselves is -finally, after many regulations have been made by the Common Council, -done for London by Parliamentary legislation. It is not a chance that -the end of Elizabeth's reign sees the first two Housing Acts, one[482] -in 1589, enacting that only one family may live in a house, the -other[483] applying to London alone, and forbidding the division of -houses into tenements, the receiving of lodgers, or the erection of new -houses for persons who are assessed in the subsidy book at less than £5 -in goods or £3 in lands. The evicted peasants are beginning to take -their revenge. They have been taking it ever since. - - [478] Lansd. MSS. 83, f. 68, quoted Gonner, _Common Land and - Enclosure_, p. 156 n. - - [479] _e.g. Nottingham Records_, vol. iv. pp. 170-171, Nov. 4, - 1577: "Any burgess that hath not been prentice to pay £10 and no - pardon. _Records of Leicester_, vol. iii. p. 351, Oct. 17, 1598: - "He is inhibited from dwelling in your corporation unless he - finds bonds for £200 that neither his wife nor children shall be - burdensome to the town." _Southampton Court Leet Records_, vol. - i., Part I.: "One William Dye, undertenant to John Netley, dothe - lyve idelly and hathe no trade.... He hathe 4 or 5 children in - places from whence he came whom he will bring shortly hither, yf - he may be suffered here to remayne, whom we desyer may be - examined and removed from hence according to the Statute." - - [480] Some instances are given by Leonard, _Early History of - English Poor Relief_, pp. 107-109. - - [481] _Nottingham Records_, vol. iv. pp. 304-307. - - [482] 31 Eliz. c. 7. - - [483] 35 Eliz. c. 6. - -In the second place there is a general movement from the enclosed to the -open field villages. The families displaced by enclosure cannot easily -enter into industry, even if they wish to do so, for the avenue to most -trades is blocked both by the Corporations and by the statutory system -of a seven years' apprenticeship, which maintains professional standards -at the expense of an unprivileged residuum. What they do is to follow -the orthodox advice given to those who have lost their customary means -of livelihood. They proceed to colonise, and to colonise in such numbers -that they cannot easily be kept out. They settle as squatters on the -waste lands of those manors which have not been enclosed, and which, -before the waste is turned into a sheep-run, offer no obstacle to -immigration. That the possibility of using the manorial waste to -accommodate those who had no settled abode had occurred to statesmen as -one expedient for meeting the problem of the infirm and destitute, is -shown by the sanction expressly given in the Poor Law of 1597[484] to -the expenditure of parish funds on the erection of cottages on the waste -as residences for the impotent poor. In fact, however, the mobility of -labour was becoming such that it was impossible, even if it had been -desirable, to reserve those unutilised territories for the maintenance -of the impotent. In spite of bitter protests from the existing -inhabitants, refugees from other villages swarm down upon them in such -numbers that the Act requiring four acres of land to be attached to each -cottage cannot be observed, and the issuing of licences for the erection -of cottages on the waste for able-bodied men, who have come with their -families from a distance, becomes a regular part of the business of -Quarter Sessions.[485] Such a redistribution of the population solves -one problem only to create others. Stern economists in the seventeenth -century lament that the ease with which permission to build cottages on -the waste is obtained encourages the existence of an improvident and -idle class, which will neither work for wages nor make good use of the -land. "In all or most towns where the fields lie open and are used in -common, there is a new brood of upstart intruders as inmates, and the -inhabitants of unlawful cottages erected contrary unto law.... Loyterers -who will not usually be got to work unless they may have such excessive -wages as they themselves desire."[486] The opponents of enclosure answer -with some justice that, in effect, the open field villages are saddled -with the destitution caused by enclosing landlords, who first ruin their -tenants and then, like a modern Dock Company which relies on the Poor -Rate to save its wage-bill, leave them to be supported by those places -to which they are compelled to migrate.[487] The latter difficulty is -indeed a very serious one, which not only is the occasion of numberless -petitions[488] from villages who wish to be assisted by, or to avoid -assisting, their neighbours, but on occasion converts even the country -gentry into opponents of enclosure. "We further conceive," write the -Justices of Nottingham to the Council, "that if depopulation may be -reformed it will bring a great good to the whole Kingdom; for where -homes are pulled down the people are forced to seek new habitations in -other towns and countries, whereof those towns where they get a settling -are pestered so as they are hardly able to live one by another, and it -is likewise the cause of erecting new cottages upon the waste and other -places who are not able to relieve themselves ... which causes rogues -and vagabonds to increase."[489] In the elaborate book of Poor Law -orders published in 1631 the Government recognises the genuineness of -this grievance, and, to its direction that richer parishes should -contribute funds to the aid of the poor, adds a special rider pointing -out that such extra contributions would come with special -appropriateness from those places where there had been depopulation. - - [484] 39 Eliz. c. 3. - - [485] For petitions on this subject see _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. - 784, pp. 81-82 (Wiltshire). The Warwickshire Quarter Sessions - were much occupied with this, _e.g._ the following: "Trinity - Sessions 1625. Fforasmuch as this Court was this present day - informed ... by Sir Edward Marrowe, kt., and Thomas Ashley as - the lords of the manor of Woolvey in this county ... that the - said lords are content that William Wilcox of Woolvey in this - countie shall build and erect a cottage for hys habitation hys - wyfe and his small children uppon the waste within the said - lordshippe, it is therefore ordered that the same being with - consent of the lord as aforesaid that the same cottage shall be - and continue," and later "which cottage the Court doth licence" - (_Warwick Quarter Sessions MSS. Records_). - - [486] "Considerations Concerning Common Fields and Enclosures," - Pseudonismus, 1654. - - [487] Moore, _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the - Poor_: "And now alas, saith the poor cottier, there is no work - for me, I must go where I may get my living. And hence it comes - to pass that the open fielden towns have above double the number - of cottiers they had wont to have, so that they cannot live one - by another, and so put the fielden towns to vast expense, in - caring for these poor that these enclosures have made." - - [488] _e.g. Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 784, p. 95 (Wiltshire), pp. - 292 and 298 (Worcester). - - [489] See Appendix I., No. VI. Miss Leonard (_Trans. Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xix.) prints this document as referring to Norfolk, - which appears to be an error. - -We may now summarise our view of the social effects of the changes -introduced by lords of manors, and by the capitalist farmers who manage -their estates. When the demesne land is enclosed and converted to -pasture, there is an appreciable diminution in the demand for labour, -and consequently an increase in unemployment. When the common rights of -tenants are curtailed, they lose not only an important subsidiary source -of income, but often, at the same time, the means of cultivating their -arable holdings. When their holdings are merged in the great estate of -the capitalist farmer, they are turned adrift to seek their living in a -world where most trades and most towns are barred against them, where -they are punished if they do not find work, and punished if they look -for work without permission, where "if the poor being thrust out of -their houses go to dwell with others, straight we catch them with the -Statute of Inmates; if they wander abroad, they are in danger of the -Statute of the Poor to be whipped."[490] Thus, quite apart both from the -eternal source of poverty which consists in the recalcitrance of nature -to human effort, and from those causes of individual destitution which -in all ages and in all economic conditions lie in wait for the -exceptionally unfortunate or the exceptionally improvident, for the -sick, the aged, and the orphan, there is an increase in the number of -those for whom access to the land, their customary means of livelihood, -is unobtainable, and consequently a multiplication of the residuum for -whom the haunting insecurity of the propertyless modern labourer is, not -the exception, but the normal lot. It is this extension of destitution -among able-bodied men, who have the will, but not the means, to find -employment, which is the peculiar feature of sixteenth century -pauperism, and which leads in 1576 to the most characteristic expedient -of the Elizabethan Poor Law--the provision of materials upon which the -unemployed can be set to work. The recognition that the relief of the -destitute must be enforced as a public obligation was not the -consequence of the survival of mediæval ideas into an age where they -were out of place, but an attempt on the part of the powerful Tudor -state to prevent the social disorder caused by economic changes, which, -in spite of its efforts, it had not been strong enough to control. - - [490] _D'Ewes' Journal._ Speech of Cecil, 1597. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE QUESTION OF TENANT RIGHT - - -(a) _The Tenants at Will and the Leaseholders_ - -We have said above that we cannot measure the extent of the depopulation -caused by enclosure, even for those years with regard to which figures -are supplied us by Royal Commissions. But, after all, it is happily less -important to arrive at an exact statistical estimate of the acres -enclosed and of the number of tenants displaced, than it is to get a -general view of the economic forces at work and of the structure of -legal relationships upon which they operated. Given the economic reasons -for the consolidation of holdings which were dominant in the sixteenth -century, they could hardly have failed to result in evictions on a -considerable scale, unless the tenants themselves had sufficient legal -security to hold their own. If they had such security, the statistical -analysis of displacements given above will fall into line with the -general situation and be a valuable comment upon it. If they had not, -then the figures, while a useful guide to the imagination, may stand -when they confirm, but hardly when they contradict, the picture given by -contemporaries. The accounts of the latter, though still not freed from -the charge of exaggeration, will be supported by what we know of the -general disposition of economic and legal forces. They probably heighten -the colour and sharpen the outlines, but their indication of tendencies -will be correct. - -In discussing the position of the small cultivator in the sixteenth -century it was pointed out above that similarity of legal status was -compatible with the greatest economic variety, and in considering their -ability to resist attempted eviction it is essential to remember the -converse truth, that tenants who were economically in a similar position -were often from the point of view of tenure very different. Just as -writers of the time lump together all classes of well-to-do small -landholders under the name of yeomen, though the majority of them were -not legally yeomen at all, so they constantly speak of evictions, -ruinous fines, and rack-rents, without discriminating between the -different classes of tenants whose different legal positions make them -liable to suffer in very different degrees. One must remember, again, -that in the sixteenth century a man might be called a copyholder because -he held a copyhold tenement, but at the same time he might have, and -very often had, additional land which he had leased from the demesne or -from the waste, and in which his legal interest was quite different; he -might be a freeholder and at the same time be the farmer who leased the -lord's demesne, or he might be freeholder, copyholder, and leaseholder -in one, and even hold at the will of the lord other land which he had -been allowed to occupy "by grant of the court," for example part of the -manorial waste. Hence not only were the positions of tenants at will, -lessees, and copyholders considered as classes, different from each -other, but there was also a difference in the legal interest which -individuals had in different parts of the lands which they cultivated. -Even if the law gave protection to copyholders, a point to be discussed -later, they might suffer from the consolidation into large farms of -those parts of their lands which they did not hold by copy, and the more -they had gained in preceding years by adding to their holdings of -customary land by leasing part of the demesne and of the waste, the -heavier would be their loss when these additions were taken from them, -while those whose holdings consisted entirely of such encroachments -would be altogether ruined. Again, on those few manors where tenure at -the will of the lord had not crystallised into copyhold, the tenant's -position was even weaker than that of the lessee, for there was nothing -but a custom unenforced by legal documents to prevent his eviction. - -There was thus opportunity for a considerable displacement of population -without any need of raising the difficult question of the degree of -security enjoyed by copyhold tenure. When a manor was occupied only by -tenants at will without copies, or when its demesne lands were leased -for short terms to a number of lessees, or when its waste had been -gradually taken in either by new settlers or by the customary tenants, -land could be resumed by the lord without any conflict save, in the -first case, with a custom which two centuries before had been powerful -but now was weak, and in the second case with a terminable interest. It -is not necessary to adduce instances to prove the liability of the -tenant at will or lessee to eviction, because the nature of their -interest makes it obvious that they could not claim to have complete -legal security. Examples of the first kind are, indeed, not very common, -owing to the fact that by our period tenure at will of the lord had in -most places hardened into copyhold, and their comparative rarity may -suggest that tenants at will who had not become copyholders had been -displaced on most manors by the beginning of the century. The case of -two Wiltshire manors may serve to illustrate their position. At -Knyghton[491] the whole manor was in 1554 leased to a farmer, and with -the manor the rents and service of six customary tenants holding at -will. At Domerham,[492] in 1568, almost the whole of the land was in the -hands of three large farmers, but "it has been granted to Richard -Compton, Thomas Pryce, John Pryce, and Robert Kynge, to sow of the above -said land every year 120 acres." In the second case the precariousness -of the tenants' position is obvious; they are mere squatters, who are -there, as it were, on sufferance. In the first case it has been -recognised and mitigated, as far as the farmer is concerned, by a clause -in his agreement binding him to leave the tenants in peaceable enjoyment -as long as they pay their rents. But they have no security as against -the lord, and are liable to immediate eviction if it proves more -profitable to add their holdings to the large farm. When tenants -commence an action against a lord for wrongful disseisin, it is -sufficient for him to answer that they are "but his tenantry at -wyll."[493] - - [491] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [492] _Ibid._ - - [493] Leadam, _English Hist. Rev._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - -Much more numerous, however, than the tenants at will, were the small -leaseholders who held part of the waste or of the demesne lands. A -glance at the table given on page 25 will show that they form about 12 -per cent. of the whole manorial population therein represented. But in -parts of the country their numbers are far greater. In 1568 they form 20 -per cent. of the landholders on four manors in Somersetshire and one in -Devonshire.[494] In two villages in Northamptonshire[495] they form -nearly two-thirds. On the great manor of Rochdale there are in 1626 as -many as 315 leaseholders to 64 freeholders and 233 copyholders. -Leaseholders possessed, of course, legal security during the period of -their leases, and these were in some cases for as long as ninety-two -years. But they, too, had not an interest in the land of the kind which -would enable them to offer any permanent barrier to the policy of -consolidating holdings. This fact, indeed, was the motive for the care -which surveyors showed in discriminating between those parts of the -tenants' holdings which were customary land and those which were made up -of pieces taken from the demesne or from the waste, as well as for the -desire to convert copyhold tenure into leases for years, which was often -shown in the sixteenth century by the manorial officials. For an example -illustrating the eviction of numerous small tenants who had leased the -demesne we may recur to the case of Ablode[496] which has been mentioned -above. The lease of that manor to a farmer made by the monastery of St. -Peter's in 1516 expressly provided that he should be allowed to get rid -of the lessees, to whom the demesne lands had previously been let, as -soon as their leases should have expired. Two other examples show the -same class encountering exactly the same difficulty under somewhat -different circumstances. The first, which relates to the waste, not to -the demesne lands, comes from a survey of the lordship of Bromfield and -Gale which was made by the Parliamentary surveyors in 1649.[497] "The -inclosures before mentioned," they say, "and all the rest of them within -the lordship of Bromfield and Gale, fall to the lord of the soyle, -because enclosed without license. For although by their fee farm estate -they [_i.e._ the tenants] may challenge freedome of commoning, it is by -the covenant of the grant as formerly and antiently was accustomed, so -that they must take a new grant of all (except some old inclosures which -are included in their fee farms), which is the custom of the lordshippe. -_And if they should enclose all their common, yet the lord would have a -third part._" The second illustration is given by a petition which some -leasehold tenants of Whitby Strand[498] promoted in the Court of -Requests in the year 1553. When the monastery of Whitby was dissolved, -its property passed first to the Crown, which disposed of it to the Duke -of Northumberland, who in turn sold it to Sir John Yorke. The sufferings -of the tenants may be told in their own words: "Which saide Sir John, of -his extort power and might and by great and sore threatenings of the -said tennants ... hathe gotten from them all the leases ... and -unreasonably hathe raised rents ... and in consideration also that the -said Sir John York is a man of power and might, landes, goodes and -possessions; greatly frendid.... Your poor oratours ... are not able to -sue against him," and petition the Court for redress. The reality of -their grievance is shown sufficiently by the fact that whereas, when the -estate was in the hands of the monastery, the total rents of twenty-six -tenants amounted to £28, 19s. 8-1/2d., an average of about £1, 2s. 1d. -per tenant, by the date of these complaints the rents alone, apart from -fines, had been forced up to £64, 9s. 9d., averaging per tenant £2, 6s. -6d. - - [494] _Ibid._, Paynton, Stooke Trister and Cucklington, Donyett, - Chedseye, South Brent and Huish. The leases at South Brent are - for ninety-two years. - - [495] They are Duston in 1561 (R.O. Rentals and Surreys, Portf. - 13, No. 23), and Paulspurie in 1541 (_ibid._, vol. ccccxix., - fol. 3). - - [496] See pp. 204 and 210. - - [497] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of Survey of Lordship of - Bromfield and Gale in Wrexham Free Library. - - [498] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_. - -What is the conclusion to be drawn from these three examples? It is -surely the special precariousness in the conditions of the sixteenth -century of all those tenants whose livelihood lies mainly in land which -has been taken from the demesne or from the waste, which is, in fact, in -the words of Fitzherbert,[499] "a new thing that hath not gone by -custom," a thing which may "fortune to increase or decrease of rent." A -piece of demesne may have been let out on lease at a low rent in the -year following the great plague, or have been taken from the waste at an -even earlier date. It may have remained in the hands of one family for -a century without being resumed by the lord, and without any attempt -being made to increase the tenants' payments. It may have been cleared -and cleaned, hedged and ditched, by the sweat of generations. But, if -the manorial officials have done their duty, that land has been marked -as a "new thing," something for which no custom can be pleaded and which -no prescription can protect. When the lord wishes to alter the condition -of its tenure no vested interest can stand against him. He will throw it -into a large farm, or double the rent, and the tenants can say nothing; -for they are mere lessees, unprotected by the sanctity of manorial -custom, and to have his way he need only wait till their leases expire. -That this is no impossible supposition is shown by the records of the -manor of Hewlington.[500] In 1562 an inquiry was made into the rights of -the tenants there, who seem to have been lessees for the term of forty -years with a right of renewal to the heir. On investigation being made -by the officers of the Crown, to whom the manor belonged, it was found -that there was "a decay of the sum of one hundred and five pounds, six -shillings, yearly rent, which in ancient tymes had been answered for the -said landes"; which decay "as by the auncient records appeareth, did -growe by reason of the great mortalitie and plague which in former tymes -had been in the reign of Edward III. and also of the Rebellion of Owen -Glendower and trouble that therefrom ensued; ... by reason of which -mortalitie and rebellion the country was wasted, the Tenants and their -houses destroyed, insomuch that the then lords of the soyle were -constrayned by their stewards and officers to graunte the said landes at -a lesser rent than formerlie was paid for the same to such as could be -gotten to take it." Two hundred years after the great plague, its effect -in reducing the rents of a few tenants on the Welsh Border is -remembered: a commission calculates the sum due to the last penny, and -is then required and authorised "to revise the said decayed rent," a -fact which the jurors of the manor duly record in their presentment made -another sixty years later. No doubt the Crown has an unusually good -memory--_nullum tempus occurrit regi_. But what the Crown can do on -this grand scale the surveyors of smaller lords do on a smaller one. As -soon as the time has come when it is convenient to get rid of tenants, -nothing but the most unassailable title can stand against the proof that -such and such a plot of land was once part of the lord's demesne or of -the lord's waste. And this, one may suspect, was a great change, which -affected many families who thought themselves as safe as their -neighbours. For at least two centuries before enclosing became general -enough to cause alarm, the demesne and waste lands on one manor after -another had been nibbled away by small encroachments; for lords had been -glad to find an alternative to the cultivation of the former through -labour services, and the colonising of the latter, though sometimes a -source of complaint with commoners whose rights of pasture were -curtailed, was welcomed by the manorial authorities as a means of -improving lands which would otherwise be useless. Both together had been -in fact a sort of reservoir of land upon which any surplus population -could draw, and from which the more prosperous of the customary tenants -could lease additions to their holdings in the manner described above. -In our period the tendency is reversed. A lord is anxious to get rid of -the obstruction which the small farmer's lease offers to the -consolidation of holdings. He wishes to follow the advice of experts and -"reduce his demeans into one entier ferme."[501] Titles are questioned, -and the small lessee, whose interest is a terminable one and unprotected -by any manorial custom, is the first to suffer. - - [499] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_, p. 32. - - [500] For reference, see p. 130, note 2. - - [501] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., survey of Mudford - and Hinton. - - -(b) _The Copyholders_[502] - -But were the tenants at will and the leaseholders the only classes to be -evicted? No allusion has yet been made to the most difficult problem -which confronts the student of the sixteenth century agrarian -changes--the degree of protection enjoyed by the copyholders. If this -problem is the most difficult it is also one of the most important. As -far as can be calculated, the copyholders far exceeded in number upon -most manors all other classes of tenants together. Copyhold tenure was -the rule, and tenure at will and leasehold were generally the exception, -though the latter was an important exception. If all copyholders had -complete security, and were readily protected in their holdings by the -courts, there would be little sense in talking of an agrarian -revolution; for the changes, though they might still have caused much -individual suffering, could hardly have constituted anything like the -serious national danger which they were thought to be by many -contemporaries. Again, the copyholders were in a special sense the -kernel of a manor, the representatives of an ancient social system, -around which the newer relationships of leasehold were, so to speak, -comparatively modern accretions. It was with them and their business -that the manorial courts were concerned; a copyhold tenement could not -exist apart from a manor because surrender and admission in the manorial -court was essential to its recognition as copyhold; and the very name of -"customary tenants," by which copyholders were often described, suggests -the special antiquity and fixity of their position. Even in the -sixteenth century there were still manors where there were no tenants at -all except copyholders, and the mere shedding of the outer layers of -small leaseholders, who had sprung up around them, would have left the -organisation of such manors quite intact. It would have cut back recent -developments; it would not have shaken rural society very seriously. -One's view of the importance of the agrarian changes of the sixteenth -century will depend, therefore, to a great extent, upon the opinion -which is formed of the legal position of the copyholders. - - [502] In the following section on copyholders I have been guided - largely by Dr. Savine's article in the _Quarterly Journal of - Economics_, vol. xix. - -The problem centres in the question to what extent a copyholder who was -threatened with eviction could obtain protection from the courts. It is -not at all easy to extract a definite answer on this point from the -writers of the period, whose views as to the degree of security enjoyed -by copyhold are often inconsistent with each other, and sometimes seem -to be inconsistent with themselves. The layman certainly thought that -copyhold tenants could be and were evicted, and this view seems to be -supported by Fitzherbert.[503] It is true that he draws a sharp -distinction between the customary land, the rent of which cannot be -altered, and the new intakes from the waste or the demesne, the rent of -which can be forced up at the lord's pleasure. But he expressly states -that copyhold tenants cannot get protection from the courts: "These -manners of tennants shall not plede nor be impleded of their tenements -by the king's writte"; and he implies elsewhere that the lord can -increase both rent and fines. Kitchin,[504] on the other hand, thinks -that the lord can never increase the amount of the admission fine; while -Coke,[505] in a well-known passage, emphasises the copyholder's security -as long as he makes no breach in the custom by failing in his services, -and points out that he can protect himself either by proceedings in -Chancery or by a writ of trespass. - - [503] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_, p. 28. - - [504] Kitchin, _Court Leet_. - - [505] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - -It is not surprising, in view of the variety of opinion as to the -copyholders' status which obtained in the sixteenth century, that there -should have been much disagreement about it among historians. It seems -possible, however, at any rate to narrow the limits of conjecture by -ruling certain theories out of account. In the first place one can -hardly now accept the view put forward by Mr. Leadam,[506] that, at any -rate after 1467, all copyholders had complete legal security, as -complete, it would appear, as freehold, though guaranteed by different -remedies. He holds that copyholders who occupied customary land, and who -were "tenants at will according to the custom of the manor," could get -redress either by petition in the Court of the lord with an appeal to -Chancery, or by an action of trespass in the Common Pleas, the classes -who suffered from eviction being "tenants at will at Common Law," who, -though sometimes described as inferior copyholders, were not really -copyholders at all, because they did not occupy the lands set apart as -customary lands. This view, according to which the lord could clear off -his estate all the newer copyhold tenancies on the demesne or waste, but -was debarred by the courts from touching the tenancies on the customary -land of the manor, receives a certain support from the great pains -shown by the manorial authorities in distinguishing between the two. -But, while it rightly emphasises the special features of the tenure of -customary land, it is difficult to reconcile what we actually know of -the position of copyholders with this theory as to the complete security -of copyhold tenure. To the objection that contemporaries who could -hardly have been mistaken certainly supposed that copyholders suffered, -Mr. Leadam would, no doubt, answer that they were thinking of the -"inferior copyholders" who held pieces of the demesne or waste. But this -answer has got to meet difficulties which are really overwhelming. On -the one hand, the historical confirmation which Mr. Leadam seeks, by -trying to trace the distinction postulated back into the remote regions -of tenure in villeinage, can no longer be accepted now that the -difference between villeinage "regardant" and villeinage "en gros," on -which he relies, has been proved to refer not to differences in the -tenure by which the serfs held their lands, but simply to different -methods of pleading, which have nothing to do with the question of the -tenant's security, but merely with the form in which cases were argued -in the courts.[507] On the other hand, it cannot be made to fit the -facts of the copyholders' position in the sixteenth century. The truth -is that copyholders were not safe even on the sacred customary land -itself. It is quite certain that a great many copyholds were not -copyholds of inheritance, but copyholds for life, which returned into -the hands of the lord with the death of every tenant. It is certain -also, as will be shown later, that fines for admission to customary -holdings were on some manors raised enormously during the sixteenth -century. How can one reconcile these facts with the view that the lord -could make no alteration in the treatment of the customary land which -would jeopardise the copyholders' interest? - - [506] Leadam, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi. - - [507] Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, pp. 48-56. - -Nor is it easy to accept the sharply contrasted theory of Professor -Ashley.[508] Where Mr. Leadam sees absolute security of tenure -guaranteed by the courts, Professor Ashley sees absolute insecurity -mitigated by a once powerful but now decaying custom. In the past, when -the lord's land had been dependent on labour services for its -cultivation, the last thing he wanted to do was to get rid of the -tenants, and therefore custom had made it a rule of practice, though not -of law, that first villein, and then copyhold, tenements should pass in -the manorial court from father to son. But just when this custom was on -the way to become law through the action of the courts in extending -protection to copyholders, changed economic conditions made pasture -farming much more profitable than tillage, and so supplied landowners -with a strong motive for breaking it down. In the struggle which -followed custom and public opinion were on the side of the tenants, but -the law was on the side of the landlords, and copyholders were evicted -without being able to obtain any legal redress, not merely through -ignorance or intimidation, but because no legal protection was offered -them by the courts. There is perhaps only one serious objection to this -ingenious theory. But that is insuperable. It is that in certain -circumstances, at any rate, the courts did in fact offer protection to -copyholders who were threatened with eviction. In the fifteenth century -a considerable number of cases came before the Court of Chancery. In the -sixteenth century the same business, which in view of the number of -copyholders must have been a lucrative one, came before the Common Law -Courts. The case of the year 1482,[509] which is quoted by Professor -Ashley to show the hesitation which the judges felt as to whether a -copyholder had any legal remedy, is really one of a long series in which -the courts considered the claims of copyholders, and which Coke must -have had in mind when he said, "Now copyholders stand upon a sure -ground: now they weigh not their lord's displeasure, they shake not at -every sudden blast of wind, they eat, drink, sleep securely ... let the -lord frown, the copyholder cares not, knowing himself safe, and not -within any danger."[510] To overlook that series of cases is really to -misread a change of the first importance, a change which almost amounted -to a legal revolution. Suppose that at the present day the courts were -to begin to protect the "tenant right" of workmen who have given their -lives to a trade by ruling that any man dismissed after fifteen years -continuous service should either be reinstated or receive compensation? -The change would be greater--but would it be much greater?--than the -momentous departure that was made by the judges who for the first time -decided that a man impleaded for a villein tenement should have an -action in Chancery. For centuries such actions could not be brought, and -if brought would have been simply sent back to the court of the manor -with the endorsement "our lord the king does not interfere in matters of -villeinage."[511] Now the tide is reversed. From 1439 onwards a stream -of equitable jurisdiction flows out from the Chancery to secure the -title of the very class which has hitherto had no legal title at all. -Tenure in villeinage becomes copyhold. Clearly the discovery of these -cases by Dr. Savine[512] must alter the whole standpoint from which we -view the struggle between lords and copyholders in the sixteenth -century. If one must reject the view of Mr. Leadam that copyholders on -customary land had complete legal security, one must also, it would -seem, reject the view of Professor Ashley that the courts never -interfered in their favour. Somehow or another one must reconcile a good -deal of insecurity with a good deal of protection, the complaints of -contemporaries that copyholders suffered from enclosures with the -equally indisputable fact that they were fairly often protected by the -law. - - [508] Ashley, _Economic History_, Part I., vol. ii. pp. 274-282. - - [509] Coke upon Littleton, 60 b. - - [510] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - - [511] Note-book of Bracton pl., 1237: "Dominus rex non vult se - de eis intromittere" (quoted Vinogradoff, _Villainage in - England_, p. 46, note 2). - - [512] On this point see _English Hist. Review_, vol. viii. p. - 296. - -A way leading some distance through this apparent contradiction may, -perhaps, be found by recurring to that dependence upon manorial custom -which is the characteristic feature of copyhold. A copyholder is a -tenant by copy of Court Roll according to the custom of the manor, and -this custom is primarily what regulates his rights and obligations. The -custom must be an immemorial one; mere prescription is not custom; to be -binding it must have "been used time out of mind." Given such a custom, -it is this upon which the nature of the copyholder's tenure depends; and -it is noticeable that authorities who differ as to the practical outcome -of it, all agree that it is with custom that the first appeal lies. But -the custom of a manor is a particular and individual thing peculiar to -that manor, and determining the relations between lord and tenant there -and not elsewhere. In the words of a surveyor, "Their customs are not so -universall as if a man have experyence of the customs and services of -any mannor he shall thereby have perfect knowledge of all the rest, or -if he be experte of the customes of any one mannor in any one countie -that he shall nede no further enstruccions for all the residewe of the -mannors within that countie."[513] There are several different sets of -customs, and therefore several different sorts of copyhold. There are, -in fact, copyholders and copyholders, and there is no general law of -copyhold because its essence is to be local and peculiar. The first -question, therefore, which has got to be asked, when considering the -question of the legal security of copyholders, relates to the custom of -the manor on which they are found; for probably, if the parties go to -law, this is the first question which will be asked by the court. If it -is shown that in getting rid of a tenant the lord has broken the custom -of the manor, there is much likelihood in the sixteenth century that the -court will restore it. If this is not shown, there is little probability -that the court will go behind the custom in favour of the tenants, or -try to harmonise it with general principles of equity, except in so far -as it declines to take account of customs which are held to be -"unreasonable," a word too vague to be much protection to a tenant or -much hindrance to a lord. It is this tremendous importance of local -custom which causes it to be so minutely entered in manorial documents, -and which results both in the constant appeals which are made to it when -cases come before the courts, and in the careful recording of -contradictory opinions. Surveyors are at pains to emphasise the -difference between land which is customary land and land which is not, -because, while on the former the introduction of new conditions will be -followed by all sorts of friction and disturbance, on the latter the -tenants will have no case in opposing them. It is here that Mr. Leadam's -distinction between holders of customary land and holders of land taken -from the waste or the demesne becomes of real value. It is a particular -exemplification of a general rule, the rule that the appeal is always to -custom. The meaning of the distinction is not, as Mr. Leadam seems to -suggest, that copyholders on the former always had legal protection and -copyholders on the latter always had not. It is that the crucial -question is always, "What sort of custom are you under?" and that, while -on the customary holdings the custom _may_ be unfavourable to the -tenant's security, it is much more likely to be unfavourable on the -newer tenancies formed on land which, perhaps within the memory of -persons living, was indubitably the lord's own, not merely in the -general sense in which even the villein's land had been the lord's, but -in the practical sense that it was part of his demesne to use as he -pleased. In fact quite a common answer when copyholders bring an action -is the statement that the land in question is not ancient copyhold but -part of the demesne;[514] and when the Protector Somerset applied his -popular agrarian policy to his own estates he had to get Parliament to -pass a special Act to give the copyholders on his demesnes peculiar -security.[515] - - [513] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. The surveyor is - Humberstone. - - [514] _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of Ed. - VI._, vol. i. p. cxxxvii.: "To the Right Honourable Sir Richard - Riche, Kt., Lord Riche and Lord Chancellor of England. In humble - wise sheweth and complaineth unto your lordeshippe your daley - orator Richard Cullyer of Wymondham ... yeoman, and John Cullyer - his son," that whereas they "were admitted tenants (of 20 acres) - to hold the same to them and their heirs ... and contynued - seased of the said 20 acres as of fee, as tenants at will, by - copy of Court Roll" now "Thomas Knyvett, Esq. ... of late - claimed 10 acres of the said 20 acres to be the demeanes of the - said manor." Knyvett (i.) answers, "The said lond ys and have - been tyme out of mynde parcell of the demeanes of the moytie of - the said manor of Cromwell." (ii.) Denies that "the premises - have been used to be dymytted or be dymittable by copie of Court - Roll for term of lyfe or lyves as in fee"; on the contrary "yt - may appear that the same have been letten by term of yeres." - - [515] In 1548 an Act was passed "for the assurance to the - tenants of graunts and leases made for the Duke of Somerset's - demesne lands." It begins, "Whereas of truth noe custom or usage - can or maye by the lawes of this realm be annexed or knytt to - any meases, lands, tenements, or hereditaments letten by copye - of Court Roll ... albeyt those words 'secundum consuetudinem - manerii,' be rehearsed and expressed in the saide Court Rolle or - coppie had or made, except that the same meases, lands, - tenements, or other hereditaments, so letten be of olde - customarie or coppieholde land, and have byn used by all the - tyme whereof memory of man is not to the contrary to be letten - or demysed by copie of court roll." - -The significance of custom is shown in other ways as well. In the -numerous petitions in Chancery addressed by copyholders their demand is -constantly for a recital or confirmation of manorial customs, and the -same line is taken in the fewer cases which come before the Courts of -Common Law. Tenants who claim an estate of inheritance and a fixed fine -on admission refuse in a body to show their copies to the surveyors, -presumably for fear that, if they do, some excuse may be made to upset -the custom.[516] Tenants will perjure themselves as to the nature of the -custom of their manor in order to be thought to have estates of -inheritance. In the days when copyholders (if they exist at all) are -still very few and villeins many, men who are really villeins of St. -Peter's of Exeter come forward and swear falsely that they hold in -socage, "intending all to say that they hold and ought to hold _de -stipite in stipitem_, Anglice stock after stock";[517] but the falsehood -is exposed, and they are punished with a fine of 30s. The copyhold -tenants on the Northumbrian manor of Amble claim in the sixteenth -century that manorial custom requires that the next of kin of the whole -blood shall succeed his father, and that the fines shall be limited to -two years' rent. But the surveyors repudiate their claim, remarking that -"we cannot find that they have any such estate of inheritance."[518] -Elsewhere the copyholders are more fortunate, and succeed in inducing -the manorial authorities themselves to make formal admission of the -custom, or in proving its existence to the satisfaction of the courts. -In 1567 the Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral, and the one -hundred and fifty-eight copyhold tenants on their manor of Crondal, -enter into a solemn covenant and bargain--may we not call it a -"collective bargain"?--whereby it is agreed that fixed rents, fixed -fines, and copyholds of inheritance, "shall be from henceforth for ever -accepted, reputed, deamed, and taken to be vearye trewe, just, certaine, -and auncient customs, rights, dewtyes, and useages, between the Lorde -and the Customarye tenants ...; and shall from henceforth stand, -contynewe, remayne, and be of perfect force and strength to conclude and -bynde the said Deane and Chapiter, their successors and assignees of the -said mannour and hundred and everye parte thereof for ever."[519] The -tenants at Elswick[520] go to law with the lord of the manor on the -question of the nature of their estates, and, on the records of a custom -requiring the admission of a son on his father's death being produced, -the custom is confirmed by the court. Even the Government of Elizabeth, -favourable as it was to the small man, would not intervene without first -being informed of the nature of the custom. When a tenant appeals to -them for protection, they refer the matter to the local justices, with a -request to "certifie their opinions of the poor man's right."[521] No -doubt once the Courts begin to interfere with the internal business of a -manor they tend to break down some of the peculiarities of local custom, -and to set up a general pattern of copyhold tenure by ruling out certain -customs as "unreasonable." Copyholders for life may not cut down -timber,[522] though perhaps copyholders of inheritance may. Two and a -half years' rent is held by the reign of Charles I. to be an -unreasonable fine, one and a half years' to be reasonable, and the heir -shall not forfeit his copyhold if he tenders such a sum when he demands -admission.[523] But the definition of what is meant by "unreasonable" -has been going on from that day to this, and is perhaps not yet -completed. In our period it was only just beginning. At any rate we -shall not be far wrong if we say that, speaking broadly, the crucial -question is always whether the custom makes it easy for lords to get rid -of tenants or whether it makes it difficult. If an ancient custom gives -the lord a free hand, he has little trouble in getting his way. If it -restricts him, the courts are likely to enforce the restriction, and -though the lord still has, of course, the option of extra-legal action -by way of persuasion, cajolery, or intimidation, the tenants are likely -to be protected by the law. - - [516] See pp. 122-123. - - [517] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 3218, p. 74. Inquisition of - February 20, 1308. - - [518] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. p. 282. - - [519] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), Part I. p. 177. - - [520] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. - - [521] _Acts of the Privy Council_, vol. xiii. pp. 91-92, 1581. - The justices are to decide "if they thinke it agreeable with - equite and justice that the poore man should be put in - possession of the said landes." - - [522] Croke's _Reports_, vol. iii., Trin. 4 Caroli, Rot. dcciv. - case 7. Custom that copyholder for life may cut down trees - pronounced "a void and unreasonable custom and not allowable by - law. For it is the destruction of the inheritance and against - the nature of a copyholder for life. But peradventure there may - be such a custom for a copyholder of inheritance." - - [523] _Ibid._, vol. iii., p. 198, case 8, Hill, 5 Car., Rot. - 125: "The question was whether a lord of a mannor may assess two - years and a half value of copyhold land according to racked rent - for a fine upon surrender and admittance, and for non-payment - enter for forfeiture. And all the Court conceived that one year - and a half of rent improved is high enough; and the defendant - assessing two years and a half it is unreasonable, and therefore - the plaintiff might well refuse the payment thereof." _Ibid._, - vol. i. p. 779, case 13, takes the rule that unreasonable fines - need not be paid back to 1600 ("It was holden _per curiam_ that - if the lord demands an unreasonable fine of his coppyholder - where the fine is uncertain, if he denies it, it is not any - forfeiture of his copyhold"), but his judgment does not say how - many years' rent is a reasonable fine. The _Calendar of Chancery - Proceedings, temp._ Eliz., is full of petitions from tenants - asking the court to declare fines excessive. The rule that a - fine must not exceed two years' rent does not appear to have - been accepted as binding till 1781 (_Grant v. Ashe, Douglas - Reports_, 722-723). But it is plain from the cases cited above - that by 1600 it was recognised that some fines were - unreasonable, and by 1630 that a reasonable fine should not - exceed one and a half years' rent. The fact that the Chancery - intervened to protect the equitable interests of copyholders - earlier than the Common Law Courts leads one to suspect that - there must be earlier cases than these of the Courts declaring - fines unreasonable. But I have not found them. - -The dependence of copyhold upon manorial custom offers an explanation of -the fact that the changes of the sixteenth century displaced -copyholders, although the courts would intervene when a custom which -gave them security was proved to exist. The most important questions -with regard to the custom which determined the copyholders' position -were two: first, whether he had by it an estate of inheritance, or -merely an estate for years, for life, or for lives; second, whether his -payments were fixed or unalterable, or whether they could be increased -at the will of the lord. If it was not an estate of inheritance his -holding returned fairly frequently into the hands of the manorial -authorities, who could either renew it on the old terms, or lease it at -an increased rent, or amalgamate it with a large farm. In the second -case, where payments were variable, lords could force a tenant to throw -up his land by placing a prohibitive burden upon it. The only way of -ascertaining with accuracy the real position of copyholders in our -period would be to show the relative proportions in which these four -arrangements are found upon each of many hundred manors. And this we -cannot yet do. The figures published by Dr. Savine[524] suggest that -manors on which copyholders possessed an estate of inheritance, and -those where they did not, were about equal in number, while manors on -which the fines were uncertain predominated over those on which they -were fixed in a proportion of more than two to one. Since it would seem -that the ability of the lord to demand what fine he pleased could be -used as a means of excluding a successor even when the copy was not -merely for life or lives but from father to son, his investigations -suggest that the copyholders' tenure was more often insecure than not. - - [524] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. - -To the examples which he has collected one may perhaps add certain -others, inadequate though they are in point of quantity. Taking -twenty-one[525] manors in the years 1568-1573, of which three are in -Somersetshire, one in Devonshire, and seventeen in Wiltshire, one finds -that on only one out of the whole number was the copyholders' estate one -of inheritance. On one manor copies were granted for four lives or -less--it is expressly stated that they are not to be granted for -more--and on nineteen they are granted for three lives or less. On one -manor (that where the copyholders had estates of inheritance) the fine -was fixed by custom at a sum which is not stated, but which could not be -increased. On the remaining twenty the fine was a variable one, the -general formula being that land shall be given "for such fines as buyers -can fix by bargaining with the lord or his officers, both in possession -and in reversion," which means that they were to be fixed by the -higgling of the market. Turning next to two manors on the Welsh[526] -Border, which were in possession of the Crown, one is told that in the -reign of Elizabeth the royal officers granted the tenants leases for -years, renewable at the will of the tenant, and fixed the fine at two -years' rent, thus giving them what was virtually an estate of -inheritance. It is possible, however, that the Crown tenants received -more favourable treatment than did those on manors which were in -private hands. From Northumberland, again, there is a good deal of -evidence which it is difficult to summarise. Coke stated that "the -customary tenants upon the borders of Scotland ... are mere tenants at -will, and though they keep their customs inviolate, yet the lord might, -sans controll, evict them."[527] At the beginning of the seventeenth -century an order in Chancery ruled that none of the tenants of Lady -Cumberland,[528] who paid a fine on the death of lord and tenant, could -have an estate of inheritance; and we have clear evidence that the fines -paid by the copyhold tenants of the Earl of Northumberland[529] -increased very considerably in the course of the sixteenth century. On -the other hand such insecurity was not universal. A common rule on the -Northumbrian border seems to have given a copyhold for life, with a -tenant right of renewal to the heir, provided that a constant custom of -renewal could be proved.[530] On the Crown estates in the reign of -Elizabeth fines were fixed on conditions which varied from place to -place; sometimes they were at discretion, sometimes one year's rent, -sometimes two years' rent; and in 1609 the tenants of twelve -Tynemouthshire manors got the Courts to confirm a custom limiting their -fine to a definite sum, on six of them to £2 on the admission of a -descendant, and £4 on alienation, and on the remaining six to one year's -rent in the former case and two years' rent in the latter.[531] On -eleven out of thirteen manors in Norfolk[532] and Suffolk the fines are -uncertain; on one, Wighton, they are said to have been fixed at 4s. per -acre "by the space of 100 years at least"; on one, Aldeburgh, there is a -curious distinction between the fines paid for land "in the fields," -which are at the will of the lord, and the fines paid for cottage -tenements, which are fixed at 2s. when the site is built upon and 1s. -when the site is not covered. Elsewhere when the fine is fixed the -ordinary payment seems to be usually two years' rent on descent, with -sometimes a small addition, sometimes a small deduction, when the -tenement is alienated during the tenant's life. Estates of inheritance -and fixed fines do not necessarily go together. The general situation on -the small number of manors for which information has been obtained is -set out below.[533] Table I relates to duration of tenancies, Table II -to the character of admission fines. In each table, line (_a_) gives Dr. -Savine's figures, line (_b_) our own, line (_c_) the total of both -together. - - TABLE XIII - - I - - DURATION OF TENURE - - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - | | |Copyholds for | | Copyholds for | - | | | Years but with | |Years but with- | - | Manors. |Copyholds of|Right of Renewal|Copyholds for | out Right of | - | |Inheritance.| (_i.e._ |Life or Lives.| Renewal(_i.e._ | - | | | virtually | Renewal |virtually Leases| - | | | Copyholds of | | for Years). | - | | | Inheritance). | | | - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - |(_a_) 82| 25 | 17 | 40 | ... | - |(_b_) 60| 22 | 2 | 33 | 3 | - |(_c_) 142| 47 | 19 | 73 | 3 | - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - - II - - CHARACTER OF FINES - - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - | | | | Partly Certain and | - | Manors. | Fines Certain. | Fines Uncertain. | Partly Uncertain. | - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - |(_a_) 86| 28 | 58 | ... | - |(_b_) 61| 25 | 35 | 1 | - |(_c_) 147| 53 | 93 | 1 | - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - - [525] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. The - twenty-one manors are as follows: Washerne, South Newton, North - Ugford, Brudecombe, Foughlestone, Chalke, Albedeston, Chilmerke - and Rugge, Staunton, Westoverton, Remesbury, Stockton, - Dichampton, Berwick St. John, Wyley, North Newton, Byshopeston - (all in Wilts), Donyett, Chedseye, South Brent (all in - Somerset), and Paynton in Devonshire. Estates of inheritance are - found at Byshopeston, and also fixed fines. At Paynton copies - are granted for 4 lives or less. The common formula for fines - runs: "Pro talibus finibus ut emptores et captores cum domino et - officiariis suis concordare vel barganizare possunt tam de terra - in possessione quam in reversione." - - [526] MSS. Transcript in Wrexham Free Library by A.N. Palmer, of - "The Presentment and Verdict for the Manor of Hewlington," 1620 - (in which the proceedings in the reign of Elizabeth are - recorded), and "The Surveys of the Town and Liberty of Holt," - 1620. At Hewlington it is stated that the Crown Commissioners - made an arrangement with the tenants "that if the said tenants - would relinquish these said pretended estates, revive the said - decayed rents, and pay two yeres Rent of the landes to the late - Queen for a fine, that then the said tenants and their heirs and - assignes should have leases granted them for fortie years, and - so from fortie years to fortie years in perpetuity." It is not - expressly stated that the same arrangement was made at Holt, but - it is to be inferred from the context that it was. - - [527] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - - [528] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 238. - - [529] See below, pp. 305-306. - - [530] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. pp. 238-239. - - [531] _Ibid._ For conditions on the Crown estates under - Elizabeth see _S. P. D. Eliz._, vol. xii. pp. 69-70: "Abstract - of the Commission to the lord Chancellor ... for letting the - queen's lands and tenements in Northumberland within 20 miles of - the border and in the seigniories of Middleham and Richmond, - Yorkshire and Barnard Castle, Bishopric of Durham," June 24, - 1565. - - [532] The manors are West Lexham (Holkham MSS., West Lexham, No. - 87, Map), Sparham (_ibid._, Sparham Bdle., No. 5), East Dereham - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 1), Wighton (R.O. - Special Commissions, Duchy of Lancs., No. 839), Stockton Socon - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 14), Aldeburgh (R.O. - _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipts_, vol. clxiii.), Chatesham (R.O. - _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), Dodnash (R.O. _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), - Falkenham (R.O. _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), Stratford iuxta Higham - (R.O. Duchy of Lancaster, Rentals and Surveys, 9/13), St. Edmund - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Suffolk, No. 14), Mettingham - (_Victoria County History_, Suffolk), Mark Soham (_ibid._). - - [533] See Appendix II. - -It will be seen that the degree of security enjoyed by copyholders -varies very greatly. When the copyhold is one of inheritance, it is -legally complete, unless the tenants incur forfeiture by breaking the -custom. An estate for life with right of renewal is virtually as good as -a copyhold of inheritance. Estates for life or lives are precarious. -Copyholds for years without right of renewal are scarcely -distinguishable from leases. On the whole, when these examples are added -to those of Dr. Savine, it would appear that copyholds for life or lives -were more usual than copyholds of inheritance, while fixed fines were -the exception and variable fines the general rule. - - -(c) _The Undermining of Customary Tenures_ - -The importance of the predominance of copyholds for lives for the -question of the degree of security enjoyed by the tenant is shown by the -efforts which were made by lords of manors, where copyholders had -estates of inheritance, to persuade them to give up their copies and -take leases instead. It is evident that in this course they encountered -a good deal of opposition. On manors, however, where the copyholds -escheated to the lord at intervals of one, two, or three lives, he could -substitute leases for a regrant of the copies, or throw the holdings -into a large farm, or retain them in his own hands. Though such action -might be thought harsh, it could hardly be prevented by the tenants, -since the lord could always hold the threat of eviction over their -heads. One finds some manors where the striking and exceptional -preponderance of small leaseholders suggests unmistakably that such a -conversion of copyhold to leasehold has taken place,[534] or where the -motive of the alteration is shown by the great rise in rents which has -followed it. One finds others where the struggle between copyhold and -leasehold is going on and is still undecided. In that struggle the -chances are against the copyholders, even though their interest is -protected by the law, for the law is less powerful than ignorance and -fear. How can our peasants, men "very simple and ignorant of their -estates,"[535] enter into the respective merits of copies and leases -with the powers of the manor, armed with professional advice and all -those indefinite but invincible advantages in bargaining which are given -by legal knowledge, social influence, and a long tradition of authority? -It is so easy to get caught in some legal trap. In the reign of Charles -I., the two hundred Crown tenants of the manor of North Wheatley, who -have suffered much in the way of rack-renting from the officers of their -impecunious lord, engage a lawyer to negotiate the renewal of their -leases of the demesne lands. The grant is made to him, as their -attorney; but, to their dismay, they find that he declines to fulfil his -bargain. He has "afterward, contrary to the Trust committed to him, -increased and raised the rent thereof upon the tenants, to his owne -privat benefitt."[536] The tenants of Hewlington succeed, as we have -seen, in inducing the Crown to recognise their estates of inheritance by -granting that their forty years' leases shall be renewable at the will -of the tenants. Then unexpectedly a servant of the Earl of Leicester -purchases one of the townships. The tenants, in an agony of -apprehension, "perceiving that they were like to have their said landes -and tenements after the expiration of their said leases taken from them, -and that they had no remedy by the course of the common law to helpe -themselves, preferred their Bill to be relieved in Equitie." Chancery -comes to their rescue. It decides that the covenant made by the Crown to -the effect that their leases should be renewable at the option of the -holder is binding not only on the Crown, but on all to whom it might -sell the lands in question. But their troubles are not yet finished. It -is one thing to get a judgment, another for the judgment to be carried -out. The purchaser is servant to a great man and can afford to be -dilatory and recalcitrant. We leave these villagers still petitioning -"His Highness and His Honourable Council and Commissioners of Revenue -that when it shall seem good unto them the said tenants may be admitted -to have their leases accordingly." - - [534] _E.g._ Ormesby in Norfolk, where in 1516 thirty-one - tenants holding "in farm" formed the whole landholding - population (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. - 18). For a great rise in rents following a probable substitution - of leases for customary tenures, see the case of Lewisham in - Kent. On this manor in the reign of Henry VI. the rent of the - tenants (tenure unspecified) was £8, 11s. 7d., 9 plougshares, - and 6s. 2-1/2d. in the abbot's hand (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, - Gen. Ser., Roll 361). In 1621 it was £23, 1s. 6-1/2d. (R.O. - _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipt_, vol. clxxiv., fol. 134). In the - reign of James I. we have full details. The rent of the free - tenants was £17, 12s. 10-1/2d.; that of the tenants at will 9d.; - that of tenants "per dimissionem" (_i.e._ lease-holders) £72, - 9s. 8-1/2d. (R.O. _Misc. Bks. Aug. Off._, vol. ccccxiv., f. - 3334). It is unfortunate that we are not told how the bulk of - the tenants held at the two earlier dates. But is it - unreasonable to say that they were probably customary tenants, - and that the introduction of leases was followed by a great rise - in rents? - - [535] Survey of Town and Liberty of Holt, MS. transcript in - Wrexham Free Library. - - [536] _S. P. D._, ch. i. vol. cli., No. 38. (See Appendix I., - No. iv.) - -It is so easy to be intimidated by the fear of aggravating your -misfortunes. When an agent frightens some tenants by telling them the -unfavourable decision of the Court of Chancery as to the tenant right of -the copyholders on a neighbouring estate, do they answer, as they -should, that manorial customs vary, and that they will see what the -Courts say about their own? No, they make "Humble suit that your -lordship will be pleased to grant them leases for twenty-one years, and -they will pay, in lieu of their fine, double rent for every farm."[537] -Sometimes they live to repent their bargain. "I have persuaded one John -Wilson of Over-Buston," writes a manorial official to the Earl of -Northumberland, "to deliver me in his copy, and he is content to take a -lease at double rent."[538] A strange chance has left us a letter, in -which this very John Wilson, labouring horribly amid the intricacies of -grammar, expounds through one long, broken-backed sentence, what balm -such "contentment" brings. "To the Right Honourable the Earl of -Northumberland, the humble petition of John Wilson, his wife and 8 poor -children. Humbly complaining showeth ... your petitioner ... that -whereas your said petitioner and his predecessors being ancient tenants -to your honour, holding one tenement on ferme in Upper Bustone, by -virtue of copyhold tenure out of the memory of man, which copies both of -your said poor petitioners' great grandfather, his father's father, and -his own father are yet extant to be seen: and now of late your said -poor petitioner, being under age, helpless and none to do for him, and -forced (God knows) by some of your honour's officers to take a lease and -pay double and treble rent, in so much that your said poor petitioner, -his wife, and 8 poor children is utterly now beggared and overthrown, -unless your worthy good honour will be pleased to take a pitiful -communication thereof, or otherwise your saide poore petitioner, his -wife and poore children knows no other way but of force to give over -your honour's land, by reason of the deare renting thereof, and so be -constrained to go a-begging up and down the countrie."[539] Poor, -patient, stiff-fingered John Wilson, so certain that he has not been -treated fairly, so confident that his lordship cannot have meant him to -be wronged, so easily circumvented by his lordship's brisk officials! He -and his heavy kind are slow to move; but, once roused, they will not -easily be persuaded to go back. It was such as he that, at one time or -another in the sixteenth century, set half the English counties ablaze -with the grievances of the tillers of the soil. - - [537] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 238. - - [538] _Ibid._, vol. v. p. 211. The rent was raised from 18s. to - 36s. - - [539] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. p. 210. - -The significance of the predominance of variable fines is very evident -if one turns to examine the economic relations between lords and -copyhold tenants as they stood in the middle of the sixteenth century. A -manor on which there was a large number of customary tenants must have -often seemed from the point of the owner a rather disappointing form of -property, because the first fruits of economic progress tended to pass -into the hands of the tenants. The rents and services due from their -holdings were fixed by custom; meanwhile prices were rising with the -fall in the value of silver, and the result, as is pointed out by -Maitland, was that the economic rent or unearned increment of their -properties was intercepted by the copyholders, instead of being drained, -as under leasehold, into the pocket of the lord. - -An explanation of what is meant can best be given by recurring to the -table of rents printed in Chapter III. of Part I. It will be recollected -that on the manors there represented the value of the rents got by the -lords from the customary tenants was often almost stationary. When the -enormous fall in the purchasing power of money is remembered, it is -clear that rentals must sometimes have very greatly depreciated, which -of course meant that the tenants retained the surplus due to economic -progress, a surplus measured by the difference between the "rents of -assize" and the full rack-rent for which the holding could be let if put -up to competition, and amounting sometimes to more than three-quarters -of the latter. At Wilburton, for example (to quote a fresh instance), -according to Maitland,[540] a virgate worth £7 or £8 only pays £1 in -rent. From the competitive rents of the open market the lord was -debarred by the custom of the manor. How could he tap the surplus? He -did so, it may be suggested, either by inducing the tenants to exchange -their copies for leases, or by raising the fines, when the fines were -not fixed by custom, so as to get in a lump sum what he could not get by -yearly instalments. In that case the tenant's surplus was on paper only; -he was exactly in the position of an investor in a stock of inflated -value, the high nominal interest of which has been capitalised in the -price paid for the shares. The probability that when fines were movable, -they were forced up in the sixteenth century so as to sweep away any -unearned increment accruing to the holders of customary land, is not -only suggested by the bitter denunciations launched against the practice -by contemporaries. It is also indicated by the manorial documents. May -not this be the explanation of what Maitland justly calls "the absurdly -high price" of £1261 paid in the reign of James I. by the purchasers of -Wilburton, a manor the yearly value of which was at the time only £33? -The suggestion is confirmed, as far as a few manors are concerned, by -the upward movement of fines revealed by the following table-- - - FINES PAID ON THREE MANORS IN NORTHUMBERLAND[541] - - 1567. 1585. - Acklington £57, 3s. 8d. or £3, 3s. 4d. £87, 10s. 0d. or £4, 17s. 2d. - per tenant. per tenant. - High Buston £11, 14s. 0d. or £2, 18s. 6d. £18, 0s. 0d. or £4, 10s. 0d. - per tenant. per tenant. - Birling £43, 7s. 6d. or £4, 6s. 9d. £72, 0s. 0d. or £7, 4s. 0d. - per tenant. per tenant. - - FINES PER ACRE PAID ON SIX MANORS[542] IN WILTS AND ONE - IN SOMERSET - - - 1520-39, average fine per acre for each of 42 tenants 1s. 3d. - 1540-49, " " " 28 " 2s. 11d. - 1550-59, " " " 36 " 5s. 6d. - 1560-69, " " " 29 " 11s. 0d. - - [540] Maitland, _English Historical Review_, vol, ix., "The - History of a Cambridgeshire Manor." - - [541] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - - [542] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. The manors - are South Newton, Washerne, Donnington, Winterbourne Basset, - Estoverton and Phipheld, Byshopeston (all Wilts), and South - Brent and Huish (Somerset). - -The figures show a steady upward movement during the third and fourth -decades of the century of a little over 100 per cent., a rather less -rapid rise between 1549 and 1559, and another rise of 100 per cent. -between 1559 and 1569. They are of course too small to be the basis of a -wide generalisation, but perhaps they may be held to offer some -documentary confirmation of a grievance which bulks large in the -literature of the period. The elasticity of fines at any rate corrects -the impression which would be formed of the tenants' position from -looking only at the comparatively stationary rents. The same tendency is -suggested by the details of individual copies. It was a not uncommon -practice for a tenant who was in possession and had an estate for life -to buy at a later date the right of his heir to succeed him. When this -was done we have an opportunity of comparing the fines paid at different -periods, and the complaints of contemporaries about unreasonable and -excessive fines become intelligible. This may be illustrated by a few -extreme instances taken from the manors of Estoverton and Donnington in -Wiltshire, and of South Brent in Somersetshire. - - Fine for Copy. Fine for Reversion. - - 1. 6/8 (1537) £5 (1563) - 2. 40/ " £13, 6s. 8d. (1566) - 3. 54/4 " £23 (1561) - 4. 60/ " £30 (1565) - 5. 20/ " £10 (1561) - 6. 20/ (1529) £40 (1563) - 7. 33/4 (1542) £20 (1565) - 8. 66/8 (1522) £20 (1563) - 9. 13/4 (1516) £13, 6s. 8d. (1563) - 10. 40/ (1513) £40 (1565) - 11. 46/8 (1531) £20 (1563) - 12. 6/8 (1545) £20 (1565) - 13. 13/4 (1522) £5, 6s. 8d. (1558) - 14. £9 (1532) £12 (1557) - -Though these are extreme cases, a considerable rise is the rule and not -the exception. The advantage of the fixed rent is in fact neutralised by -the movable fine. Such figures give point to Crowley's outbursts, "They -take our houses over our heads; they buye our groundes out of handes, -they reyse our rents, they levy great, yea unreasonable fines."[543] It -is not surprising that the programme[544] of agrarian reform put forward -by the Yorkshire insurgents in 1536, and by the rebels under Ket in -1549, should have contained a demand for copyhold lands "to be charged -with an easy fine, as a capon or a reasonable sum of money." It is not -surprising that the Court of Chancery[545] should have been bombarded -with petitions to declare or enforce customs limiting the demands which -a lord might make of an incoming tenant. It is perhaps more surprising -that, in those cases where the fine was by custom uncertain, the rule -that a reasonable fine was about two years' rent should not have been -enforced by judges at an earlier date and more generally than it seems -to have been. For in the sixteenth century, though many old economic -ideas are going by the board, public opinion still clings to the -conception that there is a standard of fairness in economic dealings -which exists independently of the impersonal movements of the market, -which honest men can discover, if they please, and which it is a matter -of conscience for public authorities to enforce. Even a good Protestant -who hates the Pope will admit that there is more than a little in the -Canon Law prohibition of usury,[546] and under usury, be it noted, the -plain man includes rack-rents, as well as interest on capital and -exorbitant prices. If to a modern economist the demand for reasonable -fines and rents savours of sentimentality and confusion, he must -logically condemn not only the peasants and their champions, but the -statesmen; not only Ket and Hales and More and Latimer, but almost every -member of every Elizabethan Privy Council. After all, all the precedents -are on the side of an attempt to enforce a standard which shall be -independent of the result which might be reached by higgling between -this landlord and that tenant. Prices are fixed, wages are fixed, the -rate of interest is fixed, though the money market is becoming more and -more elusive, more and more critical of old-fashioned attempts at -interference; the fines which freeholders must pay on admission have -been fixed for centuries. Now that copyhold has got the protection of -the Courts, it is not unnatural that tenants should ask the State to do -with regard to the bargain most affecting them what it already does for -bargains of nearly every other kind. It is not unnatural that, even when -the fine is not settled by custom at a definite sum, they should demand -nevertheless that the Courts should sanction that establishment of a -"common rule," which is the ideal of the economically weak in all ages. - - [543] E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to Wealth_. - [544] See below, pp. 334-337. - [545] _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of - Edward VI._ Bills to establish a fine certain on admission and - alienation, to get protection against exorbitant fines, &c. are - common. For popular complaints see E. E. T. S., _A Supplication - of the Poore Commons_: "These extortioners have so improved - theyr lands that they make of a xls. fyne xl. pounds," &c. For - an actual instance see the following case. The tenants of - Austenfield claim "that of ancient time all the customary - tenants of the said manor of Austenfield were finable at fines - certain, until of late years the lords moved by covetousness, by - troubling and vexing their copyholders, drove many of them, for - the buying of their quietness, to be at fines uncertain" - (William Salt Collection, vol. ix. Chancery Proceedings. Bdle. - 12, No. 70). - [546] Th. Wilson, _A Discourse upon Usurie_, 1584: "And - therefore I would not have men altogether to be enemies to the - Canon Lawe, and to condemn everything there written, because the - Pope was author of them.... Naie, I will saie plainlie that - there be some such lawes made by the Pope as be right godlie, - saie others what they list." - -Yet we shall miss the full significance of the movement which we have -examined, if we take their demands without analysis, and do not look at -the other side of the picture. There was much to be said on the side of -the manorial authorities, harsh as they often were. The criticism which -Norden,[547] with a surveyor's experience, makes upon the outcry against -the upward movement of fines, by pointing out that the whole scale of -prices and payments has been shifted by the depreciation in the value of -money, is perfectly justified. For money had depreciated, depreciated -enormously; and landlords, who were faced with swiftly rising prices on -the one hand and fixed freehold and copyhold rents on the other, were in -a cleft stick from which it is not easy to blame them for extricating -themselves as best they could. The truth is that if we content ourselves -with the supposition of an access of exceptional unscrupulousness on the -part of lords of manors which was favoured by contemporaries, we shall -misread the situation. The real facts were much more complex, much more -serious, much more interesting. A large impersonal cause, the flooding -of Europe with American silver, upsets all traditional standards of -payment. The first brunt is borne by those whose incomes are fixed, or -relatively fixed, the owners of landed property, and the wage-earning -classes. But all over the country thousands of new bargains are being -struck as leases fall in and copies are renewed. Each fresh contract is -the opportunity for a readjustment of relationships, for shifting the -burden from the shoulders where it rested. The wage-earners do this to -some extent, but not successfully; wages do not keep pace with prices. -The landlords do it much more effectively. But there is no mechanical -means of measuring what change is necessary in order to place them and -their tenants in the same position relatively to each other as they were -before. Once customary fines are thrown overboard, there is, unless the -Government interferes, no other standard except the full fine which can -be got in the open market, and, when the custom of the manor allows it -to be demanded, it is demanded. Thus the readjustment, as it were, -overshoots itself, and the economic rent, unearned increment, surplus -value--it is difficult to avoid phrases which modern associations have -made trite--only part of which represents the rise in the price of land -caused by the fall in the value of money, tends, instead of being, as -hitherto, shared between landlord and copyholder, to be transferred _en -bloc_ to the former. It is rarely in modern society that classes are -sufficiently definite and self-contained, rarely that economic changes -are sufficiently catastrophic, for a great shifting of income from one -to the other to be detected. Here we can see it going on before our -eyes. We can note the result. But in this matter the twentieth century -is not in a position to be critical of the sixteenth. - - [547] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book I.: "_Surveyor._ - The tennant leaveth commonly one either in right of inheritance, - or by surrender, to succeed him, and he by custome of the manor - is to be accepted tenant, alwaies provided he must agree with - the lord, if the custome of the manor hold not the fine certain - as in few it doth.... _Farmer._ You much mistake it, for I will - show by ancient court rolls that the fine of that which is now - £20 was then but 13s. 4d., and yet will you say they are now as - they were then? _Surveyor._ Yea, and I thinke I erre little in - it. For if you consider the state of things then and now, you - shall find the proportion little differing; for so much are the - prices of things vendible ... now increased as may well be said - to exceed the prices then as much as £20 exceede the 13s. 4d." - -We may now sum up this part of our subject. The extreme lucrativeness of -sheep-farming, and the depreciation in the value of money, offered an -incentive to landlords to make the most profitable use which they could -of their property by amalgamating small holdings into large leasehold -farms, which were used mainly, though not entirely, for pasture. To -carry out this new policy they had to get rid of the small tenants. When -the tenants held at will, or were lessees for a short term of years, -lords could do this without difficulty. When they were copyholders for -one life or more, they could do it more slowly; but still they could do -it in time. When they were copyholders with an estate of inheritance, -lords had only two alternatives--to induce them to accept leases, or to -raise the fines for admission. The latter course enabled them to offer -the tenants the alternative of surrendering their holdings or paying the -full competitive price which could be got for them. And thus it caused -an almost revolutionary deterioration in their position. Hitherto the -custom of the manor had been a dyke which protected them against the -downward pressure of competition, and behind which they built up their -prosperity. Now the unearned increment was transferred from tenant to -landlord by the simple process of capitalising it in the fine demanded -on entry. The interest of the customary tenant, therefore, virtually -depreciated to the level of that of a leaseholder. The interest of the -manorial lord appreciated to the full and effective ownership of all -surpluses arising between the grant of one copy and the grant of the -next. Thus the differences in the degree of security enjoyed by -copyholders are to be explained by differences in manorial customs. Whom -custom helps the law helps; who by custom are without protection, are -without protection from the law, except in so far as it gradually builds -up a doctrine as to what is reasonable. Long after villeinage has -disappeared, copyholders still bear traces of having sprung from a class -of whom the law was reluctant to take cognizance, traces of being -nurtured in a "villein nest." - - - - -PART III - -THE OUTCOME OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION - - "Lords spiritual and temporal, have it in your mind This - world as it waveth, and to your tenants be kind." - --_The Proclamation of the Commons_, Gairdner, - _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, - xii. I. 163. - - "We must needs fight it out, or els be brought to the lyke - slavery that the Frenchmen are in.... Better yt were therefore - for us to dye like men, than after so great misery in youth to - dye more miserably in age."--E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to - Wealth_. - - _Doctor._ "On my faithe youe trouble youreselves ... youe that - be justices of everie countrie ... in sittinge upon commissions - almost wekely." - - _Knight._ "Surely it is so, yet the Kinge must be served and - the commonwealth. For God and the Kinge hathe not sent us the - poore lyving we have, but to doe services therefore amonge our - neighbours abroad."--_The Commonweal of this Realm of England._ - - "We have good Statutes made for the Commonwealth, as touching - commoners and inclosers, many meetings and sessions; but in the - end of the matter there cometh nothing forth."--Latimer, _First - Sermon preached before King Edward VI._, March 8, 1549. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM AND THE STATE - - -(a) _The Political and Social Importance of the Peasantry_ - -The changes which have been described in the organisation of agriculture -created problems which were less absorbing than those arising out of the -religious reformation and the relation of England to continental powers. -When we turn over the elaborate economic legislation of the reign of -Elizabeth, with its attempts to promote industry, to define class -relationships, and to regulate with sublime optimism almost every -contract which one man can make with another, we are tempted at first to -see statesmen giving sleepless nights to the solution of economic -problems, and to think of a modern bureaucratic state using the -resources of scientific administration to pursue a deliberate and -clearly conceived economic policy. But this is both to exaggerate the -importance which economic questions occupied in the minds of the -governing aristocracies of the age, and to credit them with a foresight -which they did not possess. If they are to be called mercantilists, in -England, at any rate, they wear their mercantilism with a difference; as -a vague habit of mind, not as a reasoned system of economic doctrines. -Their administrative optimism is the optimism of innocence as much as of -omnipotence; the fruit of a self-confidence which, in the name of the -public interests, will prop a falling trade, or cut down a flourishing -one, with a bland naïveté unperturbed by the hesitations which perplex -even the most courageous of modern protectionists. Though in several -departments of life--in commercial policy, in the regulation of the wage -contract, in the relief of distress--the main lines drawn by Elizabethan -statesmen will stand for two centuries, much of their legislation is -very rough and ready; much of it again is undertaken after generations -of dilatory experiments; much of it is devoid of any originality, and is -a mere reproduction on a national scale of the practice of individual -localities, a reproduction which sometimes does less than justice to the -original. If it is popular, it is popular because it tells men to do -what most decent men have been doing for a long time already, and when -it tells them to do something else it is carried out only with great -difficulty. If it is permanent, it is permanent not because -Parliamentary draughtsmen possess any great skill or foresight, but -because, before the rise of modern industry, all social relationships -have a great amount of permanence. Though there was much interesting -speculation on economic matters, economic rationalism was as a practical -force almost negligible; and since the only instrument through which it -could have achieved influence was the monarchy, its lack of influence -was perhaps politically fortunate. Sixteenth century England was too -busy getting the State on to its feet to produce a Colbert. Lath and -plaster Colberts built their card castles on the Council table of James -and Charles, and all was in train for the sage paternal monarchy which -was the ideal of Bacon. But a wind blew from strange regions beyond -their ken, and they were scattered before they could do much either for -good or evil, leaving, as they fled, a cloud of dark suspicion round all -those who would be wiser in the art of Government than their neighbours, -from which, in the lapse of three centuries, the expert has hardly -emerged. In spite of mercantilism, economic questions never became in -England the pre-occupation of specialists. In spite of the genuine -indignation roused by the sufferings of the weaker classes in society, -questions affecting them were questions which statesmen did not handle -for their own sake, but only in so far as they forced themselves into -the circle of political interests by cutting across the order, or -military defence, or financial system, of the country. Apart from these -high matters of policy most members of the governing classes were -inclined to answer petitions on the subject of economic grievances as -Paget did to Somerset: Why can't you let it alone? "What a good year ... -is victuals so dear in England and nowhere else? If they and their -fathers before them have lived quietly these sixty years, pastures being -enclosed, the most part of these rufflers have least cause to -complain."[548] - - [548] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. Sir William Paget to - the Lord Protector, July 7, 1549. - -The subordinate place occupied by economic questions during our period -makes the attention which was given to the results of pasture-farming -all the more remarkable. Though to the statesmanship of the sixteenth -century the agrarian problem was one of the second order, it was, at any -rate till the accession of Elizabeth, the most serious of its own class, -and it was important enough to occupy Governments at intervals for over -a century and a half. The first Statute against depopulation was passed -in 1489;[549] an abortive Bill was introduced into the House of Commons -in 1656;[550] and between the two lies a series of seven Royal -Commissions, twelve Statutes, and a considerable number of Proclamations -dealing with one aspect or another of the enclosing movement, as well as -numerous decisions on particular cases by the Privy Council, the Court -of Star Chamber, and the Court of Requests. This reaction of the new -agrarian developments upon public policy is interesting in several ways. -It illustrates the growth of new classes and forms of social -organisation, the methods and defects of sixteenth century -administration, and the ideas of the period as to the proper functions -of the State in relation to an important set of questions, upon which -political opinion was in some ways nearer to our own than it was to that -of the age following the Civil War. Nor, perhaps, is it altogether -without importance from the point of view of general history. We need -not discuss how far the reaction of some recent historians against the -familiar judgments which contrast Tudor tyranny with the constitutional -revolutions of the seventeenth century as darkness with light, is likely -to be permanent. But it is perhaps safe to say that it is in the sphere -of social policy that their case is seen at its strongest. After all, -tyranny is often the name which one class gives to the protection of -another. To the small copyholder or tenant farmer the merciless -encroachments of his immediate landlord were a more dreaded danger than -the far-off impersonal autocracy of the Crown to which he appealed for -defence. The period in which he suffered most in the sixteenth century -was the interval between the death of the despotic Henry VIII. and the -accession of the despotic Elizabeth. Though the interference of the -Tudor, and--in a feebler fashion--of the Stuart, Governments to protect -the peasantry was neither disinterested nor always effective, its -complete cessation after 1642, and the long line of Enclosure Acts which -follow the revolution of 1688, suggest that, as far as their immediate -economic interests were concerned, the smaller landholders had more to -lose than to gain from a revolution which took power from the Crown to -give it to the squires. The writers[551] who after 1750 turned with a -sigh from the decaying villages which they saw around them, to glorify -the policy of the absolutist Governments of the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries, were received with the ridicule which awaits all -who set themselves against a strong current of interests and ideas. But -historically they were right. The revolution, which brought -constitutional liberty, brought no power to control the aristocracy who, -for a century and a half, alone knew how such liberty could be -used--that blind, selfish, indomitable, aristocracy of county families, -which made the British Empire and ruined a considerable proportion of -the English nation. From the galleries of their great mansions and the -walls of their old inns their calm, proud faces, set off with an -occasional drunkard, stare down on us with the unshakable assurance of -men who are untroubled by regrets or perplexities, men who have deserved -well of their order and their descendants, and await with confidence an -eternity where preserves will be closer, family settlements stricter, -dependents more respectful, cards more reliable, than in this imperfect -world they well can be. Let them have their due. They opened a door -which later even they could not close. They fostered a tree which even -they could not cut down. But neither let us forget that to the poorer -classes its fruits were thorns and briars, loss of their little -properties, loss of economic independence, the hot fit of the hateful -Speenhamland policy, the cold fit of the more hateful workhouse -system.[552] Those who would understand the social forces of modern -England must realise that long disillusionment. Even in the seventeenth -century there are whisperings of it. At the end of the Civil War there -were men who were dimly conscious that the freedom for which they had -fought involved economic, as well as political and ecclesiastical, -changes. "Wee the poor impoverisht commoners," wrote the leaders of a -little band of agrarian reformers to the Council of War in 1649, "claim -freedom in the common lands by vertue of this conquest over the King, -which is gotten by our joynt consent.... If this freedom be not granted, -wee that are the poor commoners are in a worse case than we were in the -King's day."[553] But from the reign of Henry VII. to the Civil War -official opinion was as generally in favour of protecting the peasantry -against the ruinous effects of agrarian innovations, as it was on the -side of leaving the landlords free to work their will in the two -centuries which succeeded. We must explain this state of mind, for it -certainly needs explanation; and this will necessitate our looking at -the movements of the peasants and at their place in the State. We must -estimate how far it was effective in practice; and to do this we must -say a few words about the administrative machinery of the Tudors and of -the first two Stuarts. - - [549] 4 Henry VII., c. 19. - - [550] Journal of House of Commons, December 19, 1656. See - Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xix. - - [551] _e.g._ Price, _Observations on Reversionary Payments_, - 1773. See Levy, _Large and Small Holdings_, p. 41. - - [552] The general adoption of the "Test Workhouse" for the - able-bodied, which dates from the Poor Law Reform Act of 1884, - was the direct result of a one-sided reaction against the - disastrous Speenhamland policy. - - [553] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. p. 217. - -In almost all ages the first task of Governments is the preservation of -order. Though the economic ideas of the sixteenth century were very -different from those of the nineteenth, one of the reasons which made it -impossible for the statesmen of the period to leave the land question -altogether alone was the same as that which induced their successors to -deal with Irish land in 1870 and 1881. It was that agrarian discontent -created a permanent supply of inflammable material, which a spark might -turn into a conflagration. The years between 1500 and 1650 are the last -great age of the peasant uprisings which, in all countries of Western -Europe except France and Ireland, are incredible to-day as a romance of -giants, and hardly a generation in that stormy period elapsed without -one. Sometimes nothing more happened than a collision of justices and -gentry with angry mobs who were tearing down hedges and restoring common -to common again under mysterious figures who flit across the darkening -country-side with weapons in their hands and the eternal insurrection of -the New Testament on their lips--Jack o' the Style, Pyrce Plowman, and -that prophetic Captain Pouch, who "was sent of God to satisfie all -degrees whatsoever, and in this present work was directed by the Lord of -Heaven."[554] Sometimes the discontent swelled to a small civil war, as -it did in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1536, and in the eastern and -southern counties in 1549. The Lincolnshire rising and the Pilgrimage of -Grace were, it is true, mainly motived by discontent with the attack on -the abbeys. But the explanation of their objects given by those -insurgents who were cross-examined by the Government makes it difficult -to agree with Professor Gay that only an insignificant part was played -in these movements by agrarian discontent. The truth is that we ought to -distinguish between the objects of different sections. The rebels of -1536 were not a class, but almost the whole society of northern England, -which suddenly rolls forward with all its members, spirituality and -laity, peasants and peers, in fervent motion together. The weaker side -of these great conservative demonstrations was that, though all classes -were united against the régime typified by Cromwell, all classes were -not moved to the same degree by the same grievances. Even when the old -religion was the cause that took the gentry into the field, the humbler -rebels were brought out as much by hatred of agrarian as of religious -innovations. The men of Lincolnshire marched under a banner embroidered -with a ploughshare, and laggards were spurred forward with the cry "What -will ye do? Shall we go home and keep sheep?"[555] In Cumberland the -four Captains of Penrith--Faith, Poverty, Pity, and Charity--marched in -solemn procession with drawn swords round Burgh Church, and then, having -heard Mass, led their followers, with the blessing of the vicar, on a -crusade to put an end to gentlemen and to withhold rents and fines.[556] -In the North generally the arrival of Aske's messengers was a signal for -the wholesale plucking down of new enclosures; a programme of agrarian -reform was included in the demands put forward at Doncaster; and Aske -himself told the Government at his examination that the practice of -letting out farms over the heads of poor tenants was one of the causes -of the rising.[557] A well-informed officer of State like Sir William -Paget seems to have thought that even the rebellion which took place in -Devonshire and Somersetshire in 1549, the causes of which were mainly -ecclesiastical, was partly also agrarian.[558] In that year, indeed, -nearly the whole of the southern counties, beginning in May with -Hertfordshire, from Norfolk in the east to Hampshire in the south and -Worcester in the west, were driven into riot by disappointment with the -ineffective Royal Commission appointed in the preceding year. In 1550 -there were disturbances in Kent, and the Government anticipated their -appearance in Essex. In 1552 the Buckinghamshire peasants rose on -account of high rents and high prices. In 1554 Wyatt's[559] adherents -demanded that all pasture lands which had forcibly been seized by -persons in power should be restored. In 1569 an armed band pulled down -enclosures near Chinley[560] in Derbyshire, threatened to kill the -encloser, and rescued by force those of their number who were arrested. -Twenty-six years later, at a time of unusually high prices, even the -peasantry of Oxfordshire,[561] that most imperturbable of English -counties, planned "to knock down the gentlemen and rich men who made -corn so dear, and who took the commons." In 1607 in the Midlands, where -in the preceding decade enclosure and depopulation had created a -situation as acute as that of half a century before, there was a riot -which resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission. - - [554] For Captain Pouch see Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. xviii. For the other names Cooper, _Annals of - Cambridge_, vol. ii. p. 40. - - [555] Gairdner, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, vol. xii., - Part I., 70, 1537. Examination of R. Leedes: "The rebels ... - were half inclined to go home. But Ralph Green ... encouraged - them to go forward, saying, 'God's blood, sirs, what will ye now - do? Shall we go home and keep sheep? Nay, by God's body, yet had - I rather be hanged,'" and _ibid._: "The said Trotter says the - meaning of the plough borne in the banner was the encouraging of - the husbandman." - - [556] _Ibid._, vol. xii., Part I., 687, 1537. Confession of - Barnarde Townleye, Clerk: "The beginners of the insurrection in - Cumberland were the 4 captains of Penrith; Faith, Poverty, Pity - and Charity, as the Vicar of Burgh proclaimed them at each - meeting.... Conjectures that the intent was to destroy the - gentlemen, that none should pay ingressums to his landlord, and - little or no rent or tithe"; also _ibid._, Examination of Sir - Robert Thompson, Vicar of Burgh: "On the Wednesday and Thursday - the 4 captains followed examinand in procession with their - swords drawn, and examinand said mass, which they called the - Captains' mass." - - [557] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 687: "They of Kirkby Stephen plucked down the new intacks of - enclosures, and sent to other Parishes to do the like, which was - done at Burgh, 28th January." For the Doncaster programme see - below, p. 334. Aske said (_L. and P._, vol. xii., Part I., p. - 901) that the new farmers of monastic estates "let and tavern - out the farms of the same houses to other farmers for lucre." - - [558] These particulars are taken from Strype, _Ecclesiastical - Memorials_. - - [559] Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii., - which also gives an account of the Midland riot of 1607. - - [560] MSS. in possession of Charles E. Bradshaw Bowles, Esq., of - Wirksworth, for a transcript of which I am indebted to Mr. - Kolthammer. See below, pp. 327-329. - - [561] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part VI., - pp. 49-50. - -This was perhaps the last serious agrarian rising which England has -seen. But though henceforward the hatred of the new agrarian régime ran -for the most part underground, it had been burned too deep into the -minds of the people to be lightly forgotten, and more than once its -smouldering embers flickered up in occasional riots. In the first flush -of the army's victory over King and Parliament, when the shattering of -authority seemed for a moment to make all things new, not only the -political, but the economic, ideas of two centuries later burst for a -moment, as in an early spring, into wonderful and premature life. The -programme of the Levellers, who more than any other party could claim to -express the aspirations of the unprivileged classes, included a demand -not only for annual or biennial Parliaments, manhood suffrage, a -redistribution of seats in proportion to population, and the abolition -of the Veto of the House of Lords, but also "that you would have laid -open all enclosures of fens and other commons, or have them enclosed -only or chiefly for the benefit of the poor."[562] Theoretical -communism, repudiated by some of the Levellers, found its expression in -the agitation of the Diggers, those "true born sons and friends of -England" who, under Everard and Winstanley, set themselves, in the -spirit of an Owenite Community, to convert the waste land at Weybridge -into the New Jerusalem.[563] For to many earnest souls the day of the -Lord seems very near, and Israel must make ready against it, not with -anguish of spirit only, but with spade labour upon the barren earth. The -contrast between the prevalence of organised agrarian revolts in the -middle of the sixteenth century, dragging on in small sporadic -agitations for nearly one hundred years, with their comparative rarity -two hundred years later, when similar causes were at work to produce -them, marks the new grouping of social classes and economic forces which -was going on apace in our period. The intelligence of toiling England, -that for a century now has gone to build up a new civilisation in -factory and mine, in trade union and co-operative store, still lay in -the larger villages, its immemorial home. Discontent travelled across -the enclosing counties as it does to-day in a Welsh mining valley, -outcoursing oppression itself, like Elijah running before Ahab into -Jezreel. "If three or four good fellows would ride in the night with -every man a bell, and cry in every town that they pass, 'To Swaffham! To -Swaffham!' by the morning there would be ten thousand assembled at the -least; and then one bold fellow to stand forth and say, 'Sirs, now we be -here assembled, you know how little favour the gentlemen bear us poor -men.... Let us ... harness ourselves.'"[564] Good fellows and bold were -not wanting. "From that time forward no man could keep his servant at -plough; but every man that could bear a staff went forward."[565] Before -the appearance of almost universal leasehold tenure, standing armies, -and omnipotent aristocratic Parliaments, unrest among the rural -population might cause the Government a not inexpensive campaign, in -which the reluctant militia of yesterday were the enthusiastic rebels of -to-day, and there was not therefore much disparity between the -discipline and equipment of the forces engaged on either side. Both in -the mainly agrarian revolts in Norfolk, and in the mainly religious -revolts in Devonshire, the peasants fell, as they hoped they might, like -men, and it was the arquebuses of the foreign mercenaries which really -decided the struggle. Poor homeless hirelings, what could they know but -to clamour for their pay, and shoot better men than themselves? - - [562] The Humble Petition of thousands well affected persons - inhabiting the city of London, Westminster, the Borough of - Southwark, Hamlets, and places adjacent. In Bodleian Pamphlets, - _The Leveller's Petition_, c. 15, 3 Linc. See also Gooch, - _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_, pp. - 139-226. - - [563] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. pp. 215-217. - Winstanley's letter to Lord Fairfax and the Council of War - begins: "That whereas we have begun to dig upon the Commons for - livelihood, and have declared unto your excellency and the whole - world our reasons, which are four. First, from the righteous law - of creation that gives the earth freely to one as well as - another, without respect of persons"; also Gooch, _op. cit._ The - Owenite note may be more than a mere chance. Owen himself stated - ("New View of Society"): "Any merit due for the discovery - calculated to effect more substantial and permanent benefit to - mankind than any ever yet contemplated by the human mind belongs - exclusively to John Bellers." Bellers published his _College of - Industry_ in 1696, and may easily have been acquainted with the - story of the Diggers' agitation. - - [564] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 8. - - [565] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 201, Examination of John Halom of Calkehill, yeoman. - -To understand the nature of a body at rest it is sometimes advisable to -look at the same body when it is in motion. The agrarian disturbances of -our period possess certain features which are of interest even to those -who are concerned primarily not with social politics, but with economic -organisation. In the first place, they mark the transition from the -feudal revolts of the fifteenth century, based on the union of all -classes in a locality against the central government, to those in which -one class stands against another through the opposition of economic -interests. In the Lincolnshire rebellion and in the Pilgrimage of Grace -the old spirit predominated. In the North of England the new agrarian -régime had not proceeded far enough to sap entirely the ancient bonds -between landlord and tenant, and the plunder of the monastic estates had -not yet set a commercial aristocracy in the seat of the old-fashioned -Catholic landlords. The commons of Westmoreland, who declare that they -will trust no gentlemen with their councils, nevertheless feel -sufficient confidence in Lord Darcy to write to him for his advice as to -how far they will be justified in insisting on reduced admission fines, -and in pulling down "all the intakes yt be noysum for poor men."[566] -Had the Catholic gentry generally been willing to sacrifice the rents -got from pasture-farming, these movements might have found leaders who -would have made them more formidable. As it was, even when hatred of the -religious changes or of some particular piece of legislation, like the -unpopular Statute of Uses, enrolled the gentry with the peasants, as in -Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1536, the incompatibility of the allies -was obvious, and the presence of the wealthier classes inspired distrust -among the rank and file, who saw in them the authors of their economic -evils, and who, though genuinely concerned at the painful destruction of -the social institutions of the old religion, were fighting mainly for -the maintenance of "old customs and tenant right," fair rents and -security of tenure. In spite of the temporary union of all classes in -1536, the insurgents tended to break up into two camps corresponding -roughly with the division between landlord and tenant. In Lincolnshire, -though the commons were influenced by the gentry so far as to demand the -repeal of the Act of Uses, "not knowing," as a witness said, "what that -Act of Uses meant," they showed their distrust of the upper classes by -refusing to allow them to discuss their future policy apart from the -general body of insurgents, while the extremists clamoured that "they -ought to kill some of the justices; also that if they hanged for this, -they would not leave one gentleman alive in Lincolnshire."[567] At -Richmond all lords and gentlemen were to swear on the mass-book to -maintain the profit of Holy Church, to take nothing of their tenants but -the usual rents, to put down Cromwell and not to go to London, on pain -of death if they refused.[568] For courts have strange arts of -seduction, and though London (thank Heaven) is not England now, it was -still less England then. The rough rhymes that ran through the North -contain the warning of all popular movements against the treachery of -leaders, the sad eternal warning which buoys the sands where so many -high endeavours have gone to wreck. "All commons stick ye together, rise -with no great man till ye know his intent. Keep your harness in your -hands, and ye shall obtain all your purpose in all this North land.... -Claim ye old customs and tenant right, to take your farms by a God's -penny, all gressums and heightenings to be laid down. Then may we serve -our sovereign Lord King Henry VIII., God save his noble Grace. - - We shall serve our lands' lords in every righteous cause - With horse and harness as custom will demand. - Lords spiritual and temporal have it in your mind - This world as it waveth, and to your tenants be kind. - Adieu, gentle commons, thus make I an end: - Writer of this letter, pray Jesu be his speed; - He shall be your captain, when that ye have need."[569] - - [566] _Ibid._, vol. xi., 1080. - - [567] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xi., 975. - - [568] _Ibid._, vol. xii., Part I., 163. - - [569] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 163. The Proclamation of the Commons; see also _ibid._, 138, the - manifesto which says, "Ye shall have captains just and true, and - not be stayed by the gentry in no wise." - -The temporary solidarity which had drawn all classes into the Pilgrimage -of Grace, though it flickered up for the last time in the feudal revolt -of the northern earls in 1569, was absent altogether from the widespread -agitation of 1549 to 1550. Except in Devonshire and Cornwall, the -disturbances of those years were purely agrarian, a movement of tenants -against landlords. The Eastern rebels were for leaving "as many -gentlemen in Norfolk as there be white bulls";[570] the gentry responded -by rallying to the Government; and both in that country and in -Devonshire the military forces which put down the peasants were led by -the two most notoriously unpopular landlords in England, who had built -up their estates out of confiscated abbey lands, the Earl of Warwick and -Sir William Herbert. In the reign of Henry VII. the problem before -Governments had still been to prevent a great landlord from using his -authority over his tenants to make war on his neighbours or on the -State. Sixty years later it is to prevent tenants in several different -counties from combining against landlords. The landed classes recognise -the new spirit. They denounce the peasants as communists and agitators; -and when they get a free hand, as in the years from 1549 to 1553, they -insist on legislation which will make effective combination impossible. - - [570] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, Introduction, p. 8. - The advice of John Walker of Griston. - -In the second place, the way in which the agrarian agitations were -conducted is interesting as showing both the comparative prosperity and -independence of the English peasantry, even at a time when the fortunes -of many of them were declining, and the general conceptions of social -expediency held by what was regarded as the most representative part of -the English nation. It would be a mistake to think of the rebels who -joined these revolts as mere unorganised malcontents, with nothing to -lose. There is no resemblance at all, either in personnel or methods, -between the agrarian disturbances of our period and the riots of -starving agricultural labourers who burned ricks under Captain Swing in -the early nineteenth century. The peasants who formed the backbone of -the movements were often well-to-do men, who were fighting to keep their -land with the dreadful tenacity of small proprietors. They had arms and -were accustomed to their use. They had sufficient money to raise common -funds. They included among their number sanguine and pertinacious -litigants who, so far from being disposed to throw up their case at the -hint of the landlord's displeasure, were quite capable of making his -life one long lawsuit. The readiness of a class to make effective the -protection given it by the law in the face of the opposition of powerful -individuals, quenched, alas! too often by ignorance, and timidity, and -generations of dull oppression, is a very good test of its spirit and of -the practical freedom which it enjoys. In the sixteenth century, though -we certainly see many gross cases of intimidation, we also see tenants -appealing to the law courts and to the Government over the heads of -lords of manors. Such appeals are a proof of the helplessness of the -victims which has been commented on above. But they are also a proof of -the persistence and cohesion of some among them. For while in the -absence of oppression they would not have been necessary, in the absence -of a determination to resist oppression they could not have been made. -To enclose was in parts of the country to stir up a hornet's nest. There -was not much obsequiousness about the villagers of Thingden,[571] who -from 1494 to 1538 pursued their landlord through almost every Court in -the Kingdom. The leaders of the popular agitation were often the more -prosperous among the middle-classes. Sanders, the general in the -interminable struggle over the common lands of the city of Coventry -which began in 1460, was a member of the important craft of Dyers, and -had occupied the high civic office of Chamberlain.[572] At Louth[573] -the initiative among the commons was taken by a tailor and a weaver. -Ket[574] himself was a considerable landed proprietor as well as a -tanner. - - [571] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star - Chamber_, and Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - - [572] _Coventry Leet Book_, edited by M.D. Harris, vol. ii. 510 - and _passim_. - - [573] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 380, The Examination of the Monk late of Louth Park: "Plummer - and one James, a tailor, were the most quick and chiefest rulers - of the company.... Melton, whom they named 'Captain Cobbles,' - was the most chief and busy man among these commoners.... John - Tailor, of Louth, webster, brought out of the house a great - brand of fire, and the commons carried the books into the - market-place." - - [574] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 2319, p. 75, Copy of Letters Patent - (28 May, 4 Ed. VI.) granting to Thomas Audeley ... all that - manor called Gunvyles Manor in Norfolk, parcel of the - possessions of the said ... Robert Ket, in consideration "boni, - veri, fidelis, et magnanimi servitii in conflictu versus - innaturales subditos nostros proditores ac nobis rebelles in - Com. nostro Norf.... quorum ... quidam Bobertus Kett existit - capitanus et conductor." - -The peasants' agitations took the form both of more or less organised -risings and of sporadic rioting, which aimed at ends varying from place -to place according to the grievances inspired by the varying conditions -of different districts. Everywhere there were the throwing down of -enclosures and the driving of sheep.[575] In Yorkshire the enclosures -which were pulled down seem to have been mainly intakes from the waste, -and in Norfolk and the Midlands enclosures of arable land which had been -converted to pasture. In Warwickshire the Earl of Warwick's park was -demolished, while in Wiltshire, where Sir William Herbert had acquired -the lands of Wilton Abbey, and enclosed a whole village in his new park -at Washerne, the peasants rose and tore down the palings.[576] In the -North generally the bitterest outcry seems to have arisen over the -excessive fines and "gressums" charged for the admission of -copyholders. In Cumberland[577] there was a general strike against the -payment of rents, and almost everywhere there were complaints of the -diminution in the area available for pasturing the beasts of commoners -through the enclosing by landlords of manorial wastes. - - [575] Sheep-driving in the sixteenth century was like - cattle-driving in Ireland to-day; see Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry - VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., 201: "When they first went to York, - they drove one Coppyndale's sheep because he fled away, and sold - them again to his deputy for £10," and the behaviour of the - Norfolk rebels in 1549. - - [576] Gairdner, _L. and P._, xi., II., 186, and _Rutland MSS._, - p. 36, quoted by Leadam: "There is a great number of the commons - up about Salisbury in Wiltshire, and they have plucked down Sir - William Herbert's Park that is about his new house ... they say - they will not have their common grounds to be enclosed and taken - from them." - - [577] Gairdner, _L. and P._, xii., I., 362: "Your rents and - others cannot yet be collected." - -Though it involves abandoning the order of events, let us illustrate by -a single example[578] the shape assumed by agrarian rioting, which has -not yet become a rebellion. In the summer of 1569, when Cecil and -Elizabeth were waiting anxiously for news from those northern counties -which "know no other prince but a Percy," there was much running and -riding, much sending for warrants and plentiful delay in their -execution, in the wild country between Chinley and Bakewell, whose -centre is the Peak, and whose principal gorge now carries the most -beautiful piece of railway line in England. The Derbyshire peasantry -seem to have been ill to deal with. A few years later some of those in -Glossopdale succeeded in setting the Earl of Shrewsbury at defiance, -and, when evicted from their farms, induced the Council to intervene to -insist on their reinstatement.[579] Just now those of them who lived in -the neighbourhood of Chinley were in a ferment over the enclosure of -some common land. The story is a curious one, and shows both the kind of -conditions under which agrarian discontent developed, and the way in -which it was associated in the mind of the Government with fears of -political disturbance. The Duchy of Lancaster, to whom the land near -Chinley belonged, had let a parcel of herbage called Mayston Field to -one Lawrence Wynter, his lease to begin as soon as that of the existing -tenant had expired. In that age of land speculation land changed hands -rapidly. On the same day as Wynter obtained the lease he sold it to a -certain Richard Celey. Celey transferred it to Godfrey Bradshaw, and -Godfrey Bradshaw got rid of it to his brother Anthony. The trouble began -when the land came into the hands of Godfrey Bradshaw. He started to -hedge and ditch it, which of course involved the exclusion of the other -inhabitants from the rights of pasture which they had hitherto enjoyed. -Accordingly the villagers, led by twelve of their number, of whom four -belonged to one family, removed the ditch, tore down the enclosure, -which consisted of "XLIII hundredth quicksetts willowes and willowe -stackes ... and did utterlye destroy and cutt the sayd stacks and quick -setts in pieces," proceeding at the same time, with the object of -protecting their own grazing land against encroachments, themselves to -divide up the land into smaller enclosures to be held by each man in -severalty. Godfrey Bradshaw then obtained warrants for the preservation -of the peace against the ringleaders, and at the same time induced the -lessor, who was Sir Ralph Sadler, the Chancellor of the Duchy, to -address a letter to them directing them not to interfere with any -houses, hedges, or ditches, which might in future be constructed round -the land. They received his communication, but massed in force with arms -on Chinley Hill, pulled down what still remained of Bradshaw's hedges, -and then proceeded to organise the nucleus of a very pretty agitation. -They gave part of the herbage, which was nominally in the occupation of -the unfortunate lessee, to one William Beard, on condition that, after -the manner of his betters in the good old days before the Tudors, he -should "maynteyn them geynst the Queenes Majestie," his support taking -the form of an agreement that he "should from tyme to tyme send them -Ydill ryotouse p'sons to assyste them in these yll doinges." They then -raised a fund, presumably by a levy on the inhabitants, called a meeting -in the forest of High Peak, and set off about the tenth of June to -Bakewell for a further conference, arranging in the meantime that some -one should burn Godfrey Bradshaw's house, and that while his enclosures, -if re-erected, should be pulled down, the other inhabitants should make -haste to divide up the disputed land into twenty-one separate parcels. -When the Bradshaws, having got their warrants, tried with the aid of the -village constable to execute them, their opponents ("the land was -grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do"[580]) -threatened them with murder, and, on one of the party being actually -arrested, came very near to carrying their threat out. "The said p'tyes -... did ryotouslye assemble themselves together in great companies at -the town of Hayfield with unlawfull weapons, that is to saye, with -bowes, pytchefforkes, clobbes, staves, swords, and daggers drawen, and -ryotouslye dyd then and there assaulte and p'sue the sayd Godfrey and -Edward Bradshawe, and in ryotouse manner dyd reskewe and take from them -the body of the sayd Richard Shower, being attached; the Queenes -Officer, George Yeavely of Bawdon, then being p'sent commanding the -peace to be kepte." Having chased the enemy for some distance, they -camped on the contested territory, and kept a watchful eye and a firm -hand for any sign of the reappearance of the detested hedges. More -serious still in the eyes of the Government (and this, one suspects, was -their undoing), the leaders of this village revolution went so far as to -entangle themselves in high politics. At their examination they are -asked, "Whether dyd Reynold Kirke about May day last paste, and dyvers -tymes since and before, or any other tyme, confederate, consulte, -practise, or otherwise confer and talk with one Mr. Bircles of the -countye of Chester ... touching or concerning prophesis by noblemen, or -otherwise, and what books of prophesie have you or the said Bircles seen -or heard, and what is the effect thereof, and how often have you or he -perused, used, or conferred of the same, or about such purposes, and -with whom?" We do not know how they answered this question. It may be -that the anger of these Derbyshire peasants at their vanishing commons -was indeed a fraction to be set among weightier assets by schemers in -high places, and that the sinister Mr. Bircles had really talked with -them of matters more serious than the pulling down of hedges and the -baiting of enclosers, of things forbidden to the vulgar, of the -scattering of upstart officials, of the restoration of a Catholic -monarchy, of Mary, who in the previous year had made her irrevocable -plunge across the Border. It may be merely that all in authority had -that autumn an unusually bad attack of nerves. In 1569 the North was -full of prophets, both noble and other. - - [578] I take this story from a transcript kindly supplied me by - Mr. Kolthammer of MSS. in the possession of Charles E. Bradshaw - Bowles of Wirksworth. - - [579] Lodge, _Illustrations_, ii. p. 218. - - [580] Synge, _The Playboy of the Western World_. - -It was not always the case, however, that agrarian discontent ended in -casual rioting of this kind. Of mere destructive violence there is, -indeed, in all the social disturbances of the period, singularly little. -There was a good deal in the routine of rural life, with its common -administration of land and dependence on a collectively binding custom, -to teach habits of discipline and co-operation. It must be remembered -that those who took the initiative in breaking the law were not the -peasants who pulled down enclosures, but the landlords who made them in -defiance of repeated statutes forbidding them. On the whole the -organised character of the action taken is more conspicuous than the -individual excesses, and if one is to look for a modern analogy to the -mixture of deliberation and violence which it shows, it must be sought -in an Irish fair rent campaign rather than in the bread riots of a -despairing urban proletariat. When the agitation was confined to -individual manors it occasionally took the form of agrarian trade -unionism. Tenants collectively decline to serve as jurors in the court -of the manor till their demands are granted.[581] They raise a common -purse.[582] They refuse to pay more than a certain rent. When more than -one manor is implicated different localities display a rough cohesion. -Whole communities seem to have joined the movement in 1536 and 1540 with -a certain formality. In Lincolnshire and Yorkshire townships were -brought out on the ringing of the town bell with the cohesion of a -well-organised trade union; Beverley[583] sent messages to the -Lincolnshire rebels under its common seal; and the part which was played -by the village officers in the movements of the peasantry is proved by -the Proclamation[584] which the Council issued in 1549, when disorders -were at their height, forbidding constables, bailiffs, and head-boroughs -to call meetings except for the purposes required by the law. -Hales,[585] as he rode through the South and Midlands in 1548, was -struck by the patience with which people waited for the Government to -take action, and attributed the disturbances of the ensuing year to the -despair caused by the victory of the local landlords over the -Commission, and to the rejection by Parliament of the Bills which he had -introduced. Even Ket's campaign in Norfolk, which ended in a sanguinary -battle, during the greater part of it was carried on with an orderliness -from which the Government which suppressed it might profitably have -taken a lesson. Nothing could have been more unlike the popular idea of -a _jacquerie_. The peasants enjoyed the enormous joke of making the -gentry look foolish a great deal more than cutting their throats, as -during the four weeks in which they were "playing" they might have done -without any difficulty. - - "Mr. Pratt, your sheep are very fat, - And we thank _you_ for that; - We have left you the skins to pay your wife's pins, - And you must thank _us_ for that."[586] - - [581] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_ - (Leadam). Customary tenants of Bradford _v._ Francis: "The said - stuard called ... the ... tenants of the manor to be sworn to - enquire as they ought to doo, the which to do ... the said - tenants ... obstinately and sturdily then and there refused, and - said that unless the said defendent ... wold grante them - forthwith and immediatelye that they should have and enjoy the - commodity of the said three matters ... that they, nor any of - them, wolde be sworn at that Court, but wolde depart." - - [582] Leadam, _E. H. R._, pp. 684-696. The tenants at Thingden, - in their proceedings against Mulsho, "calle commen Councelles - ... and make a commen purse among them, promising all of them to - take parte with other, saying that xx. of them would spend xx. - score pounds ayenet the said John Mulsho." The tenants of - Abbot's Ripton "procured one common purse to be ordeyned - together one common stock to thentent obstinately to defend - their perverse and ffrowned appetitez." As to Rents, see _L. and - P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 154: "In many counties little or no - ferms will they pay" (Darcy to Shrewsbury). - - [583] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 392. - - [584] Proclamation of July 22, 1549. Strype, _Ecclesiastical - Memorials_, who remarks that these village officers, "in the - places where these risings were, had been the very ringleaders - and procurers by their example and exhortation." - - [585] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), Appendix - to Introduction, lviii.: "In dyvers places wher we were, and - wher the people had just cause of Gryef, and have complayned a - great many yeares without remedy, there have they byn very - quiet, shewed themselves most humble and obedient subiectes - taryenge the Kynges Maiesties Reformation." - - [586] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1905, p. 2. - -These lines, pinned on the carcasses of an enclosing landlord's flocks -and herds, are a fair specimen of their humour. Men may well be merry -together, when they have seen hovering over the fields of an English -county, though but in a fleeting glimpse, the New Jerusalem where the -humble are exalted and the mighty put down; and there is no -inconsistency between such mundane gaiety and the long pent up passion -which on the lips of a nameless labourer burst into the cry, "As sheepe -or lambs are a prey to the wolfe or lion, so are the poor men to the -rich men."[587] There was much lecturing (the matter is easily imagined) -at the Oak of Reformation, and not on one side only, for the peasants -were tolerant compared with their betters, and a future archbishop was -allowed to address the insurgents on the evils of their ways; much -laying down of hedges and enclosures; much slaughtering of that beast of -iniquity, the man-devouring sheep. There was none of the massacring of -unarmed men which both Henry VIII. and Elizabeth ordered without -compunction when they thought the times required it, very little of the -"making the public good a pretext for private revenge," against which -the insurgents were warned by Parker. Though for months after the final -tragedy the badges of the justly-hated Warwick "were not so fast set up -but that they were as fast pulled down" from the city walls, the rebels -even in the heat of their early triumphs claimed only to be executing -the Protector's Proclamations, and, while indignantly repudiating the -name of traitors, showed a complete readiness to negotiate peaceably -with the Government. The whole movement was less a rising against the -State than a practical illustration of the peasants' ideals, a mixture -of May-day demonstration and successful strike embodied in one gigantic -festival of rural good fellowship. Its bloody termination was, as far as -can be judged, the result of two errors of judgment, one, a pardonable -one, on the part of Ket, the other, unpardonable, on the part of a -nameless member of the other party.[588] When all was over, and each man -reflected after his kind on the great days of Mousehold Heath, what the -camp followers, who attach themselves to every popular movement, -remembered was that for about a month they had filled their bellies at -other people's expense. "'Twas a merry world when we were yonder, -eating of mutton." But there were some who, as they saw Ket swinging on -the gallows before the City gates, were seized with the tumult of pity -and hoarse indignation which serves Englishmen, who are not good at -revolutions, in place of the revolutionary spirit. "O Kette," one -countryman was heard to say to another, "God have mercy upon thy soul; -and I trust in God that the King's Majesty and his Councell shall be -enformed once between this and Midsummer evening, that of their own -gentleness thou shalt be taken down and buried, not hanged up for winter -store; and set a quietness in the realm, and that the ragged staff shall -be taken down of their own gentleness from the gentlemen's gates in this -City, and to have no more King's arms but one within the City, under -Christ."[589] The Council, in its gentleness, thought otherwise. Ket -still creaked in his chains, and in the meantime other gallows were -rising for other rebels in Somerset, and Devon, and Cornwall. - - [587] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1905, p. 22. - - [588] Ket refused the pardon offered on July 31st on the ground - that the insurgents had committed no offence requiring to be - pardoned, and fighting followed. On August 23rd a pardon was - again offered. While it was being read by a herald, a boy - standing by insulted him "with words as unseemly as his gesture - was filthy" (Holinshed), and was shot by one of the herald's - retinue. Ket tried to pacify the anger of his followers at what - they took to be treachery, but without effect. - - [589] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1905, p. 20. - -What were the aims which at intervals between 1530 and 1560 set half the -counties of England in a blaze? Let us look at the peasants' programme -more closely. It will help us to see the agrarian problem from the -inside. Reduced to its elements their complaint is a very simple one, -very ancient and yet very modern. It is that what, in effect, whatever -lawyers may say, has been their property, is being taken from them. To -be told that social disorders take place because an envious proletariat -aims at seizing the property of the rich would seem to them a very -strange perversion of the truth. They want only to have what they have -always had. They are conservatives, not radicals or levellers, and to -them it seems that all the trouble arises because the rich have been -stealing the property of the poor. Here is part of a colloquy[590] -between Jack of the North beyond the Style, Robin and Harry Clowte, Tom -of Trumpington, Peter Potter, Pyrce Plowman, and divers other worthies. -As will be seen from the verses, they are birds of night-- - - "JACK. Now for that Slaunder's sake, - Companye by night I take, - And, with all that I may make, - Cast hedge and ditch in the lake, - Fyxed with many a stake - Though it was never so faste - Yet asondre it is wraste. - - * * * * * - - HARRY CLOWTE. Gud conscience should them move - Ther neighbours quietly to love, - And thus not for to wrynche - The commons styl for to pinch, - To take into their hande - That be other mennes land. - - JACK. Thus do I, Jack of the Style, - Now subscrybe upon a tyle. - This I do and will do with all my myght, - For sclaundering me yet do I but right, - For common to common again I restore - Wherever it hath been yet common before. - If agayne they enclose it never so faste - Agayne asondre it shall be wraste. - They may be ware by that is paste - To make it agayne is but waste." - - [590] Printed by Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, vol. ii. p. 40. - -To take into your hand what is other men's land, that is the grievance. -To restore common to common again, that is the obvious remedy, a remedy -which is not seriously opposed to the agrarian policy of most sixteenth -century statesmen. But the more far-seeing of the peasants realise what -their followers do not, that these troubles which are going on in so -many different parts of England cannot be dealt with by isolated bodies -of villagers, however good their cause may be. They require the -intervention of the Government. How the Government is to intervene they -lay down in two documents which are perhaps the only two popular -programmes of agrarian reform ever published in England since 1381. The -first, contained in two of the articles[591] drawn up at Doncaster in -1536, is short enough:-- - -"That the lands in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Kendall, Dent, Sedbergh, -Furness, and the abbey lands in Mashamshire, Kyrkbyshire, Notherdale, -may be by tenant right, and the lord to have, at every change, 2 -years' rent for gressum, according to the grant now made by the lords to -the commons there. This to be done by Act of Parliament. - -"The Statutes for Enclosures and Intacks to be put in execution, and all -enclosures and Intacks since the fourth year of Henry VII. to be pulled -down, except mountains, forests, and Parks" (a noticeable exception -which shows the composite character of the movement. In the South of -England the peasant did not spare parks). - - [591] Gairdner, _L. and P. of Henry VIII._, xi. 1246. - -The articles[592] signed by Ket, Aldryche, and Cod in 1549 are a much -more elaborate affair. Here are the most noteworthy of them:-- - -"We pray your grace that where it is enacted for enclosing, that it be -not hurtful to such as have enclosed saffren grounds, for they be -greatly chargeable to them, and that from henceforth no man shall -enclose any more.[593] - -"We certify your grace that whereas the lords of the mannors hath been -charged with certe fre rent, the same lords hath sought means to charge -the freeholders to pay the same rent, contrary to right. - -"We pray your grace that no lord of no manor shall comon uppon the -commons. - -"We pray that priests from henceforth shall purchase no lande neither -free nor bondy, and the lands that they have in possession may be letten -to temporal men, as they were in the first year of the reign of King -Henry VII.[594] - -"We pray that reed ground and meadow ground may be at such price as they -were in the first year of King Henry VII. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that the payments of castleward rent, and blanch ferm and -office lands, which hath been accustomed to be gathered of the -tenements, whereas we suppose the lords ought to pay the same to their -bailiffs for their rents gathering, and not the tenants.[595] - -"We pray that no man under the degree of a knight or esquire keep a dove -house, except it hath been of an old ancient custom. - -"We pray that all freeholders and copyholders may take the profits of -all commons, and there to common, and the lords not to common nor to -take profits of the same. - -"We pray that no feudatory within your shires shall be a councellor to -any man in his office making, whereby the King may be truly served, so -that a man being of good conscience may be yearly chosen to the same -office by the commons of the same shire. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that copyhold land that is unreasonably rented may go as it did -in the first year of King Henry VII., and that at the death of a tenant -or of [at] a sale the same lands to be charged with an easy fine, as a -capon or a reasonable [sum] of money for a remembrance. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that all bondmen may be made free, for God made all free with -his precious bloodshedding. - -"We pray that rivers may be free and common to all men for fishing and -passage. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that the poor mariners or Fishermen may have the whole profits -of their fishings, as porpoises, grampuses, whales, or any great fish, -so it be not prejudicial to your Grace. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that it be not lawful to the lords of any manor to purchase -land freely, or [and] to let them out again by copy of court roll to -their great advancement and to the undoing of your poor subjects. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that no man under the degree of ... shall keep any conies upon -any of their freehold or copyhold, unless he pale them in, so that it -shall not be to the common nuisance. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that your Grace give license and authority by your gracious -commission under your Great Seal to such commissioners as your poor -commons hath chosen, or to as many of them as your Majesty and your -Council shall appoint and think meet, for to redress and reform all such -good laws, statutes, proclamations, and all other your proceedings, -which hath been hidden by your justices of your peace, shreves, -escheators, and other your officers, from your poor commons, since the -first year of the reign of your noble grandfather, King Henry VII. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that no lord, knight, esquire, nor gentleman, do graze nor feed -any bullocks or sheep, if he may spend forty pounds a year by his lands, -but only for the provision of his house." - - [592] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 48. - - [593] Some doubt has been expressed as to the interpretation of - these words. They should probably be read in the light of what - was said above (Part I. chap. iv.) as to enclosures made by the - tenants themselves. The rebels point out that a considerable - number of people have spent capital on hedging and ditching - their lands for the better cultivation of saffron, and therefore - ask that, while other enclosures may be pulled down, a special - exception may be made in favour of this particular kind of - enclosure. - - [594] Contrast the feeling in Protestant Norfolk with that of - Cornwall and Devon in 1549, and of the North in 1536. - - [595] The grammar is bad, but the sense is clear enough. Lords - must stop shifting on to tenants burdens which lords ought to - bear. - -The programme of the peasants is partly political. The Northerners -insist that Parliament and the Crown must interfere, and the Norfolk -leaders ask for a permanent commission to do the work which the county -justices, who are interested in enclosing, have wilfully neglected. But -it is mainly economic. The State is to do no more than restore the old -usages, and the end of all is to be a sort of idealised manorial -customary enforced by a strong central Government throughout the length -of the land, free use of common lands, reduced rents of meadow and -marsh, reasonable fines for copyholds, free fisheries, and the abolition -of the lingering disability of personal villeinage. The most striking -thing about these demands is their conservatism. Almost exactly a -hundred years later agrarian reform will be demanded as part of a new -heaven and a new earth. Agrarian agitation will be carried on in terms -of theories as to the social contract, of theories as to the origin of -private property. Its leaders will be appealing to Anglo-Saxon history -to prove to the indifferent ears of a Government which has saved them -"from Charles, our Norman oppressor," that "England cannot be a free -commonwealth, unless the poore commoners have a use and benefit of the -land."[596] They will appeal also to a more awful sanction than that of -history. "At this very day," cries Winstanley,[597] "poor people are -forced to work for 4d. a day and corn is dear, and the tithing-priest -stops their mouths and tells them that 'inward satisfaction of mind' was -meant by the declaration 'the poor shall inherit the earth.' I tell you, -the scripture is to be really and materially fulfilled.... You jeer at -the name of Leveller. I tell you Jesus Christ is the head leveller." -Such communistic doctrines are always the ultimate fruit of the -breakdown of practical co-operation and brotherliness among men. To -human nature, as to other kinds of nature, a vacuum is abhorrent. - - [596] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. p. 217. Letter - addressed by the Diggers, December 8, 1649: "To my lord generall - and his Councell of War." The allusion to the usurping Normans - occurs also (_ibid._, p. 215) in another letter in a statement - of the reasons of the agitation: "Secondly by vertue of yours - and our victory over the king, whereby the enslaved people of - England have recovered themselves from under the Norman - Conquest; though wee do not yet enjoy the benefit of our - victories, nor cannot soe long as the use of the Common land is - held from the younger brethren by the Lords of Mannours that yet - sit in the Norman chair and uphold that tyranny as if the kingly - power were in force still." - - [597] Winstanley: "The curse and blessing that is in mankind," - quoted Gooch, _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth - Century_. - -But as yet the soil has not been ploughed by a century of political and -religious controversy, and there is little sign of these high arguments -in the social disturbances of our period. The earliest levellers[598] -get their name because they raze not social inequalities but quickset -hedges and park palings. What communism there is in the movement is not -that of the saints or the theorists, but the spontaneous doctrineless -communism of the open field village, where men set out their fields, and -plough, and reap, laugh in the fine and curse in the wet, with natural -fellowship. The middle-class terror of the appearance in England of the -political theories of the German Peasants' War, though it was forcibly -expressed by Sir William Paget[599] in remonstrating with Somerset's -policy in 1549, and though John Hales thought it worth while to -repudiate it, is not justified by any recorded utterances or programmes -which have come to us. There are, indeed, many verbal similarities -between the articles of Ket and those put out by the German peasants at -Memmingen in 1525, which suggest that some refugee from Germany had -carried them with him to the most Protestant county in England. Both, -for example, demand a reduction in rents, the abolition of villeinage, -and free fisheries. But the contrasts are much more striking, and are -due not only to the fact that the onerous villein services which -survived in Germany had become almost nominal in England, but to the -difference in the spirit of their conception, which leads one to appeal -to the New Testament and the other to the customs of the first years of -Henry VII. There is, in fact, the same broad difference between the -peasant movements in England and Germany as there is between the English -and German Reformation. In Germany the ecclesiastical changes spring -from a widespread popular discontent, and are swept forward on a wave of -radical enthusiasm, which carries the peasants (German Social Democrats -are metaphysicians to this day) into the revolutionary mysticism of -Münzer. In England changes in Church government are forced upon the -people by the State, and outside the South and East of England are -regarded with abhorrence. It is not until the later rise of Puritanism -that either religious or economic radicalism becomes a popular force. In -the middle of the sixteenth century the English peasants accepted the -established system of society with its hierarchy of authorities and -division of class functions, and they had a most pathetic confidence -in the Crown. What they wanted, in the first place, was fair -conditions of land tenure, the restoration of the customary -relationships which had protected them against the screw of commercial -competition. When they went further, they looked for an exercise of -Royal Power to reduce to order the petty tyranny of local magnates, and -to carry out the intentions of a Government which they were inclined to -think meant them well, "to redress and reform all such good laws, -statutes, proclamations, and all other your proceedings which hath been -bidden by your justices of your Peace ... from your poor commons." Such -movements are a proof of blood and sinew and of a high and gallant -spirit. They are the outcome of a society where the normal relations are -healthy, where men are attached to the established order, where they -possess the security and control over the management of their own lives -which is given by property, and, possessing this, possess the reality of -freedom even though they stand outside the political state. Happy the -nation whose people has not forgotten how to rebel. - - [598] A reference to the Levellers occurs in connection with the - Midland Revolt of 1607, Lodge, _Illustrations_, iii. 320: "You - cannot but have hearde what courses have been taken in - Leicestershire and Warwickshire by the two Lord Lieutenants - there, and by the gentlemen ... and lastlie howe Sir Anth. - Mildmay and Sir Edward Montacute repaired to Newton ... where - one thousand of these fellowes who term themselves levellers - were busily digging, but weare furnished with many half-pikes, - pyked staves, long bills, and bowes and arrows and stones ... - there were slaine some 40 or 50 of them and a verie great number - hurt" (January 11, 1607, the Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir John - Manners, Sir Francis Leake, and Sir John Harper). The name - Diggers seems to have cropped up about the same time, v. _Wit - and Wisdom_, edited by Halliwell for New Shakespeare Society, - pp. 140-141, for a petition from "the Diggers of Warwickshire to - all other diggers," and signed "poore Delvers and Day Labourers - for ye good of ye commonwealth till death" (quoted by Gay, - _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii.) - - [599] See below, pp. 367-368. - -The social disturbances caused by enclosure, with its accompaniments of -rack-renting and evictions, were one cause which compelled the -Governments of our period to give attention to the subject. Though no -direct concessions were made to them, their lessons were not altogether -wasted, because it is plain that they impressed on the minds of -statesmen the idea that to prevent disorder it was necessary for the -State to interfere in favour of tenants. Rural discontent, which might -have been insignificant in an age of greater political stability, -derived a factitious importance from the circumstances of the sixteenth -century, when it might be exploited by a rebellious minority, which, for -all that most men knew, might really be a majority of the nation, by -Yorkist Plotters under Henry VII., religious enthusiasts under Henry -VIII., restorers of a Catholic monarchy, supported by a Spanish invasion -or a Franco-Scottish alliance, under Elizabeth. Governments so uncertain -of their popularity as these had a strong reason for protecting the -class which would be the backbone of a revolt. One way in which they -could secure themselves against the discontent of the disaffected -nobility was to encourage the yeomanry, who might act as a counterpoise. -The way in which self-preservation and a popular agrarian policy went -hand in hand is illustrated by Burleigh's cynical advice to Elizabeth to -make a practice of supporting tenants in any quarrel which might arise -between them and Catholic landlords.[600] - - [600] _Somers' Tracts_, vol. i., pp. 164-168: "For their - tenantries, this conceit I have thought upon ... that your - Majesty, in every shire, should give instruction to some that - are indeed trusty and religious gentlemen, that, whereas your - Majesty is given to understand that divers popish landlords do - hardly use some of your people and subjects, ... you do - constitute and appoint them to deal both with entreaty and - authority, that such tenants, paying as others do, be not thrust - out of their living, nor otherwise molested. This would greatly - bind the commons' hearts unto you, on whom indeed consisteth the - power and strength of your realm, and it will make them less, or - nothing at all, depend upon their landlords." - -But there were other causes as well working in the same direction. No -one who reads the writers by whom the agrarian problem is discussed can -fail to notice that the official view of the proper system of agrarian -relationships was on the whole favourable to the small man, and was, -indeed, not very different from that expressed in the demands of the -peasants themselves. Not, of course, that the authorities had any -intention of depressing landlords or raising peasants, but that the -whole established system of Government was based on a certain -organisation of social life, and that the Government tended to maintain -that organisation in maintaining itself and carrying on the work of the -State. For this attitude, which is in striking contrast with the policy -of the statesmen of the eighteenth century when faced with an analogous -problem, there were several practical reasons which we shall do well to -understand. In judging the motives of economic policy in past ages we -are even more apt to be misled by modern analogies than we are in -estimating its effects. We see that in our own day most of the -legislative protection accorded to those who are economically weak has -been produced by a combination of two causes, the political -enfranchisement of the wage-earning classes and the spread of -humanitarian sentiment. We know that in the sixteenth century the first -cause was absent and the second was feeble. The Macchiavellis of that -iron age were neither democrats nor philanthropists; and when they -avow a policy of protecting the weaker classes in society against -economic evils we are inclined to think with Professor Thorold Rogers -that they are merely hypocritical. But this analogy is a false light. To -be influenced by it is to confuse political power with its symbols, and -to forget that the economic importance of a class may be a more -effective claim to the interest of Governments than the ballot-box. -Under the Tudors there were strong practical reasons for protecting the -peasantry which are not felt to the same extent to-day. The modern State -has so specialised its organs that its maintenance is quite compatible -with the existence of the extremes of poverty, not only among the -exceptionally unfortunate, but among those whose position is not more -insecure than that of their neighbours. They may be able neither to -fight, nor to take part in public duties, nor to contribute much to the -Exchequer. But if their incompetence is a menace, it is a menace which -is not felt till after the lapse of generations, a menace the fulfilment -of which no single life is long enough to behold. For the State hires -specialists to fight, and specialists to keep order; indeed, the poorer -they are, the more cheaply it can obtain their services.[601] Its local -government is conducted mainly by specialised officials, and the -concentration of wealth makes possible a concentration of taxation. The -extension of political power has been accompanied by a subdivision of -political functions, which has diminished the importance of the -individual citizen, and turned him, as far as the routine of Government -is concerned, into a sleeping partner, whose consent is necessary, but -whose active co-operation is superfluous. - - [601] For the manner in which the British army is recruited by - starvation, see Mr. Cyril Jackson's Report on Boy Labour to the - Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, Cd. - 4632, pp. 166-168. - -Now we need not point out that this would be as fair a description of -large classes of persons in the sixteenth century as it is now, and that -the day labourer and handicraftsman who "are to be ruled and not to -rule"[602] were, as a class, far more completely beneath the -consideration of statesmen than they are at the present day. But we -are concerned with the landholding population, not with the landless -wage-earner, and in the slightly differentiated state of our period both -economic and political conditions made a decline in the standard of life -among a class so important as the peasantry a danger which might cause -the most authoritarian of Governments to be confronted with very grave -practical difficulties. It might find itself unable to raise an -effective military force. The States of Continental Europe had -introduced standing armies. But England relied mainly on the shire -levies, and the shire levies were recruited from the small farmers. Just -as the lord of a manor in the North of England, whose tenants held by -border service with horse and harness, was anxious to prevent the -decline in their numbers which landlords elsewhere were welcoming, so -the Government regarded with quite genuine dismay an agrarian movement -which seemed to threaten its military resources by impoverishing the -finest fighting material in the country. Shadow, Feeble, and Wart may -"fill a pit as well as better"; but to make good infantry it requires -not "housed beggars," but "men bred in some free and plentiful manner." -One Depopulation Statute after another recites how "the defence of this -land against our enemies outward is enfeebled and impaired."[603] In the -settlement of the North after the Pilgrimage of Grace the Government -took care to instruct its officials to see that the Northumbrian -tenants, on whom the defence of the border depended, "should be put in -comfort, that no more shall be exacted with gyrsums and like charges, -instead of which they shall be ready with horse and harness when -required."[604] In 1601 Cecil[605] crushed a proposal to repeal the acts -then in force against depopulation by pointing out that the majority of -the militia levies were ploughmen. And in the instructions for the -choice of persons to be enrolled in the trained bands which were issued -by the Government of Charles I., particular care was taken to -emphasise that they were not to be selected at haphazard, but were to be -drawn from the families of the gentry, freeholders, and substantial -farmers.[606] - - [602] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., chap. xxiv. - - [603] 4 _Henry VII._, c. 19. - - [604] Gairdner, _L. and P. Hen. VIII._, xii., I. p. 595. - - [605] _D'Ewes' Journal_, p. 674: "Mr. Secretary Cecil said, '... - I think that whosoever doth not maintain the plough destroys - this kingdom.... I am sure when warrants go from the Council for - levying of men in the counties, and the certificates be returned - unto us again, we find the greatest part of them to be - ploughmen.'" See also on this point Appendix I., Nos. iv., v., - vi., and viii. - - [606] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_ (1909), p. 144. - -This cogent reason for intervening to protect the peasantry was -supported by another which was not less convincing. The classes who -suffered most from enclosure were important from a fiscal, as well as a -military, point of view. In the simple economic life of that age the -connection between the output of wealth and the individual worker's -opportunities for production and standard of subsistence, if not more -important than to-day, was certainly more patent to observation. "The -hole welth of the body of the realm cometh out of the labours and works -of the common peple ... a riche welthy body of a realm maketh a riche -welthy king, and a poore feble body of a realm must needs make a poore -weak feble king."[607] In our period "_pauvre paysans pauvre royaume, -pauvre royaume pauvre roi_" was a statement not of any recondite theory, -but of an obvious economic fact, and one can hardly be mistaken in -supposing that part of the favour which sixteenth century Governments -were inclined to show the small farmer was due to the fact that the -methods of taxation in use made him important as a source of revenue. To -a State which relies largely for its supplies on a direct declaration of -income, it is indifferent whether the total assessable income is made up -of a few large or many small ones; indeed if the tax be a progressive -one, most will be got from the former. But look at the way in which -taxation is raised in the sixteenth century. The chief direct tax is the -subsidy. A typical subsidy, for example that of the first year of -Elizabeth,[608] is assessed partly on the capital value of property, -including farm and trade stock and household furniture, partly on the -yearly profits of land. When a village of small and fairly prosperous -cultivators is wiped out to make room for a large and sparsely populated -estate, will the Government get as large a revenue from direct taxation -as before? A modern reader may very well answer "Yes." The motive of -converting land to pasture is to increase the profits of agriculture. If -they are increased, does not this mean a corresponding increase in the -taxable wealth of the country? Now to inquire how far one can assume in -any age that the personal interests of landlords will lead to land being -put to its most productive use would take us far beyond the scope of -this essay, and it is unnecessary for our present purpose. For, as far -as our period is concerned, the answer is certainly wrong. Apart from -the subtler reactions of the agrarian changes upon social welfare, there -is then no such identity between the economic interests of the landlord -and the economic interests of the State. Speaking broadly, the former -consist in securing the largest net income, the latter in securing the -largest gross product. And these two things are by no means necessarily -found together. If a pasture farm managed by a shepherd and his dog is -substituted by an enclosing proprietor for several score of families -living by tillage, the rent roll of the estate can hardly fail to be -increased, for the value of wool is so high, and the cost of -sheep-farming so low, that the net income from which rent can be paid is -large. But subsidies are assessed on property, not only on income; and -on personal as well as real property. A rise in rents is quite -compatible with a falling off in the gross produce of the land, and the -conversion of an estate from arable to pasture, by displacing tenants, -means a diminution in the farm stock and household property which has -hitherto contributed towards the revenue. - - [607] Pauli, _Drei volkswirthshaftliche Denkscriften_, How to - Reform the Realm in Setting Men to Work to restore Tillage: "The - kynge and his lordes have nede to mynyster right ordre of common - wele; or els they must needs destroy their own wealth by the - very ordenaince of God, for they are upholden and borne upon the - body. Yf they will be riche, they must first see all common - people have riches." - - [608] 1 Eliz. cap. xxi. Prothero Statutes and Constitutional - Documents, 1558-1625. Two subsidies of 1s. 8d. and 1s. were - imposed on "every pound, as well in coin, ... as also plate, - stock of merchandises, all manner of corn and blades, household - stuff, and of all other goods moveable," and two subsidies of - 2s. 8d. and 1s. 4d. on the "yearly profits" of land. - -Lest such a view should seem unduly theoretical, let us hasten to add -that it is one which is endorsed by the authority of contemporaries. -When subsidies are being debated in the House of Commons members -complain that, while the wealthy are under-assessed, the small men pay -more than their share.[609] Political writers from Fortescue[610] to -Bacon[611] emphasise the fact that the ability of the country to bear -taxation depends on the maintenance of a high level of prosperity among -the yeomanry. The yeoman is a man who "makes a whole line in the subsidy -book."[612] "The weight thereof," says a pamphleteer in 1647, "falls -heavily ... especially upon the yeomanry."[613] The occasional glimpses -which we get of harassed collectors trying in vain to screw taxes out of -small farmers, whom a rise in rents or a bad season has plunged in -distress, show the truth of their accounts. In the reign of Edward VI. -subsidies cannot be collected on the northern border owing to the -oppression to which some of the tenants have been subjected.[614] From -Norfolk in 1628 comes a still more melancholy tale. "The ffarmors and -such as use Husbandrye and tilth," write the Commissioners of the -subsidy to the Government, "from whom in times past was accustomed to be -drawne the greatest part of ye money leviable by way of subsidye, -present unto us their pitiful estates, growen into decay through the -base price and noe vent in these later years for their corne ... that -some of them doo owe unto their landlordes two yeares rent, many of them -one years.... All which considered we much feare that the collectors -shall not gather in the monye soe speedily as they would or we -desire."[615] The truth is that so much of the wealth of the country had -been in the hands of the more prosperous among the small cultivators -that any decline in their position was likely to place the Governments -of our period in financial straits. They regard it with the -self-interested apprehension which modern statesmen feel lest capital -should be "driven abroad." Hence there was a strong fiscal motive for -protecting the rural classes. Rebels who pointed out that "A man can -have no more of a cat but the skin; that is the King can have no more of -us than we have, which in a manner he has already,"[616] or tenants who -urged the Crown to protect them on the ground that "they paie your -Majesty subsidies, fifteens, and loans,"[617] were using language which -the impecunious Government of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -could understand much better than appeals to humanitarian sentiment. The -military, financial, and political importance of the yeomanry was, in -fact, great enough to make them one of the classes with whom the defence -and order of the country were identified, and therefore sufficient to -make them an object of solicitude to statesmen who were concerned with -national interests. - - [609] _D'Ewes' Journal_, p. 633. "Sir Walter Raleigh said ... - 'Call you this par iugum when a poor man pays as much as a rich, - and peradventure his estate is no better than he is set at, or - little better; when our estates, that be thirty or forty pounds - in the queen's books, are not the hundredth part of our - wealth?'" - - [610] Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, chap. xii.: - "The reaume off Ffraunce givith never ffrely off thair owne good - will any subsidie to thair prince, because the commons thereoff - be so pouere.... But owre commons be riche, and therefore thai - give to thair kynge as somme tymes quinsimes and dessimes, and - ofte tymes other grete subsidies." - - [611] Bacon, _History of King Henry VII._ (Pitt Press Series), - pp. 70-71: "The more gentlemen, ever the lower book of - subsidies." - - [612] Fuller, _The Holy and Profane State_. - - [613] _The Standard of Equality in Subsidiary Taxes and - Payments_, London, 1647. - - [614] _S. P. D. Ed. VI._, Addenda IV., p. 26: "Subsidies and - duties must be levied on that border for your service, and they - are loosed by oppression of your officers." - - [615] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907, pp. 139-140. - - [616] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xi. 1244. See the - remarks about Cromwell: "Item, the false flatterer says he will - make the king the richest prince in Christendom.... I think he - goes about to make him the poorest." - - [617] See Appendix I., iv. - -Economic policies are not to be explained in terms of economics alone. -When an old and strong society is challenged by a new phenomenon, its -response is torn from a living body of assumptions as to the right -conduct of human affairs, which feels that more than material interests -are menaced, and which braces itself anxiously against the shock. The -swift agrarian changes of the sixteenth century differ from the swifter -changes of the eighteenth, in that enlightened opinion is, on the whole, -against them, and that even the technical experts feel misgivings. If -the attitude of statesmen is to be explained by the practical reasons -which have already been given, the opposition of men like More, Latimer, -Crowley, Starkey, and Hales seemed to themselves a plain matter of -morals. In Germany Luther denounced the revolting peasants. In England -those who in ecclesiastical matters were poles apart united in a plea -for economic conservatism. Leading reformers preach and write against -enclosing; and terrified landlords complain that "none ever spake so -vilely as these so-called commonwealths."[618] Their understanding of -the technique of the agrarian changes is often deficient. Like the -Carlyles and Ruskins of a later age, they make Philistia merry with -their sad blunders over economic details. But it would be a mistake to -regard their views of the social effects of enclosing as abnormal or -sentimental. They are the last great literary expression of the appeal -to the average conscience which had been made by the old agrarian order, -the cry of a spirit which is departing, and which, in its agony, utters -words that are a shining light for all periods of change. - - [618] Letter to Mr. Cecill from Sir Anthony Auchar, quoted by - Russell, _Ket's Rebellion, in Norfolk_, p. 202. - -Several paths of argument lead to their position. There is the -traditional importance of tillage. It is a "foundation industry," an -industry from which four-fifths of the people directly or indirectly get -their living. English Governments have always shown it special favour. -Its maintenance is almost part of the common law[619] of the land. And -it is right that it should be so. For the partition which separates men -from starvation is thin, and if tillage fails how shall the people be -fed? The Government insists on a certain minimum area being under the -plough for exactly the same reason that the city of Coventry, when it is -in the grip of a bad harvest, decides to break up part of its common -pastures for wheat. All men are agreed that the price of food ought to -be fixed by authority, and one cannot control prices unless one can -control supplies. There is the argument from social functions. The State -is a community of classes. Between classes there must be inequality, for -each has a different function, fighting, or merchandise, or handicraft, -or husbandry. Unless there is inequality between classes no class can -perform its duties or (strange thought) enjoy its rights. But one class -must not encroach upon the livelihood of another. If we will not have -villein blood on the Council, neither will we let gentlemen take into -their hands the holdings of their tenants. For this means that one limb -of the body politic drains nourishment from another limb, and that men -drop into a superfluous residuum from which the State gets no profit. -And within a class there should be substantial equality. When one man -has the livelihoods of two must not another man go without any living at -all? There is the argument from economic morality. In every bargain -there is the possibility of oppression. The unscrupulous man makes the -most of this. He regards only his own profit. He is "a great taker of -advantages."[620] This is the sin of the usurer, the bodger, and the -tyrannous landlord, and of this bad trinity the last is the worst. To -oppress men by rack-renting land is particularly detestable. For though -in all contracts there is certainly (if only it can be found!) an -objective standard of value, yet a man may with reason be in doubt as to -what is fair price to charge for an article the value of which has not -been fixed by authority. But he can hardly be in doubt as to what is a -fair rent. The fair rent is the usual rent; equity is custom. There is -the argument from the very nature of the bond between tenant and -landlord. Tenure is no longer as sacred a thing as once it was, and, -even if it were, men who are legally the descendants of right-less -villeins could not easily appeal to its sanctity. But opinion feels that -there is something despicably sordid in using this particular relation -as a financial engine. Though surveyors' economics are as notorious as -lawyers' justice,[621] even one of that detested class can preface his -business-like account of western manors with words idealising the -conditions which have "knit such a knot of colaterall amytie between -the Lords and the tenants that the lord tendered his tenants as his -childe, and the tenants again loved the lord as naturally as the childe -his father."[622] The bond between landlord and tenant is perhaps, -indeed, the only economic relationship which has ever yet stirred the -affection of large masses of men. It has done so because it has been in -the past so much more than economic. The pitiful cry of that nameless -old man to whose care Shakespeare commits the blinded Gloucester, "O my -good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these -fourscore years," is the voice of an attachment which once was real. In -the sixteenth century the tie of tenure is still the symbol of greater -things, and the wrench which is given it by the partial commercialising -of agriculture seems to portend more ruinous innovations. Most men make -the State in the image of their own village, or city, or business. It is -perhaps not an unfair description of one side of the social philosophy -of our period to say that a manor is still a "little commonwealth,"[623] -the kingdom still the greatest of manors. If the lord holds from the -King, does not the tenant hold from his lord by as good a right? If the -tenant who encroaches on his neighbour's strips is checked by the -manorial court, should not the lord who depopulates half a village be -checked by the King in his High Court of Parliament? If gentlemen -oppress yeomen, how can they "live together as they be joined in one -body politic under the King?"[624] - - [619] Miss Leonard (_Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series vol. - xix.) quotes Coke, _Institutes_, Book III., p. 105 (1644 ed.), - and _S. P. D. Chas. I._, clxxxvii., No. 95: "The decay of - tillage and houses of husbandry are the undoubted causes and - grounds of depopulation, and a crime against the Common Laws of - this Realm, and every continuance thereof is a new crime." But - the words "against the Common Laws" are hardly to be interpreted - strictly. - - [620] _S. P. D. Eliz._, vol. cclxxxvi., Nos. 19 and 20: "He is a - great taker of advantages. He granted a lease to his brother, - who dying a year past, he sued his brother's wife to overthrow - the lease to the undoing of her and her children." For a strong - expression of these views see _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis - of Salisbury, Part II., 1575, Nov. 20. Lord North to the Bishop - of Ely: "My lord, it wilbe no pleasure for you to have hir - Majestye and the Councell knowe howe wretchedly yowe live within - and without your house, howe extremely covetous, how great a - grazier, how marvellous a dayrye man, howe ritche a farmer, how - grete an owner. It will not lyke yowe that the world knowe of - your decayed houses, ... of the leases you pull violently from - many, of the copyeholdes that yowe lawlesslye enter into, of the - fre land that yowe wrongfully posese.... Yowe suffer no man to - live longer under yowe than yowe lyke him." - - [621] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, p. 1: "Farmer, I have - heard much evill of the profession, and to tell you my conceit - plainly I think the same both evill and unprofitable ... and - oftentime you are the cause that men lose their land and - sometimes they are abridged of such liberties as they have long - used in mannors." - - [622] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - - [623] Norden, _op. cit._: "And is not every mannor a little - commonwealth, whereof the tenants are the members, the land the - body, and the lord the head?" - - [624] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 98, - Instructions to the Duke of Norfolk. - -It is true that it is just these ideas which in our period are on their -trial, and that if one were to seek the watershed where the mediæval -theory of land tenure, as something contingent on the fulfilment of -obligations, parts company from modern conceptions of ownership, as -conferring an unlimited right to unconditional disposal by the owner, -one would find it in the century and a half between 1500 and the final -abolition of feudal tenures in 1660. The combination of forces both -economic and political making for a change of attitude is -unmistakable; on the one hand the severance of the personal relationship -of tenure through the development of the great leasehold farm, the -breaking up of the customary routine of cultivation through the -increasing dependence of agriculture on the market, the general revision -of contracts brought about through the fall in the value of money; on -the other hand the enormous redistribution of landed property through -the confiscation of monastic and gild endowments, the consequent -creation of a new aristocracy ready to apply commercial ideas to land -tenure, the desire of proprietors to escape from the obnoxious feudal -incidents and of the Crown to find some more lucrative substitute for -them. But the decay of the older conceptions goes on very slowly. The -Government is on the whole on the conservative side; for naturally it -has to work on the material to hand, and the best hope of maintaining -order lies in the preservation of fixed customary relationships between -the different classes in society. Its instinct is therefore still to -treat the control and disposition of land as to a special degree a -question of public policy, in regard to which landlords are bound -"rather to consider what is agreeable ... to the use of the state and -for the good of the commonwealth, than to seeke the utmost profit which -a landlord for his particular advantage may take among his -tenants."[625] - - [625] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xxvii. p. - 129. Letter from the Council to William Harman, Esq. - - -(b) _Legislation and Administration_ - -This was its instinct. But can we say more than this? Can we say that -the presumption in favour of protecting the small landholder was -translated into any definite policy, and that such a policy was carried -out in practice? The answer to these questions is by no means easily -given. There is the difficulty of making any generalisation which will -cover the century and a half during which, from time to time, the -agrarian problem claimed public attention. True, this difficulty is not -so serious as might at first sight appear, or as it would be in an age -of swiftly changing ideas. The political historian may treat the Tudors -as one period and the first two Stuarts as another. But the economist -finds much the same views on economic matters obtaining under Charles I. -as under Henry VIII., and much the same administrative system to carry -them out. There is in our period no marked change in responsible opinion -upon the enclosing movement. The Commission which deals with the subject -in 1607 shows the same attitude as the Commission of 1517. Enclosers are -fined in 1637 as they have been fined in the reign of James I. But the -opinion which counts is not always responsible opinion. During the six -years which intervene between the death of Henry VIII. and the accession -of Philip and Mary the Government is in the hands of the great -landlords,--landlords who have built up their fortunes out of the spoils -of the monasteries, and whom no authority is strong enough to check. By -a curious chance the first head of the Government is a man who is an -agrarian reformer by conviction. But, when he falls, his colleagues -throw over his policy, and turn savagely to the work of crushing out the -very possibility of organised protest among the peasantry. These years, -the so-called reign of Edward VI., will be an exception to whatever -conclusions may be reached as to the policy of the State under the -Tudors and the first two Stuarts. Again, there is the difficulty, the -great difficulty, of saying how far the interference of Governments is -successful even when they honestly desire it to have effect. The modern -assumption, which is sometimes all too sanguine, is that a Law is being -carried out unless it is proved that it is not. For the sixteenth -century there are those who would say that we must assume that a Law is -not being administered unless it is proved that it is, and, though -scepticism is sometimes pushed to absurd lengths, one certainly cannot -build much on the letter of Acts of Parliament. But how exacting are our -tests of effective administration to be? All will agree that in our -period the mere enacting of a Statute causes and cures very little, -unless special efforts are applied to making it work. But is a -peremptory order from the Council to the Justices of the Peace, or to -the Council of the North, to redress this or that grievance among -tenants, a proof that the grievance will be redressed? Or must we be -content with nothing less than a record of cases actually handled? If -we decline to believe in the efficacy of any economic legislation about -which we have not a full list of decisions, we shall have little left to -rely on. The famous Statute of Artificers will look shaky, and so will -the legislation with regard to prices and quality. Perhaps a reasonable -view would be to look askance at mere Acts of Parliament, but to accept -action, or orders to take action, on the part of the executive -authorities, as a proof that the law is being applied in practice. - -Of the Statutes prohibiting the conversion of arable to pasture we need -not, then, say much. The long series of Acts[626] which were passed -between 1489 and 1597 show little originality. They were at bottom -simply a series of great manorial customaries framed to apply to the -whole country, or to all parts of the country which were not expressly -excepted from their operation, an attempt to maintain the _status quo_ -obtaining at any time by laying down for the whole country a common rule -of cultivation of much the same kind as had been in the past maintained -by local customs. They did not prohibit enclosure as such, but they -proceeded on the assumption that a fixed proportion of the land, usually -the average of a certain number of years preceding the Act, ought to be -under the plough, and that the small cultivator's farm accommodation -should be maintained or renewed at the expense of the landlord. They -differed only in the methods used to achieve this end. The Statutes -before 1550 usually insisted merely on the reconversion of pasture land -to tillage,[627] the re-edification of decayed houses of husbandry,[628] -and the limitation to 2000 of the sheep to be kept by any one -farmer.[629] They relied on most unpromising machinery. Like the ancient -Statute of Mortmain, they tried to make the feudal contract the means -for enforcing the law, by empowering superior lords to take half the -profits of mesne lords and tenants who infringed it. The Statutes after -1550 were somewhat bolder in their experiments. The most important -departure was the provision, first introduced into the Statutes of -1552[630] and 1555,[631] for the creation of permanent bodies of -Commissioners to do the work which, when most landlords were anxious to -enclose, no landlord would undertake. Under the Statute of 1555, -subsequently declared "too mild and gentle," but on the face of it a -drastic measure, the Commissioners were empowered both to bind over -offenders to rebuild decayed houses, to plough up pasture land, and to -fix the judicial rents which had been demanded by the peasantry and -suggested by certain reformers. It was repealed (together with the -Statutes of 1536 and 1552) in 1563, the Act[632] of that year confirming -the earlier Acts passed in the reign of Henry VIII., and requiring all -land which had been under the plough for four successive years since -1529 to be kept in tillage, on pain of a fine of 10s. per acre for all -land converted to pasture contrary to the Act. In 1589[633] a Statute -was passed for the protection of cottagers, prohibiting the letting of -cottages to agricultural labourers with less than four acres of land -attached. In 1593[634] it was thought that sufficient land was in -tillage to make the maintenance of legislation on the subject -unnecessary, and the clause in the Act of 1563, which forbade conversion -to pasture, was repealed. But the result seems to have been a -recrudescence of the movement for converting arable land to pasture, -with the result that in 1597[635] two more Acts were passed, both of -which adopted the expedient of setting up a special authority, apart -from the ordinary machinery of local government, to enforce the Act, by -empowering the Lord Chancellor to nominate bodies of Commissioners. The -first enacted that all houses of husbandry decayed within seven years -preceding the Act, and half of those decayed within seven years before -that, were to be rebuilt and let, the former with not less than 40 -acres, and the latter with not less than 20 acres, of land. It also took -the significant step of expressly sanctioning the consolidation of -intermixed holdings by way of exchange between lord and tenants, or -between one tenant and another. The second applied only to twenty-five -counties, where, presumably, enclosing had proceeded furthest or was -most disastrous in its effects. It enacted that all land converted from -tillage to pasture since 1558 should be reconverted within three years, -if it had been under the plough for twelve years immediately preceding -conversion, and that land which had been in tillage for twelve years -preceding the Act should remain in tillage, the penalty for disobedience -being a fine of 20s. per acre. These two Acts escaped the general repeal -of the laws against depopulation which took place in 1624, and remained -on the Statute Book till the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863. - - [626] A useful list of these Acts, with a summary of their - provisions, is given by Slater, _The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of Common Fields_, Appendix D. - - [627] 4 Henry VII., c. 19. All occupiers of twenty acres and - more which have been in tillage during three years preceding the - Act to maintain tillage. - - [628] 6 Henry VIII., c. 5, and 7 Henry VIII., c. 1. In parishes - "whereof the more part was or were used and occupied to tillage - and husbandry," any person who "shall decay a town, a hamlet, a - house of husbandry, or convert tillage into pasture," and has - not "within one yeere next after such wylfull decaye reedifyed - and made ageyn mete and convenyent for people to dwell and - inhabyte the same ... and therein to exercyse husbandry and - tillage," forfeits one half of his land to the lord of the - manor. Land converted to pasture must be tilled "after the maner - and usage of the countrey where the seyd land lyeth." - - [629] 25 Henry VIII., c. 13. - - [630] 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 5. - - [631] 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 2. - - [632] 5 Elizabeth, c. 2. - - [633] 31 Elizabeth, c. 7. - - [634] 35 Elizabeth, c. 7. - - [635] 39 Elizabeth, c. 1 and c. 2. - -The Statutes are evidence of a state of opinion. To judge how far that -opinion wrote itself on the world of affairs we must look elsewhere. Nor -are they in themselves very interesting. The genius of sixteenth century -statesmanship lay in administration not in legislation. It dwelt not in -Parliament but in the Council, and in those administrative courts, the -Court of Star Chamber, the Court of Requests, the Council of the North, -the Council of Wales, which were the Privy Council's organs. In studying -economic questions in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, one -is met at every turn by the apparatus of special administrative -jurisdictions, which was built up by the Tudors, and which fell to -pieces with the final rupture between the Crown and Parliament. On the -one hand, they supply the control and stimulus in matters of detailed -administration, without which all legislation designed to regulate -shifting economic relationships, or running counter to the prejudices of -a powerful class, is doomed to be ineffective. Are the Justices of the -Peace lax in carrying out the Statutes for the relief of the poor and -punishment of vagrants? The Council will remonstrate. Have they omitted -to assess wages and fix prices? The Council will let them know that -their neglect has been noted at headquarters and that it must be -corrected. Are capitalists in the clothing counties dismissing workmen -in times of trade depression? The Council will direct the justices to -read them a lesson on the duty of employers to their operatives and to -the State, and threaten them with a summons to Whitehall unless they -mend their ways. A stream of correspondence pours into London from the -Government's agents in the counties--returns as to the supplies of wheat -available for consumption, applications for permission to license the -export of food-stuffs, statistics as to prices, information as to -unemployment, information as to vagrancy based on a "day-count" of -vagabonds. The Council digests it, and sends out its mandates to -continue this and alter that, to raise wages or reduce prices, to -inspect granaries, punish middlemen, whip sturdy rogues, relieve the -poor. Bad means of communication, scanty and inaccurate intelligence, -incompetent local officials, prevent administration from running -smoothly; and as the Civil War approaches incompetence becomes -recalcitrance. Nevertheless the engine is a powerful one, and up to a -year or two before the meeting of the Long Parliament its throb is felt -throughout the country. - -Such a system of centralised supervision, which can meet emergencies -with promptitude, and can adjust regulations to the varying needs of -different years and different localities, is a necessity in any society -where economic relationships are made the object of authoritative -control. Under the Tudors and first two Stuarts the Council does much -that is done to-day by several State departments--the Board of -Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Education, the Local Government -Board, the Home Office, as well as much that is left to Private Bill -legislation. But the Council is, of course, much more than an executive -organ. It is also a court of law. It does not only make rules, it -punishes people for breaking them. Sometimes it exercises jurisdiction -itself. More often, at any rate in the cases arising out of the economic -questions with which we are chiefly concerned, it issues an order, and -leaves the punishment of breaches of it to the Court of Star Chamber and -the Court of Requests. Into the controversy as to the constitutional -position of these courts we need not enter; we need only point out their -extreme importance as buttresses of the Government's control over -economic affairs. Both in personnel and procedure they were admirably -qualified to be the instruments of a thorough system of State -intervention in matters of industry and agriculture. Both of them were -committees of the Council, and in both the governmental predominated -over the judicial element, the two judges who attended the Court of Star -Chamber, and the Masters of Requests who sat in the Court of Requests, -being in the position rather of legal advisers or assessors than of -judicial authorities. In theory the former court dealt with criminal, -the latter with civil cases. But in an age when the majority of the -populace were armed, a dispute was extremely likely to terminate in a -riot, and in practice there were subjects on which complaints came -before either court indifferently. They dispensed with a jury. They took -account of equitable considerations which had no place in the common law -courts. They were guided by reasons of State, not by the letter of the -law, and would punish behaviour as contrary to public policy. For the -execution of their rulings they used not only the ordinary officers of -the law, the Justices of the Peace, but also special bodies of -Commissioners. - -Whatever may have been the abuses of this system of administrative -jurisdictions, one can easily understand that it was well fitted to deal -with the agrarian problem. It is seen at its worst in ecclesiastical -matters. It is seen at its best in protecting the poorer classes against -economic tyranny; and we shall fail to understand the popularity of the -Tudor Governments unless we lay as much emphasis on the good side as on -the bad. The Court of Requests in particular is a popular court, a court -which punishes the rich, a court which brings, in the words of the -aristocratic chronicler, "many an honest man to trouble and vexacion," a -court to which the poor "compleyned without number."[636] The notorious -difficulty of getting a verdict from a jury of tenants who are liable -to eviction means that a landlord can break the law with impunity. Here -are courts before which the intimidator can be intimidated; courts which -will handle him "on that sort, that what courage soever he hath, his -heart will fall to the grounde."[637] The enormous importance of -manorial custom in determining the fate of all classes of peasants, -except the freeholders, makes it certain that grave injustice will be -done to vested interests by any court which confines itself to the -strict letter of the law. The Council will direct that "such order be -taken in the matter as in justyce and equitie shall appertayn."[638] The -mere fact that its ruling is not simply the verdict of a court but the -command of the Government, increases the probability that it will -receive due attention from those whose duty it is to enforce it. The -landlord who has enclosed may be the very man who hears the peasant's -complaint. The Council will interfere to insist on the local authorities -taking "a more indifferent course."