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2
THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND
STUDIES IN HISTORY, ECONOMICS AND PUBLIC LAW
EDITED BY THE FACULTY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE OF
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
Volume LXXX] [Number 2
Whole Number 186
THE ENCLOSURES IN ENGLAND
AN ECONOMIC RECONSTRUCTION
BY
HARRIETT BRADLEY, Ph.D.
_Assistant Professor of Economics, Vassar College
Sometime University Fellow in Economics_
New York
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
LONGMANS, GREEN & CO., AGENTS
LONDON: P.S. KING & SON, LTD.
1918
"It fareth with the earth as with
other creatures that through
continual labour grow faint and
feeble-hearted."
_From speech made in the House of Commons, 1597_
To
EMILIE LOUISE WELLS
CONTENTS
PAGE
INTRODUCTION 11
The subject of inquiry--No attempt hitherto made to verify the
different hypothetical explanations of the enclosures--Nature of the
evidence.
CHAPTER I
THE PRICE OF WOOL 18
Accepted theory of enclosure movement based on price of
wool--Enclosures began independently of Black Death and before
expansion of woollen industry--Price of wool low as compared with that
of wheat in enclosure period--Seventeenth-century conversions of
pasture to arable--Of arable to pasture--Conversion not explained by
change in prices or wages--Double conversion movement due to condition
of soil--Summary.
CHAPTER II
THE FERTILITY OF THE COMMON FIELDS 51
Dr. Russell on soil fertility--Insufficient manure--Statistical
indications of yield--Compulsory land-holding--Desertion of
villains--Commutation of services on terms advantageous to serf--Low
rent obtained when bond land was leased--Remission of
services--Changes due to economic need, not desired for improved
social status--Poverty of villains--Cultivation of demesne
unprofitable.
CHAPTER III
THE DISINTEGRATION OF THE OPEN FIELDS 73
Growing irregularity of holdings--Consolidation of holdings--Turf
boundaries plowed under--Lea land--Restoration of fertility--Enclosure
by tenants--Land used alternately as pasture and arable--Summary of
changes.
CHAPTER IV
ENCLOSURE FOR SHEEP PASTURE 86
Enclosure by small tenants difficult--Open-field tenants
unprofitable--Low rents--Neglect of land--High cost of
living--Enclosure even of demesne a hardship to small
holders--Intermixture of holdings a reason for dispossessing
tenants--Higher rents from enclosed land another reason--Poverty of
tenants where no enclosures were made--Exhaustion of open fields
recognised by Parliament--Restoration of fertility and reconversion to
tillage--New forage crops in eighteenth century--Recapitulation and
conclusion.
INDEX 109
INTRODUCTION
The enclosure movement--the process by which the common-field system
was broken down and replaced by a system of unrestricted private
use--involved economic and social changes which make it one of the
important subjects in English economic history. When it began, the
arable fields of a community lay divided in a multitude of strips
separated from each other only by borders of unplowed turf. Each
landholder was in possession of a number of these strips, widely
separated from each other, and scattered all over the open fields, so
that he had a share in each of the various grades of land.[1] But his
private use of the land was restricted to the period when it was being
prepared for crop or was under crop. After harvest the land was grazed
in common by the village flocks; and each year a half or a third of
the land was not plowed at all, but lay fallow and formed part of the
common pasture. Under this system there was no opportunity for
individual initiative in varying the rotation of crops or the dates of
plowing and seed time; the use of the land in common for a part of the
time restricted its use even during the time when it was not in
common. The process by which this system was replaced by modern
private ownership with unrestricted individual use is called the
enclosure movement, because it involved the rearrangement of holdings
into separate, compact plots, divided from each other by enclosing
hedges and ditches. The most notable feature of this process is the
conversion of the open fields into sheep pasture. This involved the
eviction of the tenants who had been engaged in cultivating these
fields and the amalgamation of many holdings of arable to form a few
large enclosures for sheep. The enclosure movement was not merely the
displacement of one system of tillage by another system of tillage; it
involved the temporary displacement of tillage itself in favor of
grazing.
In this monograph two things are undertaken: first, an analysis of the
usually accepted version of the enclosure movement in the light of
contemporary evidence; and, secondly, the presentation of another
account of the nature and causes of the movement, consistent with
itself and with the available evidence. The popular account of the
enclosure movement turns upon a supposed advance in the price of wool,
due to the expansion of the woollen industry in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries. Landlords at this period (we are told) were
increasingly eager for pecuniary gain and, because of the greater
profit to be made from grazing, were willing to evict the tenants on
their land and convert the arable fields to sheep pasture. About the
end of the sixteenth century, it is said, this first enclosure
movement came to an end, for there are evidences of the reconversion
of pastures formerly laid to grass. An inquiry into the evidence shows
that the price of wool fell during the fifteenth century and failed to
rise as rapidly as that of wheat during the sixteenth century.
Moreover, the conversion of arable land to pasture did not cease when
the contrary process set in, but continued throughout the seventeenth
century with apparently unabated vigor. These facts make it impossible
to accept the current theory of the enclosure movement. There is, on
the other hand, abundant evidence that the fertility of much of the
common-field land had been exhausted by centuries of cultivation. Some
of it was allowed to run to waste; some was laid to grass, enclosed,
and used as pasture. Productivity was gradually restored after some
years of rest, and it became possible to resume cultivation. The
enclosure movement is explained not by a change in the price of wool,
but by the gradual loss of productivity of common-field land.
This explanation is not made here for the first time. It is advanced
in Denton's _England in the Fifteenth Century_[2] and Gardiner, in
his _Student's History of England_,[3] accepts it. Prothero[4] and
Gonner[5] give it some place in their works. Dr. Simkhovitch, at whose
suggestion this inquiry was undertaken, has for some time been of the
opinion that deterioration of the soil was the fundamental cause of
the displacement of arable farming by grazing.[6] This explanation,
however, stands at the present time as an unverified hypothesis, which
has been specifically rejected by Gibbins, in his widely used
text-book,[7] and by Hasbach,[8] who objects that Denton does not
prove his case. In this respect the theory is no more to be criticised
than the theory which these authorities accept, for that does not rest
upon proof, but upon the prestige gained through frequent repetition.
But the matter need not rest here. It is unnecessary to accept any
hypothetical account of events which are, after all, comparatively
recent, and for which the evidence is available.
