THE FERTILITY OF THE COMMON FIELDS
Up to this point attention has been given chiefly to the theory that
the enclosure movement waxed and waned in response to supposed
fluctuations in the relative prices of wool and grain, and it has been
found that this theory is untenable. It is now necessary to consider
more closely the true cause of the conversion of arable land to
pasture--the declining productivity of the soil--and the cause of the
restoration of this land to cultivation--the restoration of its
fertility.
The connection between soil fertility and the system of husbandry has
been explained by Dr. Russell, of the Rothamsted Experiment Station:
Virgin land covered with its native vegetation appears to alter
very little and very slowly in composition. Plants spring up,
assimilate the soil nitrates, phosphates, potassium salts, etc.,
and make considerable quantities of nitrogenous and other organic
compounds: then they die and all this material is added to the
soil. Nitrogen-fixing bacteria also add to the stores of nitrogen
compounds. But, on the other hand, there are losses: some of the
added substances are dissipated as gas by the decomposition
bacteria, others are washed away in the drainage water. These
losses are small in poor soils, but they become greater in rich
soils, and they set a limit beyond which accumulation of material
cannot go. Thus a virgin soil does not become indefinitely rich
in nitrogenous and other organic compounds, but reaches an
equilibrium level where the annual gains are offset by the
annual losses so that no net change results. This equilibrium
level depends on the composition of the soil, its position, the
climate, etc, and it undergoes a change if any of these factors
alter. But for practical purposes it may be regarded as fairly
stationary.
When, however, the virgin soil is broken up by the plough and
brought into cultivation the native vegetation and the crop are
alike removed, and therefore the sources of gain are considerably
reduced. The losses, on the other hand, are much intensified.
Rain water more readily penetrates, carrying dissolved substances
with it: biochemical decompositions also proceed. In consequence
the soil becomes poorer, and finally it is reduced to the same
level as the rate of gain of nitrogenous matter. A new and lower
equilibrium level is now reached about which the composition of
the soil remains fairly constant; this is determined by the same
factors as the first, _i. e._ the composition of the soil,
climate, etc.
Thus each soil may vary in composition and therefore in fertility
between two limits: a higher limit if it is kept permanently
covered with vegetation such as grass, and a lower limit if it is
kept permanently under the plough. These limits are set by the
nature of the soil and the climate, but the cultivator can attain
any level he likes between them simply by changing his mode of
husbandry. The lower equilibrium level is spoken of as the
inherent fertility of the soil because it represents the part of
the fertility due to the soil and its surroundings, whilst the
level actually reached in any particular case is called its
condition or "heart", the land being in "good heart "or "bad
heart", according as the cultivator has pushed the actual level
up or not; this part of the fertility is due to the cultivator's
efforts.
The difference between the higher and lower fertility level is
not wholly a question of percentage of nitrogen, carbon, etc. At
its highest level the soil possesses a good physical texture
owing to the flocculation of the clay and the arrangement of the
particles: it can readily be got into the fine tilth needed for a
seed bed. But when it has run down the texture becomes very
unsatisfactory. Much calcium carbonate is also lost during the
process: and when this constituent falls too low, the soil
becomes "sour" and unsuited for crops.
The simplest system of husbandry is that of continuous wheat
cultivation, practiced under modern conditions in new countries.
When the virgin land is first broken up its fertility is high; so
long as it remains under cultivation this level can no longer be
maintained, but rapidly runs down. During this degradation
process considerable quantities of plant food become available
and a succession of crops can be raised without any substitution
of manure ... After a time the unstable period is over and the
new equilibrium level is reached at which the soil will stop if
the old husbandry continues. In this final state the soil is
often not fertile enough to allow of the profitable raising of
crops; it is now starving for want of those very nutrients that
were so prodigally dissipated in the first days of its
cultivation, and the cultivator starves with it or moves on.
Fortunately recovery is by no means impossible, though it may be
prolonged. It is only necessary to leave the land covered with
vegetation for a period of years when it will once again regain
much of the nitrogenous organic matter it has lost.[39]
Dr. Russell adds that soil-exhaustion is essentially a modern
phenomenon, however, and gives the following reasons for supposing
that the medieval system conserved the fertility of the soil. First,
the cattle grazed over a wide area and the arable land all received
some dung. Thus elements of fertility were transferred from the
pasture land to the smaller area of tilled land. This process, he
admits, involved the impoverishment of the pasture land, but only very
slowly, and the fertility of the arable was in the meanwhile
maintained. Secondly, the processes of liming and marling the soil
were known, and by these means the necessary calcium carbonate was
supplied. Thirdly, although there was insufficient replacement of the
phosphates taken from the soil, the yield of wheat was so low that the
amount of phosphoric acid removed was small, and the system was
permanent for all practical purposes. One of the facts given in
substantiation of this view is that the yield after enclosure
increased considerably.[40]
In discussing these points, it will be well to begin with the evidence
as to exhaustion afforded by the increased yield under enclosure. The
improvement in yield took place because of the long period of fallow
obtained when the land was used as pasture; or, in the eighteenth
century, with the increase in nitrogenous organic matter made possible
when hay and turnips were introduced as field forage crops. That is,
the increase in yield depended either upon that prolonged period of
recuperation which will _restore fertility_, or upon an actual
increase in the amount of manure used. Apparently, then, open-field
land had become exhausted, since an increase in yield could be
obtained by giving it a rest, without improving the methods of
cultivation, etc., or by adding more manure.