[639] - - [636] Hall's _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, p. 585 (Edition 1809), - quoted by Leadam, introduction to _Select Cases in the Court of - Requests_ (Selden Society). - - [637] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. III., chap. iv. - - [638] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp. - 91-92. - - [639] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xxx. pp. - 36-37. A letter to the Council in the Marches of Wales, - concerning the tenants of Aston in Montgomeryshire: "And if it - be true, as they do inform us by their petitions, that - examinations in a case concerning one of that Counsell should be - taken by a kinsman of his owne and a clerk underneathe him, wee - wyshe ... that you would have taken a more indifferent course, - especially in a matter of commons, which, concerning many - persons, doth easily give occasion of offence and scandal." - -The activity of the Government in matters of land was not so incessant -as it was in the regulation of prices and the administration of the Poor -Laws; for its land policy was strongly opposed to the interests of the -country gentry who were its officials, and it had to proceed with -caution. If we except the first great Commission appointed by Wolsey in -1517, the periods in which it was especially energetic in dealing with -the land question were three, the years between 1536 and 1549, the years -from 1607 to 1618, the years from 1630 to 1636; and on each of these -three occasions there was some temporary cause to explain its peculiar -zeal--on the two first the revolts of the peasantry, and on the last the -rise in the price of grain, which suggested that an unduly small -proportion of the land was under tillage. Nevertheless it handles -individual cases with considerable frequency throughout the whole -period from 1517 to 1640. Usually it acts as a final court of appeal, -which intervenes only when other means of redress have broken down, and -it is sometimes at pains to explain to offended landlords that it does -not intend to debar them from asserting their rights at Common Law, if -they can. Its aim is to stop very gross cases of oppression, to prevent -the peasants being made the victims of legal chicanery and intimidation, -to induce landlords to take a larger view of their responsibilities, to -settle disputes by the use of common sense and moral pressure. It steps -in when the tenants are poor men who are being ruined by vexatious -lawsuits, or when enclosure is thought likely to produce disorder, or to -forbid a landlord to take action pending a decision by the courts. It -has to hear many cases touching copyholders and many touching commons; -for no one is quite certain as to the legal rights of copyholders, and -in the matter of commons there is a fearful gulf between law and equity. -Occasionally in the reign of Henry VIII., and even in that of Elizabeth, -it deals with cases of villeinage. But these, though more numerous than -might have been supposed, are nevertheless rare, for the principal -economic evils of the period consist not in the revival of old claims, -but in the new competitive conditions of agriculture. The treatment of -the latter is by no means a simple matter--even the strong Governments -of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth will not lightly thrust forceful fingers -into the mysterious custom-bound recesses of the manor--and when we have -said that on the whole the bias of the Tudor and early Stuart statesmen -is against revolutionary changes that damage the peasants, we can say -little more without citing individual cases of interference. - -Let us look shortly at the more striking among them. The famous -Commission upon enclosure appointed by Wolsey in 1517 set a precedent to -be followed in several subsequent inquiries, and has left us an -invaluable body of information as to the nature and extent of the -enclosing movement. It was, however, by no means the first example of -the Government intervening in the agrarian problem, and the partial -reconversion of pasture to arable, which seems to have resulted from -its labours, still left an urgent need for a continuous supervision of -the relations between landlord and tenant by some tribunal sufficiently -independent to do justice to the weaker party. In 1494 the earliest -proceedings in the interminable case[640] of John Mulsho v. the -inhabitants of Thingden ended in the Court of Star Chamber (the same -court was dealing with the same matter in 1538) with a decree in favour -of the tenants. In 1510 the same body was dealing with a quarrel between -the Abbot and the copyholders of Peterborough,[641] and in 1516 with a -complaint from the inhabitants of Draycote[642] and Stoke Gifford that -the lord of the manor had evicted copyholders, stopped up rights of way, -and enclosed common land. The policy of Wolsey is sufficiently indicated -by the active campaign which he set on foot against depopulation, and -requires no further illustration. But it is interesting to observe that -his attitude towards the agrarian question was not a mere personal -idiosyncrasy, and that it was the same in all essential particulars as -that of his successor. Thomas Cromwell must bear the blame for part of -the agrarian distress which prevailed during the closing years of Henry -VIII. and the reign of Edward VI.; for that distress was enhanced by the -wild land speculation which followed the secularisation of the monastic -estates. In that age, however, such indirect social reactions of their -policy were matters quite beneath the consideration of statesmen, and -the fact that the Government was responsible for changes which operated -most disastrously on the established order of rural society did not -prevent administrative interference to impede agrarian innovations from -going on to the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Indeed the King, -influenced no doubt by the fear that agrarian agitation might add fuel -to religious discontent, seems himself to have taken some interest in -the matter. In 1534 one finds Cromwell writing to congratulate him on -the passage through the House of Commons of a Bill providing that no man -shall keep more than 2000 sheep, and that one-eighth of every farmer's -land shall always remain in tillage, "The most profitable and most -benefycyall thing that ever was done to this the commonwealthe of your -realm;"[643] and in the following year there is a letter[644] from -Cromwell to Rich directing him to apprise the Duke of Suffolk of the -King's displeasure at the decay of certain towns which the Duke had -promised to repair. The agrarian grievances expressed in the Pilgrimage -of Grace were admitted, and in the instructions issued to the officers -who were appointed to restore order in the disaffected counties special -directions[645] were included to throw open enclosures, and to reduce -the excessive fines charged to tenants on admission to their holdings. -In the years immediately following the same policy was pursued in other -parts of the country. In 1538 the Earl of Derby[646] writes to Cromwell -protesting against the pressure put upon him to reinstate seven tenants -whom he has turned out. In 1540 a landlord[647] in the Isle of Wight is -compelled to restore to their holdings some recently evicted tenants. In -1541 several cases come before the Council. It appoints a Commission to -investigate the case of a Northamptonshire[648] landlord who has -prevented the tenants of Brigstock from feeding their pigs, calves, and -sheep, by cutting up part of a common wood "into several pastures for -his own private use and benefit." It meets a complaint from the -borderers[649] of the Forest of Dartmoor that the owner of the lands of -the monastery of Buckfast is breaking the statute which required the -lands of dissolved abbeys to be farmed in the traditional way, by -excluding them from the common, with a decision upholding the tenants' -case and with the appointment of Commissioners to carry out the award. -It sets a certain choleric Sir Nicholas Poyntz,[650] who has dared to -procure the imprisonment of a tenant for proceeding against him before -the Council, to cool his temper in the Fleet, and when he comes out -compels him to grant his victim a new farm in exchange for one which he -has surrendered, to reduce his rent from 20s. to 6s., and to pay him -forty marks as compensation for his "damages and travailles." In -1543[651] the tenants of Abbots Ripton lay a complaint in the Court of -Requests against Sir John St. John on the ground that, in addition to -other acts of oppression, he has entered forcibly on their holdings. Sir -John replies that they are not copyholders, but merely tenants at will, -who are unprotected by any immemorial custom, and after an examination -of the manor rolls the court holds that he is right. But the legal -insecurity of the tenants does not prevent them from getting protection. -The court requires their landlord to grant them leases for years at -reasonable rents, and orders that the property which he has distrained -shall be restored. - - [640] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star - Chamber_, edited by Leadam, and Leadam, E. H. R., vol. viii. pp. - 684-696. - - [641] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - - [642] _Ibid._ - - [643] Merriman, _Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell_, vol. i. - p. 273. - - [644] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 413. - - [645] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 98 and 595. - - [646] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xiii., I., 334 (see - also 66, where an appeal is made January 11, 1536, to Cromwell - to protect some tenants in Denbighshire.) - - [647] _Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council_, vol. - vii. p. 42: "The King's pleasure was signified to John Dawney, - Knight, that whereas he had turned certain persons in the Isle - of Wight out of their farms, whereof they pretended to have - leases, and had demised the same to others that minded not to - dwell upon the same, he should take order that the old tenants - might enjoy their leases until Michaelmas, come a twelve month, - and that in the mean season the King's Highness would see a - direction taken in the matter." - - [648] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 225-226. July 30 and August 1, - 1541. - - [649] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 123-125. January 25, 1541. - - [650] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. i. pp. 5 and - 9. - - [651] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - -With the Protectorate of Somerset we enter upon a period of more violent -agitation and more drastic expedients. There was a large difference -between using the jurisdiction of the Council to redress individual -cases of hardship and a deliberate attempt to effect a general -settlement of the land question upon lines which would do substantial -justice to the peasants. The former course involved no perilous -assertion of principles, and could be pursued under the guise of a -purely conservative policy, merely by referring disputes between -landlords and tenants to the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests, which, -though in fact administrative and governmental bodies, were none the -less protected to some extent against criticism by wearing the -appearance of mere legal tribunals. The latter might, perhaps, have been -attempted with some faint hope of success, if statesmen had been much -more careful than they were to discriminate between the different -aspects of the problem with which they were confronted. To us, who look -back on the situation from a distance of three and a half centuries, -it seems that the one guiding thread, which might have led some way -through the welter of confusion, was offered by the sharp distinction -drawn by Hales between those enclosures which were made by the exchange -and consolidation of strips, with a view to better husbandry, and those -which had as their effect the conversion of arable land to pasture, the -monopolising of commons, and the eviction of tenants. The arguments in -favour of the first type of enclosure were too cogent for any policy -which condemned enclosing in general to have the smallest prospect of -success. The only possibility of averting the ruin to the peasantry -which accompanied depopulation lay in encouraging them generally to -follow the example of their brothers in Kent, Essex, Devonshire, and -Cornwall, who had for centuries been substituting a more progressive -husbandry for the "mingle mangle" of the open fields, without the -disastrous consequences entailed by the spread of capitalist agriculture -in other parts of the South and Midlands. But such a frank encouragement -of certain kinds of enclosure for the sake of repressing others implied -an appreciation of the economics of the problem to which comparatively -few persons in our period had attained, and was quite beyond the grasp -of Governments, which, at their worst, as under Warwick, were quite -indifferent to the sufferings of the poorer classes, and, at their best, -conceived public interests to be served best by a strict maintenance of -customary conditions. Somerset's policy of deliberately restoring -ancient relationships with a strong hand could hardly even be begun -without those who pursued it taking sides in a bitter economic -agitation, and essaying openly to reverse the whole agrarian movement -with which, in the course of the past half century, the wealth of the -middle and upper classes, at any rate south of the Trent, had become -inextricably identified. It involved in fact a return to the policy of -Wolsey, and a return to it under conditions which made Wolsey's policy -doubly hard to carry out, inasmuch as, on the one hand, the position of -Somerset as temporary head of a jealous aristocracy was far weaker than -that of the omnipotent Cardinal, and, on the other hand, the lapse of -twenty years had seen the growth of a generation to which enclosures -were a vested interest. - -Yet it would be a mistake to think of the whole agrarian episode between -the death of Henry VIII. and the fall of Somerset as the mere freak of a -misguided doctrinaire. If we can see difficulties which he did not, if -we can smile at the thought of any Government at once so incompetent, -and but for Somerset himself, so entirely selfish, carrying out a great -conservative revolution in the teeth of the new wealth and power of the -country, we must also remember that he was not alone in thinking the -spoliation of the weaker rural classes not only, as it certainly was, -illegal, but also so patently unjust as to amount to a national crime, -and that in that age men overestimated the ability of a Government fiat -to modify economic habits almost as much as they underestimated it two -and a half centuries later. Somerset can hardly have been ignorant of -the tremendous risks involved in his policy. But he may well have -thought inaction not only baser than, but almost as dangerous as, -action. It was certain that, unless the Government interfered to protect -tenants, there would be a series of peasants' revolts. The best answer -to the charge of stirring up class hatred, which was made against -Somerset, as against all who call attention to its causes, was that -agrarian rioting had begun in Hertfordshire[652] before the Commission -on Enclosures was sent out, that in those counties where it took its -work seriously order was maintained till the end of 1548, and that grave -disturbances did not take place until the following year, when it became -evident that, both in Parliament and on the Council, the Protector's -policy had been beaten by the opposition of the great landowners. Nor is -there any reason to doubt the sincerity of Somerset himself (though he, -like every one else, had speculated in monastic estates), however much -there may be to regret that his policy did not come into stronger hands, -or fall upon times which were, from a political point of view, less -hopelessly impracticable. An attempt was made to set a good example on -the Crown Estates. In 1548, in response to complaints from the tenants -at Walton, Weybridge, Esher, and Shepperton, that the making of the -royal deer park at Hampton Court was ruining them through the loss of -common rights which it entailed, an order[653] was issued dechasing the -Park, and throwing open the enclosed lands to the commoners. In the -following year Somerset secured the passage through Parliament of a -Private Act[654] conferring a good title on those copyholders on his own -manors to whom demesne lands had been let, and who, as occupiers of -other than customary tenancies, could not claim the protection of -manorial custom. It is plain from the comparatively few complaints which -came in the sixteenth century from freeholders that, if such a course -had been generally pursued, the chief objection to the changes grouped -together under the name of enclosure would have been removed, because -the harsh disturbance of vested interests which they involved would have -been avoided. But that, of course, was quite outside the bounds of -political possibility. - - [652] Appendix to Miss Lamond's edition of _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_, Hale's defence, p. lviii.: "Whas ther - not, longe before this Commyssyon was sent forthe, an - insurrection in Hertfordshire for the comens at Northall and - Cheshunt?" - - [653] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. ii. pp. - 190-193, May 5, 1548: a complaint from "many poor men of the - Parishes of Walton, Weybridge, East Molson, West Molson, - Caverham, Esher, Byfiete, Temsditton ... in the name of the - whole parishes before rehearsed, that by reason of the making of - the late chase of Hampton Court, forsomyche as their commons, - pastures, and meadows be taken in, and that all the said - parishes are overlaid with the deer now increasing daily upon - them, very many households of the same parishes be let fall - down, the families decayed, and the king's liege people much - diminished, the country thereabout in manner made desolate." - - [654] See p. 294. - -The story of Somerset's attempt to deal with the land question is soon -told. In 1548 agrarian discontent was at its height. Some time in that -year there must have come to the hands of the Government the small tract -on the effect of sheep-farming in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, -Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, which was printed in 1551 under the name -of "Certayne causes of the Present Discontent."[655] In spring and -summer Latimer was thundering against the "Step-lords"[656] at Paul's -Cross. In autumn Crowley published his "Information and Petition -against the Oppressors of the Poor Commons."[657] Above all, the poor -commons had earlier in the year shown unmistakable signs of fending for -themselves. The result of Somerset's own sympathy with the prevalent -discontent was the formation of something like a party, under the name -of the "Commonwealth men," with Latimer as its prophet and Hales as its -man of action, which had a programme sufficiently definite to put heart -into the peasantry and to terrify the great landed proprietors. On June -1st a Royal Commission[658] was appointed to inquire into offences -committed against the Acts forbidding conversion of arable to pasture -and depopulation. The Commission divided itself into several committees -to deal with different parts of the country. Only one of them, however, -consisting of John Hales and five of his colleagues, got seriously to -work. It had a large area to cover--the counties of Oxfordshire, -Berkshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, -and Northamptonshire--and one which was the centre of the agitation -against enclosure. It seems to have interrupted its labours during -autumn and winter, but it was busy in June, July, and August 1548, and -again in the summer of 1549, by which time, however, the anger of the -landed gentry against its proceedings, and of the peasants against the -inactivity of the Commission as a whole, had reached a point which made -it hardly possible for it to do more than collect information. -Considering the difficulties of its task, and the wide tract of country -to be covered, its behaviour appears to have been thorough and -business-like. The usual procedure was to empanel a jury of twelve in -each place visited, to whom Hales delivered an address explaining the -objects and methods of the inquiry, as set out in the instructions -issued by the Government to the Commissioners. These stated the -Commission to have been formed in particular "for the maintenance and -keeping up of houses of husbandry, for avoiding destruction and pulling -down of houses for enclosures and converting of arable land into -pasture, for limiting what number of sheep men should have and keep in -their possession at one time, against plurality and keeping together of -farms, and for maintenance of housekeeping, hospitality, and tillage on -the sites ... of such monasteries, priories, and religious houses as -were dissolved."[659] Offenders were then presented by the jury, and -though, on Hales' advice, a pardon was granted them for their past -illegalities, their enclosures seem to have been thrown down, arable -which had been turned into pasture to have been ploughed up, and farms -which had been united to have been separated.[660] - - [655] Published by the E. E. T. S. - - [656] The first sermon preached before King Edward the Sixth, - March 8, 1549: "You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say you - step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for your possession - yearly too much. For that herebefore went for twenty or forty - pounds by year ... now is let for fifty or an hundred pound by - year." See also Latimer, _The Sermon of the Plough_, January 18, - 1548. - - [657] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [658] The proclamation appointing the Commission is printed by - Strype, _op. cit._, vol. ii., Book I., chap. ii. The operative - part of it runs: "And therefore, He ... hath appointed, - according to the said acts and proclamations, a view and inquiry - to be made of all such as contrary to the said acts and godly - ordinances have made enclosures and pasture of that which was - arable ground, or let any house, tenement, or mease decay or - fall down, or done anything contrary of the good and wholesome - articles contained in the said acts." In my account of the - situation under Somerset I have followed the documents printed - by Strype, and the appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to - _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_. - - [659] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [660] For the pardon, see appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction - to _The Commonweal_, &c., p. lxi.; for the ploughing up of a - park and division of farms, _ibid._, pp. xli. and lxi.-lxii.; - for the Bills introduced by Hales, _ibid._, xl., xlv.-lii., - lxii.-lxv. Strype's account appears to be based on that of - Hales. - -In the meantime Somerset kept the general policy of agrarian reform -alive on the Council. In the autumn of 1548 Hales had returned to -London, and, as member for Preston, had prepared three Bills, dealing -partly with enclosures and partly with the high prices. The first, -requiring re-edification of decayed houses and the maintenance of -tillage, and the second, forbidding speculation in food-stuffs, were -introduced into the House of Lords. The third, which aimed at -encouraging cattle breeding as distinct from sheep grazing, was read -first in the House of Commons. Neither Bill came to anything, for -Parliament was as angry as the Council with Somerset's policy. But in -May 1549 the Protector issued another proclamation against the decay of -houses and enclosure; in June he infuriated the upper classes by a -proclamation pardoning persons who had taken the law into their own -hands by pulling down hedges; and throughout the whole period of his -power he used the Court of Requests as an instrument for protecting -tenants against landlords.[661] The Secretary[662] to the Council, who -was quite ready for a reign of terror provided that the gentry began it, -prophesied gloomily that the German peasants' revolt was to be -re-enacted in England, and Warwick attacked Hales fiercely for venturing -to discharge the duties laid upon him by the Government, of which -Warwick was a member.[663] "Sir," wrote a plaintive Norfolk gentleman to -Cecil about the time of Ket's rebellion, "Be plain with my Lord's Grace, -that under the pretence of simplicity and poverty there may not rest -much mischief. So do I fear there doth in these men called Commonwealths -and their adherents. To declare unto you the state of the gentlemen (I -mean as well the greatest as the lowest) I assure you they are in such -doubt that almost they dare touch none of them, but for that some of -them have been sent up and come away without punishment, and that -Commonwealth called Latimer hath gotten the pardon of others.... I may -well gather some of them to be in jealousy of my Lord's friendship, yea -and to be plain, think my Lord's grace rather to will the decay of the -gentlemen than otherwise."[664] Poor gentlemen! A Government which holds -that laws do not exist only to preserve the rich in their possessions! -Truly the mountains are removed. - - [661] For these facts, see Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [662] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. Sir William Paget to - the Lord Protector, July 7, 1549: "The king's subjects are out - of all discipline, out of all obedience, caring neither for - Protector nor King. And what is the cause? Your own lenity ... - the foot taketh upon him the part of the head, and commons is - become king, a king appointing conditions and laws to the - governors, saying, 'Grant this and that and we will go home.' - ... What then is the matter, troweth your grace?... By my - faith, Sir, even that which I said to your grace.... Liberty, - Liberty.... In Germany, when the very like tumult to this began - first, it might have been appeased with the loss of 20 men, and - after with the loss of 100 or 200. But it was thought nothing - and might easily be appeased, and also some spiced consciences - taking pity of the poor ... thought it a sore matter to lose so - many of their country folk, saying they were simple folk.... It - cost, ere it was appeased, they say, 1000 or 2000 men." - - [663] Appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The - Commonweal_, &c., pp. xli. and lii. But of course there was no - such thing as collective responsibility for policy in the - sixteenth century. - - [664] Russel, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 202. - -Somerset's Government had too short a life for us to judge how far, in -happier political circumstances, he might have succeeded, not in -checking agrarian changes, which would in any case have been impossible, -but in securing that reasonable consideration should be given to the -vested interests of the poorer classes. As Elizabethan statesmen -discovered[665] at the end of the century, there was room for a policy -which would prevent the wholesale displacement of tenants, and -nevertheless offer an encouragement to the formation of the compact -holdings out of the scattered strips and common pastures, which the -agricultural experts were unanimous in condemning. There are faint -indications of an understanding that a fair middle course was possible -in a remarkable case which comes from the little Huntingdonshire town of -Godmanchester.[666] At Godmanchester there had been the usual changes of -the preceding half century. Rents had been raised, cottages pulled down, -woods destroyed and turned to pasture, while the meadows, which under -the Act of 1547 had been confiscated from the local gild, offered a -tempting prey to some enterprising speculator. On complaints coming -before the Council in the summer of 1549 a comprehensive scheme of -reorganisation was drawn up. All persons with more than one house were -to let at the customary rent that which they did not use themselves. All -persons who had pulled down houses or converted them to other purposes -than the accommodation of tenants were either to rebuild them or to -build new ones, and to let them to any one offering the customary rent -before Michaelmas 1549. The groves of wood converted to pasture were to -be enclosed, so as to prevent the depredations made upon them by -straying beasts, and, if necessary, the land was to be sown with acorns. -With the gild lands a course was taken which, in the scramble for land -which was going on in the middle of the sixteenth century, was -unfortunately highly unusual. According to the Council's directions they -were to "be divided among the inhabitants thereof in this manner; that -is to say to every ploughland five acres, and to every cottager and -artificer there dwelling, or which hereafter upon the houses to be now -builded shall dwell, one acre, and, if the number do not extend, then -for every ploughland four, and so for lack of the rate every ploughland -three, and the residue of the said acres falling after that rate to be -divided among the cottagers, paying for every of the said acres 3/4." -This case is the high water mark of administrative interference on -behalf of the tenants. The action taken embraces nearly all the -expedients of re-edifying decayed cottages, fixing fair rents, -preventing common land from passing into the control of a single -individual, and making equal allotment among the inhabitants, which had -been demanded by the peasants and suggested by their friends. It shows -that the enclosing of land hitherto used in common was not resented, -provided that the division was made in such a way as to give a fair -share to all the parties interested. It may perhaps be taken as a -specimen of the kind of policy which lay behind Somerset's expressions -of sympathy with the peasantry, and which he would have pursued if his -colleagues on the Council had permitted. As it was, he was not strong -enough to carry out his programme. While the failure of the Commission -resulted in the revolts of 1549, his reluctance to crush their authors, -whom he believed to be men goaded into rebellion by intolerable -grievances, united the whole weight of the greater property against him -as a traitor to his order. In the attack made upon him as by his -colleagues, the actions which evoked their special denunciation were -those which embodied his agrarian policy, the use of the Court of -Requests to protect tenants, the appointment of the Royal Commission to -enforce the Acts against enclosures, the pardon granted in June 1549 to -the riotous peasants, and the statements attributed to him that "the -covetousness of the gentlemen gave cause to the common people to rise," -and that "people had good cause to reform the things themselves," -because "the lords of Parliament were loathe to incline themselves to -reformation of enclosures and other things."[667] To the last a popular -hero, the "good Duke" could expect no help from those whom he had -befriended, and no mercy from the sordid counter-revolution which he had -provoked. His epitaph was given by the sad cries of "Too true," with -which the crowd about the scaffold greeted his dying declaration that he -had "ever been glad of the furtherance ... of the commonwealth."[668] - - [665] See p. 355. - - [666] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. ii. pp. - 294-296. - - [667] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [668] Somerset's execution took place on January 22, 1552, - more than two years after he had been deposed from the - Protectorate, for supposed complicity in a plot to overthrow the - Government. The evidence for the existence of a conspiracy - appears to be feeble. See Pollard, _The Political History of - England_, 1547-1603, pp. 61-65. - -With the fall of Somerset in October 1549 the landowning classes had -their revenge, and, under the guidance of Warwick, the policy of the -Government swung violently in the opposite direction. The intervention -of the Council to protect tenants of course stopped at once; in the two -cases which are reported as having come before it in the year 1550 and -1551 the line taken was that the presumption was against the tenants who -had broken open enclosures.[669] While, in the absence of John Hales, -who appears to have found it convenient to leave the country, the -Reports of the Royal Commission were allowed to slumber, the Government, -by way of reducing opportunities for undesirable meetings, instructed -the Bishop of London to prevent unseasonable preaching in his diocese, -and set itself to establish the new agrarian régime by law. The ways in -which men seek liberty are infinite in number, but the methods of -tyranny are everywhere the same; and the nearest parallel to the -behaviour of Somerset's successors is the attitude of the panic-stricken -aristocracy of the early nineteenth century towards trade unions. Under -an Act of 1550 all meetings of the peasantry were treated as a sort of -"illegal conspiracy." Any forty of them who assembled to break down an -enclosure might be condemned as traitors. Any twelve who assembled for -the same purpose were guilty of felony, as also were those who summoned -such a meeting, or who combined to reduce rents or the price of corn. -Even the rusty legislation of the thirteenth century was revived by the -re-enactment of the Statute of Merton of 1235,[670] which permitted -lords to enclose as much as they pleased, provided that "sufficient" -remained over for the tenants, with the significant improvement that the -latter qualification was swept away by a clause declaring that -enclosures might be made "notwithstanding their gainsaying and -contradiction." The tyranny of the oligarchy which ruled from 1549 to -1553 has been obscured by the more dramatic events which preceded and -succeeded it. But it marks the bottom point in the condition of the -sixteenth century peasantry. It indicates how the new agrarian régime -will develop when the political forces impeding it are removed. More had -asked, What is Government? and had answered that it is "a certein -conspiracy of riche men procuringe theire owne commodities under the -name and title of a Common Wealth." His immortal definition does less -than justice to the cynicism of the generation which succeeded his own. -Mary executed Protestants for reasons of religion, as Elizabeth executed -Catholics for reasons of State. But Warwick, a hypocrite in religion, -was at least guiltless of the hypocrisy of sheltering his land policy -"under the name and title of the Common Wealth." It was exactly what it -seemed to be, a straightforward attempt to prevent the poor from -protesting when their possessions were taken from them by the rich. - - [669] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. iii. pp. - 181-182 and 247 and 252. "Mr. Grenewaie was this day before the - Counsaill and rebuked sore for his attemptate in causeng Raf - Lees hedges to be broaken up; nevertheless considering his long - service [as gentleman usher] he was borne withall, and for this - tyme without further punishment he was commaunded to make up - those hedges again." - - [670] 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 3. - -The general policy of the Government during the reign of Elizabeth and -the first half of the seventeenth century shows neither the desire of -Somerset to undo the agrarian revelation, nor the complete indifference -to the interests of the poorer classes of the party which succeeded him. -During the reign of Elizabeth there was little agrarian agitation. It is -possible that the limits of profitable pasture-farming had been reached. -It is possible that the policy of encouraging the export of corn, which -had been suggested by Hales, and which was adopted in 1563 and extended -in 1571, reacted favourably on arable farming. It is possible, again, -that Warwick's measures had had their effect, and that the peasantry had -been cowed into silence. Though, on the whole, the Government maintained -the traditional attitude, it did not interfere except in circumstances -of special hardship, or when there was danger of serious disturbance. -Cases of this nature came before it fairly frequently in the reigns of -Elizabeth, Charles, and James. One finds it intervening on the ground -that the poverty of tenants makes it impossible for them to go to law, -or that the offenders concerned are so powerful as to be able to -disregard inferior authorities, or that the local authorities themselves -have been unfairly biassed, or to prevent disturbances by hearing -tenants' grievances, or to compel a great noble, like the Earl of -Shrewsbury, to reinstate tenants whom it thinks to have been wrongfully -evicted, or to stop action being taken by a landlord pending a decision -by the courts in his favour. In 1579 the Council writes to the Lord -President of Wales ordering him to take proceedings against two persons -who have been enclosing part of the Forest of Fakenham, and have -disturbed the copyholders; he is to prevent any further enclosures being -made until the whole matter has been considered by the Government.[671] -In 1581 it interferes to protect a copyholder who has been kept out of -his holding by the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough.[672] In 1586 it -directs the Cambridgeshire justices to inquire into the complaint of -some tenants who claim that a piece of common pasture has been let over -their heads, and to see that both parties to the dispute come before the -Justices of Assize.[673] The Justices of Assize in Norfolk are to take -action in the matter of a common at Kettlestone which two of the tenants -allege to have been overstocked with sheep.[674] Several letters are -addressed to the Council of the Marches of Wales ordering them to -prevent the eviction of copyholders.[675] A landlord is requested to -attend the Council and prove that his tenants' fines are uncertain, and -not, as they allege, fixed.[676] The Court of Chancery has dismissed a -case arising out of the enclosure of commons at Bath, and the Council -orders a retrial.[677] Occasionally it cites offenders into the Court of -Star Chamber,[678] and in 1592, just when the Court of Requests was -beginning to be attacked by the common lawyers, we find a case as to -fold-courses coming before the Court of Requests.[679] More often it -appoints special Commissioners to act as arbitrators, or refers -petitioners to the Justices of Assize in their county, with a request to -take local evidence and inform the Council what they advise. Throughout -the reigns of James and Charles we get glimpses of administrative -activity which show that the traditional policy was, perhaps fitfully, -maintained. In 1603 the Council of the North[680] were instructed to -make "from time to time diligent and effectual inquisition of the -wrongful taking in of commons and other grounds, and the decay of -tillage and of towns or houses of husbandry," and to correct offenders -with "some notable punishment." The rebellion in the Midlands in 1607 -produced special measures, the chief offenders being summoned before the -Council and bound over to rebuild houses which had fallen into decay, -while in the following years two Commissions were appointed to compound -with enclosers.[681] In Yorkshire the justices are evidently fairly -active in 1607 and 1608. A Richmond freeholder who owns two-thirds of -the manor is presented "for decaying five husbandries, and also for -converting 30 acres of tillage ground to meadow and pasture," and -similar presentments are made at Malton, Thirsk, and Helmsley.[682] A -Justice of Assize writes about the same time from the western counties -to the effect that twenty-six houses of husbandry have been rebuilt and -the offenders punished.[683] In 1614 the justices of Norfolk inform the -Council that in accordance with its directions they have examined the -enclosures made in the last two years, and have ordered the hedging and -ditching of lands to be stopped till further notice.[684] In the -following year one William Combe was negotiating with the corporation of -Stratford for their consent to the enclosure and conversion to pasture -of his freehold lands lying in the common fields at Welcombe; in 1615 an -order made at Warwick Assizes was confirmed by the Chief Justice -restraining him from doing so on the ground that it was "against the -laws of the realm," and in the following year a peremptory letter was -addressed to him by the Council directing his compliance.[685] In 1619 -there was a temporary reaction owing to the low price of grain, which -led to the appointment of a Commission to grant pardons for breaches of -the Acts forbidding enclosure, and in 1624 all the Statutes except the -two passed in 1597 were repealed. But this did not stop administrative -interference. In 1621 the Justices of Assize for Bedfordshire are -directed to check encroachments on a common, and in 1623 a Commission is -appointed to remove grievances arising in connection with enclosures at -Cheshunt.[686] The rise in corn prices which occurred from 1629 to 1631 -produced another burst of activity, which is to be attributed partly to -a genuine desire to protect the poorer classes, and partly to the hope -that the fines imposed upon enclosers might squeeze a few drops into the -Government's ever thirsty Exchequer. In 1630 directions were issued by -the Council to the justices of five Midland counties to remove all -enclosures made in the last two years on the ground that they led to -depopulation and were particularly harmful in time of dearth.[687] In -1632, 1635, and 1636, three Commissions were appointed, and special -instructions to enforce the Statutes against enclosure were issued to -the Justices of Assize.[688] That the inquiry was not a mere formality -is proved by the State Papers of the period. In part of the country, at -any rate, land which had been pasture was ploughed[689] up in obedience -to the Government's orders, and a list of offenders, including--the -Government must have seen his name with grim satisfaction--Lord Saye and -Sele, was returned to the Council, some of whom were still being -prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber as late as 1639. This is the -last occasion on which we can trace the administration of this part of -the Tudor State policy. The agitation against enclosures was carried on -under the Commonwealth. The diggers under Winstanley came into -prominence for a moment, only to be disclaimed by the respectable[690] -opponents of enclosure and to be instantly suppressed by the Government, -and there was a crop of pamphlets in the years between 1650 and 1660 -which dealt with the evils of depopulation in quite the old manner. But -the traditional doctrine as to the importance of the peasantry had -decayed, and the central machinery for forcing the justices to take -action had been destroyed in 1641. The last Bill to regulate enclosures -was introduced into the House of Commons in 1656, and was rejected on -the second reading.[691] - - [671] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xi. pp. - 191-192. A letter to the Lord President of Wales that whereas - upon complaints exhibited to their lordships by the tenants of - the Forest of Fakenham against Sir John Throgmorton, and one Mr. - William Bell his stuarde, concerning an inclosure by him made of - certen commons ... encroachment upon their copieholds ... it was - by them ordered that the suite against the tenants commenced at - the Common Lawe in respect of their commons and copieholds - should surcease and the matters in controversy abyde triall - before their lordships ... and untill the matter should be heard - and determined they enjoyned to proceed no further in the - inclosure of the said Common ... forasmuch as the tenants do now - again complaine that since their lordships' said order Sir John - and the said William Bell have inclosed more of the said common - ... but hath also caused Bell to proceed against the tenants by - _ejectione firmæ_ at the Common Lawe, he is therefore required - ... to will and command the said Sir John and William Bell to - forbear their inclosures of the said Common ... untill the same - shall be ... determined by their lordships according to their - lordships' form and order." - - [672] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp. - 91-92. A letter to the Justices of the County of Lincoln: "If - they thinke it agreeable with equitie and justice that the poore - man should be put in possession of the said Landes, that they - give commandment unto the said Lacy to admit him thereunto." - - [673] _Ibid._, vol. xiv. pp. 201-202. - - [674] _Ibid._, vol. xv. pp. 394-395. - - [675] See p. 373, n. 1, and _Acts of the Privy Council_, New - Series, vol. xvii. p. 76. For a similar letter to the Council of - the North, _ibid._, vol. xxvii. pp. 228-229. - - [676] _Ibid._, vol. xxii. p. 379. - - [677] _Ibid._, vol. xxii. pp. 360 and 370. Letters to the Master - of the Rolls ordering retrial of case concerning enclosure of - commons at Bath. - - [678] _Ibid_., vol. xvi. pp. 366-367. A letter to the Solicitor: - "Whereas divers poor men, tenants of the manor of Chilton, have - exhibited very grievous complaints unto their lordships against - William Darrell, Esq., of divers and sundry misdemeanors - committed by him in breach of her majestie's peace" ... the - solicitor is to "cause a byll to be drawn into the Court of Star - Chamber against Darrel," and Camden Society 1886, _Cases in the - Court of Star Chamber and High Commission_, pp. 44-45. - - [679] Holkham MSS., Sparham, Bdle. No. 5, 14th June, 34 Eliz: - "In the matter in variance brought before the Queenes Majestie - in her Maj{tie's} hon{ble} Court of Requests at the suit of John - Byrd against Christopher Saye and other defendants upon the - motion of Mr. Edward Coke recorder of the City of London being - of Councel with the said defendant.... For that it appeareth - that the said Defendant hath had three verdicts and judgments at - the Common Law, one of them against the said complainant - himself."... The defendant is awarded costs, "and the said - complainant shall from henceforth forbear to put any sheepe upon - the said ground, and suffer his sheepe to feede there." - - [680] Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional Documents_, - 1558-1625, pp. 370-371. - - [681] Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional Documents_, - 1558-1625, pp. 470-472, and Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. xviii. - - [682] Atkinson, _North Riding Quarter Sessions_, vol. i. pp. - 106, 108, 111, 122. The last presentment runs: "Will Marwood of - Busby, gent{n}, for decaying of xxx acres of arable land or - thereabouts, and converting of xxx acres of arable land or - thereabouts, the same, from tillage into pasture or meadow, and - tilled nothing in the same parish in lieu thereof, contrary, - etc." - - [683] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [684] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [685] Ingleby, _Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures_. - - [686] _S. P. D._ J., I., vol. cxxiv., December 20, 1621, and _S. - P. D._, Ch. i. cliii., October 2, 1623. - - [687] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xix. - - [688] _Ibid._ - - [689] For the ploughing up of pasture, _S. P. D._, Ch. I. vol. - cccciv. 142, and vol. cccclxxv. 72; for Lord Saye and Sele, vol. - ccclxii. 60, 1637; order of Council that the Attorney-General - should forthwith proceed by information in the Star Chamber - against Viscount Saye and Sele for depopulation and conversion - of houses and lands. - - [690] J. Moore, _A Target for Tillage_: "My purpose is not here - to plead for ... any other idle drones and wretched atheists.... - All these I acknowledge to be the greatest wasters and spoylers - of our country, worse by many degrees than any depopulators, - oppressors, and decayors of villages.... All these I know - abhorre the plough, and are enemies to the State; who yet (I - confesse) in their high talke do justify tillage and will be - ready no doubt to reforme the decay thereof with spade and - pickaxe." (The copy of this pamphlet which I have seen is dated - 1611. I have ventured to assume that this is a misprint, and - that it should be placed with John Moore's other pamphlets on - enclosure, 1653-1656.) - - [691] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - -(c) _The Success and Failure of State Intervention_ - -It remains to ask how far the policy of trying to check the agrarian -changes, which was pursued by Governments for nearly a century and a -half, had any effect on economic practice. Statesmen were certainly -biassed in favour of protecting the weaker landholding classes. But was -their intervention simply the expression of a pious opinion? Was it so -entirely futile as--to give a modern parallel--the Small Holdings Act of -1892? Or did it to any extent modify or retard the course of economic -events? The view usually taken, that legislation was so ineffective as -to be almost negligible, is in accordance with what we know of the -character of local administration in the sixteenth century, and is -supported by much contemporary evidence. The constant introduction of -fresh proposals suggests that the previous laws were disappointing. The -failure of existing Acts was the reason given in Somerset's proclamation -for the appointment of the Commission of 1548. Hales, who is certainly -the most reliable authority on the situation between 1540 and 1550, -speaks of them as being notoriously a dead letter.[692] If one looks at -the Statutes passed against depopulation in the sixteenth century, with -a view to discovering how far they really met the situation, one will be -inclined to say that they quite failed to go to the root of the matter. -The special evil which they were intended to combat was depopulation -caused by evictions. But evictions could be checked only by giving -tenants security, which would have meant turning customary into legal -titles, and fixing judicial rents for leaseholders and immovable fines -for copyholders; in short, the sort of interference which the peasants -and their champions demanded, but on which no Government depending on -the support of the landed gentry would venture, except upon an -extraordinary emergency. In the absence of such an attempt to grapple -directly with the fundamental fact that the peasants' insecurity made -them liable to suffer whenever there was a change in the methods of -agriculture, legislation designed merely to prevent those changes was -almost certain to be evaded. Even with the best intentions the Statutes -could never have been easy to administer. There was the difficulty -inherent in the whole Tudor and Stuart policy of authoritative -interference with trade and industry, the difficulty of making State -action keep pace with economic changes. The Government is often like a -man pursuing a tram from one stopping-place to another, and just missing -it at each. It insists that land which has hitherto been in tillage -shall remain in tillage. But there are a few years of bumper harvests, -and the farmers complain that they cannot pay their way.[693] The -Government tries to get over the difficulty by allowing them to convert -arable to pasture, when a providence unversed in statecraft sends a wet -summer, and it scrambles hastily back to the position which it has just -abandoned.[694] By excepting from the operation of the Statutes certain -districts which are specially suitable for grazing, it encourages a -rough local division of labour, one part of a county confining itself to -pasture-farming and another to tillage. But then, in pursuit of its -traditional and quite reasonable policy of securing that food is cheap, -it insists that all farmers are to supply the markets with grain, with -the result that those who have specialised in corn-growing are -threatened with ruin by the fall in prices which ensues, and that it is -even questionable whether they will not convert arable to pasture to -evade the obligation imposed upon them.[695] Old enclosures were -tolerated and new forbidden. But how distinguish between old and new? -Land turned to pasture simply to restore it to a condition in which it -would be fit for tillage escaped the condemnation passed on other kinds -of "conversion," and one can imagine that nice arguments must have -arisen as to a farmer's motives. Again, suppose a man converted to -pasture land which should have remained under the plough, and then -leased it to some one else, who retained it as pasture, was the lessee -guilty of an offence? In a case which came before the Court of Exchequer -in 1582, the defendant pleaded that he merely "used" the land as -pasture, and had not converted it, while the Crown argued that use was -equivalent to conversion, that he was in the position of a man profiting -by the continuance of a nuisance, and that a fine of 10s. an acre for -each year since the original conversion ought to be imposed.[696] Points -like this give colour to Coke's complaint against the whole body of Acts -against enclosure that "they were labyrinthes, with such intricate -windings or turnings as little or no fruit proceeded from them." - - [692] Hale's defence in appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction - to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_. - - [693] D'Ewes _Journal_, p. 674 (1601). Mr. Johnson said: "In the - time of dearth, when we made this Statute, it was not considered - that the hand of God was upon us; and now corn is cheap. If too - cheap, the husbandman is undone." See also Raleigh's speech in - the same debate. - - [694] _e.g._ in 1593 the clause in the Act of 1563 forbidding - conversion of arable to pasture was repealed. In 1595 and 1596 - bad harvests produced loud complaints of high prices, and in - 1597 conversion to pasture was again prohibited. - - [695] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907, pp. 131 ff. - - [696] Moore's _Reports_, p. 117, plea 262, Claypole's case: "Le - conseil de Reigne argue que ... l'entent de Estatute fuit que le - user sera accompt equivalent en tort al convcon." Judgment was - apparently given for the Queen. The decision was quoted as an - authority in the debate in Parliament on the Bills introduced in - 1597. _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part - VII., pp. 541-543: "And 26 Eliz. in the Exchequer, in Claypole's - case, an information was exhibited upon the Statute of 4 Hen. - VII. against a purchaser for converting of tillage into pasture, - and adjudged good, though the purchaser were not the converter, - but only a continuer of the first conversion. So as this new law - tends but for an instruction and explanation of the old." - -But, of course, the obscurity of the Statutes was the least part of the -difficulty with which Governments who wished to protect the peasantry -were confronted. Much more serious was the fact that the traditional -policy could be carried out only by disregarding the financial interests -of the wealthier classes, who could most easily influence Parliament and -the Council, and who were locally omnipotent. In the first half of the -sixteenth century the high position of many of those who were most -deeply implicated in cutting land free from communal restrictions made -them almost unassailable. The Royal Commission of 1517 returned among -enclosers the names of the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the -Duke of Buckingham, Lord Danbury, Sir William Bolen, Sir R. Sheffield, -the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir J. Witte, the Under-Treasurers -of State, and Sir J. Cotton, who was himself one of the -Commissioners.[697] The angry unanimity with which Somerset's colleague -turned against his land policy was not wonderful, for they were nearly -all directly interested in the maintenance of the _status quo_. Warwick, -who led the _coup d'état_, had enclosed on a large scale. Sir William -Herbert had made extensive enclosures on the lands which he had acquired -from the Abbey of Wilton. The St. John family, the Darcy family, the -Earl of Westmoreland, had all local troubles with their tenants; and -there are some indications that Sir William Paget and the detested and -detestable Lord Rich were in the same position.[698] - - [697] Leadam, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi. - - [698] For Warwick, Herbert, and the St. Johns, see pp. 326, 368, - and 362. For Darcy and disturbances in Westmoreland, Gairdner, - _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii. II., xii. I., 319, xi. 1080. For - Paget and Rich, Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - -It is not, however, material to trace the records of individual members -of the Council, because their interest in checking the interference of -the State with the free disposal of land is evident from the fact that -many of them enormously increased their estates through the share which -they obtained in the property confiscated from the religious houses and -the gilds. A comparison of the lists of Privy Councillors for 1548 and -1552, published by Strype,[699] with Dr. Savine's[700] valuable analysis -of the grantees of the monastic estates, show that out of thirty-one -persons who got grants of land of £200 a year or more fourteen were -members of the Privy Council in one or other of those years, exclusive -of the Earl of Warwick and Sir William Herbert. This fact is by itself -almost sufficient to explain the impossibility of enforcing the laws -forbidding depopulation during the years which followed the death of -Henry VIII., and the despair of legal protection which seems to have -settled upon the classes affected by the movement. The view sometimes -expressed that the religious houses had been easier landlords than the -lay owners into whose hands their estates passed, though it can -occasionally be corroborated from the complaints made by tenants to the -Government, scarcely seems, as yet, to be satisfactorily proved. But the -distribution among the wealthier classes of land producing a net income -of not less than £110,000 gave them an enormous vested interest in -preventing and evading legislation to check the most profitable use of -the new possessions which were to endow the aristocracy of the future. -The supposition of peculiar harshness in the owners to whom the land -passed, though probably correct, is really not needed to explain the -part which the transference of these vast quantities of land had in -augmenting the distress of the rural classes. The worst side of all such -great and sudden redistributions of property is that the individual is -more or less at the mercy of the market, and can hardly help taking his -pound of flesh. A buyer must sell at a profit, or he had much better not -have bought. During the decade between 1540 and 1550 there was a furor -of land speculation. To the Abbey lands, which came into the market -after 1536, were added those of the gilds and chantries in 1547. It is -quite clear that some of the grantees of estates did not acquire them -with the intention of retaining them, but simply "bought for the rise." -The lands of the Abbey of Whitby, for example, pass first to the Crown, -and are then sold by it to the Duke of Northumberland, who in turn sells -them to Sir John Yorke.[701] A small official in the Royal household -buys the Cistercian nunnery at Brewood, and at once puts it up to sale -"for suche a price that no man will gladly by hit at hys hand."[702] -Trentham is surrendered to the Crown in 1536; in 1540 the Duke of -Suffolk obtains a grant of the rents and reversions reserved upon the -Crown leases there, and in the same year sells it to one Leveson, who -has already acquired lands belonging to Horlton Abbey, and already sold -them again to Biddulph.[703] One finds even the champion of the tenants, -Somerset himself, getting a grant of land from the Crown on July 1st, -leasing part of it for eighty years on July 2nd, and transferring it -back to the Crown, subject to the lease, on July 9th.[704] When property -changed hands three times in the course of ten days, it could hardly -fail to be rack-rented, or the transaction would not pay. What happened -to the tenants? Here and there, as at Whitby and Washerne,[705] a bitter -outburst against their new masters shows that the result has been what -we should expect. But for the rest, a cloud descends and we cannot say. -It is only in such occasional glimpses that we catch the solid earth -shifting beneath the feet of those who till it. It was such a glimpse -which led the last great English peasant, in a time of even more -widespread misery, to say that the wretchedness of the landless labourer -was the work of the Reformation. Cobbett, and those who follow Cobbett -in representing the economic evils of the sixteenth century as the fruit -of the religious changes, err in linking as parent and child movements -which were rather brother and sister, twin aspects of the individualism -which seems inseparable from any swift increase in riches. Their vision -of a time when mild ecclesiastics administered their estates as a -popular trust lays a spell upon the imagination. In the religious houses -of Lancashire and Yorkshire and Northumberland there may, here and -there, even on the eve of the dissolution, have been a reality -corresponding to it. But we need hardly go further than Sir Thomas -More[706] to learn that for parts, at least, of England it is only a -vision; and More does not speak without book. Holy men enclose land, -convert arable to pasture, claim villeins, turn copyholds into tenancies -at will. If prominent ecclesiastics had really wanted to champion the -cause of the peasantry, they had an excellent opportunity when Wolsey -sent out the first great Commission into enclosures in 1517. But, in -fact, there is no reason to suppose that any protest was made at all -comparable to that which came thirty-two years later from Latimer. How -could there be? The estates of the larger houses were often scattered -over several different counties, and before the dissolution they were -quite frequently managed by laymen. In such cases the monks were simply -rentiers,[707] who needed to know no more about their tenants than the -fellows of an Oxford college know about theirs at the present day. - - [699] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [700] Fisher, _The Political History of England_, 1485-1547, - Appendix II. - - [701] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_ - (Leadam). - - [702] Hibbert, _The Dissolution of the Monasteries_, pp. - 209-210. - - [703] _Ibid._, p. 210. - - [704] _Hist. MSS. Com._, C.D. 3218, pp. 322-323 (MSS. of Earl of - Leicester at Holkham Hall). - - [705] For Whitby and Washerne, see pp. 285 and 194. In 1545 the - tenants of the manor of Egglesdon, formerly the property of the - monastery of Sion, proceed against Palmer, the grantee, in the - Court of Star Chamber for evicting tenants and other oppressions - (Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696). - - [706] More, _Utopia_, p. 31 (Pitt Press edition): "Noblemen and - gentlemen, yea, and certain abbotts, holy men no doubt ... leave - no ground for tillage, they enclose all to pasture." For a case - of claiming a bondman, see Selden Society, _Select Cases in the - Court of Star Chamber_, Carter _v._ The Abbot of Malmesbury. For - conversion of copyholds to tenancies at will, Selden Society, - _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, Kent and other - inhabitants of Abbot's Ripton _v._ St. John. The change was - alleged to have been made in 1471. - - [707] The opposite view is expressed by Gasquet, _Henry the - Eighth and the English Monasteries_, chap. xxii. For a criticism - of it see Savine, _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, - vol. i. pp. 263-267, and pp. 245-260 for facts as to lay - administrators. Hibbert, _op. cit._, pp. 210-211, who writes of - Staffordshire, supports Savine rather than Gasquet. The evidence - of Aske cannot be quoted as though what was true of the northern - houses were true of all. As a matter of fact, lay estates - preserved the old conditions in the north long after the - dissolution (see pp. 189-191). The hatred of the new landlords - is proof that they were specially detestable, rather than that - the monasteries had been above all ordinary economic - considerations. - -Nevertheless, though facts will not allow us to accept the view which -ascribes the agrarian distress of our period to the Reformation, or even -to the particular changes brought about by the secularisation of -religious endowments, there was a real connection between them. The -Reformation in England is as much a social as a religious revolution. As -a social revolution it is the work of the commercial and middle classes. -It "made of yeomen and artificers gentlemen, and of gentlemen knights, -and so forth upward, and of the poorest sort stark beggars."[708] Their -support is given, in the main, on strict business principles. It is -purchased by ensuring that every one who counts shall have a solid -material interest in supporting the new order. The great Elizabethan -families, the Cecils, the Herberts, the Grenvilles, are well paid in -advance for their services, and continue to be paid long after their -services have ceased. The dissolution of the monasteries does for their -plastic consciences what the foundation of the Bank of England did for -the politics of the City Interest under William III. Having invested in -the Reformation at a time when the Reformation is a gambling stock, -they nurse the security with a solicitude which title-deeds have done -more to inspire than the New Testament, and are zealous to lay up for -themselves treasures in Heaven, as the best insurance for the treasures -which they have already accumulated on earth. A man who looks from the -window of his new mansion on the timber in his new park may well think -it worth the sacrifice of many masses. Though the economic effect of -endowing our landed gentry is not reducible to figures, it is not rash -to say that men who have sprung into wealth by suddenly purchasing new -estates will make those estates pay. And this means that ultimately the -cost will be borne by their tenants. That the new proprietors will be -extraordinarily sensitive to attacks on the rights of property goes -without saying. The lectures[709] delivered to the peasants by the -_nouveaux riches_ of 1549 on the wickedness of agrarian spoliation have -an irony which is eternal. - - [708] Quoted by Gasquet, _op. cit._, p. 464, from a document - written about 1591. - - [709] _e.g._ Paget's letter to Somerset, July 7, 1549 (Strype, - _Ecclesiastical Memorials_). Neville, De furoribus Norfolcensium - Ketto Duce, 1575. The words put into the mouths of the landed - gentry by Crowley in _The Way to Wealth_ (E. E. T. S.) no doubt - represent their attitude fairly: "Nowe if I should demand of the - gredie cormoraunts what they thinke should be the cause of - sedition, they would saie, 'The paisent knaves be too welthy, - provender pricketh them. They knowe no obedience, they regard no - lawes, they would have no gentlemen, they would have all men - like themselves, they would have all things commune. They would - not have us master of that which is our owne. They will appoint - us what rent we shall take for our grounds.... They will caste - down our parkes and lay our pastures open.... They wyll compel - the Kyng to graunt theyr requests.... We wyll tech them to know - theyr betters, and because they would have all in common we will - leave them nothing.'" - -Apart from the special interest which the purchasers of the estates of -monastic and gild estates had in keeping a completely free hand over -their disposal, the normal organisation of English local government made -effective State interference very difficult. As has often been pointed -out, its peculiar strength lay in the success with which it made the -ordinary relationships between social classes the machinery for -executing the mandates of the State, by entrusting administration, not -to officials of the Central Government, but to persons who already -possessed local authority, and who were confirmed in it, rather than -given it, by the Crown. Such a system was favourable to the development -of representative government and of political freedom, because it -strengthened instead of repressing the local initiative on which the -success of representative government ultimately depends. But the very -absence of bureaucracy had the disadvantage that it made it almost -impossible to enforce the regular administration of the law, whenever it -conflicted with the local interests of classes who sat on the county -bench. A not unimportant chapter in English history is contained in the -complaint of the Norfolk rebels that the legislation of the last fifty -years had been "hidden" from them by the Justices of the Peace. The -account of the proceedings of the Commission of 1548, which had to drag -information out of juries packed with the employees of enclosing -landlords, and from witnesses who gave it under threat of -eviction--above all, the pained amazement of a great landowner who found -that the Commission declined to accept evidence from his servants as -unbiassed--is a specimen so typical, that, if it were found in -isolation, we could hardly fail to fit it back into its English -context.[710] Hales, the one statesman whom the agrarian problem -produced, put his finger on the root of the difficulty in the third Bill -which he introduced into Parliament in 1548. The substance of its -proposals, though sufficiently rigorous to modern notions, was not in -itself more drastic than others which actually became law. Its novelty -lay in the machinery by which it was to be enforced. Surveys of pastures -were to be made annually by the curate and two men of every parish, and -those breaking the law were to be presented for trial. In other words, -the initiative in returning offences was to be taken by those chiefly -interested in preventing them. According to Hales, it was the last -provision for making the administration of the Statute a reality which -Parliament found intolerable.[711] - - [710] Appendix to Introduction to _The Commonweal of this Realm - of England_ (Lamond), p. lix. - - [711] _Ibid._, p. lxv.: "This was it that byt the mare by the - thombe." - -Must we, then, dismiss the efforts of the Tudor and Stuart statesmen to -soften the harshness of the agrarian revolution as a mere piece of -solemn futility? The simplicity of the solution makes it a tempting one; -but it is too simple to be true. In the first place we must notice that -our literary evidence is one-sided, because it is fullest for just those -years during which an exceptional freedom from restraint was enjoyed by -the great landlords. It is inevitable that Latimer and Hales should -often be quoted. But one cannot argue from comments on the uselessness -of legislation, uttered at a time when the Statutes against enclosing -were virtually repealed, to show that the law was equally ineffective -under Elizabeth and her two successors. And, in the second place, to -hold that the frequent intervention of the Council had no result is -really an unjustifiably high-handed proceeding. It runs counter to most -of what we know of the administration of the period. A Statute might be -a dead letter, but a letter from the Council was meant to be obeyed. By -1552 the Government has discovered the uselessness of relying for the -enforcement of the law on the intervention of superior lords, and places -its administration in the hands of special Commissioners directly -responsible to the Central Government. Such a view runs counter to the -opinion of the peasants and of the upper classes. The victims of -agrarian oppression recognise that though they have little to hope from -the local authorities, who are their landlords and employers, the -Government's policy is on the whole favourable to them, and they deluge -it with appeals for protection. The justices are naturally no friends to -that policy. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they are by -no means the independent autocracy which they became later, and are -watched closely by the Privy Council. From Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, -Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and the west of England, they -send returns to the Government of their action,[712] and the Government -is quite ready, as we have seen, to revise the action of its delegates -when it thinks they have been biassed by personal interests. In -Yorkshire the juries of several townships present offenders before the -justices. The authorities of Southampton[713] take steps to put the Acts -against enclosure into force. The authorities of Norfolk[714] request -that they may enjoy the exemption which has been granted them. When in -1597, a year in which legislation against enclosures is in the air, the -Earl of Huntingdon asks the burgesses of Leicester to return his nominee -to Parliament, they refuse bluntly to do anything of the kind, on the -ground that the candidate in question is "an encloser himself and -therefore unlikely to redress that wrong in others."[715] The courts -hear a large number of cases dealing with offences committed under the -enclosing Statutes.[716] Individuals obtain special permission, either -by royal license or by Act of Parliament, to use as pasture land which, -like undrained marshes, is obviously unsuitable for ploughing. No one -who is reported as having taken part in the Parliamentary discussions of -proposed legislation in the closing years of Elizabeth suggests that it -must necessarily be a dead letter. The chief fear that seems to have -been felt was lest it should prove too effective. In introducing two -Bills against enclosure and depopulation in 1597, Bacon apologised to -the great landlords for taking action which was likely to prejudice -their interests. When the question of continuing the Act against -depopulation, which was in force in 1601, was under consideration in the -House of Commons, both the members who argued for continuance and those -who argued for repeal, assumed that the law was being administered in -practice, one speaker urging that it had the result of keeping so much -land in tillage as to destroy the farmer's profits by causing excessive -supplies of grain to be placed on the market in any but the worst years; -another that it pressed hardly on the small farmer, who could not easily -find the capital needed to sow as much land as he was legally bound to -plough.[717] The ablest and most fully reported speech[718] which has -come down to us is that of an anonymous member, who, while approving of -the principle of the Bill, attacked it as too loosely drafted to meet -the situation. His criticisms are those of a man who understands his -subject, and are on just those points of detail which, though important -in a measure which is to work, would not be worth considering at all if -anything like effective interference were out of the question. After -commending the clauses which excepted from the provisions of the Bill -land lying temporarily fallow, and which punished the purchasers as well -as the original converter of arable which was turned into pasture, he -goes on to point out that loopholes have been left in the measure which -are likely to stultify its effect. The exemption of Crown lands from its -operation will encourage enclosing landlords to exchange properties with -the Crown, and then take on lease as tenants the land which they have -handed over, since by doing so, they will escape the risk of -prosecution. The persistent lobbying of the interests affected--"the -ears of our great sheepmasters do hang at the doors of this house"--has -resulted in the fine for enclosing being placed as low as 10s. per acre, -which is ridiculously disproportionate to the profits to be made by -enclosures. The clause excluding from the reconversion prescribed in the -Bill lands mown for hay plays into the hands of the enclosers by -facilitating the winter feeding of their sheep. The failure to limit the -acreage which a man may keep in his own hands will discourage the -creation of small holdings. At a later date there is the same belief, -both among those who approve, and among those who dislike, enclosure, -that enclosing can be checked, at any rate, by the Government. In the -keen controversy over enclosures which raged under the commonwealth the -opponents of further restriction urged that the mere threat of -legislation had resulted in checking agricultural enterprise.[719] -Harrington,[720] a specialist, not to say a faddist, on agrarian -policy, bases his interpretation of the history of the preceding century -on the supposed success of the Tudors in keeping the small cultivator on -the soil. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the golden -age of the enclosing landlord was just about to dawn, some dim memory of -the earlier State policy seems in parts of England to have survived. -"Why," asked a foreign traveller,[721] "do your farmers not keep -separate closes under turnips to feed sheep in the new approved manner?" -"Partly," answer the peasants, "because there is a common rotation of -crops which all must follow. But the principal reason of all is that on -a common land no one has freedom to enclose his strips without a special -permission and Act of Parliament." - - [712] For Norfolk and the West of England, Leonard, _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. For Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire - and Derbyshire, _S. P. D._, Ch. I. vol. clxxxv. No. 86, and vol. - ccvi. No. 71 (quoted in Appendix I.), and vol. clxxxv. No. 41. - For Leicestershire, Privy Council Register, vi. 385, and Gonner, - _Common Land and Enclosure_, p. 165. For Yorkshire, see pp. - 374-375. Professor Gonner (_op. cit._, p. 167) estimates that - about six hundred persons were fined, the sums obtained from - thirteen counties amounting to about £46,800. - - [713] Hearnshaw, _Southampton Court Leet Records_, 1550. - Presentment of "the names of the Commoners which require redress - of the Commons inclosed, as they saye, contrary to the King's - Majesty's statutes, and that they may be laid abroad according - to the said statutes." - - [714] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907, p. 185. - - [715] Bateson, _Records of the Borough of Leicester_, 1509-1603, - pp. 300-301. - - [716] Gay, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. - - [717] For the debates of 1597 and 1601 see _D'Ewes' Journal_, - pp. 551 and 674 ff.: a special exemption from the operations of - the Act was allowed to a landlord who had got letters patent - authorising him to enclose 340 acres "too moist and soft and - altogether unfit for tillage." - - [718] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part. - VII., pp. 541-543. - - [719] Pseudonismus, _A Vindication of the Considerations - concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_, 1656: "The Statute of - Tillage hath excited some and affrighted others that the land in - each field is not and cannot be husbanded as it ought." The - "Statute" alluded to is the Bill introduced in this year which - did not become law. - - [720] Harrington's Works (1700 edition), pp. 388-389. - - [721] _Kalm's Account of his Visit to England on his Way to - America in 1748_, translated by Joseph Lucas, p. 282. I am - indebted for this reference to Dr. Gilbert Slater. The exact - words are: "Nor had they any turnip land to feed sheep upon. - Therefore they were deprived of the advantage of getting to sell - any fat sheep or other cattle. The reason they gave for all this - was that their arable was common field, and thus came to lie - every other year fallow, when one commoner always had to - accommodate his crops to the others; but the principal reason of - all was said to be that," and so on as in text. I am not sure - that I have interpreted the passage rightly in assuming that it - alludes to the _illegality_ of enclosure without Act of - Parliament. It may merely mean that, without an Act of - Parliament, the necessary agreement could not be obtained among - all those interested. I follow Dr. Slater's interpretation. - -What weight is to be attached to this body of opinion that enclosure and -conversion to pasture were in practice checked by the opposition of the -Government, it is not easy to say. If it is hardly compatible with the -view that interference was entirely ineffective, it nevertheless need -not imply anything more than a temporary retardation of the movement on -those special occasions and in those particular parts of the country -that were the object of peculiar attention. The test of comparison with -facts by which one would like to try it is difficult to apply. Our -knowledge of the real extent of enclosure in the sixteenth century is -too scanty to permit of our following with confidence the line of -argument which has been ingeniously worked out by Miss Leonard,[722] and -which, starting from the indisputable fact that in those Midland -counties where enclosure had been felt most acutely in the sixteenth -century, there was still much land unenclosed in the seventeenth and -eighteenth, suggests that the explanation is to be found in its -temporary cessation under the authoritative pressure of the Tudor and -Stuart Governments. Nevertheless, without going beyond our evidence, we -may venture to put forward two propositions. The first is that it is -extremely improbable that the anti-enclosing policy which we have traced -succeeded in altering permanently or on a large scale the course of -economic development. That suggestion is surely incredible in view of -the continuance of the complaints against enclosure, and of what we know -of the slack and biassed routine of rural administration. To expect the -justices to stop enclosing, unless actually compelled to do so, was -almost as Utopian as it was to expect them to administer the early -Factory Acts two centuries later. The second is that the intervention of -the Government certainly mitigated the hardships of the movement to the -rural classes. The protection which the Court of Star Chamber and the -Court of Requests offered to the equitable interests of tenants, while -it could not turn the general course of events, tempered its harshness -to individuals. A landlord who was determined to depopulate could hardly -in the long run be prevented from succeeding in his object. But he might -have to wait till leases or life tenancies had expired, instead of being -able to clear his estate at one sweep. He might be compelled, as the St. -Johns[723] were in the reign of Henry VIII., as Sir John Yorke in 1553, -or Lloyd under Elizabeth, to bind himself to respect the titles of the -existing generation of tenants. In the same way the occasional campaigns -undertaken for the reconversion of pasture to arable, while they could -not turn the tide, almost certainly slackened its course. There is no -way of escaping from the positive evidence which we possess that in -parts of the country houses which had been pulled down were rebuilt, and -that land which had been turned from arable to pasture was turned back -again, at the command of the Government, from pasture to arable. We have -already described the doings of the justices under James I. Look for a -moment at the similar agitation which was started in 1630. The agrarian -policy of the Council is seen at its worst under Charles I., because the -whole of it is smeared with the trail of finance. Some of the offenders -were allowed to compound upon payment of a fine, and one's first -inclination is to believe that the Commissions of 1632, 1635, and 1636 -were nothing but one of those odious financial engines, like the revival -of forest claims and the exaction of fines for knighthood, by which -Charles tried to dispense with Parliamentary taxation. That they were -this among other things is certain. That they were nothing more than -this must be denied, for we have clear evidence from enclosers -themselves to the contrary. They do not only, like Lord Brudenell, write -to the Council begging that their fines may be reduced from £1000 to -£500, and explaining that "the enclosures made within man's memory -amount not to the decay of one farm."[724] They are not only haled -before the Star Chamber to be rebuked by Laud.[725] They beg to be -allowed to pay a fine instead of being imprisoned. They reconvert -pasture to arable. In Northamptonshire[726] a man turns thirty-five -acres of arable into pasture. But he ploughs up ninety-five acres of -ancient pasture to set off against it. From Nottinghamshire[727] comes a -letter explaining that the petitioner has complied with the orders of -the Commissioners of Depopulation to throw open all his enclosures, and -apologising humbly for keeping hedges round three acres on the ground -that they are necessary to mark the boundaries. - - [722] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [723] For the St. Johns, see pp. 362 and 380. For Sir John - Yorke, pp. 285 and 381, and Selden Society, _Court of Requests_, - Inhabitants of Whitby _v._ Yorke, 1553: "Be yt remembred that - the cause brought before the Queen's Counsaill in her Majestie's - Court of Requests.... Ys now ordered by the saide Councill by - thagreement of the saide Syr John who hathe promised that the - saide parties aforenamed, and every one of them, shall have and - quietly eujoye theyr tenements and holdings during the yeres and - termes in theyr leases and copies yet enduring, paying theyr - Rentes and ffermes accustomed." For Lloyd and the tenants of - Hewlington in Denbighshire, see pp. 302-303. - - [724] _S. P. D._, Ch. I., cccxlii., No. 47. - - [725] _Ibid._, cccxiv., No. 29, and Appendix I., No. VIII. - - [726] _Ibid._, cccclxxv., No. 72. - - [727] _Ibid._, cccciv., No. 142. - -On the whole one is inclined to regard the Government's intervention in -this matter as resembling in its effects the attempts which were made at -the same time to fix prices and wages. It retarded, though it could not -check altogether, economic changes. It imposed a brake which somewhat -eased the shock of sudden movements. But when the hand of authority was -removed, when Commissions were called in and justices ceased to be -admonished by the Council, affairs swung back into their original -position. A rough attempt to illustrate the occasional retardation of -pasture-farming by these spasmodic attacks upon it is given in the -diagram opposite. - -The figures are taken from a list of Final Concords as to land lying -mainly in Staffordshire, but occasionally in other counties as well. The -period selected is one in which there were two agitations among the -peasants, two important Acts against depopulation, and a Royal -Commission. It will be seen that while some of the fluctuations in the -percentages of arable and pasture bear no relation to any known activity -on the part of the Government, the repeal in 1593 of the Acts for the -maintenance of tillage comes as a climax to a well-defined increase in -the percentage of pasture, the passage of the two Acts of 1599 is -followed by a similar though less marked rise in the percentage of -arable, and the riots of 1607, which resulted in the appointment of a -Royal Commission, appear to be accompanied by another increase in the -area under the plough. Of course the acreage represented is absurdly -small, and it is possible that the apparent correlation is a mere -coincidence. Still, one is inclined to think that the fluctuations on -the chart fit in very well with what we know from other sources of the -temporary effect and subsequent ineffectiveness of these transient -eruptions of governmental activity. The creation of social habits by -continuous pressure, such as is exercised by modern states through their -paid inspectorates, is quite foreign to the ideas of the age. The -Government, when it is most active, never gets beyond making an example -of a few notorious offenders whose sins are sufficiently black to bring -in good round sums to the Exchequer, and having vindicated the majesty -of the law and pocketed their fines, it leaves the small fry to wonder, -and hastily set their house in order against the coming of the Judges of -Assize, and then gradually to slide back into the ancient ways when the -storm has blown over. After all, the fact that A was punished for -enclosing last year is in itself sufficient to make it extremely -probable that this year B will escape. - -[Illustration: _The figures for 1592-3 and 1593-4 have been combined, as -the latter are too small to be given separately._] - -Such "occasional conformity" was, however, too much the rule in all -economic matters that were the object of authoritative regulation--and -few were not--to be by itself any cause for abandoning it. The real -reason for the cessation of interference in the land question which we -notice after 1640 is to be found, not in the fact that intervention had -invariably proved too ineffective to be worth continuing, but in the -change of policy caused by the unchecked domination of Parliament in -domestic affairs. The victory of the Parliamentary forces over the Crown -meant the triumph of the landed gentry over the only power which was -strong enough to enforce the administration of unpopular Statutes in the -teeth of their opposition. It prepared the way for the reign of the -great landlord who regards himself as charged with a peculiar -responsibility for promoting the needs of agriculture, which he alone is -presumed to understand--and in fact, to do him justice, does sometimes -understand very thoroughly--a weary Titan who pushes forward enclosure -from a sheer sense of public duty. On the one hand there is a change in -the standpoint from which agrarian policy is regarded. The aim of -maintaining a prosperous peasantry becomes subordinate to that of -obtaining the maximum output from the soil. This change materially -affects the attitude adopted towards enclosure. The Tudor Governments -had endeavoured to protect the rights of commoners, because commons were -an indispensable adjunct to small-scale subsistence farming. The new -view is that commons are waste lands which had much better be improved, -and which are most likely to be improved if they pass into the control -of men who have capital to spend upon them. Even under the Stuarts this -doctrine begins to gather weight, and naturally so, for it both -flattered their ambitious conception of the monarchy as a cornucopia -whence all economic improvements should flow, and was in line with their -general policy of trying to secure cheap food by regulating the supplies -of grain. In 1623 Commissioners are busy improving Tiptree Heath, which -squatters have occupied without any legal title.[728] In 1637 the King -is approached by an influential syndicate which asks for a concession -permitting it to reclaim the heaths and barren commons belonging to -the Crown, and which displays a glowing prospectus of the advantages -which will accrue in the shape of increased supplies of -food-stuffs.[729] In 1629 the Commission of Sewers had engaged Vermuyden -on his celebrated task of draining the great Level, and, in spite of the -fierce opposition of the fenmen, the work was in 1637 adjudged to be -completed.[730] All this is quite in the vein of the eighteenth century. -It is quite in that vein also for a strong line to be taken against the -wastefulness of those who impede good farming, even though the farmer be -a grazier, by sowing a few acres here and a few acres there, instead of -cultivating a compact holding; in short, by the immemorial system of -strip cultivation. The last but one of the Statutes against -depopulation[731] was itself the first expressly to authorise that -exchanging of holdings for the purposes of more business-like husbandry, -which, as we have seen, had been going on informally from an early date. -In 1606 we get what may be called the first Enclosure Act of the modern -pattern, under which certain Herefordshire parishes are allowed to -separate and enclose one-third of the land lying in common in each -parish.[732] In 1627 a case arising out of a dispute about fold-courses -comes before the courts, and sound agricultural doctrine is laid down -with a confidence of which Arthur Young himself might have approved. -"This Court," say the judges, "was now of opinion that the plowing and -sowing of small quantities of land dispersedlye or disorderlye within ye -shacks and winter feedinge of ye said ffouldcourses, and the refusal of -a few wilfull persons to lett ye owners of ffouldcourses have their -quillets of land (Llying intermixt in the places where ye sheep pasture -is layd) upon indifferent exchange or other recompense for the same, are -things very mischievous and will tend to ye overthrow of very many fould -courses."[733] Their opinion is enforced with a judgment decreeing an -exchange of lands. - - [728] _S. P. D._, Ch. I., cl., No. 7. - - [729] _S. P. D._, ccclxi., No. 15: "There are many thousand - acres of heath and barren commons in England and Wales, not - annually worth 6d. an acre, to which your Majesty has right of - soil but no benefit thereby, which may be improved to a great - value, cause plenty of provision, enrich many thousands, supply - the poor." - - [730] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, - Modern Times, Part I., pp. 112-119. - - [731] 39 Eliz., c. 2. - - [732] 4 James I., c. 11. - - [733] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archæological - Society_, 1907, pp. 70-73. - -When the whole question comes up again towards the close of the -Commonwealth, the old attitude is maintained by the opponents of -enclosure, who protest, with all the fervour of Latimer, against the -greed of landlords and the pauperising of commoners. But its defenders -have overhauled their arguments, and the lines on which the controversy -will be fought out for the next century and a half are already obvious. -In the eyes of the austere moralists of the Restoration commoners are -lewd people, who would be much better employed if at work for wages. All -beneath the "nobility and gentry" are "the poor," and the poor -themselves (it is well known) are of two kinds, "the industrious poor," -who make a living by working for their betters, and "the idle poor," who -make a living by working for themselves. Christianity and patriotism -require that the latter should enter some "productive employment," and -this can best be secured by excluding them from the commons on which -their distressingly irregular livelihood depends. Even so Europeans -to-day teach habits of industry to the African savage, by taxing him -until he can no longer live upon the lands which Europeans desire to -exploit. Moreover, the commercial spirit of the later seventeenth -century is impatient of antiquated restrictions, and is already groping -blindly after some formula which may prove them to be superfluous. -Enclosures will increase the output of wool and grain. Each man knows -best what his land is best suited to produce, and the general interest -will be best served by leaving him a free hand to produce it. "It is an -undeniable maxim," writes a pamphleteer, "that every one by the light of -nature and reason will do that which makes for his greatest advantage. -Whensoever corn bear a considerable rate, viz., wheat four or five -shillings, and barley two shillings and sixpence, men may make more -profit by ploughing their pasture, and consequently will plough for -their own advantage."[734] Hales had said something like this a hundred -years before. He had said it to show the need of special measures to -divert agricultural enterprise into beneficial channels. Now an -identity between the interests of landowners and those of the public is -assumed as part of a pre-established harmony, which human intervention -may disturb, but which it is neither needed nor competent to secure. -Authoritative statecraft fades out in the dawn of reason and the light -of nature. With such a wind of doctrine in their sails men are steering -for uncharted waters. - - [734] Lee, _A Vindication of a Regulated Enclosure_, 1656. - -While opinion on the subject of enclosing was beginning to change even -before the Civil War, the final blow at the maintenance of the old -policy was struck by the destruction of the Court of Requests and Court -of Star Chamber. The abandonment by Governments of all attempts to -protect the peasantry against oppression was an indirect consequence of -the victory of the Common Law over the prerogative jurisdiction of the -Crown. The interference in agrarian matters of the administrative courts -of the Tudor monarchy had always been detested by the landed gentry for -the very reasons which made it popular with the peasantry. They were the -last resort of men who could not get what they considered justice -elsewhere. One finds a defendant in whose favour the Common Law Courts -have given three decisions being sued again before the Court of -Requests.[735] They were the only authority which could prevent a -landlord from asserting his claims to a common or to a copyhold by means -which the poorer classes found it impossible to resist. Complaints from -aggrieved landowners that they are undermining the right of the lord of -the manor to exercise jurisdiction over his own copyholders, by trying -cases which ought to be heard in manorial courts, that they are -interfering with the course of Common Law, that they make it impossible -for a lord to "rule his lands" by the countenance which they lend to -discontent, are not infrequent[736] in the sixteenth century, and both -Wolsey and Somerset were in turn attacked by the upper classes for the -favour which they showed to such unconstitutional interference with -the rights of property. Such protests are the best proof that the -Court of Requests and the Court of Star Chamber had exercised functions -which were in some respects beneficial. The strictest constitutionalist -will have some sympathy to spare for the address in which Lord Coventry -in 1635 charges the Judges of Assize to "beware of the corruptions of -sheriffs and their deputies, partiality of jurors, the bearing and -siding with men of power and countenance in their country," and to set -on foot "strict inquiry after depopulation and enclosures, an oppression -of a high nature and commonly done by the greatest persons that keep the -juries under their awe, which was the cause there are no more presented -and brought in question."[737] Such words paint the ideal of Government -by prerogative, _parcere subjectis et debellare superbos_, which may -have floated before the minds of a Bacon or a Strafford, and which had -been partially realised under the Government of Elizabeth. When set side -by side with the actual practice of the Council under Charles I. they -are its final and self-recorded condemnation. For we look for them to be -made good in action, and we look, save during a few years, in vain. If -much may be forgiven those who boldly do wrong believing it to be right, -there is no mercy for "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin" of a body -which, believing a certain system of government to be right, entangles -its execution with sloth, and makes a sordid financial instrument out of -the very prerogative which itself has declared to be the gift of God for -the protection of the poor. The defence which the Council and its -courts had offered to the peasantry against economic evils, though real, -was too irregular to do more than slightly mitigate the verdict which -history has passed upon their employment in the hands of Charles I. -Whether the peasants regretted their disappearance we do not know. To -those contemporaries whose opinion counted, the occasional onslaughts -made by the Council and Star Chamber upon enclosing landlords were an -aggravation, not an extenuation, of the indictment brought against them. -Though the Grand Remonstrance, in which the Long Parliament sought to -unite all classes with a recital of grievance accumulated upon -grievance, taunted the Government with its failure to check the -conversion of arable land to pasture,[738] the authors of that -tremendous indictment had no substitute to suggest for the interference -by the Council with "freeholds, estates, suits, and actions," which they -denounced; and Laud, who, according to even a friendly critic, "did a -little too much countenance the Commission for Depopulation,"[739] lived -to be reminded in the day of his ruin of the sharp words with which he -had barbed the fine imposed by that body upon an enclosing -landlord.[740] The Court of Requests was never formally abolished, but -from the closing decade of the sixteenth century it had been gradually -stripped of its powers by prohibitions issued by the Common Law Judges, -and forbidding plaintiffs to proceed with their cases before it, and -after 1642 it quietly disappeared. With the destruction in 1641 of the -Court of Star Chamber and the Councils of Wales and of the North, an end -was put to the last administrative organs which could bridle the great -landed proprietors. Clarendon, himself a relic of an age before the -deluge, would seem to have added to his other offences by trying to -revive the old policy in a world which would have none of it.[741] But -the royalist squirearchy who in 1660 streamed back to their plundered -manors, were, when their property was at stake, as sound -constitutionalists as Hampden himself, and after 1688 that absorption of -the "State" by "Society" which Gneist, a worshipper of the eighteenth -century régime, dates with curious perversity from 1832, was, in his -sense of the words, complete. Henceforward there was to be no obstacle -to enclosure, to evictions, to rack-renting, other than the shadowy -protection of the Common Law; and for men who were very poor or easily -intimidated, or in enjoyment of rights for which no clear legal title -could be shown, the Common Law, with its expense, its packed juries, its -strict rules of procedure, had little help. Thus the good side of the -Absolute Monarchy was swept away with the bad. Its epitaph was written -by Locke:[742]--"The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of -his property without his own consent." But it was forgotten as soon as -it was written. For to the upper classes in the eighteenth century the -possession of landed property by a poor man seemed in itself a -surprising impertinence which it was the duty of Parliament to correct, -and Parliament responded to the call of its relatives outside the House -with the pious zeal of family affection. - - [735] Holkham MSS., Sparham Bdle., No. 5, see back, p. 374. - - [736] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, - Customarye Tenants of Bradford _v._ Fraunceys: "The seyd - defendant seythe that the said bill of complaint ... is mater - ... determinable at the comen land and not in this honourable - court, whereunto he prayeth to be remitted." Also Gairdner, _L. - & P. Henry VIII._, i., 334, Earl of Derby to Cromwell; and - Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. For attacks on - Wolsey's land policy see Herbert, _History of King Henry VIII._, - pp. 297-298 (ed. of 1672): "Also the said Cardinal hath examined - divers and many matters in the Chancery, after judgment thereof - given at the Common Law, in subversion of your laws, and made - some persons restore again to the other party condemned that - they had in execution by virtue of the judgment in the Common - Law." - - [737] Gardiner, _History of England_, 1603-1642, vol. viii., p. - 78. Compare the Instructions for the President and Council of - the North, 1603 (Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional - Documents_, 1558-1625, pp. 363-378), Article XXVIII.: "Further - our pleasure is that the said Lord P. and Council shall from - time to time make diligent and effectual inquisition of the - wrongful taking in of commons and other grounds and the decay of - tillage and of towns or houses of husbandry contrary to the - laws, ... and leaving all respect and affection apart they shall - take such order for redress of enormities used in the same as - the poor people be not oppressed and forced to go begging ... - and ... if they find any notorious malefactor in this behalf of - any great wealth, cause the extremity of the law to be executed - against him publicly." - - [738] Gardiner, _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan - Revolution_, 1625-1660, pp. 212-213, "Conversion of arable into - pasture, continuance of pasture, under the name of depopulation, - have driven many millions out of the subject's purses, without - any considerable profit to his Majesty." - - [739] Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, I. 204, IV. 63. - Clarendon's account of the Grand Remonstrance suggests that the - principal grievance was not depopulation, but the fines exacted - for it; see the words "with the vexations upon pretence of - nuisances in building ... and of depopulation, that men might - pay fines to continue the same misdemeanour." - - [740] Appendix I., No. VIII. - - [741] I make this statement on the authority of Dr. Slater, - _Sociological Review_, vol. iv., No. 4, p. 349, but I have been - unable to trace his evidence. The only reference I can find - bearing on the subject is contained in Article XIII. of the - heads of the accusation against Lord Clarendon: "That he hath in - an arbitrary way examined and drawn into question divers of his - Majesty's subjects concerning their lands, tenements, goods, - chattells, and properties, determined thereof at the Council - Table, and stopped proceedings at law by the order of the - Council Table, and threatened some that pleaded the Statute of - 17 Car. I." (The proceedings in the House of Commons touching - the impeachment of Edward, late Earl of Clarendon, 1700.) - - [742] Locke, _Two Treatises of Government_, Book II., chap. xi. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -GENERAL CONCLUSIONS - - -Those who have had the patience to follow the detailed changes in rural -organisation which have been described above will naturally ask, "What -is the upshot of it all? What are the main landmarks which stand out -from the bewildering variety of scenery? How does the agrarian England -which is sleepily hunting out old guns and older bows on the eve of the -Civil War differ from the England which saw the first Tudor 'with -general applause and joy, in a kind of military election or recognition, -saluted King?'" - -At first sight it differs but little. To see our subject in its proper -perspective we must emphasise the continuity of economic life between -1485 and 1642 as much as in the preceding pages we have emphasised the -novelty of some of its experiments. We must turn from Fitzherbert and -Hales to Arthur Young. We must set Latimer's lamentations over the decay -of the yeomanry side by side with the figures of Gregory King and the -boasts of Chamberlayne and Defoe. We must compare our sporadic -enclosures with the two thousand six hundred Enclosure Acts which were -passed between 1702 and 1810. The outward appearance of many English -villages at the Revolution would be quite unrecognisable to-day, but it -can have been but little altered from what it had been at the time of -the Peasants' Revolt. It could still be said that three-fifths of the -cultivated land of England was unenclosed. And if Piers Plowman had -dreamed for four centuries on Malvern Hills he might still have woken to -plough his half acre between the balks of a still open field, like that -"very wide field," with crooked ways butting upon it and a wicket-gate -on its shining horizon, through which Christian sped from Evangelist, -crying "Life, Life, Eternal Life." - -Ought we, then, to say that the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth -century was insignificant, and that it has been magnified into -importance only by the rhetorical complaints of unskilful observers? The -answer has been given by implication in the preceding pages. The fact -that statistical evidence reveals no startling disturbance in area -enclosed or population displaced, is no bar to the belief that, both in -immediate consequences and in ultimate effects, the heavy blows dealt in -that age at the traditional organisation of agriculture were an episode -of the first importance in economic and social development. The -barometer which registers climatic variations yields no clue to their -influence on the human constitution, and the quantitative rule by which -we measure economic changes bends in our hands when we use it to -appraise their results. The difference between prosperity and distress, -or enterprise and routine, or security and its opposite, is scarcely -more susceptible of expression in figures than is the difference between -civilisation and barbarism itself. In the infinite complexity of human -relationships, with their interplay of law with economics, and of -economics with politics, and of all with the shifting hopes and fears, -baseless anticipations and futile regrets, of countless individuals, a -change which to the statistician concerned with quantities seems -insignificant, may turn a wheel whose motion sets a world of unseen -forces grinding painfully round into a new equilibrium. Not only our -estimate of the importance of social alterations, but their actual -importance itself, depends upon what we are accustomed to and what we -expect. Just as modern manufacturing nations groan over a reduction in -exports, which in the reign of Henry VIII. would have passed unnoticed, -or are convulsed by a rise in general prices, which, when expressed in -percentages, seems ridiculously small, so the stationary rural society -of Tudor England may well have been shaken to its core by agrarian -changes which, in a world where rural emigration is the rule, would -appear almost too minute to be recorded. If contemporaries, to whom the -very foundation of a healthy economic life seemed to be shattered, -underestimated the capacity of society for readjustment, they were not -mistaken in their supposition that the readjustment required would be so -vast and painful as to involve the depression of important orders of -men, and the recognition of new responsibilities by the State in the -agony of transition. If we are busy planting small holders to-day, it is -partly because sixteenth century Governments were so often busy with -them in vain. The crude barbarities of tramp ward and workhouse were -first struck out in an age when most of those who tramped and toiled, -who sat in stocks and were whipped from town to town, were not the -victims of trade depression or casual employment, but peasants thrown on -the labour market by the agrarian revolution. - -For, in truth, the change which was coming upon the world in the guise -of mere technical improvements was vaster than in their highest hopes or -their deepest despondency the men of the Tudor age could have foreseen, -and its immediate effects on the technique of agriculture and the -standard of rural prosperity were but the tiny beginnings of movements -whose origins are overshadowed by their tremendous consequences. It is a -shallow view which has no interest to spare for the rivulet because it -is not yet a river. Though many tributaries from many sources must -converge before economic society assumes a shape that is recognisable as -modern, it is none the less true that in the sixteenth century we are -among the hills from which great waters descend. By 1642 the channels -which will carry some of them have been carved deep and sure. By that -time the expansion of the woollen industry has made it certain that -England will be a considerable manufacturing nation, and consequently -that the ancient stable routine of subsistence farming will gradually -give place to agricultural methods which swing this way and that, now -towards pasture, now towards arable, according to the fluctuations of -the market. It is certain that, sooner or later, the new and more -profitable economy of enclosure will triumph. It is certain that the -small holder will have a hard struggle to hold his own against the -capitalist farmer. It is certain that, owing to the substitution of -variable for fixed fines on admission to copyholds, and the conversion -of many copyholds into leases for years, a great part of the fruits of -economic progress will no longer be retained, as in the fifteenth -century, by the mass of the peasants, but will pass, in the shape of -increased payments for land, into the pockets of the great landed -proprietors. It is almost certain that to any new developments which may -be detrimental to them the peasants will be able to offer a much less -effective resistance than they have in the past. For the security of -many of their class has been undermined; the gulf which separates them -from the landed gentry, though still bridged by the existence of many -prosperous freeholders, has been widened; and, above all, the -destruction of the absolute monarchy has entrenched the great landlords -inexpugnably at the heart of government, both central and local, and has -made their power as great as their ambitions. Both from below and from -above they are unassailable. For a century and a half after the -Revolution they have what power a Government can have to make and ruin -England as they please. - -If we cast our eye over the agrarian changes of our period, with a view -to grouping their main elements under a few easily distinguishable -categories, we do not find that they present themselves as a simple -series of economic sequences. Behind them all there is, it is true, the -fundamental economic fact of the decay of subsistence husbandry. The -movement away from the strict communal organisation of the open field -village was inevitable as soon as markets were sufficiently developed to -make agricultural experiments profitable, because experiments could not -easily be undertaken without to some extent individualising the methods -of cultivation. In particular, the grand innovation of substituting -pasture-farming for tillage, whether carried out on a large scale or on -a small, was only practicable if individuals were able to break away -from the established course of agriculture. But the relaxation of -village customs, which allowed a wider scope to individual initiative, -did not necessarily involve that formation of large estates out of -peasant holdings, which was the special note of the sixteenth century -problem, and in fact the gradual nibbling away of customary restrictions -went on to some degree among quite small men, long before the enclosure -of land by great capitalists became a serious grievance. In the -fourteenth century, and even earlier, holdings are becoming partible and -unequal, and strips are being interchanged for the purpose of more -convenient, because compacter, management. In the sixteenth century -there is a good deal of enclosure by the peasants themselves with a view -to better arable cultivation or to the more successful keeping of stock. -Nor must we forget the example of Kent, Essex, Devonshire, -Somersetshire, and Cornwall. Without raising the question whether the -predominance of small enclosures in the Western Counties is not partly -to be ascribed to peculiarities in their original settlement, we may say -without fear of contradiction that the early enclosures of Kent and -Essex are the outcome of the spread of commercial forces in those -seaboard counties at an earlier date than was possible in the inland -districts. Even in the more conservative parts of the country, like the -Midlands and Wiltshire, whose geographical position made them the last -to respond to the influence of trade its gradual extension was slowly, -and in isolated villages, bringing the same departure from the rigid -arrangements of mediæval agriculture which in the East of England had -developed much more swiftly. How far such enclosure by consent would -have proceeded if no other forces had come into play we cannot say. It -is not safe, however, to assume that, because in the eighteenth century -many villages seemed to observers like Arthur Young to be living in a -condition of organised torpor, therefore its effects in facilitating a -more economical utilisation of the land are to be dismissed as -negligible. Quite apart from the obvious bias given to Young's -observations by his questionable doctrine that a high pecuniary return -from the soil is the final criterion of successful agriculture, it may -well be the case that the decline in the condition of the peasantry, -which took place in the sixteenth century, discouraged initiative on the -part of small men, and that, since one agent in that decline had been a -movement which went by the name of enclosure, its effect was to make -them cling all the more closely to the established routine in those -parts of the country where they had not been violently shaken out of -it. - -On such conjectures, however, we need not enter. Even if the movement -towards the rearrangement of holdings which has been traced among the -peasants themselves was insignificant, and if the larger capitalists -were the sole agents through whom a more alert and progressive agrarian -régime could be introduced, it is none the less the case that the -improvements in the technique of agriculture do not by themselves -account for the special social consequences which flowed from the -agrarian changes of the sixteenth century. The situation then is not at -all similar to that which arose at a later date, when small landholders -voluntarily threw up their holdings in order to engage in the more -profitable urban industries, and when yeomen like the Peels of their own -choice decided that the career of a cotton-spinner was more attractive -than that of a farmer. In the period which we have been discussing men -do not only leave the land; they are forced off it. Not only economic, -but legal, issues are involved, and the latter give a decisive twist to -the former. What made the new methods of agriculture not simply an -important technical advance in the utilisation of the soil, but the -beginning of a social revolution, was the insecurity of the tenure of -large numbers of the peasantry, in the absence of which they might -gradually have adapted themselves to the altered conditions, without any -overwhelming shock to rural life such as was produced by the evictions -and by the loss of rights of common. The way in which the economic -movement towards enclosure and pasture-farming is crossed, and its -consequences heightened, by the law of land tenure, is proved by the -comparative immunity of the freeholders from the worst forms of agrarian -oppression, by the fact that, even in the middle of the eighteenth -century, the purely economic conditions of much of England were by no -means unfavourable to small scale farming, and by the anxiety of -landlords to induce tenants who had estates of inheritance to surrender -them for leases. We cannot therefore agree with those writers who regard -the decline in the position of the smaller landed classes, which took -place in our period, as an inevitable step in economic progress, similar -to the decay of one type of industry before the competition of another. -If economic causes made a new system of farming profitable, it is none -the less true that legal causes decided by whom the profits should be -enjoyed. We have already pointed out that many customary tenants -practised sheep-farming upon a considerable scale, and it is not easy to -discover any economic reason why the cheap wool required for the -development of the cloth-manufacturing industry should not have been -supplied by the very peasants in whose cottages it was carded and spun -and woven. The decisive factor, which ruled out this method of meeting -the new situation created by the spread of pasture-farming, was the fact -that the tenure of the vast majority of small cultivation left them free -to be squeezed out by exorbitant fines, and to be evicted when the lives -for which most of them held their copies came to an end. It was their -misfortune that the protection given by the courts since the fifteenth -century to copyholders did not extend to more than the enforcement of -existing manorial customs. When, in our own day, the same causes which -raised the cry of depopulation in sixteenth century England have -operated in other countries, their influence has been circumscribed by -governmental power, which has stepped ready armed into the field, and -has turned customary titles into freeholds and cut back private -jurisdictions with a heavy hand. To find a parallel to the sufferings of -the English copyholders in the sixteenth century, we must turn to the -sweeping invasion of tenant right which at one time made almost every -Irishman into a Ket. But the comparison, incomplete in other respects, -is most incomplete in this, that even if Tudor Governments, moved by -considerations of national strength and order, would have helped the -peasants if they could, they could hardly have helped them materially if -they would, without a social and administrative revolution which was -unthinkable, and which, if carried out, could only have meant political -absolutism. Living, as they did, with the marks of villein tenure still -upon them, the small cultivators of our period were fettered by the -remnants of the legal rightlessness of the Middle Ages, without enjoying -the practical security given by mediæval custom, and felt the bitter -breath of modern commercialism, undefended by the protection of the -all-inclusive modern State which alone can make it tolerable. - -For, indeed, it is as a link in the development of modern economic -relationships and modern conceptions of economic expediency, that the -changes which we have been considering possess their greatest interest. -The department of economic life in which, both for good and evil, the -modern spirit comes in the sixteenth century most irresistibly to its -own, is not agriculture but foreign commerce, company promoting, and the -money market, where the relations of man to man are already conceived of -as the necessary parts of a vast and complicated mechanism, whose iron -levers thrust the individual into actions for the consequences of which -he is not responsible, and under whose pressure unknown is driven by -unknown to do that which he did not intend. But if the intoxication with -dreams of boundless material possibilities, the divorce of economic from -moral considerations, the restless experiment and initiative and -contempt for restrictions that fetter them, which are the marks of that -spirit's operations, are never quite so victorious in agriculture as -they are in finance, it is nevertheless in transforming agrarian -conditions that its nature and characteristics are most impressively -revealed, not because it is felt there first or proceeds there furthest, -but because the material which it encounters is so dense, so firmly -organised, so intractable, that changes, which in a more mobile -environment pass unnoticed, are seen there in high relief against the -stable society which they undermine. In truth the agrarian revolution is -but a current in the wake of mightier movements. The new world, which is -painfully rising in so many English villages, is a tiny mirror of the -new world which, on a mightier stage, is ushering modern history in amid -storms and convulsions. The spirit which revolts against authority, -frames a science that will subdue nature to its service, and thrusts the -walls of the universe asunder into space, is the same--we must not -hesitate to say it--as that which on the lips of grasping landlords and -stubborn peasants wrangles over the respective merits of "several" and -"common," weighs the profits of pasture in an economic scale against the -profits of arable, batters down immemorial customs, and, regarding -neither the honour of God nor the welfare of this realm of England, -brings the livings of many into the hands of one. To the modern -economist, who uses an ancient field map to trace the bewildering -confusion of an open field village beneath the orderly lines of the -dignified estate which lies upon it like a well written manuscript on -the crabbed scrawl of a palimpsest, the wastefulness of the old régime, -compared with the productiveness of the new, may well seem too obvious -to leave room for any discussion of their relative advantages; and -indeed the accession of material wealth which followed the first feeble -approach towards the methods of modern agriculture is unquestionable. -But the difference between such a standpoint and that of our peasants is -not one of methods only but of objects, not of means but of ends. We can -imagine that to an exposition of the advantages of large scale farming -and enclosure, such as many stewards must have made to the juries of -many manors, they would have answered something after this -fashion:--"True, our system is wasteful, and fruitful of many small -disputes. True, a large estate can be managed more economically than a -small one. True, pasture-farming yields higher profits than tillage. -Nevertheless, master steward, our wasteful husbandry feeds many -households where your economical methods would feed few. In our -ill-arranged fields and scrubby commons most families hold a share, -though it be but a few roods. In our unenclosed village there are few -rich, but there are few destitute, save when God sends a bad harvest, -and we all starve together. We do not like your improvements which ruin -half the honest men affected by them. We do not choose that the ancient -customs of our village should be changed!" Such differences lie too deep -to be settled by argument, whether they appear in the sixteenth century -or in our own day. - - - - -APPENDIX I - - -(I) - -[LETTER FROM A BAILIFF, ILLUSTRATING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FARMER AND -LORD, AND DIFFICULTIES WITH FREEHOLDERS] - -_Merton MSS., No. 4381_ - -Good Sir lett me intreat you yf the colledge determyne to make survay -this springe of the lands at Kibworth and Barkby to send Mr. Kay or me -word a month or 3 weeks before your coming that we may have Beare and -other necessaries. And I desire you to gather up all evidences that may -be needful for ye Lordshipp, for all testimony will be little enough, -the colledge land is soo mingled with Mr. Pochin's frehold and others in -our towne. There is an awarde for the keepinge in of the old wol close -in our ffields for [from?] Mr. Pochin's occupation, very needefulle for -the ynhabitants yf that awarde can be founde at the colledge where yt -was loste. - -The composition betwixt Mr. Stanford and the towne wold we very gladly -see, yt is for tythe willows and partinge grasse, wee thinke that they -challenge more than of right they should have. I pray you gather upp -what evidence you can for the rents due to the college out of [?], for -when some of them are denied I know not where to distraine for them. - -I pray you also give order that the evidences may be sought up for the -lands lyinge in Barkby Thorpend alias Thurmaston in our parish and -parcell of our lordship of the rent per ann. 3/4d. as alsoe the -evidences of Peppers frehold rent per annum 1d. This rent is denied and -not paidd this 20 yeares, and I cannot learne where I should distraine -for the same, neither will he pay it unlesse he may knowe for what he -payeth the same; he is towards the land [?], and his frehold lyeth in -Thurmaston ut supra. And soe with remembrance of my duty desiringe you -to pardon my breach of promise for the lease at last Michaelmas, and I -hope before this yeare be ended to be as good as my worde, yf it will -please you and the company to spare me with your favours untill then, -ffor God is my judge I did not breake my promise wilfully nor willingly, -but necessity hath noe law. I have lost this su[=m]er 6 horses and was -forced to buy in these for my carte. Day [?] groweth scant, therefore I -must spare to write, only hoping and desiringe your favour at this tyme -I humbly take my leave and rest as I have ever beene your wo{ps} at -commandment. Henry Sayer. - - Barkby, February 26{th}, 1608. - - To the w{ll} his very singular - ffriend Mr. Brent subwarden - at Merton College in Oxon. - - -(II) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF MANORIAL CUSTOMS, _cf._ pp. 124-131 and 297-301.] - -_Manor of Aldeburgh, R.O., Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, Vol. 163, -Henry VIII._ - - -The said Manor has one lete by the year ... and hath also the Court from -3 weeks to 3 weeks called the 3 weeks Court. - - Item.--Every tenant payeth for a cottage ground not - buylded if it conteyn 80 ft. every way 1d. - Item.--Every tenant payeth for half a cottage which - is 40 ft. every way 1/2d. - Item.--For every curtilage containing 40 ft. or under 1/2d. - Item.--For every fyne of every cotage buylded 2/- - Item.--For every fyne of every cotage ground unbuilded 1/- - Item.--Every tenant that taketh any cotage ground to - build upon if he build not within three years he - forfeiteth the ground by him taken. - Item.--Every tenant having a cotage or parcel of a cotage - wherein any tenant dwelleth and keepeth a fire, - they owe to pay for the same a Russhe hen or - else 2d. which is for the rushes that they - gather upon the lord's common there. - Item.--If 2 tenants dwell in one house having 2 severall - rooms in the same they to pay yearlie 2 rush - hennes or 4d. for them. - Item.--Every freeholder having by copy any arable land - or pasture ground in the field payeth yearly - for the same at terms accustomed the rent of - old time due at [Michaelmas & Easter] by even - porcions; and for all fines cessed upon the - tenaunts for land in the fields is at the will of - the lord, as well at the alienations made as at - the death of any tenant. - Item.--The tenants and copyholders shall do no waste - upon the lord's common ne otherwise upon pain - of forfeiture of their tenements. - Item.--All the freeholders shall [pay] double their rent - at every death or alienation made, as relief. - Item.--Certain freeholders and copyholders pay heriot - after the death of any tenant. - Item.--Neither the freeholders nor copyholders shall not - surcharge the lord's comon but to keep after - the rate of his tenure. If he otherwise do he - shall be amerced. - Item.--No man shall encroche on lord's lands on pain of - forfeiture of his tenure. - Item.--Every boat going to the sea on fishing and having - 4 men therein payeth yearly to the lord 8d., - and 6 men 12d., and so after the rate, for - each man 2d., which is by a late composition. - Item.--There is a service paid by certain tenants there - called Oryell, which is for the liberty of the - common that tenants have in the said lordship. - Item.--The lords of Aldeburgh have the moietie of all - wreck of the sea being cast on land or found - near the shore within the limits of the same - lordship, and the finder thereof hath the other - half. - - -(III) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PEASANTS' GRIEVANCES] - -_Holkham MSS., Fulmordeston MSS., Bdle. 6_ - -To the Right Honble. Sir Edward Cooke, Knight, Attorney-Generall unto -the King's Ma{tie}. - -Humblie sheweth unto your good lord yo{r} poore and dayley orators -Thomas Ffawcett, Thomas Humphry, and Nicolas Farnes [?] yo{r} worshippes -tenants of the Manor of Ffulmordeston cum Croxton in the Duchie of -Lancaster and the moste parte of the tenants of the same Manor that -whereas yo{r} said orators in the Hillary Term laste commenced suite in -the Duchie Courte against Thomas Odbert and Roger Salisbury, Gent., who -have enclosed their grounds contrary to the custom of the Manor, whereby -your wor. loseth your shack due out of those grounds, common lane or way -for passengers is stopped up, and your worshippes poore orators lose -their accustomed shack in those grounds, and the said Roger Salisbury -taketh also the whole benefit of theire comons from them, keepinge there -his sheepe in grasinge and debarringe them of their libertie there which -for comon right belongeth unto them:-- - -Which suite and controversie, forasmuch as the same manor is nowe come -unto your lordshippe's hands by his most excellent Ma{ties} gracious -disposinge thereof, youre poore oratours thought it theire duty to -impart and lay open unto your wor{pp}, and doe most humblie pray and -beseech your wor{pp} that they may have your lawfull favour herein for -the furtherance of their proceedings in this theire suite of lawe, so -that the greatness of the said parties adversant unto them, on which -they much relie, may not be the more strengthened by your worship's -favour, whereby your poore orators may have and enjoy theire former -liberties in peace, and be the better able to maintaine themselves in -their callings rights and dueties which unto your wor. is belonging and -due uppon their Tenures in the saide Mannor. - -And according to theire bounden duety your sayde poor orators shall -dayly pray to God for your wor. in all encrease of prosperitie and -worshippe long to continew. - - 21 Aug. 1604. I have considered of this peticion, - and seeinge I am lord of the mannor - I will do my best endeavour upon - hearing of both parties to end the - controversie and the defend{ts} need - not appeare nor the cause to proceed - in the duchy. - EDW. COKE. - - -(IV) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PEASANTS' GRIEVANCES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 151, No. 38._ - -To the Kings most Excellent Ma{tie}. - -The humble petico[n@] of yo{r} Ma{te} poore and distressed Tennants of -yo{r} Mannor of North Wheatley in the Countie of Nottingham belonging to -yo{r} Ma{ties} Duchie of Lancaster. - -Most humbly shewing. That yo{r} poore Subiects have tyme out of mynd byn -Coppieholders of lands of inheritaunce to them and their heires for ever -of the Mannor aforesaid, and paid for every Oxgang of land xvj{s} -viij[-d] rent, and paid heretofore vpon every Alienaco[n@] xij[-d] for -every Oxgang, but nowe of late, about 4{0} Jacobi by an order of the -Duchie Court they paie ij{s} s vj{d} d vpon euery Alienaco[n@] for every -acre, w{ch} ch amounteth nowe to 45{s} an Oxgang. - -And whereas some of yo{r} Tennants of the said Mannor have heretofore -held and doe nowe hold certayne Oxganges of lands belonging to the said -Manor by Coppie from xxj yeres to xxj yeares, and have paid for the same -vpon e[v@]y Coppy ij{s}, and for every Oxgang xvj{s} viij{d} [p-] -An[n@]; they nowe of late by an order in the Duchie Court hold the same -by lease vnder the Duchie Seale, and paie vj{li} xiij{s} iiij{d} for a -Fyne vpon every lease and xvj{s} viij{d} rent w{th} an increase of vj{s} -viij{d} more towards yo{r} Ma{ties} prouision. - -And whereas in 11{0} Edw: 4{0} yo{r} petic[o~n]ers did by Copy of Court -Roll hold the demeanes of the said Mannor for tearme of yeres att ix{li} -vj{s} viij{d} [p-] an[n@], they afterwards in 6{0} Eliz: held the same -demeanes by lease vnder the seale of the duchie for xxj yeares, att the -like rent; and Tenne yeres before their lease was expired, they ymployed -one M{r} Markham in trust to gett their lease renewed, whoe procured a -newe lease of the demeanes in his owne name for xxj yeres att the old -rent, and afterwards contrary to the trust Comitted to him increased and -raised the rent thereof vpon the Tenants to his owne privat benefitt to -56{li} [p-] ann[u@]. - -And whereas the woods belonging to the said Mannor hath within the -memory of Man byn the only Co[~m]on belonging to the said Towne, paying -yerelie for the herbage and pannage thereof vj{s} viij[-d], they nowe -alsoe hold the same vnder the Duchie Seale att xvj{li} li xvj{s} ij[-d] -[p-] ann[u@]. - -And whereas the Court Rolls and Records of the said Mannor, have alwaies -heretofore byn kept vnder severall Locks and Keys, whereof yo{r} Ma{ts} -Stewards have kepte one key and yo{r} Ma{ties} Tennant (in regard it -Concerned their [p-]ticuler inheritances) have kept an other keye. But -nowe they are att the pleasure of the Stewards and Officers transported -from place to place, and the nowe purchasers doe demaund the Custody of -them, w{ch} may be most preiudiciall to yo{r} Ma{te} te poore Tennants. - -Now for asmuch as yo{r} Matie: hath byn pleased to sell the said Mannor -vnto the Cittie of London, whoe have sold the same vnto M{r} John -Cartwright and M{r} Tho: Brudnell gent: And for that yo{r} petic[o~n]ers -and Tennants there (beinge in nomber Two hundred poore men, and there -being xj of yo{r} Ma{te} Tennants there that beare Armes for the defence -of yo{r} Ma{te} Realme, and xij that paie yo{r} Ma{tie} Subsidies -fifteens and Loanes) are all nowe like to be vtterlie vndon, in Case the -said M{r} Cartwright and M{r} Brudnell should (as they saie they will) -take awaie from yo{r} Tennants the said demeanes and woods after -thexpiraco[n@] of their leases, and that yo{r} poore Tennants should be -left to the wills of the purchasers for their Fynes, or that the Records -and Court rowles should not be kept as in former tymes in some private -place, where the purchasers and Tennants maie both have the custody and -viewe of them as occasion shall serve. - -Maie it therefore please yo{r} Sacred Maj{tie} That such order may be -taken in the premisses for the reliefe of yo{r} poore Tennants of the -Mannor aforesaid That they maie not be dispossessed of the demeanes and -leases, and that they may knowe the Certayntie of their Fynes for the -Coppieholds demeanes and leases and maie have the Court Rolls & Records -safely kepte as formerly they have byn. And that yo{r} Ma{tie} wilbe -further pleased to referr the Consideraco[n@] hearing, ordering and -determynaco[n@] of the premisses vnto such Noble men, or other 4 gent: -of esteeme in the Country whome yo{r} Ma{tie} shalbe pleased to appoint, -that are neighbours vnto yo{r} Ten{ã}nts, and doe best knowe their -estate & greevances. That they or any two or three of them may take such -order, and soe Cettell the busynes betweene the purchasers & yo{r} poore -Tennants, as they in their wisdoms and discressions shall judge to be -reasonable and fitting, or to Certifie yo{r} Ma{tie} howe they fynd the -same, and in whose defalt it is they cannot determyne thereof. And yo{r} -poore Te[n~n]ts as in all humble dutie bound will daielie pray for yo{r} -Ma{tie}. - - Whitehall this 10 of Novemb{r} 1629. - -His Ma[~] is graciously pleased to referre the consideration of this -request to the Co[~m]ission{rs} for sale of his lands, that vpon the -report vnto his Ma[~] of their opinion and advise his Ma[~] may give -further order therein. DORCHESTER. - - [Endorsed.] Divers Tenants of his Ma{te} mañor of North Wheatley - in the Countie of Nottingham. - - -(V) - -[PAPER ON THE EVILS OF ENCLOSURE, BY AN APPLICANT FOR GOVERNMENT -EMPLOYMENT] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 206, No. 70_ - -Right Ho{le} - -Uppon the ix{th} of July and also the 23{d} of Septemb{r} I deliv[d@] -petitions vnto yo{r} Lo{pp} desireinge to shew y{e} great hurt y{t} ys -done to his Ma{tie} & y{e} land by inclosiers w{ch} decay tillage, & -depopulate townes in ye best naturall corne countryes, w{ch} affore -supplyed the wants of others every way beinge in y{e} middle of y{e} -land, for yt their is dearths vppon any vnseasonable seedes tyme or -springe, and is a great cause of decayinge of trades and vndoeinge many -thousands w{ch} before lived well & now for want of Imployment & dearth -of corne, y{er} is multitudes of poor & vagrants complayninge of their -miseryes; and are dangerous to y{e} peacable state of y{e} land, by -y{er} desire of troubles to revenge them selves. Ye know what lamentable -broyles & bloodshedinges were betwixt ye gileadites & ephramites & -Israelites & benjamites for ye levits wife & Abia & Jeroboam & Ahay & -Peka where was slaine above 700,000 men of warr & many of other sorts, -w{ch} was more crewell then by any foraigne enymyes, & wee have -incrochinge enemyes y{t} would take y{er} advantage vppon such -opertunytyes as y{ei} did when y{e} leaguers in France made warrs -against theire Kinge ... for many are of oppinyon that ye Kinges Ma{tie} -nor ye lordes doe not truly vnderstand ye secret mischief es w{ch} is -done by covetous men by ye cuninge misterie of depopulation nor ye -oppressions and causes of dearthes and poverty nor know y{e} readyest -waye for remedyes, y{et} beinge as unacquainted in tyllage & husbandrye -as in other arts: as appeared by y{e} booke of orders y{e} last yere -w{ch} shewed that his Ma{tie} and the lordes had a good desire to remedy -the dearth but y{e} corn masters & malsters &c. used such closse -dealinges y{t} y{e} dearth was worse as y{e} like in former tymes: soe -that no orders will ease dearthes but by causeing more tyllage & y{t} -would make plenty & then every man will sell willinglye.... - -Also many are much deceived by inclosier because there are countries are -enclosed & be rich, but these were inclosed when there were but few -people & these maintain tyllage husbandry & hospitallyty & sett people -on work & have tenements for labourers, these are lyable to musters & -all services requirable for ye Kinge & country & taxes & charitable -collections but y{e} depopulators in ye champian countryes destroy all -meanes of doeinge help or servise for ye Kinge & country what neede -soever come. - -And although this was the fruitfullest somer that was in many yeares, -yet corne holds almost duble price to that which most men expected, -because rich men will sell but litle corne before they see the strength -of May past & if corne does not prosper then they will keep it expecting -a dearth the next yere. Another cause is that all men see how tyllag is -yearly decayed in the best champian countryes & people & drunknes -increased & no hope of remedy because of y{e} inyquity of y{e} tyme & -gentlemen & other have great friends & favour & may doe what they list. -And maltsters & ingrossers buy corn as fast as they can, & doe use wayes -to have it brought home what lawes or orders to the contrary expectinge -a dearth if ye next spring prove not very fruitfull. And if his Ma{ty} & -ye lords doe not take some speedy course to cause more tyllage there -beinge good ground enough before wete seeds tymes come, then will dearth -ensue. And y{n} ye poore hungry people may cry ... where ys corne; And -y{n} it will be too late to remedy dearths by any lawes or orders. And -now it might be done there beinge aboundance of old resty fatt ground in -y{e} champian countryes which if it were plowed & sowne w{t} corne, no -wett seeds tyme could hurt it soe that they would yield corne to supply -all wants beinge in y{e} midle of y{e} land my lord if you please to -give me leave I will give you y{e} names of many decayed townes in ye -counties of Leic{s} & Northampt, &c., and who decayed them & now the -Lord hath swept away y{e} inclosiers & their posterity out of all & -strangers have their houses & pastures. And my desire is y{t} yo{r} -Lo{p} might be acquainted with y{e} country dissorders & the remydes to -reforme y{e} evills and then ye may better judge of them & acquaint his -Ma{tie} & y{e} lords, that by his & their good directions, we shall have -plenty and bring much more to his ma{ties} treasures & the whole -land.... - -Also I doe humbly intreate yo{r} Lo{ps} favor to let me shew how there -may be ymploym{t} for people & wealth to ye Kinge & ye Kingdome & plenty -& cheapnes & have ingrossers frustrated of their game & have lesse wast -of corne in ale & beer & less sinninge: & lesse dangers & soe ye lorde -keepe you: w{th} my humble sute, to accept of my poore desires for ye -deede, with my attendance vpon your Lop{s} pleasure. - - Your Lop{s} to Co[~m]and - - [Endorsed:--] RICHARD SANDES. - - Sandes touching Indigence. - - -(VI) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF ACTION AGAINST ENCLOSURES BY JUSTICES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 185, No. 86_ - -Most Honor{ble} - -Wee have caused a view to bee made according to yo{r} Lo{ps} Late -Lr[~e]s of all _Inclosures and conv{r}sions of Arrable Land to meadow -and pasture_, w{ch} are now in hand or haue beene made w{th}in two -yeares Last past, And wee haue signifyed yo{r} Lo{ps} direc[c~o]ns vnto -such [p-]sons as are causers of any such Inclosures & Con[v@]tions and -have given them notice that they ought not to [p-]cede w{th} hedgeing or -dytchinge in of any such grounds but to Let them so rest vntill wee -shall have furder orders from yo{r}: hon{ors}: And wee further conceaue -that if depopula[c~o]ns may bee reformed it will bring a great good to -the whole Kingd: for where houses are pulled downe the People are forced -to seeke new habitations. In other townes & cuntryes by meanes whereof -those Townes where they get a setling are pestred so as they are hardly -able to live one by an other, and it is likewise the cause of erecting -new Cottages vppon the wasts and other places who are not able to -releive themselves nor any such townes able to sustaine or set them on -worke w{ch} Causes Rogues & vagabonds to encrease. Moreover it doth -appeare that in those townes w{ch} are depopulated the People being -expelled There are few or none Left to serve the King when Souldjours -are to bee lodged to appeare at Musters for his Ma{te} seruice w{ch} is -also a cause that poore Townes where many people are, are put to greater -charg in setting forth of souldjours & depopulated Townes are much eased -and the Subsidie decayed. All w{ch} wee humbly submit to yo{r} Lo{ps} -great wisdome. And will e[v@] rest. - - At yo{r} hon{ble} service - humbly to bee comaunded - - Fran: Thornhagh Ro: Sutton vic. - Matth Palmer - W. Cooper Gervas Fevery - Tym: Pilsy Gil[-b]t Millington - Wi[l~l] Coke Will Moseley - Jo: Woods - - Wee doe herew{th} - [p-]sent vnto yo{r} - Hon{rs} the names of - all such as have - made any Inclosures - or con[v@]sions w{th} in two - yeares Last past or that - were in hand to make the same. - - [Addressed:] To the right hon{ble} the Lords - of his Mat{s} hon{ble} Privy - Counsell humbly present these. - - [Endorsed:] Feb. 1630. From the County of - Nottingham touching Inclosures. - The inconveniencies of Depopulation. - - [No Enclosures] - -[This letter is printed by Miss Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New -Series, vol. xix. She refers it to Norfolk, which is apparently a -mistake.] - - -(VII) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF ACTION AGAINST ENCLOSURES BY JUSTICES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 206, No. 71_ - - -Lincoln - - An abstract of such depopulators as have bene hetherto dealt - withall in Lincolnshyre, & receyued their pardon. - - The persons in number 9 - The so[~m]e of their fynes 300_l_ - The number of houses by bond to bee erected 33 - The tyme for the erecco[n@] within one yere. - The number of farmes to be contynued that - are now standing 22 - The fynes are already payd. - - Sir Charles Hussey Kn{t.} Fyne, 80[~l]. Bond of 200 [m@]kes, w{th} - Condico[n@] to sett up in Homingto[n@] 8 farmhouses w{th} Barnes - &c. and to lay to e[v@]ye house 30 acres of land, and to keepe 10 - acres thereof yearlye in tyllage. - - S{r} Henry Ayscough Knt. Fyne, 20[~l]. - Bond 200 [m@]kes. To sett vp 8 farmhouses in Blibroughe - w{th} 30 acres to e[v@]y farme, and 12 thereof to be kept - yearlie in tylthe. - - S{r} Hamond Whichcoote Knt. Fyne, 40[~l]. - Bond 200 [m@]kes. To set up 8 farmhouses &c. in Harpswell, - w{th} 40 acres to e[u@]y house; and 16 thereof in - tyllage. - - S{r} Edward Carre Kt. Fyne, 30[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To sett vp 2 Farmhouses in Branswell, and - 1 in Aswarby w{th} 40 acres to e[u@]y house, 16 in tyllage. - - S{r} Will[m@] Wraye, Kn{t.} Fyne, 30[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To sett up in Graynesby 2 farmhouses w{th} 2 - acres at least to either, 10 in tyllage & to contynue 2 - farmes more in Grainsby & 3 in Newbell & Longworth, - w{th} the same quantity, as is now used them, a third [p-]te - in tylthe. - - S{r} Edmund Bussye K{t.} Fyne, 10[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To set vp one farmhouse in Thorpe w{th} 40 - acres, 14 thereof in tyllage, And to contynue 14 farmes - in Hedor, Oseby, Aseby, & Thorpe, as they now are, w{th} a - third [p-]te in tyllage. - - Richard Roseto{r} Esq{r.} Fyne, 10[~l]. - Bond 50[~l]. To set vp one farme in Lymber w{th} 40 acres, - 16 in tyllage, and to continewe 1 farme in Limber, and 2 - in Sereby, vt sup{a.} - - Robert Tirwhilt Esq{r.} Fyne, 10[~l]. Bond 50[~l]. - - To set vp one farme in Camtringt{a}un w{th} 40 acres. 16 in - tyllage. - - John Fredway gent. Fyne, 10[~l]. Bond 40[~l]. - To set up one farme in Gelson w{th} 30 acres, 10 thereof in - tyllage. - - [Endorsed:] Lincol[n@] Depopulato[r@] Fyned & pardoned and the - reformacons to bee made. - - [No date] - - -(VIII) - -[COMPLAINTS CONCERNING THE PROCEDURE OF ARCHBISHOP LAUD IN DEALING WITH -ENCLOSURES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 499, No. 10_ - -That vpon the Commission of enquiry after depopulacoñ The Lord -Archbishopp of Can[t@] and other the Commissioners at the solicitacoñ of -Tho: Hussey gent. did direct a le[r@] in nature of a Co[m@]ission to -certain persons w{th} in the County of Wilts to certifie what number of -Acres in South Marston in the [p-]ish of Highworth were converted from -arable to pasture and what number of ploughes were laid downe &c. - -Wherevpon the Archdeacon with two others did retourne Certificate, to -the Lord Archbishopp &c. - -Upon this Certificate, M{r} Anth: Hungerford, M{r} Southby with 15 -others were convented before his Grace and the other Commissioners at -the Councell Board, where being charged with Conversion. - -M{r} Anth: Hungerford & M{r} Southby with some others did averre that -they had made noe conversion, other then they had when they came to be -owners thereof. - -His Grace said that they were to looke noe further then to the owners, -And Certificate was retourned that soe many Acres were converted and soe -many ploughes let downe. - -They alladged that this Certificate was false & made without their -privity, and therefore M{r} Hungerford in the behalfe of the rest did -desire that they might not be iudged upon that Certificate. But that -they might haue the like favour as M{r} Hussey had, to have Ce[r@]s of -the same nature directed to other Commissioners, or a Commission if it -might be granted to examine vpon oath whereby the trueth might better -appeare. - -His Grace replyed to M{r} Hungerford since you desire it & are soe -earnest for it you shall not have it. - -They did offer to make prove that since the conversion there were more -habitaco[n@]s of men of ability & fewer poore. And that whereas the King -had before 4 or 5 souldiers of the Trayned Band he had nowe 9 there. -That the Impropriaco[n@] was much better to be lett. - -His Grace said to the rest of the Lords, wee must deale with these -gen[t@] as with those of Tedbury to take 150[~l] fine, and to lay -open the inclosures. - -Which they refusing to doe they were there threatned with an -informaco[n~] to be brought ag{t} them in the Starrcham[-b] And -accordingly were within a shorte tyme after by the said M{r} Hussey -served with sub penas at M{r} Attorney his suite in the Starr chamber: -And this as M{r} Hussey told M{r} Hungf{d} was done by my Lo: Archbp his -command. - -[Endorsed:] Depopulation--M{r} Hungerford & M{r} Southby [1641]. - - - - -APPENDIX II - - -TABLE I (p. 25) - -This table is based on documents relating to the following manors:-- - -1. Northumberland. - -Acklington (1567, _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. pp. 367-8); -Buston (1567, _ibid._, vol. v. p. 209); Thirston (1567, _ibid._, vol. -vii. pp. 305-6); Birling (1567, _ibid._, vol. v. pp. 200-1); Amble -(1608, _ibid._, vol. v. p. 281); Hexham (1608, _ibid._, vol. iii. pp. -86-104). - - -2. Lancashire. - -Warton (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 19, No. -7, ff. 79-87); Whyttington (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 19, No. 7, ff. 47-9); Ashton (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Portf. 19, No. 7, ff. 69-72); Overton (4 Eliz. R.O. Duchy of -Lanc., Special Commission, No. 67); Widnes (10 Eliz. R.O. Duchy of -Lanc., Special Commission, No. 181); Cartmel (Hen. VIII.(?) R.O. Rentals -and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. 75); Rochdale (1626, from -information kindly supplied by Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick of Rochdale, from -a Survey in the Chetham Library, Manchester), Lands of Cockersand Abbey -(1501, _Chetham Miscellanies_, vol. iii.). - - -3. Staffordshire. - -Barton (Ph. and M.(?) R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, -No. 70); Burton Bondend (1597, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 185, ff. -70-74); Drayton Basset (1579, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 185, ff. -54-68); Wotton in Elishall (1 Ed. VI., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 14, No. 83); Agarsley (1611, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, -Duchy of Lancs., Bdle. 8, No. 29). - - -4. Leicestershire. - -Ulverscroft Priory (31 Hen. VIII., R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 182, -f. 35); Broughton Astley (Eliz. R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Bdle. 10, No. 4); Barkby (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Roll -382); Stapleford (10 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lanc., -Portf. 6, No. 15); Priory of Launde (31 Hen. VIII, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. -Bks. 182, f. 1); College of St. Mary, Leicester (1595, R.O. Rentals, -Duchy of Lanc. 6/12); Garradon Abbey (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. -Bks. 403, f. 123); Kibworth Beauchamp (1 & 2 Ph. and M., R.O. Land Rev. -Misc. Bks. 182, f. 284); Kibworth Harcourt (1636, Merton MSS., Book -labelled Kibworth and Barkby, 1636). - - -5. Northamptonshire. - -Duston (3 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 23); -Yelvertoft (11 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 52); -Warmington and Eaglethorpe (30 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. -13, No. 21); Brigstock (4 James I., R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 221, -f. l); Higham Ferrers (8 James I., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, -No. 34); Paulspurie, _alias_ Westpury (32 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, vol. 419, f. 3). - - -6. Norfolk. - -Ormesby (7 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, -No. 18); Barney (29 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 26, No. 57); Great Walsingham (29 Hen. VIII., _ibid._); Gunthorpe -(29 Hen. VIII., _ibid._); Skerning (Ed. VI., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, -Gen. Ser., Portf. 3, No. 23); Metherwolde (1575, R.O. Duchy of Lanc., -Rentals and Surveys, Bdle. 7, No. 29_a_); Brisingham (31 Eliz., R.O. -Misc. Bks., Land Rev., vol. 220, f. 220); Aylsham (James I., R.O. Misc. -Bks., Augm. Off., vol. 360, f. 1); Scratbye Bardolphes (date uncertain, -R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52); Burghe Vaux -(1620, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52); Castons -(_c._ 1620(?), R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52 p. -10d); Massingham (Hen. VIII.(?), R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 30, No. 25); Northendall (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Roll 478, m. 3); Drayton Hall (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 20, No. 53); East Dereham (1649, R.O. -Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 10); West Lexham (1595, Holkham -MSS., West Lexham MSS., No. 87); Longham Hall and Gunton (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Longham and Watlington (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Watlington and Priors (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Billingford (1565, Holkham MSS., -Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Foxley (1568, Holkham MSS., -Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Peakhall (1578, Holkham MSS., -Tittleshall Bks., No. 12); Wellingham (1611, Holkham MSS., Tittleshall -Bks., No. 62); Tittleshall Newhall (Holkham MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. -62). I have included one manor (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 3, No. 21), of which I have mislaid the name. - - -7. Suffolk. - -Snape (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, f. -187); Ashfield (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -14, No. 85); Otley (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. -163, f. 145); Rodstrete and Brimdishe (Ed. VI., R.O. Misc. Bks., Augm. -Off., vol. 414, f. 19-22); Dennington (Ed. VI., R.O. Misc. Bks., vol. -414, f. 22b); Harrolds in Cretingham (Ed. VI., R.O. Aug. Off., vol. 414, -f. 25b); Stratford juxta Higham (17 James I., R.O. Duchy of Lanc., -Rentals and Surveys, 9/13); Denham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Dunstall (date uncertain, R.O. -Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Dalham (date -uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); -Kentford (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -27, No. 32); Nedham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Desnage Talmaye, and Cressness[?] in Gaseleye -(date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. -32); Higham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -27, No. 32). - - -8. Wiltshire, Somerset, and Devon. - -All are contained in the _Surveys of the Lands of William, Earl of -Pembroke_, published by the Roxburgh Club, and edited by Straton, -1565-1573. There are twenty-seven manors in Wiltshire, four in -Somersetshire, and one in Devonshire. - - -9. Hampshire. - -Crondal, and Sutton Warblington (_Crondal Records_, Part I., Baigent). - - -10. Ten other manors in the South of England. - -Castle Combe (Wilts, 1454, Scrope, _History of Castle Combe_); Ibstone -(Bucks, 1483, Merton MSS., No. 5902); Cuxham (Oxford, 1483, Merton MSS., -No. 5902); Malden (Surrey, 1496, Merton MSS., Survey of Malden); Aspley -Guise (Bedford, 1542, from information kindly supplied by Mr. G.H. -Fowler, of Aspley Guise); Ewerne (Dorset, 1568, _Topographer and -Genealogist_, vol i.); Edgeware (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate -Maps); Kingsbury (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate Maps); Gamlingay -Merton (Cambridge, 1601, Merton Estate Maps); Gamlingay Avenells -(Cambridge, 1601, Merton Estate Maps). - - * * * * * - -The chief criticisms which may be made upon this table are:-- - -(i) Some of the documents from which the figures are taken are separated -from each other by a very long interval of time, so that they do not all -represent approximately the same stage of agrarian development. This is -a disadvantage. It is possible, for example, that, if the manor of -Rochdale could be examined in 1526 instead of in 1626, it would be found -that the proportion of copyholders to leaseholders was higher than it is -at the later date. This defect, however, is perhaps not so great as to -outweigh the value of the general picture of the relative proportion of -different classes given by the table. A great majority of the documents -from which it is compiled belong to the sixteenth century, and are dated -as follows: Those of 10 manors are of an uncertain date, those of 3 fall -between 1450 and 1485, of 2 in the reign of Henry VII., of 19 in that of -Henry VIII., of 5 in that of Edward VI., of 3 in that of Philip and -Mary, of 60 in that of Elizabeth, of 13 in that of James I., of 2 in -that of Charles I., of 1 in 1649. - -(ii) The lists of tenants given by the surveyors may sometimes not be -exhaustive. I am not sure, for example, that all the freeholders on the -manor of Crondal, or all the leaseholders at Gamlingay Merton and -Gamlingay Avenells, are recorded. - -(iii) It is sometimes not clear under what category a tenant should be -entered. When there is no clue at all I have entered such tenants as -"uncertain." In some cases, however, though there is no entry by the -surveyor, there are indications that the tenants are freeholders, -customary tenants, or leaseholders, and, when that is so, I have grouped -them in the table according to the probabilities of the case. But I do -not doubt that I have made some mistakes. - -(iv) A special word must be said about Norfolk and Suffolk. In these -counties it is quite common to find the same tenant holding both by free -and by customary tenure. When this is so, I have entered him both under -"freeholders" and under "customary tenants" in the table. This means, of -course, that the numbers entered for these two counties in the table -exceed the number of individual landholders. As, however, my object was -to ascertain the distribution of different classes of tenures, this -course, though not satisfactory, seemed the best one to follow. In other -counties a similar difficulty hardly ever occurs, a fact which is of -some interest as showing the relatively advanced agrarian conditions of -Norfolk and Suffolk. In the few cases in which it does occur I have -followed the same plan as I have for those two counties. - - -TABLE II. (pp. 32 and 33) - -This table is based on documents relating to the undermentioned manors. -The sources from which the information is taken are given in the -explanation of Table I., and I therefore do not repeat them. - -1. Norfolk. - -Metherwolde, Northendall, Brisingham, Massingham, Skerning Billingford. - -2. Suffolk. - -Ashfield, Stratford juxta Higham, Kentford, Dunstall. - -3. Staffordshire. - -Drayton Basset, Barton, Burton Bondend. - -4. Lancashire. - -Warton, Overton, Widnes. - -5. Northamptonshire. - -Paulespurie, Brigstock, Higham Ferrers, Duston. - -6. Wiltshire. - -South Newton. - -7. Leicestershire. - -Barkby. - - -I have thought it worth while to insert this table, but I am not -satisfied with it. (i) I am inclined to think that, as stated in the -text, fuller information would show that medium-sized holdings of -between 20 and 60 acres were more common than it suggests. It is plain -that surveyors often could not locate the properties of freeholders, and -the larger the property the harder their task. (ii) Even where the -holding is set out by the surveyor, one cannot always form an accurate -judgment of its size. For example, rights of common, though often -expressed in acres, are often expressed in some other way, _e.g._ in the -terms of the number of beasts which the tenant may graze; and, again, a -man is sometimes said to hold so many acres "cum pertinentiis." What I -have done is simply to enter the acreage as given in the surveys. In -some cases, therefore, the size of the holding is certainly -underestimated. - - -TABLE III. (p. 48) - -The figures in this table are an analysis of the figures given under the -heading of "Customary Tenants" in Table I., and the source from which -they are taken will be found by looking at the explanation of that table -given above. As I have pointed out in the text, it is probable that not -all the "Tenants at Will" should have been entered as "Customary -Tenants" in that table. I hope that any error which may have arisen -through their inclusion under that heading there may be neutralised by -setting them out here. It will be seen that they are not numerous. - - -TABLE IV. (pp. 64 and 65) - -This table is based on documents relating to the undermentioned manors. -The sources from which the information is taken are given, with a few -exceptions (see below), in the explanation of Table I. - -1. Wiltshire and Somerset. - -South Newton, Byshopeston, Washerne, Knyghton, Donnington, Estoverton -and Phipheld, Wynterbourne Basset (all in Wilts), South Brent and Huish -(Somerset). - - -2. Suffolk. - -Stratford juxta Higham, Ashfield, Snape, Desnage Talmaye, Chaterham Hall -(the last Hen. VIII. R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, ff. -109-114). - - -3. Norfolk. - -Barney, Great Walsingham, Gunthorpe, Brisingham, Aylsham, Ormesby, -Northendall, and one manor, the name of which I have mislaid (see -explanation of Table I.). - - -4. Staffordshire. - -Barton, Wotton in Elishall, Agarsley. - - -5. Lancashire. - -Ashton, Whytyngton, Warton, Widnes. - - -6. Northamptonshire. - -Higham Ferrers, Brigstock. - - -7. Leicestershire. - -Launde Priory, Barkby, Kibworth. - - -8. Northumberland. - -High Buston, Acklington, Birling, Thirston, Preston, East Chirton, -Middle Chirton, Whitney, Monkseaton, Eardon (the last six all 1539, -_Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 230, ff.). - - -9. Nine manors elsewhere in South of England. - -Crondal, Sutton Warblington, Edgeware, Kingsbury, Aspley Guise, -Gamlingay Merton, Gamlingay Avenells, Salford, Weedon Weston (two last -from surveys on back of All Souls Maps). - -In this table are included a few landholders as to whose tenure I am not -certain. It has the defect stated in connection with Table I., that in a -considerable number of instances the holdings of tenants are not fully -expressed in terms of acres, and that therefore it probably somewhat -underestimates their area. On the other hand, the holdings of the -customary tenants are usually set out by the surveyors much more fully -than those of the freeholders. - - -TABLE V. (p. 107) - -1. Northumberland and Lancashire. - -Acklington, Birling, High Buston, Thirston, Whytyngton. - - -2. Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. - -South Newton, Estoverton and Phipheld, Winterbourne Basset, Washerne, -Donyngton, Byshopeston, Knyghton, Ewerne (the last in Dorsetshire, -_Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. There are only three customary -tenants on this manor, and only one is represented in the table, as the -use made by the others of their land is not ascertainable). - - -3. Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire. - -Salford, Weedon Weston, Wotton in Elishall, Kibworth Harcourt. - -In connection with this table the following points should be noticed:-- - -(i) I am not certain that all the tenants represented in it are -customary tenants. But with one or two exceptions the holdings of all -are not larger than those of the customary tenants on other manors, so -that there is no reason to suppose that their agricultural economy -differed from that usually followed by the latter. - -(ii) More serious, the figures are not completely accurate. I have -entered under each denomination, "arable," "meadow," or "pasture," land -so entered by the surveyor. In some cases, however, the character of the -land is not specified. _E.g._ it is described simply as a "close," or a -tenant is said to hold so many acres of arable "with appurtenances." -Further, tenants frequently possess rights of pasture which are not -expressed in terms of acres, but are either measured by the number of -beasts which they may graze, or are not measured at all (_e.g._ "catalla -sine extento"). In the latter case, which does not affect any except the -Wiltshire manors, I have not attempted to form any estimate, but have -simply taken their holdings as stated by the surveyor. When there is no -clue to the character of the land, I have omitted it. When it is plain -that the land falls under a special denomination, though this is not -specified in the survey, I have placed it under that denomination in my -table. _E.g._ at Donyngton nearly every tenant holds "unum clausum -noviter extractum de communia," and together they hold in such "closes" -132 acres. I have entered these as "pasture." - - -TABLE VI. (pp. 115-117) - -1. Ingoldmells, Lincolnshire: Massingberd, Ingoldmells Court Rolls, -Preface, p. vii. I quote the words of the editor, "In 1086 the annual -value of the manor of Ingoldmells was £10.... In 1295 the rents of the -free and bondage tenants were £51, 17s. 1d.... In 1347 the same rents -were £61, 9s. 4d., and in 1421 they were £71, 10s. 3d.... But in 1485 -£3, 7s. 4d. had to be deducted for lost rents ... from a total of £72, -6s. 8d.... When the manor was sold in 1628 by Charles I., the reserved -rent ... was only £73, 17s. 2d.... It is therefore clear that at -Ingoldmells the tenants appropriated virtually the whole of the increase -in the value of the land." - -2. Crondall, Hampshire: Baigent, _Crondal Records_, Part I., pp. 135 and -383. - -3. Sutton Warblington, Hampshire: _ibid._, pp. 141 and 383. At the later -date Sutton Warblington appears to have been treated as part of the -manor of Crondal, though still itself called a manor. - -4. Birling, Northumberland: _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - -5. Acklington, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. - -6. High Buston, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. (Tenants at will and -copyholders only). - -7. Amble, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. - -8. Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire. These figures were kindly supplied me by -Dr. G.H. Fowler of Aspley Guise as the result of his researches in the -Record Office into the history of the manor. - -9. South Newton, Wiltshire: Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of -William, first Earl of Pembroke_, edited by Straton. Note (a) The manor -of South Newton included the parishes of Childhampton, Stoford, Little -Wishford, and North Ugford. I have dealt here only with the Parish of -South Newton, (b) The figures relate only to the customary tenants, and -do not include the payments of freeholders and _convencionarii_. I have -obtained the figure of £8, 3s. 11-1/2d. by adding together the tenants' -money payments and the value of their works, which are set down in terms -of money. But I am not sure that it is correct. I have omitted the -payments of fowls (made at both dates) and the small payments for church -shot and maltsilver. - -10. Cuxham, Oxfordshire: Merton MSS., Nos. 5902 and 5905. - -11. Ibstone, Buckinghamshire: _ibid._, Nos. 5902 and 5209. (In the -earlier rental freeholders as well as customary tenants, and in the -later possibly leaseholders as well, are included.) - -12. Malden, Surrey: Merton MSS. MSS. both headed "Maldon, Thorncroft, -and Farleigh 1841," and giving extracts from early court rolls and -rentals. - -13. Kibworth, Leicestershire: Merton MSS., Nos. 6375 (Rental), 6362, and -6356 (ministers' accounts). The earliest entry is the payments of the -copyholders only: the two later entries are "rents of assize." - -14. Standen, Hertfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 868, No. -17; Bdle. 869, No. 8; Bdle. 869, No. 15; Bdle. 870, No. 4. The earliest -entry is "Rents assized £18, 17s. 3d. Lands let at will of lord 60s." -The second, third, and fourth give the total income. - -15. Feering, Essex: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 841, No. 5; -Bdle. 841, No. 23; Mins. Accts., Hen. VIII., No. 951. The first two -entries are totals of quarterly rents paid at Christmas, Easter, Birth -of St. John the Baptist, and Michaelmas. The last is "assized rent." It -is possible, therefore, that the apparent diminution is due to the -earlier rentals having included payments not given in the last. - -16. Appledrum, Sussex: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Rolls 643, 644, and -Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 1019, No. 15. - -17. Minchinhampton: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Rolls 237 and -241. In the earlier documents the "total rent yearly" is given as £41, -14s. 4d., and the "sum total of works" as £4, 15s. - -18. Langley Marish, Berkshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 761, -No. 4, and Bdle. 762, No. 5; Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 188, f. 196ff. -The first entry is the sum total of rents paid quarterly, together with -7s. 4d. of a custom called "vaccage," and 13s. 4d. of common fine at -view of frank pledge. (Exactly the same items are entered in the -following year.) The second entry is "profits and issues of the manor," -and is headed "account of the manor for 83 days," but the similarity of -the figure with that of the earlier date makes it hard to believe that -the "profits" relate to less than one quarter of the year. The third -entry is made up of rents of free and customary tenants, demesne lands -held by copy, and customary rents called "Hedage" and "Duply," producing -23s. 3-1/2d. - -19. Lewisham, Kent: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Roll 361; Misc. -Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 174, f. 1-34; Misc. Bks., Aug. Off., vol. -414, f. 33-4. The first entry is "Rent of the tenants of the manor of -Lewisham," the second "Rental of the lordship of Lewisham." The third -"Rent of free tenants £17, 12s. 10-1/2d., Rent of tenants _per -dimissionem_ £72, 9s. 8-1/2d., Rents of tenants at will 9d." - -20. Cuddington, Surrey: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Rolls 669 and 624, -Aug. Off., Misc. Bks., vol. 414, f. 3-16. The first entry is "Rents -belonging to the manor at the terms of Easter and Michaelmas," i.e. it -is for half a year only, and therefore I have ventured to double it. The -second and third entries consist of the annual rent of all classes of -tenants. - -21. Isleworth, Middlesex: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 916, Nos. -11, 21, and 25. The figures at each date refer to the assized rent. At -the two earlier dates the assized rent is given for all four quarters of -the year. At the last date it is given only for the Michaelmas quarter. -In order to make comparison possible, I have given the rents for the -Michaelmas quarter throughout. The full entries for the two earlier -dates are: 1314-15, £15, 5s. 6d. at Christmas, £17, 1s. 9-3/4d. at -Easter, £15, 5s. 6d. at June 24, £21, 16s. 10d. at Michaelmas, works -sold 22s. 1-1/2d; 1386-7, £14, 13s. at Christmas, £16, 19s. 7d. at -Easter, £13, 13s. at June 24, £23, 3s. 10-1/2d. at Michaelmas, works -sold 106s. 10d. - -22. Wootton, Oxfordshire: R.O. Misc. Accts., Bdle. 962, No. 20; Bdle. -963, No. 14; Aug. Off., Misc. Bks., vol. 414, f. 38b. At the two earlier -dates the figures given are the assized rents of free and bond tenants -and _cotarii_, at the last date they are the rents of free and customary -tenants. At that time there was also a rent of 30s. 8-1/2d. from -assarts, and a rent of £13, 0s. 11d. from tenants by demission. I have -omitted the last two items as there is nothing comparable to them in the -earlier entries. - -23. Speen, Berkshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 750, No. 22; -Misc. Bks. Land Revenue, vol. 187, f. 97-101. At the earlier date the -figures refer to the assized rents, at the later date to the rents of -free tenants, customary tenants, and "firms." - -24. Schitlington, Bedfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 741, -Nos. 16, 19, and 27. At the first date the figures refer to the assized -rent, and include "Tallage of the vill £10." At the second date they -cover the same entries as at the first. At the last date they refer to -the rent as it appears in the Rental. At this time there are certain -additional entries, viz., "Firm of land £8, 5s. 0-1/4d., Firm of the -manor £4, 15s. 4d., Increase of Rent [of a mill(?)] 13s. 4d., Increase -of Rent of 1 messuage, 1 virgate with croft and meadow 13s. 7-1/2d." -These I have omitted. - -25. Cranfield, Bedfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 740, -Nos. 18, and 25; Mins. Accts., Hen. VIII., No. 4. At the first two dates -the figures include rents of free and native tenants and ferm of lands. -At the last date the entry is "Rent of the vill, as by the rental, £72, -2s. 1-3/4d." - -26. Holywell, Huntingdonshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 877, -No. 17, Bdle. 878, No. 1. At the first date the entries include rents -assized, and certain miscellaneous items such as "Hewesilver," -"Heringsilver," "Brensilver"; at the later date "Rents assized of free -and villein tenants £4, 19s. 8d., customary rent lately in works and in -new rent £15, 6s. for 17 virgates paying 18s. each, £6, 15s., for 25 -cotmen paying 9s. each, 6s. 8d. increment of rent." - -The suggestion that it might be of interest to try to discover how far -rents were stationary over long periods came to me from reading the -article by Maitland on "The History of a Cambridgeshire Manor" in _E. H. -R._, vol. ix., where he points out that copyholders must have enjoyed a -considerable unearned increment. The table of rents explained above is -unsatisfactory, because of the difficulty of finding a basis for the -comparison of payments at different periods. Thus at the earlier dates -there are the tenants' works, and (occasionally) tallages to be -considered; at the later the rent obtained from leasing the demense. The -variety of the sources of manorial revenue makes it impossible to -discover a common form to which the payments on all manors can be -reduced. The ideal would be to take the villeins' payments and works in -(say) the fourteenth century, and to compare them with the payments of -the copyhold tenants in the sixteenth century. But since the commonest -entry is simply "rents of assize," which included the rents of -freeholders as well as of customary tenants, this simple procedure is -often impossible. - -While the table given on pages 115-117 is certainly not what could be -desired, I am inclined to think its inaccuracies do not lie in the -direction of exaggerating the fixity of rents, but rather, if anything, -in underestimating it, because (i) when a total rent is given for the -fifteenth or sixteenth century, without further particulars, it probably -often included the rent paid by the farmer of the demesne, which at the -earlier period was non-existent, (ii) at the later period the total rent -often included payments made for new encroachments in the waste. When -this is evidently the case, as at Wootton, and the amount of the new -payments is stated, I have omitted them, my object being to compare, -when possible, the rents paid by customary tenants at different periods. -But often it is not possible to make such an allowance, and therefore I -am disposed to think that the figures for the later dates are more -likely to be weighted with irrelevant items than are the figures for the -earlier dates. This makes the comparatively slow increase in the rents -of some manors all the more worthy of notice. - -TABLE VIII (p. 212) - -1. Norfolk. - -Massingham Priory (two farms, Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 24, No. 4, f. 46); Wymondham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., -Misc. Bks. 408, f. 25); Marshams (Marham(?), Hen. VIII., Augm. Off., -Misc. Bks. 408, f. 19); Thetford (Hen. VIII., Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. -408, f. 22); Bockenham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 408, f. -9-10); Langley (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 399, f. 228-9); -Walsingham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 399, f. 201); -Brisingham (31 Eliz., R.O. Misc. Bks. 220, f. 236); Farfield (31 Eliz., -_ibid._); Wighton (17 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lanc, -Bdle. 7, No. 34); Peakhall (1575, Holkham MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. -12); West Lexham (1575, Holkham MSS., West Lexham MSS., No. 87); Foxley -(1568, Holkham MSS., Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Sparham -(1590, Holkham MSS., Sparham MSS., Bdle. No. 5); Billingford (between -1564 and 1606, Holkham MSS., Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); -Fulmordeston (1614, Holkham MSS., Map No. 59). - -2. Wiltshire. - -South Newton, Estoverton, Wynterbourne Basset, Byshopeston, Donnington, -Knyghton, Domerham, Burdonsball, Foughlestone, Brudecomb, Westoverton, -Sutton Maundeville, Stockton, Albedeston, Chalke, Bulbridge, Dichampton, -Patney, Wyley, Berwick St. John, Remesbury, Staunton, Chilmerke (all -1565-73, Roxburgh Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl of -Pembroke_). - -3. Manors in other counties. - -Ashton (Lancs., Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -19, No. 7, ff. 69-72); Prestwood (Staffs., R.O. Misc. Bks. Land Rev., -vol. 185, ff. 155b-7); Gamlingay Merton (Cambridgeshire, 1601, Merton -Estate Maps); Gamlingay Avenells (_ibid._); Salford (Bedfordshire, 1595, -All Souls Estate Maps); Weedon Weston (Northants, c. 1595, _ibid._); -Edgeware (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate Maps); Kingsbury (Middlesex, -1597, _ibid._); Greenham (Bucks, 1595, _ibid._); Crendon (Bucks, c. -1595, _ibid._); Harlesden Farm (Middlesex, 1599, _ibid._); Land in the -Parish of Hendon (Middlesex, c. 1599, _ibid._); Whadborough -(Leicestershire, 1620, _ibid._). - -The fact that this table is compiled from documents of different dates -makes it impossible to use it as an index of the size of the large -leasehold farms at any one period in the sixteenth century. Nor can I -hope to have escaped errors of calculation. I hope, however, it may be -of some use in illustrating the considerable scale on which some farms -were conducted. - - -TABLES IX, X, and XI (pp. 218, 225-226 and 227) - -The farms from which these tables are compiled are included in the list -given in explanation of Table VIII. (with one exception, Ewerne in -Dorsetshire, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.), and it is -therefore unnecessary to set them out in detail here. The figures as to -arable, pasture, and meadow on the demesne of 41 monasteries are taken -from Savine, "English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution," -_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. p. 172. - - -TABLE XIII (p. 300) - -This table is compiled from documents relating to the undermentioned -manors. When the reference has already been given I do not repeat it -here:--23 manors in Wilts, Somerset, and Devon, Roxburghe Club, _Surveys -of Lands of William, First Earl of Pembroke_. West Lexham (Norfolk), -Sparham (Norfolk), East Dereham (Norfolk), Wighton (Norfolk), Stockton -Socon (Norfolk, 1649, R.O. Parly. Surveys, Norf. No. 14); Aldeburgh -(Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163); St. -Edmund (Suffolk, 1650, R.O. Parly. Surveys, Suff. No. 14); Dodnash -(Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, f. -79); Chatesham, Suffolk (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, -vol. 163, f. 91); Falkenham (Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Treas. of -Receipt, vol. 163, f. 181); Stratford juxta Higham (Suffolk), Mettingham -(Suffolk, _Victoria County History_, chapter on Social and Economic -History); Mark Soham (Suffolk, _ibid._); Bushey (Herts, 7 Eliz., from -Court Rolls lent me by the late Miss Toulmin Smith); Ewerne (Dorset, -1567, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.); Corton (Somerset, -_ibid._); Rolleston (Staffs., _ibid._); Hewlington (Denbighshire, 4 -Eliz., Wrexham Library, Ancient Local Records, vol. ii.); Holt -(Denbighshire, _ibid._); Wotton in Elishall (Staffs.); Burton Bondend -(Staffs.); Agarsley (Staffs.); High Furness (Lancs., 28 Eliz., R.O. -Duchy of Lancs., Special Commissions, No. 398); Crondal (Hants); -Edgeware (Middlesex); Kingsbury (Middlesex); Malden (Surrey, Merton -MSS., book labelled Malden, Thorncroft, and Farleigh); Thorncroft -(Surrey, _ibid._); Farleigh (Surrey, _ibid._); 14 manors in -Northumberland (_Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 238); -Bradford (Somerset, Selden Society, vol. xii., Leadam, Select Cases in -the Court of Requests); Shepton Mallet, Somerset (Calendar of -Proceedings in Chancery, _temp._ Eliz. H.h. i. 27); Newton Tracye -(Devon, _ibid._, H.h. 23, 17); Chudlye (Devon, _ibid._, L.l. 8, 31); -Powlton (Wilts, _ibid._, M.m. 13); Kibworth Harcourt (Leicestershire, -Merton MSS., book containing extracts from Merton Court Rolls); Barkby -(Leicestershire, _ibid._). - - * * * * * - -NOTE.