ENCLOSURE
We have now reached a time when the enclosure question was becoming of
paramount importance,[184] and began to cause constant anxiety to
legislators, while the writers of the day are full of it. Enclosure
was of four kinds:
1. Enclosing the common arable fields for grazing, generally
in large tracts.
2. Enclosing the same by dividing them into smaller fields,
generally of arable.
3. Enclosing the common pasture, for grazing or tillage.
4. Enclosing the common meadows or mowing grounds.
It is the first mainly, and to a less degree the third of these, which
were so frequent a source of complaint in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries; for the first, besides displacing the small holder, threw
out of employment a large number of people who had hitherto gained
their livelihood by the various work connected with tillage, and the
third deprived a large number of their common rights.
The first Enclosure Act was the Statute of Merton, passed in 1235, 20
Henry III, c. 4, which permitted lords of manors to add to their
demesnes such parts of the waste pasture and woods as were beyond the
needs of the tenants. There is evidence, however, that enclosure,
probably of waste land, was going on before this statute, as the
charter of John, by which all Devonshire except Dartmoor and Exmoor
was deforested, expressly forbids the making of hedges, a proof of
enclosure, in those two forests.[185] We may be sure that the needs of
the tenants were by an arbitrary lord estimated at a very low figure.
At the same time many proceeded in due legal form. Thomas, Lord
Berkeley, about the period of the Act reduced great quantities of
ground into enclosures by procuring many releases of common land from
freeholders.[186] His successor, Lord Maurice, was not so observant of
legality. He had a wood wherein many of his tenants and freeholders
had right of pasture. He wished to make this into a park, and treated
with them for that purpose; but things not going smoothly, he made the
wood into a park without their leave, and then treated with his
tenants, most of whom perforce fell in with his highhanded plan; those
who did not 'fell after upon his sonne with suits, in their small
comfort and less gaines.'[187] Sometimes the rich made the law aid
their covetousness, as did Roger Mortimer the paramour of the 'She
Wolf of France'. Some men had common of pasture in King's Norton Wood,
Worcestershire, who, when Mortimer enclosed part of their common land
with a dike, filled the dike up, for they were deprived of their
inheritance. Thereupon Mortimer brought an action of trespass against
them 'by means of jurors dwelling far from the said land', who were
put on the panel by his steward, who was also sheriff of the county,
and the commoners were convicted and cast in damages of £300, not
daring to appear at the time for fear of assault, or even death.[188]
Neither dared they say a word about the matter till Mortimer was dead,
when it is satisfactory to learn that Edward III gave them all their
money back save 20 marks. We are told that Lord Maurice Berkeley
consolidated much of his demesne lands, throwing together the
scattered strips and exchanging those that lay far apart from the
manor houses for those that lay near; trying evidently to get the home
farms into a ring fence as we should term it.[189] In this policy he
was followed by his successor Thomas the Second, who during his
ownership of the estate from 1281 to 1320, to the great profit of his
tenants and himself, encouraged them to make exchanges, so as to make
their lands lie in convenient parcels instead of scattered strips, by
which he raised the rent of an acre from 4d. and 6d. to 1s. 6d.[190]
There is a deed of enclosure made in the year 1250, preserved, by
which the free men of North Dichton 'appropriated and divided between
them and so kept for ever in fee all that place called Sywyneland,
with the moor,' and they were to have licence to appropriate that
place, which was common pasture (the boundaries of which are given),
'save, however, to the grantor William de Ros and his heirs' common of
pasture in a portion thereof named by bounds, with entry and exit for
beasts after the wheat is carried. The men of North Dichton were also
to have all the wood called Rouhowthwicke, and to do what they liked
with it.[191] In return they gave the lord 10 marks of silver and a
concession as regards a certain wood. It has been noticed that the
Black Death, besides causing many of the landlords to let their
demesnes, also made them turn much tillage into grass to save labour,
which had grown so dear. We have also seen that the statutes
regulating wages were of little effect, and they went on rising, so
that more land was laid down to grass. The landowners may be said to
have given up ordinary farming and turned to sheep raising.