There was not, as Dr. Russell supposes, enough manure under the
medieval system of husbandry to maintain the fertility of the soil. It
is true that the husbandman understood the value of manure, and took
care that the land should receive as much as possible, and that he
knew also of the value of lime and marl. But, as Dr. Simkhovitch says:
It is not within our province to go into agrotechnical details
and describe what the medieval farmer knew, but seldom practiced
for lack of time and poor means of communication, in the way of
liming sour clay ground, etc. Plant production is determined by
the one of the necessary elements that is available in the least
quantity. It is a matter of record that the medieval farmer had
not enough and could not have quite enough manure, to maintain
the productivity of the soil.[41]
The knowledge of the means of maintaining and increasing the
productivity of the soil is one thing, but the ability to use this
knowledge is another. The very origin and persistence of the
cumbersome common-field system in so many parts of the world is
sufficient testimony as to the impossibility of improving the quality
of the soil in the Middle Ages. The only way in which these men could
divide the land into portions of equal value was to divide it first
into plots of different qualities and then to give a share in each of
these plots to each member of the community. They never dreamed of
being able to bring the poor plots up to a high level of productivity
by the use of plentiful manuring, etc., but had to accept the
differences in quality as they found them. The inconvenience and
confusion of the common-field system were endured because, under the
circumstances, it was the only possible system.
Very few cattle were kept. No more were kept because there was no way
of keeping them. In the fields wheat, rye, oats, barley and beans were
raised, but no hay and no turnips. Field grasses and clover which
could be introduced in the course of field crops were unknown. What
hay they had came entirely from the permanent meadows, the low-lying
land bordering the banks of streams. "Meadow grass," writes Dr.
Simkhovitch, "could grow only in very definite places on low and moist
land that followed as a rule the course of a stream. This gave the
meadow a monopolistic value, which it lost after the introduction of
grass and clover in the rotation of crops."[42] The number of cattle
and sheep kept by the community was limited by the amount of forage
available for winter feeding. Often no limitation upon the number
pastured in summer in the common pastures was necessary other than
that no man should exceed the number which he was able to keep during
the winter. The meadow hay was supplemented by such poor fodder as
straw and the loppings of trees, and the cattle were got through the
winter with the smallest amount of forage which would keep them alive,
but even with this economy it was impossible to keep a sufficient
number.
The amount of stall manure produced in the winter was of course small,
on account of the scant feed, and even the more plentiful manure of
the summer months was the property of the lord, so that the villain
holdings received practically no dung. The villains were required to
send their cattle and sheep at night to a fold which was moved at
frequent intervals over the demesne land, and their own land received
ordinarily no dressing of manure excepting the scant amount produced
when the village flocks pastured on the fallow fields.
The supply of manure, insufficient in any case to maintain the
fertility of the arable land, was diminishing rather than increasing.
As Dr. Russell suggested in the passage referred to above, the
continuous use of pastures and meadows causes a deterioration in their
quality. The quantity of fodder was decreasing for this reason, almost
imperceptibly, but none the less seriously. Fewer cattle could be kept
as the grass land deteriorated, and the small quantity of manure which
was available for restoring the productivity of the open fields was
gradually decreasing for this reason.
Soil exhaustion went on during the Middle Ages not because the
cultivators were careless or ignorant of the fact that manure is
needed to maintain fertility, but because this means of improving the
soil was not within their reach. They used what manure they had and
marled the soil when they had the time and could afford it, but, as
the centuries passed, the virgin richness of the soil was exhausted
and crops diminished.
The only crops which are a matter of statistical record are those
raised on the demesne land of those manors managed for their owners by
bailiffs who made reports of the number of acres sown and the size of
the harvest. These crops were probably greater than those reaped from
average land, as it is reasonable to suppose that the demesne land was
superior to that held by villains in the first place, and as it
received better care, having the benefit of the sheep fold and of such
stall manure as could be collected. Even if it were possible to form
an accurate estimate of the average yield of demesne land, then, we
should have an over-estimate for the average yield of ordinary
common-field land. No accurate estimate of the average yield even of
demesne land can be made, however, on the basis of the few entries
regarding the yield of land which have been printed. Variations in
yield from season to season and from manor to manor in the same season
are so great that nothing can be inferred as to the general average in
any one season, nor as to the comparative productivity in different
periods, from the materials at hand. For instance, at Downton, one of
the Winchester manors, the average yield of wheat between 1346 and
1353 was 6.5 bushels per acre, but this average includes a yield of
3.5 bushels in 1347 and one of 14 bushels in 1352,[43] showing that no
single year gives a fair indication of the average yield of the
period. For the most part the data available apply to areas too small
and to periods too brief to give more than the general impression that
the yield of land was very low.
In the thirteenth century Walter of Henley and the writer of the
anonymous _Husbandry_ are authorities for the opinion that the average
yield of wheat land should be about ten bushels per acre.[44] At
Combe, Oxfordshire, about the middle of the century, the average yield
during several seasons was only 5 bushels.[45] About 1300, the fifty
acres of demesne planted with wheat at Forncett yielded about
five-fold or 10 bushels an acre (five seasons).[46] Between 1330 and
1340, the average yield (500 acres for three seasons), at ten manors
of the Merton College estates was also 10 bushels.[47] At Hawsted,
where about 60 acres annually were sown with wheat, the average yield
for three seasons at the end of the fourteenth century was a little
more than 7-1/2 bushels an acre.[48]
Statistical data so scattered as this cannot be used as the basis of
an inquiry into the rate of soil exhaustion. Where the normal
variation from place to place and from season to season is as great as
it is in agriculture, the material from which averages are constructed
must be unusually extensive. So far as I know, no material in this
field entirely satisfactory for statistical purposes is accessible at
the present time. There is, however, one manor, Witney, for which
important data for as many as eighteen seasons between 1200 and 1400
have been printed. A second suggestive source of information is Gras's
table of harvest statistics for the whole Winchester group of manors,
covering three different seasons, separated from each other by
intervals of about a century. The acreage reported for the Winchester
manors is so extensive that the average yield of the group can be
fairly taken to be the average for all of that part of England.