Of the various sources accessible for the study of the English
enclosure movement, one type only has been extensively used by
historians. The whole story of this movement as it is usually told is
based upon tracts, sermons, verses, proclamations, etc. of the
sixteenth century--upon the literature of protest called forth by the
social distress caused by enclosure. Until very recently the similar
literature of the seventeenth century has been neglected, although it
destroys the basis of assumptions which are fundamental to the
orthodox account of the movement. Much of significance even in the
literature of the sixteenth century has been passed over--notably
certain striking passages in statutes of the latter half of the
century, and in books on husbandry of the first half. Details of
manorial history derived from the account rolls of the manors
themselves, and contemporary manorial maps and surveys, as well as the
records of the actual market prices of grain and wool, have been
ignored in the construction of an hypothetical account of the movement
which breaks down whenever verification by contemporary evidence is
attempted.
The evidence is in many respects imperfect. It would be of great
value, for instance, to have access to records of grain production
over an area extensive enough, and for a long enough period, to
furnish reliable statistical indications of the trend of productivity.
It would be helpful to have exact information about the amount of land
converted from arable to pasture in each decade of the period under
consideration, and to know to what extent and at what dates land was
reconverted to tillage after having been laid to grass. There are no
records to supply most of this information. It is possible that the
materials for a statistical study of soil productivity are in
existence, but up to the present time they have not been published,
and it is doubtful if this deficiency will be supplied. It is even
more doubtful whether more can be learned about the rate of conversion
of arable land to pasture than is now known, and this is little.
Professor Gay has made a careful study of the evidence on this
question, and has analysed the reports of the government commissions
for enforcing the husbandry statutes before 1600,[9] and Miss Leonard
has made the returns of the commission of 1630 for Leicestershire
available.[10] The conditions under which these commissions worked
make the returns somewhat unreliable even for the years covered by
their reports, and much interpolation is necessary, as there are
serious gaps in the series of years for which returns are made. For
dates outside of the period 1485-1630 we must rely entirely on
literary references. Unsatisfactory as our statistical information is
on this important question, it is far more complete than the evidence
on the subject of the reconversion to tillage of arable land which had
been turned into pasture.
It is to the unfortunate social consequences of enclosure that we owe
the abundance of historical material on this subject. Undoubtedly much
land was converted to pasture in a piece-meal fashion, as small
holders saw the possibility of making the change quietly, and without
disturbing the rest of the community. If enclosure had taken no other
form than this, no storm of public protest would have risen, to
express itself in pamphlets, sermons, statutes and government reports.
Enclosure on a large scale involved dispossession of the inhabitants,
and a complete break with traditional usage. For this reason the
literature of the subject is abundant. When, however, the process was
reversed, and the land again brought under cultivation, there was
involved no interference with the rights of common holders. It was to
the interest of no one to oppose this change, and no protest was made
to call the attention of the historian to what was being done.
References to the process are numerous enough only to prove that
reconversion of land formerly laid to grass took place during the
fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries--to an extent of which
not even an approximate estimate can be made.
Imperfect as the evidence is from some points of view, it is
nevertheless complete for the purposes of this monograph. It would be
impossible, with the material at hand, to reconstruct the progress of
the enclosure movement, decade by decade, and county by county,
throughout England. My intention, however, is not so much to describe
the movement in detail as it is to give a consistent account of its
nature and causes. Even a few sixteenth-century instances of the
plowing up of pasture land should be enough to arrest the attention of
historians who believe that the conversion of arable land to pasture
during this period is sufficiently explained by an assertion that the
price of wool was high. What especial circumstances made it
advantageous to cultivate land which had been under grass, while other
land was being withdrawn from cultivation? Contemporary writers speak
of the need of worn land for rest for a long period of years, and
remark that it will bear well again at the end of the period. Evidence
such as this is significant without the further information which
would enable us to estimate the amount of land affected. For our
purposes, also, the notice of enclosure of arable land for pasture on
one group of manors in the early thirteenth century is important as an
indication that the fundamental cause of the enclosure movement was at
work long before the Black Death, which is usually taken as the event
in which the movement had its beginning. Low rents, pauperism, and
abandonment of land are facts which indicate declining productivity of
the soil, and statistical records of the harvests reaped are not
needed when statutes, proclamations, and books of husbandry describe
the exhausted condition of the common fields. The fact that the
enclosure movement continued vigorously in the seventeenth century is
conclusively established, and when this fact is known the
impossibility of estimating the comparative rate of progress of the
movement in the preceding century is of no importance. Upon one point
at least, the evidence is almost all that could be desired. The
material for a comparison of the prices of wheat and wool throughout
the most critical portion of the period has been made accessible by
Thorold Rogers.[11] It is to this material that the defenders of the
theory that enclosures are explained by the price of wool should turn,
for they will find a fall of price where they assume that a rise took
place. Instead of an increase in the supply of wool due to a rise in
its price, there is indicated a fall in the price of wool due to an
increase in the supply. The cause of the increase of the supply of
wool must be sought outside of the price conditions.
Acknowledgment should here be made of my indebtedness to Dr. V. G.
Simkhovitch of Columbia University, without whose generous help this
study would not have been planned, and whose criticism and advice have
been invaluable in bringing it to completion. Professor Seager also
has given helpful criticism. Professor Seligman has allowed me the use
of books from his library which I should otherwise have been unable to
obtain. For material which could not be found in American libraries I
am indebted to my mother and father, who obtained it for me in
England.
Footnotes:
[1] V. G. Simkovitch, _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. xxvii, p. 398.
[2] (London, 1888), pp. 153-154. Denton refers here to Gisborne's _Ag.
Essays_, as does Curtler, in his _Short Hist. of Eng. Ag._ (Oxford,
1909), p. 77.
[3] Vol. i, p. 321.
[4] _English Farming Past and Present_ (London, 1912), p. 64.
[5] _Common Land and Enclosure_, p. 121.
[6] See _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. xxxi, p. 214.
[7] _Industry in England_ (New York, 1897), p. 181.
[8] _Hist. of the Eng. Ag. Laborer_ (London, 1908), p. 31.
[9] _Pub. Am. Ec. Assoc._, Third Series (1905), vol vi, no. 2, pp.
146-160: "Inclosure Movement in England."
[10] _Royal Hist. Soc. Trans._, New Series (1905), vol. xix, pp.
101-146: "Inclosure of Common Fields."
[11] _Cf. infra_, p. 26.