--(i) The names of the manors from which Dr. Savine takes his -figures are not given. Consequently his information and mine may -sometimes overlap, (ii) The MSS. book from which the customs of -Farleigh, Thorncroft, and Malden are taken is dated 1841, but it -purports to give customs based on ancient court rolls. The same applies -to the information as to Kibworth Harcourt and Barkby. - - - - -GENERAL INDEX - - -Abbeys, _see_ Monasteries - -Act of Parliament, Enclosure by in 18th century, 183-184 - -Acts of Parliament-- - Statute of Merton, 1235, 87, 180, 248, 371-372 - 15 Hen. VI. c. 2, sanctioning export of corn, 113, 197 - 23 Hen. VI. c. 5, sanctioning export of corn, 113, 197 - 3 Ed. IV. c. 2, restricting import of corn, 113, 197 - 4 Hen. VII. c. 14, against depopulation, 11, 353 - 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, against depopulation, 353 - 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1, against depopulation, 353 - 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, against depopulation, 354 - 27 Hen. VIII. c. 25, for relieving impotent beggars, 269 - 1 Ed. VI. c. 2, legalising enslavement of vagabonds, 44, 269 - 2 and 3 Ed. VI. c. 12, giving good titles to Duke of Somerset's tenants, - 294, 365 - 3 and 4 Ed. VI. c. 3, re-enacting Statute of Merton with amendments, - 371-372 - 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 5, against depopulation, 354 - 2 and 3 Phil, and M. c. 2, against depopulation, 354 - 5 Eliz. c. 2, Statute of Artificers, 23, 45, 100, 353 - 14 Eliz. c. 5, directing compulsory assessment for relief of poor, 269 - 18 Eliz. c. 3, directing provision of materials for setting unemployed to - work, 269 - 31 Eliz. c. 7, requiring cottages to be let with 4 acres of land - attached, 277, 354 - 35 Eliz. c. 7, against depopulation, but repeating clauses in previous - Acts forbidding conversion to pasture, 354 - 39 Eliz. c. 1, against depopulation, 354-355 - 39 Eliz. c. 2, against depopulation, 354-355 - 4 Jac. I. c. 11, for enclosure of certain parishes in Herefordshire, 395 - 21 Jac. I. c. 28, continuing certain Acts and repealing others, 355 - - -Action of trespass-- - copyholders' remedy by, 289 - freeholders' remedy by, 248 - -Administration-- - of land by peasants, 102, 159-161, 244-246. _See also_ Agriculture, - Commons, Communism - of Acts against Depopulation-- - difficulty of, 377-386 - irregularity of, 391-393 - occasional effectiveness of, 386-387, 390-392 - opposition of landlords to, 367-368, 370, 397-398 - petition of rebels for, 335, 337 - -Administrative Courts, _see_ Council, Courts - -Administrative interference-- - with economic matters, 355-357 - with enclosures-- - under Henry VII., 359-360 - " Henry VIII., 360-362 - " Edward VI., 362-372 - " Elizabeth, 372-374 - " James I., 374-375 - " Charles I., 376-377 - final cessation of, 397-400 - -Admission fines, _see_ Fines - -Agrarian changes, the-- - causes of, 6-7, 12-13, 185-200 - contemporary accounts of, 6-8 - general effect of, 403-404 - localities most affected by, 153-154, 182, 262, 405 - of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 11-12, 79-95, 136-147, 161-162 - of sixteenth century, 6-8, 147-173, 213-230, 301-310 - of eighteenth century, 34, 183-184, 406 - part played by capitalist farmers in, 200-202, 213-266 - part played by peasants in, 136-173 - reaction of on peasantry, 7-8, 231-280 - resistance of peasants to, 302-304, 317-340 - _See also_ Agriculture, Enclosure, Land, Pasture - -Agreements to enclose, 151-153, 156-158, 180-182 - -Agriculture-- - capitalist, 6-7, 200-204, 210-230 - cattle, importance of to, 113-115, 239-242 - changes in methods of, _see_ Agrarian changes - commercial development, effect of on, 185-188, 195-197 - common rights, importance of to, 238-242 - communal elements in, 128-131, 159-161, 205-207, 243-246 - corn growing, part played by in, 105-112 - corn laws, effect of on, 112-113, 197 - custom, effect of on, 75-78, 124-131, 292-301 - enclosure by peasants, effect of on, 152-153, 158, 169-173 - enclosure by manorial authorities, effect of on, 216-223 - farmer of demesne, part played by in, 201-204, 210-230 - for market, 214-216 - for subsistence, 111-112 - improvements in, 110-111, 170-172 - markets, effect of on, 196-197, 214-215 - mediæval, not incompatible with change, 75-97, 172, 404-405 - methods of-- - in Cornwall, 262, 405 - " Devonshire, 167, 262, 405 - " Essex, 167, 262, 405 - " Kent, 167, 262, 405 - " Lancashire, 63, 65 - " Midlands, 65, 167, 192 - " Norfolk, 63, 65, 405 - " Northumberland, 63, 65, 189-192 - " Suffolk, 63, 262 - " Somerset, 110-111, 171, 262, 405 - " Staffordshire, 63, 65 - " Wiltshire, 63, 65, 212 - on demesne farms, 200-230 - " monastic estates, 382-383 - " peasants' holdings, 105-115 - open field system of, _see_ Open field system - pasture farming instead of, _see_ Pasture - rise in prices, effects of on, 197-200, 304-310 - social importance of, 341-347 - speculation, effects of on, 381-383 - views as to, of Clarkson, 5, 189-190 - " " Fitzherbert, 5, 109, 112, 117-118, 150, 151-152, 242 - " " Norden, 5, 108, 110-111, 118, 150, 151, 171, 308 - woollen industry, effects of on, 6, 195-197 - -Alien, _see_ Immigration - -Alienation of land, effect of free, 86, 138-139 - fines on, 127 - _See also_ Speculation - -Apprenticeship, effect of on marriage, 104-106 - -Arable land-- - backbone of peasants' livelihood, 105-108 - common rights, necessary for cultivation of, 239-242 - conversion of to pasture, 223-230, 232-233, 258 - corn yielded by acre of, 110-111 - enclosure of for better cultivation by large farmers, 10, 221-224 - enclosure of for better cultivation by peasants, 151-153, 162-164 - estimated number of persons maintained by holding of, 261 - proportion of to pasture and meadow in Staffordshire, 392-393 - proportion of to pasture and meadow on demesne farms, 225-228 - proportion of to pasture and meadow on peasants' holdings, 107 - reconversion of pasture to-- - Acts for, 353-355 - by Royal Commissions, 359-360, 366-367, 374-375 - " Council, 360-361 - " Justices of Assize, 376 - " Justices of Peace, 386, 418-420 - " landlords, 390-391 - -Aristocracy-- - acquisition of monastic estates by some of the, 380-384 - attack of on Somerset's land policy, 367-368, 370-372 - contrast between mediæval and that of sixteenth century, 191-194 - growth of commerce, effect of, on the, 187-188, 191-194 - Harrington's account of social changes in the, 38, 191 - landholding peasants not an, 100-102 - part played by in Pilgrimage of Grace, 322-324 - relations of to tenants in North and South contrasted, 188-191 - Tudor policy, effect of on powers of the, 188-195 - unpopularity of administrative Courts with the. 397-400 - _See also_ Index of Persons, Bath, Brudenell, Darcy, Derby, Englefield, - Harrington, Herbert, St. John, Shrewsbury, Saye and Sele, Somerset, - Warwick, Willoughby, Wolsey, Yorke, Leicester, Northumberland. - -Assessment-- - of subsidies, 169, 344-347 - " enclosed land, 169 - " wages, 23, 100, 308 - -Assize-- - Justices of, disputes as to land referred to by Council, 373, 375-376 - " " punishment of depopulating landlords by, 375-376, 419-420 - rents of, 118 - -Assize of Novel Disseisin-- - establishment of by Henry II., 122 - remedy of freeholders by, 248 - -Authorities-- - manorial, _see_ Manorial authorities, the - -Authority-- - part played by in organisation of manor, 92, 128-129 - tendency of to stereotype manorial arrangements, 75-78, 92-93 - - -Bailiffs, 82, 123, 209 - -Barton land, division of among peasants, 95 - -Beasts-- - importance of for plough, 240-242 - number of kept by peasants, 113 - -Black Death, _see_ Great Plague - -Bodger, the, 349 - -Bondage, _see_ Villeinage - -Bondman, _see_ Villeinage - -Bord land, 95 - -Border-- - agrarian conservatism on, 63-66, 188-191 - copyholders on, 188-191 - military importance of numerous tenantry on, 188-191 - substitution of leases for copies on, 301-304 - -Border tenure-- - Coke's remarks upon, 299 - Customs involved in, 299 - decision of Courts as to, 299 - discussion by Long Parliament as to, 191 - effect of Union of Crowns on, 190-191 - service with horse and harness, an incident of, 190 - -Boundaries-- - importance of to commoners, 241 - uncertainty of, 235-236 - -Bovate, _see_ Virgate - - -Canon Law, the, as to usury, 307 - -Capital-- - accumulation of by peasants, 82-83, 118 - dealings in on money market, 186 - investments of in farm stock, 6, 113-115, 170-172, 220 - " " " joint-stock companies, 186 - " " " land, 7 - -Capitalists-- - appearance of among peasants, 71, 81-84, 136-139 - farming on a large scale by, 6-7, 200-204, 210-230 - loans by, 108-110 - purchase of land by small, 78-95 - results of growth of small, 95-97, 136-139 - signs of appearance of large, 215 - _See also_ Demesne land, Farmers, Enclosure, Pasture - -Catholic-- - conspiracy, supposed complicity of peasants in, 329 - " fear of, reason for popular agrarian policy, 340-341 - landlords, special measures suggested for, 341 - revolts, parties in, 318-319, 323-324 - -Cattle, _see_ Agriculture, Beasts, Common Land - -Chancery, _see_ Court - -Chevage, 53 - -Childwite, still paid in seventeenth century, 54 - -Classes of landholders, see Peasants - -Collective bargain by peasants with lord, 130, 295 - -Combinations-- - among peasants, 131, 330-331 - to reduce rents and prices, and to break down enclosures, illegal, 371 - -Commerce-- - attention given by Tudor governments to, 185-186, 197 - backwardness of in North, 190 - effect of in breaking down equality of peasants' holdings, 66, 84-85 - engaged in by aristocracy, 187-188 - expansion of in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 185-186, 196 - influence of on social conditions and land tenure, 187-188, 196-197 - -Commission of sewers, 395 - -Commissions, Royal-- - activity of Hales in connection with, 167, 366-368, 371 - " " Laud in connection with, 399, 420-421 - " " Somerset in connection with, 362-370 - anger of landlords at, 367-368, 370 - appointment of on enclosure and depopulation in 1517, 261, 359 - " " " " 1548, 261, 366 - " " " " 1566, 261 - " " " " 1607, 261, 375 - " " " " 1632, 261, 376 - " " " " 1635, 261, 376 - " " " " 1636, 261, 376 - causes of appointment of, 358 - counties visited by, 366 - disappointment of peasants with, 319, 366 - effects of in checking depopulation, 391-393, 419-420 - evidence before, how collected, 263, 366-367 - " " interpretation of, 263-265 - fines imposed by, 391, 419-420 - fiscal motives for, under Charles I., 391 - statistics derived from, as to average area of enclosures, 154-155 - " " " " acreage enclosed, value of, 262-265 - " " " " population displaced, value of, 262-265 - -Commons-- - grant made by Lords to the, 335 - "information and petition against the oppressors of the poor commons," - 366 - proclamation of the, 323-324 - prosperous condition of, 132-135 - -Commons, House of, _see_ Parliament - -Common field system, _see_ Open field system - -Common Land-- - administration of, by Manorial Courts, 159-162, 244-246 - " " at Burnham, 245 - " " " Southampton, 245-246 - " " " Wootton Basset, 251-252 - beasts kept on by peasants, 113-114 - colonising of by evicted tenants, 277-279 - demands of Norfolk rebels as to, 335-336 - division of by peasants, 157 - enclosure of by peasants, 157, 169-170 - " " manorial authorities, 219-221 - " " Johnson on unimportance of, 9 - importance of, reasons for, 239-242 - " " Clarkson on, 189 - " " Fitzherbert on, 242 - " " Hales on, 4, 239-240 - " " Hamberstone on, 240, 241 - improvement of by capitalists, 394-395 - monopolising of by large farmer, 220-221, 242-243 - overstocking of, 170-172, 242-243 - sale of at Burnham, 245 - stinting of, 160, 241 - view taken in seventeenth century as to, 394-396 - _See also_ Common, Bights of, Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Common Law-- - complaints of landlords as to interference of government with, 397-398 - complaints of Long Parliament as to interference of government with, 399 - doctrine of as to Rights of Common, 246-250 - ineffective remedy offered to customary tenants by, 358, 400 - protection of copyholders by, 289, 291, 296 - tenants at will at, 289 - -Common meadow, _see_ Meadow land - -Common pastures, _see_ Pasture - -Common waste, _see_ Waste - -Common, rights of-- - Bracton on, 247 - Coke on, 248 - communal element in, 244-246 - compensation for loss of, 243 - copyholders' remedy for loss of, 248-249, 287-301 - cottagers' claim to, 247 - difficulty of poor in enforcing, 252-253 - dispute as to at Coventry, 250-251 - " " " Wootton Basset, 251-253 - Fitzherbert on, 249 - freeholders' remedy for loss of, 248-249 - legal theory as to common appendant, 247 - " " " " appurtenant, 247 - " " " " in gross, 247 - " " " " par cause de vicinage, 247 - Maitland on, 244 - peasants' view of, 243-246 - not conferred by residence, 247 - tenements attached to, 247 - _sicut quantitatem tenuræ_, 241 - Vinogradoff on, 244 - _See_ Common Land, Copyholders, Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Communism-- - denounced by landlords, 324, 384 - elements of in manorial arrangements, 159-161, 206-207, 243-246 - practical nature of in demands of rebels in sixteenth century, 338 - theoretical nature of in demands of Diggers, 338 - views as to, of Maitland, 244 - " " " Vinogradoff, 244 - -Community, the village, _see_ Manor - -Commutation, _see_ Labour services - -Competitive rents, _see_ Rents - -Consolidation of holdings, _see_ Holdings - -Conversion to pasture, _see_ Pasture - -Copyholders-- - act to give security to, on Somerset's demesne lands, 294, 365 - attitude of, to State, 122-124 - cases as to, 296 - compelled to surrender copies for leases, 301-304 - customs affecting, at Aldeburgh, 411-412 - customs affecting, at Bushey, 126-127 - dependence of on custom of manor, 124-131, 292-301 - effect on of fall in value of money, 304-310 - fines paid by, 305-307 - labour services rendered by, 52-53 - marks of personal villeinage among, 53-54 - on new land, 289-290, 293-294 - preponderance of over other classes shown by statistics, 25, 48 - rights of common enjoyed by, 248-258 - rents of fixed by custom, 115-121 - surplus enjoyed by, 119-121 - subletting of land by, 81 - tenure of, changes in, in sixteenth century, 1-2, 310-311 - " definition of, 47 - " demands of rebels as to, 334-337 - " duration of, statistics as to, 300 - " fines incidental to, certain or uncertain, statistics as to, - 300 - " origin in villein tenure, 50 - " protected by custom of manor, 129-131, 292-297 - " " " Court of Chancery, 289, 291-292, 294-295, 398 - " " " Courts of Common Law, 289, 291, 294-295 - " " " Court of Requests, 362, 367, 397 - " " " Court of Star Chamber, 360 - " " " Council, 296, 359, 373-374, 397 - " theories as to, of Ashley, 290-292 - " " " Coke, 289, 299 - " " " Fitzherbert, 288-289 - " " " Kitchin, 289 - " " " Leadam, 289-290 - " " " Norden, 47 - " " " Savine, 287, 292, 297, 300 - _See also_ Customary tenants, Manor - -Corn-- - consumed at home, 111-112 - export of encouraged, 113 - export of discouraged, 197 - import of checked, 113 - loans of, 109 - output of per acre, 110-111 - trade in, 111 - -Corn-growing-- - backbone of peasants' livelihood, 105-112 - commercial policy towards, 112-113, 197 - conditions making profitable, 110-113 - in Norfolk, 111-112 - pastures broken up for at Coventry, 20 - proposals for encouragement of, 416-417 - unemployment caused by abandonment of, 232-233 - wastes to be reclaimed for, 394-395 - -Corn laws, _see_ Corn - -Cottagers-- - commons used by, 247 - driven from enclosed into open field villages, 277-279 - loss of commons by, 7 - statistics as to among freeholders, 31-33 - " " " customary tenants, 63-66 - -Cottages-- - Act requiring four acres to be attached to, 277, 354 - erection of on waste, 277-278 - -Council-- - Agrarian policy of under Charles I., 391, 399 - attack on Somerset by, 370, 380 - grantees of monastic estates members of, 380 - intervention of to protect peasants, 357-359, 361-362, 372-376, 391, 399 - of the North, 355, 374, 398 - of Wales, 355, 373 - returns made by Justices to, 356, 375-376, 386, 419-420 - -Court of Chancery-- - cases heard in by Wolsey, 397-398 - petitions to from peasants, 294 - protection of customary tenants by in fifteenth century, 289, 291-292 - -Court of Manor-- - agricultural arrangements of village controlled by, 159-162, 244-246 - cases of villeinage heard in, 292 - customs enforced by, 125 - enclosers fined by, 161-162 - pastures stinted by, 170, 241 - villein land transferred in, 78-79, 86 - -Court of Requests-- - cases before as to copyholds, 362 - " " " fold-courses, 374, 397 - " " " rack-renting, 285, 390 - " " " villeinage, 42 - constitution of, 357 - Hall on, 357 - popularity of with poorer classes, 357 - powers of curtailed by prohibitions, 399 - Somerset's use of, 367 - unpopularity of with landlords, 397-398 - -Court of Star Chamber-- - abolition of in 1641, 399 - cases before, as to breach of peace, 374 - " " " copyholds, 359, 360 - " " " enclosure, 360, 391, 421 - " " " villeinage, 43 - constitution of, 357 - denounced in Grand Remonstrance, 399 - Sir Thomas Smith on, 358 - unpopularity of with landlords, 397-398 - -Court Leet-- - of Coventry, 20, 162, 181, 249, 251 - of Southampton, 162, 170, 241, 245-246 - -Court Rolls-- - evidence of, as to enclosure, 159 - " " " encroachments on waste, 87-89 - " " " land speculation, 75, 78-81 - " " " tenure of copyholders, 362 - " " " villeinage, 43 - -Courts of Common Law, _see_ Common Law. - -Cultivation, _see_ Agriculture - -Cultivators, _see_ Peasants - -Crown, the, _see_ Council, Court, and Index of Persons - -Crown tenants-- - at Wheatley 302, 413-415 - in Wales, 298, 302 - on Northumbrian border, 190-191, 299 - -Custom of the Manor, the, _see_ Copyholders, Manor - -Customary-- - of Aldeburgh, 411-412 - " Bushey, 126-128 - " High Furness, 101 - -Customary Court, _see_ Court of Manor - -Customary tenants-- - statistics of, 24-26, 48 - _see also_ Copyholders - - -Dairy farming, 215 - -Day work of copyholders, 52-53 - -Demesne land-- - absent from some northern manors, 203 - acreage of farms on, 212-213 - added to peasants' holdings, 93-95, 204-209 - changes in use of after Great Plague, 93-95, 204-209 - conversion to pasture of, 223-228 - customary routine of agriculture on, 217, 228-229 - difficulty of discriminating between peasants' land and, 95 - effect of division of among peasants, 91-93 - foundation of large farm in sixteenth century, 202-203 - gradual consolidation of, 221-223, 254-256 - insecurity of copyholders on, 289, 293-294 - leased to capitalist farmer, 210-212 - leased to smallholders, 94-95, 204-205 - leased to village community, 205-207 - lying in compact blocks, 221-223, 254-256 - lying in scattered strips, 221-222 - peasants' land merged in, 257-258 - progress of enclosure on, 216-223 - proportion of manorial area formed by, 259 - rents paid for, 256 - rights of common over, 234 - statistics as to use of, 225-226 - unemployment caused by enclosure of, 232-233 - -Depopulation-- - Commissions of Inquiry into, _see_ Commissions - counties most affected by, 8-9, 153-154, 262-263, 404-405 - contemporary accounts of, 6-8 - effect of on pauperism, _see_ Poor Law - individual instances of, 257, 260-261 - proposals for checking, 416-417 - statistics of Royal Commissions as to, 261-265 - Statutes against, _see_ Acts of Parliament - views of Gay as to exaggerated accounts of, 10-11, 263-265 - -Diggers, 321, 337-338 - -Dissolution of monasteries, _see_ Monasteries - -Domesday Book-- - large extent of arable land in, 228 - _liberi homines_ and _sochemanni_ in, 27 - -Domesday of Enclosures-- - classes entered in as enclosing, 154-155 - enclosing by _villata_ in, 156 - size of enclosures in, 154-155 - _See also_ Enclosures - - -Economic rent, _see_ Rent, Copyholders - -Education obtained by some peasants, 134-135 - -Enclosure-- - by agreement, between individuals, 162-165 - " " better cultivation produced by, 169-172 - " " early progress of in East and South-West, 167-168, 405 - " " Fitzherbert on, 150, 152-153, 171 - " " Hales on, 151, 167, 171 - " " Lee on, 151 - " " Moore on, 167 - " " Norden on, 150, 151, 171 - " " no harm resulting from, 152-153, 172-173 - " " of arable land, 157, 162-165 - " " of meadow and pasture, 157, 161-162 - " " of whole village, 156-158 - " " opposed by Court of Manor, 159-162 - " " peasants' approval of, 168-170 - by manorial authorities, attitude of Government to, - _see_ Acts, Council, Court - " " " counties most affected by, 8-9, 182, 262-263 - " " " in Middle Ages, 180-182 - " " " motives for, 185-200 - " " " of arable land, 221-223 - " " " of eighteenth century, 183-184 - " " " of meadow and pasture, 219-221 - " " " of peasants' holdings, 150-173 - " " " peasants' dislike of, 147-150 - " " " preceded by consolidation, 222-223 - " " " reaction of on peasants, 231-280 - -Encroachments-- - on lords' land, 235-236 - on peasants' land, 234-235 - on waste, 87-89, 285-287 - -Engrossing-- - of corn, 274 - of holdings, 253-265 - -Equality-- - of holdings, disappearance of in South and East, 63-66 - " " influence of trade on, 66, 84-85 - " " maintained in dividing demesne, 206-207 - " " survival of in North, 63-66, 189-190 - -Escheats of freehold land unascertainable, 30 - -Eviction-- - liability to of copyholders, 287-301 - " " leaseholders, 282-287 - " " tenants at will, 282-287 - number displaced by, 260-265 - _See also_ Depopulation - -Exchange, the, 186-187 - -Exchanging of strips, 164-165, 395-396 - -Exports of woollen piece goods, 196-197 -" " corn, _see_ Corn - - -Famines-- - fear of, 35 - local, 112 - -Farm, _see_ Demesne, Farmers - -Farmers-- - acreage occupied by large, 212 - advantage to lord of letting land to large, 213-216 - agents through whom agrarian change took place, 201-202 - capitalists among, 215-216 - consolidation of strips by, 221-223, 254-256 - conversion to pasture by, 225-228 - demesnes leased to large, 209-211 - disputes between peasants and, 234-237 - economic conditions favouring, 214-216 - enclosing practised by, of arable land, 221-223 - " " " common meadow and pasture, 219-221 - importance in sixteenth century of large, 204 - manorial rights leased to, 211 - peasant subtenants of, 211 - soldiers recruited from, 343-344 - subsidies collected from, 344-347, 415, 418 - -Feudal-- - conditions of land tenure, decay of in South, 191-195 - " " " " among freeholders, 29-30 - " " " Harrington on decay of, 38, 191 - conditions of land tenure, survival of in North, 190-191 - lords, character of, 191-192 - -Final concords in Staffordshire, 392-393 - -Financial, _see_ Fiscal - -Fines-- - for depopulation, 391, 419-421 - of copyholders, customs as to, 127, 295-301, 411-412, 413-415 - " " declared unreasonable by courts, 296 - " " demand for reasonable, 294, 307, 335-336 - " " rise in prices, effect of on, 308-309 - " " statistical analysis of, 300 - " " upward movement in, 305-310 - of freeholders, 127 - -Fiscal reasons for protecting peasants, 344-347 - -Fold-courses, cases as to, 374, 395 - -Forests-- - claim of Crown to under Charles I., 391 - enclosures of to be spared, 335 - -Freedom, growth of personal, _see_ Villeinage - -Freeholds-- - interference of Council with, 399 - _See also_ Freeholders - -Freeholders-- - enclosing by, 32-33, 157-158, 236 - eviction of in fifteenth century, 37 - holdings of, statistics as to, 32-33 - independence of, 30, 35-38 - large numbers of in Norfolk and Suffolk, 24-27 - little affected by agrarian changes, 28-29, 134, 406 - loss of rights of common by, 250-253 - political interests of, 121-122 - rents of, 29-30 - rights of common of, how protected, 247-249 - social importance of, 34-37 - suits of Court due from, 29 - statistics as to, 25 - upward movement among in sixteenth century, 37-40 - _See also_ Yeomen - - -Gentlemen-- - complaints of by peasants, 193 - copyholders among, 55-56 - distrust of by rebels, 323-324 - part played in rebellions by, 322-323 - yeomen made into, 383 - -Geographical distribution of enclosures, _see_ Enclosures - -Germany-- - survival of serfdom in, 43-44 - social distinctions in, 187 - Reformation in, 339 - -German peasants-- - programme of, 339 - revolt of, 368 - -Gilds-- - apprenticeship insisted on by, 105-106 - exclusion of immigrants by, 275-276 - loans by, 109 - meadows belonging to, 369 - -Government, the, _see_ Acts of Parliament, Council, Court - -Grazier, _see_ Pasture - -Grazing, _see_ Pasture - -Great Plague-- - effect of on land tenure, 90-91, 208-209, 286 - " " population, 138 - remembered in reign of Elizabeth, 130 - - -Half-virgate, _see_ Virgates - -Hallmote tenants, land sublet to, 81 - -Hedges, _see_ Enclosure - -Heriots, 43, 53, 126-131 - -Holdings-- - added to demesne farm, 257-258 - addition to, of demesne land, 93-95 - " " of waste, 87-89 - enclosing of, _see_ Enclosure - equality of, in North, 63-66, 189 - exchanging of, 164-165, 395-396 - formation of compact, 162-165 - growth in size of, 70 - held by same family for many years, 189 - inequality of in South and East, 63-66, 70-72 - of customary tenants, statistics as to, 63-66 - " freeholders, 32-33 - " land, basis of economic life of village, 99-104 - rents of, on customary land, 115-119, 141-147 - " " on new encroachments, 141-147 - services due from, 76-77 - subdivision of, 79-80 - subletting of, 80-81 - use made of by peasants, 105-108 - _See also_ Agriculture, Farmers - -Horse and harness, tenure by, _see_ Border tenure - -Hospitality, meaning of, 233 - -Households, equipment of with land, _see_ Holdings - -Husbandry, _see_ Agriculture - - -Immigration-- - caused by enclosures, 3-4, 275 - from enclosed to open field villages, 277-279 - into towns, 275-277 - -Imports, _see_ Commerce - -Import duties, _see_ Corn - -Indenture, tenants by, _see_ Leaseholders - -Industry-- - backwardness of in North, 63-66, 189-190 - growth of in sixteenth century, 185-188, 192 - progress of in East and South, 63-66, 84-85 - _See also_ Commerce, Woollen industry - -Inequality-- - of holdings, absence of in North, 63-66, 189 - " " general in South and East, 63-66 - " " effect of trade in producing, 84-85 - " " transference of land, 78-79, 86 - -Inmates, statute of, 4, 277, 279 - -Intensive cultivation, 110-111, 171 - -Intimidation of tenants by landlords, 7, 251-253, 263, 302-304, 325 - - -Judges-- - decisions of as to fines, 296, 299, 307 - " " " foldcourses, 395-396 - address of Lord Coventry to, 398 - _See also_ Court. - -Juries-- - address of Hales to, 366-367 - evidence as to depopulation before, 263, 366-367, 385 - packed by landlords, 263, 385 - service of 40s. freeholders on, 28, 36, 121 - -Justices-- - of Assize, cases referred to, 373-376 - " " action taken by, 374-376 - of the Peace, actions taken by against depopulation in Lincolnshire, 386, - 419-420 - of the Peace, actions taken by against depopulation in Nottinghamshire, - 386, 418-419 - of the Peace, assessment of enclosed land by in Warwickshire, 169 - " " failure of to administer Acts against depopulation, - 384-385, 390 - of the Peace, letters of Council to, 358, 376 - " " orders of as to relief of poor in Cornwall, 272 - " " presentments before of enclosers in Yorkshire, 375 - " " returns sent to Government by, 386 - " " social prejudices of, 384-385 - " " views of as to enclosing in Nottinghamshire, 418-449 - - -Kind, rent paid in, 211-212 - -King, _see_ Council, Court, and Index of Persons - -Knight service, tenure by, 29 - - -Labour, _see_ Labourers - -Labour services-- - Commutation of, 52, 58, 93, 98 - of copyholders, 52-53 - -Labourers-- - assessment of wages of, 23, 100, 308 - at Axholme, 104 - commons used by, 247 - effect of enclosing on habits of, 106 - immobility of, 270-272 - immigration to towns of, 275-277 - in Norfolk, 21-22 - " Worcestershire, 23 - " Yorkshire, 22 - King's estimate of number of, 21 - on monastic estates, 22 - scarcity of, 100 - social unimportance of, 342 - unemployment of, 232-233 - -Land-- - speculation in, 78-86, 381-382 - wide distribution of, 99-104 - _See also_ Agriculture, Arable land, Common land, Demesne, Holdings, - Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Landholders, _see_ Peasants - -Landless population, _see_ Labourers - -Landlords, _see_ Manorial authorities - -Land tenure, _see_ Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders - -Leasehold tenure-- - advantages of to lord, 213-214 - competitive rents under, 141-147 - early development of among peasants, 80-81 - effect of plague on, 93-95. 208, 286 - on demesne land, 93-95, 201-214 - on waste, 87-89, 141-144 - substitution of for copyhold tenure, 301-304 - -Leaseholders-- - division of demesne among small, 93-95, 204-209 - eviction of, 283-287 - letting of demesne to large, 210-211 - manorial rights held by, 211 - rack-renting of, 285 - statistics as to, 25 - rents paid by, 256 - _See also_ Leasehold tenure - -Levellers, complaints by as to enclosing, 149, 320-321 - -Leyrwite, 53 - -Lords of manors, _see_ Manorial authorities - - -Manor, the-- - agricultural routine of, 102 - changes in, produced by Great Plague, 88-95, 207-209 - classification of tenants on, 25, 48 - communism in, 159-161, 243-246, 338 - copyholders kernel of, 288 - court of, 47, 78-79, 86, 125, 159-160, 244-246, 292 - custom of, 47, 124-131, 292-301 - customs of, at Aldeburgh, 411-412 - " " Bushey, 126-128 - " " High Furness, 101 - fiscal interests of lord in, 76-77 - interpretation of documents relating to, 75-78 - leased in sixteenth century, 201-213 - part played in by authority and communal arrangements, 92-93 - rigidity of exaggerated, 76, 89-90, 172 - views of held by Maitland, 244, 305, 433 - " " " Seebohm, 163 - " " " Vinogradoff, 77, 92, 244, 290 - unprofitableness of to lord, 304 - -Manorial authorities, the-- - bargains made by with villagers, 205-207 - bound by custom, 128-129 - contemporary accounts of action of, 6-8 - effect on of Tudor policy, 191, 197 - " " rise in prices, 195-196 - " " growth of woollen industry, 197-200 - enclosing by, _see_ Enclosures - eviction by, _see_ Eviction - identity of interests of peasants with those of, 229, 257 - large enclosures made by, 148-150, 154-155, 216-223 - leasing of demesne by, _see_ Demesne, Leasehold tenure - opposition of to interference of Government, 397-399 - " " " Somerset's policy, 367-368, 370 - pasture-farming by, _see_ Pasture - permission to enclose given by, 157 - petitions of copyholders to, 302-304 - rack-renting by, 141-147, 285 - resumption of land by, 285-287 - small control of over freeholders, 29-30 - speculation in land by, 381-382 - villeins claimed by, 42-43 - -Maps, consolidation of strips shown by, 163, 222-223, 254-255 - -Map-- - of Crendon, 221 - " Edgeware, 172 - " Maids' Moreton, 221 - " Salford, 163 - " Weedon Weston, 222 - " Whadborough, 223 - -Markets-- - effect of growth of, 215 - in Norfolk, 22, 111-112 - small development of, 110-112 - -Marriage, age of, 104-106 - -Meadow land-- - belonging to a gild, 369-370 - divided among peasants, 208 - enclosed by manorial authorities, 219-221 - " " peasants, 157 - -Mercantile system, the, 185, 313-315 - -Merchants, _see_ Commerce - -Merchet, immunity from claimed by peasants, 53-54 - -Middleman, the farmer a, 234 - -Midlands-- - chiefly affected by enclosure and conversion, 8-9, 167, 262-263, 405, - 416-417 - economic condition of, 63-66, 107 - granary of country, 262 - legal classification of tenants on manors in, 24-26 - -Military defence, importance of peasants for, 343-344, 415, 416, 418 - -Mobility of labour checked by law, 270-272 - -Monasteries-- - agriculture on estates of, 225 - demesne lands of leased, 203 - oppression of tenants by, 43, 382 - pasture-farming on estates of, 225, 382 - persons acquiring estates of, 380 - political effects of dissolution of, 383-384 - rebellions partly motived by, 318-319, 322-323 - social effects of dissolution of, 380-384 - views of Aske on dissolution of, 319, 383 - " " Cobbett on dissolution of, 382 - " " Hibbert on dissolution of, 383 - " " Gasquet on dissolution of, 383 - -Money-- - increase in supply of in sixteenth century, 197-200 - " " " effects of, 199-200, 304, 308-310 - scarcity of, 198 - -Money rents-- - corn payments substituted for, 198 - general in sixteenth century, 211-212 - - -"Nativi," _see_ Villeinage - -New allotments-- - distinction between customary holdings and, 95, 284-287, 289-290, 293-294 - rents on, 141-147 - resumption by lords of, 285-287 - -North of England-- - absence of demesne from some manors in, 203 - administration of Acts against depopulation in, 374-375 - copyhold tenure in, 190-191 - customary of a manor in, 101 - demands of rebels in, 335-336, _see also_ Pilgrimage of Grace - economic conservatism of, 63-66, 189-191 - enclosing by peasants in, 157-158 - equality of holdings in, 63-66, 189 - eviction from a manor in, 257-258 - importance of numerous tenantry in, 189-191 - labour services on a manor in, 52-53 - preponderance of customary tenants in, 25-26 - rebellions in, _see_ Pilgrimage of Grace - relations between lords and tenants in, 189-191 - size of enclosures in, 154 - undermining of customary tenures in, 303-305 - - -Open field system, the-- - advantage of, to peasants, 103-104 - arrangement of demesne land under, 222-223, 254-256 - early decay of in Kent, Essex, and Devonshire, 167, 202-263, 405 - gradual modification of by peasants, 165-166, 172 - ideas underlying, 169-170 - inconvenience of, 171-172 - picture of in maps, 163-164, 222-223 - prevalence of in seventeenth century, 401-402 - uncertainty of boundaries under, 235-236 - _See also_ Common Land, Enclosures, Maps, Strips - - -Pannage paid by copyholders in sixteenth century, 53 - -Parks-- - made by landlords, 148, 201 - spared in Pilgrimage of Grace, 335 - -Parliament-- - Act of to fix fines demanded, 335 - Acts of, ineffectiveness of, 352-353, 355 - attitude of freeholders to, 36, 39, 121-122 - debates in on Enclosures, 343, 387-388 - " " Poor Law, 273-275 - " " subsidies, 345-346 - petition of peasants to, 251 - request to return member to refused, 387 - _See also_ Acts of Parliament - -Pasture-- - acreage of held by customary tenants, 107 - " " " farmers of demesnes, 225-226 - " " on monastic estates, 225 - administration of by village, 102, 159-161, 243-246 - apportionment of to arable holdings, 240-241, 247 - conversion of arable to, 223-230 - division of by peasants, 157 - enclosure of by peasants, 157, 170 - " " manorial authorities, 219-221 - importance of to peasants, 235, 239-242 - reconversion of to arable, 367, 391-393 - _See also_ Agriculture, Common Land, Farmers - -Pasture-farming, _see_ Agriculture, Common Land, Farmers, Pasture - -Pauperism, _see_ Poor Law - -Peasants, the-- - agricultural methods of, 105-112 - contemporary pictures of, 132-134 - demands of, 334-337 - education of, 134-135 - effect of loss of common rights on, 240-241, 253 - enclosure by, 151-173 - encroachments on waste by, 87-89, 284-287 - eviction of, 253-265 - helplessness of, 302-304, 325 - importance of, fiscal, 344-347 - " " military, 343-344 - independence of, 29-30, 34-39, 132-134, 325-328 - leasing of demesne by, 94-95, 204-210 - national pride in, 20-21, 132-134 - pauperism among, 270, 273-279 - prosperity of, 132-134, 325 - protection of by Government, 316-317, 351-400 - rebellions of, 317-340 - rents of, 115-121, 141-147 - size of holdings of, 32-33, 64-65 - upward movement among, 72, 75, 81-84, 96-98, 136 - _See also_ Agriculture, Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders, - Tenants at will - -Pilgrimage of Grace-- - agrarian demands put forward in, 322-324, 334-335 - classes taking part in, 318-319, 322-324 - -Plague, _see_ Great Plague, the - -Plantations, emigration to suggested, 270 - -Ploughmen, military importance of, 343-344 - -Policy, agrarian, _see_ Council, Court, Acts of Parliament - -Poor Law, the-- - agrarian causes of, 272-275 - debates in Parliament on, 273-275 - expenditure on caused by depopulation, 278-279, 418 - Mackay's view as to origin of, 266-267 - mobility discouraged by, 270-272 - Orders of 1631, 279 - slow development of, 269 - vagrancy chief problem of, 268-269 - -Population, checks upon, 104-106 - -Population, the manorial, _see_ Peasants, Copyholders, Leaseholders, - Freeholders - -Poverty, _see_ Poor Law - -Prices-- - effects of rise in, 199, 304, 308-310 - regulation of, 308 - Steffen's statistics of, 198 - -Programme of peasants-- - in Pilgrimage of Grace, 334-335 - " Norfolk, 335-337 - -Proletariat, peasants not a, 102 - -Protector, the-- - Act protecting tenants on demesne lands of, 294, 365 - attack of colleagues on, 367-368, 370 - Court of Requests used by, 367 - difficulties of agrarian policy of, 362-364 - fall of, 370 - proclamation against enclosures issued by, 367 - " pardoning rioters issued by, 367 - Royal Commission appointed by, 366 - _See also_ Council, Court - - -Rackrents, _see_ Rents, Fines - -Reaction, under Warwick against Somerset's agrarian policy, 367-368, 370, - 372, 380 - -Reformation, the 339, 380-384 - -Rents-- - competitive, growth of, 139-147 - fixed, demand for in Peasants' Revolt, 146 - " effect of on landlords, 199-200, 304-310 - " " " peasants, 117-121 - " neutralised by exorbitant fines, 118, 120, 305-307 - " statistics as to, 115-117 - fixing of by commissioners, 354 - " " council, 369 - paid in kind, 211 - per acre of demesne land, 256 - racking of, complaints as to, 235, 414 - reasonable, demand for, 336 - -Revolts, agrarian, the-- - conservative aims of, 333, 338-340 - counties affected by, 318-320 - directed against landlords, 323-324 - in North of England, 318, 322-324 - " Derbyshire, 329 - " Norfolk, 324, 331-333 - objects of, 333-337 - organised character of, 325-326, 330-332 - political importance of, 329, 340-341 - sixteenth century, last age of, 318 - -Riots, agrarian, _see_ Revolts - -Royal Commissions, _see_ Commissions - - -Salt silver, paid by copyholders, 53 - -Serf, _see_ Villeins - -Service, _see_ Knight service - -Services, labour, _see_ Labour services - -Servants-- - number of, employed in agriculture, 21-23 - scarcity of, 21-23, 100 - wages of, 100 - -Settlement laws-- - origin of, 269, 275-276 - popularity of, 276 - -Sewers, the Commission of, 395 - -Shack, common of, 234 - -Sheep-- - driving of, 326 - number of kept by peasants, 113 - slaughtering of, 331, 332 - -Sheep-farming-- - Acts restricting, 353-354, 360 - by peasants, 113-115 - by manorial authorities, 223-228 - -Slavery, legalisation of in 1547, 44, 269 - -Socage-- - freeholders holding by, 29 - tenants, rent of, 29 - -Sochemanni, large number of in East Anglia, 26-27 - -South of England-- - contrast between conditions of North and of, 57, 63-66, 97, 103, 189 - holdings of peasants in, 63-66 -Speculation-- - in land by peasants, 78-81 - in monastic estates, 380-382 - on money market, 186 - -Statutes, _see_ Acts of Parliament - -Stinting of pastures, 160, 220, 241 - -Strikes, agrarian, 131, 330 - -Strips-- - advantage of scattered, 103-104 - difficulty of enclosing, 162-163 - exchanging of, 164-165 - formed into compact blocks by peasants, 163-165 - " " " " manorial authorities, 221-223 - inconvenience of to manorial authorities, 254-255 - merged in demesne farm, 256 - picture of, in maps, 163, 222-223 - -Subletting of land by peasants, 80-81 - -Subsidiary income of peasants from woollen industry, 114-115 - -Subsidies-- - assessment of enclosed land to, 169 - difficulty of collecting, 346 - how assessed, 344-345 - payment of by yeomen, 345-346 - -Subsistence, farming for, 111-112 - -Sub-tenants, taking of forbidden, 275-276 - -Surplus over rent retained by tenants, 118-121, 304-305 - -Surveyors-- - account of agrarian conditions by, 5 - attitude of in Northumberland, 189-191 - unpopularity of, 349 - - -Tallages, 53-54 - -Taxation, _see_ Subsidies - -Tenants, _see_ Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders, Tenants at will, - Peasants - -Tenants at will-- - insecurity of, 283 - landlord compelled to grant leases to, 362 - meanings of phrase, 47 - statistics of number of, 48 - -Textile industries, the, _see_ Woollen industry, the - -Tillage, _see_ Arable land - -Trade, _see_ Commerce - -Trade unionism among peasants, 131, 330 - -Tramps, _see_ Vagrancy - -Transferring, the, of land-- - facilities offered by court of manor for, 86 - importance of in building up a middle class, 78, 85, 97 - instances of, 80-81 - -Tudors, the, _see_ Index of Persons, Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., - Elizabeth - - -Unemployment-- - caused by enclosure, 232-233, 273, 278 - methods of coping with, 269 - -Uses, Statute of, 323 - -Usury, 20, 109, 147, 307, 349 - - -Vagrancy, chief feature of pauperism in sixteenth century, 268 - effect of on towns, 275-277 - " " open field/villages, 277-279 - obstacles in the way of, 270-272 - punishment of, 44, 269 - -Village community, the, _see_ Manor, the - -Villagers, _see_ Peasants - -Villeinage-- - attitude of State towards, 43, 359 - compatible with considerable prosperity, 43 - examples of in sixteenth century, 42-43 - reference to in Somersett's case, 44 - traces of among copyholders, 52-54 - views on of Fitzherbert, 46 - " " Norden, 46 - " " Savine, 41 - " " Smith, 46 - -Virgates-- - aggregation of in fewer hands, 59-60, 66-70, 72-75 - examples of arrangement of, 66-67, 73-74 - use of as a measure, 67-68 - -Virgators, _see_ Virgates - - -Wages, assessment of, 23, 100, 308 - -Wage labour, _see_ Labourers - -Waste land of manor-- - enclosure of by manorial authorities, 219-221 - encroachments on, 87-89, 285-287 - erection of cottages on, 277-278 - great extent of, 88-89 - improvement of under Statute of Merton, 87, 248 - insecurity of tenants on, 285-287 - overstocking of, 172, 242-243 - reclamation of by capitalists, 394-395 - rents of, 140-147 - stinting of, 160, 220 - -Wool, _see_ Woollen industry - -Woollen industry-- - chief manufacture in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, - 3, 186 - effect of on agrarian conditions, 195-197 - encouraged by Government, 197 - expansion of in fifteenth century, 113, 196 - spread of in rural districts, 114 - Schanz's figures as to growth of, 196 - - -Yeomen-- - accounts of by Bacon, 28 - " " Coke, 133 - " " Fuller, 36-37 - " " Harrison, 132 - " " Latimer, 134 - " " Reyce, 40 - " " Smith, 28 - education of children of, 134-135 - forcible disseisin of, 37 - legal definition of, 27-28 - importance of, fiscal, 344-347 - " " military, 343-344 - " " social, 34-40, 132 - national pride in, 20-21 - _See also_ Freeholders, Peasants - - - - -INDEX OF PERSONS - - -Abbey of St. Albans, the, improvement of wastes by, 87 - -Abbot of Cerne, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - " Glastonbury, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - " Malmesbury, the, agreement by to enclose, 180-181 - " Peterborough, the, dispute of with copyholders, 360 - " St. Peter's, Gloucester, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - -All Souls College-- - enclosing on estates of, 156 - scale of landholding, 69-70 - maps of, 163, 172, 221, 222, 223 - petition of in Chancery, 235-236 - -Ashley, Professor W.J.-- - views of as to date of enclosing movement, 11 - " " " legal position of copyholders, 290-292 - -Aske, Robert-- - evidence of as to agrarian grievances, 319 - " " " monastic economy, 383 - Pilgrimage of Grace led by, 134, 319 - - -Bacon, Francis-- - bills against depopulation introduced by, 387 - history of King Henry VII. by quoted, 28, 346 - ideal of government of, 398 - use of word "yeoman" by, 28 - views as to pauperism of, 274 - -Bath, the Earl of, property of villeins seized by, 42-43 - -Becon, views of as to agrarian changes, 6, 7 - -Bell, William, commons enclosed by, 373 - -Berkeley, Lord Thomas, agreement by to enclose, 181 - -Bolen, Sir William, enclosing by, 380 - -Bracton-- - on assize of novel disseisin, 122 - villeinage, 292 - -Brudenell, Lord, fine imposed on for enclosing, 391 - -Buckingham, the Duke of-- - enclosing by, 380 - park made by, 148 - -Burleigh, Lord, advice of to Queen Elizabeth, 341 - - -Cade, Jack, 194 - -Captain Pouch, part played by in revolt of 1607, 318 - -Cecil, Sir Robert-- - views of on poor law, 273-274 - " " military importance of ploughmen, 343 - " " Statute of Inmates, 4, 279 - -Cecil, Sir William, letter to concerning Somerset's policy, 347-348, 368 - -Celys, the, wool purchased by, 196 - -Charles I., agrarian policy of government of, 391, 398, 399 - -Clarkson-- - Northumbrian manors surveyed by, 5 - views of as to equal use of commons, 235 - " " " importance of commons, 160 - " " " importance of numerous tenantry, 189-190 - -Cobbett, view of as to social effects of reformation, 382 - -Coke, Sir Edward-- - petition of tenants to, 412-413 - reports of, 247 - view of as to acts against depopulation, 379 - " " " copyholders, 289, 291 - " " " border tenure, 299 - " " " Statute of Merton, 248 - -Combe, William, enclosing by, 375 - -Cotton, Sir J., enclosing by, 380 - -Coventry, Lord, address of to Judges of Assize, 398 - -Cromwell, Thomas-- - letter of to Henry VIII., 360-361 - " " Rich, 361 - responsibility of for agrarian distress, 360 - tenants protected by, 361 - -Crowley-- - "Information and Petition against the Oppressors of the Poor Commons" by, - 365-366 - views of as to agrarian changes, 6, 179 - " " " attitude of landlords, 384 - " " " excessive fines and rents, 307 - -Cunningham, Dr., account of origin of corn laws, 3 - -Cushman, Robert, remarks of on emigration, 270 - - -Danbury, Lord, enclosing by, 380 - -Darcy, Lord-- - dispute of with tenants, 380 - letter to from Commons of Westmoreland, 322 - -Darrell, William, complaints of tenants against, 374 - -Davenport, Miss-- - evidence as to leasing of demesne, 209 - " " " progress of pasture-farming, 224 - -Dawney, Sir John, ordered to reinstate tenants, 361 - -De Malynes, Gerard, views of as to effect of rise in prices, 199-200 - -Defoe, "Giving Alms no Charity" by, 105 - -Delavale, Joshua-- - account of depopulation at Hartley by, 258 - "Seaton Delavale," 257 - -Delavale, Robert, enclosing and depopulation carried out by, 192, 257-258 - -Derby, the Earl of, eviction of tenants by, 361 - -Durham, the Dean of, account of depopulation by, 261 - - -Edward VI.-- - agrarian policy in reign of, 352, 362-372 - Book of Private Prayer of quoted, 20 - Remains of quoted, 6 - -Elizabeth, agrarian policy in reign of, 14, 372-374 - -Ely, the Bishop of, letter of Lord North to, 349 - -Englefield, Sir Francis, enclosing by, 148, 251-252 - -Everard, diggers led by, 321 - - -Firth, _The House of Lords during the Civil War_ by, 38 - -Fitzherbert-- - _Book of Husbandry_ and _Surveying_ by, 5 - " " " on commons, 242 - " " " borrowing, 109 - " " " duty of housewives, 112 - " " " enclosing, 151 - _Surveying_ on commons, 249 - " " copyholders, 288-289 - " " enclosing, 150, 152 - " " land taken from demesne or waste, 285 - " " rack-renting, 150 - -Fortescue-- - _On the Governance of England_ by, quoted as to fiscal importance, 346 - " " " " " prosperity of peasants, 98, 133 - -Fowler, Dr. G.H., evidence of as to conditions at Aspley Guise, 73 - -Fuller-- - _The Holy and Profane State_ by, quoted as to yeomen, 36-37 - " " " " " fiscal importance, 346 - -Gairdner-- - _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ edited by, quoted, - 319, 322, 323, 324, 326, 327, 330, 334, 343, 347, 350, 361, 380 - _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution_ by, quoted, 399 - -Gardiner, _History of England_ 1603-1642 by, quoted, 398 - -Gaskell-- - _Artisans and Machinery_ by, 106 - _The Manufacturing Population of Great Britain_, 106 - -Gasquet, _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_ by, 383 - -Gay, Professor-- - views of as to progress of pasture-farming, 10, 195, 224, 263-265 - " " revolt of 1607, 318, 320 - " " small disturbance caused by enclosure, 11 - -Gneist, R. von, 400 - -Gonner, Professor-- - evidence of as to continuity of enclosures, 11 - " " " enclosures of eighteenth century, 263 - " " " fines for depopulation, 386 - " " " immigration into towns, 275 - -Grenvilles, the, lands of Buckland Abbey granted to, 194 - - -Hales, John-- - bills introduced by, 367, 385 - charge to juries by, 367 - departure from England of, 371 - evidence of as to enclosing by peasants, 151, 167 - " " " in fifteenth century, 11-12, 166 - " " population, 105 - " " rack-renting, 199 - " " rise in prices, 199 - part played by on Royal Commission of 1548-1549, 167, 360-367 - remarks of on commons, 7 - value of evidence of, 5-6, 386 - Warwick's attack on, 368 - -Hammond, J.L. and Barbara, views of as to enclosures of eighteenth - century, 3, 183 - -Harrington, Sir J.-- - views of as to decay of feudalism, 191 - " " " effect of Tudor agrarian policy, 388-389 - " " " rise of middle-classes, 38 - -Harrison-- - views of on copyholders, 49, 56-57 - " " depopulation, 105 - " " diet of artificers and husbandmen, 132-133 - " " Poor Laws, 271, 273 - " " prosperity of yeomen, 10, 21, 40 - " " superfluous trades, 19 - -Harry Clowte, 333 - -Hasbach-- - quotation by as to advantages of copyhold tenure, 86 - views of on age of marriage, 106 - " " effects of Tudor commercial policy, 13 - -Henry II., Assize of Novel Disseisin established by, 122 - -Henry VII.-- - commercial policy of, 112-113, 197 - demand of peasants for conditions obtaining under, 98-99 - enclosures made before reign of, 11-12, 166 - -Harrington on agrarian policy of, 38, 191, 388-389 - -Henry VIII.-- - commercial policy of, 112-113, 197 - intervention to protect tenants under, 360-362 - letter of Cromwell to, 360-361 - -Herbert, Lord, _History of King Henry VIII._ by, quoted, 398 - -Herbert, William, Earl of Pembroke-- - estates of, consolidation of peasant holdings on, 67-69 - " " demesne lands on usually leased, 203 - " " " " leased to capitalist farmers, 210 - " " " " " " small holders, 204-205 - " " " " " " village, 205-206 - " " " " " proportion of pasture on, 225-226 - " " statistics of duration of tenure and of fines on, 298 - " " " " tenants on, 25 - " " villeins on, 42 - park of attacked by peasants, 194, 326 - rebellion in West put down by, 324 - share of in monastic estates, 324, 380 - -Humberstone-- - manors of Duke of Devonshire surveyed by, 5 - remarks of, on relation of lords to tenants, 349-350 - " " on variety of manorial customs, 293 - -Huntingdon, the Earl of, request to elect his nominee, 387 - - -Jack of the North, 333 - -Jack of the Style, 318 - -Jackson, Cyril, Report of on Boy Labour, 342 - -James I., agrarian policy of Government of, 374-375, 394, 398 - -Johnson, the Rev. A.H.-- - views of, on decay of yeomanry in nineteenth century, 139 - " " enclosure of commons, 9 - " " entailing of land, 39 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 261 - - -Kalm, _Account of a Visit to England_ (translated by J. Lucas) by, on open - field system, 389 - -Ket, Robert-- - manor held by, 326 - programme of agrarian reform put forward by, 334-337 - rebellion in Norfolk led by, 331-333 - -King, Gregory-- - statistics of as to population, 21 - " " " yield of an acre, 111 - -Kitchin, _Court Leet_ by, on copyhold tenure, 289 - - -Latimer, Bishop-- - complaints of by landlords, 368 - remarks of on education of yeomen, 134-135 - views of on agrarian changes, 6, 134-135, 347, 365, 386 - -Laud, Archbishop-- - activity of on Depopulation Commission, 391, 399, 420-421 - complaints of by landlords, 420-421 - -Lamond, Miss E.M., introduction by to _The Commonweal of this Realm of - England_, 7, 11, 105, 263, 331, 364, 366, 367, 368, 377, 385 - -Leadam, I.-- - evidence of as to independence of peasants, 120-121, 325, 330 - " " " protection of tenants by Government, 357, 360, 362 - " " " size of enclosures, 154-155 - " " " status of enclosers, 154-155 - views of on copyhold tenure, 289-290, 292, 293 - " " enclosing for arable, 10, 195, 224 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 8, 262 - -Lee, J.-- - _A Vindication of a Regulated Enclosure_ by, evidence of as to enclosures - of seventeenth century, 11, 151 - number of labourers employed, 22 - views of on uselessness of legislation, 319 - " " yardlands, 67 - -Leicester, the Earl of, manor purchased by, 502 - -Leonard, Miss E.M.-- - evidence of as to exclusion of immigrants by towns, 376 - letter from Justices quoted by, 278-279 - views of on enclosures of seventeenth century, 11 - " " results of agrarian policy of Tudors and Stuarts, 348, - 389-390 - -Lever, sermons by, 6 - -Lloyd, oppression of tenants by, 390 - -Locke, _Two Treatises of Government_ by, quoted as to limits of Government - action, 400 - - -Mackay, T., views of on origin of Poor Law, 266-267 - -Maitland, F.W.-- - evidence of as to fixed copyhold rents, 119, 305 - view of as to nature of common rights, 244 - -Merton College-- - letter to subwarden of, 30, 410-411 - rents on estates of, 119 - scale of landholding on estates of, 66-68, 73, 76, 85, 163 - -Moore, John-- - evidence of as to enclosures of seventeenth century, 5, 11, 167 - " " " pauperism caused by enclosures, 278 - -More, Sir Thomas-- - evidence of as to enclosing for pasture, 6 - " " " monastic economy, 382 - remarks of on condition of workmen and artificers, 45 - " " " nature of Government, 274, 372 - - -Nasse, view of as to objects of enclosure, 10 - -Norden-- - evidence of as to agriculture in Somersetshire, 110-111, 171 - " " " constitution of a manor, 350 - " " " copyhold and customary tenure, 47, 50 - " " " enclosure by peasants, 151 - " " " fixity of copyholders' rents, 118 - " " " relations between lords and freeholders, 30 - " " " rise in prices, 308 - " " " security of freeholders, 30, 35 - " " " unpopularity of surveyors, 349 - " " " villeinage, 46 - " " " wickedness of depopulation, 150 - -North, Lord, letter of to Bishop of Ely, 349 - -Northumberland, the Earl of-- - fines on estates of, 299, 305 - letter to, 303 - petition to, 303-304 - - -Page, statistics of as to commutation of labour services, 52 - -Paget, Sir William, letter of to Somerset on peasants' revolts, 319, - 338-339, 368 - -Parker, Archbishop, address of to Norfolk rebels, 332 - -Pembroke, the Earl of, _see_ Herbert, Sir William - -Petruschevsky-- - _The Rebellion of Wat Tyler_ by, on improvement of wastes, 87 - on land speculation by peasants, 81 - -Pollard, Professor, 264, 371 - -Pollock and Maitland, _see_ Maitland - -Powell, E., _The East Anglian Rising_ by, - evidence of as to landholders, 21-22 - -Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, oppression of tenant by, 362 - -Pseudonismus-- - _Considerations concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_ and - _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common Fields and - Enclosures_, evidence of as to the abuse of commons, 171, 278 - evidence of as to depopulation, 167 - " " " enclosing in seventeenth century, 11, 388 - " " " legislation checking conversion to pasture, 388 - -Pyrce Plowman, 202, 318, 333 - - -Raleigh, Walter (junior), on subsidies, 346 - -Raleigh, Walter (senior), part played in revolt of 1549, 194 - -Reyce, account by of prosperity of freeholders in Suffolk, 40 - -Rich, Lord-- - enclosing by, 380 - letter of Cromwell to, 361 - -Rogers, Thorold, statistics of as to prices, 13, 196, 198 - -Rous, evidence of as to enclosing in fifteenth century, 12 - -Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_ by, quoted, 98, 321, 324, 335, 368 - - -St. John, Sir John, oppression of tenants by, 362 - -Sanders, part played by in agrarian dispute at Coventry, 326 - -Sandes, Richard, paper by on the evils of depopulation, 416-417 - -Sandys, Archbishop, letter of to Queen Elizabeth, 48-49 - -Savine, Dr. A.-- - views of on copyhold tenure, 287, 292, 300 - " " monastic economy, 203, 225, 226, 383 - " " villeinage in sixteenth century, 41 - -Saye and Sele, Lord, name of returned among enclosers, 376 - -Schanz, Professor G., statistics of as to export of woollen cloth, 196 - -Seebohm, Dr. F., Domesday statistics quoted by, 27 - -Shakespeare, references to works of, 194, 343 - -Sheffield, Sir R., enclosing by, 380 - -Shrewsbury, the Earl of-- - dispute of with tenants, 327 - enclosing by, 380 - letter from, 338-339 - -Slater, Dr. G.-- - -Summary of Depopulation Acts by, 353 - views of on effect of statutes against depopulation, 389 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 262 - " " policy of Clarendon, 400 - -Smith, Sir Thomas-- - _De Republica Anglorum_ by, on copyholders, 56-57 - " " " " Court of Star Chamber, 358 - " " " " villeinage, 46 - " " " " yeomen, 28, 32 - -Somerset, the Duke of-- - Act giving security to tenants on demesnes of, 294, 365 - agrarian policy of, 362-370 - Commission on Enclosures appointed by, 366 - Court of Requests used by, 367 - execution of, 370 - proclamation issued by, 7, 367 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on agrarian changes, 5 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on encouragement of marriage, 105 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on entailing of lands, 39 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on relations between lords and tenants, 195 - -Steffen, Dr. G., statistics of as to price changes, 13, 198 - -Strype, J., _Ecclesiastical Memorials_ by, quoted, 315, 331, 366, 367, 368, - 370, 380 - -Stuarts, the, _see_ Charles I., James I. - - -Throgmorton, Sir John, oppression of tenants by, 373 - -Tom of Trumpington, 333 - -Tusser, _Six Hundred Points of Husbandry_ by, - evidence of as to agrarian changes, 5 - - -Unwin, Professor G.-- - evidence of as to formation of compact holdings by peasants, 84, 164 - " " " growth of capitalists in woollen industry, 186 - - -Vermuyden, engaged to drain Great Level, 395 - -Vinogradoff, Professor P.-- - Domesday statistics quoted by, 27 - rights of common explained by, 244 - views of as to equality of shares in fields, 77, 92 - - -Walter of Henley on yield of an acre, 111 - -Warwick, the Earl of-- - attack of on Hales, 368 - " on Somerset led by, 380 - character of Government of, 371-372 - Ket's rebellion crushed by, 324, 332 - share of in monastic estates, 380 - -Westmoreland, the Earl of, disputes of with tenants, 380 - -Willoughbys, the, 192 - -Wilson, Dr. Thomas-- - views of on Canon Law, 307 - " " usury, 109, 147, 307 - -Winstanley-- - diggers led by, 321, 337-338, 376 - views of, 337-338 - -Witte, Sir J., enclosing by, 380 - -Wolsey, Cardinal, agrarian policy of, 359-360, 397-398 - - -Yorke, Sir John-- - land speculation by, 381 - oppression of tenants by, 285, 390 - -Young, Arthur-- - views of as to open field system, 401, 405 - " " " rents, 118 - - - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber's Notes - -Obvious punctuation errors and omissions have been silently corrected, -while those requiring interpretation have been left open. - -Hyphenation is sometimes inconsistent in the text. These inconsistencies -have been retained: - - bye-laws/byelaws - re-action/reaction - reallotment/re-allotment - sub-let/sublet - land-holding/landholding - over-stocking/overstocking - sub-tenants/subtenants - corn-fields/cornfields - sub-letting /subletting - foodstuffs/food-stuffs - lease-holders/leaseholders - countryside/country-side - re-adjustment/readjustment - sub-divided/subdivided - re-arranged/rearranged - re-arrangement/rearrangement - over-estimated/overestimated - -If the discrepancies is between the text and the indexes, the indexes have -been corrected to match the text. - - "rackrenting" was changed to "rack-renting" - "foldcourses" was changed to "fold-courses" - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth -Century, by Richard Henry Tawney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN 16TH CENTURY *** - -***** This file should be named 40336-8.txt or 40336-8.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/3/3/40336/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, KD Weeks, Joseph Cooper and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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You may copy it, give it away or -re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included -with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org - - -Title: The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Century - -Author: Richard Henry Tawney - -Release Date: July 26, 2012 [EBook #40336] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: ASCII - -*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN 16TH CENTURY *** - - - - -Produced by Chris Curnow, KD Weeks, Joseph Cooper and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - - - - - - Transcriber's Note: - - Superscripted characters in abbreviations are shown using curly - braces, e.g. "Maj{tie}" or "Y{r}". Any italicized text in the - original is shown as _italics_. - - This e-text includes six color maps that will only be viewable - in the HTML version. Their position in the text is indicated in - the List of Maps, with reference to the page numbers of the - printed edition. There is also a graph, referred to here by its - position in the printed edition, which can also only be viewed - in the HTML version. - - In Appendix II, there are a number of letters (m, n, u, v, r, - t) that are printed with a backward curl, usually at the end of - a word, but sometimes in mid-word. These are rendered here with - as [x@], e.g. [m@], [u@], etc. This is intended to provide a - visual indication of a letter's form, but is not intended to - convey phonetic value. - - Letters that are printed with a tilde (~), but for which there - is no latin-1 font are represented as [~x]. - - There are letter combinations (nn, co, & on) that are sometimes - combined with a single tilde (~) over both letters. These are - rendered as [n~n], [o~n] and [c~o]. - - - - - - - - - - - BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13 - - - - - THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN THE - SIXTEENTH CENTURY - - - - - THE - AGRARIAN PROBLEM - IN THE SIXTEENTH - CENTURY - - BY - - R.H. TAWNEY - - "_And if the whole people be landlords, or hold the Lands so - divided among them, that no one Man, or number of Men, - within the Compass of the Few or Aristocracy, overbalance - them, the Empire (without the interposition of force) is a - Commonwealth._"--HARRINGTON, _Oceana_. - - - _WITH 6 MAPS_ - - BURT FRANKLIN RESEARCH & SOURCE WORKS SERIES # 13 - - [Illustration] - - BURT FRANKLIN - - New York 25, N.Y. - - - - _Published by_ - - BURT FRANKLIN - - 514 West 113th Street - - New York 25, N.Y. - - - ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN - - LONDON--1912 - - - - _Printed in U.S.A. by_ - SENTRY PRESS, INC. - New York 19, N.Y. - - - - - TO - - WILLIAM TEMPLE and ALBERT MANSBRIDGE - - PRESIDENT AND SECRETARY - - OF THE - - WORKERS' EDUCATIONAL ASSOCIATION - - - - - -PREFACE - - -This book is an attempt to trace one strand in the economic life of -England from the close of the Middle Ages to the beginning of the -Civil War. As originally planned, it included an account of the -relations of the State to trade and manufacturing industry, the growth -of which is the most pregnant economic phenomenon of the period. But I -soon found that the material was too abundant to be treated -satisfactorily in a single work, and I have therefore confined myself -in the following pages to a study of agrarian conditions, whose -transformation created so much distress, and aroused such searchings -of heart among contemporaries. The subject is one upon which much -light has been thrown by the researches of eminent scholars, notably -Mr. Leadam, Professor Gay, Dr. Savine, and Professor Ashley, and its -mediaeval background has been firmly drawn in the great works of -Maitland, Seebohm, and Professor Vinogradoff. The reader will see that -I have availed myself freely of the results of their investigations. -But I have tried, as far as the time at my disposal allowed, to base -my picture on original authorities, both printed and manuscript. - -The supreme interest of economic history lies, it seems to me, in the -clue which it offers to the development of those dimly conceived -presuppositions as to social expediency which influence the actions -not only of statesmen, but of humble individuals and classes, and -influence, perhaps, most decisively those who are least conscious of -any theoretical bias. On the economic ideas of the sixteenth century -in their relation to agrarian conditions I have touched shortly in -Part III. of the book, and I hope to treat the whole subject more -fully on some future occasion. If in the present work I have given, as -I am conscious that I have, undue space to the detailed illustration -of particular changes, I must plead that one cannot have the dessert -without the dinner, and that a firm foundation of fact, even though as -tedious to read as to arrange, is a necessary preliminary to the -higher and more philosophical task of analysing economic conceptions. -The reader who desires to start with a bird's-eye view of the subject -is advised to turn first to the concluding chapter of Part III. - -One word may be allowed in extenuation of the statistical tables, -which will be found scattered at intervals through the following -pages. In dealing with modern economic conditions it is increasingly -recognised that analysis, to be effective, must be quantitative, and -one of the disadvantages under which the student of all periods before -the eighteenth century labours is that for large departments of life, -such as population, foreign trade, and the occupations of the people, -anything approaching satisfactory quantitative description is out of -the question. The difficulty in the treatment of agrarian history is -different. Certain classes of manorial documents offer material which -can easily be reduced to a statistical shape. Indeed one difficulty is -its very abundance. The first feeling of a person who sees a -manuscript collection such as that at Holkham must be "If fifty maids -with fifty mops--," and a sad consciousness that the mop which he -wields is a very feeble one. But historical statistics should be -regarded with more than ordinary scepticism, inasmuch as they cannot -easily be checked by comparison with other sources of information, and -it may reasonably be asked whether it is possible to obtain figures -that are sufficiently reliable to be used with any confidence. Often, -no doubt, it is not possible. The strong point of surveyors was not -always arithmetic. The forms in which their information has been cast -are sometimes too various to permit of it being used for the purpose -of a summary or a comparison. Even when figures are both accurate and -comparable the student who works over considerable masses of material -will be fortunate if he does not introduce some errors of his own. The -tables printed below are marred by all these defects, and I have -included them only after considerable hesitation. I have tried to -prevent the reader from being misled by pointing out in an appendix -what I consider to be their principal faults and ambiguities. But no -doubt there are others which have escaped my notice. - -It remains for me to express my gratitude to those whose kind -assistance has made this work somewhat less imperfect than it would -otherwise have been. I have to thank the Warden and Fellows of All -Souls College, the Senior Bursar of Merton College, the Clerk of the -Peace for the County of Warwick, and the Earl of Leicester for -permission to examine the manuscripts in their possession. The maps -illustrating enclosure are taken from the beautiful maps of the All -Souls estates; my thanks are due to the College for allowing me to use -them, and to Mr. W. Tomlinson, of the Oxford Tutorial Class at -Longton, for helping me to prepare them for reproduction. -Circumstances preventing me from working in the Record Office, I was -so fortunate as to secure the co-operation of Miss Niemeyer and Miss -L. Drucker, who have transcribed for me a large number of surveys and -rentals. How much I owe to their help will be apparent to any one who -consults my footnotes and references. Among those who have aided me -with advice and information I must mention Professor Vinogradoff, -Professor Unwin, and Professor Powicke, the late Miss Toulmin Smith, -Mr. Kenneth Leys, Mr. F.W. Kolthammer, Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick, Dr. -G.H. Fowler, and the Hon. Gerard Collier. Especially great are my -obligations to Mr. R.V. Lennard and Mr. H. Clay, who have read through -the whole of the following pages in manuscript or in proof, and who -have helped me with numberless criticisms and improvements. - -In conclusion I owe two debts which are beyond acknowledgment. The -first is to my wife, who has collaborated with me throughout, and -without whose constant assistance this book could not have been -completed. The second is to the members of the Tutorial Classes -conducted by Oxford University, with whom for the last four years it -has been my privilege to be a fellow-worker. The friendly smitings of -weavers, potters, miners, and engineers, have taught me much about -problems of political and economic science which cannot easily be -learned from books. - -R.H.T. -MANCHESTER, _April 1912_. - - - - -CONTENTS - - - PAGE - -INTRODUCTION 1 - - -PART I.--THE SMALL LANDHOLDER - -CHAP. - -I. THE RURAL POPULATION-- - - (_a_) THE CLASSES OF LANDHOLDERS 19 - - (_b_) THE FREEHOLDERS 27 - - (_c_) THE CUSTOMARY TENANTS 40 - -II. THE PEASANTRY-- - - (_a_) THE VARIETY OF CONDITIONS 55 - - (_b_) THE CONSOLIDATION OF PEASANT HOLDINGS 57 - - (_c_) THE GROWTH OF THE LAND MARKET AMONG THE - PEASANTS 72 - -III. THE PEASANTRY (_continued_)-- - - (_d_) THE ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT OF THE SMALL - CULTIVATOR 98 - -IV. THE PEASANTRY (_continued_)-- - - (_e_) SIGNS OF CHANGE 136 - - (_f_) THE GROWTH OF COMPETITIVE RENTS ON NEW - ALLOTMENTS 139 - - (_g_) THE PROGRESS OF ENCLOSURE AMONT THE - PEASANTRY 147 - - -PART II.--THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE - -I. THE NEW RURAL ECONOMY-- - - (_a_) MOTIVES AND CAUSES 177 - - (_b_) THE GROWTH OF THE LARGE LEASEHOLD FARM 200 - - (_c_) ENCLOSURE AND CONVERSION BY THE MANORIAL - AUTHORITIES 213 - -II. THE PEASANTRY-- - - (_a_) THE REMOVING OF LANDMARKS 231 - - (_b_) THE STRUGGLE FOR THE COMMONS 237 - - (_c_) THE ENGROSSING OF HOLDINGS AND DISPLACEMENT - OF TENANTS 253 - - (_d_) THE AGRARIAN CHANGES AND THE POOR LAW 266 - -III. THE QUESTION OF TENANT RIGHT-- - - (_a_) THE TENANTS AT WILL AND THE LEASEHOLDERS 281 - - (_b_) THE COPYHOLDERS 287 - - (_c_) THE UNDERMINING OF CUSTOMARY TENURES 301 - - -PART III.--THE OUTCOME OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION - -I. THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM AND THE STATE-- - - (_a_) THE POLITICAL AND SOCIAL IMPORTANCE OF THE - PEASANTRY 313 - - (_b_) LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION 351 - - (_c_) SUCCESS AND FAILURE OF STATE INTERVENTION 377 - -II. GENERAL CONCLUSIONS 401 - -APPENDIX I 410 - -APPENDIX II 422 - -INDEX 437 - - -LIST OF MAPS - -I. PART OF THE MANOR OF SALFORD, IN - BEDFORDSHIRE (1590) _To face page_ 163 - -II. PART OF THE MANOR OF EDGEWARE, IN - MIDDLESEX (1597) " " 172 - -III. PART OF THE MANOR OF MAIDS MORTON, - IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (1590) " " 221 - -IV. PART OF THE MANOR OF CRENDON IN BUCKINGHAMSHIRE - (about 1590) " " 221 - -V. PART OF THE MANOR OF WEEDON WESTON, - IN NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1590) " " 222 - -VI. PART OF THE MANOR OF WHADBOROUGH IN - LEICESTERSHIRE (1620) " " 223 - - - - -THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN -THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY - -INTRODUCTION - - -Any one who turns over the Statutes and State Papers of the sixteenth -century will be aware that statesmen were much exercised with an -agrarian problem, which they thought to be comparatively new, and any -one who follows the matter further will find the problem to have an -importance at once economic, legal, and political. The economist can -watch the reaction of growing markets on the methods of subsistence -farming, the development of competitive rents, the building up of the -great estate, and the appearance, or at any rate the extension, of the -tripartite division into landlord, capitalist farmer, and landless -agricultural labourer, the peculiar feature of English rural society -which has been given so much eulogy in the eighteenth century and so -much criticism in our own. From a legal point of view the great feature -of the period is the struggle between copyhold and leasehold, and the -ground gained by the latter. Before the century begins, leases for -years, though common enough on the demesne lands and on land taken from -the waste, are the exception so far as concerns the land of the -customary tenants. When the century closes, leasehold has won many -obstinately resisted triumphs; much land that was formerly held by copy -of court roll is held by lease; and copyhold tenure itself, through the -weakening of manorial custom, has partially changed its character. The -copyholders, though still a very numerous and important class, are -already one against which the course of events has visibly begun to -turn, and economic rent, long intercepted and shared, through the fixity -of customary tenure, between tenant and landlord under the more elastic -adjustments of leasehold and competitive fines, begins to drain itself -into the pockets of the latter. Politically, one can see different views -of the basis of wealth in conflict, that which measures it by the number -of tenants "able to do service" contending with that which tests it by -the maximum pecuniary returns to be got from an estate, and which treats -the number of tenants as quite a subordinate consideration. The former -is the ideal of philosophical conservatives, is supported, for military -and social reasons, by the Government, and survives long in the North; -the latter is that of the new landed proprietors, and wins in the South. - -And its victory results in much more than a mere displacement of -tenants. It means ultimately a change in the whole attitude towards -landholding, in the doctrine of the place which it should occupy in the -State, and in the standards by which the prosperity of agriculture is -measured, drawing a line between modern English conceptions and those of -the sixteenth century as distinct as that which exists between those of -the Irish peasantry and Irish landlords, or between the standpoint of a -French peasant and that of the agent of a great English estate. The -decline of important classes alters the balance of rural society, though -the Crown for a long time tries to maintain it, and the way is prepared -both for the economic and political omnipotence which the great landed -aristocracy will exercise over England as soon as the power of the Crown -is broken, and for the triumph of the modern English conception of -landownership, a conception so repugnant both to our ancestors and to -the younger English communities,[1] as in the main a luxury of the -richer classes. If it had not been for the undermining of the small -farmer's position in the sixteenth century, would the proposal[2] to -enfranchise copyholders have been thrown out in 1654, and would the -enclosures[3] of the eighteenth century have been carried out with such -obstinate indifference to the vested interests of the weaker rural -classes? Would England have been unique among European countries in the -concentration of its landed property, and in the divorce of its -peasantry from the soil? - - [1] See the land legislation of the Australasian Colonies. - - [2] The Instrument of Government (December 1653) established a - franchise qualification of rent or personal estate to the value - of L200. This certainly would have enfranchised a large number - of copyholders and leaseholders, some of whom were much better - off than the small freeholders. For an estate of L299, 15s. 4d. - left at death by a tenant "Husbandman" see _Nottingham Borough - Records_ under the year 1599 (vol. iv. pp. 249-252). It was made - up as follows: "Money in purse and his clothes, L15; value of - beasts, L74; corn sowne in fields, L35; value of furniture in - hall, L2, 13s.; in parlour, L5, 14s., and other miscellaneous - possessions." For wills of husbandmen and yeomen see _Surtees - Society_, vol. lxxix., pp. 181-182, 263-264, 294, 310. For the - restoration of the franchise to the freeholders, see Gardiner, - _The Commonwealth_, iii. 78. - - [3] Hammond, _The Village Labourer_, 1760-1832. One may add--if - English statesmen had studied the history of customary tenures - in England, would they have deferred until 1870 legislation - protecting tenant right in Ireland? See Lord Morley's - description of the Irish cultivator "as a kind of copyholder or - customary freeholder" (_Life of Gladstone_, vol. ii. p. 281). - -From a wider point of view the agrarian changes of the sixteenth century -may be regarded as a long step in the commercialising of English life. -The growth of the textile industries is closely connected with the -development of pasture farming, and it was the export of woollen cloth, -that "prodigy of trade," which first brought England conspicuously into -world-commerce, and was the motive for more than one of those early -expeditions to discover new markets, out of which grew plantations, -colonies, and empire. Dr. Cunningham[4] has shown that the system of -fostering the corn trade, which was embodied in the Corn Bounty Act of -1689, and which was a principle of English policy long after the reason -for it had disappeared, was adopted in a milder form in the reign of -Elizabeth with the object of checking the decline in the rural -population. Again, new agricultural methods were a powerful factor in -the struggle between custom and competition, which colours so much of -the economic life of the period, and, owing to this fact, they produced -reactions which spread far beyond their immediate effect on the classes -most closely concerned with them. The displacement of a considerable -number of families from the soil accelerated, if it did not initiate, -the transition from the mediaeval wage problem, which consisted in the -scarcity of labour, to the modern wage problem, which consists in its -abundance. Throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -municipal[5] authorities were engaged in a prolonged struggle to -enforce their exclusive economic privileges against the rural immigrant -who had lost his customary means of livelihood and who overcrowded town -dwellings and violated professional byelaws; while the Government -prevented him from moving without a licence, and when he moved, -straitened[6] his path between the Statute of Inmates on the one hand -and the House of Correction on the other. Observers were agreed that the -increase in pauperism[7] had one capital cause in the vagrancy produced -by the new agrarian regime; and the English Poor Law system, or the -peculiar part of it providing for relief of the able-bodied, which -England was the first of European countries to adopt, came into -existence partly as a form of social insurance against the effect of the -rack rents and evictions, which England was the first of European -countries to experience. Whatever uncertainty attaches to the causes and -effects of the agrarian problem, there can be no doubt that those who -were in the best position to judge thought it highly important. If it is -not a watershed separating periods, it is at least a high range from -which both events and ideas descend with added velocity and -definiteness. To the economic historian the ideas are as important as -the events. For though conceptions of social expediency are largely the -product of economic conditions, they acquire a momentum which persists -long after the circumstances which gave them birth have disappeared, and -act as over-ruling forces to which, in the interval between one great -change and another, events themselves tend to conform. - - [4] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern - Times_, Part i. pp. 85-88, 101-107, 540-543. - - [5] See _e.g. Records of the Borough of Reading_, vol ii. pp. - 36, 94, 156; vol. iii., 131, and those of Leicester, Norwich, - Nottingham, and Southampton, _passim_; also below, pp. 275-277. - - [6] "Mr. Secretary Cecil said, ... If we debar tillage, we give - scope to the Depopulator, and then, if the poor being thrust out - of their houses go to dwell with others, straight we catch them - with the Statute of Inmates; if they wander abroad, they are - within the danger of the Statute of the Poor to be whipt" - (D'Ewes' _Journal of the House of Commons_, 1601, pp. 674-675). - - [7] See below, pp. 273-275. - -A consideration of these great movements naturally begins with those -contemporary writers who described them. Though the books and pamphlets -of the age contain much that is of interest in the development of -economic theory, their writers rarely attempted to separate economic -from other issues, and economic speculation usually took the form of -discussions upon particular points of public policy, or of a casuistry -prescribing rules for personal conduct in difficult cases. Such a -difficult case, such a problem of public policy, was offered by the -growth of competitive methods of agriculture. The moral objections felt -to the new conditions caused them to be a favourite subject with writers -of sermons and pamphlets, and made the sins of the encloser, like those -of the usurer, one of the standbys of the sixteenth century preacher. -There is, therefore, a considerable volume of writings dealing with the -question from the point of view of the teacher of morality. At the same -time the political significance of the movement, and the fact that the -classes concerned were important enough to elicit attempts at protection -on the part of the Government, called forth a crop of suggestions and -comments like those of More, Starkey,[8] Forest,[9] the author of the -Commonwealth[10] of England, and, at a later date, Powell[11] and -Moore.[12] Further, the new agricultural methods were explained by -persons interested in the economics of agriculture, such as -Fitzherbert,[13] Tusser,[14] Clarkson,[15] who surveyed the manors of -the Earl of Northumberland in 1567, Humberstone[16] who did the same for -those of the Earl of Devonshire, and Norden.[17] The accounts of -surveyors, a dull but indispensable tribe, are reliable, as they are -usually statements of facts which have occurred within their own -experience, or at any rate, generalised descriptions of such facts. The -same may be said of the evidence of John Hales, who was employed by the -Government in investigating the question, and who had to explain it in -such a way as to convince opponents, and to get legislation on this -subject through a bitterly hostile Parliament. The description given by -writers like Latimer,[18] Crowley,[19] and Becon[20] are valuable as -showing the way in which the movement was regarded by contemporaries; -but they are mainly somewhat vague denunciations launched in an age when -the pulpit was the best political platform, and their very positiveness -warns one that they are one-sided and must be received with caution. -Still, they mark out a field for inquiry, and one may begin by setting -out the main characteristics of the agrarian changes as pictured in -their writings. - - [8] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry the - Eighth_, Part II.: "A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas - Lupset, Lecturer in Rhetoric at Oxford, by Thomas Starkey, - Chaplain to the King," edited by J.M. Cowper (date of - composition about 1538). - - [9] E. E. T. S., as above, Part I. (Appendix). _The Pleasant - Poesye of Princelie Practise_, by Sir William Forest (date of - composition 1548). - - [10] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, edited by - Elizabeth Lamond (date of composition 1549; the author was - almost certainly John Hales). - - [11] Powell, _Depopulation Arraigned_, 1636. - - [12] _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the Poor, - wherein Enclosure such as doth unpeople Towns and Common Fields - is Arraigned, Convicted, and Condemned by the Word of God_, by - John Moore, Minister of Knaptoft, in Leicestershire, 1653. - - [13] Fitzherbert, _Boke of Husbandry_, 1534. _Surveyinge_, 1539. - - [14] Tusser, _Five Hundred Points of Husbandry_. - - [15] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350 and passim. - - [16] Surveys _temp._ Philip and Mary of various estates - belonging to the Earl Devon (_Topographer and Genealogist_, i. - p. 43). - - [17] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_ (1607). - - [18] Sermons by Hugh Latimer, sometime Bishop of Worcester - (Everyman's Library, J.M. Dent & Co.). - - [19] Crowley, Select Works (E. E. T. S., 1872). - - [20] Becon, _Jewel of Joy_. Extract quoted in England in the - reign of King Henry the Eighth (Part I., p. lxxvi.). - -The movement originates, they agree, through the covetousness[21] of -lords of manors and large farmers, who have acquired capital in the -shape of flocks of sheep, and who, by insisting on putting the land to -the use most profitable to themselves, break through the customary -methods of cultivation. The outward sign of this is enclosing, the -cutting adrift of a piece of land from the common course of cultivation -in use, by placing a hedge or paling round it, and utilising it -according to the discretion of the individual encloser, usually with the -object of pasturing sheep. This is accompanied by land speculation and -rack-renting, which is intensified by the land-hunger which causes -successful capitalists,[22] who have made money in trade, to buy up -land as a profitable investment for their savings, and by the sale of -corporate property which took place on the dissolution[23] of the -monasteries and the confiscation of part of the gild estates. The -consequence is, first, that there is a scarcity of agricultural produce -and a rise[24] in prices, which is partly (it is supposed) attributable -to the operations of the great graziers who control the supplies of -wool, grain, and dairy produce, and secondly and more important that the -small cultivator suffers in three ways. Agricultural employment is -lessened. Small holdings are thrown[25] together and are managed by -large capitalists, with the result that he is driven off the land, -either by direct eviction, or by a rise in rents and fines, or by mere -intimidation. At the same time the commonable[26] area, consisting of -the common waste, meadow, and pasture of the manor is diminished, with -the result that the tenants who are not evicted suffer through loss of -the facilities which they had previously had for grazing beasts without -payment. There is, in consequence, a drift into the towns and a general -lowering in the standard of rural life, due to the decay of the class -which formerly sent recruits to the learned professions, which was an -important counterpoise to the power of the great landed proprietors, and -which was the backbone of the military forces of the country.[27] - - [21] "For looke in what partes of the realm doth growe the - fynest and therefore dearest woll, there noblemen and gentlemen, - yea, and certeyn abbotes, holy men no doubt, not contenting them - selfes with the yearely revenues and profytes, that were wont to - grow to their forefathers and predecessours of their landes, nor - being content that they live in rest and pleasure nothinge - profitting, yea much noyinge, the weal publique, leave no - grounde for tillage, thei inclose al into pasture; thei throw - doune houses; they plucke downe townes, and leave nothing - standynge, but only the churche to be made a shepehouse" (More's - _Utopia_, Book I., p. 32, Pitt Press Series). - - [22] "The Grazier, the Farmer, the Merchants become landed men, - and call themselves gentlemen, though they be churls; yea, the - farmer will have ten farms, some twenty, and will be a - Pedlar-merchant" (_King Edward's Remains: A Discourse about the - Reformation of many Abuses_). "Look at the merchants of London, - and ye shall see, when by their honest vocation God hath endowed - them with great riches, then can they not be content, but their - riches must be abrode in the country, to bie fermes out the - handes of worshipful gentlemen, honest yeomen, and poor - laborynge husbands" (_Lever's Sermons_, Arber's Reprints, p. - 29). - - [23] "Do not these ryche worldlynges defraude the pore man of - his bread, ... and suffer townes so to decay that the pore hath - not what to eat, nor yet where to dwell? What other are they, - then, but very manslears? They abhorre the names of Monkes, - Friars, Chanons, Nounes, etc., but their goods they gredely - gripe. And yet where the cloysters kept hospitality, let out - their fermes at a reasonable pryce, noryshed scholes, brought up - youths in good letters, they doe none of all these thinges" - (Becon, _Works_, 1564, vol. ii. fols. xvi., xvii.). - - [24] "A proclamation set fourthe by the King's Majestie with the - assent and consent of his dear uncle Edward, Duke of Somerset - ... and the said cattell also by all lyklyhode of truth should - be more cheape beynge in many men's handes as they be nowe in - fewe, who may holde them deare and tarye the avantage of the - market" (Brit. Mus. _Lansdown_, 238, p. 205). See also E. E. T. - S.: "Certayne causes gathered together, wherein is showed the - decaye of England only by the great multitude of shepe" (date - 1550-1553), and _The Commonweal of this Realm of England, - passim_, especially pp. xlv.-lxvii. It is worth noting that - Hales, who was quite conversant with the effect on general - prices of an increase in the supply of money, thought that the - rise which took place in his day was in some measure due to - monopolists. He describes his third Bill as ensuring that "ther - wolde have byn within fyve yeares after the execution therof - suche plentie of vitteyll and so good cheape as never was in - England" (_Commonweal_, p. lxiii.). - - [25] Proclamation as before: "Of late by thynclosinge of landes - and erable grounds, many have byn drevyn to extreme povertie, - insomuche that wheareas in tyme past, tenne, twentie, yea in - some places C. or CC. Chrysten people hathe byn inhabytynge ... - nowe ther is nothynge kept but sheepe and bullocks. All that - lande, whiche heretofore was tilled and occupied by so many men, - is nowe gotten by insaciable gredyness of mynde into one or two - men's handes, and scarcely dwelled upon with one poore - shepherd." - - [26] "There be a manie a M cottagers in England, which, havinge - no land to live of theire owne but their handie labours, and - some refreshinge upon the said commons, yf they were sodenly - thrust out from that commoditie might make a great tumult and - discorde in the commonwealth" (_Commonweal of England_, pp. - 49-50). - - [27] See below, pp. 341-344. - -The picture drawn by the literary authorities suggests questions, some -of which have been satisfactorily cleared up and some of which are still -obscure. Dissertations as to method are usually more controversial than -profitable, and we do not propose at this point to give any detailed -account of the order in which these problems have been taken up by -previous scholars, to pass any judgment upon the different kinds of -evidence which they have used, or to offer any estimate of the value of -their conclusions. If we are at all successful in our presentation of -the subject, the reader will discover for himself the nature of the -evidence upon which we have relied, and where we differ from and agree -with the treatment of other writers. All we can attempt here is to give -a short statement of some of the principal issues which demand -attention, a statement which does not pretend to be exhaustive, but -which may serve to indicate the more salient features of the ground over -which we shall travel. - -As to the counties mainly affected by the agrarian changes there is now -substantial agreement. The work of Mr. Leadam[28] and Professor Gay[29] -seems to have put the geographical distribution of the movement towards -enclosure, or at least of those enclosures which produced hardships, -upon a fairly firm basis. We can say with some confidence that it mainly -affected the Midlands and eastern counties, from Berkshire and -Oxfordshire in the south to Lincoln and Norfolk in the north-east, and -that it was least important in the south-western counties of Cornwall -and Devon, and in the south-eastern counties of Kent and Essex, much of -which had been enclosed before the sixteenth century began, and in the -northern counties of Lancashire, Westmoreland, Cumberland, -Northumberland, and Durham, though, by the end of the sixteenth century, -parts of the two latter counties, at any rate, were considerably -affected by it. Again, the same authors have offered a statistical -estimate of the extent of the movement which, while it is manifestly -defective, and while it can only be used with great caution to support -arguments as to the practical effect of enclosures, does offer some -guide to the imagination, and is, at least, a valuable check on the -conjectures made by contemporaries without any statistics at all and on -a basis merely of their personal impressions. Finally, the difficult -question of the security of copyhold tenants as against the landlords -who desired to evict them seems to have been put in the right -perspective by the evidence which Dr. Savine[30] has adduced to prove -that, in the case of copyholds of inheritance, a plaintiff who could -show a clear title could get legal redress. - - [28] Leadam, _Domesday of Enclosures_. - - [29] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xiv. and vol. xvii.; - _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. See also Gonner, - _Common Land and Inclosure_, pp. 132-152. - - [30] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. See below, pp. - 287-297. - -On the other hand, certain points must still be pronounced highly -obscure. The first is a simple one. The agrarian changes are usually -summed up under the name of "Enclosure." But what exactly did enclosing -mean? Contemporary writers represent it as almost always being carried -out by lords and large farmers against the interests of the smaller -tenantry. But there is abundant proof that the tenants themselves -enclosed; and as they can hardly be supposed to have been forward in -initiating changes which damaged their own prospects, ought we not to -begin by drawing a distinction between the piecemeal enclosures made by -the peasantry, often after agreement between neighbours, from which they -hoped to gain, and the great enclosures made by lords of manors from -which the peasants obviously lost? Further, different authorities assign -different degrees of importance to different aspects of the movement. -Mr. Johnson[31] holds, for example, that the enclosure of the common -waste, as distinct from the enclosure of the arable fields, was -relatively unimportant. Such a view, however, is not easily reconciled -with the constant complaints which relate clearly to the enclosing of -common wastes and pastures and with the state of things depicted in the -surveys.[32] Again, the writings of the period speak as though the -movement were mainly one from arable to pasture farming. But this was -questioned as long ago as the first thorough study of the question--that -of Nasse[33]--and the doubts which he threw on their view of the problem -are supported by Mr. Leadam by means of the statistics which he has -drawn from the returns of the Commission of 1517, though his conclusions -are in their turn disputed by Professor Gay. In fact no one who examines -the picture given by the Commissions and by surveys and field maps can -help feeling that the word "enclosing," used by contemporaries as though -it bore its explanation on its face, covered many different kinds of -action and has a somewhat delusive appearance of simplicity. - - [31] Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, p. 40. - - [32] See below, pp. 218-221 and 237-253. - - [33] Nasse, _The Land Community of the Middle Ages_ (translated - for the Cobden Club by Colonel Ouvry, 1871), pp. 81-91: "With - regard to the proper agricultural character of these movements - they are represented commonly as having been caused by an - exclusively pure pasture husbandry, which expelled the tillage - husbandman. Different circumstances, however, and witnesses show - us closely that this, for the most part, was not the case." The - discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay is contained in - the _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xiv. See also - Miss Davenport, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xi., and - below, pp. 223-228. - -Moreover, who gained and who suffered by the enclosures, and to what -extent? If the movement deserves to be called an agrarian revolution, it -was certainly one which left a great many holders of small landed -property intact, and perhaps even improved their position. Otherwise we -can hardly account for the optimistic description of them, or of some of -them, which is given in the late sixteenth and early seventeenth -centuries by writers like Harrison,[34] Norden,[35] and Fuller,[36] or -for the part which this class played in the Civil War. Nor can we say -with confidence how the statistical evidence derived by Mr. Leadam and -Professor Gay from the reports of Royal Commissions should be -interpreted. The comparative smallness of the percentage of land which -the Commissioners returned as enclosed has led to the view[37] that the -importance of the whole movement was grossly exaggerated by the writers -of the period, who created a storm in a tea-cup over changes which -really affected only an inconsiderable proportion of the whole country. -If this is so, it is not easy to explain either the continuous attention -which was paid to the question by the Government, or the revolts of the -peasantry, or the strong views of reasonable and fair-minded men with -first-hand knowledge, such as John Hales. - - [34] _Elizabethan England_, edited by Lothrop Withington, with - introduction by F.J. Furnivall, p. 119. - - [35] J. Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - - [36] Thomas Fuller, _Holy and Profane State_. - - [37] Gay, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii., p. 587: - "Hysterical and rhetorical complaint ... condemned by its very - exaggeration." - -There is obscurity not only as to the details, but as to the outlines of -the movement. Different views have been expressed as to its origin, -duration, and points of maximum intensity. Professor Ashley[38] puts the -period of most rapid change from about 1470 to 1530. But these dates -cannot be taken as in any way fixed. The greatest popular outcry[39] -against enclosing occurred about the middle of the sixteenth century, in -the years 1548 to 1550. As Miss Leonard[40] has shown, there was much -enclosing in the seventeenth century, and about 1650[41] there was a -crop of pamphlets against it similar in tone to the protests which -occurred almost exactly a century before. It is especially difficult to -determine how far back the movement should be carried. The first -statute[42] against it, that of 1489, is an obvious landmark. But has it -not been too readily accepted as an earlier limit? Hales[43] said that -most of the "destruction of towns" had taken place before the beginning -of the reign of Henry VII. The allusion to enclosing in the -Chancellor's[44] speech to Parliament in 1483 shows that the movement -must have already obtained considerable dimensions. Rous[45] had -petitioned Parliament on the subject of depopulation in 1459, and in his -History, which was published sometime between that date and 1486, he -returned to the charge with a detailed account of the destruction of -villages in his own county of Warwickshire. More convincing than either, -the records of Manorial Courts[46] prove that the consolidation of -holdings and collisions between the interests of commoners and -sheep-farmers were quite common early in the fifteenth century. One may -perhaps pause to remark that the question of the antecedent conditions, -out of which the rapid agricultural changes of the sixteenth century -arose, is a very important one, and the more important the more -far-reaching those changes are thought to have been. It is surely -incredible that the conversion of land to pasture, the growth of large -pasture estates, and the eviction of customary tenants, should have -occurred to the extent described, unless considerable minor changes -preceded them, and without some premonitory rumblings to suggest the -coming storm. In economic affairs new lines of organisation usually -start on a small scale before they attain dimensions sufficiently -striking to attract attention; and one would expect to be able to trace -the leading motives of the agrarian changes of the Tudor period far back -in the fifteenth century and even earlier, and that they would throw -light on the nature of the subsequent movements. There is, further, some -difference of opinion as to the causes which forced the agrarian problem -to the front. Some contemporary authorities attribute it mainly to the -growth of the woollen industry,[47] and in this they have been followed -by most subsequent writers. On the other hand, the direct evidence -supplied by price statistics seems to be not altogether reliable,[48] -and in any case the woollen industry had been steadily growing for a -hundred years before the complaints as to enclosure become general. This -has led Dr. Hasbach[49] to argue that the change in agricultural methods -was due less to the high price of wool than to the low price of grain, -which was artificially reduced by the restrictions imposed on export -under the Tudors, and which he holds to have produced such a fall in -rent as to result in the adoption of pasture-farming. Other writers have -emphasised the revolutionary effect of the general depreciation in the -value of money[50] and the consequent growth of commercialism in the -relations between landlord and tenant. - - [38] Ashley, _Economic History_, vol. i. Part II., p. 286: - "There were two periods of rapid change ... namely from c. 1470 - to c. 1530, and again from about 1760 to 1830. After about 1530 - the movement somewhat slackened." - - [39] See below, Part III., chap. i. - - [40] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. See also Gonner, - _Common Land and Inclosure_, pp. 153-186. Professor Gonner is no - doubt right in saying that "the view which regards inclosure ... - as taking place mainly at two epochs, in the sixteenth and - eighteenth centuries respectively ... gives an almost entirely - false presentation of what occurred." - - [41] Moore. _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the - Poor_, 1653, and _A Scripture Word against Enclosure_, 1656. - Moore's pamphlets provoked rejoinders, viz., _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_, by Joseph Lee, 1656, _Considerations - concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_ (1654, Pseudonismus), - and _A Vindication, of the Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures, or a Rejoynder unto that Reply which Mr. - Moore hath pretended to make unto those Considerations_ (1656, - Pseudonismus). - - [42] 4 Henry VII. c. 19. - - [43] "For the chief destruccion of Townes and decaye of houses - was before the begynnynge of the reign of King Henry the - Seventh" (The defence of John Hales, quoted p. lxiii. of Miss - Lamond's edition of _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_). - - [44] Camden Society, 1854, lii. - - [45] J. Rossus, _Historia Regum Angliae_ (T. Hearne). - - [46] See below, pp. 161-162. - - [47] See _e.g._ More's _Utopia_ quoted above, and Pauli, _Drei - volkswirthschaftliche Denkscriften aus der Zeit Heinrichs VIII. - von England_. It is suggested that if the council will only fix - the price which stappellers and clothmakers are to pay for raw - wool, "it shall cause the pasturers of sheep to open their - enclosures and suffer the more earth to be wrought by works of - husbandry." - - [48] See the discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay on - the wool prices of Thorold Roger in _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, - New Series, vol. xiv. The best account of the price movements of - the sixteenth century is contained in _Studien zur Geschichte - der Englischen Lohnarbeiter_, Band I., by Gustaf F. Steffen. - - [49] Hasbach, _A History of the English Agricultural Labourer_, - pp. 31-33. - - [50] See below, pp. 197-200 and 304-310. - -Finally, one may ask what was the effect of legislation against -pasture-farming and evictions, and of the frequent administrative -interference by which the Governments of the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries tried to check them. On a first view, at any rate, the whole -history of the policy pursued in this matter, with one short interval -from the autumn of 1549 to 1553, constitutes surely one of the most -remarkable attempts to control changing economic conditions by -Government action which has ever been made. Whether successful or -unsuccessful, it throws much light on the ideas of the period with -regard to the place in the State which should be occupied by the -landholding classes, on the relative advantages from a political -standpoint of large and small farming, and on the administrative -machinery of Government. The opinion generally[51] adopted seems to be -that the Acts forbidding conversion were entirely ineffective, and that -the Government, if sincere, was outmanoeuvred by the Local -Authorities, whose duty it was to administer the laws, and whose -interest lay in preventing their administration. Much evidence may be -cited in support of this view. On the other hand, we have clear proof of -the Council interfering on some occasions with apparent success; and -further, it seems necessary to discriminate between the policies of -different periods. One cannot argue, for example, that because the -statutes protecting the poorer classes were not carried out by the -rapacious oligarchy of adventurers which governed England from the fall -of Somerset to 1553, therefore they were never used effectively in the -reigns of Henry VIII., of Elizabeth, or of the first two Stuarts. Nor -would one be right in assuming the existence in the sixteenth century of -the identity of interest and policy between the great landlords and the -Government which characterised the period from 1688 to 1832. One's -conclusion on the whole question must depend less on direct evidence as -to the success of the particular measures, which, in the nature of -things, is not easily obtainable, than on the opinion which one forms of -the degree of importance which the statesmen of the period assigned to -the class of small cultivators, and of the ability of the Central -Government to get its policy executed. - - [51] _e.g._ by Hasbach, _op. cit._ p. 37. Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xviii. Contrast Miss Leonard, Trans. _Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xix. On the subject of the policy of the State - towards the agrarian problem, see below, Part III., chap. i. - -Such are some of the questions which are suggested by even a cursory -survey of the agrarian problem. There are others which are less -susceptible of summary statement, but which involve issues that are of -some importance for the interpretation of economic history. Granted that -it was inevitable that the subsistence husbandry of the mediaeval village -should give way to capitalist agriculture, in what light are we to -regard the changes by which that great transformation was brought about? -Ought we to think of the open field system as altogether incompatible -with any improvement in agricultural technique, as the miracle of -squalid perversity which it has appeared to some writers both of our own -and of earlier ages, and as requiring the bitter discipline of pasture -farming and evictions to shake it out of its deep rut of custom, and to -make room for more progressive methods? Or are we to view it as -permitting a good deal of mobility, and as already slowly developing a -less rigid and cumbrous organisation when it was partially overwhelmed -by rapid, and for the mass of the peasantry disastrous, changes? What -place ought the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century to be given -in that transition from mediaeval to modern conditions of agriculture -which, starting in England, has spread eastwards through almost every -European country, and which is beginning to-day even in India. How far -does it compare and contrast with the enclosures of the period -succeeding the fall of the Stuarts, and with the analogous developments -which have taken place on the continent, and how far does it present -special features peculiar to itself? What were the relations between it -and other aspects of national life? Have the economic changes which took -place in the world of agriculture any reflex in the social and political -changes occurring in the century which divides the Reformation from the -Civil War? How far did the redistribution of property which they -effected contribute to the decline in the condition of the poorer -classes which, according to most writers, took place in the sixteenth -century, and to the creation of the commercial aristocracy whose -influence becomes so pronounced after the Restoration? What was the -result of these material developments in the realm of legal and economic -ideas? Ought we to minimise the communalism of the mediaeval village? Or -should we think of the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century as -really a new and decided movement in the direction of economic -individualism, a long step towards the growth of modern ideas of land -ownership and of the right of the individual to follow unfettered his -own discretion in matters of economic enterprise, which gather weight at -the end of the seventeenth, and come to their own at the end of the -eighteenth, century? - -We cannot pretend to answer these questions. We leave them as riddles -for the reader, with the words which a sixteenth century economist -prettily prefaces to his analysis of the chief economic problems of his -age:--"And albeit ye might well saye that there be men of greater witte -then I; yet fools (as the proverb is) speake some times to the purpose, -and as many headdes, so many wittes ... and though eche of theise by -them selves doe not make perfitte the thing, yet when every man bringeth -in his guifte, a meane witted man maye of the whole (the best of everie -mans devise beinge gathered together) make as it were a pleasant garland -and perfitte."[52] - - [52] Preface to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (ed. - Lamond). - -In the following pages we shall deal with our subject in the following -order: Chapter I. of Part I. will describe the chief classes of tenants -as they are set out in rentals and surveys, and in particular the -freeholders and customary tenants who formed the bulk of the -landholders. Chapters II., III. and IV. will discuss in some detail the -economic positions of the customary tenants both before and during the -sixteenth century, the reasons for supposing that there had been a -considerable growth in the prosperity of many of them before our period -begins, and the gradual modification in the customary conditions of -rural life, as illustrated both by the growth of competitive payments on -those parts of the manor which were least controlled by custom, and by -the attempts made by the peasantry themselves to overcome by enclosure -the difficulties attaching to the methods of open field cultivation. -Chapter I. of Part II. will examine the reason which led to more rapid -changes in agricultural methods in the sixteenth century, and the growth -of the large leasehold farms upon which these changes can be most easily -traced. Chapters II. and III. will discuss the reaction of these changes -upon the peasantry and the question of the nature and security of their -tenure. Chapter I. of Part III. will explain their political and social -importance and the policy of the State towards them. In Chapter II. we -shall endeavour to offer a summary of our main conclusions. - - - - -PART I - -THE SMALL LANDHOLDER - - "What comyn folke in all this world may compare with the comyns - of England in riches, freedom, liberty, welfare, and all - prosperity? What comyn folke is so mighty, so strong in the - felde as the comyns of England?"--_State Papers, Henry VIII._, - vol. ii. p. 10. - - "My thynketh that as the wise husbandman makethe and maynteyneth - his nursery of yonge trees to plante in the steede of the olde, - when he seeth them begynne to fail, because he will be sure at - all tymes of fruyte: so shulde politique governours (as the - kynges maiestie and his councell mynde) provide for thencrease - and mayntenance of people, so that at no tyme they maye lacke to - serve his highnes and the commenwelthe."--_The defence of John - Hales agenst certeyn sclaundres and false reaportes made of - hym._ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE RURAL POPULATION - - -(a) _The Classes of Landholders_ - -If an Englishman of ordinary intelligence had been asked in the reign of -Henry VIII. to explain the foundations of national prosperity, he would -probably have answered that the whole wealth[53] of the country arises -out of the labours of the common people, and that, of all who labour, it -is by the work of those engaged in tillage that the State most certainly -stands. True, it cannot dispense with handicraftsmen and merchants, for -ours is an age of new buildings, new manufactures, new markets. The -traders of Europe are already beginning to look west and east after the -explorers; there are signs of an oceanic commerce arising out of the -coastwise traffic of the Middle Ages; and Governments are increasingly -exercised with keeping foreign ports open and English ports closed. But -whether any particular artisan or trader is a profitable member of the -commonwealth is an open question. Too many of the manufactures which men -buy are luxurious[54] trifles brought from abroad and paid for with good -English cloth or wool or corn or tin, if not with gold itself--articles -whose use sumptuary legislation would do well to repress. As for -merchants,[55] if like honest men they give their minds to navigation, -well and good. But theirs is an occupation in which there is much room -for "unlawful subtlety and sleight," for eking out the legitimate -profits earned by the labour of transport, with underhand gains filched -from the necessitous by buying cheap and selling dear, for speculations -perilously near the sin of the usurers who traffic in time itself. -Outside the circle of a few statesmen and financiers, the men of the -sixteenth century have not mastered the secret by which modern societies -feed and clothe (with partial success) dense millions who have never -seen wheat or wool, though London and Bristol and Southampton are -beginning to grope towards it. Looking at the cornfields which are -visible from the centre of even the largest cities, they see that a -small harvest means poverty and a good harvest prosperity, and that a -decrease of a few hundred acres in the area sown may make all the -difference between scarcity and abundance. A shortage in grain, which -would cause a modern State to throw open its ports and to revise its -railway tariff, sets a sixteenth century town[56] breaking up its -pastures and extending the area under tillage. No man is so clearly a -"productive labourer" as the husbandman, because no man so unmistakably -adds to the most obvious and indispensable forms of wealth; and though, -in the system of classes which makes up the State, there are some whose -function is more honourable, there is none whose function is more -necessary. In most ages there is some body of men to whom their -countrymen look with pride as representing in a special degree the -strength and virtues of the nation. In the sixteenth century that class -consisted of the substantial yeoman. Men speak of them with the same -swaggering affection as is given by later generations to the sea-dogs. -The genius of England is a rural divinity and does not yet rule the -waves; but the English yeomen have "in time past made all France -afraid."[57] They absorb most of the attention of writers, both on the -technique and on the social relations of agriculture. They are the -feet[58] upon which the body politic stands--the hands which, by -ministering to its wants, leave the brain free to act and plan. Let us -begin by trying to see how the landholding classes were composed. - - [53] Pauli, _Drei volkswirthschaftliche Denkschriften aus der - Zeit Heinrichs VIII. von England_: How to reform the Realme in - setting them to work, and to restore tillage. "The whole welth - of the body of the realm riseth out of labours and workes of the - common people." - - [54] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. 63: - "And I marvell no man taketh heade unto it, what nombre first of - trifles cometh hether from beyonde the seas, that we might - either clene spare, or els make them within oure owne Realme, - for the which we paie inestimable treasure every yeare, or els - exchange substanciall wares and necessaries for them." E. E. T. - S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, Part II., p. 84: - "Craftys men and makers of tryfullys are too many." Harrison in - _Elizebethan England_ (Withington), p. 15: "O how many trades - and handicrafts are now in England whereof the Commonwealth hath - no need!" &c. - - [55] _e.g._ the prayer for merchants in Edward VI.'s _Book of - Private Prayer_: "So occupy their merchandise without fraud, - guile, or deceit." - - [56] _Coventry Leet Book_, Part III., pp. 679-680. - - [57] See Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I. c. 23: "These - are they which in the old world got that honour to Englande ... - because they be so manie in number, so obedient at the Lorde's - call, so strong of bodie, so hard to endure paine, so courageous - to adventure ... these were the good archers in times past, and - the stable troops of footmen that affaide all France that would - rather die all, than once abandon the knight or gentleman their - captaine," and Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), - pp. 11-13. - - [58] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of King Henry VIII._, - Starkey's Dialogue, Part II., p. 49: "To the handes are - resemblyd both craftysmen and warryarys.... To the fete the - plowmen and tyllarys of the ground, beycause they, by theyr - labour, susteyne and support the rest of the body." - -The manorial documents supply us with much information about the -landholders, and though we cannot say what proportion[59] they formed of -the population, we ought to be able to say with some certainty the -relative numbers of different classes among them. In the surveys and -rentals of the period persons holding land may usually be divided -roughly according to the nature of their tenure into three -groups--freeholders, customary tenants, and leaseholders. This -classification[60] of course is an elastic and tentative one, which -raises almost as many questions as it settles. The customary tenure of -one part of the country differs very much from the customary tenure of -another part. Customary tenants include copyholders and the vast -majority of tenants at will, who are holding customary land, and who are -often entered under the latter heading merely because the surveyor did -not trouble to set out their full description. But tenancy at will is -sometimes used to describe the condition, not only of the holder of -customary land, but also of men who are mere squatters on the waste or -on the demesne, and who are not protected in their holdings by any -manorial custom. Again, it is not always easy to draw a line between -copyhold and leasehold. On a manor where the custom is least favourable -to the tenants' interests the former shades into the latter. There is -not much difference, for example, between a lease for thirty-three years -and a copyhold for life. Again, the classification is one of tenures not -of tenants. In parts of England, it is true, it does divide individual -tenants with almost complete exhaustiveness and precision. In most -districts, for example, the free tenant usually holds freehold land and -nothing else, the customary tenant customary land and no other. But in -East Anglia there is no such simplicity of arrangement, no such -permanence of tenurial compartments. Many free tenants hold land which -is said to be bond or villein or customary land; many customary tenants -hold free land; many of both have added to their holdings by leasing -parts of the demesne or of the waste, and though in this respect the -Eastern counties are exceptional, it is in them often impossible to say -in what class any individual should be placed. - - [59] In this essay we are concerned only with the landholders, - not with the wage workers. The relative number of persons - holding land and of agricultural labourers without land is an - important question on which it is not easy to get light. The - surveys and rentals, a species of private census invaluable in - giving information about the holders of property, tell us only - the number of householders, and as the labourers employed in - agriculture (like many of those employed in manufacturing - industry) usually lived on the premises of their masters, they - do not enable us to calculate the number of those living - entirely by their labour. Still, since they include all tenants, - whether holders of a cottage only or holders of land in - addition, they enable us to say what proportion of heads of - families held land, and what proportion had none, or none except - a garden. This is of some importance. A tenant holding even as - much as fifty acres can hardly have employed more than two or - three agricultural labourers, and most tenants held less than - this; so that in those places where the cottagers form a small - proportion of the whole population we may conclude that a large - proportion of the villagers were landholders (for the figures on - this point see the tables given below). - - Unfortunately, we do not possess for the sixteenth century even - such a loose estimate as was made by Gregory King at the end of - the seventeenth. In 1688 he calculated that there were 16,560 - families of nobles and gentlemen, 60,000 families of yeomen, - 150,000 of farmers--presumably on lease--400,000 cottagers and - poor, 364,000 labouring people and out-servants, obviously a - very rough calculation, the most remarkable feature of which is - the large number of yeomen. Poll Tax returns might give us the - kind of information we require, since they included, or were - meant to include, the whole population above a certain age, - irrespective of whether they held land or not, and sometimes - divided them roughly into classes. Thus on sixteen manors in the - Norfolk Hundred of Thingoe the return to the Poll Tax of 1381 - showed a population of 870 male and female inhabitants over - fifteen years of age, of whom 9 were set down as knights, 53 as - farmers, 102 as artificers, 344 as "labourers" (laboratores), - 362 as "servants" (servientes). If, as is not improbable, the - first four classes held land (the labourers being serfs working - on the demesne), and the last consisted of farm and household - employees who did not, this would put the landholding classes on - these manors at a little more than half the total population - over the age of fifteen. But this return was probably falsified - to escape the tax; see Powell, _The East Anglian Rising_, App. - I., and Oman, _The Great Revolt of 1381_. The figures published - by Dr. Savine (_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, - vol. i., pp. 223-226) of the monastic population show that on - the eve of the dissolution there were residing in 22 houses in - Leicester, Warwick, and Sussex, 255 "hinds" and 76 "women - servants," presumably employed on the demesne farm, which gives - an average to each farm of about 11 hinds and about 3 women - servants. In the Kentish Nunnery of St. Sexburge, Sheppey, the - demesne farm employed a carter, a carpenter, two cowherds, a - thatcher, a horse keeper, a malter, three shepherds. Best, - describing his farming arrangements in Yorkshire in 1641 - (_Surtees Society_, vol. xxxiii.), states: "Wee kept constantly - five plowes goinge, and milked fowerteene kine, wherefore wee - had always fower men, two boyes to go with the oxeploughe, and - two good lusty mayde-servants." These were in each case only the - permanent staff, and their comparatively small numbers suggest - that much work must have been done by men who worked on their - own land and only occasionally helped on the demesne, _i.e._ - that the proportion of landholders to non-landholders was high. - This conclusion agrees with the evidence of the surveys, which - show that, especially in the East of England, many of both the - free and the customary tenants' holdings were so small that they - could hardly have made a living out of them without working as - wage-labourers as well, and also with other indications as to - the classes in rural society; _e.g._ out of 3780 persons - mentioned in Worcestershire recognizances, 1591-1643, as either - "labourers," "husbandmen," or "yeomen," 667 are entered as - labourers, 1303 as husbandmen, 1810 as yeomen, the latter - designation always, and the second usually, implying a holder of - land (J.W. Willis Bund, _Kalendar of the Sessions Rolls_, - 1591-1643, Part II.) On the other hand, conditions varied - enormously from place to place. Where there was a considerable - body of small landowners the number of hired labourers tended to - be small, the work of cultivation being done by the holder and - his family; _e.g._ we read of a manor in the seventeenth century - where thirteen freeholders farmed 580 acres with the aid of only - ten men-servants and shepherds before enclosure, and six or - seven afterwards (Joseph Lee, _A Vindication of a Regulated - Enclosure_). - - Some of the surveys supply us with extreme cases of the opposite - kind, where the whole manor consists of two or three holdings or - of even one great estate, and where almost the whole of the - population must have been working for wages; these illustrate - Harrison's complaint that in many places "The land of the parish - is gotten up into a few men's hands; yea, sometimes, into the - tenure of one or two or three, whereby the rest are compelled - betimes to be hired servants unto the others, or else to beg - their bread in misery from door to door" (Withington's edition - of _Elizabethan England_, p. 21). A protest made to the Council - from Norfolk in 1631 against its policy of trying to keep down - prices by insisting that all corn should be sold in the open - market points out that in "the woodland and pasture part" of the - country there are "a great many handicraftsmen which live by - dressinge and combinge of wool, carding, spinning and weaving, - etc., and the Townes there commonly very great consisting of - such like people and other artificers with many poor, and none - of them all ordinarilye having any corn but from the market." As - to the "champion part" of the county, the document divides the - rural population into three classes: "1. Tilth masters that have - corn of their own growing and sell it to others. 2. Labourers - that buy it at an under-price of them unto whom they worke. 3. - Poore people that are relieved by good orders in every towne" - (_Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907). But the case of Norfolk was exceptional, owing - to its position as the chief seat of the textile industries. - - On the whole I am inclined to think that though the process of - commutation which went on from 1350 onwards can hardly be - explained except on the supposition that there was a - considerable population of persons who held little land and were - ready to eke out a living by working for wages, yet in the - sixteenth century even the wage-working heads of families - usually held a certain amount of land (even if only a garden) as - well. This agrees with what we are told by contemporaries of the - scarcity of wage-earners (see below, pp. 99-102). One may add, - that in view of this, the fixing of maximum wages bears a - somewhat different colour from that often given it. It was only - practicable, one is inclined to say, because so few persons - depended entirely on wages for a living. The social problem in - the sixteenth century was not a problem of wages, but of rents - and fines, prices and usury, matters which concern the - small-holder or the small master craftsman as much as the - wage-earner. The "working classes" were largely small property - holders and small traders. - - [60] The summary statement given above is liable to be - misleading. The reader will find a fuller discussion of the - questions arising in connection with it below in Part II., chap. - iii. - -Nevertheless, in spite of many marginal cases, we may perhaps find in -the surveyors' classification a map of the broader features of the -country through which we are to travel. Property holders, profit makers, -and wage-earners are to-day inextricably confused, but to the economist -who writes on our social problems 200 years hence it will not be -altogether useless to know that his predecessors did in practice draw -rough distinctions between these classes, and formed estimates of the -numbers of each. Much of the agrarian problem of the sixteenth century -turns on the question of the legal interest in their holdings enjoyed by -different classes of tenants, and though we cannot hope to escape the -pitfalls which await compilers of even the humblest census, a -preliminary survey of their distribution in a few counties may not be -altogether without value. The following figures are taken from the -surveys and rentals of 118 manors.[61] The majority were made in the -reign of Henry VIII., Edward VI., and Elizabeth. There are included, -however, three from the latter half of the fifteenth century and three -from the years between 1630 and 1650. Under the heading of customary -tenants are grouped copyholders and tenants at will, as well as those -who are called customary tenants in the rentals and surveys. - - [61] They include also tenants on the lands belonging to - Cockersand Abbey, lying in many different parts of Lancashire, - in 1503. For the sources from which this table is constructed - and its defects, see Appendix II. - -Scanty as they are, these figures show that there is the very greatest -variety in the distribution of different classes of tenants in different -parts of the country, and remind us that we must be careful how we -generalise from the conditions of one district to those of another. When -all localities are handled together, customary tenants form nearly -two-thirds of the whole landholding population, freeholders about -one-fifth, leaseholders between one-eighth and one-ninth. But in parts -of the Midlands and in parts of the West the leaseholders are much more -numerous than they are elsewhere; in Leicestershire they form over -one-fifth, and are almost as numerous as the freeholders, while if we -isolate the five Somersetshire and Devonshire manors which above are -combined with those of Wiltshire, we find that in them the leaseholders -exceed the freeholders by nearly two to one. Again, in Northumberland -the preponderance of customary tenants (where they form 91 per cent. of -the landholding population) over the two other classes is much more -marked than it is in Wiltshire, and in Wiltshire it is greater than it -is in the three Midland counties and in East Anglia. That customary -tenants should overwhelmingly preponderate in Northumberland is -intelligible enough. If the single great manor of Rochdale be removed, -they preponderate almost as much in Lancashire. In those two wild -counties mediaeval conditions survive long after they have begun -elsewhere to disappear. There has been no growth of trade to bring -mobile leasehold tenures in its train, or to accumulate the wealth which -the peasants need to enfranchise their servile tenancies. But why should -they be so much more numerous in the southern counties than they are in -the twenty-two Midland villages, where one would suppose the conditions -to be much the same? Here, as often hereafter, we raise a question only -to leave it unanswered. - -TABLE I - ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - | Total. | Free- |Customary|Lease- |Uncertain.| - | |holders.| Tenants.|holders.| | ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ -Northumberland, | 474 | 26 | 436 | 12 | | - six manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Lancashire, | | | | | | - seven manors, and lands | | | | | | - belonging to Cockersand | | | | | | - Abbey | 1280 | 217 | 451 | 334[62]| 278 | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1754 | 243 | 887 | 346 | 278 | - | |(13.8%) | (50.5%) |(19.04%)| (15%) | - | | | | | | -Staffordshire, | 356 | 44 | 272 | 23 | 17 | - six manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Leicestershire, | 618 | 134 | 311 | 124 | 49 | - nine manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Northamptonshire, | 531 | 100 | 355 | 66 | 10 | - seven manors | | | | | | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1505 | 278 | 938 | 213 | 76 | - | |(18.1%) | (62.3%) |(14.2%) | (5%) | - | | | | | | -Norfolk, |1011[63]| 316 | 596 | 53 | 50 | - twenty-five manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Suffolk, | 353 | 176 | 146 | 25 | 6 | - fourteen manors | | | | | | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total |1364[63]| 492 | 742 | 78 | 56 | - | | (36%) | (54.3%) | (5.7%) | (4.1%) | - | | | | | | -Wiltshire, Somerset, | | | | | | - and Devonshire, | | | | | | - thirty-two manors | 1102 | 149 | 817 | 136 | | - | | | | | | -Hampshire, | 259 | 8 | 251 | | | - two manors | | | | | | - | | | | | | -Ten other manors | | | | | | - in the south of | | | | | | - of England | 219 | 43 | 158 | 12 | 6 | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Total | 1580 | 200 | 1226 | 148 | 6 | - | |(12.6%) | (77.2%) | (9.3%) | (0.3%) | - +--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - Grand total |6203[63]| 1213 | 3793 | 785 | 416 | - | |(19.5%) | (61.1%) |(12.6%) | (6.7%) | ---------------------------+--------+--------+---------+--------+----------+ - - [62] The Lancashire figures are unduly weighted by those of the - single large manor of Rochdale, where, in 1626, there were 612 - tenants. If this manor be omitted, there remain only 19 - leaseholders on the other Lancashire manors. Like - Northumberland, Lancashire seems to be (as one would expect) a - county of customary tenants. - - [63] There is an error of 4 in the Norfolk figures which I have - been unable to trace and correct. - -Yet there is one point emerging from these figures of which the -explanation can hardly be in doubt. It will be noticed that in Norfolk -and Suffolk combined the proportion of freeholders is about double what -it is in the country as a whole. In the former county they form more -than one-third of all the landholders, and in the latter they are almost -equal to the other two classes together. The number of peasant -proprietors in Suffolk is indeed quite exceptional, and is one of the -most remarkable facts revealed by the surveys, drawing an unmistakable -line between the land tenure of the east and that of the south-west and -the northern border. In Wiltshire and Northumberland it is not uncommon -to find villages where no freeholders at all are recorded. In Norfolk -and Lancashire it is the exception for them to be in a majority. But on -half the Suffolk manors summarised above they are the largest class -represented, and on some they stand to the other landholders in a -proportion of two, three, and even four to one. Is it fanciful, one may -ask, to turn from the sixteenth century to the dim beginnings of things, -to that first and greatest survey in which the land of England was -described so that not an ox or an acre escaped valuation, and in which, -before freehold tenure had been hammered into any precise legal shape, -Suffolk and Norfolk abounded more than all other counties in _liberi -homines_ and _sochemanni_? Though a longer time separates these -documents from Domesday[64] than separates them from us, perhaps it is -not altogether fanciful. Rural life, except for one great catastrophe, -has been very permanent. Unlike rural life to-day, it has been most -permanent in its lower ranges. How ever often manors may have changed -hands, there has been little to break the connection with the soil of -peasants whose title is good, no change at all comparable to the buying -out of small freeholders which took place in the eighteenth and -nineteenth centuries. It may well be that the main outlines of the -social system which the Domesday commissioners found already laid in the -east of England crop out again after the lapse of between four and five -hundred years. It may well be that Suffolk is a county of small -freeholders in the days of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth, because it was a -county of free men and socmen in the days of William I. - - [64] In Domesday Book 35 per cent. of all the tenants in Suffolk - are _liberi homines_, 32 per cent. of all those in Norfolk are - either _liberi homines_ or _sochemanni_. See Vinogradoff, _The - Growth of the Manor_, note 24 to chap. iii. Book III. (p. 376); - Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, p. 23; Seebohm, _The - English Village Community_, map opposite p. 85. Domesday also - gives a large number of _liberi homines_ and _sochemanni_ in - Leicestershire. In the table given above the Leicestershire - manors come after Suffolk and Norfolk as having the third - largest proportion of freeholders, viz., 21.6 per cent. The - return of freeholders supplied to the Government in 1561 - (Lansdowne MSS. V., 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15) appear to be - considerably understated, probably because only the more - substantial men were thought worth mentioning. They are as - follows: Beds 282, Berks 166, Essex 880, Notts 189, Oxon. 198, - Herts 363, York 787, Lincoln 444. The large number in Essex is - noteworthy. - - -(b) _The Freeholders_ - -In spite of the constant complaints of the sixteenth century writers -that one effect of the agrarian changes was the decay of the yeomanry, -we shall not in the following pages be much concerned with the -freeholders. In our period the word "yeomen" was ceasing to be given the -narrow semi-technical sense which it possessed in Acts of Parliament and -legal documents, and was beginning to acquire the wide significance -which it possesses at the present day. To the lawyer the yeoman meant a -freeholder,[65] "a man who may dispend of his own free lande in yerely -revenue to the summe of 40s. sterling," and if the word yeoman was used -in its strict legal sense, the decay of the yeomanry ought to have meant -a decline in the numbers of freeholders, such as occurred on a very -large scale two and a half centuries later. But in this matter it seems -that popular usage was more elastic than legal definition, and, except -when the significance to be given it is defined by the context, the word -itself is not an accurate guide to the legal position of those to whom -it is applied. Writers on constitutional questions were careful to -observe the stricter usage, because the 40s. freeholder occupied a -position in the State, both as a voter and in serving on juries, from -which persons who, though much wealthier, were not freeholders, were -excluded. But the word yeoman was used, in speaking of agricultural -conditions, to describe any well-to-do farmer beneath the rank of -gentleman, even though he was not a freeholder. Thus Bacon[66] writes -quite vaguely of "the yeomanry or middle people, of a condition between -gentlemen and cottagers or peasants." Those who insisted that the -military power of England depended on the yeomanry can hardly have meant -to exclude well-to-do copyholders;[67] not only copyholders but even -villeins[68] by blood were sometimes described as yeomen; and, in fact, -even writers who, like Sir Thomas Smith,[69] use the word most clearly -in its strict legal sense on one page, allow themselves to slip into -using it in its wider and more popular sense on the next, when the -social importance of the class and not its legal status is uppermost in -their minds. - - [65] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib I., c. 23. - - [66] _History of King Henry VII._ (Lumley), pp. 70-72. He makes - his meaning quite clear by saying "tenancies for years, lives, - and at will, whereupon much of the yeomanry lived, were turned - into demesnes." - - [67] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. (Savine, "Bondmen - under the Tudors"). - - [68] _Ibid._ - - [69] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum, loc. cit._ - -Nor is there much evidence that the freeholders suffered generally from -the agrarian changes of the sixteenth century. It is true that there are -some complaints from freeholders as to the loss of rights of pasture -through the encroachments of large farmers upon the commonable area, -some cases of litigation between them and enclosing landlords. But, -since their payments were fixed, there was no way of getting rid of them -except by buying them out, and though this method, which was so -important a cause of the decline of the small freeholder in the -eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, was occasionally employed to -round off a great estate, it seems to have played a comparatively -unimportant part in our period. There is no sign of any large diminution -in their numbers, such as would have been expected if the movement had -affected them in the same way as it did the customary tenants. - -Indeed, if the accounts of contemporary writers may be trusted, it would -appear that their position was actually improved in the course of the -century. Though even among quite small men one occasionally finds a -tenant by knight[70] service, the vast majority of freeholders held in -free socage, owing fealty and suit of court, and paying a money rent, -sometimes combined with the old recognitions[71] of dependent tenure, -such as a gillyflower, a red rose, a pound of pepper, or a pound of -cummin. But while on some manors some outward form of feudalism, such as -homage and fealty, were still maintained, the decay of feudal relations -in the middle order of society had combined with economic causes to -better their condition, and the time was already not far distant when -those who held by the more honourable tenure of knight service would -insist on its being assimilated to the humbler and less onerous tenure -of the socager. The agricultural services of the socage tenants had long -disappeared. There are many instances of work on the demesne being done -in the sixteenth century by copyholders; but there is in our records -only one manor where it was exacted from the freeholders, and other -obligations were tending to go the way of the vanished predial labour. -Suits of court might be owing, and set down as owing in the surveys, but -one may doubt very much whether they were often enforced. Owing to the -fall in the value of money the fixed rent of the socager often yielded -only a small income to the lord of the manor, and in a good many cases -these payments had disappeared altogether before the end of the century, -or were so unimportant as to be hardly worth the trouble of collecting. -Surveyors for this reason were often little interested in them, and, -while recording the acreage held by the customary tenants and -leaseholders with scrupulous accuracy, did not always trouble to set out -in detail the holdings of a class which was financially so -insignificant, with the result that sometimes the freeholders shook -themselves loose from all payments and services altogether. Nor, had the -surveyors been as careful as the heads of the profession would have had -them be, would they always have been successful in dealing with this -very independent class. They may protest that "next[72] under the king" -the freeholders "may be said to be the lord's," but freehold lands have -a way of getting mislaid[73] to the despair of manorial officials, as -copyhold lands do to-day. When escheats occur, the holding cannot be -found; when rents are overdue, distraint is impossible, because the -bailiff does not know on whom to distrain. The suggestion that, as long -as rents are paid and services discharged, the lord has any interest in -the property of his freehold tenants, rouses instant resentment, and it -would seem that by our period, at any rate in the south of England, the -connection of the freeholders with the manor was a matter rather of form -and sentiment than of substance. In fact freehold has almost assumed its -modern shape. - - [70] MSS. of Earl of Leicester at Holkham. Billingford and - Bintry MSS. No. 9 (Manor of Foxley, 1568). - - [71] _e.g. ibid._, Sparham MSS. No. 5, a freeholder pays "a - pounde of cumming seede and a gillyflower" (_c._ 1590). R.O. - Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancaster, Portf. 6, No. 15: "nyne - golden threads of vi.d." (1568). R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., 182, - fol. 1: a tenant "holds freely a cottage paying a red rose." - - [72] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book I., pp. 4-5, to - which the farmer answers: "Fie upon you. Will you bring us to be - slaves? Neither lawe, nor reason, nor least of all religion, can - allowe what you affirme." - - [73] _Op. cit._, Book III. Here is a bitter cry from the bailiff - of a manor (Merton Documents, No. 4381). "Good sir let me - entreat you yf the Colledge determyne to make survey this spring - of the lands at Kibworth and Barkly to send Mr. Kay or me word a - month or 3 weeks before your coming that we may have Beare and - other necessaries, and I desire you to gather up all evidences - that may be needful for the Lordshipp, for all testimony will be - little enough, the Colledge land is so mingled with Mr. Pochin's - freehold and others in our towne. There ys an awarde for - keepinge in of the old wol (?) close in our fields for (from ?) - Mr. Pochin's occupation, very needfulle for the ynhabitannts yf - that awarde can be founde at the colledge where yt was loste." - (For the remainder of this letter see Appendix I.) The Crown - suffered especially, see Norden, _Speculum Britanniae_, Part I., - pp. xl.-xliii. of introduction (Camden Society): "In many of his - Majesty's manors, free holders, their rents, services, tenures - and landes ... become strange and unknown ... and when escheates - happen the lande that should redound to his Majesty cannot be - found." In the common entry in manorial surveys under the - heading of freeholders of "certain lands" we should probably - take the word "certain" to mean "uncertain." - -In assuming its modern shape it has made this particular strand in rural -life harder to unravel. By escaping from the supervision of the manorial -authorities the freeholders escape at the same time from the economic -historian, and since the facts of their position go so often -unrecorded, we can speak of it with much less confidence than we can -about that of the leaseholders and customary tenants. Out of over one -hundred manors which we have examined, there are only twenty-two where -it is possible to ascertain with any accuracy the acreage held by the -freeholders, and, even on these, one too often meets cases in which the -extent of the holding is either unknown to the surveyor, or in which he -does not think it worth while to record it. Our results, such as they -are, are set out in the table on pages 32 and 33.[74] - - [74] For the sources and defects of this table see Appendix II. - -Combining the information supplied by these figures with that obtained -from other sources, we can form a rough idea of the agrarian conditions -under which the freeholders live. They are, in the first place, a most -heterogeneous class, including on the one hand men of considerable -wealth and position, and on the other mere cottagers. If we could trust -the statistics given above we should have to say that the latter -enormously outnumbered the former. But our impression is that, though, -no doubt, a large number of freeholders were extremely small men, the -preponderance of the latter was not nearly so marked as is suggested by -the table. For one thing, it is difficult to reconcile it with the -accounts given us of the substantial yeomen by the writers of the -sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. For another thing, it is in dealing -with the larger freeholders that the inclination of surveyors to omit -any estimate of the extent of the land is strongest, because it is -naturally in their case that an estimate is most difficult to form. -Probably, therefore, if we could obtain for the freehold tenancies -figures even as full as we can for those of the customary tenants, we -should find that the proportion holding between twenty and forty acres -was considerably larger than these partial statistics would suggest. - -In the second place, though we very rarely have direct information as to -the proportion of their holdings used as arable, meadow, and pasture, -such as is often supplied for other classes of tenants, we may say with -some confidence that it is extremely improbable that their agricultural -economy differed from that of the neighbouring copyholders,[75] and that -the backbone of their living, except when the plots were so small as -merely to supply them with garden produce, was therefore in almost every -case tillage. If in any way they departed from the practice of their -neighbours who were not freeholders, they did so probably only in being -somewhat more alert and enterprising, somewhat more ready to use their -security to break with custom and to introduce innovations. It is clear -that many of them were very far from being tied down to the stagnant -routine which some writers would have us believe is inseparable from all -small scale farming. Often, indeed, they had enough initiative to -realise the advantages of improved methods of cultivation, and on -several manors of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the -freeholders agreed with each other to survey their lands and separate -them, so that they could be cultivated in severalty.[76] In many cases, -again, they extended their holdings, which were sometimes large and -sometimes mere patches of a few acres, by acting as farmers for the lord -of the manor and leasing[77] the demesne or part of it. Above all they -had nothing to fear from the agrarian changes which disturbed the -copyholder and the small tenant farmer, and a good deal to gain; for the -rise in prices increased their incomes; while, unlike many copyholders -and the tenant farmers, they could not be forced to pay more for their -lands. - -TABLE II - - ---------------------------------------------------------------+ - 15 and under 20 Acres. | - 10 and under 15 Acres. | . | - 5 and under 10 Acres. | . | . | - 2-1/2 and under 5 Acres. | . | . | . | - Under 2-1/2 Acres. | . | . | . | . | - Houses or Cottages only. | . | . | . | . | . | - Total Number of Tenants. | . | . | . | . | . | . | - ----------------------------+ | | | | | | + - Norfolk, six manors | 139| 25| 33| 12| 17| 9 | 10 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Suffolk, four manors | 85| 27| 18| 10| 11| 2 | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Staffordshire, three manors | 24| 7| 4| 2| 3| 1 | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Lancashire, three manors | 9| | 1| 3| 1| 1 | 1 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Northants, four manors | 116| 10| 11| 4| 13| 9 | 5 | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Wiltshire, one manor | 6| | | | 2 | | | - ----------------------------| | | | | | | + - Leicestershire, one manor | 11| 1| 2| 2| 1| | 1 | - ----------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ - Total, twenty-two manors| 390| 70| 69| 33| 48| 22 | 17 | - ----------------------------+----+----+----+----+----+----+----+ - -TABLE II (CONT'D) - ---------------------------------------------------------------+ - Uncertain.| - 120 and over.| .| - 115 and under Acres.|.| .| - 110 and under Acres.|.|.| .| - 105 and under Acres.|.|.|.| .| - 100 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.| .| - 95 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 90 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 85 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 80 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 75 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 70 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 65 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 60 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 55 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 50 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 45 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 40 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 35 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 30 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 25 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - 20 and under Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| .| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Norfolk |2| |2|1|2| | | | | | | | | | |1|2| | | | |23| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Suffolk |1|1|3| | | |2|1| | | | |1| | | | | | | | | 8| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Staffordshire |1|2| |1|1| | | | | | | | | | | |2| | | | | | - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Lancashire | | | | | | |1| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Northants |1|1|4|2|3|2| | |3| | | | | | | | | | | |3|45| - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Wiltshire | | | | |1| |1| |1| | | | | | | | | | | |1| | - --------------------| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | + - Leicestershire |1| | | | |1| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 2| - --------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+ - Total |6|4|9|4|7|3|4|1|4| | | |1| | |1|4| | | |4|79| - --------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+--+ - - [75] See below, pp. 105-115. - - [76] See _e.g. Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. p. 327, - below, pp. 157-158, and _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery, - temp. Eliz._ B, b. 1, 58, Ll. 10, 62. - - [77] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., c. 23: "These be - for the most part fermors unto gentlemen." _Elizabethan England_ - (Withington), p. 120. "Yeomen" frequently occur in the sixteenth - and seventeenth centuries as lessees of the Merton Manors. - -The apparent immunity of the freeholders in the face of movements which -overwhelmed other groups of tenants suggests indeed that economic -causes alone, which all classes, whatever the legal nature of their -tenure, would have experienced equally, are not sufficient to explain -the sufferings of the latter. The situation in our period is not like -that which arose in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when -widening markets throw all the advantages of increasing returns on the -side of the large wheat farmer, and the yeomanry sell their holdings to -try their fortunes in the rapidly growing towns. The struggle is not so -much between the large scale and small scale production of corn as -between corn growing and grazing. The small corn grower, provided he has -security of tenure, can still make a very good living.[78] From the -point of view of the economist all the smaller men, whether freeholders, -leaseholders, or customary tenants, are in much the same position. The -decisive factor, which causes the fortunes of the former class to wax, -and those of the two latter to wane, is to be found in the realm not of -economics but of law. Leaseholders and many copyholders suffer, because -they can be rack-rented and evicted. The freeholders stand firm, because -their legal position is unassailable. Here, as so often elsewhere, not -only in the investigation of the past but in the analysis of the -present, the trail followed by the economist leads across a country -whose boundaries and contours and lines of least resistance have been -fashioned by the labour of lawyers. It is his wisdom to recognise that -economic forces operate in a framework created by legal institutions, -that to neglect those institutions in examining the causes of economic -development or the distribution of wealth is as though a geographer -should discuss the river system of a country without reference to its -mountain ranges, and that, if lawyers have wrought in ignorance of -economics, he must nevertheless consult their own art in order to -unravel the effect of their operations. - - [78] See below, pp. 105-115. - -From the larger standpoint of social and political organisation the -freeholders constituted an element in society the very nature of which -we can hardly understand, because our modern life offers no analogy to -it. We tend to draw our social lines not between small properties and -great, but between those who have property and those who have not, and -to think of the men who stand between the very rich and the very poor, -the men of whom our ancestors boasted as the "Commons of England," as -men who do not own but are employed by owners. Independence and the -virtues which go with independence, energy, a sober, self-respecting -forethought, public spirit, are apt to become identified in our minds -with the possession of wealth, because so few except the comparatively -wealthy have the means of climbing beyond the reach of the stream of -impersonal economic pressure which whirls the mass of mankind this way -and that with the violence of an irresponsible Titan. - -The sixteenth century was poor with a poverty which no industrial -community can understand, the poverty of the colonist and the peasant. -It lived in terror of floods and bad harvests and disease, of plague, -pestilence, and famine. If one may judge by its churchyards, it had an -infantile mortality which might make even Lancashire blush under its -soot. Yet (and we do not forget the black page of the early Poor Law) it -was possible for men who by our standards would be called poor to -exercise that control over the conditions of their lives which is of the -essence of freedom, and which in most modern communities is too -expensive a privilege to be enjoyed by more than comparatively few. Such -men were the freeholders. They formed a class which had security and -independence without having affluence, which spanned the gulf between -the wealthy and the humble with a chain of estates ranging from the few -acres of the peasant proprietor to the many manors of the noble, which -was not too poor to be below public duties nor too rich to be above -them, which could feel that "it is a quietness to a man's mind to dwell -upon his owne and to know his heire certaine."[79] Look for a moment at -the jolly picture drawn by Fuller,[80] who wrote at the very end of the -period with which we are dealing:-- - -"The good yeoman is a gentleman in ore whom the next age may see -refined, and is the most capable of genteel impressions when the Prince -shall stamp.... France and Italy are like a die which has no points -between cinque and ace, nobility and peasantry.... Indeed, Germany hath -her boors like our yeomen; but by a tyrannical appropriation of nobility -to some few ancient families their yeomen are excluded from ever rising -higher to clarify their blood. In England the temple of honour is closed -to none who have passed through the temple of virtue. - -"He wears russet clothes, but makes golden payment, having tin in his -buttons and silver in his pocket. He is the surest landmark whence -foreigners may take aim of the ancient English customs, the gentry more -floating after foreign fashions. - -"In his house he is bountiful both to strangers and poor people. Some -hold, when hospitality died, she gave her last groan among the yeomen of -Kent. And still at our yeoman's table you shall have as many joints as -dishes; no meat disguised with strange sauce; no straggling joint of a -sheep in the midst of a pasture of grass, but solid, substantial food. - -"He hath a great stroke in the making of a knight of the Shire. Good -reason, for he makes a whole line in the subsidy book, where, whatsoever -he is rated, he payeth without regret, not caring how much his purse be -let blood, so it be done by the advice of the physicians of the state. - -"In his own country he is a main man on juries; where, if the Judge open -his eyes on a matter of law, he needs not to be led by the nose in -matters of fact.... Otherwise (though not mutinous in a jury) he cares -not whom he displeaseth, so he pleaseth his own conscience. - -"In a time of famine he is the Joseph of the country and keeps the poor -from starving ... and to his poor neighbour abateth somewhat of the high -price of the market. The neighbour gentry court him for his -acquaintance, which either he modestly waveth, or thankfully accepteth, -but in no way greedily desireth. - -"In war, though he serveth on foot, he is ever mounted on a high spirit, -as being a slave to none, and subject only to his own Prince. Innocence -and independence make a brave spirit, whereas otherwise one must ask his -leave to be valiant on whom one depends. Therefore if a state run up all -to noblemen and gentlemen, so that the husbandmen be only mere -labourers or cottagers (which one calls but 'housed beggars'), it may -have good cavalry, but never good bands of foot.... Wherefore to make -good infantry it requireth men bred not in a servile or indigent -fashion, but in some free and plentiful manner." - - [79] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - - [80] Fuller, _Holy and Profane State_. The concluding paragraph - is obviously copied from Bacon's _History of King Henry VII._ - -The ancestors of the yeomanry had suffered much in the anarchy of the -fifteenth century, when the violent ejection of freeholders seems to -have become almost as common[81] as it had been in the evil days before -the reforms of Henry II. But the Tudor monarchy had put an end to that -nightmare of lawlessness, and in any society governed by law this body -of small property-owners was bound to be a powerful element, even though -they had no occasion for making any concerted use of their power, as -during the greater part of our period they had not. One must not, of -course, exaggerate their importance, or forget that, though a special -dignity was attached by opinion to all freeholders, they included in -reality men of various economic positions. Many of them must have been -quite poor. In the eastern counties, where they are most numerous, they -frequently own not more than three or four acres apiece, and can hardly, -one would suppose, have supported themselves without working for wages -in addition to tilling their holdings. Nevertheless the part which they -played in the routine of rural life was an indispensable one, and the -very diversity of the elements which they included made them a link -between different ends of the social scale. It was from the more -substantial among them that the government was most anxious to recruit -the military forces. The obligation of serving the State as voters and -upon juries fell upon the 40s. freeholders. The security of their tenure -caused them to be the natural leaders of the peasantry in resisting -pressure from above. No efforts of Elizabeth's Government could induce -the yeomanry of the North[82] Riding to abandon the old religion; and -when tenants and lords fall out over common rights and enclosures, it is -often the freeholders--though on occasion they enclose themselves--who -speak[83] for the less independent classes and take the initiative in -instituting legal proceedings. The upward movement which went on among -this class in many parts of England meant a change in the distribution -of material wealth which necessarily involved a corresponding change in -the balance of social forces and in the control of political power. To -Harrington,[84] who sought in the seventeenth century to find in -economic causes an explanation of the revolution through which the -country had passed, it seemed that the seeds of the civil war had been -sown by the Tudor kings themselves in the care which they showed for the -small proprietor. In destroying feudalism to establish the monarchy, -they had raised a power which was more dangerous to the monarchy than -feudalism itself. They had snapped the bond between landlord and tenant -by the Statute of Retainers. They had given the tenant security by -forbidding depopulation. Most important of all, by encouraging -alienation they had caused an enormous transference of property from the -upper to the middle and lower middle classes. "The lands in possession -of the Nobility and Clergy of England till Henry VII. cannot be -estimated to have over-balanced those held by the People less than four -to one. Whereas, in our days, the Clergy being destroyed, the Lands in -possession of the People over-balance those held by the Nobility at -least nine in ten." But property is political power individualised and -made visible. The destruction of the monarchy was only the political -expression of an economic change which had begun in the reign of Henry -VII. "He suffered the balance to fall into the power of the people.... -But the balance being in the People, the Commonwealth (though they do -not see it) is already in the nature of them." We need not accept -Harrington's view in its entirety in order to appreciate the -significance of the change which he describes. Certainly the yeomanry -were growing in political power, and were strong in that spirit of -self-respect and pride in their order, which, when, as too often, it is -confined to a single class, means social oppression, but which, when -widely diffused throughout society, is the mother of public spirit and -political virtue. The long discipline of tiresome public duties which -they had borne throughout the Middle Ages had formed them into a body -which was alive to political issues and conscious of political -influence, and which, when participation in public affairs became not -only a duty but a right, would use their power to press urgent petitions -from one county after another upon the King and upon the Parliament, or -by riding up from Buckinghamshire to protect Hampden at Westminster in -1642, or by fighting behind Cromwell in Cambridgeshire, or by fighting -for the King in the West. Compared with the bulk of the population, they -were a privileged class and stood by their own; it was they who restored -the franchise to the 40s. freeholders in 1654 and refused to extend it -to the copyholders. But the tenure of much of the land of England by men -with whom, however poor, no landlord or employer could interfere, set a -limit to the power of wealth, and made rural society at once more alert -and more stubborn, a field where great ideas could grow and great causes -find adherents. Political and religious idealism flourish bravely in a -stony soil. What makes them droop is not poverty, but the withering -shadow cast by complete economic dependence. - - [81] Paston Letters, I. 12, II. 248. Plummer's edition of - Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, Intro., p. 21. - - [82] Atkinson's _Quarter Sessions of the North Riding of - Yorkshire_, lists of recusants. - - [83] _e.g. Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii. (quoted - below, pp. 251-253), and Selden Society, _Select Cases in - the Court of Star Chamber_, vol. ii., _Inhabitants of Thingden_ - v. _Mulsho_; also Holkham MSS., Burnham Documents, Bdle. 5, No. - 94 (quoted below, p. 245 _n_.). - - [84] Harrington's works, 1700 edition, p. 69 (_Oceana_), pp. - 388-389 (_The Art of Law-giving_). See also Firth, _The House - of Lords during the Civil War_, pp. 28-32. - -From such degrading subservience the freeholders, "slaves to none," were -secure. As it was, they often left substantial fortunes to their -children, and by the middle of the sixteenth century were already -following the examples of their social superiors in entailing[85] their -lands. One can quite understand therefore that there is nothing -inconsistent between the glowing accounts of their prosperity at the end -of the century given by Harrison and his lamentation over the decline -of the rural population, or between the well-attested sufferings of the -small cultivator in the sixteenth century and his equally well-attested -importance in the seventeenth and early eighteenth. The explanation is -that the freeholders, though most important politically, did not form -the larger proportion of those substantial yeomen whose decay was -lamented. The day of their ruin was to come. But for the next two -centuries they were safe enough, and, if anything, gained on the class -immediately above them, whose lands they bought or leased, into whose -families they married, and with whose children their own competed in the -learned professions, laying, as the historian of Suffolk[86] said, "such -strong, sure and deep foundations that from thence in time are derived -many noble and worthy families." Nothing in the life of the period -caused more pride than the prosperity of this solid body of small -property-owners, and the contrast which it offered to the downtrodden -peasantry of the Continent. No loss has been sustained by the modern -world greater than their disappearance. - - [85] It is stated by good authorities that between 12 Ed. IV., - when the collusive action known as a common recovery used to - evade the Statute _de donis conditionalibus_ was confirmed by a - judicial decision (Taltarum's case), and the introduction into - settlements of "Trustees to preserve contingent remainders" by - Sir Orlando Bridgeman and Sir Geoffrey Palmer under the - Commonwealth, the tieing up of lands in one family was - impossible (_e.g._ Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small - Landowner_, pp. 11-13). But in 1538 Starkey's Dialogue speaks - strongly of the practice of entailing lands. "This faute sprange - of a certayn arrogancy, whereby, wyth the entaylyng of landys, - every Jake would be a gentylman, and every gentylman a knight or - a lord" (E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of Henry VIII._, - Part II. pp. 112-113, and pp. 195-196.) - - [86] Reyce, _Breviary of Suffolk_, p. 58, quoted _Victoria - County History, Suffolk_. - - -(c) _The Customary Tenants_ - -Important, however, as the freeholders were from a social and political -standpoint, they were in most parts of England far inferior in point of -numbers to those described as "customary tenants." It is with the latter -class that we are mainly concerned, and leaving the leaseholders on one -side for examination later,[87] we may summarise shortly certain -features in their position. The number of customary tenants varied from -one manor to another, according to the extent to which in different -districts farmers holding by lease had been substituted for them, and on -some by the middle of the sixteenth century there were none at all. But -there are many indications that, down to the end of that century at any -rate, and probably much longer, they formed over the great part of -England the bulk of the landholding population. Of the revenues of 74 -manors held by monastic[88] houses in 1535, L116 came from free, and -L1310 from customary, tenants. On 81 of the 118 manors analysed above -they are the most numerous class. When all the different districts are -grouped together, they amount to about 61 per cent. of all landholders, -and even this figure does not give an adequate idea of their numerical -importance. As we have seen, Norfolk and Suffolk are quite peculiar in -the multitude of freeholders they embrace, while the large number of -leaseholders on one extensive Lancashire manor unduly weights the -figures for that county. On the Midland manors 62 per cent., in -Wiltshire, Devonshire, and Somerset 77 per cent., in Northumberland 91 -per cent. of all those holding land are customary tenants. No doubt the -area of land held under lease was growing in the course of the -sixteenth, and still more in the course of the seventeenth, century, and -its growth is an extremely important movement, of which something will -be said later. But it seems true to say that, down to the end of the -sixteenth century, both in numbers and payments, though not in prestige -and influence, the customary tenants, as distinct from the freeholders -and leaseholders, were by far the most important class in the -agricultural life of the country. - - [87] See below, pp. 200-213 and 283-287. - - [88] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. - Savine, _English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution_, pp. - 156-159. - -Among the customary tenants, however, there are certain important -subdivisions. There are in the first place, differences of legal status. -Though villeinage by blood had been disappearing rapidly for several -generations, partly through manumission on payment of a fine to the -lord, partly through the absorption of migrating villeins into the -growing industries of the towns, a certain number of villeins by blood -lingered on into the sixteenth century. Dr. Savine[89] has estimated -that there were at least as many as 500 villein families in 1485, and as -many as 250 in the reign of Elizabeth; and the fact that they occur -occasionally on our Norfolk[90] manors, and rather more often on those -in Wiltshire[91] and Somersetshire, suggests that his list could be -considerably extended on further investigation. Even in 1561 a borough -surrenders an apprentice on the ground that he is a runaway villein.[92] -Even in 1568 it is worth while in leasing[93] a manor to a farmer for -the lord to reserve to himself the villeins upon it, together with other -forms of property like quarries and advowsons. - - [89] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. - - [90] R.O. _Misc. Bks. Land Rev._, vol. 220, fol. 220, Brisingham - (Norfolk) 1589: "Alice Bartram, the widow of W. Bartram, the - lord's villain by blood, took by surrender of said William for - term of life on 4 Feby., remainder to Roger Bartram, lord's - villain by blood." Holkham MSS., Titleshall Documents, Terrier - of Godwick, 1508: "Also five roods of the Prior in the hands of - Thomas Frend, native." - - [91] Among the 742 customary tenants on the manors belonging to - the Earl of Pembroke surveyed in 1568 there appears to be 7 - _nativi domini, i.e._ villeins by blood, viz., 1 at Washerne - (Wilts), 2 at Stooke Trister and Cucklington (Somerset), 4 at - Chedeseye (Somerset), of whom one has been manumitted. - - [92] _Selected Records of Norwich_ (Tingey), vol. vi. p. 180: - "Robert Ryngwoode brought in a certain indenture wherein Lewis - Lowth was [bound] to hym to serve as a prentys for seven years. - And Mr. John Holdiche cam before the Mayor and other Justices - and declared that the said Lewis is a bondman to my lord of - Norfolk's Grace, and further that he was brought up in husbandry - untyl he was xx year old. Whereupon he was discharged of his - service." - - Note the way in which Statute law is used to compel the - agricultural labour which the vanishing jurisdiction of lord - over serf is ceasing to be able to enforce. - - [93] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_, Manor of Chilmerke: "Johannes Reve tenet per - indenturam totum illud capitale messuagium excepta et omnino - reservata omnia wardas, maritagia fines ... nativos," &c. - -One cannot, therefore, take the almost sanctimonious abhorrence of -bondage expressed by the writers of the period quite at its face value. -On the other hand, though villeinage by blood was still worth recording, -since it offered an impecunious lord an opportunity for arbitrary -taxation, and still sufficiently irksome for the rebels under Ket[94] -(influenced perhaps by some dim memory of the German peasants' -programme) to set its abolition among their demands, its practical -importance was slight, and it was quite compatible with a good deal of -prosperity on the part of those who were legally bondmen. How completely -out of date it was by the middle of the sixteenth century is best shown -by some of the cases in which attempts were made to enforce it. When the -Earl of Bath[95] seizes L400 from a family on the ground that the -members are his villeins, and is pursued by them for nine years from -one court to another, or when a lord[96] of a manor is compelled by a -royal commission appointed for the purpose of investigating the matter, -to repay the value of the beast taken from a man who is proved by the -court rolls to be his villein, and the latter, having received it back, -declines to stop proceedings unless he be paid heavy compensation in -addition, one must see rather a proof of the practical disappearance of -villeinage than of its survival. Its occasional enforcement is clearly -regarded as something outrageous; it is a freak of arbitrary despotism, -which has hardly more historical significance than the seizure of the -Derby winner as a copyhold heriot would have at the present day. Public -opinion, even the opinion of those engaged in estate management, -condemns such attempts unreservedly, and when they come to the ears of -the authorities they strain the law on the side of the bondmen. - - [94] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 49: "We pray that - all bond men may be made free, for God made all free with his - precious blood shedding." The German peasants in the articles - drawn up at Memmingen in 1525 demanded the abolition of serfdom - "since Christ hath purchased and redeemed us all with his - precious blood." The Christian appeal is a common one; see - below. - - [95] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, - John Burde and another v. The Earl of Bath. The quarrel dragged - on from 1535 to 1544, when the plaintiff's goods were restored. - (In 1551, however, when all bad landlords were raising their - heads, his house and cattle were again seized.) - - [96] _Ibid._, Netheway _v._ George, 1534. For other cases see - Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star Chamber_. - Carter _v._ Abbot of Malmesbury (vol. i., 1500), and Selby _v._ - Middlemore (vol. ii., 1516-1522). Mr. Leadam's remarks (int. - cxxix.) show that a man who was legally a villein might be - economically very prosperous: "Thomas Carter ... was charged 40 - marks for his enfranchisement. He kept a man-servant. He rode on - horseback. He gave a feast to celebrate his freedom. He was even - on friendly terms with the gentlemen of the Abbot's household." - See also Savine, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xvii. Lord - Stafford actually tried to seize the Mayor of Bristol and his - brother as bondmen! - -This change from servile to free labour, begun some two centuries -before, and virtually completed in the reign of Elizabeth, is a high -landmark in the development both of economic and political society. It -is a long step towards modern industrialism on the one hand and the -modern all-inclusive state on the other. By sapping the organisation of -society on the basis of tenure, and thus making room for the more -elastic relationships of the wage-contract, it prepared the way for new -methods of production and for the growth of new centres of economic -power. The refusal of the courts to allow that the lord of a manor had, -_qua_ lord, a theoretical right to dispose of the persons and chattels -of his unfree tenants, meant the final triumph of the common law in -regions with which for four centuries after the Norman Conquest it had -not dared to interfere. Henceforward, while the German peasant is driven -afield to gather snails and wild strawberries for his lord, is plundered -and harried and tortured without hope of redress, his English brother -is a member of a society in which there is, nominally at least, one law -for all men. His liberty may be more in shadow than in substance, yet -the shadow is itself an earnest of greater things. To us who know the -misery of many of the poorer classes in the sixteenth century the boast -that "if any slaves or bondmen come here from other realms, so soon as -they set foot on land they became so free of condition as their -masters," may read like a bitter mockery. But it is something that the -boast should be made, and when England is confronted with the greatest -moral issue of the modern world, that boast will stand her in good -stead.[97] She owes some acknowledgment to the nameless serfs who fled -from farm and homestead, till villeinage, in spite of the law, bled -gradually to death. - - [97] Hargreave's speech in Somersett's case (1771-1772, Howell, - _State Trials_, xx.) is based largely on precedents drawn from - villeinage: "Though villeinage itself is obsolete ... those - rules, by which the claim of it was regulated, are not yet - buried in oblivion.... By a strange progress of human affairs - the memory of slavery expired now furnishes one of the chief - obstacles to slavery attempted to be revived.... The law of - England, then, excludes every slavery not commencing in England, - every slavery, though commencing there, not being ancient and - immemorial. Villeinage is the only slavery which can possibly - answer to such a description, and that has long expired by the - death or emancipation of all those who were once the objects of - it. Consequently there is now no slavery which can be lawful in - England." - -Having said so much we must hasten to guard ourselves, by adding that -the final disappearance of serfdom in this country neither involved any -radical conversion of opinion, nor prevented the classes who depended -solely on their labour from being, on occasion, cruelly oppressed. It -would be a mistake to see in the attitude of the governing classes -towards villeinage a symptom of humanitarian feeling for the rights of a -helpless class, such as prompted the emancipation movement of the last -century. How little humanitarianism influenced economic policy in -relation to those who were too powerless to be dangerous, is shown by -the sanguinary statutes relating to the destitute, and in particular by -the extraordinary legalisation of slavery in the Act[98] of 1547, by -which a confirmed vagrant might, when captured, be made a bondman for -life. Nor must we think of the disappearance of legalised serfdom as -effecting a great improvement in the lot of the ordinary wage-worker. -Those who benefited by it were not so much the workers for wages, as the -landholding peasants. The wage-labourer, who was tied to his parish by -the Statute of Artificers almost as completely as the serf had been by -the custom of the manor, can hardly have seen much difference between -the restrictions on his movement imposed by the Justices of the Peace -and those laid on him by the manorial authorities, except indeed that -the latter, being limited to the area of a single village, had been more -easy to evade. - - [98] 1 Ed. VI., c. 3. Possibly, however, the penalty of bondage - was regarded as a step towards greater leniency, as the - punishment of "incorrigible rogues" had hitherto been death. - -Even if we confine our attention to the landholding peasants, to whom -the advantage (for they were quick to seize it) was certainly real -enough, we may doubt whether they did not lose almost as much by the -intrusion into agriculture of competitive commercial forces as they -gained by the final disappearance of a claim which had always been held -in check by the custom of the manor, and which, since the ravages of the -Great Plague, had been steadily circumscribed by commutation. The truth -is that the sharp antithesis drawn by modern commercial societies -between serfs and the free labourers on whose slowly straightening backs -our civilisation is uneasily poised, and emphasised as though it marked -a line between hopeless oppression and unqualified liberty, requires to -be supplemented by categories derived from a wider and more tragic range -of experience than was open to our forefathers. There are more ways of -living "at the will of a lord" than were known to Glanvill and Bracton, -and the utility of the contrast in the sphere of legal analysis does not -save it from being but a thin abstraction of the countless forms of -tyranny which spring from the world-old power of one human being to use -another as his tool. That dependence on the uncontrolled caprice of a -master whom one hates to obey and dare not abandon, which, by whatever -draperies it may be veiled, is still the bitter core of serfdom,[99] is -compatible with the most diverse legal arrangements; with wage labour -as with forced services, with tenure by a competitive money rent as well -as with tenure by personal obligations, with freedom of contract as well -as with inherited status, with protection by the national courts as well -as with its absence. - - [99] More's remarks on the lot of the wage-workers of his day - have a refreshing note of reality. The Utopians are "not to be - wearied from earlie in the morning to late in the evenninge with - continuall worke, like labouringe and toylinge beastes. For this - is worse then the miserable and wretched condition of bondemen. - Whiche nevertheless is almooste everywhere the lyfe of workemen - and artificers, saving in Utopia" (More, _Utopia_, Pitt Press - Edition, pp. 79-80). - -When we turn over the pages in which the writers of the sixteenth -century declare that bondage is contrary to "the Christian religion -which maketh us all in Christ breathren, and in respect of God and -Christ _conservos_,"[100] and congratulate themselves on its -disappearance, we must not doubt their sincerity, but we may envy their -inexperience. We must remember that a condemnation of villeinage was -quite compatible with a policy of great severity towards the -wage-labourer, and was in fact not unconnected with it, since the latter -had almost everywhere stepped into places and functions formally held by -the bondman. Villeinage disappeared in England earlier than on the -continent of Europe, not for the ethical reasons given by Fitzherbert -and Smith and Norden, but because the growth of a commercial -organisation of agriculture had made its maintenance both useless and -impossible. The intellectual conversion did little more than follow on -the economic change to make a virtue of necessity. The personal -rightlessness of the villein and the hateful incidents of villeinage, -such as chevage, merchet, and leyrwite, had had their utility in the -fact that they kept him at the disposal of the manorial authorities as -an instrument of agriculture. With the substitution of hired labour for -the cultivation of the demesne by the services of bond tenants, their -maintenance lost its attractiveness. No employer wants to retain a -permanent staff, if there are "hands" whom he can take on and put off at -pleasure. Villeinage ceases but the Poor Laws begin. - - [100] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. III., ch. 8. See also - Fitzherbert, _Surveying_ (1539): "How be it, in some places the - bondmen continue as yet, the which me seemeth is the greatest - inconvenience that now is suffered by the law." Norden, _The - Surveyor's Dialogue_ (1608): "Which kinde of service and - slavery, thanks be to God, is in most places of this Realme - quite abolished and worne out of memory.... Truly I think it is - a Christian parte so to do [_i.e._ manumit bondsmen], for seeing - we be nowe all as the children of one father, the servants of - one God, and the subjects of one king, it is very uncharitable - to retain our brethren in bondage, sith, when we were all bond, - Christ did make us free." - -Much more important than this difference of legal status are -differences in the tenure by which customary tenants hold their lands. -Under the name of customary tenants are grouped together all holders of -lands which pass by surrender and admission in the court of the manor, -and which are subject to the custom of the manor as evidenced by the -records of the court. But not all these lands are held by exactly the -same title. Some are held by copy of court roll according to the custom -of the manor, on the terms set out on a copy of the entry of admission. -Others are held without a documentary title, and are often said to be -occupied at the will of the lord, or at the pleasure of the lord, or by -grant or permission of the lord or of the court, their essential feature -being that the tenant does not possess any instrument recording the -transaction, but has, if necessary, to appeal to the records of the -court or even to its mere memory. - -One must hasten to add, however, that these classes are not mutually -exclusive. A copyholder is a tenant at will, though qualified by the -addition of the words "by copy of court roll according to the custom of -the manor." It not seldom happens that in rentals and surveys he is -simply described as a tenant at will, and that the fact that he has a -copy is not recorded. A tenant at will is usually (though not always) a -customary tenant, and, when he is, he can appeal to the custom with as -good a right as a copyholder, though of course the fact that his title -is not in his own keeping may prejudice him if the manorial authorities -want to get rid of him. "All[101] copyhold land," it was said, "is -commonly customary, but all customary land is not copyhold," and one may -accept the statement with the reservation that "commonly" must not be -taken to mean "always," for it is quite usual in parts of England for -land which by no stretch of imagination can be called customary land, -for example, part of the lord's demesne, to be let by copy of court -roll. The fact that "tenant at will" was sometimes used as a compendious -phrase for "copyholder," and that both are sometimes described simply as -"customary tenants" without further definitions, makes it impossible to -offer any accurate estimate of the relative number of those holding by -copy and those holding at will. It may, however, be of interest to give -an analysis of the entries as they appear in a group of manorial -documents. It is as follows[102]:-- - -TABLE III - - - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | |Total| "Copy- |"Customary|"Tenants | - | | |holders."| Tenants."| at Will."| - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | | | | | | - |Northumberland | 436 | 362 | 45 | 29 | - |Lancashire | 451 | 295 | 156 | ... | - |Staffordshire | 272 | 170 | ... | 102 | - |Leicestershire | 311 | 157 | ... | 154 | - |Northamptonshire | 355 | 253 | 931 | 91 | - |Norfolk | 596 | 536 | 45 | 15 | - |Suffolk | 146 | 53 | 82 | 11 | - |Wilts and Somerset | 817 | 786 | ... | 31 | - |Hampshire | 251 | 251 | ... | ... | - |Ten other manors in the south | | | | | - | of England | 158 | 87 | 45 | 26 | - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - | Total |3793 | 2950 | 466 | 377 | - +------------------------------+-----+---------+----------+----------+ - - - [101] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. He continues: "For in - some places of this Realme Tennants have no copies at all of - their lands or tenements, or anything to show for that they - hold, but there is an entry made in the Court Books, and that is - their evidence." - - [102] See Appendix II. - -These figures, one must repeat, are merely a summary of the entries in -surveys and rentals. Probably they underestimate the number of -copyholders, as we know that copyholders were sometimes entered as -tenants at will or as customary tenants for the sake of brevity, while -it is not probable that tenants at will who had not got copies were -often written down as copyholders. One may suspect that this, rather -than any difference of custom, is the explanation of the relatively -small number of those who are returned as copyholders in Lancashire, -Staffordshire, Leicestershire, and Suffolk. Still, these figures do show -the enormous preponderance of copyholders among the customary tenants, -and show it all the more certainly if the number of copyholders is to be -taken, as is probable, as the minimum. And this agrees with what we know -from the incidental references of the writers of the time. Of 1000 -tenants on the great ecclesiastical manor of Scrooby in Nottinghamshire -"the most part" were said by Archbishop[103] Sandys in 1582 to be -copyholders. Harrison[104] in 1587 spoke of copyholders as those "by -whom the greatest part of the realm doth stand and is maintained." At -the beginning of the seventeenth century Coke[105] could say that the -third part of England consisted of copyhold. Copyholders, it is true, -are far from being all of one type; for the essence of their tenure is -that it depends on the custom of the manor which varies from place to -place, and when we come to consider how far they have security against -eviction these differences are of crucial importance. Still, in spite of -the varieties of copyhold tenure, it is useful to know that to the bulk -of the population in the sixteenth century landholding meant holding by -copy of court roll according to the custom of the manor. No account of -the agrarian changes can stand for a moment which does not give full -weight to the fact that, in most parts of England, the copyholders -greatly outnumber all other classes of tenants. - - [103] Archbishop Sandys to Queen Elizabeth, Saturday 24 November - to 4 December, 1582 (quoted by E. Arber, _The Story of the - Pilgrim Fathers_, pp. 61-64). - - [104] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), p. 120. - - [105] Quoted by Nasse, _The Land Community of the Middle Ages_ - (Ouvry's trans.). I have not been able to trace the reference. - -The numerical predominance of the customary tenants and among those of -the copyholders, together with the disastrous effects upon them which -are ascribed by most of our authorities to the agrarian changes of the -sixteenth century, makes a somewhat detailed examination of their -position essential. In particular it is important to try to bridge the -gap between the agricultural system of the sixteenth and that of the -thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, out of which it emerged, and of -which it continued to bear unmistakable traces. The problem is really a -twofold one, partly legal and partly economic. First, what was the legal -nature of copyhold tenure, and how did it arise out of mediaeval -villeinage? Secondly, there is the question, which for us is more -important, of the type of agriculture which prevailed among the mass of -the people. The economist wants to know whether the customary tenants -were large cultivators or small, whether they included considerable -capitalists and mere cottagers or whether their holdings were of a -fairly uniform pattern, whether they farmed mainly for subsistence or -for the market, whether they lived entirely by tillage or were pasture -farmers as well, whether they were tied down by custom or showed any -signs of being influenced by the agricultural innovations of our period. - -Of these two questions the first has been investigated much more -thoroughly than the second. We shall return to it later in considering -how far the copyholder had security of tenure, and enjoyed legal -protection against the lord who wished to evict him. But we may say at -once that we accept in substance the argument of those who hold that -most copyholders are the descendants of villeins holding villein land, -that copyhold tenure is, in fact, villein tenure to which the courts -from the end of the fourteenth century have gradually extended their -protection, and that the puzzling differences between the position of -one group of copyholders and another are due to differences in manorial -custom which were followed and upheld by the courts. This not only is -the traditional view, in the sense of being that which is implied in the -insistence of contemporaries that copyhold originated in base tenure, -and that copyholders were tenants "whom the favourable hand of time hath -much enfranchised,"[106] but also seems to be that which best fits the -situation of the copyholder as we find it in the sixteenth century. - - [106] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. - -This line of development is suggested, though it is not proved, by the -mere preponderance of copyholders. In looking for the antecedents of so -numerous and widely spread a class we can only find them in the tenure -of the mass of the people in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, -that is in villein tenure. Further, we do not find in villein tenure any -such fundamental distinction between customary tenure which was -protected and base tenure which was not, as has been sometimes -postulated as an explanation of the qualified legal security possessed -by copyholders 200 years later. On the contrary, the tenure of the -villeins is marked by the same variety of customary conditions as -appears in that of the copyholders, with the difference that, when once -copyhold has taken root, these customs are enforced by the courts. The -same conclusion is borne out by the survival of ancient formulae among -the terms by which the conditions of the copyholders are recorded in -the surveys. It is quite common for copyholders in the sixteenth century -to be described as occupying "bond"[107] or "native" land; sometimes one -finds a whole list of them set down under the rubric "holding[108] -native lands by copy of court roll." The last thing, of course, which -occurred to the writer of these entries was any legal theory as to the -origin of copyhold tenure. All he was concerned to do was to describe -the holdings in the way which was most precise and left least room for -possible disputes. Clearly, he must have had it in his mind that lands -which in his day were let by copy of court roll were lands which were -known generally in the village as bond lands, and which in earlier -documents were described as being occupied in villeinage. - - [107] _E.g._, R.O. Rentals and Surveys Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. - 32, Dunstall (Suffolk): "Bond land held by copy of court roll, - 13s. 4d. Of holders of 3 bond pightells, 5s. 4d." MSS. of Earl - of Leicester at Holkham, Tittleshall Books, No. 62, Langham Hall - (Norfolk): "Redditus assissae native tenentium. ... John Rose per - copiam, 4d." R.O. Rentals and Surveys Gen. Ser. Portf. 14, No. - 70, Barton (Staffs.): "T. Collinson 1 messuage 1/4 virgate land - de bond ... by copy 2 Hen. viii." - - [108] MSS. of Earl of Leicester at Holkham, Billingford and - Bintry MSS., No. 9, Foxley: "Native tenentium per copiam rotuli - curiae." - -One may approach the question in another way, by looking at the -circumstances of those exceptional manors on which the tenants at will -are more numerous than the copyholders, and which are instructive just -because they represent a variation from the general type. A case in -point is the Manor of Knyghton in Wiltshire. On the majority of the -manors held in that county by the Earl of Pembroke the copyholders are -far the most numerous class, and on some they are the only class, among -the customary tenants. At Knyghton,[109] however, there are no -copyholders; all the customary tenants hold at the will of the lord, and -when one examines the position and methods of agriculture more closely, -one finds that they display several signs of being in other respects -more antiquated and conservative than is the case in other parts of the -same country; for example, all the holdings are either virgates of -twenty-four acres or some fraction and multiple of a virgate, which is -not at all common on other Wiltshire manors, and implies an unusual -approximation to the conditions of the peasantry two centuries before. -Is it unreasonable to conclude that this is a case of arrested -development, and that Knyghton is a manor on which the tenants at will -have never turned into copyholders, because for one reason or another it -has lain outside the main stream of agricultural development? - - [109] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - -The connection with copyhold tenure of some of the characteristic -obligations and disabilities of villeinage points in the same direction. -In spite of the general commutation of services into money payments, -which Mr. Page's statistics show to have taken place before the middle -of the fifteenth century, one still finds the attenuated records of -labour rents surviving for many generations after the direct management -of the demesne by manorial officials has been abandoned, and passing -with the rest of the farm equipment to the farmer who takes it on lease. -In Norfolk and Suffolk they seem indeed to have disappeared almost -altogether, which is what one would expect in view of the fact that -those counties were the Lancashire and West Riding of the period, and no -doubt, even when labour services were still exacted, the farmer relied -mainly upon hired labour. But it would be a mistake to regard the -tenants' works as everywhere so trifling as to be of no economic -importance. Often, it is true, they are inconsiderable. At South -Newton,[110] for example, though the uncertainty which had been one of -the marks of villeinage still survived among the copyholders in the -shape of the duty of "gift carriage," the transport of such timber as -was wanted to the lord's house at Wilton, the purely agricultural -services were unimportant, and the tenants of every yardland had only to -mow the farmer's meadow and to carry his hay. At Cuxham,[111] in -Oxfordshire, on the other hand, the authorities were still getting -twenty-eight boonworks in autumn from the copyholders at the end of the -fifteenth century. On a Northumbrian[112] manor belonging to Tynemouth -Priory down to the dissolution of the monasteries "every tenant did lead -to the castle in the prior's time one load of hay, mow three several -dayworks of hay, rake one daywork and sheare three severall dayworks in -the corn in harvest every year." At Washerne,[113] in Wiltshire, the -copyhold tenants' labours were in 1568 still quite an important affair: -each holder of one virgate of twenty acres "shall plough three half -acres for the lord's winter seed and shall harrow them, and also the -aforesaid tenants shall wash and shear the lord's sheep ... and further -each of them shall mow one acre of meadow ... and gather hay thence and -prepare it.... Each of the said tenants shall reap one acre of wheat and -he must bind the crop and carry it. Also each of them shall reap one -acre of barley." On a Lancashire[114] manor in 1628 every plough hand is -obliged to do two days' work in the year with a team on the demesne, and -two days with a labourer. Such elaborate obligations as appears at -Washerne are, it is true, the exception. But they show that in the -middle of the sixteenth century there were still backwaters where the -remnants of agricultural services were a not inconsiderable burden; and -if their comparative lightness marks the progress from villeinage to a -wage system, their survival as clearly shows that villeinage was the pit -from which copyhold tenure was digged. - - [110] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [111] Merton Documents, 5902. - - [112] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 220 (one - may add that in parts of Northumberland the labourers are still - called "bondagers"; Mr. Clay tells me that in the Calder valley - farmers still use "daywork" as a unit for measuring fields). See - also _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery, temp. Eliz._, D. d. - 2, 44, for a suit by a farmer to recover services due from - tenants. - - [113] Pembroke Surveys. - - [114] _Chetham Society Miscellanies_, vol. iii. - -More striking still, perhaps, is the persistence of disabilities of -another kind. The old marks of personal bondage, chevage, merchet, -leyrwite, liability to tallage, and the rest have almost disappeared. -But traces of them are still found clinging to the copyhold tenants. -Copyholders pay a fixed sum to be free of tallages.[115] They pay salt -silver instead of the salt with which they had once been obliged to toil -to the lord's manor-house; they are forced to act as the lord's reeve, -and collect his rents, heriots, and strays. In one curious instance one -finds something very like a tallage[116] being taken at the beginning -of the seventeenth century, though of course that is not what it is -called. The tenants are simply collected and told that they must help -the lord to pay for an estate which he has bought, by giving him three -years' rent apiece, that, if they do, no more gifts will be demanded -during his lifetime, and that, if they do not, he will refuse to renew -holdings as they fall in. Even merchet, the most hateful of all the -incidents of villeinage, is something more than a mere memory. As late -as 1620 the tenants of Holt[117] in Denbighshire thought it worth while -to point out to the crown surveyor that "they are freed from payment of -any sum of money upon the marriage of their daughters," and even in 1654 -Leyrwite and childwite were still being paid by the heiresses of -copyhold tenants on some of the Warwickshire[118] manors. - - [115] Pembroke Surveys, Estoverton and Phipheld: "Tenentes de - Estoverton reddunt annuatim pro pannagio et tallagio ... ivs." - For salt silver, _ibid._, South Newton. For liability to serve - as Reeve, _ibid._, Paynton. - - [116] _Chetham Society Miscellanies_, vol. iii.: "I would wish - you to call the tenants first all together and to signify unto - them that my father and I have gone through with Mr. Ireland for - Warrington, and the summe we are to give is above L7000; and - this was done making no doubt that towards it every one of them - being tenants would by their assistance enable us to finish - it.... If they faile in this, they may provoke us to sharp - courses, especially mee, who have had a purpose to take the - third part of every living as it falls." - - [117] Wrexham Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, vol. ii. - MS. transcript by A.N. Palmer, "Survey of the Town and Liberty - of Holt." - - [118] Savine, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. - -It will not, therefore, be surprising to find that the humble origin of -copyhold tenure has left marks upon it in other ways as well, and, in -particular, that though the copyholder is not without legal protection -when the lord tries to get rid of him, that protection is often of a -somewhat shadowy and ineffective kind. His title is a customary one, and -mighty as custom still is, it has for centuries been growing gradually -weaker. Its weakening is at once an advantage and a disadvantage to the -peasantry. It relieves them of odious obligations and leaves them -greater room to push their fortunes. It lowers a protecting barrier and -exposes them to the dissolving forces of competition. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE PEASANTRY - - -(a) _The Variety of Conditions_ - -When one turns from what legal historians have said on the origin and -development of copyhold tenure to consider the economic position of this -class of tenants, one finds oneself in a region of much greater -uncertainty. The legal historian may speak of the copyholders as -constituting, in spite of minor differences, a fairly well-defined -class. The economic historian cannot. He finds, on the contrary, the -widest difference between the economic conditions of tenants holding -their land by copy of court roll, not only, as would be expected, in -different parts of the country, but on the same manor. In the thirteenth -century to say that a man is a villein tells us something at least about -his economic position, at any rate when the general features of the -manor on which he is a villein are known. He will probably have a -standard holding of a virgate or half-virgate; he will have rights in -the common meadow land and in the common waste; he will do work on the -lord's demesne. In the sixteenth century tenure is no clue to economic -status, and to say that a man is a copyhold tenant tells us nothing at -all about the extent of his holding or the sort of husbandry which he -pursues. The vast majority of copyhold tenants are peasants, men who -make a toilsome living from their land with the help of their families -and a few hired servants. But in England by our period the line between -class and class has ceased to coincide with differences of title; if -copyhold tenure is born of a humble stock, yet it has risen so much in -the world that the upper classes are not ashamed to hold out a hand to -welcome it; and among copyholders are found the names not only of many -small freeholders, but also of gentlemen and knights.