Moreover, Witney seems to be representative of the Winchester group,
if the fact that the yield at Witney is close to the group average in
the years when this is known can be relied upon as an indication of
its representativeness in the years when the group average is not
known. The average yield for all the manors in 1208-1209 was 4-1/3
bushels per acre; for Witney alone, 3-2/3. In 1396-1397 the yield of
the group and the yield at Witney are, respectively, 6 and 6-1/4
bushels per acre.[49]
Table III shows the yield of wheat on the manors of the Bishopric of
Winchester in the years 1209, 1300 and 1397. If it could be shown that
these were representative years, we should have a means of measuring
the increase or decrease in productivity in these two centuries. Some
indication of the representativeness of the years 1300 and 1397 is
given by a comparison of prices for these years with the average
prices of the period in which they lie. The price in 1300 was about 17
per cent below the average for the period 1291-1310,[50] an indication
that the crop of nine bushels per acre reaped in 1299-1300 was above
the normal. The price of wheat in 1397 was very slightly above the
average for the period;[51] six bushels an acre or more, then, was
probably a normal crop at the end of the fourteenth century. This
conclusion is supported also by the fact that the yield in that year
at Witney was approximately the same as the average of the eleven
seasons between 1340 and 1354 noted in Table V. The price of wheat in
the year 1209-1210 is not ascertainable. Walter of Henley's statement
that the price of corn must be higher than the average to prevent loss
when the return for seed sown was only three-fold[52] is an
indication that the normal yield must have been at this time at least
three-fold, or six bushels, so that the extremely low yield of the
year 1208-1209 can hardly be considered typical. This examination of
the yield in the three seasons shown in the table gives these results:
at the beginning of the thirteenth century the average yield was
probably about six bushels and certainly not more than ten; at the
beginning of the fourteenth century the average was less than nine
bushels--how much less, whether more or less than six bushels, is not
known--at the end of the fourteenth century the yield was about six
bushels.
TABLE III
YIELD OF WHEAT ON THE MANORS OF THE BISHIPRIC OF WINCHESTER[53]
_Area sown_ _Produce_ _Ratio produce_
_Date_ _Acres_ _Bushels per acre_ _to seed_
1208-1209 6838 4-1/3 2-1/3
1299-1300 3353 9[54] 4
1396-1397 2366-1/2 6 3
TABLE IV
ACERAGE PLANTED WITH GRAINS ON THE MANOR OF THE BISHOPRIC OF
WINCHESTER[55]
_Wheat_ _Mancorn and Rye_ _Barley_
1208-1209 5108 492 1500
1299-1300 2410 175 800
TABLE V
YIELD OF WHEAT AT WITNEY[56]
_Date_ _Bushels per acre_ _Acres sown_
1209 3-2/3 417
1277 8-1/2 180
1278 ... 191
1283 8-1/2 ...
1284 10-1/2 ...
1285 7-1/4 ...
1300 (7-10) ...
1340 5-1/2 126
1341 7-1/2 138
1342 6 132
1344 ... 129
1346 5-1/2 127
1347 6-1/2 128
1348 6-3/4 138
1349 4-3/4 128
1350 5-1/4 ...
1351 6-1/2 ...
1352 8-1/2 ...
1353 5 ...
1397 6-1/4 51-1/2
The yield of the soil in single seasons at widely separated intervals
is a piece of information of little value for our purpose. These
tables reveal other facts of greater significance. The yield for the
year gives almost no information about the normal yield over a series
of years, but the area planted depends very largely upon that yield.
The farmer knows that it will pay, on the average, to sow a certain
number of acres, and the area under cultivation is not subject to
violent fluctuations, as is the crop reaped. The area sown in any
season is representative of the period; the crop reaped may or may
not be representative. Land which, over a series of years, fails to
produce enough to pay for cultivation is no longer planted. If the
fertility of the soil is declining, this is shown by the gradual
withdrawal from cultivation of the less productive land, as it is
realized that it produces so little that it no longer pays to till it.
Table IV shows that in fact this withdrawal of worn out land from
cultivation was actually taking place. The area sown with wheat on the
twenty-five manors for which the statistics for both periods are
available was reduced by more than fifty per cent between the
beginning and the end of the thirteenth century. A similar reduction
in the area planted with all of the other crops, mancorn, rye, barley
and oats, took place. A process of selection was going on which
eliminated the less fertile land from cultivation. If six bushels an
acre was necessary to pay the costs of tillage, land which returned
less than six bushels could not be kept under the plow. The six bushel
crop which seems to be normal in the fourteenth century is not the
average yield of all of that land which had been under cultivation at
an earlier time, but only of the better grades of land. Plots which
had formerly yielded their five or six bushels an acre had become too
barren to produce the bare minimum which made tillage profitable, and
their produce no longer appeared in the average. Even with the
elimination of the worst grades of land the average yield fell,
because the better land, too, was becoming less fertile. At Witney
(Table V) the area planted with wheat fell from about 180 acres in
1277 to less than 140 acres in 1340; but, in spite of this reduction
in the amount of land cultivated, the average annual yield after 1340
was less than 6-1/2 bushels, while it had been about 8-1/2 bushels per
acre in the period 1277-1285. This withdrawal of land from cultivation
took place without the occurrence of any such calamity as the Black
Death, which is ordinarily mentioned as the cause of the reduction of
arable land to pasture in so far as this took place before 1400. It
affords an indirect proof of the fact that much land was becoming
barren.