CHAPTER I
THE PRICE OF WOOL
The generally accepted version of the enclosure movement turns upon
supposed changes in the relative prices of wool and grain. The
conversion of arable land to pasture in the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries is accounted for by the hypothesis that the price of wool
was rising more rapidly than that of grain. The beginning of the
enclosure movement, according to this theory, dates from the time when
a rise in the price of wool became marked, and the movement ended when
there was a relative rise in the price of agricultural products.
Before the price of wool began to rise, it is supposed that tillage
was profitable enough, and that nothing but the higher profits to be
made from grazing induced landholders to abandon agriculture. The
agrarian readjustments of the fourteenth century are regarded as due
simply to the temporary shortage of labor caused by the Black Death.
High wages at this time caused the conversion of some land to pasture,
according to the orthodox theory, and from time to time during the
next two centuries high wages were a contributing factor influencing
the withdrawal of land from tillage; but the great and effective cause
of the enclosure movement, the one fundamental fact which is insisted
upon, is that constant advances in the price of wool made grazing
relatively profitable. It is usually accepted without debate that the
withdrawal of arable land from tillage did not begin until after the
Black Death, that the enclosures of the fifteenth and sixteenth
centuries were caused by a rise in the price of wool, and that the
conversion of arable land to pasture ceased when this cause ceased to
operate.
Against this general explanation of the enclosure movement, it is
urged, first, that the withdrawal of land from cultivation began long
before the date at which the enclosure movement, caused by an alleged
rise in the price of wool, is ordinarily said to have begun. The
fourteenth century was marked by agrarian readjustments which have a
direct relation to the enclosure movement, and which cannot be
explained by the Black Death or the price of wool. Even in the
thirteenth century the causes leading to the enclosure movement were
well marked. Secondly, the cause of the substitution of sheep-farming
for agriculture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries cannot have
been a rise in the price of wool relatively to that of grain, because
statistics show that the price of wool fell during the fifteenth
century, and failed to rise as rapidly as that of wheat in the
sixteenth century. Thirdly, a mere comparison of the relative prices
of grazing and agricultural products cannot explain the fact that
conversion of open-field land to pasture continued throughout the
seventeenth century in spite of prices which made it profitable for
landowners at the same time to convert a large amount of grass-land to
tillage, including enclosures which had formerly been taken from the
common fields. If these facts are accepted the explanation of the
enclosure movement which is based upon a comparison of the prices of
wheat and wool must be rejected, and the story must be told from a
different point of view.
Taking up these points in order, we shall inquire first into the
causes of the agrarian readjustments of the fourteenth century. A
generation after the Black Death, the commutation of villain services
and the introduction of the leasehold system had made notable
progress. The leasing of the demesne has been attributed to the
direct influence of the pestilence, which by reducing the serf
population made it impossible to secure enough villain labor to
cultivate the lord's land. The substitution of money rents in place of
the labor services owed by the villains has been explained on the
supposition that the serfs who had survived the pestilence took
advantage of the opportunity afforded by their reduction in numbers to
free themselves from servile labor and thus improve their social
status. The connection between the Black Death and the changes in
manorial management which are usually attributed to it could be more
convincingly established had not several decades elapsed after the
Black Death before these changes became marked. A recent intensive
study of the manors of the Bishopric of Winchester during this period
confirms the view of those who have protested against assigning to the
Black Death the revolutionary importance which is given it by many
historians. On these estates the Black Death "produced severe
evanescent effects and temporary changes, with a rapid return to the
_status quo_ of 1348."[12] The great changes which are usually
attributed to the plague of 1348-1350 were under way before 1348, and
were not greatly accelerated until 1360, possibly not before 1370, and
cannot, therefore, have been due to the Black Death.
Levett and Ballard devote especial attention to the effect of the
Black Death upon the substitution of money payments for labor services
and rents in kind, but their study also brings out the fact that the
difficulty in persuading tenants to take up land on the old terms
(usually ascribed to the Black Death) began before the pestilence, and
continued long after its effects had ceased to exert any influence.
Before the Black Death landowners were unable to secure holders for
bond land without the use of force. A generation after the Black Death
they were still contending with this problem, and it had become more
serious than at any previous time. Whatever the significance of the
Black Death, it must not be advanced as the explanation of a condition
which arose before its occurrence, nor of events which took place long
after its effects were forgotten. One result of the pestilence was,
indeed, to place villains in a stronger position than before, but the
changes which took place on this account must not be allowed to
obscure the fact that landowners were already facing serious
difficulties before 1348. Holders of land were already deserting, and
the tenements of those who died or deserted could frequently be filled
only by compulsion. Villains were refusing to perform their services
_on account of poverty_, and they were already securing reductions in
their rents and services. The temporary reduction of the population by
the Black Death has been advanced as the reason for the ability of the
villains of the decade 1350-1360 to enforce their demands; but without
the help of any such cause, villains of an earlier period were
obtaining concessions from their lords, and after the natural growth
of the population had had ample time to replace those who had died of
the pestilence, the villains were in a stronger position than ever
before, if we are to estimate their strength by their success in
lightening their economic burdens. The Black Death at the most did no
more than accelerate changes in the tenure of land which were already
under way. Villain services were being reduced, and the size of
villain holdings increased. The strength of the position of the serfs
lay not so much in the absence of competition due to a temporary
reduction in their numbers as in their poverty. Tenants could not be
held at the accustomed rents and services because it was impossible to
make a living from their holdings. The absence of competition for
holdings was no temporary thing, due to the high mortality of the
years 1348-1350, but was chronic, and was based upon the worthlessness
of the land. The vacant tenements of the fourteenth century, the
reduction in the area of demesne land planted, the complaints that no
profit could be made from tillage, the reduction of rents on account
of the poverty of whole villages, all point in the same direction.
These matters will be taken up more fully in a later chapter. Here it
need only be pointed out that the withdrawal of land from cultivation
was under way because tillage was unprofitable.
If tillage was unprofitable in the fourteenth century, so unprofitable
that heirs were anxious to buy themselves free of the obligation to
enter upon their inheritance, while established landholders deserted
their tenements, the enclosure of arable land for pasture in the
fifteenth century is seen in a new light. When there was no question
of desiring the land for sheep pasture, it was voluntarily abandoned
by cultivators. Displacement of tillage due to an internal cause
precedes displacement of tillage for sheep pasture. The process of
withdrawing land from cultivation began independently of the scarcity
of labor caused by the Black Death and independently of any change in
the price of wool; the continuation of this process in the fifteenth
century is not likely to depend entirely upon a rise in the price of
wool. That the enclosures of the fifteenth century were in reality
merely a further step in the readjustments under way in the fourteenth
century cannot be doubted. And that the whole process was independent
of the especial external influence upon agriculture exerted in the
fourteenth century by the Black Death and in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries by the growth of the woollen industry is shown in
the case of a group of manors where the essential features of the
enclosure movement appeared in the thirteenth century. More than a
hundred years before the Black Death the Lord of Berkeley found it
impossible to obtain tenants for bond land at the accustomed rents.