[119] - - [119] _Crondal Records_, edited by Baigent, Part I., p. 159; the - Crondal customary of 1567. Among the copyholders appears a - knight and four gentlemen. - -Among the peasants who form the bulk of the population there is, again, -the greatest diversity. Sometimes the copyholders are simply emancipated -villeins, who have commuted most of their services, and who hold by copy -instead of at the will of the lord, but whose economic condition has -hardly changed at all. Thus in Northumberland[120] the holdings of the -copyholders on several manors reflect very accurately the distribution -of land between the bondage tenants in the thirteenth and fourteenth -centuries; the holdings have grown slightly in size, but they have -apparently a more or less continuous individual existence from the -earliest times. In parts of Wiltshire,[121] on the other hand, though -not in all parts, there is no possibility of establishing any connection -between the virgate and semi-virgate of the fourteenth century villeins -and the acreage held by the copyholders two hundred and fifty years -later; both in size and number the holdings are markedly different. In -Norfolk and Suffolk ancient class divisions have often been obliterated -altogether, and bond and free lands are interlaced in the holdings of -the customary tenants in quite inextricable confusion. - - [120] _Northumberland County History, e.g._ Surveys of High - Buston (vol. v. p. 208); Acklington (vol. v. p. 372); Birling - (vol. v. p. 201), and figures of eight townships in - Tynemouthshire, vol. viii. p. 230. - - [121] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of the Lands of William, First - Earl of Pembroke_. - -Again, there is the greatest variety in the methods of agriculture.[122] -Everywhere among the copyhold tenancies arable land predominates to an -extent which is in marked contrast to the frequent preponderance of -pasture land on many of the demesne farms. But to some tillage seems to -be their sole livelihood, while others are very considerable -sheep-farmers. Some are cultivators on quite a big scale, well outside -the Board of Agriculture's interpretation of a "small-holder" to-day, -with 80, 90, 100, or even 200 acres of land. Often they are better off -economically than many freeholders, and when Harrison and Sir Thomas -Smith classify[123] copyholders in general with "day labourers and poor -husbandmen," they must surely have been either speaking loosely, or else -thinking not of their economic but of their legal position. But others -hold only 5, 10, 15, or 20 acres, so that arithmetical averages of the -size of their holdings are very little guide to the real distribution of -land. Yet it would not be true to say that such inequality is universal, -for in the same county one finds some manors on which the holdings seem -all to be cut to a regular standard pattern, and others where the -variety of size is almost infinite, while in the North striking -divergences of area seem to be as much the exception as they are the -rule in the South and the East. On some manors, again, the copyhold -tenants have enclosed land and hold much in severalty; on others nearly -all of it lies in the open fields. Some have extensive rights of common, -while on other manors such rights are non-existent, or are too -insignificant to be recorded by surveyors. - - [122] See below, pp. 105-115. - - [123] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., c. 24. Harrison, - _Elizabethan England_ (edited by Withington), p. 13. - -In fact the impression given by the surveys is that of a condition of -things which is very far from being stationary, but in which, on the -contrary, much shifting of property and many changes in the methods of -cultivation have been going on, and in which the legal position of the -peasants is no guide at all to their economic characteristics. The task -of finding a manor to serve as a pattern and standard for the rest, -which is hard enough in the thirteenth century, is a sheer impossibility -in the sixteenth, and the student works with a deep sense of the danger -of sacrificing fidelity to simplicity of statement. - - -(b) _The Consolidation of Peasant Holdings_ - -But difficult as it is to reduce to any order the very diverse economic -conditions of the customary tenants at the beginning of the sixteenth -century, the task, at any rate in outline, has got to be faced. And this -involves a short account of movements which take us some way back into -the Middle Ages. No one can understand the contrast between the -conditions of the Irish peasantry in 1850 and their condition to-day -without knowing something of the agencies which have been at work in the -interval, of the Fair Rent Courts, the Congested Districts Board, and -the Land Purchase Acts; no one can appreciate the changes which are -taking place in rural France without having taken at any rate a glance -at the position of the peasantry before the Revolution, and at the Code -Napoleon. Certainly the substantial alteration which overtook agrarian -relationships in many parts of England between 1500 and 1640 is -unintelligible if it is regarded as a wave suddenly appearing in a calm -sea, a revolution by means of which commercial relationships of -sometimes an almost modern elasticity developed quite rapidly in village -communities of an almost mediaeval immobility. To understand the agrarian -problem of the sixteenth century we must know the sort of framework on -which the new forces worked, and the sort of tendencies of which they -were the continuation. - -Moreover, the history with which we are concerned is primarily the -history of the peasants as landholders, and only secondarily the history -of their personal condition. Generalisations about the disappearance of -villeinage and the substitution of hired labour for the working out of -rents in labour services do not help us much here. Speaking broadly, it -is no doubt true that, in spite of the survival of many vestiges of the -old order, wage-labourers are as normally the means of cultivating the -demesne at the end of the fifteenth century as servile tenants are at -the end of the thirteenth. But significant as this change is for the -history of the wage-earning classes, it does not by itself seem to throw -much light on the characteristic features of the sixteenth century -problem, the substitution of large tenancies for small, the displacement -of small holders, and the undermining of the customary routine of the -open field village. Certainly the two movements are connected; equally -certainly that connection is not a direct or obvious one. The change in -the personal condition of the peasantry is not by itself the key to -changes in the use and distribution of property. Why should it be? In -Prussia the abolition[124] of villein services in 1807 was carried out -by a decree which had as its object not a diminution, but an increase, -in the number of small tenants; and it is not self-evident that an -alteration in the method of cultivating the lord's demesne must have -produced changes in the disposition of the customary holdings in -fifteenth and sixteenth century England. - - [124] Edict of October 9, 1807, Clauses 10, 11, 12. See Cobden - Club, _Systems of Land Tenure in Various Countries_: Morier's - Essay on Germany. - -The very variety in the economic conditions of the peasantry which makes -generalisation so difficult is, however, itself a significant feature, -because it is in marked contrast with the comparative uniformity which -existed among great masses of them in the thirteenth and fourteenth -centuries. It suggests that even in agriculture custom has to some -extent been broken down by commercial enterprise, and that commercial -enterprise has had the natural result of accentuating inequality in the -possession of property. It warns a student of the agrarian changes of -the sixteenth century that he has not only to explain the way in which -the small cultivator lost ground then before the large estate, but also -how it was that his economic position differed in many cases so much -from that of the villein of two hundred years before, and that it may -very well be that the answer to the latter question will throw light -upon the former. - -Let us put ourselves in the position of a jury catechising some "aged -man" about the year 1500, catechising him not about boundaries, or -rights of common, or manorial customs, but about the general changes in -the distribution of property in his village. If surveys and court rolls -may be trusted, there is one thing that he could hardly fail to tell us, -and that is that for as long as he can remember there has been a great -deal of buying and selling of land by the customary tenants, a great -many changes in occupancy, and on the whole a tendency for those changes -to result in the concentration of several holdings in fewer and larger -tenancies. "Virgates which in grandfather's time," he would say, "used -to belong to A., B., C., and D. now belong to A. alone. Men who used to -occupy one holding each, now occupy two or three; when they cannot buy -they lease, and some have bought so much that they sublet part of their -holdings to others. Indeed there is not much sense in talking about -virgates or half-virgates at all. Once each of them had a separate -holder; once Durrant's shottes belonged to Durrant, Gunter's mead to -Gunter, Parry's croft to Parry, Hawkins' meade to Hawkins, Woolmer's -lande to Woolmer, Blake's tenement to Blake. To-day, though the old -names remain, they are no guide to the families holding the land. -Frankling has bought Durrant's and Gunter's and Blake's, Vites has -bought Parry's, while Pynnole's and Pope's and Hawkins' and the rest of -Blake's holdings have all passed into the hands of Blackwell."[125] - - [125] The instance is taken from a map of the manor of Edgeware - now in the All Souls muniment room. The map was made in 1597. - But many earlier examples can be found of land being known by - the name of one of its early holders, long after it had passed - into the possession of some one else. - -One thing at any rate is clear. If frequent changes of occupancy point -to a free land-market, then such a free land-market has existed for a -long time among the customary tenants; and if a keen demand for land -among the peasantry is a proof that small men are thriving, and see -their way to thriving still more by adding to their properties, then -there is a good deal of this healthy land hunger in English villages -before the age of the Tudors. We read to-day of how the French peasant -will pinch himself and his family to add a few acres to his little -estate, and we take it as an indication that small cultivation has a -firm root in France, and that rural life is on the whole enterprising -and prosperous. Certainly such a state of things is in marked contrast -with the stagnation prevailing in the lower ranges of village society in -countries where great estates pass almost intact from generation to -generation between the tall palings of family settlements, with the -small man, who would get land if he could, staring helplessly through -the bars. Now, at any rate in the fifteenth century, England belonged -very markedly to the first type, not to the second; to the type where -there is much buying and selling of land in small plots by small -cultivators, not to the type where land is locked up and rarely comes -into the market, rarely at any rate into a market where it can be bought -by the small peasantry. This mobility of land is of much significance -when we come to consider the breaking down of customary rules before the -forces of competition, and the formation of great estates out of the -holdings of the customary tenants. Let us consider it in more detail, -first from the point of view of the changes in the economic basis of -rural life which it produces, and secondly from the point of view of the -process by which those changes were brought about. We will for the -present leave on one side the demesne farm and the land held on lease, -and look only at the customary land which forms the backbone of the -copyholders' estates. - -The first source of information to which we turn consists of the surveys -and rentals, in which the holdings of the tenants are set out in detail. -To those accustomed to the picture of village life contained in the -records of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the surveys of the -fifteenth and sixteenth centuries present certain features which at once -arrest attention. For one thing, there is a much greater inequality -between the holdings of different customary tenants on the same manors -than is usually found among the holdings of virgators and semi-virgators -two centuries before. For another thing, some of their holdings are very -much larger than anything we find belonging to the same class of tenants -at an earlier date; occasionally, indeed, they can only be described as -enormous, running into 150 or 200 acres of land; often they amount to 80 -or 90. In the third place, the number of customary tenants is, on the -whole, much smaller than it was 200 years before, and that even on -manors where there has been an increase in the area cultivated by them. -The latter fact is significant, and we shall return to it later. But -before doing so, let us ask the meaning of the growing inequality in the -holdings of the customary tenants and of the great increase in the size -of some among them. - -Great as is the variety of conditions visible on a thirteenth century -manor, it is on the whole true to say that this variety usually conforms -to a rough rule or principle. One can find on the same manor families -whose holdings differ very largely in size, from the 25 to 40 acres -occupied by the holder of a virgate, the 12 to 16 acres of a -semi-virgator, to the 2 or 3 acres or less occupied by a cottar. But -normally each individual holds much the same amount of land as other -individuals of the same class; one holder of a virgate has about as much -as another holder of a virgate, one holder of half a virgate about as -much as his fellow, one cottager about as much as another cottager. -There are in fact different grades, but for each grade there is what may -be called a standard area of land, a unit of agrarian organisation, and -though that standard area varies a good deal in different parts of the -country it is usually fairly easy to discover what it is on any one -manor. Outwardly, at any rate, village life is organised, and the -distribution of property is settled in the main by the authority of -custom, rather than by commercial forces acting directly upon the -tenants. - -Now after the middle of the fifteenth century it is common to find quite -a different condition of things from this. There are, it is true, manors -where holdings preserve their primitive equality down to the very end of -the sixteenth century, especially manors in backward parts of the -country, where the influence of commerce has been little felt; -especially also manors where the demesne farm, instead of being leased, -has been retained in the hands of the lord. But in the South of England -these are the exception. The rule is that with regard to the area held -by the customary tenants there is no rule at all. On the same manor -copyholders may be cultivating anything from a quarter of a virgate to -two, three, four, or even more virgates; if their holdings are expressed -in acres they may be holding anything from 1 acre to 100 or 150. -Economically, indeed, customary tenants are often not a class at all, if -the essence of a class is common characteristics and a similarity of -economic status, though in the face of certain dangers they will act as -one. On many manors the nature of their tenure is the only common link -between them, and the nature of their tenure is compatible with the -greatest economic variety. - -This variety is most noticeable when we examine a large number of manors -one by one, since, when the figures of many different manors are added -together, their distinctive features are liable to be concealed in the -aggregate. Still, to get some idea of the scale on which the peasants -carried on their agriculture, it is perhaps worth examining the -following table[126] of the holdings of 1600 odd customary[127] tenants -on fifty-two manors. - - [126] For the sources from which this table is constructed, and - its defects, see Appendix II. - - [127] On three small manors I have included some tenants who may - possibly be freeholders or leaseholders. - -This table enables us, in the first place, to make a comparison between -the economic positions of groups of tenants in different parts of -England. It will be seen that the "predominant rate"--what we may call -the predominant acreage--varies considerably. In Wiltshire it is between -20 and 25 acres, and, including the next two columns, 36 per cent. of -all the tenants hold something between 20 and 35 acres. In -Northumberland the predominant acreage is between 30 and 35, and nearly -one half the tenants, 41 per cent., hold between 30 and 40 acres. -Elsewhere the most common holding is a good deal smaller. In Lancashire -(if we omit the cottagers, nearly all of whom come from one manor) the -predominant acreage is between 10 and 15 acres, though a great many -persons hold between 5 to 10 acres. In Staffordshire the largest group -of tenants is that holding under 2-1/2 acres, and more than one-half of -them hold less than 10 acres. In Norfolk and Suffolk the same state of -things obtains, but in a more pronounced form. Little emphasis need be -laid on the large number of cottagers there, nearly all of whom are -found on a single semi-urban manor, that of Aylsham. But it is clear -that the mass of the peasantry in those counties are very small holders -indeed. When the cottagers are left on one side, 22 per cent., about -one-fifth, of the landholders have under 2-1/2 acres; 54 per cent., more -than one-half, have under 10 acres. It is fortunate for them that -Norfolk and Suffolk are the home of the woollen industry. - -In the second place, let us notice a fact which is more relevant to our -immediate purpose. That fact is the great variety in the scale of -landholding obtaining between different tenants in the same part of the -country. In this matter, again, some counties present a marked contrast -to others. In Northumberland the uniformity in the size of the holdings -of the tenants is much more marked than the variety. About two-thirds -of them appear in the four columns representing holdings from 30 to 50 -acres. Only six hold more than 50, and though on one manor there are ten -tenants holding less than 2-1/2 acres, there are, apart from these, -comparatively few holding under 25 acres. On all the manors which have -been examined in this county there is, in fact, a regular standard -holding in the sixteenth century, which varies from 30 to 45 acres on -different manors, but which on the same manor varies hardly at all. But -Northumbrian agriculture is always several generations behind that of -the South and East, and when we turn to Wiltshire, or to East Anglia, or -to the nine manors given at the bottom of the table, we find a condition -of things in which there is much greater irregularity. The line extends -farther at both ends than it does in Northumberland. There are more -individuals and fewer clusters. The grouping of holdings round certain -standard patterns is much less marked. If we look at all the manors -together, we find that the four most populous columns contain almost -exactly one-half (49.1 per cent.) of the whole population, exclusive of -cottagers without land. In Northumberland the corresponding columns -contain two-thirds, in East Anglia, Lancashire, and Staffordshire rather -less, on the nine manors in the South and Midlands about one-half, in -Wiltshire a little over one-third. Again there are more large holders -and more very small holders in the South and East, than there are in -Lancashire and on the Northumbrian border. In Lancashire and -Northumberland 4.4 per cent. of the tenants, exclusive of cottagers, -have holdings of more than 50 acres. In Suffolk and Norfolk the -corresponding figure is 8.5 per cent., in Wiltshire 16.9 per cent., on -the nine other manors 14 per cent. - -TABLE IV - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - 30 and under 35 Acres. | - 25 and under 30 Acres. | . | - 20 and under 25 Acres. | . | . | - 15 and under 20 Acres. | . | . | . | - 10 and under 15 Acres. | . | . | . | . | - 5 and under 10 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | - 2-1/2 and under 5 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Under 2-1/2 Acres. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Cottages or Houses with or without . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Gardens . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | - Total Number of Tenants. | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | -|--------------------------------| . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | . | -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Ten manors in Northumberland | 96| | 10| 1| 2| 1| 3| 1| 12| 27| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Four manors in Lancashire | 168| 38| 14| 19| 29| 35| 7| 4| 7| 7| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Three manors in Staffordshire | 103| 8| 21| 16| 14| 6| 10| 11| 3| 1| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Two manors in Northamptonshire | 255| 30| 53| 24| 22| 22| 13| 22| 5| 10| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Three manors in Leicestershire | 129| 13| 17| 6| 6| 8 | 3| 3| 5| 1| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Five manors in Suffolk and | | | | | | | | | | | -| eight manors in Norfolk | 391| 52| 77| 40| 69| 28| 26| 19| 14| 5 | -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Seven manors in Wiltshire and | | | | | | | | | | | -| one manor in Somersetshire | 156| 3| 5| 7| 12| 8| 7| 27| 16| 14| -| | | | | | | | | | | | -| Nine other manors in the South | | | | | | | | | | | -| of England | 366| 23| 58| 27| 52| 29| 31| 16| 22| 12| -+--------------------------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ -| Total |1664|167|255|140|206|137|100|103| 84| 77| -+--------------------------------+----+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---+ - - - TABLE IV _(cont'd)_ - - ---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ - Uncertain.| - 120 and over.| .| - 115 and under 120 Acres.| .| .| - 110 and under 115 Acres.| .| .| .| - 105 and under 110 Acres.| .| .| .| .| - 100 and under 105 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| - 95 and under 100 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 90 and under 95 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 85 and under 90 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 80 and under 85 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 75 and under 80 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 70 and under 75 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 65 and under 70 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 60 and under 65 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 55 and under 60 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 50 and under 55 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 45 and under 50 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 40 and under 45 Acres.| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 35 and under .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| - 40 Acres .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| -+----------------| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| .| -|Northumberland |13|10|10| | | 1| 1| 2| 1| | 1| | | | | | | | | -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Lancashire | 2| | | | 2| | | 1| | | | | | | | | | 1| 2| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Staffordshire | 2| 2| 2| 2| | 1| 1| | | | | | | | | | | 1| 2| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Northamptonshire| 3| 7| 2| 5| 2| 7| 2| 2| 2| 2| | | | | 2| | | 4|14| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Leicestershire |10| 7| 8| 7| 7| 6| 2| 4| 1| 2| 1| 1| 2| | | | 1| 1| 7| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Suffolk/Norfolk | 9| 4| 2| 4| 7| 3| 3| 1| 1| 1| 1| | 1| | 2| 1| | 4|17| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|Wiltshire/ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -| Somersetshire |10|12| 5| 7| 2| 4| 3| 4| 1| 2| 1| | 2| | | | | | 4| -| | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | -|South of England|11|10|13| 3| 6| 7| 6| 3| 5| 4| 4| 1| 2| 4| | 1| 1| 7| 9| -+----------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ -| |60|52|42|28|26|29|18|17|11|11| 8| 2| 7| 4| 4| 2| 1|18|55| -+----------------+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+ - -In the non-commercial, non-industrial North there is something like -economic equality, something like the fixed equipment of each group of -tenants with a standard area of land which is one of the first things to -strike us in a mediaeval survey, and, as we shall see later, manorial -authorities for a long time insist on that rough equality being -maintained, because any weakening of it would disorganise the -old-fashioned economy which characterises the northern border. In the -industrial East and South this uniformity existed once, but it exists -now no longer. Wiltshire is humming with looms; Norfolk and Suffolk are -linked to the Continent by a thousand commercial ties, and will starve -if the clothiers lose their market. The mighty forces of capital and -competitive industry and foreign trade are beginning to heave in their -sleep--forces that will one day fuse and sunder, exalt and put down, -enrich and impoverish, unpeople populous counties and pour Elizabethan -England into a smoking caldron between the Irish Sea and the Pennines; -forces that at present are so weak that a Clerk of the Market can lead -them and a Justice of the Peace put a hook in their jaws. It is natural -that mediaeval conditions of agriculture should survive longest in the -North. It is natural that they should survive least where trade and -industry are most developed, and where men are being linked by other -bonds than those of land tenure. But we must not comment until we have -examined the text more closely. We would only draw attention to the -contrast between the South and the North, to the contrast also between -the great diversity in the size of the peasants' holdings in the -sixteenth century, and the much greater uniformity two or three hundred -years before. - -This contrast gives a clue to certain features of village life which are -distinctive of our period, and at the risk of wearying the reader one -may illustrate it from the circumstances of particular manors. At -Cuxham,[128] in 1483, there are, in addition to tiny holdings of a few -acres or of fractions of acres, holdings of one-quarter of a virgate, -of half a virgate, of one virgate, of four virgates. At Ibstone[129] in -the same year there are two tenants at will holding one virgate each, -one tenant holding five tofts and three crofts, while the rest hold -little except cottages and gardens. At Warton[130] in Lancashire, there -are in the reign of Henry VIII., in addition to various holdings -expressed in terms of acres, four holdings of half a bovate, two of -three-quarters of a bovate, seven of one bovate, two of one and a -quarter bovates, four of one and a half bovates, four of two bovates, -one of two and a quarter bovates, one of three bovates. At Barton[131] -in Staffordshire, in 1556, the typical holding is one virgate of 24 -acres. But though this forms the nucleus of the copyholders' properties -a good many of them have acquired so much extra land, and a good many -apparently have parted with so much of the land which they once held, -that though 24 acres is still the predominant holding, the majority of -the tenants hold something more or something less than this. At -Byshopeston,[132] in 1567, there are men holding half a virgate, two -virgates, three virgates, four virgates, six virgates. At Knyghton[133] -there are holders of anything from a half to two and a half virgates. - - [128] Merton Documents, Rentale de Cuxham (Nos. 5902 and 5905). - - [129] Merton Documents, Rentale de Ibston (No. 5902). - - [130] R.O. Rental and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 19, No. 7, f. - 79-87. - - [131] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, No. 70. - - [132] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [133] _Ibid._ - -Looking at this grouping of holdings, one is tempted at first sight to -say that the virgate has ceased to be a unit of open field tillage, and -has become merely a common form, an idea which is laid up in the minds -of surveyors, and which is produced automatically, even when it -corresponds to nothing in the fluid world of agriculture. This, however, -would be an error. On the contrary, the conservatism[134] of rural -arrangements is such that yardlands, bovates, virgates, and oxgangs, -continue to do duty in circumstances which seem quite incongruous, and -to be used, not only in theory, but in practice, to apportion rights -over arable, meadow, and pasture, long after holdings have been -redistributed in such a way as altogether to destroy the former equality -of shares. On the Leicestershire manors of Barkby[135] and Kibworth[136] -holdings were set down in terms of yardlands in 1636, though the -condition of things in which a yardland or half yardland formed one -tenant's holding had long since given way to one in which the smaller -holders occupied a few acres and the wealthier 2-1/2, 3, and 3-1/2 -yardlands. Still, though the continuance of these measures even into the -eighteenth century should be noted, there is no reason why we should use -them, and the modern reader will perhaps get a better idea of the -growing heterogeneity in the economic conditions of the customary -tenants if the distribution of their property is expressed in terms of -acres. - - [134] The inconvenience of reckoning in yardlands is noticed by - a writer in the seventeenth century: "The tax of land is after - the yardland; a name very deceitful by the disproportion and - inequality thereof, the quantity of some one yardland being as - much as one and a halfe or two in the same field, and yet there - is an equality of taxes" (Joseph Lee, _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_, 1656). - - [135] Merton Documents, MS. book labelled Kibworth and Barkby, - 1636. - - [136] _Ibid._ - -Our first example comes from Malden[137] in Surrey. It shows on a small -scale the tendency towards concentration of property in larger parcels. -In 1452 there were on that manor one holder of 24 acres, three holders -of 16 acres, two holders of 15 acres, and families holding 10, 8, 6, 5, -2 acres respectively. That 16 acres had been the normal holding is -fairly obvious; it is obvious also that though this normal holding is -still traceable, it is on the way to being obliterated. Later specimens -of a similar kind come from Ashfield[138] in Suffolk and Ormesby[139] in -Norfolk. In 1513 there were on the former manor tenants holding 7, 10, -15, 21, 22, 36, 37, 45, 107, 121 acres, and all intermediate sizes. On -the latter, in 1516, the holdings were much smaller, but they were still -more various in area, ranging from 2 to 31 acres. One or two of the -Wiltshire and Somersetshire manors surveyed for the Earl of Pembroke in -1567 offer examples of the reverse state of things in which the tenants' -holdings were all cut out to a standard pattern. At Washerne,[140] for -example, a manor where the demesnes were not leased but retained "in -the hand of the lord," nearly all the copyholders had exactly 20 acres -each. But this is an exception which proves the rule. At Estoverton[141] -there were some tenants holding 69, 48, 38 acres of arable, and others -with 12, 10, 9, 3, and 2 acres. At Donnington[142] there were holders of -63 and 52 acres in the fields and holders with only 8 or 9 acres. At -South Brent[143] the divergence between large and small customary -tenants is more striking still. One occupies about 90 acres, several -others over 50, while the vast majority hold less than 30 acres in -holdings which are hardly ever of the same size. At Crondal[144] we find -in 1567 exactly the same inequality in the area cultivated by different -tenants, exactly the same combination of very large with very small -holdings. Taking one tithing only of that manor--that of Swanthrop--we -are met by tenants holding 112, 104, 66, 58, 47, 44, 30, 27, 25, and 3 -acres. Finally, let us take two extreme instances. They are drawn from -the closing years of the sixteenth century; but their inclusion may be -justified by the fact that they reveal in a pronounced form the -tendencies which we have seen at work elsewhere a century and a half -before, and that they offer a peculiarly clear example of larger -customary holdings formed out of the aggregation of several smaller -ones, since the names of the previous tenants are stated by the -surveyor. On the two Middlesex manors of Edgeware[145] and -Kingsbury[146] all relics of the state of things which had presumably -existed there, as on other manors, two or three centuries before, the -state of things in which there were groups of men holding virgates or -half virgates, has disappeared so entirely as to leave no traces behind. -On the former the thirty-eight copyholders occupy holdings of almost any -size between 1 rood and 130 acres; out of the 722 acres of copyhold land -as much as 254, a little over one-third, are in the hands of two large -tenants. On the latter there is, _mutatis mutandis_, the same story; out -of the twenty-seven copyholders thirteen hold less than 15 acres, eight -hold more than 30, and of those eight two hold more than 100 acres -apiece. - - [137] Merton Documents, Rental of Malden. - - [138] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, No. 85. - - [139] _Ibid._, Portf. 22, No. 18. - - [140] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [141] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [142] _Ibid._ - - [143] _Ibid._ - - [144] _Crondal Record_, Part I. (Baigent), pp. 210-221. - Customary of 1567. - - [145] All Souls Documents, Map and Description of the Manor of - Edgeware (1597). - - [146] _Ibid._, Map and Description of the Manor of Kingsbury - (1597). - -These examples are drawn from 12 different counties.[147] Let us see -more exactly what they suggest. They suggest that, quite apart[148] from -any movement on the part of lords of manors to throw the holdings of the -customary tenants into large farms and to evict their holders, quite -apart from any external shock such as was given to the organisation of -village life by the change from tillage to pasture on the part of lords -and their farmers, there has been going on an internal change in the -relation of the customary tenants to each other. So far we have been -concerned only with the result of that change, not with the process by -which it is brought about. The result, as evidenced by the surveys, is -the consolidation of several holdings, or parts of holdings, into fewer -and larger tenancies, the appearance of a class of well-to-do peasants -by whom such larger tenancies are held, and a widening of the gap -between the most prosperous and least prosperous. Customary tenants hold -3 or 4 virgates, 80 or 90 or 100 acres, and their holdings are composed -of holdings and parts of holdings which formerly belonged to several -different tenants. Customary tenants even become the landlords of other -customary tenants. At Yateleigh[149] one copyholder has as many as -twenty sub-tenants, and it is not at all uncommon for the surveyors of -the sixteenth century to record the names both of owners and occupiers -in estate and field maps. There can hardly be a clearer proof of the -re-arrangement of property which has been going on among them than the -fact that some of them hold more land than they can cultivate themselves -and sub-let it to smaller men, who become their sub-tenants. - - [147] Similar examples could be adduced from Northamptonshire - and Leicestershire, were it worth while, _e.g._ at Duston in - Northants in 1561 there were tenants holding 2 virgates, 1-3/4 - virgates, 1-1/2 virgates, 1/2 virgate, 1/4 virgate (R.O. Rentals - and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 23). At Desford in Leicestershire, - _temp._ Hen. VIII., one finds the same division and aggregation - of virgates (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancs., Bdle. 6, - No. 7). - - [148] See below, pp. 72-75. - - [149] _Crondal Records, loc. cit._ - -May one not say, in fact, that by the beginning of the sixteenth century -the rough equality which had once existed between the holdings of -different groups of customary tenants is fast disappearing, and that by -the middle of that century it has, in some parts of the country, -disappeared altogether? The village community is often no longer made up -of compact groups of holders with more or less equal holdings, more or -less equal rents and services, more or less similar economic positions. -Even as early as the time when the great agrarian changes which -contemporaries summed up under the name of "enclosing" begin to produce -legislation on the part of governments and riots among the peasantry, -its appearance of a systematic adjustment of property and obligation is -already far on the way to disappearance. Its members still hold shares -in the open fields, and are still bound by a common routine of -cultivation, save in so far as that routine has been undermined in the -ways to be described below. But it is easy to be deceived by the -external shell of organisation into thinking of village life at the end -of the fifteenth century as being much more homogeneous than it really -was. After all there are shareholders and shareholders. There is very -little similarity in economic interest or social position between the -artisan who buys a L5 share in a Bolton spinning-mill and a capitalist -who invests L5000 in the same concern. There was hardly more, one may -suspect, between the copyholder who cultivated a few acres and the -copyholder who held 100 or 200 acres and sublet part of his holding to a -poorer neighbour, though the lands of both were intermixed, though both -held of the same manor, though both were nominally bound by the same -custom. This comparison says more than we mean; for, with few -exceptions, the inequality in the holdings of the peasantry revealed by -the manorial documents is not so great that it cannot be spanned by -enterprise and good fortune. Looking back from a world in which the mass -of mankind have no legal interest in the land which they cultivate or -the tools which they use, what strikes the modern reader most in the -sixteenth century is not the concentration of property, but its wide -distribution. Nevertheless, even in these petty rearrangements of -holdings there is a meaning. They are the beginning of greater things. -To appreciate their importance we must obliterate from our minds our -knowledge of later developments, and regard them as the innovation which -they are. We must remember that they are the economic foundation of a -prosperous rural middle class. - - -(c) _The Growth of a Land Market among the Peasants_ - -If the surveys were our sole source of information it would not be easy -to say how this regrouping of holdings has been brought about. Even the -surveys, however, do not leave us quite in the dark. They suggest that -it has taken place very largely through the play of commercial forces -within the ranks of the customary tenants themselves, through the eager -purchasing of land which we noticed as one feature of rural life at the -close of the Middle Ages, and through the growth of a cash nexus between -individuals side by side with the rule of custom. This is a factor in -the break up of the mediaeval condition of landholding upon which -sufficient emphasis has perhaps not always been laid. The pre-occupation -of the writers of the sixteenth century with the special problem of -their own day, when the existence of a class of well-to-do copyholders -was taken as something needing no explanation, and their decay before -the growth of the great leasehold estate occupied the attention of all -interested in agricultural problems, caused the significance of the -development of these thriving peasants to be forgotten in the agitation -and regrets which accompanied their depression, and naturally -concentrated interest on the changes introduced by lords and great -farmers, through which that depression was mainly caused. In every age -prosperity is taken as a matter of course, and, in defiance of all -experience, mankind reserves its surprise for distress. - -But the special phenomenon of the growth of large customary tenancies -which we have been considering can hardly be explained except as a -result of enterprise among the tenants themselves. The piling up of -customary holdings in the hands of one individual is quite a different -thing from the adding of customary holdings to the demesne which the -lord retained or leased to a farmer. It means a transference of -property, but a transference not from a customary tenant to the lord or -the lord's farmer, but from one customary tenant to another. It suggests -that before the "enclosing movement" of the sixteenth century brought -its crop of evictions, economic forces had long been at work to break up -the village community into large holders and small. When in 1452 John -Blackman, copyhold tenant of Maiden,[150] holds Keyser's, Key's, and -Skinner's tenements, it can only mean that Keyser, Key, and Skinner have -parted with their tenements to John Blackman. The lord may have put -pressure upon them to sell, but the customary land is not diminished, it -is simply rearranged; the result is not an addition to the manorial -demesne, but the appearance of a copyhold tenant with a great deal more -land than his neighbours. The cases in which the existence of more than -one survey of the same manor enables us to contrast the condition of the -customary tenants at different dates make it quite clear that this -aggregation of holdings was a well-marked movement which went on quite -apart from any encroachment by manorial authorities on the customary -land. Some time between 1340 and 1454 two virgates at Castle Combe,[151] -which at the earlier date were in separate hands, have been formed into -one holding. And naturally, the later we come, the more marked the -change which we find. At Aspley Guise[152] in 1275 the forty customary -tenants each held almost exactly half a virgate. In 1542 one finds among -the tenants at will and copyholders three occupants of the original half -virgate, one tenant with 30 acres, two tenants with 60 acres each, three -tenants with 75 acres each. These large holdings have plainly been -formed by the aggregation of half virgates in fewer hands and into -parcels of two, three, four, and five half virgates apiece. This case is -a very clear one, because nearly all the holdings are multiples of the -original standard, even the rent being calculated from this basis. - - [150] Merton Documents, Rental of Maiden, 1496. - - [151] _History of Castle Combe_ (Scrope). - - [152] For information as to Aspley Guise I am indebted to the - kindness of Dr. H.G. Fowler of Aspley Guise, who has allowed me - to see the material which he has collected for a history of the - manor. - -Elsewhere the aggregation of small customary holdings into large is -equally marked, but it has not been carried out with such a nice regard -to the maintenance of the original units. In the tithing of South[153] -Newton, part of the Manor of South Newton in Wiltshire, there were in -1315 seven holders of a virgate, each of whom occupied 23 acres, -seventeen holders of half a virgate with 12 acres each, and eight -cottagers. When the manor was surveyed in 1567 the customary tenants, -though fewer in number, cultivated a good deal more land than they had -two and a half centuries before, so that there is no question of their -holdings having been merged in the demesne. But the land was very -differently distributed between them. Of the ten copyholders then -remaining only one held the original virgate. Of the rest there were -holders of 59, 65, 80, and 96 acres, of 7, 13, and 15 acres, and of -various acreages between these wide limits. The symmetry of the earlier -arrangement has entirely vanished. Instead of a cluster of small -cultivators organised in three well-defined layers, we have a chain -stretching from a mere cottager up to a petty capitalist. A very similar -change has taken place on the Manor of Crondal.[154] If one compares, -for example, the arrangement of holdings on the tithing of Swanthrop in -1287 and 1567, one finds that the rough symmetry which existed at the -former date has altogether disappeared by the latter. In 1287 there were -eight persons holding virgates, seven holding half virgates, two holding -quarter-virgates, and four whose holdings are not expressed in virgates. -By 1567 all this has been altered. There are tenants holding 100, 66, -58, 47 acres; there are three with less than 10 acres, and there are -five with holdings of various sizes between these limits, but in no case -reducible to any common measure. How could such a transformation come -about, unless, as was suggested above, there was much buying and selling -of land, much rudimentary commercialism inside and behind the decent -cloak of routine which seems to be spread over our villages? Is not this -explanation forced upon us when we examine the holdings of the larger -peasants and find them made up of pieces bought from one and leased -from another, pieces taken from the waste or from the lord's demesne or -from the common pasture? And if it is correct, does it not point, on the -one hand, to a good deal of enterprise among the small holders, and -since enterprise can hardly exist without a certain level of prosperity, -to a good deal of prosperity; and, on the other hand, to movements which -in time are likely to dethrone custom altogether and put competition in -its place? - - [153] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_ (Straton). - - [154] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 111-116, and 210-222. - -To these questions we shall return later. But happily we are not -restricted to inferential argument for our knowledge of these internal -changes in the economy of village life before the sixteenth century. We -have the court rolls of manors, and the court rolls are full, from a -very early date, of transactions which show how the state of things -which has been described was being brought about. In examining the -evidence which they offer of the shifting of property among the -peasantry we shall have to go some way back, and we shall do well to -begin with a distinction and a warning--a distinction between the legal -framework of rural life and its economic tendencies, and a warning that -we shall have to deal with a somewhat tiresome mass of detail, which the -general reader can avoid by turning to the summary at the end of this -chapter. - -In the picture of the mediaeval manor which is usually offered us the -features which receive most emphasis are its systematic apportionment of -works and services, its regulation by binding customary rules, its -immobility and imperviousness to competitive and commercial influences; -in short, its character as an organisation in which even the details are -settled by custom. In the "typical manor," as it appears in some -accounts, the main lines are drawn with almost photographic sharpness. -There are the free holders on the free land, the bond tenants each with -his virgate or half virgate of bond land, and the officers and servants -of the lord, a system the parts of which are knit together by the lord's -need of extracting labour services to cultivate his demesne. Now that -the internal economy of a thirteenth century manor displays to a very -remarkable degree the authority of custom in all its arrangements is -not, of course, denied; and it is specially proper to emphasise it when -we are contrasting it with modern agriculture, or when we are regarding -it from the standpoint of law. But this is only one aspect of it, and if -we assume that the economic relationships between the different members -of it always followed the same grouping and ran on the same lines as the -legal ones, we are likely to ascribe to them a simplicity and a hard and -fast character which, we may be quite sure, they never possessed in real -life, and to miss those very innovations which throw most light on -economic development. - -True of such development early rentals and surveys show little trace. -But let us remember the purpose for which they were prepared. The -manorial officials were concerned with getting in an income, not with -supplying information about the methods of agriculture or the -cross-relations between one tenant and another, except in so far as they -affected the manorial revenue. The source of the income was the holding, -not the holder; or, rather, it did not matter to them who the landholder -was, whether he was one individual or another, or whether he was a -partnership of half-a-dozen individuals, provided that the land, however -held, yielded the customary services and payments. The nearest analogy -would be an apportioned tax which a Government divides between different -localities, each locality having to raise a certain sum, but making its -own arrangements as to what individuals shall pay. It is the virgate -which pays rents, which mows the lord's meadow, reaps the lord's fields, -carries the lord's messages, pays a stoup of honey and a churchshot of -white corn; and as long as the meadow is mowed and the message carried, -the question what individual holds the virgate is quite a subsidiary one -for the bailiff, and one which the tenants can arrange among themselves -much as they please. Each half virgate at Cuxham[155] has got to do two -boonworks or pay 4d. But the manorial economy is not at all disturbed by -the fact of one tenant holding not half a virgate, but a virgate and a -half; for he has to do, or pay some one else to do, six boonworks and -pay 2s. if he does not. A half-hide at Bramshot[156] has to make -half-a-dozen different payments in money and kind; but there is another -to prevent John, Stephen, Roger, and William clubbing together to work -it and arranging the payments among themselves as they please. - - [155] Merton Documents, No. 5902, Rental of Cuxham, 1483: - "Johannes ... pro uno messuagio et una virgata terrae et dimidia - xxiiis. et 6 precaria in autumno vel 2s.... Thomas Lee, Rector - ecclesiae ibidem pro uno tofto ... et una virgata terrae 18s. et 4 - precaria in autumno vel 16d." - - [156] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 96, Rental of 1287: - "Johannes filius Fabri, Stephanus Draghebreck, Rogerus de - Hallie, et Willelmus le Hart ... tenent j dimidiam hidatam - terrae. Reddendo inde per annum 5s. ad festum S. Mich. et xixd. - de Pondpany et ad festum Beati Martini viii gallinas de - chersetto, et ii gallinas contra Natale, et x ova contra Pascha, - et facient in omnibus omnia sicut Willelmus de Haillie." P. 125: - "William, son of Gonnilda, and Galfrid Levesone, John, son of - Matilda, and Emma, a widow, hold one virgate of land containing - 27-1/2 acres on paying and doing as the said Robert of - Estfelde." There are many similar entries. - -Clearly in these circumstances a rigid classification of holdings by the -manorial authorities is quite compatible with a great deal of diversity -in the arrangements made with each other by the holders, and we are -likely to miss a good many innovations if we look at the manor only -through the eyes of officials and as a revenue-producing concern.[157] -We must no more expect to get from them an exhaustive account of the -exact individuals at any one time using the land, or of the scale on -which farming is carried on by the peasants, than we expect the -shareholders' list of a limited company to tell us who has the spending -of the dividends. The shares stand in A.'s name, but the interest may go -to A.'s married daughter. The holding stands in the name of Thomas in -the books of the manor, but it may be that part or all of it is worked -by Walter. To put the case in another way, to the lord and his steward a -manor is primarily a business, a business on which various obligations -can be imposed and from which various profits can be extracted. But it -is also a village community consisting of peasants whose economic -relations are by no means exhausted in the interest which the lord takes -in them as part of its stock, and who have economic dealings which are -important when we begin to inquire into changes in the distribution of -peasant property. The number of the holdings and the amount of payments -and services may remain quite unaltered, and yet at the same time if one -individual begins to acquire several shares his property will grow at -the expense of other persons. Precisely because it is new, the -appearance of such small capitalists is not readily traceable in the -stereotyped forms used by the manorial officials. Precisely because it -is new, it is of the greatest economic significance. It shows what may -be called, by contrast with later developments, the old agrarian regime, -producing the new type of well-to-do peasant who is one of the -protagonists in the class struggles of the sixteenth century. - - [157] Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, pp. 250-251: "The - general arrangement admitted a certain subdivision under the - cover of an artificial unity, which found its expression in the - settlement of the services and of the relations with the lord." - -And this upward movement is no mere matter of conjecture. That behind -the stiff legal framework of the manorial organisation there was a -tendency for property to pass into the hands of the more prosperous -tenants, and that there was a sort of primitive commercialism even at a -time when commercial ideas had little influence over the methods of -agriculture, becomes evident if we examine the elements out of which the -small properties of the fourteenth century are composed. The gradual -formation of a class of wealthy peasants took place in three ways, -through the buying up by well-to-do men of parts of their neighbours' -properties, through the colonising by villages of the unoccupied land -surrounding them, and through the addition to the customary holdings of -plots which had at one time been in the occupation of the lord, but -which, for one reason or another, he found it more profitable to sell or -lease to his tenants. Even before the end of the thirteenth century it -is by no means unusual to find land changing holders pretty rapidly both -by transfer and by lease. The customary land passes in the manorial -court; the outgoing tenant surrenders it, and the incoming tenant is -formally admitted by the steward. When a peasant leaves the manor or -dies without heirs, the other tenants offer a sort of small land-market, -and bid for his land or part of it to add to their own. Hence holdings -or fractions of holdings change hands with some frequency at the court -customary, the well-to-do, who can afford to take more land, offering -the lord an increased rent to obtain a share in a holding the possession -of which has for some reason lapsed. In the court rolls of the -Lincolnshire manor of Ingoldmells,[158] for example, there are many such -transfers, six sales occurring in successive courts held in 1315 and -1316. At Crondal,[159] in 1282, a tenant has for some reason given up -his holding; the rest of the community dart on it like minnows on a -piece of bread; and it is at once split up among as many as ten other -tenants, who find sureties for the continuance of the normal services. -At Hadleigh,[160] in 1305, a tenant sells part of his land to be built -upon. At Castle[161] Combe, in 1367, a villein enters by licence of the -lord on two virgates of land and a separate pasture. - - [158] _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_ (Massingberd), October 1315 to - June 1316. - - [159] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 152-153. Court Roll of - 1282. "Hugh Sweyn gives to the lord 15d. that he may be able to - hold 2-1/2 acres of arable land of the tenement formerly Richard - Wisdom's, paying therefor yearly 15d. of rent: sureties for the - services being Gilbert Swein and Roger Carter." Nine other - tenants take fractions of Richard Wisdom's holding in the same - way. - - [160] _Victoria County History of Suffolk_, "Social and Economic - History" (Unwin). Professor Unwin has some suggestive remarks on - similar developments in other parts of the county. - - [161] _History of Castle Combe_ (Scrope), p. 162: "Johannes - Pleyslede, nativus domini, cepit de domino unum messuagium et - duas virgatas terrae tenendas in bondagio, secundum - consuetudinem manerii ... Reddit etiam annuatim sex denarios pro - quadam pastura vocata le Hatche, et pro via ad eandem." - -Such examples of what may be called petty land speculation could be -multiplied almost indefinitely, and point to a good deal of mobility in -rural society even in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. At -the same time one can see signs of relationships of a more complicated -character tending to establish themselves between the tenants, and -breaking up the symmetry of the manorial arrangements. There is a marked -tendency for holdings not to remain intact but to be split up among -different holders. Sometimes this takes place in the ordinary course of -transference from father to son. The virgate held by the former is -divided, for example, into two cotlands, each of which is held by one -child,[162] or the heir to a holding divides it with his mother.[163] -More frequently one is left to infer the actual process of division -from the way in which the Rentals describe holdings as being occupied by -groups or partnerships[164] of tenants, who share the land between them, -each being responsible for a part of the rents and services owing from -the virgate. Such an arrangement does not imply that there is any -partnership in actual cultivation, any partnership in the modern sense -of the word. It means, on the contrary, that the different parts of the -holding are divided among several different cultivators, and that its -apparent unity is quite artificial, simply a fiscal expression to enable -the authorities to see that it renders its share of payments and -services. - - [162] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 129, Rental of Dupehale - (Dippenhall) 1287: "Edmunde de Bosco and William de Bosco hold 2 - cotlands which were formed out of one virgate of land which Adam - de Bosco formerly held." - - [163] _Ibid._, p. 153: "Margery Palmer comes and surrenders into - the hands of the lord a virgate of land with a house in Crondal, - and Galfrid her son comes and gives to the lord 6s. 8d. to have - seizin thereof, upon this condition, that the said Margery have - the third part, and two pieces more, of the aforesaid tenement, - for the term of her life." - - [164] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 117, Rental of Yateleigh, - 1287: "John de la Perke and Thomas Squel hold one virgate of - land containing 22 acres, on payment therefor of 2s. 10d. on the - Feast of St. Michael and 7-1/2 for Pondpany, and one stoup of - honey, and 75 eggs, and shall perform all services like Thomas - Kach.... Walter le White and Osbert de la Knelle hold one - virgate of land containing 29-1/2 acres.... Roys de Pothulle and - John le White hold one virgate of land containing 29 acres." - -Again there is much leasing and sub-letting of land by the more -prosperous of the customary tenants. Like labourers who hold allotments -to-day, they often find it convenient to hire extra land and at the same -time to let out parts of their own holdings, which may be inconveniently -situated, or hard to work, or for some other reason not worth retaining. -Thus in Lancashire the Clitheroe[165] court rolls show many fines being -paid in the early fourteenth century for permission to "tavern," that is -simply to lease, land. In 1351 there are several tenants on the manor of -Sutton[166] in Hampshire who have leased cotlands from the larger -customary tenants. At Crokeham on the neighbouring manor of Crondal[167] -we hear as early as 1287 of one tenant paying 12d. for his holding -"through the rents of" another customary tenant, who stands as an -intermediate landlord between him and the manorial authorities. On this -manor, indeed, sub-letting of land proceeded very far, and had created -by the middle of the sixteenth century exactly the result which one -would have expected, the existence, namely, of a considerable number of -subtenants holding land from the copyholders and known by the name of -Hallmote[168] tenants. Nor is mere subtenancy the most elaborate of the -arrangements which arise among these Lilliputian capitalists. The -peasants deal in land, and naturally they employ land agents to act as -brokers for their bargains. When "Robert Bagges surrenders one bovate of -villein land into the hands of the lord for the use of Symon Clerk, and -the same Symon forthwith surrenders the aforesaid bovate to the lord for -the use of William Flaxman, and William Flaxman pays 12d. to enter -thereupon,"[169] may we not say that we have the whole machinery of land -speculation, seller, middleman, and client, complete? - - [165] _Court Rolls of the Lordships, Wapentakes, and Demesne - Manors of Thomas, Earl of Lancaster_ (edited by W. Farrer). - Halmote of Colne, 1323: "Thomas le Harper for taverning 3 acres - of land, 6d. Roger ... for the same of 2 acres of land, 4d.," - and _passim_. - - [166] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 140: "John Thomas holds a - messuage and a 'ferdell' of land, excepting one cotland and a - perch.... Thomas le Freyn holds of the above a cotland and a - perch." - - [167] _Ibid._, p. 134: "William de Suche gives to the lord 12d. - yearly, to be allowed to hold 6 acres through the rents of Hugh - of Wyggeworthale." - - [168] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 159-383. Customary of - 1567. The name does not necessarily imply subtenancy in any way, - the Hallmoot being simply the court of the manor. At Yateleigh - one copyholder, Richard Allen, held about 263 acres, of which - about 126 were held from him by 21 subtenants (pp. 258-265 and - 378-379). - - [169] Footnote in _The Rebellion of Wat Tyler_, by Petruschevsky - (Russian), p. 210: "Ricardus Flaxman qui de domino tenuit in - bondagio unum messuagium et II. bovatas terrae et xvi acras terrae - de Forland quae quondam fuerunt Johannis Colyn ad terminum xx. - annorum ex dimissione praedicti Johannis per licenciam curiae, - venit hic et reddidit in manus domini praedictas duas bovatas - terrae et acras di' terrae et prati ad opus Willelmi Dolynes - deduct' praedicto messuagio." Duchy of Lancaster Court Rolls, - Bdle. 32, No. 307, and _ibid._, p. 211: "Robertus Bagges redd' - in manus domini l bovatam terrae in bondagio ad opus Symonis - Clerk Tenend 'sibi et suis, etc. Et idem Symon instanter redd' - in manus domini praedictam bovatam terrae ad opus Willelmi Flaxman - sibi et heredibus suis secundum consuetudinem manerii, et dat ad - ingressum xiid." Duchy of Lancaster Court Rolls, Bdle. 33, No. - 324: "Instanter" is remarkable. - -So far we are on safe ground. But it is not easy to describe the sort of -conditions in which this petty commercialism, this emergence of peasants -richer and more prosperous than their fellows, takes place. Clearly it -implies the existence of small stores of capital, of some surplus over -the consumption of the current year, which its fortunate possessors can -use as a starting-point for further acquisitions; nor ought this to -surprise us, for the usurer who traffics in his neighbours' misfortunes -by lending money or corn at exorbitant rates, is by no means an -unfamiliar bugbear in the mediaeval village. Clearly, again, we must not -look for some single _primum mobile_ to explain how such small capitals -could be brought into existence. With all its apparent homogeneity the -manorial population had, from the beginning of things, included people -some of whom were in so much better a position than others for building -up considerable properties as to make it no matter for astonishment -that, as time went on, they should improve their advantage and attract -more than their share of any increase in wealth which might take place. -The appearance in the fourteenth century of a rural middle class is, -indeed, much less remarkable than the extreme slowness of its -development in the more backward parts of the country. For one thing, -even the strictest equalisation of shares could not prevent the holder -of exceptionally fertile land from being better off than his less -fortunate fellow. Since services and rents were based on the -requirements of the demesne, with a view to their rough apportionment -among all the peasants, and were not adjusted, like modern competitive -rents, so as to sweep away the surplus arising on superior sites, the -occupants of the latter could build up, under the aegis of custom, the -nucleus of a very considerable property.[170] For another thing, the -mere fact that the village was subordinated to a lord, who exploited it -by means of officers and servants, supplied village society with an -upper layer of people who had larger opportunities than the mass of the -peasantry for improving their position. Stewards, bailiffs, and greaves -were frequently rewarded for their services with grants of land for -which only a nominal rent was asked, and of course the most obvious way -of using their advantage was further to increase it by adding to their -properties. In a somewhat similar position to these were the peasants -who were let off easily because their labour was not needed for the -lord's estate. It is quite a mistake to think of the mediaeval villager -as a man pinned down to subsistence level by the economic pressure which -grinds, as in a mortar, the poorest classes in modern society. Of course -individuals were cruelly oppressed, and when the harvest failed whole -communities, as in India to-day, must sometimes have been blotted out at -a blow. But the whole story of the extraordinary upward movement which -took place among the peasantry in the fourteenth and fifteenth -centuries is unintelligible, unless we admit that the legal -rightlessness of the villein was, in fact, quite compatible with a good -deal of economic prosperity. His liability to the manorial authorities, -though in law unqualified, was in reality a liability limited, on the -one hand, by the rule of custom, and, on the other, by the fact that he -worked, not for an ever hungry world-market, but for a by no means -insatiable local demand. Since services were adjusted to holdings, not -to holders, a family of five or six persons usually did not send more -than one or two to work on the lord's estate, and the remainder had -opportunities for economic advancement, which necessarily became greater -as the growth of population made the weight of the lord's requirements -less exacting.[171] Moreover, the rudimentary specialisation of -industrial employments, which can plainly be seen going on in the -villages of the fourteenth century, brought into existence the man who -was half peasant, half artisan or tradesman, and who could employ the -money which he made in trade to carry on his husbandry on a larger scale -than his neighbours. Such, for example, were the smiths, carpenters, -turners, shoemakers, tailors, butchers, walkers, websters, and shearmen, -who appear so constantly in Poll Tax returns.[172] When a weaver is -able, though a villein, to leave 3000 marks to his heirs,[173] the -village capitalist has plainly come upon the scenes. Nor must we forget -that, however self-contained some manors may have been, there were -others whose proximity to a chartered town or to a seaport acted as a -magnet to draw rural conditions out of the rut of custom. Among the -serfs who bought permission to emigrate, there were some who, having -made money as town craftsmen, strayed back to their "villein nest," and -acquired considerable properties with their hardly amassed wealth, like -the Italian or Austrian peasant of to-day, who, after years spent in the -sunless tenements and restaurants of New York, returns at last to be the -envy of Calabrian and Tyrolese villages. From several sides at once, -therefore, from those who socially rank above the mass of the -population, from the peasant who combines trade and husbandry, from the -enterprising serf who sets out to make his fortune at a distance, forces -are at work to build up the considerable holdings that are the basis of -the well-to-do peasantry of the future. - - [170] See below, pp. 115-121. - - [171] See _E.H.R._, vol. xv. pp. 774-813; Vinogradoff's review - of Page's _The End of Villeinage in England_. - - [172] Powell, _The Revolt in East Anglia_, Appendix I.; and - Putnam, _The Enforcement of the Statute of Labourers_, pp. - 80-81. - - [173] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_. - p. 233. - -But while these causes were always operating on individuals, the most -potent influence in forming a class of prosperous peasants was, no -doubt, the spread of commerce and its reaction on agriculture. Its -effect is shown by the fact that it is just in those parts of the -country where trade is most highly developed, and where, therefore, the -use of money and the growth of wealth encourage speculation of all -kinds, that the commercialising of landed relationships, and the -appearance of a middle class, arises earliest and spreads furthest. The -change is specially noticeable in the Eastern counties, which, from an -early date, are the home of industry. Examples of the extreme variety -and irregularity in the holdings of the customary tenants on the manors -of Suffolk in the sixteenth century, which we have already contrasted -with the arrangements in the backward parts of the country such as -Northumberland, begin to make their appearance at a very early date in -that county of fisheries and manufactures. At Hadleigh,[174] where the -woollen industry has set money in circulation, the processes both of -splitting up the customary holdings, and of letting two or three of them -to a single tenant, is conspicuous at the beginning of the fourteenth -century, and has completely altered the distribution of property which -existed a century before. At the little fishing village of -Gorleston[175] at the end of the thirteenth century each of the former -tenancies was divided up among several tenants, sometimes three or four, -sometimes eight or ten, and once as many as twenty. At Hawstead, in the -same county, the free tenants have let off part of their holdings and -added to them by leasing additional land in its place. In short, -whenever trade becomes a serious factor in rural life, one finds a very -general tendency for new arrangements of land to grow up side by side -with the customary holdings, which are the backbone of the manor, -because it is from them that the lord extracts his services for the -cultivation of the desmesne. As long as the necessity for labour -services continues, the number of holdings does not undergo any -appreciable alteration, but the number of holdings ceases to be a guide -to the number of holders. - - [174] _Victoria County History of Suffolk_, Unwin's article on - Social and Economic History. - - [175] _Ibid._ - -It is clear that the organisation of the manor is compatible with a good -deal of shifting of property among the customary tenants, and that an -alteration in its arrangements begins at a comparatively early date, -without any external shock and through the desire of such tenants as can -afford it to buy and lease land from other tenants who are less well -off. If such a tendency were at all general, it would explain the -gradual aggregation of larger holdings into fewer hands, and the -appearance of considerable inequality in economic status among members -of the village community whose legal position was the same. Sometimes, -indeed, the authorities of the manor think that the process is going on -too fast, that tenants have forgotten that, though they deal in land as -though it were their own, it is really the lord's, and that they must -not jeopardise the rents and services which he expects from it by -alienating it without his permission. Sometimes a day of reckoning -comes, when "tenants having more than one customary tenement" are "to -show cause why they should not be excluded from the other tenements but -one, unless license be granted them."[176] But in view of the multitude -of transactions which come before us, we can hardly doubt that licence -was nearly always granted if the purchaser or lessee was thought by the -steward to be substantial enough to make the land do its duty,[177] and -that tenants who wanted to buy and sell, lease and let, had very little -opposition to expect from the lord or his steward. - - [176] _Merton Documents_, "A table of the Matters, Orders, and - Customs Conteyned in Severall Courts of the Manor, 1563": "Daye - given to all ye tenants of ye manor to remove and expell their - undertenants by Michaelmas that shall be in ye yeare 1563, upon - paine of every delinquent forfeiting 20s." "Daye given to the - aforesaid tenants having above one customary tenement to be here - at ye next court to shew," etc., as above. See the Customary of - High Furness quoted below, p. 101; also Hone, _The Manor and - Manorial Records_, pp. 177-178, Court Rolls of Payton, Oxon.: - "And the aforesaid Laurence Pemerton, in his life time, - substituted Walter Milleward as his subtenant ... contrary to - the custom of the Manor without license; therefore let him have - a talk thereon with the King's officer before the next court." - - [177] This is the meaning of entries of two names as "sureties" - when land changes hands. See _Crondal Records_, Court Rolls of - 1281 and 1282, _passim_. - -After all the picture is one which we ought not to have any difficulty -in understanding, if once we get rid of the idea, born of our melancholy -modern experience, that the buying of land in small parcels is for the -small man the road to ruin, a luxury in which none but the well-to-do -can afford to indulge. We have all heard much of the iniquities of the -English system of land transfer, and have contrasted its cumbersomeness, -its expense, its uncertainty, with the facilities for buying small plots -offered by methods like those of France, where sales and mortgages are -entered in a public registry, which any one has the right to inspect. -But we need not look to the Continent or the British Dominions to see a -market for real property working freely and smoothly. In our period by -far the most general form of tenure was one customary tenure or another, -and whatever the disadvantages of customary tenure may have been--and -they were many--they had one great compensating advantage. Customary -holdings could be transferred easily, cheaply, and with certainty, by -surrender and admission in the court of the manor. Since there was no -doubt that the freehold was in the lord, there was no expensive -investigation of titles to eat up the prospective profits of the -purchaser, and the Court Rolls offered a record, one is tempted to say a -register, of the nature of the interest which a tenant had had in any -holding from time immemorial. Of course the adjustment of the respective -claims of lords and tenants raised very knotty problems, and these will -be examined later. But, as long as they were in abeyance, the fact that -peasant holdings could be transferred so readily contributed to the -breaking up in the regularity of manorial arrangements, to the passage -of land from one family to another, and to the formation of larger -properties out of small.[178] - - [178] Since writing the above I have seen that the same view of - the advantages of copyhold (the descendant of villein) tenure is - taken by Dr. Hasbach, who quotes an eighteenth century writer to - the effect that copyhold as compared with freehold land had the - advantage of "the greater certainty of its title and the - cheapness of its conveyance" (Hasbach, _A History of the English - Agricultural Labourer_, pp. 72-73). - -Such petty transactions among the peasantry were not, however, the only -way in which substantial peasant properties came into existence. In -addition to the transference of land from one tenant to another there -were other causes working to produce much the same results. The first -was the continuous taking in of plots of waste land by tenants who got -permission from the manorial authorities to make encroachments upon it. -The second was the abandonment of the system of cultivating the demesne -by the labour rents of the tenants. Long before the enclosing of the -common waste by lords of manors and farmers had become a very serious -grievance--that it was a grievance at an early date is proved by the -Statute of Merton[179]--one finds arrangements being made for bringing -unused land under cultivation. Sometimes this movement goes on on a very -large scale indeed; the Abbey of St. Albans gets a licence from the King -in 1347 to "improve its wastes aforesaid and to grant and let them for -their true value to whomsoever of their tenants comes to take -them;"[180] and about the same time 500 acres of waste in the forest of -High Peak[181] are let by the Crown to three tenants, much to the -disgust of the neighbouring commoners. Usually the encroachments on the -waste take place piecemeal. The process by which piece after piece was -clipped off it and added to the tenants' holdings is shown very clearly -in Rentals and Court Rolls. Occasionally it goes on without sanction; a -tenant surreptitiously draws into his holding an extra piece of land for -which he pays nothing, and is only found out when he has occupied it for -some time. But this is rare, for such encroachments are a source of -profit to the lord, both in the payment made for the original permission -to make them and in the rent coming from them, and the steward is -therefore careful that they should be made through the court and entered -in detail on the rolls of the manor. Thus at Ashton-under-Lyne,[182] in -1422, both freeholders and customary tenants had made large intakes of -wood and waste and were paying for some of them as much as 13s. 4d. and -10s. The Halmote Court of Colne[183] in 1324 shows many tenants paying a -few pence for acres and half acres of waste. At Yateleigh,[184] in 1287, -almost every one of the fifty-three customary tenants held, in addition -to his land in the open fields, land taken from the waste amounting in -the aggregate to 37 acres, while some possessed no land at all except -that which they had thus reclaimed. In the tithing of Aldershot,[185] on -the same manor, one tenant held 52 acres in encroachments. At -Crokeham[186] another held 63-1/2 acres in addition to the standard half -virgate of customary land; another, at Southwood,[187] 16 acres. - - [179] 1235, c. 4. One may remark, however, that the power which - a single freeholder had had before 1235 to prevent the breaking - up or enclosure of common pastures, even when he had more than - was sufficient for his own beasts, was a genuine hardship for - the lord, for other freeholders, and for the customary tenants; - see the remarks in Pollock and Maitland (_History of English - Law_, vol. i. p. 612). - - [180] _Gesta Abbatum Monasterii St. Albani_, vol. iii. pp. - 120-121, quoted by Petruschevsky, _op. cit._, pp. 179-180. - - [181] _Victoria County History_, Derbyshire, vol. ii. p. 170. - - [182] Glover, _History of Ashton_, p. 355. "Richard the Hunte - ... for an intake 3d. ... Thomas of the Leghes for the one half - of the intake in Palden Wood 13s. 4d. The same Thomas of the - Leghes for an intake besyde Alt Hey 10s." - - [183] _Court Rolls of the Lordships, etc., of Thomas, Earl of - Lancaster_ (Farrer). Halmote of Ightenhill, 1324, January 18: - "John de Briddeswail for entry to half an acre of waste in - Habrincham, 6d., for the same yearly, 2d." Same court, May 7, - 1324.: "Richard le Skinner for entry to 4 acres of waste in - Sommerfordrod, 6d., for the same yearly, 6d.," and _passim_. In - the north of England there seems to have been very much - colonising of the waste, perhaps because original settlements - were small. See Turner, _History of Brighouse, Rastrick, and - Hipperholme_, pp. 66-67, and _Trans. Rochdale Literary and - Philosophical Society_, vol. vii., Rochdale Manor Inquisition. - - [184] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 116-120, _e.g._ "Robert, - son of Peter de la Pierke, holds one acre of encroachment land - on paying 4d." - - [185] _Ibid._, pp. 123-127. - - [186] _Ibid._, pp. 131-134. "Richard Wysdon holds half a - virgate of land containing 16 acres.... The same holds 63-1/2 - acres, which were in his ancient occupation, and were found to - be over and above his said virgate, and (included) in many - encroachments." - - [187] _Ibid._, pp. 122-123: "William of Southwoode holds 16 - acres of encroachments and other detached pieces." - -The process of nibbling away the waste was, in fact, very general, and -was a natural and inevitable one. The lord gained by leasing part of it -to be broken up and cultivated, while, so long as sufficient land was -left for grazing, the tenants gained by getting land which they could -add to their holdings, and on which the growing population could settle. -It must be remembered that the area under cultivation was everywhere an -island in an ocean of unreclaimed barrenness which cried out for -colonists.[188] In the Middle Ages land was abundant and men were -scarce; the land wanted the people much more than the people wanted the -land. Moreover, with the simple methods of cultivation prevailing, the -number of persons which a villein's holding could maintain was strictly -limited, and the tendency to "diminishing returns," with the consequent -difficulty of maintaining a growing population on the same area, must -have come into play very soon and very sharply. Surveyors[189] -appreciated this, and pointed out on some manors that unless the -tenants' holdings were enlarged they could not make a decent living and, -what was more important to the authorities, could not perform the -customary services. It is not surprising, therefore, to find that at a -comparatively early date the manorial population began to overflow the -boundaries of the customary land and to occupy the waste, with the -result that the area under cultivation grew, in some cases, -enormously.[190] We can hardly be mistaken in supposing that this was -the chief cause of the remarkable difference in the amount of land which -strikes one when one compares some of the surveys of later and earlier -dates. In any case the result was to increase the opportunities -possessed by the more prosperous tenants, who could afford to rent -additional land, of adding to their holdings, and thus to produce a -growing inequality in the distribution of property among them. - - [188] Thorold Rogers _(Agriculture and Prices_, vol. i. p. 34: - "Not much less land was regularly under the plough than at - present") thinks otherwise. But (i.) modern agriculture has many - ways of using land besides keeping it "under the plough"; (ii.) - we know that in the eighteenth century large tracts now - cultivated were barren heaths, and it is difficult to believe - that these had been cultivated in the Middle Ages. - - [189] See below, p. 189. The instances there quoted are later - than the period with which we are now dealing, but as they - mostly come from Northumberland, a very conservative county, - they are perhaps to the point. - - [190] _e.g._ at South Newton in Wiltshire (see p. 74), tithing - of Swanthrop in Crondal, where the area of the tenants' holdings - was in 1287 about 360 acres, and in 1567 about 607 acres, and - tithing of Crondal, where the area of the tenants' holdings was - in 1287 about 181, and in 1567 about 284. But these figures are - not altogether satisfactory; and sometimes one finds a - reduction, _e.g._ at Dippenhall (from about 287 acres at the - earlier date to about 275 at the later date). The plague - relieved the pressure of population, and thus removed one - incentive for breaking up the waste; on the other hand, it left - the survivors much better off, and thus more able to increase - the scale of their husbandry. But until we know much more about - the growth of population we shall not make much of general - comparisons of this kind. - -If the instances which have been given above are at all typical of the -state of things on many manors, the economic rigidity of rural life in -the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries must have been a good -deal less than is often suggested. The legal forms are stiff and -unchanging, but the life behind them is fluid, and produces all sorts of -new combinations and arrangements which make legal forms a better index -of what was a hundred years before than of what at any moment is. In -particular one finds considerable movement going on before the Great -Plague. The more fully manorial records are explored, the more difficult -does it seem to generalise about the effects of that great catastrophe. -One cannot say that it was the beginning of the commutation of labour -services into rents, for on some manors they were partially commuted -before it, and on some they were not entirely commuted till nearly two -centuries later. One cannot say that the leasing of the demesne was due -to the Plague; for where the labour supply was small, parts of it were -leased already,[191] and after the Plague the authorities of different -manors met the crisis in different ways, sometimes beginning by letting -the demesne only to return later to the older system. It may be -suggested, however, that its influence has been somewhat exaggerated by -those authorities who would have us regard it as the watershed of -economic history. No doubt the Great Plague was the single most -important event in the economic history of the fourteenth century, just -as the Irish famine of 1846 was the single most important event in the -economic history of Ireland in the nineteenth century. But neither the -Irish famine nor the Plague had the effect of sweeping economic -development on to wholly new lines. What they both did was enormously to -accelerate tendencies already at work. The customary tenants were buying -and leasing land from each other before the Plague, and before the -Plague some lords were leasing out their demesnes, but on a small scale. -After the Plague the death of many holders and the poverty of many -survivors caused land to come into the market on a vastly greater scale -and at a cheaper rate, with the result that the aggregation of holdings, -the beginnings of which have been described as above, proceeded with -vastly increased rapidity. That this was the case immediately after the -Plague is shown by the familiar entries[192] as to the transference of -holdings which have lost their cultivators in the Court Rolls. The -movement seems to have continued, however, long after the immediate -effects of the Plague had passed away, and to have resulted on some -manors in the fifteenth century in something which might almost be -called free trade in land. One finds a readiness to buy and sell -customary holdings which belies the idea of the manor as a rigid -organisation in which little room was left for changing contractual -arrangements, and one finds also the natural result of the rising -commercialisation of land tenure in the grouping of several holdings -under one tenant, in the appearance of the practice of some tenants -sub-letting lands to others, and in general in the passing of property -from the economically weak to the economically strong, which naturally -does not go on rapidly till there is a market in which they both can -meet. - - [191] _e.g._ at Hadleigh in 1305 (_Victoria County History_, - Suffolk, Unwin's article); at Crondal in 1287 (_Crondal - Records_, p. 110); at Ormsby in 1324 (Massingberd, _History of - Ormsby_). - - [192] _e.g._ Scrope, _Castle Combe_, p. 164. Court Rolls of - 1357: "Johannis filius Johannis Payn venit et finem fecit cum - domino per 12d. pro ingressu habendo in illo messuagio et - virgata terrae quae Johannis le Parkare quondam tenuit.... Et - dictum tenementum concessum est ei ad tam parvam finem eo quod - dictum tenementum est ruinosum et decassum; et existebat in manu - domini a tempore pestilentiae pro defectu emptorum." Massingberd, - Ingoldmells Court Rolls for years 1349-1352. Gasquet, _The - Great Pestilence_. Page, _The End of Villeinage in England_. - -At the same time by the beginning of the fifteenth century another force -of great importance was beginning to operate. The increase in the size -of the customary tenants' holdings, and the growth of a class occupying -much more land than the ordinary villein tenancy, was brought about not -only by encroachment on the waste and the aggregation of holdings, but -also by the transference to the tenants of that part of the manorial -land which has been the lord's demesne. The process by which the demesne -ceased to be cultivated by villein labour, and became frequently an area -subject to the more elastic arrangements of leasehold tenure, has been -often described, and we shall have to return to it later in speaking of -the development of the large capitalist farm. Here it is sufficient to -point out that, the abandonment of the primitive system, by which the -tenants worked out their rents in labour on the demesne, had two -consequences which are of great significance in the development of the -villein into the prosperous peasantry of the fifteenth and early -sixteenth centuries. - -In the first place, it meant that one great force making for equality -between the holdings of different tenants was removed. The system which -gave each customary tenant on a manor what may be called a standard -holding was surely an artificial one, in the sense that it bears the -mark of deliberate arrangement, and is not one which would tend to be -established by the play of economic forces. As we have seen, economic -forces did begin to impair it at an early date. Its persistence is more -remarkable than its disappearance, and why had it persisted? Partly, no -doubt, because the idea that each full household should be equipped with -a standard holding was part of the original organisation of the village -community, upon which the feudal superstructure had been imposed, and -which it used as a machine for grinding out its revenue. Partly also -through the needs of that superstructure itself. As the tenants were the -instruments by which the demesne was cultivated, and as the demesne -could not be cultivated unless the tenants were adequately equipped with -the means of livelihood, the rough equality which existed between their -holdings, though arising from the communal arrangement of village life, -and not deliberately imposed from above, had, nevertheless, been, in -fact, a quite necessary condition for the working of the lord's private -estate. A settled relation between holdings and services was a -convenience to the manorial authorities, and in this sense the work done -on the demesne was a force tending to keep the tenants' holdings fixed, -as it were, on a scale which did not easily allow of much -variation.[193] When the demesne ceased to be cultivated by labour -services, what had been from the point of view of the manorial officers, -though not from that of the villagers, the chief practical reason for -maintaining equality between the different holdings disappeared, and the -inequality which economic forces were tending to produce developed more -rapidly. - - [193] The view that the equality of holdings was the creation - not of the communal needs of the peasantry but of deliberate - arrangement by the authorities, seems to be untenable in face of - the evidence of early records showing that freeholders as well - as the servile peasantry held roughly equal shares (see - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II., chap. iv. and - chap. vi). On the other hand, the apportionment of services to - holdings tended to stereotype the existing arrangement. A late - example which displays both elements, that of authoritative - pressure and that of communal organisation, is supplied by the - Customary of High Furness (R.O. Duchy of Lancs. Special - Commissions, No. 398): "As heretofore dividing and portioning of - tenements hath caused great decay, chiefly of the service due to - her Highness for horses, and of her woods, and has been the - cause of making a great number of poor people in the lordship, - it is now ordered that no one shall divide his Tenement or - Tenements among his children, but that the least part shall be - of the ancient yearly rent to her Highness of 6s. 8d." See - below, p. 101. - -In the second place, when labour rents were commuted into money, the -demesne was often added to the tenants' holdings, with the result of -still further destroying their symmetry, by the opportunity which was -given to men with money to buy up parcels of land. This movement went on -so unobtrusively that its significance is liable to be overlooked. In -reality, however, it was a change of very great importance, scarcely -less important than the decay of villein services and disabilities which -was the other side, the personal as contrasted with the agrarian side, -of the same break up of the old system of cultivation. One must remember -that the lord's demesne formed a very large part of a great many manors, -often no doubt the most fertile and desirable part. One may recall again -that there are other European countries in which the sharp distinction -between the demesne and the holdings of the peasants was maintained in -full mediaeval vigour almost to our own day. In Prussia,[194] for -example, a Royal Decree, the Decree of 1807, was needed to break it -down, and to allow the land held by lords of manors to be bought by the -small cultivator. What the partial obliteration of this line meant in -fourteenth and fifteenth century England was that a great deal of land, -land on which the peasantry, one would suppose, had often turned -covetous eyes, was thrown into the market for families who could afford -it to buy and lease, that for a century or so after the Plague great -estates were being broken up into small, instead of small being -consolidated into great, that for a century or so the land market turned -in favour of the small man as much as it afterwards turned against -him.[195] - - [194] Edict of October 9, 1807, Clause 1. - - [195] Compare a document, _temp._ Hen. VIII., quoted by Gonner, - _Common Land and Enclosure_, p. 155 n., which states that - whereas landlords at one time could not find tenants, now the - case is altered and tenants want landlords. - -Of course the leasing of the demesne was not universal; nor, when it -was leased, was it always divided up among the tenants. Often it was -transferred _en bloc_ to a single farmer, and became the nucleus of the -large leasehold farm whose management we shall examine later. Sometimes -it was first divided up and later consolidated again, with results -disastrous to the interests which had grown up upon it. But the -existence in the sixteenth century[196] of many small demesne tenancies -is a proof that a common way of treating it was to divide it up among -the peasants; and if we cast our eyes back over the records of the -fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we can find many examples to show how -such a state of things was brought about. Sometimes small plots of the -demesne are leased for terms of years. At Tykeford, in 1325,[197] the -surveyor found that 48 acres of demesne which were then in the hands of -the lords used to be leased to the tenants. The bailiff's accounts of -the manor of Amble[198] in Northumberland show that in 1328 "the -forlands" were let out to the bondage tenants, and in 1337 four of the -latter got leases of from 2 to 4 acres of demesne at Acklington.[199] In -1436 at Ambresbury[200] 2 carucates were leased to various tenants for a -term of years, as well as 8 acres of meadow and 400 acres of pasture; -and at Winterborne[201] 2 carucates, 6 acres of meadow, and 300 acres of -pasture were leased in the same year. But in the fifteenth century the -leasing of the demesne was constant, and there is no need to multiply -examples which can be found in almost every survey of the period. Where -the land was not leased it was quite usual for it to be held by copy. -This was a common practice in the fifteenth century in the south-west of -England. The surveyor[202] who, in 1568, gave an account of six manors -in the Western counties, found that in all of them the Barton or demesne -had been split up among the customary tenants for very many years and -was held by them as copyholders. The same thing happened on the manors -of the Earl of Northumberland, where the tenants' holdings were -increased by pieces taken from the lord's demesne and divided equally -among them. It happened at South[203] Newton in Wiltshire, where in 1567 -a good deal of the Barton land was held by the tenants, who were -copyholders, on the same terms as the rest of their customary holdings; -at Stovard,[204] and Childhampton,[205] and Estoverton,[206] where the -customary tenants held "Bordland." Very probably those pieces of the -demesne which on some manors were held by copy of Court Roll, had -originally been let on lease in the way described above. The difficulty -of distinguishing them was very great, since normally they would lie in -the open fields scattered among the strips which formed the customary -holdings, in such a way that the movement of a balk obliterated the -difference. It is not surprising, therefore, that in spite of the -efforts of the lord's officials, they should constantly have lost their -identity. The remarkable thing is that they retained it so often, and -that surveyors were able to pin down a couple of acres among 30 or 40 -others as not being, like the rest, customary land, but as having at one -time, perhaps several generations before, been parts of the lord's -demesne which it is "good to revyve and keep in memory that it should -not hereafter decay, but that at all tymes it may be devyded from the -customarye."[207] - - [196] For the use of the demesne in the sixteenth century see - below, pp. 200-213. - - [197] Dugdale,_Monasticon_, vol. v., Survey of Tykeford. - - [198] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v., Amble: "4s. 8d. - de forlands dimissis diversis tenentibus." "4 acres leased by - the Prior for 8 years to Roger at 8d. per acre." - - [199] _Ibid._, vol. v., Acklington. - - [200] Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of Ambresbury. - - [201] _Ibid._ - - [202] Humberstone, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. p. 43. - See below, pp. 208-209. - - [203] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_ (Straton). - - [204] _Ibid._ - - [205] _Ibid._ - - [206] _Ibid._ - - [207] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of the - Manor of Whitforde in the County of Devon. - -With these words, so suggestive of the blurring of lines which in -previous ages were sharply drawn, we may pause to consider where we -stand. Our argument has aimed at showing the large changes which have -taken place in the position of the peasantry as landholders before the -agrarian revolution of the sixteenth century begins. We have not been -able to give any quantitative measurements of the developments. But we -have seen enough to understand the direction in which economic forces -are setting. The substitution of hired labour for villein services, and -the formation of a middle class of considerable landholders out of the -occupiers of virgates and semi-virgates who formed the bulk of the -population on most mediaeval manors, are changes which have taken place -quietly and which have nothing sensational about them. But the growth of -relationships based on a cash nexus between individuals, which they both -imply, has effected a very real alteration in rural conditions, an -alteration which is in a small way like that occurring to-day when the -discovery that a quiet village possesses mineral wealth or is a -convenient holiday resort puts money into circulation there, causes -farming lands to be cut up into plots which are bought by the savings of -speculative tradesmen, and adds a new tangle of commercial relationships -to the slowly moving economy of village life. Speculation in land on a -small scale begins among the more prosperous villeins at an early date, -as the inevitable result of an increase in prosperity and of the land -hunger of a growing population. It is immensely accelerated through the -impetus which the plague, by emptying holdings of their occupants, gives -to the formation of something like a land market, and the result is that -the holdings of the more fortunate grow and the holdings of the less -fortunate diminish. As a consequence, there is in many fifteenth century -villages the greatest variety in the economic conditions of the -peasantry. Except where commercial forces have been held in check by the -remoteness of the township from centres of trade, or where the needs of -the manorial authorities oblige them to resist any subdivision of -holdings for fear it should lead to the loss of services, the -comparative uniformity characteristic of their holdings in the -thirteenth century has disappeared, and the equality in poverty of the -modern agricultural labourer has not yet taken its place. Though the old -Adam of economic enterprise seems to be banished by the insistence of -stewards and bailiffs that holdings which are responsible for certain -works shall be treated as an indivisible unity, he sneaks back, even in -the mediaeval manor, in the shape of agreements among the peasantry, -agreements which break that unity up by way of exchange, of sale, of -leasing, and sub-letting. By the end of the fifteenth century the -different elements in rural society are spread, as it were, along a more -extended scale, and there is a much wider gap between those who are -most, and those who are least, successful. - -Taken together these changes mean, on the whole, an upward movement, an -increase in the opportunities possessed by the peasantry of advancing -themselves by purchasing and leasing land, more mobility, more -enterprise, greater scope for the man who has saved money and wishes to -invest it. They mean that custom and authority have less influence and -that class distinctions based upon tenure are weakened. But the upward -curve may turn and descend; for they imply also a tendency towards the -dissolution of fixed customary arrangements and of the protection which -they offer against revolutionary changes, a tendency which in the -future, when great landowners and capitalists turn their attentions to -discovering the most profitable methods of farming, may damage the very -men who have gained by it in the past. In the next two chapters we shall -glance at the first point, and pause at greater length upon the second: -first, the economic condition of the mass of the peasantry before the -great agrarian movements of the sixteenth century begin; secondly, the -signs of coming change which may react to their disadvantage. We shall -try to maintain the standpoint of an observer in the early years of the -sixteenth century. But economic periods overlap, and Northumberland is -still in the Middle Ages when Middlesex is in the eighteenth century. So -we shall not hesitate to use evidence drawn from sources that are in -point of time far apart. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE PEASANTRY (_continued_) - - -(d) _The Economic Environment of the Small Cultivator_ - -It was the argument of the previous chapter that the fourteenth and -fifteenth centuries saw the emergence from the mass of manorial tenants -of a class of wealthy peasants who bought and leased their neighbours' -lands, added to their property parcels taken from the waste and demesne, -and by these means built up estates far exceeding in size the normal -villein holding. The change from labour services to money rents left the -peasantry with time for the management of larger holdings, and the -spread of a money economy increased their means of acquiring them. Cheap -land and easy transfer favour the movement of property from one man to -another. In the manorial courts transfer was easy, and, especially after -the Great Plague, land was cheap. It is not necessary to take sides in -the much debated question of the economic conditions of the fifteenth -century, in order to hold that, on the whole, such changes made the -greater part of it a period of increasing prosperity among the small -cultivators. To support this view one could quote Fortescue's[208] proud -description of the well-being of the common people. One could point out -that in the dark days in the middle of the sixteenth century the -peasants themselves looked back to the social conditions of the reign of -Henry VII.[209] as a kind of golden age, and clamoured for their -restoration. One could cite a good many examples pointing to an upward -movement. Large estates are left at death by men who are legally -villeins. Villeins, especially in the eastern counties, buy up freehold -land and found considerable properties. A bond tenant in Lincolnshire -marries into a knight's family. Bond tenants are found leasing the -manorial demesne in one block and farming estates of several hundred -acres. Nor must we forget that the peasants of the sixteenth century are -often very substantial people, and that even when the taint of personal -villeinage is still upon them. - - [208] Fortescue on the Governance of England (Plummer), chapter - xii.: "But oure commons be riche, and therefore thai give to - thair kynge, at somme times quinsimes and dessimes, and ofte - tymes other grate subsidies." - - [209] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 48 foll.; see - passage quoted below, pp. 335-337. For the sentences - immediately following, see Scrope, _History of the Manor and - Barony of Castle Combe_, p. 233: "A serf ... is said to have - left at his death in 1435 chattels estimated at 3000 marks or - L2000." Massingberd, Ingoldmells Court Rolls, int. xxix.; - Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 53. - -But isolated instances of this kind, suggestive though they are, are not -likely to carry conviction unless they agree with what we know of the -general economic situation. Economists who live after the days of Samuel -Smiles will hesitate before they base optimistic conclusions as to the -conditions of any class on cases of good fortune among individual -members of it. We should be false to the spirit of our period if we did -not recognise that the economic ideal of most men, an ideal often -implied though not often formulated, was less the opening of avenues to -enterprise than the maintenance of groups and communities at their -customary level of prosperity. We shall have hereafter to speak of the -changes which overtook the English social system in the course of the -sixteenth century, in so far as they were connected with changes in the -methods of agriculture and of land tenure. Before we do so we may pause -for a moment to look at the village of the later Middle Ages as a social -and economic unit. - -The foundation of its whole life is the possession by the majority of -households of holdings of land. Land is so widely distributed that the -household, all of whose members are entirely dependent for their living -upon work for wages, is the exception. Though this cannot be -statistically proved, it is rendered almost certain by several -converging lines of evidence. Turn first to the table on pp. 64 and 65, -which sets out the acreage of the customary tenants' holdings. It will -be seen that, when all the counties represented are grouped together, -the tenants who have only cottages form less than one-tenth of the total -number. In East Anglia and in Lancashire the proportion, it is true, is -considerably higher; but these counties are exceptions to the general -rule, and the cottagers usually have gardens, which, if they do not -amount to the minimum of four acres laid down by the Act of 1589, are -nevertheless not infrequently of one or two acres in extent. If we may -trust these figures, the typical family has a small holding of from two -and a half to fifteen acres. Our second line of evidence quite falls in -with this conclusion. It is clear from the tone of legislation that the -class of workers who depend solely on a contract of service is in -sixteenth century England not very large. Elizabethan[210] legislation -provides expressly for the needs of farmers by empowering Justices of -the Peace to apprentice unoccupied youths to husbandry, and to set the -unemployed to work in the fields. Even in the middle of the -seventeenth[211] century, when a strong movement has been at work for -one hundred and fifty years in the opposite direction, there are -complaints from pamphleteers that men who should work as wage-labourers -cling to the soil, and in the naughtiness of their hearts prefer -independence as squatters to employment by a master. Such comments throw -a flash of light on the way in which the peasants regard the -alternatives of wage labour and landholding. Sometimes they themselves -give us a glimpse into their mind on the matter. They tell us how they -face that most fundamental of economic problems, the Achilles' heel of -modern civilisation, the problem of so arranging their little societies -that as many persons as possible may enter life with some material -equipment for self-maintenance in addition to their personal strength -and skill. Here is an extract from a customary of the Lancashire manor -of High Furness[212] drawn up in the reign of Elizabeth:-- - -"As heretofore deviding and porcioning of tenements hath caused great -decay, chiefly of the service due to her Highness for horses and of her -woods, and has been the cause of making a great number of poor people in -the lordship, it is now ordered that no one shall devide his tenement or -tenements among his children, but that the least part shall be of -ancient yearly rent to her Highness of 6s. 8d., and that before every -such division there shall be several houses and ousettes for every part -of such tenement." - -This seems a hard rule. Will it not result in the creation of a body of -propertyless labourers employed by a small village aristocracy? That -danger is appreciated, and is dealt with in the clauses which follow:-- - -"If any customary tenant die seized of a customary tenement, having no -son but a daughter, or daughters, then the eldest daughter being -preferred in marriage shall have the tenement as his next heir, and she -shall pay to her younger sister, if she have but one sister, 20 years -ancient rent, as is answered to her Majesty; and if she have more than -one sister she shall pay 40 years ancient rent to be equally divided -among them.... - -"For the avoiding of great trouble in the agreement with younger -brothers, it is now ordered that the eldest son shall pay to his -brothers in the form following:--If there is but one brother, 12 years -ancient rent; if there are two brothers, 16 years ancient rent to be -equally divided. - -"If there be three or more, 20 years ancient rent to be equally divided. - -"Whereas great inconvenience has grown by certain persons that at the -marriage of son or daughter have promised their tenement to the same son -or daughter and their heirs, according to the custom of the manor, and -afterwards put the tenement away to another person; it is ordered that -whatever tenements a tenant shall promise to the son or daughter being -his sole heir apparent at the time of his or her marriage, the same -ought to come to them according to the same covenant, which ought to be -showed at the next court." - - [210] Statute of Artificers, 5 Eliz. c. 4. - - [211] See below, pp. 277-279, and _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 784, - pp. 322-323. Presentment by the grand jury, Worcestershire, - 1661, April 23: "We desire that servants' wages may be rated - according to the statute, for we find the unreasonableness of - servants' wages a great grievance, so that the servants are - grown so proud and idle that the master cannot be known from the - servant except it be because the servant wears better clothes - than his master. We desire that the statute for setting poor - men's children to apprenticeship be more duly observed, for we - find the usual course is that if any are apprenticed it is to - some paltry trade, and when they have served their - apprenticeship they are not able to live by their trades, - whereby not being bred to labour they are not fit for husbandry. - We therefore desire that such children may be set to husbandry - for the benefit of tillage and the good of the Commonwealth." - See also Britannia Languens (1680) for remarks on the scarcity - of labour even at the end of the seventeenth century. - - [212] R.O. Duchy of Lancaster, Special Commissions, No. 398. - -The motive of the first rule is a mixed one. Its object is partly to -obviate the risk that the Crown, which is lord, of the manor, may lose -its services if holdings are too much subdivided, partly to prevent the -appearance of a class which has too little land for a living. The motive -of the other rules is to ensure that the custom of primogeniture, which -obtains among the customary tenants on this manor, shall not result in -the creation of a propertyless proletariat. Holdings are not to be -divided. But the payment to other members of the family of a sum ranging -from about one-half to more than the whole of their capital value is -made a charge upon them, and with that money they can purchase land -elsewhere, or take, like the French peasant girl, a considerable _dot_ -to their husbands. Sue,[213] the daughter of Old Carter, the rich -yeoman, whose security for the marriage-portion "shall be present -payment, because Bonds and Bills are but Tarriers to catch fools, and -keep lazy knaves busy," was a match for whom gentlemen's sons were -willing enough to compete. - - [213] See Dekker's _The Witch of Edmonton_. I have ventured to - assume that in this play "yeoman" is used in its wide - non-technical sense. - -These groups of from ten to a hundred households which constitute the -ordinary village of southern and middle England, form small democracies -of property holders, who are of course under the authority of a lord, -but whose subjection does not prevent them from exercising considerable -control over the management of their own economic affairs, nor impose -any effective bar on those individuals who have the means and capacity -to advance themselves. We can watch them arranging[214] the course of -agriculture, deciding when the pastures at Wolsyke and Willoughbybroke -are to be "broken," imposing fines on those who encroach on the several -pasture land, throwing open the Pesefield on Holy Thursday to the -village horses, shutting them out of Street headlands for fear of the -"stroyinge of Korn," making charitable provision for gleaners who cannot -work, punishing those who ought to work but in their depravity would -rather glean. We can observe how the wide distribution of land gives an -opportunity to a humble family to better itself by judicious husbandry -and well-calculated purchases. True, the peasant's land is no longer -held in approximately equal shares as generally as it had been in the -thirteenth century. The growth of a money economy, the withdrawal of the -levelling pressure of villeinage, the growth of population, has in the -more progressive parts of the country left a gap into which -individualising commercial forces wind themselves in the way which has -already been described. But these changes are important mainly as -precursors of more extensive innovations. As yet they have done little -more than make tiny breaches in the wall of custom. They have enabled -individuals to rise from the general level into positions of comparative -affluence. They have not proceeded so far as to enable the successful to -exercise a decisive direction over the economic affairs of their -fellows. Though Northumberland is exceptional in the way in which down -to the very end of the sixteenth century it preserves its system of -standardised holdings, it is none the less true that all the petty land -speculation, whose operations we have traced above, has not the effect -of producing any very large changes in the distribution of property. If, -when compared with its condition two hundred years before, the village -of our period shows remarkable irregularity, it offers precisely an -opposite aspect to the observer who compares it as it is then with its -condition two hundred years later. The gaps which have appeared between -the holdings mark the disintegrating influence of economic enterprise; -but they are gaps which enterprise can span, and the graduation of -holdings from the two or three acres of the humblest to the fifty or -sixty acres of the most prosperous, together with the abundance of -unoccupied land, supplies a kind of staircase along which in the country -the younger son can travel from the position of a labourer to that of a -small holder, as he does in the towns from apprentice to -master-craftsman. From this point of view the characteristic -_morcellement_ of holdings, so bitterly denounced by economists who, -like Arthur Young, approached the problem from the point of view of the -large farmer, was a positive advantage. It meant that land could be -bought and sold, as it were, retail. It meant that the labourer could -begin with one strip of land of half an acre, and add other strips to it -as he worked his way up. It meant that even the humblest peasant usually -had some live-stock of his own; for even the smallest customary holding -usually carried with it rights of common. Such conditions are, of -course, no safeguard against poverty. No doubt there were plenty of -people like Widow Quin, whose "leaky thatch is growing more pasture for -her buck goat than her square of fields."[215] But they are a safeguard -against destitution, and indeed against any complete loss of -independence. - - [214] See _e.g. Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567, pp. 106-107, and - below, pp. 159-162. - - [215] Synge, _The Playboy of the Western World_. - -Let us turn to a part of England where something like the open field -system survives to this day, and ask the inhabitants what they think of -it. In the so-called Isle of Axholme there are still common fields with -intermixed strips. Here is the evidence[216] which a body of labourers -there sent into a Select Committee of Parliament in 1899: "We, the -undersigned, being agricultural labourers at Epworth, are in occupation -of allotments or small holdings, varying from two roods to three acres, -and willingly testify to the great benefit we find from our holdings. -Where we have sufficient quantity of land to grow two roods each of -wheat, barley, and potatoes, we have bread, beans, and potatoes for a -great part of the year, enabling us to face a long winter without the -dread of hunger or pauperism staring us in the face." One of the tests -by which the economic prosperity of a community may be measured is its -success in preventing the appearance of a residual population, which -cannot fit itself into the moving mechanism of industry without -ceaseless friction and maladjustments. In most villages before extensive -evictions begin that mechanism moves very slowly; property is widely -diffused, and the residuum must have been small. That there was often -distress through bad harvests and pestilence is certain. But was there -much of the economic helplessness, more terrible than physical distress -itself, which is the normal lot of most of the propertyless wage-earners -of the modern world? We hesitate to say. Hesitation on such a point may -perhaps be counted to our peasants for righteousness.[217] - - [216] Quoted by Slater, _The English Peasantry and the Enclosure - of Common Fields_, pp. 58-59. He remarks "a labourer ... begins - with one 'land,' then takes a second, a third, and so on," and - quotes Mr. Haggard's statement that the "Isle of Axholme ... is - one of the few places ... in England ... truly prosperous in an - agricultural sense." - - [217] Customs like those of High Furness, together with the - complaints as to the scarcity of agricultural labour, make one - reflect on a fundamental question of economics, viz., the - average age of marriage and its relation to the distribution of - property and organisation of industry. It is well known that the - age of marriage is influenced by (among other things) the age at - which maximum earning power begins, _e.g._ to-day it is lower - for the unskilled labourer than for the artisan, for the former - reaches his prime earlier than the latter; lower for the artisan - than for the professional man, because the latter takes longer - than the former in getting together a practice or rising from a - low initial salary. The difference is not primarily due to - differences of thrift or foresight as between different classes, - but to the fact that the deferring of marriage, which is prudent - in (say) a lawyer, who does not reach his full earning power - till thirty-five or later, is imprudent in (say) an engineer who - has all the experience he needs at twenty-six or twenty-seven, - and still more imprudent in the labourer, who reaches his full - earning power at twenty-one or twenty-two, and in whom it falls - off rapidly after he has passed the prime of life. When a large - number of agricultural and industrial workers (in the sixteenth - century probably a majority) were small landholders or small - masters, did the fact that they had to wait for the death of a - parent to succeed to their holding, or (in towns) for the - permission of a guild to set up shop (_i.e._ to reach their - maximum earning powers) tend to defer the age of marriage? If - the possibility of this being the case is conceded, ought we to - connect the slow growth of population between 1377 and 1500 (on - which all historians seem to be agreed) with the wide - distribution of property, and ought we to think of the - considerable increase in the landless proletariate which took - place in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as tending in - the opposite direction? In the absence of statistics we cannot - answer these questions. But I am inclined to argue that they are - at any rate worth investigation. (i) Contemporary opinion shows - that in the eyes of sixteenth century writers the problem of - population was a problem of underpopulation. The prevalent fear - is "lack of men" for military purposes. Starkey's Dialogue - speaks of it as "a consumption of the body politic," and - suggests as remedies to allow priests to marry, to forbid - gentlemen to employ more serving men than they are able to "set - forward" to matrimony (on the ground that "men whych in service - spend theyr lyfe never fynd means to marry"), to endow with a - house and a portion of waste land at a nominal rent persons who - marry, to exempt from taxation all persons who have five - children and less than a hundred marks in goods, to tax - bachelors 1s. in the pound, and give the proceeds to "them which - have more children than they be wel abul to nurysch, and partely - to the dote of poor damosellys and vyrgins" (Part II. p. 8). - Hales (p. lv. of Miss Lamond's introduction to _Commonweal of - England_) speaks of depopulation in a similar strain, as also - does Harrison forty years later. There are some complaints as to - excess of population in 1620 (see below, pp. 278-279), but - these do not become general till the very end of the seventeenth - century (see Defoe, _Giving alms no charity_). (ii) The position - of a son who acquires a holding when his parent dies is - analogous to that of an apprentice who cannot set up as a master - till given permission by the proper authorities. It is quite - plain that in the eyes of the ordinary man in the sixteenth - century one of the advantages of a system of compulsory - apprenticeship was that it prevented youths marrying at a very - early age. _E.g._ an Act (2 & 3 Philip and Mary) forbids the - admitting of any one to the freedom of the city of London before - the age of twenty-four, and enacts that apprentices are not to - be taken so young that they will come out of their time before - they are twenty-four. The reason alleged for this rule is the - distress in the city of which "one of the chief occasions is by - reason of the overhasty marriages and over soon setting up of - householdes by the young folke of the city ... be they never so - young and unskilful." A petition of weavers states (_Hist. MSS. - Com._, C.D. 784, p. 114): "Whereas by the former good laws of - their trade no one could exercise the same until he had served - an apprenticeship for seven years and attained the age of - twenty-four, now in these disordered times many apprentices - having forsaken parents and masters ... refuse to serve out - their time, but before they are eighteen or twenty years old - betake themselves to marriage." One may contrast the - extraordinary reduction in the age of marriage of the people of - Lancashire brought about by the early factory system, with its - armies of operatives who had nothing to look forward to but the - wages earned immediately on reaching maturity (Gaskell, - _Artisans and Machinery_, 1836, and _The Manufacturing - Population of Great Britain_, 1833), and compare the results - usually ascribed to the wide distribution of landed property in - France. See also the remarks of Slater on the effect of the - eighteenth century enclosing (_The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of the Common Fields_, p. 256), and Hasbach, _History - of the English Agricultural Labourer_, pp. 120 n. 138-139, 178. - Young ascribed "a great multiplication of births" to the fact - that "the labourer has no advancement to hope" (_Suffolk_, 1797, - p. 260); Duncombe, "The practice of consolidating farms ... - tends to licentiousness of manners" (_Herefordshire_, p. 33). A - witness before the Select Committee on Emigration, 1827, stated, - "The labourers no longer live in farm houses as they used to do, - where they were better fed and had more comforts than they now - get in a cottage, in consequence there was not the same - inducement to early marriage" (_qu._ 3882). In the absence of - direct statistical evidence all we can say is (i) that when - persons look forward to entering on property or setting up as - small masters their point of maximum earning power is later than - it is when they can earn the standard rate of the trade at - twenty-two or twenty-three; therefore (ii) that the average age - of marriage is likely to be higher in a society composed largely - of small property owners than in one composed largely of a - propertyless proletariate. - -In the second place, let us examine the use which the peasants make of -their holdings. Modern writers tell us that among the conditions -necessary to the prosperity of a class of small holders the most -important are a wise choice of the kind of farming to be pursued, a -sound organisation of credit, cheap marketing, and rural bye-employments -to back agriculture. Modern writers who are not English would probably -add a tariff on imported agricultural produce. In our period the type of -cultivation pursued by the large farmer was undergoing rapid changes. -That of the peasantry was hardly a matter of choice. It was dictated by -the necessity, under which most villages still lay, of being largely -self-supporting in the matter of corn supplies, a necessity recognised -and crystallised in the customary routine of village husbandry. The -preponderance of arable farming among the peasantry is illustrated by -the table[218] on page 107, which should be contrasted with that given -on pages 225-226. - -The figures in this table do not pretend to complete accuracy. But they -indicate the distribution of land between different uses with sufficient -correctness to show the sort of agriculture followed by the small holder -of our period. They prove unmistakably that his standby was the grain -crops grown on the open fields.[219] Students of rural conditions will -be quick to recognise the contrast which the picture offers to the -economy of the modern small holder. In our own day the breaking up of -large farms into smaller tenancies has proceeded furthest in those parts -of the country which are most suitable for pasture. The occupier of a -holding of less than 70 or 80 acres usually relies mainly on stock -farming in one form or another, and on the growing of vegetables and -fruit. Corn-growing he leaves to much larger men, and, when he does grow -grain, he does so mainly to provide fodder and straw for his beasts. In -the sixteenth century almost exactly the opposite was the case. In so -far as the large farmer with 200 or 300 acres can be said to have had a -specialty, it was not corn-growing but sheep and cattle grazing. The -small man relied mainly, though not entirely, upon tillage, and though, -even in his case, pasture farming assumed increased importance as the -century went on, grazing was chiefly a supplement to arable farming. To -this statement there are of course certain exceptions. Though villages -where the customary tenants hold more pasture than arable are rare, they -are not unknown, and occasionally one finds one where large numbers of -tenants of the most diverse economic conditions, with pasture holdings -ranging from 6 to 100 acres, have no arable at all. Sometimes such an -arrangement is to be accounted for by the fact that a part of the -demesne lands of the manor, which happens not to be suitable for -tillage, has been divided up among the population of younger sons and -labourers who have no holdings in the open fields. In the neighbourhood -of considerable towns, again, there was a market[220] for vegetables and -dairy produce which gave an impetus to this side of agriculture, and the -home counties poured butter and cheese, fowls, eggs, and fruit into -London, as France and the Channel Islands do at the present day. Still, -to speak broadly, the small holder of the sixteenth century, unlike the -small holder of the twentieth, was before all things interested in -arable farming, and interested in rights of pasture chiefly as a -necessary adjunct to it. - -TABLE V - - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - |Manors | | | | | - |(excluding | | | | | - |houses, | | | | | - |orchards, | Total Area. | Arable. | Meadow. | Pasture. | - |garths, | | | | | - |_&c._). | | | | | - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - | | ac. ro. po. | ac. ro. po. |ac. ro. po. |ac. ro. po. | - |Four in | | | | | - |Northumber-| | | | | - |land and | | | | | - |one in | | | | | - |Lancashire |1730 3 13-1/4|1533 2 32-3/4| 98 1 6-1/8| 98 3 14 | - | | | | | | - |Seven in | | | | | - |Wiltshire | | | | | - |and one | | | | | - |in Dorset |3963 2 0 |3636 3 0 |124 3 0 |202 (in close | - | | | | | plus | - | | | | | consid- | - | | | | | erable | - | | | | | rights of | - | | | | | pasture | - | | | | | not | - | | | | | expressed | - | | | | | in acres).| - |Four in | | | | | - |Midlands | | | | | - |(Bedford, | | | | | - |Leicester, | | | | | - |Northants, | | | |ac. ro. po. | - |Stafford) |2092 3 2 |1670 2 17 | 167 3 32 |254 0 33 | - +-----------+---------------+--------------+-------------+--------------+ - - [218] See Appendix II. - - [219] It must be remembered, however, that there was pasture on - the one field which every year lay fallow, and that the amount - of this does not appear in the figures given below. - - [220] Camden Society, Norden, Speculum Britanniae, Part I., - Intro.: "And these commonly are so furnished with kyne that - their wives twice or thrice a week conveyeth to London mylke and - butter, cheese, apples, pears, frutmentye, hens and chickens, - baken, and other country drugs ... and this yieldeth them a - large comfort and relief." - -Corn-growing in England has been for the last hundred years a branch of -farming so completely surrendered to the large capitalist, that it is -not easy to realise a state of things in which the typical corn-grower -was a man with less than 60 acres, and a man who could make a good -living from a holding of that size. To understand the economics of his -position we must think away the conditions which have in the last -century made it intolerable. Or rather we must think away all except -one. That one was the perennial problem of agricultural credit. In this -matter, certainly, the poorer among the peasantry suffered as their -successors all over the world suffer to-day. They were apt to be in the -grip of the moneylender. Cheap land, as the modern colonist knows, is of -little avail to the man who has not the capital needed to stock it, and -to carry over the interval between harvest and harvest, when his -receipts fall off but his expenses continue. In the endless arguments -which took place on the ethics of moneylending at a later date, it was a -common complaint that village financiers drove a hard bargain with the -peasants whom misfortune compelled to resort to them. In a backward -village the only man with capital to lend might be the local -corn-dealer, brewer, or maltster, the large farmer who held the lord's -demesne, or the lord of the manor himself and his agent. Like an -American farmer in the grip of an "elevator," the peasant who wanted -money for his crops had often to sell them to a dealer[221] who gave a -ridiculously low price for them, and then made an enormous profit by -holding them till the price of corn rose, or by sending them to a market -where there was a scarcity. Lords[222] of manors, it was said, helped -their tenants out of temporary difficulties by advancing them small -sums, and then used their advantage to screw extra labour on the demesne -out of them. Manor courts[223] in the Middle Ages had fined villagers -for usury, but one may suspect that these were capitalists too potent -for them to control, and one does not wonder at the headshakings of the -prudent Fitzherbert over the man whose method of farming compels him to -be a borrower. The form which charity and co-operative effort took -points in the same direction. Hospitals[224] and monasteries advance -money to buy seed. Well-to-do men aid their relatives by stocking their -farms for them. Gilds[225] make loans of cattle and sheep, and the last -legacy of a philanthropic parson to his parishioners is money with which -to buy a cow for the poor. How far the charitable and corporate -organisation of loans succeeded in keeping the small cultivator out of -the clutches of the usurer, and how far the dissolution of the -monasteries and the confiscation of part of the Gild lands deteriorated -their condition by placing them more at his mercy, are questions which -deserve consideration but which we have not sufficient evidence to -answer.[226] In forming any estimate, however, of rural conditions, the -hand to mouth economy of the poorer peasants, and their consequent -helplessness in the face of any unexpected catastrophe, such as an -unusually bad harvest, a cattle plague, and (in the fifteenth century) -the destruction of crops by civil disturbances, must not be forgotten. -In that age less capital was needed to stock a holding than in our own, -but it was scraped together with even greater difficulty. On the very -eve of the dissolution of the monasteries there were some remote manors -where "Money was so scantie that coigned leather went bargaining between -man and man,"[227] and where corn rents were substituted for money -because the tenants had no money in which rent could be paid. - - [221] See _The Death of Usury or the Disgrace of Usurers_, 1594: - "It is a common practice in this country, if a poore man come to - borrow money of a maltster, he will not lend any, but tells him, - if he will sell some barley, he will give him after the order of - fore-hand buyers; the man being driven by distresse sells his - corn far under foote, that when it comes to be delivered he - loses halfe in halfe, oftentimes double the value. I have heard - many of these fore-hand sellers say that they had rather allow - after 20 pounds in the hundred for money, than to sell their - fore-hand bargaines of corn. These are most extreme usurers." - - [222] _A Discourse upon Usurie_, by Thomas Wilson, 1584: "A lord - doth lend his tenants money, with this condition that they shall - plough his land, whether doth he commit usurie or no? I do - answer that if he does not pay them for their labour, but will - take the benefit of their labour for the use of his money, he is - an usurer." - - [223] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 2319, p. 27: "Juetta ... is a - usuress, and sells at a dearer rate for accommodation." - - [224] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 7881, p. 129, St. Saviour's - Hospital gives "20d to a poor man to buy seed for his land." - - [225] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, "Social and Economic - History": "The gild let out in one year 8 cows and 4 neats at - 19d. each." For the parson's cow, see _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. - 784, p. 46. - - [226] On the subject of the monasteries see Gasquet, _Henry - VIII. and the English Monasteries_, chap. xxii., and _passim_. - - [227] For reference see below, p. 198, n. 2. - -On the other hand, before the great agrarian changes of the sixteenth -century began, and in those parts of the country which were least -affected by them, the economic environment was in other respects -favourable to the class of which we have been speaking. As far as -corn-growing is concerned, _petite culture_ flourishes most readily when -the methods of production are primitive and trade little developed. It -is not necessary to point out that, in the sphere of production, the -conditions which have given its present tremendous advantage to -large-scale corn-growing are the fruit of the last century, and that in -our period there were neither machinery nor expensive manures to require -the outlay of large capital, and to make arable farming almost a branch -of factory industry. Moreover, there is reason to believe that the -growth of prosperity among the peasants had been accompanied by an -improvement in the technique of cultivation. Not to mention the part -which they took in enclosures, of which we shall speak later, there -were, at any rate by the beginning of the seventeenth century, certain -exceptional parts of the country where it was said[228] that in good -years from thirty-two to eighty bushels of grain were raised to an -acre, instead of the ten which Walter of Henley had thought a fair -return in the thirteenth. We may believe this or not as we like; -probably we should discount it by at least one-half. But even the -average peasant, who could not possibly make his land perform these -prodigies, was buttressed by the natural protection of unpassable roads, -which tended to make every village, even almost every landholding -family, more or less self-sufficing in the matter of food supplies. A -highly organised corn trade is as unfavourable to the existence of small -corn-growers as a wide market is to the small master-craftsman, because -it sets a premium upon the qualities needed for business -management--qualities often quite different from those needed for -effective farming--and thus (in the absence of co-operation) plays into -the hands of the capitalist, who buys and sells in bulk and can pick his -market. To the mass of the peasantry in our period the commercial side -of agriculture offered no problem, because for the mass of the peasantry -it did not exist. The wealthier among them, it is true, did grow corn -for the market, and sent their supplies far afield through the hands of -middlemen, much further sometimes, if we may believe contemporaries, -than Customs Officials should have allowed. In certain parts of England -rudimentary industrial specialisation had made a regular corn trade a -necessity. In Norfolk,[229] for example, where manufactures and -agriculture had drawn apart to an extent unknown elsewhere, a rough -local division of labour was concentrating the woollen industry in that -part of the country most suitable for grazing, and was bringing together -a huge population of wage-earners, who depended for their food supplies -on the grain produced by the "tilth masters" in "the champion part of -the country," and whose needs baffled the traditional policy of trying -to prevent corners by checking the transport of corn. But down to the -very end of the eighteenth century, and still more under the Tudors, -there was a large body of small landholders who pursued their way -undisturbed by market fluctuations because they grew wheat almost -entirely for subsistence. To a foreign observer[230] English agriculture -in the reign of Henry VII. seemed "not to be practised beyond what is -required for the consumption of the people." Between the two extremes of -capitalist farmer and hired labourer, the poles between which the needle -of the Government's policy as to prices uneasily oscillates, there -stands the man whose family consumes the product of his land, and who -rarely puts his small supplies on the market, because, if he tries to do -so, "he loseth[231] the labours of himself, his horse and carte, and -husbandry at home," and "is in hazard to pay deare for a place to -chamber it till the next market day." Such a man, if entirely occupied -in tillage, did little more than supply the wants of his own household; -if a sheep farmer as well, he worked up the wool in his own home in the -manner enjoined on thrifty housewives by Fitzherbert. From the point of -view of national welfare his security was purchased by the distress in -which the difficulty of moving corn supplies involved the wage-earner. -The constant local famines of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -should remind us that the more self-sufficing a country's agricultural -economy, the narrower the margin there is likely to be between the -landless classes and starvation. But with them for the present we are -not concerned, and if we confine our attention to the landholding -peasantry we can see that to them the backwardness of trade was a -positive advantage. The risk of spoiling good farming by ineffective -marketing was not one which faced the small holders of our period. - - [228] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_. He is speaking of parts - of Somersetshire. "Now I say if this sweet country of Tandeane - and the western part of Somersetshire be not degenerated, - surely, as their land is fruitful by nature, so doe they their - best by art and industrie ... they take extraordinary pains in - soyling, plowing, and dressing their land.... After the plough - there goeth some 3 or 4 with mattocks to break the clods ... - they have sometimes and in some places foure, five, six, eight, - yea tenne quarters in an ordinary acre." For Walter of Henley's - figures see Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 437-438. - Gregory King at the end of the seventeenth century estimated the - average yield "in a year of moderate plenty" at a little more - than 11 bushels (Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, - vol. v. pp. 92 and 783). I quote Norden not as giving what was - general, but to show what it was thought could be done. - - [229] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907. - - [230] Camden Society, 1857, _An Italian Narration of England_. - - [231] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907. - -Moreover, in estimating the causes which in the fifteenth century -favoured a growth in their prosperity, we should not overlook that it -was a period in which commercial policy encouraged the corn-grower. In -the series of compromises which were struck between the interests of the -farmer and those of the consumer the scale during the greater part of -it was tilted in the direction of the former, and when success had -caused his holding to grow to a size which made trade in grain -inevitable, he dealt in a market which the Government tried to turn in -his favour. That section of the industry which supplied the market -obviously gained by freedom of export and by import duties upon foreign -wheat, though the fact that England was largely a corn exporting country -made the latter less important than the former. From 1437 to 1491 free -export of wheat was permitted, subject to the obligation to obtain an -export licence when prices in the home market rose above a certain -point. In 1463 the same policy was carried furthur, and an Act was -passed restricting its importation. Such a commercial[232] policy was no -doubt adopted mainly in the interests of the great landed proprietors. -But that the prosperity of the small cultivators was to some extent -bound up with the Government's encouragement of corn-growing can hardly -be doubted. Competent observers in the sixteenth century gave its -abandonment by the Tudors as one cause of the subsequent decline in the -condition of the peasantry, and a return to it as one remedy for their -distress. - - [232] See below, p. 197. - -If the peasantry were favoured in the fifteenth century by a state of -things in which the small corn-grower's position was still unshaken, did -they not also gain by the beginnings of industrial expansion and by the -pasture farming that accompanied it? That a man who was mainly dependent -upon tillage might also be a grazier upon a considerable scale, is shown -by the following table of the animals kept by the customary tenants on -six[233] manors in the south of England. - - I. II. III. IV. - - Manors. Customary Tenants. Sheep kept by Customary Other Beasts - Tenants. (minimum). - - 6 112 7440 793 - - [233] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manors of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_; _cf._ R.O. _Land Rev. Misc. Bks._, 182, fol. 1, - Rental of the late Priory of Launde (Leicestershire, 1539), - where there are tenants paying for common pasture for about 430 - sheep. - -One must not, of course, forget that a certain number of beasts were -indispensable to arable farming. Perhaps one-third or one-half the -cattle in column IV. should be written off as simply part of the -corn-grower's necessary equipment. The sixteenth century small holder, -who keeps plough beasts, is no more a grazier on that account than his -twentieth century successor, who uses his grain for fodder, is a -corn-grower. But, when this has been remembered, we may perhaps allow -these figures to remind us that in the agriculture even of the small man -there was room for considerable diversity, and that in the fifteenth and -sixteenth centuries it was probably much more diversified than it had -been two centuries before. So much is said in the writings of our period -of the harm done by the great grazier, that we perhaps do not always -sufficiently realise that the customary tenants both then and long -before were often themselves graziers on a considerable scale. They -raise stock, and are interested in the woollen trade as well as in the -corn-growing. Ultimately, when time enough had elapsed for the -profitableness of sheep farming to supply lords of manors with a motive -for clearing away interests which interfered with the formation of sheep -runs, the movement for laying down land to pasture did result in -evictions and rack-renting. But, looking at the fifteenth century as a -whole, may we not say with some confidence that the growth of the -woollen industry must have brought increasing prosperity to many -villages? Though it is not till almost the last decade that complaints -of enclosing become sufficiently clamorous to attract the attention of -the Government, the spread of woollen manufacturers into rural districts -was going quietly on throughout the whole century, and benefited the -peasants both by the lucrative bye-employment which they offered to both -sexes, and by the alternative to arable farming which the demand for -wool supplied in the shape of sheep-grazing. The large number of sheep -kept by the customary tenants of many manors in the south of England, -and the increase in the complaints as to the over-stocking of commons -contained in the Court Rolls of the fifteenth century, show that they -were not slow to seize the opportunity, and that the great pasture -farms, which aroused the indignation of More and Latimer, had their -precedent in the small flocks of thirty or forty sheep which had long -been run by the peasantry upon the common wastes or pastures. It would -seem that, as so often happens, the new departure was first made on a -small scale by small men, and chat it was not until some time had -elapsed that its wholesale adoption by large capitalists plunged them in -distress. The movement towards pasture-farming as a special branch of -agriculture is one that proceeds gradually for a hundred years, before -the demand for wool becomes sufficient to produce the body of capitalist -graziers whose interests come into sharp collision with those of the -peasantry. - -But after all, the profits arising from favourable economic -circumstances may be of very little advantage to the mass of -cultivators. They may simply be handed on to the landlord in the shape -of increased rents. At a time when, both in Ireland and Scotland, rents -are being fixed by public tribunals, we are not likely to forget that -the profitableness of agriculture has no necessary connection with the -prosperity of tenants. Trade may be increasing, and the return from the -land may be growing, and yet those things may profit the farmers and -peasants very little, unless they have some security that they will not -see them drained away in increased payments for their land. It is -important, therefore, to consider how far rents were competitive and how -far they were customary, how far the tenants held the surplus due to -economic progress, and how far it passed to the landlord. - -Some light is thrown on the general situation by the following -table[234]:-- - -TABLE VI - - - - +---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+ - | Manor. | Rents. | - +--------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ - | | | - | | 1295-1308 1568 | - |1. South Newton | L13 19 3-1/2 L14 4 8 | - | | | - | | 1347 1421 1485 1628 | - |2. Ingoldmells | L61 9 4 L71 10 3 L72 6 8 L73 17 2 | - | | | - | | 1287 1567 | - |3. Crondal | L53 7 0 L103 2 8-3/4 | - | | | - |4. Sutton Warbling- | | - | ton | 1351 1567 | - | | L5 17 4-3/4 L8 10 4 | - | | | - | | 1295 1542 | - |5. Aspley Guise | L7 8 4 L10 5 10 | - | | | - | | 1248 1567 1585 | - |6. Birling | L9 2 6-1/2 L14 9 4 L14 9 4 | - | | | - | | 1352 1478 1567 1580 | - |7. Acklington | L18 13 2 L19 13 11 L19 13 5 L20 0 5 | - | | | - | | 1483 1505 | - |8. Cuxham | L9 9 3 L8 9 3 | - | | | - | | 1483 1600 | - |9. Ibstone | L4 8 10 L3 15 0-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1498 1567 1585 1702 | - |10. High Buston | L3 12 0 L3 12 0 L3 12 0 L12 0 0 | - | | | - | | 1539 1608 | - |11. Amble | L22 14 6 L16 0 5 | - | | | - | | "The reign of King Henry VII." 1529 | - |12. Malden | L4 9 10 L4 6 7 | - | | | - | | 1527 1588 1607 | - |13. Kibworth | L23 6 7 L26 15 1 L19 14 5 | - | | | - | | 1304-5 1348-9 1373-4 1461 | - |14. Standon | L21 17 3 L23 8 0 L23 2 2-1/2 L33 3 3-1/2| - | | | - | | 1317-8 1445-6 Henry VIII. | - |15. Feering | L29 10 9-1/2 L32 14 10 L16 2 6-1/2 | - | | | - | | 38-39 Henry VI. | - | | 1321 Henry VI. (1460) | - |16. Appledrum | L7 0 11 L10 11 6 L13 14 10-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1357 1501 | - |17. Minchinhampton | L41 14 4 L41 19 9 | - | (works) | L4 18 0 | - | | | - | | 1280 1441 1547 | - |18. Langley Marish | L20 16 5-1/2 L24 0 0 L45 3 5-3/4 | - | | | - | | Henry VI. 1521 James I. | - |19. Lewisham | L8 11 7 L23 1 6-1/2 L90 3 3 | - | | | - |20. Cuddington. For | Edward III.(?) 15th century(?) James I. | - | terms of Easter | L6 4 2-3/4 | - | and Michaelmas | | - | (for whole year) | L12 8 5-1/2(?) L15 16 7 L9 19 8-3/4 | - | | | - |21. Isleworth | 1314-15 1386-7 1484-5 | - | (Michaelmas) | L21 16 10 L23 3 10-1/4 L18 18 0 | - | | | - |22. Wootton (free | | - | and customary | 1207 1607 | - | tenants) | L9 11 2 L13 19 0-1/2 | - | | | - | | 1271-2 1547 | - |23. Speen | L6 13 9-3/4 L17 4 2 | - | | | - | | 1303-4 1314-15 1478-9 | - |24. Schitlington | L29 13 0-1/2 L30 4 10 L58 11 9 (exclusive of| - | | ferm of land| - | | and ferm of | - | | manor). | - | | | - |25. Cranfield (rent | | - | of vill including | 1383-4 1474-5 1519-20 | - | ferm of lands) | L68 15 2 L63 19 10-1/4 L72 2 1-3/4 | - | | | - | | 1325-6 1482-3 | - |26. Holywell | L12 18 2 L22 7 8 | - | | | - | | 1536 1803 | - |27. Farleigh | L4 9 9 L4 15 5 | - +--------------------+--------------------------------------------------+ - - [234] For the sources and defects of this table see Appendix II. - -It will be seen that, in spite of some considerable increases, many -rents were comparatively stationary during long periods of time. -Moreover, in all probability, they were more stationary than is -suggested by the statistics given above. For at the earlier dates there -were works the value of which usually does not appear among the money -rents. As time went on, more land was brought under cultivation and the -demesne was leased; and though an attempt has been made to exclude the -latter factor, it is not always possible to do so with certainty. The -later figures, therefore, are, if anything, a more exhaustive account of -the tenants' burdens than the earlier, and the small difference which -exists between them on several manors is for this reason all the more -remarkable. - -These figures, it will be said, if they prove anything, prove too much. -Do we not know that one of the grievances of the peasantry in the -sixteenth century was the rack-renting of their holdings? Have we not -the evidence of Fitzherbert, Latimer, and Hales to prove it? To these -questions one must answer that it is certainly true that lords of manors -did make a strenuous effort to get from their tenants increased payments -for their holdings, and that the success which in many cases they -achieved was one great cause of the decline in the condition of the -peasantry. The matter, however, is not so simple as it appears. In -respect of their liability to be competitively rented, some parts of the -lands of a manor stood on a different footing from others; and again, -fixed rents of customary lands were quite compatible with movable fines. -An attempt will be made in subsequent chapters[235] to illustrate both -the rack-renting of those parts of a manor where the rent was least -controlled by custom, and the upward movement of the fines charged on -the admission of tenants to their holdings. These figures of stationary -or almost stationary rents must not, therefore, be taken as giving a -full account of the relations between the customary tenants and the -manorial authorities, as though there was no other way in which the -latter could compensate themselves. Subject to this qualification, -however, they do indicate that, at any rate on the customary holdings -which formed the kernel of the manor, there is for a very long period -little rack-renting. They suggest that the tenants' payments have a -fixity which would make Arthur Young tear his hair. They fall in line -with the statements of authorities like Fitzherbert and Norden as to the -difficulty experienced by the manorial officials in forcing up rents of -assize, that "are as in the beginning, neither risen nor fallen, but doe -continue always one and the same." And this fixity of rents is a factor -in the prosperity of the peasantry which can hardly be over-estimated. -When not neutralised by exorbitant fines, it means that any surplus -arising on the customary tenements as the result of growing trade, or of -the fall in the value of money, or of improved methods of agriculture, -anything in fact which is in the nature of economic rent, is retained by -the tenants. Secured by the custom of the manor, as by a dyke, against -the competitive pressure which under modern conditions transfers so much -of the fruits of progress into the hands of the owners of land and -capital, they enjoy an unearned increment which grows with every growth -in economic prosperity, and have an interest in their holdings almost -similar to that of a landlord who is burdened only with a fixed -rent-charge like the English land tax. One of the best established -generalisations of economics, ground into the English people by thirty -years of misery, is that the effect of agrarian protection is to make a -present to landlords. But agrarian protection itself wears a different -complexion when the rise in rents which it produces is not transferred -to a small and wealthy class of absentee owners, but retained by -thousands of men who are themselves cultivating the soil. - - [235] See below, pp. 139-147 and 304-310. - -Lest such a picture should seem to be drawn too much in the spirit of -the economic theorist, let us make its meaning more precise by pointing -out that the retention of the unearned increment by copyhold tenants was -a fact of which the manorial authorities were perfectly well aware, and -the results of which they were sometimes at pains to estimate -arithmetically by setting side by side with the actual rent paid the -rent which the holdings would fetch if put up to competition. Four -examples may be given. At Amble,[236] in 1608, the surveyor gives the -rent of the customary tenants as L16, 0s. 5d., and "the annual value -beyond rent" as L93, 4s. 4d. On the great manor of Hexham[237] in the -same year the rents of the 314 copyhold tenants amounted to L126, 4s. -8-1/4d.; the "value above the oulde Rentes" was L624, 4s. 1d. In the -various townships of the manor of Rochdale[238] part of the land was -rack-rented. But a great deal of it was held at payments which left the -tenant a substantial margin between the rent which he paid to the king -and the letting value of the land, a margin which varied from 2d. an -acre in parts of Wardleworth, to 6d. an acre in parts of Wardle, 8d. an -acre in Walsden, and 10d. an acre in Castleton. On the manor of -Barkby[239] in Leicestershire the difference was still more striking. -The rents paid by free and customary tenants together amounted in 1636 -to L11, 8s. 7-1/2d.; the value of their holdings was put by the -surveyor at L215, 1s. 6d. And, of course, the fact that these rentals -come from the very end of the sixteenth, and the beginning of the -seventeenth, centuries, makes the evidence which they offer of the -inability of manorial authorities to insist on copyhold rents keeping -pace with the rising value of land, when they had every motive to -enforce such correspondence if they could, all the more significant. For -a century they have been screwing up rents wherever they can, and here -are tenants, who, as far as rents go, put 6d. in their own pockets for -every 1d. they give to the landlord. Let us repeat that these figures, -striking as they are, would, if taken by themselves, give a misleading -impression of the position of the copyhold tenants. Even when the lord -of a manor cannot break the barrier opposed by manorial custom to a rise -in rents, he may be able to dip his fingers in the surplus by raising -the fines charged on admission; he may be all the more exacting in -screwing the last penny out of those holdings where the rent is not -fixed by custom. But though we must not forget the other side of the -shield, though the very fixity of rents on many manors should make us -scrutinise other conditions very carefully, we must not forget either -that a tenant whose rent is unaltered for 200 or 250 years, a tenant -who, after a period of sweeping agrarian changes in which a bitter cry -has gone up against the exactions of landlords, is paying a fifth, or a -sixth, or even an eighteenth of what could be got for his holding in the -open market, is a tenant whom most modern English farmers would envy. -Whatever his other disadvantages he has at any rate one condition of -prosperity. He will not be eaten up by rack-renting. No wonder that such -a man can accumulate capital and buy up land to add to his holding. No -wonder that he can sublet parts of it at a profit. No wonder that in the -day of agrarian oppression the wealthier peasantry stands stubbornly -against it, that they can carry cases from one court to another, and -that there are manors where they boast that "20[240] of them would -spend 20 score pounds" in fighting an unpopular landlord. On the whole, -the individual cases of enterprise and prosperity among the customary -tenants of the fifteenth century do fit into the view that the economic -environment was favourable to the peasantry. They may be regarded as -symptoms, not exceptions. - - [236] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ii. - - [237] _Ibid._, vol. iii. pp. 86-94. On this manor at the time - of the survey, though the distinction between the old rent and - the "cleare yearly value above the old rent" was noted, the - latter seems to have been tapped by a rise in rents ("cleere - improved rent above the ould rent"). - - [238] _Rochdale Manor Inquisition_, 1610, by H. Fishwick - (_Trans. of the Rochdale Literary and Scientific Society_, vol. - vii.). - - [239] Merton Documents, MSS. Book labelled "Kibworth and Barkby, - 1636." For another illustration of fixed copyhold rents, see - Maitland, _English Hist. Review_, vol. ix.: The History of a - Cambridgeshire Manor. - - [240] Quoted, Leadam, "The Security of Copyholders in the - Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries" (_English Historical Review_, - vol. viii. pp. 684-696). The case in question was that of the - inhabitants of Thingden _v._ John Mulsho. - -Here, perhaps, we should stop. What manner of men these were in that -personal life of which economics is but the squalid scaffolding; what -stars threw for them their beams on that tremendous whirlpool of -religion and politics into which Europe was plunging, we cannot say. Of -the hopes and fears and aspirations of the men who tilled the fields -which still give us in due season their kindly fruit, we know hardly -more than of the Roman plebs, far less than of the democracy of Athens. -Yet these men too had their visions. Their silence is the taciturnity of -men, not the speechlessness of dumb beasts. - -That the peasantry as a class were no politicians was a natural -consequence of the position which they had occupied throughout the -Middle Ages. On a small number among them, in the Eastern counties a -large number, the State had for centuries showered duties and -obligations with a lavish hand, and the freeholders, though they must -often have cursed the tediousness of suit of court, and jury service, -and Parliamentary elections, turned that tiresome discipline to good -account in the days when the Stuarts had contrived to make politics to -thousands of heavy-handed obstinate people throughout England a matter -not only of money but of conscience. The non-participation of the bulk -of the peasantry in the same large interests was not due to poverty, for -often the copyholders were wealthier than the freeholders who listened -to Pym and Hampden on that first great election campaign in 1640, and -left their farms to fight for King or Parliament. Nor was it due to -timidity or lack of spirit, for, as we shall see later, they frequently -asserted themselves in the course of the sixteenth century in their own -characteristic way of agrarian strikes.[241] It was rather that the -centre of their interests and their social horizon were different. The -freeholders from an early date had been brought into contact with the -chief institutions of the organised political state. Since the twelfth -century they had been protected in their holdings by the courts, and had -learned through that cunning procedure which was the fruit of Henry -II.'s[242] sleepless nights, that though often one cannot do much with -the law, one can do even less without it. Since the thirteenth century -they, along with their social superiors, had returned members to -Parliament, and had acquired that facility in grumbling at taxation -which is the beginning, though not, as is so commonly supposed, the end, -of political wisdom. Thus they became a body in whose eyes the Law, -Parliament, the State, loomed up, though for ages dimly enough, as a big -something which it is well to have on your side, something which -requires, like the new fangled arquebuses, to be carefully handled, -something which, if neglected, may give you a surprising shock, but if -treated with proper respect may teach manners even to your landlord. Of -course your first duty is to him. You ride and fight for him readily -enough as your fathers did. But still, you do it because you have said -you will, not because he has said you shall, and though London lawyers -are a pack of knaves, it is good to know that the law will, if -necessary, make him see the difference. - - [241] See below, pp. 329-331. - - [242] Bracton, f. 164 b.: "Succuritur ei per recognitionem - Assisae novae dissesinae multis vigiliis excogitatam et inventam" - (quoted Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. i. - p. 125 n.). - -But the freeholders have been for centuries a privileged class, and -those of the peasants who are copyholders, a far more numerous body, are -in a very different position. Your fathers were villeins, who hung on -the words of the upstart manorial officials, who "had no right to know -at night what they should do on the morrow,"[243] who never had the -bitter satisfaction of grumbling that they got no return for the wages -paid to the knights of the shire, who had no redress from the King's -Courts if threatened with eviction. Of course you are not in the same -position now. Your blood has been purged of the servile taint for -generations. The lawyers have been competing for your business, and so -the Court of Chancery has invented a new procedure to protect you in -your holding. "When thieves fall out...." Still, it is better to run no -risk of offending your superiors, for the law is a chancy thing, and -your title (you keep the copy under lock and key and refuse to show it -to the new surveyor lest he should twist it into meaning what it -doesn't) is none too clear.[244] Deep down in your mind, beneath the -prosperity of to-day, there are dim memories of old, unhappy, far-off -things, and your shoulders slouch at their recollection. _Weh dir dass -du ein Enkel bist!_ The bailiff has invented a pedigree as long as your -arm to prove that your great-grandfather was a villein, and had no -business to have bought his freedom for the preposterous reason that the -money with which he bought it was the lord's all along. The toadying -beast is even trying to curry favour by saying that your copyhold is for -life only, and that your fine is uncertain. True, there are plenty of -ancient inhabitants who will swear in the manor court that your family -has lived in the village before the present lord was ever heard of. But -it is easy to bully and cajole them into silence. Were not Walter and -Hugh turned adrift, "weeping bitterly," because money had to be found to -pay the young lord's debts? As a copyholder, then, you are much less -conscious of the State than if you are a freeholder, because in the -matter which interests you most, the security of your holding, you have -for centuries had no dealings with the State at all. Your idea of -Government is a vague reverence for a King who sits far away in -Westminster with a crown on his head and his judges about him, and who -governs his kingdom as a good lord--not like yours--governs his manor. -For the rest you are a non-political animal, who take little interest in -affairs of State, because in the past the State has taken so little -interest in you. When your fathers made London tremble in the great days -of 1381 (you can see from your hay-stack the hill where they were -hanged, hanged "like dogs"[245]) what they demanded was fair rents and -freedom from villein services. When you went out with Ket in 1549 you -asked the same, and, untaught by their experience, you begged that the -King would see that you had the fair play which his Justices of the -Peace, who are your landlords, will never allow you.[246] When King and -Parliament come to blows, you curse both impartially, remain neutral as -long as you can, and only turn out when they begin driving the village -beasts. Your sentiments are pithily expressed in the motto which a local -wit has devised for the village banner: "If you take our cattle, we will -give you battle."[247] - - [243] Bracton, Lib. iv. cap. 28, f. 208. - - [244] _Northumberland County History_, vol. iii., Pt. V., pp. - 86-104, Survey of Hexham (1608): "Their fines they pretend to - be certain, viz. one year's rent at everye change of tenant, but - not herritable. They have there, for certaine, very ancient - evidences and Court Rolls, but they woulde not show them unto - us, nor any of their coppies." See also Appendix I. No. IV. - - [245] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Part VII., pp. 49-50 (1596): Some - information concerning those intending the rebellion in - Oxford.... "And Steer said that there was once a rising at - Enscombe Hill by the commons, and they were persuaded to go down - and were after hanged like dogs. 'But,' said he, 'we will never - yield, but will go through with it!'" - - [246] See below, pp. 334-337. - - [247] Warburton's _Rupert_, iii., 118 (quoted Gooch, _English - Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_, p. 112). - -If, however, the peasantry are on the whole uninterested in the larger -problems of government to which the world has agreed to confine the word -politics, this is not because they are incapable of self-help, or -destitute of any conception of public expediency. It is because the -framework of their lives has for ages been different from that of the -freeholders, because the centre round which their social interests -revolve is even more localised than it is to the freeholders, because -what matters to them most is not the law of the land but the custom of -the manor. We shall have hereafter[248] to discuss the vexed question of -the legal position occupied by the copyholders in the sixteenth century. -But we may pause for a moment to point out here the decisive part which -custom had played, and still played in our period, in moulding the lives -of the mass of the peasantry, because unless this is firmly grasped we -cannot understand their mental horizon. It is the custom of the manor -which gives them their social environment and their conception of public -order. The commonest name for all those who hold neither freely nor by -lease is "customary tenants," men whose title is rooted in custom. When -the courts begin to interfere to protect copyholders, they introduce -that sweeping innovation under the guise of enforcing customary -conditions. They do not say "copyholders can be evicted." Nor do they -say "copyholders cannot be evicted." They say, "Tell us what the custom -of your manor is, and if it is one which does not seem to a plain man -too unreasonable, we will enforce it." When tenants and landlords fall -out, it is always to custom that the tenants appeal. When the peasants -ask the Government for assistance, they do so by demanding the -observance of their "old customs." - - [248] See below, pp. 287-310. - -Let us look at the custom of the manor more closely. The phrase has, of -course, misleading suggestions for modern ears. We tend to think of -custom as something indefinite and inconclusive; something which is not, -like the law (we speak of what should be), the embodiment of reason; -something which fetters progress and is the opposite of freedom; -something which is mere habit, and very likely a "bad habit" at that. -All this is true in a sense. It is the way in which in the sixteenth -century an enterprising landlord looks at the custom which ties his -hands. But it is not the way in which it is regarded by the peasants. -The custom of the manor does not mean to them a mere feeble acquiescence -in existing conditions, mere inertia. It is not a negative, but a -positive thing. It is no more inconsistent with progress to observe the -custom, than it is inconsistent with progress to keep out of gaol by -observing the law. For the custom is simply the law of the village. Like -the main rules of the common law, it comes down from a dim age that is -beyond the memory of man. Like law it is enforced by a court, the court -of the manor. Like law it can be altered (and in some respects and on -some manors often is altered to meet the new conditions of our period) -by the proper authority, which again is the court of the manor. Of -course it is not law in the fullest sense. From one standpoint it is the -antithesis of law, the law of the King's Courts, which, till the end of -the fourteenth century, has taken no cognizance of the customary -tenures, though since that time the Court of Chancery, by intervening to -enforce the custom of the manor in respect of copyholds, has been -breaking down the opposition. Still, for the mass of the peasantry, even -in the sixteenth century, custom is a bigger, more important, thing than -the law of the national courts. It is with custom that the first -decision will lie. - -Again, the custom of the manor is not at all a vague or indefinite -thing. That it reposed partly on the Court Rolls, partly on the memory -of ancient inhabitants, we can see from the frequent appeals which are -made to both of them. But it certainly is no mere nebulous tradition. On -the contrary, it is often most rigorous in its precision. It lays down -boundaries and numbers stocks and stones. It adjusts and readjusts -agricultural arrangements. It enters into the details of social life -with a bold hand. Let us reflect, to take an example, on the customs of -High Furness, parts of which have been quoted above. Here we have a -whole village agreeing about matters which do not at first sight seem, -like the use of pastures or the fixing of boundaries, of a specially -public character. The term on which a man's property is to be -distributed among his descendants, this, if anything, one might expect -to be left to his own discretion, once the succession of an heir to -maintain the rents and services due from the holding had been provided -for. The rules quoted above go much further than this. They settle -exactly what proportion of a man's property is to go to his different -children, male and female, from the eldest down to the youngest. Imagine -a Parish Council to-day distributing the wealth of deceased parishioners -with the object of seeing that the whole of the younger generation shall -obtain some kind of start in life, and you will have an analogy to what -is done by the prudent men of High Furness. - -Or take another example, where the points handled are of a somewhat -different kind. Here are the customs of the manor of Bushey,[249] as set -out in 1563 by twenty customary tenants in response to an inquiry by the -lord:-- - -"In primis to the fyrste article we saye that no copyholder at the tyme -of his death dying seased of twoo copyholdes hathe paid any more than -one quycke heriott by the tyme of any remembrance, or before, to our -knowledge. - -"Item to the seconde we saye that the lorde oughtte to have the second -beste for hys herryott and the heyer the beste. - -"Item to the thyrde we saye that the copyholder that doth surrender his -copyholde ought not to paye any herryott upon the surrender of his -copyholde except yt be in extreme of deathe. - -"Item to the fourth we saye that lords of the mannor have never demanded -nor any copyholder payde any more for their ffyne than one yere's rente -of the lande. - -"Item to the fyfth we saye that the widdowe upon the deathe of her -husbande shall have the thyrde parte of the rente of the lande, but not -the thyrde part of the lande except yt be surrendered to her by her -husbande. - -"Item to the syxth we saye that the copyholder may sell hys underwoode -and stocke upp by the roote the same wytheout lycense of the lorde. - -"Item to the seventh we saye that the copyholder may fell tymber for -reparacion or otherwyse to sell the same to hys use and profyt; so hathe -yt byn used by our tymes and by all tyme beyond the memory of man. - -"Item to the eytthe we saye that the copyholder may make a grante of hys -copyholde for three yeres wythoute the lord's lycense, and the lorde to -take nothing for the same. - -"Item to the nineth we saye that the tenants maye take surrender bothe -within the manor and without the manor. - -"Item to the tenth we saye that we cannot answer for that we knowe not -every man's lande. - -"Item to the eleventh we saye that every copyholde is not heryottable. - -"Item to the xiith we knowe not where the Courte Rolles, Rentals, or -customaryes of the manor are remayning or in whose custodye. - -"Item to the xiiith we saye that we knowe not of any deutyes or rentys -withdrawn from the lordshippe. - -"Item to the xiiiith we saye that we never knewe nor hearde any heryott -payde for freeholde at the dethe of the freholder. - -"Item to the fyfteneth we say that the freholder hathe never payde -relief at alienacion, but at deathe only. - -"Item to the xvith we saye that a copyholder dying his heir being wythin -the age of xiiii yeres the custody of the body and lande oughte to be -comytted by the lorde to the nexte of the kyn to whom the inheritance -may not dyscende." - - [249] I take them from the MSS. Court Rolls of the Manor of Bushey, - kindly lent me by the late Miss Lucy Toulmin Smith. - -In themselves these customs are not in any way remarkable, except -perhaps for the uniform favour which they show to the interests of the -tenants. They might be paralleled from those of scores of other manors. -What is worth noticing is the precision of the rules laid down. The -relations between the lord and the tenants are settled with the -definiteness of a sort of great collective bargain. - -It would be going beyond the scope of this essay to enter upon the large -question, on which so much learning has been expended, of the respective -parts played in manorial origins by the communal organisation of -villagers for the purpose of self-government in their agrarian affairs, -and by the authoritative pressure of superior authorities for the -purpose of using the village as the basis of a financial and political -system. But one may point out that facts such as have been quoted above -in illustration of the rule of custom cannot easily be fitted into any -theory which regards the economic arrangements of the manor as the -result simply of a system imposed from above, and which treats the -customary rights of the peasants as the outcome of concessions made by -lords from time to time in their own interests, the revocation of which -involved no larger difficulties than necessarily surround the alteration -of practices sanctioned by long use. However much the organisation of -village life may have been stereotyped by the pressure directed upon it -by the desire of the manorial authorities to extract rents and services -on an unvarying plan, one cannot trace it altogether to its -subordination to such external forces, because the custom of the manor -acts as a restriction which impedes the free action of lords themselves -and their agents, even when they are most anxious to break through its -meshes. This is seen more clearly perhaps in the sixteenth century than -in earlier periods, for the very reason that the sharp collision of -interests between lords and tenants makes it more possible to -distinguish those parts of manorial custom which represent the economic -interests of the tenants, from those which represent the power of the -manorial authorities imposed upon them. Under the latter heading would -fall the rules as to heriots and reliefs, rules forbidding waste, rules -requiring tenants to pay "for the rushes which they gather on the lord's -common,"[250] or to perform the surviving remnants of labour services, -while a rule such as that of High Furness, forbidding the division of -holdings to such an extent as to prevent the discharge of services or -the obtaining of an adequate living by the occupier, may be regarded as -a compromise in which the interests of both lord and tenant receive -consideration. Under the former may be placed the custom which fixes -rents, and, on some fortunate manors like Bushey, fixes fines to be paid -on admission, sanctions the sub-letting of copyholds and the felling of -timber, and allots rights of pasture to each arable holding. Not all of -these, of course, stand upon the same footing of importance. The right -to cut wood is much less essential than the right to graze cattle. But -some of them, at any rate, like rights of common pasture, seem to be -bound up with the very existence of the village as an agricultural -community, and all of them are dictated by the interests of the peasants -in protecting themselves against encroachments, as clearly as are those -of the first type by the desire of lords to make the manor a source of -profit to themselves. It is scarcely possible to account for the -obstacles put by manorial customs in the way of changes which would -benefit the lord and be detrimental to the tenant, except on the -supposition that they are rooted in something more indestructible than -the mere concession of privileges which long use has solidified and -hardened; something which can only be found in the fact that they are an -essential part of the life of the village, to which the lord himself, as -a condition of extracting revenue from it, is almost bound to conform. - - [250] Aldeburgh, _temp._ Henry VIII., R.O. _Misc. Bks. Treas. of - Receipts_, vol. clxiii. See Appendix I., No. II. - -This brings us to our original point, the way in which the whole social -environment of all the tenants, except the freeholders, who do not need -the protection of custom, and the leaseholders,[251] who cannot get it, -is dependent upon the custom of the manor. Fraught with modern -associations as it is, the phrase "collective[252] bargain" is perhaps -the nearest we can get to expressing what the custom of the manor means -to the peasants themselves. Of course it is much more than this. The -custom has the sanction of immemorial antiquity. The phrase "time out of -mind" is no mere piece of idle rhetoric. The stable self-perpetuating -conditions of economic life create a sort of communal memory, in which -centuries are focussed. There were villages where, in the reign of -Elizabeth, the effects of the Great Plague[253] were still dimly -remembered. But regarding the matter from the point of view of the -practical working of village life, we shall not be far wrong if we think -of the peasants as a body of men who are more or less organised, and of -the custom as a system of common rules which regulates the relations -between them and the lord. And it is evident that the custom of the -manor, at any rate in our period, is a safeguard of the tenants' -interests rather than of those of the manorial authorities. It is not -only that the changes which followed the Great Plague have set the -peasants free from the most irksome customary restrictions, but, -further, that, in the sixteenth century, it is the lord who wants to -make innovations and the tenants who resist them, and that it is -therefore the latter who stand to gain most by clinging to custom. The -custom sets up a standard by which encroachments can be opposed, by -which the village as a whole can put a solid barrier in the way of -change, by which blacklegging (in the shape of one man taking a holding -over the head of another) can be prevented. Competitive forces have, it -is true, been gradually undermining custom, and by the sixteenth century -an increasing number of tenants have the terms on which they take their -holdings settled by the higgling of the market without reference to any -authoritative rule. Nevertheless, as far as the copyholders, who are the -kernel of the manor, are concerned, competition is held in check by the -fact that, on certain fundamental matters, there is a common -understanding between the peasants, which is recognised by the lord -himself. The manorial authorities cannot bargain with the tenants one by -one. They have to deal with the villagers as men who are "organised," -who are members of a society, who know what they have to expect in the -way of heriots and rents and fines, and who will be supported by village -opinion in resisting innovations. On occasion the peasants will strike. -On occasion they will force their landlord to arbitration.[254] One -might almost say that the customary tenants are trade unionists to a -man. Again, who shall determine what the custom is? The court rolls will -throw light on certain points, and occasionally we find lords appealing -to them successfully in order to upset the tenants' claims. But on many -matters there is no guide but tradition; the exponents of tradition are -the ancient inhabitants; the lord has to ask them to expound it, as he -does the tenants of Bushey. Can we doubt that this was a powerful check -on autocratic action on his part? Lords come and go. But the custom of -the manor endures, and probably loses nothing in the telling. - - [251] Some copyholders, who held land which was not "customary - land" but part of the demesne or the waste, were not protected - by custom either: for a discussion of this point see below, pp. - 293-294. - - [252] See below for an example from Crondal, p. 295. - - [253] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of "The Presentment and - Verdict of the Jury for the Manor of Hewlington," 1620 (Wrexham - Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, vol. ii.): "Which decay - (as by the ancient records appeareth) did growe by reason of the - great mortalitie and plague which in former tymes had been in - the reign of Edward III., and also of the rebellion of Owen - Glendower and trouble that thereupon ensued." - - [254] _Victoria County History of Gloucestershire_, Social and - Economic History, p. 146. For agrarian strikes see below, pp. - 329-331. - -If, then, we ask what the custom means to the peasantry, we must think -not of the "forbidding, stale, and meagre ways," which is what the word -custom too often suggests in the twentieth century, but of the phrase -"ancient customs and liberties," which is so common in the charters of -Boroughs. The custom of the manor is a body of rules which regulates the -rights and obligations of the peasants in their daily life. It is a kind -of law. It is a kind of freedom. And since it is the custom which most -concerns the mass of the peasantry, it is not the state, or the law, but -the custom of the manor which forms their political environment and from -which they draw their political ideas. They cannot conceive the state -except as a very great manor. Their idea of good government is the -enforcement of an idealised customary.[255] - - [255] See below, pp. 338-340. - -Having said this we can say little more. There is no standard by which -we can measure civilisation, and if we knew more than we do, the village -life of the sixteenth century--and England is all villages--would still -be a mystery to us. Yet, before returning to the humbler task of -examining economic conditions, we may perhaps summarise the sort of -impressions formed of the peasants by those who knew them in their own -day, impressions no doubt as misleading as a traveller's sketches of -modern England, yet, like a traveller's sketches, possessing a certain -value, because they show the points which an intelligent outside opinion -selects for emphasis. - -One is encouraged in one's belief in the comparative prosperity of a -large number of the peasantry in the earlier sixteenth century by the -comments which the writers of the periods pass upon it, even after a -decline has already begun. The picture we get is of an open-handed, -turbulent, large-eating and deep-drinking people, much given to -hospitality and to merriment both coarse and refined; according to -modern standards very ignorant, yet capable of swift enthusiasm, -litigious, great sticklers for their rights, quick to use force in -defence of them, proud of their independence, and free from the grosser -forms of poverty which crush the spirit. The latter feature strikes -everybody. Foreign visitors[256] notice with amazement the outward signs -of wealth among the humbler classes. English writers, though their tone -becomes sadder and sadder as the century proceeds, are never tired of -boasting of it. Even in the eighties of the sixteenth century, when many -of the peasants are much worse off than they had been a hundred years -before, Harrison, though he paints in dark colours the ruinous effects -of the agrarian changes, describes their hearty life with good-humoured -gusto. "Both the artificer and the husbandman are sufficiently liberal -and very friendly at their tables, and when they meet they are so merry -without malice, and plain without inward Italian or French craft and -sublety, that it would do a man good to be in company among them.... -Their food consisteth principally of beef and such meat as the butcher -selleth. That is to say, mutton, veal, lamb, pork. In feasting also the -latter sort, I mean the husbandmen, do exceed after their manner, -especially at bridals, purifications of women, and such odd meetings, -where it is incredible to tell what meat is consumed and spent, each one -bringing such a dish, or so many with him, as his wife and he consult -upon, but always with this consideration that the lesser friend shall -have the better provision." The peasants themselves have a good conceit -of their position, and all unmindful of the whirligig of time and its -revenges, contrast it with that of their class in France, where women -labour like beasts in the fields, where men go in wooden shoes or no -shoes at all, where the people drink water instead of ale, eat rye bread -and little meat, and have not even the heart, like honest Englishmen, to -rob the rich who oppress them, and that in the most fertile realm in all -the world;[257] "Caytives and wretches, lyvyng in lyke thraldome as they -dyd to the Romaynes, and gevynge tribute for theyr meat, drinke, brede, -and salte, which for theyr wayke personayges and tymorous hartes I may -compare to the pigmies who waged battayle against the Cranes, so that I -dare let slip a hundred good yeomen of England against five hundred of -such ribaldry."[258] Apart from the utterances of these good Jingoes, -stray glimpses show us a people which not only is materially prosperous, -but is also bold in action, and can produce men of high moral ardour. In -the twentieth century the rural population is a bye-word for its -docility. Its ancestors in the sixteenth were notorious for their -restiveness. Hales, who knew and loved them, makes one of the characters -in his dialogue[259] suggest that men at arms should be used to put down -the disturbances made by them and by the unemployed weavers, only to -answer, through the lips of another, that to call in the military will -be the best way to make them riot all the more:--"Marie, I think that -waye wold be rather occasion of commotions to be stirred than to be -quenched, for the stomakes of Englishmen would never beare that, to -suffer such injuries and reproaches as I knowe suche (_i.e._ the men at -arms) use to do to the subjects of France." - - [256] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), p. 114, - quoting one of "the Spaniards in Queen Mary's days." "These - English have their houses made of sticks and dirt, but they fare - commonly so well as the king." - - [257] Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, chaps. iii. and - xiii. The Scots, he thinks, are only one degree less - faint-hearted than the French. "Thai ben often tymes hanged for - larceny, and stelynge off good in the absence off the owner - theroff. But ther hartes serve them not to take a manys gode, - while he is present, and woll defende it." - - [258] Coke, _Debate of Heralds_. See also the quotation, - Froude's _Henry VIII._, vol. i. chap, i., from a State Paper of - 1515: "What comyn folke in all this world may compare with the - comyns of England, in riches, freedom, liberty, welfare, and all - prosperity? What comyn folke is so mighty, so stronge in the - felde, as the comyns of England?" - - [259] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. 