English wool could always find a ready sale, although Spanish sheep
farming had developed greatly; and the profitable trade of growing
wool attracted the new capitalist class who had sprung up, so that
they often invested their recently made fortunes in it, buying up many
of the great estates that were scattered during the war.[192]
The increase of sheep farming was assisted by the fact that the
domestic system of the manufacture of wool, which supplanted the guild
system, led, owing to its rapid and successful growth, to a constant
and increasing demand for wool. At the same time this development of
the cloth industry helped to alleviate the evils it had itself caused
by giving employment to many whom the agricultural changes wholly or
partially deprived of work. 'It is important to remember, that where
peasant proprietorship and small farming did maintain their ground it
was largely due to the domestic industries which supplemented the
profits of agriculture.'[193]
Much of the land laid down to grass was demesne land, but many of the
common arable fields were enclosed and laid down. John Ross of Warwick
about 1460 compares the country as he knew it with the picture
presented by the Hundred Rolls in Edward I's time, showing how many
villages had been depopulated; and he mentions the inconvenience to
travellers in having to get down frequently to open the gates of
enclosed fields.[194]
Enclosure was really a sure sign of agricultural progress; nearly all
the agricultural writers from Fitzherbert onwards are agreed that
enclosed land produced much more than uninclosed. Fitzherbert, in the
first quarter of the sixteenth century, said an acre of land rented
for 6d. uninclosed was worth 8d. when enclosed. Gabriel Plattes, in
the seventeenth century, said an acre enclosed was worth four in
common. In fact, the history of enclosures is part of the history of
the great revolution in agriculture by which the manorial system was
converted into the modern system as we know it to-day of several
ownership and the triumvirate of landlord, tenant farmer, and
labourer. No one could have objected to the enclosure of waste; it was
that of the common arable fields and of the common pasture that
excited the indignation of contemporaries. They saw many of the small
holders displaced and the countryside depopulated; many of the
labourers were also thrown out of employment, for there was no need in
enclosed fields of the swineherd and shepherd and oxherd who had
tended the common flocks of the villagers in the old unfenced fields.
But much of the opposition was founded on ignorance and hatred of
change; England had been for ages mainly a corn-growing land, and,
many thought, ought to remain so. As a matter of fact, what much of
the arable land wanted was laying down to grass; it was worn out and
needed a rest. The common field system was wasteful; the land, for
instance, could never be properly ploughed, for the long narrow strips
could not be cross-ploughed, and much of it must have suffered
grievously from want of manure at a time when hardly any stock was
kept in the winter to make manure. The beneficial effect of the rest
is shown by the fact that at the end of the sixteenth century, when
some of the land came to be broken up, the produce per acre of wheat
had gone up largely.[195] Marling and liming the land, too, which had
been the salvation of much of it for centuries, had gone out partly
because of insecurity of tenure, partly because in the unsettled state
of England men knew not if they could reap any benefit therefrom; and
partly because, says Fitzherbert, men were lazier than their fathers.
There can be no doubt that enclosures were often accompanied with
great hardships and injustice. Dugdale, speaking of Stretton in
Warwickshire,[196] says that in Henry VII's time Thomas Twyford,
having begun the depopulation thereof, decaying four messuages and
three cottages whereunto 160 acres of 'errable' land belonged, sold it
to Henry Smith; which Henry, following that example, enclosed 640
acres of land more, whereby twelve messuages and four cottages fell to
ruins and eighty persons there inhabiting, being employed about
tillage and husbandry, were constrained to depart thence and live
miserably. By means whereof the church grew to such ruin that it was
of no other use than for the shelter of cattle. A sad picture, and
true of many districts, but much of the depopulation ascribed to
enclosures was due to the devastation of the Civil Wars.