Villains were giving up their holdings because they could not pay the
rent and perform the services. The land which had in earlier times
been sufficient for the maintenance of a villain and his family and
had produced a surplus for rent had lost its fertility, and the
holdings fell vacant. The land which reverted to the lord on this
account was split up and leased at nominal rents, when leaseholders
could be found, just as so much land was leased at reduced rents by
landowners generally in the fourteenth century. Moreover, some of the
land was unfit for cultivation at all and was converted to pasture
under the direction of the lord.[13]
If the disintegration of manorial organization observed in the
fourteenth century and earlier was not due to the Black Death; if this
disintegration was under way before the pestilence reduced the
population, and was not checked when the ravages of the plague had
been made good; if tillage was already unprofitable before the
fifteenth century with its growth of the woollen industry; and if land
was being converted to pasture at a time when neither the price of
wool nor the Black Death can be offered as the explanation of this
conversion; then there is suggested the possibility that the whole
enclosure movement can be sufficiently accounted for without especial
reference to the prices of wool and grain. If the enclosure movement
began before the fifteenth century and originated in causes other than
the Black Death, the discovery of these original causes may also
furnish the explanation of the continuance of the movement in the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The amount of land under
cultivation was being reduced before the date at which the price of
wool is supposed to have risen sufficiently to displace agriculture
for the sake of wool growing, and this early reduction in the arable
cannot, clearly, be accounted for by reference to the prices of wool
and grain. But it also happens that, in the very period when an
increase in the demand for wool is usually alleged as the cause of the
enclosures, the price of wool fell relatively to that of grain. The
increase in sheep-farming in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
together with the fact that the domestic cloth manufacture was being
improved at this time, has been the basis of the assumption that the
price of wool was rising. The causal sequence has been supposed to be:
(1) an increase in the manufacture of woollens; (2) an increase in the
demand for wool; (3) an increase in the price of wool; (4) an increase
in wool-growing at the expense of tillage, and the enclosure of common
lands. If, as a matter of fact, the price of wool fell during this
period, the causal sequence is reversed. If the price of wool fell,
the increase in the manufacture of woollens has no relation to the
enclosure movement, unless it is its result, and we are forced to look
elsewhere for the cause of the increase of sheep-farming.
The accompanying tables and chart, showing the changes in the price of
wool and of wheat from the middle of the thirteenth century through
the first quarter of the sixteenth century, have been prepared from
the materials given by Thorold Rogers in his _History of Agriculture
and Prices in England_.[14] The averages given in his tables are based
upon records of actual sales. They furnish, therefore, the exact
information needed in connection with the theory that a rise in the
price of wool relatively to that of wheat was the cause of the
enclosure movement in England. In the century and a half before 1400,
there were wide fluctuations in the prices of both commodities, but
the price of wool rose and fell with that of wheat. The first quarter
of the fourteenth century was a period of falling prices. The fall
continued in the case of wool until about the middle of the century,
when a recovery began, culminating about 1380. A rise in the price of
wheat occurred sooner than that of wool and reached its climax about
1375. In the last quarter of the century the prices of both wool and
wheat fell, with a slight recovery in the last decade of the century.
TABLE I
PRICES OF WHEAT AND WOOL, 1261-1582. DECENNIAL AVERAGES
Wheat, per Wool, per
quarter tod (28 lbs.)
s. d. s. d.
1261-1270 4 8-5/8 9 -
1271-1280 5 7-3/4 9 2
1281-1290 5 0-7/8 8 10
1291-1300 6 1-1/8 7 10
1301-1310 5 7-1/4 9 -
1311-1320 7 10-1/4 9 11
1321-1330 6 11-5/8 9 7
1331-1340 4 8-3/4 7 3
1341-1350 5 3-1/8 6 10
1351-1360 6 10-5/8 6 7
1361-1370 7 3-1/4 9 3
1371-1380 6 1-1/4 10 11
1381-1390 5 2 8 -
1391-1400 5 3 8 4
1401-1410 5 8-1/4 9 2-1/2
1411-1420 5 6-3/4 7 8-1/4
1421-1430 5 4-3/4 7 5-1/2
1431-1440 6 11 5 9
1441-1450 5 5-3/4 4 10-1/2
1451-1460 5 6-1/2 4 3-3/4
1461-1470 5 4-1/2 4 11-1/2
1471-1480 5 4-1/4 5 4
1481-1490 6 3-1/2 4 8-1/2
1491-1500 5 0-3/4 6 0-1/2
1501-1510 5 5-1/2 4 5-3/4
1511-1520 6 8-3/4 6 7-1/4
1521-1530 7 6 5 4-1/4
1531-1540 7 8-1/2 6 8-3/4
1541-1550 10 8 20 8
1551-1560 15 3-3/4 15 8
1561-1570 12 10-1/4 16 -
1571-1582 16 8 17 -
TABLE II
PRICES OF WHEAT AND WOOL. LONG PERIOD AVERAGES
Wheat, per Wool, per
Date quarter tod
s. d. s. d.
1261-1400 5 11 8 7
1351-1400 6 1-3/4 8 7
1401-1460 5 9 6 2-1/2
1461-1500 5 6-1/2 5 3
1501-1540 6 10-1/4 5 9-1/2
[Illustration: Graph]
After 1400 the price of wheat held at about the average price of the
previous period, but for sixty years the price of wool fell, without a
check in its downward movement. It is in this period that the woollen
industry entered upon the period of expansion which is supposed to
have been the cause of the enclosure movement, but there was no rise
in the price of wool. Instead, there was a decided fall.[15] The
average price for the decade 1451-1460 was just about one-half of the
average price for the period 1261-1400. (The average price of wool in
the last fifty years of the fourteenth century happens to be the same
as the average for the period 1261-1400. Either the longer or the
shorter period may be used indifferently as the basis for comparison).
The average price for the period 1401-1460 was 25 per cent lower than
the average for the preceding half-century. A comparatively slight
depression in the price of wheat in the same period is shown in the
tables. The average for 1401-1461 is only three per cent lower than
that for 1265-1400 (seven per cent lower than the average for
1351-1400). Before 1460, then, there was nothing in market conditions
to favor the extension of sheep farming, but there is reason to
believe that the withdrawal of land from tillage had already begun.