94. - -These humble people have their idealisms. They produce martyrs for the -new religion and for the old, Lollards who suffer persecution for -upholding the Wycliffite tradition in the quiet villages of -Buckinghamshire, Catholics who follow Aske in that wonderful movement of -northern England, the last of the crusades, in 1536, or fall in -Devonshire thirteen years later before the artillery of Herbert. Nor are -they altogether cut off from the springs of learning. For at the -beginning of the sixteenth century the upper classes have not yet begun -to covet education for themselves sufficiently to withhold it from the -poor. Bequests[260] show that the sons of well-to-do peasants may have -been among those godly yeomanry whom Latimer[261] described as once, in -happier social conditions than those amid which he preached, -frequenting the older universities, and the records of some sixteenth -century grammar-schools tell a similar story. Among the first twenty-two -names on the register of Repton[262] there are five gentlemen, four -husbandmen, nine yeomen, two websters or weavers, a carpenter, and a -tanner. - - [260] _Victoria County History_, Berkshire, ii., 208. In 1558 a - yeoman leaves his son a portion of land worth L10 a year "for - his keepinge and learninge in Oxford for five years nexte." On - the same page there is a case of a man described as a "yeoman" - who is tenant by copy of Court Roll. - - [261] Latimer's _Sermons_. The first sermon preached before King - Edward, March 8, 1549 (Everyman Series, p. 86): "We have good - statutes made for the commonwealth, as touching commoners and - enclosures; many meetings and sessions; but in the end of the - matter there cometh nothing forth. Well, well, this is one thing - I will say unto you; from whence it cometh I know, even from the - devil. I know his intent in it. For if ye bring it to pass that - the yeomanry be not able to put their sons to school (as indeed - universities do wondrously decay already); I say ye pluck - salvation from the people and utterly destroy the realm. For by - yeomen's sons the faith of Christ is and hath been maintained - chiefly." See also _A Supplication of the Poor Commons_ (E. E. - T. S.): "This thing causeth that suche possessioners as - heretofore were able and used to maintain their own children ... - to lernynge and suche other qualities as are necessary to be had - in this Your Highness Royalme, are now of necessitie compelled - to set theyr own children to labour, and al is lytle enough to - pay the lorde's rent, and to take the house anew at the end of - the yere." The children of yeomen had no doubt been educated - mainly for the Church, and some attained high position (_Surtees - Society_, vol. lxxix. pp. 263-264, for the son of a yeoman - becoming a Bishop, and vol. li. No. 53, the son of a yeoman - becoming subdeacon of York, vol. lxxix. pp. 176-177, for a - yeoman's son sent to school for fifteen years). But in the - fifteenth century this was not always so, v. Leach, _Educational - Charters_, p. 41, for a school founded in Yorkshire, a county - which "produced many youths endowed with light and sharpness of - ability, who do not all want to attain the dignity and elevation - of the priesthood, that these may be better fitted for the - mechanical arts and other concerns of this world." A case of - hostility to the education of the poorer classes based on the - idea that education should be reserved for "gentlemen" is given - _ibid._ p. 470, where the notorious Lord Rich and other - gentlemen argue "as for husbandsmen's children, they were more - meet ... for the plough and to be artificers than to occupy the - place of the learned sort. So that they wished none else to be - put to school, but only gentlemen's children." Cranmer retorted, - "Poor men's children ... are commonly more apt to apply their - study than is the gentleman's son delicately educated ... the - poor man's son by painstaking will be learned, when the - gentleman's son will not take the pains to get it, ... wherefore - if the gentleman's son be apt to learning let him be admitted; - if not apt, let the poor man's child being apt enter in his - room." - - [262] _Repton School Register_, 1564-1910. One of the - husbandmen kept his boy at school for ten years. The average - school life of the sons of seven yeomen was between six and - seven years; one stays for twelve years, going to school at five - and staying till seventeen. If one may judge by the attitude of - most modern parents ("I went to the mill when I was ten, and why - shouldn't Tommie?"), these men must have been pretty comfortably - off. - -But by that time much had changed, and for seventy years before these -documents begin the peasantry in many parts of England had had sterner -things to think of than the schooling of their children. - - - - -CHAPTER IV - -THE PEASANTRY (_continued_) - - -(e) _Signs of Change_ - -So far attention has been concentrated upon those phenomena which -suggest that, before the great agrarian changes of the sixteenth century -begin, there has been a period--one may date it roughly from 1381 to -1489--of increasing prosperity for the small cultivator. We have -emphasised the evidence of this upward movement which is given by the -growth among the peasantry of a freer and more elastic economy. We have -watched them shake off many of the restrictions imposed by villeinage -and build up considerable properties. We have seen how the custom of the -manor still acts as a dyke to defend them against encroachments, and to -concentrate in their hands a large part of the fruits of economic -progress. In the century from the Peasants' Revolt to the first Statute -against Depopulation, in spite of the political anarchy which disfigures -it, there is, as it seems to us an interval between one oppressive -regime and another, between the leaden weight of villeinage and the -stress and strain of the gathering power of competition. In that happy -balance between the forces of custom and the forces of economic -enterprise, custom is powerful, yet not so powerful that men cannot -evade it when evasion is desired; enterprise is growing, yet it has not -grown to such lengths as to undermine the security which the small man -finds in the established relationships and immemorial routine of -communal agriculture. - -There is, however, we need hardly say, another side to the picture, and -to that other side we must now turn. We must examine again from another -point of view some of the ground over which we have already travelled, -and we must modify the opinions which we have formed by bringing a fresh -range of facts into perspective. The piecemeal changes which have been -going on in the internal organisation of so many manors look forward as -well as back, and are of significance as throwing light on the larger -innovations of the later period. For one thing, they mean the appearance -among the customary tenantry of persons who are in a small way -capitalists, and who supply a link between the great farmer of the -sixteenth century and the agricultural organisation of earlier periods. -The emergence out of the mediaeval peasantry of prosperous cultivators, -occupying two or three times as much land as their grandfathers, is a -proof that holdings of a considerable size can be managed successfully, -and the farmers of the demesne are often drawn from among them. For -another thing, the inequality which has appeared among the holdings of -different tenants implies the growth of a state of things in which -innovations in the customary methods of agriculture are much more likely -to be made than they were when all the tenants were organised in fairly -well-defined classes. The smaller among them are still practising -subsistence farming when the larger are producing on a considerable -scale for the market, are acquiring capital, are extending their -holdings, are even becoming landlords themselves. There arises therefore -a divergence of agricultural methods and economic interests between -them, which is quite compatible with the fact that both large and small -tenants stand in the same legal relationship to the lord of whom they -hold. The enterprise which the former show in their dealings with land -and in encroaching on the routine of manorial cultivation cannot fail to -have a powerful influence in preparing the way for the individualistic -movement which sweeps over agriculture in the sixteenth century, and -from which the peasants, as a class, suffer so severely. The freedom -with which parcels of land change hands must inevitably weaken the -connection between the family and the holding, and result in leaving the -least successful without any land at all. The difficulty of maintaining -a peasant proprietary without restricting the alienation of land is one -which is familiar to modern Governments, and there is clear -evidence[263] that, even before the evictions of the sixteenth century -began to attract attention, a decline in the number of customary tenants -was brought about on a good many manors by the mere process of the -well-to-do buying up the poorer men's holdings. - - [263] I am inclined to think that an investigation of the - manorial records of the fifteenth century would show a - considerable decrease in the number of customary tenants, not as - a result of evictions, but simply as a consequence of one man - buying out another and forming one larger holding out of two or - more smaller ones. The evidence for this is as follows: (1) When - several holdings pass to one man there must be a diminution - unless more land is brought under cultivation. Such an - agglomeration of holdings has been shown to be very frequent. - (2) A comparison of fifteenth and sixteenth century surveys with - those of an earlier date shows a marked diminution in the number - of customary tenants (a) before complaints as to enclosure - become loud, and on manors where there is no trace of enclosing - by lords or large farmers; (b) on manors where more land is - cultivated by the customary tenants than at an earlier date. - Thus at Haversham there were 52 tenants of all kinds in 1305, 35 - in 1458, 14 in 1497 (_Victoria County History_, Gloucestershire, - vol. ii. pp. 61-62). On six Northumbrian manors, where there is - no sign of evictions on a large scale, there were 82 customary - tenants in 1294, and 37 in 1567, and where intermediate surveys - enable one to narrow the limiting points, one finds that there - has been a considerable diminution before the end of the - fifteenth century. On the four tithings, of South Newton, - Childhampton, Stovord, and Little Wishford, which made up the - manor of South Newton, customary tenants numbered at the - beginning of the fourteenth century 32, 7, 13, 13, and in 1567 - 10, 3, 7, 1, the average holding having grown from 10-1/2 to - about 43 acres (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke Surveys_). At Sutton - Warblington there were in 1351, 28 customary tenants, and in - 1568 there were 7, while the average acreage of each tenant's - holding had increased enormously (_Crondal Records_, Baigent). - At Dippenhall and Swanthrop, two tithings of the manor of - Crondal, the customary tenants numbered 40 in 1287, 24 in 1568, - while the average size of their holdings had risen from between - 18 and 19 to just under 35 acres. At Aldershot the number of - customary tenants during the same period fell from 48 to 37 - (_ibid._). Such figures are of course full of pitfalls. In the - North border warfare reduced the population, and the effects of - the Great Plague have to be considered. The great growth in the - size of holdings does, however, suggest that a diminution in the - number of customary tenants may have occurred without any - encroachments being made by lords on the customary land, and - merely through one tenant buying up the land of another. - -Such movements prepare the way for greater changes: petty capitalism is -naturally followed by capitalism on a larger scale. It is surely at -first sight somewhat surprising that the noticeable upward movement in -the condition of the rural population, which coincides with the -disappearance of villeinage and the growth of copyhold tenure, should -have been followed by the marked depression which all observers agree to -have occurred in the following century. Why should a class which has -displayed such remarkable signs of vigour and enterprise find such -difficulty in holding its own? An answer to this question cannot be -given till after a consideration of the new causes at work in the -sixteenth century. But may it not be that their position had to some -extent been undermined by the very changes which at first improved it, -and that the enterprise of the larger customary tenants, while it added -to their prosperity as long as they led the way in it, tended to weaken -the customary relations and the customary methods of agriculture which -had protected the small man, and to leave him at the mercy of -competitive forces which he could not control? Such an undulating line -of development, in which the small producer gains temporarily from the -expansion of markets and improved technical methods which ultimately rob -him of his independence, can be paralleled from the later history both -of agriculture[264] and of manufacturing industry. It seems to us to -offer a thread which connects the capitalist farmer of the sixteenth -century with the prosperous peasantry of the fifteenth. When there is -much buying and selling of land among the peasantry, much colonising of -new plots taken from the waste and the demesne, we should expect to see -the influence of competition beginning to override that of custom; we -should expect to see the paring away of communal restrictions to make -room for individual arrangements of a more elastic nature. In the -remainder of this chapter we shall approach this problem by considering -two movements--the growth at an early date of competitive rents on those -parts of manors where custom was weakest, and the enclosing of land by -customary tenants themselves. The former offers a precedent for the -rack-rents and excessive fines of which so much is heard in the -sixteenth century, the latter at once an analogy and a contrast with the -enclosures carried out by lords of manors and capitalist farmers, which -we shall discuss in Part II. - - [264] Thus the yeomen seem to have increased in prosperity at - the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century - (though at the same time large classes of agrarian workers were - suffering terribly), because the rise in prices made - corn-growing a gold-mine. The collapse came probably after 1815 - (see Johnson, _The Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, chap. - vii.). - - -(f) _The Growth of Competitive Rents on New Allotments_ - -The development of competitive rents is a subject which must always -possess a peculiar fascination for the historical economist, inasmuch -as the distribution of wealth depends to no small degree upon the manner -in which the surplus gains wrung from nature are shared between -different classes. The wealth which, under a regime of great estates and -leasehold tenure, accrues to a tiny body of landlords, is, in a -community of small freeholders, retained by the cultivating tenant, and, -when the tenure of land is such that custom sets a barrier to a rise in -rents, is divided between owner and occupier in a way which prevents the -former from absorbing the whole advantage of superior sites, or the -latter from being reduced to working for bare wages of management. The -causes which determine the allocation of rents must always be of crucial -importance for an understanding of economic conditions, and any change -which augments them, diminishes them, or varies the degree to which -different classes participate in them, is likely in time to produce a -substantial alteration both in the economic configuration of society and -in the possession of social privileges and political power. In modern -times, it is true, the enormous area from which food-stuffs are drawn, -and the relatively small space upon which manufacturing industry can be -concentrated, has made the differential payments accruing to the -landowner from varieties of soil and situation almost trifling compared -with the surpluses drawn from finance and manufacturing industry by the -infra-marginal capitalist and entrepreneur. Such "quasi-rents" are, -however, a comparatively modern phenomenon. In our period the basis of -wealth was land, and a crucial question is that of the manner in which -incomes drawn from land were determined. We have seen that in the -sixteenth century custom still ruled the payments made by most of the -copyhold tenants. But at that time there were many complaints of -rack-renting, and though we must leave till later an inquiry into their -justification, it will help us if we take a glance at the new forces, -which, even in the Middle Ages, were beginning to operate on the margin -of cultivation. - -The gradual extension of cultivation over the waste lands surrounding -the village fields, and the not infrequent addition of parts of the -lord's demesne to the tenants' holdings, was obviously the occasion, as -it took place, of a number of new agreements between the payer and -receiver of rents, which might or might not repeat the conditions of -existing contracts. When new land was broken up for tillage an attempt -seems in some cases to have been made by the manorial authorities to -assimilate its treatment, as far as payment was concerned, to that of -the existing customary holdings. The basis of the rent paid was a -comparison between the areas of the encroachments and the ordinary -holding of a customary tenant; the payment was so many ploughlands'[265] -worth, and sometimes the corresponding services were extracted from -them. On the other hand, the mere fact that the land was new land, which -did not come into the original scheme of manorial finance and -organisation, tended to make it the point from which new relationships -could spring. For one thing, it was the natural starting-point for the -process of substituting money rents for labour. When the customary -holdings offered a sufficient supply of labour for the cultivation of -the demesne, the manorial authorities naturally preferred to take the -payments for additional land in the shape of money rather than in -services of which they already had sufficient. Services are sometimes -exacted for the new encroachments, but they are the exception; and the -assimilation of the payments for these new holdings to those made for -the customary holdings was either not seriously attempted or was -unsuccessful. One can quite understand that, even if the lord wanted -labour services from those parts of the waste which were broken up and -added to the cultivated area, he might not be able to get the -improvements made on the old terms. Quite apart, therefore, from the -process of commutation, the growth of money rents developed as a natural -accompaniment of the growth of population. - - [265] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), p. 132-133, Rental of 1287: - "The same Hugh holds certain encroachments on payment of 3 - ploughlands' worth, 3 hens, and 3d. at the said term." "Emma of - Wyggeworthhall ... holds certain encroachments on payment - therefor 11s. 6d. and one ploughland's worth." These documents - throw much light on the whole process of the extension of - cultivation over the waste. - -The second point is more important. It is that the rents paid for the -new holdings taken from the waste differed from such money payments as -were made for the customary holdings, in that they were not to the same -extent dominated by custom, but were to a much greater extent influenced -by competition. This contrast is the tiny seed of great changes, and may -be illustrated by an example drawn from the south of England at a -comparatively early date. At Yateleigh,[266] one of the tithings of the -manor of Crondal, the absorption of the waste by the customary tenants -went on with great rapidity even in the thirteenth century, and in the -rental drawn up by the steward in 1287 we find the rents and services -paid for the customary holdings and the rents paid for the encroachments -set down side by side. The latter fall into a definite scheme which can -be picked out at a glance. With a very few exceptions the rent charged -for an acre of land taken from the waste is always 4d., and this is the -basis for all other payments for the varying portions of waste occupied -by the tenants. A two acre piece pays 8d. For a piece of 9-1/2 acres the -payment is still about 4-1/4d. per acre, the awkward sum of 3s. 4-1/2d. -The rents and services of the customary holdings, however, cannot be -reduced to any such simple and uniform plan of adjusting rent to -acreage. In the first place all of them, whatever their size, are liable -to an initial charge of 9-1/2d., called "Pondpany." In the second place -there is only the roughest correspondence between the amount of land -held by a tenant and the payment which he makes. A holding of 22 acres -pays 2s. 10d., but so does a holding of 32 acres, while one of 29 acres -pays 2s. 2d. Holdings of 12-1/2, of 16, and of 18-1/2 acres all make -exactly the same payment of 2s. In short, though it would not be quite -true to say that the payment made bears no relation to the size of the -holding, the relation which it bears is not at all definite and precise. -It is a general relation applying rather to groups of holdings roughly -marked off from others by broad differences in extent, not to individual -holdings. There is no standard price per acre at all, such as appears in -a modern land market, and such as exists for the land taken from the -waste. - - [266] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 116-120. - -What is the reason of this remarkable contrast between the rents of -pieces of land lying quite near to each other and held by the same -tenants, which causes the payment for one set of holdings, the -encroachments, to be adjusted uniformly to the area held, and the other, -the customary holdings, to be rented apparently without any economic -plan at all? The answer is that the payments for the encroachments and -the payments for the customary holdings, if they are both to be called -rents, are rents of very different kinds. The payments made for the -customary holdings are not based directly on the economic value of the -land, but on the value of commuted services, and all the holdings, -though of unequal size, are liable to much the same services. All make a -general payment of 9-1/2d., because that sum is the value of some -payment in kind or service which they had made before the money payment -took its place. Holdings of 32 acres and 22 acres, just as holdings of -12-1/2 and 18-1/2 acres, make the same payments, because the labour -rents had been only very roughly adjusted to the size of the holdings, -and these payments are commuted labour rents, not rents fixed by putting -up an acre for leasing and taking what can be got for it. It is of -course quite true that services and the size of holdings were connected, -and that therefore the money rents which took the place of services and -the size of holdings were connected also. But the connection is rough, -arrived at by apportioning between holdings the labour services needed -to cultivate the demesne, without distinguishing precisely differences -of a few acres in the size of different holdings, and the subsequent -money rents are not adjusted to the acreage because they express the -roughness of the original apportionment. - -Now clearly these considerations did not apply to the rents paid for the -encroachments which were taken from the waste. The greater part of them -had never been liable to labour services at all. Each acre stood by -itself, as it were, as simply a piece of cultivatable land of a certain -area, not part of a complex on which certain obligations had been -imposed. Each, therefore, gets a market value, based on what will be -given for it, much sooner than does the land making up the customary -holdings, which are not exposed to the levelling influence of the market -because they are bound together by their place in the social -organisation of the manor. Hence it is on this land, the land leased -piecemeal from the waste by tenants who were prosperous enough to afford -the extra outlay, that one gets the appearance of something like true -competitive rents, because it is here that commercial influences have -freest play and are least checked by their subordination to custom. In -the same way, when the tenants at Brightwalton[267] do the full quota of -work demanded, the rent of their customary holdings is abated -accordingly. But not so the rent of the new land which was once part of -the waste: in fixing its rent the lord is not checked by any collective -sense on the part of the village community; he has a free hand and will -make the best bargain he can. - - [267] Camden Society, 1857. Rental and Custumal of the Manor of - Brightwalton. Under the heading virgators it is said, "If they - do the full day's work set out above each of them ought to have - his rent reduced 12d." Under the heading of villeins holding - assarted land it is said, "Be it known that no customary tenant - shall have any reduction of rent of the lands which he holds by - way of assart or in the common of Greeneholt for any office or - work to be done for the lord." - -Thus, at a very early date, a fringe of leasehold land forms itself -round the manor in addition to the ordinary customary holdings. Because -it is on the margin of cultivation the initial rent is low, and because -the land is leased the rent can be raised. Exactly the same thing -applies to the leasing of the demesne, and sometimes even to the land -which one tenant hires from another, because here also the element of -competition enters to adjust rents in accordance with supply and demand -and with little regard to the influence of custom. When the greater part -of the demesne is still cultivated by the labour of villeins, and only -small plots are leased to the tenants by way of experiment, the bailiff -balances one method against the other, and recommends the resumption of -the land which "would pay better in the hands of the lord."[268] On some -manors, it is true, demesne land seems to have been merged inextricably -in the customary holdings, and to have been held later, like them, by -copy of court roll.[269] But the manorial authorities were anxious to -keep it separate precisely because it was recognised that if kept -separate it could be let at a competitive rent. Thus the charter which -was granted to the little borough of Holt[270] in Denbighshire, in 1413, -provided that the tenants should pay for "every burgage 12d., for every -curtilage 12d., for every acre of land belonging to their free burgages -12d., and for every acre of land which was wont to be of the lord's -demesne two shillings." And though, during the confusion of the -following century, much of the rent appears not to have been collected, -the Crown, of whom the burgesses hold, does not forget that a high rent -was due from the demesne, and one hundred and fifty years later requires -them to bring up their payments for it to the level fixed in 1413. At -Castle Combe, in the middle of the fifteenth century, one finds the -steward of the manor watching the land market with a view to getting the -best price that he can for the demesne, and speculating whether "any man -will ferme the parkis and the conyes at any better price above X marks -than yt ys now."[271] The same tendency towards competitive rents can be -seen equally well in the case of the land leased by one tenant from the -holdings of others, which for one reason or another have been -surrendered to the lord. Thus at Mildenhall,[272] in 1381, a villein -pays for his land nearly 1s. 6d. an acre, a very high rent, which is at -once explained when it is seen that his holding consists of pieces of -land held on a ten years' lease from the holdings of five or more other -tenants. Elsewhere one can almost see the bidding up of rents going on. -For what else can happen when the demesne lands of a manor are leased -to four tenants who, in turn, make their profit by leasing them again to -the other tenants,[273] or when a villein pays L6 to enter on two acres -of arable land,[274] or when land is worth 3s. 6d. an acre after the -rents and services have been discharged from it to the lord,[275] so -that the holder who cares to sublet can reap a substantial profit on the -difference? - - [268] Camden Society, _Inquisition of the Manors of Glastonbury - Abbey_, Brentmarsh, 1189. A tenant holds "1 acre de terra - arabili in dominico, utilius esset quod esset in manu domini." - - [269] _e.g._, on the Devonshire, Somerset, and Cornwall manors - surveyed by Humberstone _temp._ Phil, and Mary (_Topographer and - Genealogist_, vol. i.). - - [270] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of the Survey of the Manor - of Holt, 1620 (Wrexham Free Library, _Ancient Local Records_, - vol. ii.). - - [271] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 258 (1440-1550). - - [272] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk. I quote the writer's - remarks in full. "The bailiff's accounts for the manor begin in - that very year [1381], and the one striking feature in them is - the system of leases which appears to have gradually displaced - other kinds of tenure since the time of the pestilence. A few - are for forty years, but most are for ten or six years.... The - land so leased is not mainly demesne land. It belongs largely to - villein tenements that have fallen into the lord's hands, and - the process of consolidation described had already taken place - at Mildenhall. The land held by John Kelsynd on a ten years' - lease includes, for example, '3 acres of Frere's, Hayward's and - Willway's tenement in Bradinhawfield, 1 acre of Holmes' tenement - in Suttonfield, 5 acres of Zabulo's tenement in one piece at - Lambwash,' and the rent of the whole 22 acres is 31s. 1d., or - nearly 1s. 5d. an acre, an extremely high rent for land not - stated to be meadow or pasture." - - [273] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 203. - - [274] Massingberd, _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_, Introduction, p. - xxx. - - [275] _Ibid._ - -The truth is that, at any rate by the middle of the fifteenth century, -the rents of different parts of a manor are being settled on quite -different principles. They are not all customary rents, as they tended -to be at an earlier date, nor are they all competitive rents, as they -tend to be to-day. The latter are growing because of the improved -economic position of the tenants, which enables them to hire or purchase -land over and above their customary holdings, and their growth has been -greatly accelerated by the enormously increased opportunities for land -speculation which were offered when the Great Plague brought thousands -of acres into the land market. It is in the demand put forward by the -men of Essex in 1381,[276] "that no acre of land, which is held in -villeinage or serfdom, may be had at a higher rent than 4d.," rather -than in the reference to the already decaying labour services, that -there is a warning of troubles to come. But long after that, as we have -already seen, a great deal of land is still held by rents which are -customary and little influenced as yet by the play of competition. We -have, in fact, what is almost an illustration of modern theories of -rent, with this difference, that though the condition of competitive -rents being charged appears as the margin of cultivation is lowered, -custom at first prevents the owners of land from taking advantage of -their position and asking the full competitive rents from the holders of -the superior sites, so that part of the surplus is for a long time -enjoyed by the tenants. Such a state of things is clearly a precarious -one. When the tenements of Hugh and Thomas are being rack-rented there -will obviously be a strong temptation to cause Walter's to follow suit, -and if the custom is a barrier to a rise in rents, but not to a rise in -fines, to make heavy fines do on the latter what high rents do on the -former. If it had been given to our peasants to happen on some monstrous -mediaeval Ricardo, would they not have wondered how long such an -intermingling of payments fixed by custom and payments fixed by -competition was likely to continue, and have foreseen, what actually -occurred in the sixteenth century, an attempt, though not always a -successful attempt, to force up the payments for customary holdings to -something like the maximum which the condition of agriculture would -allow? They would have said:--"This fellow fears not God, neither -regards he man. He is a usurer, a great taker of advantages, an -oppressor of his neighbour. We will beat him, and put him in our stocks, -and maim his cattle. Nevertheless in the bottom of his foul mind there -is some glimmering of sense, and we will give heed to his warning. The -devil brings it, but it may be that God sent it. The Court shall recite -our good customs once more, and our young men shall look to their bows. -Weapon bodeth peace."[277] - - [276] Stubbs, _Constl. Hist._, vol. ii. p. 479, n. 5. - - [277] The word "usury" denoted in the Middle Ages and in the - sixteenth century not merely exorbitant interest on a loan, but - any oppressive bargain, including the raising of prices, the - beating down of wages, and the rack-renting of land (see _e.g. A - Discourse on Usurie_, by Thomas Wilson, 1584). The phrase "a - great taker of advantages" comes from a complaint by the people - of Hereford against an unpopular divine who lent money at - interest and rack-rented land (_S. P. D. Eliz._, cclxxxvi. Nos. - 19 and 20), and the phrase "weapon bodeth peace" from an account - of an agrarian dispute in Lancashire--it is the sort of grim - joke that stubborn and humorous people would appreciate--in _L. - and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xiii., Pt. II., p. 535. "On Sunday - night Wheateley sent his daughter to bid him to come to Parson's - Close to mow Mr. Tempest's meadow there. Had heard that whoever - should mow the meadow should be beaten off the ground, and sent - to ask if he should bring a weapon. Wheateley sent word again - 'howe weapon boded peace, therefore bring his weapon with him.' - Brought his bow and shafts." - - -(g) _The Progress of Enclosure among the Peasantry_ - -While competitive conditions are creeping forward on those parts of the -village lands which have been most recently taken in, even more -momentous changes are occurring on the customary holdings themselves. By -the end of the fifteenth century we are walking through fields that are -being cut up with the hedges which give the dullest English landscape -the trim beauty of a garden. For a century and a half, while in the -great world the new state rises on the ruins of the Middle Ages, while -Tudors give way to Stuarts, and Stuarts browbeat and are browbeaten by -ever more impatient Parliaments, in courts customary and sometimes in -noisier assemblies not without arms, we shall be discussing whether -those hedges are to stand or fall. The great enclosing movement has -begun. - -Like most great economic changes it has begun quietly and for a long -time men are doubtful whether it is a great change at all, and, if it is -mischievous, in what exactly the mischief consists. Nor indeed does the -mass of the population, who feel the new conditions most, ever become -quite clear on this point. Events are too various and move too swiftly -for them. They see that great men enclose with little regard to the -interests of their poorer neighbours. They curse them for their -enclosures,[278] and believe with the faith of an age which has -re-discovered the Bible, that they, like greedy Ahab, the father of -enclosers, will be cursed. When the encloser should call on God to -witness his deed the devil's name starts to his lips. His cattle are -struck by lightning, and his children do not live to reap the fruits of -his iniquity. But the peasants enclose themselves, and though they feel -the difference between one sort of enclosing and another, they are -simple men who cannot make the matter plain to lawyers and -commissioners, and when things reach a certain point they will fight it -out. - - [278] For the popular attitude towards enclosures see below, pp. - 313-340, and Leland (quoted Hone, _The Manor and Manorial - Records_, p. 117): "The Duke of Buckingham made a fair park by - the Castle of Thornbury, Gloucestershire, and took very much - fair land in, very fruitful of corn, now fair lands for - coursing. The inhabitants cursed the Duke for those lands so - enclosed." I cannot refrain from quoting the following passage - (_Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii): "To the Right Honble. - House of Parliament now assembled, the Humble Petition of the - Mayor and Free Tenants of the Borough of Wootton Basset in the - Countie of Wilts, Humble sheweth to this Honourable House" [that - their common has been seized and enclosed by the lord of the - manor, who] "did divers times attempt to gaine the possession - thereof by putting in of divers sorts of cattle, in so much that - at length, when his servants did put in cowes by force into the - said common, many times and present upon the putting of them in, - the Lord in his mercy did send thunder and lightning from - heaven, which did make the cattle of the said Francis Englefield - [the lord of the Manor] to run so violent out of the said - ground, that at one time one of the beasts was killed therewith; - and it was so often that people that were not there in presence - to see it, when it thundered would say, Sir Francis Englefield's - men were putting in their cattle into the land, and so it was, - and as soon as those cattle were gone forth, it would presently - be very calm and fair, and the cattle of the towne would never - stir, but follow their feeding as at other times, and never - offer to move out of the way." For the allusion to invoking the - devil, see Moore, _The Crying Sin of England_, &c. It was said - that the grantees of monastic estates died out in three - generations (Erdeswick, _Survey of Stafford_, ed. Harwood, p. - 55). The same was said of enclosers (Moore, _op. cit._). - -In every age there are words which are sufficiently definite to become a -battle-cry, and yet which contain so many shades of meaning and are -susceptible of such varying interpretations, that those who seem to -differ most profoundly really differ because they are using the same -word to express quite different ideas. Such a word was enclosing. For -many years it was a burning question--with statesmen, with preachers, -with the mass of the peasantry. But those who tell us exactly what it -meant are few, and they tell us hardly more than is sufficient to show -that it meant several different things in different connections. The -picture of enclosure which carried Ket's followers against the walls of -Norwich was that immortalised two centuries later in Goldsmith's -"Deserted Village"; a vision of village cornfields turned into dreary -expanses of pasture, where sheep grazed amid ruined homesteads and -cattle were stalled in the mouldering churches.[279] When the scientific -agriculturists of the age eulogised enclosures, they thought of a more -orderly and productive cultivation arising in place of the intolerable -"mingle mangle" of the open fields. The Levellers, who in the -seventeenth century carried on the agitation against enclosure, had no -objection to such as took place "only or chiefly for the benefit of the -poor."[280] The panegyrists of enclosing like Fitzherbert and Norden -denounced[281] lords who made enclosure an occasion to rack-rent and -depopulate. The Justices of Nottinghamshire[282] complain to the -Government that enclosure drives people into the already overburdened -towns, but they are careful to explain that enclosures of less than five -acres in size improve agriculture without depopulating the country. The -Government itself under Elizabeth sets its face against the enclosures -which produce evictions, but nevertheless expressly sanctions the -exchanging of strips, which is desired chiefly in order that small -enclosures may be made.[283] In this phase of the eternal quarrel -between the plain man and the technical expert both the technical expert -and the plain man were right, and needed only a definition to unite -against the avarice and oppression which snatched a golden harvest from -their confusion. It is the tragedy of a world where man must walk by -sight that the discovery of the reconciling formula is always left to -future generations, in which passion has cooled into curiosity, and the -agonies of peoples have become the exercise of the schools. The devil -who builds bridges does not span such chasms till much that is precious -to mankind has vanished down them for ever. - - [279] See the ballad of Nowadays (1520): - - "Envy waxeth wonders strong, - The Riche doth the poore wrong, - God of his mercy sufferith long - The Devil his workes to worke. - The Townes go downe, the land decayes; - Of cornefeldes playne layes, - Gret men makithe now a dayes - A shepecote in the Church. - - The places that we Right holy call - Ordeyned ffor Christyan buriall - Off them to make an ox-stall - These men be wonders wyse; - Commons to close and kepe, - Poor folk for bred to cry and wepe; - Towns pulled down to pastur shepe, - This ys the newe gyse." - - [280] "The Leveller's Petition" (Bodleian Pamphlets, 1648, c. - 15, 3, Linc.). - - [281] Fitzherbert, _Surveying_: "I advertise and exhort in God's - behalf all manner of persons, that ... the lords do not heighten - the rents of their tenants or cause them to pay more rent or a - greater fine. A greater bribery and extortion a man cannot do - than upon his own tenants, for they dare not say him naye, nor - yet complain." Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book III.: - "Lords should not depopulate by usurping enclosures, a thing - hateful to God and offensive to man." - - [282] _Victoria County History, Nottinghamshire_, vol. ii. p. - 282. - - [283] 39 Eliz. c. i. - -One such distinction, however, we must draw at once. Enclosure is -usually thought of in connection with the encroachments made by lords of -manors or their farmers upon the land over which the manorial population -had common rights or which lay in the open arable fields. And this is on -the whole correct. This is what the word would have suggested to nine -men out of ten in our period: this aspect of the movement was the most -rapid in its development and the most far-reaching in its effects. But -there was another side to it which was at once earlier in point of time -and productive of quite dissimilar results. There is abundant evidence -to show that the open field system of agriculture, with its intermingled -strips and its collective, as opposed to individual, rules of -cultivation, was undergoing a gradual dissolution from within even -before the larger innovations of great capitalists gave it a shock from -without. At the very time when the peasantry agitated most bitterly they -were often hedging and ditching their own little holdings and nibbling -away fragments of the waste to be cultivated in severalty. It is, of -course, true that the effect of enclosure by the lord of a manor or -large farmer was usually very different from that of enclosure by the -customary tenants. The latter was a slow process of attrition, which -went on quietly from one generation to another, often no doubt after -discussions in the manorial court. The former was frequently an -invasion. But though their social effects were dissimilar, from a -technical point of view they were both part of the process through which -cultivation at the discretion of the individual was substituted for -cultivation in accordance with common customary rules. Enclosing by -lords and large farmers was not so much a movement running counter to -existing tendencies, as a continuation on a larger scale and with -different results of developments which in parts of England were already -at work. Great changes are best interpreted in the light of small, and -it will therefore be worth our while to look shortly at the sort of -enclosing which was being carried out by the peasantry themselves. - -First, one may review briefly what is told us by those who wrote on the -technique of agriculture. Fitzherbert[284] and Hales in the sixteenth -century, Norden and Lee in the seventeenth, make it quite plain that, -apart from enclosures carried out by lords of manors, a movement is -going on among the tenants which is also known by the name of enclosure. -It has as its object the formation of compact fields out of the -scattered strips, and the substitution of closes surrounded by hedges -for rights of grazing over the common pasture, meadow, and waste. It -has as its effects a great increase in the output of wheat, -opportunities for better grazing and stock-breeding, and a consequent -rise in the value of land; the improvement being partly due to -psychological[285] reasons, to the fact that a man who has a free hand -will put more labour into the land than one who is fettered by customary -rules, partly to technical causes such as the better draining and -cleaning of land which the enclosure of arable ground makes possible, -the greater security offered against damage done by straying cattle, the -improvement in the quality of pasture when it is no longer liable to be -eaten bare by the beasts of a whole township. The method by which such a -change takes place is re-allotment. The construction of -hedges--enclosing--is simply the machinery by which the new lines of -demarcation between one man's land and another's are drawn and kept -firmly in their place; and though the word _enclosure_ gives a vivid -picture of the alteration which is produced in the appearance of the -country, _re-allotment_ or _redivision_ of land describes much better -the process by which it is brought about. The ideal form of it is -described by Fitzherbert.[286] All the landlords in a village must come -to an agreement that their tenants should exchange their holdings with -each other. An exact statement of the area of land in tillage and -pasture held by each tenant must then be made. When this has been done, -every man is "to change with his neighbour, and to leye them (_i.e._ the -acres, which were formerly scattered) together, and to make him one -several close in every field, to leye them together in one field and to -make one several close for them all; and also another several close for -his portion of his common pasture, and also his portion of his meadow in -a several close by itself, and all kept in several both winter and -summer. And every cottager to have his portion assigned to him according -to his rent." Such enclosure does not, it is contended, interfere -unfairly with any one's vested interests. It makes a spatial -rearrangement of property, but it does not alter its economic -distribution. It does not result in evictions or depopulation. It simply -converts rights exercised jointly over a larger area into rights -exercised individually over a smaller one. The map is dissolved into -scattered pieces, but it is put together again; and when it is put -together all the pieces are still there. The tenants part with shares in -the common fields, meadows, and pastures, to get smaller fields, -meadows, and pastures to themselves. The latter are more valuable than -the former. What is lost in extension is gained in intension. - - [284] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. Norden, _op. cit._: "One - acre enclosed is worth one and halfe in common." _Commonweal of - this Realm of England_, p. 56. Lee, _A Vindication of a - Regulated Enclosure_. - - [285] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49: "That which - is possessed of many in common is neglected of all." - - [286] Fitzherbert, _Surveying_, chap. xl. - -But this account is an ideal one, a description of the most excellent -way, not necessarily a description of what is being actually done. For -that we must turn to the surveys. In the picture of agriculture which is -given by the surveyors one can see the open field system of cultivation -at almost every stage of completeness and disintegration at different -places. On many manors there is hardly any sign of the scattered strips, -which make up the individual tenant's holding, coalescing into -compactness, hardly any sign of encroachments upon either the common -pasture or the meadow or the waste. Elsewhere one finds that though the -bulk of the land still lies in the open fields, and though the greater -part of the meadow and pasture is undivided, a considerable proportion -has been enclosed by the tenants and is held in severalty. Elsewhere one -finds the common meadow split up and the arable enclosed, the arable -enclosed and the waste unenclosed, or all of them enclosed more or less -completely. It would be of great interest and importance to determine -the relative preponderance of enclosure by the tenants in different -parts of the country, and to see how far the districts where this type -of enclosure by consent had been commonest were identical with those -where the reports of the Royal Commissions of the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries show that depopulating enclosures made least way. -Very probably it would be found that the latter movement went on least -rapidly where the former had proceeded furthest, and that where the -tenants themselves had from an early date substituted enclosed for open -field husbandry, as apparently they had in Kent, Essex, Cornwall, and -parts of Devonshire[287] they had least to fear from that kind of -enclosure which was accompanied by encroachments on the part of manorial -authorities, and which seems to have produced most dislocation in the -Midlands and Eastern counties. But this is a suggestion which our -material is too scanty either to confirm or disprove. Enclosure by -consent did not cause popular disorder; and therefore we cannot say, -taking the country as a whole, how far enclosure on the part of the bulk -of the smaller tenants had proceeded. We can only give cases which show -that on some manors it had advanced very far, and which bear out the -evidence of the writers on agriculture as to there being a well-defined -movement away from open field husbandry on the part of the peasants -themselves, without attempting to determine its extent or its -geographical distribution. - - [287] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49. _Victoria - County History_, Essex. I am inclined to say "almost certainly" - rather than "very probably" (see below, pp. 167 and 262-263). - -Look, first, for example, at the picture given by the Commission of -1517. Thanks to Mr. Leadam,[288] we are able to say what the average -acreage of the enclosures in each county represented was, what -proportion of the enclosures was due to lords of manors, lay or -ecclesiastical, and what proportion was due to the tenants. Now it is -generally, though not universally, true that the enclosures reported to -this Commission fall into two main types. The first consists of -considerable enclosures carried out mainly by lords of manors. The -second consists of smaller enclosures carried out mainly by other -classes. Thus the five districts where the average size of the -enclosures made is largest are Cambridgeshire, Gloucestershire, -Yorkshire North Riding, Yorkshire West Riding, Yorkshire East Riding, -where it is 129, 96, 84, 77, 62 acres respectively, and in these the -proportion of the enclosures which is due to the lords of manors is high -also--72 per cent., 52 per cent., 79 per cent., 92 per cent., 64 per -cent. Contrast with the position in these counties that obtaining in -Berkshire, in Salop, and in London and its suburbs. In Berkshire the -average size of an enclosure is 32 acres, in Salop 18, in London 10, and -in these districts the lords play a much smaller part in enclosing. -They are responsible for 42 per cent. of the acreage enclosed in -Berkshire, 12 per cent. of that enclosed in Salop, 3 per cent. of that -enclosed in the vicinity of London. Does not this suggest that in parts -of the country--we cannot yet say what parts--there is much small -enclosing by small men? - - [288] _Trans. R. H. S._, New Series, vol. vi., and _The Domesday - of Enclosures_. - -Turn next to the story told by the surveys. Though Wiltshire is on the -whole a country of recent enclosure, there was a certain amount of -several farming on the part of the customary tenants on the Wiltshire -manors in the middle of the sixteenth century. Out of 4128-1/4 acres -held by them on eight manors the surveys show that 202-1/4 acres lie in -closes.[289] This is a very small proportion, only 5 per cent., and -suggests that on most of them the holdings lay in the open fields, and -that, as a general rule, the common utilisation of meadows and pastures -still obtained. On one, however, as much as 132 acres out of 1103, or -just under 12 per cent. were enclosed, and at best these are minimum -figures which do not accurately represent how far the movement had gone; -for, though a surveyor would not describe unenclosed land as enclosed, -he might very well class enclosed land with other land of the same -description, for example as meadow or pasture, and omit to state that it -was occupied in severalty. On some Staffordshire[290] manors again there -are similar tentative beginnings of enclosure, and a similar -impossibility of determining its actual extent. Then, too, there are -manors where the greater part of the land still lies in the open fields, -but where enclosure has proceeded a little further. At Salford,[291] in -Bedfordshire, eight of the tenants have enclosed about 51 acres, which -they hold separate from, and in addition to, their holdings in the open -fields, in amounts varying from 2 to 17 acres. At Weeden Weston,[292] -in Northamptonshire, the three largest tenants (apart from the farmer of -the demesne) hold "in several ground enclosed" 28 acres. In addition to -this, part of the manor called "the mere land," the exact nature of -which is obscure, has been broken off and split up among all the -fourteen tenants, some holding only 2 or 3 acres, others holding 15 or -20 acres. Finally, as examples of manors where enclosure by the -customary tenants was carried furthest, we may take those of -Edgeware[293] and Kingsbury in Middlesex. From the admirable maps of -these two manors, which were made in 1597, no one could even guess that -the open field method of cultivation had ever existed there. The land of -each of the numerous tenants lies in fields, often quite small fields, -which are separated from each other by hedges. Instead of the "spider's -web" of the older method we have the irregular chessboard of modern -agriculture. - - [289] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of the Manors of William, First - Earl of Pembroke_. The manors are South Newton, Washerne, - Donnington, Knyghton Estoverton and Phiphelde, Wynterbourne - Basset, Byschopeston, and South Brent and Huish (the last in - Somersetshire.) The manor where most is enclosed by the - customary tenants is Donnington. - - [290] _e.g._, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, - No. 70, Barton (3 & 4 Ph. and Mary): "J. Whiting ... 1 close of - 7 acres by copy ... J. Whiting ... 1/2 virgate ... 1 intake of 2 - acres by copy." - - [291] All Souls' Maps (survey on back of map of Salford). - - [292] _Ibid._, Weedon Weston. - - [293] _Ibid._, Edgeware and Kingbury. All these four instances - come from the last decade of the sixteenth century. - -These instances tell us nothing of the origin, extent, or distribution -of the movement which they represent. They are useful merely as offering -concrete specimens of enclosure on the parts of free and customary -tenants, which confirm what is told us by the surveyors. There was -certainly a well-defined trend away from the methods of common field -agriculture taking place in the course of the sixteenth century and -before it on the part of the peasantry. We can, however, go further than -this; and premising that in the infinite variety of rural conditions in -different parts of the country any classification must be somewhat -arbitrary, we can distinguish two main elements in the movement. - -In the first place there is among the tenants on some manors something -like a deliberate movement towards the substitution of "several" for -open field husbandry. This was a change which occurred almost -spontaneously when the economic interests of the majority of tenants -were pushing in the same direction, and can be seen affecting both -pasture, meadow, and arable holdings. The Commission[294] of 1517 found -that in certain places land had been enclosed neither by individual -landlords, nor by individual tenants, but by "the village," and the -manorial documents give us a clue to what such entries mean. In the -surveys of the sixteenth century we not infrequently find that meadows -and pastures which were originally occupied in common have been split up -among the tenants, so that each has the exclusive occupation of a few -acres, the share which each tenant takes being proportioned more or less -exactly to his holding of arable in a manner which precludes the idea -that the change can have taken place by piecemeal individual -encroachments, or in any way except by an intentional redistribution of -land, in which the interests of all the tenants received -consideration.[295] Such a division of meadow and pasture is paralleled -by cases in which the re-allotment of arable holdings is carried out -both by freeholders and by copyholders almost exactly in the manner -prescribed by Fitzherbert. Thus at Ewerne,[296] in Dorsetshire, the -customary tenants got permission from the lord to make enclosure on the -open fields; appointed persons to "extend and tread them out," and then -united the dispersed strips into compact holdings, so that "the more -part of the manor was enclosed, and every tenant and farmer occupied his -land several to himself." At Mudford, in Somersetshire, the tenants were -found by the surveyor in 1568 to be contemplating the same step. A -similar course was taken in the early seventeenth century on several -Northumbrian manors, of which Cowpen[297] may be taken as a typical -example. - - [294] _e.g._ Whitecote (Salop) 40 acres, and at Wyndeferthing - (Norf.) 25 acres are enclosed by the _villata_ (see Leadam, - _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi.). - - [295] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. At Washerne - nineteen out of twenty-one customary tenants held separate - pieces of meadow and pasture, the largest 7-1/2 and the smallest - 3-1/2 acres, but usually almost equal. At Donnyngton, twelve out - of thirty-two customary tenants had pieces of land "extractum de - communia." R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lancaster, Bdle. - 3, No. 29, Agarsley (Staffs., 1611).; here the pasture appears - to have been divided up among the copyholders, but there are - considerable inequalities in their shares. - - [296] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - - [297] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. In this case - enclosure was carried out by the freeholders. But the procedure - is similar to that at Ewerne. The allusion to "justice and - right" shows what the reason for the intermixing of strips had - been. - -The procedure followed by the freeholders of that township was to get -their land surveyed by an expert, to divide it into two great portions, -and to agree that each man should have an allotment in one or other of -the two divisions proportionate to the holding which he had occupied in -the open fields, due regard being had to the quality as well as the -acreage of each holding, "so that some have not all the best ground and -others all the worst, but that each man have justice and right." Such -instances may prove to be exceptional in the sixteenth century; it is -our impression that they were, and that the attempts which the peasantry -made to overcome the difficulties associated with the open field system -of cultivation more often took the form of individual exchanging of -strips, than of a formal agreement to abandon one method of cultivation -and to adopt another. But, even though exceptional, they are of some -interest as offering complete examples of changes which have been going -on more generally on a smaller scale and in a less systematic manner. -They afford a striking contrast to the enclosing by the manorial -authorities which we shall examine in a future chapter, and offer an -analogy to the enclosures which were carried out in the eighteenth and -nineteenth centuries. They resemble the latter in being a deliberate -attempt to make a clean sweep of the old system of open field -agriculture. They differ from them in being the outcome of voluntary -agreement among the tenants, not of legislation.[298] - - [298] We know why lords wanted to enclose much better than we - know why tenants wanted to enclose. Here is a petition from a - freeholder (_Northumberland County History_, vol. v. undated): - "To the Right Honourable Earl of Northumberland, William Bednell - ... gent., humbly prayeth: That where the said village of Over - Buston is held in common ... it would please your good lordship - to consent that partition may be made of the same, and that also - there may be convenient exchange of the arable lands lyinge in - the common fields there to be rateable reduced into severall by - the same partition for the reasons under-written. - - "First, for that the common and pasture of the said village - lying open, unfenced upon the common and fields of Wordon and - Bilton, wherein are many tenants and great number of cattle, the - profits of the same are continually by them surcharged, and your - lordship's tenants prevented. - - "By reason hereof divers quarrels and variances have happened, - and daily like to ensue between the tenants of both towns, by - chasing, rechasing, and impounding of their cattle damage - fezant, which cannot be kept out but by perpetual staffherding, - to the great charge of your honour's poor tenants. - - "Your lordship's tenants being four in number, unprovided to - keep able horses by reason of the want of convenient pastures - and meadow, may be enabled by this particion for that purpose. - - "Inclosure would greatly strengthen the said village, and your - lordship's tenants, against the incursions of Scotts and foren - ryders, which otherwyse, lying open, cannot be defended by the - number there, who are forced to watch generally together every - night, to their great charge and endurable toil. - - "This breeding betterment to the soil and ease to your - lordship's tenants will augment your honour's revenue there, - avoid forren commoners, prevent contentions, enable your - lordship's tenants to do your honour their requisite service, - and bind your orator to pray that your lordship live long in - happy state." - -Much more general, however, than enclosure by agreement of the whole -township, is the enclosure which takes place through the initiative of -individual tenants, who, without any common agreement as to a policy of -enclosure being reached by the village community as a whole, make -sporadic encroachments on the common pasture or waste, and consolidate -their arable holdings by exchanging strips with their neighbours. Our -best information on the first point is obtained from the manorial court -rolls. The court was the guardian of the customary methods of -cultivation. How far it could maintain them against a lord or his farmer -who wished to break them down, and how far it was merely his mouthpiece, -is a difficult question, which we need not at present discuss. Certainly -it did occasionally uphold the common rule of the township even against -the lord; certainly the mere fact that when that rule is uncertain the -lord refers the matter to the court in the form of a series of questions -which it is to answer, gave the tenants the opportunity of building up a -kind of case law which can hardly have failed to act as a brake upon -arbitrary action by the manorial authorities. But however impotent it -may often have been when confronted by an enclosing lord of the manor, -its rules set very effective limits to the discretion exercised by -tenants in their agricultural arrangements, and it checked enclosing by -individuals for several reasons. It was of the essence of the open field -system of tillage, and of the joint use of common meadows and pastures, -that unauthorised encroachments by a single tenant should be an -inconvenience to his neighbours. If made on the arable, they might -interfere with the customary rotation of crops, and would certainly -diminish the area of land available for the village cattle on the -fallows and after harvest. If made on the common waste, they threw the -village economy into confusion by upsetting the arrangements under -which each holding could place so many beasts to be grazed there. "It -is both law and reason," wrote a surveyor grieved by such aggression on -the part of a large tenant, "that every tenant of like land and like -rent have like portion in all things upon the common pasture."[299] The -court, as the upholder of manorial custom, was occupied with discovering -and checking breaches of it. On manors where there was not sufficient -grazing land to allow of each tenant pasturing as many beasts as he -pleased, it fixed "the stint" which each was allowed to turn out on the -common. It decided whether rights of pasture were confined to old -tenements or whether they could be extended to cottages recently -erected. It made rules as to what fields should be sown with what crops. -It would fine a man "for refusing to consult his neighbours touching the -common affairs of the township."[300] - - [299] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. The Surveyor of - Buston (1569). - - [300] _Ibid._ - -Such action does not, of course, necessarily imply any highly developed -communal organisation of village life. When four householders to-day -bring an action against a fifth who has interfered with "ancient -lights," they act simply as individuals who are temporarily united in -defence of a common interest, and when a court customary fines a man for -over-stocking the common pasture, it is possible to argue that there is -no more in its action than the temporary alliance of individuals to -suppress a nuisance. Yet such a view of the matter is incomplete. The -common interest is there in both cases; but in the case of the village -community it is a permanent, not merely a passing, ground for -co-operation; and if we must take to heart the warnings given by some -legal historians not to see communism where there is only joint action, -we must also insist that common action, which is in effect communal -action, is quite possible without those who act either possessing, or -feeling the need of possessing, any definite status.[301] It is perhaps -not too presumptuous to suggest that the very precision with which the -lawyer applies his keen analysis of juristic conceptions to remove the -misconceptions of the lay mind, is sometimes an obstacle to the -understanding of forms of organisation created by the daily routine of -men quite unversed in the law. An employers' association or a trade -union to-day in an industry which is not highly organised is, during -two-thirds of its life, a mere collection of individuals. But in an -emergency it can show very effectively that it is the organ of a common -will. It is surely rather hard to deny the peasantry some measure of -corporate management of common interests because they cannot answer -questions as to the legal nature of a corporation, because they do not -express their communal arrangements by the use of terms of art which -they would not have understood. The economist, at any rate, will look at -practice rather than theory. He will be inclined to doubt whether the -villagers were any clearer as to the basis of their associated action -than the mass of trade unionists were between 1875 and 1906. But he will -see that, like trade unionists, they do in fact habitually act together -and act effectively for the regulation of their common interests. No -doubt such action was often mere adherence to a customary rule. But it -is possible again to draw the antithesis between custom and organisation -too sharply. After all custom does not work by itself. Especially in -times of change, like the sixteenth century, it only works in so far as -men make it work. On some manors it is frequently changed by the court, -and clearly, when it is changed, we have not automatism but deliberate -action. - - [301] For references to the discussion on this point, see below, - p. 244. - -But the power of a rule is not recognised till it is broken, and it is -just these collisions between the plan of cultivation upheld by the -court and the interests of individual tenants, which show how prevalent -are the small enclosures made by the latter. They begin very early and -are increasingly frequent throughout the fifteenth century. Let us make -the picture more precise by giving one or two instances. In 1405 some -customary tenants at Forncett[302] are fined 2s. 2d. because "they have -made enclosures of their lands within the manor against the custom of -the manor, on account of which action the tenants of the manor are not -able to have their common there." In 1418 the court at Castle[303] Combe -presents that three tenants "have sown the common fields and kept them -several without the licence of the lord, when they ought to be common, -to the common damage." At Ingoldmells,[304] in 1437, the court impounds -the sheep of some tenants who have "entered upon the fields of Burgh and -occupied the common there, where they have no common." At Coventry[305] -from the middle of the fifteenth century, and at Southampton[306] -throughout almost the whole of the century and a half following, -continuous war was waged by the Court Leet against those who "oppressed -the common" by over-stocking it with more than their authorised quota of -beasts. Yet, in spite of elaborate and ever-changing regulations which -were made as to the number which any person might place upon it, in -spite of bye-laws requiring them to be delivered personally or through a -servant into the charge of the town herdsman, ruling off aged animals -which were past work, and imposing heavy fines on offenders, the -constant references in the documents of the sixteenth century to pieces -of land which are held by customary tenants in severalty show that this -sporadic individualising of part of the manorial area had to a great -extent broken down the customary routine of cultivation, even on manors -where no extensive enclosures were carried out by the manorial -authorities. - - [302] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 80. - - [303] Scrope, _History of the Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, - p. 236. - - [304] Massingberd, _Ingoldmells Court Rolls_, p. 276. - - [305] M.D. Harris, _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii., pp. 445, 456, - 510, and elsewhere. - - [306] Hearnshaw, _Court Leet Records of Southampton, passim, - e.g._ 1551: "Thomas Betts and Thomas Fuller continue to oppress - the common with sheep, therefore they are fined 8s. each" (p. - 21). - -So far we have spoken of the encroachments by tenants on the common -pasture. The growth of several occupation could occur there with less -disturbance than on the arable holdings, because, if the pasture was a -large one, the clipping off of a corner might leave the other tenants -with more than was sufficient for their cattle. But enclosure made by -one tenant on the open arable fields created a disturbance which was -immediate and obvious. Indeed, if his holding lay in scattered strips, -separated from each other by the strips of his neighbours, how could he -enclose at all? He would at once come into collision with their demand -that his holding should lie open for grazing purposes after harvest. -Moreover, even from his own point of view, enclosure could hardly -pay, for he would have to put hedges round each of 30 or 40 or 50 acre -and half acre plots. One would expect, therefore, that individual -tenants would be slow to undertake the hedging and ditching of their -arable holdings; and this expectation is on the whole confirmed by the -impression which one gets from the surveys and from the accounts of -contemporaries.[307] On the tenants' arable land enclosure has not -proceeded by the middle of the sixteenth century as far as on their -pasture and meadow. Yet, even in this matter, the tendency is perhaps to -exaggerate the stability of agricultural conditions. Even on the arable -fields themselves individual tenants set themselves to overcome the -obstacles in the way of enclosure, and they do so in the only way they -can, by attempting first of all to consolidate their strips into larger -holdings. This tendency is revealed most clearly by the open field maps. -The picture of mediaeval agriculture, to which Mr. Seebohm has accustomed -us, is one in which holdings were made up of strips which lay scattered -over the open fields at a considerable distance from each other. In the -sixteenth century this condition of things survived in its entirety on -many manors and partially on most. But, side by side with it, there is -going on a process by which the strips coalesce into larger bundles, so -that one tenant's pieces of land, instead of being far apart, very often -lie next to each other, forming blocks of several acres. Those who make -maps show the change by putting brackets round the contiguous -strips.[308] Written surveys, instead of describing parts of holdings -with the words "lying between the land of A and the land of B," call -attention to the new condition of things, which is still sufficiently -unusual to deserve remark, with the words "lying together."[309] -Sometimes in the maps one finds twelve or twenty strips bracketed as -belonging to one man; sometimes the surveys state that 16 or 20 acres -lie together. But even 10 acres is a big field, quite big enough to -repay the cost of hedging and ditching. When sufficient strips have -become contiguous to form a close of this size one great obstacle to -enclosure has been removed. Unity of cultivation has been added to unity -of ownership. The difficulty that enclosure will probably, though not -necessarily, mean the exclusion of the other tenants' beasts after -harvest still remains. But an individual tenant will no longer find -enclosure impossible if he can persuade his neighbours to acquiesce in -it. In fact he does sometimes persuade them, and in the midst of fields -which are still open one finds here and there blocks which have been -enclosed. - - [307] _e.g. The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 56: - "And weare it not that oure grounde lieth in the common fieldes, - intermingled one with another, I thincke also oure fieldes had - been inclosed, of a common agreement of all the townshippe, - longe ere this time." - - [308] See opposite, the map of part of Salford. - - [309] Merton Documents, No. 5209, Rental of Ibstone (about - 1600): "Item, Thomas Skott holdeth ix acres as it is estymed - lieinge together in Tillage." "John ... holdeth 16 acres of - Lande lieinge together in Redfield." - -[Illustration: I. PART OF THE MANOR OF SALFORD, IN BEDFORDSHIRE (1590.)] - -[Illustration: II. PART OF THE MANOR OF EDGEWARE, IN MIDDLESEX (1597.)] - -[Illustration: III. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF MAIDS MORTON IN -BUCKSHIRE (1580.)] - -[Illustration: IV. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF CRENDON IN -BUCKINGHAMSHIRE (ABOUT 1590.) ] - -[Illustration: V. MAP OF PART OF THE MANOR OF WEEDON WESTON IN -NORTHAMPTONSHIRE (1590.)] - -[Illustration: VI. MAP OF THE MANOR OF WHADBOROUGH IN LEICESTERSHIRE -(1620.)] - - -Nor can we doubt that this process of forming strips into blocks took -place through deliberate action on the part of tenants, though we need -not assume that the probability of its leading to enclosure was always -foreseen. The amalgamation of the scattered parts of a single holding -had sufficient advantages to commend it without any further change, and -enclosure may often have been an afterthought. How could this -amalgamation come about? It would naturally take place by a process of -exchange[310] between tenants. As we have seen, the tenants were from an -early date buying and selling, leasing and sub-letting, parts of their -holdings. What could be more reasonable than that in doing so they -should have regard to the situation of the plots which they acquired, -and so arrange their bargains as gradually to substitute a few larger -blocks for many scattered strips? This hypothesis (for it is only a -hypothesis) receives a certain amount of confirmation from a curious -fact to which attention was called for the first time by Professor -Unwin.[311] It occasionally happens that we find the very tenants who -sell and let part of their holdings are buying and leasing parts of -other holdings from their neighbours. Thus, at Gorleston,[312] in -Suffolk, a customary tenant sublets about half his holding of 12 acres -to as many as eight other persons, and at the same time acquires plots -of land from another eight holdings himself. At Crondal[313] Richard -Wysdon adds enormously to his half-virgate by encroachments, and at the -same time sublets 2-1/2 acres to Hugh Sweyn. Henry Simmond enters on -land belonging to the same Richard Wysdon, and in turn transfers 8 acres -of his holding to Matilda Huthe. What is relevant to the question in -these transactions is not the mere sub-letting and selling of land. -That, as we have seen, was common enough. The noticeable thing is that -the same tenant who surrenders part of his holding acquires part of the -holdings of other people. After the transactions are completed he holds -about as much land as before, only it is differently arranged. May it -not be that the desire that it should be differently arranged was one of -the motives of the double transaction, and that in this way he sought to -substitute for his dispersed strips a compacter and more manageable -holding? Is he not like a shareholder who sells out Canadian Pacifics -and invests in Consols, in order to have his property more directly -under his own eye? At any rate such an explanation would account for the -undoubted fact that in the sixteenth century holdings are much more -compact than they are in the thirteenth century. But whether it is -correct or not the growth towards compactness is a fact, and a fact -which makes possible the enclosure of holdings in the open fields. - - [310] Exchanges are not uncommon, _e.g._ Roxburghe Club, - _Pembroke Surveys_, Manor of South Brent and Huish: "Note that - the same Thomas with leave of the Court has exchanged the said - acre lying near Appleworth with John Moore, customary tenant of - the lord, for one acre lyinge in Holmefield." Mr. Kolthammer has - called my attention to a case (Ashford Court Rolls, 1605), in - which a tenant gives up a number of half acre strips lying - between the lands of another, and receives in exchange some - strips of the latter which lie between his own. - - [311] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, Social and Economic - History. - - [312] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, Social and Economic - History. - - [313] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), pp. 134, 149, 152, 154-155. - -It is plain from these and similar instances that there was a -well-defined movement from the fourteenth century onwards which made for -the gradual modification or dissolution of the open field system of -cultivation, and that it originated not on the side of the lord or the -great farmer, but on the side of the peasants themselves, who tried to -overcome the inconvenience of that system by a spontaneous process of -re-allotment, sometimes, but not always, in conjunction with actual -enclosure. On one manor it proceeded by the piecemeal encroachments of -individuals, on another by the deliberate division of the common meadow -or pasture, on a third by the voluntary exchanging by tenants of their -strips so as to build up compact holdings, on a fourth by the -redistribution of the arable land. It was a spontaneous movement in the -sense of being initiated by the tenants and not merely forced upon them. -The economic, as distinct from the legal, arrangements of the village -community were much less rigid than some of the books about it would -suggest. The open field system of cultivation was, in fact, already in -slow motion in several parts of England, when the impact of the large -grazier struck it, enormously accelerated the speed of the movement, and -diverted it on to lines which were new and disastrous to the bulk of the -rural population. - -This aspect of the enclosures, though not overlooked by contemporaries, -has perhaps hardly received the emphasis which it deserves from modern -writers. For one thing, a recollection of it explains certain apparent -contradictions, the difference in the views expressed by different -writers in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as to the social -effect of enclosures, the disagreement between Mr. Leadam and Professor -Gay as to whether enclosing was or was not usually followed by -conversion to pasture, the strange statement of Hales[314] that "the -chief destruccion of Townes and decaye of houses was before the -beginning of the reigne of Kynge Henry the Seventh." The latter remark -can hardly have been true of the great and sudden evictions which caused -rioting and depopulation, and evoked the long series of statutes which -begin in 1489. It may well have been a curt summary of the impression -produced by a century of gradual consolidation and piecemeal enclosures -carried out by the smaller cultivators. It would seem, again, to be the -case that while landlords usually enclosed with the object of putting -sheep where men had been, the tenants of customary holdings enclosed -simply for the sake of better arable farming, or for the more convenient -employment of meadow and pasture land. That is why Hales could make -himself detested by landlords as the chairman of the only effective -committee of Somerset's ill-starred Enclosure Commission, and at the -same time say that certain kinds of enclosure are "very beneficiall to -the commonweal." That is why Fuller and Moore a century later could damn -enclosure in one sentence and qualify their verdict in the next. That is -why Moore's numerous critics could repudiate his aspersions with some -acrimony, and nevertheless admit that "when townes are in the hands of -one or few men ... enclosure doth produce depopulation."[315] - - [314] "The defence of John Hales agenst certyn sclaundres and - false reaportes made of hym" (Appendix to Miss Lamond's - introduction to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. - liii.). Two things make the effect of the fifteenth century - enclosures obscure. First, the pamphlets on popular grievances - which begin in the sixteenth century were hardly possible before - the general use of the printing press. Second, in the sixteenth - century people appealed to the Tudor government for protection - because it was strong enough to give it. In the fifteenth - century there was no Government to preserve order, let alone - protect the poorer classes. Even if there were, therefore, - extensive enclosures producing depopulation, we might very well - hear little of them. But, while confessing ignorance, I think - Hales' statement compatible with the view expressed above and on - page 138, note 1, that the fifteenth century was a time when the - consolidation of holdings was going forward slowly through the - small speculations of the peasants. - - [315] _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures_ (Pseudonismus). - -For another thing, the prevalence of small enclosures suggests that the -view of those who represent the agriculture of the period as needing a -violent shock to rouse it from a state of intolerable inefficiency can -only be accepted with considerable qualification. We know that by the -middle of the sixteenth century in certain counties, notably Kent, -Essex, and Devonshire, the common field system of cultivation was -already the exception and not the rule. We know, too, that though in -parts of these counties its absence may have been due to differences in -the original forms of settlement and clearance, it had elsewhere -disappeared within historical times. We may conjecture that the reason -why it decayed sooner in Kent and Essex than elsewhere was the fact that -the neighbourhood of those counties to London and the sea, and to the -commercial routes from the Continent, caused the influence of commerce -and of a money economy to be felt there sooner than in the Midlands, -with the natural result of accelerating economic and agrarian changes, -and that in the examples quoted above we have the same process of -individualisation in the method of agriculture going on quietly -elsewhere in a way which would sooner or later have brought about a -similar result to that which had already occurred in those two -progressive districts. At any rate these rearrangements suggest a good -deal of adaptability among the tenants who carried them out, and not the -condition of organised torpor which some writers profess to find in the -unenclosed village. That communal cultivation was incompatible with -swift change may be granted. Of that fact its survival into almost our -own day is a sufficient proof. That it prevented improvements altogether -must be denied; and though no doubt to large farmers and impatient -surveyors the petty operations of the smaller tenants seemed intolerably -dilatory and wasteful, the student who looks at them in an age which has -some experience of economic revolutions may well doubt whether rapid -technical progress cannot be bought too dear, and regret that the -gradual movement towards more rational methods of farming on the part of -the small man was so soon overtaken by one over which the small man -could exercise no effective control. Now, as then, land agents shake -grave heads at the wastefulness of sacrificing the well-ordered dignity -of a great estate to the encouragement of undercapitalised, untidy, -higgledy-piggledy small holdings, and prove by arithmetic that the -labourer has more comforts for less work. Now, as then, in those -countries where the peasant tradition has not died altogether away, the -unreasonable creature prefers starving on land which is his own, though -it be but a tiny patch where he sweats from dawn to dark. - -If it be objected to the view which we have taken of the slow spread of -enclosure among the peasantry that they were notoriously opposed to -enclosing, we must answer by repeating that there was nothing -inconsistent in approving one kind and detesting another. After all -there is no curse attached to landmarks, but only to the man who removes -his neighbour's. Even in an open field village no one had a -conscientious objection to fences in general; it all depended on where -the fences were put. The object of enclosure was to shut in, or to shut -out, or to do both. The villagers were not unwilling that an agreement -should be reached whereby each man should shut his own beasts in a close -of pasture, and shut out the beasts of other people from his arable -after harvest. On the contrary, it was sometimes a grievance[316] that -enclosure was not allowed. What they objected to was that one man should -exclude others without compensation from rights of pasture or from their -arable holdings. Moreover, provided that enclosure took place by -consent, the advantages of it were overwhelming. When the superior[317] -value of enclosed over unenclosed land was so marked that the former was -sometimes assessed to subsidies at a higher rate than the latter, a man -who, like many of our tenants, had money to spend on timber, would -naturally wish to enclose. The growth of pasture farming by large -graziers turned the minds of the smaller tenants in the direction of -enclosing for themselves, because this, paradoxical though it may seem -when the outcry against enclosure is remembered, was the most obvious -way in which they could protect themselves. The explanation is that the -system of open field cultivation and of common pasturage made it -peculiarly easy for one large shareholder to ruin the rest by letting -his cattle stray at large over the common, and even by encroachments on -his neighbour's strips. Its underlying principle had been the -apportionment of rights on a basis which was settled by the custom of -the manor, as opposed to the acquisition by individuals for themselves -of such rights as they could obtain by economic power, or by the -accumulation of capital. This was the meaning of the strict allotment of -grazing privileges by the establishment of a stint which each tenant, or -rather each tenement, was not to exceed. The limitation to the capital -which a man could acquire in the shape of stock--cattle and sheep--was -practicable as long as that capital was small. When it became large, as -in the sixteenth century it did, it was too powerful to be dammed up by -the rules as to cultivation enforced in the manorial court, and the -outward sign of this was the failure of the latter to prevent the -"overcharging" both of the common waste, and of the common pasture -formed by the field after harvest, with the beasts of the large grazier. -Hence in some places the enclosing of pasture or arable was used by the -tenants as a way of protecting themselves: at Mudford the tenants, at -Newham and Tughall the surveyor in the interests of the tenants, at -Southampton the Leet jury, were anxious[318] for enclosing, in order -that the weak barriers which the custom of the manor offered to the -farmers' or to neighbouring villagers' depredations might be -supplemented by a strong quickset hedge. What damaged the smaller -tenants, and produced the popular revolts against enclosure, was not -merely enclosing, but enclosing accompanied either by eviction and -conversion to pasture, or by the monopolising of common rights. When -some of the tenants became large capitalists, what the rest lost by -surrendering common rights might be more than compensated by the -security which they thus obtained of grazing their own beasts -undisturbed on a smaller area. - - [316] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of - Whitford: "I woulde wish that the same [the common] were divided - among the tenants yielding some small rente ... the poore men - with dyligence and labour woulde soon convert yt to amendement, - and alter the nature thereof, but the ritche men will not - consent to that, for yt is as good to them as theire several - grounde or pasture. The poore are not able to store yt with - cattle, nor to use the commodytie as they might do if welth - woulde serve them. But the rytche do consume their own parts and - their neighbouris also: and that is the cause they will not - consent to the enclosure and partition thereof." - - [317] There is interesting documentary proof of the statements - of surveyors. Warwickshire MSS. Quarter Sessions Records, - Michaelmas, 1636: "Fforasmuche as this Courte is informed that - Overhinton (?) in this countie consists of 30 yardlands, of - which 22 are enclosed and 8 yardlands thereof residue in the - possession of Thomas [surname illegible] do lie in the common - fields, and whereas the same 8 yardlands lyinge in the comon - fields have been heretofore rated equally and proportionablie in - all levies with thother yardlands, the said 22 yard of inclosed - land being worth xx [pounds], for every yardland and the seid - other 8 yardlands being worth but after the rate of x the - yardland, it is ordered that the said 8 yardlands shall from - henceforth pay in all levies but after the rate of x pounds for - every yardland and the said 22 yardlands after the rate of xx - pounds for every yardland, unless the owners of the said 22 - yardlands shall att the next sessions uppon convenient notice - hereof to them given shewe cause to the contrarie." The Justices - do not understand the taxation of unimproved land. - - [318] See _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., for Mudford; - for Newham and Tughall, _Northumberland County History_, vol. - i.; for Southampton, Hearnshaw, _Court Leet Records of - Southampton_. - -At the same time, though voluntary enclosing by the peasants was partly -a symptom of the overshadowing of small property by large, it was much -more than this, and was due partly to a change in their methods of -agriculture, and partly, perhaps, to a genuine progress in the technique -of cultivation. This is indicated by the enthusiasm of the expert -opinion of the period for "several" holdings, and by the qualified -praise of discriminating critics like Hales.[319] As we have seen -above, there were parts of England--for example, "the sweet country of -Tandeane," described by Norden--where cultivation was quite intensive in -character, and intensive cultivation naturally gave an impetus to the -individualising of arable holdings. Again, the advantage to the cattle -breeder of "several closes and pastures to put his cattle in, the which -would be well quicksetted, hedged, and ditched,"[320] was a commonplace. -It has been already pointed out that on many manors of Southern and -Eastern England the customary tenants were sheep farmers on a -considerable scale. The adjustment of common rights must always have -involved some difficulty: the fixing of so many head of beasts to each -tenement was obviously a rough and ready arrangement based on the idea -that the holding in the arable fields was the backbone of a man's -substance, and that therefore it might properly be taken as a standard -by which his rights of pasture and common could fairly be measured. The -problems which arose could be imagined, even if they were not described -for us at some length: "Where fields lie open and the land is used in -common, he that is rich and fully stocked (up to the limit allowed) -eateth with his cattle not his own part only, but also his neighbour's -who is poor and out of stock. Besides that, it is an ordinary practice -with unconscionable people to keep above their just proportion ... those -who have consciences large enough to do it will lengthen their ropes, or -stake them down so that their horses may reach into other men's -lots."[321] As long as the great bulk of the customary tenants relied -for a livelihood mainly on the subsistence farming of the arable land, -these practical difficulties were probably not felt very keenly, because -the comparatively few beasts which were kept could pick up a living -without overcrowding each other. But when the raising of stock became -almost as important as the cultivation of arable, the demand for more -pasture and for better pasture grew enormously, and in the face of the -competition for it the strict maintenance of the customary stint became -more difficult. On manors where 150 or 200 sheep were kept by almost -every tenant the motive either to enclose surreptitiously and in -defiance of the custom of the manor, or to divide and enclose meadow and -pasture by agreement, must have been extremely strong. Ought we not to -ask why the open field system survived so long, rather than why it -partially disappeared in the sixteenth century? - - [319] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 49: "I meane - not all inclosures, nor yet all commons, but only of such - inclosures as turneth commonly arable lands into pastures; and - violent inclosures, without recompence of them that have right - to comen therein; for if land weare severallie inclosed, to the - intent to continue husbandrie thereon, and everie man, that had - Right to Common, had for his portion a pece of the same to - himselfe enclosed, I thincke no harme but rather good should - come thereof, yf everie man did agre theirto." - - [320] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. - - [321] Pseudonismus, 1654, _Considerations concerning Common - Fields and Enclosures_. - -We may now summarise the argument of this part of our work. The manor, -as we see it from the middle of the fourteenth century onwards, is not -the rigid, motionless organisation which it is sometimes represented as -being. Though it is governed by custom, custom leaves room for the -growth of commercial relationships on the extending fringe of new land -over which the village spreads; for the withdrawal by the villagers of -part of their holdings from the common scheme of open field husbandry, -the division of meadows and pastures, the exchanging of strips, the -formation of closes like those represented in the map on the opposite -page, which a man can use as he pleases and over which the customary -routine of agriculture has no authority. This side of the enclosing -movement, more properly described as redivision and reallotment than as -enclosure, develops earliest in those parts of the country which, owing -to their geographical position, are particularly exposed to the -dissolving forces of trade and of a money economy. But with the -improvement in the condition of the peasantry and the growth of pasture -farming it spreads far afield, and by the middle of the sixteenth -century, quite apart from the large changes introduced by lords of -manors and capitalist farmers, it has effected a considerable alteration -in the methods of agriculture even of the more stationary inland -counties. Such piecemeal alterations are a gradual process; they are not -regarded unfavourably by the peasantry; and a balance between their -tentative individualism and the rule of communal custom is preserved by -the action of the manorial court. They are to be carefully -distinguished from the sweeping innovations of the sixteenth century, -which alone deserve the name of an Agrarian Revolution. But they are -closely connected with that revolution. For by making a breach in the -walls of custom they bring us to the edge of two great problems, the -growth of competitive rents, and the formation of large pasture farms -out of the holdings of evicted tenants. - -We have spoken at length of the prosperity of the peasants, because it -is necessary to appreciate it in order to sympathise with the point of -view from which they and their contemporaries regarded the agrarian -problem. But evil days are coming upon the rural middle classes. Indeed -they have already come. There is by this time much anger against -depopulating landlords, much talk of the good customs of Henry VII., -much murmuring lest men be brought to that slavery the Frenchman be in. -We must leave the light and follow them into the shadow. - - - - -PART II - -THE TRANSITION TO CAPITALIST AGRICULTURE - - - "The earth is thine, O Lord, and all that is contained therein; - notwithstanding thou hast given the possession thereof to the - children of men, to pass over the time of their short - pilgrimage in this vale of misery. We heartily pray thee to - send thy holy spirit into the hearts of them that possess the - grounds, pastures, and dwelling places of the earth; that they, - remembering themselves to be thy tenants, may not rack and - stretch out the rents of their houses and lands; nor yet take - unreasonable fines and incomes, after the manner of covetous - worldlings; but so let them out to other, that the inhabitants - thereof may be able to pay their rents, and also honestly to - live, to nourish their families, and to relieve the poor: give - them grace also to consider that they are but strangers and - pilgrims in this world, having here no dwelling place, but - seeking one to come; that they, remembering the short - continuance of their life, may be content with that is - sufficient, and not join house to house and field to field, to - the impoverishment of others, but so behave themselves in - letting out their tenements, lands, and pastures, that after - this life they may be received into everlasting dwelling - places; through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen."--_A Prayer for - landlords, from a Book of Private Prayer, authorised and set - forth by order of King Edward VI._ - - "Nowe if I should demand of the gredie cormoraunts what they - thinke should be the cause of sedition, they would saie:--'The - paisent knaves be too welthy, provender pricketh them. They - knowe not themselves; they knowe no obedience; they regard no - lawes; they would have no gentlemen; they would have al men - like themselves; they would have all things commune. They would - not have us master of that which is our owne. They will appoint - us what rent we shall take for our grounds.... They will caste - down our parkes, and lay our pastures open.... They will compel - the King to graunt theyr requests.... We wyll tech them to know - theyr betters. And because they would have all in common, we - will leave them nothing,'"--E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to - Wealth._ - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE NEW RURAL ECONOMY - - -(a) _Motives and Causes_ - -A common view of social development regards it as the outcome of -irresistible causes working towards results which can be neither -hastened nor averted, and treats the fact that events have followed a -certain course as in itself an indication that no other course was -possible. Whatever is has always been implicit in the past; the -established fact rules by the divine right of being the only possible -dynasty, and no scope is left for pretenders to contest or acts of -settlement to alter its legitimate title. It is not surprising that such -a theory should be peculiarly popular in interpreting economic history. -On their frontiers even the most different forms of social organisation -shade into one another. Each generation naturally sees in a strong light -those regions of the past which reproduce the features with which it is -familiar, and overlooks the existence of wide Hinterlands whose general -features are quite different. Since important classes, like important -individuals, find it difficult to believe in the truthfulness of any -picture where they do not occupy the greater part of the canvas, they -insensibly encourage a conventional interpretation of history, which -lends an air of respectable antiquity to the legal and economic -arrangements which favour them and which they favour, by treating such -arrangements as an essential characteristic of civilisation itself. In -reality, however, it is only by dragging into prominence the forces -which have triumphed, and thrusting into the background those which they -have swallowed up, that an appearance of inevitableness is given to -existing institutions, which satisfies the desire to see them as links -in an orderly chain of unavoidable sequences. Useful as the conception -of a continuous development is, it can easily be carried too far. It is -carried too far when it causes us to forget that a small alteration in -the lie of the land might have caused the stream to take quite a -different channel, and that the smoothly flowing waters of the plain are -the outcome of a series of crises in the higher regions, where the spur -of a mountain or a cleft in the rocks might easily have diverted their -course into other directions. If we must talk of social evolution, we -ought to remember that it takes place through the action of human -beings, that such action is constantly violent, or merely short-sighted, -or deliberately selfish, and that a form of social organisation which -appears to us now to be inevitable, once hung in the balance as one of -several competing possibilities. - -Certainly the possibility that economic changes should have followed a -quite different line from that which they actually have can hardly fail -to strike the student of agrarian history. The facts, as we read them, -do not lend unqualified support to the idea that the growth, at the -expense of the little landholders, of great estates cultivated by hired -labour was the inevitable result of irresistible forces, or that the new -agricultural regime was a necessity on account of the sluggishness of -the old. To an observer of agrarian conditions living about the year -1500, who looked back over the conditions of the last century, all the -possibilities must have seemed to point in the direction of a continuous -improvement in the condition of the peasantry. It is evident that the -growth of prosperity among the small cultivators was leading from the -beginning of the fifteenth century to the gradual consolidation of -holdings, to keen competition for the use of land, and to increasing -individualism in the methods of agriculture. Though the movement caused -a diminution in the number of landholders, the diminution was very -gradual. It was not the result of a sudden revolution affecting large -numbers of tenants simultaneously; and even those who regarded enclosing -with hostility were favourable to the process of gradual redistribution, -which did not violate vested interests or cause any sensational -disturbance. The appearance of the country would have changed, and the -methods of cultivation would have improved. But there would have been no -great cause at work to displace the peasantry from the soil, with the -rapidity which entailed hardship, until a much later period than we are -now considering. Obviously, however, it was not these slow internal -changes in the manorial organisation which impressed observers. On the -contrary, though they are noticed by the writer who took a scientific -interest in agricultural questions, they are hardly mentioned by the -majority of commentators on the life of the period, who were interested -not in the technique of agriculture but in the social results of -changing methods. What aroused their alarm and produced rioting and -legislation was, as every one knows, a movement the distinctive feature -of which was that it was initiated by lords of manors and great farmers, -"the Graziers, the rich buchars, the men of law, the merchants, the -gentlemen, the Knights, the Lords,"[322] in short by the wealthiest and -most powerful classes, and that it was carried out frequently against -the will of the tenants, and in such a way as to prejudice their -interests. - - [322] Crowley, _The Way to Wealth_ (E. E. T. S.). - -As the small capitalist prepared the way for the great, the two -movements were connected, and the simultaneous development of both of -them explains the rather puzzling mixture of approval and criticism -which is to be found in the comments of observers upon enclosing. But -their economic and social results were very different. No doubt the -incipient movement in the direction of reorganising national life on the -basis of industry involved a breach with the customary methods of -agriculture, which must in any case have caused a certain degree of -dislocation. The development of the textile manufactures, which for two -centuries were the chief source of English wealth, could not have taken -place without the production of cheap supplies of raw material, and the -growth of the towns was dependent on the saving of labour from -agriculture. But in such changes the element of time--the speed at which -the transition takes place--is all important, because upon it depends -the feasibility of social readjustments to meet the new situation. The -slow breaking up of the open field system, though it changed the -methods of cultivation, might quite conceivably have effected only such -a gradual diminution in the number of the small farmers, as to make the -absorption into industry of those displaced comparatively easy. In so -far as the changes of the sixteenth century were a social revolution, -and not merely a gradual development, this revolution was the result not -only of technical advances, but of the concentration of landed property -and the development of new relationships between landlord and tenant. It -is to the second of the two movements that we must now turn. - -The new agrarian arrangements which we shall have to consider are called -by the name of enclosure, and we will discuss later what exactly -enclosure means in this connection. But there are enclosures and -enclosures, and we shall do well to begin by drawing some distinctions. -In the first place, then, the enclosing movement that will occupy us in -this chapter has very little resemblance to the enclosure which we have -considered in the last. It is carried out by great men, not by small. It -proceeds wholesale, not piecemeal. It does not consist in many little -cultivators rearranging their holdings by purchase, or sale, or -agreement, but in one great proprietor or his agent consolidating small -holdings into great estates. The new arrangements are imposed rapidly -and with a high hand from without. They do not arise gradually from -within through the spontaneous development of the peasants' needs and -resources. - -Again, the new movement bears very little resemblance to the -rearrangements introduced by lords of manors, which, from an early date, -have gone by the name of enclosing. Such rearrangements have not been -few. People have talked about enclosing long before they have begun to -lament enclosures. Not to mention the encroachments on the waste -evidenced by the Statute of Merton, one finds the word "enclosure" used -in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries to describe a variety of -agreements made between lords whose lands were contiguous, or between -lords and their free tenants, by which, instead of the parties concerned -using a given area in common as their pasture, each surrenders his right -of access to part of it, and obtains in return the right to use another -part in severalty. The Abbot of Malmesbury[323] and the men of -Niwentone come to an arrangement with Walter of Asselegge and the men of -that village, whereby the monastery agrees to follow the customary -routine in cultivating the land lying between Niwentone and Asselegge, -and not to common on the marsh at Cheggeberge, getting in return -exclusive rights of pasture over another marsh, and over the east field -of Niwentone. The Abbot and Monastery of St. Peter's[324] of Gloucester -make an agreement with Lord Thomas Berkeley whereby the former are "to -have and hold in severalty and enclose and approve at their will" -certain lands lying in Southfield "so that the said Thomas and his free -tenants may not ... claim or demand common, but be excluded from it for -ever," and in return covenant that the latter may "enclose and approve -their lands in all parts of the summit of the Pike of Coveleigh." -Similar arrangements are made between the Abbot of Glastonbury[325] and -a neighbouring landowner, between the Abbot of Cerne[326] and Robert of -Bloxworth, and between the City of Coventry[327] and the master and -brethren of the Trinity Gild of that town. - - [323] _Registrum Malmesburiense_, vol. ii. pp. 220-221: "Quod - ... dictus abbas de Malmesburia non debet de cetero colere - terram de Niwentone ... nisi antiquitus consueverat coli. Et - quod dictus Walterus de Asselegge habebit mariscum suum de - Cheggeberge quietum a communia hominum de Niwentone. Dicti vero - abbas et conventus Malmesburia habebunt mariscum suum iacentem - ex Orientali parte stratae publicae quae vocatur Fos quietum et - exceptum a communia hominum de Asselegge. Habebunt etiam ... - campum Australem in Niwentone quietum et exceptum a communia - hominum de Asselegge. Omnes vero aliae terrae ad dictas villas - pertinentes ... erunt in pastura communi." - - [324] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriae_, i. - 147-149. - - [325] Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of South Domerham. - - [326] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), pp. 61-62. This agreement was made in 1231. - - [327] _Coventry Leet Book_ (edited by Mary Dormer Harris). - -Whether it is a chance that such agreements seem to occur with special -frequency in the records of religious houses we cannot say. It is -possible that the perpetual character of a corporation made exclusive -enjoyment at once more desirable and more feasible; a great abbey, like -St. Peter's of Gloucester, could pursue a continuous and far-sighted -policy, and wait more than a generation to see the results of its -experiments. Nor is it possible to understand the motives for such -arrangements without information as to local conditions which is not -easily obtainable. Sometimes the object was simply to protect land used -for agriculture against the depredations caused by the game of a hunting -landlord. Sometimes it would seem to have been to allow of a variation -in the methods of agriculture, for example the sowing of a piece of land -which could not be sown as long as several persons had right of pasture -over it. Occasionally it was simply to realise an obvious convenience -dictated by the lie of the land, each party gaining more by the -exclusive use of pasture lying near to him, than he would lose by -surrendering rights of common over that part which lay at a distance. -Two points, however, are worth noticing. The first is the use of the -word "enclosure." Arrangements which go by the name "enclosure" are made -at a very early date by the manorial authorities, and the latter would -have been very much surprised to be told that they were inaugurating an -agrarian revolution. The second is the character of these enclosures. -They are in every way different from those which produced discontent in -the sixteenth century. Though they affected the routine of cultivation -they did not imply any abandonment of arable farming. Since they were -carried out mainly by an exchange of rights they did not prejudice the -tenants. Further, the disputes of which they were sometimes the result -were not disputes between the lord of a manor and his tenantry, but -between the lord and tenants of one manor and the lord and tenants of -another, the ground of the disagreement being the difficulty of -adjusting rights of common over the debatable land which must often have -lain between two manors, and the division of interests being, as it -were, a vertical, not a horizontal, division. In fact, these early -examples of enclosure throw light on the later movement only by way of -contrast. What we meet in our period is not isolated innovations of this -character, but a general movement spreading across England from -Berkshire in the South to Norfolk and Lincoln in the North-East, and -affecting especially the corn-growing counties of the Midlands, a -movement which meant a great extension of pasture-farming, a violent -collision of interests between the manorial authorities and the -peasantry, and a considerable displacement of population. Clearly some -new and powerful causes must have been at work to account for it. - -In the third place, the movement which goes by the name of enclosing in -the sixteenth century has little similarity with the changes which -proceeded under the same name from about 1700 to 1850, and which went on -most swiftly in the reign of George III. It differs from them in method. -In the eighteenth century Parliament is supreme. It is simply a -committee of landlords and their hangers-on, and it makes Private Bill -legislation a very easy method of getting enclosure carried out. In our -period the Government, for reasons to be discussed later, sets its face -against most kinds of enclosing, and such enclosures as are made are -made in defiance of the law. It differs from them in motive. We must not -prejudge the question whether the enclosures of our period were made -mainly for pasture or for arable. But leaving this question on one side, -we can point to certain broad contrasts. The ostensible motive of the -eighteenth century enclosures is to improve the productive capacity of -the land by spending capital upon it. This is the reason alleged when -Private Bills are being promoted, and this is the aspect of the movement -which causes it to be eulogised by the agricultural experts. Of course -landlords were not philanthropists. As Mr. and Mrs. Hammond[328] have -demonstrated, there were often very sordid motives behind their -resounding platitudes on the advantage of throwing commons and small -holdings into large compact estates, and, even when these were not too -conspicuous, the interests of the smaller landholders were sometimes -treated with the most outrageous injustice. Still the general nature of -the movement was clearly in the direction of bringing under better -cultivation land which had hitherto not been used to its full economic -capacity. The price of foodstuffs after 1750 rose enormously, and the -rise in prices offered a golden harvest to any one who would prepare -land for producing larger supplies. The landlords of the eighteenth -century did not merely enclose. They improved as well. Part of their -increased rent rolls was interest on capital which they had invested for -the purpose. Now in the sixteenth century there is very little trace of -any movement of this kind. What improving is done, is done by the -peasants themselves. There is no sign of the great proprietors making -large capital outlays in order to render their estates more productive, -except in the way of the trifling expenditure entailed by fencing, -hedging, and ditching. They are by no means pioneers of agricultural -progress. Enclosing is profitable to them not because it enables them to -convert barren heaths into smiling corn-fields in the manner described -by Arthur Young, but because it enables them to use the land as they -please, to let it down to pasture when the price of wool is high, to -employ few labourers on it instead of many, and, possibly, to add to -their own estates part of their neighbours' holdings. They do not bring -under cultivation land which would otherwise lie waste. On the contrary, -very often they turn into a waste land which would otherwise be under -cultivation. Whether the picture which represents the eighteenth century -enclosures as the effort of an energetic and public-spirited class to -overcome old-fashioned prejudices by applying the resources of science -to agriculture is veracious or not, we need not now inquire. As far as -the century and a half from 1485 is concerned it is altogether out of -place. - - [328] In their book, _The Village Labourer from_ 1760 to 1832. - -The changes which we are about to describe have at once a social and an -economic reference. The former is the aspect which receives most -attention from contemporaries. They lament the decay of the peasantry, -the embittered relations between classes, the distress and discontent -caused by the new agrarian regime. They are usually not much concerned -with the economics of the situation. Economic issues are not yet -separated from questions of personal and public morality. To find subtle -reasons why it is unavoidable that a large number of persons should be -impoverished seems to them very like condoning a crime. Some excuses -only aggravate the offence, and if men are cursed with a neighbour who -insists on fulfilling economic laws by raising prices or taking usury, -they are less likely to discuss his conclusions than first to present -him for breaking the statutes and then to break his head for his bad -principles. So they judge the dominant movement by its fruits, and its -fruits seem very evil. But to us the economic problem is the primary -one. The occurrence of rapid changes in the structure of an old and -stable society implies either some radical revolution in the basis of -economic life, or some great change in men's conception of social -expediency, or, what is most likely, an economic and a spiritual change -occurring together. To understand its effect we must understand the sort -of economic environment from which it springs. - -In the first place, then, the age of the Tudors is a commercial age, and -it becomes more commercial as the century goes on. No doubt it is only -of certain classes and in certain relations of life that such a -statement is true. The permanence of economic arrangements, which makes -Froude declare that at the end of the fifteenth century the model of the -upper classes was still the chivalry of the Arthurian legends, is seen -still more strikingly among the artisans and peasants, and it is only -very slowly and painfully that they are drawn into the net woven by the -growth of capitalist trade. But it is with the classes who respond to -the new movement that the power of the future, though not its graces, -lies, and it is through the widening of the influence of commerce and -commercial transactions that the economic developments most typical of -our period take place. The age is a commercial one in the sense that -much attention is given by Governments from the reign of Henry VII. -onwards to fostering the conditions which promote trade and industry. -This is not the place to discuss the meaning of Mercantilism or the -truth of Bacon's[329] epigram that Henry VII. "bowed the ancient policy -of this State from consideration of plenty to consideration of power." -Though in the reign of Henry VIII. the State is almost a religion, one -can easily exaggerate the influence of its interference even in that -much governed age. Nevertheless no one who looks at the Statutes, or the -Acts of the Privy Council, or the Domestic State Papers for the reigns -of Henry VII., Henry VIII., and Elizabeth, can fail to realise that much -of the time of Governments is occupied with devising measures which are -intended to hasten industrial and commercial development. There is a -settled habit of mind with regard to these matters which is quite -conscious of its ends, though its means may often be ill-chosen. Every -one is agreed that the encouragement of trade is the duty of the -Prince.[330] There is a real popular demand for the intervention of the -authorities, and they respond to it readily enough. - - [329] Bacon, _History of King Henry VII._ - - [330] See _e.g._ Starkey's _England in the Reign of King Henry - VIII._, p. 173 (E. E. T. S.): "Ye, and though our cloth, at the - fyrst begynnyng, wold not be so gud peradventure, as hyt ys made - in other partys, yet, in processe of tyme, I cannot see why, but - that our men, by dylygence, myght attayne therto ryght wel; - specially yf the Prince wold study thereto, in whose powar hyt - lyeth chefely such thyngys to helpe." Also _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_ (Lamond), and Pauli, _Drei - Denkschriften_, &c. - -The age is a commercial one in the more fundamental sense that large -economic changes are initiated by classes and individuals. Foreign trade -grows enormously in the early years of Henry VIII., though certain -branches of it suffer a temporary set back at the end of the reign.[331] -The use of money, of which during the first quarter of the century there -was a shortage, begins in the middle of it to spread throughout all -classes. The industry which for the next three centuries is to be the -chief manufacture of England becomes firmly established. Under the -influence of widening markets, trade separates from trade.[332] Within -single industries there is an increasing subdivision of labour; many -links intervene between the group supplying the raw material and the -group which hands the finished article to the consumer; a special class -of capitalist entrepreneurs[333] appears to hold the various stages of -production together, to organise supplies, and to find markets. Side by -side with the development of manufacturing industry goes a development -in the organisation of finance. In the woollen industry men buy and sell -on credit. In tin-mining[334] and coal-mining[335] they sink shafts with -borrowed capital. The first joint-stock[336] companies are established -in the middle of the century with capitals of from L5000 to L20,000. -There is a regular money market in London, there are bill brokers, -arbitrage dealings between it and the Continent, adventurers who take -advantage of the increasing fluidity of capital to speculate on the -difference in the rates at which it can be borrowed in the Low Countries -and in England. By the end of the century London has partially ousted -Antwerp as the financial capital of Europe.[337] - - [331] Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende der - Mittelalters_, Band II., "Zoll und Handelstatistik," pp. 1-156. - - [332] Unwin, _Industrial Organisation in the Sixteenth and - Seventeenth Centuries_. - - [333] See _e.g._ the account of the East Anglian woollen - industry in the _Victoria County History_, Suffolk (Unwin's - article on "Social and Economic History"). - - [334] G.R. Lewis, _The Stanneries_, pp. 214-215, and quotations - from Lansdowne MSS. 76, fol. 34, given there. - - [335] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton). - - [336] W.R. Scott, _Joint-Stock Companies to 1720_, vol. ii. - - [337] For a description of "The Exchange and What It is," see T. - Wilson, _Discourse upon Usurie_ (1584): his remark, "The second - kind of bill ... may be called sicke and dry exchange, and is - practised where one doth borrowe money abroad ... not meaning to - make any real payment abroad, but compoundeth with the exchange - to have it returned again," illustrates what is said above. See - also Camden Society, _Dialogue or Confabulation of Two - Travellers_ (1580): "The said Hans had provided L10,000 for the - Prince of Condy upon five in the 100 at interest, and if I would - have the like he would help me unto it. Then I ... pondered what - benefit it would be to me to let it out again at ten in the - hundred to some nobleman in England." Down to about 1560 at any - rate the English Government was constantly in the hands of - foreign capitalists. See Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, and - Burgon's _Life of Gresham_. - -In the second place, the social arrangements of England are such as to -make it certain that this increasing activity will react almost -immediately on agriculture and on agrarian relationships. There have -been countries where a sharp line has been drawn between trade and -agriculture, where the landowner could not engage in trade without -degrading himself, where the tradesman could not buy up the noble's -land.[338] But this has never been the case in England. In that -precocious island the Lombards had hardly settled in Lombard Street, -when Mr. Pole's daughters discovered that the fine shades flourished -their finest in country air, and there was a market for heiresses among -the English aristocracy long before Columbus had revealed to Europe the -Eldorado of the New World. From a very early date the successful -merchant has bought dignity and social consideration by investing his -savings in an estate. The impecunious gentleman has restored the falling -fortunes of his house by commercial speculations, of which marriage into -a merchant family, if not the least speculative, is not the least -profitable. At the beginning of the sixteenth century both movements -were going on simultaneously with a rapidity which was before unknown, -and which must be explained as the consequence of the great growth of -all forms of commercial activity. The rise of great incomes drawn from -trade had brought into existence a new order of business men whose -enterprise was not confined to the seaport and privileged town, but -flowed over into the purchase of landed estates, even before the -secularisation of monastic endowments made land speculation the mania of -a whole generation. Great nobles plunged into commerce, were granted -special trading privileges, and intermarried with the rising -middle-class families who were often better off than themselves. In all -ages wealth allies itself with wealth, and power with power. As soon as -the appearance of rich merchant families creates a fresh and powerful -interest in society, the old social system and the new[339] coalesce, -and each learns from the other--the merchant how to make a display as a -landed proprietor and a Justice of the Peace, the old-fashioned landlord -how to cut down expenses and squeeze the utmost farthing out of his -property in the best City manner. Even if the political and economic -environment had remained unchanged, the mere formation of commercial -capital and of a moneyed class could hardly have failed to work a slow -revolution in agrarian relationships. - - [338] _e.g._ Prussia before 1807. - - [339] For examples see A. Abram, _Social England in the - Fifteenth Century_, especially Part II., chap, ii., "The Rise of - the Middle Class," and Plummer's _Fortescue_, p. 17. In the - _Cely Papers_ (Camden Society), p. 153, a correspondent of - George Cely writes, "yowre sallys made withyn lesse than thys - yere amountes above L2000 sterling." - -But the environment did not remain unchanged; and as a consequence, in -economic affairs as in religion, the new order came, not gradually, but -swiftly and with violence, sapping ancient loyalties, confronting with -insoluble problems simple men who desired only to plough the land like -their fathers, holding out to the privileged orders that prospect of -suddenly increasing their wealth which is the most awful temptation from -which any class can pray--if it will pray--to be delivered. On the side -of politics a powerful motive for a change in the relations between -landlords and tenants was supplied by the Tudor peace. In the turbulent -days of the fifteenth century land had still a military and social -significance apart from its economic value; lords had ridden out at the -head of their retainers to convince a bad neighbour with bows and bills; -and a numerous tenantry had been more important than a high pecuniary -return from the soil.[340] The Tudor discipline, with its stern -prohibition of livery and maintenance, its administrative jurisdictions -and tireless bureaucracy, had put down private warfare with a heavy -hand, and, by drawing the teeth of feudalism, had made the command of -money more important than the command of men. It is easy to underrate -the significance of this change, yet it is in a sense more fundamental -than any other; for it marks the transition from the mediaeval conception -of land as the basis of political functions and obligations to the -modern view of it as an income-yielding investment. Landholding tends, -in short, to become commercialised. The meaning of this movement is best -understood if one compares with the South and Midlands those parts of -England where to the very end of the sixteenth century the older -conditions survived. The surveys of many Northumbrian[341] manors reveal -throughout this period of rapid agrarian changes the continuance of a -very primitive condition of things. The holdings of the customary -tenants are often almost rigidly equal; there is hardly any change in -their numbers; son succeeds father, and grandson succeeds son, with only -the very slightest disturbance. The manorial officials, who in the South -were cursed as the agents of evictions and rack-renting, were in the -North much concerned with keeping tenants on the soil. At Acklington the -tenants, writes Clarkson, "must be helped and rather cherished for -service sake." At High Buston the holdings of the tenantry have been -increased in order that "they should the better live and do their -dutiful service to their Lord and master," and a freeholder is rebuked -for action which results in curtailing the commonable area on the ground -that "the tenants be but poor men and be not well horsed, as they are -bound by their copies." At Tughall[342] the surveyor complains bitterly -in 1567 that in time past, apparently a long time past, twenty-three -tenants had been reduced to eight by "such as nothing regard his -lordship's service, nor the commonwealth." To what are we to ascribe -this permanence of tenure among the peasants, this exceptional -solicitude for the maintenance of a numerous tenantry on the part of -surveyors? Partly, no doubt, to the fact that Northumberland lay apart -from the main stream of commercial life, and was as yet little affected -by the growth of the woollen industry. Mainly, however, it was the -result of the military importance of a numerous tenantry on the -Northumbrian border. In that wild corner which is neither England nor -Scotland, English and Scots, Scroopes and bold Buccleughs, gnash their -teeth at each other across the wan water of the Eden. In the long -northern evenings about Lammastide moormen win their hay with axes in -their belts and bows piled in the corner of the field, and customary -tenants are bound by their copies to provide horse and armour, and to -ride to the musters in person or by proxy. No wonder that while -elsewhere landlords pore over their accounts of wool or timber, in -Northumberland they should measure their wealth by the men whom they can -bring out when the summons goes, and insist on feudal obligations with a -rigour unknown in the South. When any night Scotch[343] raiders may come -storming over the marches, any night the red cock may crow up to the -very walls of merry Carlisle, a holding means not only a piece of land -that grows wheat and feeds sheep, but a horseman in harness; and the -dropping out of a holding, or its merging in that of some one else, -results in the weakening of the force on which the peace of the border -depends. As a consequence, there is nothing like free trade in land -between the tenants, such as developed in the South under the forms of -surrender and admission, and there is little incentive for the lord or -his officials to get rid of them. Such an exceptional state of things -comes to an end in Northumberland with the union of the two Crowns under -James I., and its termination is the signal for an attempt to break down -customary tenures on the part both of the Crown[344] and of private -landowners.[345] But it survives a century longer on the border than it -does elsewhere, and while it lasts it offers a standard by which may be -measured the extent and significance of the change which is overtaking -agrarian relationships in other parts of England, where commerce is more -developed, and where, since a tenant can no longer serve his lord by -fighting, a sheep may easily be more valuable than a man. With the -development of a strong central Government the military strength of the -great landlords was broken, though it blazed up in the Pilgrimage of -Grace and in the rebellion of 1569, and as a consequence they turned -their attention to getting the maximum economic return from the soil, or -to adding to their social dignity by parks, instead of maintaining a -large body of tenants upon it.[346] - - [340] See the Paston Letters, _passim_; and also the account - given in _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), 142-145, of the marvellous doings of Sir Gylles - Strangways in Dorsetshire as late as 1539; pp. 115-117 contain - a similar case of private warfare from the year 1477. - - [341] _Northumberland County History_, _e.g._ Amble (vol. v.), - Acklington (_ibid._), High Buston (_ibid._), Birling (_ibid._); - vol. viii. p. 230, figures as to eight manors in Tynmouthshire. - At Birling out of ten names which appear in the surveys of 1567, - eight reappear in 1616; at Acklington, out of eighteen names, - nine reappear; at High Buston, out of four names, four reappear - in 1616 and two in 1702. But in parts of the county there were - rapid changes at the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the - seventeenth centuries; see below, pp. 257-258 and 260. - - [342] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350: "In the - ancient tyme the fermor of the demaines had the charge of the - tenants of the said lordship as bailiff, with the fee of L3, 0s. - 5d. by year. Then was the town of Tughall planted with xi - husbandmen well horsed and in good order, viii cottagers, iiii - cotterells, one common smith for the relief and better aid of - the said tenants and bailiff, being in number 23 householders, - besides the demains, which are nowe by suche as nothing regard - his lordship's service nor the commonwealthe brought to 8 - farmers only, to the great decay of his lordship's service and - discommodity of the said commonwealth." - - [343] See _e.g._ the ballad of "Kinmont Willie," turning on an - incident which occurred in 1596. - - [344] _Cal. S. P. D. James I._, vol. cxxxii., July 27, 1622. - Letter to the Bishop of Durham to confer with the judges of - Assize for the Northern Counties touching tenant-right or - customary estate of inheritance claimed in those parts, ordering - them to abide strictly by the King's Proclamation against - tenant-right, or the holding of lands by border service, to - countenance no claim founded thereupon, and to acquaint the - tenants of his Majesty's pleasure therein, giving them no hope - to the contrary. Apparently the instructions were not carried - out, as in 1642 the Long Parliament was discussing the subject - of the border tenures (Rushworth _Collections_, Pt. III., vol. - ii. p. 86). - - [345] See below, pp. 257-258. - - [346] The effect of the Tudor policy on the land system is - excellently described by Harrington in _Oceana_, and also in - _The Art of Law-giving_: "Henry VII. being conscious of the - infirmity of his title, yet finding with what strength and - vigour he was brought in by the Nobility, conceived jealousy of - the like power in case of a decay or change of affections. - _Nondum orbis adoraverat Roman._ The lords yet led country - lives; their houses were open to retainers, men experienced in - military affairs and capable of commanding; their hospitality - was the delight of their tenants who by their tenure or - dependence were obliged to follow their lords in arms. So that, - this being the Militia of the nation, a few noblemen - discontented could at any time levy a great army, the effect - whereof both in the Barons Wars and those of York and Lancaster - had been well known to divers kings. This state of things was - that which enabled Henry VII. to make his advantage of - troublesome times and the frequent unruliness of retainers; - while, under pretence of curbing riots, he obtained the passing - of such laws as did cut off these retainers, whereby the - nobility wholly lost their officers. Then, whereas the - dependence of the people on their lords was of a strict ty or - nature, he found means to loosen this also by laws which he - obtained upon a fair pretence, even that of Population. But the - nobility, who by the former law had lost their officers, by this - lost their soldiery. Yet remained to them their estates, till - the same Prince introducing the Statutes for alienations, these - also became loose; and the lords, less taken (for the reasons - shown) with their country lives, where their trains were - clipped, by degrees became more resident at court, where greater - pomp and expense by the Statute of Alienations began to plume - them of their Estates" (Harrington, _Works_, 1700 edition, pp. - 388-389). - -The change meant an advance in civilisation among the upper classes, and -a tightening of economic pressure upon the peasantry. The feudal -seigneur had at his worst been a lawless tyrant, and at his best a -despotic parent. But he had governed his estate as the sovereign, often -the resident sovereign, of a petty kingdom, whose interests were -roughly identical with his own; and though his depredations were a -terror to his neighbours, his own tenants had little to fear from them, -for his tenants were the force on which his very existence depended. In -the new political conditions his occupation was gone, and his place was -taken by two types of landed proprietor who were at once more peaceable -and less popular. On the one hand, there emerges the landlord who is a -laborious and acute man of business, and who sets about exploiting the -material resources of his estate with the instincts of a shopkeeper and -the methods of a land-agent. Of this kind are the Willoughbys[347] in -the Midlands and the Delavales[348] in Northumberland. Often they are -sheep-farmers. When their land is rich in minerals they sink coal-pits -and mine for iron ore. The predecessors of the captains of industry of -two and a half centuries later, they employ labour on a large scale, -they open up trade across country by river, they higgle over port dues, -they experiment with new inventions, they clear away without mercy any -customary rights which conflict with their own. On the other hand, there -are the gentry who buzz about the Court, regard London as the centre of -the universe, and have periodically to be ordered home to look after the -affairs of their country-sides by a peremptory mandate from the -Government. When this type becomes prominent, in the reign of Elizabeth, -it most commonly spends its time in the interminable pursuit of -profitable sinecures, and in endeavouring to induce the City to believe -that thrice-mortgaged estates are a gilt-edged security. At its worst it -produces Sir Petronel Flash,[349] a figure as typical of the sixteenth -century as Squire Western is of the eighteenth. At its best it -patronises the arts, sets sail for a new world of drama and romance, -sighs over Vergil's Eclogues, and goes pricking, almost too graceful a -chivalry, through the fairy kingdoms of Spenser. But the men of -business, and the men of fashion, and the patrons of literature, are -alike in being the symptoms of a new economic and political system, a -system which has shorn landownership of the territorial sovereignty -which had gone with it, broken down the personal relations of landlord -and tenant, and, by turning agriculture into a business, has made it at -once more profitable and less strenuous for the former, more exacting -and less stable for the latter, than it had been when a lordlord was not -only a drawer of rents but a local sovereign, a tenant not only a source -of income but a dependent who was bound by a tie which was almost -sacramental. "It was never a merry world since gentlemen came up"; -"never so many gentlemen and so little gentleness"; "the commons long -since did rise in Spain and kill the gentlemen, and since have lived -merrily there"; such are some of the blessings the new landlords would -hear from men who grumble to their mates between the spells of shearing -sheep and mowing hay. Those who have watched the uncouth, rough-handed -master of a backward industry, who has wrought among his workmen as a -friend or a tyrant, blossom, under the fertilising influence of -expanding markets, into the sedate suburban capitalist who sets up a -country house in the second generation and sends his sons to Oxford in -the third, and who scientifically speeds up his distant operatives -through the mediation of an army of managers and assistant-managers and -foremen, will not need to be reminded that economic changes which bring -civilisation to one class may often be fraught with ruin to another. The -brilliant age which begins with Elizabeth gleams against a background of -social squalor and misery. The descendant of the illiterate, -bloody-minded baron who is muzzled by Henry VII. becomes a courteous -gentleman who rhapsodises in verse at the Court of Gloriana. But all -that the peasants know is that his land-agents[350] are harsher. An -Earl of Pembroke has been given immortality by Shakespeare. But the -first of his name had founded the family on estates which had belonged -to the Abbey of Wilton,[351] and by his exactions had provoked the -Wiltshire peasants into rebellion. The Raleigh family--it was a -Raleigh's chance gibe at the old religion which set the West in a blaze -in 1549--had endowed itself with a manor torn from the see of -Wells,[352] as the Grenvilles had done with the lands of Buckland Abbey. -The gentle Sidney's _Arcadia_ is one of the glories of the age, and it -was composed, if we may trust tradition, in the park at the Herberts' -country-seat at Washerne,[353] which they had made by enclosing a whole -village and evicting the tenants. The dramatists who reflect the high -popular estimation of the freeholder[354] see nothing in the grievances -of Mouldy and Bullcalf except the disposition of an ignorant populace to -cry for the moon. Shakespeare's Cade, with his programme[355] of seven -half-penny loaves for a penny, and the three-hooped pot that shall have -ten hoops, is so far proposing only what an energetic mayor is quite -prepared to carry out before breakfast. His crowning absurdity, which -makes the stalls hiss and the pit cheer, is the promise that "all the -realm shall be in common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to -grass." A few months after these words were printed Cade came to life in -earnest. In the autumn of 1596 some Oxfordshire[356] artisans and -peasants organised a revolt against "the gentlemen who took the -commons," and from that year onwards to 1601 Parliament and the Council -had their hands full of the question of enclosures. Men feel the -contrast, even when it is only just beginning, and with natural -inconsistency sigh for the old order even while they are glorifying the -new. "Princes and Lords," wrote Henry VIII.'s chaplain[357] about 1538, -"seldom look to the good order and wealth of their subjects, only they -look to the receiving of their rents and revenues of their lands with -great study of enhancing thereof, to the further maintaining of their -pompous state; so that if their subjects do their duty therein justly, -paying their rents at time affixed, for the rest they care not (as is -commonly said) 'whether they sink or swim'"! - - [347] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 5567 (Report on the MSS. of Lord - Middleton), especially the entries relating to the development - of the coal trade. - - [348] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 238, vol. - ix. (under Cowpen). Robert Delavale apparently began life as an - agent to the Earl of Northumberland, but he owned considerable - property himself; in 1605 the whole of the lands of Cowpen were - in his hands. He was an energetic encloser; see below, p. 260. - - [349] See Marston's _Eastward Ho!_ - - [350] See the following extract (Lodge, _Illustrations of - English History_, iii., 41). William Hammond to the Earl of - Shrewsbury on the subject of raising money on the latter's - estates from Palavicini, a moneylender: "Though his froward - fortune hath made him unable to stand you almost in any steadde, - hee hathe dealt with Mr. Maynard to aide him in the provision of - this L3000 against the second of next month. He finds him very - backwarde to disburse any money upon bond or any other security - but lands; neither will he deal with lands in any way of - mortgage for years or any long time, but only 2 or 3 months.... - Yf, therefore, it stands with your honour's good liking to make - a conveyance of Kingston to Sir Horatio ... after the rate of - L7000 ... and withal to passe it in this absolute sort that iff - the money then laid out by them for your Honour's use bee not - repaid on May day next, that they fully enjoy and possess the - lands as their owne.... Hee saith besides that his surveyors - have certified him L500 will bee the most the lands will ever - yeald yerely rent, without racking and oppressions, which are no - course for suche meane men as they be to take." - - [351] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Manor of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_, Straton's introduction. - - [352] _History of the Parish of Wiveliscombe_, by Hancock. For - Walter Raleigh and the revolt of 1549, see the dramatic account - given by Holinshed. The incident is described in Froude's - _Edward VI._ For the Grenvilles and Buckland Abbey see _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. vi. It ultimately came to Francis Drake. - - [353] Straton's introduction to _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [354] _e.g._ Heywood's _A Woman Killed with Kindness_, Act iii. - sc. 1. - - [355] _Henry VI._, Part II., Act iv. scene 2. I am indebted for - the reference to Professor Unwin. Part II. was first printed in - 1595. - - [356] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part - III., pp. 49-50: "The attorney-general to Mr. Robert Cecil. - Some information concerning those that intended the rebellion in - Oxfordshire. Bartholemew Stere, carpenter ... was the first - person of this insurrection. His outward pretence was to - overthrow enclosures, and to help the poor commonalty, that were - like to perish for want of corn, but intended to kill the - gentlemen of that county and take the spoil, affirming that the - commons long since in Spain did rise and kill the gentlemen in - Spain and sithen have lived merrily there. After that he meant - to have gone to London and joined with the prentices ... and it - was but a month's work to overrun England." - - [357] E. E. T. S., _England in the Reign of Henry VIII._, p. 85. - -While the centralised government of the Tudors gave a new bias to the -interests of landlords by stripping them of part of their political -power, economic changes were hurrying the more enterprising among them -into novel methods of estate management. In the situation which -developed in the first fifty years of the sixteenth century they were -exposed to pressure from two sides at once. They stood to gain much if -they adapted their farming to meet the new commercial conditions. They -stood to lose much if they were so conservative as to adhere to the old -methods. The explanation of the agrarian revolution most generally given -by contemporary observers was that enclosing was due to the increased -profitableness of pasture farming, consequent upon the development of -the textile industries; and though a recent writer[358] has endeavoured -to show that most of the land enclosed was used for tillage, and that -therefore this explanation cannot hold good, there does not seem any -valid reason for disputing it. The testimony of observers is very -strong; they might be mistaken as to the extent of the movement towards -pasture, but hardly as to its tendency; and with scarcely an exception -they point to the growth of the woollen trade as the chief motive for -enclosing. - - [358] See the discussion between Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay - in _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xiv., new series. - -Moreover, their evidence is confirmed by the proofs which we possess of -the expansion of the woollen industry at the end of the fifteenth -century. It is true that the figures collected by Thorold Rogers do not -enable any satisfactory correlation to be made between the rise in wool -prices and the progress of pasture farming. But they are statistically -much too unreliable to upset the direct evidence of eyewitnesses, being -based on various measures which are somewhat arbitrarily reduced to a -supposed common standard, relating to many different qualities of wool, -and being weighted in particular years by a preponderance of prices from -particular counties which are sometimes clearly not typical at all. The -figures of Schanz[359] as to the export trade in wool and woollen -cloths, are a sufficient proof of the growth in the output of wool, and -therefore in the growth of sheep-farming. They show that while the -export of unmanufactured wool fell off in the sixteenth century, that of -grey cloth grew enormously. In 1354 the export had been 4774-1/2 pieces, -from 1509 to 1523 it averaged 84,789 pieces a year, from 1524 to 1533, -91,394 pieces, from 1534 to 1539, 102,647 pieces, and from 1540 to 1547, -122,354 pieces, while in 1554 the total manufacture was estimated at -160,000 pieces of cloth and 250,000 pieces of hosiery. This expansion of -the manufactured cloth industry was only the culmination of a growth -which had been going on gradually for a hundred years. In 1464 the -Flemish manufacturers[360] were complaining that their market had been -invaded by English clothiers. Merchants like the Celys shipped enormous -consignments of wool from the Cotswolds to the Continent.[361] The large -number of sheep kept in England at the end of the fifteenth century was -the amazement of foreigners;[362] and English buyers groaned over the -high prices to which wool was driven by the competition of continental -buyers.[363] The revolution in the technique of agriculture when sucked -into the vortex of expanding commerce is, in fact, simply an early, -and, owing to the immobility of sixteenth century conditions, a -peculiarly striking example of that reaction of widening markets on the -methods of production, which is one of the best established of economic -generalisations. - - [359] Schanz, _Englische Handelspolitik gegen Ende des - Mittelalters_, Band II., p. 18. - - [360] Abram, _Social England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 33. - - [361] _Ibid._, pp. 40-41. - - [362] Camden Society (1847), _Italian Relation of England_. - - [363] Camden Society (third series, vol. i.), _Cely Papers_. In - 1480 the elder Cely writes: "I have not bought this year a loke - of woll, for the woll of Cottyswolde is bought by the - Lombardys;" and in the following year, "Ye avyse me for to buye - woll in Cottyswolde, bot it is at grate prise, 3s. 4d. a tod, - and gret ryding for woll in Cottyswolde as was any yere this vii - yere." - -At the same time, the revolution was probably hastened by a change in -commercial policy, which, while encouraging the export trade in woollen -cloth, was after 1485 less favourable to the corn-grower. During the -greater part of the fifteenth[364] century the Government was forced by -the agrarian interests to allow freedom of export for grain except when -prices reached a certain height, after which point an export licence was -required. But the victory of Henry VII. produced a policy which was less -influenced by the traditional object of helping the corn-growing -landlords, and more favourable to commerce and the middle classes on -which the new monarchy rested. In 1491[365] the export of grain, except -with a special licence, was forbidden altogether, and in 1512 the -prohibition was repeated by Henry VIII. Though the administration of -such a policy must have been difficult, and its exact effect must be a -matter of conjecture, the view taken by some contemporaries,[366] that -it was a subordinate cause which stimulated the abandonment of old -agricultural methods and caused a good deal of land to go out of -cultivation, is at any rate intrinsically probable. - - [364] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, - Early and Middle Ages, pp. 447-448. The statute sanctioning - export without licence when the price was below 6s. 8d. was 15 - Hen. VI., c. 2, which was made perpetual by 23 Hen. VI., c. 5. 3 - Ed. IV., c. 2, forbade the importation of foreign corn except - when the price reached 6s. 8d. - - [365] _Ibid._, Modern Times, Part I., p. 85. - - [366] _e.g. The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, pp. - 54-60. - -If the expansion of the woollen industry offered a fortune to those who -adopted the new methods of estate management, the depreciation in the -value of money threatened with ruin those who did not. The agrarian -changes of the sixteenth century cannot be traced primarily to the -revolution in general prices which all European countries experienced, -because they had already proceeded some way before the full extent of -the movement in prices became apparent. Throughout the fifteenth century -the value of money, as far as can be judged from such statistics as we -possess, was fairly stable, and, if anything, somewhat appreciated. -During the first half of Henry VIII.'s reign there were complaints[367] -of the scarcity of the metallic currency. On the very eve of the -dissolution of the monasteries we find a religious house in -Northumberland reversing the movement which had been going on for two -centuries in most parts of the country, and actually commuting money -rents into payments in kind,[368] on the ground that the tenants could -not command the necessary coin. Such facts should warn us that England -was far from being a single economic community, and that the effects of -the cheap money penetrated into the more backward regions only very -slowly indeed. Nevertheless, in the more advanced parts of the country, -the tide turned soon after the beginning of the new century, though it -was not till the fourth decade of it that it became a mill-race in which -all old economic standards were submerged. The general course of the -movement, so far as it affected commodities in general use, is set forth -below. The figures are re-arranged from those supplied by Steffen,[369] -whose work is mainly based on that of Thorold Rogers. - - [367] See the whole question discussed in Schanz, _Englische - Handelspolitik_, Band II., pp. 481-540. - - [368] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 232. In - 1595 a dispute as to corn rents arose between the Earl of - Northumberland and the Tynemouthshire tenants, the Earl - insisting on payment by the Newcastle measure, the tenants - demanding to pay by the Winchester measure, on the ground that - they are so poor that "they are not able with horse, furniture, - and geare to serve as their ancestors have done, as it appeared - upon the late muster." Evidence given by an ancient yeoman - before the Commission appointed to hear the case showed that the - tenants had formerly paid in money, and that the change from - money to corn had been introduced in the time of the last Prior - for the sake of the tenants, not for the sake of the Priory. - - [369] Steffen, _Studien zur Geschichte der Englischen - Lohnarbeiter_, Band I., pp. 254-255 and 365-366. - -TABLE VII - -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ -| | Wheat | Peas | Oats | Barley | -| | per Qr. | per Qr. | per Qr. | Malt | -| | | | | per Qr .| -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ -| | | | | | -| | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | -|1401-1450| 5 9-1/4| 3 2-3/4| 7 9 | 4 3 | -|1451-1500| 5 6-1/4| 3 4-3/4| 6 6-3/4| 3 8 | -|1501-1540| 6 10-1/4| 5 1-3/4| 9 4-3/4| 4 5 | -|1541-1582| 13 10-1/2| . . . | 20 10-3/4| 10 5 | -| | | | | | -+---------+----------+----------+----------+---------+ - -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ -| | | | | | Eggs | -| | Oxen. | Sheep. | Pigs. | Hens.| per | -| | | | | |Gross.| -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ -| | | | | | | -| | s. d. | s. d. | s. d. | d. | d. | -| | | | | | | -|1401-1450| 16 5-1/2| 2 1 | 7 6-3/4| 2 | 5 | -|1451-1500| 15 7-1/2| 1 10-1/4| 8 3-1/4| 2-1/4| 5-1/4| -|1501-1540| 22 9 | 2 10-1/4| 10 0 | 3 | 9 | -|1541-1582| 70 0-1/4| 6 4 | . . . | 4-3/4| . . .| -| | | | | | | -+---------+----------+----------+----------+------+------+ - -Though it would not be right, of course, to force these figures too -far, as one cannot be sure that they are in all cases typical, the -indication which they offer of a remarkable rise in prices beginning -soon after 1500 is in all probability substantially correct. The result -of this movement in dragging down the standard of comfort of the people -has often been noticed, and need not be emphasised here. But it is -important to observe that it had a very marked effect upon the -traditional methods of agriculture, because it supplied landowners with -a new incentive to squeeze the utmost possible income out of their -estates. Since they were buying everything dearer, they were under a -strong inducement to turn land to the most profitable use, and to revise -all existing contracts which prevented an advance in tenants' payments. -In the not unnatural confusion which surrounded the question of the -cause of the general rise in prices, this aspect of the agrarian -troubles failed very generally to be appreciated by contemporary -writers, who were inclined to argue that the higher prices were due to -the increased rents, instead of seeing that the increased rents were -themselves the consequence of the increased prices. But it was -emphasised in the middle of the century by the author of the -_Commonwealth of England_,[370] and at the end of it by Gerrard de -Malynes,[371] who puts the case with great power and perspicacity, -though he perhaps may be thought to exaggerate the importance of the -debasement of the currency. "Every man knoweth," he wrote in 1601, "that -by reason of the base money coined in the end of the most victorious -reign of King Henry VIII. all the forrain commodities were sold dearer, -which made afterwards the commodities of the realm to rise at the -farmers' and tenants' hands, and therefore gentlemen did raise the rents -of their lands and take farms themselves and made inclosures of -grounds, and the price of everything being dearer was made dearer though -plenty of money and bullion coming daily from the West Indies.... If we -require gentlemen to abate their rents, give over farms, and break up -enclosures, it may be they would do so if they might have all their -provisions at the price heretofore." Yet such a statement gives but a -faint indication of the revolutionary effect upon agrarian relationships -of the depreciation in the value of money. The modern reader, before -whose eyes all economic standards are fluctuating from day to day, can -hardly grasp the anarchy which it tended to produce in a world where -values, especially land values, were objective realities which had stood -unaltered for centuries together. The landlord sees his income slipping -from him, though his estate pays as much as before. The tenant finds his -landlord pressing for higher rents and fines, though the yield of the -land has not increased. Yet neither desires anything but to remain as -they were, and both are ignorant of the force which sweeps them out of -the ancient ways. For, in the wholesome manner of the age, they ascribe -all economic evils to personal misdemeanours, the unreasonableness of -merchants, the covetousness of gentlemen, the extortions of husbandmen, -and the real cause is an impersonal one, which carries them forward -against their will, like men "thrusting one another in a throng, one -driving on another."[372] It is easy to understand that it must have -been difficult to maintain customary payments and traditional methods of -agriculture against the screw which the rise in prices turned on the -landowning classes. Agricultural experiments were in the air, and with -experts explaining how to double the value of an estate by enclosure -without prejudicing the tenants, it is not surprising that landowners, -who saw their real incomes dwindling with the fall in the value of -money, should have adopted the principle of their advice and neglected -the qualifications. - - [370] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), - especially p. 81: "Knight: What sorte is that which youe said - had greater loss thereby then those men had profitte? Doctor: It - is all noblemen, and gentlemen, and all other that live by a - fixed rent, or stipend, or doe not maner the grounde, or do - occupie no byinge or sellinge.... He that maie spend L300 a - yeare by such revennewes and fees, may kepe no better porte then - his father, or anie before him, that could spend but L200. And - so ye maie perceave, it is a great abatement of a man's - countenance to take awaie the third part of his livinge. And - therefore gentlemen doe so much studie the Increase of theire - landes, enhauncing of their rentes, and so take farmes and - pastures into theire owne hands." - - [371] _A Treatise of the Canker of England's Commonwealth_ - (1601). - - [372] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), p. - 100. - - -(b) _The Growth of the Large Leasehold Farm_ - -The changed situation created by these causes had the effect of -producing a new policy on the part of landlords, which took different -forms according to the circumstances of different localities, but which -in the counties most deeply affected resulted in an increase in -pasture-farming and in an upward movement in the payments made by -tenants. The new regime seems to have affected first, as was natural, -that part of their estates which was most entirely under their own -control, and the disposal of which was least involved in other -interests, namely, the manorial demesne. It is not altogether easy to -construct a picture of the policy pursued by a typical enclosing -landlord from the accounts of contemporaries, who were more interested -in results than in the steps by which they were reached. According to -some of them, lords in the sixteenth century were resuming into their -own hands those parts of the demesne which had been let out, in order to -supply their establishments with produce without having to rely on the -markets when prices were rapidly rising. On some manors again, when the -demesne was "in the hand of the lord," considerations which were not -purely economic came into play; for example, one finds part of it being -turned into a park, which was at once profitable as a means of grazing -sheep, and prized for those motives of social amenity and ostentation -which have done so much to make the English countryside the admiration -of travellers, and so much to ruin the English peasantry. It was not -seldom that the confiscated estates of monastic houses were converted -into a pleasaunce or a deer-park by their new proprietors. - -On the other hand, the manorial documents suggest that landlords were -usually rather parties to changes in the methods of cultivation than -themselves the agents who carried them out, because, at any rate in the -case of the larger landowners, the demesnes were usually leased. The -actual process of experiment and innovation took place on most manors -through the instrumentality of the lessee.[373] The large farmer, who on -many manors is found managing the demesne, is much the most striking -character in the rural development of the sixteenth century. His -fortunes wax while those of the peasantry wane. Gradually he thrusts -them, first copyholders and then yeomen, into the background, and -becomes in time the parent of a mighty line, which later ages, -forgetting poor Piers Plowman, whose place he has usurped, will look on -as the representative of all that is solid and unchanging in the English -social order. In our period he plays in the economics of agriculture the -part which was played in industry by the capitalist clothier, and his -position as the pivot of agrarian change is so important that it will -repay close attention. - - [373] This may seem inconsistent with the fact that in the - statistics published by Mr. Leadam from the Inquisition of 1517 - most enclosures in most counties are entered as made by lords of - manors. I do not think, however, that this is necessarily so. - When it is stated that a lord of a manor has enclosed and - converted to pasture, it may very well be meant that his agent - did so with his consent. _I.e._ the distinction would appear to - be not between the lord and the lord's farmer, but between the - manorial authorities (lord and farmer) and the rest of the - landholders. The phrase used in the Berkshire returns, "converti - permisit," indicates what I take to have been the most general, - though not, of course, the invariable, course of events. - -In the first place, then, it is clear that the foundation of the large -farm was the practice of leasing the demesne for a term of years, which -was the normal way of disposing of it in the sixteenth century. In the -reign of Elizabeth the distinction between the demesne and the customary -tenancies still survived, and surveyors were at some pains to separate -them in order to prevent the demesne being merged in the customary -holdings. But the original meaning of the distinction had been almost -obliterated; the demesne was no longer the centre of the manorial -economy, as it had been when its produce maintained the lord's -household, and the labour of the customary tenants, in spite of the -survival of many services, no longer supplied the chief means of -cultivating it. On the whole, it would be true to say that on -ninety-nine manors out of a hundred the demesne was leased by the middle -of the sixteenth century, and on the majority of them probably at a much -earlier date. There are, of course, some exceptions. Certain manors the -lord makes his headquarters, and there the home farm is retained in his -hands, because it is required to supply his establishment. On other -manors the demesne or part of it can no longer be distinguished from the -holdings of the customary tenants, and is held by them by copy of Court -Roll in the same way as the "customary land." In certain parts of -England, again, the leasing of the demesne has not proceeded far, -because the demesne has always been relatively unimportant. On several -Northumberland manors, for example, the surveyor[374] could in 1567 find -no demesne at all, either because it had all been divided up among the -tenants, or because it had never existed. Nevertheless, in spite of -these exceptions, a lease for a term of years to a farmer or farmers is -the ordinary method of disposing of the demesne in the sixteenth -century. This is proved in a very satisfactory way by the investigations -of Professor Savine[375] into the disposition of the lands of monastic -houses in 1534. After an exhaustive inquiry relating to several hundred -manors he found that the cases in which the demesne was not leased were -an insignificant proportion of the whole. An examination of smaller -groups of manors tells the same story. Out of thirty-six[376] manors in -Wiltshire, Somersetshire, and Devonshire surveyed for the Earl of -Pembroke in 1568, it is possible to determine the use made of the -demesne on thirty-two, and on twenty-nine of them it was leased. Of -twenty-nine other manors examined at random at different periods in the -sixteenth and early seventeenth century every one was in the same -condition. There is no reason to distrust these instances on the ground -that they may represent a development occurring too late in the century -to be relevant to movements found in existence at the beginning of it, -because in several cases where the history of a manor can be traced -backwards, it is clear, as has been shown above, that the leasing of the -demesne was quite common at least from the middle of the fifteenth -century, and in parts of the country much earlier. - - [374] _e.g._ at Acklington (_Northumberland County History_, - vol. v.), of which Clarkson the surveyor writes: "Neither is - there any demaine lands or demaine meadows, but all is occupied - together in husbandry"; at Birling (_ibid._): "There is no - demaine land or meadow, with all their husbandlands and meadows - appertaining to the same"; apparently also at High Buston. - Compare Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, p. 316: "Villages - without a manorial demesne ... are found ... where the power of - the lord was more a political than an economical one" (Norfolk - and Suffolk, Lincoln, Northumberland, Westmoreland, &c.). For a - manor where the demesne is kept in the hand of the lord in 1568 - for the reason given above, see Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of - Pembroke Manors_, Manor of Washerne. - - [375] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, pp. 153-154. - - [376] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - -From the allusions made by contemporaries to the large farmer as one of -the mainsprings of the changes of the period, one is disposed to look -first at the demesne for the beginning of capitalist agriculture. -Whether, however, the method of cultivating the demesne differed much -from the cultivation of the customary holdings depended to a -considerable extent upon the terms on which it was leased, and, in -particular, upon whether it passed into the control of a single -considerable tenant. It would be a mistake to think that the economic -relationships which were established when the demesne ceased to be -cultivated by villein labour were all of one type, or in particular that -the demesne invariably passed into the hands of one holder. Mention has -already been made of the practice of adding the demesne lands, or part -of them, to the customary land held by copy of Court Roll, a practice -which obviously resulted in maintaining in the hands of small -cultivators land which might have gone to build up large properties. - -Even when the demesne is leased it is not always leased to a single -large farmer. In reality the surveys of the sixteenth century reveal two -well-defined types of leasehold property subsisting on the lord's -demesne, sometimes on neighbouring manors. The first type has as its -distinctive feature that the lessees are a number, sometimes a very -large number, of small farmers, who have been given allotments on the -demesne and who hold them for various periods of years, sometimes for -life only, sometimes for eighty, sometimes for ninety-two or -ninety-nine, years. Many examples of this type of small leaseholder come -from the west of England. Thus at Ablode,[377] in Somersetshire, before -the demesne was leased out by St. Peter's to a large farmer in 1515, it -had already been leased to seventeen of the customary tenants. At -Paynton,[378] in 1568, the Barton land was held in small plots by -fifty-one leaseholders, at South Brent[379] by eighteen. But examples of -this arrangement are found all over England. At Higham Ferrers,[380] in -Northamptonshire, the demesne has been divided among nine tenants; at -Stondelf,[381] in Staffordshire, among thirty-one. At Shape[382] in -Suffolk and Northendale[383] in Norfolk the demesnes are added to the -holdings of the customary tenants. At Forncett,[384] in Norfolk, parts -of the demesne are in the same way leased out in small parcels in the -fifteenth century for gradually lengthening periods of years, though by -the beginning of our period they seem to have been held by copy in the -same way as the customary land. Elsewhere we get what appear to be -variations of the same system, in the form of sub-letting or of -joint-cultivation. At Castle Combe,[385] for example, the demesne lands -were leased in 1454 to four tenants, "with the intention that they -themselves should let to farm to all the tenants of the lord some -portion of those lands." On other manors groups of tenants seem to make -themselves jointly responsible for the rent required. It was not an -unknown[386] thing even at quite an early date for a whole village to -come forward and make a kind of collective bargain with the lord as to -the terms upon which they would take over the demesne lands, and when -the leasing of the demesne became the regular practice townships -sometimes stepped into the shoes of the bailiffs, and averted the entry -of the large farmer by leasing the lands themselves, and making their -own arrangements as to the way in which they should be utilised. One may -suspect, indeed, that such action took place in a good many cases when -the land was leased to many small tenants, as at Paynton and South -Brent, even though the intervention of the township is not expressly -stated. Sometimes, however, the communal character of the bargain is -quite beyond doubt. For example, at Cucklington,[387] on the manor of -Stooke Trister in Somersetshire, twelve tenants leased together at a -rent of L8 for forty years a sheep house with 250 acres of land. At -Chedsey,[388] in the same county, the whole of the demesne, which lay -mainly in small parcels of one or two acres, was held in 1568 on a -twenty-one years' lease by the tenants of the manor. At Caston,[389] in -Norfolk, we find an entry of rent which is paid by "the inhabitants of -the town of Scratby for certain lands occupied for their benefit." The -phrase "town lands," which appears not infrequently[390] in the surveys -and estate maps of the sixteenth century may perhaps be taken as -indicating the same conclusion. In what way exactly we ought to -interpret these arrangements--whether we should regard them as nothing -more than a summary expression of the fact that all the tenants have -severally rights over part of the estate, or whether we should conceive -of them as implying some higher degree of corporate action than this, -and as the outcome of a bargain struck with the lord by the village as a -village, is an interesting and difficult question,[391] to which we -shall recur later in speaking of rights of common. But we may mention -two points which suggest that there is in them a certain element of -practical communism to which legal historians sometimes do less than -justice. The first is that we occasionally find certain tenants acting -on behalf[392] of, one might almost say, representing, others. The -second is that in some cases the demesne lands are divided among them in -exactly equal[393] shares, so that, though every one has more land than -before, the relative sizes of their holdings are unaltered. The last -fact is a very striking one. It means, in the first place, that the new -land has been allotted on some common principle and by some formal -agreement. Clearly, if each tenant had bought as much land as he -pleased, we should have had not equality but inequality. It points, in -the second place, to the enduring strength of the ideas and interests -underlying the system of agricultural shareholding which is -characteristic of the mediaeval village. We can understand a very -primitive system of agriculture designed to secure each household the -standard equipment needed to support it. But one would naturally suppose -that at the end of the Middle Ages, when new land which had hitherto -belonged to the lord was offered to the villagers, each would buy up as -much as he could without regard to the interests of his neighbours. It -is probable that in most cases, as in those quoted in Chapter III., this -is what happened. But in some instances it is not. The old economic -ideas which had governed the disposition of the ancient customary -holdings are applied to the new land which the cessation of demesne -cultivation by the lord throws into the market, and the villagers -re-allot it on the old plan. Even in its decay the mediaeval land system -shows its vitality by meeting new situations with the ancient methods. - - [377] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriae_, vol. - iii. App., pp. 291-295. - - [378] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [379] _Ibid._ - - [380] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 34. - - [381] R.O. _Land Rev. Misc. Bks._, vol. clxxxv., ff. 70-74. - - [382] R.O. _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipts_, vol. clxiii., ff. - 187. - - [383] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Roll 478, No. 3. - - [384] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_. - - [385] Scrope, _History of Manor and Barony of Castle Combe_, p. - 208. - - [386] Vinogradoff, _The Growth of the Manor_, note to chap. ii., - Book III., p. 370, and his quotations from Maitland: "The - villains of Bright Waltham ... constituted a community which - held land, which was capable of receiving a grant of land, which - could contract with the lord, which could make exchange with the - lord." - - [387] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [388] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. - - [389] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52, p. - 10 d. - - [390] See the map of part of Salford, p. 163, and compare R.O. - Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32 (Lavenham in - Suffolk): "Of Township of Tuddenham Free land foldcourse, 6s. - 9d." _Ibid._, Portf. 13, No 21 (Colly Weston in Northants): "The - inhabitants for bushy ground paying two years 11s. Item, in - every third year they pay nothing." At Wymondham (R.O. _Aug. - Off. Misc. Bks._, vol. ccclx., f. 91) one finds under the - heading "Towne lands" 38 acres held by copy by the "feoffees of - the Vill of Wymondham" (37 Eliz.) in Trust for the school. - - [391] See references quoted below, pp. 244-253. - - [392] _e.g._ Scrope, _History of Manor and Barony of Castle - Combe_, p. 203. Extent of Manor, 1454: "Et notandum quod - praedictae terrae dominicates cum pratis et pasturis supra - specificatis dimittebantur ad firmam Ricardo Hallewey, Edwardo - Yonge, Johanni Costyn, Willelmo Gaudeby, et Edwardo Noorth, ea - intentione quod ipsi dimitterent ad firmam omnibus tenentibus - domini aliquas portiones dictorum terrarum secundum magis et - minus pro earum cultura, et reddunt pro firma inter se cxiiis. - viiid." - - [393] R.O. _Land Revenue Misc. Bks._, vol. ccxxi., fol. 1. - Survey of Manor of Brigstock (Northants) 4, James I. Here the - demesne is held by twenty-two tenants, each having 8 acres, 3 - roods, and 1 acre of meadow. Mickleholme meadow (also demesne - land) is held by five tenants, each having 1 acre. One finds on - some Northumberland manors a growth in the size of customary - holdings combined with the preservation of almost exact equality - between them, which surely must be taken as proving that the - increase in the area held grew, not by sporadic encroachments on - the part of individuals, but by definite allotment on some - communal plan. Thus at Birling there were in 1248 ten "bondi," - each holding 30 acres or one husbandland; in 1498 nine holding - 30 acres or one husbandland, and four holding one husbandland of - 30 acres between them; in 1567 ten customary tenants, each - holding 33 acres; in 1616 the average holding has risen from 33 - to 42-1/2 acres, but there is still substantial equality, the - largest holding amounting to 44 acres, 3 roods, 3-1/2 poles, and - the smallest to 40 acres, 0 roods, 33 poles (I omit the facts as - to the cottagers). In spite of two considerable additions to the - land of the village, there is little change in the relative - proportions of the tenancies. At Acklington there were in 1352 - thirty-five bondage holdings of 16 acres each, of which nine - were vacant (presumably on account of the plague). In 1368 these - nine vacant holdings were let to the other tenants for herbage. - In 1498 there were eighteen tenants, of whom seventeen held two - husbandlands apiece (_i.e._ 32 acres) and one, one husbandland - (_i.e._ 16 acres). _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - -These small tenants were described as "farming the demesne," and their -existence may perhaps mark a sort of half-way house in the evolution of -the manorial demesne into the large leasehold farm. One may suspect -that that development was not at all likely to take place rapidly in the -circumstances of the fifteenth century. According to the generally -accepted view the practice of leasing part of the demesne, though -occurring at a very early date on manors where the labour supply was too -small for it to be cultivated by the villeins, received a great impetus -from the scarcity of labour which was produced by the Great Plague, and -went on side by side with the gradual commutation of labour services -into money rents. Of course one must not dogmatise about changes which -took centuries to accomplish, and which developed at very different -degrees of speed in different parts of the country. But the accounts of -particular manors supplied us by surveyors bear out the view that the -development of a class of small leaseholders took place as the result of -the abandonment of the old system of cultivating the demesne by means of -the works of the tenants organised under the supervision of the manorial -officials. "The lorde departed his habitation and caused his officers to -grant out parte of his landes to his tenants at will." "The medowes -lying in Hinton were the lordes' severall meadowes, which nowe are -divided among the tenants." "When the lorde departed his habitation, and -granted out the demesnes, the part was delivered and letten to the use -of the tenants." "One Sir John Taverney, Knight, dyd inhabit within the -said mannor, and kept great hospitalitie, and occupied the demesnes in -his own possession, which are large and greate, and now of late years -granted out by copye for terms of lyves among the tenants." Such -information, collected by a curious investigator[394] in the middle of -the sixteenth century from the lips of aged peasants in the west of -England, takes us back to a time when the leasing of the demesne was a -comparative novelty. Is it surprising that the landlord who leased for -the first time should prefer to do so on this small scale, should choose -to grant plots of land piecemeal for short terms of years rather than to -form a single farm? The practice was at first an experiment, an alarming -departure from accepted methods undertaken only through dire necessity. -A great catastrophe like the plague might make it profitable, but time -would naturally elapse before it was done systematically and on a large -scale. At the same time a class of farmers with sufficient capital to -manage several hundred acres of land could not come into existence at -once. The ordinary villein tenants, who were the first lessees on many -manors, could hardly jump immediately from farming twenty or thirty -acres to farming a whole estate, though those of them who as bailiffs -had previously been responsible for managing the demesne, and who seem -sometimes to have managed it as farmers for the lord, rather than as -hired servants, were certainly in a better position to do so. - - [394] Humberstone, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - (surveys _temp._ Phil. and Mary of various manors belonging to - the Earl of Devon). - -It would seem indeed that the question whether, when the sixteenth -century began, the demesne lands of a manor were leased to many small -tenants or to one or two large farmers, was decided largely by local and -personal conditions, and may fairly be described as a matter of chance. -When they lay in many scattered strips unified culture was impossible -till they had been consolidated, and therefore there was no particular -reason for leasing them to one tenant rather than to many; whereas, when -they were from the start in two or three great blocks, it was obviously -very improbable that they would be sub-divided. In those parts of the -country where sheep-farming was less profitable than elsewhere one -motive for introducing a single large farm was absent, while where the -demesne had already been leased in small plots the manorial authorities -might dislike to make an abrupt change affecting many households -disadvantageously. The general movement would appear, however, to have -been in the direction of longer leases and larger tenancies. Thus Miss -Davenport has shown that at Forncett the leasing of the demesne -began[395] in small parcels and for short periods from the end of the -fourteenth century, and gradually took place on a larger scale and for -longer periods as the practice became more familiar. The earlier leases -of the Oxfordshire manor of Cuxham[396] alternate between six and seven -years in length, and it is not till 1472 that the College owning it -appears to have granted a lease of as much as twenty years. Sometimes -one can see the system of leasing small parcels to many little farmers, -and that of leasing the whole demesne to one large farmer, coming into -competition with each other. A case in point comes from Ablode[397] in -Somersetshire. In 1515 the Abbot and Convent of St. Peter's, Gloucester, -leased the whole manor of Ablode to a farmer for eighty years. But at -the time when the lease was made the demesne lands and demesne meadows -were already occupied by the customary tenants. Accordingly the covenant -with the farmer provides that as soon as the other tenants' agreements -terminate, he shall have the reversion of their lands to use as he -pleases. Here the two types of demesne cultivation are seen merging into -one another, with the result that the large farm is consolidated out of -the small tenancies which preceded it. - - [395] Davenport, _History of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 57. When first - leased in 1373 the demesne was leased as a whole, but this plan - was abandoned. Early in the fifteenth century it was leased in - small plots, at first for six or seven years, and then for - twelve, twenty, or forty years. Finally parts of the demesne - were granted to be held at fee farm. - - [396] Merton Documents, Nos. 3100 (lease of 1361 for seven - years), 3002 (lease of 1420 for seven years); 2856 (lease of - 1424 for one year); 1874 (lease of 1472 for twenty years). - - [397] _Historia et Cartularium Monasterii Gloucestriae_, vol. - iii. App., pp. 291-295. The words are "Sed bene licebit praefatis - ... substituere tenentes ad eorum bene placitum in omnibus illis - terris dominicalibus supradictis modo in manibus tenentium - ibidem existentibus, cum reversio praedicta inde acciderit." - -At the beginning of our period these small demesne tenancies had already -disappeared from many manors, if they had ever existed on them, and the -normal method of using the demesne was to lease it to a single[398] -large farmer, or at any rate to not more than three or four. In spite of -the instances given above, in which the home farm and its lands were -split up among numerous small tenants, most of the evidence suggests -that the leasing of the demesne to a single farmer was as regular a way -of disposing of it in the sixteenth century as its cultivation by -manorial officials with the labour of villeins had been in the -thirteenth. The very slow development of the large farm in certain -parts of the country was due rather to the insignificance or absence of -the demesne on some northern manors than to the prevalence of any -alternative methods of utilising it. The terms on which the farmer took -over the land varied naturally in detail, but these differences are -unimportant. In a few cases he holds it by copy. Normally he is a -leaseholder, sometimes for life, more usually for a period of years -ranging from twenty-one to eighty. Again the lessee's interest may be -more or less inclusive. Sometimes only the demesne, including any -customary works upon it of the tenants which may survive, is leased. -Sometimes the lease includes the live-stock of the manor, which, or the -equivalent of which, the farmer must replace at the end of his term. -Sometimes the profits of the court are leased as well, though more -usually they are reserved, together with any income from fines, to the -lord. Sometimes there is an arrangement of great interest and importance -by which the whole body of manorial rights, including the income from -the courts, confiscation of straying beasts, and the rents of the -customary tenants, are leased to the farmer, who thus becomes the -immediate landlord of the other tenants.[399] The greater part of the -farmer's rent is by the middle of the sixteenth century paid in money. -But certain payments in kind[400] survive, and supply a link between the -vanishing subsistence cultivation, and the growing commercial economy. -Where money was scarce, tenants were sometimes allowed to pay in kind as -a concession to their interests, and some landlords still found it -convenient to receive part of their rent in grain, fowls, pigeons, fish, -or a fat bull, a practice which on college estates lasted down to the -very end of the seventeenth century. But the value of such payments was -carefully calculated in terms of money, and they were the exception. - - [398] Thus in 1535, on nineteen out of twenty-two manors owned - by Battle Abbey, the demesne was farmed by a single tenant, on - one by two, on one by three, while on one it was retained in the - hands of the monks (_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal - History_, vol. i.; _English Monasteries on the Eve of the - Dissolution_, by A. Savine). On twenty-five manors out of - thirty-two held by the Earl of Pembroke in 1568, the same - unified management obtained (Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of - Pembroke Manors_). Savine's remarks are to the point: "The lord - of the manor seldom divided up the demesne into separate plots - of land to be let to local tenants. Usually the demesne and its - buildings, sometimes even together with the live and dead stock, - passed into the hands of one farmer" (_ibid._). - - [399] As at Knyghton in Wilts in 1568 (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke - Surveys_), where the holdings and rents of the customary tenants - appear in the farmer's lease, _e.g._ "Walter Savage ad - voluntatem tenet ut parcellam dicti manerii l close etc. ... et - reddit 56s. ad manus dicti firmarii." - - [400] Here is an example from a lease of 1562. The farmer pays - "yearly to the lord for the aforesaid farm-- - - 10 quarters of corn, per bushel, 12d. L4 - 20 quarters of barley, per bushel, 8d. 106s. 8d. - 10 quarters of oats, per bushel, 3d. 26s. 8d. - 20 capons, per caput, 4d. 6s. 8d. - 20 pigeons, per caput, 4d. 6s. 8d. - 12 great fish called trouts, per caput, 3d. 3s." - - (Survey of South Newton, _ibid._). - -The growth of large farms had proceeded so far by the middle of the -sixteenth century that in parts of the country the area held by the -farmer was about equal to that held by all the other tenants. On some -manors it was less; on others it was a great deal more. The average area -of the large farmer's land in Wiltshire seems to have been about 352 -acres, and it is not unusual to find manors where there are only two or -three customary tenants, while on some there were none at all. Wiltshire -no doubt must not be taken as typical of all other counties, as the -acreage of the leasehold farms held by men who had capital to spend -could so easily be increased by drawing in great tracts from the rolling -stretches of Chalk Down. But elsewhere, though the acreage held by the -farmer of the demesne is less, 170 or 150 acres, and though one or two -of the larger copyholders control a great deal of land themselves, he is -still, compared with the bulk of the customary tenants, a Triton among -minnows. Arithmetical averages are, however, unsatisfactory, and a -better idea of the scale on which the large farmer carried on business -may be obtained from the following table:-- - - TABLE VIII - - +-----------------------------------------------------------------------+ - | 850-900 Acres.| - | 800-849 Acres.|.| - | 750-799 Acres.|.|.| - | 700-749 Acres.|.|.|.| - | 650-699 Acres.|.|.|.|.| - | 600-649 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 550-599 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 500-549 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 450-499 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 400-449 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 350-399 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 300-349 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 250-299 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 200-249 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 150-199 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 100-149 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | 50-99 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | Under 50 Acres.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - +-----------------------------------|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.|.