These statistical indications of declining productivity of the soil
are supported by the overwhelming evidence of the poverty of the
fourteenth century peasantry--poverty which can be explained only by
the barrenness of their land. Many of the features of the agrarian
changes of this period are familiar--the substitution of money
payments for villain services, the frequency of desertion, the
amalgamation and leasing of bond-holdings, the subdividing and
leasing of the demesne. A point which has not been dwelt upon is the
favorable pecuniary terms upon which the villains commuted their
services. Where customary relations were replaced by a new bargain,
the bargain was always in favor of the tenant. What was the source of
this strategic advantage of the villain? The great number of holdings
made vacant by the Black Death and the scarcity of eligible holders
placed the landowner at a disadvantage, but this situation was
temporary. How can the difficulty of filling vacant tenements before
the Black Death be accounted for, and why were villains still able to
secure reductions in their rents a generation after its effects had
ceased to be felt?
Even before the Black Death, it was frequently the case that villain
holdings could be filled only by compulsion. The difficulty in finding
tenants did not originate in the decrease in the population caused by
the pestilence. There is little evidence that there was a lack of men
qualified to hold land even after the Black Death, but it is certain
that they sought in every way possible to avoid land-holding. The
villains who were eligible in many cases fled, so that it became
exceedingly difficult to fill a tenement when once it became vacant.
Land whose holders died of the pestilence was still without tenants
twenty-five and thirty years later, although persistent attempts had
been made to force men to take it up. When compulsion succeeded only
in driving men away from the manor, numerous concessions were made in
the attempt to make land-holding more attractive. It is important to
notice that these concessions were economic, not social. The force
which was driving men away was not the desire to escape the incidents
of serfdom, but the impossibility of making a living from holdings
burdened with heavy rents. These burdens were eased, grudgingly,
little by little, by landlords who had exhausted other methods of
keeping their land from being deserted. It was necessary to reduce
the rent in some way in order to permit the villains to live. The
produce of a customary holding was no longer sufficient to maintain
life and to allow the holder to render the services and pay the rent
which had been fixed in an earlier century when the soil was more
fertile.
Notices of vacated holdings date from before 1220 on the estates of
the Berkeleys. Thomas the First was lord of Berkeley between 1220 and
1243, and
Such were the tymes for the most part whilest this Lord Thomas
sate Lord, That many of his Tenants in divers of his manors ...
surrendred up and least their lands into his hands because they
were not able to pay the rent and doe the services, which also
often happened in the tyme of his elder brother the Lord
Robert.[57]
This entry in the chronicle is significant, for it is typical of
conditions on many other manors at a later date. The tenants were not
able to pay the rent and do the services, and therefore gave up the
land. It was leased, when men could be found to take it at all, at a
rent lower than that which its former holders had found so oppressive.
It is interesting to note that much of this land was soon after
enclosed and converted to pasture, more than a century before the
event which is supposed to mark the beginning of the enclosure
movement. The productivity of the land had declined; its holders were
no longer able to pay the customary rent, and the lord had to content
himself with lower rents; the productivity was so low in some cases
that the land was fit only for sheep pasture.
Land holding was regarded as a misfortune in the fourteenth century.
The decline in fertility had made it impossible for a villain to
support himself and his family and perform the accustomed services and
pay the rent for his land. Sometimes heirs were excused on account of
their poverty. Page has made note of the prevailing custom of fining
these heirs for the privilege of refusing the land:
In 1340 J. F., who held a messuage and half a virgate, had to pay
two shillings for permission to give up the land, because he was
unable to render the services due from it. Three other men at the
same time paid six pence each not to be compelled to take up
customary land ... at Woolston, 1340, R. G. gave up his messuage
and half virgate because he could not render the necessary
services; whereupon T. S. had to pay three shillings three pence
that he might not be forced to take the holding, and another
villain paid six shillings eight pence for the same thing.[58]
Miss Levett mentions the fact that cases were fairly frequent at the
Winchester manors in the fourteenth century where a widow or next of
kin refused to take up land on account of poverty or impotence;[59]
and three villains of Forncett gave up their holdings before 1350 on
account of their poverty.[60]
In case no one could be found who would willingly take up the land,
the method of compulsion was tried. The responsibility for providing a
tenant in these cases seems to have been shifted to the whole
community. A villain chosen by the whole homage had to take up the
land. At Crawley in 1315 there were two such cases. A fine was paid by
one villain for a cottage and ten acres "_que devenerunt in manus
domini tanquam escheata pro defectu tenentium & ad que eligebatur per
totam decenuam_." At Twyford in 13433-1344, J. paid a fine for a
messuage and a half virgate of land, "_ad que idem Johannes electus
est per totum homagium_."[61] In other entries cited by Page, the
element of compulsion is unmistakable: the new holder of land is
described as "_electus per totum homagium ad hoc compulsus_," a phrase
which is frequently found also in the entries of fines paid on some of
the Winchester manors after the Black Death.[62]
This method of compulsion was useful to some extent, but there were
limits beyond which it could not be pushed. Five men of Therfield in
1351 were ordered to take up customary land, and several of them left
the manor rather than obey. "_Vendiderunt quod habuerunt et
recesserunt nocitante._"[63] At Nailesbourne, in the same year,
"_Robertus le Semenour compulsus finivit et clam recessit et ea tenere
recusavit_."[64] The problem which confronted landowners during the
Black Death was not so much an absolute lack of men on the manors, as
a stubborn unwillingness on the part of these men to hold land. There
were enough men left by the pestilence, but they were determined to
avoid taking up the tenements whose holders had died. The pressure
which was brought upon the villains to induce them to take up land and
to prevent them from leaving the manor could not prevent the
desertions, which had begun before the pestilence, and which took away
the men who would naturally have supplied the places of those who
died. The whole village must have been anxious to prevent the
desertion of these men, for the community was held responsible for the
services from vacant tenements, when they failed to provide a tenant.