Leaving aside the enclosure and conversion of common-field land by the
Berkeleys in the thirteenth century, we may yet note that "An early
complaint of illegal enclosure occurs in 1414 where the inhabitants of
Parleton and Ragenell in Notts petition against Richard Stanhope, who
had inclosed the lands there by force of arms." Miss Leonard, who is
authority for this statement, also refers to the statute of 1402 in
which "depopulatores agrorum" are mentioned.[16] In a grant of Edward
V the complaint is made that "this body falleth daily to decay by
closures and emparking, by driving away of tenants and letting down of
tenantries."[17] It is strange, if these enclosures are to be
explained by increasing demand for wool, that this heightened demand
was not already reflected in rising prices.
But, it may be urged, the true enclosure movement did not begin until
after 1460. If a marked rise in the price of wool occurred after 1460,
it might be argued that enclosures spread and the price of wool rose
together, and that the latter was the cause of the former. Turning
again to the record of prices, we see that although the low level of
the decade 1451-1460 marks the end of the period of falling prices, no
rise took place for several decades after 1460. Rous gives a list of
54 places "which, within a circuit of thirteen miles about Warwick
had been wholly or partially depopulated before about 1486."[18] Two
or three years later acts were passed against depopulation in whose
preambles the agrarian situation is described: The Isle of Wight "is
late decayed of people, by reason that many townes and vilages been
lete downe and the feldes dyked and made pastures for bestis and
cattalles." In other parts of England there is "desolacion and pulling
downe and wylfull wast of houses and towns ... and leying to pasture
londes whiche custumably haue ben used in tylthe, wherby ydlenesse is
growde and begynnyng of all myschevous dayly doth encrease. For where
in some townes ii hundred persones were occupied and lived by their
lawfull labours, now ben there occupied ii or iii herdemen, and the
residue falle in ydlenes."[19] It may be remarked that while the price
records show conclusively that no rise in the profits of wool-growing
caused these enclosures, the language of the statutes shows also that
scarcity of labor was not their cause, since one of the chief
objections to the increase of pasture is the unemployment caused.
It would seem hardly necessary to push the comparison of the prices of
wool and wheat beyond 1490. In order to establish the contention that
the enclosure movement was caused by an advance in the price of wool,
it would be necessary to show that this advance took place before the
date at which the enclosure problem had become so serious as to be the
subject of legislation. By 1490 statesmen were already alarmed at the
progress made by enclosure. The movement was well under way. Yet it
has been shown that the price of wool had been falling for over a
century, instead of rising, and that the price of wheat held its own.
Even if it could be established that the price of wheat fell as
compared with that of wool after this date, the usually accepted
version of the enclosure movement would still be inadequate. But as a
matter of fact the price of wheat rose steadily after 1490, reaching a
higher average in each succeeding decade, while the price of wool
wavered about an average which rose very slowly until 1535. The
entries on which these wool averages are based are few, and greater
uncertainty therefore attaches to their representativeness than in the
case of the prices of earlier decades, but the evidence, such as it
is, points to a more rapid rise in the price of wheat than in the
price of wool. Between 1500 and 1540 the average price of wheat was
nearly 24 per cent above that of the previous forty years, but the
average price of wool rose only ten per cent. There are only nine
entries of wool prices for the forty-six years after 1536, but these
are enough to show that the price of wool, like that of wheat and all
other commodities, was rising rapidly at this time. The lack of
material upon which to base a comparison of the actual rate of
increase of price for the two commodities makes further statistical
analysis impossible, but a knowledge of prices after the date at which
the material ceases would add nothing to the evidence on the subject
under consideration.
Sir Thomas More's _Utopia_ was written in 1516, with its well-known
passage describing contemporary enclosures in terms similar to those
used in the statutes of thirty years before, and complaining that the
sheep
that were wont to be so meke and tame, and so smal eaters, now,
as I heare saye, be become so great devowerers and so wylde, that
they eate up, and swallow downe the very men them selfes. They
consume, destroye, and devoure whole fields, howses, and cities.
For looke in what partes of the realme doth growe the fynest, and
therfore dearest woll, there noblemen, and gentlemen: yea and
certeyn Abbottes ... leave no grounde for tillage, thei inclose
al into pastures: thei throw doune houses: they plucke downe
townes, and leave nothing standynge, but only the churche to be
made a shepe-howse.[20]
These enclosures were not caused by an advance in the price of wool
relatively to that of wheat, as the rise in the price of wool in the
decade 1510-1520 was no greater than that of corn. Nor does sheep
farming seem to have been especially profitable at this time, as More
himself attributes the high price of wool in part to a "pestiferous
morrein." Again, the complaint is also made that unemployment was
caused, showing that scarcity of labor was not the reason for the
conversion of arable to pasture:
The husbandmen be thrust owte of their owne, ... whom no man wyl
set a worke, though thei never so willyngly profre themselves
therto. For one Shephearde or Heardman is ynoughe to eate up that
grounde with cattel, to the occupiyng wherof aboute husbandrye
manye handes were requisite.[21]
In 1514 a new husbandry statute was passed, penalising the conversion
of tillage to pasture, and requiring the restoration of the land to
tillage. It was repeated and made perpetual in the following year. In
1517 a commission was ordered to enquire into the destruction of
houses since 1488 and the conversion of arable to pasture. In 1518 a
fresh commission was issued and the prosecution of offenders was
begun. These facts are cited as a further reminder of the fact that
the period for which the prices of wool and wheat are both known is
the critical period in the enclosure movement. It is the enclosures
covered by these acts and those referred to by Sir Thomas More which
historians have explained by alleging that the price of wool was
high. As a matter of record, the course of prices was such as to
encourage the extension of tillage rather than of pasture.