| - | Eighteen farms on sixteen | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | manors in Norfolk | |2|2|3|1| |3|1| |2|3| | | |1| | | | - | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | Thirty-one farms on twenty- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | three manors in Wiltshire |4|2|4|4|3|4|3| |2|1|1| | | | | |1|2| - | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | Eighteen farms on thirteen | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | manors in several counties |2|3|3|1|3|2|1| | |3| | | | | | | | | - | +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - | Total, sixty-seven farms | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | - | on fifty-two manors |6|7|9|8|7|6|7|1|2|6|4| | | |1| |1|2| - +-----------------------------------+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+ - -It will be seen that if all the farms are grouped together, rather more -than one half, thirty-seven out of sixty-seven, have an area exceeding -200 acres, and that the area of rather more than a quarter exceeds 350 -acres. The figures must be read with the caution that they in some cases -certainly underestimate the real extent of the land used by the farmer, -as rights of common often cannot be expressed in terms of acres. - - -(c) _Enclosure and Conversion by the Manorial Authorities_ - -When we turn from the agricultural arrangements described in previous -chapters to examine these large farms, we enter a new world, a world -where economic power is being slowly organised for the exploitation of -the soil, and where the methods of cultivation and the standards of -success are quite different from those obtaining on the small holdings -of the peasantry. The advantage to the lord of the system of large -farms, compared either with the retention of the demesne in his own -hands, or with the leasing of it in allotments to small tenants, was -obvious enough for its extension to be no matter for surprise. The -utilisation of the produce of the demesne by the lord's household was -unnecessary when markets were sufficiently reliable to offer a regular -supply, and inconvenient when the landlord was an absentee. The division -of the estate among small tenants meant the creation or maintenance of -interests opposed to agricultural changes, and made it impracticable to -vary the methods of agriculture to meet varying demands, except by the -rather cumbrous process of a common agreement ratified in the manorial -court. The leasing of the demesne to a large farmer got rid of those -disadvantages. The lord was secured a regular money income, which was -considerably higher per acre than that got from the customary tenants; -and since the land was under the management of a single individual, who -was sometimes equipped with a good deal of capital, it was much easier -to try experiments and to initiate changes. When not only the demesne, -but the whole body of manorial rights, was included in the lease, the -property became of that most desirable kind, in which ownership is -attenuated to a pecuniary lien on the product of industry, without -administrative responsibility for its management. - -Opportunities for new methods of cultivation were afforded by the -leasing of the demesne to a single farmer, which would lead us to look -at his holding as the place where agrarian changes were most likely to -begin, and to start from that in order to trace the effect of these -large properties on the small properties of the customary tenants. On -the one hand, any wide development of leasehold tenure involves a -certain mobility in rural society and a disposition to break with -routine. There must be a market for land, which again implies that some -class has accumulated sufficient capital to invest and has got beyond -mere subsistence farming. It naturally arises either when new[401] land -is brought into cultivation, or when the development of trade makes -farming for the market profitable, or when changes are being introduced -into the methods of agriculture, or when the value of land is uncertain -(for example, when it is thought that it may contain minerals),[402] -because in all these cases leasehold, being a terminable interest, -enables the owner of land to adjust his rent to the tenant's returns. On -the other hand, the landowner does not get the full advantage of the -elasticity in rent and management that leasehold tenure makes possible, -unless the tenant is a man of some substance, who can spend capital in -cultivating land on a large scale, in stocking a farm with sheep and -cattle, in carrying crops until the best market is found, and in making -experiments in new directions. - - [401] See pp. 139-147. - - [402] See _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix., account of - Cowpen, and _Victoria County History_, Lancashire, article on - Social and Economic History. For the same reasons mills and - fisheries were naturally the first parts of a mediaeval manor to - be leased for terms of years. - -One can easily understand the reasons which favoured the large farm, if -one reflects on the change in economic environment, the outlines of -which have been already described. The most important economic cause -determining the unit of landholding is the nature of the crop to be -raised and the methods used in producing it; and the nature of the crop -depends mainly on the conditions of the market. Now in the sixteenth -century the market conditions were such as to leave room for a large -number of small corn-growers, because trade was so backward that a great -number of households farmed simply for subsistence. On the other hand, -even in the case of corn-growing, the size of the most profitable unit -of agriculture was increasing with the development of an internal corn -trade--a development which is proved by the strenuous attempts which the -Government made to regulate it through the Justices of the Peace; while -in the case of sheep and cattle grazing on the large scale practised by -the graziers of the period, there was obviously no question but that an -extensive ranch, which could be stocked with several thousand beasts, -was the type of holding which would pay best. That a class of capitalist -farmers of this kind was coming into existence in the sixteenth century -is indicated both by the complaints of contemporaries that small men -find farms taken over their heads by great graziers, who have made money -in trade; by the fact that the stock and land lease, a form of metayage -under which the working capital was supplied by the landowner, had given -way on many manors to the modern type of lease under which it is -provided by the lessee;[403] and by the way in which one farmer would -become the lessee of two[404] or more manors, a clear indication of the -existence of wealthy men who had money to invest in agriculture. It was -the substitution of such a class for the small leaseholders among whom -the demesne had often been divided, and their appearance for the first -time on manors where the demesne had been kept in the hands of the lord -until it was leased to one large farmer, which gave a rapid and almost -catastrophic speed to the tendency to enclosure which, as we have seen, -was already going on quietly among the small tenants, because it meant -the control of a growing proportion of the land by persons who had -capital to spend, and who, since they held their farms by lease, not by -copy, were under the pressure of competitive rents to adopt the methods -of agriculture which were financially most profitable. This in itself -was a new phenomenon, at least on the large scale on which it appeared -in the sixteenth century. In modern agriculture one is accustomed to -seeing the area sown with any crop varying according to movements in the -market price of the produce, so that on the margin of cultivation land -is constantly changing its use in response to changes in the world's -markets. But such adaptability implies a very high degree of -organisation, and when farming was carried on mainly by small producers -for their own households, the reaction of changing commercial conditions -on the supply was much slower, and cultivation was to a much greater -extent a matter of routine. It was the development of the large -capitalist farmer which supplied the link binding agriculture to the -market and causing changes in prices to be reflected in changes in the -use to which land was put. - - [403] Owing to the advantages which the small holding has for - dairy purposes (personal attention to cattle, &c.), it is still - the custom in parts of the country, _e.g._ Devonshire, for the - large farmers to sublet small dairy farms out of their holdings, - and to supply the lessee with all the stock, including the cows - and the cottage. See Levy, _Large and Small Holdings_, chap. ix. - - [404] Several examples of this are to be found in the _Pembroke - Surveys_. Contemporaries called it "the engrossing of farms." - -The tendency which we should expect to find represented most -conspicuously upon the demesne farms is of course that enclosing of land -and laying of it down to pasture, which is lamented by contemporaries. -The word "enclosing," under which contemporaries summed up the agrarian -changes of the period, has become the recognised name for the process by -which the village community was broken up, but it is perhaps not a very -happy one. Quite apart from the difficulties which it raises when we -come to compare the enclosures of the eighteenth century, which were -made under Act of Parliament, with those of the sixteenth century, which -were made in defiance of legislation, it is at once too broad and too -narrow to be an adequate description even of the innovations of the -earlier period, too broad if it implies that all enclosures entailed the -hardships which were produced by some, too narrow if it implies that the -only hardships caused were due to enclosure. It selects one feature of -the movement towards capitalist agriculture for special emphasis, and -suggests that the hedging and ditching of land always produced similar -results. That, however, was by no means the case. Enclosure might take -place, as has been shown above, without producing the social -disturbances usually associated with it, provided that it was carried -out by the tenants themselves, and with the consent of those affected. -The concentration of holdings and the displacement of tenants might take -place without enclosure. On a desert island there is no need of palings -to keep out trespassers; and a manor which was entirely in the hands of -one great farmer was a manor where the maintenance of enclosures was -almost unnecessary. At the same time the word does describe one of the -external features which usually accompanied the agrarian changes. The -general note of the movement was the emancipation from the rules of -communal cultivation of part or all of the land used for purposes of -tillage or pasture. The surface of a manor was covered with a kind of -elaborate network of rules apportioning, on a common customary plan, the -rights and duties of every one who had an interest in it. A man must let -his land lie open after harvest; he must not keep more than a certain -number of each kind of beasts on the common; he must plough when his -neighbours plough, and sow when his neighbours sow. The effect of the -growing influence of the capitalist farmer was to clear away these -organised restrictions from parts of the manor altogether, and violently -to shake the whole system. Enclosing was normally the external symptom -of the change, for the practical reason that the simplest way of cutting -a piece of land adrift from the common course of cultivation, or from -the rules laid down for the use of the commonable area, was to put a -hedge round it, partly to keep one's own beasts in, partly to keep other -people's beasts out. The essential feature of the change was that land -which was formerly subject to a rule prescribing the methods of -cultivation became land which was used at the individual's discretion. - -The agent through whom enclosing was carried out was usually the large -farmer. When the farmer leased only the demesne lands, and the demesne -lands lay in large compact blocks, not in scattered strips, he could -naturally practise the new economy of enclosure upon them without -colliding with any other interest, except in the cases where they were -divided into several tenancies; while if steps were taken to get rid of -the interests which the customary tenants had either in the open fields, -in the meadows, or in the common, the land lost by them was normally -added to the area which the farmer leased, and enclosed by him. In the -surveys of the period one finds manors in every stage of the transition -from open field cultivation to enclosure, and though such individual -instances tell us nothing of the extent of the movement, they offer a -vivid picture of what enclosing meant, and give the impression that -enclosure had usually proceeded further on those manors where the farmer -held the largest proportion of the land. The slowness of the movement -towards enclosure on the holdings of the customary tenants has already -been described. As a contrast to it one may look at the following table, -which sets out the condition of things on some demesne farms:-- - - TABLE IX - - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | | | | 5 | - | Number of | No signs | Under | per Cent. | - | Demesne | of | 5 per Cent. | to 24 | - | Farms | Enclosure. | Enclosed. | per Cent. | - | Examined. | | | Enclosed. | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 47 | 12 | 9 | 7 | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 25 | 50 | 75 | | - | per Cent. | per Cent. | per Cent. | 100 | - | to 49 | to 74 | to 99 | per Cent. | - | per Cent. | per Cent. | per Cent. | Enclosed. | - | Enclosed. | Enclosed. | Enclosed. | | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - | 7 | ... | 4 | 8 | - +-----------+------------+-------------+-----------+ - -These figures are not offered as any evidence of the absolute area -enclosed in the counties represented. They may, however, perhaps be -taken as an indication that the demesne farm was usually that part of -the manor on which enclosure was carried out most thoroughly. Thirty-one -of the manors included in the table are in Wiltshire and Norfolk, and -where the conditions of things on the tenants' holdings can be compared -with that obtaining on the demesne, it is almost always the case that -the new economy has spread furthest on the latter. Neither in Wiltshire -nor in Norfolk had enclosure by the peasants themselves proceeded very -far in the latter half of the sixteenth century. - -The conditions, however, on different manors varied so enormously that -much weight cannot be laid on these figures, and it is both more -important and more practicable to examine particular examples of the -ways in which the large enclosed estate was built up. In the first -place, then, one may say with some confidence that those parts of a -manor which lent themselves most readily to enclosing were the waste, -the common pasture, and the common meadow, while the enclosing of the -farmer's holdings of arable land took place more gradually, less -thoroughly, and with greater difficulty. Thus selecting from the manors -tabulated above those in which the quality of the land enclosed is -distinguished, and omitting those where it is merely stated to lie "in -closes," one finds that partial or complete enclosure of the arable has -been made on nine, of the meadow on eleven, and of the pasture on -twenty, manors. The explanation of this is to be found by recollecting -the characteristics of the organisation into which the farmer stepped. -The arable land which formed the lord's demesne was often scattered, -like the tenant's, in comparatively small plots over the three fields; -unity of ownership did not by any means necessarily imply unified -culture, and before these could be enclosed they had to be consolidated -into fewer and larger blocks. Moreover, if the object of enclosure was -conversion to pasture, it must be remembered that the enclosure of the -arable implied a very great revolution in the manorial economy. A farm -which was well equipped for tillage had barns, granges, agricultural -implements, which would stand idle if the arable land was enclosed for -pasture, and it was therefore natural that, as long as other land was -available in sufficient quantities for sheep-farming, such land should -be enclosed for the purpose, before the ordinary course of cultivation -on the arable land was abandoned. The common meadows and the common -wastes did not offer these obstacles to enclosure. Since the -individualising tendencies of personal cultivation did not operate upon -these parts of the village land, the method of securing equal enjoyment -of them had not been, as in the case of arable, to give each household a -holding consisting of separate strips scattered over good and bad land -alike, but to give each holder of an arable share access to the whole of -the pasture land. They were, therefore, usually not divided and -scattered to anything like the same extent, and it was thus much easier -for the rights of different parties over them to be disentangled, and -for the land to be cut up and enclosed "in severalty." Hence, where the -tenants are most numerous, and where there are fewest signs of change, -the effect of the large farmer is often seen in the withdrawal of part -of the common waste from communal use. If the growth of sheep farming -made the small tenants anxious, as in many cases it did, to acquire -separate pastures for their flocks, it can readily be understood that -the large farmer, who had more to lose and more to gain, was likely to -pursue the same policy unless checked by organised opposition. Normally -the change seems to have taken place by converting the right to pasture -a certain number of beasts in common with other tenants into the right -to the exclusive use of a certain number of acres. Instead of the whole -commonable area lying open to a number of animals "stinted" in a certain -proportion among the commoners, the stint is abandoned, and the basis of -allocation is found not in a fixed number of animals, but in a fixed -area of land, which forms the separate common of the individual farmer, -and which is naturally enclosed. Many examples of this division of -commonable land are found in the surveys, especially in connection with -the common waste of the manor, which enable us to trace the change from -collective to individual administration. Thus, to give a few instances, -at Winterbourne Basset[405] the farmer has all the meadow land except -one half-acre, and a separate close of 140 acres on the downs, where he -can graze nearly three times as many sheep as all the customary tenants. -At Knyghton[406] he has enclosed with a hedge part of the sheep's -common, no sheep at all being kept by the customary tenants. At -Massingham,[407] in Norfolk, where much of the demesne arable lies "in -the fields," there is an enclosed pasture containing 123-1/2 acres; and -on another farm of 203 acres, which has apparently been formed out of -the demesne, one finds 28 acres of arable "in the fields" and 65 acres -of "pasture enclosed," the remaining 80 acres lying "in the sheep -courses." The best picture of what the change meant is given by the two -maps[408] printed opposite. In No. III. the meadow, save for a small -piece used exclusively by All Souls, is common, each tenant presumably -being allowed to place so many beasts upon it. In No. IV. the meadow has -been divided up among the tenants, and instead of pasturing a limited -number of beasts on the whole of it, each can pasture as many beasts as -he pleases on part of it. It is not necessary to point out the -significance of this change from the point of view of the social -organisation of rural life. It means that communal administration of -part of the land has been abandoned and its place taken by use at the -discretion of the individual tenant. - - [405] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl - of Pembroke_. The farmer has four closes of meadow amounting to - 9 acres, one meadow of 2-1/2 acres, one meadow of 7 acres, one - meadow of 8-1/2 acres. In addition to that and the hilly - pasture, there is in his possession "unus campus noviter - inclusus, qui aliquando seminatur, aliquando iacet ad pasturam," - and which "olim sustentare potuit 900 oves et catalla non - extenta." - - [406] _Ibid._, "De terra montanea unde pars includitur cum sepe - iuxta Crowcheston continens per estimationem 100 acres, et - custodire potest supra praedictam 900 oves." Sometimes it is - expressly stated that the farmer alone is to have a certain - pasture, _e.g._ at Chalke (_ibid_): "Et etiam dictus firmarius - habet ibidem unum montem vocatum a Doune et bene cognitum est - quia circumcinctum est per sepem et bundas, et custodire potest - 600 multones quia nullus habet communiam in eo nisi firmarius - solus, et continet per estimacionem 200 acres." - - [407] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 24, No. 4, f. - 46 (_temp._ Hen. VIII.). "The fold course will carry 1800 sheep - at L8 a hundred." - - [408] In All Souls' Muniment Room. - -But while the pasture ground and meadow offered special facilities for -enclosure, there is abundant evidence that the farmer's arable land was -also in many cases enclosed. On some manors the whole of the arable -demesne lay together, and in that case there was no obstacle in the way -of enclosing it. More usually it lay in three pieces, one block in each -of the three great fields, and here again, when there was sufficient -motive for enclosure, enclosure was easily practicable. The only -arrangement which offered a really difficult problem was that in which -it was divided into acre and a half strips scattered about the manor at -a distance from each other. One finds cases in which such strips -numbered several hundred, but the impression given by surveys is that, -at any rate by the middle of the sixteenth century, such extreme -subdivision was exceptional, and that the consolidation of holdings by -means of exchange and purchase, which we have seen at work from an early -date on the holdings of the customary tenants, had often proceeded so -far on the demesne as to have rounded off the farmer's property into -comparatively few large holdings. As an illustration of the first steps -towards unification and enclosure we may take the manor of Sparham,[409] -in Norfolk, which was surveyed about 1590. Here the 189 acres which -compose the demesne, and which are leased to a farmer, are still much -scattered. They lie in seventy different pieces, most of which are quite -small, acres, half-acres, and roods. But even here there has been a -considerable amount of consolidation, and it has been followed by the -beginnings of enclosure. The 37-1/2 acres of pasture lie in five pieces -of 11, 9, 7, 5, 5-1/2 acres, all of which have been enclosed. The arable -is still intermixed with the strips of the other tenants in the open -fields. But on the arable itself consolidation and enclosure are -creeping forward. There are four strips lying together which comprise -6-3/4 acres. There is one enclosure, consisting of arable, wood, and -meadow, and containing 17 acres. The neighbouring manor of -Fulmordeston[410] offers an example of a state of things in which the -same tendency has worked itself out to completion. The 742 acres leased -by the farmer of the demesne are entirely enclosed. There are two woods -comprising 50 acres. There is an enclosure of 250 acres, 35 perches, -consisting of "Corne severall and Broome severall." There is a "great -close" of 130 acres, 1 rood, "longe close" of 57 acres, 3 roods, "Brick -kyll close" of 40 acres, 1 rood, "Brakehill close" of 24 acres, 1 rood, -a field of 106 acres called Hestell, and another of 83 acres, 2 roods. -But these different stages are best illustrated by maps[411] Nos. I., -III., IV., V., and VI. - -On No. III. it will be seen that there is a good deal of subdivision. On -Nos. IV. and V. the tenants whose strips separated parts of the demesne -from each other, have in many cases dropped out, so that the process of -aggregation is facilitated: on No. I. the concentration of the demesne -into a single large block is complete; though it is still unenclosed, it -offers no obstacle to enclosure: on No. VI. consolidation has -been followed by enclosure, conversion to pasture and depopulation. -Between the state of things on map No. III. and that on map No. VI. -there is the greatest possible difference. Yet there is no reason to -doubt that Whadborough had once been an open field village with tenants -who were mainly engaged in tillage. Map Nos. IV., V., and I. are, as it -were, the intervening chapters which join the preface to the conclusion. -Occasionally one can see the process of consolidation, which was the -necessary preliminary of enclosure, actually taking place. At -Harriesham,[412] in Kent, the parson held 3 acres of glebe land in two -pieces, one of them lying in the middle of a field belonging to another -tenant, who ploughed up its boundaries and added it to his own land. -Accordingly, to prevent uncertainty in the future, the owner of the -field and the parson executed a deed by which the latter surrendered his -claim to the detached pieces of land, and in return got three acres laid -out in a single plot. In view of the large blocks which are often held -by the farmer of the demesne, one cannot doubt that such consolidation -by way of exchange must have been a common arrangement. - - [409] MSS. of the Earl of Leicester at Holkham, Sparham - Documents, Bdle. No. 5. - - [410] _Ibid._, Fulmordestone Documents, No. 59. Description of - manor at bottom of map (1614). - - [411] In All Souls' Muniment Room. - - [412] Maps in All Souls' Muniment Room: "The description of the - parsonage of Harriesham in the countie of Kent, with the glebe - lands thereunto belonging." Note on back of map: "Memorandum - that whereas there are and always have been 4 parcelles of land - in Mr. Steed his fielde called Harriesham field belonging unto - the parsonage of Harriesham, conteyninge by estimation three - acres, whereof the one did lye along by the landes of Sir Edward - Wootton, called the Cowe doune, the other ... abutteth on the - said Cowe doune toward the east, the other boundes thereof not - being certainly known by reason that they were plowed up by one - Robert Brinkley, tenant of the whole field, and were laid out by - Robert Brinkley as in the Platte doth appeare under the Redd - colour; It is now covenanted by the said Mr. Steede and Mr. - George Hovenden, incumbent there, by deed bearing date the 20th - of July in the 17th year of the Queen's Majestie's reign, that - nowe all that the said three acres shall from henceforth be - possessed by the parson and his successors for ever in manner - and form as it is nowe laid out in the platte in the yellow - colour after the maner of a square" [here follow the - boundaries]. - -It remains to ask how far the type of economy pursued by the large -farmer differed from that of the smaller tenants, and in particular -whether there are signs of his specialising upon the grazing of sheep. -The most complete picture of the agricultural changes of the early -sixteenth century, not on the demesne farms alone, but on the holdings -of all classes of tenants as well, is given in the well-known -returns[413] made by the Commissioners who were appointed by Wolsey in -1517 to investigate enclosures, and these are supplemented by the -figures published by Miss Davenport[414] as to the relative proportions -or arable and pasture land on certain Staffordshire estates. The -interpretation of both of these sets of statistics is ambiguous. Mr. -Leadam uses them to show that much enclosing took place for arable, and -that therefore the statutes and writers of the period exaggerated the -movement towards pasture farming. Professor Gay thinks his conclusions -untenable, and that a proper interpretation of the Commissioners' -returns corroborates the view of contemporary writers that pasture was -substituted for tillage on a large scale. Two points emerge pretty -clearly from the controversy. The first is that there was a good deal of -redistribution of land with the object of better tillage, of the kind -which has been described above, and that probably the fact that the word -"enclosure" was used to describe this, as well as the conversion of -arable to pasture, was responsible for some confusion. The second is -that the predominant tendency was towards sheep-farming. To suppose that -contemporaries were mistaken as to the general nature of the movement is -to accuse them of an imbecility which is really incredible. Governments -do not go out of their way to offend powerful classes out of mere -lightheartedness, nor do large bodies of men revolt because they have -mistaken a ploughed field for a sheep pasture. Even if we accept Mr. -Leadam's statistical analysis of the report of the Commission of 1517, -his figures still reveal a great deal of conversion to pasture; and it -is clear that many cases on which his totals rest are open to more than -one interpretation. - - [413] Leadam, _Domesday of Enclosures_. For a discussion as to - whether they suggest that enclosing took place for arable or - pasture, see _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xiv. - - [414] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xi. - -If the general correctness of the view of the sixteenth century -observers that there was a wide movement towards sheep-farming is -accepted, it ought to be represented more fully on the demesne farms -than elsewhere, because changes could be applied to them with much less -friction than to the lands in which the interests of other tenants were -involved. With a view to showing to what extent this is the case two -sets of figures are given below; the first is a table taken from Dr. -Savine's[415] work on _The English Monasteries on the Eve of the -Reformation_, and relates to the demesne lands of forty-one monasteries -which were surveyed for the Crown on the occasion of their surrender; -some were apparently in the hands of the monastery and some apparently -were leased. The second gives the approximate use to which land was put -by the farmers of the demesnes on forty-nine manors in the sixteenth and -early seventeenth centuries. They are subdivided in three groups, (_a_) -manors in Norfolk and Suffolk, (_b_) manors in Wiltshire and Dorsetshire -(one), and (_c_) manors in other southern and eastern counties, but -including one in Staffordshire and one in Lancashire. For purposes of -comparison the table given in Part I. Chapter III., illustrating the use -made of the customary holdings, is repeated here:-- - - TABLE X - - I - - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - |Total Demesne Land of Forty-one| Arable. | Pasture. | Meadow. | - |Monasteries. | | | | - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | - | 16780 | 6235-3/4 | 8691-1/2 | 1852-3/4 | - | | (37.1%) | (51.7%) | (11.0%) | - +-------------------------------+----------+----------+----------+ - - II - - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - |Total Acreage of | | | | | | - |Sixty-five Farms on| | | | | | - |Fifty Manors. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.| Indeterminate.| - |(Fractions of | | | | | | - |Acres omitted.) | | | | | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. |Acres. |Acres. | Acres. | - | 16866 | 8302 | 6172 | 1528 | 624 | 240 | - | |(49.2%)| (36.5%)| (9%) |(3.6%) | (1.3%) | - +-------------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | COMPOSED OF (_a_) THIRTY-TWO FARMS ON | - | TWENTY-THREE MANORS IN WILTS AND ONE MANOR IN DORSET | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Thirty-two Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 8812 | 4390 | 2928 | 754 | 500 | 240 | - | |(49.8%)|(33.2%) | (8.3%)| (5.6%)| (2.7%) | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | (_b_) SIXTEEN FARMS ON THIRTEEN MANORS IN | - | NORFOLK AND SUFFOLK | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Sixteen Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 4361 | 2393 | 1707 | 261 | ... | ... | - | | (52%) | (39%) | (5.9%)| | | - +-------------------+--------+-------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | | - | (_c_) SEVENTEEN FARMS ON THIRTEEN OTHER MANORS | - | MAINLY IN SOUTH AND MIDLANDS | - | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Seventeen Farms. |Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 3691 | 1519 | 1536 | 512 | 124 | ... | - | |(41.1%)|(41.1%) |(13.8%)| (3.3%)| | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - - III - - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Total Acreage of | | | | | | - | Customary Holdings|Arable.|Pasture.|Meadow.|Closes.|Indeterminate. | - | on Sixteen Manors.| | | | | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - | Acres. | Acres.| Acres. | Acres.| Acres.| Acres. | - | 7786 | 6841 | 555 | 390 | ... | ... | - | |(87.7%)| (7.1%) | (5.1%)| | | - +-------------------+-------+--------+-------+-------+---------------+ - - [415] _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. pp. - 171-173. - -The figures in this table do not pretend to complete accuracy, but their -classification of the distribution of land between different uses is not -far wrong. Of the customary tenants' land about 87 per cent. is arable, -and 12 per cent. meadow and pasture. Of the farmers' land about 49 per -cent. is arable, 36 per cent. pasture, 9 per cent. meadow. The -proportion of pasture to arable is somewhat higher in the southern and -midland counties than it is in East Anglia; but the cases examined are -too few to allow of any conclusion being drawn from this fact. Without -pushing the figures in either table further than they will go, one may -suggest that they seem to imply, in the first place, that the large -farmer was by no means always a grazier, and that the writers of the -period who spoke as though all large-scale farming meant the conversion -of arable to pasture were guilty of some exaggeration. In a good many -cases the methods of cultivation pursued by the farmer of the demesne -differed from those of the customary tenants only in the fact that his -holding was larger; as a matter of fact the customary tenants on some -manors deserve the name of grazier better than the farmer of the demesne -upon others. - -But they suggest, in the second place, that these cases were -exceptional, and that, on the whole, arable farming played a much more -important part on the holdings of the customary tenants than it did on -those of the farmers. The former subsisted mainly on the tillage of the -land in the open fields. The latter, though they had often much arable, -sometimes had none, or next to none at all, and relied to a far greater -extent on the opportunities for stock-breeding offered by pasture and -meadow land. These figures, however, include some derived from manors -where tillage was virtually the only sort of farming carried on, and -they do not give any idea of the arrangements prevailing on an estate -where pasture-farming had been pushed far. Taking from the fifty manors -dealt with above, the twelve which are most typical of the new regime, -one gets a very different picture-- - - TABLE XI - - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - | | | | | | Other | - | Land Held. | Arable. | Meadow. | Pasture. | Closes. |(Wood, &c.)| - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | Acres. | - | 4474 | 922 | 403 | 3065 | 71 | 13 | - | | (20.6%) | (8.9%) | (68.3%) | (1.5%) | | - +------------+---------+---------+----------+---------+-----------+ - -Here arable forms only 23 per cent. of the whole area, while pasture and -meadow together form over 77 per cent. This swing of the pendulum from -arable husbandry to pasture-farming will not surprise us, if we remember -that at the time of the Domesday Survey, and, indeed, throughout the -Middle Ages, the area of land under the plough had been, when considered -in relation to the population, extraordinarily large. The economic -justification of ploughing land which no modern farmer would touch had -lain in the fact that the impossibility of moving food supplies had made -it necessary for each village to be virtually self-supporting, and had -thus prevented the specialisation of districts in different types of -agriculture. When the development of trade under the Tudors had combined -with the keen demand for wool to introduce a geographical division of -labour, the change was naturally all the more violent, because there -was, so to speak, so much lee-way to be made up, because so much land -was in tillage which had no special suitability for the production of -grain. Even so, between 1815 and 1846, the rich water meadows of -Oxfordshire were being ploughed up for corn. Even so, after 1879, the -collapse of corn-growing was all the more disastrous, because it had -been so long delayed. - -One would expect the growth of large farms side by side with the -customary holdings, especially when the methods of agriculture employed -were so different, to result in a powerful reaction of the new interests -upon the old, and perhaps in a collision between them, even when no -deliberate attempt was made to alter the position of the tenants. And -this is what we are told in fact occurred. The customary tenants' -holdings and the demesne both formed part of one area, subject to -certain rights and privileges defined by the custom of the manor. Both, -for example, would lie open to the village cattle after harvest; both -were subject to the customary rotation of crops, and necessarily so when -the demesne was not separate but mixed with the customary holdings in -the open field; both had rights of common on the pasture or waste of the -manor. Moreover, the whole organisation of the economic side of manorial -life was based on the assumption that tillage was the most important -element in it. For example, the apportionment of rights over the waste, -the "stint" of animals to be grazed, assumed that no one partner would -require to graze more than a certain number, and broke down if he gave -himself up to cattle-breeding or sheep-farming, and multiplied his -beasts by five or ten. It would be natural, therefore, to look for a -straining and shifting of those rights as a probable consequence of the -existence side by side of two such different agricultural stages, and of -such different types of property. Formerly the respective interests of -the lord and the customary tenants had been harmonised by the fact that -the labour of the latter supplied the chief means of cultivating the -demesne, and that the demesne could hardly be a profitable concern if -the number of tenants or their standard of living declined very largely, -any more than a gold-mine can pay without gold-miners. But when the -demesne was largely used for pasture this consideration of course did -not apply, and in any case by the sixteenth century, although the -services of the tenants were still part of the means by which the -farmers found labour, they were probably an unimportant one. As is shown -by the smallness of the holdings on many manors, which were quite -insufficient by themselves to support a family, and by the evidence of -contemporaries, the farmer had a growing, though still small, labour -market into which to dip, and the rough agreement which had existed -between the interests of the manorial estate and those of the tenants -was therefore no longer existent. Thus a collision of interests, a -weakening of communal restrictions before the enterprise of the -capitalist farmer, the strengthening of some kinds of property and the -weakening of others, and the growth of new sorts of social relations in -the villages, were consequences to be expected from the increasing -predominance of the large farm, and especially of the large pasture -farm. - -To sum up the arguments of the chapter. At the beginning of the -sixteenth century forces both political--the restriction of the -territorial sovereignty of the landlords--and economic--the growth in -the demand for wool--were working to produce a change in the methods of -agriculture; and at any rate by the middle of the century another -powerful motive was added by the fall in the value of money. The result -was that there was a movement in the direction of converting arable land -to pasture, and of enclosure, which affected all classes of landholders, -but which was carried furthest by the large farmers who leased the -demesne lands of manors, who could afford to make experiments, and who -were under a strong incentive to turn the land to its most profitable -use. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -THE REACTION OF THE AGRARIAN CHANGES ON THE PEASANTRY - - -(a) _The Removing of Landmarks_ - -The history of the agrarian problem in the sixteenth and seventeenth -centuries--indeed its history ever since--is largely the story of the -small cultivator's struggle to protect his interests against the changes -caused by the growth of the great estate. In that struggle there is much -that is detailed, tiresome, and obscure. The student hears very little -about general principles, very much of technicalities about the nature -of common appendant and common appurtenant, of stinted and unstinted -pastures, of gressums and fines, of copyholds for years, for lives, or -of inheritance, of land which is old enclosure that ought to stand, or -new enclosure that ought to fall. But at the centre of this maze of dry -and infinitely diverse details there is a real regrouping of social -forces going on, and a rearrangement, at once rapid and profound, of -economic and political ideas. We must no more picture the changes of our -period as mere matters of the technique of agriculture, than we must -think of the industrial revolution of two centuries later in terms of -spinning-jennies and steam-power. On the contrary, these very details -are the channel along which rural life is beginning to slip from one -form of economic organisation to another, the seed-plot in which new -conceptions of social expediency are being brought to maturity. In -numberless English villages between 1500 and 1600 large issues are being -decided which will profoundly modify the course of social development. -Is the communal administration of meadow and wastes to survive (as it -has survived in France and Belgium) or is it to disappear? Is England -to be a country of large cultivators working with many hired labourers, -or of small cultivators working with few? Is leasehold or copyhold to be -the predominant form of land tenure? When the final transition to modern -agriculture takes place, will England face the change with a population -the bulk of which has been rooted in the soil since the Middle Ages, or -will the middle classes in rural society have been already so far -undermined that opinion turns spontaneously to the great landlord as the -sole representative of agricultural progress? Of course the answer to -these questions was not given by 1600 or even by 1700; we must not -forget Arthur Young and the far more extensive enclosures of the -eighteenth century. But in our period development certainly took a -distinct bias away from one set of arrangements and in the direction of -another. The best standpoint from which to examine its course is found -by watching the reaction upon the tenants of the agricultural changes -which we have tried to summarise in the preceding sections. - -The economic effect of the policy pursued by the large farmer depended -upon what proportion of the land he controlled, and in particular upon -the part of the manor upon which enclosure was made. He might enclose -only the land actually belonging to the demesne farm when he took it -over; or he might enclose parts of the waste or meadow over which other -tenants had rights of pasture; or he might enclose the holdings in the -open arable fields belonging to other tenants, for this purpose -evicting, or inducing the lord to evict, them. When only the demesne -lands were enclosed the other interests were sometimes little disturbed, -unless indeed the demesne had already been parcelled out among some of -the smaller tenants, a contingency to be considered later. But, even -when that was not the case, the conversion of the demesne to pasture and -its enclosure had two consequences which were not unimportant. On the -one hand, the wage-earning population of cottagers and younger sons, who -had found employment as hired labourers when the demesne was used for -tillage, were thrown out of work, and with the limited demand for labour -offered by a sixteenth century village, were obliged, one would -suppose, to join the armies of tramps who figure so largely in the pages -of the writers of the period. As the bailiffs accounts of some manors -show, the demesne farm had sometimes employed a quite considerable staff -of workmen of different kinds, and though no clear instance of a -reduction of the number of employees, consequent on the transition to -pasture farming, has come to light, one can occasionally compare the -demand for labour under the old regime and under the new in a way which -does something to substantiate the lamentations of contemporaries.[416] -It is this which gives point to their complaints as to the decay of -"hospitality." Hospitality in the sixteenth century does not merely mean -a general attitude of open-handed friendliness. When the Government -intervenes to enjoin hospitality, we are not to think that, even in that -age of grandmotherly legislation, it is going out of its way to insist -that every man shall provide his neighbour with a glass of beer and a -bed for the night. Hospitality has a quite precise meaning and a quite -definite social importance. It is, in the most literal sense, -housekeeping, and the household does not merely imply what we mean by -"the family," a group of persons connected by blood but pursuing often -quite separate occupations, and, except in the small number of cases -where property owned by the head of the family supplies a financial -basis for unity, possessing quite separate economic interests. It is, on -the contrary, a miniature co-operative society, housed under one roof, -dependent upon one industry, and including not only man and wife and -children, but servants and labourers, ploughmen and threshers, cowherds -and milkmaids, who live together, work together, and play together, just -as one can see them doing in parts of Norway and Switzerland at the -present day. When the economic foundations of this small organism are -swept away by a change in the method of farming, the effect is not -merely to ruin a family, it is to break up a business. It is analogous -not to the unemployment of an individual householder, but to the -bankruptcy of a firm. - - [416] The Shepe Book of Tittleshall Manor (Holkham MSS., - Tittleshall Books, No. 19), shows flocks of 500 to 1000 sheep - being managed by a single shepherd, 1543-1549. - -On the other hand, even when they lost nothing else, the rest of the -landholding population was deprived of some of the rights of grazing -which they had exercised on the enclosed arable after harvest. If the -demesne formed a large proportion of the whole area of the village, or -if there was little other pasture, their loss, as the frequent -complaints of interference with "shack"[417] prove, might be a very -considerable one; for it meant that there might be no means of feeding -some proportion of the village beasts. Moreover, the mere presence of a -large capitalist who controlled a great part of the land, and converted -it to pasture or retained it as arable according to the price of wool -and wheat, prejudiced them in various indirect ways. The farmer of the -demesne seems at an early date to have had a bad name for hard dealings. -He was often a stranger, and therefore indifferent to the influence of -local customs and personal relationships. Where the manoral officials -had offered direct employment, he was a middleman with a high rent to -pay, and, like most middlemen, a channel for pressure without -responsibility. As the largest shareholder in the small agricultural -community, he could disturb its arrangements by altering his course of -cultivation, and, since he was the representative of the lord, he could -not easily be checked. Sometimes, indeed, a clause was inserted in his -lease expressly providing that he should not disturb the neighbouring -peasants.[418] But there are many cases in which there is no mention of -formal enclosing, and in which, nevertheless, it is complained that the -farmer persistently molests and harries the customary tenants. It was -the essence of the open field system of agriculture--at once its -strength and its weakness--that its maintenance reposed upon a common -custom and tradition, not upon documentary records capable of precise -construction. Its boundaries were often rather a question of the degree -of conviction with which ancient inhabitants could be induced to affirm -them, than visible to the mere eye of sense, and their indefiniteness -made the way of the transgressor extremely easy. Even the lord of the -manor sometimes found the large farmer too much for his vigilance. "John -Langford and his ancesters," the College of All Souls petitioned in -Chancery in 1637, "have for many yeares by vertue of several demises -farmed and rented of your oratours their said messuage and lands, and -used and occupied the same with their own lands, and during the time of -such occupation have pulled up, destroyed and removed, the metes, mere -londs, and boundaries of your oratours their said lands, and confounded -the same so that the same cannot be set forth.... Mr. Langford's lands -and grounds lying next adjoining unto the said oratours their -grounds, ... the said John Langford hath extended his said cottages, -orchards, gardens, and curtilages thereunto belonging, to your oratours -their said grounds, and hath made hedges, ditches, fences and mounds -wherein and whereby he hath enclosed your oratours their said grounds -unto his own cottages and land, ... and intendeth so ... to keep from -your orators all the said land so encroached and enclosed."[419] When a -farmer would thus calmly expropriate the lord of the manor, it is not -surprising to find constant small disputes between him and the other -tenants, on the ground of his entering upon their holdings, or -"surcharging the fieldes by waye of intercommon and destroying the corn -of greane by drifte of cattle over the common of fieldes and suche -other."[420] Often, no doubt, the sporadic encroachments which provoked -quarrels with the other tenants appeared to the great grazier a natural -exercise of his obvious rights. Who should say where one man's land -began and another's ended? But it can hardly be doubted that such -irregularities were sometimes a deliberate attempt to worry the weaker -members of the village community into throwing up their lands, by making -profitable cultivation impossible. "If any man do sow any ground," ran -the direction given by a lord to the shepherd who looked after the -demesne farm on a Suffolk manor, "and the stifts of the field are -broken, and may not duly be taken and fed as heretofore they have been -used, then the said Tillot to feed off the said corn and drive his sheep -on that part of the ploughed land, and to forbid any particular man to -sow his ground or any part thereof whereby the sheep-walks may be -hindered."[421] Such an order points to the difficulty of adjusting the -different methods of cultivation pursued by the smaller tenants and on -the demesne. Though the complaints of the former were often indefinite -enough, it is probable that the very difficulty of defining what a large -capitalist might or might not do was in itself a substantial grievance. -The truth is that it was not easy for the great pasture farm, with its -flocks of sheep, to subsist side by side with the smaller arable -holdings of the other tenants, without a good deal of friction arising, -even in those cases in which no deliberate attempt was made to evict the -latter or to deprive them of their rights of common. The traditional -organisation of agriculture was based on the assumption that much the -same methods of utilising the land would be followed by all the tenants. -When that assumption broke down with the growth of large-scale -sheep-farming, there was naturally a collision of interests between the -great men who made innovations and the small men who adhered to the -customary rule. - - [417] _e.g._ Holkham MSS., Fulmordeston, Bdle. 6: "To the Right - Honourable Sir Edward Cooke, Knight, Attorney General unto the - King's Ma{tie}. Humblie sheweth unto your lordship yo{r} poore - and dayley orators ... yo{r} worshippes tenants of the Manor of - Fulmordeston cum Croxton in the Duchie of Lancaster, and the - moste parte of the tenants of the same manor that whereas your - said orators in the Hillary Terme last commenced suite in the - Duchie Courte against Thomas Odbert and Roger Salisbury, gent., - who have enclosed their grounds contrary to the custom of the - manor, wherby your wor. loseth your shack due out of the - grounds, common lane or way for passengers is stopped up, and - your worshipps' poore orators lose their accustomed shack in - those grounds, and the said Roger Salisbury taketh also the - whole benefit of theire common from them, keepinge there his - sheepe in grazinge, and debarring them of their libertie there - which for comon right belongeth unto them." For the rest of this - document see Appendix I., and compare the following defence to a - charge of breaking open an enclosure: "The owners of the said - tenements, from time whereof there is no memory to the contrary, - have had a common of pasture for themselves and their tenants in - one close commonly called 'the new leasue,' in the lordship of - Weston in the manner following; that is to say, when the field - where the said 'leasue' doth lie, called Radnor field, lieth - fallow, then through the whole year; and when the said field is - sown with corn, then from the reaping and carrying away of the - corn until the same be sown again ... and the said Thomas Dodd - further said that he did break open the said close ... being - fenced in such time as he ought to have common in the same, to - the end that his cattle might take their pasture therein" - (_William Salt Collection_, New Series, vol. ix., Chancery - Proceedings, Bdle. 8, No. 9). - - [418] For complaints of tenants against the exactions, of - farmers as early as 1413, see _Victoria County History_, Essex, - vol. ii. p. 318. For a stipulation in the farmer's covenant, see - the following: "Item a covenant conteyned in this lease that the - said Thomas shall permit and suffer the customary Tenants - peaceably to have and enjoy their estates, rights, grants, - interests, and premises, without any lette, interruption, or - contradiction of the said Thomas" (Roxburghe Club, _Pembroke - Surveys_, Knyghton); and _Northumberland County History_, vol. - v. p. 208, Buston: "The tenants of this town at the beginning of - summer have their oxen allway grazed in Shilbottel wood, or else - they were not able to maintain their tenements. It is therefore - requisite that his lordship or his heire should have respect - unto the want of pasture, that in any lease made by his lordship - or his heire to any person of the pasture, the said Shilbottel - wood, there might be a proviso in the said lease that the said - tenants should have their oxen ground there, as they have been - accustomed." Instances of the harrying of the peasants by the - large farmers are to be found, _ibid._, vol. i. p. 350 - (Tughall), and p. 274 (Newham). - - [419] All Souls' Archives, vol. i. p. 203, No. 356. - - [420] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., Survey of Mudford - and Hinton. In this case the aggressor was not the farmer of the - demesne, but a freeholder owning a third of the manor. To escape - his depredations the tenants proposed "to enclose their common - fieldes and to assign to Master Lyte and his tenants his third - parte in every field by itself, and to extinguish his right of - common in the rest." - - [421] _Victoria County History_, Suffolk, "Social and Economic - History." - - -(b) _The Struggle for the Commons_ - -But sporadic encroachments are not the worst which the small man has to -fear. He may wake to find the path along which he drives his beasts to -pasture blocked by a hedge. When he goes to renew his lease or buy the -reversion of his copy, he may be told that his holding is to be merged -in a pasture farm. The great estate is not always built up by the mere -consolidation of pieces of land which are already united in ownership, -though spatially they may be separate. If it were there would be few -statutes and few riots; for the law looks with a favourable eye on such -attempts at improved cultivation, and the peasants have long been doing -on a small scale what the capitalist farmer does on a large. The great -estate is formed in another and less innocent way, by throwing together -holdings whose possession is separate, though spatially they may be -contiguous. It is the result of addition, not simply of organisation; of -addition in which the cyphers are the holdings of numerous small -tenants. In such a process the opposition between the interests of the -peasantry and those of the manorial authorities is brought to a head. If -one man is to run a hedge round a pasture, the pasture must first be -stripped of the rights of common which enmesh it. If sheep are to be fed -on the sites of ruined cottages, their occupants must first be evicted. -It is over the absorption of commons and the eviction of tenants that -agrarian warfare--the expression is not too modern or too strong--is -waged in the sixteenth century. Let us look at both these movements more -closely. - -The obscurity to one age of the everyday economic arrangements of -another is excellently illustrated by the difficulty of appreciating the -part which common rights played in English husbandry before the -nineteenth century. It is not so long since it became a memory. There -are villages where the old men still remember--how could they forget -it?--the year when the commons finally "went in." Yet there is hardly a -feature in the plain man's view of the nature of a common which -corresponds to the reality as it was used by our ancestors, and as it is -used to-day by communities whose land system has followed a different -course of development from our own. He thinks of a common as land which, -like a municipal park, "belongs to the public," land which any one may -use and any one abuse. In the innocence of his heart he will even move -his local authority to put in a claim for its possession, and is very -much surprised when its solicitors tell him that he is fighting for the -rights of two or three mouldy tenements. Again, he thinks of a common as -a place of fresh air and recreation, not of business; as land for which, -at the moment, no serious economic use can be found; unprofitable -scraps, whose ineligibility has secured them a precarious immunity from -park-loving squires and speculative builders. In connection with -agriculture he thinks of it not at all--is not waste land the opposite -of land which is under cultivation? In one respect he is right. Our -existing commons are remnants--remnants which have survived the deluge -of eighteenth century Private Acts, mainly because they consist of land -too poor to pay counsel's fees. In all other respects he is wrong. In -the earlier period the word common implied common exclusiveness quite as -much as common enjoyment. The value of a common to the commoners -consisted precisely in the guarantee given them by custom that no one -might use it except holders of tenements which time out of mind had a -right thereto, and that no man might use it to a greater extent than the -custom of the manor allowed. And the modern man is especially wrong in -regarding commons as though they fell below the margin of economic -employment. Commons and common rights, so far from being merely a luxury -or a convenience, were really an integral and indispensable part of the -system of agriculture, a linch pin, the removal of which brought the -whole structure of village society tumbling down. - -No one who reads the petitions and the legal proceedings of our period -can doubt that this was what the small cultivator felt. No one who -consults the surveyors can doubt that he was right. Yet, at first sight, -the importance attached to commons is certainly surprising. Is not the -outcry disproportionate to the grievance? To riot and rebel when you -lose grazing rights--is not this, it may be asked, rather like shooting -your landlord because he will not let you keep poultry? The answer is -perhaps a twofold one. The peasants' economy in the sixteenth century -was one in which, in many parts of England, the pastoral side of -agriculture played a very important role, and for which, therefore, -abundance of pasture land was very essential. As any one who has lived -in a Swiss chalet knows, a family which has sufficient cattle and goats -on a good mountain can, during half the year, be almost self-sufficing. -It has milk, butter, cheese, eggs, and meat. The only thing it really -misses is bread, and that it has the means of purchasing, even if it -does not, like the sensible people of Lancashire and Yorkshire, and -probably of most parts of England before the industrial revolution, bake -its own supplies at home or in a common public oven. Our sixteenth -century peasants do not keep goats, but they keep a great many horses -and cows, on some manors an average of 6 or 8 per holding; they keep a -great many sheep, sometimes 150 or 200 each; they meet depressions in -the corn trade by falling back on other sides of agriculture, and -sending to market miscellaneous produce which, in a time of rising -prices, sells well. But to do this successfully they must have plenty of -grazing land. A Swiss commune measures its wealth very largely by the -quality of its pasture, and will take pains to buy a good one, even -though it be a long distance from the village.[422] Can we doubt that -the same was true of many parts of England, and that Hales' husbandmen -who "could never be able to make up my lordes rent weare it not for a -little brede of neate, shepe, swine, gese, and hens,"[423] was typical, -not, it is true, of the more substantial men, but of many of the less -well-to-do? - - [422] For an amusing example see Conway, _The Alps from End to - End_, pp. 190-192. - - [423] _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_, p. 57. - -But there was another and more fundamental reason for the importance -attached to rights of common, and for the disastrous re-action upon the -tenantry involved in their curtailment. It was that the possession of -pasture was not only a source of subsidiary income but also quite -indispensable to the maintenance of the arable holding, which was -everywhere the backbone of the tenants' livelihood. Ask a modern small -holder, and he will tell you that what he wants is a certain proportion -of grass-land to arable, in order that he may feed his horses without -having to resort to the hire of extra land, to the purchase of -foodstuffs, or to turning them out to pick up a living where they can by -the side of the road.[424] In the normal village community this was -secured by the apportionment of rights of pasture to each arable -holding, the tenants grazing their cattle on the common in the summer, -and only feeding them on their separate closes when the approach of -winter made shelter a necessity.[425] It is, therefore, a mistake to -think of the engrossing of commons by large farmers as affecting the -peasant only in so far as he was a shepherd or a grazier. On the -contrary, it struck a blow at an indispensable adjunct of his arable -holding, an adjunct without which the ploughland itself was -unprofitable; for to work the ploughland one must have the wherewithal -to feed the plough beasts. It is this close interdependence of common -rights with tillage which explains both the manner of their organisation -and the distress caused by encroachments upon them. Rights of common of -the most general type go with the tenement, not with the tenant, because -what is considered is the maintenance of a fully equipped arable -holding in the open fields, and for this end it is not necessary to -allow common rights to the population of younger sons, servants, or -others who do not hold one of these primary units of tillage. The -commoners are often "stinted," restricted[426] that is in the number of -beasts which they may put upon the pasture, because rights of grazing -have to be distributed among all the arable holdings, such holdings -being unworkable without them. Rights of common are often apportioned -among the tenants "according to the magnitude of their holdings," for, -of course, a large holding will need more plough beasts, and therefore -more pasture, than a small one. Their boundaries are accurately recorded -from this tree to that stone and such and such a hill, because otherwise -an invasion of foreigners with their cattle from a neighbouring village -may eat them up like locusts. To divide them up among the tenants may do -no harm provided the division is an equitable one, for each man will -still have his equipment of pasture, though in the form of a limited -area instead of in the form of a limited quota of beasts. To appropriate -common pastures without compensation may ruin a whole village; it is to -seize a piece of free capital without which cows and horses cannot be -fed, and thus it is virtually to confiscate the beasts, which are the -peasant's tools. When that is done he must either re-assert his rights, -or throw up his arable holding, or hire pasture for a money rent; -sometimes--a bitter thought--he must hire grass-land from the very man -who has robbed him.[427] - - [424] Ten acres of "turf" to forty acres of arable was the - estimate of his requirements made to me by an Oxfordshire small - holder. - - [425] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.: "The tenants of - Landress have common in a certayne ground called King's Moore - for all kinde of cattle, and every one of them may keep in the - said moore as much of all kind of cattle in somer as their - severall or ingrounde will beare in the wynter, whyche is a - great relief to the poore tenants, for as they confesse they - keep all their cattle there in the somer, and reserve their - ingroundes untouched for the winter." - - [426] _e.g._ _Southampton Court Leet Records_ (Hearnshaw), pp. - 4-5, 1550: "Item we present that no burgers or comyners at one - time comyn above the number of two beasts upon payne of every - such defaulte 2s.; provided that iff any of them have two kyne - or wenlings, he shall have no horse, and yf he have but one cow - he may have one horse." - - [427] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.--Rolleston - (Stafford): "The said manor is ... well inhabited with divers - honest men, whose trade of lyvinge is onlie by husbandry ... and - have no large pastures or severall closes ... but have been - alwaie accustomed to have their cattle and sometyme their - ploughe beasts pastured in the Queen's Majestie's Park of - Rolleston, for xxd., the stage ... without which aide and help - they were neither able to maintain hospitallitie nor tyllage; - and nowe of late yeares the fermor of the herbage hath advanced - the stage to 6s. 8d., and yet the Quene's Majesties rent nothing - increased." - -One must not, of course, unduly simplify the picture. Different villages -are very differently endowed with grazing land. On some there is a -common waste, and a common pasture in addition of superior quality, so -that the waste can be left to animals which will thrive on rough land. -On others there is not even a common waste, and the tenants have to do -the best they can on the stubble which lies open after harvest. Nor do -they all manage the apportionment of grazing rights in the same way. As -we have seen, there has been a movement towards the formation of -separate closes; and even when all the pasture is administered in -common, it may either be that each villager looks after his own animals, -or that the township, intent on seeing that the common is not -overstocked, appoints a common shepherd and a common cowherd, who drives -them all afield together "under the opening eyelids of the morn." Under -all such diversities, however, which can often be paralleled from the -practice of continental communes to-day, there is the fundamental fact -of the necessity of rights of pasture to successful tillage. -Fitzherbert's remark that "an husband cannot well thrive by his corne -without he have other cattle, nor by his cattle without corne,"[428] is -reiterated in different forms by other surveyors. When they tell us that -a common adjoining a town is a "great relief to the poor tenants," and -recommend that a special clause be inserted in a farmer's lease binding -him not to appropriate the pasture without which the tenants "were not -able to maintain their tenements," they are speaking of matters which -they understand far better than we possibly can, and must be believed. - - [428] Fitzherbert, _Book of Husbandry_. - -The monopolising of commons by manorial authorities who wished to form a -large sheep-run can be traced through several stages, of which actual -enclosure is only one, and the climax rather than the beginning. It -usually begins with the overstocking of the common pasture by the owner -of great flocks and herds, and the consequent edging out of the small -man, though, of course, when the area is a large one, and when, as in -Wiltshire, there are great downs which are suitable for sheep, it may be -a long time before the latter feels the pinch severely. But the mere -overriding by a capitalist of the customary allotment of pasture rights -is usually only the first step. As long as matters are left in this -transition stage there is endless friction and disturbance, because each -party tries to oust the other, the great man swamping the pasture with -his beasts, and the peasants defiantly insisting that the recognised -stint shall be observed--a guerilla warfare in which the farmer's -servants are matched against the township's cowherd and the common -pound. Enclosing follows as a way of regularising the new arrangements, -by substituting a tangible and prickly boundary for an ideal limit. -Sometimes enclosure is demanded by the peasants and resented by the -well-to-do, who think that in the general squabble they will come off -best. More often it is carried out with a high hand by the farmer and -the lord, who, once they take seriously to cattle-breeding or -sheep-farming, have naturally no desire to have a limit set to their -investment in stock. Occasionally compensation[429] is given to the -dispossessed commoners in the shape of an abatement in their rents, or -of a fresh pasture in another quarter. In most of our documents, -however, there is little trace of any deliberate re-adjustment of -rights. We are simply told that "he holds the whole of the hilly -pasture," or that he has "a heath enclosed with a hedge," or that -grounds have been "enclosed contrary to the custom of the manor." We can -trace the effect in the small number of beasts which other tenants keep, -but we are left to conjecture how this state of things was reached. Our -impression is that in most cases the enclosing of commons was carried -out in the simplest and most arbitrary way, by the lord or the farmer -erecting a hedge round such part of the common pasture as he cared to -appropriate, and leaving the tenants to make good their demand that it -should be removed, if they could. - - [429] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v., Birling: - "Allowed part of 25s. 4d. for focage of Orchard Medow and - Mylneside Bank, because they are now enclosed within the lord's - new Park, and this allowance shall be made yearly until the - tenants of Byrling have and peacefully enjoy another parcel of - pasture to the same value 11s. 8d." (Bailiff's Accounts, 1474). - R.O. _Misc. Books Land Rev._, vol. ccxx., f. 236: "Divers - parcels of land and pasture of the manor of Farfield, now common - of 140 acres, now occupied by the tenants there as commons and - given them in exchange in satisfaction of their old common - imparked in the new Park, L6, 13s. 8d." - -Could they make it good? The question of the degree to which different -classes of tenants could obtain legal redress for disturbance will be -discussed later. But we cannot leave this part of our subject without -considering shortly the standpoints towards disputes arising out of the -loss of rights of common, which were adopted by the peasantry and by -legal opinion. One may point out, in the first place, that their -standpoints were by no means the same. The contrast which we have -already ventured to draw between the considerable elements of practical -communism in the working arrangements of the village community and the -strict and (so we believe) correct interpretation of the law of the -King's Courts, which treats its members simply as holders of individual -rights which they on occasion exercise jointly, comes out very -strikingly in the different attitudes adopted towards rights of pasture. -If we must be careful not to see communism where there are really only -individual rights, we must also be careful not to see only individual -rights where there is in fact a considerable amount of communism. -However much it may be necessary to emphasise the "rough and rude -individualism"[430] latent in these arrangements, we must admit that for -the peasants themselves, who make and depend upon them, they contain -features which are not easily explained without the use of words which -the lawyers are reluctant to allow us--words implying some degree of -practical communism. We must remember that the custom of the manor is -itself a kind of law, and that though the lawyers who sit in the King's -Courts may cast their rules into a feudal mould, which attenuates rights -of common to mere concessions made by the lord to individual tenants, -yet the law of the village, the custom of the manor, to which the first -appeal is made, does treat them as containing a distinctly communal -element. In practice the whole body of customary tenants are found -managing their commons on a co-operative plan. They regulate their use -and re-adjust the regulations, sometimes at almost every meeting of the -court. As a community, they hire additional pasture and administer town -lands. As a community, they make arrangements for enclosure and even -sell part of their common--the common in which only individuals have -proprietary rights--to persons who undertake to invest capital in -improving it.[431] When all regulations fail and the enemy attempts to -evade their vigilance by a strategic appearance of benevolence, a town -sometimes returns to the charge with words glowing with what can only be -called the pride of common property, though the title to that property -may be of a very shadowy kind. "Whereas of late days," proclaimed the -Court Leet of Southampton in 1579, "there hathe ben a peice of our -common and heathe ditched and hedged and enclosed in and planted with -willows under the name of a shadow for our cattle, which have hitherto -many yeares past prospered verie well as the common was -before;--wherefore (therefore) we desire that it may be pulled down -again and levelled as before, for we doubt that in short time yt will be -taken from our common to some particular man's use, which were -lamentable and pitiable and not sufferable. For as our ancestors of -their great care and travail have provided that and like other many -benefits for their successors, so we thinke it our dutie in conscience -to keepe, uphold and maintaine the same as we found yt for our -posteritie to come, without diminishing any part or parcel from yt, but -rather to augment more to yt yf may be." We need not ask in what sense -the Southampton men had inherited the salt marsh from their ancestors, -or whether a lawyer would not have made short work of their claim to -leave it to posterity. It is enough to realise that they feel it to -belong to their town in a quite effective and intimate manner, that they -stint it, turn off intruders, guard it for their descendants, defend it, -if need be, with bows and arrows and pikes, and the other agricultural -implements of that forceful age. We know that people commit many crimes -in the name of posterity. But they do not usually think of bequeathing -to their grandchildren rights which have never had any existence for -themselves. We shall hardly understand all that was meant for a village -by the loss of its common pastures unless we allow for that feeling of -practical proprietorship, unless we confess that a society of -landholders becomes on occasions something very like a landholding -society. - - [430] Pollock and Maitland, _History of English Law_, vol. i. p. - 606. For the questions concerning common rights see _ibid._, pp. - 594-624, and Maitland, _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 340-356; - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II. chap, ii., and - _The Growth of the Manor_, Book II. chap. iv. I have followed - Vinogradoff's rather than Maitland's view. - - [431] For buying and selling of pasture see below, and for - enclosure pp. 168-170. The following seems a clear case of more - or less corporate action. Holkham MSS., Burnham, Bdle. 5, No. - 94: "Copy of an indenture between [here follows a list of names] - of the same town and county, yeomen, as well on the behalf of - themselves as of the rest of the comoners and freeholders of the - said town of the one part, and Robert Bacon of [illegible] in - the County of Norfolk, and Thomas Coke of Grays Inn in the - County of Middlesex of the other part, that whereas heretofore - Sir Philip [illegible] being lord and owner of the marshes - hereafter mentioned ... did by his indenture of bargain and sale - bearing date ... 1588, grant bargain and sell unto [list of - names as above] all those marsh grounds lying and being in - Burnham, to have and to hold the said premises to the parties - last before mentioned and their heires to the use of them and - their heires for ever, to the intent and purpose notwithstanding - that the said parties last before mentioned there, being - inhabitants in certain ancient messuages in the said Towne, and - all other inhabitants of the said Towne there and afterwards for - the tyme being in any of the ancient messuages and cottages in - the said towne, for so long time as they shall be there - inhabitinge and noe longer, according to the quantity of their - tenures within the said Towne might depasture and feede the land - as by the said deeds referring thereunto being had may more - fully appeare; [it recites that the land] may by wallinge and - embankinge the same be improved to more than a [illegible] - value, and made fitt for arrable, meadowe, and pasture grounde, - whereby tillage may be increased and his Majestie's subjects - receive more employment thereby, and danger of drawing - [drowning?] of their stock for their feedinge prevented [recites - that Robert Bacon and Thomas Coke have undertaken to drain the - land in return for receiving three parts of it and that the - persons above mentioned] being the major parte of the parties - interested in the said salte Marshes, and being enabled by the - lawes and Statutes of this realm to contract and bargaine with - any person or persons for the draining thereof" [now convey 3 - parts of the marshes to the above-mentioned Robert Bacon and - Thomas Coke], June 8, 1637. The motive of this agreement was to - get the low-lying meadows on the sea-coast drained. Drainage - schemes were much in the air about this time, and any one who - has seen the country near Holkham and Burnham will know how - badly protection from the sea was needed. Two points are worth - noticing: (i.) the tenants have no objection to surrendering - part of their common if they get a _quid pro quo_; (ii.) they - act as a single body. They buy land and they sell land and they - can leave it to their heirs. Certain persons in the township act - on their behalf, much as directors might act for a body of - shareholders. Is it possible to speak of such arrangements - simply in terms of individual rights? Are we not driven to think - of the township as almost a landholding corporation? - -But, in the second place, such communal aspirations are a matter of -feeling and custom, not of national law. It is hardly necessary to point -out that these words do not put an aspect of the case which could be -pleaded in court in a dispute as to common of pasture. At the touch of -the law, as has often been pointed out, the communal element, of which -Southampton makes so much, seems to crumble away. If, to the eye of the -peasants, a manor was a more or less self-conscious community with -considerable powers of controlling the administration of its pastures, -it was, to the eye of the common lawyer, a collection of individuals -bound together by their relation to the manorial authorities, but in -other respects able to enforce rights of common only in so far as those -rights could be shown to be enjoyed by one of the four[432] titles which -the law recognised. It is quite true that in practice the use of common -pastures extended to persons who could not plead one of those titles, -and that the economic working of the village often cannot be brought -inside the four corners of a legal formula. But when a right of pasture -is challenged by the lord of the manor, the tenant must show that his -right falls within them or lose his case. Of those four titles residence -in a manor was not one. The occupier who is the unit of English Local -Government to-day had, as such, no standing, because he was not, _qua_ -occupier, a holder of one of the arable shares with which, primarily, -rights of pasture went. Again, a great number of cottagers and day -labourers, who were not holders of arable, but who in practice used the -commons for pigs, geese, poultry, and cows, were likely to be legally in -the same unprotected condition; so that it is obvious that, when -enclosing took place, there might be a considerable number of persons, -perhaps an actual majority of the villagers, who could not even raise -the question whether they could obtain redress or not, and that much -distress could be caused without any infringement of the law. Of those -who could bring their enjoyment of rights of pasture under one of the -categories which the law recognised, the freeholders were, of course, in -the strongest position. They could plead rights of common appendant to -their tenements; probably they could often plead common appurtenant, and -common in gross, common by a special personal grant, as well, and they -could enforce their rights both by self-help, in the way of throwing -down recent enclosures, and by the ordinary remedies of the Assize of -Novel Disseisin or an action of trespass. - - [432] Common appendant, common appurtenant, common in gross, and - common par cause de vicinage. This classification is not found - in Bracton, and appears to date from the late Middle Ages, see - Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, Essay II., chap, ii., and - the following case: _Coke's Reports_, Part IV., p. 60. Hill, 4 - Jac. I. in Communi Banco: "Robert Smith brought an action of - Trespass against Stephen Gatewood, gent., quare clausum fregit - ... cum quibusdam averiis.... Defendant pleaded a certain - custom, 'quod inhabitantes infra eandem villam de Stixwood - praedictam infra aliquod antiquum messuagium ibidem ratione - commorantiae et residentiae suae in eadem habuerunt et usi fuerunt - et consueverunt habere com. Pastur ... pro omnibus et omnimodis - bobus et equis et aliis grossis animalibus.' Unanimously - resolved that the custom is against law. 1. That there are but - four manners of common, common appendant, appurtenant, in gross, - and by reason of vicinage, and this common _ratione commorantiae_ - is none of them. 2. What estate shall he have, who is - inhabitant, in the common, when it appears he hath no estate or - interest in the house (but a mere habitation and dwelling) in - respect of which he ought to have his common? For none can have - interest in a common in respect of a house in which he hath no - interest." - -Moreover, the Statute of Merton, which expressly allowed a lord to -enclose commonable land on condition that he left sufficient for the -free tenants, did not mean that a lord could arbitrarily cut down rights -of common to what he was pleased to think sufficient. If it had, there -would have been little enclosing of commons in the sixteenth century, -for by that time there would have been little common left to enclose. -The question "what is sufficient?" had to be answered by a jury, a jury -representing expert knowledge as to local customs and the agrarian -usages of the township. The jury could only answer it by taking account -of the size of the tenements and of the land available for commoning. In -fact, it found itself at once considering the custom of the manor, which -stinted rights of pasture according to the economic needs and resources -of different villages. Of the position of the customary tenants it is, -for reasons which will be given below, less easy to speak. Regarded from -the standpoint of the economic organisation of the manor, their rights -of pasture should have got protection as much as those of the -freeholders, for as holders of ancient tenements they required pasture -to enable them to carry on their tillage; and since they were, in most -parts of the country, by far the most numerous class, the aggregate of -their commonable area was much larger than was that of the free tenants. -According to the canon of interpretation supplied by Coke,[433] the -Statute of Merton would appear, at any rate in the latter part of the -sixteenth century, to have been construed as protecting them; and -Fitzherbert,[434] though he introduces an additional complication by -trying--trying, it seems, quite arbitrarily--to prove that rights of -pasture over the waste and rights of pasture on land which was not -technically part of the waste, ought to be treated differently, places -all tenants on an equal footing in respect of their claim to be left -"sufficient common." - - [433] Coke, Complete Copyholder, Sect. 53: "When an Act of - Parliament altereth the service, tenure, or interest of the - land, or other thing in prejudice of the lord or of the Customs - of the Manor, or in prejudice of the tenant, then the generall - words of such an Act of Parliament extend not to the copyhold; - but when an Act is generally made for the good of the - commonwealth, and no prejudice may accrue by reason of the - alteration of any interest, service, tenure, or Custom, of the - Manor, there usually copyhold lands are within the generall - purview of such Acts." - - [434] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_: "And as for that manner - of common, me seemeth the Lord may improve himself of their - waste grounds, leaving their own tenants sufficient common, - having no regard to the tenants of the other lordship. But as - far as all errable lands, meadows, leises, and pastures, the - lordes may improve themselves by course of the common law, for - the statute speaketh nothing but of waste grounds." - -The treatment by the law of common rights, in the case both of -freeholders and of the customary tenants, seems to fit roughly into this -scheme, though the actual facts are somewhat more complex than it would -suggest. The cases show that the freeholders had a legal remedy if -enclosure deprived them of rights of pasture, and that this remedy was -used. A freeholder could say "these be the pastures ... which should be -my common ... after the tenure of my freehold;"[435] if he proved the -fact he got protection, and on manors where the freeholders were -numerous and the lord wanted to make very large enclosures, he had to -buy them out. It is true also that the freeholders[436] joined with the -farmer on some manors in enclosing commonable land, to the detriment of -the customary tenants, who apparently sometimes had to acquiesce in it. -They show again that a customary tenant could obtain protection for his -rights of common pasture both, at any rate in the sixteenth century, -from the Common Law Courts, and also, at an earlier date, from the Court -of Chancery, provided that he could show that such rights were attached -to his holding by the custom of the manor, a very important -qualification, to which we must return.[437] On the other hand, it is -certainly true that both freeholders and customary tenants suffered in -our period from a curtailment of common rights, in spite of the -qualified protection enjoyed by the latter and the complete protection -enjoyed by the former. We cannot, in fact, be content with a mere -summary of the legal position, for the law is not always strong enough -or elastic enough to cope with shifting economic forces. Or, rather, its -arm is short, and it can only grapple with those conflicts which are -sufficiently violent to force their way to Westminster. - - [435] _e.g._ _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii. p. 510. - - [436] _Genealoger and Archaeologist_, vol. i., Manor of West - Coker (Somerset): "The demesnes remayneth in one entier ferm, - and is dymysed to one Sir John Seymour, knight, who being - confederate with the freeholders of the manor, maketh such - inclosers for his owne lucre, and suffreth the freeholders to do - the same, nevertheless surcharge the common with their cattle, - that in process of tyme yt wilbe the destruccion of the - custumarye tenants." - - [437] For a discussion of the legal position of the copyholders - see below, pp. 287-310. - -Some light may be thrown on the kind of trouble of which our period was -full by two accounts which have come down to us of disputes concerning -rights of common pasture. At Coventry[438] there were in the fifteenth -century prolonged quarrels between the City and the Prior and Convent of -the Cathedral Church of St. Mary. In 1485 the Prior was accused by the -city authorities of wrongfully overcharging the common with sheep and -cattle, to the damage of the city. He replied by admitting the legal -rights of the other commoners, but by claiming that whereas they could -only pasture a limited number of beasts, "by the lawe of this lande the -lord of the waste soyle may surcharge and pasture there what nombre hym -lykes," and that therefore in overstocking the common he was only -exercising his rights. To this the city answered by a rather hesitating -appeal to custom, according to which the commoners never had been -stinted to a fixed number of beasts, and by pointing out that, if the -Prior was allowed to put as many beasts on the common as he pleased, he -was virtually confiscating the property of the other commoners. This -case brings out very clearly one weakness in the position even of the -free tenants. It was that, while they were protected by law against -attempts actually to deprive them of rights of common, the protection -might be held to be contingent on the lord or his farmer proceeding so -far as not to leave them sufficient, and was not available if the -encroachments only went so far as to diminish their common pasture. -There was a minimum which they could not lose: but above this minimum -their rights of pasture were elastic and compressible, and when, as in -this case, the pasture was so large as to make any numerical limit to -the number of beasts which they might graze unnecessary, the commoners -might be deprived of some part of their customary pasture without any -infringement of the law.[439] - - [438] _Coventry Leet Book_, vol. ii. pp. 445-446 and _passim_. - - [439] If the common was so large that it had been unnecessary to - "stint" it, why did the city object to the lord putting - additional beasts on? I take the situation to be that the - Prior--probably tempted by the profitableness of sheep-farming - in the latter part of the fifteenth century--diminished the - pasture which the city could use, by putting on many more beasts - than ever before, which, in the absence of a recognised "stint," - he was able to do without violating any custom, as he would have - done if there had been a customary limit, as on many manors. - Another aspect of the problem is illustrated by a story of a - similar struggle at Wootton Basset,[440] a small borough in - Wiltshire. Early in the seventeenth century the mayor and - freemen of Wootton Basset petition Parliament to "enact - something for us, that we may enjoy our right again." What they - want is a restoration of certain rights of common which a - powerful neighbour has taken from them. Their story--they seem - to rehearse it with tears in their eyes--is a perfect Odyssey of - misfortunes. According to them, the manor of Wootton Basset had - passed in 1555 into the hands of Sir Francis Englefield, who - enclosed a park containing 2000 acres, in which the free tenants - had hitherto had rights of pasture, and had them without stint, - owing to its great size. This wicked man showed them, however, a - sort of contemptuous compassion. He left them 100 acres, with - which they had to be content, and the rights over which they - carefully apportioned, "to the Mayor for the time being two - cowes feeding, and to the constable one cowe feeding, and to - every inhabitant of the said Borough, each and every of them, - one cowe feeding and no more, as well the poore as the riche." - These rights of common were in practice vested in all the - tenements in the town (not only, it would appear, the free - tenements), and property was bought and sold subject to them. - The occasion of the petition was that the grand nephew of the - original grantee, having apparently got, by some means which the - petitioners could not explain, the title deed of the common into - his hands, set out to ruin those whom his ancestor had only - robbed. He began lawsuits against the free tenants, excluded - them from the 100 acres of common which remained to them, and - put his own cattle on it. The suits, according to our story, - were purposely deferred, and dragged on so long that one of the - free tenants was actually made bankrupt by legal charges and the - rest were impoverished, the common being used meantime by the - plaintiff, Sir Francis Englefield. - - [440] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. iii. These are the - people whom Heaven protected in the way described on p. 148 - note. Observe what this little community endured. (i.) Sir - Francis Englefield, senior, seizes 1900 out of 2000 acres of - their common. (ii.) Sir Francis Englefield, junior, seizes "the - charter of our town ... and the deed of the said common." (iii.) - He tries to seize the remaining 100 acres, and ruins them by - lawsuits "for the space of seven or eight years at the least, - and never suffers any one to come to triall in all that space - ... that the said Free tenants were not able to wage law any - longer, for one John Rous ... was thereby enforced to sell all - his land (to the value of L500) with following the suits in law, - and many were thereby impoverished." (iv.) He turns them out of - their shops in the market-place, and introduces instead "a - stranger that liveth not in the town." (v.) He appoints his own - nominee as mayor, in defiance of the custom which requires him - to appoint one of two men submitted to him by the jury. (vi.) He - prevents his victims from signing this petition by threats of - eviction. ("They are fearful that they shall be put forth of - their bargaines, and then they shall not tell how to live, - otherwise they would have set to their hands.") - -These examples of struggles over rights of common pasture are -instructive in several ways. In the first place, they suggest that the -freeholders were regarded as having a better title than the rest of the -community, and that they led the movement to resist encroachments for -that reason. It is the free tenants who petition Parliament for redress, -and the free tenants who are sued. If they lose their case it is not -worth while, it seems, for the customary tenants to take any action. In -the second place, they show that the classes who have the best legal -title to right of pasture are not at all commensurate with the classes -who will lose if they are taken away. Whatever the legal rights of the -other tenants may be they have as much practical benefit out of the -common, and as great an interest in protecting it against encroachments, -as the freeholders have. When the shearing away of part of it makes it -necessary to limit the number of beasts to be kept there, the limitation -is applied to free and customary tenements alike without distinction, -and both classes of tenements are bought and sold on the understanding -that they carry with them a right of common pasture. In the third place, -the case of Wootton Basset is one of many examples of the way in which -poverty, ignorance of the law, and the practical difficulties of getting -justice against a powerful landlord, prevent humble litigants from -enforcing their legal rights. Finally, it reinforces what has been said -above as to the economic importance of rights of pasture. The -arrangements which are made at Wootton Basset when the first assault -upon the commons takes place show clearly that grazing land is thought -of as a quite indispensable adjunct to every man's holding, and its loss -is so disastrous to the community that they are ready to be slowly bled -to death by lawyer's fees, rather than be beggared at a blow by -submitting tamely without a contest. - - -(c) _The Engrossing of Holdings and Displacement of Tenants._ - -We have dwelt at some length on the loss of rights of common, because -the misleading modern associations of the word seem sometimes to prevent -a proper appreciation of the very important place which they occupied in -the agricultural economy of our period. It must be confessed, however, -that, in dealing with them first, we have reversed the order in which -grievances due to enclosure were set out by the writers of the time. -Though there are many bitter complaints against the enclosure of -commons, it was, notwithstanding this, less the loss of rights of -pasture than the consolidation of small tenancies into great farms, -which aroused public excitement, at any rate, in the southern and -midland counties. In the Statutes the words enclosure and depopulation -are again and again combined as though they were almost synonymous; and -if a contemporary had been asked to explain the special evils most -characteristic of enclosing, he would certainly have given the first -place to the "engrossing of farms" and "depopulation," the throwing -together of peasant holdings and the eviction of their tenants. We must -now examine this side of the movement. Did the displacement of tenants -through the concentration of properties take place on the large scale -suggested by the passionate outbursts of contemporary writers, or were -their complaints as to empty villages and ruined churches mere -rhetorical exaggeration? Again, what was the legal position of the -classes of people who suffered? Were they entirely without the -protection of the law, or did they fail to obtain legal protection -principally in consequence of ignorance and intimidation? - -It is easy to understand the strong motives for throwing together -peasant holdings, if we keep our eyes on the picture of agricultural -arrangements given in the maps. It will be seen that the different -blocks of demesne land are often separated from each other by two or -three strips belonging to the smaller tenantry, and that if such strips -were removed they could be fitted together into a wide and unbroken -expanse of territory. The manorial authorities have often, it is clear, -been for a long time consolidating the demesne by exchange and purchase, -so as to avoid the wastefulness of having land scattered in a hundred -separate pieces, and the only obstacle to its complete unification -consists of strips and patches which are held by tenants who are for one -reason or another unwilling to sell, small spits and islands which stand -out of the surrounding sea. Clearly there is an enormous temptation to -make the tide flow over them as well, to complete the circuit by merging -them in the demesne. Look, for example, at maps Nos. III., IV., and V. -Here it is evident that there has been a good deal of consolidation. -Both the tenants and the lord of the manor have been forming their -strips into compact blocks. To unity of ownership has been added -something like spatial unity. Still the process is by no means complete. -There are awkward little pieces of land which interrupt the smooth -surface of the great estate, pieces which one will have to walk round, -where, if the demesne is used as arable, the demesne plough must stop, -where, if it is used as pasture, a fence must be erected to shut out the -demesne sheep. Or walk down a typical field and mark how the land is -held. Here are the strips which one would pass, if one travelled from -end to end of two parallel furlongs at West Lexham[441] in Norfolk in -the year 1575. They are copied in order from the map-- - - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - FURLONG A. | FURLONG B. - ac. ro. po. | ac. ro. po. - 1. Will Yelverton, | 1. Rob. Clemente, - Freeholder. | Freeholder. - 2. Demesne 2 1 31 | 2. Demesne 0 2 4 - 3. Demesne 0 1 7-1/2| 3. Demesne 1 0 3 - 4. Will Yelverton, | 4. Demesne 1 0 39 - Freeholder. | - 5. Demesne 0 2 7 | 5. Demesne 0 1 24 - 6. Demesne 1 3 0 | 6. Demesne 1 0 38 - 7. Demesne 0 1 11 | 7. Demesne 0 1 22 - 8. Demesne 0 2 10 | 8. Demesne 1 2 19 - 9. Demesne 0 2 28 | 9. Will Lee, Freeholder. - 10. Glebe. | 10. Will Gell, Copieholder. - 11. Demesne 1 2 12 | 11. Demesne 1 1 39 - 12. Demesne 3 0 0 | 12. Demesne 2 3 39-1/2 - 13. Glebe. | 13. Demesne 2 1 25 - - -These furlongs, though the predominance of demesne land in them makes -them not quite typical, illustrate sufficiently the awkward way in which -the great farmer's stretch of land is interrupted by the little property -of a freeholder or copyholder. The strips of Will Yelverton, Robert -Clement, Will Lee, and Will Gell must have been a constant eyesore to -the manorial authorities. Buy them out or evict them, and then the two -furlongs will consist of nothing but demesne land and glebe. They will -be two fields of quite a modern pattern and quite ready for enclosure. -Leave these tenants where they are, and they are a permanent obstacle to -unified management, all the more annoying because they are so petty. -They may even insist on the farmer observing the same course of -cultivation as themselves, and on turning their beasts to common on his -land after harvest! Is it not inevitable that, as soon as the lord is -pushed by economic forces into making his estate yield the maximum money -return irrespective of a numerous tenantry or of the ancient methods of -tillage, he should try in any way he can to get rid of what to him are -troublesome excrescences, that he should begin questioning titles, -screwing up rents, turning copyhold to leasehold? - -If our hypothesis is correct we ought to be able to find manors where -the strips formerly held by tenants have been merged in the demesne, so -as to form a continuous expanse, in the hands of the lord or his farmer, -out of what was formerly a collection of fragments of separate holdings. -To see it verified, let us turn to another manor in the same county, -that of Walsingham,[442] which was surveyed in the reign of Henry VIII. -Here is a statement of the land which is "in the hands of the lord" in -the west field-- - - IN THE WEST FELDE - - 1. In manus domine [sic] 1/2 acre of land of the tenement Marre. - 2. " " 1-1/2 roods of the tenement Furell. - 3. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Stanx. - 4. " " 1 acre, 1 rood land of the tenement Gryne. - 5. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Scot. - 6. " " 3-1/2 roods land of the tenement Townsend. - 7. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Byelaugh. - 8. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Wheteloffe. - 9. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Scutt. - 10. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Coyefor. - 11. " " 1 acre with the gravel pit. - 12. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Nedwyn. - 13. " " 1 acre land late of J. Cockerell. - 14. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Gilbert. - 15. " " 1 acre and 1 rood of the tenement Spotell. - 16. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Spotell. - 17. " " 3 roods land of the tenement Husbond. - 18. " " 1 acre of the tenement Rodengh. - 19. " " 1/2 acre land of the tenement Pymans. - 20. " " 3 roods of the tenement Scutt. - 21. " " 1 acre of decay of the tenement Spotell. - - [441] Holkham MSS., Map of West Lexham. - - [442] R.O. _Aug. Off. Misc. Bks._, vol. cccxcix., f. 201 ff. - -Here one has a field divided into twenty-one strips. Of these strips -eighteen had at one time been in the occupation of separate individuals. -The picture is just what we are accustomed to in mediaeval surveys. It is -illustrated sufficiently for our purpose by the map of part of Salford, -on page 163. But some time before this survey of Walsingham was made a -great change had taken place. The separate fragments had been taken out -of the hands of the tenants and combined in the hands of the lord; the -field is ready for conversion to pasture and for enclosure. How -extremely profitable it might be to substitute a single large farm for a -number of small holdings is proved by Manorial Rentals. Taking five -manors in Wiltshire in the year 1568, one finds that the rents paid by -the farmer of the demesne work out at 1s. 6d., 7-3/4d., 1s. 5-3/4d., 1s. -1-3/4d., 1s. 5-1/2d. per acre; those paid by the customary tenants at -7-1/2d., 5d., 1s. 0-3/4d., 5-3/4d., 5-3/4d. per acre.[443] - - [443] The manors are South Newton, Winterbourne Basset, - Knyghton, Donnington, and Estoverton and Phipheld (Roxburghe - Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_). - -The difference is, in itself, enough to explain a decided movement -towards an increase in the size of the unit of agriculture. But of -course a powerful incentive to such procedure was supplied by the -growth of pasture farming. In the days when the cultivation of the -demesne depended on the labour of the tenants there was obviously bound -to be a certain proportion between the land belonging to the former and -the land held by the latter, a proportion which might be expressed by -saying "no tenants, no demesne cultivation; no demesne cultivation, no -income for the lord." But when tillage was replaced by pasture farming -this economic rule of three ceased to work. On the one hand, the limit -of size imposed on the demesne farm by considerations of management was -removed or at any rate enormously extended, for many thousand sheep -could be fed by two or three shepherds. On the other hand, the economic -motive for preventing a decline in the number of small landholders was -weakened, because there was little use for their labour on a pasture -farm; while there was a great deal of use for their land, if only it -could be cleared of existing rights and added to it. We have, in fact, -an ordinary case of the depreciation of particular[444] kinds of human -labour in comparison with capital, of the kind to which the modern world -has become accustomed in the case of machinery--become accustomed and -become callous. - - [444] This, of course, is not inconsistent with a general - appreciation, _i.e._ a general rise in wages and fall in the - rate of interest. - -We shall perhaps best give precision to our ideas of the sort of policy -which landlords were inclined to adopt, by taking a single concrete -instance, though of course conditions varied locally very much from -place to place. It comes from Hartley[445] in Northumberland, where -Robert Delavale was lord of the manor in the reign of Elizabeth. The -narrator is his cousin, Joshua Delavale-- - - "Since which time" (_i.e._ 16 Eliz.), he says, "the said Robert - Delavale purchased all the freeholder's lands and tenements, - displaced the said tenants, defaced their tenements, converted - their tillage to pasture, being 720 acres of arable ground or - thereabouts, and made one demaine, whereon there is but three - plows now kept by hinds and servants, besides the 720 acres. So - that where there was then in Hartley 15 serviceable men - furnished with sufficient horse and furniture, there is now not - any, nor hath been these 20 years last past or thereabouts." - -Here we get a complete example of the various steps which are taken to -build up a great pasture farm. The freeholders are bought out; the other -tenants are (it is to be inferred) evicted summarily; their houses are -pulled down; their land is thrown into the demesne; the whole area is -let down to pasture and managed by hired labourers, while the -land-holding population is turned adrift. It is worth noticing that the -word "enclosing" is not used. All the drastic changes that are usually -ascribed to enclosure can on occasion take place without it. Indeed, the -more drastic they are the less need is there to complete them by the -erection of fences, for the smaller the population left to commit -encroachments. - - [445] _Northumberland County History_, vol. ix. p. 124. For a - similar case of evictions by Delavale, showing how they were - carried out, _ibid._, pp. 201-202: "There was in Seaton - Delavale township 12 tenements, whereon there dwelt 12 able men - sufficiently furnished with horse and furniture to serve his - Majestie ... who paid 46s. 8d. rent yearlie a piece or - thereabouts. All the said tenants and their successors saving 5 - the said Robert Delavale eyther thrust out of their fermholds or - weried them by taking excessive fines, increasing of their rents - unto L3 a piece, and withdrawing part of their best land and - meadow from their tenements ... by taking their good land from - them and compelling them to winne moorishe and heathe ground, - and after their hedging heth ground to their great charge, and - paying a great fine, and bestowing great reparation on building - their tenements, he quite thrust them off in one yeare, refusing - either to repay the fine or to repay the charge bestowed in - diking or building.... The said seven fermholds displaced had to - every one of them 60 acres of arable land, viz. 20 in every - field at the least, as the tenants affirme, which amounteth to - 480 acres of land yearlie or thereabouts, converted for the most - part from tillage to pasture, and united to the demaine of the - lordship of Seaton Delavale." - -If such a process were general or even common, we should certainly have -the materials of a social revolution. But was it? The much discussed -question of the effect of the agrarian changes on the numbers of the -rural population is one which it is not possible to answer with any -approach to accuracy, owing to the difficulty of obtaining a sufficient -number of continuous series of surveys and rentals. Those relating to -single years tell mainly results, when what we want to see is a process. -Nevertheless even single surveys are not altogether without value. They -show the distribution of land between different classes at a given -moment, and sometimes contain indications of the changes by which the -existing distribution was reached. In particular they show us the -relative areas of the demesne farm and of the land in the hands of all -other classes of tenants. And this has a certain interest. For since the -demesne farm on a manor where conditions approximated most closely to -those of the Middle Ages and had been least affected by more recent -changes, rarely contained more than half the whole manorial territory -and generally not so much, there is a _prima facie_ case for surmising -concentration of holdings and evictions when one finds two-thirds, -three-quarters, or even ninety per cent. of it in the hands of one large -farmer. It is, however, a very tedious task calculating the acreage held -by a number of different tenants, and this may perhaps excuse the small -number of instances which are given below. They are as follows:-- - - TABLE XII - - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - | | (I.) | (II.) | | - | Manor. | Whole Area | Area held | Percentage | - | | Ascertainable. | by Farmers | of | - | | [446] | of Demesnes.| (II.) to (I.).| - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - |Donnyngton | 1523-1/2 | 418 | 27.8 | - |Salford | 856 | 295 | 34.4 | - |Estoverton and Phipheld| 1160 | 484-3/4 | 41.0 | - |Weedon Weston | 715 | 301 | 42.0 | - |South Newton | 1365 | 632 | 46.3 | - |Washerne | 1249 | 707 (in | 56.6 | - | | | hands of | | - | | | lord) | | - |Knyghton | 452 | 268 | 59.2 | - |Bishopeston | 1280 | 805 | 62.9 | - |Gamlingay Merton | 283-1/2 | 199-3/4 | 70.3 | - |Winterborne Basset | 708-1/2 | 532 | 75.1 | - |Billingford | 666 | 507 | 76.1 | - |Gamlingay Avenells[447]| 531-3/4 | 420-1/4 | 79.0 | - |Domerham[448] | 960-1/2 | 824-1/2 | 85.8 | - |Ewerne | 473 | 428 | 90.5 | - |Burdonsball | 190 | 190 | 100.0 | - |Whadborough | 469 | 469 | 100.0 | - +-----------------------+-----------------+-------------+---------------+ - - [446] In several cases the freeholders' lands are not stated in - the survey, and are therefore not included in this table. - - [447] A few acres described as "held without title" are omitted. - - [448] I am not sure that there are not other lands in Domerham - not included in the survey or in the demesne. If this is so, the - proportion of the latter to the rest of the manorial land would - of course be reduced. - -It will be seen that on eight of these sixteen manors more than -two-thirds of the whole area, and on seven more than three-quarters, is -in the hands of one individual, the farmer of the demesnes. These -figures are at any rate not inconsistent with a considerable -consolidation of tenancies and displacement of tenants, though we cannot -say that they prove it. - -Occasionally the surveys take us behind this presumptive evidence and -enable us to trace the building up of large farms out of small holdings. -For example, at Ormesby,[449] in 1516, the lord of the manor held 219 -acres "late in farm" of six tenants. At Domerham,[450] some time before -1568, enclosure of land in the open fields and conversion of arable to -pasture had been carried out by the largest of the three farmers. The -process had been accompanied by depopulation; for in 1568 his farm -included pieces of land which had formerly belonged to four smaller -tenants, and the two large farms which he held had formerly been in -separate hands. It is probable that at Winterbourne Basset[451] somewhat -the same movement had taken place. In 1436 two carucates of land were -held by an unspecified number of tenants; in 1568 three customary -tenants are still found there, but three-quarters of the manor is in the -hands of a single farmer who has recently enclosed a field of 40 acres. -Elsewhere one can fill in the picture in somewhat greater detail. At -Tughall,[452] in Northumberland, the surveyor tells us in 1567, the -demesne lands had been let to a farmer, who acted as the lord's bailiff -and collected the rents and services of the other tenants. He used his -position to partition the manor so as to get rid of the intermingled -holdings, and at the same time so harassed the smaller tenants that they -were reduced from twenty-three to eight. At Cowpen[453] a similar -concentration of land was going on at the end of the sixteenth century; -first five tenancies were thrown into one, and then the whole manor -passed into the hands of one large farmer. At Newham,[454] near Alnwick, -we are told that a hundred and forty men, women, and children were -evicted simultaneously. At Seaton[455] Delavale, the Robert Delavale who -had depopulated Hartly, turned adrift seven families out of twelve. The -map of a Leicestershire manor which is reproduced opposite page 223 is -more eloquent than many lamentations. In "the place where the town of -Whadboroughe once stood" there was by 1620 not a single tenant left. The -whole of it formed one great expanse of pasture. - - [449] R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. 18. - - [450] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [451] _Ibid._, and Hoare, _History of Wiltshire_, Hundred of - Ambresbury. - - [452] _Northumberland County History_, vol. i. p. 350. - - [453] _Ibid._, vol. ix., Cowpen. - - [454] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 275. - - [455] _Ibid._, vol. ix. pp. 201-202. - -But these isolated instances are obviously worthless as a basis for -generalisation. The most that can be said of them is that they prove -that the writers who spoke of whole towns being depopulated were not -romancing. Nor are the statistics offered by contemporaries of any -practical help towards determining the social effects of enclosure. -Those who state, like Moore[456] (writing in the seventeenth century), -that they have seen "in some townes fourteen, sixteen, and twenty -tenants discharged of plowing," or, like the Dean of Durham,[457] that -"500 ploughs have decayed in a few years" and "of 8000 acres lately in -tillage now not 8 score are tilled," may have seen what they say. But -these figures are suspiciously round, and the cases are obviously -extreme ones, not samples. The one[458] writer who makes an estimate for -the whole country, putting the number of persons of all ages displaced -between 1485 and 1550 at 300,000, is rash enough to explain how his -estimate was reached, and his explanation shows that it was not even a -plausible guess. - - [456] Moore, _The Crying Sin of England_, &c. - - [457] Cal. S. P. D. Eliz., 1595-1597 (p. 347), quoted Gay, - _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. - - [458] "Certayne Causes gathered together wherein is shewed the - decaye of England only by the great multitude of shepe" (E. E. - T. S. date 1550-1553). "It is to understande ... that there is - in England townes and villages to the number of fifty thousand - and upward, and for every town and village ... there is one - plough decayed since the fyrst year of the reign of King Henry - VII.... The whiche 50,000 ploughs every plough was able to - maintain 6 persons, and nowe they have nothing, but goeth about - in England from dore to dore." - -The returns collected for the Government seem at first to take us on to -surer ground. Investigations were made by Royal Commissioners[459] in -the years 1517-1519, 1548, 1566, 1607, 1632, 1635, and 1636. The returns -collected for twenty-three counties by the Commission of 1517, for four -counties by those of 1548-1566, and for six counties by that of 1607 -have been printed. According to them, it would appear that between 1485 -and 1517 about one-half per cent. of the total area of the counties -investigated was enclosed, and 6931 persons displaced, the corresponding -figures for the period 1578-1607 being 69,758 acres and 2232 evictions. -Both in the earlier, and in the later, period, the county which was -affected most severely was Northamptonshire, where 2.21 per cent. of the -county was returned as enclosed in the years 1485-1517, and in the years -1578-1607 4.30 per cent., the numbers displaced being respectively 1405 -and 1444. If we like, we may adopt the conjectural estimates of -Professor Gay, and, assuming that the pace of the movement was the same -during the years for which we have not information as during those for -which we have, may say with him that from 1455 to 1607 the agrarian -changes affected about 2.76 of the whole area of twenty-four counties, -and displaced something between 30,000 and 50,000 persons. - - [459] For a discussion of the value of these reports see Leadam, - _Domesday of Enclosures_, and _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. vi.; Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, - vol. xiv. and vol. xviii.; Gay, _Quarterly Journal of - Economics_, vol. xvii. (1902-1903). A useful summary of the - evidence, with a map illustrating the probable geographical - distribution of the movement, is given by Johnson, _The - Disappearance of the Small Landowner_, pp. 42-54 and Map I. - -The statistics which have been worked up by Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay -from the inquiries of the Government are extremely valuable as showing -the geographical distribution of the enclosing movement. It is most -powerful in the Midland counties, which were in the sixteenth century -the chief granary of the country, and its influence is least in the -South-West and South-East. In Somersetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, -Suffolk, Essex and Kent the small enclosures[460] described in Part I. -had probably often been carried out by the peasants themselves at an -early date, with the result that those districts were, compared with the -open field villages of the Midlands, little disturbed. Those parts of -the country, in fact, where the peasantry have been most progressive, -are relatively unaffected by the changes of our period. They have been -inoculated and they are almost immune. On the other hand, one is -inclined to say that the figures are not of much value for other -purposes. In the nature of things they cannot be reliable, and, if they -were reliable, they would not really answer the most important questions -which are asked about the social results of the changes to which they -refer. Let us remember the methods by which they were collected. They -are taken from returns which are in the form of answers delivered to -commissioners by juries of peasants, juries which we know from the most -active of the commissioners to have been occasionally packed by the -local proprietors, and often intimidated,[461] and to have been examined -by the commissioners under the eyes of their landlords. It is hardly -necessary to point out that no evidence of even approximate accuracy -would be derived from an inquiry conducted in such a fashion at the -present day. Is it probable that it was obtained any more satisfactorily -in the sixteenth century? - - [460] It is a question how far there had ever been an open field - system in some of these counties, _e.g._ Cornwall and Kent. - There certainly were some open field villages of the ordinary - pattern in Kent (see Slater, _The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of Common Fields_, p. 230). But Kent from an early - date develops on its own lines, and does not go through the same - stages of manorialism and commutation as other counties. Much of - it seems to start at the point which they reach only in the - sixteenth century. Cornwall again, though in the sixteenth - century there were commons where the villagers pastured their - cattle together (see accounts of Landress and Porpehan, - _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.), was largely a county of - scattered homesteads and very early enclosure (for the - "nucleated village" and "scattered homesteads," see Maitland, - _Domesday Book and Beyond_, pp. 15-16), pointing to a different - system of settlement from that of the counties where the open - field system obtained. For enclosures in Devon and Somerset see - Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, Modern - Times, Part II., App. B: "A consideration of the cause in - question before the lords touchinge depopulation," and Carlyle's - _Cromwell_, Letter XXIV. "Lest we should engage our body of - horse too far into that enclosed country." - - [461] For intimidation see the case of Wootton Basset, quoted - above, pp. 251-253, and below, pp. 302-304. Also Gay, _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii.; and Hales' defence - (appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_). - -Nor, if accurate, could these statistics really be used as a means of -disproving the accounts given by contemporary writers of the dislocation -produced by enclosure. That those accounts were highly coloured, no one -familiar with the methods which the age brought to the discussion of -economic questions will doubt. Professor Gay does well to warn us -against credulity. It is certainly a salutary discipline to turn from -the burning words of Latimer or Crowley to these official calculations, -and then, by a glance at the chapters of Dr. Slater and Professor Gonner -on the enclosures of the eighteenth century, to realise that even in -those parts of England where the cry against depopulation had arisen -most bitterly two centuries before, there were still thousands of acres -to be enclosed by some hundreds of Enclosure Acts. But if we must -discount the protests of authors to whom all large economic changes seem -to smell of the pit, we must not forget either that their views are -formed by the conditions of their age, and that it is just in the -conditions productive of this state of mind that even a moderate change -is likely to work with the most disastrous effects. We who reckon in -millions and count a year lost which does not see some new outburst of -economic energy, must be very careful how we apply our statistics to -measure the movements of an age where economic life differs not only in -quantity but in quality, where most men have never seen more than a -hundred separate individuals in the course of their whole lives, where -most households live by tilling their great-grandfathers' fields with -their great-grandfathers' plough. We must not be too clever--our -ancestors would have said too wicked--for our subject. We must not -accept an estimate of the amount of depopulation as an explanation of -its effects; for the two things are not in _pari materia_. Certainly we -must not argue that, because the returns collected by Royal Commissions -show that in the counties affected most severely less than one-twentieth -of the total area was enclosed, therefore the complaints of observers -must be taken as a hysterical exaggeration of slow and unimportant -changes. For one thing, summary tables are no measure of the distress -caused by eviction, till we know how the tables are made up. The -drifting away of one tenant from each of fifty manors, and the eviction -of fifty tenants from one manor, yield precisely the same statistical -results when the total displacement from a given county is being -calculated. But the former would be scarcely noticeable; the latter -might ruin a village. For another thing, the total area of a county is a -mere spatial expression, which is important to no one except -geographers. What mattered to the peasantry, and what matters to us, is -not the proportion which the land enclosed bore to the whole area of the -county, but the proportion which it bore to the whole area available for -cultivation. This, which is of course not ascertainable, is clearly a -very different thing.[462] It is no consolation to a family which has -been evicted from a prosperous farm to be told that it can settle on a -moor or a marsh, on Blackstone Edge or Deeping Fen. To argue that -enclosing was of little consequence, because so small a proportion of -the total land area was enclosed, is almost precisely similar to arguing -that overcrowding is of little consequence, because the area of Great -Britain divided by the population gives a quotient of about one and a -half acres to every human being in the country. The evidence of a -general trend of opinion during a century and a half--opinion by no -means confined to the peasants, or to the peasants' champions like -Hales, or to idealists like Sir Thomas More, or to the preachers of -social righteousness like Latimer and Crowley, but shared by Wolsey and -Thomas Cromwell in the earlier part of the century, Robert Cecil and -Francis Bacon[463] at the end of it--to the effect that the agrarian -changes caused extensive depopulation, is really a firmer basis for -judging their effects than are statistics which, however carefully -worked up, are necessarily unreliable, and which, when reliable, are not -quite the statistics required. When that opinion is backed by -documentary proof that from one village thirty persons, from another -fifty, from another the whole population, were displaced, though of -course we cannot say that such displacement was general, we can say that -it was not unknown, and that if contemporaries were guilty of -exaggeration (as they probably were), their exaggeration took the form -not of inventing extreme cases, but of suggesting that such extreme -cases were the rule. On the whole, therefore, our conclusions as to the -quantitative measurement of depopulation caused in the sixteenth century -must still, in spite of the researches of Mr. Leadam and Professor Gay, -be a negative one. In the first place, we cannot say, even -approximately, what proportion of the total landholding population was -displaced. In the second place, such figures as we do possess are not of -a kind to outweigh the direct evidence of contemporary observers that -the movement was so extensive as in parts of England to cause serious -suffering and disturbance. - - [462] Professor Pollard has good remarks on this point - (_Political History of England_, 1547-1603, p. 29). - - [463] Wolsey was responsible for the Commission of 1517. For a - letter of Cromwell to Henry VIII. on the subject of enclosure, - and for the views of Cecil and Bacon, see below, pp. 273-274, - 279, 343, 387. - - -(d) _The Agrarian Changes and the Poor Law_ - -The obscurity in which the statistics of depopulation are involved does -not prevent us from seeing that it played an important part in providing -an incentive to the organisation of relief on a national and secular -basis, which was the most enduring achievement of the social legislation -of sixteenth century statesmen. An influential theory of Poor Law -History regards the admission finally made in 1601 that the destitute -person has, not only a moral, but a legal, right to maintenance, as a -last fatal legacy handed to the modern state by the expiring social -order of the Middle Ages, a relic of villeinage which was given a -statutory basis at the very moment when a little more patience would -have shown that a national system of poor relief was not only -unnecessary, but positively harmful, in the new mobile society which the -expansion of commerce and industry was bringing into existence. -"Serfdom," says an eminent exponent of this view, "is itself a system of -Poor Law. The Poor Law is not therefore a new device invented in the -time of Elizabeth to meet a new disease. The very conception of a -society based on status involves the conception of a Poor Law far more -searching and rigid than the celebrated 43 Eng. cap. 2.... The -collective provision is appropriate to the then expiring condition of -status.... A wide diffusion of private property, not collective -property, is the obvious and natural method by which the unable-bodied -periods of life are to be met. With the disappearance of Feudalism we -might have expected that there would have disappeared the custom which -made the poor a charge upon the manor or parish of which they had -formerly been serfs. This, however, did not happen, and a history of -this survival of mediaeval custom is the history of the English Poor -Law.... To sum the matter up:--In following the development of Poor Law -legislation, we watch society struggling to free itself from the fetters -of a primitive communism of poverty and subjection, a state of things -possessing many 'plausible advantages.' Legislation for the management -of the Poor often impeded, and only occasionally expedited, this -beneficent process.... It proceeded from ignorance of the true nature of -progress, and from a denial or neglect of the power of absorption -possessed by a free society."[464] It is obvious that in this passage -Mr. Mackay uses his interpretation of Poor Law origins to make a very -trenchant criticism upon the whole principle involved in the public -maintenance of the destitute. That principle was not introduced because -new conditions made its adoption indispensable. It survived from an -older order of things into a world in which the only serious causes of -destitution are personal and not economic, and in which therefore it is -quite inappropriate. To tolerate it is to drag for ever a clanking -chain, one end of which is fastened round the bleeding ankles of modern -society, and the other anchored in the hideous provisions of the Statute -of Labourers. Nor should we be wrong if we said that a similar theory, -though less lucidly expressed, has had a considerable influence upon -Poor Law practice. For the idea of a Poor Law as an anachronism which is -quite out of place in a developed economic society is implied more than -once in the celebrated report drafted by Senior and Chadwick in 1834, -and has passed from that brilliant piece of special pleading into the -minds of three generations of administrators. "A person," they state, -"who attributes pauperism to the inability to procure employment, will -doubt the efficiency of the cause which we propose to remove it," -whereas "whenever inquiries have been made as to the previous condition -of the able-bodied individuals who live in such numbers on the town -parishes, it has been found that the pauperism of the greater number has -originated in indolence, improvidence, and vice, and might have been -avoided by ordinary care and industry. The majority of the Statutes -connected with the administration of public relief have created new -evils, and aggravated those which they were intended to prevent."[465] - - [464] Mackay, _History of the English Poor Law_, 1834-1898, pp. - 10-11, 16-17. - - [465] _Poor Law Commission Report of 1834_, pp. 264-277, 281. - -A discussion of Poor Law theory and history falls outside the limits of -this essay. But in forming an estimate of the effects of the agrarian -changes which have been described above, it is perhaps not out of place -to consider the minor question of the connection between them and the -system of Poor Relief which took its final shape in the reign of -Elizabeth. Since the distress which the relief institutions of an age -exist to meet stands to its general economic conditions in the relation -of reverse to obverse, of effect to cause, of disease to environment, -much light is thrown on the economic difficulties most characteristic of -any period by ascertaining the type of distress with which relieving -authorities are most generally confronted. Equally important, any -student of Poor Law History, who is not the partisan of a theory, finds -himself constantly driven to look for an explanation of Poor Law -developments in regions which, at first sight, appear to lie far outside -his immediate subject, but where, in reality, is grown the grim harvest -which it is the duty of Poor Law authorities, often acting in complete -ignorance of its origin, to reap. Much wild theorising and some tragic -practical blunders might have been avoided, had it been more generally -realised that, of all branches of administration, the treatment of -persons in distress is that which can least bear to be left to the -exclusive attention of Poor Law specialists, because it, most of all -matters, depends for its success on being carefully adapted to the -changing economic conditions, the organisation or disorganisation of -industry, the stability or instability of trade, the diffusion or -concentration of property, by which the nature and extent of the -distress requiring treatment are determined. - -When one turns to the age in which the Poor Law took shape, the first -thing to strike one is that the need for it arises, according to the -views expressed by most writers of the period, from that very -development in commercial relationships, that very increase in economic -mobility, which Mr. Mackay seems to imply should have made it -unnecessary. The special feature of sixteenth century pauperism is -written large over all the documents of the period--in Statutes, in -Privy Council proceedings, in the records of Quarter Sessions. The new -and terrible problem is the increase in vagrancy. The sixteenth century -lives in terror of the tramp. He is denounced by moralists, analysed -into species by the curious or scientific, scourged and buffeted by all -men. The destitution of the aged and impotent, of fatherless children -and widows, is familiar enough. It has been with the world from time -immemorial. It has been for centuries the object of voluntary -charitable effort; and when the dissolution of the monasteries dries up -one great channel of provision, the Government intervenes with special -arrangements[466] to take their place a whole generation before it can -be brought to admit that there is any problem of the unemployed, other -than the problem of the sturdy rogue. The distinction between the -able-bodied unemployed and the impotent is one which is visible to the -eye of sense. The distinction between the man who is unemployed because -he cannot get work and the man who is unemployed because he does not -want work, requires a modicum of knowledge and reflection which even at -the present day is not always forthcoming. The former distinction, -therefore, is not supplemented by the latter until the beginning of the -last quarter of the century.[467] In one respect, that of the Law of -Settlement, the English Poor Law does show traces of a mediaeval origin. -In all other respects, so far from being a survival from the Middle -Ages, it comes into existence just at the time when mediaeval economic -conditions are disappearing. It is not accepted at once as a matter of -course that the destitute shall be publicly relieved, still less that -the able-bodied destitute deserve anything but punishment. Governments -make desperate efforts for about one hundred years to evade their new -obligations. They whip and brand and bore ears; they offer the vagrant -as a slave to the man who seizes him; they appeal to charity; they -introduce the parish clergy to put pressure on the uncharitable; they -direct the bishops to reason with those who stop their ears against the -parish clergy. When merely repressive measures and voluntary effort are -finally discredited, they levy a compulsory charge rather as a fine for -contumacy than as a rate, and slide reluctantly into obligatory -assessments[468] only when all else has failed. And if we ask why the -obligation of maintaining the destitute should have received national -recognition first in the sixteenth century, we can only answer by -pointing to that trend away from the stationary conditions of -agriculture to the fluctuating conditions of trade, and in particular to -that displacement of the rural population, which we have already seen -was one result of enclosure. The national Poor Law is not a mediaeval -anachronism. It is the outcome of conditions which seem to the men of -the sixteenth century new and appalling. Of these conditions the most -important are the agrarian changes. - - [466] 27 Hen. VIII., c. 25. Under this Act city and county - authorities are to relieve impotent beggars "by way of voluntary - and charitable alms." They are also for the first time given - power to apprentice vagrant children. - - [467] 18 Eliz. c. 3 directed that a stock of wool, flax, hemp, - iron, or other stuff should be provided in cities, corporate - towns, and market towns. The important words which show the - change of opinion are, "To the intente also that ... Roges ... - may not have any just excuse in saying they cannot get any - service or work." - - [468] 14 Eliz. c. 5. - -Let us try for a moment to put ourselves in the position of a family -which has been evicted from its holding to make room for sheep. When the -last stick of furniture has been tumbled out by the bailiff, where, poor -houseless wretches, are they to turn? They cannot get work in their old -home, even if they can get lodgings, for the attraction of sheep-farming -is that the wage bill is so low. Will they emigrate from England like -the Scotch crofters? There are people who in the seventeenth century -will advise them to seek a haven with the godly folk who have crossed -the Atlantic, who will argue that England is overstocked, that "there is -such pressing and oppressing in town and country about farms, trades, -traffic, so as a man can hardly anywhere set up a trade but he shall -pull down two of his neighbours," and point out that "the country is -replenished with new farmers, and the almhouses are filled with old -labourers," that "the rent-taker lives on sweet morsels, but the -rent-payer eats a dry crust often with watery eyes."[469] But enclosures -have been going on for a century before the plantations exist to offer a -refuge, and in any case the probability of the country folk hearing of -them is very remote. Can a man migrate to seek work in another part of -the country? Not easily, for, apart from the enormous practical -difficulties, the law puts obstacles in his way, and the law is backed -up with enthusiasm by every parish and town in the country. There are -three possible attitudes which a State may adopt towards the questions -arising from the ebb and flow of population. It may argue, with the -optimists of 1834, that the mobility of labour is a good thing, a -symptom of alertness and energy, and that it will take place of itself -to the extent which is economically desirable, provided that no -impediments are placed in the way of those who desire to better -themselves by looking for work elsewhere. Or, while believing that it is -much to be desired that people should migrate freely from place to place -in search of employment, it may nevertheless reflect that the mere -absence of restrictions does not in fact stimulate such movement, and -therefore take upon itself its encouragement through the publication of -information and the registration of unemployed workers. Or, -subordinating economic to political considerations, it may hold that the -movement of a large number of unemployed persons up and down the country -is not an indication of a praiseworthy spirit of enterprise, but a -menace to public order which must be sternly repressed. We need hardly -say that this last view is the one characteristic of the sixteenth -century. The attitude towards the man on tramp in search of employment -is exactly the opposite of that which is held at the present day. He is -not less, but much more, culpable than he who remains in his own parish -and lives on his neighbours. He is assumed not to be seeking work but to -be avoiding it, and avoiding it in a restless and disorderly manner. -Hear what the worthy Harrison says when the State has already made the -provision for the unemployed a charge upon each parish:--"But if they -refuse to be supported by this benefit of the law, and will rather -endeavour by going to and fro to maintain their idle trades, then are -they adjudged to be parcel of the third sort (_i.e._ wilful vagrants), -and so, instead of courteous refreshing at home, are often corrected -with sharp execution and whip of justice abroad. Many there are which, -notwithstanding the rigour of the laws provided on that behalf, yield -rather with this liberty (as they call it) to be daily under the fear -and terror of the whip, than by abiding where they were born or bred, to -be provided for by the devotion of the parishes."[470] The village is -still thought of as the unit of employment. It is still regarded as -being equipped with the means of finding work for all its inhabitants, -as though there had been no movement towards pasture-farming to prick a -hole in its economic self-sufficiency. The presumption, therefore, is -against the man who leaves the parish where he is known to his -neighbours. He must prove that he is going to take up work for which he -is already engaged. He must get a licence from his last employer. As far -as the able-bodied are concerned the Poor Law is in origin a measure of -social police. Relief is thrown in as a makeweight, because by the end -of the sixteenth century our statesmen have discovered that when -economic pressure reaches a certain point they cannot control men -without it. The whip has no terrors for the man who must look for work -or starve. So every Sunday after church, while Parson's sermon is still -fresh in our minds, we board out our poor by rotation "among such -householders as will maintain them meat and work and such wages as they -shall deserve for the week following."[471] Heaven help us if the next -parish does not do the same! - - [469] Robert Cushman, "Reasons and Considerations touching the - Lawfulness of Removing out of England into the parts of America" - (printed by E. Arber, _The Story of the Pilgrim Fathers_). - - [470] Harrison in _Elizabethan England_ (Withington), chap. x. - - [471] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., pp. - 160-161: "Orders agreed to by the Justices of the Peace for - Cornwall at General Sessions for Bodmin the 5th and Truro the - 8th of April, 39 Eliz." - -And the Poor Law is a police measure for the necessity of which the -agrarian changes are largely responsible. In spite of all the obstacles -in the way of migration, in spite of whip and courteous refreshment, men -do in fact migrate, and not only men, but women and children. By the -latter part of the century, at any rate, statesmen have begun to -understand that pauperism and vagrancy stand to the depopulation caused -by enclosure in the relation of effect to cause. The revolution in the -official attitude to the problem caused by this belated illumination is -as great as that which has taken place in the last ten years with regard -to unemployment. Once the new standpoint has been seized, though -opinion, and the opinion not only of the ruling classes, but of -burgesses and villagers, still treats the vagrant with iron severity, it -never quite relapses into the comfortable doctrine, the grand discovery -of a commercial age, that distress is itself a proof of the demerits of -its victim, and that Heaven, like a Utilitarian philosopher, permits -the existence of destitution only that it may make "less eligible" the -lot of "improvidence and vice." It is saved from this last error not by -the lore of economists, but because it regards economic questions -through the eyes of a sturdy matter-of-fact morality. It is sufficiently -enlightened to recognise that even among vagrants there is a class which -is more sinned against than sinning, a class of whom it can be asked "at -whose hands shall the blood of these men be required?"[472] It is -sufficiently ingenuous to answer by pointing to "some covetous man" who, -"espying a further commodity in their commons, holds, and tenures, doth -find such means as thereby to wipe many out of their occupyings and turn -the same unto his private gains."[473] Occasionally the effect of -enclosures is brought home to the encloser in a practical way, by -compelling him not only to pay a fine to the Crown, but also to make a -contribution towards the relief of the poor whose numbers he has -increased.[474] - - [472] Harrison, _loc. cit._ - - [473] _Ibid._ - - [474] Camden Society, 1886. Cases in Courts of Star Chamber and - High Commission, Michaelmas, 7 Caroli, Case of Archer. (The - allusion in the text is to a precedent cited in this case.) - -To see the way in which the relation between the problems of pauperism -and of agrarian depopulation is regarded, turn to the debates in the -House of Commons. In the year 1597, when both questions are acute (the -preceding year had seen a recrudescence of agrarian rioting), a member -or minister, probably Robert Cecil, is preparing notes for a speech[475] -on the subject in Parliament. What are the points he emphasises? They -are the high price of corn caused by bad harvests and the manipulations -of middlemen, the enclosing of land and the conversion of arable to -pasture, which naturally intensifies the difficulty of securing adequate -food supplies, "the decaying and plucking down of houses, ... and not -only the plucking down of some few houses, but the depopulating of whole -towns ... and keeping of a shepherd only, whereby many subjects are -turned without habitation, and fill the country with rogues and idle -persons." When Parliament meets in October, the House is at once busy -with different aspects of the same question.[476] Bills are introduced -dealing with forestallers, regrators, and engrossers of corn, with -vagrancy and pauperism, and with enclosures, and a committee is -appointed to consider the latter question. In the debates which follow -there is the usual division of opinion between the champions of economic -reform and the advocates of more, and more ruthless, "deterrence," -between those who wish to legislate as to causes and those who are -mainly occupied with symptoms. Bacon, master as ever of the science of -his subject, insists with invincible logic that pauperism is one part of -the general agrarian problem, and he is supported by Robert Cecil. On -the other hand, the experts as to pauperism--we can imagine the county -justices fresh from their whippings and relief committees and houses of -correction, fresh, too, from enclosure and depopulation--complain that -their special subject is being overlooked in a general and dangerous -discussion on the economic causes of distress, and that the committee -"has spent all their travel about the said enclosures and tillage, and -nothing about the said rogues and poor." That this should have been the -popular line to take needs no explanation. A Parliament which dares -discuss not only how to manipulate the lives of the poor, but the -fundamental causes of their misery, is a Parliament which the eye of man -had not yet, has not yet, beheld. Compared with other representative -assemblies, compared with itself at a later date, the Elizabethan House -of Commons, debating in an age when it could be said that government was -"nothing but a certein conspiracy of riche men procuringe theire owne -commodities under the name and title of the Common Wealth," had the -grace to show some stirrings of compunction. If members who had grown -fat on the tragedy which they were discussing spoke of their victims as -members will speak, ministers at least were independent, and could -venture, like Cecil, to tell the House unpalatable truths. Of the two -Acts against enclosure, which were the result of this session's -deliberations, we shall speak later. What is worth noticing here is the -disposition, even in a Parliament composed of country gentlemen, to -emphasise the connection between the problems with which anti-enclosure -and anti-vagrancy legislation have to deal. It is summed up in the -eloquent peroration of a nameless member. "As this bill entered at first -with a short prayer, 'God speed the plough,' so I wish it may end with -such success as the plough shall speed the poor."[477] - - [475] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., Nov. - 1597. "Notes for the present Parliament." - - [476] _D'Ewes' Journal_, pp. 551-555; see also Leonard, _The - Early History of English Poor Relief_, pp. 73-75. - - [477] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Marquis of Salisbury, Part VII., pp. - 541-543. - -What became of the families displaced from the soil between their final -eviction and that subsidence upon the stony breast of the Elizabethan -Poor Law, which, for some of them, was their ultimate fate? There is no -certain information to guide us. The tragedy of the tramp is his -isolation. Every man's hand is against him; and his history is -inevitably written by his enemies. Yet, beneath denunciations hurled -upon him by those who lived warm and slept soft, we can see two -movements going on, two waves in a vast and silent ebbing of population -from its accustomed seats. In the first place there is a steady -immigration into the towns on the part of those "who, being driven out -of their habitations, are forced into the great cities, where, being -very burdensome, men shut their doors against them, suffering them to -die in the streets and highways."[478] The municipal records of the -periods teem with complaints of the disorder, the overcrowding, the -violation of professional bye-laws, caused by rural immigration. The -displaced peasant is the Irishman of the sixteenth century, and, like -the Irishman, he makes his very misery a whip with which to scourge, not -alas! his oppressors, but men who often are not much less wretched than -himself. He turns whole quarters into slums, spreads disease through -congested town dwellings, and disorganises the labour market by crowding -out the native artisan. Gild members find themselves eaten up by -unlawful men who have never served an apprenticeship in the town, and -retort with regulations requiring the deposit of a prohibitive sum as an -entrance fee from all immigrants who want to set up shop, especially -from those wretches who are thought to have a large family of children, -at present snugly concealed in their last place of residence, but soon -to be surreptitiously introduced, a brood of hungry young cuckoos, if -once their parents get a footing in the town.[479] Borough authorities, -who see cottages "made down" into tenements in which pestilence spreads -with fearful rapidity, seek to stamp out the very possibility of -invasion by prohibiting the erection of new cottages or the subdivision -of old. To judge by their behaviour, the notorious Statute of 1662, -which codified the existing customs as to settlement, must have been one -of the most popular pieces of legislation ever passed by Parliament. -Town[480] after town in the course of the sixteenth century tries to -protect itself by a system of stringent inspection worthy of modern -Germany. Sometimes there is a regular expulsion of the aliens. -"Forasmuch as it is found by daily experience," declare the authorities -of Nottingham,[481] "that by the continual building and erecting of new -cottages and poor habitations, and by the transferring of barns and -suchlike buildings into cottages, and also by the great confluence of -many poor people from forrein parts out of this towne to inhabit here, -and lykewise by the usual and frequent taking in of inmates into many -poor habitations here, the poorer sort of people do much increase ... it -is ordered that no burgess or freeman on pain of L5 erect any cottage or -convert any building into a cottage in the town without license of the -Mayor, that no burgess or freeman, without a license, receive any one -from the country as a tenant, that every landlord be bound in the sum of -L10 to remove all foreign tenants who have entered in the last three -years before May 1st next." What most boroughs do for themselves is -finally, after many regulations have been made by the Common Council, -done for London by Parliamentary legislation. It is not a chance that -the end of Elizabeth's reign sees the first two Housing Acts, one[482] -in 1589, enacting that only one family may live in a house, the -other[483] applying to London alone, and forbidding the division of -houses into tenements, the receiving of lodgers, or the erection of new -houses for persons who are assessed in the subsidy book at less than L5 -in goods or L3 in lands. The evicted peasants are beginning to take -their revenge. They have been taking it ever since. - - [478] Lansd. MSS. 83, f. 68, quoted Gonner, _Common Land and - Enclosure_, p. 156 n. - - [479] _e.g. Nottingham Records_, vol. iv. pp. 170-171, Nov. 4, - 1577: "Any burgess that hath not been prentice to pay L10 and no - pardon. _Records of Leicester_, vol. iii. p. 351, Oct. 17, 1598: - "He is inhibited from dwelling in your corporation unless he - finds bonds for L200 that neither his wife nor children shall be - burdensome to the town." _Southampton Court Leet Records_, vol. - i., Part I.: "One William Dye, undertenant to John Netley, dothe - lyve idelly and hathe no trade.... He hathe 4 or 5 children in - places from whence he came whom he will bring shortly hither, yf - he may be suffered here to remayne, whom we desyer may be - examined and removed from hence according to the Statute." - - [480] Some instances are given by Leonard, _Early History of - English Poor Relief_, pp. 107-109. - - [481] _Nottingham Records_, vol. iv. pp. 304-307. - - [482] 31 Eliz. c. 7. - - [483] 35 Eliz. c. 6. - -In the second place there is a general movement from the enclosed to the -open field villages. The families displaced by enclosure cannot easily -enter into industry, even if they wish to do so, for the avenue to most -trades is blocked both by the Corporations and by the statutory system -of a seven years' apprenticeship, which maintains professional standards -at the expense of an unprivileged residuum. What they do is to follow -the orthodox advice given to those who have lost their customary means -of livelihood. They proceed to colonise, and to colonise in such numbers -that they cannot easily be kept out. They settle as squatters on the -waste lands of those manors which have not been enclosed, and which, -before the waste is turned into a sheep-run, offer no obstacle to -immigration. That the possibility of using the manorial waste to -accommodate those who had no settled abode had occurred to statesmen as -one expedient for meeting the problem of the infirm and destitute, is -shown by the sanction expressly given in the Poor Law of 1597[484] to -the expenditure of parish funds on the erection of cottages on the waste -as residences for the impotent poor. In fact, however, the mobility of -labour was becoming such that it was impossible, even if it had been -desirable, to reserve those unutilised territories for the maintenance -of the impotent. In spite of bitter protests from the existing -inhabitants, refugees from other villages swarm down upon them in such -numbers that the Act requiring four acres of land to be attached to each -cottage cannot be observed, and the issuing of licences for the erection -of cottages on the waste for able-bodied men, who have come with their -families from a distance, becomes a regular part of the business of -Quarter Sessions.[485] Such a redistribution of the population solves -one problem only to create others. Stern economists in the seventeenth -century lament that the ease with which permission to build cottages on -the waste is obtained encourages the existence of an improvident and -idle class, which will neither work for wages nor make good use of the -land. "In all or most towns where the fields lie open and are used in -common, there is a new brood of upstart intruders as inmates, and the -inhabitants of unlawful cottages erected contrary unto law.... Loyterers -who will not usually be got to work unless they may have such excessive -wages as they themselves desire."[486] The opponents of enclosure answer -with some justice that, in effect, the open field villages are saddled -with the destitution caused by enclosing landlords, who first ruin their -tenants and then, like a modern Dock Company which relies on the Poor -Rate to save its wage-bill, leave them to be supported by those places -to which they are compelled to migrate.[487] The latter difficulty is -indeed a very serious one, which not only is the occasion of numberless -petitions[488] from villages who wish to be assisted by, or to avoid -assisting, their neighbours, but on occasion converts even the country -gentry into opponents of enclosure. "We further conceive," write the -Justices of Nottingham to the Council, "that if depopulation may be -reformed it will bring a great good to the whole Kingdom; for where -homes are pulled down the people are forced to seek new habitations in -other towns and countries, whereof those towns where they get a settling -are pestered so as they are hardly able to live one by another, and it -is likewise the cause of erecting new cottages upon the waste and other -places who are not able to relieve themselves ... which causes rogues -and vagabonds to increase."[489] In the elaborate book of Poor Law -orders published in 1631 the Government recognises the genuineness of -this grievance, and, to its direction that richer parishes should -contribute funds to the aid of the poor, adds a special rider pointing -out that such extra contributions would come with special -appropriateness from those places where there had been depopulation. - - [484] 39 Eliz. c. 3. - - [485] For petitions on this subject see _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. - 784, pp. 81-82 (Wiltshire). The Warwickshire Quarter Sessions - were much occupied with this, _e.g._ the following: "Trinity - Sessions 1625. Fforasmuch as this Court was this present day - informed ... by Sir Edward Marrowe, kt., and Thomas Ashley as - the lords of the manor of Woolvey in this county ... that the - said lords are content that William Wilcox of Woolvey in this - countie shall build and erect a cottage for hys habitation hys - wyfe and his small children uppon the waste within the said - lordshippe, it is therefore ordered that the same being with - consent of the lord as aforesaid that the same cottage shall be - and continue," and later "which cottage the Court doth licence" - (_Warwick Quarter Sessions MSS. Records_). - - [486] "Considerations Concerning Common Fields and Enclosures," - Pseudonismus, 1654. - - [487] Moore, _The Crying Sin of England in not Caring for the - Poor_: "And now alas, saith the poor cottier, there is no work - for me, I must go where I may get my living. And hence it comes - to pass that the open fielden towns have above double the number - of cottiers they had wont to have, so that they cannot live one - by another, and so put the fielden towns to vast expense, in - caring for these poor that these enclosures have made." - - [488] _e.g. Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 784, p. 95 (Wiltshire), pp. - 292 and 298 (Worcester). - - [489] See Appendix I., No. VI. Miss Leonard (_Trans. Royal Hist. - Soc._, vol. xix.) prints this document as referring to Norfolk, - which appears to be an error. - -We may now summarise our view of the social effects of the changes -introduced by lords of manors, and by the capitalist farmers who manage -their estates. When the demesne land is enclosed and converted to -pasture, there is an appreciable diminution in the demand for labour, -and consequently an increase in unemployment. When the common rights of -tenants are curtailed, they lose not only an important subsidiary source -of income, but often, at the same time, the means of cultivating their -arable holdings. When their holdings are merged in the great estate of -the capitalist farmer, they are turned adrift to seek their living in a -world where most trades and most towns are barred against them, where -they are punished if they do not find work, and punished if they look -for work without permission, where "if the poor being thrust out of -their houses go to dwell with others, straight we catch them with the -Statute of Inmates; if they wander abroad, they are in danger of the -Statute of the Poor to be whipped."[490] Thus, quite apart both from the -eternal source of poverty which consists in the recalcitrance of nature -to human effort, and from those causes of individual destitution which -in all ages and in all economic conditions lie in wait for the -exceptionally unfortunate or the exceptionally improvident, for the -sick, the aged, and the orphan, there is an increase in the number of -those for whom access to the land, their customary means of livelihood, -is unobtainable, and consequently a multiplication of the residuum for -whom the haunting insecurity of the propertyless modern labourer is, not -the exception, but the normal lot. It is this extension of destitution -among able-bodied men, who have the will, but not the means, to find -employment, which is the peculiar feature of sixteenth century -pauperism, and which leads in 1576 to the most characteristic expedient -of the Elizabethan Poor Law--the provision of materials upon which the -unemployed can be set to work. The recognition that the relief of the -destitute must be enforced as a public obligation was not the -consequence of the survival of mediaeval ideas into an age where they -were out of place, but an attempt on the part of the powerful Tudor -state to prevent the social disorder caused by economic changes, which, -in spite of its efforts, it had not been strong enough to control. - - [490] _D'Ewes' Journal._ Speech of Cecil, 1597. - - - - -CHAPTER III - -THE QUESTION OF TENANT RIGHT - - -(a) _The Tenants at Will and the Leaseholders_ - -We have said above that we cannot measure the extent of the depopulation -caused by enclosure, even for those years with regard to which figures -are supplied us by Royal Commissions. But, after all, it is happily less -important to arrive at an exact statistical estimate of the acres -enclosed and of the number of tenants displaced, than it is to get a -general view of the economic forces at work and of the structure of -legal relationships upon which they operated. Given the economic reasons -for the consolidation of holdings which were dominant in the sixteenth -century, they could hardly have failed to result in evictions on a -considerable scale, unless the tenants themselves had sufficient legal -security to hold their own. If they had such security, the statistical -analysis of displacements given above will fall into line with the -general situation and be a valuable comment upon it. If they had not, -then the figures, while a useful guide to the imagination, may stand -when they confirm, but hardly when they contradict, the picture given by -contemporaries. The accounts of the latter, though still not freed from -the charge of exaggeration, will be supported by what we know of the -general disposition of economic and legal forces. They probably heighten -the colour and sharpen the outlines, but their indication of tendencies -will be correct. - -In discussing the position of the small cultivator in the sixteenth -century it was pointed out above that similarity of legal status was -compatible with the greatest economic variety, and in considering their -ability to resist attempted eviction it is essential to remember the -converse truth, that tenants who were economically in a similar position -were often from the point of view of tenure very different. Just as -writers of the time lump together all classes of well-to-do small -landholders under the name of yeomen, though the majority of them were -not legally yeomen at all, so they constantly speak of evictions, -ruinous fines, and rack-rents, without discriminating between the -different classes of tenants whose different legal positions make them -liable to suffer in very different degrees. One must remember, again, -that in the sixteenth century a man might be called a copyholder because -he held a copyhold tenement, but at the same time he might have, and -very often had, additional land which he had leased from the demesne or -from the waste, and in which his legal interest was quite different; he -might be a freeholder and at the same time be the farmer who leased the -lord's demesne, or he might be freeholder, copyholder, and leaseholder -in one, and even hold at the will of the lord other land which he had -been allowed to occupy "by grant of the court," for example part of the -manorial waste. Hence not only were the positions of tenants at will, -lessees, and copyholders considered as classes, different from each -other, but there was also a difference in the legal interest which -individuals had in different parts of the lands which they cultivated. -Even if the law gave protection to copyholders, a point to be discussed -later, they might suffer from the consolidation into large farms of -those parts of their lands which they did not hold by copy, and the more -they had gained in preceding years by adding to their holdings of -customary land by leasing part of the demesne and of the waste, the -heavier would be their loss when these additions were taken from them, -while those whose holdings consisted entirely of such encroachments -would be altogether ruined. Again, on those few manors where tenure at -the will of the lord had not crystallised into copyhold, the tenant's -position was even weaker than that of the lessee, for there was nothing -but a custom unenforced by legal documents to prevent his eviction. - -There was thus opportunity for a considerable displacement of population -without any need of raising the difficult question of the degree of -security enjoyed by copyhold tenure. When a manor was occupied only by -tenants at will without copies, or when its demesne lands were leased -for short terms to a number of lessees, or when its waste had been -gradually taken in either by new settlers or by the customary tenants, -land could be resumed by the lord without any conflict save, in the -first case, with a custom which two centuries before had been powerful -but now was weak, and in the second case with a terminable interest. It -is not necessary to adduce instances to prove the liability of the -tenant at will or lessee to eviction, because the nature of their -interest makes it obvious that they could not claim to have complete -legal security. Examples of the first kind are, indeed, not very common, -owing to the fact that by our period tenure at will of the lord had in -most places hardened into copyhold, and their comparative rarity may -suggest that tenants at will who had not become copyholders had been -displaced on most manors by the beginning of the century. The case of -two Wiltshire manors may serve to illustrate their position. At -Knyghton[491] the whole manor was in 1554 leased to a farmer, and with -the manor the rents and service of six customary tenants holding at -will. At Domerham,[492] in 1568, almost the whole of the land was in the -hands of three large farmers, but "it has been granted to Richard -Compton, Thomas Pryce, John Pryce, and Robert Kynge, to sow of the above -said land every year 120 acres." In the second case the precariousness -of the tenants' position is obvious; they are mere squatters, who are -there, as it were, on sufferance. In the first case it has been -recognised and mitigated, as far as the farmer is concerned, by a clause -in his agreement binding him to leave the tenants in peaceable enjoyment -as long as they pay their rents. But they have no security as against -the lord, and are liable to immediate eviction if it proves more -profitable to add their holdings to the large farm. When tenants -commence an action against a lord for wrongful disseisin, it is -sufficient for him to answer that they are "but his tenantry at -wyll."[493] - - [491] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. - - [492] _Ibid._ - - [493] Leadam, _English Hist. Rev._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - -Much more numerous, however, than the tenants at will, were the small -leaseholders who held part of the waste or of the demesne lands. A -glance at the table given on page 25 will show that they form about 12 -per cent. of the whole manorial population therein represented. But in -parts of the country their numbers are far greater. In 1568 they form 20 -per cent. of the landholders on four manors in Somersetshire and one in -Devonshire.[494] In two villages in Northamptonshire[495] they form -nearly two-thirds. On the great manor of Rochdale there are in 1626 as -many as 315 leaseholders to 64 freeholders and 233 copyholders. -Leaseholders possessed, of course, legal security during the period of -their leases, and these were in some cases for as long as ninety-two -years. But they, too, had not an interest in the land of the kind which -would enable them to offer any permanent barrier to the policy of -consolidating holdings. This fact, indeed, was the motive for the care -which surveyors showed in discriminating between those parts of the -tenants' holdings which were customary land and those which were made up -of pieces taken from the demesne or from the waste, as well as for the -desire to convert copyhold tenure into leases for years, which was often -shown in the sixteenth century by the manorial officials. For an example -illustrating the eviction of numerous small tenants who had leased the -demesne we may recur to the case of Ablode[496] which has been mentioned -above. The lease of that manor to a farmer made by the monastery of St. -Peter's in 1516 expressly provided that he should be allowed to get rid -of the lessees, to whom the demesne lands had previously been let, as -soon as their leases should have expired. Two other examples show the -same class encountering exactly the same difficulty under somewhat -different circumstances. The first, which relates to the waste, not to -the demesne lands, comes from a survey of the lordship of Bromfield and -Gale which was made by the Parliamentary surveyors in 1649.[497] "The -inclosures before mentioned," they say, "and all the rest of them within -the lordship of Bromfield and Gale, fall to the lord of the soyle, -because enclosed without license. For although by their fee farm estate -they [_i.e._ the tenants] may challenge freedome of commoning, it is by -the covenant of the grant as formerly and antiently was accustomed, so -that they must take a new grant of all (except some old inclosures which -are included in their fee farms), which is the custom of the lordshippe. -_And if they should enclose all their common, yet the lord would have a -third part._" The second illustration is given by a petition which some -leasehold tenants of Whitby Strand[498] promoted in the Court of -Requests in the year 1553. When the monastery of Whitby was dissolved, -its property passed first to the Crown, which disposed of it to the Duke -of Northumberland, who in turn sold it to Sir John Yorke. The sufferings -of the tenants may be told in their own words: "Which saide Sir John, of -his extort power and might and by great and sore threatenings of the -said tennants ... hathe gotten from them all the leases ... and -unreasonably hathe raised rents ... and in consideration also that the -said Sir John York is a man of power and might, landes, goodes and -possessions; greatly frendid.... Your poor oratours ... are not able to -sue against him," and petition the Court for redress. The reality of -their grievance is shown sufficiently by the fact that whereas, when the -estate was in the hands of the monastery, the total rents of twenty-six -tenants amounted to L28, 19s. 8-1/2d., an average of about L1, 2s. 1d. -per tenant, by the date of these complaints the rents alone, apart from -fines, had been forced up to L64, 9s. 9d., averaging per tenant L2, 6s. -6d. - - [494] _Ibid._, Paynton, Stooke Trister and Cucklington, Donyett, - Chedseye, South Brent and Huish. The leases at South Brent are - for ninety-two years. - - [495] They are Duston in 1561 (R.O. Rentals and Surreys, Portf. - 13, No. 23), and Paulspurie in 1541 (_ibid._, vol. ccccxix., - fol. 3). - - [496] See pp. 204 and 210. - - [497] MS. Transcript by A.N. Palmer of Survey of Lordship of - Bromfield and Gale in Wrexham Free Library. - - [498] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_. - -What is the conclusion to be drawn from these three examples? It is -surely the special precariousness in the conditions of the sixteenth -century of all those tenants whose livelihood lies mainly in land which -has been taken from the demesne or from the waste, which is, in fact, in -the words of Fitzherbert,[499] "a new thing that hath not gone by -custom," a thing which may "fortune to increase or decrease of rent." A -piece of demesne may have been let out on lease at a low rent in the -year following the great plague, or have been taken from the waste at an -even earlier date. It may have remained in the hands of one family for -a century without being resumed by the lord, and without any attempt -being made to increase the tenants' payments. It may have been cleared -and cleaned, hedged and ditched, by the sweat of generations. But, if -the manorial officials have done their duty, that land has been marked -as a "new thing," something for which no custom can be pleaded and which -no prescription can protect. When the lord wishes to alter the condition -of its tenure no vested interest can stand against him. He will throw it -into a large farm, or double the rent, and the tenants can say nothing; -for they are mere lessees, unprotected by the sanctity of manorial -custom, and to have his way he need only wait till their leases expire. -That this is no impossible supposition is shown by the records of the -manor of Hewlington.[500] In 1562 an inquiry was made into the rights of -the tenants there, who seem to have been lessees for the term of forty -years with a right of renewal to the heir. On investigation being made -by the officers of the Crown, to whom the manor belonged, it was found -that there was "a decay of the sum of one hundred and five pounds, six -shillings, yearly rent, which in ancient tymes had been answered for the -said landes"; which decay "as by the auncient records appeareth, did -growe by reason of the great mortalitie and plague which in former tymes -had been in the reign of Edward III. and also of the Rebellion of Owen -Glendower and trouble that therefrom ensued; ... by reason of which -mortalitie and rebellion the country was wasted, the Tenants and their -houses destroyed, insomuch that the then lords of the soyle were -constrayned by their stewards and officers to graunte the said landes at -a lesser rent than formerlie was paid for the same to such as could be -gotten to take it." Two hundred years after the great plague, its effect -in reducing the rents of a few tenants on the Welsh Border is -remembered: a commission calculates the sum due to the last penny, and -is then required and authorised "to revise the said decayed rent," a -fact which the jurors of the manor duly record in their presentment made -another sixty years later. No doubt the Crown has an unusually good -memory--_nullum tempus occurrit regi_. But what the Crown can do on -this grand scale the surveyors of smaller lords do on a smaller one. As -soon as the time has come when it is convenient to get rid of tenants, -nothing but the most unassailable title can stand against the proof that -such and such a plot of land was once part of the lord's demesne or of -the lord's waste. And this, one may suspect, was a great change, which -affected many families who thought themselves as safe as their -neighbours. For at least two centuries before enclosing became general -enough to cause alarm, the demesne and waste lands on one manor after -another had been nibbled away by small encroachments; for lords had been -glad to find an alternative to the cultivation of the former through -labour services, and the colonising of the latter, though sometimes a -source of complaint with commoners whose rights of pasture were -curtailed, was welcomed by the manorial authorities as a means of -improving lands which would otherwise be useless. Both together had been -in fact a sort of reservoir of land upon which any surplus population -could draw, and from which the more prosperous of the customary tenants -could lease additions to their holdings in the manner described above. -In our period the tendency is reversed. A lord is anxious to get rid of -the obstruction which the small farmer's lease offers to the -consolidation of holdings. He wishes to follow the advice of experts and -"reduce his demeans into one entier ferme."[501] Titles are questioned, -and the small lessee, whose interest is a terminable one and unprotected -by any manorial custom, is the first to suffer. - - [499] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_, p. 32. - - [500] For reference, see p. 130, note 2. - - [501] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i., survey of Mudford - and Hinton. - - -(b) _The Copyholders_[502] - -But were the tenants at will and the leaseholders the only classes to be -evicted? No allusion has yet been made to the most difficult problem -which confronts the student of the sixteenth century agrarian -changes--the degree of protection enjoyed by the copyholders. If this -problem is the most difficult it is also one of the most important. As -far as can be calculated, the copyholders far exceeded in number upon -most manors all other classes of tenants together. Copyhold tenure was -the rule, and tenure at will and leasehold were generally the exception, -though the latter was an important exception. If all copyholders had -complete security, and were readily protected in their holdings by the -courts, there would be little sense in talking of an agrarian -revolution; for the changes, though they might still have caused much -individual suffering, could hardly have constituted anything like the -serious national danger which they were thought to be by many -contemporaries. Again, the copyholders were in a special sense the -kernel of a manor, the representatives of an ancient social system, -around which the newer relationships of leasehold were, so to speak, -comparatively modern accretions. It was with them and their business -that the manorial courts were concerned; a copyhold tenement could not -exist apart from a manor because surrender and admission in the manorial -court was essential to its recognition as copyhold; and the very name of -"customary tenants," by which copyholders were often described, suggests -the special antiquity and fixity of their position. Even in the -sixteenth century there were still manors where there were no tenants at -all except copyholders, and the mere shedding of the outer layers of -small leaseholders, who had sprung up around them, would have left the -organisation of such manors quite intact. It would have cut back recent -developments; it would not have shaken rural society very seriously. -One's view of the importance of the agrarian changes of the sixteenth -century will depend, therefore, to a great extent, upon the opinion -which is formed of the legal position of the copyholders. - - [502] In the following section on copyholders I have been guided - largely by Dr. Savine's article in the _Quarterly Journal of - Economics_, vol. xix. - -The problem centres in the question to what extent a copyholder who was -threatened with eviction could obtain protection from the courts. It is -not at all easy to extract a definite answer on this point from the -writers of the period, whose views as to the degree of security enjoyed -by copyhold are often inconsistent with each other, and sometimes seem -to be inconsistent with themselves. The layman certainly thought that -copyhold tenants could be and were evicted, and this view seems to be -supported by Fitzherbert.[503] It is true that he draws a sharp -distinction between the customary land, the rent of which cannot be -altered, and the new intakes from the waste or the demesne, the rent of -which can be forced up at the lord's pleasure. But he expressly states -that copyhold tenants cannot get protection from the courts: "These -manners of tennants shall not plede nor be impleded of their tenements -by the king's writte"; and he implies elsewhere that the lord can -increase both rent and fines. Kitchin,[504] on the other hand, thinks -that the lord can never increase the amount of the admission fine; while -Coke,[505] in a well-known passage, emphasises the copyholder's security -as long as he makes no breach in the custom by failing in his services, -and points out that he can protect himself either by proceedings in -Chancery or by a writ of trespass. - - [503] Fitzherbert, _Book of Surveying_, p. 28. - - [504] Kitchin, _Court Leet_. - - [505] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - -It is not surprising, in view of the variety of opinion as to the -copyholders' status which obtained in the sixteenth century, that there -should have been much disagreement about it among historians. It seems -possible, however, at any rate to narrow the limits of conjecture by -ruling certain theories out of account. In the first place one can -hardly now accept the view put forward by Mr. Leadam,[506] that, at any -rate after 1467, all copyholders had complete legal security, as -complete, it would appear, as freehold, though guaranteed by different -remedies. He holds that copyholders who occupied customary land, and who -were "tenants at will according to the custom of the manor," could get -redress either by petition in the Court of the lord with an appeal to -Chancery, or by an action of trespass in the Common Pleas, the classes -who suffered from eviction being "tenants at will at Common Law," who, -though sometimes described as inferior copyholders, were not really -copyholders at all, because they did not occupy the lands set apart as -customary lands. This view, according to which the lord could clear off -his estate all the newer copyhold tenancies on the demesne or waste, but -was debarred by the courts from touching the tenancies on the customary -land of the manor, receives a certain support from the great pains -shown by the manorial authorities in distinguishing between the two. -But, while it rightly emphasises the special features of the tenure of -customary land, it is difficult to reconcile what we actually know of -the position of copyholders with this theory as to the complete security -of copyhold tenure. To the objection that contemporaries who could -hardly have been mistaken certainly supposed that copyholders suffered, -Mr. Leadam would, no doubt, answer that they were thinking of the -"inferior copyholders" who held pieces of the demesne or waste. But this -answer has got to meet difficulties which are really overwhelming. On -the one hand, the historical confirmation which Mr. Leadam seeks, by -trying to trace the distinction postulated back into the remote regions -of tenure in villeinage, can no longer be accepted now that the -difference between villeinage "regardant" and villeinage "en gros," on -which he relies, has been proved to refer not to differences in the -tenure by which the serfs held their lands, but simply to different -methods of pleading, which have nothing to do with the question of the -tenant's security, but merely with the form in which cases were argued -in the courts.[507] On the other hand, it cannot be made to fit the -facts of the copyholders' position in the sixteenth century. The truth -is that copyholders were not safe even on the sacred customary land -itself. It is quite certain that a great many copyholds were not -copyholds of inheritance, but copyholds for life, which returned into -the hands of the lord with the death of every tenant. It is certain -also, as will be shown later, that fines for admission to customary -holdings were on some manors raised enormously during the sixteenth -century. How can one reconcile these facts with the view that the lord -could make no alteration in the treatment of the customary land which -would jeopardise the copyholders' interest? - - [506] Leadam, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi. - - [507] Vinogradoff, _Villainage in England_, pp. 48-56. - -Nor is it easy to accept the sharply contrasted theory of Professor -Ashley.[508] Where Mr. Leadam sees absolute security of tenure -guaranteed by the courts, Professor Ashley sees absolute insecurity -mitigated by a once powerful but now decaying custom. In the past, when -the lord's land had been dependent on labour services for its -cultivation, the last thing he wanted to do was to get rid of the -tenants, and therefore custom had made it a rule of practice, though not -of law, that first villein, and then copyhold, tenements should pass in -the manorial court from father to son. But just when this custom was on -the way to become law through the action of the courts in extending -protection to copyholders, changed economic conditions made pasture -farming much more profitable than tillage, and so supplied landowners -with a strong motive for breaking it down. In the struggle which -followed custom and public opinion were on the side of the tenants, but -the law was on the side of the landlords, and copyholders were evicted -without being able to obtain any legal redress, not merely through -ignorance or intimidation, but because no legal protection was offered -them by the courts. There is perhaps only one serious objection to this -ingenious theory. But that is insuperable. It is that in certain -circumstances, at any rate, the courts did in fact offer protection to -copyholders who were threatened with eviction. In the fifteenth century -a considerable number of cases came before the Court of Chancery. In the -sixteenth century the same business, which in view of the number of -copyholders must have been a lucrative one, came before the Common Law -Courts. The case of the year 1482,[509] which is quoted by Professor -Ashley to show the hesitation which the judges felt as to whether a -copyholder had any legal remedy, is really one of a long series in which -the courts considered the claims of copyholders, and which Coke must -have had in mind when he said, "Now copyholders stand upon a sure -ground: now they weigh not their lord's displeasure, they shake not at -every sudden blast of wind, they eat, drink, sleep securely ... let the -lord frown, the copyholder cares not, knowing himself safe, and not -within any danger."[510] To overlook that series of cases is really to -misread a change of the first importance, a change which almost amounted -to a legal revolution. Suppose that at the present day the courts were -to begin to protect the "tenant right" of workmen who have given their -lives to a trade by ruling that any man dismissed after fifteen years -continuous service should either be reinstated or receive compensation? -The change would be greater--but would it be much greater?--than the -momentous departure that was made by the judges who for the first time -decided that a man impleaded for a villein tenement should have an -action in Chancery. For centuries such actions could not be brought, and -if brought would have been simply sent back to the court of the manor -with the endorsement "our lord the king does not interfere in matters of -villeinage."[511] Now the tide is reversed. From 1439 onwards a stream -of equitable jurisdiction flows out from the Chancery to secure the -title of the very class which has hitherto had no legal title at all. -Tenure in villeinage becomes copyhold. Clearly the discovery of these -cases by Dr. Savine[512] must alter the whole standpoint from which we -view the struggle between lords and copyholders in the sixteenth -century. If one must reject the view of Mr. Leadam that copyholders on -customary land had complete legal security, one must also, it would -seem, reject the view of Professor Ashley that the courts never -interfered in their favour. Somehow or another one must reconcile a good -deal of insecurity with a good deal of protection, the complaints of -contemporaries that copyholders suffered from enclosures with the -equally indisputable fact that they were fairly often protected by the -law. - - [508] Ashley, _Economic History_, Part I., vol. ii. pp. 274-282. - - [509] Coke upon Littleton, 60 b. - - [510] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - - [511] Note-book of Bracton pl., 1237: "Dominus rex non vult se - de eis intromittere" (quoted Vinogradoff, _Villainage in - England_, p. 46, note 2). - - [512] On this point see _English Hist. Review_, vol. viii. p. - 296. - -A way leading some distance through this apparent contradiction may, -perhaps, be found by recurring to that dependence upon manorial custom -which is the characteristic feature of copyhold. A copyholder is a -tenant by copy of Court Roll according to the custom of the manor, and -this custom is primarily what regulates his rights and obligations. The -custom must be an immemorial one; mere prescription is not custom; to be -binding it must have "been used time out of mind." Given such a custom, -it is this upon which the nature of the copyholder's tenure depends; and -it is noticeable that authorities who differ as to the practical outcome -of it, all agree that it is with custom that the first appeal lies. But -the custom of a manor is a particular and individual thing peculiar to -that manor, and determining the relations between lord and tenant there -and not elsewhere. In the words of a surveyor, "Their customs are not so -universall as if a man have experyence of the customs and services of -any mannor he shall thereby have perfect knowledge of all the rest, or -if he be experte of the customes of any one mannor in any one countie -that he shall nede no further enstruccions for all the residewe of the -mannors within that countie."[513] There are several different sets of -customs, and therefore several different sorts of copyhold. There are, -in fact, copyholders and copyholders, and there is no general law of -copyhold because its essence is to be local and peculiar. The first -question, therefore, which has got to be asked, when considering the -question of the legal security of copyholders, relates to the custom of -the manor on which they are found; for probably, if the parties go to -law, this is the first question which will be asked by the court. If it -is shown that in getting rid of a tenant the lord has broken the custom -of the manor, there is much likelihood in the sixteenth century that the -court will restore it. If this is not shown, there is little probability -that the court will go behind the custom in favour of the tenants, or -try to harmonise it with general principles of equity, except in so far -as it declines to take account of customs which are held to be -"unreasonable," a word too vague to be much protection to a tenant or -much hindrance to a lord. It is this tremendous importance of local -custom which causes it to be so minutely entered in manorial documents, -and which results both in the constant appeals which are made to it when -cases come before the courts, and in the careful recording of -contradictory opinions. Surveyors are at pains to emphasise the -difference between land which is customary land and land which is not, -because, while on the former the introduction of new conditions will be -followed by all sorts of friction and disturbance, on the latter the -tenants will have no case in opposing them. It is here that Mr. Leadam's -distinction between holders of customary land and holders of land taken -from the waste or the demesne becomes of real value. It is a particular -exemplification of a general rule, the rule that the appeal is always to -custom. The meaning of the distinction is not, as Mr. Leadam seems to -suggest, that copyholders on the former always had legal protection and -copyholders on the latter always had not. It is that the crucial -question is always, "What sort of custom are you under?" and that, while -on the customary holdings the custom _may_ be unfavourable to the -tenant's security, it is much more likely to be unfavourable on the -newer tenancies formed on land which, perhaps within the memory of -persons living, was indubitably the lord's own, not merely in the -general sense in which even the villein's land had been the lord's, but -in the practical sense that it was part of his demesne to use as he -pleased. In fact quite a common answer when copyholders bring an action -is the statement that the land in question is not ancient copyhold but -part of the demesne;[514] and when the Protector Somerset applied his -popular agrarian policy to his own estates he had to get Parliament to -pass a special Act to give the copyholders on his demesnes peculiar -security.[515] - - [513] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. The surveyor is - Humberstone. - - [514] _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of Ed. - VI._, vol. i. p. cxxxvii.: "To the Right Honourable Sir Richard - Riche, Kt., Lord Riche and Lord Chancellor of England. In humble - wise sheweth and complaineth unto your lordeshippe your daley - orator Richard Cullyer of Wymondham ... yeoman, and John Cullyer - his son," that whereas they "were admitted tenants (of 20 acres) - to hold the same to them and their heirs ... and contynued - seased of the said 20 acres as of fee, as tenants at will, by - copy of Court Roll" now "Thomas Knyvett, Esq. ... of late - claimed 10 acres of the said 20 acres to be the demeanes of the - said manor." Knyvett (i.) answers, "The said lond ys and have - been tyme out of mynde parcell of the demeanes of the moytie of - the said manor of Cromwell." (ii.) Denies that "the premises - have been used to be dymytted or be dymittable by copie of Court - Roll for term of lyfe or lyves as in fee"; on the contrary "yt - may appear that the same have been letten by term of yeres." - - [515] In 1548 an Act was passed "for the assurance to the - tenants of graunts and leases made for the Duke of Somerset's - demesne lands." It begins, "Whereas of truth noe custom or usage - can or maye by the lawes of this realm be annexed or knytt to - any meases, lands, tenements, or hereditaments letten by copye - of Court Roll ... albeyt those words 'secundum consuetudinem - manerii,' be rehearsed and expressed in the saide Court Rolle or - coppie had or made, except that the same meases, lands, - tenements, or other hereditaments, so letten be of olde - customarie or coppieholde land, and have byn used by all the - tyme whereof memory of man is not to the contrary to be letten - or demysed by copie of court roll." - -The significance of custom is shown in other ways as well. In the -numerous petitions in Chancery addressed by copyholders their demand is -constantly for a recital or confirmation of manorial customs, and the -same line is taken in the fewer cases which come before the Courts of -Common Law. Tenants who claim an estate of inheritance and a fixed fine -on admission refuse in a body to show their copies to the surveyors, -presumably for fear that, if they do, some excuse may be made to upset -the custom.[516] Tenants will perjure themselves as to the nature of the -custom of their manor in order to be thought to have estates of -inheritance. In the days when copyholders (if they exist at all) are -still very few and villeins many, men who are really villeins of St. -Peter's of Exeter come forward and swear falsely that they hold in -socage, "intending all to say that they hold and ought to hold _de -stipite in stipitem_, Anglice stock after stock";[517] but the falsehood -is exposed, and they are punished with a fine of 30s. The copyhold -tenants on the Northumbrian manor of Amble claim in the sixteenth -century that manorial custom requires that the next of kin of the whole -blood shall succeed his father, and that the fines shall be limited to -two years' rent. But the surveyors repudiate their claim, remarking that -"we cannot find that they have any such estate of inheritance."[518] -Elsewhere the copyholders are more fortunate, and succeed in inducing -the manorial authorities themselves to make formal admission of the -custom, or in proving its existence to the satisfaction of the courts. -In 1567 the Dean and Chapter of Winchester Cathedral, and the one -hundred and fifty-eight copyhold tenants on their manor of Crondal, -enter into a solemn covenant and bargain--may we not call it a -"collective bargain"?--whereby it is agreed that fixed rents, fixed -fines, and copyholds of inheritance, "shall be from henceforth for ever -accepted, reputed, deamed, and taken to be vearye trewe, just, certaine, -and auncient customs, rights, dewtyes, and useages, between the Lorde -and the Customarye tenants ...; and shall from henceforth stand, -contynewe, remayne, and be of perfect force and strength to conclude and -bynde the said Deane and Chapiter, their successors and assignees of the -said mannour and hundred and everye parte thereof for ever."