In spite of these enclosures, which began to change the England of
open fields into the country we know of hedgerows and winding roads,
great part of the land was in a wild and uncultivated state of fen,
heath, and wood, the latter sometimes growing right up to the walls of
the towns.[197] An unbroken series of woods and fens stretched right
across England from Lincoln to the Mersey, and northwards from the
Mersey to the Solway and the Tweed; Warwickshire, Northamptonshire,
and Leicestershire were largely covered by forests, and Sherwood
Forest extended over nearly the whole of Notts. Cannock Chase was
covered with oaks, and in the forest of Needwood in Camden's time the
neighbouring gentry eagerly pursued the cheerful sport of hunting. The
great forest of Andredesweald, though much diminished, still covered a
large part of Sussex, and the Chiltern district in Bucks and
Oxfordshire was thick with woods which hid many a robber. The great
fen in the east covered 300,000 acres of land in six counties, in
spite of various efforts to reclaim the land, and was to remain in a
state of marsh and shallow water till the seventeenth century.
North and west of the great fen was Hatfield Chase, 180,000 acres
mostly swamp and bog, with here and there a strip of cultivated land,
much of which had been tilled and neglected; a great part too of
Yorkshire was swamp, heath, and forest, and of Lancashire marshes and
mosses, some of which were not drained till recent times. The best
corn-growing counties were those lying immediately to the north of
London, stretching from Suffolk to Gloucestershire, and including the
southern portions of Staffordshire and Leicestershire; Essex was a
great cheese county; Hants, Cambridgeshire, Northamptonshire, and
Bedfordshire were famous for malt, and Leicestershire for peas and
beans. The population of England in 1485 was probably from two to two
and a half millions. At the time of Domesday it was under two
millions, and from that date increased perhaps to nearly four millions
at the time of the Black Death in 1348-9, which swept away from
one-third to one-half of the people, and repeated wars and pestilences
seem to have kept it from increasing until Tudor times. Of the whole
population no fewer than eleven-twelfths were employed in
agriculture.[198]
It was sought to remedy enclosure and depopulation by legislation, and
the statute of 4 Hen. VII, c. 19, was passed, which stated in its
preamble that where in some towns (meaning townships or villages) 200
persons used to be occupied and lived by their lawful labours, now
there are occupied only two or three herdsmen, so that the residue
fall into idleness, and husbandry is greatly decayed, churches
destroyed, the bodies there buried not prayed for, the parsons and
curates wronged, and the defence of this land enfeebled and impaired;
the latter point being wisely deemed one of the most serious defects
in the new system of farming. Indeed, the encouragement of tillage was
largely prompted by the desire to see the people fed on good
home-grown corn and made strong and healthy by rural labour for the
defence of England. It therefore enacted that houses which within
three years before had been let for farms with 20 acres of tillage
land should be kept in that condition, under a penalty of forfeiting
half the profits to the king or the lord of the fee. Soon after Henry
VIII ascended the throne came another statute, 6 Hen. VIII, c. 5, that
all townships, villages, &c., decayed and turned from husbandry and
tillage into pasture, shall by the owner be rebuilt and the land made
mete for tillage within one year; and this was repeated and made
perpetual by a law of the next year.[199]
But legislation was in vain; the price of wool was now beginning to
advance so that the attraction of sheep farming was irresistible, and
laws, which asked landowners and farmers to turn from what was
profitable to what was not, were little likely to be observed,
especially as the administration of these laws was in the hands of
those whose interest it was that they should not be observed.
Their ill success, however, did not deter the Parliament from fresh
efforts. 25 Hen. VIII, c. 13, sets forth the condition of affairs in
its preamble: as many persons have accumulated into few, great
multitude of farms and great plenty of cattle, especially sheep,
putting such land as they can get into pasture, and enhanced the old
rents and raised the prices of corn, cattle, wool, and poultry almost
double, 'by reason whereof a mervaylous multitude and nombre of the
people of this realme be not able to provide drynke and clothes
necessary for themselves, but be so discoraged with myserie and
povertie that they fall dayly to thefte and robberye or pitifully dye
for hunger and colde.' So greedy and covetous were some of these
accumulators that they had as many as 24,000 sheep; and a good sheep,
that was used to be sold for 2s. 4d. or 3s. at the most, was now from
4s. to 6s.; and a stone of clothing wool, that in some shires was
accustomed to be sold for 18d. or 20d., is now 3s. 4d. to 4s.; and in
others, where it was 2s. 4d. to 3s. it is now 4s. 8d. to 5s.