At Meon, for instance, each of twenty-six tenants paid 1 _d._ in
place of works due from a vacant holding, according to an arrangement
which had been made before the Black Death,[65] and at Burwell, in
1350, when three villains left the manor, their land was "_tradita
toto homagio ad faciendum servicia et consuetudines_."[66] In spite of
the deterring force which must have been exerted by public opinion
under these conditions, and in spite of the aggressive measures taken
by bailiffs to prevent desertion and to recapture those who had fled,
the records are full of the names of those who had been successful in
making their escape. Throughout the latter half of the fourteenth
century and the first part of the fifteenth there was a gradual
leakage from the Winchester manors. "Villeins were apt 'to go away
secretly' and to be no more found."[67] Page describes a similar
tendency on the part of villains of the manors whose records he has
examined. At Weston, three villains deserted in 1354. At Woolston in
1357 a serf "_recessit a dominio et dereliquit terram suam_." At
Chilton, between 1356 and 1359, eleven men and two women fled, some of
whom were recaptured. At Therfield in 1369 a man who held twenty-three
acres of land fled with his whole family. In the same year at Abbot's
Ripton a man escaped with his horses, and three years later another
villain left Weston by night.[68] At Forncett, "Before 1378 from 60 to
70 tenements had fallen into the lord's hands. It was the serfs
especially who were relinquishing their land; for a larger proportion
of the tenements charged with week-work were abandoned than of the
more lightly burdened tenements."[69] This, of course, is what we should
expect, as the lighter burdens of these holdings caused their tenants to
feel less severely than the ordinary serfs the declining productivity of
the land.
The method of compulsion failed to keep the tenants on the land. They
ran off, and the holdings remained vacant. It was necessary to make
concessions of a material nature in order to persuade men to take up
land or to keep what they had. They were excused of a part of their
services in some cases, and in others all of the services were
definitely commuted for small sums of money. When no tenants for
vacant land could be secured who would perform the customary services
due from it, the bailiff was forced to commute them. "'So and so holds
such land for rent, because no one would hold it for works,' is a
fairly frequent entry both before and after 1349," on the records of
the Bishopric of Winchester. The important point to be noticed here is
that the money rent paid in these cases was always less than the value
of the services which had formerly been exacted from the land; not
only that, it was less than the money equivalent for which those
services had sometimes been commuted, an amount far less than the
market value of the services in the fourteenth century at the
prevailing rates of wages. For instance, when Roger Haywood took up
three virgates and a cotland at a money rent instead of for the
traditional services, "_quia nullus tenere voluit_," he contracted to
pay rents whose total sum amounted to less than twenty-five shillings
and included the church scot for one virgate and the cotland. On this
manor, Sutton, the total services of _one_ virgate valued at the rate
at which they were ordinarily "sold" must have amounted to at least
eighteen or twenty shillings. At Wargrave the services of thirty-two
virgates were all commuted at three shillings each, and the same sum
was paid by each of twenty-three virgates at Waltham.[70]
At Forncett and on the manors of the Berkeley estates commutation had
little part in the disappearance of labor dues. The vacated land was
leased in larger or smaller parcels at the best rents which could be
obtained. This rent bore no relation to the value of the services
formerly due from the land. The customary tenements which had been the
units upon which labor dues were assessed were broken up, and the
acres leased separately, or in new combinations, to other men.[71] At
Forncett, as in the case of the Winchester manors where the services
were commuted, the terms of the new arrangement can be compared with
those of the old, and it is seen that the money rent obtained was less
than the value of the services formerly due. The customary services
were here valued at over two shillings per acre; the average rent
obtained was less than one shilling an acre. The net pecuniary result
of the change, then, was the same as though the services had been
commuted for money at less than their value.
Another method of reducing rents in this period was the remission of a
part of the services due. Miss Levett notes the extent to which this
took place on the Winchester manors, and suggests that the Bishop
wished to avoid the wastefulness and inefficiency of serf labor.[72]
She overlooks the fact that he failed to exact the money payment in
place of the services for which manorial custom provided. It was a
well established custom that in case work owed by the tenants was not
used they should pay money instead. The amount of work needed each
year on the demesne varied according to the size of the harvest, etc.,
but the number of days' works for which the tenants was liable was
fixed. The surplus of works owed above those needed were "sold" each
year to the villains. Frequently the number of works sold exceeded the
number performed, although formal commutation of dues had not taken
place. At Nailesbourne (1348-1349), 4755 works were due from the
villains, but nearly 4000 of these were sold.[73] If the Bishop had
merely wished to avoid waste, then, in ceasing to require the
performance of villain services on his manors, he would have required
the payment of the money equivalent of these services. When the
services were excused, and the customary alternative of a money
payment also, the change was clearly an intentional reduction in the
burden of villain tenure. This fact makes emphasis upon the payment of
money as the distinguishing feature of the changed relations between
landlord and tenant in this period misleading. There was every
precedent for requiring a money payment in the place of services not
wanted. When, therefore, a great many services were simply allowed to
lapse, it is an indication that it was impossible to exact the
payment. It makes little difference whether the services were commuted
at a lower rate than that at which they had formerly been "sold" or
whether the villain was simply held accountable for a smaller number
of services at the old rate; in either case the rent was reduced, and
the burden of the tenant was less.