[519] The -tenants at Elswick[520] go to law with the lord of the manor on the -question of the nature of their estates, and, on the records of a custom -requiring the admission of a son on his father's death being produced, -the custom is confirmed by the court. Even the Government of Elizabeth, -favourable as it was to the small man, would not intervene without first -being informed of the nature of the custom. When a tenant appeals to -them for protection, they refer the matter to the local justices, with a -request to "certifie their opinions of the poor man's right."[521] No -doubt once the Courts begin to interfere with the internal business of a -manor they tend to break down some of the peculiarities of local custom, -and to set up a general pattern of copyhold tenure by ruling out certain -customs as "unreasonable." Copyholders for life may not cut down -timber,[522] though perhaps copyholders of inheritance may. Two and a -half years' rent is held by the reign of Charles I. to be an -unreasonable fine, one and a half years' to be reasonable, and the heir -shall not forfeit his copyhold if he tenders such a sum when he demands -admission.[523] But the definition of what is meant by "unreasonable" -has been going on from that day to this, and is perhaps not yet -completed. In our period it was only just beginning. At any rate we -shall not be far wrong if we say that, speaking broadly, the crucial -question is always whether the custom makes it easy for lords to get rid -of tenants or whether it makes it difficult. If an ancient custom gives -the lord a free hand, he has little trouble in getting his way. If it -restricts him, the courts are likely to enforce the restriction, and -though the lord still has, of course, the option of extra-legal action -by way of persuasion, cajolery, or intimidation, the tenants are likely -to be protected by the law. - - [516] See pp. 122-123. - - [517] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 3218, p. 74. Inquisition of - February 20, 1308. - - [518] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. p. 282. - - [519] _Crondal Records_ (Baigent), Part I. p. 177. - - [520] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. - - [521] _Acts of the Privy Council_, vol. xiii. pp. 91-92, 1581. - The justices are to decide "if they thinke it agreeable with - equite and justice that the poore man should be put in - possession of the said landes." - - [522] Croke's _Reports_, vol. iii., Trin. 4 Caroli, Rot. dcciv. - case 7. Custom that copyholder for life may cut down trees - pronounced "a void and unreasonable custom and not allowable by - law. For it is the destruction of the inheritance and against - the nature of a copyholder for life. But peradventure there may - be such a custom for a copyholder of inheritance." - - [523] _Ibid._, vol. iii., p. 198, case 8, Hill, 5 Car., Rot. - 125: "The question was whether a lord of a mannor may assess two - years and a half value of copyhold land according to racked rent - for a fine upon surrender and admittance, and for non-payment - enter for forfeiture. And all the Court conceived that one year - and a half of rent improved is high enough; and the defendant - assessing two years and a half it is unreasonable, and therefore - the plaintiff might well refuse the payment thereof." _Ibid._, - vol. i. p. 779, case 13, takes the rule that unreasonable fines - need not be paid back to 1600 ("It was holden _per curiam_ that - if the lord demands an unreasonable fine of his coppyholder - where the fine is uncertain, if he denies it, it is not any - forfeiture of his copyhold"), but his judgment does not say how - many years' rent is a reasonable fine. The _Calendar of Chancery - Proceedings, temp._ Eliz., is full of petitions from tenants - asking the court to declare fines excessive. The rule that a - fine must not exceed two years' rent does not appear to have - been accepted as binding till 1781 (_Grant v. Ashe, Douglas - Reports_, 722-723). But it is plain from the cases cited above - that by 1600 it was recognised that some fines were - unreasonable, and by 1630 that a reasonable fine should not - exceed one and a half years' rent. The fact that the Chancery - intervened to protect the equitable interests of copyholders - earlier than the Common Law Courts leads one to suspect that - there must be earlier cases than these of the Courts declaring - fines unreasonable. But I have not found them. - -The dependence of copyhold upon manorial custom offers an explanation of -the fact that the changes of the sixteenth century displaced -copyholders, although the courts would intervene when a custom which -gave them security was proved to exist. The most important questions -with regard to the custom which determined the copyholders' position -were two: first, whether he had by it an estate of inheritance, or -merely an estate for years, for life, or for lives; second, whether his -payments were fixed or unalterable, or whether they could be increased -at the will of the lord. If it was not an estate of inheritance his -holding returned fairly frequently into the hands of the manorial -authorities, who could either renew it on the old terms, or lease it at -an increased rent, or amalgamate it with a large farm. In the second -case, where payments were variable, lords could force a tenant to throw -up his land by placing a prohibitive burden upon it. The only way of -ascertaining with accuracy the real position of copyholders in our -period would be to show the relative proportions in which these four -arrangements are found upon each of many hundred manors. And this we -cannot yet do. The figures published by Dr. Savine[524] suggest that -manors on which copyholders possessed an estate of inheritance, and -those where they did not, were about equal in number, while manors on -which the fines were uncertain predominated over those on which they -were fixed in a proportion of more than two to one. Since it would seem -that the ability of the lord to demand what fine he pleased could be -used as a means of excluding a successor even when the copy was not -merely for life or lives but from father to son, his investigations -suggest that the copyholders' tenure was more often insecure than not. - - [524] _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xix. - -To the examples which he has collected one may perhaps add certain -others, inadequate though they are in point of quantity. Taking -twenty-one[525] manors in the years 1568-1573, of which three are in -Somersetshire, one in Devonshire, and seventeen in Wiltshire, one finds -that on only one out of the whole number was the copyholders' estate one -of inheritance. On one manor copies were granted for four lives or -less--it is expressly stated that they are not to be granted for -more--and on nineteen they are granted for three lives or less. On one -manor (that where the copyholders had estates of inheritance) the fine -was fixed by custom at a sum which is not stated, but which could not be -increased. On the remaining twenty the fine was a variable one, the -general formula being that land shall be given "for such fines as buyers -can fix by bargaining with the lord or his officers, both in possession -and in reversion," which means that they were to be fixed by the -higgling of the market. Turning next to two manors on the Welsh[526] -Border, which were in possession of the Crown, one is told that in the -reign of Elizabeth the royal officers granted the tenants leases for -years, renewable at the will of the tenant, and fixed the fine at two -years' rent, thus giving them what was virtually an estate of -inheritance. It is possible, however, that the Crown tenants received -more favourable treatment than did those on manors which were in -private hands. From Northumberland, again, there is a good deal of -evidence which it is difficult to summarise. Coke stated that "the -customary tenants upon the borders of Scotland ... are mere tenants at -will, and though they keep their customs inviolate, yet the lord might, -sans controll, evict them."[527] At the beginning of the seventeenth -century an order in Chancery ruled that none of the tenants of Lady -Cumberland,[528] who paid a fine on the death of lord and tenant, could -have an estate of inheritance; and we have clear evidence that the fines -paid by the copyhold tenants of the Earl of Northumberland[529] -increased very considerably in the course of the sixteenth century. On -the other hand such insecurity was not universal. A common rule on the -Northumbrian border seems to have given a copyhold for life, with a -tenant right of renewal to the heir, provided that a constant custom of -renewal could be proved.[530] On the Crown estates in the reign of -Elizabeth fines were fixed on conditions which varied from place to -place; sometimes they were at discretion, sometimes one year's rent, -sometimes two years' rent; and in 1609 the tenants of twelve -Tynemouthshire manors got the Courts to confirm a custom limiting their -fine to a definite sum, on six of them to L2 on the admission of a -descendant, and L4 on alienation, and on the remaining six to one year's -rent in the former case and two years' rent in the latter.[531] On -eleven out of thirteen manors in Norfolk[532] and Suffolk the fines are -uncertain; on one, Wighton, they are said to have been fixed at 4s. per -acre "by the space of 100 years at least"; on one, Aldeburgh, there is a -curious distinction between the fines paid for land "in the fields," -which are at the will of the lord, and the fines paid for cottage -tenements, which are fixed at 2s. when the site is built upon and 1s. -when the site is not covered. Elsewhere when the fine is fixed the -ordinary payment seems to be usually two years' rent on descent, with -sometimes a small addition, sometimes a small deduction, when the -tenement is alienated during the tenant's life. Estates of inheritance -and fixed fines do not necessarily go together. The general situation on -the small number of manors for which information has been obtained is -set out below.[533] Table I relates to duration of tenancies, Table II -to the character of admission fines. In each table, line (_a_) gives Dr. -Savine's figures, line (_b_) our own, line (_c_) the total of both -together. - - TABLE XIII - - I - - DURATION OF TENURE - - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - | | |Copyholds for | | Copyholds for | - | | | Years but with | |Years but with- | - | Manors. |Copyholds of|Right of Renewal|Copyholds for | out Right of | - | |Inheritance.| (_i.e._ |Life or Lives.| Renewal(_i.e._ | - | | | virtually | Renewal |virtually Leases| - | | | Copyholds of | | for Years). | - | | | Inheritance). | | | - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - |(_a_) 82| 25 | 17 | 40 | ... | - |(_b_) 60| 22 | 2 | 33 | 3 | - |(_c_) 142| 47 | 19 | 73 | 3 | - +---------+------------+----------------+--------------+----------------+ - - II - - CHARACTER OF FINES - - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - | | | | Partly Certain and | - | Manors. | Fines Certain. | Fines Uncertain. | Partly Uncertain. | - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - |(_a_) 86| 28 | 58 | ... | - |(_b_) 61| 25 | 35 | 1 | - |(_c_) 147| 53 | 93 | 1 | - +---------+------------------+--------------------+---------------------+ - - [525] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. The - twenty-one manors are as follows: Washerne, South Newton, North - Ugford, Brudecombe, Foughlestone, Chalke, Albedeston, Chilmerke - and Rugge, Staunton, Westoverton, Remesbury, Stockton, - Dichampton, Berwick St. John, Wyley, North Newton, Byshopeston - (all in Wilts), Donyett, Chedseye, South Brent (all in - Somerset), and Paynton in Devonshire. Estates of inheritance are - found at Byshopeston, and also fixed fines. At Paynton copies - are granted for 4 lives or less. The common formula for fines - runs: "Pro talibus finibus ut emptores et captores cum domino et - officiariis suis concordare vel barganizare possunt tam de terra - in possessione quam in reversione." - - [526] MSS. Transcript in Wrexham Free Library by A.N. Palmer, of - "The Presentment and Verdict for the Manor of Hewlington," 1620 - (in which the proceedings in the reign of Elizabeth are - recorded), and "The Surveys of the Town and Liberty of Holt," - 1620. At Hewlington it is stated that the Crown Commissioners - made an arrangement with the tenants "that if the said tenants - would relinquish these said pretended estates, revive the said - decayed rents, and pay two yeres Rent of the landes to the late - Queen for a fine, that then the said tenants and their heirs and - assignes should have leases granted them for fortie years, and - so from fortie years to fortie years in perpetuity." It is not - expressly stated that the same arrangement was made at Holt, but - it is to be inferred from the context that it was. - - [527] Coke, _The Complete Copyholder_. - - [528] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 238. - - [529] See below, pp. 305-306. - - [530] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. pp. 238-239. - - [531] _Ibid._ For conditions on the Crown estates under - Elizabeth see _S. P. D. Eliz._, vol. xii. pp. 69-70: "Abstract - of the Commission to the lord Chancellor ... for letting the - queen's lands and tenements in Northumberland within 20 miles of - the border and in the seigniories of Middleham and Richmond, - Yorkshire and Barnard Castle, Bishopric of Durham," June 24, - 1565. - - [532] The manors are West Lexham (Holkham MSS., West Lexham, No. - 87, Map), Sparham (_ibid._, Sparham Bdle., No. 5), East Dereham - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 1), Wighton (R.O. - Special Commissions, Duchy of Lancs., No. 839), Stockton Socon - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 14), Aldeburgh (R.O. - _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipts_, vol. clxiii.), Chatesham (R.O. - _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), Dodnash (R.O. _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), - Falkenham (R.O. _ibid._, vol. clxiii.), Stratford iuxta Higham - (R.O. Duchy of Lancaster, Rentals and Surveys, 9/13), St. Edmund - (R.O. Parliamentary Surveys, Suffolk, No. 14), Mettingham - (_Victoria County History_, Suffolk), Mark Soham (_ibid._). - - [533] See Appendix II. - -It will be seen that the degree of security enjoyed by copyholders -varies very greatly. When the copyhold is one of inheritance, it is -legally complete, unless the tenants incur forfeiture by breaking the -custom. An estate for life with right of renewal is virtually as good as -a copyhold of inheritance. Estates for life or lives are precarious. -Copyholds for years without right of renewal are scarcely -distinguishable from leases. On the whole, when these examples are added -to those of Dr. Savine, it would appear that copyholds for life or lives -were more usual than copyholds of inheritance, while fixed fines were -the exception and variable fines the general rule. - - -(c) _The Undermining of Customary Tenures_ - -The importance of the predominance of copyholds for lives for the -question of the degree of security enjoyed by the tenant is shown by the -efforts which were made by lords of manors, where copyholders had -estates of inheritance, to persuade them to give up their copies and -take leases instead. It is evident that in this course they encountered -a good deal of opposition. On manors, however, where the copyholds -escheated to the lord at intervals of one, two, or three lives, he could -substitute leases for a regrant of the copies, or throw the holdings -into a large farm, or retain them in his own hands. Though such action -might be thought harsh, it could hardly be prevented by the tenants, -since the lord could always hold the threat of eviction over their -heads. One finds some manors where the striking and exceptional -preponderance of small leaseholders suggests unmistakably that such a -conversion of copyhold to leasehold has taken place,[534] or where the -motive of the alteration is shown by the great rise in rents which has -followed it. One finds others where the struggle between copyhold and -leasehold is going on and is still undecided. In that struggle the -chances are against the copyholders, even though their interest is -protected by the law, for the law is less powerful than ignorance and -fear. How can our peasants, men "very simple and ignorant of their -estates,"[535] enter into the respective merits of copies and leases -with the powers of the manor, armed with professional advice and all -those indefinite but invincible advantages in bargaining which are given -by legal knowledge, social influence, and a long tradition of authority? -It is so easy to get caught in some legal trap. In the reign of Charles -I., the two hundred Crown tenants of the manor of North Wheatley, who -have suffered much in the way of rack-renting from the officers of their -impecunious lord, engage a lawyer to negotiate the renewal of their -leases of the demesne lands. The grant is made to him, as their -attorney; but, to their dismay, they find that he declines to fulfil his -bargain. He has "afterward, contrary to the Trust committed to him, -increased and raised the rent thereof upon the tenants, to his owne -privat benefitt."[536] The tenants of Hewlington succeed, as we have -seen, in inducing the Crown to recognise their estates of inheritance by -granting that their forty years' leases shall be renewable at the will -of the tenants. Then unexpectedly a servant of the Earl of Leicester -purchases one of the townships. The tenants, in an agony of -apprehension, "perceiving that they were like to have their said landes -and tenements after the expiration of their said leases taken from them, -and that they had no remedy by the course of the common law to helpe -themselves, preferred their Bill to be relieved in Equitie." Chancery -comes to their rescue. It decides that the covenant made by the Crown to -the effect that their leases should be renewable at the option of the -holder is binding not only on the Crown, but on all to whom it might -sell the lands in question. But their troubles are not yet finished. It -is one thing to get a judgment, another for the judgment to be carried -out. The purchaser is servant to a great man and can afford to be -dilatory and recalcitrant. We leave these villagers still petitioning -"His Highness and His Honourable Council and Commissioners of Revenue -that when it shall seem good unto them the said tenants may be admitted -to have their leases accordingly." - - [534] _E.g._ Ormesby in Norfolk, where in 1516 thirty-one - tenants holding "in farm" formed the whole landholding - population (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. - 18). For a great rise in rents following a probable substitution - of leases for customary tenures, see the case of Lewisham in - Kent. On this manor in the reign of Henry VI. the rent of the - tenants (tenure unspecified) was L8, 11s. 7d., 9 plougshares, - and 6s. 2-1/2d. in the abbot's hand (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, - Gen. Ser., Roll 361). In 1621 it was L23, 1s. 6-1/2d. (R.O. - _Misc. Bks. Treas. of Receipt_, vol. clxxiv., fol. 134). In the - reign of James I. we have full details. The rent of the free - tenants was L17, 12s. 10-1/2d.; that of the tenants at will 9d.; - that of tenants "per dimissionem" (_i.e._ lease-holders) L72, - 9s. 8-1/2d. (R.O. _Misc. Bks. Aug. Off._, vol. ccccxiv., f. - 3334). It is unfortunate that we are not told how the bulk of - the tenants held at the two earlier dates. But is it - unreasonable to say that they were probably customary tenants, - and that the introduction of leases was followed by a great rise - in rents? - - [535] Survey of Town and Liberty of Holt, MS. transcript in - Wrexham Free Library. - - [536] _S. P. D._, ch. i. vol. cli., No. 38. (See Appendix I., - No. iv.) - -It is so easy to be intimidated by the fear of aggravating your -misfortunes. When an agent frightens some tenants by telling them the -unfavourable decision of the Court of Chancery as to the tenant right of -the copyholders on a neighbouring estate, do they answer, as they -should, that manorial customs vary, and that they will see what the -Courts say about their own? No, they make "Humble suit that your -lordship will be pleased to grant them leases for twenty-one years, and -they will pay, in lieu of their fine, double rent for every farm."[537] -Sometimes they live to repent their bargain. "I have persuaded one John -Wilson of Over-Buston," writes a manorial official to the Earl of -Northumberland, "to deliver me in his copy, and he is content to take a -lease at double rent."[538] A strange chance has left us a letter, in -which this very John Wilson, labouring horribly amid the intricacies of -grammar, expounds through one long, broken-backed sentence, what balm -such "contentment" brings. "To the Right Honourable the Earl of -Northumberland, the humble petition of John Wilson, his wife and 8 poor -children. Humbly complaining showeth ... your petitioner ... that -whereas your said petitioner and his predecessors being ancient tenants -to your honour, holding one tenement on ferme in Upper Bustone, by -virtue of copyhold tenure out of the memory of man, which copies both of -your said poor petitioners' great grandfather, his father's father, and -his own father are yet extant to be seen: and now of late your said -poor petitioner, being under age, helpless and none to do for him, and -forced (God knows) by some of your honour's officers to take a lease and -pay double and treble rent, in so much that your said poor petitioner, -his wife, and 8 poor children is utterly now beggared and overthrown, -unless your worthy good honour will be pleased to take a pitiful -communication thereof, or otherwise your saide poore petitioner, his -wife and poore children knows no other way but of force to give over -your honour's land, by reason of the deare renting thereof, and so be -constrained to go a-begging up and down the countrie."[539] Poor, -patient, stiff-fingered John Wilson, so certain that he has not been -treated fairly, so confident that his lordship cannot have meant him to -be wronged, so easily circumvented by his lordship's brisk officials! He -and his heavy kind are slow to move; but, once roused, they will not -easily be persuaded to go back. It was such as he that, at one time or -another in the sixteenth century, set half the English counties ablaze -with the grievances of the tillers of the soil. - - [537] _Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 238. - - [538] _Ibid._, vol. v. p. 211. The rent was raised from 18s. to - 36s. - - [539] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. p. 210. - -The significance of the predominance of variable fines is very evident -if one turns to examine the economic relations between lords and -copyhold tenants as they stood in the middle of the sixteenth century. A -manor on which there was a large number of customary tenants must have -often seemed from the point of the owner a rather disappointing form of -property, because the first fruits of economic progress tended to pass -into the hands of the tenants. The rents and services due from their -holdings were fixed by custom; meanwhile prices were rising with the -fall in the value of silver, and the result, as is pointed out by -Maitland, was that the economic rent or unearned increment of their -properties was intercepted by the copyholders, instead of being drained, -as under leasehold, into the pocket of the lord. - -An explanation of what is meant can best be given by recurring to the -table of rents printed in Chapter III. of Part I. It will be recollected -that on the manors there represented the value of the rents got by the -lords from the customary tenants was often almost stationary. When the -enormous fall in the purchasing power of money is remembered, it is -clear that rentals must sometimes have very greatly depreciated, which -of course meant that the tenants retained the surplus due to economic -progress, a surplus measured by the difference between the "rents of -assize" and the full rack-rent for which the holding could be let if put -up to competition, and amounting sometimes to more than three-quarters -of the latter. At Wilburton, for example (to quote a fresh instance), -according to Maitland,[540] a virgate worth L7 or L8 only pays L1 in -rent. From the competitive rents of the open market the lord was -debarred by the custom of the manor. How could he tap the surplus? He -did so, it may be suggested, either by inducing the tenants to exchange -their copies for leases, or by raising the fines, when the fines were -not fixed by custom, so as to get in a lump sum what he could not get by -yearly instalments. In that case the tenant's surplus was on paper only; -he was exactly in the position of an investor in a stock of inflated -value, the high nominal interest of which has been capitalised in the -price paid for the shares. The probability that when fines were movable, -they were forced up in the sixteenth century so as to sweep away any -unearned increment accruing to the holders of customary land, is not -only suggested by the bitter denunciations launched against the practice -by contemporaries. It is also indicated by the manorial documents. May -not this be the explanation of what Maitland justly calls "the absurdly -high price" of L1261 paid in the reign of James I. by the purchasers of -Wilburton, a manor the yearly value of which was at the time only L33? -The suggestion is confirmed, as far as a few manors are concerned, by -the upward movement of fines revealed by the following table-- - - FINES PAID ON THREE MANORS IN NORTHUMBERLAND[541] - - 1567. 1585. - Acklington L57, 3s. 8d. or L3, 3s. 4d. L87, 10s. 0d. or L4, 17s. 2d. - per tenant. per tenant. - High Buston L11, 14s. 0d. or L2, 18s. 6d. L18, 0s. 0d. or L4, 10s. 0d. - per tenant. per tenant. - Birling L43, 7s. 6d. or L4, 6s. 9d. L72, 0s. 0d. or L7, 4s. 0d. - per tenant. per tenant. - - FINES PER ACRE PAID ON SIX MANORS[542] IN WILTS AND ONE - IN SOMERSET - - - 1520-39, average fine per acre for each of 42 tenants 1s. 3d. - 1540-49, " " " 28 " 2s. 11d. - 1550-59, " " " 36 " 5s. 6d. - 1560-69, " " " 29 " 11s. 0d. - - [540] Maitland, _English Historical Review_, vol, ix., "The - History of a Cambridgeshire Manor." - - [541] _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - - [542] Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Pembroke Manors_. The manors - are South Newton, Washerne, Donnington, Winterbourne Basset, - Estoverton and Phipheld, Byshopeston (all Wilts), and South - Brent and Huish (Somerset). - -The figures show a steady upward movement during the third and fourth -decades of the century of a little over 100 per cent., a rather less -rapid rise between 1549 and 1559, and another rise of 100 per cent. -between 1559 and 1569. They are of course too small to be the basis of a -wide generalisation, but perhaps they may be held to offer some -documentary confirmation of a grievance which bulks large in the -literature of the period. The elasticity of fines at any rate corrects -the impression which would be formed of the tenants' position from -looking only at the comparatively stationary rents. The same tendency is -suggested by the details of individual copies. It was a not uncommon -practice for a tenant who was in possession and had an estate for life -to buy at a later date the right of his heir to succeed him. When this -was done we have an opportunity of comparing the fines paid at different -periods, and the complaints of contemporaries about unreasonable and -excessive fines become intelligible. This may be illustrated by a few -extreme instances taken from the manors of Estoverton and Donnington in -Wiltshire, and of South Brent in Somersetshire. - - Fine for Copy. Fine for Reversion. - - 1. 6/8 (1537) L5 (1563) - 2. 40/ " L13, 6s. 8d. (1566) - 3. 54/4 " L23 (1561) - 4. 60/ " L30 (1565) - 5. 20/ " L10 (1561) - 6. 20/ (1529) L40 (1563) - 7. 33/4 (1542) L20 (1565) - 8. 66/8 (1522) L20 (1563) - 9. 13/4 (1516) L13, 6s. 8d. (1563) - 10. 40/ (1513) L40 (1565) - 11. 46/8 (1531) L20 (1563) - 12. 6/8 (1545) L20 (1565) - 13. 13/4 (1522) L5, 6s. 8d. (1558) - 14. L9 (1532) L12 (1557) - -Though these are extreme cases, a considerable rise is the rule and not -the exception. The advantage of the fixed rent is in fact neutralised by -the movable fine. Such figures give point to Crowley's outbursts, "They -take our houses over our heads; they buye our groundes out of handes, -they reyse our rents, they levy great, yea unreasonable fines."[543] It -is not surprising that the programme[544] of agrarian reform put forward -by the Yorkshire insurgents in 1536, and by the rebels under Ket in -1549, should have contained a demand for copyhold lands "to be charged -with an easy fine, as a capon or a reasonable sum of money." It is not -surprising that the Court of Chancery[545] should have been bombarded -with petitions to declare or enforce customs limiting the demands which -a lord might make of an incoming tenant. It is perhaps more surprising -that, in those cases where the fine was by custom uncertain, the rule -that a reasonable fine was about two years' rent should not have been -enforced by judges at an earlier date and more generally than it seems -to have been. For in the sixteenth century, though many old economic -ideas are going by the board, public opinion still clings to the -conception that there is a standard of fairness in economic dealings -which exists independently of the impersonal movements of the market, -which honest men can discover, if they please, and which it is a matter -of conscience for public authorities to enforce. Even a good Protestant -who hates the Pope will admit that there is more than a little in the -Canon Law prohibition of usury,[546] and under usury, be it noted, the -plain man includes rack-rents, as well as interest on capital and -exorbitant prices. If to a modern economist the demand for reasonable -fines and rents savours of sentimentality and confusion, he must -logically condemn not only the peasants and their champions, but the -statesmen; not only Ket and Hales and More and Latimer, but almost every -member of every Elizabethan Privy Council. After all, all the precedents -are on the side of an attempt to enforce a standard which shall be -independent of the result which might be reached by higgling between -this landlord and that tenant. Prices are fixed, wages are fixed, the -rate of interest is fixed, though the money market is becoming more and -more elusive, more and more critical of old-fashioned attempts at -interference; the fines which freeholders must pay on admission have -been fixed for centuries. Now that copyhold has got the protection of -the Courts, it is not unnatural that tenants should ask the State to do -with regard to the bargain most affecting them what it already does for -bargains of nearly every other kind. It is not unnatural that, even when -the fine is not settled by custom at a definite sum, they should demand -nevertheless that the Courts should sanction that establishment of a -"common rule," which is the ideal of the economically weak in all ages. - - [543] E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to Wealth_. - [544] See below, pp. 334-337. - [545] _Calendar of Proceedings in Chancery in the Reign of - Edward VI._ Bills to establish a fine certain on admission and - alienation, to get protection against exorbitant fines, &c. are - common. For popular complaints see E. E. T. S., _A Supplication - of the Poore Commons_: "These extortioners have so improved - theyr lands that they make of a xls. fyne xl. pounds," &c. For - an actual instance see the following case. The tenants of - Austenfield claim "that of ancient time all the customary - tenants of the said manor of Austenfield were finable at fines - certain, until of late years the lords moved by covetousness, by - troubling and vexing their copyholders, drove many of them, for - the buying of their quietness, to be at fines uncertain" - (William Salt Collection, vol. ix. Chancery Proceedings. Bdle. - 12, No. 70). - [546] Th. Wilson, _A Discourse upon Usurie_, 1584: "And - therefore I would not have men altogether to be enemies to the - Canon Lawe, and to condemn everything there written, because the - Pope was author of them.... Naie, I will saie plainlie that - there be some such lawes made by the Pope as be right godlie, - saie others what they list." - -Yet we shall miss the full significance of the movement which we have -examined, if we take their demands without analysis, and do not look at -the other side of the picture. There was much to be said on the side of -the manorial authorities, harsh as they often were. The criticism which -Norden,[547] with a surveyor's experience, makes upon the outcry against -the upward movement of fines, by pointing out that the whole scale of -prices and payments has been shifted by the depreciation in the value of -money, is perfectly justified. For money had depreciated, depreciated -enormously; and landlords, who were faced with swiftly rising prices on -the one hand and fixed freehold and copyhold rents on the other, were in -a cleft stick from which it is not easy to blame them for extricating -themselves as best they could. The truth is that if we content ourselves -with the supposition of an access of exceptional unscrupulousness on the -part of lords of manors which was favoured by contemporaries, we shall -misread the situation. The real facts were much more complex, much more -serious, much more interesting. A large impersonal cause, the flooding -of Europe with American silver, upsets all traditional standards of -payment. The first brunt is borne by those whose incomes are fixed, or -relatively fixed, the owners of landed property, and the wage-earning -classes. But all over the country thousands of new bargains are being -struck as leases fall in and copies are renewed. Each fresh contract is -the opportunity for a readjustment of relationships, for shifting the -burden from the shoulders where it rested. The wage-earners do this to -some extent, but not successfully; wages do not keep pace with prices. -The landlords do it much more effectively. But there is no mechanical -means of measuring what change is necessary in order to place them and -their tenants in the same position relatively to each other as they were -before. Once customary fines are thrown overboard, there is, unless the -Government interferes, no other standard except the full fine which can -be got in the open market, and, when the custom of the manor allows it -to be demanded, it is demanded. Thus the readjustment, as it were, -overshoots itself, and the economic rent, unearned increment, surplus -value--it is difficult to avoid phrases which modern associations have -made trite--only part of which represents the rise in the price of land -caused by the fall in the value of money, tends, instead of being, as -hitherto, shared between landlord and copyholder, to be transferred _en -bloc_ to the former. It is rarely in modern society that classes are -sufficiently definite and self-contained, rarely that economic changes -are sufficiently catastrophic, for a great shifting of income from one -to the other to be detected. Here we can see it going on before our -eyes. We can note the result. But in this matter the twentieth century -is not in a position to be critical of the sixteenth. - - [547] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, Book I.: "_Surveyor._ - The tennant leaveth commonly one either in right of inheritance, - or by surrender, to succeed him, and he by custome of the manor - is to be accepted tenant, alwaies provided he must agree with - the lord, if the custome of the manor hold not the fine certain - as in few it doth.... _Farmer._ You much mistake it, for I will - show by ancient court rolls that the fine of that which is now - L20 was then but 13s. 4d., and yet will you say they are now as - they were then? _Surveyor._ Yea, and I thinke I erre little in - it. For if you consider the state of things then and now, you - shall find the proportion little differing; for so much are the - prices of things vendible ... now increased as may well be said - to exceed the prices then as much as L20 exceede the 13s. 4d." - -We may now sum up this part of our subject. The extreme lucrativeness of -sheep-farming, and the depreciation in the value of money, offered an -incentive to landlords to make the most profitable use which they could -of their property by amalgamating small holdings into large leasehold -farms, which were used mainly, though not entirely, for pasture. To -carry out this new policy they had to get rid of the small tenants. When -the tenants held at will, or were lessees for a short term of years, -lords could do this without difficulty. When they were copyholders for -one life or more, they could do it more slowly; but still they could do -it in time. When they were copyholders with an estate of inheritance, -lords had only two alternatives--to induce them to accept leases, or to -raise the fines for admission. The latter course enabled them to offer -the tenants the alternative of surrendering their holdings or paying the -full competitive price which could be got for them. And thus it caused -an almost revolutionary deterioration in their position. Hitherto the -custom of the manor had been a dyke which protected them against the -downward pressure of competition, and behind which they built up their -prosperity. Now the unearned increment was transferred from tenant to -landlord by the simple process of capitalising it in the fine demanded -on entry. The interest of the customary tenant, therefore, virtually -depreciated to the level of that of a leaseholder. The interest of the -manorial lord appreciated to the full and effective ownership of all -surpluses arising between the grant of one copy and the grant of the -next. Thus the differences in the degree of security enjoyed by -copyholders are to be explained by differences in manorial customs. Whom -custom helps the law helps; who by custom are without protection, are -without protection from the law, except in so far as it gradually builds -up a doctrine as to what is reasonable. Long after villeinage has -disappeared, copyholders still bear traces of having sprung from a class -of whom the law was reluctant to take cognizance, traces of being -nurtured in a "villein nest." - - - - -PART III - -THE OUTCOME OF THE AGRARIAN REVOLUTION - - "Lords spiritual and temporal, have it in your mind This - world as it waveth, and to your tenants be kind." - --_The Proclamation of the Commons_, Gairdner, - _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, - xii. I. 163. - - "We must needs fight it out, or els be brought to the lyke - slavery that the Frenchmen are in.... Better yt were therefore - for us to dye like men, than after so great misery in youth to - dye more miserably in age."--E. E. T. S., Crowley, _The Way to - Wealth_. - - _Doctor._ "On my faithe youe trouble youreselves ... youe that - be justices of everie countrie ... in sittinge upon commissions - almost wekely." - - _Knight._ "Surely it is so, yet the Kinge must be served and - the commonwealth. For God and the Kinge hathe not sent us the - poore lyving we have, but to doe services therefore amonge our - neighbours abroad."--_The Commonweal of this Realm of England._ - - "We have good Statutes made for the Commonwealth, as touching - commoners and inclosers, many meetings and sessions; but in the - end of the matter there cometh nothing forth."--Latimer, _First - Sermon preached before King Edward VI._, March 8, 1549. - - - - -CHAPTER I - -THE AGRARIAN PROBLEM AND THE STATE - - -(a) _The Political and Social Importance of the Peasantry_ - -The changes which have been described in the organisation of agriculture -created problems which were less absorbing than those arising out of the -religious reformation and the relation of England to continental powers. -When we turn over the elaborate economic legislation of the reign of -Elizabeth, with its attempts to promote industry, to define class -relationships, and to regulate with sublime optimism almost every -contract which one man can make with another, we are tempted at first to -see statesmen giving sleepless nights to the solution of economic -problems, and to think of a modern bureaucratic state using the -resources of scientific administration to pursue a deliberate and -clearly conceived economic policy. But this is both to exaggerate the -importance which economic questions occupied in the minds of the -governing aristocracies of the age, and to credit them with a foresight -which they did not possess. If they are to be called mercantilists, in -England, at any rate, they wear their mercantilism with a difference; as -a vague habit of mind, not as a reasoned system of economic doctrines. -Their administrative optimism is the optimism of innocence as much as of -omnipotence; the fruit of a self-confidence which, in the name of the -public interests, will prop a falling trade, or cut down a flourishing -one, with a bland naivete unperturbed by the hesitations which perplex -even the most courageous of modern protectionists. Though in several -departments of life--in commercial policy, in the regulation of the wage -contract, in the relief of distress--the main lines drawn by Elizabethan -statesmen will stand for two centuries, much of their legislation is -very rough and ready; much of it again is undertaken after generations -of dilatory experiments; much of it is devoid of any originality, and is -a mere reproduction on a national scale of the practice of individual -localities, a reproduction which sometimes does less than justice to the -original. If it is popular, it is popular because it tells men to do -what most decent men have been doing for a long time already, and when -it tells them to do something else it is carried out only with great -difficulty. If it is permanent, it is permanent not because -Parliamentary draughtsmen possess any great skill or foresight, but -because, before the rise of modern industry, all social relationships -have a great amount of permanence. Though there was much interesting -speculation on economic matters, economic rationalism was as a practical -force almost negligible; and since the only instrument through which it -could have achieved influence was the monarchy, its lack of influence -was perhaps politically fortunate. Sixteenth century England was too -busy getting the State on to its feet to produce a Colbert. Lath and -plaster Colberts built their card castles on the Council table of James -and Charles, and all was in train for the sage paternal monarchy which -was the ideal of Bacon. But a wind blew from strange regions beyond -their ken, and they were scattered before they could do much either for -good or evil, leaving, as they fled, a cloud of dark suspicion round all -those who would be wiser in the art of Government than their neighbours, -from which, in the lapse of three centuries, the expert has hardly -emerged. In spite of mercantilism, economic questions never became in -England the pre-occupation of specialists. In spite of the genuine -indignation roused by the sufferings of the weaker classes in society, -questions affecting them were questions which statesmen did not handle -for their own sake, but only in so far as they forced themselves into -the circle of political interests by cutting across the order, or -military defence, or financial system, of the country. Apart from these -high matters of policy most members of the governing classes were -inclined to answer petitions on the subject of economic grievances as -Paget did to Somerset: Why can't you let it alone? "What a good year ... -is victuals so dear in England and nowhere else? If they and their -fathers before them have lived quietly these sixty years, pastures being -enclosed, the most part of these rufflers have least cause to -complain."[548] - - [548] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. Sir William Paget to - the Lord Protector, July 7, 1549. - -The subordinate place occupied by economic questions during our period -makes the attention which was given to the results of pasture-farming -all the more remarkable. Though to the statesmanship of the sixteenth -century the agrarian problem was one of the second order, it was, at any -rate till the accession of Elizabeth, the most serious of its own class, -and it was important enough to occupy Governments at intervals for over -a century and a half. The first Statute against depopulation was passed -in 1489;[549] an abortive Bill was introduced into the House of Commons -in 1656;[550] and between the two lies a series of seven Royal -Commissions, twelve Statutes, and a considerable number of Proclamations -dealing with one aspect or another of the enclosing movement, as well as -numerous decisions on particular cases by the Privy Council, the Court -of Star Chamber, and the Court of Requests. This reaction of the new -agrarian developments upon public policy is interesting in several ways. -It illustrates the growth of new classes and forms of social -organisation, the methods and defects of sixteenth century -administration, and the ideas of the period as to the proper functions -of the State in relation to an important set of questions, upon which -political opinion was in some ways nearer to our own than it was to that -of the age following the Civil War. Nor, perhaps, is it altogether -without importance from the point of view of general history. We need -not discuss how far the reaction of some recent historians against the -familiar judgments which contrast Tudor tyranny with the constitutional -revolutions of the seventeenth century as darkness with light, is likely -to be permanent. But it is perhaps safe to say that it is in the sphere -of social policy that their case is seen at its strongest. After all, -tyranny is often the name which one class gives to the protection of -another. To the small copyholder or tenant farmer the merciless -encroachments of his immediate landlord were a more dreaded danger than -the far-off impersonal autocracy of the Crown to which he appealed for -defence. The period in which he suffered most in the sixteenth century -was the interval between the death of the despotic Henry VIII. and the -accession of the despotic Elizabeth. Though the interference of the -Tudor, and--in a feebler fashion--of the Stuart, Governments to protect -the peasantry was neither disinterested nor always effective, its -complete cessation after 1642, and the long line of Enclosure Acts which -follow the revolution of 1688, suggest that, as far as their immediate -economic interests were concerned, the smaller landholders had more to -lose than to gain from a revolution which took power from the Crown to -give it to the squires. The writers[551] who after 1750 turned with a -sigh from the decaying villages which they saw around them, to glorify -the policy of the absolutist Governments of the sixteenth and -seventeenth centuries, were received with the ridicule which awaits all -who set themselves against a strong current of interests and ideas. But -historically they were right. The revolution, which brought -constitutional liberty, brought no power to control the aristocracy who, -for a century and a half, alone knew how such liberty could be -used--that blind, selfish, indomitable, aristocracy of county families, -which made the British Empire and ruined a considerable proportion of -the English nation. From the galleries of their great mansions and the -walls of their old inns their calm, proud faces, set off with an -occasional drunkard, stare down on us with the unshakable assurance of -men who are untroubled by regrets or perplexities, men who have deserved -well of their order and their descendants, and await with confidence an -eternity where preserves will be closer, family settlements stricter, -dependents more respectful, cards more reliable, than in this imperfect -world they well can be. Let them have their due. They opened a door -which later even they could not close. They fostered a tree which even -they could not cut down. But neither let us forget that to the poorer -classes its fruits were thorns and briars, loss of their little -properties, loss of economic independence, the hot fit of the hateful -Speenhamland policy, the cold fit of the more hateful workhouse -system.[552] Those who would understand the social forces of modern -England must realise that long disillusionment. Even in the seventeenth -century there are whisperings of it. At the end of the Civil War there -were men who were dimly conscious that the freedom for which they had -fought involved economic, as well as political and ecclesiastical, -changes. "Wee the poor impoverisht commoners," wrote the leaders of a -little band of agrarian reformers to the Council of War in 1649, "claim -freedom in the common lands by vertue of this conquest over the King, -which is gotten by our joynt consent.... If this freedom be not granted, -wee that are the poor commoners are in a worse case than we were in the -King's day."[553] But from the reign of Henry VII. to the Civil War -official opinion was as generally in favour of protecting the peasantry -against the ruinous effects of agrarian innovations, as it was on the -side of leaving the landlords free to work their will in the two -centuries which succeeded. We must explain this state of mind, for it -certainly needs explanation; and this will necessitate our looking at -the movements of the peasants and at their place in the State. We must -estimate how far it was effective in practice; and to do this we must -say a few words about the administrative machinery of the Tudors and of -the first two Stuarts. - - [549] 4 Henry VII., c. 19. - - [550] Journal of House of Commons, December 19, 1656. See - Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xix. - - [551] _e.g._ Price, _Observations on Reversionary Payments_, - 1773. See Levy, _Large and Small Holdings_, p. 41. - - [552] The general adoption of the "Test Workhouse" for the - able-bodied, which dates from the Poor Law Reform Act of 1884, - was the direct result of a one-sided reaction against the - disastrous Speenhamland policy. - - [553] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. p. 217. - -In almost all ages the first task of Governments is the preservation of -order. Though the economic ideas of the sixteenth century were very -different from those of the nineteenth, one of the reasons which made it -impossible for the statesmen of the period to leave the land question -altogether alone was the same as that which induced their successors to -deal with Irish land in 1870 and 1881. It was that agrarian discontent -created a permanent supply of inflammable material, which a spark might -turn into a conflagration. The years between 1500 and 1650 are the last -great age of the peasant uprisings which, in all countries of Western -Europe except France and Ireland, are incredible to-day as a romance of -giants, and hardly a generation in that stormy period elapsed without -one. Sometimes nothing more happened than a collision of justices and -gentry with angry mobs who were tearing down hedges and restoring common -to common again under mysterious figures who flit across the darkening -country-side with weapons in their hands and the eternal insurrection of -the New Testament on their lips--Jack o' the Style, Pyrce Plowman, and -that prophetic Captain Pouch, who "was sent of God to satisfie all -degrees whatsoever, and in this present work was directed by the Lord of -Heaven."[554] Sometimes the discontent swelled to a small civil war, as -it did in Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1536, and in the eastern and -southern counties in 1549. The Lincolnshire rising and the Pilgrimage of -Grace were, it is true, mainly motived by discontent with the attack on -the abbeys. But the explanation of their objects given by those -insurgents who were cross-examined by the Government makes it difficult -to agree with Professor Gay that only an insignificant part was played -in these movements by agrarian discontent. The truth is that we ought to -distinguish between the objects of different sections. The rebels of -1536 were not a class, but almost the whole society of northern England, -which suddenly rolls forward with all its members, spirituality and -laity, peasants and peers, in fervent motion together. The weaker side -of these great conservative demonstrations was that, though all classes -were united against the regime typified by Cromwell, all classes were -not moved to the same degree by the same grievances. Even when the old -religion was the cause that took the gentry into the field, the humbler -rebels were brought out as much by hatred of agrarian as of religious -innovations. The men of Lincolnshire marched under a banner embroidered -with a ploughshare, and laggards were spurred forward with the cry "What -will ye do? Shall we go home and keep sheep?"[555] In Cumberland the -four Captains of Penrith--Faith, Poverty, Pity, and Charity--marched in -solemn procession with drawn swords round Burgh Church, and then, having -heard Mass, led their followers, with the blessing of the vicar, on a -crusade to put an end to gentlemen and to withhold rents and fines.[556] -In the North generally the arrival of Aske's messengers was a signal for -the wholesale plucking down of new enclosures; a programme of agrarian -reform was included in the demands put forward at Doncaster; and Aske -himself told the Government at his examination that the practice of -letting out farms over the heads of poor tenants was one of the causes -of the rising.[557] A well-informed officer of State like Sir William -Paget seems to have thought that even the rebellion which took place in -Devonshire and Somersetshire in 1549, the causes of which were mainly -ecclesiastical, was partly also agrarian.[558] In that year, indeed, -nearly the whole of the southern counties, beginning in May with -Hertfordshire, from Norfolk in the east to Hampshire in the south and -Worcester in the west, were driven into riot by disappointment with the -ineffective Royal Commission appointed in the preceding year. In 1550 -there were disturbances in Kent, and the Government anticipated their -appearance in Essex. In 1552 the Buckinghamshire peasants rose on -account of high rents and high prices. In 1554 Wyatt's[559] adherents -demanded that all pasture lands which had forcibly been seized by -persons in power should be restored. In 1569 an armed band pulled down -enclosures near Chinley[560] in Derbyshire, threatened to kill the -encloser, and rescued by force those of their number who were arrested. -Twenty-six years later, at a time of unusually high prices, even the -peasantry of Oxfordshire,[561] that most imperturbable of English -counties, planned "to knock down the gentlemen and rich men who made -corn so dear, and who took the commons." In 1607 in the Midlands, where -in the preceding decade enclosure and depopulation had created a -situation as acute as that of half a century before, there was a riot -which resulted in the appointment of a Royal Commission. - - [554] For Captain Pouch see Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. xviii. For the other names Cooper, _Annals of - Cambridge_, vol. ii. p. 40. - - [555] Gairdner, _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._, vol. xii., - Part I., 70, 1537. Examination of R. Leedes: "The rebels ... - were half inclined to go home. But Ralph Green ... encouraged - them to go forward, saying, 'God's blood, sirs, what will ye now - do? Shall we go home and keep sheep? Nay, by God's body, yet had - I rather be hanged,'" and _ibid._: "The said Trotter says the - meaning of the plough borne in the banner was the encouraging of - the husbandman." - - [556] _Ibid._, vol. xii., Part I., 687, 1537. Confession of - Barnarde Townleye, Clerk: "The beginners of the insurrection in - Cumberland were the 4 captains of Penrith; Faith, Poverty, Pity - and Charity, as the Vicar of Burgh proclaimed them at each - meeting.... Conjectures that the intent was to destroy the - gentlemen, that none should pay ingressums to his landlord, and - little or no rent or tithe"; also _ibid._, Examination of Sir - Robert Thompson, Vicar of Burgh: "On the Wednesday and Thursday - the 4 captains followed examinand in procession with their - swords drawn, and examinand said mass, which they called the - Captains' mass." - - [557] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 687: "They of Kirkby Stephen plucked down the new intacks of - enclosures, and sent to other Parishes to do the like, which was - done at Burgh, 28th January." For the Doncaster programme see - below, p. 334. Aske said (_L. and P._, vol. xii., Part I., p. - 901) that the new farmers of monastic estates "let and tavern - out the farms of the same houses to other farmers for lucre." - - [558] These particulars are taken from Strype, _Ecclesiastical - Memorials_. - - [559] Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii., - which also gives an account of the Midland riot of 1607. - - [560] MSS. in possession of Charles E. Bradshaw Bowles, Esq., of - Wirksworth, for a transcript of which I am indebted to Mr. - Kolthammer. See below, pp. 327-329. - - [561] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part VI., - pp. 49-50. - -This was perhaps the last serious agrarian rising which England has -seen. But though henceforward the hatred of the new agrarian regime ran -for the most part underground, it had been burned too deep into the -minds of the people to be lightly forgotten, and more than once its -smouldering embers flickered up in occasional riots. In the first flush -of the army's victory over King and Parliament, when the shattering of -authority seemed for a moment to make all things new, not only the -political, but the economic, ideas of two centuries later burst for a -moment, as in an early spring, into wonderful and premature life. The -programme of the Levellers, who more than any other party could claim to -express the aspirations of the unprivileged classes, included a demand -not only for annual or biennial Parliaments, manhood suffrage, a -redistribution of seats in proportion to population, and the abolition -of the Veto of the House of Lords, but also "that you would have laid -open all enclosures of fens and other commons, or have them enclosed -only or chiefly for the benefit of the poor."[562] Theoretical -communism, repudiated by some of the Levellers, found its expression in -the agitation of the Diggers, those "true born sons and friends of -England" who, under Everard and Winstanley, set themselves, in the -spirit of an Owenite Community, to convert the waste land at Weybridge -into the New Jerusalem.[563] For to many earnest souls the day of the -Lord seems very near, and Israel must make ready against it, not with -anguish of spirit only, but with spade labour upon the barren earth. The -contrast between the prevalence of organised agrarian revolts in the -middle of the sixteenth century, dragging on in small sporadic -agitations for nearly one hundred years, with their comparative rarity -two hundred years later, when similar causes were at work to produce -them, marks the new grouping of social classes and economic forces which -was going on apace in our period. The intelligence of toiling England, -that for a century now has gone to build up a new civilisation in -factory and mine, in trade union and co-operative store, still lay in -the larger villages, its immemorial home. Discontent travelled across -the enclosing counties as it does to-day in a Welsh mining valley, -outcoursing oppression itself, like Elijah running before Ahab into -Jezreel. "If three or four good fellows would ride in the night with -every man a bell, and cry in every town that they pass, 'To Swaffham! To -Swaffham!' by the morning there would be ten thousand assembled at the -least; and then one bold fellow to stand forth and say, 'Sirs, now we be -here assembled, you know how little favour the gentlemen bear us poor -men.... Let us ... harness ourselves.'"[564] Good fellows and bold were -not wanting. "From that time forward no man could keep his servant at -plough; but every man that could bear a staff went forward."[565] Before -the appearance of almost universal leasehold tenure, standing armies, -and omnipotent aristocratic Parliaments, unrest among the rural -population might cause the Government a not inexpensive campaign, in -which the reluctant militia of yesterday were the enthusiastic rebels of -to-day, and there was not therefore much disparity between the -discipline and equipment of the forces engaged on either side. Both in -the mainly agrarian revolts in Norfolk, and in the mainly religious -revolts in Devonshire, the peasants fell, as they hoped they might, like -men, and it was the arquebuses of the foreign mercenaries which really -decided the struggle. Poor homeless hirelings, what could they know but -to clamour for their pay, and shoot better men than themselves? - - [562] The Humble Petition of thousands well affected persons - inhabiting the city of London, Westminster, the Borough of - Southwark, Hamlets, and places adjacent. In Bodleian Pamphlets, - _The Leveller's Petition_, c. 15, 3 Linc. See also Gooch, - _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth Century_, pp. - 139-226. - - [563] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. pp. 215-217. - Winstanley's letter to Lord Fairfax and the Council of War - begins: "That whereas we have begun to dig upon the Commons for - livelihood, and have declared unto your excellency and the whole - world our reasons, which are four. First, from the righteous law - of creation that gives the earth freely to one as well as - another, without respect of persons"; also Gooch, _op. cit._ The - Owenite note may be more than a mere chance. Owen himself stated - ("New View of Society"): "Any merit due for the discovery - calculated to effect more substantial and permanent benefit to - mankind than any ever yet contemplated by the human mind belongs - exclusively to John Bellers." Bellers published his _College of - Industry_ in 1696, and may easily have been acquainted with the - story of the Diggers' agitation. - - [564] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 8. - - [565] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 201, Examination of John Halom of Calkehill, yeoman. - -To understand the nature of a body at rest it is sometimes advisable to -look at the same body when it is in motion. The agrarian disturbances of -our period possess certain features which are of interest even to those -who are concerned primarily not with social politics, but with economic -organisation. In the first place, they mark the transition from the -feudal revolts of the fifteenth century, based on the union of all -classes in a locality against the central government, to those in which -one class stands against another through the opposition of economic -interests. In the Lincolnshire rebellion and in the Pilgrimage of Grace -the old spirit predominated. In the North of England the new agrarian -regime had not proceeded far enough to sap entirely the ancient bonds -between landlord and tenant, and the plunder of the monastic estates had -not yet set a commercial aristocracy in the seat of the old-fashioned -Catholic landlords. The commons of Westmoreland, who declare that they -will trust no gentlemen with their councils, nevertheless feel -sufficient confidence in Lord Darcy to write to him for his advice as to -how far they will be justified in insisting on reduced admission fines, -and in pulling down "all the intakes yt be noysum for poor men."[566] -Had the Catholic gentry generally been willing to sacrifice the rents -got from pasture-farming, these movements might have found leaders who -would have made them more formidable. As it was, even when hatred of the -religious changes or of some particular piece of legislation, like the -unpopular Statute of Uses, enrolled the gentry with the peasants, as in -Lincolnshire and Yorkshire in 1536, the incompatibility of the allies -was obvious, and the presence of the wealthier classes inspired distrust -among the rank and file, who saw in them the authors of their economic -evils, and who, though genuinely concerned at the painful destruction of -the social institutions of the old religion, were fighting mainly for -the maintenance of "old customs and tenant right," fair rents and -security of tenure. In spite of the temporary union of all classes in -1536, the insurgents tended to break up into two camps corresponding -roughly with the division between landlord and tenant. In Lincolnshire, -though the commons were influenced by the gentry so far as to demand the -repeal of the Act of Uses, "not knowing," as a witness said, "what that -Act of Uses meant," they showed their distrust of the upper classes by -refusing to allow them to discuss their future policy apart from the -general body of insurgents, while the extremists clamoured that "they -ought to kill some of the justices; also that if they hanged for this, -they would not leave one gentleman alive in Lincolnshire."[567] At -Richmond all lords and gentlemen were to swear on the mass-book to -maintain the profit of Holy Church, to take nothing of their tenants but -the usual rents, to put down Cromwell and not to go to London, on pain -of death if they refused.[568] For courts have strange arts of -seduction, and though London (thank Heaven) is not England now, it was -still less England then. The rough rhymes that ran through the North -contain the warning of all popular movements against the treachery of -leaders, the sad eternal warning which buoys the sands where so many -high endeavours have gone to wreck. "All commons stick ye together, rise -with no great man till ye know his intent. Keep your harness in your -hands, and ye shall obtain all your purpose in all this North land.... -Claim ye old customs and tenant right, to take your farms by a God's -penny, all gressums and heightenings to be laid down. Then may we serve -our sovereign Lord King Henry VIII., God save his noble Grace. - - We shall serve our lands' lords in every righteous cause - With horse and harness as custom will demand. - Lords spiritual and temporal have it in your mind - This world as it waveth, and to your tenants be kind. - Adieu, gentle commons, thus make I an end: - Writer of this letter, pray Jesu be his speed; - He shall be your captain, when that ye have need."[569] - - [566] _Ibid._, vol. xi., 1080. - - [567] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xi., 975. - - [568] _Ibid._, vol. xii., Part I., 163. - - [569] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 163. The Proclamation of the Commons; see also _ibid._, 138, the - manifesto which says, "Ye shall have captains just and true, and - not be stayed by the gentry in no wise." - -The temporary solidarity which had drawn all classes into the Pilgrimage -of Grace, though it flickered up for the last time in the feudal revolt -of the northern earls in 1569, was absent altogether from the widespread -agitation of 1549 to 1550. Except in Devonshire and Cornwall, the -disturbances of those years were purely agrarian, a movement of tenants -against landlords. The Eastern rebels were for leaving "as many -gentlemen in Norfolk as there be white bulls";[570] the gentry responded -by rallying to the Government; and both in that country and in -Devonshire the military forces which put down the peasants were led by -the two most notoriously unpopular landlords in England, who had built -up their estates out of confiscated abbey lands, the Earl of Warwick and -Sir William Herbert. In the reign of Henry VII. the problem before -Governments had still been to prevent a great landlord from using his -authority over his tenants to make war on his neighbours or on the -State. Sixty years later it is to prevent tenants in several different -counties from combining against landlords. The landed classes recognise -the new spirit. They denounce the peasants as communists and agitators; -and when they get a free hand, as in the years from 1549 to 1553, they -insist on legislation which will make effective combination impossible. - - [570] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, Introduction, p. 8. - The advice of John Walker of Griston. - -In the second place, the way in which the agrarian agitations were -conducted is interesting as showing both the comparative prosperity and -independence of the English peasantry, even at a time when the fortunes -of many of them were declining, and the general conceptions of social -expediency held by what was regarded as the most representative part of -the English nation. It would be a mistake to think of the rebels who -joined these revolts as mere unorganised malcontents, with nothing to -lose. There is no resemblance at all, either in personnel or methods, -between the agrarian disturbances of our period and the riots of -starving agricultural labourers who burned ricks under Captain Swing in -the early nineteenth century. The peasants who formed the backbone of -the movements were often well-to-do men, who were fighting to keep their -land with the dreadful tenacity of small proprietors. They had arms and -were accustomed to their use. They had sufficient money to raise common -funds. They included among their number sanguine and pertinacious -litigants who, so far from being disposed to throw up their case at the -hint of the landlord's displeasure, were quite capable of making his -life one long lawsuit. The readiness of a class to make effective the -protection given it by the law in the face of the opposition of powerful -individuals, quenched, alas! too often by ignorance, and timidity, and -generations of dull oppression, is a very good test of its spirit and of -the practical freedom which it enjoys. In the sixteenth century, though -we certainly see many gross cases of intimidation, we also see tenants -appealing to the law courts and to the Government over the heads of -lords of manors. Such appeals are a proof of the helplessness of the -victims which has been commented on above. But they are also a proof of -the persistence and cohesion of some among them. For while in the -absence of oppression they would not have been necessary, in the absence -of a determination to resist oppression they could not have been made. -To enclose was in parts of the country to stir up a hornet's nest. There -was not much obsequiousness about the villagers of Thingden,[571] who -from 1494 to 1538 pursued their landlord through almost every Court in -the Kingdom. The leaders of the popular agitation were often the more -prosperous among the middle-classes. Sanders, the general in the -interminable struggle over the common lands of the city of Coventry -which began in 1460, was a member of the important craft of Dyers, and -had occupied the high civic office of Chamberlain.[572] At Louth[573] -the initiative among the commons was taken by a tailor and a weaver. -Ket[574] himself was a considerable landed proprietor as well as a -tanner. - - [571] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star - Chamber_, and Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - - [572] _Coventry Leet Book_, edited by M.D. Harris, vol. ii. 510 - and _passim_. - - [573] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., - 380, The Examination of the Monk late of Louth Park: "Plummer - and one James, a tailor, were the most quick and chiefest rulers - of the company.... Melton, whom they named 'Captain Cobbles,' - was the most chief and busy man among these commoners.... John - Tailor, of Louth, webster, brought out of the house a great - brand of fire, and the commons carried the books into the - market-place." - - [574] _Hist. MSS. Com._, Cd. 2319, p. 75, Copy of Letters Patent - (28 May, 4 Ed. VI.) granting to Thomas Audeley ... all that - manor called Gunvyles Manor in Norfolk, parcel of the - possessions of the said ... Robert Ket, in consideration "boni, - veri, fidelis, et magnanimi servitii in conflictu versus - innaturales subditos nostros proditores ac nobis rebelles in - Com. nostro Norf.... quorum ... quidam Bobertus Kett existit - capitanus et conductor." - -The peasants' agitations took the form both of more or less organised -risings and of sporadic rioting, which aimed at ends varying from place -to place according to the grievances inspired by the varying conditions -of different districts. Everywhere there were the throwing down of -enclosures and the driving of sheep.[575] In Yorkshire the enclosures -which were pulled down seem to have been mainly intakes from the waste, -and in Norfolk and the Midlands enclosures of arable land which had been -converted to pasture. In Warwickshire the Earl of Warwick's park was -demolished, while in Wiltshire, where Sir William Herbert had acquired -the lands of Wilton Abbey, and enclosed a whole village in his new park -at Washerne, the peasants rose and tore down the palings.[576] In the -North generally the bitterest outcry seems to have arisen over the -excessive fines and "gressums" charged for the admission of -copyholders. In Cumberland[577] there was a general strike against the -payment of rents, and almost everywhere there were complaints of the -diminution in the area available for pasturing the beasts of commoners -through the enclosing by landlords of manorial wastes. - - [575] Sheep-driving in the sixteenth century was like - cattle-driving in Ireland to-day; see Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry - VIII._, vol. xii., Part I., 201: "When they first went to York, - they drove one Coppyndale's sheep because he fled away, and sold - them again to his deputy for L10," and the behaviour of the - Norfolk rebels in 1549. - - [576] Gairdner, _L. and P._, xi., II., 186, and _Rutland MSS._, - p. 36, quoted by Leadam: "There is a great number of the commons - up about Salisbury in Wiltshire, and they have plucked down Sir - William Herbert's Park that is about his new house ... they say - they will not have their common grounds to be enclosed and taken - from them." - - [577] Gairdner, _L. and P._, xii., I., 362: "Your rents and - others cannot yet be collected." - -Though it involves abandoning the order of events, let us illustrate by -a single example[578] the shape assumed by agrarian rioting, which has -not yet become a rebellion. In the summer of 1569, when Cecil and -Elizabeth were waiting anxiously for news from those northern counties -which "know no other prince but a Percy," there was much running and -riding, much sending for warrants and plentiful delay in their -execution, in the wild country between Chinley and Bakewell, whose -centre is the Peak, and whose principal gorge now carries the most -beautiful piece of railway line in England. The Derbyshire peasantry -seem to have been ill to deal with. A few years later some of those in -Glossopdale succeeded in setting the Earl of Shrewsbury at defiance, -and, when evicted from their farms, induced the Council to intervene to -insist on their reinstatement.[579] Just now those of them who lived in -the neighbourhood of Chinley were in a ferment over the enclosure of -some common land. The story is a curious one, and shows both the kind of -conditions under which agrarian discontent developed, and the way in -which it was associated in the mind of the Government with fears of -political disturbance. The Duchy of Lancaster, to whom the land near -Chinley belonged, had let a parcel of herbage called Mayston Field to -one Lawrence Wynter, his lease to begin as soon as that of the existing -tenant had expired. In that age of land speculation land changed hands -rapidly. On the same day as Wynter obtained the lease he sold it to a -certain Richard Celey. Celey transferred it to Godfrey Bradshaw, and -Godfrey Bradshaw got rid of it to his brother Anthony. The trouble began -when the land came into the hands of Godfrey Bradshaw. He started to -hedge and ditch it, which of course involved the exclusion of the other -inhabitants from the rights of pasture which they had hitherto enjoyed. -Accordingly the villagers, led by twelve of their number, of whom four -belonged to one family, removed the ditch, tore down the enclosure, -which consisted of "XLIII hundredth quicksetts willowes and willowe -stackes ... and did utterlye destroy and cutt the sayd stacks and quick -setts in pieces," proceeding at the same time, with the object of -protecting their own grazing land against encroachments, themselves to -divide up the land into smaller enclosures to be held by each man in -severalty. Godfrey Bradshaw then obtained warrants for the preservation -of the peace against the ringleaders, and at the same time induced the -lessor, who was Sir Ralph Sadler, the Chancellor of the Duchy, to -address a letter to them directing them not to interfere with any -houses, hedges, or ditches, which might in future be constructed round -the land. They received his communication, but massed in force with arms -on Chinley Hill, pulled down what still remained of Bradshaw's hedges, -and then proceeded to organise the nucleus of a very pretty agitation. -They gave part of the herbage, which was nominally in the occupation of -the unfortunate lessee, to one William Beard, on condition that, after -the manner of his betters in the good old days before the Tudors, he -should "maynteyn them geynst the Queenes Majestie," his support taking -the form of an agreement that he "should from tyme to tyme send them -Ydill ryotouse p'sons to assyste them in these yll doinges." They then -raised a fund, presumably by a levy on the inhabitants, called a meeting -in the forest of High Peak, and set off about the tenth of June to -Bakewell for a further conference, arranging in the meantime that some -one should burn Godfrey Bradshaw's house, and that while his enclosures, -if re-erected, should be pulled down, the other inhabitants should make -haste to divide up the disputed land into twenty-one separate parcels. -When the Bradshaws, having got their warrants, tried with the aid of the -village constable to execute them, their opponents ("the land was -grabbed from him, and he did what any decent man would do"[580]) -threatened them with murder, and, on one of the party being actually -arrested, came very near to carrying their threat out. "The said p'tyes -... did ryotouslye assemble themselves together in great companies at -the town of Hayfield with unlawfull weapons, that is to saye, with -bowes, pytchefforkes, clobbes, staves, swords, and daggers drawen, and -ryotouslye dyd then and there assaulte and p'sue the sayd Godfrey and -Edward Bradshawe, and in ryotouse manner dyd reskewe and take from them -the body of the sayd Richard Shower, being attached; the Queenes -Officer, George Yeavely of Bawdon, then being p'sent commanding the -peace to be kepte." Having chased the enemy for some distance, they -camped on the contested territory, and kept a watchful eye and a firm -hand for any sign of the reappearance of the detested hedges. More -serious still in the eyes of the Government (and this, one suspects, was -their undoing), the leaders of this village revolution went so far as to -entangle themselves in high politics. At their examination they are -asked, "Whether dyd Reynold Kirke about May day last paste, and dyvers -tymes since and before, or any other tyme, confederate, consulte, -practise, or otherwise confer and talk with one Mr. Bircles of the -countye of Chester ... touching or concerning prophesis by noblemen, or -otherwise, and what books of prophesie have you or the said Bircles seen -or heard, and what is the effect thereof, and how often have you or he -perused, used, or conferred of the same, or about such purposes, and -with whom?" We do not know how they answered this question. It may be -that the anger of these Derbyshire peasants at their vanishing commons -was indeed a fraction to be set among weightier assets by schemers in -high places, and that the sinister Mr. Bircles had really talked with -them of matters more serious than the pulling down of hedges and the -baiting of enclosers, of things forbidden to the vulgar, of the -scattering of upstart officials, of the restoration of a Catholic -monarchy, of Mary, who in the previous year had made her irrevocable -plunge across the Border. It may be merely that all in authority had -that autumn an unusually bad attack of nerves. In 1569 the North was -full of prophets, both noble and other. - - [578] I take this story from a transcript kindly supplied me by - Mr. Kolthammer of MSS. in the possession of Charles E. Bradshaw - Bowles of Wirksworth. - - [579] Lodge, _Illustrations_, ii. p. 218. - - [580] Synge, _The Playboy of the Western World_. - -It was not always the case, however, that agrarian discontent ended in -casual rioting of this kind. Of mere destructive violence there is, -indeed, in all the social disturbances of the period, singularly little. -There was a good deal in the routine of rural life, with its common -administration of land and dependence on a collectively binding custom, -to teach habits of discipline and co-operation. It must be remembered -that those who took the initiative in breaking the law were not the -peasants who pulled down enclosures, but the landlords who made them in -defiance of repeated statutes forbidding them. On the whole the -organised character of the action taken is more conspicuous than the -individual excesses, and if one is to look for a modern analogy to the -mixture of deliberation and violence which it shows, it must be sought -in an Irish fair rent campaign rather than in the bread riots of a -despairing urban proletariat. When the agitation was confined to -individual manors it occasionally took the form of agrarian trade -unionism. Tenants collectively decline to serve as jurors in the court -of the manor till their demands are granted.[581] They raise a common -purse.[582] They refuse to pay more than a certain rent. When more than -one manor is implicated different localities display a rough cohesion. -Whole communities seem to have joined the movement in 1536 and 1540 with -a certain formality. In Lincolnshire and Yorkshire townships were -brought out on the ringing of the town bell with the cohesion of a -well-organised trade union; Beverley[583] sent messages to the -Lincolnshire rebels under its common seal; and the part which was played -by the village officers in the movements of the peasantry is proved by -the Proclamation[584] which the Council issued in 1549, when disorders -were at their height, forbidding constables, bailiffs, and head-boroughs -to call meetings except for the purposes required by the law. -Hales,[585] as he rode through the South and Midlands in 1548, was -struck by the patience with which people waited for the Government to -take action, and attributed the disturbances of the ensuing year to the -despair caused by the victory of the local landlords over the -Commission, and to the rejection by Parliament of the Bills which he had -introduced. Even Ket's campaign in Norfolk, which ended in a sanguinary -battle, during the greater part of it was carried on with an orderliness -from which the Government which suppressed it might profitably have -taken a lesson. Nothing could have been more unlike the popular idea of -a _jacquerie_. The peasants enjoyed the enormous joke of making the -gentry look foolish a great deal more than cutting their throats, as -during the four weeks in which they were "playing" they might have done -without any difficulty. - - "Mr. Pratt, your sheep are very fat, - And we thank _you_ for that; - We have left you the skins to pay your wife's pins, - And you must thank _us_ for that."[586] - - [581] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_ - (Leadam). Customary tenants of Bradford _v._ Francis: "The said - stuard called ... the ... tenants of the manor to be sworn to - enquire as they ought to doo, the which to do ... the said - tenants ... obstinately and sturdily then and there refused, and - said that unless the said defendent ... wold grante them - forthwith and immediatelye that they should have and enjoy the - commodity of the said three matters ... that they, nor any of - them, wolde be sworn at that Court, but wolde depart." - - [582] Leadam, _E. H. R._, pp. 684-696. The tenants at Thingden, - in their proceedings against Mulsho, "calle commen Councelles - ... and make a commen purse among them, promising all of them to - take parte with other, saying that xx. of them would spend xx. - score pounds ayenet the said John Mulsho." The tenants of - Abbot's Ripton "procured one common purse to be ordeyned - together one common stock to thentent obstinately to defend - their perverse and ffrowned appetitez." As to Rents, see _L. and - P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 154: "In many counties little or no - ferms will they pay" (Darcy to Shrewsbury). - - [583] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 392. - - [584] Proclamation of July 22, 1549. Strype, _Ecclesiastical - Memorials_, who remarks that these village officers, "in the - places where these risings were, had been the very ringleaders - and procurers by their example and exhortation." - - [585] _Commonweal of this Realm of England_ (Lamond), Appendix - to Introduction, lviii.: "In dyvers places wher we were, and - wher the people had just cause of Gryef, and have complayned a - great many yeares without remedy, there have they byn very - quiet, shewed themselves most humble and obedient subiectes - taryenge the Kynges Maiesties Reformation." - - [586] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1905, p. 2. - -These lines, pinned on the carcasses of an enclosing landlord's flocks -and herds, are a fair specimen of their humour. Men may well be merry -together, when they have seen hovering over the fields of an English -county, though but in a fleeting glimpse, the New Jerusalem where the -humble are exalted and the mighty put down; and there is no -inconsistency between such mundane gaiety and the long pent up passion -which on the lips of a nameless labourer burst into the cry, "As sheepe -or lambs are a prey to the wolfe or lion, so are the poor men to the -rich men."[587] There was much lecturing (the matter is easily imagined) -at the Oak of Reformation, and not on one side only, for the peasants -were tolerant compared with their betters, and a future archbishop was -allowed to address the insurgents on the evils of their ways; much -laying down of hedges and enclosures; much slaughtering of that beast of -iniquity, the man-devouring sheep. There was none of the massacring of -unarmed men which both Henry VIII. and Elizabeth ordered without -compunction when they thought the times required it, very little of the -"making the public good a pretext for private revenge," against which -the insurgents were warned by Parker. Though for months after the final -tragedy the badges of the justly-hated Warwick "were not so fast set up -but that they were as fast pulled down" from the city walls, the rebels -even in the heat of their early triumphs claimed only to be executing -the Protector's Proclamations, and, while indignantly repudiating the -name of traitors, showed a complete readiness to negotiate peaceably -with the Government. The whole movement was less a rising against the -State than a practical illustration of the peasants' ideals, a mixture -of May-day demonstration and successful strike embodied in one gigantic -festival of rural good fellowship. Its bloody termination was, as far as -can be judged, the result of two errors of judgment, one, a pardonable -one, on the part of Ket, the other, unpardonable, on the part of a -nameless member of the other party.[588] When all was over, and each man -reflected after his kind on the great days of Mousehold Heath, what the -camp followers, who attach themselves to every popular movement, -remembered was that for about a month they had filled their bellies at -other people's expense. "'Twas a merry world when we were yonder, -eating of mutton." But there were some who, as they saw Ket swinging on -the gallows before the City gates, were seized with the tumult of pity -and hoarse indignation which serves Englishmen, who are not good at -revolutions, in place of the revolutionary spirit. "O Kette," one -countryman was heard to say to another, "God have mercy upon thy soul; -and I trust in God that the King's Majesty and his Councell shall be -enformed once between this and Midsummer evening, that of their own -gentleness thou shalt be taken down and buried, not hanged up for winter -store; and set a quietness in the realm, and that the ragged staff shall -be taken down of their own gentleness from the gentlemen's gates in this -City, and to have no more King's arms but one within the City, under -Christ."[589] The Council, in its gentleness, thought otherwise. Ket -still creaked in his chains, and in the meantime other gallows were -rising for other rebels in Somerset, and Devon, and Cornwall. - - [587] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1905, p. 22. - - [588] Ket refused the pardon offered on July 31st on the ground - that the insurgents had committed no offence requiring to be - pardoned, and fighting followed. On August 23rd a pardon was - again offered. While it was being read by a herald, a boy - standing by insulted him "with words as unseemly as his gesture - was filthy" (Holinshed), and was shot by one of the herald's - retinue. Ket tried to pacify the anger of his followers at what - they took to be treachery, but without effect. - - [589] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1905, p. 20. - -What were the aims which at intervals between 1530 and 1560 set half the -counties of England in a blaze? Let us look at the peasants' programme -more closely. It will help us to see the agrarian problem from the -inside. Reduced to its elements their complaint is a very simple one, -very ancient and yet very modern. It is that what, in effect, whatever -lawyers may say, has been their property, is being taken from them. To -be told that social disorders take place because an envious proletariat -aims at seizing the property of the rich would seem to them a very -strange perversion of the truth. They want only to have what they have -always had. They are conservatives, not radicals or levellers, and to -them it seems that all the trouble arises because the rich have been -stealing the property of the poor. Here is part of a colloquy[590] -between Jack of the North beyond the Style, Robin and Harry Clowte, Tom -of Trumpington, Peter Potter, Pyrce Plowman, and divers other worthies. -As will be seen from the verses, they are birds of night-- - - "JACK. Now for that Slaunder's sake, - Companye by night I take, - And, with all that I may make, - Cast hedge and ditch in the lake, - Fyxed with many a stake - Though it was never so faste - Yet asondre it is wraste. - - * * * * * - - HARRY CLOWTE. Gud conscience should them move - Ther neighbours quietly to love, - And thus not for to wrynche - The commons styl for to pinch, - To take into their hande - That be other mennes land. - - JACK. Thus do I, Jack of the Style, - Now subscrybe upon a tyle. - This I do and will do with all my myght, - For sclaundering me yet do I but right, - For common to common again I restore - Wherever it hath been yet common before. - If agayne they enclose it never so faste - Agayne asondre it shall be wraste. - They may be ware by that is paste - To make it agayne is but waste." - - [590] Printed by Cooper, _Annals of Cambridge_, vol. ii. p. 40. - -To take into your hand what is other men's land, that is the grievance. -To restore common to common again, that is the obvious remedy, a remedy -which is not seriously opposed to the agrarian policy of most sixteenth -century statesmen. But the more far-seeing of the peasants realise what -their followers do not, that these troubles which are going on in so -many different parts of England cannot be dealt with by isolated bodies -of villagers, however good their cause may be. They require the -intervention of the Government. How the Government is to intervene they -lay down in two documents which are perhaps the only two popular -programmes of agrarian reform ever published in England since 1381. The -first, contained in two of the articles[591] drawn up at Doncaster in -1536, is short enough:-- - -"That the lands in Westmoreland, Cumberland, Kendall, Dent, Sedbergh, -Furness, and the abbey lands in Mashamshire, Kyrkbyshire, Notherdale, -may be by tenant right, and the lord to have, at every change, 2 -years' rent for gressum, according to the grant now made by the lords to -the commons there. This to be done by Act of Parliament. - -"The Statutes for Enclosures and Intacks to be put in execution, and all -enclosures and Intacks since the fourth year of Henry VII. to be pulled -down, except mountains, forests, and Parks" (a noticeable exception -which shows the composite character of the movement. In the South of -England the peasant did not spare parks). - - [591] Gairdner, _L. and P. of Henry VIII._, xi. 1246. - -The articles[592] signed by Ket, Aldryche, and Cod in 1549 are a much -more elaborate affair. Here are the most noteworthy of them:-- - -"We pray your grace that where it is enacted for enclosing, that it be -not hurtful to such as have enclosed saffren grounds, for they be -greatly chargeable to them, and that from henceforth no man shall -enclose any more.[593] - -"We certify your grace that whereas the lords of the mannors hath been -charged with certe fre rent, the same lords hath sought means to charge -the freeholders to pay the same rent, contrary to right. - -"We pray your grace that no lord of no manor shall comon uppon the -commons. - -"We pray that priests from henceforth shall purchase no lande neither -free nor bondy, and the lands that they have in possession may be letten -to temporal men, as they were in the first year of the reign of King -Henry VII.[594] - -"We pray that reed ground and meadow ground may be at such price as they -were in the first year of King Henry VII. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that the payments of castleward rent, and blanch ferm and -office lands, which hath been accustomed to be gathered of the -tenements, whereas we suppose the lords ought to pay the same to their -bailiffs for their rents gathering, and not the tenants.[595] - -"We pray that no man under the degree of a knight or esquire keep a dove -house, except it hath been of an old ancient custom. - -"We pray that all freeholders and copyholders may take the profits of -all commons, and there to common, and the lords not to common nor to -take profits of the same. - -"We pray that no feudatory within your shires shall be a councellor to -any man in his office making, whereby the King may be truly served, so -that a man being of good conscience may be yearly chosen to the same -office by the commons of the same shire. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that copyhold land that is unreasonably rented may go as it did -in the first year of King Henry VII., and that at the death of a tenant -or of [at] a sale the same lands to be charged with an easy fine, as a -capon or a reasonable [sum] of money for a remembrance. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that all bondmen may be made free, for God made all free with -his precious bloodshedding. - -"We pray that rivers may be free and common to all men for fishing and -passage. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that the poor mariners or Fishermen may have the whole profits -of their fishings, as porpoises, grampuses, whales, or any great fish, -so it be not prejudicial to your Grace. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that it be not lawful to the lords of any manor to purchase -land freely, or [and] to let them out again by copy of court roll to -their great advancement and to the undoing of your poor subjects. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that no man under the degree of ... shall keep any conies upon -any of their freehold or copyhold, unless he pale them in, so that it -shall not be to the common nuisance. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that your Grace give license and authority by your gracious -commission under your Great Seal to such commissioners as your poor -commons hath chosen, or to as many of them as your Majesty and your -Council shall appoint and think meet, for to redress and reform all such -good laws, statutes, proclamations, and all other your proceedings, -which hath been hidden by your justices of your peace, shreves, -escheators, and other your officers, from your poor commons, since the -first year of the reign of your noble grandfather, King Henry VII. - - * * * * * - -"We pray that no lord, knight, esquire, nor gentleman, do graze nor feed -any bullocks or sheep, if he may spend forty pounds a year by his lands, -but only for the provision of his house." - - [592] Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 48. - - [593] Some doubt has been expressed as to the interpretation of - these words. They should probably be read in the light of what - was said above (Part I. chap. iv.) as to enclosures made by the - tenants themselves. The rebels point out that a considerable - number of people have spent capital on hedging and ditching - their lands for the better cultivation of saffron, and therefore - ask that, while other enclosures may be pulled down, a special - exception may be made in favour of this particular kind of - enclosure. - - [594] Contrast the feeling in Protestant Norfolk with that of - Cornwall and Devon in 1549, and of the North in 1536. - - [595] The grammar is bad, but the sense is clear enough. Lords - must stop shifting on to tenants burdens which lords ought to - bear. - -The programme of the peasants is partly political. The Northerners -insist that Parliament and the Crown must interfere, and the Norfolk -leaders ask for a permanent commission to do the work which the county -justices, who are interested in enclosing, have wilfully neglected. But -it is mainly economic. The State is to do no more than restore the old -usages, and the end of all is to be a sort of idealised manorial -customary enforced by a strong central Government throughout the length -of the land, free use of common lands, reduced rents of meadow and -marsh, reasonable fines for copyholds, free fisheries, and the abolition -of the lingering disability of personal villeinage. The most striking -thing about these demands is their conservatism. Almost exactly a -hundred years later agrarian reform will be demanded as part of a new -heaven and a new earth. Agrarian agitation will be carried on in terms -of theories as to the social contract, of theories as to the origin of -private property. Its leaders will be appealing to Anglo-Saxon history -to prove to the indifferent ears of a Government which has saved them -"from Charles, our Norman oppressor," that "England cannot be a free -commonwealth, unless the poore commoners have a use and benefit of the -land."[596] They will appeal also to a more awful sanction than that of -history. "At this very day," cries Winstanley,[597] "poor people are -forced to work for 4d. a day and corn is dear, and the tithing-priest -stops their mouths and tells them that 'inward satisfaction of mind' was -meant by the declaration 'the poor shall inherit the earth.' I tell you, -the scripture is to be really and materially fulfilled.... You jeer at -the name of Leveller. I tell you Jesus Christ is the head leveller." -Such communistic doctrines are always the ultimate fruit of the -breakdown of practical co-operation and brotherliness among men. To -human nature, as to other kinds of nature, a vacuum is abhorrent. - - [596] Camden Society, _Clarke Papers_, vol. ii. p. 217. Letter - addressed by the Diggers, December 8, 1649: "To my lord generall - and his Councell of War." The allusion to the usurping Normans - occurs also (_ibid._, p. 215) in another letter in a statement - of the reasons of the agitation: "Secondly by vertue of yours - and our victory over the king, whereby the enslaved people of - England have recovered themselves from under the Norman - Conquest; though wee do not yet enjoy the benefit of our - victories, nor cannot soe long as the use of the Common land is - held from the younger brethren by the Lords of Mannours that yet - sit in the Norman chair and uphold that tyranny as if the kingly - power were in force still." - - [597] Winstanley: "The curse and blessing that is in mankind," - quoted Gooch, _English Democratic Ideas in the Seventeenth - Century_. - -But as yet the soil has not been ploughed by a century of political and -religious controversy, and there is little sign of these high arguments -in the social disturbances of our period. The earliest levellers[598] -get their name because they raze not social inequalities but quickset -hedges and park palings. What communism there is in the movement is not -that of the saints or the theorists, but the spontaneous doctrineless -communism of the open field village, where men set out their fields, and -plough, and reap, laugh in the fine and curse in the wet, with natural -fellowship. The middle-class terror of the appearance in England of the -political theories of the German Peasants' War, though it was forcibly -expressed by Sir William Paget[599] in remonstrating with Somerset's -policy in 1549, and though John Hales thought it worth while to -repudiate it, is not justified by any recorded utterances or programmes -which have come to us. There are, indeed, many verbal similarities -between the articles of Ket and those put out by the German peasants at -Memmingen in 1525, which suggest that some refugee from Germany had -carried them with him to the most Protestant county in England. Both, -for example, demand a reduction in rents, the abolition of villeinage, -and free fisheries. But the contrasts are much more striking, and are -due not only to the fact that the onerous villein services which -survived in Germany had become almost nominal in England, but to the -difference in the spirit of their conception, which leads one to appeal -to the New Testament and the other to the customs of the first years of -Henry VII. There is, in fact, the same broad difference between the -peasant movements in England and Germany as there is between the English -and German Reformation. In Germany the ecclesiastical changes spring -from a widespread popular discontent, and are swept forward on a wave of -radical enthusiasm, which carries the peasants (German Social Democrats -are metaphysicians to this day) into the revolutionary mysticism of -Muenzer. In England changes in Church government are forced upon the -people by the State, and outside the South and East of England are -regarded with abhorrence. It is not until the later rise of Puritanism -that either religious or economic radicalism becomes a popular force. In -the middle of the sixteenth century the English peasants accepted the -established system of society with its hierarchy of authorities and -division of class functions, and they had a most pathetic confidence -in the Crown. What they wanted, in the first place, was fair -conditions of land tenure, the restoration of the customary -relationships which had protected them against the screw of commercial -competition. When they went further, they looked for an exercise of -Royal Power to reduce to order the petty tyranny of local magnates, and -to carry out the intentions of a Government which they were inclined to -think meant them well, "to redress and reform all such good laws, -statutes, proclamations, and all other your proceedings which hath been -bidden by your justices of your Peace ... from your poor commons." Such -movements are a proof of blood and sinew and of a high and gallant -spirit. They are the outcome of a society where the normal relations are -healthy, where men are attached to the established order, where they -possess the security and control over the management of their own lives -which is given by property, and, possessing this, possess the reality of -freedom even though they stand outside the political state. Happy the -nation whose people has not forgotten how to rebel. - - [598] A reference to the Levellers occurs in connection with the - Midland Revolt of 1607, Lodge, _Illustrations_, iii. 320: "You - cannot but have hearde what courses have been taken in - Leicestershire and Warwickshire by the two Lord Lieutenants - there, and by the gentlemen ... and lastlie howe Sir Anth. - Mildmay and Sir Edward Montacute repaired to Newton ... where - one thousand of these fellowes who term themselves levellers - were busily digging, but weare furnished with many half-pikes, - pyked staves, long bills, and bowes and arrows and stones ... - there were slaine some 40 or 50 of them and a verie great number - hurt" (January 11, 1607, the Earl of Shrewsbury to Sir John - Manners, Sir Francis Leake, and Sir John Harper). The name - Diggers seems to have cropped up about the same time, v. _Wit - and Wisdom_, edited by Halliwell for New Shakespeare Society, - pp. 140-141, for a petition from "the Diggers of Warwickshire to - all other diggers," and signed "poore Delvers and Day Labourers - for ye good of ye commonwealth till death" (quoted by Gay, - _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. xviii.) - - [599] See below, pp. 367-368. - -The social disturbances caused by enclosure, with its accompaniments of -rack-renting and evictions, were one cause which compelled the -Governments of our period to give attention to the subject. Though no -direct concessions were made to them, their lessons were not altogether -wasted, because it is plain that they impressed on the minds of -statesmen the idea that to prevent disorder it was necessary for the -State to interfere in favour of tenants. Rural discontent, which might -have been insignificant in an age of greater political stability, -derived a factitious importance from the circumstances of the sixteenth -century, when it might be exploited by a rebellious minority, which, for -all that most men knew, might really be a majority of the nation, by -Yorkist Plotters under Henry VII., religious enthusiasts under Henry -VIII., restorers of a Catholic monarchy, supported by a Spanish invasion -or a Franco-Scottish alliance, under Elizabeth. Governments so uncertain -of their popularity as these had a strong reason for protecting the -class which would be the backbone of a revolt. One way in which they -could secure themselves against the discontent of the disaffected -nobility was to encourage the yeomanry, who might act as a counterpoise. -The way in which self-preservation and a popular agrarian policy went -hand in hand is illustrated by Burleigh's cynical advice to Elizabeth to -make a practice of supporting tenants in any quarrel which might arise -between them and Catholic landlords.[600] - - [600] _Somers' Tracts_, vol. i., pp. 164-168: "For their - tenantries, this conceit I have thought upon ... that your - Majesty, in every shire, should give instruction to some that - are indeed trusty and religious gentlemen, that, whereas your - Majesty is given to understand that divers popish landlords do - hardly use some of your people and subjects, ... you do - constitute and appoint them to deal both with entreaty and - authority, that such tenants, paying as others do, be not thrust - out of their living, nor otherwise molested. This would greatly - bind the commons' hearts unto you, on whom indeed consisteth the - power and strength of your realm, and it will make them less, or - nothing at all, depend upon their landlords." - -But there were other causes as well working in the same direction. No -one who reads the writers by whom the agrarian problem is discussed can -fail to notice that the official view of the proper system of agrarian -relationships was on the whole favourable to the small man, and was, -indeed, not very different from that expressed in the demands of the -peasants themselves. Not, of course, that the authorities had any -intention of depressing landlords or raising peasants, but that the -whole established system of Government was based on a certain -organisation of social life, and that the Government tended to maintain -that organisation in maintaining itself and carrying on the work of the -State. For this attitude, which is in striking contrast with the policy -of the statesmen of the eighteenth century when faced with an analogous -problem, there were several practical reasons which we shall do well to -understand. In judging the motives of economic policy in past ages we -are even more apt to be misled by modern analogies than we are in -estimating its effects. We see that in our own day most of the -legislative protection accorded to those who are economically weak has -been produced by a combination of two causes, the political -enfranchisement of the wage-earning classes and the spread of -humanitarian sentiment. We know that in the sixteenth century the first -cause was absent and the second was feeble. The Macchiavellis of that -iron age were neither democrats nor philanthropists; and when they -avow a policy of protecting the weaker classes in society against -economic evils we are inclined to think with Professor Thorold Rogers -that they are merely hypocritical. But this analogy is a false light. To -be influenced by it is to confuse political power with its symbols, and -to forget that the economic importance of a class may be a more -effective claim to the interest of Governments than the ballot-box. -Under the Tudors there were strong practical reasons for protecting the -peasantry which are not felt to the same extent to-day. The modern State -has so specialised its organs that its maintenance is quite compatible -with the existence of the extremes of poverty, not only among the -exceptionally unfortunate, but among those whose position is not more -insecure than that of their neighbours. They may be able neither to -fight, nor to take part in public duties, nor to contribute much to the -Exchequer. But if their incompetence is a menace, it is a menace which -is not felt till after the lapse of generations, a menace the fulfilment -of which no single life is long enough to behold. For the State hires -specialists to fight, and specialists to keep order; indeed, the poorer -they are, the more cheaply it can obtain their services.[601] Its local -government is conducted mainly by specialised officials, and the -concentration of wealth makes possible a concentration of taxation. The -extension of political power has been accompanied by a subdivision of -political functions, which has diminished the importance of the -individual citizen, and turned him, as far as the routine of Government -is concerned, into a sleeping partner, whose consent is necessary, but -whose active co-operation is superfluous. - - [601] For the manner in which the British army is recruited by - starvation, see Mr. Cyril Jackson's Report on Boy Labour to the - Royal Commission on the Poor Laws and Relief of Distress, Cd. - 4632, pp. 166-168. - -Now we need not point out that this would be as fair a description of -large classes of persons in the sixteenth century as it is now, and that -the day labourer and handicraftsman who "are to be ruled and not to -rule"[602] were, as a class, far more completely beneath the -consideration of statesmen than they are at the present day. But we -are concerned with the landholding population, not with the landless -wage-earner, and in the slightly differentiated state of our period both -economic and political conditions made a decline in the standard of life -among a class so important as the peasantry a danger which might cause -the most authoritarian of Governments to be confronted with very grave -practical difficulties. It might find itself unable to raise an -effective military force. The States of Continental Europe had -introduced standing armies. But England relied mainly on the shire -levies, and the shire levies were recruited from the small farmers. Just -as the lord of a manor in the North of England, whose tenants held by -border service with horse and harness, was anxious to prevent the -decline in their numbers which landlords elsewhere were welcoming, so -the Government regarded with quite genuine dismay an agrarian movement -which seemed to threaten its military resources by impoverishing the -finest fighting material in the country. Shadow, Feeble, and Wart may -"fill a pit as well as better"; but to make good infantry it requires -not "housed beggars," but "men bred in some free and plentiful manner." -One Depopulation Statute after another recites how "the defence of this -land against our enemies outward is enfeebled and impaired."[603] In the -settlement of the North after the Pilgrimage of Grace the Government -took care to instruct its officials to see that the Northumbrian -tenants, on whom the defence of the border depended, "should be put in -comfort, that no more shall be exacted with gyrsums and like charges, -instead of which they shall be ready with horse and harness when -required."[604] In 1601 Cecil[605] crushed a proposal to repeal the acts -then in force against depopulation by pointing out that the majority of -the militia levies were ploughmen. And in the instructions for the -choice of persons to be enrolled in the trained bands which were issued -by the Government of Charles I., particular care was taken to -emphasise that they were not to be selected at haphazard, but were to be -drawn from the families of the gentry, freeholders, and substantial -farmers.[606] - - [602] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. I., chap. xxiv. - - [603] 4 _Henry VII._, c. 19. - - [604] Gairdner, _L. and P. Hen. VIII._, xii., I. p. 595. - - [605] _D'Ewes' Journal_, p. 674: "Mr. Secretary Cecil said, '... - I think that whosoever doth not maintain the plough destroys - this kingdom.... I am sure when warrants go from the Council for - levying of men in the counties, and the certificates be returned - unto us again, we find the greatest part of them to be - ploughmen.'" See also on this point Appendix I., Nos. iv., v., - vi., and viii. - - [606] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_ (1909), p. 144. - -This cogent reason for intervening to protect the peasantry was -supported by another which was not less convincing. The classes who -suffered most from enclosure were important from a fiscal, as well as a -military, point of view. In the simple economic life of that age the -connection between the output of wealth and the individual worker's -opportunities for production and standard of subsistence, if not more -important than to-day, was certainly more patent to observation. "The -hole welth of the body of the realm cometh out of the labours and works -of the common peple ... a riche welthy body of a realm maketh a riche -welthy king, and a poore feble body of a realm must needs make a poore -weak feble king."[607] In our period "_pauvre paysans pauvre royaume, -pauvre royaume pauvre roi_" was a statement not of any recondite theory, -but of an obvious economic fact, and one can hardly be mistaken in -supposing that part of the favour which sixteenth century Governments -were inclined to show the small farmer was due to the fact that the -methods of taxation in use made him important as a source of revenue. To -a State which relies largely for its supplies on a direct declaration of -income, it is indifferent whether the total assessable income is made up -of a few large or many small ones; indeed if the tax be a progressive -one, most will be got from the former. But look at the way in which -taxation is raised in the sixteenth century. The chief direct tax is the -subsidy. A typical subsidy, for example that of the first year of -Elizabeth,[608] is assessed partly on the capital value of property, -including farm and trade stock and household furniture, partly on the -yearly profits of land. When a village of small and fairly prosperous -cultivators is wiped out to make room for a large and sparsely populated -estate, will the Government get as large a revenue from direct taxation -as before? A modern reader may very well answer "Yes." The motive of -converting land to pasture is to increase the profits of agriculture. If -they are increased, does not this mean a corresponding increase in the -taxable wealth of the country? Now to inquire how far one can assume in -any age that the personal interests of landlords will lead to land being -put to its most productive use would take us far beyond the scope of -this essay, and it is unnecessary for our present purpose. For, as far -as our period is concerned, the answer is certainly wrong. Apart from -the subtler reactions of the agrarian changes upon social welfare, there -is then no such identity between the economic interests of the landlord -and the economic interests of the State. Speaking broadly, the former -consist in securing the largest net income, the latter in securing the -largest gross product. And these two things are by no means necessarily -found together. If a pasture farm managed by a shepherd and his dog is -substituted by an enclosing proprietor for several score of families -living by tillage, the rent roll of the estate can hardly fail to be -increased, for the value of wool is so high, and the cost of -sheep-farming so low, that the net income from which rent can be paid is -large. But subsidies are assessed on property, not only on income; and -on personal as well as real property. A rise in rents is quite -compatible with a falling off in the gross produce of the land, and the -conversion of an estate from arable to pasture, by displacing tenants, -means a diminution in the farm stock and household property which has -hitherto contributed towards the revenue. - - [607] Pauli, _Drei volkswirthshaftliche Denkscriften_, How to - Reform the Realm in Setting Men to Work to restore Tillage: "The - kynge and his lordes have nede to mynyster right ordre of common - wele; or els they must needs destroy their own wealth by the - very ordenaince of God, for they are upholden and borne upon the - body. Yf they will be riche, they must first see all common - people have riches." - - [608] 1 Eliz. cap. xxi. Prothero Statutes and Constitutional - Documents, 1558-1625. Two subsidies of 1s. 8d. and 1s. were - imposed on "every pound, as well in coin, ... as also plate, - stock of merchandises, all manner of corn and blades, household - stuff, and of all other goods moveable," and two subsidies of - 2s. 8d. and 1s. 4d. on the "yearly profits" of land. - -Lest such a view should seem unduly theoretical, let us hasten to add -that it is one which is endorsed by the authority of contemporaries. -When subsidies are being debated in the House of Commons members -complain that, while the wealthy are under-assessed, the small men pay -more than their share.[609] Political writers from Fortescue[610] to -Bacon[611] emphasise the fact that the ability of the country to bear -taxation depends on the maintenance of a high level of prosperity among -the yeomanry. The yeoman is a man who "makes a whole line in the subsidy -book."[612] "The weight thereof," says a pamphleteer in 1647, "falls -heavily ... especially upon the yeomanry."[613] The occasional glimpses -which we get of harassed collectors trying in vain to screw taxes out of -small farmers, whom a rise in rents or a bad season has plunged in -distress, show the truth of their accounts. In the reign of Edward VI. -subsidies cannot be collected on the northern border owing to the -oppression to which some of the tenants have been subjected.[614] From -Norfolk in 1628 comes a still more melancholy tale. "The ffarmors and -such as use Husbandrye and tilth," write the Commissioners of the -subsidy to the Government, "from whom in times past was accustomed to be -drawne the greatest part of ye money leviable by way of subsidye, -present unto us their pitiful estates, growen into decay through the -base price and noe vent in these later years for their corne ... that -some of them doo owe unto their landlordes two yeares rent, many of them -one years.... All which considered we much feare that the collectors -shall not gather in the monye soe speedily as they would or we -desire."[615] The truth is that so much of the wealth of the country had -been in the hands of the more prosperous among the small cultivators -that any decline in their position was likely to place the Governments -of our period in financial straits. They regard it with the -self-interested apprehension which modern statesmen feel lest capital -should be "driven abroad." Hence there was a strong fiscal motive for -protecting the rural classes. Rebels who pointed out that "A man can -have no more of a cat but the skin; that is the King can have no more of -us than we have, which in a manner he has already,"[616] or tenants who -urged the Crown to protect them on the ground that "they paie your -Majesty subsidies, fifteens, and loans,"[617] were using language which -the impecunious Government of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries -could understand much better than appeals to humanitarian sentiment. The -military, financial, and political importance of the yeomanry was, in -fact, great enough to make them one of the classes with whom the defence -and order of the country were identified, and therefore sufficient to -make them an object of solicitude to statesmen who were concerned with -national interests. - - [609] _D'Ewes' Journal_, p. 633. "Sir Walter Raleigh said ... - 'Call you this par iugum when a poor man pays as much as a rich, - and peradventure his estate is no better than he is set at, or - little better; when our estates, that be thirty or forty pounds - in the queen's books, are not the hundredth part of our - wealth?'" - - [610] Fortescue, _On the Governance of England_, chap. xii.: - "The reaume off Ffraunce givith never ffrely off thair owne good - will any subsidie to thair prince, because the commons thereoff - be so pouere.... But owre commons be riche, and therefore thai - give to thair kynge as somme tymes quinsimes and dessimes, and - ofte tymes other grete subsidies." - - [611] Bacon, _History of King Henry VII._ (Pitt Press Series), - pp. 70-71: "The more gentlemen, ever the lower book of - subsidies." - - [612] Fuller, _The Holy and Profane State_. - - [613] _The Standard of Equality in Subsidiary Taxes and - Payments_, London, 1647. - - [614] _S. P. D. Ed. VI._, Addenda IV., p. 26: "Subsidies and - duties must be levied on that border for your service, and they - are loosed by oppression of your officers." - - [615] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907, pp. 139-140. - - [616] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xi. 1244. See the - remarks about Cromwell: "Item, the false flatterer says he will - make the king the richest prince in Christendom.... I think he - goes about to make him the poorest." - - [617] See Appendix I., iv. - -Economic policies are not to be explained in terms of economics alone. -When an old and strong society is challenged by a new phenomenon, its -response is torn from a living body of assumptions as to the right -conduct of human affairs, which feels that more than material interests -are menaced, and which braces itself anxiously against the shock. The -swift agrarian changes of the sixteenth century differ from the swifter -changes of the eighteenth, in that enlightened opinion is, on the whole, -against them, and that even the technical experts feel misgivings. If -the attitude of statesmen is to be explained by the practical reasons -which have already been given, the opposition of men like More, Latimer, -Crowley, Starkey, and Hales seemed to themselves a plain matter of -morals. In Germany Luther denounced the revolting peasants. In England -those who in ecclesiastical matters were poles apart united in a plea -for economic conservatism. Leading reformers preach and write against -enclosing; and terrified landlords complain that "none ever spake so -vilely as these so-called commonwealths."[618] Their understanding of -the technique of the agrarian changes is often deficient. Like the -Carlyles and Ruskins of a later age, they make Philistia merry with -their sad blunders over economic details. But it would be a mistake to -regard their views of the social effects of enclosing as abnormal or -sentimental. They are the last great literary expression of the appeal -to the average conscience which had been made by the old agrarian order, -the cry of a spirit which is departing, and which, in its agony, utters -words that are a shining light for all periods of change. - - [618] Letter to Mr. Cecill from Sir Anthony Auchar, quoted by - Russell, _Ket's Rebellion, in Norfolk_, p. 202. - -Several paths of argument lead to their position. There is the -traditional importance of tillage. It is a "foundation industry," an -industry from which four-fifths of the people directly or indirectly get -their living. English Governments have always shown it special favour. -Its maintenance is almost part of the common law[619] of the land. And -it is right that it should be so. For the partition which separates men -from starvation is thin, and if tillage fails how shall the people be -fed? The Government insists on a certain minimum area being under the -plough for exactly the same reason that the city of Coventry, when it is -in the grip of a bad harvest, decides to break up part of its common -pastures for wheat. All men are agreed that the price of food ought to -be fixed by authority, and one cannot control prices unless one can -control supplies. There is the argument from social functions. The State -is a community of classes. Between classes there must be inequality, for -each has a different function, fighting, or merchandise, or handicraft, -or husbandry. Unless there is inequality between classes no class can -perform its duties or (strange thought) enjoy its rights. But one class -must not encroach upon the livelihood of another. If we will not have -villein blood on the Council, neither will we let gentlemen take into -their hands the holdings of their tenants. For this means that one limb -of the body politic drains nourishment from another limb, and that men -drop into a superfluous residuum from which the State gets no profit. -And within a class there should be substantial equality. When one man -has the livelihoods of two must not another man go without any living at -all? There is the argument from economic morality. In every bargain -there is the possibility of oppression. The unscrupulous man makes the -most of this. He regards only his own profit. He is "a great taker of -advantages."[620] This is the sin of the usurer, the bodger, and the -tyrannous landlord, and of this bad trinity the last is the worst. To -oppress men by rack-renting land is particularly detestable. For though -in all contracts there is certainly (if only it can be found!) an -objective standard of value, yet a man may with reason be in doubt as to -what is fair price to charge for an article the value of which has not -been fixed by authority. But he can hardly be in doubt as to what is a -fair rent. The fair rent is the usual rent; equity is custom. There is -the argument from the very nature of the bond between tenant and -landlord. Tenure is no longer as sacred a thing as once it was, and, -even if it were, men who are legally the descendants of right-less -villeins could not easily appeal to its sanctity. But opinion feels that -there is something despicably sordid in using this particular relation -as a financial engine. Though surveyors' economics are as notorious as -lawyers' justice,[621] even one of that detested class can preface his -business-like account of western manors with words idealising the -conditions which have "knit such a knot of colaterall amytie between -the Lords and the tenants that the lord tendered his tenants as his -childe, and the tenants again loved the lord as naturally as the childe -his father."[622] The bond between landlord and tenant is perhaps, -indeed, the only economic relationship which has ever yet stirred the -affection of large masses of men. It has done so because it has been in -the past so much more than economic. The pitiful cry of that nameless -old man to whose care Shakespeare commits the blinded Gloucester, "O my -good lord, I have been your tenant, and your father's tenant, these -fourscore years," is the voice of an attachment which once was real. In -the sixteenth century the tie of tenure is still the symbol of greater -things, and the wrench which is given it by the partial commercialising -of agriculture seems to portend more ruinous innovations. Most men make -the State in the image of their own village, or city, or business. It is -perhaps not an unfair description of one side of the social philosophy -of our period to say that a manor is still a "little commonwealth,"[623] -the kingdom still the greatest of manors. If the lord holds from the -King, does not the tenant hold from his lord by as good a right? If the -tenant who encroaches on his neighbour's strips is checked by the -manorial court, should not the lord who depopulates half a village be -checked by the King in his High Court of Parliament? If gentlemen -oppress yeomen, how can they "live together as they be joined in one -body politic under the King?"[624] - - [619] Miss Leonard (_Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series vol. - xix.) quotes Coke, _Institutes_, Book III., p. 105 (1644 ed.), - and _S. P. D. Chas. I._, clxxxvii., No. 95: "The decay of - tillage and houses of husbandry are the undoubted causes and - grounds of depopulation, and a crime against the Common Laws of - this Realm, and every continuance thereof is a new crime." But - the words "against the Common Laws" are hardly to be interpreted - strictly. - - [620] _S. P. D. Eliz._, vol. cclxxxvi., Nos. 19 and 20: "He is a - great taker of advantages. He granted a lease to his brother, - who dying a year past, he sued his brother's wife to overthrow - the lease to the undoing of her and her children." For a strong - expression of these views see _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis - of Salisbury, Part II., 1575, Nov. 20. Lord North to the Bishop - of Ely: "My lord, it wilbe no pleasure for you to have hir - Majestye and the Councell knowe howe wretchedly yowe live within - and without your house, howe extremely covetous, how great a - grazier, how marvellous a dayrye man, howe ritche a farmer, how - grete an owner. It will not lyke yowe that the world knowe of - your decayed houses, ... of the leases you pull violently from - many, of the copyeholdes that yowe lawlesslye enter into, of the - fre land that yowe wrongfully posese.... Yowe suffer no man to - live longer under yowe than yowe lyke him." - - [621] Norden, _The Surveyor's Dialogue_, p. 1: "Farmer, I have - heard much evill of the profession, and to tell you my conceit - plainly I think the same both evill and unprofitable ... and - oftentime you are the cause that men lose their land and - sometimes they are abridged of such liberties as they have long - used in mannors." - - [622] _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. - - [623] Norden, _op. cit._: "And is not every mannor a little - commonwealth, whereof the tenants are the members, the land the - body, and the lord the head?" - - [624] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 98, - Instructions to the Duke of Norfolk. - -It is true that it is just these ideas which in our period are on their -trial, and that if one were to seek the watershed where the mediaeval -theory of land tenure, as something contingent on the fulfilment of -obligations, parts company from modern conceptions of ownership, as -conferring an unlimited right to unconditional disposal by the owner, -one would find it in the century and a half between 1500 and the final -abolition of feudal tenures in 1660. The combination of forces both -economic and political making for a change of attitude is -unmistakable; on the one hand the severance of the personal relationship -of tenure through the development of the great leasehold farm, the -breaking up of the customary routine of cultivation through the -increasing dependence of agriculture on the market, the general revision -of contracts brought about through the fall in the value of money; on -the other hand the enormous redistribution of landed property through -the confiscation of monastic and gild endowments, the consequent -creation of a new aristocracy ready to apply commercial ideas to land -tenure, the desire of proprietors to escape from the obnoxious feudal -incidents and of the Crown to find some more lucrative substitute for -them. But the decay of the older conceptions goes on very slowly. The -Government is on the whole on the conservative side; for naturally it -has to work on the material to hand, and the best hope of maintaining -order lies in the preservation of fixed customary relationships between -the different classes in society. Its instinct is therefore still to -treat the control and disposition of land as to a special degree a -question of public policy, in regard to which landlords are bound -"rather to consider what is agreeable ... to the use of the state and -for the good of the commonwealth, than to seeke the utmost profit which -a landlord for his particular advantage may take among his -tenants."[625] - - [625] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xxvii. p. - 129. Letter from the Council to William Harman, Esq. - - -(b) _Legislation and Administration_ - -This was its instinct. But can we say more than this? Can we say that -the presumption in favour of protecting the small landholder was -translated into any definite policy, and that such a policy was carried -out in practice? The answer to these questions is by no means easily -given. There is the difficulty of making any generalisation which will -cover the century and a half during which, from time to time, the -agrarian problem claimed public attention. True, this difficulty is not -so serious as might at first sight appear, or as it would be in an age -of swiftly changing ideas. The political historian may treat the Tudors -as one period and the first two Stuarts as another. But the economist -finds much the same views on economic matters obtaining under Charles I. -as under Henry VIII., and much the same administrative system to carry -them out. There is in our period no marked change in responsible opinion -upon the enclosing movement. The Commission which deals with the subject -in 1607 shows the same attitude as the Commission of 1517. Enclosers are -fined in 1637 as they have been fined in the reign of James I. But the -opinion which counts is not always responsible opinion. During the six -years which intervene between the death of Henry VIII. and the accession -of Philip and Mary the Government is in the hands of the great -landlords,--landlords who have built up their fortunes out of the spoils -of the monasteries, and whom no authority is strong enough to check. By -a curious chance the first head of the Government is a man who is an -agrarian reformer by conviction. But, when he falls, his colleagues -throw over his policy, and turn savagely to the work of crushing out the -very possibility of organised protest among the peasantry. These years, -the so-called reign of Edward VI., will be an exception to whatever -conclusions may be reached as to the policy of the State under the -Tudors and the first two Stuarts. Again, there is the difficulty, the -great difficulty, of saying how far the interference of Governments is -successful even when they honestly desire it to have effect. The modern -assumption, which is sometimes all too sanguine, is that a Law is being -carried out unless it is proved that it is not. For the sixteenth -century there are those who would say that we must assume that a Law is -not being administered unless it is proved that it is, and, though -scepticism is sometimes pushed to absurd lengths, one certainly cannot -build much on the letter of Acts of Parliament. But how exacting are our -tests of effective administration to be? All will agree that in our -period the mere enacting of a Statute causes and cures very little, -unless special efforts are applied to making it work. But is a -peremptory order from the Council to the Justices of the Peace, or to -the Council of the North, to redress this or that grievance among -tenants, a proof that the grievance will be redressed? Or must we be -content with nothing less than a record of cases actually handled? If -we decline to believe in the efficacy of any economic legislation about -which we have not a full list of decisions, we shall have little left to -rely on. The famous Statute of Artificers will look shaky, and so will -the legislation with regard to prices and quality. Perhaps a reasonable -view would be to look askance at mere Acts of Parliament, but to accept -action, or orders to take action, on the part of the executive -authorities, as a proof that the law is being applied in practice. - -Of the Statutes prohibiting the conversion of arable to pasture we need -not, then, say much. The long series of Acts[626] which were passed -between 1489 and 1597 show little originality. They were at bottom -simply a series of great manorial customaries framed to apply to the -whole country, or to all parts of the country which were not expressly -excepted from their operation, an attempt to maintain the _status quo_ -obtaining at any time by laying down for the whole country a common rule -of cultivation of much the same kind as had been in the past maintained -by local customs. They did not prohibit enclosure as such, but they -proceeded on the assumption that a fixed proportion of the land, usually -the average of a certain number of years preceding the Act, ought to be -under the plough, and that the small cultivator's farm accommodation -should be maintained or renewed at the expense of the landlord. They -differed only in the methods used to achieve this end. The Statutes -before 1550 usually insisted merely on the reconversion of pasture land -to tillage,[627] the re-edification of decayed houses of husbandry,[628] -and the limitation to 2000 of the sheep to be kept by any one -farmer.[629] They relied on most unpromising machinery. Like the ancient -Statute of Mortmain, they tried to make the feudal contract the means -for enforcing the law, by empowering superior lords to take half the -profits of mesne lords and tenants who infringed it. The Statutes after -1550 were somewhat bolder in their experiments. The most important -departure was the provision, first introduced into the Statutes of -1552[630] and 1555,[631] for the creation of permanent bodies of -Commissioners to do the work which, when most landlords were anxious to -enclose, no landlord would undertake. Under the Statute of 1555, -subsequently declared "too mild and gentle," but on the face of it a -drastic measure, the Commissioners were empowered both to bind over -offenders to rebuild decayed houses, to plough up pasture land, and to -fix the judicial rents which had been demanded by the peasantry and -suggested by certain reformers. It was repealed (together with the -Statutes of 1536 and 1552) in 1563, the Act[632] of that year confirming -the earlier Acts passed in the reign of Henry VIII., and requiring all -land which had been under the plough for four successive years since -1529 to be kept in tillage, on pain of a fine of 10s. per acre for all -land converted to pasture contrary to the Act. In 1589[633] a Statute -was passed for the protection of cottagers, prohibiting the letting of -cottages to agricultural labourers with less than four acres of land -attached. In 1593[634] it was thought that sufficient land was in -tillage to make the maintenance of legislation on the subject -unnecessary, and the clause in the Act of 1563, which forbade conversion -to pasture, was repealed. But the result seems to have been a -recrudescence of the movement for converting arable land to pasture, -with the result that in 1597[635] two more Acts were passed, both of -which adopted the expedient of setting up a special authority, apart -from the ordinary machinery of local government, to enforce the Act, by -empowering the Lord Chancellor to nominate bodies of Commissioners. The -first enacted that all houses of husbandry decayed within seven years -preceding the Act, and half of those decayed within seven years before -that, were to be rebuilt and let, the former with not less than 40 -acres, and the latter with not less than 20 acres, of land. It also took -the significant step of expressly sanctioning the consolidation of -intermixed holdings by way of exchange between lord and tenants, or -between one tenant and another. The second applied only to twenty-five -counties, where, presumably, enclosing had proceeded furthest or was -most disastrous in its effects. It enacted that all land converted from -tillage to pasture since 1558 should be reconverted within three years, -if it had been under the plough for twelve years immediately preceding -conversion, and that land which had been in tillage for twelve years -preceding the Act should remain in tillage, the penalty for disobedience -being a fine of 20s. per acre. These two Acts escaped the general repeal -of the laws against depopulation which took place in 1624, and remained -on the Statute Book till the Statute Law Revision Act of 1863. - - [626] A useful list of these Acts, with a summary of their - provisions, is given by Slater, _The English Peasantry and the - Enclosure of Common Fields_, Appendix D. - - [627] 4 Henry VII., c. 19. All occupiers of twenty acres and - more which have been in tillage during three years preceding the - Act to maintain tillage. - - [628] 6 Henry VIII., c. 5, and 7 Henry VIII., c. 1. In parishes - "whereof the more part was or were used and occupied to tillage - and husbandry," any person who "shall decay a town, a hamlet, a - house of husbandry, or convert tillage into pasture," and has - not "within one yeere next after such wylfull decaye reedifyed - and made ageyn mete and convenyent for people to dwell and - inhabyte the same ... and therein to exercyse husbandry and - tillage," forfeits one half of his land to the lord of the - manor. Land converted to pasture must be tilled "after the maner - and usage of the countrey where the seyd land lyeth." - - [629] 25 Henry VIII., c. 13. - - [630] 5 and 6 Edward VI., c. 5. - - [631] 2 and 3 Philip and Mary, c. 2. - - [632] 5 Elizabeth, c. 2. - - [633] 31 Elizabeth, c. 7. - - [634] 35 Elizabeth, c. 7. - - [635] 39 Elizabeth, c. 1 and c. 2. - -The Statutes are evidence of a state of opinion. To judge how far that -opinion wrote itself on the world of affairs we must look elsewhere. Nor -are they in themselves very interesting. The genius of sixteenth century -statesmanship lay in administration not in legislation. It dwelt not in -Parliament but in the Council, and in those administrative courts, the -Court of Star Chamber, the Court of Requests, the Council of the North, -the Council of Wales, which were the Privy Council's organs. In studying -economic questions in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, one -is met at every turn by the apparatus of special administrative -jurisdictions, which was built up by the Tudors, and which fell to -pieces with the final rupture between the Crown and Parliament. On the -one hand, they supply the control and stimulus in matters of detailed -administration, without which all legislation designed to regulate -shifting economic relationships, or running counter to the prejudices of -a powerful class, is doomed to be ineffective. Are the Justices of the -Peace lax in carrying out the Statutes for the relief of the poor and -punishment of vagrants? The Council will remonstrate. Have they omitted -to assess wages and fix prices? The Council will let them know that -their neglect has been noted at headquarters and that it must be -corrected. Are capitalists in the clothing counties dismissing workmen -in times of trade depression? The Council will direct the justices to -read them a lesson on the duty of employers to their operatives and to -the State, and threaten them with a summons to Whitehall unless they -mend their ways. A stream of correspondence pours into London from the -Government's agents in the counties--returns as to the supplies of wheat -available for consumption, applications for permission to license the -export of food-stuffs, statistics as to prices, information as to -unemployment, information as to vagrancy based on a "day-count" of -vagabonds. The Council digests it, and sends out its mandates to -continue this and alter that, to raise wages or reduce prices, to -inspect granaries, punish middlemen, whip sturdy rogues, relieve the -poor. Bad means of communication, scanty and inaccurate intelligence, -incompetent local officials, prevent administration from running -smoothly; and as the Civil War approaches incompetence becomes -recalcitrance. Nevertheless the engine is a powerful one, and up to a -year or two before the meeting of the Long Parliament its throb is felt -throughout the country. - -Such a system of centralised supervision, which can meet emergencies -with promptitude, and can adjust regulations to the varying needs of -different years and different localities, is a necessity in any society -where economic relationships are made the object of authoritative -control. Under the Tudors and first two Stuarts the Council does much -that is done to-day by several State departments--the Board of -Agriculture and Fisheries, the Board of Education, the Local Government -Board, the Home Office, as well as much that is left to Private Bill -legislation. But the Council is, of course, much more than an executive -organ. It is also a court of law. It does not only make rules, it -punishes people for breaking them. Sometimes it exercises jurisdiction -itself. More often, at any rate in the cases arising out of the economic -questions with which we are chiefly concerned, it issues an order, and -leaves the punishment of breaches of it to the Court of Star Chamber and -the Court of Requests. Into the controversy as to the constitutional -position of these courts we need not enter; we need only point out their -extreme importance as buttresses of the Government's control over -economic affairs. Both in personnel and procedure they were admirably -qualified to be the instruments of a thorough system of State -intervention in matters of industry and agriculture. Both of them were -committees of the Council, and in both the governmental predominated -over the judicial element, the two judges who attended the Court of Star -Chamber, and the Masters of Requests who sat in the Court of Requests, -being in the position rather of legal advisers or assessors than of -judicial authorities. In theory the former court dealt with criminal, -the latter with civil cases. But in an age when the majority of the -populace were armed, a dispute was extremely likely to terminate in a -riot, and in practice there were subjects on which complaints came -before either court indifferently. They dispensed with a jury. They took -account of equitable considerations which had no place in the common law -courts. They were guided by reasons of State, not by the letter of the -law, and would punish behaviour as contrary to public policy. For the -execution of their rulings they used not only the ordinary officers of -the law, the Justices of the Peace, but also special bodies of -Commissioners. - -Whatever may have been the abuses of this system of administrative -jurisdictions, one can easily understand that it was well fitted to deal -with the agrarian problem. It is seen at its worst in ecclesiastical -matters. It is seen at its best in protecting the poorer classes against -economic tyranny; and we shall fail to understand the popularity of the -Tudor Governments unless we lay as much emphasis on the good side as on -the bad. The Court of Requests in particular is a popular court, a court -which punishes the rich, a court which brings, in the words of the -aristocratic chronicler, "many an honest man to trouble and vexacion," a -court to which the poor "compleyned without number."[636] The notorious -difficulty of getting a verdict from a jury of tenants who are liable -to eviction means that a landlord can break the law with impunity. Here -are courts before which the intimidator can be intimidated; courts which -will handle him "on that sort, that what courage soever he hath, his -heart will fall to the grounde."[637] The enormous importance of -manorial custom in determining the fate of all classes of peasants, -except the freeholders, makes it certain that grave injustice will be -done to vested interests by any court which confines itself to the -strict letter of the law. The Council will direct that "such order be -taken in the matter as in justyce and equitie shall appertayn."[638] The -mere fact that its ruling is not simply the verdict of a court but the -command of the Government, increases the probability that it will -receive due attention from those whose duty it is to enforce it. The -landlord who has enclosed may be the very man who hears the peasant's -complaint. The Council will interfere to insist on the local authorities -taking "a more indifferent course."[639] - - [636] Hall's _Chronicle of Henry VIII._, p. 585 (Edition 1809), - quoted by Leadam, introduction to _Select Cases in the Court of - Requests_ (Selden Society). - - [637] Smith, _De Republica Anglorum_, Lib. III., chap. iv. - - [638] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp. - 91-92. - - [639] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xxx. pp. - 36-37. A letter to the Council in the Marches of Wales, - concerning the tenants of Aston in Montgomeryshire: "And if it - be true, as they do inform us by their petitions, that - examinations in a case concerning one of that Counsell should be - taken by a kinsman of his owne and a clerk underneathe him, wee - wyshe ... that you would have taken a more indifferent course, - especially in a matter of commons, which, concerning many - persons, doth easily give occasion of offence and scandal." - -The activity of the Government in matters of land was not so incessant -as it was in the regulation of prices and the administration of the Poor -Laws; for its land policy was strongly opposed to the interests of the -country gentry who were its officials, and it had to proceed with -caution. If we except the first great Commission appointed by Wolsey in -1517, the periods in which it was especially energetic in dealing with -the land question were three, the years between 1536 and 1549, the years -from 1607 to 1618, the years from 1630 to 1636; and on each of these -three occasions there was some temporary cause to explain its peculiar -zeal--on the two first the revolts of the peasantry, and on the last the -rise in the price of grain, which suggested that an unduly small -proportion of the land was under tillage. Nevertheless it handles -individual cases with considerable frequency throughout the whole -period from 1517 to 1640. Usually it acts as a final court of appeal, -which intervenes only when other means of redress have broken down, and -it is sometimes at pains to explain to offended landlords that it does -not intend to debar them from asserting their rights at Common Law, if -they can. Its aim is to stop very gross cases of oppression, to prevent -the peasants being made the victims of legal chicanery and intimidation, -to induce landlords to take a larger view of their responsibilities, to -settle disputes by the use of common sense and moral pressure. It steps -in when the tenants are poor men who are being ruined by vexatious -lawsuits, or when enclosure is thought likely to produce disorder, or to -forbid a landlord to take action pending a decision by the courts. It -has to hear many cases touching copyholders and many touching commons; -for no one is quite certain as to the legal rights of copyholders, and -in the matter of commons there is a fearful gulf between law and equity. -Occasionally in the reign of Henry VIII., and even in that of Elizabeth, -it deals with cases of villeinage. But these, though more numerous than -might have been supposed, are nevertheless rare, for the principal -economic evils of the period consist not in the revival of old claims, -but in the new competitive conditions of agriculture. The treatment of -the latter is by no means a simple matter--even the strong Governments -of Henry VIII. and Elizabeth will not lightly thrust forceful fingers -into the mysterious custom-bound recesses of the manor--and when we have -said that on the whole the bias of the Tudor and early Stuart statesmen -is against revolutionary changes that damage the peasants, we can say -little more without citing individual cases of interference. - -Let us look shortly at the more striking among them. The famous -Commission upon enclosure appointed by Wolsey in 1517 set a precedent to -be followed in several subsequent inquiries, and has left us an -invaluable body of information as to the nature and extent of the -enclosing movement. It was, however, by no means the first example of -the Government intervening in the agrarian problem, and the partial -reconversion of pasture to arable, which seems to have resulted from -its labours, still left an urgent need for a continuous supervision of -the relations between landlord and tenant by some tribunal sufficiently -independent to do justice to the weaker party. In 1494 the earliest -proceedings in the interminable case[640] of John Mulsho v. the -inhabitants of Thingden ended in the Court of Star Chamber (the same -court was dealing with the same matter in 1538) with a decree in favour -of the tenants. In 1510 the same body was dealing with a quarrel between -the Abbot and the copyholders of Peterborough,[641] and in 1516 with a -complaint from the inhabitants of Draycote[642] and Stoke Gifford that -the lord of the manor had evicted copyholders, stopped up rights of way, -and enclosed common land. The policy of Wolsey is sufficiently indicated -by the active campaign which he set on foot against depopulation, and -requires no further illustration. But it is interesting to observe that -his attitude towards the agrarian question was not a mere personal -idiosyncrasy, and that it was the same in all essential particulars as -that of his successor. Thomas Cromwell must bear the blame for part of -the agrarian distress which prevailed during the closing years of Henry -VIII. and the reign of Edward VI.; for that distress was enhanced by the -wild land speculation which followed the secularisation of the monastic -estates. In that age, however, such indirect social reactions of their -policy were matters quite beneath the consideration of statesmen, and -the fact that the Government was responsible for changes which operated -most disastrously on the established order of rural society did not -prevent administrative interference to impede agrarian innovations from -going on to the end of the reign of Henry VIII. Indeed the King, -influenced no doubt by the fear that agrarian agitation might add fuel -to religious discontent, seems himself to have taken some interest in -the matter. In 1534 one finds Cromwell writing to congratulate him on -the passage through the House of Commons of a Bill providing that no man -shall keep more than 2000 sheep, and that one-eighth of every farmer's -land shall always remain in tillage, "The most profitable and most -benefycyall thing that ever was done to this the commonwealthe of your -realm;"[643] and in the following year there is a letter[644] from -Cromwell to Rich directing him to apprise the Duke of Suffolk of the -King's displeasure at the decay of certain towns which the Duke had -promised to repair. The agrarian grievances expressed in the Pilgrimage -of Grace were admitted, and in the instructions issued to the officers -who were appointed to restore order in the disaffected counties special -directions[645] were included to throw open enclosures, and to reduce -the excessive fines charged to tenants on admission to their holdings. -In the years immediately following the same policy was pursued in other -parts of the country. In 1538 the Earl of Derby[646] writes to Cromwell -protesting against the pressure put upon him to reinstate seven tenants -whom he has turned out. In 1540 a landlord[647] in the Isle of Wight is -compelled to restore to their holdings some recently evicted tenants. In -1541 several cases come before the Council. It appoints a Commission to -investigate the case of a Northamptonshire[648] landlord who has -prevented the tenants of Brigstock from feeding their pigs, calves, and -sheep, by cutting up part of a common wood "into several pastures for -his own private use and benefit." It meets a complaint from the -borderers[649] of the Forest of Dartmoor that the owner of the lands of -the monastery of Buckfast is breaking the statute which required the -lands of dissolved abbeys to be farmed in the traditional way, by -excluding them from the common, with a decision upholding the tenants' -case and with the appointment of Commissioners to carry out the award. -It sets a certain choleric Sir Nicholas Poyntz,[650] who has dared to -procure the imprisonment of a tenant for proceeding against him before -the Council, to cool his temper in the Fleet, and when he comes out -compels him to grant his victim a new farm in exchange for one which he -has surrendered, to reduce his rent from 20s. to 6s., and to pay him -forty marks as compensation for his "damages and travailles." In -1543[651] the tenants of Abbots Ripton lay a complaint in the Court of -Requests against Sir John St. John on the ground that, in addition to -other acts of oppression, he has entered forcibly on their holdings. Sir -John replies that they are not copyholders, but merely tenants at will, -who are unprotected by any immemorial custom, and after an examination -of the manor rolls the court holds that he is right. But the legal -insecurity of the tenants does not prevent them from getting protection. -The court requires their landlord to grant them leases for years at -reasonable rents, and orders that the property which he has distrained -shall be restored. - - [640] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Star - Chamber_, edited by Leadam, and Leadam, E. H. R., vol. viii. pp. - 684-696. - - [641] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - - [642] _Ibid._ - - [643] Merriman, _Life and Letters of Thomas Cromwell_, vol. i. - p. 273. - - [644] _Ibid._, vol. i. p. 413. - - [645] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii., I., 98 and 595. - - [646] Gairdner, _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xiii., I., 334 (see - also 66, where an appeal is made January 11, 1536, to Cromwell - to protect some tenants in Denbighshire.) - - [647] _Proceedings and Ordinances of the Privy Council_, vol. - vii. p. 42: "The King's pleasure was signified to John Dawney, - Knight, that whereas he had turned certain persons in the Isle - of Wight out of their farms, whereof they pretended to have - leases, and had demised the same to others that minded not to - dwell upon the same, he should take order that the old tenants - might enjoy their leases until Michaelmas, come a twelve month, - and that in the mean season the King's Highness would see a - direction taken in the matter." - - [648] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 225-226. July 30 and August 1, - 1541. - - [649] _Ibid._, vol. vii. pp. 123-125. January 25, 1541. - - [650] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. i. pp. 5 and - 9. - - [651] Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. - -With the Protectorate of Somerset we enter upon a period of more violent -agitation and more drastic expedients. There was a large difference -between using the jurisdiction of the Council to redress individual -cases of hardship and a deliberate attempt to effect a general -settlement of the land question upon lines which would do substantial -justice to the peasants. The former course involved no perilous -assertion of principles, and could be pursued under the guise of a -purely conservative policy, merely by referring disputes between -landlords and tenants to the Courts of Star Chamber and Requests, which, -though in fact administrative and governmental bodies, were none the -less protected to some extent against criticism by wearing the -appearance of mere legal tribunals. The latter might, perhaps, have been -attempted with some faint hope of success, if statesmen had been much -more careful than they were to discriminate between the different -aspects of the problem with which they were confronted. To us, who look -back on the situation from a distance of three and a half centuries, -it seems that the one guiding thread, which might have led some way -through the welter of confusion, was offered by the sharp distinction -drawn by Hales between those enclosures which were made by the exchange -and consolidation of strips, with a view to better husbandry, and those -which had as their effect the conversion of arable land to pasture, the -monopolising of commons, and the eviction of tenants. The arguments in -favour of the first type of enclosure were too cogent for any policy -which condemned enclosing in general to have the smallest prospect of -success. The only possibility of averting the ruin to the peasantry -which accompanied depopulation lay in encouraging them generally to -follow the example of their brothers in Kent, Essex, Devonshire, and -Cornwall, who had for centuries been substituting a more progressive -husbandry for the "mingle mangle" of the open fields, without the -disastrous consequences entailed by the spread of capitalist agriculture -in other parts of the South and Midlands. But such a frank encouragement -of certain kinds of enclosure for the sake of repressing others implied -an appreciation of the economics of the problem to which comparatively -few persons in our period had attained, and was quite beyond the grasp -of Governments, which, at their worst, as under Warwick, were quite -indifferent to the sufferings of the poorer classes, and, at their best, -conceived public interests to be served best by a strict maintenance of -customary conditions. Somerset's policy of deliberately restoring -ancient relationships with a strong hand could hardly even be begun -without those who pursued it taking sides in a bitter economic -agitation, and essaying openly to reverse the whole agrarian movement -with which, in the course of the past half century, the wealth of the -middle and upper classes, at any rate south of the Trent, had become -inextricably identified. It involved in fact a return to the policy of -Wolsey, and a return to it under conditions which made Wolsey's policy -doubly hard to carry out, inasmuch as, on the one hand, the position of -Somerset as temporary head of a jealous aristocracy was far weaker than -that of the omnipotent Cardinal, and, on the other hand, the lapse of -twenty years had seen the growth of a generation to which enclosures -were a vested interest. - -Yet it would be a mistake to think of the whole agrarian episode between -the death of Henry VIII. and the fall of Somerset as the mere freak of a -misguided doctrinaire. If we can see difficulties which he did not, if -we can smile at the thought of any Government at once so incompetent, -and but for Somerset himself, so entirely selfish, carrying out a great -conservative revolution in the teeth of the new wealth and power of the -country, we must also remember that he was not alone in thinking the -spoliation of the weaker rural classes not only, as it certainly was, -illegal, but also so patently unjust as to amount to a national crime, -and that in that age men overestimated the ability of a Government fiat -to modify economic habits almost as much as they underestimated it two -and a half centuries later. Somerset can hardly have been ignorant of -the tremendous risks involved in his policy. But he may well have -thought inaction not only baser than, but almost as dangerous as, -action. It was certain that, unless the Government interfered to protect -tenants, there would be a series of peasants' revolts. The best answer -to the charge of stirring up class hatred, which was made against -Somerset, as against all who call attention to its causes, was that -agrarian rioting had begun in Hertfordshire[652] before the Commission -on Enclosures was sent out, that in those counties where it took its -work seriously order was maintained till the end of 1548, and that grave -disturbances did not take place until the following year, when it became -evident that, both in Parliament and on the Council, the Protector's -policy had been beaten by the opposition of the great landowners. Nor is -there any reason to doubt the sincerity of Somerset himself (though he, -like every one else, had speculated in monastic estates), however much -there may be to regret that his policy did not come into stronger hands, -or fall upon times which were, from a political point of view, less -hopelessly impracticable. An attempt was made to set a good example on -the Crown Estates. In 1548, in response to complaints from the tenants -at Walton, Weybridge, Esher, and Shepperton, that the making of the -royal deer park at Hampton Court was ruining them through the loss of -common rights which it entailed, an order[653] was issued dechasing the -Park, and throwing open the enclosed lands to the commoners. In the -following year Somerset secured the passage through Parliament of a -Private Act[654] conferring a good title on those copyholders on his own -manors to whom demesne lands had been let, and who, as occupiers of -other than customary tenancies, could not claim the protection of -manorial custom. It is plain from the comparatively few complaints which -came in the sixteenth century from freeholders that, if such a course -had been generally pursued, the chief objection to the changes grouped -together under the name of enclosure would have been removed, because -the harsh disturbance of vested interests which they involved would have -been avoided. But that, of course, was quite outside the bounds of -political possibility. - - [652] Appendix to Miss Lamond's edition of _The Commonweal of - this Realm of England_, Hale's defence, p. lviii.: "Whas ther - not, longe before this Commyssyon was sent forthe, an - insurrection in Hertfordshire for the comens at Northall and - Cheshunt?" - - [653] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. ii. pp. - 190-193, May 5, 1548: a complaint from "many poor men of the - Parishes of Walton, Weybridge, East Molson, West Molson, - Caverham, Esher, Byfiete, Temsditton ... in the name of the - whole parishes before rehearsed, that by reason of the making of - the late chase of Hampton Court, forsomyche as their commons, - pastures, and meadows be taken in, and that all the said - parishes are overlaid with the deer now increasing daily upon - them, very many households of the same parishes be let fall - down, the families decayed, and the king's liege people much - diminished, the country thereabout in manner made desolate." - - [654] See p. 294. - -The story of Somerset's attempt to deal with the land question is soon -told. In 1548 agrarian discontent was at its height. Some time in that -year there must have come to the hands of the Government the small tract -on the effect of sheep-farming in Oxfordshire, Northamptonshire, -Buckinghamshire, and Berkshire, which was printed in 1551 under the name -of "Certayne causes of the Present Discontent."[655] In spring and -summer Latimer was thundering against the "Step-lords"[656] at Paul's -Cross. In autumn Crowley published his "Information and Petition -against the Oppressors of the Poor Commons."[657] Above all, the poor -commons had earlier in the year shown unmistakable signs of fending for -themselves. The result of Somerset's own sympathy with the prevalent -discontent was the formation of something like a party, under the name -of the "Commonwealth men," with Latimer as its prophet and Hales as its -man of action, which had a programme sufficiently definite to put heart -into the peasantry and to terrify the great landed proprietors. On June -1st a Royal Commission[658] was appointed to inquire into offences -committed against the Acts forbidding conversion of arable to pasture -and depopulation. The Commission divided itself into several committees -to deal with different parts of the country. Only one of them, however, -consisting of John Hales and five of his colleagues, got seriously to -work. It had a large area to cover--the counties of Oxfordshire, -Berkshire, Warwickshire, Leicestershire, Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, -and Northamptonshire--and one which was the centre of the agitation -against enclosure. It seems to have interrupted its labours during -autumn and winter, but it was busy in June, July, and August 1548, and -again in the summer of 1549, by which time, however, the anger of the -landed gentry against its proceedings, and of the peasants against the -inactivity of the Commission as a whole, had reached a point which made -it hardly possible for it to do more than collect information. -Considering the difficulties of its task, and the wide tract of country -to be covered, its behaviour appears to have been thorough and -business-like. The usual procedure was to empanel a jury of twelve in -each place visited, to whom Hales delivered an address explaining the -objects and methods of the inquiry, as set out in the instructions -issued by the Government to the Commissioners. These stated the -Commission to have been formed in particular "for the maintenance and -keeping up of houses of husbandry, for avoiding destruction and pulling -down of houses for enclosures and converting of arable land into -pasture, for limiting what number of sheep men should have and keep in -their possession at one time, against plurality and keeping together of -farms, and for maintenance of housekeeping, hospitality, and tillage on -the sites ... of such monasteries, priories, and religious houses as -were dissolved."[659] Offenders were then presented by the jury, and -though, on Hales' advice, a pardon was granted them for their past -illegalities, their enclosures seem to have been thrown down, arable -which had been turned into pasture to have been ploughed up, and farms -which had been united to have been separated.[660] - - [655] Published by the E. E. T. S. - - [656] The first sermon preached before King Edward the Sixth, - March 8, 1549: "You landlords, you rent-raisers, I may say you - step-lords, you unnatural lords, you have for your possession - yearly too much. For that herebefore went for twenty or forty - pounds by year ... now is let for fifty or an hundred pound by - year." See also Latimer, _The Sermon of the Plough_, January 18, - 1548. - - [657] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [658] The proclamation appointing the Commission is printed by - Strype, _op. cit._, vol. ii., Book I., chap. ii. The operative - part of it runs: "And therefore, He ... hath appointed, - according to the said acts and proclamations, a view and inquiry - to be made of all such as contrary to the said acts and godly - ordinances have made enclosures and pasture of that which was - arable ground, or let any house, tenement, or mease decay or - fall down, or done anything contrary of the good and wholesome - articles contained in the said acts." In my account of the - situation under Somerset I have followed the documents printed - by Strype, and the appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to - _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_. - - [659] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [660] For the pardon, see appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction - to _The Commonweal_, &c., p. lxi.; for the ploughing up of a - park and division of farms, _ibid._, pp. xli. and lxi.-lxii.; - for the Bills introduced by Hales, _ibid._, xl., xlv.-lii., - lxii.-lxv. Strype's account appears to be based on that of - Hales. - -In the meantime Somerset kept the general policy of agrarian reform -alive on the Council. In the autumn of 1548 Hales had returned to -London, and, as member for Preston, had prepared three Bills, dealing -partly with enclosures and partly with the high prices. The first, -requiring re-edification of decayed houses and the maintenance of -tillage, and the second, forbidding speculation in food-stuffs, were -introduced into the House of Lords. The third, which aimed at -encouraging cattle breeding as distinct from sheep grazing, was read -first in the House of Commons. Neither Bill came to anything, for -Parliament was as angry as the Council with Somerset's policy. But in -May 1549 the Protector issued another proclamation against the decay of -houses and enclosure; in June he infuriated the upper classes by a -proclamation pardoning persons who had taken the law into their own -hands by pulling down hedges; and throughout the whole period of his -power he used the Court of Requests as an instrument for protecting -tenants against landlords.[661] The Secretary[662] to the Council, who -was quite ready for a reign of terror provided that the gentry began it, -prophesied gloomily that the German peasants' revolt was to be -re-enacted in England, and Warwick attacked Hales fiercely for venturing -to discharge the duties laid upon him by the Government, of which -Warwick was a member.[663] "Sir," wrote a plaintive Norfolk gentleman to -Cecil about the time of Ket's rebellion, "Be plain with my Lord's Grace, -that under the pretence of simplicity and poverty there may not rest -much mischief. So do I fear there doth in these men called Commonwealths -and their adherents. To declare unto you the state of the gentlemen (I -mean as well the greatest as the lowest) I assure you they are in such -doubt that almost they dare touch none of them, but for that some of -them have been sent up and come away without punishment, and that -Commonwealth called Latimer hath gotten the pardon of others.... I may -well gather some of them to be in jealousy of my Lord's friendship, yea -and to be plain, think my Lord's grace rather to will the decay of the -gentlemen than otherwise."[664] Poor gentlemen! A Government which holds -that laws do not exist only to preserve the rich in their possessions! -Truly the mountains are removed. - - [661] For these facts, see Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [662] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. Sir William Paget to - the Lord Protector, July 7, 1549: "The king's subjects are out - of all discipline, out of all obedience, caring neither for - Protector nor King. And what is the cause? Your own lenity ... - the foot taketh upon him the part of the head, and commons is - become king, a king appointing conditions and laws to the - governors, saying, 'Grant this and that and we will go home.' - ... What then is the matter, troweth your grace?... By my - faith, Sir, even that which I said to your grace.... Liberty, - Liberty.... In Germany, when the very like tumult to this began - first, it might have been appeased with the loss of 20 men, and - after with the loss of 100 or 200. But it was thought nothing - and might easily be appeased, and also some spiced consciences - taking pity of the poor ... thought it a sore matter to lose so - many of their country folk, saying they were simple folk.... It - cost, ere it was appeased, they say, 1000 or 2000 men." - - [663] Appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction to _The - Commonweal_, &c., pp. xli. and lii. But of course there was no - such thing as collective responsibility for policy in the - sixteenth century. - - [664] Russel, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_, p. 202. - -Somerset's Government had too short a life for us to judge how far, in -happier political circumstances, he might have succeeded, not in -checking agrarian changes, which would in any case have been impossible, -but in securing that reasonable consideration should be given to the -vested interests of the poorer classes. As Elizabethan statesmen -discovered[665] at the end of the century, there was room for a policy -which would prevent the wholesale displacement of tenants, and -nevertheless offer an encouragement to the formation of the compact -holdings out of the scattered strips and common pastures, which the -agricultural experts were unanimous in condemning. There are faint -indications of an understanding that a fair middle course was possible -in a remarkable case which comes from the little Huntingdonshire town of -Godmanchester.[666] At Godmanchester there had been the usual changes of -the preceding half century. Rents had been raised, cottages pulled down, -woods destroyed and turned to pasture, while the meadows, which under -the Act of 1547 had been confiscated from the local gild, offered a -tempting prey to some enterprising speculator. On complaints coming -before the Council in the summer of 1549 a comprehensive scheme of -reorganisation was drawn up. All persons with more than one house were -to let at the customary rent that which they did not use themselves. All -persons who had pulled down houses or converted them to other purposes -than the accommodation of tenants were either to rebuild them or to -build new ones, and to let them to any one offering the customary rent -before Michaelmas 1549. The groves of wood converted to pasture were to -be enclosed, so as to prevent the depredations made upon them by -straying beasts, and, if necessary, the land was to be sown with acorns. -With the gild lands a course was taken which, in the scramble for land -which was going on in the middle of the sixteenth century, was -unfortunately highly unusual. According to the Council's directions they -were to "be divided among the inhabitants thereof in this manner; that -is to say to every ploughland five acres, and to every cottager and -artificer there dwelling, or which hereafter upon the houses to be now -builded shall dwell, one acre, and, if the number do not extend, then -for every ploughland four, and so for lack of the rate every ploughland -three, and the residue of the said acres falling after that rate to be -divided among the cottagers, paying for every of the said acres 3/4." -This case is the high water mark of administrative interference on -behalf of the tenants. The action taken embraces nearly all the -expedients of re-edifying decayed cottages, fixing fair rents, -preventing common land from passing into the control of a single -individual, and making equal allotment among the inhabitants, which had -been demanded by the peasants and suggested by their friends. It shows -that the enclosing of land hitherto used in common was not resented, -provided that the division was made in such a way as to give a fair -share to all the parties interested. It may perhaps be taken as a -specimen of the kind of policy which lay behind Somerset's expressions -of sympathy with the peasantry, and which he would have pursued if his -colleagues on the Council had permitted. As it was, he was not strong -enough to carry out his programme. While the failure of the Commission -resulted in the revolts of 1549, his reluctance to crush their authors, -whom he believed to be men goaded into rebellion by intolerable -grievances, united the whole weight of the greater property against him -as a traitor to his order. In the attack made upon him as by his -colleagues, the actions which evoked their special denunciation were -those which embodied his agrarian policy, the use of the Court of -Requests to protect tenants, the appointment of the Royal Commission to -enforce the Acts against enclosures, the pardon granted in June 1549 to -the riotous peasants, and the statements attributed to him that "the -covetousness of the gentlemen gave cause to the common people to rise," -and that "people had good cause to reform the things themselves," -because "the lords of Parliament were loathe to incline themselves to -reformation of enclosures and other things."[667] To the last a popular -hero, the "good Duke" could expect no help from those whom he had -befriended, and no mercy from the sordid counter-revolution which he had -provoked. His epitaph was given by the sad cries of "Too true," with -which the crowd about the scaffold greeted his dying declaration that he -had "ever been glad of the furtherance ... of the commonwealth."[668] - - [665] See p. 355. - - [666] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. ii. pp. - 294-296. - - [667] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [668] Somerset's execution took place on January 22, 1552, - more than two years after he had been deposed from the - Protectorate, for supposed complicity in a plot to overthrow the - Government. The evidence for the existence of a conspiracy - appears to be feeble. See Pollard, _The Political History of - England_, 1547-1603, pp. 61-65. - -With the fall of Somerset in October 1549 the landowning classes had -their revenge, and, under the guidance of Warwick, the policy of the -Government swung violently in the opposite direction. The intervention -of the Council to protect tenants of course stopped at once; in the two -cases which are reported as having come before it in the year 1550 and -1551 the line taken was that the presumption was against the tenants who -had broken open enclosures.[669] While, in the absence of John Hales, -who appears to have found it convenient to leave the country, the -Reports of the Royal Commission were allowed to slumber, the Government, -by way of reducing opportunities for undesirable meetings, instructed -the Bishop of London to prevent unseasonable preaching in his diocese, -and set itself to establish the new agrarian regime by law. The ways in -which men seek liberty are infinite in number, but the methods of -tyranny are everywhere the same; and the nearest parallel to the -behaviour of Somerset's successors is the attitude of the panic-stricken -aristocracy of the early nineteenth century towards trade unions. Under -an Act of 1550 all meetings of the peasantry were treated as a sort of -"illegal conspiracy." Any forty of them who assembled to break down an -enclosure might be condemned as traitors. Any twelve who assembled for -the same purpose were guilty of felony, as also were those who summoned -such a meeting, or who combined to reduce rents or the price of corn. -Even the rusty legislation of the thirteenth century was revived by the -re-enactment of the Statute of Merton of 1235,[670] which permitted -lords to enclose as much as they pleased, provided that "sufficient" -remained over for the tenants, with the significant improvement that the -latter qualification was swept away by a clause declaring that -enclosures might be made "notwithstanding their gainsaying and -contradiction." The tyranny of the oligarchy which ruled from 1549 to -1553 has been obscured by the more dramatic events which preceded and -succeeded it. But it marks the bottom point in the condition of the -sixteenth century peasantry. It indicates how the new agrarian regime -will develop when the political forces impeding it are removed. More had -asked, What is Government? and had answered that it is "a certein -conspiracy of riche men procuringe theire owne commodities under the -name and title of a Common Wealth." His immortal definition does less -than justice to the cynicism of the generation which succeeded his own. -Mary executed Protestants for reasons of religion, as Elizabeth executed -Catholics for reasons of State. But Warwick, a hypocrite in religion, -was at least guiltless of the hypocrisy of sheltering his land policy -"under the name and title of the Common Wealth." It was exactly what it -seemed to be, a straightforward attempt to prevent the poor from -protesting when their possessions were taken from them by the rich. - - [669] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. iii. pp. - 181-182 and 247 and 252. "Mr. Grenewaie was this day before the - Counsaill and rebuked sore for his attemptate in causeng Raf - Lees hedges to be broaken up; nevertheless considering his long - service [as gentleman usher] he was borne withall, and for this - tyme without further punishment he was commaunded to make up - those hedges again." - - [670] 3 and 4 Edward VI. c. 3. - -The general policy of the Government during the reign of Elizabeth and -the first half of the seventeenth century shows neither the desire of -Somerset to undo the agrarian revelation, nor the complete indifference -to the interests of the poorer classes of the party which succeeded him. -During the reign of Elizabeth there was little agrarian agitation. It is -possible that the limits of profitable pasture-farming had been reached. -It is possible that the policy of encouraging the export of corn, which -had been suggested by Hales, and which was adopted in 1563 and extended -in 1571, reacted favourably on arable farming. It is possible, again, -that Warwick's measures had had their effect, and that the peasantry had -been cowed into silence. Though, on the whole, the Government maintained -the traditional attitude, it did not interfere except in circumstances -of special hardship, or when there was danger of serious disturbance. -Cases of this nature came before it fairly frequently in the reigns of -Elizabeth, Charles, and James. One finds it intervening on the ground -that the poverty of tenants makes it impossible for them to go to law, -or that the offenders concerned are so powerful as to be able to -disregard inferior authorities, or that the local authorities themselves -have been unfairly biassed, or to prevent disturbances by hearing -tenants' grievances, or to compel a great noble, like the Earl of -Shrewsbury, to reinstate tenants whom it thinks to have been wrongfully -evicted, or to stop action being taken by a landlord pending a decision -by the courts in his favour. In 1579 the Council writes to the Lord -President of Wales ordering him to take proceedings against two persons -who have been enclosing part of the Forest of Fakenham, and have -disturbed the copyholders; he is to prevent any further enclosures being -made until the whole matter has been considered by the Government.[671] -In 1581 it interferes to protect a copyholder who has been kept out of -his holding by the Dean and Chapter of Peterborough.[672] In 1586 it -directs the Cambridgeshire justices to inquire into the complaint of -some tenants who claim that a piece of common pasture has been let over -their heads, and to see that both parties to the dispute come before the -Justices of Assize.[673] The Justices of Assize in Norfolk are to take -action in the matter of a common at Kettlestone which two of the tenants -allege to have been overstocked with sheep.[674] Several letters are -addressed to the Council of the Marches of Wales ordering them to -prevent the eviction of copyholders.[675] A landlord is requested to -attend the Council and prove that his tenants' fines are uncertain, and -not, as they allege, fixed.[676] The Court of Chancery has dismissed a -case arising out of the enclosure of commons at Bath, and the Council -orders a retrial.[677] Occasionally it cites offenders into the Court of -Star Chamber,[678] and in 1592, just when the Court of Requests was -beginning to be attacked by the common lawyers, we find a case as to -fold-courses coming before the Court of Requests.[679] More often it -appoints special Commissioners to act as arbitrators, or refers -petitioners to the Justices of Assize in their county, with a request to -take local evidence and inform the Council what they advise. Throughout -the reigns of James and Charles we get glimpses of administrative -activity which show that the traditional policy was, perhaps fitfully, -maintained. In 1603 the Council of the North[680] were instructed to -make "from time to time diligent and effectual inquisition of the -wrongful taking in of commons and other grounds, and the decay of -tillage and of towns or houses of husbandry," and to correct offenders -with "some notable punishment." The rebellion in the Midlands in 1607 -produced special measures, the chief offenders being summoned before the -Council and bound over to rebuild houses which had fallen into decay, -while in the following years two Commissions were appointed to compound -with enclosers.[681] In Yorkshire the justices are evidently fairly -active in 1607 and 1608. A Richmond freeholder who owns two-thirds of -the manor is presented "for decaying five husbandries, and also for -converting 30 acres of tillage ground to meadow and pasture," and -similar presentments are made at Malton, Thirsk, and Helmsley.[682] A -Justice of Assize writes about the same time from the western counties -to the effect that twenty-six houses of husbandry have been rebuilt and -the offenders punished.[683] In 1614 the justices of Norfolk inform the -Council that in accordance with its directions they have examined the -enclosures made in the last two years, and have ordered the hedging and -ditching of lands to be stopped till further notice.[684] In the -following year one William Combe was negotiating with the corporation of -Stratford for their consent to the enclosure and conversion to pasture -of his freehold lands lying in the common fields at Welcombe; in 1615 an -order made at Warwick Assizes was confirmed by the Chief Justice -restraining him from doing so on the ground that it was "against the -laws of the realm," and in the following year a peremptory letter was -addressed to him by the Council directing his compliance.[685] In 1619 -there was a temporary reaction owing to the low price of grain, which -led to the appointment of a Commission to grant pardons for breaches of -the Acts forbidding enclosure, and in 1624 all the Statutes except the -two passed in 1597 were repealed. But this did not stop administrative -interference. In 1621 the Justices of Assize for Bedfordshire are -directed to check encroachments on a common, and in 1623 a Commission is -appointed to remove grievances arising in connection with enclosures at -Cheshunt.[686] The rise in corn prices which occurred from 1629 to 1631 -produced another burst of activity, which is to be attributed partly to -a genuine desire to protect the poorer classes, and partly to the hope -that the fines imposed upon enclosers might squeeze a few drops into the -Government's ever thirsty Exchequer. In 1630 directions were issued by -the Council to the justices of five Midland counties to remove all -enclosures made in the last two years on the ground that they led to -depopulation and were particularly harmful in time of dearth.[687] In -1632, 1635, and 1636, three Commissions were appointed, and special -instructions to enforce the Statutes against enclosure were issued to -the Justices of Assize.[688] That the inquiry was not a mere formality -is proved by the State Papers of the period. In part of the country, at -any rate, land which had been pasture was ploughed[689] up in obedience -to the Government's orders, and a list of offenders, including--the -Government must have seen his name with grim satisfaction--Lord Saye and -Sele, was returned to the Council, some of whom were still being -prosecuted in the Court of Star Chamber as late as 1639. This is the -last occasion on which we can trace the administration of this part of -the Tudor State policy. The agitation against enclosures was carried on -under the Commonwealth. The diggers under Winstanley came into -prominence for a moment, only to be disclaimed by the respectable[690] -opponents of enclosure and to be instantly suppressed by the Government, -and there was a crop of pamphlets in the years between 1650 and 1660 -which dealt with the evils of depopulation in quite the old manner. But -the traditional doctrine as to the importance of the peasantry had -decayed, and the central machinery for forcing the justices to take -action had been destroyed in 1641. The last Bill to regulate enclosures -was introduced into the House of Commons in 1656, and was rejected on -the second reading.[691] - - [671] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xi. pp. - 191-192. A letter to the Lord President of Wales that whereas - upon complaints exhibited to their lordships by the tenants of - the Forest of Fakenham against Sir John Throgmorton, and one Mr. - William Bell his stuarde, concerning an inclosure by him made of - certen commons ... encroachment upon their copieholds ... it was - by them ordered that the suite against the tenants commenced at - the Common Lawe in respect of their commons and copieholds - should surcease and the matters in controversy abyde triall - before their lordships ... and untill the matter should be heard - and determined they enjoyned to proceed no further in the - inclosure of the said Common ... forasmuch as the tenants do now - again complaine that since their lordships' said order Sir John - and the said William Bell have inclosed more of the said common - ... but hath also caused Bell to proceed against the tenants by - _ejectione firmae_ at the Common Lawe, he is therefore required - ... to will and command the said Sir John and William Bell to - forbear their inclosures of the said Common ... untill the same - shall be ... determined by their lordships according to their - lordships' form and order." - - [672] _Acts of the Privy Council_, New Series, vol. xiii. pp. - 91-92. A letter to the Justices of the County of Lincoln: "If - they thinke it agreeable with equitie and justice that the poore - man should be put in possession of the said Landes, that they - give commandment unto the said Lacy to admit him thereunto." - - [673] _Ibid._, vol. xiv. pp. 201-202. - - [674] _Ibid._, vol. xv. pp. 394-395. - - [675] See p. 373, n. 1, and _Acts of the Privy Council_, New - Series, vol. xvii. p. 76. For a similar letter to the Council of - the North, _ibid._, vol. xxvii. pp. 228-229. - - [676] _Ibid._, vol. xxii. p. 379. - - [677] _Ibid._, vol. xxii. pp. 360 and 370. Letters to the Master - of the Rolls ordering retrial of case concerning enclosure of - commons at Bath. - - [678] _Ibid_., vol. xvi. pp. 366-367. A letter to the Solicitor: - "Whereas divers poor men, tenants of the manor of Chilton, have - exhibited very grievous complaints unto their lordships against - William Darrell, Esq., of divers and sundry misdemeanors - committed by him in breach of her majestie's peace" ... the - solicitor is to "cause a byll to be drawn into the Court of Star - Chamber against Darrel," and Camden Society 1886, _Cases in the - Court of Star Chamber and High Commission_, pp. 44-45. - - [679] Holkham MSS., Sparham, Bdle. No. 5, 14th June, 34 Eliz: - "In the matter in variance brought before the Queenes Majestie - in her Maj{tie's} hon{ble} Court of Requests at the suit of John - Byrd against Christopher Saye and other defendants upon the - motion of Mr. Edward Coke recorder of the City of London being - of Councel with the said defendant.... For that it appeareth - that the said Defendant hath had three verdicts and judgments at - the Common Law, one of them against the said complainant - himself."... The defendant is awarded costs, "and the said - complainant shall from henceforth forbear to put any sheepe upon - the said ground, and suffer his sheepe to feede there." - - [680] Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional Documents_, - 1558-1625, pp. 370-371. - - [681] Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional Documents_, - 1558-1625, pp. 470-472, and Gay, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New - Series, vol. xviii. - - [682] Atkinson, _North Riding Quarter Sessions_, vol. i. pp. - 106, 108, 111, 122. The last presentment runs: "Will Marwood of - Busby, gent{n}, for decaying of xxx acres of arable land or - thereabouts, and converting of xxx acres of arable land or - thereabouts, the same, from tillage into pasture or meadow, and - tilled nothing in the same parish in lieu thereof, contrary, - etc." - - [683] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [684] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [685] Ingleby, _Shakespeare and the Welcombe Enclosures_. - - [686] _S. P. D._ J., I., vol. cxxiv., December 20, 1621, and _S. - P. D._, Ch. i. cliii., October 2, 1623. - - [687] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Society_, vol. xix. - - [688] _Ibid._ - - [689] For the ploughing up of pasture, _S. P. D._, Ch. I. vol. - cccciv. 