It was therefore enacted that no man, with some exceptions, was to
keep more than 2,000 sheep at one time in any part of the realm,
though lambs under one year were not to count. The frequency of these
laws proves their inefficacy, and the conduct of Henry VIII was the
chief cause of it; for while Parliament was complaining of the
decrease of tillage he gave huge tracts of land taken from the
monasteries to greedy courtiers, who evicted the tenants and lived on
the profits of sheep farming.[200] For the dissolution of the
monasteries was now taking Place,[201] and the best landowners in
England, some of whom farmed their own land long after most of the lay
landlords had given it up or turned it into grass, and whose lands are
said to have fetched a higher rent than any others, were robbed and
ruined. Including the dissolution of the monasteries and the
confiscation of the chantry lands in 1549 by Edward VI, about
one-fifteenth of the land of England changed hands at this time. The
transfer of the abbey lands to Henry's favourites was very prejudicial
to farming; it was a source of serious dislocation of agricultural
industry, marked by all the inconvenience, injustice, and loss that
attends a violent transfer of property. It is probable also that many
of the monastic lands were let on stock and land leases; and the stock
was confiscated, with inevitable ruin to the tenant as well as the
landlord.[202] And not only was a serious injury wrought to
agriculture by the spoliation of a large number of landlords generally
noted for their generosity and good farming, but with the religious
houses disappeared a large number of consumers of country produce, the
amount of which may be gathered from the following list of stores of
the great Abbey of Fountains at the dissolution: 2,356 horned cattle,
1,326 sheep, 86 horses, 79 swine, and large quantities of wheat, oats,
rye, and malt, with 392 loads of hay.[203] It must indeed have seemed
to many as if the poor farmer was never to have any rest; no sooner
were the long wars over and pestilences in some sense diminished, than
the evils of enclosure and the dissolution of the monasteries came
upon him. Many ills were popularly ascribed to the fall of the
monasteries; in an old ballad in Percy's _Reliques_ one of the
characters says, in western dialect:--
'Chill tell the what, good vellowe,
Before the friers went hence,
A bushel of the best wheate
Was zold vor vorteen pence,
And vorty eggs a penny
That were both good and newe.'
NOTE.--If any further proof were needed of the constant attention
given by Parliament to agricultural matters, it would be furnished by
the Acts for the destruction of vermin.[204] Our forefathers had no
doubt that rooks did more harm than good, yearly destroying a
'wonderfull and marvelous greate quantitie of corne and graine'; and
destroying the 'covertures of thatched housery, bernes, rekes,
stakkes, and other such like'; so that all persons were to do their
best to kill them, 'on pain of a grevous amerciament'.
FOOTNOTES:
[184] Much the same tendencies were at work in other countries,
especially in Germany.
[185] Slater, _English Peasantry and Enclosure_, 248.
[186] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 113.
[187] _Cal. Pat. Rolls_, 1331, p. 127.
[188] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 141.
[189] Ibid. i. 141.
[190] _Lives of the Berkeleys_, i. 160.
[191] _Historical MSS. Commission, 6th Report_, p. 359.
[192] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 379.
[193] Ashley, _English Woollen Industry_, pp. 80-1. Broadly speaking,
there are four stages in the development of industry--the family
system, the guild system, the domestic system, and the factory system.
[194] _Hist. Reg. Angl._, p. 120.
[195] Gisborne, _Agricultural Essays_, pp. 186-9.
[196] _Antiquities of Warwickshire_ 2nd ed., p. 51.
[197] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 135.
[198] See Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 331; Denton,
_England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 127.
[199] 7 Hen. VIII, c. 1.
[200] Cunningham, _Industry and Commerce_, i. 489.
[201] Dissolution of small monasteries, 1536; of greater, 1539-40.
[202] Thorold Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, iv. 129.
[203] Dugdale, _Monasticon_, v, 291.
[204] 24 Hen. VIII, c. 10; 8 Eliz. c. 15; 14 Eliz. c. 11; 39 Eliz. c.
18.