After an examination of these price statistics it hardly seems
necessary to advance further objections to the accepted account of the
enclosure movement, based as it is upon the assumption that price
movements in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were exactly
opposite to those which have been shown to take place. There is no
reason to doubt the accuracy of Rogers' figures within the limits
required for our purpose, and the evidence based on these figures is
in itself conclusive. Even without this evidence, however, there is
sufficient reason for rejecting the theory that changes in the prices
of grain and wool account for the facts of the enclosure movement. For
one thing, if the price of wool actually did rise (in spite of the
statistical evidence to the contrary) and if this is actually the
cause of the enclosure movement, the movement should have come to an
end when sufficient time had elapsed for an adjustment of the wool
supply to the increasing demand. If the movement did not come to an
end within a reasonable period, there would be reason for suspecting
the adequacy of the explanation advanced. As a matter of fact, it is
usually thought that the enclosure movement did end about 1600. Much
land which had not been affected by the changes of the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries (it is usually asserted) escaped enclosure
altogether until the need for better agriculture in the eighteenth
century ushered in the so-called second enclosure movement, which did
not involve the conversion of tilled land to pasture. This alleged
check in the progress of the enclosure movement is inferred from the
fact that new land, and even some of the land formerly withdrawn from
the common-fields to be converted to pasture, was being tilled. This
is interpreted by economic historians as evidence that arable land
was no longer being converted to pasture. We are told by Meredith, for
instance, that "Moneyed men at the end of Elizabeth's reign were
beginning to find it profitable to sink money in arable farming, a
fact which points to the conclusion that there was no longer any
differential advantage in sheep-raising."[22] Cunningham is also of
the opinion that "So far as such a movement can be definitely dated,
it may be said that enclosure for the sake of increasing sheep-farming
almost entirely ceased with the reign of Elizabeth."[23] Innes gives
as the cause of this supposed check in the reduction of arable land to
pasture that "The expansion of pasturage appears to have reached the
limit beyond which it would have ceased to be profitable."[24] It is
indeed reasonable that the high prices which are supposed to have been
the cause of the sudden increase in wool production should be
gradually lowered as the supply increased, and that thus the
inducement to the conversion of arable to pasture would in time
disappear. The theory that the enclosure movement was due to an
increase in the price of wool would be seriously weakened if the
movement continued for a time longer than that required to bring about
an adjustment of the supply to the increased demand.
For the sake of consistency, then, this point in the account of the
enclosure movement is necessary. It would follow naturally from the
original explanation of the movement as the response to an increased
demand for wool, as reflected in high prices. With the decrease in
prices to be expected as the supply increased, the incentive for
converting arable to pasture would be removed. Historians sometimes
speak of other considerations which might have contributed to the
cessation of the enclosure movement. Ashley, for instance, suggests
that landowners found that to "devote their lands continuously to
sheep-breeding did not turn out quite so profitable as was at first
expected."[25] Others refer to the contemporary complaints of the bad
effect of enclosure upon the quality of wool. The breed of sheep which
could be kept in enclosed pastures was said to produce coarser wool
than those grazing on the hilly pastures, and this deterioration in
the quality of wool so cut down the profits from enclosures that men
now preferred to plow them up again, and resume tillage. The extent to
which the plowing up of pasture can be attributed to this cause must
be very slight, however, as even contemporaries disagreed as to the
existence of any deterioration in the quality of the wool. Some
authorities even state that the quality was improved by the use of
enclosed pasture: when Cornwall,
through want of good manurance lay waste and open, the sheep had
generally little bodies and coarse fleeces, so as their wool bare
no better name than Cornish hair ... but since the grounds began
to receive enclosure and dressing for tillage, the nature of the
soil hath altered to a better grain and yieldeth nourishment in
greater abundance to the beasts that pasture thereupon; so as, by
this means ... Cornish sheep come but little behind the eastern
flocks for bigness of mould, _fineness of wool, etc._[26]
The plowing up of pasture land for tillage cannot, then, be explained
by the effect of enclosure upon the quality of wool. It has been
ordinarily taken as an indication that the price of grain was now
rising more rapidly than that of wool, partly because a relaxation of
the corn-laws permitted greater freedom of export, and partly because
the home demand was increasing on account of the growth of the
population. Graziers were as willing to convert pastures to
corn-fields for the sake of greater profits as their predecessors had
been to carry out the contrary process. The deciding factor in the
situation, according to the orthodox account, was the relative price
of wool and grain. When the price of wool rose more rapidly than that
of grain, arable land was enclosed and used for grazing. When the
price of grain rose more rapidly than that of wool, pastures were
plowed up and cultivated.
Up to this point, the account is consistent. If the price of wool was
rising more rapidly than that of grain during the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries (in spite of the statistical evidence to the
contrary) it is reasonable that the differential advantage in grazing
should finally come to an end when a new balance between tillage and
grazing was established. It is not even surprising that the conversion
of arable to pasture should have continued beyond the proper point,
and that a contrary movement should set in. Bacon, in 1592, remarked
that men had of late been enticed by the good yield of corn and the
increased freedom of export to "break up more ground and convert it to
tillage than all the penal laws for that purpose made and enacted
could ever by compulsion effect."[27] In 1650 Lord Monson plowed up
100 acres of Grafton Park, which had formerly been pasture, and there
are many other records showing a tendency to convert pasture to arable
in the seventeenth century.[28] It is true that men were able to make
a profit from agriculture by the end of the sixteenth century. But
there is one difficulty which has been overlooked: the withdrawal
from agriculture of common-field land did _not_ cease. The protests
against depopulating enclosure continue, and government reports and
surveys show that enclosure for pasture was proceeding at as rapid a
rate as in the sixteenth century. Miss Leonard's article on "Inclosure
of Common Fields in the Seventeenth Century"[29] contains a mass of
evidence which is conclusive. A few quotations will indicate its
character:
"In Leicestershire the enclosures of Cottesbach in 1602, of Enderby
about 1605, of Thornby about 1616, were all accomplished by a
lessening of the land under the plough. Moore, writing in 1656,
says: 'Surely they may make men as soon believe there is no sun in
the firmament as that usually depopulation and decay of tillage will
not follow inclosure in our inland countyes.'" (p. 117). Letters
from the Council were written in 1630 complaining of "'enclosures
and convercons tending as they generallie doe unto depopulation....
There appeares many great inclosures ... all wch are or are lyke to
turne to the conversion of much ground from errable to pasture and
be very hurtfull to the commonwealth.... We well know wth all what
ye consequence will be, and in conclusion all turne to
depopulation!'" (p. 128). Forster, writing in 1664, says, "there
hath been of late years divers whole lordships and towns enclosed
and their earable land converted into pasture!" (p. 142).
Frequently the same proprietor in the same year plowed up pasture land
for corn and laid arable to pasture. Tawney cites a case in which
ninety-five acres of ancient pasture were brought under cultivation
while thirty-five acres of arable were laid to grass.[30] In 1630 the
Countess of Westmoreland enclosed and converted arable, but tilled
other land instead.[31] The enclosure movement, then, did not end at
the time when it is usually thought to have ended. Since it is
difficult to suppose that the price of wool could have been advancing
constantly throughout two centuries, without causing such a
readjustment in the use of land that no further withdrawal of land
from tillage for pasture would be necessary, the continuance of the
conversion of arable to pasture in the seventeenth century throws
suspicion upon the whole explanation of the enclosure movement as due
to the increased demand for wool.