The reduction of rent is thus the characteristic and fundamental
feature of all of the changes of land tenure during this period. This
fact is ignored by historians who suppose the chief factor in the
commutation movement to have been the desire of prosperous villains to
rid themselves of the degrading marks of serfdom. Vinogradoff, for
instance, in his preface to the monograph from which most of the
foregoing illustrations have been drawn, has nothing at all to say of
the reduction of rent and the poverty of the tenants when he is
speaking of the various circumstances attending the introduction of
money payments.
In the particular case under discussion the cultural policy of
William of Wykeham may have suggested arrangements in commutation
of labour services and rents in kind. In other cases similar
results were connected with war expenditures and town life. In so
far the initiative in selling services came from the class of
landowners. But there were powerful tendencies at work in the
life of the peasants which made for the same result. The most
comprehensive of these tendencies was connected, it seems to me,
with the accumulation of capital in the hands of the villains
under a system of customary dues. When rents and services became
settled and lost their elasticity, roughly speaking, in the
course of the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth centuries, the
surplus of profits from agriculture was bound to collect in the
hands of those who received them directly from the soil, and it
was natural for these first receivers to turn the proceeds
primarily towards an improvement of their social condition; the
redemption of irksome services was a conspicuous manifestation of
this policy.[74]
This paragraph contains several suggestions which are shown to be
misleading by a study of the extracts from the original sources
embodied in the essay of whose preface it forms a part. It is true
that the cultural policy of William of Wykeham was an extravagant one,
and that he was in need of money when the system of tenure was being
revolutionized on his estates; but it is misleading to interpret the
changes which took place as measures for the prompt conversion into
cash of the episcopal revenues. No radical changes in the system of
payment were necessary in order to secure cash, for the system of
selling surplus services to the villains had become established
decades before the time of this bishop, and no formal commutation of
services was necessary in order to convert the labor dues of the
villains into payments in money. The bulk of the services were not
performed, even before commutation, and the lord received money for
the services not used on the demesne. The essential feature of the
changes which took place was a reduction in the amount paid--a
reduction which the bishop must have resisted so far as he dared, just
as other landowners must have resisted the reductions which their
tenants forced them to make at a time when they were in need of money.
The commutation of services was incidental, and was only a slight
modification of the system formerly in use, but, whether services were
commuted or were in part excused, the result was a lessening of the
burden borne by the tenant, and the reduction of the rent received by
the lord.
It is true, as Professor Vinogradoff states, that there were powerful
tendencies in the life of the peasants which made for this result. In
fact no initiative in selling services--at these rates--could have
come from the side of the landowners. The change was forced upon them.
Unless they compromised with their tenants and reduced their rents
they soon found vacant tenements on their hands which no one could be
compelled to take. The amount of land which was finally leased at low
rents because the former holders had died or run away and no one could
be forced to take it at the old rents is evidence of the reluctance
with which landowners accepted the situation and of their inability to
resist the change in the end.
But it is not true that the most comprehensive of these tendencies was
the accumulation of capital in the hands of the villains, and their
desire to improve their social condition. The immediate affect of the
commutation of services and similar changes at this time was to leave
their social condition untouched, whatever the final result may have
been. These villains did not buy themselves free of the marks of
servitude. Their gradual emancipation came for other reasons. At
Witney, for example, where the works of all the native tenants had
been commuted by 1376, they were still required to perform duties of a
servile character:
they were all to join in haymaking and in washing and shearing
the lord's sheep, to pay pannage for their pigs, to take their
turn of service as reeve and tithingman, and to carry the lord's
victuals and baggage on his departure from Witney as the natives
were formerly wont to do.[75]
This example, taken at random, is typical of the continuance of
conditions which should make the historian hesitate before adopting
the view that the social condition of the peasants was improved by the
new arrangements made as to the bulk of their services and rents. But
more than that, the terms of the new arrangements are not those which
would be offered by well-to-do cultivators in whose hands the profits
from the soil had accumulated. In all of these cases the new terms
were advantageous to the tenants, not to the lord, and advantageous in
a strictly pecuniary way. The lord had to grant these terms because
the tenants were in the most miserable poverty, and could no longer
pay their accustomed rent.
Neither the Black Death, whose effects were evanescent, nor the desire
of prosperous villains to free themselves of the degrading marks of
serfdom was an important cause in the sequence of agrarian changes
which took place in the fourteenth century. Serfdom as a status was
hardly affected, but a thousand entries record the poverty and
destitution which made it necessary to lighten the economic burdens of
the serfs. At Brightwell, for example, the works of three
half-virgaters were relaxed, the record reads, because of their
poverty (1349-1350).[76] Some villains had no oxen, and were excused
their plowing on this account, or were allowed to substitute manual
labor for carting services.[77] At Weston, in 1370, a tenant "_non
arat terram domini causa paupertate_."[78] At Downton, in 13766-1377,
no money could be collected from the villains in place of the services
they owed in haymaking.[79] Frequently when services were commuted for
money, the record of the fact is accompanied by the statement that the
change was made on account of the poverty of the tenants. At Witney,
for instance, the
works and services of all the native tenants were commuted at
fixed payments (_ad certos denarios_) by favour of the lord as
long as the lord pleases, on account of the poverty of the
homage.[80]
The reduction in rent in this case was at least a third of the total.