142, and vol. cccclxxv. 72; for Lord Saye and Sele, vol. - ccclxii. 60, 1637; order of Council that the Attorney-General - should forthwith proceed by information in the Star Chamber - against Viscount Saye and Sele for depopulation and conversion - of houses and lands. - - [690] J. Moore, _A Target for Tillage_: "My purpose is not here - to plead for ... any other idle drones and wretched atheists.... - All these I acknowledge to be the greatest wasters and spoylers - of our country, worse by many degrees than any depopulators, - oppressors, and decayors of villages.... All these I know - abhorre the plough, and are enemies to the State; who yet (I - confesse) in their high talke do justify tillage and will be - ready no doubt to reforme the decay thereof with spade and - pickaxe." (The copy of this pamphlet which I have seen is dated - 1611. I have ventured to assume that this is a misprint, and - that it should be placed with John Moore's other pamphlets on - enclosure, 1653-1656.) - - [691] Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - -(c) _The Success and Failure of State Intervention_ - -It remains to ask how far the policy of trying to check the agrarian -changes, which was pursued by Governments for nearly a century and a -half, had any effect on economic practice. Statesmen were certainly -biassed in favour of protecting the weaker landholding classes. But was -their intervention simply the expression of a pious opinion? Was it so -entirely futile as--to give a modern parallel--the Small Holdings Act of -1892? Or did it to any extent modify or retard the course of economic -events? The view usually taken, that legislation was so ineffective as -to be almost negligible, is in accordance with what we know of the -character of local administration in the sixteenth century, and is -supported by much contemporary evidence. The constant introduction of -fresh proposals suggests that the previous laws were disappointing. The -failure of existing Acts was the reason given in Somerset's proclamation -for the appointment of the Commission of 1548. Hales, who is certainly -the most reliable authority on the situation between 1540 and 1550, -speaks of them as being notoriously a dead letter.[692] If one looks at -the Statutes passed against depopulation in the sixteenth century, with -a view to discovering how far they really met the situation, one will be -inclined to say that they quite failed to go to the root of the matter. -The special evil which they were intended to combat was depopulation -caused by evictions. But evictions could be checked only by giving -tenants security, which would have meant turning customary into legal -titles, and fixing judicial rents for leaseholders and immovable fines -for copyholders; in short, the sort of interference which the peasants -and their champions demanded, but on which no Government depending on -the support of the landed gentry would venture, except upon an -extraordinary emergency. In the absence of such an attempt to grapple -directly with the fundamental fact that the peasants' insecurity made -them liable to suffer whenever there was a change in the methods of -agriculture, legislation designed merely to prevent those changes was -almost certain to be evaded. Even with the best intentions the Statutes -could never have been easy to administer. There was the difficulty -inherent in the whole Tudor and Stuart policy of authoritative -interference with trade and industry, the difficulty of making State -action keep pace with economic changes. The Government is often like a -man pursuing a tram from one stopping-place to another, and just missing -it at each. It insists that land which has hitherto been in tillage -shall remain in tillage. But there are a few years of bumper harvests, -and the farmers complain that they cannot pay their way.[693] The -Government tries to get over the difficulty by allowing them to convert -arable to pasture, when a providence unversed in statecraft sends a wet -summer, and it scrambles hastily back to the position which it has just -abandoned.[694] By excepting from the operation of the Statutes certain -districts which are specially suitable for grazing, it encourages a -rough local division of labour, one part of a county confining itself to -pasture-farming and another to tillage. But then, in pursuit of its -traditional and quite reasonable policy of securing that food is cheap, -it insists that all farmers are to supply the markets with grain, with -the result that those who have specialised in corn-growing are -threatened with ruin by the fall in prices which ensues, and that it is -even questionable whether they will not convert arable to pasture to -evade the obligation imposed upon them.[695] Old enclosures were -tolerated and new forbidden. But how distinguish between old and new? -Land turned to pasture simply to restore it to a condition in which it -would be fit for tillage escaped the condemnation passed on other kinds -of "conversion," and one can imagine that nice arguments must have -arisen as to a farmer's motives. Again, suppose a man converted to -pasture land which should have remained under the plough, and then -leased it to some one else, who retained it as pasture, was the lessee -guilty of an offence? In a case which came before the Court of Exchequer -in 1582, the defendant pleaded that he merely "used" the land as -pasture, and had not converted it, while the Crown argued that use was -equivalent to conversion, that he was in the position of a man profiting -by the continuance of a nuisance, and that a fine of 10s. an acre for -each year since the original conversion ought to be imposed.[696] Points -like this give colour to Coke's complaint against the whole body of Acts -against enclosure that "they were labyrinthes, with such intricate -windings or turnings as little or no fruit proceeded from them." - - [692] Hale's defence in appendix to Miss Lamond's introduction - to _The Commonweal of this Realm of England_. - - [693] D'Ewes _Journal_, p. 674 (1601). Mr. Johnson said: "In the - time of dearth, when we made this Statute, it was not considered - that the hand of God was upon us; and now corn is cheap. If too - cheap, the husbandman is undone." See also Raleigh's speech in - the same debate. - - [694] _e.g._ in 1593 the clause in the Act of 1563 forbidding - conversion of arable to pasture was repealed. In 1595 and 1596 - bad harvests produced loud complaints of high prices, and in - 1597 conversion to pasture was again prohibited. - - [695] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907, pp. 131 ff. - - [696] Moore's _Reports_, p. 117, plea 262, Claypole's case: "Le - conseil de Reigne argue que ... l'entent de Estatute fuit que le - user sera accompt equivalent en tort al convcon." Judgment was - apparently given for the Queen. The decision was quoted as an - authority in the debate in Parliament on the Bills introduced in - 1597. _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part - VII., pp. 541-543: "And 26 Eliz. in the Exchequer, in Claypole's - case, an information was exhibited upon the Statute of 4 Hen. - VII. against a purchaser for converting of tillage into pasture, - and adjudged good, though the purchaser were not the converter, - but only a continuer of the first conversion. So as this new law - tends but for an instruction and explanation of the old." - -But, of course, the obscurity of the Statutes was the least part of the -difficulty with which Governments who wished to protect the peasantry -were confronted. Much more serious was the fact that the traditional -policy could be carried out only by disregarding the financial interests -of the wealthier classes, who could most easily influence Parliament and -the Council, and who were locally omnipotent. In the first half of the -sixteenth century the high position of many of those who were most -deeply implicated in cutting land free from communal restrictions made -them almost unassailable. The Royal Commission of 1517 returned among -enclosers the names of the Duke of Norfolk, the Earl of Shrewsbury, the -Duke of Buckingham, Lord Danbury, Sir William Bolen, Sir R. Sheffield, -the Speaker of the House of Commons, Sir J. Witte, the Under-Treasurers -of State, and Sir J. Cotton, who was himself one of the -Commissioners.[697] The angry unanimity with which Somerset's colleague -turned against his land policy was not wonderful, for they were nearly -all directly interested in the maintenance of the _status quo_. Warwick, -who led the _coup d'etat_, had enclosed on a large scale. Sir William -Herbert had made extensive enclosures on the lands which he had acquired -from the Abbey of Wilton. The St. John family, the Darcy family, the -Earl of Westmoreland, had all local troubles with their tenants; and -there are some indications that Sir William Paget and the detested and -detestable Lord Rich were in the same position.[698] - - [697] Leadam, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New Series, vol. vi. - - [698] For Warwick, Herbert, and the St. Johns, see pp. 326, 368, - and 362. For Darcy and disturbances in Westmoreland, Gairdner, - _L. and P. Henry VIII._, xii. II., xii. I., 319, xi. 1080. For - Paget and Rich, Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - -It is not, however, material to trace the records of individual members -of the Council, because their interest in checking the interference of -the State with the free disposal of land is evident from the fact that -many of them enormously increased their estates through the share which -they obtained in the property confiscated from the religious houses and -the gilds. A comparison of the lists of Privy Councillors for 1548 and -1552, published by Strype,[699] with Dr. Savine's[700] valuable analysis -of the grantees of the monastic estates, show that out of thirty-one -persons who got grants of land of L200 a year or more fourteen were -members of the Privy Council in one or other of those years, exclusive -of the Earl of Warwick and Sir William Herbert. This fact is by itself -almost sufficient to explain the impossibility of enforcing the laws -forbidding depopulation during the years which followed the death of -Henry VIII., and the despair of legal protection which seems to have -settled upon the classes affected by the movement. The view sometimes -expressed that the religious houses had been easier landlords than the -lay owners into whose hands their estates passed, though it can -occasionally be corroborated from the complaints made by tenants to the -Government, scarcely seems, as yet, to be satisfactorily proved. But the -distribution among the wealthier classes of land producing a net income -of not less than L110,000 gave them an enormous vested interest in -preventing and evading legislation to check the most profitable use of -the new possessions which were to endow the aristocracy of the future. -The supposition of peculiar harshness in the owners to whom the land -passed, though probably correct, is really not needed to explain the -part which the transference of these vast quantities of land had in -augmenting the distress of the rural classes. The worst side of all such -great and sudden redistributions of property is that the individual is -more or less at the mercy of the market, and can hardly help taking his -pound of flesh. A buyer must sell at a profit, or he had much better not -have bought. During the decade between 1540 and 1550 there was a furor -of land speculation. To the Abbey lands, which came into the market -after 1536, were added those of the gilds and chantries in 1547. It is -quite clear that some of the grantees of estates did not acquire them -with the intention of retaining them, but simply "bought for the rise." -The lands of the Abbey of Whitby, for example, pass first to the Crown, -and are then sold by it to the Duke of Northumberland, who in turn sells -them to Sir John Yorke.[701] A small official in the Royal household -buys the Cistercian nunnery at Brewood, and at once puts it up to sale -"for suche a price that no man will gladly by hit at hys hand."[702] -Trentham is surrendered to the Crown in 1536; in 1540 the Duke of -Suffolk obtains a grant of the rents and reversions reserved upon the -Crown leases there, and in the same year sells it to one Leveson, who -has already acquired lands belonging to Horlton Abbey, and already sold -them again to Biddulph.[703] One finds even the champion of the tenants, -Somerset himself, getting a grant of land from the Crown on July 1st, -leasing part of it for eighty years on July 2nd, and transferring it -back to the Crown, subject to the lease, on July 9th.[704] When property -changed hands three times in the course of ten days, it could hardly -fail to be rack-rented, or the transaction would not pay. What happened -to the tenants? Here and there, as at Whitby and Washerne,[705] a bitter -outburst against their new masters shows that the result has been what -we should expect. But for the rest, a cloud descends and we cannot say. -It is only in such occasional glimpses that we catch the solid earth -shifting beneath the feet of those who till it. It was such a glimpse -which led the last great English peasant, in a time of even more -widespread misery, to say that the wretchedness of the landless labourer -was the work of the Reformation. Cobbett, and those who follow Cobbett -in representing the economic evils of the sixteenth century as the fruit -of the religious changes, err in linking as parent and child movements -which were rather brother and sister, twin aspects of the individualism -which seems inseparable from any swift increase in riches. Their vision -of a time when mild ecclesiastics administered their estates as a -popular trust lays a spell upon the imagination. In the religious houses -of Lancashire and Yorkshire and Northumberland there may, here and -there, even on the eve of the dissolution, have been a reality -corresponding to it. But we need hardly go further than Sir Thomas -More[706] to learn that for parts, at least, of England it is only a -vision; and More does not speak without book. Holy men enclose land, -convert arable to pasture, claim villeins, turn copyholds into tenancies -at will. If prominent ecclesiastics had really wanted to champion the -cause of the peasantry, they had an excellent opportunity when Wolsey -sent out the first great Commission into enclosures in 1517. But, in -fact, there is no reason to suppose that any protest was made at all -comparable to that which came thirty-two years later from Latimer. How -could there be? The estates of the larger houses were often scattered -over several different counties, and before the dissolution they were -quite frequently managed by laymen. In such cases the monks were simply -rentiers,[707] who needed to know no more about their tenants than the -fellows of an Oxford college know about theirs at the present day. - - [699] Strype, _Ecclesiastical Memorials_. - - [700] Fisher, _The Political History of England_, 1485-1547, - Appendix II. - - [701] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_ - (Leadam). - - [702] Hibbert, _The Dissolution of the Monasteries_, pp. - 209-210. - - [703] _Ibid._, p. 210. - - [704] _Hist. MSS. Com._, C.D. 3218, pp. 322-323 (MSS. of Earl of - Leicester at Holkham Hall). - - [705] For Whitby and Washerne, see pp. 285 and 194. In 1545 the - tenants of the manor of Egglesdon, formerly the property of the - monastery of Sion, proceed against Palmer, the grantee, in the - Court of Star Chamber for evicting tenants and other oppressions - (Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696). - - [706] More, _Utopia_, p. 31 (Pitt Press edition): "Noblemen and - gentlemen, yea, and certain abbotts, holy men no doubt ... leave - no ground for tillage, they enclose all to pasture." For a case - of claiming a bondman, see Selden Society, _Select Cases in the - Court of Star Chamber_, Carter _v._ The Abbot of Malmesbury. For - conversion of copyholds to tenancies at will, Selden Society, - _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, Kent and other - inhabitants of Abbot's Ripton _v._ St. John. The change was - alleged to have been made in 1471. - - [707] The opposite view is expressed by Gasquet, _Henry the - Eighth and the English Monasteries_, chap. xxii. For a criticism - of it see Savine, _Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, - vol. i. pp. 263-267, and pp. 245-260 for facts as to lay - administrators. Hibbert, _op. cit._, pp. 210-211, who writes of - Staffordshire, supports Savine rather than Gasquet. The evidence - of Aske cannot be quoted as though what was true of the northern - houses were true of all. As a matter of fact, lay estates - preserved the old conditions in the north long after the - dissolution (see pp. 189-191). The hatred of the new landlords - is proof that they were specially detestable, rather than that - the monasteries had been above all ordinary economic - considerations. - -Nevertheless, though facts will not allow us to accept the view which -ascribes the agrarian distress of our period to the Reformation, or even -to the particular changes brought about by the secularisation of -religious endowments, there was a real connection between them. The -Reformation in England is as much a social as a religious revolution. As -a social revolution it is the work of the commercial and middle classes. -It "made of yeomen and artificers gentlemen, and of gentlemen knights, -and so forth upward, and of the poorest sort stark beggars."[708] Their -support is given, in the main, on strict business principles. It is -purchased by ensuring that every one who counts shall have a solid -material interest in supporting the new order. The great Elizabethan -families, the Cecils, the Herberts, the Grenvilles, are well paid in -advance for their services, and continue to be paid long after their -services have ceased. The dissolution of the monasteries does for their -plastic consciences what the foundation of the Bank of England did for -the politics of the City Interest under William III. Having invested in -the Reformation at a time when the Reformation is a gambling stock, -they nurse the security with a solicitude which title-deeds have done -more to inspire than the New Testament, and are zealous to lay up for -themselves treasures in Heaven, as the best insurance for the treasures -which they have already accumulated on earth. A man who looks from the -window of his new mansion on the timber in his new park may well think -it worth the sacrifice of many masses. Though the economic effect of -endowing our landed gentry is not reducible to figures, it is not rash -to say that men who have sprung into wealth by suddenly purchasing new -estates will make those estates pay. And this means that ultimately the -cost will be borne by their tenants. That the new proprietors will be -extraordinarily sensitive to attacks on the rights of property goes -without saying. The lectures[709] delivered to the peasants by the -_nouveaux riches_ of 1549 on the wickedness of agrarian spoliation have -an irony which is eternal. - - [708] Quoted by Gasquet, _op. cit._, p. 464, from a document - written about 1591. - - [709] _e.g._ Paget's letter to Somerset, July 7, 1549 (Strype, - _Ecclesiastical Memorials_). Neville, De furoribus Norfolcensium - Ketto Duce, 1575. The words put into the mouths of the landed - gentry by Crowley in _The Way to Wealth_ (E. E. T. S.) no doubt - represent their attitude fairly: "Nowe if I should demand of the - gredie cormoraunts what they thinke should be the cause of - sedition, they would saie, 'The paisent knaves be too welthy, - provender pricketh them. They knowe no obedience, they regard no - lawes, they would have no gentlemen, they would have all men - like themselves, they would have all things commune. They would - not have us master of that which is our owne. They will appoint - us what rent we shall take for our grounds.... They will caste - down our parkes and lay our pastures open.... They wyll compel - the Kyng to graunt theyr requests.... We wyll tech them to know - theyr betters, and because they would have all in common we will - leave them nothing.'" - -Apart from the special interest which the purchasers of the estates of -monastic and gild estates had in keeping a completely free hand over -their disposal, the normal organisation of English local government made -effective State interference very difficult. As has often been pointed -out, its peculiar strength lay in the success with which it made the -ordinary relationships between social classes the machinery for -executing the mandates of the State, by entrusting administration, not -to officials of the Central Government, but to persons who already -possessed local authority, and who were confirmed in it, rather than -given it, by the Crown. Such a system was favourable to the development -of representative government and of political freedom, because it -strengthened instead of repressing the local initiative on which the -success of representative government ultimately depends. But the very -absence of bureaucracy had the disadvantage that it made it almost -impossible to enforce the regular administration of the law, whenever it -conflicted with the local interests of classes who sat on the county -bench. A not unimportant chapter in English history is contained in the -complaint of the Norfolk rebels that the legislation of the last fifty -years had been "hidden" from them by the Justices of the Peace. The -account of the proceedings of the Commission of 1548, which had to drag -information out of juries packed with the employees of enclosing -landlords, and from witnesses who gave it under threat of -eviction--above all, the pained amazement of a great landowner who found -that the Commission declined to accept evidence from his servants as -unbiassed--is a specimen so typical, that, if it were found in -isolation, we could hardly fail to fit it back into its English -context.[710] Hales, the one statesman whom the agrarian problem -produced, put his finger on the root of the difficulty in the third Bill -which he introduced into Parliament in 1548. The substance of its -proposals, though sufficiently rigorous to modern notions, was not in -itself more drastic than others which actually became law. Its novelty -lay in the machinery by which it was to be enforced. Surveys of pastures -were to be made annually by the curate and two men of every parish, and -those breaking the law were to be presented for trial. In other words, -the initiative in returning offences was to be taken by those chiefly -interested in preventing them. According to Hales, it was the last -provision for making the administration of the Statute a reality which -Parliament found intolerable.[711] - - [710] Appendix to Introduction to _The Commonweal of this Realm - of England_ (Lamond), p. lix. - - [711] _Ibid._, p. lxv.: "This was it that byt the mare by the - thombe." - -Must we, then, dismiss the efforts of the Tudor and Stuart statesmen to -soften the harshness of the agrarian revolution as a mere piece of -solemn futility? The simplicity of the solution makes it a tempting one; -but it is too simple to be true. In the first place we must notice that -our literary evidence is one-sided, because it is fullest for just those -years during which an exceptional freedom from restraint was enjoyed by -the great landlords. It is inevitable that Latimer and Hales should -often be quoted. But one cannot argue from comments on the uselessness -of legislation, uttered at a time when the Statutes against enclosing -were virtually repealed, to show that the law was equally ineffective -under Elizabeth and her two successors. And, in the second place, to -hold that the frequent intervention of the Council had no result is -really an unjustifiably high-handed proceeding. It runs counter to most -of what we know of the administration of the period. A Statute might be -a dead letter, but a letter from the Council was meant to be obeyed. By -1552 the Government has discovered the uselessness of relying for the -enforcement of the law on the intervention of superior lords, and places -its administration in the hands of special Commissioners directly -responsible to the Central Government. Such a view runs counter to the -opinion of the peasants and of the upper classes. The victims of -agrarian oppression recognise that though they have little to hope from -the local authorities, who are their landlords and employers, the -Government's policy is on the whole favourable to them, and they deluge -it with appeals for protection. The justices are naturally no friends to -that policy. But in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries they are by -no means the independent autocracy which they became later, and are -watched closely by the Privy Council. From Norfolk, Nottinghamshire, -Lincolnshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and the west of England, they -send returns to the Government of their action,[712] and the Government -is quite ready, as we have seen, to revise the action of its delegates -when it thinks they have been biassed by personal interests. In -Yorkshire the juries of several townships present offenders before the -justices. The authorities of Southampton[713] take steps to put the Acts -against enclosure into force. The authorities of Norfolk[714] request -that they may enjoy the exemption which has been granted them. When in -1597, a year in which legislation against enclosures is in the air, the -Earl of Huntingdon asks the burgesses of Leicester to return his nominee -to Parliament, they refuse bluntly to do anything of the kind, on the -ground that the candidate in question is "an encloser himself and -therefore unlikely to redress that wrong in others."[715] The courts -hear a large number of cases dealing with offences committed under the -enclosing Statutes.[716] Individuals obtain special permission, either -by royal license or by Act of Parliament, to use as pasture land which, -like undrained marshes, is obviously unsuitable for ploughing. No one -who is reported as having taken part in the Parliamentary discussions of -proposed legislation in the closing years of Elizabeth suggests that it -must necessarily be a dead letter. The chief fear that seems to have -been felt was lest it should prove too effective. In introducing two -Bills against enclosure and depopulation in 1597, Bacon apologised to -the great landlords for taking action which was likely to prejudice -their interests. When the question of continuing the Act against -depopulation, which was in force in 1601, was under consideration in the -House of Commons, both the members who argued for continuance and those -who argued for repeal, assumed that the law was being administered in -practice, one speaker urging that it had the result of keeping so much -land in tillage as to destroy the farmer's profits by causing excessive -supplies of grain to be placed on the market in any but the worst years; -another that it pressed hardly on the small farmer, who could not easily -find the capital needed to sow as much land as he was legally bound to -plough.[717] The ablest and most fully reported speech[718] which has -come down to us is that of an anonymous member, who, while approving of -the principle of the Bill, attacked it as too loosely drafted to meet -the situation. His criticisms are those of a man who understands his -subject, and are on just those points of detail which, though important -in a measure which is to work, would not be worth considering at all if -anything like effective interference were out of the question. After -commending the clauses which excepted from the provisions of the Bill -land lying temporarily fallow, and which punished the purchasers as well -as the original converter of arable which was turned into pasture, he -goes on to point out that loopholes have been left in the measure which -are likely to stultify its effect. The exemption of Crown lands from its -operation will encourage enclosing landlords to exchange properties with -the Crown, and then take on lease as tenants the land which they have -handed over, since by doing so, they will escape the risk of -prosecution. The persistent lobbying of the interests affected--"the -ears of our great sheepmasters do hang at the doors of this house"--has -resulted in the fine for enclosing being placed as low as 10s. per acre, -which is ridiculously disproportionate to the profits to be made by -enclosures. The clause excluding from the reconversion prescribed in the -Bill lands mown for hay plays into the hands of the enclosers by -facilitating the winter feeding of their sheep. The failure to limit the -acreage which a man may keep in his own hands will discourage the -creation of small holdings. At a later date there is the same belief, -both among those who approve, and among those who dislike, enclosure, -that enclosing can be checked, at any rate, by the Government. In the -keen controversy over enclosures which raged under the commonwealth the -opponents of further restriction urged that the mere threat of -legislation had resulted in checking agricultural enterprise.[719] -Harrington,[720] a specialist, not to say a faddist, on agrarian -policy, bases his interpretation of the history of the preceding century -on the supposed success of the Tudors in keeping the small cultivator on -the soil. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, when the golden -age of the enclosing landlord was just about to dawn, some dim memory of -the earlier State policy seems in parts of England to have survived. -"Why," asked a foreign traveller,[721] "do your farmers not keep -separate closes under turnips to feed sheep in the new approved manner?" -"Partly," answer the peasants, "because there is a common rotation of -crops which all must follow. But the principal reason of all is that on -a common land no one has freedom to enclose his strips without a special -permission and Act of Parliament." - - [712] For Norfolk and the West of England, Leonard, _Trans. - Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. For Nottinghamshire, Lincolnshire - and Derbyshire, _S. P. D._, Ch. I. vol. clxxxv. No. 86, and vol. - ccvi. No. 71 (quoted in Appendix I.), and vol. clxxxv. No. 41. - For Leicestershire, Privy Council Register, vi. 385, and Gonner, - _Common Land and Enclosure_, p. 165. For Yorkshire, see pp. - 374-375. Professor Gonner (_op. cit._, p. 167) estimates that - about six hundred persons were fined, the sums obtained from - thirteen counties amounting to about L46,800. - - [713] Hearnshaw, _Southampton Court Leet Records_, 1550. - Presentment of "the names of the Commoners which require redress - of the Commons inclosed, as they saye, contrary to the King's - Majesty's statutes, and that they may be laid abroad according - to the said statutes." - - [714] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907, p. 185. - - [715] Bateson, _Records of the Borough of Leicester_, 1509-1603, - pp. 300-301. - - [716] Gay, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_, vol. xvii. - - [717] For the debates of 1597 and 1601 see _D'Ewes' Journal_, - pp. 551 and 674 ff.: a special exemption from the operations of - the Act was allowed to a landlord who had got letters patent - authorising him to enclose 340 acres "too moist and soft and - altogether unfit for tillage." - - [718] _Hist. MSS. Com._, MSS. of Marquis of Salisbury, Part. - VII., pp. 541-543. - - [719] Pseudonismus, _A Vindication of the Considerations - concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_, 1656: "The Statute of - Tillage hath excited some and affrighted others that the land in - each field is not and cannot be husbanded as it ought." The - "Statute" alluded to is the Bill introduced in this year which - did not become law. - - [720] Harrington's Works (1700 edition), pp. 388-389. - - [721] _Kalm's Account of his Visit to England on his Way to - America in 1748_, translated by Joseph Lucas, p. 282. I am - indebted for this reference to Dr. Gilbert Slater. The exact - words are: "Nor had they any turnip land to feed sheep upon. - Therefore they were deprived of the advantage of getting to sell - any fat sheep or other cattle. The reason they gave for all this - was that their arable was common field, and thus came to lie - every other year fallow, when one commoner always had to - accommodate his crops to the others; but the principal reason of - all was said to be that," and so on as in text. I am not sure - that I have interpreted the passage rightly in assuming that it - alludes to the _illegality_ of enclosure without Act of - Parliament. It may merely mean that, without an Act of - Parliament, the necessary agreement could not be obtained among - all those interested. I follow Dr. Slater's interpretation. - -What weight is to be attached to this body of opinion that enclosure and -conversion to pasture were in practice checked by the opposition of the -Government, it is not easy to say. If it is hardly compatible with the -view that interference was entirely ineffective, it nevertheless need -not imply anything more than a temporary retardation of the movement on -those special occasions and in those particular parts of the country -that were the object of peculiar attention. The test of comparison with -facts by which one would like to try it is difficult to apply. Our -knowledge of the real extent of enclosure in the sixteenth century is -too scanty to permit of our following with confidence the line of -argument which has been ingeniously worked out by Miss Leonard,[722] and -which, starting from the indisputable fact that in those Midland -counties where enclosure had been felt most acutely in the sixteenth -century, there was still much land unenclosed in the seventeenth and -eighteenth, suggests that the explanation is to be found in its -temporary cessation under the authoritative pressure of the Tudor and -Stuart Governments. Nevertheless, without going beyond our evidence, we -may venture to put forward two propositions. The first is that it is -extremely improbable that the anti-enclosing policy which we have traced -succeeded in altering permanently or on a large scale the course of -economic development. That suggestion is surely incredible in view of -the continuance of the complaints against enclosure, and of what we know -of the slack and biassed routine of rural administration. To expect the -justices to stop enclosing, unless actually compelled to do so, was -almost as Utopian as it was to expect them to administer the early -Factory Acts two centuries later. The second is that the intervention of -the Government certainly mitigated the hardships of the movement to the -rural classes. The protection which the Court of Star Chamber and the -Court of Requests offered to the equitable interests of tenants, while -it could not turn the general course of events, tempered its harshness -to individuals. A landlord who was determined to depopulate could hardly -in the long run be prevented from succeeding in his object. But he might -have to wait till leases or life tenancies had expired, instead of being -able to clear his estate at one sweep. He might be compelled, as the St. -Johns[723] were in the reign of Henry VIII., as Sir John Yorke in 1553, -or Lloyd under Elizabeth, to bind himself to respect the titles of the -existing generation of tenants. In the same way the occasional campaigns -undertaken for the reconversion of pasture to arable, while they could -not turn the tide, almost certainly slackened its course. There is no -way of escaping from the positive evidence which we possess that in -parts of the country houses which had been pulled down were rebuilt, and -that land which had been turned from arable to pasture was turned back -again, at the command of the Government, from pasture to arable. We have -already described the doings of the justices under James I. Look for a -moment at the similar agitation which was started in 1630. The agrarian -policy of the Council is seen at its worst under Charles I., because the -whole of it is smeared with the trail of finance. Some of the offenders -were allowed to compound upon payment of a fine, and one's first -inclination is to believe that the Commissions of 1632, 1635, and 1636 -were nothing but one of those odious financial engines, like the revival -of forest claims and the exaction of fines for knighthood, by which -Charles tried to dispense with Parliamentary taxation. That they were -this among other things is certain. That they were nothing more than -this must be denied, for we have clear evidence from enclosers -themselves to the contrary. They do not only, like Lord Brudenell, write -to the Council begging that their fines may be reduced from L1000 to -L500, and explaining that "the enclosures made within man's memory -amount not to the decay of one farm."[724] They are not only haled -before the Star Chamber to be rebuked by Laud.[725] They beg to be -allowed to pay a fine instead of being imprisoned. They reconvert -pasture to arable. In Northamptonshire[726] a man turns thirty-five -acres of arable into pasture. But he ploughs up ninety-five acres of -ancient pasture to set off against it. From Nottinghamshire[727] comes a -letter explaining that the petitioner has complied with the orders of -the Commissioners of Depopulation to throw open all his enclosures, and -apologising humbly for keeping hedges round three acres on the ground -that they are necessary to mark the boundaries. - - [722] _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, vol. xix. - - [723] For the St. Johns, see pp. 362 and 380. For Sir John - Yorke, pp. 285 and 381, and Selden Society, _Court of Requests_, - Inhabitants of Whitby _v._ Yorke, 1553: "Be yt remembred that - the cause brought before the Queen's Counsaill in her Majestie's - Court of Requests.... Ys now ordered by the saide Councill by - thagreement of the saide Syr John who hathe promised that the - saide parties aforenamed, and every one of them, shall have and - quietly eujoye theyr tenements and holdings during the yeres and - termes in theyr leases and copies yet enduring, paying theyr - Rentes and ffermes accustomed." For Lloyd and the tenants of - Hewlington in Denbighshire, see pp. 302-303. - - [724] _S. P. D._, Ch. I., cccxlii., No. 47. - - [725] _Ibid._, cccxiv., No. 29, and Appendix I., No. VIII. - - [726] _Ibid._, cccclxxv., No. 72. - - [727] _Ibid._, cccciv., No. 142. - -On the whole one is inclined to regard the Government's intervention in -this matter as resembling in its effects the attempts which were made at -the same time to fix prices and wages. It retarded, though it could not -check altogether, economic changes. It imposed a brake which somewhat -eased the shock of sudden movements. But when the hand of authority was -removed, when Commissions were called in and justices ceased to be -admonished by the Council, affairs swung back into their original -position. A rough attempt to illustrate the occasional retardation of -pasture-farming by these spasmodic attacks upon it is given in the -diagram opposite. - -The figures are taken from a list of Final Concords as to land lying -mainly in Staffordshire, but occasionally in other counties as well. The -period selected is one in which there were two agitations among the -peasants, two important Acts against depopulation, and a Royal -Commission. It will be seen that while some of the fluctuations in the -percentages of arable and pasture bear no relation to any known activity -on the part of the Government, the repeal in 1593 of the Acts for the -maintenance of tillage comes as a climax to a well-defined increase in -the percentage of pasture, the passage of the two Acts of 1599 is -followed by a similar though less marked rise in the percentage of -arable, and the riots of 1607, which resulted in the appointment of a -Royal Commission, appear to be accompanied by another increase in the -area under the plough. Of course the acreage represented is absurdly -small, and it is possible that the apparent correlation is a mere -coincidence. Still, one is inclined to think that the fluctuations on -the chart fit in very well with what we know from other sources of the -temporary effect and subsequent ineffectiveness of these transient -eruptions of governmental activity. The creation of social habits by -continuous pressure, such as is exercised by modern states through their -paid inspectorates, is quite foreign to the ideas of the age. The -Government, when it is most active, never gets beyond making an example -of a few notorious offenders whose sins are sufficiently black to bring -in good round sums to the Exchequer, and having vindicated the majesty -of the law and pocketed their fines, it leaves the small fry to wonder, -and hastily set their house in order against the coming of the Judges of -Assize, and then gradually to slide back into the ancient ways when the -storm has blown over. After all, the fact that A was punished for -enclosing last year is in itself sufficient to make it extremely -probable that this year B will escape. - -[Illustration: _The figures for 1592-3 and 1593-4 have been combined, as -the latter are too small to be given separately._] - -Such "occasional conformity" was, however, too much the rule in all -economic matters that were the object of authoritative regulation--and -few were not--to be by itself any cause for abandoning it. The real -reason for the cessation of interference in the land question which we -notice after 1640 is to be found, not in the fact that intervention had -invariably proved too ineffective to be worth continuing, but in the -change of policy caused by the unchecked domination of Parliament in -domestic affairs. The victory of the Parliamentary forces over the Crown -meant the triumph of the landed gentry over the only power which was -strong enough to enforce the administration of unpopular Statutes in the -teeth of their opposition. It prepared the way for the reign of the -great landlord who regards himself as charged with a peculiar -responsibility for promoting the needs of agriculture, which he alone is -presumed to understand--and in fact, to do him justice, does sometimes -understand very thoroughly--a weary Titan who pushes forward enclosure -from a sheer sense of public duty. On the one hand there is a change in -the standpoint from which agrarian policy is regarded. The aim of -maintaining a prosperous peasantry becomes subordinate to that of -obtaining the maximum output from the soil. This change materially -affects the attitude adopted towards enclosure. The Tudor Governments -had endeavoured to protect the rights of commoners, because commons were -an indispensable adjunct to small-scale subsistence farming. The new -view is that commons are waste lands which had much better be improved, -and which are most likely to be improved if they pass into the control -of men who have capital to spend upon them. Even under the Stuarts this -doctrine begins to gather weight, and naturally so, for it both -flattered their ambitious conception of the monarchy as a cornucopia -whence all economic improvements should flow, and was in line with their -general policy of trying to secure cheap food by regulating the supplies -of grain. In 1623 Commissioners are busy improving Tiptree Heath, which -squatters have occupied without any legal title.[728] In 1637 the King -is approached by an influential syndicate which asks for a concession -permitting it to reclaim the heaths and barren commons belonging to -the Crown, and which displays a glowing prospectus of the advantages -which will accrue in the shape of increased supplies of -food-stuffs.[729] In 1629 the Commission of Sewers had engaged Vermuyden -on his celebrated task of draining the great Level, and, in spite of the -fierce opposition of the fenmen, the work was in 1637 adjudged to be -completed.[730] All this is quite in the vein of the eighteenth century. -It is quite in that vein also for a strong line to be taken against the -wastefulness of those who impede good farming, even though the farmer be -a grazier, by sowing a few acres here and a few acres there, instead of -cultivating a compact holding; in short, by the immemorial system of -strip cultivation. The last but one of the Statutes against -depopulation[731] was itself the first expressly to authorise that -exchanging of holdings for the purposes of more business-like husbandry, -which, as we have seen, had been going on informally from an early date. -In 1606 we get what may be called the first Enclosure Act of the modern -pattern, under which certain Herefordshire parishes are allowed to -separate and enclose one-third of the land lying in common in each -parish.[732] In 1627 a case arising out of a dispute about fold-courses -comes before the courts, and sound agricultural doctrine is laid down -with a confidence of which Arthur Young himself might have approved. -"This Court," say the judges, "was now of opinion that the plowing and -sowing of small quantities of land dispersedlye or disorderlye within ye -shacks and winter feedinge of ye said ffouldcourses, and the refusal of -a few wilfull persons to lett ye owners of ffouldcourses have their -quillets of land (Llying intermixt in the places where ye sheep pasture -is layd) upon indifferent exchange or other recompense for the same, are -things very mischievous and will tend to ye overthrow of very many fould -courses."[733] Their opinion is enforced with a judgment decreeing an -exchange of lands. - - [728] _S. P. D._, Ch. I., cl., No. 7. - - [729] _S. P. D._, ccclxi., No. 15: "There are many thousand - acres of heath and barren commons in England and Wales, not - annually worth 6d. an acre, to which your Majesty has right of - soil but no benefit thereby, which may be improved to a great - value, cause plenty of provision, enrich many thousands, supply - the poor." - - [730] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce_, - Modern Times, Part I., pp. 112-119. - - [731] 39 Eliz., c. 2. - - [732] 4 James I., c. 11. - - [733] _Original Papers of the Norfolk and Norwich Archaeological - Society_, 1907, pp. 70-73. - -When the whole question comes up again towards the close of the -Commonwealth, the old attitude is maintained by the opponents of -enclosure, who protest, with all the fervour of Latimer, against the -greed of landlords and the pauperising of commoners. But its defenders -have overhauled their arguments, and the lines on which the controversy -will be fought out for the next century and a half are already obvious. -In the eyes of the austere moralists of the Restoration commoners are -lewd people, who would be much better employed if at work for wages. All -beneath the "nobility and gentry" are "the poor," and the poor -themselves (it is well known) are of two kinds, "the industrious poor," -who make a living by working for their betters, and "the idle poor," who -make a living by working for themselves. Christianity and patriotism -require that the latter should enter some "productive employment," and -this can best be secured by excluding them from the commons on which -their distressingly irregular livelihood depends. Even so Europeans -to-day teach habits of industry to the African savage, by taxing him -until he can no longer live upon the lands which Europeans desire to -exploit. Moreover, the commercial spirit of the later seventeenth -century is impatient of antiquated restrictions, and is already groping -blindly after some formula which may prove them to be superfluous. -Enclosures will increase the output of wool and grain. Each man knows -best what his land is best suited to produce, and the general interest -will be best served by leaving him a free hand to produce it. "It is an -undeniable maxim," writes a pamphleteer, "that every one by the light of -nature and reason will do that which makes for his greatest advantage. -Whensoever corn bear a considerable rate, viz., wheat four or five -shillings, and barley two shillings and sixpence, men may make more -profit by ploughing their pasture, and consequently will plough for -their own advantage."[734] Hales had said something like this a hundred -years before. He had said it to show the need of special measures to -divert agricultural enterprise into beneficial channels. Now an -identity between the interests of landowners and those of the public is -assumed as part of a pre-established harmony, which human intervention -may disturb, but which it is neither needed nor competent to secure. -Authoritative statecraft fades out in the dawn of reason and the light -of nature. With such a wind of doctrine in their sails men are steering -for uncharted waters. - - [734] Lee, _A Vindication of a Regulated Enclosure_, 1656. - -While opinion on the subject of enclosing was beginning to change even -before the Civil War, the final blow at the maintenance of the old -policy was struck by the destruction of the Court of Requests and Court -of Star Chamber. The abandonment by Governments of all attempts to -protect the peasantry against oppression was an indirect consequence of -the victory of the Common Law over the prerogative jurisdiction of the -Crown. The interference in agrarian matters of the administrative courts -of the Tudor monarchy had always been detested by the landed gentry for -the very reasons which made it popular with the peasantry. They were the -last resort of men who could not get what they considered justice -elsewhere. One finds a defendant in whose favour the Common Law Courts -have given three decisions being sued again before the Court of -Requests.[735] They were the only authority which could prevent a -landlord from asserting his claims to a common or to a copyhold by means -which the poorer classes found it impossible to resist. Complaints from -aggrieved landowners that they are undermining the right of the lord of -the manor to exercise jurisdiction over his own copyholders, by trying -cases which ought to be heard in manorial courts, that they are -interfering with the course of Common Law, that they make it impossible -for a lord to "rule his lands" by the countenance which they lend to -discontent, are not infrequent[736] in the sixteenth century, and both -Wolsey and Somerset were in turn attacked by the upper classes for the -favour which they showed to such unconstitutional interference with -the rights of property. Such protests are the best proof that the -Court of Requests and the Court of Star Chamber had exercised functions -which were in some respects beneficial. The strictest constitutionalist -will have some sympathy to spare for the address in which Lord Coventry -in 1635 charges the Judges of Assize to "beware of the corruptions of -sheriffs and their deputies, partiality of jurors, the bearing and -siding with men of power and countenance in their country," and to set -on foot "strict inquiry after depopulation and enclosures, an oppression -of a high nature and commonly done by the greatest persons that keep the -juries under their awe, which was the cause there are no more presented -and brought in question."[737] Such words paint the ideal of Government -by prerogative, _parcere subjectis et debellare superbos_, which may -have floated before the minds of a Bacon or a Strafford, and which had -been partially realised under the Government of Elizabeth. When set side -by side with the actual practice of the Council under Charles I. they -are its final and self-recorded condemnation. For we look for them to be -made good in action, and we look, save during a few years, in vain. If -much may be forgiven those who boldly do wrong believing it to be right, -there is no mercy for "the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin" of a body -which, believing a certain system of government to be right, entangles -its execution with sloth, and makes a sordid financial instrument out of -the very prerogative which itself has declared to be the gift of God for -the protection of the poor. The defence which the Council and its -courts had offered to the peasantry against economic evils, though real, -was too irregular to do more than slightly mitigate the verdict which -history has passed upon their employment in the hands of Charles I. -Whether the peasants regretted their disappearance we do not know. To -those contemporaries whose opinion counted, the occasional onslaughts -made by the Council and Star Chamber upon enclosing landlords were an -aggravation, not an extenuation, of the indictment brought against them. -Though the Grand Remonstrance, in which the Long Parliament sought to -unite all classes with a recital of grievance accumulated upon -grievance, taunted the Government with its failure to check the -conversion of arable land to pasture,[738] the authors of that -tremendous indictment had no substitute to suggest for the interference -by the Council with "freeholds, estates, suits, and actions," which they -denounced; and Laud, who, according to even a friendly critic, "did a -little too much countenance the Commission for Depopulation,"[739] lived -to be reminded in the day of his ruin of the sharp words with which he -had barbed the fine imposed by that body upon an enclosing -landlord.[740] The Court of Requests was never formally abolished, but -from the closing decade of the sixteenth century it had been gradually -stripped of its powers by prohibitions issued by the Common Law Judges, -and forbidding plaintiffs to proceed with their cases before it, and -after 1642 it quietly disappeared. With the destruction in 1641 of the -Court of Star Chamber and the Councils of Wales and of the North, an end -was put to the last administrative organs which could bridle the great -landed proprietors. Clarendon, himself a relic of an age before the -deluge, would seem to have added to his other offences by trying to -revive the old policy in a world which would have none of it.[741] But -the royalist squirearchy who in 1660 streamed back to their plundered -manors, were, when their property was at stake, as sound -constitutionalists as Hampden himself, and after 1688 that absorption of -the "State" by "Society" which Gneist, a worshipper of the eighteenth -century regime, dates with curious perversity from 1832, was, in his -sense of the words, complete. Henceforward there was to be no obstacle -to enclosure, to evictions, to rack-renting, other than the shadowy -protection of the Common Law; and for men who were very poor or easily -intimidated, or in enjoyment of rights for which no clear legal title -could be shown, the Common Law, with its expense, its packed juries, its -strict rules of procedure, had little help. Thus the good side of the -Absolute Monarchy was swept away with the bad. Its epitaph was written -by Locke:[742]--"The supreme power cannot take from any man any part of -his property without his own consent." But it was forgotten as soon as -it was written. For to the upper classes in the eighteenth century the -possession of landed property by a poor man seemed in itself a -surprising impertinence which it was the duty of Parliament to correct, -and Parliament responded to the call of its relatives outside the House -with the pious zeal of family affection. - - [735] Holkham MSS., Sparham Bdle., No. 5, see back, p. 374. - - [736] Selden Society, _Select Cases in the Court of Requests_, - Customarye Tenants of Bradford _v._ Fraunceys: "The seyd - defendant seythe that the said bill of complaint ... is mater - ... determinable at the comen land and not in this honourable - court, whereunto he prayeth to be remitted." Also Gairdner, _L. - & P. Henry VIII._, i., 334, Earl of Derby to Cromwell; and - Leadam, _E. H. R._, vol. viii. pp. 684-696. For attacks on - Wolsey's land policy see Herbert, _History of King Henry VIII._, - pp. 297-298 (ed. of 1672): "Also the said Cardinal hath examined - divers and many matters in the Chancery, after judgment thereof - given at the Common Law, in subversion of your laws, and made - some persons restore again to the other party condemned that - they had in execution by virtue of the judgment in the Common - Law." - - [737] Gardiner, _History of England_, 1603-1642, vol. viii., p. - 78. Compare the Instructions for the President and Council of - the North, 1603 (Prothero, _Statutes and Constitutional - Documents_, 1558-1625, pp. 363-378), Article XXVIII.: "Further - our pleasure is that the said Lord P. and Council shall from - time to time make diligent and effectual inquisition of the - wrongful taking in of commons and other grounds and the decay of - tillage and of towns or houses of husbandry contrary to the - laws, ... and leaving all respect and affection apart they shall - take such order for redress of enormities used in the same as - the poor people be not oppressed and forced to go begging ... - and ... if they find any notorious malefactor in this behalf of - any great wealth, cause the extremity of the law to be executed - against him publicly." - - [738] Gardiner, _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan - Revolution_, 1625-1660, pp. 212-213, "Conversion of arable into - pasture, continuance of pasture, under the name of depopulation, - have driven many millions out of the subject's purses, without - any considerable profit to his Majesty." - - [739] Clarendon's _History of the Rebellion_, I. 204, IV. 63. - Clarendon's account of the Grand Remonstrance suggests that the - principal grievance was not depopulation, but the fines exacted - for it; see the words "with the vexations upon pretence of - nuisances in building ... and of depopulation, that men might - pay fines to continue the same misdemeanour." - - [740] Appendix I., No. VIII. - - [741] I make this statement on the authority of Dr. Slater, - _Sociological Review_, vol. iv., No. 4, p. 349, but I have been - unable to trace his evidence. The only reference I can find - bearing on the subject is contained in Article XIII. of the - heads of the accusation against Lord Clarendon: "That he hath in - an arbitrary way examined and drawn into question divers of his - Majesty's subjects concerning their lands, tenements, goods, - chattells, and properties, determined thereof at the Council - Table, and stopped proceedings at law by the order of the - Council Table, and threatened some that pleaded the Statute of - 17 Car. I." (The proceedings in the House of Commons touching - the impeachment of Edward, late Earl of Clarendon, 1700.) - - [742] Locke, _Two Treatises of Government_, Book II., chap. xi. - - - - -CHAPTER II - -GENERAL CONCLUSIONS - - -Those who have had the patience to follow the detailed changes in rural -organisation which have been described above will naturally ask, "What -is the upshot of it all? What are the main landmarks which stand out -from the bewildering variety of scenery? How does the agrarian England -which is sleepily hunting out old guns and older bows on the eve of the -Civil War differ from the England which saw the first Tudor 'with -general applause and joy, in a kind of military election or recognition, -saluted King?'" - -At first sight it differs but little. To see our subject in its proper -perspective we must emphasise the continuity of economic life between -1485 and 1642 as much as in the preceding pages we have emphasised the -novelty of some of its experiments. We must turn from Fitzherbert and -Hales to Arthur Young. We must set Latimer's lamentations over the decay -of the yeomanry side by side with the figures of Gregory King and the -boasts of Chamberlayne and Defoe. We must compare our sporadic -enclosures with the two thousand six hundred Enclosure Acts which were -passed between 1702 and 1810. The outward appearance of many English -villages at the Revolution would be quite unrecognisable to-day, but it -can have been but little altered from what it had been at the time of -the Peasants' Revolt. It could still be said that three-fifths of the -cultivated land of England was unenclosed. And if Piers Plowman had -dreamed for four centuries on Malvern Hills he might still have woken to -plough his half acre between the balks of a still open field, like that -"very wide field," with crooked ways butting upon it and a wicket-gate -on its shining horizon, through which Christian sped from Evangelist, -crying "Life, Life, Eternal Life." - -Ought we, then, to say that the agrarian revolution of the sixteenth -century was insignificant, and that it has been magnified into -importance only by the rhetorical complaints of unskilful observers? The -answer has been given by implication in the preceding pages. The fact -that statistical evidence reveals no startling disturbance in area -enclosed or population displaced, is no bar to the belief that, both in -immediate consequences and in ultimate effects, the heavy blows dealt in -that age at the traditional organisation of agriculture were an episode -of the first importance in economic and social development. The -barometer which registers climatic variations yields no clue to their -influence on the human constitution, and the quantitative rule by which -we measure economic changes bends in our hands when we use it to -appraise their results. The difference between prosperity and distress, -or enterprise and routine, or security and its opposite, is scarcely -more susceptible of expression in figures than is the difference between -civilisation and barbarism itself. In the infinite complexity of human -relationships, with their interplay of law with economics, and of -economics with politics, and of all with the shifting hopes and fears, -baseless anticipations and futile regrets, of countless individuals, a -change which to the statistician concerned with quantities seems -insignificant, may turn a wheel whose motion sets a world of unseen -forces grinding painfully round into a new equilibrium. Not only our -estimate of the importance of social alterations, but their actual -importance itself, depends upon what we are accustomed to and what we -expect. Just as modern manufacturing nations groan over a reduction in -exports, which in the reign of Henry VIII. would have passed unnoticed, -or are convulsed by a rise in general prices, which, when expressed in -percentages, seems ridiculously small, so the stationary rural society -of Tudor England may well have been shaken to its core by agrarian -changes which, in a world where rural emigration is the rule, would -appear almost too minute to be recorded. If contemporaries, to whom the -very foundation of a healthy economic life seemed to be shattered, -underestimated the capacity of society for readjustment, they were not -mistaken in their supposition that the readjustment required would be so -vast and painful as to involve the depression of important orders of -men, and the recognition of new responsibilities by the State in the -agony of transition. If we are busy planting small holders to-day, it is -partly because sixteenth century Governments were so often busy with -them in vain. The crude barbarities of tramp ward and workhouse were -first struck out in an age when most of those who tramped and toiled, -who sat in stocks and were whipped from town to town, were not the -victims of trade depression or casual employment, but peasants thrown on -the labour market by the agrarian revolution. - -For, in truth, the change which was coming upon the world in the guise -of mere technical improvements was vaster than in their highest hopes or -their deepest despondency the men of the Tudor age could have foreseen, -and its immediate effects on the technique of agriculture and the -standard of rural prosperity were but the tiny beginnings of movements -whose origins are overshadowed by their tremendous consequences. It is a -shallow view which has no interest to spare for the rivulet because it -is not yet a river. Though many tributaries from many sources must -converge before economic society assumes a shape that is recognisable as -modern, it is none the less true that in the sixteenth century we are -among the hills from which great waters descend. By 1642 the channels -which will carry some of them have been carved deep and sure. By that -time the expansion of the woollen industry has made it certain that -England will be a considerable manufacturing nation, and consequently -that the ancient stable routine of subsistence farming will gradually -give place to agricultural methods which swing this way and that, now -towards pasture, now towards arable, according to the fluctuations of -the market. It is certain that, sooner or later, the new and more -profitable economy of enclosure will triumph. It is certain that the -small holder will have a hard struggle to hold his own against the -capitalist farmer. It is certain that, owing to the substitution of -variable for fixed fines on admission to copyholds, and the conversion -of many copyholds into leases for years, a great part of the fruits of -economic progress will no longer be retained, as in the fifteenth -century, by the mass of the peasants, but will pass, in the shape of -increased payments for land, into the pockets of the great landed -proprietors. It is almost certain that to any new developments which may -be detrimental to them the peasants will be able to offer a much less -effective resistance than they have in the past. For the security of -many of their class has been undermined; the gulf which separates them -from the landed gentry, though still bridged by the existence of many -prosperous freeholders, has been widened; and, above all, the -destruction of the absolute monarchy has entrenched the great landlords -inexpugnably at the heart of government, both central and local, and has -made their power as great as their ambitions. Both from below and from -above they are unassailable. For a century and a half after the -Revolution they have what power a Government can have to make and ruin -England as they please. - -If we cast our eye over the agrarian changes of our period, with a view -to grouping their main elements under a few easily distinguishable -categories, we do not find that they present themselves as a simple -series of economic sequences. Behind them all there is, it is true, the -fundamental economic fact of the decay of subsistence husbandry. The -movement away from the strict communal organisation of the open field -village was inevitable as soon as markets were sufficiently developed to -make agricultural experiments profitable, because experiments could not -easily be undertaken without to some extent individualising the methods -of cultivation. In particular, the grand innovation of substituting -pasture-farming for tillage, whether carried out on a large scale or on -a small, was only practicable if individuals were able to break away -from the established course of agriculture. But the relaxation of -village customs, which allowed a wider scope to individual initiative, -did not necessarily involve that formation of large estates out of -peasant holdings, which was the special note of the sixteenth century -problem, and in fact the gradual nibbling away of customary restrictions -went on to some degree among quite small men, long before the enclosure -of land by great capitalists became a serious grievance. In the -fourteenth century, and even earlier, holdings are becoming partible and -unequal, and strips are being interchanged for the purpose of more -convenient, because compacter, management. In the sixteenth century -there is a good deal of enclosure by the peasants themselves with a view -to better arable cultivation or to the more successful keeping of stock. -Nor must we forget the example of Kent, Essex, Devonshire, -Somersetshire, and Cornwall. Without raising the question whether the -predominance of small enclosures in the Western Counties is not partly -to be ascribed to peculiarities in their original settlement, we may say -without fear of contradiction that the early enclosures of Kent and -Essex are the outcome of the spread of commercial forces in those -seaboard counties at an earlier date than was possible in the inland -districts. Even in the more conservative parts of the country, like the -Midlands and Wiltshire, whose geographical position made them the last -to respond to the influence of trade its gradual extension was slowly, -and in isolated villages, bringing the same departure from the rigid -arrangements of mediaeval agriculture which in the East of England had -developed much more swiftly. How far such enclosure by consent would -have proceeded if no other forces had come into play we cannot say. It -is not safe, however, to assume that, because in the eighteenth century -many villages seemed to observers like Arthur Young to be living in a -condition of organised torpor, therefore its effects in facilitating a -more economical utilisation of the land are to be dismissed as -negligible. Quite apart from the obvious bias given to Young's -observations by his questionable doctrine that a high pecuniary return -from the soil is the final criterion of successful agriculture, it may -well be the case that the decline in the condition of the peasantry, -which took place in the sixteenth century, discouraged initiative on the -part of small men, and that, since one agent in that decline had been a -movement which went by the name of enclosure, its effect was to make -them cling all the more closely to the established routine in those -parts of the country where they had not been violently shaken out of -it. - -On such conjectures, however, we need not enter. Even if the movement -towards the rearrangement of holdings which has been traced among the -peasants themselves was insignificant, and if the larger capitalists -were the sole agents through whom a more alert and progressive agrarian -regime could be introduced, it is none the less the case that the -improvements in the technique of agriculture do not by themselves -account for the special social consequences which flowed from the -agrarian changes of the sixteenth century. The situation then is not at -all similar to that which arose at a later date, when small landholders -voluntarily threw up their holdings in order to engage in the more -profitable urban industries, and when yeomen like the Peels of their own -choice decided that the career of a cotton-spinner was more attractive -than that of a farmer. In the period which we have been discussing men -do not only leave the land; they are forced off it. Not only economic, -but legal, issues are involved, and the latter give a decisive twist to -the former. What made the new methods of agriculture not simply an -important technical advance in the utilisation of the soil, but the -beginning of a social revolution, was the insecurity of the tenure of -large numbers of the peasantry, in the absence of which they might -gradually have adapted themselves to the altered conditions, without any -overwhelming shock to rural life such as was produced by the evictions -and by the loss of rights of common. The way in which the economic -movement towards enclosure and pasture-farming is crossed, and its -consequences heightened, by the law of land tenure, is proved by the -comparative immunity of the freeholders from the worst forms of agrarian -oppression, by the fact that, even in the middle of the eighteenth -century, the purely economic conditions of much of England were by no -means unfavourable to small scale farming, and by the anxiety of -landlords to induce tenants who had estates of inheritance to surrender -them for leases. We cannot therefore agree with those writers who regard -the decline in the position of the smaller landed classes, which took -place in our period, as an inevitable step in economic progress, similar -to the decay of one type of industry before the competition of another. -If economic causes made a new system of farming profitable, it is none -the less true that legal causes decided by whom the profits should be -enjoyed. We have already pointed out that many customary tenants -practised sheep-farming upon a considerable scale, and it is not easy to -discover any economic reason why the cheap wool required for the -development of the cloth-manufacturing industry should not have been -supplied by the very peasants in whose cottages it was carded and spun -and woven. The decisive factor, which ruled out this method of meeting -the new situation created by the spread of pasture-farming, was the fact -that the tenure of the vast majority of small cultivation left them free -to be squeezed out by exorbitant fines, and to be evicted when the lives -for which most of them held their copies came to an end. It was their -misfortune that the protection given by the courts since the fifteenth -century to copyholders did not extend to more than the enforcement of -existing manorial customs. When, in our own day, the same causes which -raised the cry of depopulation in sixteenth century England have -operated in other countries, their influence has been circumscribed by -governmental power, which has stepped ready armed into the field, and -has turned customary titles into freeholds and cut back private -jurisdictions with a heavy hand. To find a parallel to the sufferings of -the English copyholders in the sixteenth century, we must turn to the -sweeping invasion of tenant right which at one time made almost every -Irishman into a Ket. But the comparison, incomplete in other respects, -is most incomplete in this, that even if Tudor Governments, moved by -considerations of national strength and order, would have helped the -peasants if they could, they could hardly have helped them materially if -they would, without a social and administrative revolution which was -unthinkable, and which, if carried out, could only have meant political -absolutism. Living, as they did, with the marks of villein tenure still -upon them, the small cultivators of our period were fettered by the -remnants of the legal rightlessness of the Middle Ages, without enjoying -the practical security given by mediaeval custom, and felt the bitter -breath of modern commercialism, undefended by the protection of the -all-inclusive modern State which alone can make it tolerable. - -For, indeed, it is as a link in the development of modern economic -relationships and modern conceptions of economic expediency, that the -changes which we have been considering possess their greatest interest. -The department of economic life in which, both for good and evil, the -modern spirit comes in the sixteenth century most irresistibly to its -own, is not agriculture but foreign commerce, company promoting, and the -money market, where the relations of man to man are already conceived of -as the necessary parts of a vast and complicated mechanism, whose iron -levers thrust the individual into actions for the consequences of which -he is not responsible, and under whose pressure unknown is driven by -unknown to do that which he did not intend. But if the intoxication with -dreams of boundless material possibilities, the divorce of economic from -moral considerations, the restless experiment and initiative and -contempt for restrictions that fetter them, which are the marks of that -spirit's operations, are never quite so victorious in agriculture as -they are in finance, it is nevertheless in transforming agrarian -conditions that its nature and characteristics are most impressively -revealed, not because it is felt there first or proceeds there furthest, -but because the material which it encounters is so dense, so firmly -organised, so intractable, that changes, which in a more mobile -environment pass unnoticed, are seen there in high relief against the -stable society which they undermine. In truth the agrarian revolution is -but a current in the wake of mightier movements. The new world, which is -painfully rising in so many English villages, is a tiny mirror of the -new world which, on a mightier stage, is ushering modern history in amid -storms and convulsions. The spirit which revolts against authority, -frames a science that will subdue nature to its service, and thrusts the -walls of the universe asunder into space, is the same--we must not -hesitate to say it--as that which on the lips of grasping landlords and -stubborn peasants wrangles over the respective merits of "several" and -"common," weighs the profits of pasture in an economic scale against the -profits of arable, batters down immemorial customs, and, regarding -neither the honour of God nor the welfare of this realm of England, -brings the livings of many into the hands of one. To the modern -economist, who uses an ancient field map to trace the bewildering -confusion of an open field village beneath the orderly lines of the -dignified estate which lies upon it like a well written manuscript on -the crabbed scrawl of a palimpsest, the wastefulness of the old regime, -compared with the productiveness of the new, may well seem too obvious -to leave room for any discussion of their relative advantages; and -indeed the accession of material wealth which followed the first feeble -approach towards the methods of modern agriculture is unquestionable. -But the difference between such a standpoint and that of our peasants is -not one of methods only but of objects, not of means but of ends. We can -imagine that to an exposition of the advantages of large scale farming -and enclosure, such as many stewards must have made to the juries of -many manors, they would have answered something after this -fashion:--"True, our system is wasteful, and fruitful of many small -disputes. True, a large estate can be managed more economically than a -small one. True, pasture-farming yields higher profits than tillage. -Nevertheless, master steward, our wasteful husbandry feeds many -households where your economical methods would feed few. In our -ill-arranged fields and scrubby commons most families hold a share, -though it be but a few roods. In our unenclosed village there are few -rich, but there are few destitute, save when God sends a bad harvest, -and we all starve together. We do not like your improvements which ruin -half the honest men affected by them. We do not choose that the ancient -customs of our village should be changed!" Such differences lie too deep -to be settled by argument, whether they appear in the sixteenth century -or in our own day. - - - - -APPENDIX I - - -(I) - -[LETTER FROM A BAILIFF, ILLUSTRATING THE RELATIONS BETWEEN FARMER AND -LORD, AND DIFFICULTIES WITH FREEHOLDERS] - -_Merton MSS., No. 4381_ - -Good Sir lett me intreat you yf the colledge determyne to make survay -this springe of the lands at Kibworth and Barkby to send Mr. Kay or me -word a month or 3 weeks before your coming that we may have Beare and -other necessaries. And I desire you to gather up all evidences that may -be needful for ye Lordshipp, for all testimony will be little enough, -the colledge land is soo mingled with Mr. Pochin's frehold and others in -our towne. There is an awarde for the keepinge in of the old wol close -in our ffields for [from?] Mr. Pochin's occupation, very needefulle for -the ynhabitants yf that awarde can be founde at the colledge where yt -was loste. - -The composition betwixt Mr. Stanford and the towne wold we very gladly -see, yt is for tythe willows and partinge grasse, wee thinke that they -challenge more than of right they should have. I pray you gather upp -what evidence you can for the rents due to the college out of [?], for -when some of them are denied I know not where to distraine for them. - -I pray you also give order that the evidences may be sought up for the -lands lyinge in Barkby Thorpend alias Thurmaston in our parish and -parcell of our lordship of the rent per ann. 3/4d. as alsoe the -evidences of Peppers frehold rent per annum 1d. This rent is denied and -not paidd this 20 yeares, and I cannot learne where I should distraine -for the same, neither will he pay it unlesse he may knowe for what he -payeth the same; he is towards the land [?], and his frehold lyeth in -Thurmaston ut supra. And soe with remembrance of my duty desiringe you -to pardon my breach of promise for the lease at last Michaelmas, and I -hope before this yeare be ended to be as good as my worde, yf it will -please you and the company to spare me with your favours untill then, -ffor God is my judge I did not breake my promise wilfully nor willingly, -but necessity hath noe law. I have lost this su[=m]er 6 horses and was -forced to buy in these for my carte. Day [?] groweth scant, therefore I -must spare to write, only hoping and desiringe your favour at this tyme -I humbly take my leave and rest as I have ever beene your wo{ps} at -commandment. Henry Sayer. - - Barkby, February 26{th}, 1608. - - To the w{ll} his very singular - ffriend Mr. Brent subwarden - at Merton College in Oxon. - - -(II) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF MANORIAL CUSTOMS, _cf._ pp. 124-131 and 297-301.] - -_Manor of Aldeburgh, R.O., Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, Vol. 163, -Henry VIII._ - - -The said Manor has one lete by the year ... and hath also the Court from -3 weeks to 3 weeks called the 3 weeks Court. - - Item.--Every tenant payeth for a cottage ground not - buylded if it conteyn 80 ft. every way 1d. - Item.--Every tenant payeth for half a cottage which - is 40 ft. every way 1/2d. - Item.--For every curtilage containing 40 ft. or under 1/2d. - Item.--For every fyne of every cotage buylded 2/- - Item.--For every fyne of every cotage ground unbuilded 1/- - Item.--Every tenant that taketh any cotage ground to - build upon if he build not within three years he - forfeiteth the ground by him taken. - Item.--Every tenant having a cotage or parcel of a cotage - wherein any tenant dwelleth and keepeth a fire, - they owe to pay for the same a Russhe hen or - else 2d. which is for the rushes that they - gather upon the lord's common there. - Item.--If 2 tenants dwell in one house having 2 severall - rooms in the same they to pay yearlie 2 rush - hennes or 4d. for them. - Item.--Every freeholder having by copy any arable land - or pasture ground in the field payeth yearly - for the same at terms accustomed the rent of - old time due at [Michaelmas & Easter] by even - porcions; and for all fines cessed upon the - tenaunts for land in the fields is at the will of - the lord, as well at the alienations made as at - the death of any tenant. - Item.--The tenants and copyholders shall do no waste - upon the lord's common ne otherwise upon pain - of forfeiture of their tenements. - Item.--All the freeholders shall [pay] double their rent - at every death or alienation made, as relief. - Item.--Certain freeholders and copyholders pay heriot - after the death of any tenant. - Item.--Neither the freeholders nor copyholders shall not - surcharge the lord's comon but to keep after - the rate of his tenure. If he otherwise do he - shall be amerced. - Item.--No man shall encroche on lord's lands on pain of - forfeiture of his tenure. - Item.--Every boat going to the sea on fishing and having - 4 men therein payeth yearly to the lord 8d., - and 6 men 12d., and so after the rate, for - each man 2d., which is by a late composition. - Item.--There is a service paid by certain tenants there - called Oryell, which is for the liberty of the - common that tenants have in the said lordship. - Item.--The lords of Aldeburgh have the moietie of all - wreck of the sea being cast on land or found - near the shore within the limits of the same - lordship, and the finder thereof hath the other - half. - - -(III) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PEASANTS' GRIEVANCES] - -_Holkham MSS., Fulmordeston MSS., Bdle. 6_ - -To the Right Honble. Sir Edward Cooke, Knight, Attorney-Generall unto -the King's Ma{tie}. - -Humblie sheweth unto your good lord yo{r} poore and dayley orators -Thomas Ffawcett, Thomas Humphry, and Nicolas Farnes [?] yo{r} worshippes -tenants of the Manor of Ffulmordeston cum Croxton in the Duchie of -Lancaster and the moste parte of the tenants of the same Manor that -whereas yo{r} said orators in the Hillary Term laste commenced suite in -the Duchie Courte against Thomas Odbert and Roger Salisbury, Gent., who -have enclosed their grounds contrary to the custom of the Manor, whereby -your wor. loseth your shack due out of those grounds, common lane or way -for passengers is stopped up, and your worshippes poore orators lose -their accustomed shack in those grounds, and the said Roger Salisbury -taketh also the whole benefit of theire comons from them, keepinge there -his sheepe in grasinge and debarringe them of their libertie there which -for comon right belongeth unto them:-- - -Which suite and controversie, forasmuch as the same manor is nowe come -unto your lordshippe's hands by his most excellent Ma{ties} gracious -disposinge thereof, youre poore oratours thought it theire duty to -impart and lay open unto your wor{pp}, and doe most humblie pray and -beseech your wor{pp} that they may have your lawfull favour herein for -the furtherance of their proceedings in this theire suite of lawe, so -that the greatness of the said parties adversant unto them, on which -they much relie, may not be the more strengthened by your worship's -favour, whereby your poore orators may have and enjoy theire former -liberties in peace, and be the better able to maintaine themselves in -their callings rights and dueties which unto your wor. is belonging and -due uppon their Tenures in the saide Mannor. - -And according to theire bounden duety your sayde poor orators shall -dayly pray to God for your wor. in all encrease of prosperitie and -worshippe long to continew. - - 21 Aug. 1604. I have considered of this peticion, - and seeinge I am lord of the mannor - I will do my best endeavour upon - hearing of both parties to end the - controversie and the defend{ts} need - not appeare nor the cause to proceed - in the duchy. - EDW. COKE. - - -(IV) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF THE PEASANTS' GRIEVANCES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 151, No. 38._ - -To the Kings most Excellent Ma{tie}. - -The humble petico[n@] of yo{r} Ma{te} poore and distressed Tennants of -yo{r} Mannor of North Wheatley in the Countie of Nottingham belonging to -yo{r} Ma{ties} Duchie of Lancaster. - -Most humbly shewing. That yo{r} poore Subiects have tyme out of mynd byn -Coppieholders of lands of inheritaunce to them and their heires for ever -of the Mannor aforesaid, and paid for every Oxgang of land xvj{s} -viij[-d] rent, and paid heretofore vpon every Alienaco[n@] xij[-d] for -every Oxgang, but nowe of late, about 4{0} Jacobi by an order of the -Duchie Court they paie ij{s} s vj{d} d vpon euery Alienaco[n@] for every -acre, w{ch} ch amounteth nowe to 45{s} an Oxgang. - -And whereas some of yo{r} Tennants of the said Mannor have heretofore -held and doe nowe hold certayne Oxganges of lands belonging to the said -Manor by Coppie from xxj yeres to xxj yeares, and have paid for the same -vpon e[v@]y Coppy ij{s}, and for every Oxgang xvj{s} viij{d} [p-] -An[n@]; they nowe of late by an order in the Duchie Court hold the same -by lease vnder the Duchie Seale, and paie vj{li} xiij{s} iiij{d} for a -Fyne vpon every lease and xvj{s} viij{d} rent w{th} an increase of vj{s} -viij{d} more towards yo{r} Ma{ties} prouision. - -And whereas in 11{0} Edw: 4{0} yo{r} petic[o~n]ers did by Copy of Court -Roll hold the demeanes of the said Mannor for tearme of yeres att ix{li} -vj{s} viij{d} [p-] an[n@], they afterwards in 6{0} Eliz: held the same -demeanes by lease vnder the seale of the duchie for xxj yeares, att the -like rent; and Tenne yeres before their lease was expired, they ymployed -one M{r} Markham in trust to gett their lease renewed, whoe procured a -newe lease of the demeanes in his owne name for xxj yeres att the old -rent, and afterwards contrary to the trust Comitted to him increased and -raised the rent thereof vpon the Tenants to his owne privat benefitt to -56{li} [p-] ann[u@]. - -And whereas the woods belonging to the said Mannor hath within the -memory of Man byn the only Co[~m]on belonging to the said Towne, paying -yerelie for the herbage and pannage thereof vj{s} viij[-d], they nowe -alsoe hold the same vnder the Duchie Seale att xvj{li} li xvj{s} ij[-d] -[p-] ann[u@]. - -And whereas the Court Rolls and Records of the said Mannor, have alwaies -heretofore byn kept vnder severall Locks and Keys, whereof yo{r} Ma{ts} -Stewards have kepte one key and yo{r} Ma{ties} Tennant (in regard it -Concerned their [p-]ticuler inheritances) have kept an other keye. But -nowe they are att the pleasure of the Stewards and Officers transported -from place to place, and the nowe purchasers doe demaund the Custody of -them, w{ch} may be most preiudiciall to yo{r} Ma{te} te poore Tennants. - -Now for asmuch as yo{r} Matie: hath byn pleased to sell the said Mannor -vnto the Cittie of London, whoe have sold the same vnto M{r} John -Cartwright and M{r} Tho: Brudnell gent: And for that yo{r} petic[o~n]ers -and Tennants there (beinge in nomber Two hundred poore men, and there -being xj of yo{r} Ma{te} Tennants there that beare Armes for the defence -of yo{r} Ma{te} Realme, and xij that paie yo{r} Ma{tie} Subsidies -fifteens and Loanes) are all nowe like to be vtterlie vndon, in Case the -said M{r} Cartwright and M{r} Brudnell should (as they saie they will) -take awaie from yo{r} Tennants the said demeanes and woods after -thexpiraco[n@] of their leases, and that yo{r} poore Tennants should be -left to the wills of the purchasers for their Fynes, or that the Records -and Court rowles should not be kept as in former tymes in some private -place, where the purchasers and Tennants maie both have the custody and -viewe of them as occasion shall serve. - -Maie it therefore please yo{r} Sacred Maj{tie} That such order may be -taken in the premisses for the reliefe of yo{r} poore Tennants of the -Mannor aforesaid That they maie not be dispossessed of the demeanes and -leases, and that they may knowe the Certayntie of their Fynes for the -Coppieholds demeanes and leases and maie have the Court Rolls & Records -safely kepte as formerly they have byn. And that yo{r} Ma{tie} wilbe -further pleased to referr the Consideraco[n@] hearing, ordering and -determynaco[n@] of the premisses vnto such Noble men, or other 4 gent: -of esteeme in the Country whome yo{r} Ma{tie} shalbe pleased to appoint, -that are neighbours vnto yo{r} Ten{a}nts, and doe best knowe their -estate & greevances. That they or any two or three of them may take such -order, and soe Cettell the busynes betweene the purchasers & yo{r} poore -Tennants, as they in their wisdoms and discressions shall judge to be -reasonable and fitting, or to Certifie yo{r} Ma{tie} howe they fynd the -same, and in whose defalt it is they cannot determyne thereof. And yo{r} -poore Te[n~n]ts as in all humble dutie bound will daielie pray for yo{r} -Ma{tie}. - - Whitehall this 10 of Novemb{r} 1629. - -His Ma[~] is graciously pleased to referre the consideration of this -request to the Co[~m]ission{rs} for sale of his lands, that vpon the -report vnto his Ma[~] of their opinion and advise his Ma[~] may give -further order therein. DORCHESTER. - - [Endorsed.] Divers Tenants of his Ma{te} manor of North Wheatley - in the Countie of Nottingham. - - -(V) - -[PAPER ON THE EVILS OF ENCLOSURE, BY AN APPLICANT FOR GOVERNMENT -EMPLOYMENT] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 206, No. 70_ - -Right Ho{le} - -Uppon the ix{th} of July and also the 23{d} of Septemb{r} I deliv[d@] -petitions vnto yo{r} Lo{pp} desireinge to shew y{e} great hurt y{t} ys -done to his Ma{tie} & y{e} land by inclosiers w{ch} decay tillage, & -depopulate townes in ye best naturall corne countryes, w{ch} affore -supplyed the wants of others every way beinge in y{e} middle of y{e} -land, for yt their is dearths vppon any vnseasonable seedes tyme or -springe, and is a great cause of decayinge of trades and vndoeinge many -thousands w{ch} before lived well & now for want of Imployment & dearth -of corne, y{er} is multitudes of poor & vagrants complayninge of their -miseryes; and are dangerous to y{e} peacable state of y{e} land, by -y{er} desire of troubles to revenge them selves. Ye know what lamentable -broyles & bloodshedinges were betwixt ye gileadites & ephramites & -Israelites & benjamites for ye levits wife & Abia & Jeroboam & Ahay & -Peka where was slaine above 700,000 men of warr & many of other sorts, -w{ch} was more crewell then by any foraigne enymyes, & wee have -incrochinge enemyes y{t} would take y{er} advantage vppon such -opertunytyes as y{ei} did when y{e} leaguers in France made warrs -against theire Kinge ... for many are of oppinyon that ye Kinges Ma{tie} -nor ye lordes doe not truly vnderstand ye secret mischief es w{ch} is -done by covetous men by ye cuninge misterie of depopulation nor ye -oppressions and causes of dearthes and poverty nor know y{e} readyest -waye for remedyes, y{et} beinge as unacquainted in tyllage & husbandrye -as in other arts: as appeared by y{e} booke of orders y{e} last yere -w{ch} shewed that his Ma{tie} and the lordes had a good desire to remedy -the dearth but y{e} corn masters & malsters &c. used such closse -dealinges y{t} y{e} dearth was worse as y{e} like in former tymes: soe -that no orders will ease dearthes but by causeing more tyllage & y{t} -would make plenty & then every man will sell willinglye.... - -Also many are much deceived by inclosier because there are countries are -enclosed & be rich, but these were inclosed when there were but few -people & these maintain tyllage husbandry & hospitallyty & sett people -on work & have tenements for labourers, these are lyable to musters & -all services requirable for ye Kinge & country & taxes & charitable -collections but y{e} depopulators in ye champian countryes destroy all -meanes of doeinge help or servise for ye Kinge & country what neede -soever come. - -And although this was the fruitfullest somer that was in many yeares, -yet corne holds almost duble price to that which most men expected, -because rich men will sell but litle corne before they see the strength -of May past & if corne does not prosper then they will keep it expecting -a dearth the next yere. Another cause is that all men see how tyllag is -yearly decayed in the best champian countryes & people & drunknes -increased & no hope of remedy because of y{e} inyquity of y{e} tyme & -gentlemen & other have great friends & favour & may doe what they list. -And maltsters & ingrossers buy corn as fast as they can, & doe use wayes -to have it brought home what lawes or orders to the contrary expectinge -a dearth if ye next spring prove not very fruitfull. And if his Ma{ty} & -ye lords doe not take some speedy course to cause more tyllage there -beinge good ground enough before wete seeds tymes come, then will dearth -ensue. And y{n} ye poore hungry people may cry ... where ys corne; And -y{n} it will be too late to remedy dearths by any lawes or orders. And -now it might be done there beinge aboundance of old resty fatt ground in -y{e} champian countryes which if it were plowed & sowne w{t} corne, no -wett seeds tyme could hurt it soe that they would yield corne to supply -all wants beinge in y{e} midle of y{e} land my lord if you please to -give me leave I will give you y{e} names of many decayed townes in ye -counties of Leic{s} & Northampt, &c., and who decayed them & now the -Lord hath swept away y{e} inclosiers & their posterity out of all & -strangers have their houses & pastures. And my desire is y{t} yo{r} -Lo{p} might be acquainted with y{e} country dissorders & the remydes to -reforme y{e} evills and then ye may better judge of them & acquaint his -Ma{tie} & y{e} lords, that by his & their good directions, we shall have -plenty and bring much more to his ma{ties} treasures & the whole -land.... - -Also I doe humbly intreate yo{r} Lo{ps} favor to let me shew how there -may be ymploym{t} for people & wealth to ye Kinge & ye Kingdome & plenty -& cheapnes & have ingrossers frustrated of their game & have lesse wast -of corne in ale & beer & less sinninge: & lesse dangers & soe ye lorde -keepe you: w{th} my humble sute, to accept of my poore desires for ye -deede, with my attendance vpon your Lop{s} pleasure. - - Your Lop{s} to Co[~m]and - - [Endorsed:--] RICHARD SANDES. - - Sandes touching Indigence. - - -(VI) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF ACTION AGAINST ENCLOSURES BY JUSTICES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 185, No. 86_ - -Most Honor{ble} - -Wee have caused a view to bee made according to yo{r} Lo{ps} Late -Lr[~e]s of all _Inclosures and conv{r}sions of Arrable Land to meadow -and pasture_, w{ch} are now in hand or haue beene made w{th}in two -yeares Last past, And wee haue signifyed yo{r} Lo{ps} direc[c~o]ns vnto -such [p-]sons as are causers of any such Inclosures & Con[v@]tions and -have given them notice that they ought not to [p-]cede w{th} hedgeing or -dytchinge in of any such grounds but to Let them so rest vntill wee -shall have furder orders from yo{r}: hon{ors}: And wee further conceaue -that if depopula[c~o]ns may bee reformed it will bring a great good to -the whole Kingd: for where houses are pulled downe the People are forced -to seeke new habitations. In other townes & cuntryes by meanes whereof -those Townes where they get a setling are pestred so as they are hardly -able to live one by an other, and it is likewise the cause of erecting -new Cottages vppon the wasts and other places who are not able to -releive themselves nor any such townes able to sustaine or set them on -worke w{ch} Causes Rogues & vagabonds to encrease. Moreover it doth -appeare that in those townes w{ch} are depopulated the People being -expelled There are few or none Left to serve the King when Souldjours -are to bee lodged to appeare at Musters for his Ma{te} seruice w{ch} is -also a cause that poore Townes where many people are, are put to greater -charg in setting forth of souldjours & depopulated Townes are much eased -and the Subsidie decayed. All w{ch} wee humbly submit to yo{r} Lo{ps} -great wisdome. And will e[v@] rest. - - At yo{r} hon{ble} service - humbly to bee comaunded - - Fran: Thornhagh Ro: Sutton vic. - Matth Palmer - W. Cooper Gervas Fevery - Tym: Pilsy Gil[-b]t Millington - Wi[l~l] Coke Will Moseley - Jo: Woods - - Wee doe herew{th} - [p-]sent vnto yo{r} - Hon{rs} the names of - all such as have - made any Inclosures - or con[v@]sions w{th} in two - yeares Last past or that - were in hand to make the same. - - [Addressed:] To the right hon{ble} the Lords - of his Mat{s} hon{ble} Privy - Counsell humbly present these. - - [Endorsed:] Feb. 1630. From the County of - Nottingham touching Inclosures. - The inconveniencies of Depopulation. - - [No Enclosures] - -[This letter is printed by Miss Leonard, _Trans. Royal Hist. Soc._, New -Series, vol. xix. She refers it to Norfolk, which is apparently a -mistake.] - - -(VII) - -[IN ILLUSTRATION OF ACTION AGAINST ENCLOSURES BY JUSTICES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 206, No. 71_ - - -Lincoln - - An abstract of such depopulators as have bene hetherto dealt - withall in Lincolnshyre, & receyued their pardon. - - The persons in number 9 - The so[~m]e of their fynes 300_l_ - The number of houses by bond to bee erected 33 - The tyme for the erecco[n@] within one yere. - The number of farmes to be contynued that - are now standing 22 - The fynes are already payd. - - Sir Charles Hussey Kn{t.} Fyne, 80[~l]. Bond of 200 [m@]kes, w{th} - Condico[n@] to sett up in Homingto[n@] 8 farmhouses w{th} Barnes - &c. and to lay to e[v@]ye house 30 acres of land, and to keepe 10 - acres thereof yearlye in tyllage. - - S{r} Henry Ayscough Knt. Fyne, 20[~l]. - Bond 200 [m@]kes. To sett vp 8 farmhouses in Blibroughe - w{th} 30 acres to e[v@]y farme, and 12 thereof to be kept - yearlie in tylthe. - - S{r} Hamond Whichcoote Knt. Fyne, 40[~l]. - Bond 200 [m@]kes. To set up 8 farmhouses &c. in Harpswell, - w{th} 40 acres to e[u@]y house; and 16 thereof in - tyllage. - - S{r} Edward Carre Kt. Fyne, 30[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To sett vp 2 Farmhouses in Branswell, and - 1 in Aswarby w{th} 40 acres to e[u@]y house, 16 in tyllage. - - S{r} Will[m@] Wraye, Kn{t.} Fyne, 30[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To sett up in Graynesby 2 farmhouses w{th} 2 - acres at least to either, 10 in tyllage & to contynue 2 - farmes more in Grainsby & 3 in Newbell & Longworth, - w{th} the same quantity, as is now used them, a third [p-]te - in tylthe. - - S{r} Edmund Bussye K{t.} Fyne, 10[~l]. - Bond 100[~l]. To set vp one farmhouse in Thorpe w{th} 40 - acres, 14 thereof in tyllage, And to contynue 14 farmes - in Hedor, Oseby, Aseby, & Thorpe, as they now are, w{th} a - third [p-]te in tyllage. - - Richard Roseto{r} Esq{r.} Fyne, 10[~l]. - Bond 50[~l]. To set vp one farme in Lymber w{th} 40 acres, - 16 in tyllage, and to continewe 1 farme in Limber, and 2 - in Sereby, vt sup{a.} - - Robert Tirwhilt Esq{r.} Fyne, 10[~l]. Bond 50[~l]. - - To set vp one farme in Camtringt{a}un w{th} 40 acres. 16 in - tyllage. - - John Fredway gent. Fyne, 10[~l]. Bond 40[~l]. - To set up one farme in Gelson w{th} 30 acres, 10 thereof in - tyllage. - - [Endorsed:] Lincol[n@] Depopulato[r@] Fyned & pardoned and the - reformacons to bee made. - - [No date] - - -(VIII) - -[COMPLAINTS CONCERNING THE PROCEDURE OF ARCHBISHOP LAUD IN DEALING WITH -ENCLOSURES] - -_S. P. Dom. Charles I. Vol. 499, No. 10_ - -That vpon the Commission of enquiry after depopulacon The Lord -Archbishopp of Can[t@] and other the Commissioners at the solicitacon of -Tho: Hussey gent. did direct a le[r@] in nature of a Co[m@]ission to -certain persons w{th} in the County of Wilts to certifie what number of -Acres in South Marston in the [p-]ish of Highworth were converted from -arable to pasture and what number of ploughes were laid downe &c. - -Wherevpon the Archdeacon with two others did retourne Certificate, to -the Lord Archbishopp &c. - -Upon this Certificate, M{r} Anth: Hungerford, M{r} Southby with 15 -others were convented before his Grace and the other Commissioners at -the Councell Board, where being charged with Conversion. - -M{r} Anth: Hungerford & M{r} Southby with some others did averre that -they had made noe conversion, other then they had when they came to be -owners thereof. - -His Grace said that they were to looke noe further then to the owners, -And Certificate was retourned that soe many Acres were converted and soe -many ploughes let downe. - -They alladged that this Certificate was false & made without their -privity, and therefore M{r} Hungerford in the behalfe of the rest did -desire that they might not be iudged upon that Certificate. But that -they might haue the like favour as M{r} Hussey had, to have Ce[r@]s of -the same nature directed to other Commissioners, or a Commission if it -might be granted to examine vpon oath whereby the trueth might better -appeare. - -His Grace replyed to M{r} Hungerford since you desire it & are soe -earnest for it you shall not have it. - -They did offer to make prove that since the conversion there were more -habitaco[n@]s of men of ability & fewer poore. And that whereas the King -had before 4 or 5 souldiers of the Trayned Band he had nowe 9 there. -That the Impropriaco[n@] was much better to be lett. - -His Grace said to the rest of the Lords, wee must deale with these -gen[t@] as with those of Tedbury to take 150[~l] fine, and to lay -open the inclosures. - -Which they refusing to doe they were there threatned with an -informaco[n~] to be brought ag{t} them in the Starrcham[-b] And -accordingly were within a shorte tyme after by the said M{r} Hussey -served with sub penas at M{r} Attorney his suite in the Starr chamber: -And this as M{r} Hussey told M{r} Hungf{d} was done by my Lo: Archbp his -command. - -[Endorsed:] Depopulation--M{r} Hungerford & M{r} Southby [1641]. - - - - -APPENDIX II - - -TABLE I (p. 25) - -This table is based on documents relating to the following manors:-- - -1. Northumberland. - -Acklington (1567, _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. pp. 367-8); -Buston (1567, _ibid._, vol. v. p. 209); Thirston (1567, _ibid._, vol. -vii. pp. 305-6); Birling (1567, _ibid._, vol. v. pp. 200-1); Amble -(1608, _ibid._, vol. v. p. 281); Hexham (1608, _ibid._, vol. iii. pp. -86-104). - - -2. Lancashire. - -Warton (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 19, No. -7, ff. 79-87); Whyttington (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 19, No. 7, ff. 47-9); Ashton (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Portf. 19, No. 7, ff. 69-72); Overton (4 Eliz. R.O. Duchy of -Lanc., Special Commission, No. 67); Widnes (10 Eliz. R.O. Duchy of -Lanc., Special Commission, No. 181); Cartmel (Hen. VIII.(?) R.O. Rentals -and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, No. 75); Rochdale (1626, from -information kindly supplied by Lieut.-Colonel Fishwick of Rochdale, from -a Survey in the Chetham Library, Manchester), Lands of Cockersand Abbey -(1501, _Chetham Miscellanies_, vol. iii.). - - -3. Staffordshire. - -Barton (Ph. and M.(?) R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 14, -No. 70); Burton Bondend (1597, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 185, ff. -70-74); Drayton Basset (1579, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 185, ff. -54-68); Wotton in Elishall (1 Ed. VI., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 14, No. 83); Agarsley (1611, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, -Duchy of Lancs., Bdle. 8, No. 29). - - -4. Leicestershire. - -Ulverscroft Priory (31 Hen. VIII., R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 182, -f. 35); Broughton Astley (Eliz. R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Bdle. 10, No. 4); Barkby (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Roll -382); Stapleford (10 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lanc., -Portf. 6, No. 15); Priory of Launde (31 Hen. VIII, R.O. Land Rev. Misc. -Bks. 182, f. 1); College of St. Mary, Leicester (1595, R.O. Rentals, -Duchy of Lanc. 6/12); Garradon Abbey (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. -Bks. 403, f. 123); Kibworth Beauchamp (1 & 2 Ph. and M., R.O. Land Rev. -Misc. Bks. 182, f. 284); Kibworth Harcourt (1636, Merton MSS., Book -labelled Kibworth and Barkby, 1636). - - -5. Northamptonshire. - -Duston (3 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 23); -Yelvertoft (11 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, No. 52); -Warmington and Eaglethorpe (30 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. -13, No. 21); Brigstock (4 James I., R.O. Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 221, -f. l); Higham Ferrers (8 James I., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Portf. 13, -No. 34); Paulspurie, _alias_ Westpury (32 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, vol. 419, f. 3). - - -6. Norfolk. - -Ormesby (7 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 22, -No. 18); Barney (29 Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 26, No. 57); Great Walsingham (29 Hen. VIII., _ibid._); Gunthorpe -(29 Hen. VIII., _ibid._); Skerning (Ed. VI., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, -Gen. Ser., Portf. 3, No. 23); Metherwolde (1575, R.O. Duchy of Lanc., -Rentals and Surveys, Bdle. 7, No. 29_a_); Brisingham (31 Eliz., R.O. -Misc. Bks., Land Rev., vol. 220, f. 220); Aylsham (James I., R.O. Misc. -Bks., Augm. Off., vol. 360, f. 1); Scratbye Bardolphes (date uncertain, -R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52); Burghe Vaux -(1620, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52); Castons -(_c._ 1620(?), R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 12, No. 52 p. -10d); Massingham (Hen. VIII.(?), R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 30, No. 25); Northendall (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Roll 478, m. 3); Drayton Hall (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 20, No. 53); East Dereham (1649, R.O. -Parliamentary Surveys, Norfolk, No. 10); West Lexham (1595, Holkham -MSS., West Lexham MSS., No. 87); Longham Hall and Gunton (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Longham and Watlington (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Watlington and Priors (1611, Holkham -MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. 62); Billingford (1565, Holkham MSS., -Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Foxley (1568, Holkham MSS., -Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Peakhall (1578, Holkham MSS., -Tittleshall Bks., No. 12); Wellingham (1611, Holkham MSS., Tittleshall -Bks., No. 62); Tittleshall Newhall (Holkham MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. -62). I have included one manor (R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., -Portf. 3, No. 21), of which I have mislaid the name. - - -7. Suffolk. - -Snape (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, f. -187); Ashfield (Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -14, No. 85); Otley (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. -163, f. 145); Rodstrete and Brimdishe (Ed. VI., R.O. Misc. Bks., Augm. -Off., vol. 414, f. 19-22); Dennington (Ed. VI., R.O. Misc. Bks., vol. -414, f. 22b); Harrolds in Cretingham (Ed. VI., R.O. Aug. Off., vol. 414, -f. 25b); Stratford juxta Higham (17 James I., R.O. Duchy of Lanc., -Rentals and Surveys, 9/13); Denham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and -Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Dunstall (date uncertain, R.O. -Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Dalham (date -uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); -Kentford (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -27, No. 32); Nedham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 27, No. 32); Desnage Talmaye, and Cressness[?] in Gaseleye -(date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. 27, No. -32); Higham (date uncertain, R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -27, No. 32). - - -8. Wiltshire, Somerset, and Devon. - -All are contained in the _Surveys of the Lands of William, Earl of -Pembroke_, published by the Roxburgh Club, and edited by Straton, -1565-1573. There are twenty-seven manors in Wiltshire, four in -Somersetshire, and one in Devonshire. - - -9. Hampshire. - -Crondal, and Sutton Warblington (_Crondal Records_, Part I., Baigent). - - -10. Ten other manors in the South of England. - -Castle Combe (Wilts, 1454, Scrope, _History of Castle Combe_); Ibstone -(Bucks, 1483, Merton MSS., No. 5902); Cuxham (Oxford, 1483, Merton MSS., -No. 5902); Malden (Surrey, 1496, Merton MSS., Survey of Malden); Aspley -Guise (Bedford, 1542, from information kindly supplied by Mr. G.H. -Fowler, of Aspley Guise); Ewerne (Dorset, 1568, _Topographer and -Genealogist_, vol i.); Edgeware (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate -Maps); Kingsbury (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate Maps); Gamlingay -Merton (Cambridge, 1601, Merton Estate Maps); Gamlingay Avenells -(Cambridge, 1601, Merton Estate Maps). - - * * * * * - -The chief criticisms which may be made upon this table are:-- - -(i) Some of the documents from which the figures are taken are separated -from each other by a very long interval of time, so that they do not all -represent approximately the same stage of agrarian development. This is -a disadvantage. It is possible, for example, that, if the manor of -Rochdale could be examined in 1526 instead of in 1626, it would be found -that the proportion of copyholders to leaseholders was higher than it is -at the later date. This defect, however, is perhaps not so great as to -outweigh the value of the general picture of the relative proportion of -different classes given by the table. A great majority of the documents -from which it is compiled belong to the sixteenth century, and are dated -as follows: Those of 10 manors are of an uncertain date, those of 3 fall -between 1450 and 1485, of 2 in the reign of Henry VII., of 19 in that of -Henry VIII., of 5 in that of Edward VI., of 3 in that of Philip and -Mary, of 60 in that of Elizabeth, of 13 in that of James I., of 2 in -that of Charles I., of 1 in 1649. - -(ii) The lists of tenants given by the surveyors may sometimes not be -exhaustive. I am not sure, for example, that all the freeholders on the -manor of Crondal, or all the leaseholders at Gamlingay Merton and -Gamlingay Avenells, are recorded. - -(iii) It is sometimes not clear under what category a tenant should be -entered. When there is no clue at all I have entered such tenants as -"uncertain." In some cases, however, though there is no entry by the -surveyor, there are indications that the tenants are freeholders, -customary tenants, or leaseholders, and, when that is so, I have grouped -them in the table according to the probabilities of the case. But I do -not doubt that I have made some mistakes. - -(iv) A special word must be said about Norfolk and Suffolk. In these -counties it is quite common to find the same tenant holding both by free -and by customary tenure. When this is so, I have entered him both under -"freeholders" and under "customary tenants" in the table. This means, of -course, that the numbers entered for these two counties in the table -exceed the number of individual landholders. As, however, my object was -to ascertain the distribution of different classes of tenures, this -course, though not satisfactory, seemed the best one to follow. In other -counties a similar difficulty hardly ever occurs, a fact which is of -some interest as showing the relatively advanced agrarian conditions of -Norfolk and Suffolk. In the few cases in which it does occur I have -followed the same plan as I have for those two counties. - - -TABLE II. (pp. 32 and 33) - -This table is based on documents relating to the undermentioned manors. -The sources from which the information is taken are given in the -explanation of Table I., and I therefore do not repeat them. - -1. Norfolk. - -Metherwolde, Northendall, Brisingham, Massingham, Skerning Billingford. - -2. Suffolk. - -Ashfield, Stratford juxta Higham, Kentford, Dunstall. - -3. Staffordshire. - -Drayton Basset, Barton, Burton Bondend. - -4. Lancashire. - -Warton, Overton, Widnes. - -5. Northamptonshire. - -Paulespurie, Brigstock, Higham Ferrers, Duston. - -6. Wiltshire. - -South Newton. - -7. Leicestershire. - -Barkby. - - -I have thought it worth while to insert this table, but I am not -satisfied with it. (i) I am inclined to think that, as stated in the -text, fuller information would show that medium-sized holdings of -between 20 and 60 acres were more common than it suggests. It is plain -that surveyors often could not locate the properties of freeholders, and -the larger the property the harder their task. (ii) Even where the -holding is set out by the surveyor, one cannot always form an accurate -judgment of its size. For example, rights of common, though often -expressed in acres, are often expressed in some other way, _e.g._ in the -terms of the number of beasts which the tenant may graze; and, again, a -man is sometimes said to hold so many acres "cum pertinentiis." What I -have done is simply to enter the acreage as given in the surveys. In -some cases, therefore, the size of the holding is certainly -underestimated. - - -TABLE III. (p. 48) - -The figures in this table are an analysis of the figures given under the -heading of "Customary Tenants" in Table I., and the source from which -they are taken will be found by looking at the explanation of that table -given above. As I have pointed out in the text, it is probable that not -all the "Tenants at Will" should have been entered as "Customary -Tenants" in that table. I hope that any error which may have arisen -through their inclusion under that heading there may be neutralised by -setting them out here. It will be seen that they are not numerous. - - -TABLE IV. (pp. 64 and 65) - -This table is based on documents relating to the undermentioned manors. -The sources from which the information is taken are given, with a few -exceptions (see below), in the explanation of Table I. - -1. Wiltshire and Somerset. - -South Newton, Byshopeston, Washerne, Knyghton, Donnington, Estoverton -and Phipheld, Wynterbourne Basset (all in Wilts), South Brent and Huish -(Somerset). - - -2. Suffolk. - -Stratford juxta Higham, Ashfield, Snape, Desnage Talmaye, Chaterham Hall -(the last Hen. VIII. R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, ff. -109-114). - - -3. Norfolk. - -Barney, Great Walsingham, Gunthorpe, Brisingham, Aylsham, Ormesby, -Northendall, and one manor, the name of which I have mislaid (see -explanation of Table I.). - - -4. Staffordshire. - -Barton, Wotton in Elishall, Agarsley. - - -5. Lancashire. - -Ashton, Whytyngton, Warton, Widnes. - - -6. Northamptonshire. - -Higham Ferrers, Brigstock. - - -7. Leicestershire. - -Launde Priory, Barkby, Kibworth. - - -8. Northumberland. - -High Buston, Acklington, Birling, Thirston, Preston, East Chirton, -Middle Chirton, Whitney, Monkseaton, Eardon (the last six all 1539, -_Northumberland County History_, vol. viii. p. 230, ff.). - - -9. Nine manors elsewhere in South of England. - -Crondal, Sutton Warblington, Edgeware, Kingsbury, Aspley Guise, -Gamlingay Merton, Gamlingay Avenells, Salford, Weedon Weston (two last -from surveys on back of All Souls Maps). - -In this table are included a few landholders as to whose tenure I am not -certain. It has the defect stated in connection with Table I., that in a -considerable number of instances the holdings of tenants are not fully -expressed in terms of acres, and that therefore it probably somewhat -underestimates their area. On the other hand, the holdings of the -customary tenants are usually set out by the surveyors much more fully -than those of the freeholders. - - -TABLE V. (p. 107) - -1. Northumberland and Lancashire. - -Acklington, Birling, High Buston, Thirston, Whytyngton. - - -2. Wiltshire and Dorsetshire. - -South Newton, Estoverton and Phipheld, Winterbourne Basset, Washerne, -Donyngton, Byshopeston, Knyghton, Ewerne (the last in Dorsetshire, -_Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i. There are only three customary -tenants on this manor, and only one is represented in the table, as the -use made by the others of their land is not ascertainable). - - -3. Bedfordshire, Northamptonshire, Staffordshire, Leicestershire. - -Salford, Weedon Weston, Wotton in Elishall, Kibworth Harcourt. - -In connection with this table the following points should be noticed:-- - -(i) I am not certain that all the tenants represented in it are -customary tenants. But with one or two exceptions the holdings of all -are not larger than those of the customary tenants on other manors, so -that there is no reason to suppose that their agricultural economy -differed from that usually followed by the latter. - -(ii) More serious, the figures are not completely accurate. I have -entered under each denomination, "arable," "meadow," or "pasture," land -so entered by the surveyor. In some cases, however, the character of the -land is not specified. _E.g._ it is described simply as a "close," or a -tenant is said to hold so many acres of arable "with appurtenances." -Further, tenants frequently possess rights of pasture which are not -expressed in terms of acres, but are either measured by the number of -beasts which they may graze, or are not measured at all (_e.g._ "catalla -sine extento"). In the latter case, which does not affect any except the -Wiltshire manors, I have not attempted to form any estimate, but have -simply taken their holdings as stated by the surveyor. When there is no -clue to the character of the land, I have omitted it. When it is plain -that the land falls under a special denomination, though this is not -specified in the survey, I have placed it under that denomination in my -table. _E.g._ at Donyngton nearly every tenant holds "unum clausum -noviter extractum de communia," and together they hold in such "closes" -132 acres. I have entered these as "pasture." - - -TABLE VI. (pp. 115-117) - -1. Ingoldmells, Lincolnshire: Massingberd, Ingoldmells Court Rolls, -Preface, p. vii. I quote the words of the editor, "In 1086 the annual -value of the manor of Ingoldmells was L10.... In 1295 the rents of the -free and bondage tenants were L51, 17s. 1d.... In 1347 the same rents -were L61, 9s. 4d., and in 1421 they were L71, 10s. 3d.... But in 1485 -L3, 7s. 4d. had to be deducted for lost rents ... from a total of L72, -6s. 8d.... When the manor was sold in 1628 by Charles I., the reserved -rent ... was only L73, 17s. 2d.... It is therefore clear that at -Ingoldmells the tenants appropriated virtually the whole of the increase -in the value of the land." - -2. Crondall, Hampshire: Baigent, _Crondal Records_, Part I., pp. 135 and -383. - -3. Sutton Warblington, Hampshire: _ibid._, pp. 141 and 383. At the later -date Sutton Warblington appears to have been treated as part of the -manor of Crondal, though still itself called a manor. - -4. Birling, Northumberland: _Northumberland County History_, vol. v. - -5. Acklington, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. - -6. High Buston, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. (Tenants at will and -copyholders only). - -7. Amble, Northumberland: _ibid._, vol. v. - -8. Aspley Guise, Bedfordshire. These figures were kindly supplied me by -Dr. G.H. Fowler of Aspley Guise as the result of his researches in the -Record Office into the history of the manor. - -9. South Newton, Wiltshire: Roxburghe Club, _Surveys of Lands of -William, first Earl of Pembroke_, edited by Straton. Note (a) The manor -of South Newton included the parishes of Childhampton, Stoford, Little -Wishford, and North Ugford. I have dealt here only with the Parish of -South Newton, (b) The figures relate only to the customary tenants, and -do not include the payments of freeholders and _convencionarii_. I have -obtained the figure of L8, 3s. 11-1/2d. by adding together the tenants' -money payments and the value of their works, which are set down in terms -of money. But I am not sure that it is correct. I have omitted the -payments of fowls (made at both dates) and the small payments for church -shot and maltsilver. - -10. Cuxham, Oxfordshire: Merton MSS., Nos. 5902 and 5905. - -11. Ibstone, Buckinghamshire: _ibid._, Nos. 5902 and 5209. (In the -earlier rental freeholders as well as customary tenants, and in the -later possibly leaseholders as well, are included.) - -12. Malden, Surrey: Merton MSS. MSS. both headed "Maldon, Thorncroft, -and Farleigh 1841," and giving extracts from early court rolls and -rentals. - -13. Kibworth, Leicestershire: Merton MSS., Nos. 6375 (Rental), 6362, and -6356 (ministers' accounts). The earliest entry is the payments of the -copyholders only: the two later entries are "rents of assize." - -14. Standen, Hertfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 868, No. -17; Bdle. 869, No. 8; Bdle. 869, No. 15; Bdle. 870, No. 4. The earliest -entry is "Rents assized L18, 17s. 3d. Lands let at will of lord 60s." -The second, third, and fourth give the total income. - -15. Feering, Essex: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 841, No. 5; -Bdle. 841, No. 23; Mins. Accts., Hen. VIII., No. 951. The first two -entries are totals of quarterly rents paid at Christmas, Easter, Birth -of St. John the Baptist, and Michaelmas. The last is "assized rent." It -is possible, therefore, that the apparent diminution is due to the -earlier rentals having included payments not given in the last. - -16. Appledrum, Sussex: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Rolls 643, 644, and -Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 1019, No. 15. - -17. Minchinhampton: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Rolls 237 and -241. In the earlier documents the "total rent yearly" is given as L41, -14s. 4d., and the "sum total of works" as L4, 15s. - -18. Langley Marish, Berkshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 761, -No. 4, and Bdle. 762, No. 5; Land Rev. Misc. Bks., vol. 188, f. 196ff. -The first entry is the sum total of rents paid quarterly, together with -7s. 4d. of a custom called "vaccage," and 13s. 4d. of common fine at -view of frank pledge. (Exactly the same items are entered in the -following year.) The second entry is "profits and issues of the manor," -and is headed "account of the manor for 83 days," but the similarity of -the figure with that of the earlier date makes it hard to believe that -the "profits" relate to less than one quarter of the year. The third -entry is made up of rents of free and customary tenants, demesne lands -held by copy, and customary rents called "Hedage" and "Duply," producing -23s. 3-1/2d. - -19. Lewisham, Kent: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Roll 361; Misc. -Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 174, f. 1-34; Misc. Bks., Aug. Off., vol. -414, f. 33-4. The first entry is "Rent of the tenants of the manor of -Lewisham," the second "Rental of the lordship of Lewisham." The third -"Rent of free tenants L17, 12s. 10-1/2d., Rent of tenants _per -dimissionem_ L72, 9s. 8-1/2d., Rents of tenants at will 9d." - -20. Cuddington, Surrey: R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Rolls 669 and 624, -Aug. Off., Misc. Bks., vol. 414, f. 3-16. The first entry is "Rents -belonging to the manor at the terms of Easter and Michaelmas," i.e. it -is for half a year only, and therefore I have ventured to double it. The -second and third entries consist of the annual rent of all classes of -tenants. - -21. Isleworth, Middlesex: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 916, Nos. -11, 21, and 25. The figures at each date refer to the assized rent. At -the two earlier dates the assized rent is given for all four quarters of -the year. At the last date it is given only for the Michaelmas quarter. -In order to make comparison possible, I have given the rents for the -Michaelmas quarter throughout. The full entries for the two earlier -dates are: 1314-15, L15, 5s. 6d. at Christmas, L17, 1s. 9-3/4d. at -Easter, L15, 5s. 6d. at June 24, L21, 16s. 10d. at Michaelmas, works -sold 22s. 1-1/2d; 1386-7, L14, 13s. at Christmas, L16, 19s. 7d. at -Easter, L13, 13s. at June 24, L23, 3s. 10-1/2d. at Michaelmas, works -sold 106s. 10d. - -22. Wootton, Oxfordshire: R.O. Misc. Accts., Bdle. 962, No. 20; Bdle. -963, No. 14; Aug. Off., Misc. Bks., vol. 414, f. 38b. At the two earlier -dates the figures given are the assized rents of free and bond tenants -and _cotarii_, at the last date they are the rents of free and customary -tenants. At that time there was also a rent of 30s. 8-1/2d. from -assarts, and a rent of L13, 0s. 11d. from tenants by demission. I have -omitted the last two items as there is nothing comparable to them in the -earlier entries. - -23. Speen, Berkshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 750, No. 22; -Misc. Bks. Land Revenue, vol. 187, f. 97-101. At the earlier date the -figures refer to the assized rents, at the later date to the rents of -free tenants, customary tenants, and "firms." - -24. Schitlington, Bedfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 741, -Nos. 16, 19, and 27. At the first date the figures refer to the assized -rent, and include "Tallage of the vill L10." At the second date they -cover the same entries as at the first. At the last date they refer to -the rent as it appears in the Rental. At this time there are certain -additional entries, viz., "Firm of land L8, 5s. 0-1/4d., Firm of the -manor L4, 15s. 4d., Increase of Rent [of a mill(?)] 13s. 4d., Increase -of Rent of 1 messuage, 1 virgate with croft and meadow 13s. 7-1/2d." -These I have omitted. - -25. Cranfield, Bedfordshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 740, -Nos. 18, and 25; Mins. Accts., Hen. VIII., No. 4. At the first two dates -the figures include rents of free and native tenants and ferm of lands. -At the last date the entry is "Rent of the vill, as by the rental, L72, -2s. 1-3/4d." - -26. Holywell, Huntingdonshire: R.O. Mins. Accts., Gen. Ser., Bdle. 877, -No. 17, Bdle. 878, No. 1. At the first date the entries include rents -assized, and certain miscellaneous items such as "Hewesilver," -"Heringsilver," "Brensilver"; at the later date "Rents assized of free -and villein tenants L4, 19s. 8d., customary rent lately in works and in -new rent L15, 6s. for 17 virgates paying 18s. each, L6, 15s., for 25 -cotmen paying 9s. each, 6s. 8d. increment of rent." - -The suggestion that it might be of interest to try to discover how far -rents were stationary over long periods came to me from reading the -article by Maitland on "The History of a Cambridgeshire Manor" in _E. H. -R._, vol. ix., where he points out that copyholders must have enjoyed a -considerable unearned increment. The table of rents explained above is -unsatisfactory, because of the difficulty of finding a basis for the -comparison of payments at different periods. Thus at the earlier dates -there are the tenants' works, and (occasionally) tallages to be -considered; at the later the rent obtained from leasing the demense. The -variety of the sources of manorial revenue makes it impossible to -discover a common form to which the payments on all manors can be -reduced. The ideal would be to take the villeins' payments and works in -(say) the fourteenth century, and to compare them with the payments of -the copyhold tenants in the sixteenth century. But since the commonest -entry is simply "rents of assize," which included the rents of -freeholders as well as of customary tenants, this simple procedure is -often impossible. - -While the table given on pages 115-117 is certainly not what could be -desired, I am inclined to think its inaccuracies do not lie in the -direction of exaggerating the fixity of rents, but rather, if anything, -in underestimating it, because (i) when a total rent is given for the -fifteenth or sixteenth century, without further particulars, it probably -often included the rent paid by the farmer of the demesne, which at the -earlier period was non-existent, (ii) at the later period the total rent -often included payments made for new encroachments in the waste. When -this is evidently the case, as at Wootton, and the amount of the new -payments is stated, I have omitted them, my object being to compare, -when possible, the rents paid by customary tenants at different periods. -But often it is not possible to make such an allowance, and therefore I -am disposed to think that the figures for the later dates are more -likely to be weighted with irrelevant items than are the figures for the -earlier dates. This makes the comparatively slow increase in the rents -of some manors all the more worthy of notice. - -TABLE VIII (p. 212) - -1. Norfolk. - -Massingham Priory (two farms, Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. -Ser., Portf. 24, No. 4, f. 46); Wymondham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., -Misc. Bks. 408, f. 25); Marshams (Marham(?), Hen. VIII., Augm. Off., -Misc. Bks. 408, f. 19); Thetford (Hen. VIII., Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. -408, f. 22); Bockenham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 408, f. -9-10); Langley (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 399, f. 228-9); -Walsingham (Hen. VIII., R.O. Augm. Off., Misc. Bks. 399, f. 201); -Brisingham (31 Eliz., R.O. Misc. Bks. 220, f. 236); Farfield (31 Eliz., -_ibid._); Wighton (17 Eliz., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Duchy of Lanc, -Bdle. 7, No. 34); Peakhall (1575, Holkham MSS., Tittleshall Bks., No. -12); West Lexham (1575, Holkham MSS., West Lexham MSS., No. 87); Foxley -(1568, Holkham MSS., Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); Sparham -(1590, Holkham MSS., Sparham MSS., Bdle. No. 5); Billingford (between -1564 and 1606, Holkham MSS., Billingford and Bintry MSS., Bdle. No. 9); -Fulmordeston (1614, Holkham MSS., Map No. 59). - -2. Wiltshire. - -South Newton, Estoverton, Wynterbourne Basset, Byshopeston, Donnington, -Knyghton, Domerham, Burdonsball, Foughlestone, Brudecomb, Westoverton, -Sutton Maundeville, Stockton, Albedeston, Chalke, Bulbridge, Dichampton, -Patney, Wyley, Berwick St. John, Remesbury, Staunton, Chilmerke (all -1565-73, Roxburgh Club, _Surveys of Lands of William, First Earl of -Pembroke_). - -3. Manors in other counties. - -Ashton (Lancs., Hen. VIII., R.O. Rentals and Surveys, Gen. Ser., Portf. -19, No. 7, ff. 69-72); Prestwood (Staffs., R.O. Misc. Bks. Land Rev., -vol. 185, ff. 155b-7); Gamlingay Merton (Cambridgeshire, 1601, Merton -Estate Maps); Gamlingay Avenells (_ibid._); Salford (Bedfordshire, 1595, -All Souls Estate Maps); Weedon Weston (Northants, c. 1595, _ibid._); -Edgeware (Middlesex, 1597, All Souls Estate Maps); Kingsbury (Middlesex, -1597, _ibid._); Greenham (Bucks, 1595, _ibid._); Crendon (Bucks, c. -1595, _ibid._); Harlesden Farm (Middlesex, 1599, _ibid._); Land in the -Parish of Hendon (Middlesex, c. 1599, _ibid._); Whadborough -(Leicestershire, 1620, _ibid._). - -The fact that this table is compiled from documents of different dates -makes it impossible to use it as an index of the size of the large -leasehold farms at any one period in the sixteenth century. Nor can I -hope to have escaped errors of calculation. I hope, however, it may be -of some use in illustrating the considerable scale on which some farms -were conducted. - - -TABLES IX, X, and XI (pp. 218, 225-226 and 227) - -The farms from which these tables are compiled are included in the list -given in explanation of Table VIII. (with one exception, Ewerne in -Dorsetshire, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.), and it is -therefore unnecessary to set them out in detail here. The figures as to -arable, pasture, and meadow on the demesne of 41 monasteries are taken -from Savine, "English Monasteries on the Eve of the Dissolution," -_Oxford Studies in Social and Legal History_, vol. i. p. 172. - - -TABLE XIII (p. 300) - -This table is compiled from documents relating to the undermentioned -manors. When the reference has already been given I do not repeat it -here:--23 manors in Wilts, Somerset, and Devon, Roxburghe Club, _Surveys -of Lands of William, First Earl of Pembroke_. West Lexham (Norfolk), -Sparham (Norfolk), East Dereham (Norfolk), Wighton (Norfolk), Stockton -Socon (Norfolk, 1649, R.O. Parly. Surveys, Norf. No. 14); Aldeburgh -(Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163); St. -Edmund (Suffolk, 1650, R.O. Parly. Surveys, Suff. No. 14); Dodnash -(Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, vol. 163, f. -79); Chatesham, Suffolk (Hen. VIII., R.O. Misc. Bks., Treas. of Receipt, -vol. 163, f. 91); Falkenham (Suffolk, Hen. VIII., R.O. Treas. of -Receipt, vol. 163, f. 181); Stratford juxta Higham (Suffolk), Mettingham -(Suffolk, _Victoria County History_, chapter on Social and Economic -History); Mark Soham (Suffolk, _ibid._); Bushey (Herts, 7 Eliz., from -Court Rolls lent me by the late Miss Toulmin Smith); Ewerne (Dorset, -1567, _Topographer and Genealogist_, vol. i.); Corton (Somerset, -_ibid._); Rolleston (Staffs., _ibid._); Hewlington (Denbighshire, 4 -Eliz., Wrexham Library, Ancient Local Records, vol. ii.); Holt -(Denbighshire, _ibid._); Wotton in Elishall (Staffs.); Burton Bondend -(Staffs.); Agarsley (Staffs.); High Furness (Lancs., 28 Eliz., R.O. -Duchy of Lancs., Special Commissions, No. 398); Crondal (Hants); -Edgeware (Middlesex); Kingsbury (Middlesex); Malden (Surrey, Merton -MSS., book labelled Malden, Thorncroft, and Farleigh); Thorncroft -(Surrey, _ibid._); Farleigh (Surrey, _ibid._); 14 manors in -Northumberland (_Northumberland County History_, vol. viii., p. 238); -Bradford (Somerset, Selden Society, vol. xii., Leadam, Select Cases in -the Court of Requests); Shepton Mallet, Somerset (Calendar of -Proceedings in Chancery, _temp._ Eliz. H.h. i. 27); Newton Tracye -(Devon, _ibid._, H.h. 23, 17); Chudlye (Devon, _ibid._, L.l. 8, 31); -Powlton (Wilts, _ibid._, M.m. 13); Kibworth Harcourt (Leicestershire, -Merton MSS., book containing extracts from Merton Court Rolls); Barkby -(Leicestershire, _ibid._). - - * * * * * - -NOTE.--(i) The names of the manors from which Dr. Savine takes his -figures are not given. Consequently his information and mine may -sometimes overlap, (ii) The MSS. book from which the customs of -Farleigh, Thorncroft, and Malden are taken is dated 1841, but it -purports to give customs based on ancient court rolls. The same applies -to the information as to Kibworth Harcourt and Barkby. - - - - -GENERAL INDEX - - -Abbeys, _see_ Monasteries - -Act of Parliament, Enclosure by in 18th century, 183-184 - -Acts of Parliament-- - Statute of Merton, 1235, 87, 180, 248, 371-372 - 15 Hen. VI. c. 2, sanctioning export of corn, 113, 197 - 23 Hen. VI. c. 5, sanctioning export of corn, 113, 197 - 3 Ed. IV. c. 2, restricting import of corn, 113, 197 - 4 Hen. VII. c. 14, against depopulation, 11, 353 - 6 Hen. VIII. c. 5, against depopulation, 353 - 7 Hen. VIII. c. 1, against depopulation, 353 - 25 Hen. VIII. c. 13, against depopulation, 354 - 27 Hen. VIII. c. 25, for relieving impotent beggars, 269 - 1 Ed. VI. c. 2, legalising enslavement of vagabonds, 44, 269 - 2 and 3 Ed. VI. c. 12, giving good titles to Duke of Somerset's tenants, - 294, 365 - 3 and 4 Ed. VI. c. 3, re-enacting Statute of Merton with amendments, - 371-372 - 5 and 6 Ed. VI. c. 5, against depopulation, 354 - 2 and 3 Phil, and M. c. 2, against depopulation, 354 - 5 Eliz. c. 2, Statute of Artificers, 23, 45, 100, 353 - 14 Eliz. c. 5, directing compulsory assessment for relief of poor, 269 - 18 Eliz. c. 3, directing provision of materials for setting unemployed to - work, 269 - 31 Eliz. c. 7, requiring cottages to be let with 4 acres of land - attached, 277, 354 - 35 Eliz. c. 7, against depopulation, but repeating clauses in previous - Acts forbidding conversion to pasture, 354 - 39 Eliz. c. 1, against depopulation, 354-355 - 39 Eliz. c. 2, against depopulation, 354-355 - 4 Jac. I. c. 11, for enclosure of certain parishes in Herefordshire, 395 - 21 Jac. I. c. 28, continuing certain Acts and repealing others, 355 - - -Action of trespass-- - copyholders' remedy by, 289 - freeholders' remedy by, 248 - -Administration-- - of land by peasants, 102, 159-161, 244-246. _See also_ Agriculture, - Commons, Communism - of Acts against Depopulation-- - difficulty of, 377-386 - irregularity of, 391-393 - occasional effectiveness of, 386-387, 390-392 - opposition of landlords to, 367-368, 370, 397-398 - petition of rebels for, 335, 337 - -Administrative Courts, _see_ Council, Courts - -Administrative interference-- - with economic matters, 355-357 - with enclosures-- - under Henry VII., 359-360 - " Henry VIII., 360-362 - " Edward VI., 362-372 - " Elizabeth, 372-374 - " James I., 374-375 - " Charles I., 376-377 - final cessation of, 397-400 - -Admission fines, _see_ Fines - -Agrarian changes, the-- - causes of, 6-7, 12-13, 185-200 - contemporary accounts of, 6-8 - general effect of, 403-404 - localities most affected by, 153-154, 182, 262, 405 - of fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, 11-12, 79-95, 136-147, 161-162 - of sixteenth century, 6-8, 147-173, 213-230, 301-310 - of eighteenth century, 34, 183-184, 406 - part played by capitalist farmers in, 200-202, 213-266 - part played by peasants in, 136-173 - reaction of on peasantry, 7-8, 231-280 - resistance of peasants to, 302-304, 317-340 - _See also_ Agriculture, Enclosure, Land, Pasture - -Agreements to enclose, 151-153, 156-158, 180-182 - -Agriculture-- - capitalist, 6-7, 200-204, 210-230 - cattle, importance of to, 113-115, 239-242 - changes in methods of, _see_ Agrarian changes - commercial development, effect of on, 185-188, 195-197 - common rights, importance of to, 238-242 - communal elements in, 128-131, 159-161, 205-207, 243-246 - corn growing, part played by in, 105-112 - corn laws, effect of on, 112-113, 197 - custom, effect of on, 75-78, 124-131, 292-301 - enclosure by peasants, effect of on, 152-153, 158, 169-173 - enclosure by manorial authorities, effect of on, 216-223 - farmer of demesne, part played by in, 201-204, 210-230 - for market, 214-216 - for subsistence, 111-112 - improvements in, 110-111, 170-172 - markets, effect of on, 196-197, 214-215 - mediaeval, not incompatible with change, 75-97, 172, 404-405 - methods of-- - in Cornwall, 262, 405 - " Devonshire, 167, 262, 405 - " Essex, 167, 262, 405 - " Kent, 167, 262, 405 - " Lancashire, 63, 65 - " Midlands, 65, 167, 192 - " Norfolk, 63, 65, 405 - " Northumberland, 63, 65, 189-192 - " Suffolk, 63, 262 - " Somerset, 110-111, 171, 262, 405 - " Staffordshire, 63, 65 - " Wiltshire, 63, 65, 212 - on demesne farms, 200-230 - " monastic estates, 382-383 - " peasants' holdings, 105-115 - open field system of, _see_ Open field system - pasture farming instead of, _see_ Pasture - rise in prices, effects of on, 197-200, 304-310 - social importance of, 341-347 - speculation, effects of on, 381-383 - views as to, of Clarkson, 5, 189-190 - " " Fitzherbert, 5, 109, 112, 117-118, 150, 151-152, 242 - " " Norden, 5, 108, 110-111, 118, 150, 151, 171, 308 - woollen industry, effects of on, 6, 195-197 - -Alien, _see_ Immigration - -Alienation of land, effect of free, 86, 138-139 - fines on, 127 - _See also_ Speculation - -Apprenticeship, effect of on marriage, 104-106 - -Arable land-- - backbone of peasants' livelihood, 105-108 - common rights, necessary for cultivation of, 239-242 - conversion of to pasture, 223-230, 232-233, 258 - corn yielded by acre of, 110-111 - enclosure of for better cultivation by large farmers, 10, 221-224 - enclosure of for better cultivation by peasants, 151-153, 162-164 - estimated number of persons maintained by holding of, 261 - proportion of to pasture and meadow in Staffordshire, 392-393 - proportion of to pasture and meadow on demesne farms, 225-228 - proportion of to pasture and meadow on peasants' holdings, 107 - reconversion of pasture to-- - Acts for, 353-355 - by Royal Commissions, 359-360, 366-367, 374-375 - " Council, 360-361 - " Justices of Assize, 376 - " Justices of Peace, 386, 418-420 - " landlords, 390-391 - -Aristocracy-- - acquisition of monastic estates by some of the, 380-384 - attack of on Somerset's land policy, 367-368, 370-372 - contrast between mediaeval and that of sixteenth century, 191-194 - growth of commerce, effect of, on the, 187-188, 191-194 - Harrington's account of social changes in the, 38, 191 - landholding peasants not an, 100-102 - part played by in Pilgrimage of Grace, 322-324 - relations of to tenants in North and South contrasted, 188-191 - Tudor policy, effect of on powers of the, 188-195 - unpopularity of administrative Courts with the. 397-400 - _See also_ Index of Persons, Bath, Brudenell, Darcy, Derby, Englefield, - Harrington, Herbert, St. John, Shrewsbury, Saye and Sele, Somerset, - Warwick, Willoughby, Wolsey, Yorke, Leicester, Northumberland. - -Assessment-- - of subsidies, 169, 344-347 - " enclosed land, 169 - " wages, 23, 100, 308 - -Assize-- - Justices of, disputes as to land referred to by Council, 373, 375-376 - " " punishment of depopulating landlords by, 375-376, 419-420 - rents of, 118 - -Assize of Novel Disseisin-- - establishment of by Henry II., 122 - remedy of freeholders by, 248 - -Authorities-- - manorial, _see_ Manorial authorities, the - -Authority-- - part played by in organisation of manor, 92, 128-129 - tendency of to stereotype manorial arrangements, 75-78, 92-93 - - -Bailiffs, 82, 123, 209 - -Barton land, division of among peasants, 95 - -Beasts-- - importance of for plough, 240-242 - number of kept by peasants, 113 - -Black Death, _see_ Great Plague - -Bodger, the, 349 - -Bondage, _see_ Villeinage - -Bondman, _see_ Villeinage - -Bord land, 95 - -Border-- - agrarian conservatism on, 63-66, 188-191 - copyholders on, 188-191 - military importance of numerous tenantry on, 188-191 - substitution of leases for copies on, 301-304 - -Border tenure-- - Coke's remarks upon, 299 - Customs involved in, 299 - decision of Courts as to, 299 - discussion by Long Parliament as to, 191 - effect of Union of Crowns on, 190-191 - service with horse and harness, an incident of, 190 - -Boundaries-- - importance of to commoners, 241 - uncertainty of, 235-236 - -Bovate, _see_ Virgate - - -Canon Law, the, as to usury, 307 - -Capital-- - accumulation of by peasants, 82-83, 118 - dealings in on money market, 186 - investments of in farm stock, 6, 113-115, 170-172, 220 - " " " joint-stock companies, 186 - " " " land, 7 - -Capitalists-- - appearance of among peasants, 71, 81-84, 136-139 - farming on a large scale by, 6-7, 200-204, 210-230 - loans by, 108-110 - purchase of land by small, 78-95 - results of growth of small, 95-97, 136-139 - signs of appearance of large, 215 - _See also_ Demesne land, Farmers, Enclosure, Pasture - -Catholic-- - conspiracy, supposed complicity of peasants in, 329 - " fear of, reason for popular agrarian policy, 340-341 - landlords, special measures suggested for, 341 - revolts, parties in, 318-319, 323-324 - -Cattle, _see_ Agriculture, Beasts, Common Land - -Chancery, _see_ Court - -Chevage, 53 - -Childwite, still paid in seventeenth century, 54 - -Classes of landholders, see Peasants - -Collective bargain by peasants with lord, 130, 295 - -Combinations-- - among peasants, 131, 330-331 - to reduce rents and prices, and to break down enclosures, illegal, 371 - -Commerce-- - attention given by Tudor governments to, 185-186, 197 - backwardness of in North, 190 - effect of in breaking down equality of peasants' holdings, 66, 84-85 - engaged in by aristocracy, 187-188 - expansion of in fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, 185-186, 196 - influence of on social conditions and land tenure, 187-188, 196-197 - -Commission of sewers, 395 - -Commissions, Royal-- - activity of Hales in connection with, 167, 366-368, 371 - " " Laud in connection with, 399, 420-421 - " " Somerset in connection with, 362-370 - anger of landlords at, 367-368, 370 - appointment of on enclosure and depopulation in 1517, 261, 359 - " " " " 1548, 261, 366 - " " " " 1566, 261 - " " " " 1607, 261, 375 - " " " " 1632, 261, 376 - " " " " 1635, 261, 376 - " " " " 1636, 261, 376 - causes of appointment of, 358 - counties visited by, 366 - disappointment of peasants with, 319, 366 - effects of in checking depopulation, 391-393, 419-420 - evidence before, how collected, 263, 366-367 - " " interpretation of, 263-265 - fines imposed by, 391, 419-420 - fiscal motives for, under Charles I., 391 - statistics derived from, as to average area of enclosures, 154-155 - " " " " acreage enclosed, value of, 262-265 - " " " " population displaced, value of, 262-265 - -Commons-- - grant made by Lords to the, 335 - "information and petition against the oppressors of the poor commons," - 366 - proclamation of the, 323-324 - prosperous condition of, 132-135 - -Commons, House of, _see_ Parliament - -Common field system, _see_ Open field system - -Common Land-- - administration of, by Manorial Courts, 159-162, 244-246 - " " at Burnham, 245 - " " " Southampton, 245-246 - " " " Wootton Basset, 251-252 - beasts kept on by peasants, 113-114 - colonising of by evicted tenants, 277-279 - demands of Norfolk rebels as to, 335-336 - division of by peasants, 157 - enclosure of by peasants, 157, 169-170 - " " manorial authorities, 219-221 - " " Johnson on unimportance of, 9 - importance of, reasons for, 239-242 - " " Clarkson on, 189 - " " Fitzherbert on, 242 - " " Hales on, 4, 239-240 - " " Hamberstone on, 240, 241 - improvement of by capitalists, 394-395 - monopolising of by large farmer, 220-221, 242-243 - overstocking of, 170-172, 242-243 - sale of at Burnham, 245 - stinting of, 160, 241 - view taken in seventeenth century as to, 394-396 - _See also_ Common, Bights of, Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Common Law-- - complaints of landlords as to interference of government with, 397-398 - complaints of Long Parliament as to interference of government with, 399 - doctrine of as to Rights of Common, 246-250 - ineffective remedy offered to customary tenants by, 358, 400 - protection of copyholders by, 289, 291, 296 - tenants at will at, 289 - -Common meadow, _see_ Meadow land - -Common pastures, _see_ Pasture - -Common waste, _see_ Waste - -Common, rights of-- - Bracton on, 247 - Coke on, 248 - communal element in, 244-246 - compensation for loss of, 243 - copyholders' remedy for loss of, 248-249, 287-301 - cottagers' claim to, 247 - difficulty of poor in enforcing, 252-253 - dispute as to at Coventry, 250-251 - " " " Wootton Basset, 251-253 - Fitzherbert on, 249 - freeholders' remedy for loss of, 248-249 - legal theory as to common appendant, 247 - " " " " appurtenant, 247 - " " " " in gross, 247 - " " " " par cause de vicinage, 247 - Maitland on, 244 - peasants' view of, 243-246 - not conferred by residence, 247 - tenements attached to, 247 - _sicut quantitatem tenurae_, 241 - Vinogradoff on, 244 - _See_ Common Land, Copyholders, Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Communism-- - denounced by landlords, 324, 384 - elements of in manorial arrangements, 159-161, 206-207, 243-246 - practical nature of in demands of rebels in sixteenth century, 338 - theoretical nature of in demands of Diggers, 338 - views as to, of Maitland, 244 - " " " Vinogradoff, 244 - -Community, the village, _see_ Manor - -Commutation, _see_ Labour services - -Competitive rents, _see_ Rents - -Consolidation of holdings, _see_ Holdings - -Conversion to pasture, _see_ Pasture - -Copyholders-- - act to give security to, on Somerset's demesne lands, 294, 365 - attitude of, to State, 122-124 - cases as to, 296 - compelled to surrender copies for leases, 301-304 - customs affecting, at Aldeburgh, 411-412 - customs affecting, at Bushey, 126-127 - dependence of on custom of manor, 124-131, 292-301 - effect on of fall in value of money, 304-310 - fines paid by, 305-307 - labour services rendered by, 52-53 - marks of personal villeinage among, 53-54 - on new land, 289-290, 293-294 - preponderance of over other classes shown by statistics, 25, 48 - rights of common enjoyed by, 248-258 - rents of fixed by custom, 115-121 - surplus enjoyed by, 119-121 - subletting of land by, 81 - tenure of, changes in, in sixteenth century, 1-2, 310-311 - " definition of, 47 - " demands of rebels as to, 334-337 - " duration of, statistics as to, 300 - " fines incidental to, certain or uncertain, statistics as to, - 300 - " origin in villein tenure, 50 - " protected by custom of manor, 129-131, 292-297 - " " " Court of Chancery, 289, 291-292, 294-295, 398 - " " " Courts of Common Law, 289, 291, 294-295 - " " " Court of Requests, 362, 367, 397 - " " " Court of Star Chamber, 360 - " " " Council, 296, 359, 373-374, 397 - " theories as to, of Ashley, 290-292 - " " " Coke, 289, 299 - " " " Fitzherbert, 288-289 - " " " Kitchin, 289 - " " " Leadam, 289-290 - " " " Norden, 47 - " " " Savine, 287, 292, 297, 300 - _See also_ Customary tenants, Manor - -Corn-- - consumed at home, 111-112 - export of encouraged, 113 - export of discouraged, 197 - import of checked, 113 - loans of, 109 - output of per acre, 110-111 - trade in, 111 - -Corn-growing-- - backbone of peasants' livelihood, 105-112 - commercial policy towards, 112-113, 197 - conditions making profitable, 110-113 - in Norfolk, 111-112 - pastures broken up for at Coventry, 20 - proposals for encouragement of, 416-417 - unemployment caused by abandonment of, 232-233 - wastes to be reclaimed for, 394-395 - -Corn laws, _see_ Corn - -Cottagers-- - commons used by, 247 - driven from enclosed into open field villages, 277-279 - loss of commons by, 7 - statistics as to among freeholders, 31-33 - " " " customary tenants, 63-66 - -Cottages-- - Act requiring four acres to be attached to, 277, 354 - erection of on waste, 277-278 - -Council-- - Agrarian policy of under Charles I., 391, 399 - attack on Somerset by, 370, 380 - grantees of monastic estates members of, 380 - intervention of to protect peasants, 357-359, 361-362, 372-376, 391, 399 - of the North, 355, 374, 398 - of Wales, 355, 373 - returns made by Justices to, 356, 375-376, 386, 419-420 - -Court of Chancery-- - cases heard in by Wolsey, 397-398 - petitions to from peasants, 294 - protection of customary tenants by in fifteenth century, 289, 291-292 - -Court of Manor-- - agricultural arrangements of village controlled by, 159-162, 244-246 - cases of villeinage heard in, 292 - customs enforced by, 125 - enclosers fined by, 161-162 - pastures stinted by, 170, 241 - villein land transferred in, 78-79, 86 - -Court of Requests-- - cases before as to copyholds, 362 - " " " fold-courses, 374, 397 - " " " rack-renting, 285, 390 - " " " villeinage, 42 - constitution of, 357 - Hall on, 357 - popularity of with poorer classes, 357 - powers of curtailed by prohibitions, 399 - Somerset's use of, 367 - unpopularity of with landlords, 397-398 - -Court of Star Chamber-- - abolition of in 1641, 399 - cases before, as to breach of peace, 374 - " " " copyholds, 359, 360 - " " " enclosure, 360, 391, 421 - " " " villeinage, 43 - constitution of, 357 - denounced in Grand Remonstrance, 399 - Sir Thomas Smith on, 358 - unpopularity of with landlords, 397-398 - -Court Leet-- - of Coventry, 20, 162, 181, 249, 251 - of Southampton, 162, 170, 241, 245-246 - -Court Rolls-- - evidence of, as to enclosure, 159 - " " " encroachments on waste, 87-89 - " " " land speculation, 75, 78-81 - " " " tenure of copyholders, 362 - " " " villeinage, 43 - -Courts of Common Law, _see_ Common Law. - -Cultivation, _see_ Agriculture - -Cultivators, _see_ Peasants - -Crown, the, _see_ Council, Court, and Index of Persons - -Crown tenants-- - at Wheatley 302, 413-415 - in Wales, 298, 302 - on Northumbrian border, 190-191, 299 - -Custom of the Manor, the, _see_ Copyholders, Manor - -Customary-- - of Aldeburgh, 411-412 - " Bushey, 126-128 - " High Furness, 101 - -Customary Court, _see_ Court of Manor - -Customary tenants-- - statistics of, 24-26, 48 - _see also_ Copyholders - - -Dairy farming, 215 - -Day work of copyholders, 52-53 - -Demesne land-- - absent from some northern manors, 203 - acreage of farms on, 212-213 - added to peasants' holdings, 93-95, 204-209 - changes in use of after Great Plague, 93-95, 204-209 - conversion to pasture of, 223-228 - customary routine of agriculture on, 217, 228-229 - difficulty of discriminating between peasants' land and, 95 - effect of division of among peasants, 91-93 - foundation of large farm in sixteenth century, 202-203 - gradual consolidation of, 221-223, 254-256 - insecurity of copyholders on, 289, 293-294 - leased to capitalist farmer, 210-212 - leased to smallholders, 94-95, 204-205 - leased to village community, 205-207 - lying in compact blocks, 221-223, 254-256 - lying in scattered strips, 221-222 - peasants' land merged in, 257-258 - progress of enclosure on, 216-223 - proportion of manorial area formed by, 259 - rents paid for, 256 - rights of common over, 234 - statistics as to use of, 225-226 - unemployment caused by enclosure of, 232-233 - -Depopulation-- - Commissions of Inquiry into, _see_ Commissions - counties most affected by, 8-9, 153-154, 262-263, 404-405 - contemporary accounts of, 6-8 - effect of on pauperism, _see_ Poor Law - individual instances of, 257, 260-261 - proposals for checking, 416-417 - statistics of Royal Commissions as to, 261-265 - Statutes against, _see_ Acts of Parliament - views of Gay as to exaggerated accounts of, 10-11, 263-265 - -Diggers, 321, 337-338 - -Dissolution of monasteries, _see_ Monasteries - -Domesday Book-- - large extent of arable land in, 228 - _liberi homines_ and _sochemanni_ in, 27 - -Domesday of Enclosures-- - classes entered in as enclosing, 154-155 - enclosing by _villata_ in, 156 - size of enclosures in, 154-155 - _See also_ Enclosures - - -Economic rent, _see_ Rent, Copyholders - -Education obtained by some peasants, 134-135 - -Enclosure-- - by agreement, between individuals, 162-165 - " " better cultivation produced by, 169-172 - " " early progress of in East and South-West, 167-168, 405 - " " Fitzherbert on, 150, 152-153, 171 - " " Hales on, 151, 167, 171 - " " Lee on, 151 - " " Moore on, 167 - " " Norden on, 150, 151, 171 - " " no harm resulting from, 152-153, 172-173 - " " of arable land, 157, 162-165 - " " of meadow and pasture, 157, 161-162 - " " of whole village, 156-158 - " " opposed by Court of Manor, 159-162 - " " peasants' approval of, 168-170 - by manorial authorities, attitude of Government to, - _see_ Acts, Council, Court - " " " counties most affected by, 8-9, 182, 262-263 - " " " in Middle Ages, 180-182 - " " " motives for, 185-200 - " " " of arable land, 221-223 - " " " of eighteenth century, 183-184 - " " " of meadow and pasture, 219-221 - " " " of peasants' holdings, 150-173 - " " " peasants' dislike of, 147-150 - " " " preceded by consolidation, 222-223 - " " " reaction of on peasants, 231-280 - -Encroachments-- - on lords' land, 235-236 - on peasants' land, 234-235 - on waste, 87-89, 285-287 - -Engrossing-- - of corn, 274 - of holdings, 253-265 - -Equality-- - of holdings, disappearance of in South and East, 63-66 - " " influence of trade on, 66, 84-85 - " " maintained in dividing demesne, 206-207 - " " survival of in North, 63-66, 189-190 - -Escheats of freehold land unascertainable, 30 - -Eviction-- - liability to of copyholders, 287-301 - " " leaseholders, 282-287 - " " tenants at will, 282-287 - number displaced by, 260-265 - _See also_ Depopulation - -Exchange, the, 186-187 - -Exchanging of strips, 164-165, 395-396 - -Exports of woollen piece goods, 196-197 -" " corn, _see_ Corn - - -Famines-- - fear of, 35 - local, 112 - -Farm, _see_ Demesne, Farmers - -Farmers-- - acreage occupied by large, 212 - advantage to lord of letting land to large, 213-216 - agents through whom agrarian change took place, 201-202 - capitalists among, 215-216 - consolidation of strips by, 221-223, 254-256 - conversion to pasture by, 225-228 - demesnes leased to large, 209-211 - disputes between peasants and, 234-237 - economic conditions favouring, 214-216 - enclosing practised by, of arable land, 221-223 - " " " common meadow and pasture, 219-221 - importance in sixteenth century of large, 204 - manorial rights leased to, 211 - peasant subtenants of, 211 - soldiers recruited from, 343-344 - subsidies collected from, 344-347, 415, 418 - -Feudal-- - conditions of land tenure, decay of in South, 191-195 - " " " " among freeholders, 29-30 - " " " Harrington on decay of, 38, 191 - conditions of land tenure, survival of in North, 190-191 - lords, character of, 191-192 - -Final concords in Staffordshire, 392-393 - -Financial, _see_ Fiscal - -Fines-- - for depopulation, 391, 419-421 - of copyholders, customs as to, 127, 295-301, 411-412, 413-415 - " " declared unreasonable by courts, 296 - " " demand for reasonable, 294, 307, 335-336 - " " rise in prices, effect of on, 308-309 - " " statistical analysis of, 300 - " " upward movement in, 305-310 - of freeholders, 127 - -Fiscal reasons for protecting peasants, 344-347 - -Fold-courses, cases as to, 374, 395 - -Forests-- - claim of Crown to under Charles I., 391 - enclosures of to be spared, 335 - -Freedom, growth of personal, _see_ Villeinage - -Freeholds-- - interference of Council with, 399 - _See also_ Freeholders - -Freeholders-- - enclosing by, 32-33, 157-158, 236 - eviction of in fifteenth century, 37 - holdings of, statistics as to, 32-33 - independence of, 30, 35-38 - large numbers of in Norfolk and Suffolk, 24-27 - little affected by agrarian changes, 28-29, 134, 406 - loss of rights of common by, 250-253 - political interests of, 121-122 - rents of, 29-30 - rights of common of, how protected, 247-249 - social importance of, 34-37 - suits of Court due from, 29 - statistics as to, 25 - upward movement among in sixteenth century, 37-40 - _See also_ Yeomen - - -Gentlemen-- - complaints of by peasants, 193 - copyholders among, 55-56 - distrust of by rebels, 323-324 - part played in rebellions by, 322-323 - yeomen made into, 383 - -Geographical distribution of enclosures, _see_ Enclosures - -Germany-- - survival of serfdom in, 43-44 - social distinctions in, 187 - Reformation in, 339 - -German peasants-- - programme of, 339 - revolt of, 368 - -Gilds-- - apprenticeship insisted on by, 105-106 - exclusion of immigrants by, 275-276 - loans by, 109 - meadows belonging to, 369 - -Government, the, _see_ Acts of Parliament, Council, Court - -Grazier, _see_ Pasture - -Grazing, _see_ Pasture - -Great Plague-- - effect of on land tenure, 90-91, 208-209, 286 - " " population, 138 - remembered in reign of Elizabeth, 130 - - -Half-virgate, _see_ Virgates - -Hallmote tenants, land sublet to, 81 - -Hedges, _see_ Enclosure - -Heriots, 43, 53, 126-131 - -Holdings-- - added to demesne farm, 257-258 - addition to, of demesne land, 93-95 - " " of waste, 87-89 - enclosing of, _see_ Enclosure - equality of, in North, 63-66, 189 - exchanging of, 164-165, 395-396 - formation of compact, 162-165 - growth in size of, 70 - held by same family for many years, 189 - inequality of in South and East, 63-66, 70-72 - of customary tenants, statistics as to, 63-66 - " freeholders, 32-33 - " land, basis of economic life of village, 99-104 - rents of, on customary land, 115-119, 141-147 - " " on new encroachments, 141-147 - services due from, 76-77 - subdivision of, 79-80 - subletting of, 80-81 - use made of by peasants, 105-108 - _See also_ Agriculture, Farmers - -Horse and harness, tenure by, _see_ Border tenure - -Hospitality, meaning of, 233 - -Households, equipment of with land, _see_ Holdings - -Husbandry, _see_ Agriculture - - -Immigration-- - caused by enclosures, 3-4, 275 - from enclosed to open field villages, 277-279 - into towns, 275-277 - -Imports, _see_ Commerce - -Import duties, _see_ Corn - -Indenture, tenants by, _see_ Leaseholders - -Industry-- - backwardness of in North, 63-66, 189-190 - growth of in sixteenth century, 185-188, 192 - progress of in East and South, 63-66, 84-85 - _See also_ Commerce, Woollen industry - -Inequality-- - of holdings, absence of in North, 63-66, 189 - " " general in South and East, 63-66 - " " effect of trade in producing, 84-85 - " " transference of land, 78-79, 86 - -Inmates, statute of, 4, 277, 279 - -Intensive cultivation, 110-111, 171 - -Intimidation of tenants by landlords, 7, 251-253, 263, 302-304, 325 - - -Judges-- - decisions of as to fines, 296, 299, 307 - " " " foldcourses, 395-396 - address of Lord Coventry to, 398 - _See also_ Court. - -Juries-- - address of Hales to, 366-367 - evidence as to depopulation before, 263, 366-367, 385 - packed by landlords, 263, 385 - service of 40s. freeholders on, 28, 36, 121 - -Justices-- - of Assize, cases referred to, 373-376 - " " action taken by, 374-376 - of the Peace, actions taken by against depopulation in Lincolnshire, 386, - 419-420 - of the Peace, actions taken by against depopulation in Nottinghamshire, - 386, 418-419 - of the Peace, assessment of enclosed land by in Warwickshire, 169 - " " failure of to administer Acts against depopulation, - 384-385, 390 - of the Peace, letters of Council to, 358, 376 - " " orders of as to relief of poor in Cornwall, 272 - " " presentments before of enclosers in Yorkshire, 375 - " " returns sent to Government by, 386 - " " social prejudices of, 384-385 - " " views of as to enclosing in Nottinghamshire, 418-449 - - -Kind, rent paid in, 211-212 - -King, _see_ Council, Court, and Index of Persons - -Knight service, tenure by, 29 - - -Labour, _see_ Labourers - -Labour services-- - Commutation of, 52, 58, 93, 98 - of copyholders, 52-53 - -Labourers-- - assessment of wages of, 23, 100, 308 - at Axholme, 104 - commons used by, 247 - effect of enclosing on habits of, 106 - immobility of, 270-272 - immigration to towns of, 275-277 - in Norfolk, 21-22 - " Worcestershire, 23 - " Yorkshire, 22 - King's estimate of number of, 21 - on monastic estates, 22 - scarcity of, 100 - social unimportance of, 342 - unemployment of, 232-233 - -Land-- - speculation in, 78-86, 381-382 - wide distribution of, 99-104 - _See also_ Agriculture, Arable land, Common land, Demesne, Holdings, - Meadow land, Pasture, Waste - -Landholders, _see_ Peasants - -Landless population, _see_ Labourers - -Landlords, _see_ Manorial authorities - -Land tenure, _see_ Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders - -Leasehold tenure-- - advantages of to lord, 213-214 - competitive rents under, 141-147 - early development of among peasants, 80-81 - effect of plague on, 93-95. 208, 286 - on demesne land, 93-95, 201-214 - on waste, 87-89, 141-144 - substitution of for copyhold tenure, 301-304 - -Leaseholders-- - division of demesne among small, 93-95, 204-209 - eviction of, 283-287 - letting of demesne to large, 210-211 - manorial rights held by, 211 - rack-renting of, 285 - statistics as to, 25 - rents paid by, 256 - _See also_ Leasehold tenure - -Levellers, complaints by as to enclosing, 149, 320-321 - -Leyrwite, 53 - -Lords of manors, _see_ Manorial authorities - - -Manor, the-- - agricultural routine of, 102 - changes in, produced by Great Plague, 88-95, 207-209 - classification of tenants on, 25, 48 - communism in, 159-161, 243-246, 338 - copyholders kernel of, 288 - court of, 47, 78-79, 86, 125, 159-160, 244-246, 292 - custom of, 47, 124-131, 292-301 - customs of, at Aldeburgh, 411-412 - " " Bushey, 126-128 - " " High Furness, 101 - fiscal interests of lord in, 76-77 - interpretation of documents relating to, 75-78 - leased in sixteenth century, 201-213 - part played in by authority and communal arrangements, 92-93 - rigidity of exaggerated, 76, 89-90, 172 - views of held by Maitland, 244, 305, 433 - " " " Seebohm, 163 - " " " Vinogradoff, 77, 92, 244, 290 - unprofitableness of to lord, 304 - -Manorial authorities, the-- - bargains made by with villagers, 205-207 - bound by custom, 128-129 - contemporary accounts of action of, 6-8 - effect on of Tudor policy, 191, 197 - " " rise in prices, 195-196 - " " growth of woollen industry, 197-200 - enclosing by, _see_ Enclosures - eviction by, _see_ Eviction - identity of interests of peasants with those of, 229, 257 - large enclosures made by, 148-150, 154-155, 216-223 - leasing of demesne by, _see_ Demesne, Leasehold tenure - opposition of to interference of Government, 397-399 - " " " Somerset's policy, 367-368, 370 - pasture-farming by, _see_ Pasture - permission to enclose given by, 157 - petitions of copyholders to, 302-304 - rack-renting by, 141-147, 285 - resumption of land by, 285-287 - small control of over freeholders, 29-30 - speculation in land by, 381-382 - villeins claimed by, 42-43 - -Maps, consolidation of strips shown by, 163, 222-223, 254-255 - -Map-- - of Crendon, 221 - " Edgeware, 172 - " Maids' Moreton, 221 - " Salford, 163 - " Weedon Weston, 222 - " Whadborough, 223 - -Markets-- - effect of growth of, 215 - in Norfolk, 22, 111-112 - small development of, 110-112 - -Marriage, age of, 104-106 - -Meadow land-- - belonging to a gild, 369-370 - divided among peasants, 208 - enclosed by manorial authorities, 219-221 - " " peasants, 157 - -Mercantile system, the, 185, 313-315 - -Merchants, _see_ Commerce - -Merchet, immunity from claimed by peasants, 53-54 - -Middleman, the farmer a, 234 - -Midlands-- - chiefly affected by enclosure and conversion, 8-9, 167, 262-263, 405, - 416-417 - economic condition of, 63-66, 107 - granary of country, 262 - legal classification of tenants on manors in, 24-26 - -Military defence, importance of peasants for, 343-344, 415, 416, 418 - -Mobility of labour checked by law, 270-272 - -Monasteries-- - agriculture on estates of, 225 - demesne lands of leased, 203 - oppression of tenants by, 43, 382 - pasture-farming on estates of, 225, 382 - persons acquiring estates of, 380 - political effects of dissolution of, 383-384 - rebellions partly motived by, 318-319, 322-323 - social effects of dissolution of, 380-384 - views of Aske on dissolution of, 319, 383 - " " Cobbett on dissolution of, 382 - " " Hibbert on dissolution of, 383 - " " Gasquet on dissolution of, 383 - -Money-- - increase in supply of in sixteenth century, 197-200 - " " " effects of, 199-200, 304, 308-310 - scarcity of, 198 - -Money rents-- - corn payments substituted for, 198 - general in sixteenth century, 211-212 - - -"Nativi," _see_ Villeinage - -New allotments-- - distinction between customary holdings and, 95, 284-287, 289-290, 293-294 - rents on, 141-147 - resumption by lords of, 285-287 - -North of England-- - absence of demesne from some manors in, 203 - administration of Acts against depopulation in, 374-375 - copyhold tenure in, 190-191 - customary of a manor in, 101 - demands of rebels in, 335-336, _see also_ Pilgrimage of Grace - economic conservatism of, 63-66, 189-191 - enclosing by peasants in, 157-158 - equality of holdings in, 63-66, 189 - eviction from a manor in, 257-258 - importance of numerous tenantry in, 189-191 - labour services on a manor in, 52-53 - preponderance of customary tenants in, 25-26 - rebellions in, _see_ Pilgrimage of Grace - relations between lords and tenants in, 189-191 - size of enclosures in, 154 - undermining of customary tenures in, 303-305 - - -Open field system, the-- - advantage of, to peasants, 103-104 - arrangement of demesne land under, 222-223, 254-256 - early decay of in Kent, Essex, and Devonshire, 167, 202-263, 405 - gradual modification of by peasants, 165-166, 172 - ideas underlying, 169-170 - inconvenience of, 171-172 - picture of in maps, 163-164, 222-223 - prevalence of in seventeenth century, 401-402 - uncertainty of boundaries under, 235-236 - _See also_ Common Land, Enclosures, Maps, Strips - - -Pannage paid by copyholders in sixteenth century, 53 - -Parks-- - made by landlords, 148, 201 - spared in Pilgrimage of Grace, 335 - -Parliament-- - Act of to fix fines demanded, 335 - Acts of, ineffectiveness of, 352-353, 355 - attitude of freeholders to, 36, 39, 121-122 - debates in on Enclosures, 343, 387-388 - " " Poor Law, 273-275 - " " subsidies, 345-346 - petition of peasants to, 251 - request to return member to refused, 387 - _See also_ Acts of Parliament - -Pasture-- - acreage of held by customary tenants, 107 - " " " farmers of demesnes, 225-226 - " " on monastic estates, 225 - administration of by village, 102, 159-161, 243-246 - apportionment of to arable holdings, 240-241, 247 - conversion of arable to, 223-230 - division of by peasants, 157 - enclosure of by peasants, 157, 170 - " " manorial authorities, 219-221 - importance of to peasants, 235, 239-242 - reconversion of to arable, 367, 391-393 - _See also_ Agriculture, Common Land, Farmers - -Pasture-farming, _see_ Agriculture, Common Land, Farmers, Pasture - -Pauperism, _see_ Poor Law - -Peasants, the-- - agricultural methods of, 105-112 - contemporary pictures of, 132-134 - demands of, 334-337 - education of, 134-135 - effect of loss of common rights on, 240-241, 253 - enclosure by, 151-173 - encroachments on waste by, 87-89, 284-287 - eviction of, 253-265 - helplessness of, 302-304, 325 - importance of, fiscal, 344-347 - " " military, 343-344 - independence of, 29-30, 34-39, 132-134, 325-328 - leasing of demesne by, 94-95, 204-210 - national pride in, 20-21, 132-134 - pauperism among, 270, 273-279 - prosperity of, 132-134, 325 - protection of by Government, 316-317, 351-400 - rebellions of, 317-340 - rents of, 115-121, 141-147 - size of holdings of, 32-33, 64-65 - upward movement among, 72, 75, 81-84, 96-98, 136 - _See also_ Agriculture, Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders, - Tenants at will - -Pilgrimage of Grace-- - agrarian demands put forward in, 322-324, 334-335 - classes taking part in, 318-319, 322-324 - -Plague, _see_ Great Plague, the - -Plantations, emigration to suggested, 270 - -Ploughmen, military importance of, 343-344 - -Policy, agrarian, _see_ Council, Court, Acts of Parliament - -Poor Law, the-- - agrarian causes of, 272-275 - debates in Parliament on, 273-275 - expenditure on caused by depopulation, 278-279, 418 - Mackay's view as to origin of, 266-267 - mobility discouraged by, 270-272 - Orders of 1631, 279 - slow development of, 269 - vagrancy chief problem of, 268-269 - -Population, checks upon, 104-106 - -Population, the manorial, _see_ Peasants, Copyholders, Leaseholders, - Freeholders - -Poverty, _see_ Poor Law - -Prices-- - effects of rise in, 199, 304, 308-310 - regulation of, 308 - Steffen's statistics of, 198 - -Programme of peasants-- - in Pilgrimage of Grace, 334-335 - " Norfolk, 335-337 - -Proletariat, peasants not a, 102 - -Protector, the-- - Act protecting tenants on demesne lands of, 294, 365 - attack of colleagues on, 367-368, 370 - Court of Requests used by, 367 - difficulties of agrarian policy of, 362-364 - fall of, 370 - proclamation against enclosures issued by, 367 - " pardoning rioters issued by, 367 - Royal Commission appointed by, 366 - _See also_ Council, Court - - -Rackrents, _see_ Rents, Fines - -Reaction, under Warwick against Somerset's agrarian policy, 367-368, 370, - 372, 380 - -Reformation, the 339, 380-384 - -Rents-- - competitive, growth of, 139-147 - fixed, demand for in Peasants' Revolt, 146 - " effect of on landlords, 199-200, 304-310 - " " " peasants, 117-121 - " neutralised by exorbitant fines, 118, 120, 305-307 - " statistics as to, 115-117 - fixing of by commissioners, 354 - " " council, 369 - paid in kind, 211 - per acre of demesne land, 256 - racking of, complaints as to, 235, 414 - reasonable, demand for, 336 - -Revolts, agrarian, the-- - conservative aims of, 333, 338-340 - counties affected by, 318-320 - directed against landlords, 323-324 - in North of England, 318, 322-324 - " Derbyshire, 329 - " Norfolk, 324, 331-333 - objects of, 333-337 - organised character of, 325-326, 330-332 - political importance of, 329, 340-341 - sixteenth century, last age of, 318 - -Riots, agrarian, _see_ Revolts - -Royal Commissions, _see_ Commissions - - -Salt silver, paid by copyholders, 53 - -Serf, _see_ Villeins - -Service, _see_ Knight service - -Services, labour, _see_ Labour services - -Servants-- - number of, employed in agriculture, 21-23 - scarcity of, 21-23, 100 - wages of, 100 - -Settlement laws-- - origin of, 269, 275-276 - popularity of, 276 - -Sewers, the Commission of, 395 - -Shack, common of, 234 - -Sheep-- - driving of, 326 - number of kept by peasants, 113 - slaughtering of, 331, 332 - -Sheep-farming-- - Acts restricting, 353-354, 360 - by peasants, 113-115 - by manorial authorities, 223-228 - -Slavery, legalisation of in 1547, 44, 269 - -Socage-- - freeholders holding by, 29 - tenants, rent of, 29 - -Sochemanni, large number of in East Anglia, 26-27 - -South of England-- - contrast between conditions of North and of, 57, 63-66, 97, 103, 189 - holdings of peasants in, 63-66 -Speculation-- - in land by peasants, 78-81 - in monastic estates, 380-382 - on money market, 186 - -Statutes, _see_ Acts of Parliament - -Stinting of pastures, 160, 220, 241 - -Strikes, agrarian, 131, 330 - -Strips-- - advantage of scattered, 103-104 - difficulty of enclosing, 162-163 - exchanging of, 164-165 - formed into compact blocks by peasants, 163-165 - " " " " manorial authorities, 221-223 - inconvenience of to manorial authorities, 254-255 - merged in demesne farm, 256 - picture of, in maps, 163, 222-223 - -Subletting of land by peasants, 80-81 - -Subsidiary income of peasants from woollen industry, 114-115 - -Subsidies-- - assessment of enclosed land to, 169 - difficulty of collecting, 346 - how assessed, 344-345 - payment of by yeomen, 345-346 - -Subsistence, farming for, 111-112 - -Sub-tenants, taking of forbidden, 275-276 - -Surplus over rent retained by tenants, 118-121, 304-305 - -Surveyors-- - account of agrarian conditions by, 5 - attitude of in Northumberland, 189-191 - unpopularity of, 349 - - -Tallages, 53-54 - -Taxation, _see_ Subsidies - -Tenants, _see_ Copyholders, Freeholders, Leaseholders, Tenants at will, - Peasants - -Tenants at will-- - insecurity of, 283 - landlord compelled to grant leases to, 362 - meanings of phrase, 47 - statistics of number of, 48 - -Textile industries, the, _see_ Woollen industry, the - -Tillage, _see_ Arable land - -Trade, _see_ Commerce - -Trade unionism among peasants, 131, 330 - -Tramps, _see_ Vagrancy - -Transferring, the, of land-- - facilities offered by court of manor for, 86 - importance of in building up a middle class, 78, 85, 97 - instances of, 80-81 - -Tudors, the, _see_ Index of Persons, Henry VII., Henry VIII., Edward VI., - Elizabeth - - -Unemployment-- - caused by enclosure, 232-233, 273, 278 - methods of coping with, 269 - -Uses, Statute of, 323 - -Usury, 20, 109, 147, 307, 349 - - -Vagrancy, chief feature of pauperism in sixteenth century, 268 - effect of on towns, 275-277 - " " open field/villages, 277-279 - obstacles in the way of, 270-272 - punishment of, 44, 269 - -Village community, the, _see_ Manor, the - -Villagers, _see_ Peasants - -Villeinage-- - attitude of State towards, 43, 359 - compatible with considerable prosperity, 43 - examples of in sixteenth century, 42-43 - reference to in Somersett's case, 44 - traces of among copyholders, 52-54 - views on of Fitzherbert, 46 - " " Norden, 46 - " " Savine, 41 - " " Smith, 46 - -Virgates-- - aggregation of in fewer hands, 59-60, 66-70, 72-75 - examples of arrangement of, 66-67, 73-74 - use of as a measure, 67-68 - -Virgators, _see_ Virgates - - -Wages, assessment of, 23, 100, 308 - -Wage labour, _see_ Labourers - -Waste land of manor-- - enclosure of by manorial authorities, 219-221 - encroachments on, 87-89, 285-287 - erection of cottages on, 277-278 - great extent of, 88-89 - improvement of under Statute of Merton, 87, 248 - insecurity of tenants on, 285-287 - overstocking of, 172, 242-243 - reclamation of by capitalists, 394-395 - rents of, 140-147 - stinting of, 160, 220 - -Wool, _see_ Woollen industry - -Woollen industry-- - chief manufacture in sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, - 3, 186 - effect of on agrarian conditions, 195-197 - encouraged by Government, 197 - expansion of in fifteenth century, 113, 196 - spread of in rural districts, 114 - Schanz's figures as to growth of, 196 - - -Yeomen-- - accounts of by Bacon, 28 - " " Coke, 133 - " " Fuller, 36-37 - " " Harrison, 132 - " " Latimer, 134 - " " Reyce, 40 - " " Smith, 28 - education of children of, 134-135 - forcible disseisin of, 37 - legal definition of, 27-28 - importance of, fiscal, 344-347 - " " military, 343-344 - " " social, 34-40, 132 - national pride in, 20-21 - _See also_ Freeholders, Peasants - - - - -INDEX OF PERSONS - - -Abbey of St. Albans, the, improvement of wastes by, 87 - -Abbot of Cerne, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - " Glastonbury, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - " Malmesbury, the, agreement by to enclose, 180-181 - " Peterborough, the, dispute of with copyholders, 360 - " St. Peter's, Gloucester, the, agreement by to enclose, 181 - -All Souls College-- - enclosing on estates of, 156 - scale of landholding, 69-70 - maps of, 163, 172, 221, 222, 223 - petition of in Chancery, 235-236 - -Ashley, Professor W.J.-- - views of as to date of enclosing movement, 11 - " " " legal position of copyholders, 290-292 - -Aske, Robert-- - evidence of as to agrarian grievances, 319 - " " " monastic economy, 383 - Pilgrimage of Grace led by, 134, 319 - - -Bacon, Francis-- - bills against depopulation introduced by, 387 - history of King Henry VII. by quoted, 28, 346 - ideal of government of, 398 - use of word "yeoman" by, 28 - views as to pauperism of, 274 - -Bath, the Earl of, property of villeins seized by, 42-43 - -Becon, views of as to agrarian changes, 6, 7 - -Bell, William, commons enclosed by, 373 - -Berkeley, Lord Thomas, agreement by to enclose, 181 - -Bolen, Sir William, enclosing by, 380 - -Bracton-- - on assize of novel disseisin, 122 - villeinage, 292 - -Brudenell, Lord, fine imposed on for enclosing, 391 - -Buckingham, the Duke of-- - enclosing by, 380 - park made by, 148 - -Burleigh, Lord, advice of to Queen Elizabeth, 341 - - -Cade, Jack, 194 - -Captain Pouch, part played by in revolt of 1607, 318 - -Cecil, Sir Robert-- - views of on poor law, 273-274 - " " military importance of ploughmen, 343 - " " Statute of Inmates, 4, 279 - -Cecil, Sir William, letter to concerning Somerset's policy, 347-348, 368 - -Celys, the, wool purchased by, 196 - -Charles I., agrarian policy of government of, 391, 398, 399 - -Clarkson-- - Northumbrian manors surveyed by, 5 - views of as to equal use of commons, 235 - " " " importance of commons, 160 - " " " importance of numerous tenantry, 189-190 - -Cobbett, view of as to social effects of reformation, 382 - -Coke, Sir Edward-- - petition of tenants to, 412-413 - reports of, 247 - view of as to acts against depopulation, 379 - " " " copyholders, 289, 291 - " " " border tenure, 299 - " " " Statute of Merton, 248 - -Combe, William, enclosing by, 375 - -Cotton, Sir J., enclosing by, 380 - -Coventry, Lord, address of to Judges of Assize, 398 - -Cromwell, Thomas-- - letter of to Henry VIII., 360-361 - " " Rich, 361 - responsibility of for agrarian distress, 360 - tenants protected by, 361 - -Crowley-- - "Information and Petition against the Oppressors of the Poor Commons" by, - 365-366 - views of as to agrarian changes, 6, 179 - " " " attitude of landlords, 384 - " " " excessive fines and rents, 307 - -Cunningham, Dr., account of origin of corn laws, 3 - -Cushman, Robert, remarks of on emigration, 270 - - -Danbury, Lord, enclosing by, 380 - -Darcy, Lord-- - dispute of with tenants, 380 - letter to from Commons of Westmoreland, 322 - -Darrell, William, complaints of tenants against, 374 - -Davenport, Miss-- - evidence as to leasing of demesne, 209 - " " " progress of pasture-farming, 224 - -Dawney, Sir John, ordered to reinstate tenants, 361 - -De Malynes, Gerard, views of as to effect of rise in prices, 199-200 - -Defoe, "Giving Alms no Charity" by, 105 - -Delavale, Joshua-- - account of depopulation at Hartley by, 258 - "Seaton Delavale," 257 - -Delavale, Robert, enclosing and depopulation carried out by, 192, 257-258 - -Derby, the Earl of, eviction of tenants by, 361 - -Durham, the Dean of, account of depopulation by, 261 - - -Edward VI.-- - agrarian policy in reign of, 352, 362-372 - Book of Private Prayer of quoted, 20 - Remains of quoted, 6 - -Elizabeth, agrarian policy in reign of, 14, 372-374 - -Ely, the Bishop of, letter of Lord North to, 349 - -Englefield, Sir Francis, enclosing by, 148, 251-252 - -Everard, diggers led by, 321 - - -Firth, _The House of Lords during the Civil War_ by, 38 - -Fitzherbert-- - _Book of Husbandry_ and _Surveying_ by, 5 - " " " on commons, 242 - " " " borrowing, 109 - " " " duty of housewives, 112 - " " " enclosing, 151 - _Surveying_ on commons, 249 - " " copyholders, 288-289 - " " enclosing, 150, 152 - " " land taken from demesne or waste, 285 - " " rack-renting, 150 - -Fortescue-- - _On the Governance of England_ by, quoted as to fiscal importance, 346 - " " " " " prosperity of peasants, 98, 133 - -Fowler, Dr. G.H., evidence of as to conditions at Aspley Guise, 73 - -Fuller-- - _The Holy and Profane State_ by, quoted as to yeomen, 36-37 - " " " " " fiscal importance, 346 - -Gairdner-- - _Letters and Papers of Henry VIII._ edited by, quoted, - 319, 322, 323, 324, 326, 327, 330, 334, 343, 347, 350, 361, 380 - _Constitutional Documents of the Puritan Revolution_ by, quoted, 399 - -Gardiner, _History of England_ 1603-1642 by, quoted, 398 - -Gaskell-- - _Artisans and Machinery_ by, 106 - _The Manufacturing Population of Great Britain_, 106 - -Gasquet, _Henry VIII. and the English Monasteries_ by, 383 - -Gay, Professor-- - views of as to progress of pasture-farming, 10, 195, 224, 263-265 - " " revolt of 1607, 318, 320 - " " small disturbance caused by enclosure, 11 - -Gneist, R. von, 400 - -Gonner, Professor-- - evidence of as to continuity of enclosures, 11 - " " " enclosures of eighteenth century, 263 - " " " fines for depopulation, 386 - " " " immigration into towns, 275 - -Grenvilles, the, lands of Buckland Abbey granted to, 194 - - -Hales, John-- - bills introduced by, 367, 385 - charge to juries by, 367 - departure from England of, 371 - evidence of as to enclosing by peasants, 151, 167 - " " " in fifteenth century, 11-12, 166 - " " population, 105 - " " rack-renting, 199 - " " rise in prices, 199 - part played by on Royal Commission of 1548-1549, 167, 360-367 - remarks of on commons, 7 - value of evidence of, 5-6, 386 - Warwick's attack on, 368 - -Hammond, J.L. and Barbara, views of as to enclosures of eighteenth - century, 3, 183 - -Harrington, Sir J.-- - views of as to decay of feudalism, 191 - " " " effect of Tudor agrarian policy, 388-389 - " " " rise of middle-classes, 38 - -Harrison-- - views of on copyholders, 49, 56-57 - " " depopulation, 105 - " " diet of artificers and husbandmen, 132-133 - " " Poor Laws, 271, 273 - " " prosperity of yeomen, 10, 21, 40 - " " superfluous trades, 19 - -Harry Clowte, 333 - -Hasbach-- - quotation by as to advantages of copyhold tenure, 86 - views of on age of marriage, 106 - " " effects of Tudor commercial policy, 13 - -Henry II., Assize of Novel Disseisin established by, 122 - -Henry VII.-- - commercial policy of, 112-113, 197 - demand of peasants for conditions obtaining under, 98-99 - enclosures made before reign of, 11-12, 166 - -Harrington on agrarian policy of, 38, 191, 388-389 - -Henry VIII.-- - commercial policy of, 112-113, 197 - intervention to protect tenants under, 360-362 - letter of Cromwell to, 360-361 - -Herbert, Lord, _History of King Henry VIII._ by, quoted, 398 - -Herbert, William, Earl of Pembroke-- - estates of, consolidation of peasant holdings on, 67-69 - " " demesne lands on usually leased, 203 - " " " " leased to capitalist farmers, 210 - " " " " " " small holders, 204-205 - " " " " " " village, 205-206 - " " " " " proportion of pasture on, 225-226 - " " statistics of duration of tenure and of fines on, 298 - " " " " tenants on, 25 - " " villeins on, 42 - park of attacked by peasants, 194, 326 - rebellion in West put down by, 324 - share of in monastic estates, 324, 380 - -Humberstone-- - manors of Duke of Devonshire surveyed by, 5 - remarks of, on relation of lords to tenants, 349-350 - " " on variety of manorial customs, 293 - -Huntingdon, the Earl of, request to elect his nominee, 387 - - -Jack of the North, 333 - -Jack of the Style, 318 - -Jackson, Cyril, Report of on Boy Labour, 342 - -James I., agrarian policy of Government of, 374-375, 394, 398 - -Johnson, the Rev. A.H.-- - views of, on decay of yeomanry in nineteenth century, 139 - " " enclosure of commons, 9 - " " entailing of land, 39 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 261 - - -Kalm, _Account of a Visit to England_ (translated by J. Lucas) by, on open - field system, 389 - -Ket, Robert-- - manor held by, 326 - programme of agrarian reform put forward by, 334-337 - rebellion in Norfolk led by, 331-333 - -King, Gregory-- - statistics of as to population, 21 - " " " yield of an acre, 111 - -Kitchin, _Court Leet_ by, on copyhold tenure, 289 - - -Latimer, Bishop-- - complaints of by landlords, 368 - remarks of on education of yeomen, 134-135 - views of on agrarian changes, 6, 134-135, 347, 365, 386 - -Laud, Archbishop-- - activity of on Depopulation Commission, 391, 399, 420-421 - complaints of by landlords, 420-421 - -Lamond, Miss E.M., introduction by to _The Commonweal of this Realm of - England_, 7, 11, 105, 263, 331, 364, 366, 367, 368, 377, 385 - -Leadam, I.-- - evidence of as to independence of peasants, 120-121, 325, 330 - " " " protection of tenants by Government, 357, 360, 362 - " " " size of enclosures, 154-155 - " " " status of enclosers, 154-155 - views of on copyhold tenure, 289-290, 292, 293 - " " enclosing for arable, 10, 195, 224 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 8, 262 - -Lee, J.-- - _A Vindication of a Regulated Enclosure_ by, evidence of as to enclosures - of seventeenth century, 11, 151 - number of labourers employed, 22 - views of on uselessness of legislation, 319 - " " yardlands, 67 - -Leicester, the Earl of, manor purchased by, 502 - -Leonard, Miss E.M.-- - evidence of as to exclusion of immigrants by towns, 376 - letter from Justices quoted by, 278-279 - views of on enclosures of seventeenth century, 11 - " " results of agrarian policy of Tudors and Stuarts, 348, - 389-390 - -Lever, sermons by, 6 - -Lloyd, oppression of tenants by, 390 - -Locke, _Two Treatises of Government_ by, quoted as to limits of Government - action, 400 - - -Mackay, T., views of on origin of Poor Law, 266-267 - -Maitland, F.W.-- - evidence of as to fixed copyhold rents, 119, 305 - view of as to nature of common rights, 244 - -Merton College-- - letter to subwarden of, 30, 410-411 - rents on estates of, 119 - scale of landholding on estates of, 66-68, 73, 76, 85, 163 - -Moore, John-- - evidence of as to enclosures of seventeenth century, 5, 11, 167 - " " " pauperism caused by enclosures, 278 - -More, Sir Thomas-- - evidence of as to enclosing for pasture, 6 - " " " monastic economy, 382 - remarks of on condition of workmen and artificers, 45 - " " " nature of Government, 274, 372 - - -Nasse, view of as to objects of enclosure, 10 - -Norden-- - evidence of as to agriculture in Somersetshire, 110-111, 171 - " " " constitution of a manor, 350 - " " " copyhold and customary tenure, 47, 50 - " " " enclosure by peasants, 151 - " " " fixity of copyholders' rents, 118 - " " " relations between lords and freeholders, 30 - " " " rise in prices, 308 - " " " security of freeholders, 30, 35 - " " " unpopularity of surveyors, 349 - " " " villeinage, 46 - " " " wickedness of depopulation, 150 - -North, Lord, letter of to Bishop of Ely, 349 - -Northumberland, the Earl of-- - fines on estates of, 299, 305 - letter to, 303 - petition to, 303-304 - - -Page, statistics of as to commutation of labour services, 52 - -Paget, Sir William, letter of to Somerset on peasants' revolts, 319, - 338-339, 368 - -Parker, Archbishop, address of to Norfolk rebels, 332 - -Pembroke, the Earl of, _see_ Herbert, Sir William - -Petruschevsky-- - _The Rebellion of Wat Tyler_ by, on improvement of wastes, 87 - on land speculation by peasants, 81 - -Pollard, Professor, 264, 371 - -Pollock and Maitland, _see_ Maitland - -Powell, E., _The East Anglian Rising_ by, - evidence of as to landholders, 21-22 - -Poyntz, Sir Nicholas, oppression of tenant by, 362 - -Pseudonismus-- - _Considerations concerning Common Fields and Enclosures_ and - _A Vindication of the Considerations concerning Common Fields and - Enclosures_, evidence of as to the abuse of commons, 171, 278 - evidence of as to depopulation, 167 - " " " enclosing in seventeenth century, 11, 388 - " " " legislation checking conversion to pasture, 388 - -Pyrce Plowman, 202, 318, 333 - - -Raleigh, Walter (junior), on subsidies, 346 - -Raleigh, Walter (senior), part played in revolt of 1549, 194 - -Reyce, account by of prosperity of freeholders in Suffolk, 40 - -Rich, Lord-- - enclosing by, 380 - letter of Cromwell to, 361 - -Rogers, Thorold, statistics of as to prices, 13, 196, 198 - -Rous, evidence of as to enclosing in fifteenth century, 12 - -Russell, _Ket's Rebellion in Norfolk_ by, quoted, 98, 321, 324, 335, 368 - - -St. John, Sir John, oppression of tenants by, 362 - -Sanders, part played by in agrarian dispute at Coventry, 326 - -Sandes, Richard, paper by on the evils of depopulation, 416-417 - -Sandys, Archbishop, letter of to Queen Elizabeth, 48-49 - -Savine, Dr. A.-- - views of on copyhold tenure, 287, 292, 300 - " " monastic economy, 203, 225, 226, 383 - " " villeinage in sixteenth century, 41 - -Saye and Sele, Lord, name of returned among enclosers, 376 - -Schanz, Professor G., statistics of as to export of woollen cloth, 196 - -Seebohm, Dr. F., Domesday statistics quoted by, 27 - -Shakespeare, references to works of, 194, 343 - -Sheffield, Sir R., enclosing by, 380 - -Shrewsbury, the Earl of-- - dispute of with tenants, 327 - enclosing by, 380 - letter from, 338-339 - -Slater, Dr. G.-- - -Summary of Depopulation Acts by, 353 - views of on effect of statutes against depopulation, 389 - " " geographical distribution of enclosures, 262 - " " policy of Clarendon, 400 - -Smith, Sir Thomas-- - _De Republica Anglorum_ by, on copyholders, 56-57 - " " " " Court of Star Chamber, 358 - " " " " villeinage, 46 - " " " " yeomen, 28, 32 - -Somerset, the Duke of-- - Act giving security to tenants on demesnes of, 294, 365 - agrarian policy of, 362-370 - Commission on Enclosures appointed by, 366 - Court of Requests used by, 367 - execution of, 370 - proclamation issued by, 7, 367 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on agrarian changes, 5 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on encouragement of marriage, 105 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on entailing of lands, 39 - -Starkey, Thomas, _A Dialogue between Cardinal Pole and Thomas Lupset_ by, - on relations between lords and tenants, 195 - -Steffen, Dr. G., statistics of as to price changes, 13, 198 - -Strype, J., _Ecclesiastical Memorials_ by, quoted, 315, 331, 366, 367, 368, - 370, 380 - -Stuarts, the, _see_ Charles I., James I. - - -Throgmorton, Sir John, oppression of tenants by, 373 - -Tom of Trumpington, 333 - -Tusser, _Six Hundred Points of Husbandry_ by, - evidence of as to agrarian changes, 5 - - -Unwin, Professor G.-- - evidence of as to formation of compact holdings by peasants, 84, 164 - " " " growth of capitalists in woollen industry, 186 - - -Vermuyden, engaged to drain Great Level, 395 - -Vinogradoff, Professor P.-- - Domesday statistics quoted by, 27 - rights of common explained by, 244 - views of as to equality of shares in fields, 77, 92 - - -Walter of Henley on yield of an acre, 111 - -Warwick, the Earl of-- - attack of on Hales, 368 - " on Somerset led by, 380 - character of Government of, 371-372 - Ket's rebellion crushed by, 324, 332 - share of in monastic estates, 380 - -Westmoreland, the Earl of, disputes of with tenants, 380 - -Willoughbys, the, 192 - -Wilson, Dr. Thomas-- - views of on Canon Law, 307 - " " usury, 109, 147, 307 - -Winstanley-- - diggers led by, 321, 337-338, 376 - views of, 337-338 - -Witte, Sir J., enclosing by, 380 - -Wolsey, Cardinal, agrarian policy of, 359-360, 397-398 - - -Yorke, Sir John-- - land speculation by, 381 - oppression of tenants by, 285, 390 - -Young, Arthur-- - views of as to open field system, 401, 405 - " " " rents, 118 - - - - -THE END - - - - -Transcriber's Notes - -Obvious punctuation errors and omissions have been silently corrected, -while those requiring interpretation have been left open. - -Hyphenation is sometimes inconsistent in the text. These inconsistencies -have been retained: - - bye-laws/byelaws - re-action/reaction - reallotment/re-allotment - sub-let/sublet - land-holding/landholding - over-stocking/overstocking - sub-tenants/subtenants - corn-fields/cornfields - sub-letting /subletting - foodstuffs/food-stuffs - lease-holders/leaseholders - countryside/country-side - re-adjustment/readjustment - sub-divided/subdivided - re-arranged/rearranged - re-arrangement/rearrangement - over-estimated/overestimated - -If the discrepancies is between the text and the indexes, the indexes have -been corrected to match the text. - - "rackrenting" was changed to "rack-renting" - "foldcourses" was changed to "fold-courses" - - - - - -End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth -Century, by Richard Henry Tawney - -*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AGRARIAN PROBLEM IN 16TH CENTURY *** - -***** This file should be named 40336.txt or 40336.zip ***** -This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: - http://www.gutenberg.org/4/0/3/3/40336/ - -Produced by Chris Curnow, KD Weeks, Joseph Cooper and the -Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net - - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions -will be renamed. - -Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no -one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation -(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without -permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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