Miss Leonard, indeed, advances the hypothesis that the price of wool
ceased to be the cause of enclosure during the seventeenth century,
but that other price changes had the same effect:
The increase in pasture in the sixteenth century was rendered
profitable by the rapid increase in the price of wool, but, in
the seventeenth century, this cause ceases to operate. The change
to pasture, however, continued, partly owing to a great rise in
the price of cattle, and partly because the increase in wages
made it less profitable to employ the greater number of men
necessary for tilling the fields.[32]
The assumption that wages and the price of cattle advanced
sufficiently in the seventeenth century to account for the change to
pasture are no better justified than the assumption of the rapid rise
in the price of wool in the sixteenth century. If the price of meat
and dairy products rose in the seventeenth century, so did the price
of grain and other foods. The relative rate of increase is the only
point significant for the present discussion. No statistics are
available to show whether the price of cattle rose more rapidly than
that of grain, and the evidence afforded by the reduction of arable
land to pasture is counterbalanced by the equally well-established
fact that much pasture land was plowed and planted in this period. It
is equally probable on the basis of this evidence that the prices of
wheat and barley advanced more rapidly than those of meat and butter
and cheese. The same difficulty is met in the suggestion that the
increase in pasturage was due partly to higher wages for farm labor.
The extension of tillage over much land formerly laid to pasture as
well as that which had never been plowed at all is sufficient cause
for doubting a prohibitive increase in wages. Moreover, in modern
times, wages lag in general rise of prices. Unless conclusive evidence
is presented to show that this was not the case in the seventeenth
century, it must be assumed to be inherently probable that the
increased wages of the time were more than offset by the rapidly
advancing prices.
During the seventeenth century, then, when it is admitted that the
high price of wool was not the cause which induced landowners to
convert arable to pasture, it cannot be shown that the high price of
cattle or exorbitant wages will account for the withdrawal of land
from cultivation. This is an important point, for historians
frequently support their main contention with regard to the enclosure
movement (_i. e._, that it was caused by an increase in the price of
wool), by the statement that increasing wages made landlords abandon
tillage for sheep-farming, with its smaller labor charges. It has been
shown that the conversion of arable to pasture in the fifteenth and
sixteenth centuries cannot be explained by the price of wool, but it
may still be urged that agriculture was rendered unprofitable by high
wages. Indeed, it is usually stated that the withdrawal of land from
cultivation which took place in the fourteenth century was due to the
scarcity of labor caused by the Black Death. In the fifteenth century
population was reduced by the Wars of the Roses; and throughout the
period under consideration, agriculture had to meet the competition of
the growing town industries for labor. Is it not possible that these
influences caused an exorbitant rise in wages which would alone
account for the substitution of sheep-farming for tillage?
The obvious character of the enclosure movement makes it impossible to
accept this hypothesis. The conversion of arable land to pasture was
caused by no demand for higher wages, which made tillage unprofitable.
The unemployment and pauperism caused by the enclosure of the open
fields are notorious, and it is to these features of the enclosure
movement that we owe the mass of literature on the subject. Enclosures
called forth a storm of protest, because they took away the living of
poor husbandry families. The acute distress undergone by those who
were evicted from their holdings is sufficient indication of the
difficulty of finding employment, and it is impossible that wages
could remain at an exorbitant level when the enclosure of the lands of
one open-field township made enough men homeless to supply any
existing dearth of labor in all of the surrounding villages. If
agriculture was unprofitable, it was not because laborers demanded
excessive wages, but because of the low productivity of the land. The
significance of contemporary complaints of high wages is missed if
they are interpreted as an indication of an exorbitant increase in
wages. The facts are, rather, that land was so unproductive that
farmers could not afford to pay even a low wage.
If it were necessary to argue the point further, it could be pointed
out that wages even in industry were not subject to that steady rise
which would have to be assumed, if high wages are to furnish the
explanation of the substitution of pasture for tillage from the
thirteenth century to the eighteenth. The statistical data on this
subject are fragmentary, but Thorold Rogers' calculations for the
period 1540-1582 are significant. In this period wages rose 60 per
cent above the average of the previous century and a half; but the
market prices of farm produce rose 170 per cent.[33] The rise in wages
was far from keeping pace with the rise in selling prices, and the
displacement of agriculture for grazing at this time must be due to
some cause other than the greater number of laborers needed in
agriculture. If, during certain periods within the four centuries
under consideration wages advanced more rapidly than the prices of
produce (statistical information on this subject is lacking) the
continuous withdrawal of land from tillage during periods when wages
fell remains to be explained by some cause other than high wages. Nor
can high wages account for the conversion of tilled land to pasture
simultaneously with the conversion of pasture land to tillage in the
seventeenth century.
If wages were exorbitantly high in the seventeenth century, and if
this is the reason for the laying to pasture of so much arable, how
could farmers afford to cultivate the large amount of fresh land which
they were bringing under the plow? Is this accounted for not by any
expectation of profit from this land but by the statutory requirement
that no arable should be laid to pasture unless an equal amount of
grass land were plowed in its stead? Pasture in excess of the legal
requirements was plowed up, and persons who did not wish to convert
any arable to pasture are found increasing their tilled land by
bringing grass land under cultivation. The movement cannot be
explained, therefore, merely on the basis of the husbandry statutes.
Nor is the law itself to be dismissed without further examination, for
in it we find the explicit statement that fresh land could be
substituted for that then under cultivation, because common-field land
was in many cases exhausted; it was therefore better to allow this to
be laid to grass while better land was cultivated in its place.[34]
Here then, is the simple explanation of the whole problem. The land
which was converted from arable to pasture was worn out; but there was
fresh land available for tillage, and some of this was brought under
cultivation.
No alternative explanation can be worked out on the basis of
hypothetical wage or price movements. The historian is indeed at
liberty to form his own theories as to the trend of prices in the
seventeenth century, for he is unhampered by the existence of known
records such as those for the sixteenth century; but it is impossible
to construct any theory of prices which will explain why the
conversion of arable land to pasture continued at a time when much
pasture land was being plowed up. It is necessary to choose a theory
of prices which will explain either the extension of tillage or the
extension of pasture; both cannot be explained by the same prices. If,
as some historians assume, the increase of population or some such
factor was causing a comparatively rapid increase in the price of
grain in this period, the continued conversion of arable to pasture
requires explanation. If, as Miss Leonard supposes, the contrary
assumption is true, and the products of arable land could be sold to
less advantage than those of pasture, then the cause of the conversion
of pasture to arable must be sought.