The value of the customary services commuted was at least ten
shillings six pence per acre, and they were commuted at six shillings
eight pence. Other explicit references to the poverty of the tenants
as the cause of commutation are quoted by Page:
At Hinton, Berks, the Bailiff reports in 1377, that the former
lord before his death had commuted the services of the villains
for money, "eo quod customarii impotentes ad facienda dicta opera
et pro eorum paupertate" ... At Stevenage, 1354, S. G. "tenuit
unam vergatam reddendo inde per annum in serviciis et
consuetudinibus xxii solidos. Et dictus S. G. pauper et impotens
dictam virgatam tenere. Ideo concessum est per dominum quod S. G.
habeat et teneat predictam terram reddendo inde xiii solidos iv
denarios pro omnibus serviciis et consuetudinibus."[81]
In connection with the matter of heriots, also, evidences of extreme
poverty are frequent. Frequently when a tenant died there was no beast
for the lord to seize.
The heriot of a virgate was generally an ox, or money payment of
its value. But the amount as often reduced "propter paupertatem,"
and sometimes when a succeeding tenant could not pay, a half acre
was deducted from the virgate and held by the lord instead of the
heriot.[82]
The rate at which the value of these holdings declined when their
tenants possessed too few cattle was rapid. Land without stock is
worthless. The temptation to sell an ox in order to meet the rent was
great, but when the deficiency was due to declining productivity of
the soil, there was no probability that it would be made up the
following year even with all the stock, and with fewer cattle the
situation was hopeless. After this process had gone on for a few years
nothing was left, not even a yoke of oxen for plowing. Whatever means
had been taken to keep up the fertility of the land, attend to the
drainage, _etc._, were of necessity neglected, and finally the hope of
keeping up the struggle was abandoned. The spirit which prompted the
reply of the Chatteris tenant when he was ordered by the manorial
court to put his holding in repair can be understood: "_Non reparavit
tenementum, et dicit quod non vult reparare sed potius dimittere et
abire._"[83] If he left the manor and joined the other men who under
the same circumstances were giving up their land and becoming
fugitives, it was not with the hope of greatly improving his
condition. Some of the fugitives found employment in the towns, but
this was by no means certain, and the records frequently state that
the absent villains had become beggars.[84]
The declining productivity of the soil not only affected the villains,
but reduced the profits of demesne cultivation. It has already been
seen that the acreage under crop was steadily decreasing, as more and
more land reached a stage of barrenness in which it no longer repaid
cultivation. This process is seen from another angle in the frequent
complaints that the customary meals supplied by the lord to serfs
working on the demesne cost more than the labor was worth. According
to Miss Levett:
This complaint was made on many manors belonging to the Bishop of
Winchester in spite of the fact that if one may judge from the
cost of the "Autumn Works" the meals were not very lavish, the
average cost being 1 _d._ or 1-1/4 _d._ per head for each
_Precaria_.... The complaint that the system was working at a
loss comes also from Brightwaltham (Berkshire), Hutton (Essex),
and from Banstead (Surrey), as early as 1325, and is reflected in
contemporary literature. "The work is not worth the breakfast"
(or the _reprisa_) occurs several times in the Winchester Pipe
Rolls.... By 1376 the entry is considerably more frequent, and
applies to ploughing as well as to harvest-work.[85] At Meon 64
acres of ploughing were excused _quia non fecerunt huiusmodi
arrura causa reprisae_. A similar note occurs at Hambledon
(_Ecclesia_) and at Fareham with the further information that the
ploughing was there performed _ad cibum domini_. At Overton four
virgates were excused their ploughing _quia reprisa excedit
valorem_.[86]
Miss Levett quotes these entries as an explanation for the tendency to
excuse services, forgetting that the lord could usually demand a money
equivalent for services not required for any reason. We have here the
reason why so few services are demanded, but no explanation of the
failure to require money instead. The fundamental cause of the
worthlessness of the labor on the demesne is the fact which accounts
for the absence of a money payment for the work not performed. The
demesne land was worn out, and did not repay costs of cultivation; the
bond land was worn out, and the villains were too poor to "buy" their
labor.
The profits of cultivating this unproductive land were so small that a
deficit arose when it was necessary to meet the cost of maintaining
for a few days the men employed on it. It is not surprising that men
who had families to support and were trying to make a living from the
soil abandoned their worthless holdings and left the manor. The lord
had only to meet the expense of food for the laborers during the few
days when they were actually at work plowing the demesne or harvesting
the crop. How could the villain support his whole family during the
entire year on the produce of worse land more scantily manured? In
this low productivity of the land is to be found the reason for the
conversion of much of the demesne into pasture land, as soon as the
supply of servile labor failed. It was, of course, impossible to pay
the wages of free men from the produce of soil too exhausted to repay
even the slight cost incidental to cultivating it with serf labor.
The bailiffs complained of the exorbitant wages demanded by servants
in husbandry; these wages were exorbitant only because the produce of
the land was so small that it was not worth the pains of tillage.
The most important of the many causes which were at work to undermine
the manorial system in the fourteenth century is, therefore, plain.