It is not only in the seventeenth century that this double conversion
movement took place. In the second half of the fourteenth century
pastures were being plowed up. At Holway, 1376-1377, three plots of
land which had been pasture were converted to arable.[35] In this
period much land was withdrawn from cultivation. The explanation
usually advanced by historians for the conversion of arable to pasture
at this time is that the scarcity of labor since the Black Death (a
quarter of a century before) made it impossible to cultivate the land
as extensively as when wages were low, or when serf labor was
available. If this is the whole case, it is difficult to account for
the conversion to arable of land already pasture. Other factors than
the supposed scarcity of labor were involved; land in good condition,
such as the plots of pasture at Holway, repaid cultivation, but the
yield was too low on land exhausted by centuries of cultivation to
make tillage profitable.
In the sixteenth century, also, the restoration of cultivation on land
which had formerly been converted from arable to pasture was going on.
Fitzherbert devotes several chapters of his treatise on surveying to a
discussion of the methods of amending "ley grounde, the whiche hath
ben errable lande of late," (ch. 27) and "bushy ground and mossy that
hath ben errable lande of olde time" (ch. 28). This land should be
plowed and sown, and it will produce much grain, "with littell
dongynge, and sow it no lengar tha it will beare plentye of corne,
withoute donge", and then lay it down to grass again. Tusser also
describes this use of land alternately as pasture and arable.[36] A
farmer on one of the manors of William, First Earl of Pembroke, had an
enclosed field in 1567, which afforded pasture for 900 sheep as well
as an unspecified number of cattle, "_qui aliquando seminatur,
aliquando iacet ad pasturam_."[37] The motives of this alternating use
of the land would be clear enough, even though they were not
explicitly stated by contemporaries; arable land which would produce
only scant crops unless heavily manured made good pasture, and after a
longer or shorter period under grass, was so improved by the manure of
the sheep pasturing on it and by the heavy sod which formed that it
could be tilled profitably, and was therefore restored to tillage.
The fact of two opposite but simultaneous conversion movements is
unaccountable under the accepted hypothesis of the causes of the
enclosure movement, which turns upon assumptions as to the relative
prices of grain and wool or cattle or wages. The authorities for this
theory have necessarily neglected the evidence that pasture land was
converted to arable in the sixteenth century and that arable land was
converted to pasture in the seventeenth, and have separated in time
two tendencies which were simultaneous. They have described the
increase in pasturage at the expense of arable in the early period,
and the increase of arable at the expense of pasture in the later
period, and have explained a difference between the two periods which
did not exist by a change in the ratio between the prices of wool and
grain for which no proof is given.
It has been shown in this chapter that the conversion of arable to
pasture in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries cannot have been
caused by increased demand for wool, since the price of wool
relatively to that of grain fell, and the extension of tillage rather
than of pasture would have taken place had price movements been the
chief factor influencing the conversion of land from one use to the
other. It has also been shown that the conversion of arable to
pasture did not cease at the beginning of the seventeenth century. If
the principal cause of the enclosure movement had been the increasing
demand for wool, this cause would have ceased to operate when time had
elapsed for the shifting of enough land from tillage to pasture to
increase the supply of wool. That the conversion of arable to pasture
did not cease after a reasonable time had passed is an indication that
its cause was not the demand for wool. When it is found that pasture
was being converted to arable at the same time that other land was
withdrawn from cultivation and laid to grass, the insufficiency of the
accepted explanation of the enclosure movement is made even more
apparent. A change in the price of wool could at best explain the
conversion in one direction only. The theory that the cause of the
enclosure movement was the high price of wool must be rejected, and a
more critical study must be made of the readjustments in the use of
land which became conspicuous in the fourteenth century, but which are
overlooked in the orthodox account of the enclosure movement.
Footnotes:
[12] Levett and Ballard, _The Black Death on the Estates of the See of
Winchester_ (Oxford, 1916), p. 142.
[13] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_ (Gloucester, 1883), vol. i, pp.
113-160.
[14] (Oxford, 1866-1902), vols. i, iv.
[15] Increase in manufacture of woollen cloth constituted no increase
in the demand for wool in so far as exports of raw wool were reduced.
[16] _Royal Historical Soc. Trans._, N. S. (1905), vol. ix, p. 101, note 2.
[17] Denton, _England in the Fifteenth Century_, p. 159.
[18] Gay, _Quarterly Journal of Economics_ (1902-1903), vol. xvii, p. 587.
[19] Pollard, _Reign of Henry VII_ (London, 1913), vol. ii, pp. 235-237.
[20] More, _Utopia_ (Everyman edition), p. 23.
[21] _Ibid._, p. 24.
[22] _Outlines of the Economic History of England_ (London, 1908), p. 118.
[23] _Growth of Eng. Ind. and Commerce_ (Cambridge, 1892), p. 180.
[24] _England's Industrial Development_ (London, 1912), p. 247.
[25] _English Economic History_ (New York, 1893), part ii, p. 262.
[26] Carew, _Survey of Cornwall_ (London, 1814), p. 77.
[27] Cunningham, _Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Modern
Times_, 1903, part i, p. 101.
[28] Lennard, _Rural Northamptonshire_ (Oxford, 1916), p. 87. For
other examples, _cf. infra_, pp. 84, 99-101.
[29] Leonard, _Royal Hist. Soc. Trans._, 1905. Gonner in _Common Land
and Inclosure_ covers much the same ground, but does not bring out as
clearly the extent to which the seventeenth century enclosures were
accompanied by conversion of tilled land to pasture.
[30] Tawney, _Agrarian Problem in the Sixteenth Cen._ (London, 1912), p.
391.
[31] _Royal Hist. Soc. Trans._ (1905), vol xix, note 1, p. 113.
[32] _Ibid._, pp. 116-117.
[33] Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, vol. iv, p. 757.
[34] _Cf. infra_, p. 98.
[35] Levett and Ballard, _The Black Death_, p. 129.
[36] _Cf. infra_, p. 82.
[37] Tawney, _op. cit._, p. 220, note 1.
[38] _Infra_, p. 78, 81, 98-9.