The productivity of the soil had declined to a point where villain
holdings would no longer support the families which cultivated them
and where demesne land was sometimes not worth cultivation even by
serf labor. Under these conditions, the very basis of the manor was
destroyed. The poverty of the peasants, the difficulty with which
tenants could be found for vacant holdings, even though the greatest
pressure was brought to bear upon eligible villains, and even though
the servile burdens were considerably reduced, and the frequency with
which these serfs preferred the uncertainty and risk of deserting to
the certain destitution and misery of land-holding, are facts which
are intimately connected, and which are all due to the same cause. It
had been impossible to maintain the productive capacity of the land at
a level high enough to provide a living for the tillers of the soil.
Footnotes:
[39] E. J. Russell, _The Fertility of the Soil_, Cambridge, 1913, pp.
43-46.
[40] _Ibid._, pp. 48-52.
[41] _Political Science Quarterly_, vol. xxviii, p. 394.
[42] _Ibid._, p. 393.
[43] Levett and Ballard, _The Black Death_, p. 216.
[44] _Walter of Henley's Husbandry, together with an Anonymous
Husbandry, etc._, ed. by Elizabeth Lamond (London, 1890), pp. 19, 71.
[45] Curtler, _Short History of English Agriculture_, p. 33.
[46] Davenport, _Econ. Dev. of a Norfolk Manor_ (Cambridge, 1906), p. 30.
[47] Rogers, _History of Agriculture, etc._, vol. i, pp. 38-44.
[48] Cullum, _Hawsted_, pp. 215-218.
[49] Unfortunately, the figures for the year 1299-1300 reveal an error
which makes it impossible to use the test of the representativeness of
Witney in a third season with accuracy. The acreage planted is
obviously understated, and it is possible to make only a rough
estimate of the correct acreage. The acceptance of the area given by
Gras (82 acres) results in the conclusion that 22 bushels per acre was
reaped. The suspicion that this result must be incorrect is confirmed
when it is found, also, that 68-1/4 quarters of seed were sown--an
amount sufficient for 270 acres at the average rate of 2 bushels per
acre, or for 220 acres at the rate of 2-1/2 bushels per acre, which
Ballard gives as the rate usual at Witney. (Levett and Ballard, _op.
cit._, p. 192.) In 1277 the acreage sown with wheat at Witney was 180
acres, and in 1278, 191. (_Ibid._, p. 190.) If 3 bushels per acre were
sown in 1299, the area in this year also was 180 acres. If these
estimates are used instead of the figure 82, as indicating the correct
acreage, the yield for the year is found to be between 7 and 10
bushels per acre, in a season in which the average yield for the whole
group of manors was 9 bushels per acre. The figures at Witney in the
three seasons where a comparison with the general average for the
group is possible deviate from it within limits narrow enough to
indicate that conditions at Witney were roughly typical.
[50] Rogers, _History of Agriculture and Prices_, vol. i, p. 228.
[51] _Ibid._, vol. i, p. 234; vol. iv, p. 282.
[52] _Op. cit._, p. 19.
[53] Gras, _Evol. of the Eng. Corn Market_ (Cambridge, 1915), appendix A.
[54] Gras gives 1.35 quarters as the acre produce, or nearly 11
bushels. This figure is incorrect, as it is derived by dividing the
total produce of 42 manors by the total acreage planted on only 38
manors. The produce of the four manors on which the acreage planted is
unknown amounts to nearly 750 quarters, a large item in a total of
only 4527 quarters for the whole group of manors. The ratio of produce
to seed, however, is independent of the number of acres planted, and
these four manors are included in the computation of this figure.
[55] Gras, _op. cit._, appendix A. These figures are given only for
the manors for which the acreage planted in both periods is known--25
in the case of wheat, 4 in the case of the other grains.
[56] Gras, _op. cit._, appendix A; Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, pp.
190, 203.
[57] Smyth, _Lives of the Berkeleys_, vol. i, p. 113.
[58] Page, _End of Villainage_ (Publications of the American Economic
Association, Third Series, 1900, vol. i, pp. 289-387), at p. 324, note 2.
[59] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 83.
[60] Davenport, _op. cit._, p. 71.
[61] Page, _op. cit._, p. 345.
[62] _Ibid._, p. 340, note 1, and Levett, p. 85.
[63] _Ibid._, p. 340, note 1.
[64] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 85.
[65] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 85.
[66] Page, _op. cit._, p. 340.
[67] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 135.
[68] Page, _op. cit._, p. 344, note 2.
[69] Davenport, _Decay of Villainage_, p. 127. For further evidence of
the voluntary relinquishment of land in this period, see Seebohm,
_Eng. Village Community_ (London, 1890), p. 30, note 4, and Davenport,
_Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor_, pp. 91, 71, 72.
[70] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, pp. 42-43.
[71] Davenport, _Economic Development of a Norfolk Manor_, p. 78, and
Smyth, _op. cit._, vol. i, p. 113.
[72] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 157. "On many manors the
majority of the services owed were simply dropped, neither sold nor
commuted. They were evidently in many cases inefficient, expensive,
and inelastic."
[73] _Ibid._, p. 89.
[74] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. v.
[75] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 199.
[76] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 108.
[77] _Ibid._, pp. 38, 115.
[78] Page, _op. cit._, p. 342, note 2.
[79] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 115.
[80] _Ibid._, p. 200.
[81] Page, _op. cit._, p. 342, note 2.
[82] Seebohm, _op. cit._, p. 30, note 2.
[83] Page, _End of Villainage_, p. 365.
[84] _Ibid._, p. 384.
[85] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 157.
[86] Levett and Ballard, _op. cit._, p. 121.